How talented are you to manage conflict? You may be surprised...

By Dries Lombaard; Director: Strategic Engagement - Strengths Institute South Africa


Conflict. As much a part of life as breathing.

Conflict is not a popular subject for many.  It is seen as destructive many times, although it may actually be one of the most productive allies you have.  (Read about it in a blog post I wrote.)   

It all depends on the "HOW".  The style and skill in which you engage with conflict will make all the difference in the world.

There are five well know conflict managing styles.  They are:

• Avoiding,
• Accommodating,
• Compromising,
• Collaborating and
• Competing.

You probably chose one of the above as your style the moment that you read it.  Or, you saw a face of someone that personalise one of the styles for you.

Which one of these styles are the best way to approach conflict?

That all depends on the situation.  Conflict is always extremely contextual. Therefor each of the five different styles of conflict management will have results and benefit within a specific context.  The same applies for using it in the wrong context: you can then expect results that may have no effect, or even make things a lot worse.

You should be able to determine two levels of energy before you engage into conflict.  The level of Cooperation, and the level of Competitiveness.  The degree in which each of these two levels combine, is an indicator to which style will fit best in the context.

Have a look at the graph below to see it illustrated.

As you can see above, the level of cooperation and competitiveness is key to understanding where the specific style fits in best.

• Low on both cooperation and competitiveness, and you may just as well avoid the conflict, as there are no interest or energy involved in any case.  
• High on cooperation but low on competitiveness, and you know that there will be room for accommodating differences.
• Average levels of cooperation and competitiveness means compromise may well be needed, and that style will achieve success.
• High on competitiveness but low on cooperation, and a competitive style will take the lead and win the argument.
• High on both cooperation and competitiveness - collaboration is the key to resolving the issue at hand.

Projecting your style - judging the other style

Humans are natural projectors.  We cannot help it.  It comes completely natural to us simply because we view the world through our natural lens of unique "wiring".  This fact was researched and studied in psychology, neurology, philosophy, theology and many other human sciences.  We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.
When it comes to conflict and interaction between people we cannot help but project our own emotions, thoughts, beliefs, values and experience onto the situation we find ourselves in.  Maybe a better word than "projection" would be "perspective".  You argue from your own perspective - or at least from a perspective we adopted from someone or something else.

There is not a problem with projecting or arguing your perspective - on the contrary, this is what makes each one of us unique. The problem comes in when we cannot understand, accommodate or respect the projection and perspective of someone else and the, unfortunately, we often make the error of judging someone unfairly or incorrectly.  Judgment is not the same as discernment.  Judgment is final. Judgment means the end of the argument has been reach.  In a court of law judgment follows the closing arguments.  In the very same manner, if we judge unfairly and prematurely based on solely our own projection and perspective, we fall in the trap of shutting down the creative process of a conflict situation.

The problem with judgment is that it effectively ends any argument - even if only in your own mind - and even though we may continue the discussion or even pretend to still be listening and engaging, our mind has been made up.  We judged.

When it comes to managing conflict we should be very aware of our natural tendency to project from the essence of our own style, and judge a different or opposing style.  It is actually a natural defence mechanism.  We want to protect our own secure perspective.  But it also limits us from learning and growing - and often reaching a best solution....or even from building a truly great relationship based on respect and understanding.  This is probably the one most detrimental aspect when it comes to bad conflict management.

How not to judge

Actually there is nothing wrong with judging.  It is judging from the wrong perspective, or judging prematurely that causes detriment in relations, situations and interactions.  So a better statement should probably be "How not to judge prematurely or falsely".

Our attempt should not be directed towards not judging but towards when and why we choose to judge in a specific manner.

In attempting this, one of the most powerful tools we have, is self awareness.  Being aware of where our own emotions, intentions and perceptions originate and the behaviour it creates.  Being aware of our natural Style of Conflict that we will default towards - Accommodating, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding or Competing.

My first advice on this is that you spend some time thinking about the five styles, and through honest introspection choose your most natural one or two styles that you would act out in a conflict situation.  You may find that your reaction within a specific style could be determined by the context and situation, which is a good sign of self awareness and a mature approach within conflict.  Sometimes avoiding a situation is the wisest move, but at other times you may absolutely need to compete.

I will soon write a follow-up blog post on which of the 34 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes most naturally prefer a specific conflict style.  This will be even more helpful to you in both self awareness and in growing within your ability to manage conflict wisely.


Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strengths Institute South Africa, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over the last decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach and training facilitator. 

If you are true to living your Strengths, expect these emotions...

by Dries Lombaard


Emotions are a part of being alive.  We all experience very different emotions every day, to various degrees of intensity.  Without it, we will not be human.
A true challenge for maturity is being emotionally intelligent - a buzz-word in our time.  In my opinion being emotionally intelligent can be reduced to two very simple realities:

First, being aware why you feel the emotions you experience, and secondly
being able to manage your behaviour and reactions towards those feelings in an appropriate manner.

When it comes to being aware of your personal Strengths and Weaknesses (or Talents, as I like to call them), there are two very distinct emotions that comes with those two realities.

With strengths comes the feelings of energy, fulfillment, engagement or positive experience.
With weakness comes the feelings of being drained, out of control, incapable or simply weak.

This is to be expected and nothing really new.

What I did find though, especially within my work with teams and organizations, is that people are not prepared for two very specific emotions that they experience the moment that the team (or partners) decide to intentionally become more "Strengths-based" - thus allowing different Talents to flow freely in a practical and confident manner.  They actually expect it to be a wonderful place where only strong emotions of unity, admiration and validation exists.

They are mostly caught off guard when that is not the case at all.  And then, unfortunately, the false expectations leads many of them to blame the "Strengths-based approach" to be misfiring or even failing.

These two emotions are a given when a team becomes fluent in, and liberated to play to their strengths:

Frustration and irritation.

Yes, you read it correctly.  Frustration and irritation with your team members or partners are a given whenever strengths shows up and starts to flow.  Have no illusion about this.

The source of these two emotions is also quite clear:  as soon as others have the freedom and confidence to be exactly who they are from a strengths perspective, and choose to take up the role and responsibility to let it out in manners of making it visible, audible and practical, their difference from us shines brightly, and often that difference is something that we experience as immense frustration or irritation.

You see, up to then, in my experience, we hid our frustration and irritation behind a passive aggressive layer of making others "feel good" by simply not speaking up, showing up or acting up at every opportunity where our natural strengths need to play openly.  When we are liberated from that hindrance, we simply love it!  But, we are also confronted by others showing up with who they are and what they have to offer with energy, conviction and passion.

Also, at its core, these emotions points to specific connections:  we feel frustrated when others do not understand or "get" our strengths at play, and we feel irritated when others play to their (often misunderstood) strengths at their turn.

What to do when these emotions surface:

• First of all, understand the source.  Understand where it comes from, and that it is actually a normal validation of different talents at play, rather that a sign of something gone wrong.  As I often tell the teams I work with:  "Difference is not wrong.  Difference is strong."
• Secondly, acknowledge your own frustration and irritation as - mostly - your own lack of understanding for the contribution from someone else's talents.  This is especially necessary when you are part of a team or a partnership that has a history of not speaking up or acting up, and actually played the game of passive aggressive tolerance of difference rather than let the unique energy and need of each member flow.
• Third:  channel the emotions wisely rather than suppressing it.  Use the frustration or irritation as an indicator towards exactly those areas where you probably need help most.  Mostly, you resist it because it drains you.  Not because it is wrong.  If you see someone else through the lens of what they bring as a strong contribution rather than through your (limited) lens of your own energy and need, you will experience that you actually start to admire that difference.
• Fourthly, also differentiate between a well-managed talent at play in others and in yourself, and a miss managed talent that often causes someone or yourself to be hijacked by the natural flow of energy and need.  All frustrating and irritating behaviour in others and in yourself is not necessarily an indication of a well managed talent at play.  It may well be that someone need to adjust their behaviour.  If this is true, be gracious in your approach.  Do not belittle their talent.  Rather offer help to make it function better.  (For more on the management of each of the different talent themes, read this post.)
• Finally, help create a safe environment for strengths to play.  Some talents simply need to be heard - listen to them.  Others need to substantiate and provide proof - let them.  Some talents are focused on the emotions of others - allow them that. Some talents are fast, while others are slow.  Be aware of it.  Make room for people to bring their talent needs forward without fear of rejection or fear of being patronized.  And this starts with you.  Not with the manager.  Not with your colleague.  With you.  Show awareness of difference in a positive way, and become the student of all talents and strengths at play.

For some it is surprising that a Strengths-based team is actually a team with much more interaction, confrontation, collaboration and debate that a team where people simply show up and nod in agreement.  Becoming a Strengths-based team means you can live with the reality of different energy and need at play.  You won't fear it, block it or resist it.  You will encourage it.

A Strengths-based team or partnership allows frustrations and irritations in a mature manner, because they understand at the end it leads to celebration and affirmation.  

And such a team, or partnership, believe me, is a thing of beauty.

Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strengths Institute South Africa, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over more than a decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa and Africa as a continent, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach, Consultant and training facilitator.  

15 Behaviours of Emotionally Intelligent People

This article originally appeared in Inc.com 

When emotional intelligence (EQ) first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the sole source of success.

Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as being the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90 percent of top performers have high emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results.

Despite the significance of EQ, its intangible nature makes it difficult to measure and to know what to do to improve it if you’re lacking. You can always take a scientifically validated test, such as the one that comes with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book, but unfortunately, most such tests aren’t free. So, I’ve analyzed the data from the million-plus people TalentSmart has tested in order to identify the behaviors that are the hallmarks of a high EQ. What follows are sure signs that you have a high EQ.

1. You have a robust emotional vocabularyAll people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately identify them as they occur. Our research shows that only 36 percent of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions.

People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,” emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “downtrodden,” or “anxious.” The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it.

2. You’re curious about peopleIt doesn’t matter if they’re introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they’re going through, the more curiosity you’re going to have about them.

3. You embrace changeEmotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur.

4. You know your strengths and weaknessesEmotionally intelligent people don’t just understand emotions; they know what they’re good at and what they’re terrible at. They also know who pushes their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths and how to lean into and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back.

5. You’re a good judge of characterMuch of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness; the ability to read other people, know what they’re about, and understand what they’re going through. Over time, this skill makes you an exceptional judge of character. People are no mystery to you. You know what they’re all about and understand their motivations, even those that lie hidden beneath the surface.

Inc.com: Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Succeed

6. You are difficult to offendIf you have a firm grasp of who you are, it’s difficult for someone to say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin. You may even poke fun at yourself or let other people make jokes about you because you are able to mentally draw the line between humor and degradation.

7. You know how to say no (to yourself and others)Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. You delay gratification and avoid impulsive action. Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is a major self-control challenge for many people, but “No” is a powerful word that you should unafraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.

8. You let go of mistakesEmotionally intelligent people distance themselves from their mistakes, but do so without forgetting them. By keeping their mistakes at a safe distance, yet still handy enough to refer to, they are able to adapt and adjust for future success. It takes refined self-awareness to walk this tightrope between dwelling and remembering. Dwelling too long on your mistakes makes you anxious and gun shy, while forgetting about them completely makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies in your ability to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This creates the tendency to get right back up every time you fall down.

9. You give and expect nothing in returnWhen someone gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything in return, this leaves a powerful impression. For example, you might have an interesting conversation with someone about a book, and when you see them again a month later, you show up with the book in hand. Emotionally intelligent people build strong relationships because they are constantly thinking about others.

10. You don’t hold grudgesThe negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact, researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. Letting go of a grudge not only makes you feel better now but can also improve your health.

Inc.com: Why You Should Hire for Emotional Intelligence

11. You neutralize toxic peopleDealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. But high-EQ individuals control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.

12. You don’t seek perfectionEmotionally intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they know that it doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you’re always left with a nagging sense of failure that makes you want to give up or reduce your effort. You end up spending time lamenting what you failed to accomplish and should have done differently instead of moving forward, excited about what you’ve achieved and what you will accomplish in the future.

13. You appreciate what you haveTaking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it also improves your mood by reducing the stress hormone cortisol (in some cases by 23 percent). Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who work daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experience improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol play a major role in this.

14. You disconnectTaking regular time off the grid is a sign of a high EQ because it helps you to keep your stress under control and to live in the moment. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even–gulp!–turning off your phone gives your body and mind a break. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels. Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email with the power to bring your thinking (read: stressing) back to work can drop onto your phone at any moment.

15. You limit your caffeine intakeDrinking excessive amounts of caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, which is the primary source of a fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response to ensure survival. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. Caffeine’s long half-life ensures you stay this way as it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body. High-EQ individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they don’t let it get the better of them.

Inc.com: 5 Aspects of Emotional Intelligence Required for Effective Leadership

16. You get enough sleepIt’s difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams) so that you wake up alert and clearheaded. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough–or the right kind–of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority.

17. You stop negative self-talk in its tracksThe more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that–thoughts, not facts. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook.

18. You won’t let anyone limit your joyWhen your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within.

This article originally appeared on Inc.com

Research: We're not very Self-Aware, especially at work {Guest Article}

By Erich C. Dierdorff and Robert S. Rubin

If you’ve participated in a training or development program in the past two decades, chances are you took an assessment designed to increase self-awareness. While you may have discovered your “type,” “profile,” or “style,” it probably did little to make you a more effective leader or team member.

Put simply, self-awareness is understanding who we are and how we are similar to or different from others. One key facet is self-knowledge – how we see our various personality traits, values, attitudes, and behaviors. But another aspect is being aware of how consistent (or inconsistent) our self-view is compared to an external appraisal – how other people see us or against objective data. The latter is essential for transforming self-knowledge beyond mere personal introspection into accurate self-awareness.

Yet in talent development practice, companies spend millions of dollars and countless hours every year on self-reported assessments that only target self-knowledge. The core problem is that we’re notoriously poor judges of our own capabilities. A 2014 study of 22 meta-analyses (containing over 357,000 people) found an average correlation of .29 between self-evaluations and objective assessments (a correlation of 1.0 would indicate total accuracy). And the correlation was even lower for work-related skills. So my self-reported profile may suggest that I see myself as a persuasive speaker – but tell that to the audience who just fell asleep.

The punch line is that with no external data, the results of self-knowledge assessments are presumed to be accurate, when instead they may reinforce inaccurate perceptions of ourselves. The net result can be harmful to development and performance and, as we observed, the effectiveness of teams.

For teams to perform effectively, each member must possess a combination of technical and interpersonal skills and constantly adjust their contributions to meet the team’s needs. Correctly understanding one’s capabilities relative to others is therefore paramount.

To illustrate, we recently collected data from an executive development program at a Fortune 10 company. With 58 teams and more than 300 leaders performing in a dynamic and competitive business simulation, we tested the extent to which accurate self-awareness was related to team effectiveness, which was evaluated across a number of business metrics like market share, ROA, customer awareness, productivity, and so forth. Levels of team coordination and conflict management were also assessed. And what we found was striking.

First, when individuals were less self-aware (i.e., there was a large gap between the assessments of their own behavioral contributions and the assessments of their team members), the teams substantially suffered. In fact, teams with less self-aware individuals made worse decisions, engaged in less coordination, and showed less conflict management. These findings held even when we controlled for teams’ overall levels of teamwork.

Second, the most damaging situation occurred when teams were comprised of significant over-raters (i.e., individuals who thought they were contributing more than their team members thought they were). Just being surrounded by teammates of low self-awareness (or a bunch of over-raters) cut the chances of team success in half.

It’s clear that talent development interventions need to go beyond self-knowledge to be effective. So what should leaders and talent development professionals do? We see three tactics that can help people build accurate self-awareness.

Use self-awareness tools that are linked to performance. It’s no secret that many of the most popular developmental assessments used for gaining self-knowledge, such as the MBTI, DiSC, The Birkman Method, and The Core Values Index, woefully lack evidence linking their results to actual learning or job performance. Whatever instrument, exercise, or intervention you use must capture and deliver results that truly predict something of value. Use external benchmarks: measure how someone’s self-view compares to others’ views and measure how assessments directly relate to outcomes like increased learning and job performance.

Create a line-of-sight between self-awareness and personal job success. A wealth of research shows that when individuals see learning as valuable to their careers, they’re more motivated to learn and apply new skills to their roles. This means that we must directly communicate why the capabilities on which individuals are receiving feedback are actually relevant. Don’t assume that individuals already recognize the need for accurate self-awareness: substantial research shows that those most in need of improvement are the most unaware.

Teach self-development skills in addition to self-awareness. Acquiring accurate self-awareness is only the beginning – true personal development builds the capacity to take action. Most talent development efforts unfortunately fall short of teaching self-development skills, leaving behind a “knowing-doing gap.”

Research shows that multiple strategies can be brought to bear. For example, self-management training can help people plan, apply, monitor, and adjust their newly learned competencies. And by reinforcing that mistakes are natural to any learning process, error management training encourages deeper learning and the transfer of that learning back to one’s job. At the very least, demonstrate how imperfect self-views block the way to real and lasting behavioral change.

Will Rogers rightly once quipped, “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” It’s time for talent development professionals to focus their development resources on the forms of self-awareness that matter most.

Erich C. Dierdorff is an associate professor of management in the Driehaus College of Business at DePaul University and co-director of BusinessEducationInsider.com

Robert S. Rubin is an associate professor of management in the Driehaus College of Business at DePaul University and co-director of BusinessEducationInsider.com

Why Mandela Won {Guest Article}

By Robin Sharma

#1 bestselling author of The Leader Who Had No Title

My fascination is with Icons. Titans. Heroes. And Legends…

…the great souls who accept the call to greatness we each have on our lives and rise up to their best.

On a visit to Johannesburg to deliver a leadership presentation a while ago, I had the privilege to have a private conversation with someone in Nelson Mandela’s inner circle.

I learned more of his visionary nature, his rare-air discipline and his longing to be a force for good in an increasingly chaotic world.

What has stayed with me most is that I heard Mr. Mandela only became Nelson Mandela during his years in prison. In other words, it was the solitude, degradation, devastation and inhumanity of that time in confinement that made him who he became.

Here’s my real point…

…it was the time away from the world that allowed him to lead in the world.

While he was on Robben Island, he read the books of the iconic leaders. He studied the habits of the great souls. He reflected on the key moral virtues. He transmuted hostility into opportunity. He transformed his anger into forgiveness.

And as the gorgeous result of his inner work, when he was made president of South Africa, his jailers were invited to the ceremony. When asked why, he replied that if they were not there, he’d still be in prison (because his mind would still be in chains).

And so, I ask you with true respect…are you longing to work and live at wow in the world but walking through your days with a mind shackled by chains?

Nothing is more important than building your inner architecture of undefeatability and greatness.

Nothing is more important than strengthening your character, elevating your thinking and releasing your fearful beliefs.

Nothing is more important than cleansing your heart of resentment and forgiving those who have wronged you.

Nothing is more important than shifting from selfish to selfless–and donating the rest of your life to a mission that is bigger than yourself.

I guess the idea I’m really inviting you to play with over the next few days is that your outer world is a beautiful (or messy) reflection of your inner world.

Victims blame everything on everyone. But to really LEAD your life, you and I absolutely must own that all that’s in our lives right now is the result of our own actions. Every movement we’ve made has created a consequence. Every cause has had an effect…

…and as we make the rise to excellence of thought, performance and being, all we do rises with us.

Anyway, hope this relatively quick piece I’ve just tapped out in a burst of inspiration and desire to serve is helpful. And that it reminds you of your truest nature…as well as the potential within you asking to be expressed.

Make today epic. This IS your time. And I’m here with you on this ride.

From www.robinsharma.com 

Most HR Data is Bad Data - {Guest Article}

By Marcus Buckingham; Founder of TMBC

How good a rater do you think you are? If you were my manager and you watched my performance for an entire year, how accurate do you think your ratings of me would be on attributes such as my “promotability” or “potential?”

How about more specific attributes such as my customer focus or my learning agility? Do you think that you’re one of those people who, with enough time spent observing me, could reliably rate these aspects of my performance on a 1-to-5 scale? And how about the people around you – your peers, direct reports, or your boss? Do you think that with enough training they could become reliable raters of you?

These are critically important questions, because in the grand majority of organizations we operate as though the answer to all of them is yes, with enough training and time, people can become reliable raters of other people. And on this answer we have constructed our entire edifice of HR systems and processes. When we ask your boss to rate you on “potential” and to put this rating into a nine-box performance-potential grid, we do it because we assume that your boss’s rating is a valid measure of your “potential”— something we can then compare to his (and other managers’) ratings of your peers’ “potential” and decide which of you should be promoted.

Likewise, when, as part of your performance appraisal, we ask your boss to rate you on the organization’s required competencies, we do it because of our belief that these ratings reliably reveal how well you are actually doing on these competencies. The competency gaps your boss identifies then become the basis for your Individual Development Plan for next year. The same applies to the widespread use of 360 degree surveys. We use these surveys because we believe that other people’s ratings of you will reveal something real about you, something that can be reliably identified, and then improved.

Unfortunately, we are mistaken. The research record reveals that neither you nor any of your peers are reliable raters of anyone. And as a result, virtually all of our people data is fatally flawed.

Over the last fifteen years a significant body of research has demonstrated that each of us is a disturbingly unreliable rater of other people’s performance. The effect that ruins our ability to rate others has a name: the Idiosyncratic Rater Effect, which tells us that my rating of you on a quality such as “potential” is driven not by who you are, but instead by my own idiosyncrasies—how I define “potential,” how much of it I think Ihave, how tough a rater I usually am. This effect is resilient — no amount of training seems able to lessen it. And it is large — on average, 61% of my rating of you is a reflection of me.

In other words, when I rate you, on anything, my rating reveals to the world far more about me than it does about you.  In the world of psychometrics this effect has been well documented. The first large study was published in 1998 in Personnel Psychology;there was a second study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2000; and a third confirmatory analysis appeared in 2010, again in Personnel Psychology. In each of the separate studies, the approach was the same: first ask peers, direct reports, and bosses to rate managers on a number of different performance competencies; and then examine the ratings (more than half a million of them across the three studies) to see what explained why the managers received the ratings they did. They found that more than half of the variation in a manager’s ratings could be explained by the unique rating patterns of the individual doing the rating— in the first study it was 71%, the second 58%, the third 55%.

No other factor in these studies — not the manager’s overall performance, not the source of the rating — explained more than 20% of the variance. Bottom line: when we look at a rating we think it reveals something about the ratee, but it doesn’t, not really. Instead it reveals a lot about the rater.

Despite the repeated documentation of the Idiosyncratic Rater Effect in academic journals, in the world of business we appear unaware of it. Certainly we have yet to grapple with what this effect does to our people practices. Look closely and you realize that it will cause us to dismantle and rebuild virtually all of them.

Fueled by our belief in people as reliable raters, we take their ratings — of performance, of potential, of competencies — and we use them to decide who gets trained on which skill, who gets promoted to which role, who gets paid which level of bonus, and even how our people strategy aligns to our business strategy. All of these decisions are based on the belief these ratings actually reflect the people being rated. After all, if we didn’t believe that, if we thought for one minute that these ratings might be invalid, then we would have to question everything we do to and for our people. How we train, deploy, promote, pay, and reward our people, all of it would be suspect.

And yet, is this really a surprise? You’re sitting in a year‐end meeting discussing a person and you look at their overall performance rating, and their ratings on various competencies, and you think to yourself “Really? Is this person really a ‘5’ on strategic thinking? Says who – and what did they mean by ‘strategic thinking’ anyway?” You look at the behavioral definitions of strategic thinking and you see that a “5” means that the person displayed strategic thinking “constantly” whereas a “4” is only “frequently” but still, you ask yourself, “How much weight should I really put on one manager’s ability to parse the difference between ‘constantly’ and ‘frequently’? Maybe this ‘5’ isn’t really a ‘5’. Maybe this rating isn’t real.”

And so perhaps you begin to suspect that your people data can’t be trusted. If so, these last fifteen years have proven you right. Your suspicions are well founded. And this finding must give us all pause. It means that all of the data we use to decide who should get promoted is bad data; that all of the performance appraisal data we use to determine people’s bonus pay is imprecise; and that the links we try to show between our people strategy and our business strategy — expressed in various competency models — are spurious. It means that, when it comes to our people within our organizations, we are all functionally blind. And it’s the most dangerous sort of blindness, because we are unaware of it. We think we can see.

There are solutions, I’m sure. But I think, before we can even consider those, we must first stop, take stock, and admit to ourselves that the systems we currently use to reveal our people only obscure them. This admission will challenge us. We will have to redesign almost our entire suite of talent management practices. Many of our comfortable rituals — the year-end performance review, the nine-box grid, the consensus meeting, our use of 360’s — will be forever changed. For those of us who want HR to be known as a purveyor of good data — data on which you can actually run a business — these changes cannot come soon enough.

- This article was published in the Harvard Business Review on 9 February 2015. 

Marcus Buckingham is the founder of TMBC, a company that builds strengths-based tools and training for managers. He is the author of several WSJ and NYT bestsellers, including his latest book and accompanying strengths assessment, StandOut: Find your Edge, Win at Work.

Managing your Talents [33] - Includer

By Dries Lombaard

According to Gallup, the essence of the talent theme of Includer is the following:

“Stretch the circle wider.” This is the philosophy around which you orient your life. You want to include people and make them feel part of the group. In direct contrast to those who are drawn only to exclusive groups, you actively avoid those groups that exclude others. You want to expand the group so that as many people as possible can benefit from its support. You hate the sight of someone on the outside looking in. You want to draw them in so that they can feel the warmth of the group. You are an instinctively accepting person. Regardless of race or sex or nationality or personality or faith, you cast few judgments. Judgments can hurt a person’s feelings. Why do that if you don’t have to? Your accepting nature does not necessarily rest on a belief that each of us is different and that one should respect these differences. Rather, it rests on your conviction that fundamentally we are all the same. We are all equally important. Thus, no one should be ignored. Each of us should be included. It is the least we all deserve.

But a talent like this on itself is quite meaningless unless you develop and manage it.   That is why we believe that "a well managed talent becomes a strength, but a mismanaged talent becomes a detriment".

How do you manage the talent of Includer?

Your Includer patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors are such a part of your nature that you will include without any prejudice.  Actually, to not include to you is a prejudice.  
This is obviously a quality to be treasured. But sometimes this quality can override the social- or emotional intelligence within a situation or relationship.  It is important to understand that inclusion is not by default a good thing.  Sometimes discretion is needed. Sometimes it is better for someone to be excluded than included.  This may cause emotions within you that resist the exclusion.  But your own emotional and social intelligence must then command your Includer talent to stand back. Widening the circle is not the only way to create acceptance, teams or synergy. In reality it could be detrimental towards these qualities.  There is a time to close a circle. To shut the door.  To not share an email. 

How?

Like so many other skills in talent management, it starts with the awareness of this natural reaction of your talent theme.  You will not think this to be the case.  You will not feel it to be right.  You will not want to act to exclude.  So it need to be a skill of mind over matter.  And this can only be the case once you see the "why" behind the action.  Obviously you are a natural includer and you need to stay exactly that.  But if you see and understand why some circles need to be closed, You will be able to do exactly that if you need to. Do not let your emotions take the lead over good judgement in this case. There really are something like "a need to know basis". Everyone need not to know, or to be included.

Your Includer pattern of thinking, feeling and emotion has a very specific need.....to include. This is a no brainer.  But what is just as strong, and something not all includes manage well, is the need to also be included. This is not a bad thing.  In reality everyone has the need to be included in some way or the other at times.  But with you, as a natural Includer, the need is a lot stronger. It can actually be overwhelming. You may even find that you battle emotions of rejection from time to time because you were excluded in some way. In many cases you also were not excluded at all....you were simply not included.  There is a difference. Very often also you were simply not part of the process, the team or the interaction. Your need for inclusion overwhelms you with feelings of rejection that nobody else projects towards you.  You may even be a nuisance to others by acting on this need for inclusion and therefor "forcing" yourself into the circle at every possible occasion.  Exactly that kind of behavior could then well cause intentional exclusion or rejection. But you caused it through letting your Includer talent hijack your emotions, thoughts and actions.  You can change this pattern.

How?

Stop.  Yes, it is that simple. Stop forcing yourself to be part of everything.  Accept that exclusion is not synonymous with rejection. Also accept the fact that as an Includer you may well be including someone and then be excluded by the same person - and it is not necessarily done with any negative intention in mind.

Remember that you do have control over your talents. You always have a choice.  At the Strengths Institute we have a principle as follows:  "If you know it, you can grow it.  If you understand it, you can command it.  If you know when you need it, you can feed it."  Your talents are not superpowers which you have no control over.  Then you are a victim of your own strengths. You are always in control of your own thinking, feelings and behavior.  Just take that control, otherwise your strengths will run wild.

Keep including. Do it wisely. Do it often. Do it well. Because you can!


Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strategic Leadership Institute and NeuWorx, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over the last decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach and training facilitator.