Interesting Links (January 2008)

As attention focused on annual SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Time-based) goal setting - Jon Ingham suggests an alternative framework (particularly for knowledge workers) - MUSIC

Motivational: focused on what would truly inspire the individual to go beyond simply doing his or her job.

Unusual: good performance management systems already stress that performance management objectives should not focus on part of the day jobs, but should reflect new or increased responsibilities or requirements. In performance leadership, we may need to extend this further to ensure that each individual is set objectives that are different to other peoples' or what they have done before.

Sensory: one of the reasons that SMART objectives have been quite useful is that they extend the pyschological priming effect that simply having a clear set of goals provides (just having goals can sometimes be all that is needed to make them happen as the brain starts to unconsciously guide action towards their achievement). But this is even more effective when the goals are supported by thinking about the sensory evidence that would come with their achievement (NLP practitioners will know what I'm talking about here).

Individual: I've already said that goals should be unusual, and it is their focus on each individual, their own particulaly skills, motivations and interests, that provides this.

Congruent: This isn't about people going AWOL, goals still need to relate to the business plan, but they come from the individual and the individual's insight into how they might play the greatest role in delivering the business strategy, than from a piece of paper produced by people at the top of the organisation who don't know the details about what people lower down the organisation do

...could be helpful to re-energise those who have been hearing about SMART for the past decade ?!


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Here is a website focused on Talent Management that was recently brought to my attention - from a quick scan there are some interesting articles for HR/L&D colleagues posted here !

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Harvard Business School - Working Knowledge start 2008 with an interesting article on 'Does Judgment Trump Experience' providing an executive summary of the current scholarship from Warren Bennis and Noel Tichy.

..... the authors have undertaken the formidable task of describing judgment and how good judgments are formed and carried out, based on observations of successful and unsuccessful leaders. They assert that "making judgment calls (especially about people, strategy, and crises) is the essential job of a leader" and go on to say that "with good judgment, little else matters; without good judgment, nothing else matters."

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Many folk provide predictions on the direction of L&D in 2008 - here is one such thought-prokoving article:

"We believe the bigger business issues relating to boomers leaving the workforce is how we will continue to get access to talent and how we will manage that talent. The transformation to a global workforce is already under way. Companies are solving the talent access problem by going global and getting skilled labor wherever it is available. Collaboration and telecommunications technologies allow us to have employees anywhere in the world. So, how do we recruit and train employees in a global workforce? This is the challenge facing the training industry."


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For L&D colleagues - the following link provides a helpful glossary of terms relating to e-learning

Innovation Health Check: Assessing Your Organization’s Capacity for Breakthrough Thinking (White Paper)

Here is an interesting white-paper from the KT (Kepner-Tregoe) Review
Subscribe to the KT Review

Innovation Health Check: Assessing Your Organization’s Capacity for Breakthrough Thinking by Alan P. Brache, Executive Director, Business Solutions Kepner-Tregoe, Inc.

Diagnose your organization’s innovation environment. By looking at nine key factors, you can diagnose how your organization supports or hinders innovation. Your organization’s capacity for breakthrough thinking is influenced by your strategy, business processes, structure and other variables. By examining these and other key areas, you have the equivalent of a comprehensive physical exam that focuses on your innovation health. Read this article


...one of the other variables is 'Human Capabilities': 'A clear strategy, well-wired workflows, and on-target measures will not compensate for an absence of innovation's raw material: talent'.


The author then expands on the importance of both hiring & development to build this 'raw material' !

For me this article does a good job at identifying a set of key questions relating to assessing Organizational Capability for Innovation - clearly positioning the need to focus on Human Capabilities within this broader context.

People Styles at Work (book review)

I recently read People Styles at Work by Robert & Dorothy Bolton.

This is not a new publication - rather it is the text that supports our basic Interpersonal Skills training in the US.

[this model seems to have attracted more interest in the US than the UK ... and while not particularly robust evidence - it is interesting to see that the US Amazon.com site carries customer reviews of the book, while in the UK they await the first review to be added !]


People Styles (also referred to as The Social Styles Model') was developed ca. 40 years ago by Dr. David Merrill (an industrial psychologist).


'A person's style is his or her pattern of assertive and responsive behavior. The pattern is useful in predicting how the person prefers to work with others.'


While most models of 'psychological types' can be traced back to the foundational work of Carl Jung, the differentiating factor claimed for Social Styles is that it focuses on differences between people's outer behaviours rather than differences in their inner states.


As the quote above highlights - the model (as used by Bolton & Bolton) suggests that this can be focused down to just two dimensions of ASSERTIVENESS and RESPONSIVENESS. Consequently, the Behavioral Inventory (Questionnaire) is a very simple self assessment comprising of 9 questions on each dimension. From this the reader can identify their style as either:

• ANALYTICAL (less assertive, less responsive)
• DRIVER (more assertive, less responsive )
• AMIABLE (less assertive, more responsive)
• EXPRESSIVE (more assertive, more responsive)

As with other tools such as MBTI there is no 'best' style. Each style has characteristic strengths and weaknesses not shared by the other styles.

As the authors state:

'Whether at work or at home, success and happiness involve relating to others across a chasm of significant behavioural differences. Clearly, if you could figure out how to bridge the gap between yourself and others, you could make your own life - and theirs - much easier, happier, and more productive. That in a nutshell is what this book is about.'


In my view, the authors do a good job in clearly communicating the model, and helping the reader understand some key concepts, such as:

• how the specific 'Strengths' for each style become specific 'Weaknesses' when overused
• the different 'Back-up Styles' that tend to emerge in response to excessive stress (typically these behaviours becoming more extreme and inflexible)

The first part of the book focuses on promoting understand of the model and these core concepts. The second part of the book provides clear, step-by-step advice on how to flex your style ('as the key to productive relationships').

In summary, a book of this nature will naturally draw critique of both the author's structuring of information and the model itself. Bolton & Bolton have created a practical and accessible handbook for the Social Styles (People Styles) Model. The value for the reader will however depend on the level of prior exposure to psychological types and related work used in the workplace (be it MBTI, DISC, FIRO, Transactional Analysis, etc). The simplicity of Social Styles provides a helpful starting point to help colleagues understand that not everyone sees the world from the same frame-of-reference as they do ! (ie to build so-called Emotional Intelligence)

As the authors quote:

'The ability to relate well to people has become a critical factor for success in nearly every position in the modern organization'