Not all missed deadlines are created equal. Missed project milestones should be treated differently based upon the circumstances and the performance culture that you want to create.
What happens in your organization if you miss a deadline on a project?
If people perceive "nothing," there is performance trouble ahead.
If there are no consequences to missed deadlines, project team members can feel that their project was not so important after all or that the timing did not really matter. This slippery performance slope can lead to a lack of motivation and more slippage on other important dates and key deliverables.
It is up to you as the project manager to keep project team members on target and on time without sacrificing quality or project team satisfaction. As uncomfortable as it may be to raise the issue of failed delivery in some circumstances, it will be even more difficult to explain to the project sponsor and key stakeholders why your project is lagging and why your team is under-performing.
If you or your organization let dates slip, there are three key steps to take as a leader to get things back on track.
Read more about the 3 key steps to take
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
We have all led or been affected by critical and complex projects that have gone "sideways." The experience is rarely enjoyable and often difficult to forget.
The bad news. Unfortunately, most research shows that up to three-quarters of internal and external projects fail to meet original expectations. In three recent client meetings, a combined $25,000,000 of problems were directly associated with missing targets and poorly managing client and project stakeholder expectations. The good news. The vast majority of the problems could (and should) have been avoided along the way.
Our experience tells us that spending a little bit of time to take stock throughout the project and at the end of a project can pay big dividends, greatly improve project team engagement, and significantly increase internal and external stakeholder satisfaction.
An effective Project Post Mortem Process should be based upon multi-industry project management best practices and research. The results should provide targeted recommendations for success during and after critical project phases by helping project leaders and teams to:
- Clearly agree upon the current project situation and status.
- Come to closure as individuals and as a project team.
- Apply project best practices to determine key takeaways and areas of improvement.
- Identify and manage project risks.
- Re-calibrate, determine areas of focus, and identify specific next steps.
- Implement proven solutions that will work for your unique project, stakeholders, culture, and situation.
Whether project team-specific or part of a 360-degree project stakeholder view, we recommend including three key project success areas and 27 key performance indicators.
Read more about the 27 key project performance indicators...
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
What makes a person an outstanding talent leader? Is it the ability to set a vision, develop a strategy, or manage a budget? Or is it something much less visible and more subtle?
In our experience, leadership is not something that we are born with. While some people certainly have a general aptitude toward specific leadership traits, the vast majority learn to effectively lead others through hard work and experience.
After all, it is not easy to get people to follow you - especially through difficult changes in complex times. It is also unsettling to many new leaders when they finally realize that their success is dependent upon those around them and not their individual smarts or heroics.
It takes insight into what leadership is all about and the desire to practice it in a deliberate, thoughtful, and consistent way to become an effective leader.
Based on over 20 years of experience, we have identified 8 Key Traits that successful talent leaders share time and time again.
Read more about the 8 key traits of successful talent leaders
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
If you are like most of our fast growing clients with big ambitions, chances are that your staffing and recruiting processes are not where they should or could be to support your growth goals. Even with historically high unemployment rates, the majority of our clients are struggling to find and hire the top talent that they need to execute their strategies in a way that makes sense.
To hit ever increasing and shifting (and often ambiguous) hiring targets, talent leaders need create approaches that are strategically aligned, nimble, scale-able, and fast. From sourcing quality candidates, to hitting hiring forecasts, to employee and internal branding, an effective staffing and recruiting process is a complex challenge.
Best-in-class organizations execute each strategic staffing and recruiting phase efficiently and in alignment with their business and people strategies. Low performing functions are reactive and tactical and often at odds with hiring manager priorities.
Employee and Recruitment Branding
Employee and Recruitment branding is an essential (and often overlooked) element of an effective recruiting function. Your employee brand is your corporate calling card. It impacts your recruiting, engagement, and retention of current, potential, and future employees. If you do not start strategically, you will most likely find yourself under the gun and chasing a moving target.
Learn more recruitment branding...
Candidate Assessment
Advanced technology, social media, and a shifting economy have increased the flood of resumes (both qualified and unqualified) that bombard applicant tracking systems. Today's recruiting websites often lack proficient applicant screening tools and make it easier than ever to apply for a position. Assuming that your strategy and criteria are clear, the right applicant screening software can act as a first-level filter to eliminate potential candidates who fall short of the basic requirements for your positions so that your recruiters and hiring managers can focus on talent that fits your business and your culture.
Learn more about candidate assessment...
Workforce Planning Process
Workforce planning is the process of deciding how many people you will need in a particular area over a certain period of time. And conversely, it's also taking a hard look at the talent market and assessing how many people are available and how difficult to will be to hire them so that you can make realistic talent plans to support your business strategy.
Learn more about workforce planning...
College Recruiting
College recruiting can be an important ingredient in your overall workforce plan and recruiting strategy...or not. Depending upon historical data, key recruiting metrics, and your hiring managers , it could also be a colossal waste of resources. Do inexperienced hires make sense for your business model?
Learn more about college recruiting...
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
The warning signs are everywhere.
The hushed tones when Call Center Reps gather in the break room...The wide-eyed looks when sales promotions are announced...The cries of, "If I wanted to be in sales, I would have interviewed for a sales job!"...The sighs of resignation during sales training workshops...The new resumes online that somehow seem vaguely familiar...
When Call Center Reps hate to sell, we put our customer service AND sales initiatives at risk. Instead of driving revenue up, we may be driving customers away.
When we ask Call Center Leaders, they simply want their reps to:
- Fix the problem that caused the customer to call
- Confirm that the customer is happy
- Sell them more stuff
Why are Call Center Reps so reluctant to go along with such a simple program?
That question has not one answer, but five. Our work with clients over the last two decades has uncovered five specific things you can do to relieve the issues that cause Call Center Reps to hate to sell.
Read more about the 5 warning signs and what to do about them
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Cross selling has many benefits.
Top performing cross-selling contact centers increase wallet share, deepen customer relationships, improve customer loyalty, build employee confidence, reduce attrition, and enhance the customer experience.
To build effective cross selling skills ensure that you include these seven elements:
- Metrics: Identify the top 2-3 business metrics that you want to move.
- Gaps: Assess major skill gaps to target investments, set a baseline, and initiate the change process.
- Flexibility: Have the option to train one agent at a time to take advantage of periods of low call volume while minimizing downtime.
- Coaching: Include online and offline coaching to guide reps through competency levels and provide immediate performance feedback.
- Scenarios: Design around critical customer simulations and scenarios for applying skills on-the-job.
- Test: Build a final performance test that confirms mastery of the key skills.
- Impact: Measure skill adoption and business impact.
Read more about building call center cross selling skills
Visit our Customer Service Blog
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Losing good employees is expensive.
The inside sales and customer service areas at most companies have annual turnover well north of 25%.
While the reasons for this are many, it typically boils down to two things:
- These are tough jobs and one has to have a thick skin to be successful and stay in it for the long term.
- Many companies struggle to create a compelling work environment that fosters performance and longevity.
A key contributor to the success or failure in both of these categories is the new hire's on-boarding experience.
This begins when the employee first sees an ad or talks to a recruiter and continues all the way to being a fully functional team member.
The experience can last anywhere from thirty days to a year depending on the complexity of the job.
Read more about how to effectively on-board new customer service hires...
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Sales and service reps who receive consistent and targeted performance coaching outperform their peers 4-to-1.
When it comes to keeping your brand promise to increase customer retention and revenue, the performance of your customer-facing people is critical.
Successful organizations ensure that their front-line managers and supervisors have the skills, time, and incentives to mentor and coach associates daily. This approach sends a strong message about your organization's commitment to quality and service both internally and externally.
While targeted and well designed training sessions can definitely start the development process off on the right foot, tangible behavior change occurs on the job when your staff has the opportunity to apply the skills and techniques.
To make your investment pay off, your customer service managers and supervisors must become directly involved in rewarding, modeling and coaching the desired skills and behaviors every day.
Customer Service Coaching Best Practices
Customer Service Mentoring Best Practices
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Happy Holidays
Here are the Top Ten downloaded published tools, insights and whitepapers for 2012.
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Ping...Ping...Ping!
While the sound is barely audible in the stands, it is the most feared sound in relay racing - a dropped baton. Four years ago at the Beijing Olympics, the United States men's and women's 4x100-meter relay teams both dropped batons.
The failure caused the chief of USA Track & Field to publicly promise a "comprehensive review" of the entire relay program.
Do not let your team drop the baton on the track of your organic talent management efforts.
Runners struggle with the collaboration required in a relay race because their sport is deeply rooted in individuality. Leaders have a similar struggle with the goals of individuals versus the company goals; they must wrestle with matching the aspirations of their top talent with what they know the company will need in the future.
But make no mistake; a well-developed succession planning process pays off. Done right, it increases the attraction, engagement, and retention of high performing employees and improves your ability to execute future strategies and respond to change. An effective succession planning process requires understanding what it will take to make people ready when you need them to step into critical roles.
Successful programs are an important long-term investment: they increase employee tenure, drive higher engagement and productivity, and create the bench strength required to prepare for the turnover and growth likely to occur over the next few years.
Read more about the five guidelines for putting a new succession planning program in place or for breathing life into your existing system....
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Successful career development requires a three-pronged approach.
(1) Managers, (2) employees and (3) career coaches all have critical roles to play.
Effective career development programs should provide bench strength for key positions and provide training and support for employees to progress in their careers.
It starts with managers creating an environment where employees readily take ownership for their own career development.
This foundation is then supported by career coaches who have the tools to work one-on-one with employees to help them clarify their talents and uncover career paths which maximize both personal and company productivity.
Here's the payoff: employees who are more engaged, work harder and stay longer
Employees Navigating their Career
Managers Developing Top Talent
Certified Career Coaches Providing Support
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Congratulations... but beware!
You have been newly promoted to a leadership role. Maybe you are the new head of sales or customer service. Perhaps you have taken over a team of engineers or a new project team.
Hopefully you received a nice new title and a raise. But these probably come with a lot more responsibility.
If you don't start off on the right foot, you risk undoing all of the hard work, sacrifice, and influence that worked for you in the past and earned you this new position.
Everyone is watching. Your first few moves are critical.
So, as a new leader, what are the top five traps to avoid in your first 90 days?
Read more about the top 5 new leader traps to avoid...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
At some point during your career as a leader, you will be required to successfully guide others through change.
The larger and more complex the changes, the greater the challenge. Based upon over 25 years of change research, we have learned that successful leaders navigate change through Five Lenses.
The lenses enable leaders who are pursuing corporate change to expand beyond their preferred lens to increase the likelihood for success. The lenses are:
- Relationships
- Culture
- Stakeholders
- Structure
- Information
Each lens is directly related to the primary reasons that change efforts fail. Using all the lenses together ensures a complete picture of the change. By using different lenses separately, you can bring various aspects of the change into greater focus.
Successful Change Leaders understand and utilize each of these lenses.
Read more about the 5 Lenses of Change Leadership
Learn more about successfully navigating change...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Can your leaders successfully implement the important changes required to execute your strategy?
Since the buck stops with you, it is imperative that you keep your company and your leadership team one step ahead of the competition.
In a world where nothing seems to stay the same for long, leaders constantly face resistance to the very changes that are required to meet targets.
To excel (and in some cases to survive), we believe that companies and leaders must have the capability to successfully navigate change. This is especially true for large change initiatives where the majority (up to 70% by most accounts) fail.
The typical list of culprits includes integrating mergers and acquisitions, reorganizing the business, executing new strategies, opening new markets, implementing new technologies, transitioning to new leadership, and handling regulatory and market changes.
Based upon over 25 years of organizational change and alignment experience, we consistently run into the same inherent risks during the four primary phases of change.
Effective change leaders understand the need to anticipate and mitigate these four key risks with proven change leadership approaches, acumen and techniques.
Read more about the top 4 risks and how to overcome them...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
For most companies and leaders, major change means major disappointment.
For every organization, changes (planned and unplanned) are inevitable. The good news is that the breadth, complexity, and the speed of today's change provide a unique opportunity for organizations that get it right.
Just think about these common big changes:
- Merger or Acquisition
- Technology Implementation
- Leadership and Organizational Changes
- Shifts in the Marketplace
When you need to remake your company through a major change effort, it appears that the odds are not in your favor. A recent IBM global study cited a 59% failure rate with the biggest obstacles to successful change being rooted in people and corporate culture. For those who have been part of major change efforts, this should come as no surprise.
If you talk to leaders who have led major change initiatives, they will tell you that the technology, financials, and operational "stuff" sure feels easy compared to the people and culture "stuff" that seems to always get in the way.
Experts know that the "soft" stuff is the hard stuff when it comes to change.
Learn more about successfully leading and implementing change...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
If you feel dissatisfied with your current job, you are in good company.
Many employees feel restless; they feel they are not learning anything new and that their career is at a standstill.
But is the grass really greener on the other side?
Before you walk away, take some advice from a seasoned employee engagement and retention expert. Ask yourself the following questions first and then take responsibility for improving your job situation...on this side of the fence.
Consider your time, emotional, and financial investment:
- How long did it take you to find this job?
- What level of anxiety did you experience during the interviewing and hiring process?
- How long and steep was the learning curve?
- What work relationships and rituals would you miss if you left?
- Will you recoup an ROI that is greater than the time and energy you have already invested?
We believe that most employers DO care about their employees' satisfaction and engagement (it directly links to productivity and profits).
We also think it's worth giving them a chance to re-energize your commitment to your job.
You need to have a frank conversation with your manager who (according to our research) is likely unaware of how you feel.
Read more about three simple steps to prepare for meeting with your manager...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Who is responsible for career development?
We have heard all the arguments. We have seen fingers pointed at the company, leadership, managers, HR, and employees.
In order to build internal bench strength and have skilled employees who can be moved into the right roles at the right time, we believe that employees must take ownership for their own career development.
Employees need support and alignment from all of the typical characters listed above, but every employee should proactively take charge of their own career development if they want to excel.
And the higher up you go on the career ladder, the more you need to aggressively ask for what you want.
To succeed, companies should use career development approaches to facilitate workforce "readiness," to develop employees who are engaged in the business, and to improve employee tenure. This includes designing career development programs to provide employees, their managers, and internal career coaches with a clear roadmap of how to develop a career within their unique culture.
The payoff for developing careers within the organization is immense: longer tenure, lower cost of recruiting, higher levels of contribution as employee potential is realized, and improved employment branding as an employer of choice.
The payoff to employees is priceless: less job stress, higher motivation, and the pride and satisfaction one experiences when making full use of one's strengths and natural talents.
Learn more about career development for employees...
Learn more about career development for managers...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Traditional wisdom and many successful sales people argue that sales are ALL about relationships.
We disagree.
So do the majority of executive buyers.
Recently, we've been interviewing potential vendors (they have not earned partner status yet) to help us with some technology and branding projects.
As a company that helps our clients with defining their sales strategy and the implementation of that strategy, this recent vetting process has been a good reminder of why successful sales people are effective. It has also caused us to rethink what kind of business sales culture supports successful sales growth.
Over and over you may hear from peak sales performers that "people buy people." The problem with this philosophy is that it's not scalable. It's not a framework or methodology that allows organizations to coach to it, support it, or even to hire for it. While relationships may get you in the door, it does not, by itself, win the business.
How many times have you had a:
- "Sam" on your team who had a great network, built great client relationships, and brought key clients over but, after the network and contacts were exhausted, Sam couldn't produce and moved on?
- "Sue" on your team who met a client's need (sometimes even to the detriment of the company), received the highest evaluations on customer satisfaction, made things happen, but never seemed to be able to cross the quota threshold?
- "Bob" who worked 10-12 hours per day, every day, never took vacation, but couldn't meet his quota, no matter how many times you reset it and how hard he tried?
- "Jill" on your team who missed team meetings, ignored administrative tasks, and while she met quota, you had to question her value and cost to the psyche of the sales team and organization as a whole?
And then, have you ever had a "Laura"?
She has a finely tuned sense of individual customer objectives and value drivers. She positions her conversations effectively to different customer stakeholders and agendas within the organization. She becomes invaluable to her clients and thus, invaluable to you and your organization.
Can't think of the last time you hired or retained a "Laura"? Don't believe a "Laura-type" sales person will make the difference in your ability to reach and exceed your sales' goals?
Leading companies know that hiring, developing and retaining Business Strategists will change the way you operate, the way you define success and your ability to achieve and exceed your goals.
Learn more about creating business sales strategists...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
When it comes to customer service, loyalty, and cross-selling, does technology trump relationships?
As Eric Schmidt, Google's Chairman, recently remarked at Boston University's graduation ceremony, "I believe fully in the power of technology to change the world for the better. And I believe even more fully in the ability of your generation to use that power to great effect-to rule technology...You can't let technology rule you...Take your eyes off of the screen...Have a real conversation...Life is not lived in the glow of a monitor..."
Customers are not necessarily won and retained because they can "tweet" you or "friend" your company or chat with or email you at 2 am. They are won and retained because they feel important; they believe their business is valued and their voice is genuinely heard and acted upon. Technology, even in Eric Schmidt's opinion it seems, does not trump relationships.
Recently, we spoke at two major Contact Center Conferences, the Contact Center Association Conference and ICMI's Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE). For both conferences, which attract Senior Leaders and Executives nationally and internationally, the prevailing themes/sessions focused on technology with these questions at the forefront:
- How can technology enable your strategy?
- How can technology serve your customers more efficiently by enabling self-service?
- How can technology capture customer and corporate data that facilitate decisions around future strategies?
What seemed to be covered in only a cursory way, however, is the keystone question, the one we believe is fundamental to your organization: "How do I equip my talent to truly leverage our technology and culture to implement our most critical strategies?"
Read more about how to equip your talent to best leverage your technology and unique culture...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
An unclear brand promise in the eyes of your customers harms loyalty, retention, and revenue.
Successful service organizations have a clear and impartial picture of their organization's sales and service climate.
Aberdeen's latest research reports an almost 2-to-1 difference in service margins for best-in-class organizations compared to all others. These service organizations use an internal and external perspective to provide the comprehensive and objective data necessary to help make the key decisions to prepare for successful change. Both now and in the future.
Done right, a clear perspective provides a:
- Comprehensive understanding of your performance strengths and weaknesses
- Clear benchmark to track as the initiative progresses
- Targeted training and sustainment plan that links your critical goals to specific manager and employee behaviors
Learn more about Living the Brand Promise...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
It is all about performance.
We believe that this is a good thing.
Over the past seven or eight years, we have seen a steady increase in organizations devoting more time and effort to defining and measuring employee performance.
As business practices and profits continue to come under more intense scrutiny, we believe that the focus on performance will only increase.
No organization can afford people who do not contribute and who cannot perform consistently at a high level.
For most growing and changing companies, talent performance starts with attracting and hiring the right people in the first place. Jim Collins calls this "getting the right people on the bus in the right seat."
While we all know that bad hires are very expensive and preventable, we continue to find frequent disconnects between employee performance and the traits that recruiters and hiring managers look for in candidates. Far too often, recruiters and hiring managers base their interviews and selection on a generic job description that has little relation to the reality of the position or the culture.
To attract and hire talent that will best execute your strategy and thrive in your specific environment, you must first define great performance. Once defined, you can identify the specific competencies, skills, and traits that candidates must have to succeed. Only then will you be set up to get the right people on the bus in the right seats.
If you and your company are counting on new people to achieve your goals, and if you are serious about avoiding the hiring mistakes that keep so many great strategies from succeeding, here are five steps to finding the best people with the talent you need:
Read more to find out the five steps defining and attracting top talent...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Finding and hiring the right talent is difficult enough.
Once you acquire the right talent, leading companies put them in a position to succeed as fast as possible.
According to Aberdeen's latest research, best-in-class onboarders have a 53.5% better retention rate, create 57% higher performance, and report 20% greater hiring manager satisfaction.
That adds up to greater productivity and significant cost savings.
In a recent survey, 210 CEO's estimated the time for a typical mid-level manager to reach "breakeven" as 6.2 months. Using an average salary of $100,000, the difference between a 3-month ramp and a 6.2-month ramp is approximately $26,500 per employee.
This does not account for differences in revenue, margin, utilization, or productivity. It is only the salary side of the equation. For a company hiring a minimum of 100 new employees per year, this creates a $2.6m window of opportunity for an improved new hire process. For companies closer to the 24-month mark, the opportunity is as large as $17.5m.
In addition to the financial side of the equation, making first impressions count and getting new employees up to speed quickly can make or break a strategy or project.
Despite the compelling impact the effective on-boarding has on customer retention (4X), customer satisfaction (2.8X), and revenue (2.6X), 36% of organizations surveyed lack a formal on-boarding process. Where do you stand?
Learn more about key on-boarding best practices...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
As Project Leaders, we rarely think that we are the Captain of the project version of the Titanic or that the problem lies with us.
We blame any problems on our teams, clients, stakeholders, sponsors, or other external factors-not on ourselves.
The story of the Titanic is an interesting example of how the blame game can work. Though up to now the Titanic's Captain (project leader) has taken much of the blame for the collision and 1,523 deaths, there has since been a lot of finger pointing in other directions.
Some scientists recently arrived at a new theory that a full moon caused the disaster rather than the Captain. National Geographic's Richard A. Lovett wrote in March, "That full moon, on January 4, 1912, may have created unusually strong tides that sent a flotilla of icebergs southward-just in time for Titanic's maiden voyage."
One historian believes that the chairman of Titanic's owner (a key project sponsor and stakeholder), the White Star Line, persuaded the Captain to continue sailing after encountering problems and is the main culprit for the tragedy.
Yet another book on the subject claims that the Titanic had plenty of time to dodge the iceberg but the collision was the result of a helmsman (a project team member) who turned the ship the wrong way after misinterpreting instructions.
These theories could all shift the blame away from Captain Edward John Smith. However, regardless of the true cause of the disaster, as a Captain and project leader, it is your responsibility to:
- Plan for "a flotilla of icebergs."
- Ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page.
- Create the circumstances of success for your team.
Unfortunately, you do not have the luxury of waiting for a 100-year anniversary to be saved by alternative theories of your project's demise. So What Should You Do?
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Do your project leaders have what it takes? Are you getting the results you need?
You have been asked to lead or to pick a leader for an important project. You appreciate the opportunity and vote of confidence, but you are concerned about pulling it off.
The team has the right technical project management skills in terms of project definition, planning, and risk management, but they seem to lack the leadership, collaboration, and team cohesion to succeed in the face of what lies ahead. Additionally, your matrix organization is adding an additional layer of complexity.
Soon, stakeholders will tug them in a million different directions. Varied leadership, communication, and decision making styles will create rifts as the team faces increased pressure.
Whether the team is comprised of part-time volunteers or highly-skilled professionals, their productivity and success is dramatically affected by the relationships within the team and the ability to function as a cohesive unit. Successful project teams build a positive project team environment and learn to work together to solve problems even in the face of conflict.
Learn more about leading high performance project teams...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Heroes?
We don't usually think of recruiters as heroic.Yet there are recruiting leaders who have achieved amazing results.
HC is one of those whose modesty means he remains anonymous. He took over a recruiting function that was stumbling along, filling positions only after lengthy delays.
Job requirements were not communicated clearly to candidates, hiring managers assumed the poor performance they got was normal, and senior leaders put all their positions out to search. The career site was hidden, not engaging, and listed positions as "open" long after they had been filled. There was no sourcing function and no applicant tracking system. Potential candidates were not a good fit according to hiring managers who needed more resources to meet demand.
Sound painfully familiar?
Everything in the recruiting function was reactive. There was no talent community, no proactive sourcing strategy, and not much awareness of weaknesses in their process.
While this sort of recruiting function is not all that unusual, this one was part of a well-known organization that has a high public profile and is considered a leader in its products and services.
Although no one knew it when he was hired, HC was going to turn this situation around. And he did it without firing any recruiters and without a lot of fanfare.
Read more to find out how one recruiting leader transformed recruiting...
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Hiring the right talent is difficult enough.
Getting "A" players "fast enough" to support high growth can make or break a strategy.
If you are like most fast growing companies, chances are that your staffing and recruiting process is not what it should or could be.
To hit your ever increasing and shifting targets, you need it to be impactful, efficient, and strategic. From sourcing quality candidates to meeting hiring forecasts to employee and internal branding, an effective staffing and recruiting process is a complex challenge.
Best-in-class organizations execute each strategic staffing and recruiting phase efficiently and in alignment with their business and people strategy.
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
80% of the time.
Every sales professional dreams about connecting with the right buyer to hit that sales pitch over the fence and bring in the winning revenue.
But in over 17 years of studying customers' buying habits, our research shows that prospects are "emotionally closed" to buying 80% of the time.
That's why the old adage, successful prospecting boils down to "at bats and number of hits," can set up a sales professional for some awfully long, scoreless innings.
Most prospecting theories (and training) follow this outdated model and maintain that sales and prospecting are just a matter of simple math:
1. If you get to swing at enough pitches (make enough phone calls)
2. You'll eventually get enough hits (connect with someone) and
3. Finally score some runs (close business).
However, today's more savvy customers have learned to identify sales pitches and make it much more difficult for a salesperson to get the opportunity to even swing at the ball. "Smiling and dialing" for dollars is too costly and too ineffective to be a viable or smart tactic.
A much more strategic prospecting approach is required to succeed.
We have identified 7 key barriers to successful prospecting-from the difficulty of gaining access to the challenge of advancing the relationship-and offer tested methods and tools to overcome them.
Read about the 7 key barriers and how to overcome them...
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
