Improve Performance with Meaningful Direction
October 2009
Managing performance is challenging these days with all of the different things people need to do and with working managers pressed for time. But, savvy managers can improve the situation by focusing on three areas.
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Why Aren't Managers More Coach-like?
September 2009
Looking over the current work environment, Ken Blanchard believes that coaching is a way for managers to help people feel that they are making a different kind of contribution and to have a different sense of ownership and responsibility for their work.
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Making the Shift from Survival to Growth
August 2009
The good news is that the worst appears to be over; the bad news is that the hard work of rebuilding your business still lies ahead. This shift from immediate survival to planning the next steps is creating a new set of challenges for leaders
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Performance System - Helping People Win at Work
July 2009
Most workers do not feel that their employee performance reviews are valuable.
That is what Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40 Company, discovered when he surveyed students in a business course he teaches at the University of San Diego.
“I recall, in one of my first classes, only 18 percent of the students surveyed said they had a positive, meaningful review in the last 18 months,” Ridge said. “I think that is deplorable."
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The Impact of Ego on Collaboration
June 2009
What's one of the biggest barriers to people working together effectively? "The human ego," according to Dr. Ken Blanchard. As Blanchard explains, when people get caught up in their ego, it erodes their effectiveness. The good news is that there is an antidote.
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Creating a Change-Ready Organization
May 2009
Leaders need to create fast, flexible, and nimble organizations to meet constantly changing market and customer demands. Otherwise they risk becoming obsolete, according to Dr. Patricia Zigarmi of The Ken Blanchard Companies.
How can you tell if your company is in danger of losing its capacity to change? Zigarmi recommends that companies be on the lookout for some early warning signs.
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2009 Corporate Issues Survey
April 2009
The Ken Blanchard Companies® annual Corporate Issues Survey pinpoints the needs and
issues of organizations seeking to develop their people to their fullest potential. The findings
in 2009 represent the feedback from more than 1,700 executives, line managers, and
training and HR leaders from a range of companies, industries, and countries.
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Providing Feedback and Direction
March 2009
Managing people effectively is a tough job under normal circumstances. During the type of economy that we are facing right now, it's especially challenging.Madeleine Homan-Blanchard recommends a renewed focus on setting goals for others combined with equal doses of support and feedback.
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Make Your People Your Business Partners
February 2009
"When people talk about cutting costs, their first thought is to get the accountants in the room with the top managers to decide how many bodies to get rid of,"according to Dr. Ken Blanchard, best-selling business author and cofounder of The Ken Blanchard Companies.
"But getting rid of people is not the only way to cut costs. There are many, many costs that can be saved if you will make your people your business partners..."
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Acknowledging Reality, Defining a Direction, and Managing People's Energy
January 2009
As the financial markets continue to see-saw and new companies announce layoffs, it's easy to feel anxious wondering what the future might hold for you and your company. It can seem as if matters are outside of our control, especially when companies point to economic conditions as the source of their problems. Yet some companies seem to deal with adversity better than others. What's their secret?
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Good Leadership – Core to Eliminate Uncertainty
December 2008
As the financial markets continue to see-saw and new companies announce layoffs, it’s easy to feel anxious wondering what the future might hold for you and your company. It can seem as if matters are outside of our control, especially when companies point to economic conditions as the source of their problems. Yet some companies seem to deal with adversity better than others. What’s their secret?
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Delivering Well-Crafted, Targeted Feedback
November 2008
Susan Fowler, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies says, "We know from the research that if someone doesn't get feedback, they aren't going to grow. If they get ill-delivered feedback, their performance can even decline.
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Take care of the people who take care of your customers
October 2008
Most organizations agree that customer service is an important area of focus, but only 44% have a formal process in place for achieving desired service improvements according to a survey by The Ken Blanchard Companies. That might explain why Kathy Cuff, a senior consulting partner with Blanchard who specializes in customer service, believes that in spite of increased attention, customer service still seems to be average at best.
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Managing up -
What employees need to become energized self leaders
September 2008
As business leaders compete to boost their return on human capital while perfectly executing their company’s latest business strategies, it’s no wonder that employee passion remains a top priority. So how are today’s leaders creating a passionate work force, energized and prepared to meet the challenges of today’s agile organizations?
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Challenging Conversations -- Avoid？Engage?
August 2008
Whether the topic is delivering a difficult message, giving tough performance feedback, or confronting insensitive behavior, most managers feel some reluctance when faced with having challenging conversations according to Eryn Kalish and Pat Zigarmi, coauthors of The Ken Blanchard Companies new Challenging Conversations training program.
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First Time Manager: It's not just about you anymore
July 2008
Being promoted into your first management position is exciting. Suddenly, you have the opportunity to move up the organizational ladder and do some of the things that you've always wanted to do. The resources to act on your good ideas are now at your disposal. But being a new manager also brings a whole new set of responsibilities.
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Defining Your Corporate Culture
May 2008
There is no denying that culture is a powerful catalyst of organizational excellence. After all, culture is the organization’s personality—it’s “how things are done around here.” Culture consists of the values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and practices of the organizational members. So how does this critical determinant of organizational success get established in most organizations?
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Talent Management: Set People Up for Success
April 2008
What is the biggest mistake leaders make when working with others? Inappropriate communication according to ongoing research by The Ken Blanchard Companies. In open-ended questioning, 1,400 survey respondents identified that too often leaders either don’t communicate, overcommunicate, communicate inappropriately through outbursts, anger, or blaming, or simply don’t communicate clearly.
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Sharing Your Leadership Point of View
March 2008
People like to see into the heart of their leaders—to know that they're working for a good person; someone they can trust. Most leaders are busy. And because they are juggling so many priorities, they can't take the time to be personal and to disclose and to inquire about the other person. This creates distance in a working relationship that erodes commitment and engagement.
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Building Trust
February 2008
Most people do not pay attention to the issue of trust in their organization until it is broken. But by then the damage is done: people withhold facts and information, managers set convoluted goals, management is not available, people talk behind each others’ backs—the list goes on and on.
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Use a Coaching Approach to Improve Feedback
January 2008
In today’s work environment, managers are being asked to be more coach-like when working with their direct reports. They are being asked to develop new capabilities around coaching for performance, coaching for development, and coaching to build skills. With practice, the managers we work with in our coaching skills program develop quickly in all three of these areas. But one aspect of managing using coaching concepts has proven to be a big challenge for most of the people we work with—giving feedback.
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Making Training Stick
December 2007-b
Organizations invest millions of dollars in training to develop employees' skills and increase overall productivity within their companies. Still, research shows that the best training in the world won't translate into changed behaviors back on the job unless initiative leaders and participants understand their roles and responsibilities before, during, and after any training initiative.
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Eight Employee Needs Leader Must Address
December 2007-a
New research by The Ken Blanchard Companies has identified eight needs that employers must address if they want their employees to perform at their best. Failure to meet even one of these needs will tend to "keep the brakes on" in your organization.
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Keeping a Vision Strong through All Levels of Your Organizations
November 2007-b
Research by The Gallup Organization indicates that senior executives are more than twice as likely to feel that an organization’s mission and purpose inspire them to higher levels of performance as frontline workers. That’s a shame considering that customers are much more likely to come in contact with frontline employees than they are with senior executives in an organization’s corporate headquarters.
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Bringing Out the Best In Others
November 2007-a
Over-supervising or under-supervising—that is, giving people too much or too little direction—has a negative impact on people’s development. That’s why it’s so important to match leadership style to development level.
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Communication is the Key to Great Frontline Leadership
October 2007-b
The ability to communicate appropriately is an essential component for effective leadership - especially frontline leadership. Yet 41% of people polled in a recent survey conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies® identified poor communication as the number one mistake leaders make.
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Leadership The Key To Organizational Vitality
October 2007-a
There are many elements that go into creating a successful, vital organization. Customer focus, a great marketing strategy, and passionate employees are just a few of the factors that come to mind. But the one place that organizations should focus on first is leadership. That's because leadership is the engine that drives the other factors.
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Great Frontline Leader
September 2007-b
The Ken Blanchard Companies' Situational Leadership ®II Model tells that the day-to-day communication between supervisor managers and direct reports has more impact than any other single factor on employee productivity, quality, morale, and retention.
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Leadership and Vision
September 2007-a
Why is it so important for leaders to have a clear vision of the future? It's because leadership is about going somewhere. And if you and your people don't know where you are going, your leadership doesn't matter.
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Managing Up to Get What You Need
August 2007-b
When it's working well, leadership is a partnership between two people (manager and direct report) who work together to achieve common goals. But what if you need more from him or her in terms of direction and support to do your job well? Is there anything that you can do?
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What is Leadership?
August 2007-a
For years, The Ken Blanchard Companies® has defined leadership as an influence process. In recent years, The Ken Blanchard Companies has changed its definition of leadership to “the capacity to influence others by unleashing the potential and power of people and organizations for the greater good.” We made this change for an important reason.
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Dealing With Declining Performance
July 2007-b
The Ken Blanchard Companies® Situational Leadership®II model teaches managers that improvement in a direct report's performance requires them to provide the matching direction and support the employee needs. But what should managers do when faced with a decline in performance?
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A Future Look at the Trends and Issues Organizations and Leaders Face in 2010
July 2007-a
The Ken Blanchard Companies has just released the results of its 2007 Corporate Issues Survey: A Five-Year Look at the Trends and Issues Organizations and Leaders Face. A special feature of this year's survey was a question asking participants—which consisted of 1,091 human resource, training, and line managers from a range of companies, industries, and countries—to identify what they feel are the most critical organizational, managerial, and employee development issues they will be facing in 2010.
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Manage & Develop People to Be Their Best
June 2007-b
Only over a period of time, by receiving the appropriate leadership styles, do employees reach the levels of confidence and competence that enable them to increase their productivity and effectiveness on given goals and tasks. Without the proper leadership styles, most employees end up achieving only a moderate level of performance on key tasks instead of pushing through to the highest level possible. The challenge then is for organizations to develop their employees to reach higher levels as quickly and efficiently as possible, thus improving productivity and overall corporate performance.
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Improving Performance at All Levels in Your Organization
June 2007-a
Only 20% of workers feel that they work in an environment that allows them to be their best. Moreover, research from The Ken Blanchard Companies indicates that only a small percentage of employees reach their full potential after joining an organization. In fact, in organizations without a solid leadership development strategy in place, the majority of employees are only developed to 65-70% of their potential productivity, according to self-assessments by company leaders.
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Great Leadership Begins with a Serving Heart
May 2007
At The Ken Blanchard Companies® much of our work has focused on leadership behavior and how to improve leadership style and methods. In recent years we have added to this model by looking at leadership character and intention. Why are you leading--is it to serve or to be served? Answering this question in a truthful way is very important. We believe that if leaders don't have the heart right, they simply won't ever get leadership right.
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No One Best Leadership Style
April 2007
Effective leaders know that there is no one best way to manage people. Instead, they adapt their style according to the development level of the people they are managing.
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