Company profile:

• Leading independent healthcare management consulting firm specializing in providing expert advice and consulting support to its clients
• Los Angeles-based family-owned business with a 20-year history of proven results serving many of the nation’s most prominent healthcare organizations

Business challenge:

• Highly-technical group had experienced tremendous growth since its inception in 2004 but revenue had remained relatively flat recently and individual differences were creating severe performance issues
• Senior leadership, including the group’s Vice President as well as the firm’s President and CEO, tried numerous fixes to address the situation but were unsuccessful and were now at a loss as to what to do

Leadership development and team effectiveness solutions provided include:

• Performed a “Quick Pulse” diagnostic assessment to determine the root causes of the team’s problems
• Administered online 360-degree Leadership Excellence Survey with the group’s Vice President to assess his individual leadership skills as part of this process
• Presented executive summary report of key findings and preliminary recommendations to senior leadership and co-developed an action plan with team members
• Debriefed the Vice-President’s 360-degree survey results with him and developed a personal action plan with him to assist him in becoming a stronger leader
• Mobilized several task force teams to enhance team communications and produce better business results
• Provided one-on-one executive coaching to the Vice President to enhance his leadership skills and give him the tools required to better manage his team
• Designed and facilitated multiple team retreats to discuss their work style differences and more clearly define individual roles and responsibilities (RACIs)

Key business results:

• Designed and implemented specific performance improvements in Project Management and Billing
• Enhanced team member communications as well as their conflict resolution and problem-solving skills
• Increased overall productivity and staff utilization to the point that this group became the top-performing service line in the entire firm in less than one year

“Jeremy brought keen insights and a fresh perspective to a highly-charged and complex situation. With his help, I not only dramatically improved my team’s performance but also greatly enhanced my relationships with both the President and CEO.”

- Vice-President / Managing Director

Leaders have the greatest impact on organizational climate and performance. According to The Hay Group, a global consulting firm renowned for their organizational research, nearly 75% of an organization’s climate is influenced by the managerial style that is present. Put another way, the particular actions and attitudes a leader demonstrates set the tone for the entire organization. So if you create a positive climate for your employees and co-workers, they will be much more likely to give it their all at work and provide what we call “discretionary performance”. Unless you won the lottery recently or are somehow otherwise independently wealthy, it is safe to assume that you have to work. But only you can decide who shows up at work each day – someone who will do whatever it takes to get the job done, or someone who is simply punching a clock and waiting to go home to hang out with family and friends.

So ask yourself the following questions:

• In what ways am I creating a positive organizational climate for my employees and co-workers?
• What affect does this have on my direct reports and other co-workers?
• And most importantly, what can I do to adjust my managerial style to enhance performance within my organization?

We’re all busy at work – in fact, there never seems to be enough time in the day or week to get everything done. You might be surprised to realize though that one of the easiest ways to create a more positive organizational climate is simply to sit down with your employees and fellow co-workers and give them some feedback on how things are going. Giving performance feedback – positive and constructive – is a gift, and it’s a gift that each of us is uniquely qualified to offer because of the unique perspectives we have about how people are achieving their individual objectives.

So what exactly is feedback, and why is it so important? Giving feedback is providing someone information about a particular instance or a particular behavior that occurred at a particular point in time. Effective feedback enables the receiver to walk away understanding exactly what he or she did and what impact it had on you and the entire organization. Feedback is important because it helps keep people on course. It’s like having lane markers and a retaining wall on the freeway. When you give feedback, you’re helping keep someone’s car in the right lane. Without it, a person could stray pretty far off course which makes getting back on track that much more difficult.

When employees are already meeting their performance expectations, we simply need to offer positive reinforcement and publicly recognize them for these accomplishments. This positive feedback helps enhance personal commitment and motivation and can provide the right opportunity for discussing new career goals. This may come in the form of new project assignments or other career growth opportunities. When current performance is not meeting expectations though, we need to provide more constructive feedback to help people change. Employees need to know what corrective actions they need to take to improve their performance, so this constructive feedback can actually inspire people by helping them understand what it will take to succeed. This constructive dialogue also provides a good opportunity for discussing specific training that may be required to enhance current skill sets or establishing a one-on-one coaching program to further assist employees who seem to be struggling.

For feedback to be effective, make sure that it’s timely, but also take into account the receptivity of the receiver when structuring the conversation. In addition, feedback needs to be specific and factual, so start with your observations rather than your conclusions or interpretations of what may have occurred. Most importantly, feedback must be authentic and well-intended to be effective, so be sure of your purpose before you give anyone feedback. If you are genuinely trying to help someone improve performance, that will come across loud and clear. If you are just trying to get back at someone or need to take out your frustrations on somebody, that too will be very clear from your tone and body language. When receiving constructive feedback, people tend to “hear” different messages than we intend to deliver, so it is critical to separate any distracting thoughts or other feelings from the message you are trying to deliver.

Feedback also needs to be provided to all employees on a regular basis no matter where their current performance level is, so remember to give feedback – positive and constructive – to everyone. What do you think happens to “Superstar” performance if you don’t provide feedback to these exceptional employees? There’s a very good chance that exceptional performance will deteriorate over time. And some of your most reliable “Steady Eddie” performers may slip over time too if you do not give them feedback on a regular basis.

So now that you know how important feedback is to ensure the success of your organization – as well as how easy it can be to give – we want to encourage you to take a few minutes to think of an employee you would like to give positive feedback to this week. The STAR model below can be extremely useful for giving positive feedback to someone.

• ST = Situation/Task – Describe the situation or task you observed
• A = Action – Describe the actions taken by the employee
• R = Result - Describe the result of those actions

When you are ready to practice giving constructive feedback to someone, simply add the following two steps to the STAR model above.

• A = Alternative Action – Describe the actions the employee should have taken/should take in the future
• R = Alternative Result – Describe the result that the alternative actions would have created/will create in the future

Coaching is a great tool that helps employees satisfy their need for development. It also goes a long way towards helping the organization achieve its need for high performance. So whether you’re giving positive feedback to reinforce good performance or constructive feedback to explain what alternative actions need to be taken in the future, this feedback is a gift you can easily give your employees and fellow co-workers. Just be specific and focus on the implications of the actions people take. It only takes a few minutes a day – if that – but it will have a tremendous impact on you and those around you.

Can Plus Delta help you become an excellent leader? To learn how to increase leadership excellence within your organization, give us a call at +1 (310) 589-4600 or send an email to info@plusdelta.net

Leaders have a tremendous impact on organizational climate and performance. The behaviors they personally demonstrate – as well as those they implicitly and explicitly endorse – set the tone for employee behavior throughout the organization. For this reason, leaders must serve as positive role models and lead by example if they hope to achieve exceptional performance from their employees and retain their top talent.

Leaders shape organizational climate and influence employee performance through recognition, timely communication, frequent performance feedback, and proper supervision. Additionally, numerous studies have found that employees leave organizations because of poor departmental or organizational leadership (Trinka, 2005).

In an effort to combat the above issues, leaders can improve their organization’s climate and performance by:

• Coaching employees for increased performance – Coaching is a great tool that helps employees, and ultimately the organization, achieve the desired performance goals. It also builds strong relationships between employees and their leaders and effectively communicates that employee development is a priority within the organization.
• Giving feedback – The actions you endorse publicly, privately, or ignore completely influence the types of behaviors employees demonstrate. When you do not correct poor performance or otherwise ineffective behaviors, you endorse them implicitly.
• Managing performance – Employees bring various skills sets to each project and role. Effective leaders match employees’ skills and abilities with the “right” projects to maximize organizational performance. When mismatches occur, leaders need to take decisive action to create a better fit.
• Communicating effectively – The message you send is not always the message that is received. This means that what you intend to or think you are communicating to employees may not be what they receive. Continually check in with employees to ensure that everyone is on the same page and hearing what you want them to hear.
• Matching the “right” leadership style to the situation – Leaders engage in a variety of different behaviors. Some behaviors are more appropriate and effective for certain situations and/or employees. Effective leaders recognize that different approaches are needed and modify their leadership styles to maximize performance in any given situation.

Plus Delta understands the importance of building effective leaders and has created a 5-stage approach to help leaders improve their skills and capabilities. First, we evaluate core skills by completing a competency assessment through personal interviews, employee feedback sessions, 360-degree surveys, and behavioral inventories. Next, we review the detailed assessment results with the individual leader and determine any key areas for development. Working directly with the leader, we then create a personal action plan to target key skill areas through training and other developmental activities. We also provide one-on-one support by facilitating individual coaching sessions to monitor their progress and promote long-lasting sustainable change. At the conclusion of our coaching programs, we also perform a post-evaluation to measure behavioral changes and reinforce continuous performance improvements.

Can Plus Delta help improve your organization’s leadership? To learn how to increase leadership excellence within your organization, please call Dr. Jeremy Lurey directly at +1 (310) 589-4600 or send him an email at jslurey@plusdelta.net