LEADING PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS TO OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE
We Help Cultivate Better Individual And Team Success
Leading People to Successful Organizational Development
We Help Cultivate Better Team Performance
Honing Competent Organizational Leaders and Employees
To build a high-performance organization, you need great leaders at all levels of your organization. The Human Resource Learning Center (HRLC) engages, inspires, and educates current and future leaders to step beyond the ordinary and deliver exceptional results. This new breed of leaders will motivate your staff to leave the safety of complacency behind and come together to build an extraordinary organization.
The current trend has been to ask people to do more with fewer resources. People have been stepping up to the challenge, but more is required today to ensure success.
We work with your management team to build the strategy that will make your organization more effective. HRLC then supports your management team by providing a comprehensive set of proven services to empower your entire organization to successfully execute.
Let HRLC help you optimize your organization’s individual and team performance today!
Organizational Development
Smooth sailing in business is a myth. If your organization is facing challenges, our facilitators at HRLC, will help you analyze the issues, find the “root cause,”, unify disparate groups, and effectively move forward. Whether it is reoccurring cycles, long-standing conflicts, process improvements, or simply needing a sandbox referee, our consultants bring keen insights and understand how to strategically engage individuals and groups to uncover, and then fix, the often perceived to be unsolvable problems that can plague organizations.
Select Client Engagements
HRLC assisted the DC Water Authority design and implement a change management strategy to support the agency’s commitment to high performance. Additionally, we were called upon to provide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultation, teaming training, and executive level facilitation and coaching.
For more than a decade, the HRLC provided consulting services for the National Mentoring Partnership. These engagements included need assessments, workflow analysis, and facilitation of multiple strategic planning initiatives for the Board of Directors and regional Leadership Councils and providers throughout the united states.
HRLC assisted several National Archives divisions restructure and develop a teaming approach to accomplishing their work. These efforts included design and development of training, workflow assessments, process improvement initiatives and consultation and coaching for team leaders and managers.
Over a period of five years, HRLC provided consultation and strategic planning services for GSA’s mid-west region’s Telecommunications Division restructuring. This required the establishment of cross-division design and implementation teams. Additionally, HRLC provided facilitation for process improvement efforts and coaching for C-suite and team leaders.
Diversity Equity Inclusion
Mahatma Gandhi said, “you must be the change you want to see in the world.” Today’s leaders face multiple challenges and require a host of skill sets to ensure their organizations succeed. Additionally, they must achieve success in a world that is characterized by diversity and more connected than at any point in our history. At the same time, we face the threat of deeper polarization and a wider divide when we fail to create and maintain systems and structures that ensure open communication and collaboration.
The leadership imperative today calls us to not only embrace the richness that diversity brings, but to ensure inclusion and equality in our organization. In the current business climate, organizations that strive for diversity, equity, and inclusion are not only achieving intended business results, but also a competitive advantage.
With more than 25 years in organizational development and diversity work, our consultants are uniquely positioned to help you understand the barriers that unconscious bias can create and ways to effectively prepare your organization to better leverage the potential of your employees.
Training Teaming
Here at HRLC, our seminars and training can help your organization develop an integrated and teaming approach that will better drive individual and organizational performance. An investment in any one of our seminars will assist your employees enhance work competencies, discover new tools and strategies, and develop useful skills required to move your organization forward. Additionally, we can help you assess your organizational needs and develop curriculum specifically tailored to meet the challenges you face today.
Strategic Planning
We live in a dynamic and fast-paced age where the only way organizations can maintain a competitive advantage is through market analysis, strategic thinking, effective organizational alignment, and sound implementation. Mission-critical goals are not static; consequently, successful organizations must plan to ensure they are continually poised for change.
HRLC’s approach to strategic planning involves
Conduct appropriate analysis to determine market needs and the driving forces impacting your organization
Identify the compelling vision to motivate goal-oriented behavior
Articulate mission-driven strategies and goals
Build collaboration and teamwork to address prominent issues and business improvements
Provide ongoing management consultation to help you achieve identified performance goals
Calculated Neglect
Calculated Neglect: The Cure for Your Occupational Hobbies
Believe it or not, bad behavior in the office is often caused by our inability to let go of the work that we find so enjoyable, and often feel no one can do as well. As a Leader, I try to remind myself of this, so allow me to nudge you as well: that with such behavior we may be shooting ourselves in the foot! Failure to allow our employees to take responsibility and learn by trial and error will undoubtedly limit them and, consequently, our organizations.
Now, I know what you may be thinking, “I don’t have the time to let my staff cut their teeth on this one! Well, you may be right on some occasions, but more often than not, we could practice what I call “calculated neglect.” And in so doing, we find that if we delegate and use a little coaching, we will move our employees and organization forward a bit faster.
Imagine you are the coach of your favorite sports team: your job is to give your players the training and guidance they need to produce on the court or field. It’s game time, and the other team is ahead; instead of coaching you run on the field and take over the position of one of your star players. S/he is now left on the sideline with nothing to do but lick their wounds and watch you. You could be calling a new play or devising a way to bring the team to success. But, you can’t. You can’t because you’re too busy playing the game, not coaching it.
An employee, who is not allowed to take responsibility for his/her work, is sure to become disgruntled. Disgruntled staff leads to apathy, and apathy is very contagious. If we are not careful, the behavior we model sets the norm that everyone starts to follow. In this case, it is a norm that does not encourage risk-taking, innovation, or pride in one’s work and accomplishments.
So, where am I going with all of this, you ask? I say we should frequently take stock of our occupational hobbies – the things we love to do, or think we do better than those we have hired. Let’s all work a little harder at becoming more conscious of them… and then – let’s push ourselves to let them go! You can inquire, coach, empower, and guide in helping move the task forward, but your employee has to be allowed to run with the ball.
If the shoe is on the other foot, and you are the one whose job is being undermined: meet with your Up-line to explain that with their support you can succeed and are not only capable, but want the chance to do your own work. Make an agreement with him/her that allows you to gently remind them if they overstep their boundaries and start running onto your playing field again. If they are smart, they will thank you for this nudge!
Office Politics & Sibling Rivalry
Office Politics & Sibling Rivalry: How Leaders may Inadvertently Encourage such Bad Behavior
Have you ever noticed how your staff may, at times, seem to act like children? Bickering, sniping, and ignoring each other, all in an effort to out-do the other and demonstrate their dominance or value in the pecking order. I have often observed this behavior and have heard countless managers complain about the same. When this happens, our first tendency might be to blame the employee for their bad behavior. However, if we were to pause for a moment and consider the dynamics, we would probably find that we are more to blame then they.
“No way” you say! Take a moment and think it through with me. What type of culture have you established in your organization? Everyone knows, and is duty-bound to accept, that you are the boss! But do you reinforce this by always having the best idea, the most thoughtful insights, and the right and timely innovative solutions? I am reminded of a recent consulting assignment where the CEO would readily boasted of his empowering and collaborative style. However, when he sat at the conference table, he would inevitably hijack every meeting he attended, regardless of whom he might have put on point to head the effort.
Staff reported that they understood the dynamics – it was his vision or no vision at all! As a result, whether the CEO was present or not, everyone would defer decisions to his ultimate judgment. When they were in his presence, they would fiercely compete and work hard to distinguish themselves, trying to prove their value in his eyes.
I contend that our employees are our most valued assets. They want to make a contribution beyond mirroring our every thought and whim. They want to feel needed, included, and useful, maybe get a little praise, and, at times, even a share of the limelight. Over the years, I have found that there is usually more than one good way to do just about everything. If we never allow our staff to spread their wings, I will venture to say, our organizations will never progress farther than we can literally push them. Successful managers will work to develop a workforce that perpetuates the genius of its leaders. And, the only way we can nurture and encourage this type of norm is to strategically stand down and wisely use our position to empower greatness in others.
My parting point and encouragement is for you to have belief in people, guide them in a manner consistent with your belief in them, and they will live up to your expectations. Ultimately, you will lead your staff to “responsible and effective performance” if you treat them like an equal.
Responsibility Without Authority
I was recently contacted by an organization with a need for my services. The manager with whom I met expressed concern about the slow pace at which initiatives moved and the lack of initiative mid-level managers demonstrated. When I look a little deeper, it was clear that the senior manager was the bottleneck, she required everyone to check with her for approval prior to moving anything forward. The slowdown was due largely to the lack of authority vested in the mid-leve managers.
Sadly, this is not an isolated instance. I have been contracted by several senior leaders who have boasted that they value initiative and my analysis later found this, in fact, was not the case.
Beyond adding to low morale, the above scenarios are sure-fire ways to slow down any progress your organization may be making. In addition, those who are in the top positions are now backlogged with decisions that should really be made at the level they began. Closely holding decision authority may feed some leaders’ need to be continually affirmed as the ultimate authority; however, it takes time away from other critical business requirements that are best lead by executive leaders.
An organization with a lot of red tape is certain to miss opportunity and could possibly be rendered extinct if it is not careful. If your managers are not allowed to take responsibility for their decisions, they well may leave you, become passive-aggressive, undermine that which they do not have control over, or give up and stop trying. Want to kill a leader’s ability to lead? It can easily be accomplished by withholding making-decisions authority.
For those of you on the short end of this stick, it may feel like a vicious cycle, but you can gain back your authority. It must be handled with a bit of tact so that upper management feels comfortable with the transition of authority. When your Up-line gives you the next task for which he would likely want to retain the final say-so, try the following approach: “I know that you have a lot on your plate, and clear ideas about what you want from this initiative. I would like to have your delegated authority to assess this opportunity and make a decision based on the criteria we have discussed?” This approach requires that you ask enough questions to know exactly what matters in your up-line’s opinion, and that you communicate well and reconcile your prospective if it differs. Both you and your up-line may find this exchange the most beneficial exercise you could ever experience.