Michelle Ray

Leading Self: Increasing Your Capacity To Learn

December 6, 2018 by Michelle Ray

It was Eric Hoffer who once said that “…the learners shall inherit the earth, whilst the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

What an incredibly highly relevant statement that is. I love it, because it’s all about the ability to remain open, to see yourself as a lifelong learner. It makes sense that as a leader, there will never be a day where we should say that we know it all. How can that be possible when we remain open to learning, we will become better leaders, we will become sought after leaders in our organization. We will remain humble, and we will be seen as people who are sponges, who are always willing to grow.

Today, with the pace of technological change, and the speed of change, it is essential that we remain open to being a lifelong learner. Do you see yourself that way? Because that is one of the critical components to be able to lead yourself.

This article is a transcript from Leading Self: Increasing Your Capacity To Learn YouTube.

Michelle Ray (Twitter) is one of the best international leadership keynote speakers in Vancouver. She helps you discover your potential through presentations, coaching and consulting. With over 20 years of experience Michelle has worked with hundreds of companies around the world. She is taking bookings for speaking engagements and can be contacted at MichelleRay.com

Evolving your Talent Management Strategy (Part 5)

November 29, 2018 by Michelle Ray

What works today in terms of retaining your top talent may not necessarily be the case a year from now. And although your talent is utilizing and responding to your systems, your corporate philosophy and all the technology you currently have in place, the rapid pace of change may render your processes obsolete at lightening speed.

For example, many employers have recognized, only recently, the importance of developing a diverse talent pool. They’re reassessing gender and cultural biases to make sure that there is greater, equal opportunity.

In addition, greater diversity is now linked to greater profitability. To strong teams, and increased opportunity to innovate. Aristotle put it this way, “The worst form of inequity is trying to make unequal things equal.” So, how it is possible to achieve higher levels of retention when leaders are consistently seen as modeling exemplary attitudes and open-mindedness.

In summary, keep in mind that employees are more likely to stay because of genuine displays of trust, respect, camaraderie, and expressions of appreciation which acknowledge a persons value. It is these intangibles that are immeasurable and priceless aspects of your workplace culture. They are the keys to retention.

As you heard on my previous series on change, nothing changes if nothing changes. So, in summary, remember that your talent management strategy can’t be static. You need to adopt a fluid approach and be willing to adjust.

To succeed with your talent strategy, you need to be one step ahead of your talent. And invest in your talent both financially and non-financially by putting at least one or two of these ideas into practice. And as a result you will see higher levels of engagement, higher levels of retention, and a thriving workplace atmosphere.

This article is a transcript from Talent Management Ep.5 – Evolving your Talent Management Strategy on YouTube.

Talent and your Brand (Part 4)

November 22, 2018 by Michelle Ray

All of us should look at leadership as being a mindset that’s about being the leader of your own life, and we all have the choice to be able to do that. Can your business afford to be making headlines simply because your employer brand is constantly under fire?

In their book Employer Brand: Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work, Simon Barrow and Richard Mosely talk about employer brand in terms of an organization’s reputation as an employer and its value proposition to its employees as opposed to its more general corporate brand reputation and value proposition to customers.

For your talent management strategy to succeed, your focus on your employer brand is as significant as your focus on workplace culture. Sought-after talent is constantly evaluating your brand’s reputation. This is especially true of the millennials. The millennials are going to comprise of 75% of your workforce by 2025. That’s not very far away.

Gone are the days when scrutinizing an employee’s resume was the sole domain of the employer. The tables have turned. Candidates are doing their own research, paying close attention to the status of your brand in the global marketplace. Information is easily available, and it’s almost impossible to erase a negative brand experience.

Some of you may remember Canada’s formerly most-loved coffee franchise became, as the Toronto Star reported, a brand in crisis. Many months later, the company is still reeling from the impact of their chosen reaction to the then-Ontario provincial government’s increase to the minimum wage.

By cutting out pay breaks, changing incentive programs and certain benefits to employees in an effort to counter the wage increase, news via word of mouth spread like wildfire.

The point is that not only is your customer evaluating your brand reputation. Your potential talent is doing the same. So in summary, remember, perception is reality. Your employer brand matters. Prospective talent is watching how you manage your brand’s reputation.

Are you being honest and transparent with your customers and your employees? And developing an employee-centric vision needs to be part of your overall talent management strategy.

This article is a transcript from Talent Management Ep.4 – Talent Management and your Brand on YouTube.

Talent Management and an Outstanding Culture (Part 3)

November 15, 2018 by Michelle Ray

You know, people want to be part of a culture where they feel that they matter, where they intuitively sense that they’re a fit, where there’s comradery, high morale. Where their ideas are heard, and validated, and appreciated. We’re attracted to a great culture. The motivators are a combination of tangible, and intangible. Sometimes it’s hard to put it into words. We just know that we’re a part of something special, and we want to contribute to the success of the business. We’re completely engaged.

The Conference Board describes engagement as discretionary effort. Now, what that means is that we want to do good work, as opposed to feeling obligated to get the job done. A great culture feeds on itself. There’s high trust, where individual values are completely aligned with company values.

Companies with great cultures hire not only for skill, they also want to ensure that an employees values totally mesh with their culture. Here’s a great example, South West Airlines. This company is being lauded in numerous articles, scholarly research, for making culture their number one priority. It’s a company that’s renowned for what Micah Solomon in Forbes Magazine called, “A Relentless focus on culture.” South West Airlines purpose is clear, and it’s very simple. To become the worlds most loved, most flown, and most profitable airline. The mission of South West Airlines, is dedication to the highest quality of customer service, delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.

Imagine having statistics like this. South West is a company with a turnover rate of only four to five percent. That contrasts with double digital numbers of their competitors. In other words, loyalty and retention are byproducts of an outstanding company culture.

In summary, employees buy into the vision and mission of an organization when their efforts are acknowledged, when they know that their employer puts them first. Secondly, you want to hire people who are the right fit. While skills, and aptitude are important. Attitude, and values are equally, if not more important. There is a direct correlation between culture, turnover, and profitability. If you focus on the culture to create a workplace where people want to go to work, rather than feeling that they have to go to work. You will start seeing immediate, tangible results when it comes to your talent retention strategy.

This article is a transcript from Talent Management Ep.3 – Outsource Culture on YouTube.

The Impact of Leadership on Talent Retention (Part 2)

November 8, 2018 by Michelle Ray

Imagine investing time, money and energy to attract and recruit top talent at career fairs, and ultimately failing to plan for your new hires first days, weeks and even months at your organization. If you’re not doing all you can to inspire an individual to perform at his or her best at the outset, the chances are high that you’ve not only wasted your time and efforts attracting them, you’ve sown the seeds for disengagement and disenchantment from the first days on the job.

A Korn Ferry Future Step Survey conducted last year revealed that although almost all executives agreed that talent retention and mentorship are critical, about 25% of new hires will leave within the first six months, and the main reason for that is that their role wasn’t what they expected. What’s interesting is that 69% of companies surveyed say they have a formal onboarding program in place for all their new employees. However from the employee’s perspective, nearly a quarter of them say that their program lasted only one day, and about a third said they lasted only for a week. How inspiring is that?

The onboarding phase, this is a critically important period for a new employee. They need to receive purposeful, well thought out orientation and it needs to happen within the first 90 to 120 days. So ask yourself, do you have a strategy in place to welcome new recruits? Because during that time, this is what should happen, it’s a period where you’re establishing benchmarks. This is also a time where they get to connect with key personnel, it’s the time where you want to be able to provide them with hands on training and support, and that’s how they’re able to acclimatize to the culture. Remember, those first 60 to 90 days are critical, we cannot expect people to just fend for themselves.

In summary, your onboarding strategy has to be well thought out and intentional. When your organization fails to setup a new hire for success in the early stages of his or her career, job dissatisfaction and ongoing turnover are likely consequences. So let’s realize that talent retention can be improved by practicing preventative maintenance, making the appropriate arrangements for new employees to flourish right from the first day.

This article is a transcript of Talent Management Ep.2 – The Impact of Leadership on Talent Retention on YouTube.

On-boarding new Talent (Part 1)

November 1, 2018 by Michelle Ray

As leaders, your most pressing challenge is staying ahead of the curve. When it comes to your talent management strategy, the key to gaining the strategic advantage is your people. No matter how high tech the world continues to be, the success of your business, no matter what industry you work in, is dependent upon retaining the best talent.

Name any segment of the market right now that isn’t feeling he impact of a talent shortage. How did this happen? Well, there are many reasons that can explain the panic mode that businesses are experiencing. The retirement of millions of baby boomers and the availability of millennials to replace them, it counts for much of the struggle. Although, interestingly, organizations have known for some time that they will need to have a strategy in place to attract new talent.

Unfortunately, many haven’t fully anticipated the global competition for talent. In addition leaders at many levels are unaware of the impact of their own reputation. Personally as well as the reputation of their own employer brand on a new hire’s decision to stay.

In this series we’re gonna look at the key elements that you need to have in place to attract and retain the best people.

We need to be asking ourselves, if we’re leading ourselves, are we being the best possible example that we can be?

We manufacture a lot of our fear. All of us should look at leadership as being a mindset. It’s about being the leader of your own life and we have all have to choice to be able to do that.

You know there’s an old adage, people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. And this has total applicably for so many of you who are grappling right now with the talent shortage. Gallop research has found that 50 percent of employees leave because they’re frustrated with their boss. Now why are they frustrated? They’re frustrated for a myriad of reasons. Lack of direction, they can’t see the opportunity path, they feel excluded from the decision making process, or a lack of communication or maybe it could be because they feel that their boss is arrogant or narcissistic or even worse, they’re an egomaniac who takes all the credit when they do a good job.

Now what does this do? It creates a total lack of trust and it makes us feel insecure and start to question what we are doing in this position. So think about how many times you have left a position because of poor leadership. Or maybe the opposite is true. You’ve stayed because of an inspiring, caring leader who validates your work and makes it a priority to build a relationship with you. Every one of us wants that and we also want to feel like we’re doing purposeful, meaningful work and we want to see that connection between what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

So ask yourself, as a leader, are you demonstrating this? You see, leading by example is the one aspect of your talent management strategy that you can control. Jim Clifton, the CEO of Gallop, references the fact that one 10 percent of people have the god-given talent to lead. That is an amazing statistic. You see, for years Gallop has surveyed more than two million people in more than 30 countries on the topic of leadership and while there’s a great deal of emphasis on employee engagement, Gallop research also shows that more than 30 percent of leaders are disengaged. Now that is alarming. So consider the link between a disengaged leader and a disengaged employee.

What this means, and is a reminder for all of us, is that leaders profoundly influence the atmosphere and the direction of an individual’s career path. How can we be inspired to stay when our leaders are disengaged? There is a direct correlation between talent retention and a leader’s motivation. How they are engaged at work is gonna impact your team.

In summary, let’s remember that leaders profoundly impact an employee’s decision to stay or go. Also that leaders who are engaged themselves can engage others. Positive energy is infectious and the key is to remember that you want to be the leader that they stay for.

This post is a transcript of the content of a new video series on YouTube. Check it out here!

Celebrating the Opportunity of Change (Part 5)

October 24, 2018 by Michelle Ray

As leaders, you already know the importance of not only managing change, but embracing it as well. I want you to consider how you can celebrate the opportunity that change represents. Think about it, you used to wait hours or maybe even days for information to be transmitted and printed on a scroll of thermal paper.

Today, that happens in seconds. You used to travel over oceans to meet with clients and counterparts. Now, you can conduct so much of your business virtually. And think about all the information you have at your fingertips today, thanks to the internet.

So we all have a lot of experience with change. It’s not like it’s foreign to us. With awareness, we can reflect on the times when we felt we could never overcome a particular challenge. Yet we rose to the occasion. We were able to demonstrate agility and willingness to try new things. Just as athletes develop muscle memory, your ability to navigate change will become more instinctual with practice.

The most powerful choice you can make is to focus on the aspects of change that are within your control. At any point, you can choose to decipher how change unfolds. How you give meaning to the challenges that come with change will ultimately influence the outcome. When you hit your next bump in the road, ask, why am I being disrupted by change, and how can I embrace it.

That’s the leadership mindset.

This post is a transcript of https://youtu.be/VHlM080bCb8 on YouTube

Change Management Ep.4 Change and Disruption

October 17, 2018 by Michelle Ray

It’s interesting how people will often use the term disruption, and the term change interchangeably. I do believe however that there are some subtle differences. Disruption is defined as a disturbance or problem that interrupts an event, an activity, or a process. It often necessitates change.

Let’s outline the process of disruption. If you think of life as a continuum, we find ourselves rolling along the highway of life, and right now we have the present. We have our current state. All of a sudden, some kind of disruption, unanticipated event occurs and we find ourselves in an altered state. There it is. That change has happened. As I said, often unexpectedly and it shakes us up. So, we take a dip as a result of that disruption.

Some of us do not know how to get ourselves out of it, so we stay in that altered state paralyzed by that disruption. But if you consider that life is actually full of peaks and valleys, when we realize that we have gone through disruption before, we almost invariably are able to find ourselves rising out of it naturally. So when we do that, we are in a new state, and we are often operating at a higher level than we did previously. We’ve achieved a new level of consciousness. So we’ve taken our lives and our careers to a new level as a result.

There are people however, that do not stay in that new state, in fact they are operating at the same level that they were previously. They remain unconscious. Because they haven’t been able to accept the disruption, however difficult it might have been, they cannot come to terms with that, and as a result, they stay stuck. And when we don’t change, and we don’t move, life and opportunity will pass us by. And without moving to that new state, it may actually be too late.

Whether we choose to label change as disruption, or disruption as change, it is often about semantics. So in summary, let’s remember, disruption is the new norm. Disruption can occur internally within your own organization or externally, driven by the market, or by your competitors. And by operating at a new level of consciousness when disruption occurs, you can benefit both personally and professionally and grow as a result.

This post is a transcript of https://youtu.be/7Ngoce9bIZo on YouTube

Change Management Ep.3 Get Buy-In to Change Initiatives

October 10, 2018 by Michelle Ray

One of the biggest issues that leaders constantly ask me about is, how do I get my team to buy into change? And this is really important, because you need their support. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself at a standstill. And even worse, people will feel that the change is being imposed on them.

To prevent that from happening, here’s what you need to do. Recognize first of all that change is emotional. Change isn’t logical. Without you validating people’s emotional state, they are not gonna feel heard. They’re not gonna feel as though their reaction matters. It’s a natural thing to react to change, as we spoke of previously.

So remember to acknowledge people’s emotion before you expect them to buy in.

Next, realize that people change when they see a higher reason to change. They need to understand it. They need to see that it matters to them, that there’s a purpose to it that has applicability to their lives and to their careers.

So unless they can see that higher reason, they are more likely to be entrenched in the status quo. And also remember how important it is for you to ask for their input. You’re more likely to get acceptance of your ideas by hearing others’ ideas first.

As I said previously, people want to know that they matter. So when you listen to their ideas, and get their input, they are more likely to be receptive to your plan.

It’s also important to realize that people will change when they want to, not necessarily when you want them to. So when we try to impose a timeline, we might feel that people are going to recoil more quickly. You may have initiatives that need to happen quickly, but I want to encourage you to remember that people need to see the reasons to change before they will accept your ideas.

In summary, remember, account for the emotional response. Acknowledge the fear. It is a natural reaction to change. Realize that how you position change can influence the outcome. When you are able to get that buy in, it’s due to the fact that you have taken into account other people’s ideas, other people’s input. And minimize the shock factor by involving people from the outset and realizing that their ideas are just as valuable, and may contribute to the success of your change initiatives.

This post is a transcript of https://youtu.be/sJ-eJUn3Ghs on YouTube

Change Management Ep. 2 Power of choice: Accept. Leave. Change.

October 3, 2018 by Michelle Ray

When it comes to the status quo, you’ve got three choices. Accept, leave, or change. Let’s look at each one of these. Acceptance. Acceptance isn’t acquiescence. Acceptance is when you say to yourself, “This is okay with me, I can live with it.” Or, you may decide to leave. Some of us have had to exercise this choice. We’ve left jobs, we’ve left relationships, we’ve left managers. We’ve said to ourselves, “This situation no longer serves me, I am okay with making the decision to go.”

I would add however, that if you make this choice, what have you learned from the experience? Because, without learning something, it’s bound to catch up with you somewhere else. History tends to repeat itself. If you decide on the other hand, that you don’t want to accept it, and perhaps leaving it isn’t necessarily the right thing, you do have a very powerful choice. That is, to change.

Change who? Change you. Change how you see it, and change how you respond to it. That is one of the best choices that you can make. I know why we hold back. One of the reasons we stop ourselves from making the necessary changes that we need to make, is because we don’t trust ourselves enough. That’s all about intuition. It’s really important to understand the difference between acting on intuition, and being what I like to call, counter-intuitive. When we operate on our intuition, and we are finding ourselves facing change, we kick into what’s known as the fight or flight response. I’m sure many of you have heard of that too.

We either run away from a situation because we fear that it is threatening. Or, we decide to fight, to take it on. We are going to exercise either one of those options in the face of a threat. Whether that threat is real, or imagined. What I have learned is about being counter-intuitive. That means you’re going against the grain. You recognize your own internal fears, you actually recognize your reactivity. But, you don’t buy into it. Instead, you forge ahead. Feel the fear, and do it anyway.

We’ve all seen examples of people, and businesses that have successfully anticipated change. They’ve risen above the naysayers. They’re the trend setters, such as Apple, Microsoft, who were led by Founders considered to be the mavericks. Ahead of their time. Why? Because, they pursued their vision without buying into the opinions of the media, or competitors, who viewed them as being out there. Companies with ideas that would never fly because they thought they were simply outrageous.

What about bringing out the maverick in you? Let’s summarize. Learn to be proactive versus reactive. Trust yourself. Utilize your options. You do have a choice. Become the change agent you need to be in order to realize your vision, because when you do, anything is possible.

This post is a transcript of https://youtu.be/BVelWlZHb9U on YouTube

Michelle Ray

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