News from Leadership Insight

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Jean Marshman Senior Consultant with Leadership Insight has recently graduated from Adler School of Coaching as a Certified Executive Coach. Way to go Jean! Jean is a seasoned training and development professional with over 20 years experience designing and delivering management training, performance management and human resource programs in the industrial supply and retail industries. Congratulations can be forwarded to Jean at jmarshman@leadership-insight.com.

For information on our Executive Coaching programs,leadership assessment and Coach-Manager (the Confident Coach) training programs please click on the appropriate link and you will be taken to our website.

As we head into summer, the following words of Mokey Fraggle (Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock) will almost certainly put a smile on your face:

This is the place and this is the time

To clear the heart and open the mind.

When you're weary with the world

And the storms in which you're whirled

You can reach out, feel the love, the joy

Feel the breeze and smell the grass

Hear the birds sing as they pass

Thru the branches of the trees, the joy.

The world gives us love we can share

Replacing the woe and the care with joy.

Enjoy this issue of talent talk.

Cheers!

Rebecca

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5 Ways in Which You Can Benefit from a 360-Degree Feedback

1. 360-Degree Feedback provides answers to the vital self-management question, "How am I doing?" As leaders rise in the hierarchy, they receive less and less honest information about themselves, 360 assessment can provide them with the information they need to take corrective action.

2. Asking for 360-Degree Feedback is a mechanism for continuous improvement. For leaders to apply that notion to themselves, and serve as models for others, they must have reliable, valid, timely information on how they are perceived.

3. The use of 360-Degree Feedback can help leaders validate their self-perceptions. They need honest feedback from others to test their own understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

4. It has been observed that people are the only animals capable of self-deception. We need 360-Degree Feedback from trusted others in order to ensure that we are viewing ourselves realistically.

5. Perhaps most important, 360-Degree Feedback gets organizations to invest in the effectiveness of leaders. Soliciting feedback from bosses, peers, subordinates, customers, and others actively involves them in a process of improvement, and they are more likely to support leaders who ask for feedback, act on it, and follow through with them afterwards.

Structure + Analysis = Hiring Success

Just like anything else, the key to an effective hiring process is to identify the steps that contribute most directly to Fall

achieving success, and then implement and practice those steps, continuing to make improvements along the way.

First and foremost is the creation of a standardized hiring process. Through the creation of such a process, you can better identify the things that work best for you and your company . . . and the things that don't work at all. That's not to say that some steps in the process should be eliminated altogether, just that some should be weighted more than others, in accordance with what's most effective. Below are the basic steps that any hiring process should include:

� Criteria-based screening of candidates

� A standard background check

� Assessments and/or tests

� Structured interviews, both over the phone and in person

Remember, these are just the basics. Depending upon the position being filled, you can add steps or elaborate and build upon existing ones.

The other half of the equation . . .

A thorough analysis of the open position will further help you to fill it with the best candidate possible. Unfortunately, many companies overlook this aspect of the hiring process, instead focusing their attention on the candidates that they're screening and interviewing. Those candidates represent only one-half of the equation.

After all, you have to know exactly what you're looking for before you can know that you've found it.

That's why, after you've established a standardized and structured hiring process, the next step is to thoroughly analyze the open position and the job description associated with it. This should be done before interviews are scheduled and conducted. In addition, the position should be analyzed in regards to the three main areas below:

� Knowledge - Although this is often considered the most obvious qualifier, it must be examined in an exhaustive fashion, since a miscalculation could be costly if not caught before a bad hire is made.

� Skills/abilities - This refers to the application of knowledge needed to perform the tasks required by the position, whatever forms that application might take.

� Personality/attitude - This one is often overlooked, since it pertains to the "soft skills" necessary for the job, as opposed to the "hard skills."

As you can see, achieving hiring success starts before the process itself even begins. Through the combination of a standardized process and an extensive job analysis, you can dramatically increase the chances that the next person you hire... is the best person for the position.

Copyright protected. �Gary Sorrell - NewsletterVille.com

Tips for Leaders

If you have a team member who is Fall unsure of himself, tends to hover in the background, and avoids risk, try the following coaching statements to draw out your wallflower.

� I depend on you to....

� I have confidence in you....

� I need your help to....

� What are your ideas on...?

� How would you...?

Secrets Of Breakthrough Leadership, Peter Capezio and Debra Morehouse. Career Press, FranklinLakes, NJ 07417.