Competency and Performance Solutions

The following article, by Glynis Ross-Munro, was published in the Summer 2009 edition of The Woman Advocate, Vol. 14, No. 4,by the American Bar Association. Copyright is shared with the author.

Glynis is President of Competency and Performance Solutions, a Tampa-based consultancy that assists firms with generational differences, collaborative thinking skills, culture and inclusiveness. She has been married to a lawyer for 33 years.

The success of a legal team depends on collaboration and teamwork. In the current workplace, that means solid communication between four generations of professional and support staff, clients, business partners, witnesses and others. This is no easy task. Continue reading »

I apologize that there was not CPS newsletter in March. IBS was time-consuming. There are limitless jobs one can acquire as secretary of the Board, and I was presenting “Understanding American Culture” as well.

But it was worth it. Higgins Hall was the perfect venue, elegant, full of natural light, beautifully-maintained and decorated – and dedicated entirely to the IBS event. The break-out rooms were exactly the right size and the catering was highly satisfactory. Every speaker offered truly exciting ideas, and the lunch and speed-networking brought many people together for new opportunities. The organization went flawlessly even though there were some late nights behind the scenes. Continue reading »

CPS hears both sides of the “Managing the Millennials” debate.  www.ManagingTheMillennials.com/survey brings us many candid snapshots of the world of work from the GenY perspective, to add to our research, focus groups, interviews and workshop-based knowledge. Our one VP is, of course, a Millennial too.

CPS now has permission to publish a highly entertaining MiIllennial’s perspective. Paul exemplifies many of the characteristics of the 21st century GenY knowledge worker: massive technical knowledge, a graduate education, and a history of entrepreneurship. Born in Tampa, he is an experienced, multi-lingual global traveler and married to a physics PhD student.  Enjoy!

Then go on www.glassdoor.com (or something similar) and see whether your organization also needs to think seriously about collaborative management, collaborative thinking, and the competitive and innovative edge your Millennials bring to the table.. Continue reading »

CPS offers consulting, and/or accelerated, interactive learning solutions. Both are linked directly to our clients’ bottom lines. Some clients need innovative solutions, developed from scratch, but many want affordable, ready-to-go solutions. The menu (below) has been used and proven in major companies, and  can be customized to specific, strategic needs within days.

An example of a CPS approach to one option: Topic: Managing your Millennials. This is suitable for: Organizations that employ or market to Gen Y or younger Gen Xers. They may be:

• Experiencing costs from staff turnover, or impact on service delivery, customer communication, or employment brand.
• Concerned that productivity is affected by miscommunication between the generations.
• Worried that competitors benefit from higher engagement,  innovation and other market advantages from their younger workers.

Watch a voice over presentation [11 megs]

Self guided presentation [1.2 megs]

One to three hour events: Interactive, accelerated, learning that impacts the bottom line:

1. Generational Communication: Strategic or team understanding of multi-generational co-workers, customers, business partners and markets.
2. Green attitudes: Building organization-wide buy-in, to green, cost-effective business.
3. Communicating across Distances and Differences: Reframing and repurposing many of your existing skills, to communicate effectively in a global business environment.
4. Memorable Presentations: Ensuring that people remember what you say in presentations and meetings.
5. Managing Millennials: Employing, managing and marketing to Generation Y.
6. 

   CPS workshops are available through USF Extended University

   Culture Toolbox: Building communication and understanding with co-workers, customers and suppliers. Management and team-building solutions to the costly assumptions and misunderstandings that arise between organizations, occupations, regions and national cultures. This is *not* “international etiquette.”

Two-to-four hour events: Interactive, accelerated, learning that impacts the bottom line:

1. Thinking Toolboxes: Individual and group thinking tools for planning, problem-solving, innovation, decision-making, execution and results.
2. Competency-Based Buddy Systems: How team members can be effective partners in on-boarding and performance improvement, with measurable bottom-line results.
3. Valuing Differences: Building a Culture of Inclusiveness: Leveraging diversity as a proven source of competitive advantage, innovation and wealth. (Not ye olde 1995 diversity program!)
4. Leading the 21st Century Workforce: A Leadership Success Toolbox, for the Age of Complexity. Suitable for operational managers (supervisory to middle management). Can include DISC.
5. Team Building for Operational Leaders: middle managers, supervisory managers and team leads.
6. Competency-Based Performance Management, Performance Development and Performance Assessment. (Available for performance managers only or in a highly interactive design that helps both managers and their reports to make performance management a highly effective and supportive tool of business results.)
7. Recruitment, Selection, Induction and Retention for Line Managers who need to impact their bottom line results. (This includes customized checklists for your departments/organization).
   

   CPS workshops are available through Pasco Hernando Community College

Full-Day Workshops (six – seven hours)

• Communicating Across Distances and Differences: Delivering business results in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual economy, especially where writing is a dominant communication tool.
• 21st Century Business Writing: Skills for the Busy Communicator: Quick, clear, effective writing that gets attention, communicates quickly and clearly and gets responses and action. Suited to a world where information overload and “doing more with less” has led to  skim-reading, and reading/writing while multi-tasking.
• Thinking Tools – Full Day: Thinking tools for individual critical thinking, and collaborative group effectiveness. This is suitable for groups that need to deliver results on projects, particularly ones that are long-term, complex, innovative, or involve distance team-members.
• Management Skills for Operational/ Tactical Leaders: Practical skills that make emerging and operational managers, and their teams, successful in their day-to-day work.

Clients and References:

Together or separately, Glynis and Greg Ross-Munro have worked with many organizations, both large and small, for-profit and non-profit, in the private and public sector. Our associate trainers have worked with many more.

Some of these have included: Aeon, Audi, BMW, Biostat International, Ceridian, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Coca-Cola, CrossTree Capital, IBM, Ernst & Young, Escom, Deloittes, HART, Hillsborough County, Hillsborough Public Schools, HSBC, Iscor (SA steel giant), McDill Federal Credit Union, Mvula Trust, The Oracle, The Poynter Institute, The St Petersburg Times, Sappi, Sasol, SA Dept of Health, Siemens, Sterling, Sweetbay, Transitions Optical, Volkswagen.

80 million Millennials are changing every aspect of the business environment, and they’re your customers, suppliers and employees.

CPS finds that a lot of companies don’t have comprehensive strategies to manage this generation in their business world. They are paying heavily with low productivity, high turnover, weaker business relationships and brand problems. They are also failing to make good use of the many innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities the Millennials offer. Continue reading »

It’s common to hear complaints about GenYs, but the Millennial Generation has its own frustrations. There are far too many to list here, but a common one is that they are full of innovative ideas which are ignored. Every cohort has new ideas, but this one thinks in a dramatically different way from the generations before them, even when compared with GenX. And they often have the “Mouth” to say so.

But your Millennials are finding out a great truth about business – that risk takers and innovators are a good thing in theory, but in practice they usually receive a very cool reception. Continue reading »

These days, Baby Boomer managers often complain about their GenY employees (“kids these days…”)

But maybe Boomers should worry less about GenY (described by Marcus Buckingham as the generation who got prizes for coming 8th in a race). Some Boomers still need to learn that you can’t win against GenX if you use the old-fashioned methods of business power broking.

There are still a lot of Boomer and Traditional managers who have days of thinking “I’ll do it my way, now I am the boss”, forgetting that the rules of the business game have changed … forever.

Deep in the cubicles of the corporate jungles there is an army, trained to deal with their parents’ generation. One result is that the Boomer who thinks in terms of “my way or the highway” soon finds out that this only works if the person who is going to hit the highway is the Boomer him/herself.
Continue reading »