2019 STATEWIDE LEARNING &
DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS NEWSLETTER
NOVEMBER TOPICS
  • Assessments from COE
  • Featured Courses in November
  • Face Your Fear of Feedback
  • Change is Inevitable - Are You Prepared?
  • Learning Lessons: Strategy and the Three Legged Stool
  Assessments from COE
Personality and behavioral assessments are powerful tools for understanding what motivates a person. The results from these assessments can be used to explain an individual's motivations, needs, and stressors. The leader who understands what motivates and demotivates an employee is likely to have a better working relationship with the employee and is less likely to simplify behavior into terms like "good' or "bad."

The assessments offered through the Center for Organizational Effectiveness (COE) provide nonjudgmental language for employees to discuss differences and develop more effective relationships. Our assessments also help state employees understand and communicate their blind spots as well as their expectations of coworkers. Whether it's the Birkman Method, Success Insights, Strengths Finder or Myers-Briggs, the knowledge gained from these assessments combined with a debrief from a certified representative of the assessment can help individuals and teams improve communication and increase effectiveness to achieve desired results.
Featured November Courses
In November, COE is offering many courses to encourage your continued learning and development. You can learn more about these courses, and everything else from COE on our website.

Check out our course offerings for November by following the links below:

Course Name
Cost
Date
$360
11/4/2019
$500
11/4/2019
$500
11/5/2019
$0
11/6/2019
$280
11/6/2019
$280
11/7/2019
$360
11/7/2019
$360
11/12/2019
$280
11/12/2019
$0
11/13/2019
$360
11/13/2019
$500
11/14/2019
$260
11/14/2019
$360
11/18/2019
$390
11/19/2019
$360
11/20/2019
$360
11/20/2019
$0
11/21/2019
$360
11/21/2019
$360
11/22/2019
$360
11/25/2019
$360
11/26/2019
$250
11/29/2019
$235
11/29/2019
$400
11/29/2019
$500
11/29/2019
$200
11/29/2019
  Face Your Fear of Feedback
Submitted by:  Executive Forum, COE Training Vendor

There is real hope for feedback if we can find the courage to practice it, leverage it, and overcome the inclination to avoid it. Feedback might be the most important communication skill according to Bob Dignen in his article titled, "Giving Effective Feedback is a Vital Part of Communication, Whether Inside or Outside the Boardroom or Classroom."

Dignen explains that feedback is...
  1. Another word for effective listening
  2. An opportunity to motivate
  3. Essential to developing performance
  4. A way to keep learning
He argues that we give and receive feedback everyday...all the time! Our casual conversations contain just as much feedback in our choice of words and tone of voice, as performance review conversations. The act of recognizing success and offering words of praise is a form of feedback. These words encourage more positive action and subsequently build trust and rapport. As our workplaces continue to increase in gender, cultural, and generational diversity, feedback allows the opportunity to bridge communication gaps by simply asking, "What can I do more of, and what can I stop doing, to help us communicate better?"

Why, then, is feedback not part of our daily interactions at work?
Thanh Nguyen of The Diversity and Inclusion office at UC Denver has a reputation as the "feedback queen" around campus. It was her consistent feedback that earned her the title. Here is what she had to say: "We are naturally hesitant to provide feedback for fear that others will react negatively or are unwilling to listen to what we have to tell them. Many associate feedback as negative, but if done appropriately, it is a positive tool and enhancement for everyday life."

How to Overcome Your Fear of Feedback
Thanh explains: "To become better at what we do and how we live, we have to ask for feedback and utilize it in ways that will challenge us daily. Without feedback, we become complacent and we do not grow as an individual."

We must become comfortable with the uncomfortable and develop a feedback plan. We can balance requests for feedback by also giving it. Model that feedback is okay for you in conversations. Use your common sense when approaching feedback exchanges: Are you in a good mood? Is your feedback solution-oriented? Does your feedback benefit you AND the other person? We face challenges every day that call on our courage. Our desire to become better must outweigh our fear of feedback.
Submitted by:  Arrow Performance Group, COE Training Vendor - Authored by
Shanda Zavalsky and Roz Bedell

Does the idea of change excite you and give you a rush of adrenaline? Or does the notion of change make you feel sick to your stomach and give you a feeling of dread? Different personality types respond to change in different ways. Some live for it while others see it as a kind of slow death, driving them away from a life they've grown comfortable with.
 
Today, more than ever, leaders at all levels are under constant pressure to improve the performance of their company, business, department, unit, or team.  In order to succeed, many are looking at "Change Management" strategies that have become popular methods of enhancing organizational performance. These strategies include use of technology, budgeting, quality improvement, and sometimes restructuring. 
Organizational leaders are now realizing that change management strategies alone don't provide an optimal return on investment. Organizations need to undergo deep, substantive change if they are to move to higher levels. This involves reshaping the culture through transformation.

Navigating change is easier when you have psychological insight.
One of the ways to get that psychological insight is by using scientifically-validated and reliable personality assessments to measure the psychological differences and similarities between people.

This can help you and your employees understand:
  • Why some people are excited by change while others find it threatening
  • Why some people want to know all the details and steps involved in a change and others only want the bigger picture
  • Why plans and timelines are so important to some people while other people think flexibility is key to change
  • How we can make sure everyone has what they need to be the most comfortable with change 
You can probably think of a few of your direct reports and team members who might fall into one of the above categories. Because we all react differently, you must be aware of your own biases. We are all biased towards our own personality types. After all, we've spent our whole lives with ourselves. During any type of change, knowing what different people need to successfully navigate that change is essential to make the process go as smoothly as possible.

Even if you don't know each individual's specific type on your team, making sure you provide enough support for everyone is a great start.
One of the most commonly used personality tests, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®), generates a personality type based on four pairs of opposites, called dichotomies:
  • Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I) - where you prefer to focus your attention and get energy
  • Sensing (S) or Intuition (N) - how you like to take in information
  • Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) - how you prefer to process information or make decisions
  • Judging (J) or Perceiving (P) - how you like to structure the outer world to complete tasks 
There are sixteen possible personality types. Each type is equally valuable, and an individual inherently belongs to one of the sixteen types. All personality types have certain strengths when it comes to change. They also have their blind spots. However, when it comes to change, to successfully lead your team, it's important to know:
  • How they want to receive information
  • What kind of information they want
  • What criteria they will use to decide to support or resist the change
  • How they want the change plans to be structured 
The important thing to remember is that change starts with you.  Learn your own style, your preferences, and how you deal with others to begin a path towards successful transition.

Please register now for Myers-Briggs (MBTI) and Transitions training on November 19th to start your year off with a more strategic process to change. The class includes the MBTI Assessment, MBTI® Step II™ (Form Q), and Introduction to Type® and Change (PDF).
Learning Lessons:
Strategy and the Three-Legged Stool
Submitted by:  CPS HR Consulting, COE Training Vendor - Authored by Terri Bianco

Every organization occupies itself within three general areas: Tasks, Processes, and Attitude.
 
TASKS: Services or outcomes provided.

PROCESSES: How they are provided.

ATTITUDE: The way we feel about them.
 
Like a three-legged stool, these functions must stay in balance for the organization to operate successfully. A "leg" too long or too short causes the stool to tip over. If people are constantly overwhelmed with tasks with no end in sight, the task function is overloaded.

Back-to-back meetings and required forms or reports create process gridlock. That leg is compromised and completion of tasks suffer. An overload of work or sluggish processing of data then depletes attitude and morale. Moreover, disengaged employees can create toxic work environments on their own, causing the stool to tumble.

Those with the mindset of a leader in whatever capacity and regardless of title tend to monitor these functions from afar. They see what needs shoring up, what might be eliminated. They can look at the big picture and realize the staff is spending way too much time in meetings; or accounting is too overloaded to take on another project; or they see an increase in complaints from employees.

But how can anyone review these things from afar if they are involved with these three functions themselves? It's difficult if not impossible to do. We're all too busy. Isolated at our workstations, we dig into tasks, go through processes, and only occasionally check on our work environment or how we feel.

What's required is a stepping back, a recess from the activities, shutting down the noise, distancing. It takes some quiet time, some reflection, and some strategic thinking. We do our best thinking when we are free of distractions - on a run, listening to music, tending a garden.

Here are some tips to get you to that relaxed and separate place so you can reflect, think, and create strategies to balance that three-legged stool.

Breathing
Our ability to calm ourselves comes with a body function we usually ignore. In fact, we forget our breath is there until it isn't. Take a deep breath into the belly, hold it, and slowly exhale. A couple of those, and you are relaxed. To energize, inhale four short breaths through the nose and exhale in a short burst out the mouth, preferably while walking.
 
Look up
Straighten that hunched over neck and look up. Look at the ceiling. Look at the mountains. Look at the sky. Take every opportunity to do that and breathe in. It lifts you out of the fray and your neck will thank you, too.
 
De-Cell-Erate
Power off the cell phone. Lock it in a desk drawer or glovebox. If the thought of that derails you, notice that. Then try at least to turn off push notifications; to eat a meal without checking a screen; to leave it out of your bedroom. It's not as smart as you think.
 
Get into Nature
Get up and go for a walk in Nature. Like breathing, Nature is ever-present for us, yet often ignored. Say hello to Nature with appreciation and awe.
 
Read a Book
Yep, you heard right. Hard copy black- and-white print on paper. Find a quiet, comfortable spot, open the book (or newspaper) and drop into the story or article. 15 minutes later when you resurface, your brain will have had a power wash. [Note: there was a time when employees took 15-minute smoke breaks. Reading is much healthier!)

Change Perspective
Look at your work environment as a play. Rather than being an actor in this play, pretend like you are in the audience, witnessing what's going on. Perspective is powerful. Try it.
Center for Organizational Effectiveness
Department of Personnel & Administration
Division of Human Resources
303-866-2439