Risk & Business Magazine Atlas Insurance Risk & Business Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 13

LEADERSHIP “Everything in business begins and ends with leadership.” BY: VERNE HARNISH CEO OF GAZELLES, INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR • Inspire a Shared Vision: Develop and communicate a vivid picture of what is possible. like GE and thousands of growth firms, but a few hours spent wisely upfront will save a leader thousands of hours of drama. • Challenge the Process: Encourage continuous improvement and learn from mistakes. • Enable Others to Act: Foster trust and collaboration, making it possible for others to do great work. HIGH STAKES NEGOTIATIONS Dr. Victoria Medvec, Kellogg School of Management professor and author of the online learning program entitled High Stakes Negotiations, helps a leader maximize success in a complex negotiation while strengthening the relationship. • Encourage the Heart: Recognize contributions and celebrate values and victories in a spirit of community. Again, the key is picking one of the five practices on which to focus and improve. HIRING “A” PLAYERS Brad Smart, author of Topgrading (3rd Edition 2012), has been teaching top leaders a hiring and promotion approach that guarantees 90 percent of your team will be high performers. And when you’re surrounded by “A” players, your job of leading is many times easier. Dr. Medvec suggests 10 strategies, a few which include: • • • Smart’s approach has several unique components: • Scorecard: This replaces the standard job description and outlines cultural attributes and results. • Screening Interview: Five specific questions that accurately determine whether a candidate should be invited in for a lengthier interview. • CIDS Interview: A multi-hour in- depth interview that helps discern patterns of past performance and behavior. • TORC: a technique for garnering useful information from a candidate prior to calling their references. • Virtual Bench: A proactive approach to making sure you have sufficient “A” player candidates for potential jobs. It’s an intense process mastered by firms Name Price/Terms First – puts the other party in a position of countering the offer. Seek Synchronicity – avoid negotiating and communicating via email except as a confirmation tool. Aim for direct conversations throughout the process. Fragment Issues – fight the tendency to simplify the negotiations. Instead, fragment into as many sub-issues as possible so you can play with the variables. • Generate Multiple Proposals – always bring multiple options to the table and vary across the proposals your strength to bring attention to it. • Anchor Outcomes – push the edges with your offers to move the center closer to your desired outcome. Plus it allows you to concede some ground which strengthens the relationship. Most leaders spend a great deal of time negotiating with someone they will eventually have to work with for quite some time, whether it’s with a customer, supplier, employee, investor, etc. Learn how to win while strengthening the relationship. PEER COACHING Marshall Goldsmith, famous business coach and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, emphasizes the necessity of every leader having a peer coach – someone that can hold a leader accountable, daily, to the behaviors and activities that need changed or improved. He suggests a specific multistep process: • Gather Feedback – survey colleagues and gather feedback on areas of improvement based on the frameworks above. • Identify Behaviors – decide on two or three behaviors that need changed. • Apologize and Advertise - make public the behaviors you’re changing and apologize to those that have been previously harmed by your bad behavior. • Listen and Thank – continue to garner input and thank those that provide you constructive feedback. • Follow-up and Feed-Forward – with your peer coach report your progress. daily In summary, outstanding leaders master the skills of hiring and negotiations. In leading others they strive to build a healthy team atmosphere and enable the five fundamental practices of leadership. And to continual improve their capabilities a leader tea ms up with a peer coach that provides daily feedback and accountability. + Verne Harnish is founder and CEO of Gazelles International, a global executive education and coaching company. Verne has spent the past 30 years educating entrepreneurial teams. He’s the author of Scaling Up that uses approaches honed from over three decades of advising tens of thousands of CEOs and executives. 13