Build meaningful conversations in your organization

Gallup's 2024 Employee Engagement Checklist includes this: Prepare managers to have meaningful conversations with their employees.

It goes on to define 5 characteristics of a meaningful conversation:

1) Recognition or appreciation for recent work.

2) Collaboration and relationships.

3) Current goals and priorities at work.

4) The length of the conversation: Between 15 and 30 minutes is enough time for a meaningful conversation, but only if it happens frequently.

5) Employee strengths or the things they do well: Managers can have much more meaningful discussions about how each person gets their work done if those conversations are based on what they do best. The takeaway is that feedback is meaningful to employees when their manager focuses on recognition, collaboration, goals and priorities, and strengths. And if these conversations happen every week, they can be brief. Naturally, problems and challenges will arise — and managers and employees should discuss them — but to improve engagement, managers must have conversations that inspire each individual.

As you have these meaningful conversations, taking communication preferences into account will make these successful and Wiley's Everything DiSC portfolio provides data to help each person adapt to the other's preferences. DM me for more information.

Let's work together to get your team certified in DiSC!

Build your team's ability to engage and get the best from your workforce using the DiSC family of profiles by asking me to lead their certification! DM me to set up a schedule that works for all of us.

Make your teams immediately effective together!

If your work life consists of people joining ad hoc teams to solve specific problems, Your Groups on Catalyst™ allows those teams to quickly visualize the preferences and tendencies of their teammates.

Group Continua on Catalyst is an effective (and fun!) tool for teams to build connection and community using DiSC®. By plotting members along eight different behavioral continua, teams gain straightforward language for safe conversations about differences, helping them reach new levels of performance. With Group Continua, your teams can:

• Recognize strengths and challenges

• Communicate with clarity

• Make better decisions

• And more!

This tool helps integrate DiSC® into the daily life of your organization and speeds up team effectiveness on the spot.

Pay Attention to your Managers

From Gallup's 2024 State of the Global Workplace Report:

The hard job of managing people has gotten even harder in recent years.
New demands for worker flexibility in the remote and hybrid workplace and increased risk of employee mental health problems add to the already difficult job of managing. In 2023, Gallup found one in five employees reported feeling loneliness, anger, or sadness during a lot of the previous day, and four in 10 felt a lot of stress.

Managers already have many responsibilities such as carrying out leadership initiatives, keeping up to date with customer and product needs, monitoring time and expenses, performance management, and training. But their role of inspiring people has never been more urgent. They are uniquely positioned to know each employee’s specific needs, career goals and work-life situation.

You can build your managers role awareness, engagement and capacity with the Everything DiSC Management profile either on the Catalyst platform or through traditional training. DM me for more info or a demo.

2023 Wiley Annual Report on the State of the Workplace

Wiley Workplace Intelligence does ongoing research about the state of our workplaces and here are the top 10 takeaways from their 2023 Annual Report:

1. People are optimistic about the future of their organization. In addition, a large majority of respondents also shared that managing the well-being of their people while achieving results continues to be a priority.

2. Communication is the most important quality in a leader. It's clear that there is a need for more communication and relationship building skills in order to increase psychological safety across all organizational levels.

3. Communication has a direct impact on engagement. The frequency and kind of communication in your organization has a direct impact on the engagement, morale, and productivity of your people.

4. Individual contributors feel less safe than executives taking risks at work. A psychologically safe environment as defined by Amy Edmonson of Harvard B-School, is an environment where we feel comfortable taking risks, expressing ideas and concerns, asking questions, and admitting mistakes without fear of negative consequences.

5. Generations have more in common than not. Surprisingly, respondents largely feel understood by other generations regardless of the generation they belong to.

6. Managers lack training on how to manage conflict. Only 57% of managers reported receiving training around conflict management.

7. Upskilling employees fills the widening skills gap. Most organizations in the study didn't have a clearly identified process for identifying current skills gaps. But, almost half (42%) reported that technical skills were the most critical missing "hard" skills with interpersonal skills following at 36%.

8. Where you work doesn't impact organizational culture. Many organizations made a return-to-office push in 2023. There were concerns about the impacts of remote work on organizational culture and many companies moved from completely remote to hybrid models or required a full return to the office. This research found that location doesn’t have as big of an impact as we might expect when it comes to creating a positive workplace culture. Instead, we found that feeling connected and experiencing a sense of belonging is more critical to creating a positive culture than simply occupying the same physical space.

9. AI is not ready to replace humans when it comes to learning and development. Using AI for administrative tasks increases efficiency but knowing people seek human connection when learning, L & D practitioners should consider ways to continue meeting that need while incorporating technological advances into their practice.

10. Well-being positively impacts performance. Balancing employee satisfaction and productivity ranked the highest, and the increased focus on well-being positively impacted performance throughout these organizations.

I have tools to help you maximize each of these findings. DM me for more information or a demo!

Build Engagement and Related Results Throughout your Organization!

Gallup's 2024 State of the Global Workplace reports these key findings:

-20% of the world’s employees experience daily loneliness. Loneliness is highest for fully remote workers.

-Well-being among younger employees dropped in 2023.

-Employee engagement is a significant factor in overall life experiences.

-Managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement.

-Across countries, when managers are engaged, employees are more likely to be engaged.

-In best-practice organizations, 3/4 of managers and 7 in 10 non-managers are engaged.

When organizations increase the number of engaged employees, they improve a host of organizational outcomes, including profit, retention rates and customer service.

There are resources I provide that build engagement which increase employee and manager well-being as well as measurable results like profit, retention rates and customer service.

This graphic provides more specifics - dm me for more information or a demo!

Integrate DiSC into your work culture so build capacity and engagement!

You can create a useful shorthand to make the most of your work relationships by integrating DiSC into your language, and introducing the complete portfolio of DiSC applications builds awareness and engagement throughout your organization. This includes Everything DiSC Workplace, Everything DiSC Management, Everything DiSC Sales, Everything DiSC Productive Conflict, Everything DiSC Agile EQ and Everything DiSC Work of Leaders. It's worth a look and has a high payoff!

How Management has Changed Since Covid-19

In an Oct. 2023 Forbes article, Anupam Satyasheel outlines how management has changed since Covid-10 and how future-minded, thoughtful organizations have embraced these changes:

1. Remote Work and Flexibility. Some companies insisted workers return to the office after the pandemic, but other realized employees were happier, more productive, and more willing to participate in company culture remotely.

2. Emphasis on Employee Well-Being. Managers who genuinely ask how their employees are doing will gain their trust and confidence, and know that employee well-being amounts to company well-being.

3. Digital Transformation. We can't forget that employee are the operators of the increased technology we see. Good management encourages online interactions and creates digital experiences for employees.

4. Remote Team Building and Leadership. In a remote work environment, team bonding is not naturally cultivated. This needs to be an intentional effort by managers to maintain morale.

5. Talent Acquisition and Retention. Hiring and retaining talent has become a different effort because interviewing is often remote and managers don't have the bandwidth to respond to every job application. In terms of retaining talent, managers should be proactive with department and team meetings, check-ins and continuous team building.

Our Five Behaviors Personal and Team Development profiles/facilitated conversations can be done virtually or in-person and create a language and connection that's not easily achieved otherwise. DM me for more info or a demo!

Use Conversation Starters to build your enjoyment and productivity with your teams!

Does your team struggle to connect? Do group discussions stall? Are you left with more questions than answers after meetings? With Conversation Starters on Catalyst™, your teams can use DiSC® to tackle common challenges that hinder performance.

By combining DiSC with simple discussion guides, Conversation Starters equips your teams to talk about personality-based differences—helping you get to know each other faster, communicate more clearly, and make better decisions.

Getting started is easy! 
1. Visit the Your Groups feature on Catalyst. (If you want a Catalyst demo just DM me).
2. Create and save a group with people in your organization
3. Click into Conversation Starters and choose a topic
All it takes is 30 minutes and a Catalyst profile for your team to start working (and performing!) better together.

Visit Catalyst to get started today!

Manage tension with some help

Disagreements at work can be stressful. With Get Advice on Catalyst, you can get immediate online access to ways to navigate tense conversations, build empathy, and turn conflict into compromise. Contact me to learn more! #GetAdviceonCatalyst

Build your culture's teamwork one team member at a time

In the modern workplace, team members must navigate an environment that is in constant flux. That’s no easy task, and employees must be flexible, socially adept, and relationship-savvy in order to navigate interpersonal challenges and achieve collective gains within and across their teams. But solid teamwork doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s not necessarily an innate skill. Teamwork must be developed and practiced—and it requires the right framework in order to thrive. The Five Behaviors® Personal Development can be your solution for building a culture of teamwork. Call me for more info or a demo assessment!

Develop agility and emotional intelligence in your workforce!

Here's a valuable tool that helps your workforce be agile so they can make progress faster and pivot on short notice which is necessary now as our work environments become more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous To stand firm in our ideas while remaining open to new perspectives.

Staying agile demands that we develop and use our emotional intelligence (EQ)—a level of sophistication that we’ve never demanded before.

The tool is Everything DiSC® Agile EQ™: a classroom training and personalized learning experience that teaches participants to read the emotional and interpersonal needs of a situation and respond accordingly.

By combining the personalized insights of DiSC® with active emotional intelligence development, participants discover an agile approach to workplace interactions and learn to navigate outside their comfort zone, empowering them meet the demands of any situation.  

Pairing their personalized, 26-page Everything DiSC Agile EQ Profile with a short facilitation session, your learners will: 

1. Discover the instinctive mindsets that shape their responses and interactions,

2. Recognize opportunities to stretch beyond what comes naturally to them,

3. Take action to become more agile in their approach to social and emotional situations.

The result is an emotionally intelligent workforce that can support your thriving agile culture. 

Interested to learn more? Contact me to discuss how Everything DiSC Agile EQ can help your organization today.

Introducing The combined Five Behaviors® Facilitation Kit!

If you want to build a culture of teamwork in your organization, you can get certified in The Five Behaviors content, and The combined Five Behaviors® Facilitation Kit is now live! Bringing together both Personal and Team Development in a single kit, it will give you the flexibility to deliver the right solution for any organizational need.

What’s in the new kit?

 1. Team Development for building cohesive intact teams:

-1- and 3-day facilitation guide with videos and activities

-Customizable PowerPower® Point Slides

-Annotated Facilitator Reports

 2. Personal Development for building a culture of teamwork:

-Half-day facilitation guide with videos and activities

-Customizable PowerPoint® Slides

This combined Kit only costs $1,495 (previously $2,990) and you'll have what you need to lead sessions to build a common language around teamwork. It comes in downloadable or usb formats - DM me today to get one in your 2023 budget!

Build a culture of cohesive teamwork throughout your organization!

You can build a culture of cohesive teamwork in your organization and here's how! You can get certified to deliver engaging and impactful Five Behaviors learning experiences in your organization. The certification is a 2-week immersive experience that combines live, instructor-led sessions with self-guoded online learning and you will leave with:

- a deep understanding of The Five Behaviors model and key principles,

- the full Five Behaviors solution portfolio: Team Development and Personal Development

- confidence from practice with facilitation techniques with feedback from your peers

- access to Wiley's Online Training Center which you can continue to access after the course ends.

- once you pass the exam, you will earn the title of Five Behaviors Certified Practitioner which you can take with you to any organization.

The cost is $2,495 with no continuing annual fee. Message me to register for a session in 2023 or 2024!

Build everyone's awareness of how they show up on teams!

Teamwork starts at the individual level. But in a modern workplace that is high-speed and high-stakes, how can you equip people to quickly build cohesiveness and deliver results? We have the solution.

The Five Behaviors™ Personal Development solution teaches individuals to become better teammates by integrating Patrick Lencioni’s model across the entire organizational. The goal is to completely redefine teamwork and collaboration. 

Personal Development was designed specifically to work for individuals; participants do not all need to be part of the same team. Rather, participants can carry the takeaways of this program from one team to the next, enabling a culture of teamwork. Learners at all levels of an organization can benefit from this program and adopt its powerful principles, shape behaviors, and create a common language that empowers people to rewrite what it means to work together. Call me today to see this powerful model and profile.

Hire the right people in this buyers market!

Find the right people for your job openings and improve onboarding, teamwork and retention with PXT Select™. This is powerful selection assessment that measures a candidate’s cognitive abilities, behaviors, and interests and equips your hiring managers with easy-to-understand information about the candidate, as well as providing intuitive questions to strengthen the interview process.

One assessment produces a suite of reports to help you select, onboard, coach, and develop employees:

o Comprehensive Selection Report

o Multiple Positions Report

o Multiple Candidates Report

o Team Report

o Manager-Employee Report

o Individual’s Feedback Report

o Individual’s Graph

o Coaching Report

o Performance Model Report

Contact me for more info and a demo!

Build engagement with these helpful profiles

The Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report for 2023 makes this important point: "Employee engagement does not mean happiness. If you are only measuring employee contentment, you are missing engagement. And the reality is that many corporate measures of engagement are really just measuring contentment. True engagement means your people are psychologically present to do their work. They understand what to do; they have what they need; and they have a supportive manager and a supportive team. They know why their work matters. They are work ready." (p. 10)

Having a supportive manager and a supportive team can be built using Everything DiSC® and Five Behaviors® profiles - they develop teamwork, personal awareness and ways to respond to others that keeps engagement and productivity high and tension low. Let me know how I can help your organization!

The Five Behaviors® Personal and Team Development Solutions Together For the First Time!

We are excited to share that The Five Behaviors® Personal Development and Team Development solutions are available together in one facilitation kit for the first time ever. This incredible value provides everything you need to bring The Five Behaviors to everyone in your organization to build a culture of teamwork that drives results.

The new combined kit includes:
· Team Development for building more cohesive intact teams
    § One- and three-day facilitation guides with videos and activities
    § Customizable PowerPoint® slides with updated branding
    § Annotated Facilitator Reports
  · Personal Development for building a culture of teamwork starting at the individual level
    § Half-day facilitation guide with videos and activities
    § Customizable PowerPoint® slides with updated branding

Contact me to purchase the new combined kit.

Existing kit holders – we have great news! If you are already a Team Development or Personal Development kit holder, you can access both solutions, with the updated content, via the product registration site. Make sure you have registered your kit to gain access to the combined kit.

New 360 Feedback Tool!

If you see the value of 360 feedback to develop teamwork, leadership development and self-awareness, I strongly recommend this product and this publisher - I've used their previous product for over 20 years and it's customizable and leads to great results.

Plan to attend the July 13 webinar, 360 Feedback: Its Exciting Future is Now, featuring the founders of Grow Strong Leaders—Meredith Bell, Denny Coates, Ph.D., and Paula Schlauch.

Denny will describe the innovations that have expanded the power of 360 feedback for assessment and development.

Meredith will pull back the curtain on the new online GSL 360 program. You’ll see the dramatic innovations that make it even more user-friendly for administrators, raters, and feedback recipients. It’s so easy that no certification is required!

Reserve your spot now for this one-hour event on Thursday, July 13, at either 10:00 am ET or 4:00 pm ET:
https://lnkd.in/gT3cU6Ri. When they ask who sent you, tell them me!

The webinar will be recorded, and the replay will be shared afterward, so be sure to register even if you can’t attend the live event.

I hope to see you there!

Support your Agile Workforce

We can all see that our organizations have changed and hierarchical structures have been replaced by matrixed teamwork. It is more important than ever to build productive and satisfying working relationships to build retention, engagement and results! The Five Behaviors profiles are powerful tools to do this - let me know if you would like a demo or want to put it in place in your organization.