Greetings from India.
Remya was taking a lot of notes as her bosses practiced their tour explanations. She was plotting the flow and observing the gestures. Everything had to be perfect. The CEO’s of two of the largest companies in the world were going to visit and this was their opportunity to demonstrate their accomplishments.
After about 15 tries, one of the senior executives and I noticed that she was always the one with the correct answer to any of our questions. We looked at each other and decided to let her give us a tour and she how she did. She did amazingly. She had been studying and really nailed it. Later that evening, the other executive mentioned to me that Remya had a real “CBM” today. I asked what that was and he replied, a “Confidence Building Moment.” What a great concept.
As leaders, we have the ability to create CBMs whenever we want. We can make people feel bad about their mistakes or we can use them to build talent and confidence. We can let our people stretch into new assignments or hold them back. We can encourage our people to grow or we can smother them with administrative tasks.
What CBMs have you given your people this week?
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Do U “CBM”
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4 comments:
At Pratt in WPB I was given course in supervision; there was a test at the end with only one (supposedly) answer. You needed to pick the employees to satisfy certain tasks of the day to be completed; one included selecting someone to greet and provide a tour to one of our most important customers.
The task/person match-up selections varied by time allotment, experience requirements, skill level and wants and needs of the employees.
My answer showed one hour of extra time left. I selected a woman capable with passion and drive but not experience. I believe in developing people and they developing others etc.
I got high percentiles (90 Plus%) in all areas except what the observers called employee sensitivity----I flunked badly 35 percentile. The observers were stunned...they expected more from me....I explained my thoughts but was told according to the scoring requirement I could be a supervisor.
I left shortly after at 35 to become a quality manager. We put 40% more product through the factory by using lean, ace, six-sigma and a few others (before they were called the buz word.....) in 18 months using less space, higher quality, and adding only 15% MORE people to production yet 8% LESS people in the quality department because I had trust and respect in our production force. I certified production supervisors with what I call "integrity index" and allowed them to certify the material; who wants their integrity to be challenged especially when keeping that index high is in their job description.
We accomplished this with what I term, trust and respect for my own abilities to develop people in order for them to instill the trust and respect to develop people with the trust and....etc.
Maybe I'm just not good at "alphabet soup" Kinda like our President Obama.
It used to be "no time to drain the swamp when you are up to your butt with alligators"
now maybe no time to communicate how well you are doing when the next problem needs to be solved"
With the respect and trust he has, has time to rub-off on his team and so-forth he will find the time, though that time might be wasted ;instead social security problem might not get resolved.
This week? no..
A couple of months ago, during the second round of budget review, I decided it was time for JC, our IT manager, to take the next step. I told him that he would lead the review and answer all the HQ questions.
Although he had joined me during other reviews, we had a rehearsal and paid special attention on how to anticipate questions.
Review went very well for JC, Q&A flowed until a point where HQ guys wanted to go deeper on two and three year application deployments, that was not in our schedule, we looked at each other and I decided to jump in.
A few weeks after, we had another conference to prepare next year audit, I reminded JC that he would take the lead and he prepared everything and we had a quick rehearsal. A few hours before the conference, I had a schedule change and left early to the airport, so I told JC that I would not be in the same room for the conference.
The conference couldn't go better; all I said was 'hello' at the beginning and 'goodbye' at the end. I felt really satisfied with JC improvements and I was wondering how he was feeling. The answer came in shortly after in the form of an email: JC sent me a thank you note for the opportunity and the coaching.
I'm convinced that good luck is all about preparation and opportunity, so I feel satisfied when I "give" others good luck.
Love this and I think part of it's about emotional intelligence and strengths based leadership.
Was recently at our Learning Center in St Louis and had the pleasure of reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Strengths-Based-Leadership-Tom-Rath/dp/1595620257
Very refreshing approach to leadership and I agree heartily. Seems like for decades we've been focused on weaknesses and developing these instead of taking advantage of our teammates' strengths. CBM's should be used daily to help 'build up' our teams!
Hi, Mr. Bishop I enjoyed reading your story. I think your approach is a great one "We can make people feel bad about their mistakes or we can use them to build talent and confidence....”. You know Winston Churchill once said "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give" and you giving a CBM moment gave Reyma could push here to be a more productive individual thus boosting the company’s assets. Keep the wisdom coming.
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