If you have not seen the musical, Hamilton, you need to add it to your list of future shows to stream or visit once Broadway reopens. Throughout the play, one very entertaining song repeats a quote from Aaron Burr to Hamilton that he needs to "talk less and smile more." Surprisingly, this is excellent advice for those with ideas to create lasting change in their organization. Most organizational changes, up to 70%, do not succeed because of a lack of buy-in (Kotter and Whitehead). Utilizing questions to help others gain new perspectives, is a high-impact method for change, regardless of the topic. Productive conversations to help others transition involve talking less by asking more questions and smiling more instead of convincing your audience with your suggestions. Setting the Stage for Your Change Idea Until a need for change is established, leaders will not likely consider a solution. So, after presenting data supporting the need for change, you should begin the conversation with a question. Merely starting a conversation with the question "I am curious, what is on your mind?" and following that question up with, "And what else?" to learn more is a powerful opening (Stainer). How to Talk Less and Smile More There are two basic types of questions to influence positive change. There are solutions-focused and problem-focused questions. Both types of questions are useful, although solutions-focused questions are more effective at increasing understanding and eliciting a positive response. Solutions-focused questions are "how-to" questions rather than questions that explore the causality or "why" types of questions. The reality is that no conversation is ultimately solutions or problem-focused, and coaches need to move between the two approaches to meet the leader's needs. The basic theory behind the finding is that focus on solutions to work toward change is more positive and energizing for those engaged in the conversation than focusing only on the problem. References: Grant, A. M., & O'Connor, S. A. (2010). The differential effects of solution‐focused and problem‐focused coaching questions: A pilot study with implications for practice. Industrial and Commercial Training, 42(2), 102-111. doi:10.1108/00197851011026090 Kotter, J. P., & Whitehead, L. A. (2010). Buy-in: Saving your good idea from getting shot down. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press. Miranda, L. (2015). Hamilton: an American Musical [MP3]. New York: Atlantic Records. Stanier, M. B. (2016). The coaching habit: Say less, ask more and change the way you lead forever. Page Two.

Fostering innovation within an organization is an increasingly important leadership behavior for every organization. No leader today is happy with the status quo and desires for their organization to stay exactly the same year over year. Leaders who want to foster innovation and be creative must be self-aware of their high degree of influence on the organization's innovation and be willing to take ownership of and action on new ideas when identified. Senior leaders too often fail to recognize that both their stated communication and their time allocation ultimately determine organizational innovation success. A Failure to Endorse Innovation The following are too often missing organizational signals for senior leadership's endorsement of innovation: "personal example, resource allocation, hiring and promotion practices, internal/external communications, company-wide metrics, strategy alignment, and organizational structure development" (Gary Oster). A Failure to Strive for Excellence Senior leaders need to be inspirational to influence employees to create new ideas and collaborate to listen to their ideas. Research has proven that a transformational leadership style can encourage innovation. When the climate for excellence is high, team innovation is enhanced. Transformational leadership is made up of four components: (1) influence, (2) inspiration, (3) intellectually challenging, and (4) individualized focus. In today's world of asking employees to do more with less senior leaders can fail to adjust strategy and begin tolerating less than an employee's best. "We will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence" (Vince Lombardi). A Failure of Focus When senior leaders fail to focus, it is costly and wastes time. Identifying worthwhile ideas requires seeing new patterns in the data everyone else in the organization is evaluating. As simple as this may appear, the challenge is that expectations shape perceptions. To break free from these perceptions, senior leaders need to avoid distractions and stay focused on the business. An extremely effective strategy for senior leaders is to "start keeping a journal of problems that you find to be personally interesting" (Michalko). Modern senior leaders too often are caught up in schedules that have them rushing from meeting to meeting, and they experience role overload. Innovation-related "recency bias" is a cognitive error to emphasize the most recent issue raised or the most often discussed problem instead of focusing on the most important. Using a journal helps the leader combat this bias in judgment by allowing for equal consideration of all the potential issues identified. Writing in a journal may prompt the senior leader to ask questions that will help expand and contract the problem's scope, and rewriting the challenge can help identify new patterns leading to innovation. References: Eisenbeiss, S. A., van Knippenberg, D., & Boerner, S. (2008). Transformational leadership and team innovation: Integrating team climate principles. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1438-1446. doi:10.1037/a0012716 Gliddon, D. G., & Rothwell, W. J. (2018). Innovation leadership (1st ed.). Milton: Taylor & Francis Group. Michalko, M. (2006). Thinkertoys: A handbook of business creativity. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press. Oster, G. W. (2011). The light prize: Perspectives on Christian innovation. Virginia Beach, Va: Positive Signs Media.

Why it Matters: Employee Retention = Customer Retention Ask any MBA graduate or newly promoted supervisor, What’s the company's greatest resource? Moreover, you will likely hear it is our people. It is widely accepted that behind every organizational outcome is an employee's actions. Employee retention is a measure of organizational health and can be a leading indicator of future company performance. I have observed key customer engagement metrics having strong statistical relationships (R Squared 0.736 to 0.833 and p<0.001) with employee retention metrics. One caution though is that just like with our temperature where 98.6 is considered healthy, 101 or 95 is not regarded as healthy (for most people) and the same is valid for employee retention. The symptoms companies and teams can experience are similar across industries and companies, but different types of issues exist when employee retention rates are both too low or too high. And unfortunately, unlike our temperature, there is not a single standard across all functions and industries that is considered ideal or “healthy.” In fact, I have read some to suggest a benchmark, but I would suggest only for general guidance because many other factors play into your company's specific “healthy” target. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. ~ Peter Drucker One of the most significant negative impacts of low employee retention rates is how it impacts company culture. An organization's culture exists within shared experiences and learnings of its employees. As employee retention decreases the ability of the organization to pass on learnings increases significantly due to lack of experience, fractured relationships and limited employee time due to a lesser skilled workforce. As retention rates drop considerably below healthy levels, the negative impacts are amplified, and companies can find themselves in a retention death spiral. In light of record low unemployment, a shrinking labor force participation rate, and growing economy in the US, there is a perfect storm forming for traditionally high retention companies. In these companies, often culture has and continues to be the single most important competitive advantage for the company, and the impact of this storm can be significant because they have not had to think about these issues before. And unlike with most storm warnings the very last thing these leaders need to do is take shelter. One of the often silent but deadly negative impacts of high employee retention rates is the existence of organizational blockers. Organizational blockers are employees that hold a position that another qualified individual in the organization could fill as a part of their career path. While having good to high performing employees in the same roles on your team for many years may sound like an excellent thing it comes with some of its own serious drawbacks. Most notably is keeping an "up and coming" high performer in another position from gaining the critical experiences needed or preventing someone who could do the job better from getting a chance. In today's world of constant change and need for innovation, organizations must continually be developing and growing their employees and evolving their businesses to stay relevant. A Perfect Storm is Making Landfall in the US - Environmental Factors Many different environmental factors such as, population shifts, societal and generational changes in views on work, and technology are aligning to create the perfect storm for employee retention challenges in the US. One of these environmental factors is today's emerging gig economy: gig e·con·o·my noun 1. a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. The 2017 Freelancing in America study by the Freelancers Union and Upwork estimated that nearly 57.3 million Americans – or 36 percent of the nation's workforce – are now freelancing, most of whom do so by choice (63 percent). This makes retaining a growing part of the economy a challenging proposition. Another one of these environmental factors is that baby boomers are exiting organizations at a faster rate with a smaller population of generation x to fill the gaps. If you have not already, you will want to check out the TedTalk by Rainer Strack: The surprising workforce crisis of 2030 — and how to start solving it now. Another environmental factor is that unemployment has remained at 4.1% for the past 5 months the lowest since late 2000 and is projected to remain under 5% through 2020 according to the Wall Street Journal. The new normal low unemployment is leading to increased opportunities for US employees. Another environmental factor is that American workers with jobs or looking for work has stood at 62.7% for the past year. In context, ten years ago in December 2007, the job participation rate was 66% (Bureau of Labor Statistics). While retiring baby boomers account for much of the weakness in participation, millions of working-age Americans are choosing to not participate in the workforce. Lastly, artificial intelligence and machine learning will create significant churn in the marketplace that is bound to increase turnover as employees reskill for the new jobs created. In a recent white paper from PWC titled Workforce of the Future: The competing forces shaping 2030 it’s predicted that employees will have to become more comfortable learning new skills and making career transitions. "Typical" careers, in which a person advances through the ranks of a particular field, will increasingly "cease to exist" as artificial intelligence and robots replace more human workers over the next few decades. Humans, it says, will have to become more comfortable learning new skills and making career transitions. Measuring Employee Retention Value and not just Cost Many measures should be tracked to help you understand the cost of employee retention. In addition to most visible replacement costs, there are others, such as productivity loss, workplace safety issues, and morale issues. Josh Bersin of Deloitte builds on this understanding and explains that employees are appreciating assets that produce more and more value to the organization over time, which helps to explain why losing them can be so costly. Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned In support of the point Josh was making, I want to highlight one addition less common but important measure you need to add to your list to calculate which is the “Cost of Vacancy.” This measure attempts to account for the lost value of not having an employee you need. At a minimum the simple way to calculate the direct impact is outlined below:​ Step 1: Find Annual Revenue Generated per Employee = Annual Company Revenue / Number of Revenue Generating Employees Step 2: Calculate Daily Revenue per Employee = Annual Revenue Generated by Employee / 365 days (or total number of days per year spend generating revenue) Step 3: Determine Revenue Lost per Turnover = Daily Revenue per Employee X Average Days Positions are Unfilled Step 4: Find Total Revenue Lost for All Vacant Jobs = Revenue Lost per Vacancy Job X Number of Vacant Jobs If you want to look even more closely and fully capture the impacts of lower retention, you should look into In Dr. John Sullivan’s article on the Cost of Vacancy Formulas for Recruiting and Retention Managers . Then working with Finance and senior leadership establishes actual costs and/or an acceptable rough estimate based on experience and intuition. The following is a list of the additional factors suggested by Dr. John Sullivan: Product Development and Productivity, Team Impacts, Individual Employee Impacts, Increased Management Time and Effort, Customer Impacts, Competitive Advantage, Your Company Image and Recruiting, and Out of Pocket Costs. Product Development and Productivity Team Impacts Individual Employee Impacts Increased Management Time and Effort Customer Impacts Competitive Advantage Your Company Image and Recruiting Out of Pocket Costs How to Have Immediate Positive Impact on Employee Retention So what can you do right now that can have an immediate impact on the likelihood of one of your employees leaving? Stay Interviews a.k.a. talk to your employees with intent to learn how they are doing and what you can do to help. A stay interview can be administered by anyone, but I prefer the leader because they need to develop trust and both the act of listening and then doing something about what is learned will build trust with their team. However, if you have a leader you do not trust, then you need to change the leader and in the meantime have someone that you do trust speak with them. The following are a few of my favorite questions I include in stay interviews: Positive Aspects of Working Here Why were you initially attracted to this opportunity? Do the same reasons exist today? What recognition have you received lately that makes you feel good? What part of your job do you find rewarding? Company Culture What do you enjoy most about working with your leader and the broader company leadership? Based on your experiences and interactions how would you describe our company culture? Strengths and Opportunities? Positive Improvements If you were granted three wishes and could change your job and/or this company what would you wish to change? Looking five years into the future where everything you ever wanted has come true describe what do you see? For some additional impact and accountability print off pictures of each employee that reports to one of your leaders. Ask the leader without looking at their notes to add the name of the employee, and one fun fact they learned from their stay interviews with their employees. Predicting Voluntary Turnover You may often feel like you are looking in a rearview mirror with most of these lagging metrics that tell you what you likely already know and that is you have a problem and opportunity with employee retention. Today though through the use of organizational diagnostics you do not have to settle for being reactive and can better understand what is creating reduced employee retention. I have used one of these diagnostics to understand better the employee stressors that were hindering employee engagement. Then using this understanding focus retention efforts and help reduce employee flight risk and in return improve employee retention. I want to hear from you with your questions, comments, and employee retention experiences. Also, if you need help getting started with employee retention or would like to learn more about how you can use organizational diagnostics, I would like to help.

Fostering innovation is a critical leadership responsibility. Leading in today's turbulent and digital marketplace requires more than cliché advice about out-of-the-box thinking. Leadership performance expectations are increasingly more complex. Leaders are expected to deliver low cost and high reliability, standardization and personalization, global consistency and local sensitivity, to name a few. Advances in technology are driving this evolution as leaders scramble to provide choices to stakeholders with competing priorities. The challenge leaders face is that our thinking is easily limited by the familiar. A closed mind is a hard thing to open. It is a classic "blind men and an elephant" parable problem where an individual perceives absolute truth based on subjective experiences. The conventional advice for leaders to think outside the box does not go far enough to produce significant positive change. Leaders looking to innovate need data-informed creative thinking. “There’s one thing worse than change and that’s the status quo.” John le Carre Debunking an Innovation Myth Innovation and analytics thrive in a change-based environment. A commonly held myth is that innovation comes from an epiphany versus hard work, personal sacrifice, and taking risks. The story of how Isaac Newton discovered gravity is a commonly used example of the widely held oversimplification of innovation. In reality, Isaac Newton used mathematics to explain how gravity works, rather than an apple falling on his head that lead to the discovery. The epiphany aspect of innovation is like when the last piece of a puzzle fits together. What matters is the ability for leaders to clearly see a problem with the talent to solve it rather than the epiphany moment. What Leaders Really Need Technology is collecting a deluge of information that has the potential to make or break any organization. In a 2019 Gartner survey of HR leaders, only 21% believe their organizations effectively use talent analytics to make better decisions. Descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and cognitive analytics provides leaders with technology-enabled data-driven models and visualizations within the innovation process. Leaders need the ability to leverage analytics in each of the four phases of innovation: Problem exploration: Answering what are the possible problems? Problem selection: Answering what problems should be solved first? Solution exploration: Answering what are the possible solutions for the selected problem? Solution selection: Answering what are the best solutions to the selected problem? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a GameChanger Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the world. AI promises to enhance leaders' decision-making speed by making sense of the deluge of data available today, better managing creative complexity and asking and answering questions better throughout the innovation process. Today, AI is already positively impacting each of the four phases of innovation. In one recent case study involving the solution selection phase, a team utilized AI modeling to identify highly-rated features important to 1000 stakeholders from more than 60 countries. The AI model proved to be 23% better at predicting highly-rated features than average community ratings. The case study suggested that AI could indeed help innovation leaders automate solution selection. The volatile marketplace rewards speed and speed creates time for leaders that can be used to generate more significant advantages. We can partner with you to develop a more future smart organization and get the workforce introduction to Artificial Intelligence and data analytics right. Partner with us and build increased organizational creativity and a culture that fits the future of the business you need. Contact us to schedule a conversation. References: Bartlett, R. (2013). A practitioner's guide to data analytics: Using data analysis to improve your organization's decision-making and strategy. McGraw-Hill. New York. BCG Henderson Institute. (2020). In conversation with Yves Morieux about complexity. https://bcghendersoninstitute.com/in-conversation-with-yves-morieux-about-complexity-858c7ccf7b30 Berkun, S. (2010). The myths of innovation (1st ed.). O'Reilly Media, Inc. Kakatkar, C., Bilgram, V., & Füller, J. (2020). Innovation analytics: Leveraging artificial intelligence in the innovation process. Business Horizons, 63(2), 171-181. Kanter, R. (2020). Think outside the building: How advanced leaders can change the world one small innovation at a time. Hachette Book Group, Inc. Ledet, E., McNulty, K., Morales, D., & Shandell, M. (2020). How to be great at people analytics. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/how-to-be-great-at-people-analytics Upcoming Webinar Series We know you are going to love these complementary leadership and professional development events! Organizational Talent Consulting’s webinar content is developed to help leaders meet today's complex workforce and digital challenges. Our free live webinars deliver superior leadership development based on the latest research with no travel costs. Participants interact directly in question-and-answer discussions with subject matter experts and authors on crucial topics to enhance expertise. Webinars are recorded and shared with participants for convenient on-demand access after the live event. Topics include leadership, strategic planning, coaching, change management, and more (register and learn more).

Research findings show that up to 95% of employees are actually unaware of or do not understand their organization's strategy. Failing to recognize the spatial gap between the door and the train's platform at the station can lead to personal injury. Likewise, too often in organizations, there is a significant gap between the created strategy and the realized strategy that puts the organization's performance at risk. Leaders can learn to mind the gap between created strategies and realized strategies by applying specific leadership competencies. Intelligence and self-assurance are essential thinking competencies for leaders to develop and apply to improve organizational performance. "It is impossible to formulate a strategy, let alone a "best" or preferred strategy, without engaging in strategic thinking" (Abraham, 2005, p. 5). Leaders need to have the intelligence and confidence to make sense of the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous reality that modern organizations operate within. Strategic thinking in an organization needs to be continuous, adapting to the shifting market and organizational capability. Empathy, energy, and humility are essential skills and abilities for leaders engaged in strategy. Taking a strategy created to realized requires effective communication. It begins with listening to employees for understanding the needs of the business and their motivations and potential concerns that strategy can produce. Also, in the absence of humility, leaders can incorrectly assume they have all the answers from their perspective, leading to significant gaps between created and realized strategy. Successful organizations are distinctive from their competition, and likewise, their strategies are unique to the culture and the organization. Distinctive means either behaving differently or doing something different than the competition. In addition to core leadership competencies organizations need to consider the organization's differentiated performance. References: Abraham, S. (2005). Stretching strategic thinking. Strategy & Leadership, 33(5), 5-12. doi:10.1108/10878570510616834 Hughes, R. L., Beatty, K. M., & Dinwoodie, D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader: Your role in your organization's enduring success. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. Pollitt, D. (2005). Curtis fine papers aligns strategy and leadership style with business priorities: Three pillars of development for top executives. Human Resource Management International Digest, 13(6), 33-35. doi:10.1108/09670730510619312 Thompson, J., & Cole, M. (1997). Strategic competency - the learning challenge. Journal of Workplace Learning, 9(5), 153-162. doi:10.1108/13665629710169611 About the Author: Jeff's knowledge and expertise include strategic planning facilitation, strategy design, driving change, and workforce strategies to achieve influence and grow organizations in the pharmaceutical, retail, and food and beverage industries. Jeff Doolittle is the founder of Organizational Talent Consulting in Grand Rapids, MI. He can be reached at info@organizationaltalent.com or by calling (616) 803-9020. Visit https://www.organizationaltalent.com/strategic-planning-solutions to learn more about strategic planning services provided.