Executive Briefing Topics

1. Leadership and High Performance Cultures -
Turning strategic intent into great performance
Too often, the inconsistencies of communication in organizations fail to translate leadership’s strategic intent into what’s required “where the rubber meets the road”. Too often, as well, the frontline people who are the “rubber” that meets the road face barriers that make it difficult, even impossible, to do what is required to deliver on Business Goals. This presentation asserts that a “high performance culture” is one in which employees willingly hold themselves accountable for great performance. It describes both the process and leadership practices needed to develop and sustain it. Participants will have an opportunity to assess the performance culture in their own organizations.
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2. Proactive Leadership and Safety
Raising the bar on safety management
In Canada, 3 workers die from an occupational injury or disease every working day, and more than 3000 are injured. One occupational injury occurs approximately every ten seconds worked. Unsafe work practices have severe consequences for both individuals and corporations. This presentation reports on the use of a model and methodology called Great Safety Performance to help leaders improve safety in a variety of settings. Actual projects results will be presented and discussed to demonstrate how Leading Indicators can be used to measure the effectiveness of safety leadership, maximize the Conditions for Great Safety Performance, and, provide evidence of safety due diligence. Participants will have an opportunity to assess Leading Indicators in their own organizations.
download pdf (GSP safety flyer)
download pdf (SPH safety flyer)

3. Leadership and Service Performance
Maximizing the “Employee–Customer–Profit Chain”
Econometric models have established a predictive relationship between employee attitudes, customer impression and revenue growth. The research demonstrates that as employee satisfaction increases by a given percentage, customer satisfaction and loyalty will also increase by a predictable percentage. In turn, revenue and profit will also grow by a predictable percentage, and, all within predictable time periods. The key is for leaders to create and sustain the conditions that enable employees to provide great service performance. This presentation overviews how leadership practices and the process for developing high performance cultures can be used to maximize the “employee-customer-profit chain”. Participants will have an opportunity to assess the sustainability of the service culture in their own organizations.

4. Organizational Stressors, Health and Business Performance -
Breaking the toxic cycle
Stress-related disorders cost North American industry an estimated $150 billion each year, with an annual loss of 550 million working days due to stress-related absenteeism. Concerned organizations spend millions of dollars on stress management programs designed to help employees cope and hopefully make them “feel better.” What these programs don’t do, however, is treat the “causes” of stress; they simply address the “symptoms.” Improvement actions can only succeed if they uncover the root causes of workplace stress and eliminate them. This presentation identifies a destructive cycle in organizations in which organizational stressors are a root cause of deteriorating employee health, lost productivity and escalating employee benefit plan costs. Participants will have an opportunity to assess the organizational stressors in their own organizations.
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5. The Performance Management Trap -
It’s not about the forms
Managers and supervisors often experience performance management systems as troublesome - a bureaucratic intrusion into their everyday need to 'run a business'. This briefing challenges this perspective. It's not about the forms. It's not about gaining control over people to extract more suitable performance from them. It is about managing the context in which work happens so that employees are enabled to perform at their best by systematically maximizing the conditions for great performance. Participants will have an opportunity to find out if their organization is in a “performance management trap”.
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6. Keeping Valuable Employees
Maximizing your “retention power”
An organization that has an overall environment that is energizing and satisfying, supportive and secure has “retention power”. That is, it can attract and retain productive employees. Every work environment consists of a set of variables we call the Conditions for Performance. These Conditions determine the degree to which an organization has “retention power” and the degree to which people are enabled to produce the results required by the organization. When employees are fully enabled, “retention power” is strong because they…

• Know What to do, are
• Able to do it, are
• Equipped to do it,
• Want to do it, and are supported by
• Interactions that foster trust, respect, integrity, collaboration and accountability.
  Participants will have an opportunity to assess the “retention power” of their own organizations.

7. Performance-based implementation of Training
Protecting your valuable investment
Don’t waste your money! Much of the training done with the intention of changing worker performance has little or no impact on organization results despite the fact that the quality of modern training is extremely high. The problem is one of execution. Research shows that less than 30% of training actually transfers to the job in a way that improves organization results. The majority of training does not provide a return on investment. In reality most performance issues have more than one cause and require more than one solution. As much as 80% of the time, lack of knowledge or skill (which requires training) is not part of the problem. This presentation outlines a performance-based approach which examines the “performance system” and designs implementation actions that address the answers to these critical questions:

• Is training the right solution or the only solution to the performance problem?
• Once any required training is done, will the performance system enable the use of new skills or are there barriers that make it difficult or impossible?
• What other actions, in addition to training, are needed to ensure that employee performance changes and organization results are maximized?

Participants will have an opportunity to estimate the likelihood that training will translate into improved organization results in their workplaces.

8. Shifting HR, OE and Training to Performance Consulting -
Forging strategic relationships with Business Units
Many HR organizations are looking for ways to make a greater contribution to the business of their organization. Some are even struggling to stay relevant. The answer is to develop an expanded role for the HR function that truly shifts its contribution beyond traditional services to making a measurable impact on organizational outcomes and results. HR should not be defined by what it does, but by what it delivers! To do so, however, more traditional Human Resources functions must shift to becoming a business partner. This presentation outlines how to address two key challenges in making such a shift:

• Developing a business/work process designed to partner HR with line functions in order to improve human performance in a manner that contributes directly to business goals.
• Managing the implementation of such a business/work process in a way that will shift the HR function from its current state to becoming a strategic business partner.
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