Leadership Insights Fall 2016

ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE

leadership i n s i g h ts

FALL 2016

Dr. Sue Dustin

NEGOTIATIONS: CONFLICT OR OPPORTUNIT Y?

For many people, the word negotiation is associated with thoughts of conflict and stress.

As a result, we often enter into negotiations with the wrong mindset – that in order for us to win the other party must lose. Some negotiations are “transactional” – for example, buying or selling a house or car, or haggling with a street vendor over the price of a souvenir. These types of negotiations are generally one-time negotiations in which there is not a long-term relationship between the two parties. In these types of transactional negotiations, interests are often opposed and the parties are often negotiating only over price. Since an ongoing relationship is not involved, it is frequently appropriate to use a competitive approach – that is, an approach in which you try to win. Unfortunately, these transactional situations are often what comes to mind when most of us think of negotiation.

In reality, on any given day, most of us negotiate far more than we realize and most of these negotiations involve situations where there is an on-going relationship - this is known as integrative negotiation. Integrative negotiation can range from simple (deciding where to have dinner with a significant other) to much more complex negotiations with colleagues over work-related issues, to even extremely complex negotiations that involve strategic partnerships. When an on-going relationship is involved, the negotiation approach and strategy must change to be more integrative.

Richard Shell, in his book Bargaining for

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LEADERSHIP VIEWS

This issue: Jeff Wilson

Jeff Wilson is Senior Vice President of Global Total Rewards for The Western Union Company, which he joined in 2013. Prior to joining Western Union, Jeff was VP – Compensation for Walmart (2011 – 2013), and VP, Global Compensation and Mobility Manager at United Parcel Service (UPS). Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Illinois State University. He is also a member of World at Work, The Conference Board and the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM).

As you reflect on your leadership roles and experiences, what events were critical in your development as a leader? In other words, how did you learn to be a leader?

I was fortunate to work as a part-time supervisor at UPS very early in my career. In fact, I was serving in this supervisory role even while attending ISU full-time. As I reflect on that experience, I consider it and the early-career management positions at UPS that truly served me well. I also learned what it takes to be a leader by accepting many lateral rotations throughout my UPS career.

Who did you learn from? That is, did you model your leadership after others? How? I have worked for and with many effective leaders throughout my 30-year career with three different companies in three different industries and candidly, a couple of poor managers as well. I’ve tried to model my approach based on the proven characteristics of several effective leaders.

What would you say are the most important attributes of an effective leader? That is, what makes a great leader?

Impeccable integrity is first and foremost. I also feel strongly about the critical importance of communications, prioritization and direct-setting, as well as accountability to the people and processes that deliver performance excellence.

What are the most important “things” a leader does that contributes to the success of an organization?

Mobilizing teams to deliver results. Accountability to performance results with a respectful and supportive people approach is critical. The quote, “never mistake activity for achievement,” is especially true for expectations of leaders in today’s organizations.

What can organizations do to help develop future leaders?

Career development – especially with lateral rotations (early and often); take calculated risks on those who embody the desired behaviors and who have capacity to take on more; sometimes it’s important for future leaders to have the opportunity to “grow into [leadership] roles” of more responsibility, instead of always expecting the next leader to be “ready now” (for more responsibility)

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LEADERSHIP VIEWS (continued) What were some of the mistakes you made in leadership roles? What did you, or others, do to help you overcome and learn from those mistakes?

Candidly, I was too intensely focused on results at times and made mistakes with the people relationship aspects of leading a team. I learned the hard way not to impose my own personal expectations on all others. After a few early bumps in the road, I realized how much more could be accomplished with encouragement and by uplifting individuals and the team.

What are the biggest mistakes people make that “derail” them in their leadership roles?

Not sharing credit for successes or expecting team members to undertake objectives that the leader is not willing to model him/herself. John Hancock said, “the greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions.” This is a great creed to operate by in your organization or on your team.

What mistakes do people make that keep them from being noticed as “potential leaders” earlier in their careers?

Self-promotion in describing one’s own abilities rather than allowing consistent, demonstrated success with performance and results speak on one’s behalf; it’s amazing how the best “advocacy” for potential leaders actually comes from a team, department or organization itself What advice would you give to someone starting out—assuming he/she wants to have leadership responsibilities?

Observe; learn as much as you can from effective leaders; be humble. Volunteer for the toughest, least appealing projects; deliver more than is expected; always do the right thing, even when no one is looking (because observation is always occurring around us) What advice would you give to someone who is already in a leadership role, but wants to continue to move up?

Carry yourself as if you were already operating at the next level (of position or responsibility); for example, an aspiring manager would be well-served by carrying herself as if she has already been promoted to director. Volunteer to “fight the toughest fires,” because the opportunities that follow successful turn-around efforts can leap one to the head of the class quite quickly. Anticipate “where the puck is going 2 and 3 moves from now [Gretzsky]” and act accordingly.

Some of the readers will be college students. What advice would you give them (not necessarily related to leadership)?

Get involved; be active in extracurricular activities, projects, clubs and groups that create “early” opportunities to demonstrate leadership capacity/capability. Even leading volunteerism activities on campus can lead to notable differentiation when you are being assessed after your academic experience ends.

The time demands on leaders is significant—especially as one takes on more and broader organizational responsibilities. But, are leaders always using their time well? That is, are leaders spending too much time on issues where the marginal gain is quite small? How should they be spending their time?

Focus on the wildly important! Be clear about what will move your team, group, department or enterprise forward and ruthlessly prioritize on those objectives. If a leader is not spending at least 20% of his/her time on the most important goals, marginal or incremental gains will likely result.

This ruthless prioritization has a wonderful side-effect, as it creates great leadership development opportunities for others in the team or organization.

We hear a lot, and we talk a lot at the University, about the importance of interpersonal and communication skills in leadership roles. Could you share your insights about how and why those are—or are not—critical to successful leadership?

Words matter. Without exception, I believe the communication skills are THE most critical for leaders of today and tomorrow. In fact, I would offer that the written word in today’s society is a lost art. If I were to emphasize the single-most important attribute of successful leadership – regardless of the organization, industry or type of responsibility – it would be communications.

What else? What question have I left out that you want to answer?

One last characteristic of effective leadership is planning and organization. If you’re good at it yourself, it will propel you. If you are not, get top-notch help from someone who is. Either learn from them or find a way to engage them on your team so you can benefit from what can be accomplished with a planful, organized approach.

What are organizations not doing now (or enough of) that they should be doing more of?

Kick the traditional career ladder on its side. Millennials will be the largest cohort in the world in 2020 and they will expect to move more frequently throughout their careers. Rather than having that movement always occur between different employers, organizations should consider development paths that facilitate this more-frequent development with less “big jumps” between rungs of the career ladder.

Looking forward, how might the roles and responsibilities of leaders change?

Technology has and will continue to reshape how leaders and teams accomplish their objectives – especially in the social, mobile, digital domains. The most effective leaders will be required to make sense of information overload. Generational impact in organizations will also require agility (e.g. millennials and boomers working together; often with a millennial leading a group of older workers)

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RESEARCHUPDATE don’t ignore the

Dr. Tina Thompson

OVERQUALIFIED Much of your recent research focuses on the issue of “underemployment”. Walk us through what is meant by underemployment and why you find it so interesting.

Underemployment is the inability to find a job that matches your level of qualifications or desired employment situation. Where most people may initially think that underemployment only applies to education, experience, and skills, underemployment also includes wages, job status, and job field. Underemployment by education, experience, and skills is actually called overqualification, a subset of underemployment. Underemployment also includes other dimensions. You experience wage underemployment when you earn 20% less than you previously earned or when you earn 20% less than others who are in the same or similar jobs. People who want to work full-time, but can only find a part-time job, are experiencing job status underemployment. Job field underemployment occurs when you are unable to find a job in the field of your formal education and/or training.

Underemployment is a phenomenon that can have a favorable or unfavorable influence on work outcomes depending on the employee’s motivation. That is, underemployment can provide amazing flexibility, decrease stress, and improve work-life balance for one person but invite financial hardship, threaten psychological well-being, and decrease social support for someone else. I find this dichotomy fascinating, and I feel that it is important to help employers and employees understand how and why this occurs.

One of the issues that you raise in your research is that organizations, traditionally, are very reluctant to hire anyone who appears to be “overqualified” for a position; in fact, you suggest that overqualified applicants are viewed as “pariahs” of the applicant pool. Why is there such a bias against hiring someone who appears to be overqualified?

Employers believe that people who are overqualified are not, and cannot be, satisfied and will leave their jobs as soon as they find one where they are adequately employed (i.e., no longer overqualified). Since turnover costs are high, understandably, employers are reluctant to hire someone who may quit within a short time.

Research also shows that underemployed individuals, when viewed as a homogeneous group, have poorer job attitudes and behaviors. Employers expect underemployed people to be less satisfied, to turnover more often, and, overall to cause more problems at work. However, there are certain circumstances under which this is simply not true. Research on underemployment shows that un-

deremployed people who are empowered actually outperform other employees who do not feel empowered.

Your contention, then, is that this common perception about hiring someone who appears to be overqualified is not only mistaken, but may also works to the detriment of the organization, correct?

In my opinion, some people seek out an intentional mismatch where they actually prefer underemployment. Organizations that can identify and hire these individuals who are volitionally underemployed provide a win-win situation for the organization and the employee. As an example, let’s consider a progressive organization that hires someone who is underemployed by education, experience, and/or skills. The organization gains an employee whose education, experience, and/or skills exceed the requirements of the job.

It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, for that employee to check his/ her excess qualifications at the door, even if they desired to do so.

The employee gains an employment situation that matches his/her preferences. That employee is more likely to utilize transferrable education, experience and/or skills to demonstrate his/her ability to perform, to highlight the value he/she adds to the organization, and to ensure that he/she is allowed to remain. For the volitionally underemployed person, the intention to remain in an employment situation that matches his/her preferences is equally important to the organization’s desire to continue to employ them.

Could you address in some more detail why someone would chose an underemployment situation. You, in fact, use the term “volitionally underemployed.” Why would someone make that choice?

I know it may seem counterintuitive to think that people would choose to be underemployed. However, considering the manner in which people make career choices, it’s more common than you think. Most people who are voluntarily underemployed are looking for greater work/life balance and overall life satisfaction. It’s the parent who made adjustments to a thriving career and decided to work part-time. It’s the person who refuses a promotion that would add too much time away from home. It’s the high-ranking corporate employee who is not quite ready to retire but who seeks to reduce job stress by stepping down into a less prestigious position. It’s Millennials who turn down more lucrative offers so that they can remain closer to their friends and/or families. These are all reasons for voluntary underemployment that real participants have disclosed in my research studies. continued on next page

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NEGOTIATIONS: don’t ignore the

OVERQUALIFIED

(continued)

Unlike the old adage that those who can, do and those who can’t, teach, one should never assume that choosing underemployment is an indictment of low cognitive ability, poor job performance, or low job mobility. To the contrary, in order to be categorized as underemployed, the individual must have once inhabited or turned down a position that had a higher salary, more responsibilities, and/or required more education, experience, or skills. The people who are voluntarily underemployed are essentially saying, “I’ve been there and done that....now, let’s try something different” as they set out to find a job that better suits their preferences and to define their careers on their terms.

You use “Human Capital” theory as a way of explaining how and why hiring applicants who are overqualified may actually benefit the firm. Could you explain what Human Capital theory suggests?

Human Capital theory suggests that a firm’s overall productivity rests within the firm-specific skills and abilities of its employees. The premise is very similar to research which suggests that the people, the human resources, are the most important resources in any organization for it is through an organization’s human resource that that the organization can gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Organizations who identify and hire individuals who are volitionally underemployed are actively investing in their human resources and building their bench strength. These activities will increase the capabilities of the employees and, ultimately, the organization’s productivity.

One of the more interesting issues you raise is that organizations can’t just hire the overqualified and leave it at that. In fact, you are suggest that there are several specific actions that firms can take in order to ensure that they benefit from hiring applicants who are overqualified. Can you walk us through those actions and what the benefits to organizations would be?

Here, my coauthors and I are suggesting that organizations should do their part to create situations that entice overqualified people to remain. That is, while the job may not require the use of the full range of the underemployed individuals’ qualifications, organizations should provide opportunities for job enrichment. For instance, job crafting affords overqualified employees the latitude to adjust the manner in which they perform their jobs. It also encompasses opportunities to enhance social networks. Job crafting may also be utilized to decrease the undesirable aspects of underemployment for those who are not volitionally underemployed. That is, effective job crafting can be used to introduce new responsibilities such as mentoring opportunities and/or informal leadership roles that allow overqualified employees to display their excess qualifications. These activities will improve employee performance and organizational effectiveness as well as increasing the likelihood of attaining a competitive advantage.

Any final insights?

In my opinion, the most pressing issue in underemployment is our unwillingness to recognize that some people are underemployed by choice. By definition, people are only considered underemployed if they are not underemployed by choice. This definition is a carryover from our definition of unemployed where you are only counted in the unemployment rate when you are actively seeking employment. That is, people who are unemployed by choice are not counted in the unemployment rate. Underemployment is inherently different. These people are in the labor force and their motivations influence organizational outcomes and, as such, they deserve our consideration. Our failure to categorize and evaluate the underemployment as voluntarily or involuntarily derived will only perpetuate the myth that all underemployed individuals are the “pariahs” of the applicant pool.

CONFLICT OR OPPORTUNIT Y?

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Advantage, breaks integrative negotiation into two different categories: relationship negotiations and balanced concerns negotiations. Relationship negotiations are negotiations with family, friends, and work teams. In these instances, your best strategy might be accommodation. That is, it may be most beneficial or appropriate to help the other party achieve what they want whenever you can in order to continue to build the relationship. It is important to note that an accommodating style is not the same as compromise or avoidance—the accommodating approach is not simply “giving in” to the other party. It is, rather, a long-term focus on the health of the relationship with a focus on helping the other party get what they want.

Balanced concerns negotiations are complex, integrative

negotiations where the financial stakes are high. For example, salary negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, and business partnerships are all examples of balanced concerns negotiations.

These types of negotiations require both parties to be willing to share information, focus on shared interests, and explore possible solutions in order to be truly integrative. Thus, a collaborative approach is most successful in balanced concerns negotiation. By using a collaborative approach, the negotiators may be able to come up with solutions that enable both parties to benefit.

Does Your Approach Fit the Situation?

Research generally identifies five common approaches to negotiation and conflict resolution: competitive, accommodating, collaborative, compromising, and avoidance (Bargaining for Advantage provides assessment materials that help readers identify their default negotiation style). It’s important to understand your default approach to conflict handling. Sometimes you may find (continued on next page)

owledge. n k e m o s in a reakfast. G Grab some b IDAY RIGHT.

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FR R U O Y T R A T S WOULDN’T IT BE LOVELY?

How to Thrive in the Midst of Your Most Knotted Tensions and Persistent Problems November 4, 2016 | Dr. Mathew Sheep

What problems in your organization just keep coming back—resurfacing even when supposedly “solved”? What are the most stress-producing tensions that you face—how to be both highly innovative and commercially profitable, how to hold your company together while it is becoming more diverse and dispersed, how to foster autonomy yet with interdependence, how to balance competing interests of diverse stakeholders…the list could go on?

This workshop will provide hands-on exercises, provocative and interactive discussions, case examples, and cutting-edge research. The content will help you untangle the mess and even embrace the persistent tensions and problems of everyday life in organizations. We will explore design thinking and leadership perspectives as practical tools to make sense of it all and to lead through tensional “knots” and problems that seem wicked.

Mathew (Matt) Sheep teaches Organizational Behavior and Organizational Leadership at Illinois State University as an Associate Professor. He is an award-winning researcher who studies topics as organizational identity and identification, creativity and innovation, work-home balance/integration, and the rapidly-growing field of organizational paradox. Matt and his research colleagues just completed and published a 10-year study of an organization undergoing major changes that impacted their sense of identity. From this study, Sheep and his colleagues developed the concept of “organizational identity elasticity” as a set of dialectical identity tensions.

Matt’s careers prior to academia were as a commissioned officer in the U. S. Coast Guard, and as a senior minister in the Christian Church.

SESSION BEGINS AT 7:30am Breakfast: 7:30am | Session: 8:00am - 9:30am

I LLI N OI S STAT E UNI V E R S I T Y

NEGOTIATIONS:

o rg a n i z at i o n a l l e a d e r s h CONFLICT OR OPPORTUNIT Y?i n s t i t u t e

yourself in a negotiation before you’ve had a chance to prepare. In situations like this, we all tend to respond with our default conflict approach.

Depending on the type of negotiation, you will find that sometimes your default approach will be a strength and other times you will need to adapt it in order to achieve a better outcome.

More importantly, understanding our default style can help us adapt our negotiation approach in cases where our default style would be counterproductive. For example, if your default negotiation style is competitive and you’re going to buy a car, that is likely appropriate since competition is the best approach for a transactional negotiation. However, if you’re planning for a salary negotiation and your default approach is competitive, you will need to adapt your negotiation style to be more collaborative.

One of the best ways to get better at negotiation is to practice, practice, and practice.

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For example, many of us dislike conflict and adopt avoidance or accommodation as negotiation approaches. While appropriate in some cases, such approaches may be very counterproductive in others. We may even feel strong resentment towards the other party because we “gave in” on something important.

One way to develop other approaches (i.e., competitive, collaborative, or compromising) is to simply practice – and everyday life can present multiple opportunities for “practice” negotiations. For example, buying in bulk (food/ supplies for your home or the school sports team) can present opportunities to negotiate for additional price reductions or free delivery. The worst outcome is “No,” but you’ve given yourself the opportunity to develop another approach (and you might even save some money). Others may find it useful to read a good book on negotiations (e.g., Bargaining for Advantage) or taking a course on negotiation approaches.

It’s All in the Process Having a consistent way to approach negotiation will greatly improve your negotiation outcomes.

Successful negotiators spend considerable time in the planning process before the two parties sit face-to-face to conduct what we commonly think of as the negotiation. In Bargaining for Advantage, Shell provides a negotiation planning tool that helps you to plan for your negotiation in advance. This tool provides a consistent process to help ensure you are thoroughly prepared for your negotiation. One of the things that is most helpful about the tool is it forces us to think about the negotiation not just from our own perspective, but from the other party’s perspective as well. This is especially critical in complex integrative negotiation when you need to find creative solutions that meet both parties’ needs or the maximum benficial outcome.

Preparation helps us to enter the negotiation with confidence and with a plan and can help us do well even in the toughest of negotiations.

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Leadership books for people who don’t always like to read leadership books

book reviews

by Dr. Rick Ringer, Director - Organizational Leadership Institute, Professor There are a lot of leadership books out there. A search on Amazon for “Leadership Books” returns well over 30,000 titles (do we really need 30,000 books about leadership?). Of course, not all of those books are of equal value. Some are great, some are awful, and most are somewhere in between.

A lot of us, however, don’t always like leadership books. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to read about leadership—we just may not want to read about it in the “traditional” way.

This list is for you. These are books about leaders — people doing great things and helping others do great things — without being about “leadership.”

Boys in the Boat

by Daniel James Brown Simply one of the best stories about determination, teamwork, pride, perseverance, and leadership. This is the story of the 8-man rowing crew from the United States that won the 1936 Olympic Gold Medal. It is a remarkable retelling of their challenges, their failures, and their successes.

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

by Alfred Lansing

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton, along with his 27-man crew, began an expedition to the South Pole. Their ship, the Endurance, was trapped in the ice before Shackleton and his crew were able to reach their

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destination on Antarctica. The Endurance was eventually crushed and sunk by the polar ice—leaving Shackleton and his crew stranded in Antarctica. They all survived.

This book is a vivid account of the courage, heroism, and brilliant leadership that saved the lives of all 28 men that began the journey.

Team of Rivals

by Doris Kearns Goodwin Certainly one of the best historical studies of leadership ever written.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a brilliant historian and wonderful writer. Lincoln is, well, Lincoln. There are so many layers to Lincoln’s leadership: his intelligence, his courage, his patience, his humility, his vision, his humanity—and this list could go on and on. All of Lincoln’s leadership traits, talents, abilities, and gifts are on clear display throughout the book.

The Wilderness Warrior

by Douglas Brinkley

Few US Presidents have accomplished as much—and wielded as much power—as Theodore Roosevelt. This list of his achievements—both personal and political—is significant.

This book examines the impact that Roosevelt had on the early conservation movement in the US—with a specific focus on the growth of the national forests, national wildlife refuges, and the national park system.

It is a very insightful look at the role that passion, power, and persuasion play in leadership roles.

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