Tag Archives: Leaders

How to bond with your employees without compromising your authority

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By Sadie Williamson

For any company, success is largely dependent on how well workers perform. I’ve long since learned that employees who perform the best are almost always those who are most engaged with their projects and teams. But you might be surprised to find out that one of the biggest contributing factors to the motivation and good feeling of an employee is often their relationship with their manager.

In a study by the OC Tanner Institute, 37 percent of employees reported recognition from management as by far the most important factor for employee motivation. A similar study found that 79 percent of people who quit their jobs do so because they don’t feel appreciated.

The most successful managers understand their responsibility for employee engagement and recognize how good employee relations contribute to a flourishing company.

Unfortunately, evidence also shows that companies are not taking steps to equip their managers to handle the softer aspects of the role. A CareerBuilder survey found that 58 percent of managers reported receiving no training for their current position. While there is no instruction manual or rule book on managing and leading people, my time in the corporate world has taught me that there are steps that you can take to navigate this complicated responsibility. Continue reading →

It’s Okay to Be Good and Not Great

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by Brad Stulberg

What if striving to be great is what’s holding you back?

“Good is the enemy of great” is one of the most popular self-improvement expressions there is. It’s the first sentence of an international bestselling business book, the title of another self-help book, and a mantra that NFL superstar J.J. Watt has used in press conferences. It sounds appealing and rolls off the tongue nicely, but there’s a good chance it’s downright wrong.

We’re told that striving to be great and never being satisfied are necessary to meet the ever increasing pressures and pace of today’s world. It’s the only route to success. But what is it all for? What does success even mean? Rates of clinical anxiety and depression are higher than ever. Some experts believe that loneliness and social isolation have reached epidemic proportions. Two-thirds of all employees report feeling burned out at work. Surely this isn’t the kind of success that everyone is after.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh offers that true success means feeling content with the unfolding of your life. It is “finding happiness in your work and life, in the here and the now.”

Continue reading →

5 Smart Ways To Get Your Team To Step Up

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by  Robert Glazer

The next time you’re in a company meeting, look around the room. Chances are, two out of three people there isn’t happy on the job. This sobering thought comes from a recent “State of the American Workplace” survey by Gallup, which reported that only 33 percent of U.S. employees are engaged with their work.

What does it mean for a business to have a majority of its employees disengaged? Typically, teams will fall apart as disgruntled workers spread discontent. If no one takes action, that can lead to poor performance and a high rate of attrition.

According to Gallup’s calculations, there are high costs to disengagement—up to 34 percent of a person’s salary. That means a manager making $100,000 is wasting $34,000 simply because he’s not psychologically invested in the organization’s mission, vision or culture. That’s a compelling reason to reexamine your game plan for motivating employees. Continue reading →

The Three Principles of Wise Power

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If you know how to harness the power of your mind, heart and soul, you will be wiser in the face of surprises and disruption.

One of today’s damaging and common leadership misconceptions is the confusion of power with external control. All too often, we think of power as the ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others, or to force the course of events to conform to a predetermined scheme.

But there is an equally necessary kind of power, which is exerted inwardly. It turns out that power is as much about the ability to adapt to the world around us as it is about shaping the world. As the global business landscape becomes increasingly complex, our ability to develop our presence and gravitas has become an indispensable companion of authority.

A harmonious balance of inward- and outward-directed power is what I call wise power. It is the embrace of dualities that helps us meet the world halfway: in between what we want and what is offered to us. Beyond the illusion of full control, wise power is an art of surprise.

So what is wise power? Fundamentally, it is the ability to master the deeper dynamics – not just the surface phenomena – affecting the world, an organisation, a team, an individual, a conscience. Leaders developing their wise power train their attention towards the underlying forces shaping their environment and themselves. They are not as easily blindsided by threats or challenges. As their thinking is not beholden to entrenched prejudices and patterns of behaviour, they can devise more effective and more meaningful solutions. Continue reading →

Sr. Manager: Global Business Services- Outsourcing & Shared Services

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Achieve the next level of Performance!  Leading businesses are now using Global Business Services (GBS) to create alignment among their business units. Instead of operating numerous shared service centers and managing outsourcing vendors separately, organizations can integrate governance, locations, and business practices across the enterprise to achieve transformative performance improvements. In this way, GBS serves as a single enterprise organization or network that can drive collaboration and sharing to improve delivery efficiency, effectiveness, and business outcomes.

Work you’ll do

You along with dynamic colleagues will help organizations create a single enterprise organization or network of Shared Services and Outsourcing relationships.  As a Senior Manager, you are expected to contribute to the firm’s growth and development in a variety of ways.  You will be responsible for engagement management: Lead engagement planning  and budgeting; mobilize and manage engagement teams; define deliverable structure and content; facilitate buy-in of proposed solutions from top management levels at the client; direct on-time,  quality delivery of work products; manage engagement economics; manage engagement risk.  Senior Managers manage day to day interaction with executive clients and sponsors.  You will be expected to participate in Business Development, develop and maintain contact with top decision makers at key clients; organize and lead pursuit teams; participate and lead aspects of the proposal development process; contribute to the development of proposal pricing strategies.  Senior Managers must contribute to Practice Development & Eminence:  Develop practical solutions and methodologies; develop “thoughtware” and “point- of-view” documents; participate in public speaking events; get published in industry periodicals.  We invest in our people, as a Senior Manager you will be responsible for people development, performing the role of counselor and coach; provide input and guidance into the staffing process; actively participate in staff recruitment and retention activities; provide leadership and support for delivery teams and staff in local offices.

 

Qualifications

Required:

  • A minimum of 10+ years consulting and/or industry experience is required
  • Must have subject matter expertise and project experiences in Shared Services, Outsourcing and/or Offshoring industry, or multiple back-office functional optimization
  • Shared Services Feasibility Assessments, Implementations, and Optimization
  • Ability to analyze and apply outsourcing trends
  • Practical experience with the full lifecycle of functional optimization, BPO and/or shared services programs
  • Core vs. Non-Core Assessments
  • Understanding of vendor landscape
  • Ability to interact at all levels of the client organization
  • Business Development and Delivery experience
  • Bachelor’s Degree

Preferred:

  • RPA experience
  • Ability to work independently, manage small engagements or parts of large engagements
  • Strong oral and written communication skills, including presentation skills (MS Visio, MS PowerPoint)
  • Strong problem solving and troubleshooting skills with the ability to exercise mature judgment
  • Willingness to mentor junior staff
  • An advanced degree is preferred

If this opportunity sound like a great fit, please reach out to:

Larry Janis, Managing Partner, janis@issg.net

or

Jeff Bruckner, Partner, bruckner@issg.net