Will Data Help You Hire Better Employees?

The cost of hiring and retaining workers can approach 60 percent of a corporation’s variable costs, so it makes sense to manage this extremely well. Can big data and software help do this?

Nearly two-thirds of all workers are paid hourly in America and about half of them change jobs every year. Companies can save a great deal of money if they can better determine who will perform well and stay in these jobs.

Evolv is a company that monitors recruiting and workplace data in order to help companies decide who to hire. They have analyzed and studied millions of data points from more than 30,000 hourly employees.

Among their findings are that those who fill out online job applications using a browser that they had to deliberately install like Chrome or Firefox, perform better and change jobs less often than those who used Microsoft’s Explorer—the default browser that comes with most computers.

Evolv also determined that those who work in customer service at Xerox are more likely to stay on the job if they live near their workplace and can get there easily. And that those who belonged to one or two social networks stayed on the job longer. Using data such as this during the hiring process, Xerox was able to reduce attrition by 20 percent in an initial pilot program.

Using software and data to help determine viable candidates seems to make sense, but relying on algorithms alone can be a mistake. Like with any data, it can only be as good as the people who determine how to gather it, design the queries and analyze the output.

Think about your workplace. I’m certain you can think of people who may not have all the standard qualifications, educational background, and necessary experience that may be required to do the job. And yet, these very same people may be among the top performers. Are they only outliers who shouldn’t be considered or would it be a mistake to install a system that would deliberately miss them in the recruiting process?

My bet is that these people didn’t get the job through the normal HR channels because they likely would have been rejected by resume scanners and other data-driven software.

Data mining for people acquisition is not limited to hourly wage employees.

Google uses “people analytics” to better hire innovators who are so crucial to them as well as every other company. The way Google sees it, accurate people management decisions are the most important and impactful decisions a company can make.

And all these people decisions are based on data and analytics. They are applied with the same rigor Google applies to engineering decisions. It’s hard to argue with Google’s success: on average, each of their employees generate nearly $1 million in revenue and $200,000 in profit every year.

You can read more about Google’s analytical approach to human resources in an article by HR thought leader Dr. John Sullivan.

But the notion of putting such analytical decision-making above the relational issues human resources is typically relies upon seems ludicrous.

Aren’t these outliers more likely to be the very innovators many companies say they are really looking for?

So much of the hiring process is based on instinct and attentiveness to the relationship because human beings are not made up of ones and zeros. While our ability to do a certain task is something that can very often be quantitatively measured, our ability to work cooperatively with others, verbally communicate effectively, and generate creative solutions cannot always be quantitatively measured.

Think about how schools in China are now trying to teach out-of-the-box thinking so that their students can become more innovative like Americans.

There are so many subtleties in the hiring process that could ultimately miss great prospects through filtering software.

Let’s not lose sight of the importance of instinct, relational attunement and qualitative evaluation that cannot be determined via data and software analysis.

Grown-up Responsibility in the Workplace

DISCLAIMER: This blog post is intended to inform, entertain and hopefully inspire you to take action towards improving your own or your group’s behavior in the workplace. While the information is based on the experience and expertise of the author, he takes no responsibility for the accuracy nor for any damages incurred from deploying this information.

What happened to the notion of personal responsibility, and when did this no longer become a requirement for being a grown-up?

As a parent of young children I find I am constantly signing waivers so my kids can participate in various physical activities. All these legal agreements have similar language that essentially disavows those providing the service from taking any responsibility should my child get injured while participating in the activity.

These disclaimers are even found in preliminary report cards. Here’s what came home the other day with the grades for our middle schooler:

DISCLAIMER: This system is provided as a convenience. Grades and other information provided by this system are not official records and may or may not be accurate. Neither this institution . . . . or its affiliates accepts any responsibility for information provided by this system and/or for any damages resulting from information provided by this system.

These disclaimers are not limited to the activities of our children, of course. More and more of the products and services we purchase every day come with a limited liability notice so the manufacturer or provider cannot be held responsible should their product or service come up short or result in an injury or death.

I know this is done in order to protect organizations from lawsuits but perhaps this has gone too far. We have become such a litigious society that no one wants to be held liable in the case something goes wrong. The cost is just too high.

But, of course, things do go wrong. In fact, they go wrong all the time and as a result of so many waivers, it is difficult to hold anyone responsible.

My concern is that this lack of organizational responsibility is infecting each of us individually. How long before we send our children to school with a waiver for teachers to sign stating that in no way are we as parents to be held responsible for our children paying attention while in class. Absurd? I hope so.

What about the workplace? As an employee, you may want to be given full responsibility and then held accountable for the results you are asked to achieve. Instead, maybe you are given only partial responsibility, yet still held fully accountable. This can often make the task frustrating if not impossible to accomplish.

If employers gave their employees more responsibility, would they achieve more results? It seems obvious that some would and some would not. In the same way parents provide teenagers with increasingly more opportunities and responsibilities, the same method should be applied to employees. Provide employees with opportunities to achieve success a little at a time. There will no doubt be setbacks and mistakes, but there will also be growth and eventually greater results.

I think many employees would embrace more responsibility and do their best to fully meet the obligations so they could get more respect and career advancement opportunities. And with more responsibility comes greater challenges and opportunities for learning, which includes mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes, but how we deal with our mistakes says a lot about our character as well as how we accept personal responsibility. Denying our own contribution to what went wrong or blaming others is only failing to live up to what responsibility entails.

Responsibility requires that we each own our part in what goes wrong. And instead of attacking others who may have made a mistake, attack the problem that led to this and seek immediate ways of correcting the mistake without pointing figures. Then look for long-term solutions to avoid anyone making the mistake in the future.

And take responsibility not only for the task, but also for the relationship. We all need to work with other people to get things accomplished. Owning up to your mistakes will demonstrate your leadership aptitude as well as protect the relationship, which is vital for cooperation, collaboration and effective teamwork.

Taking responsibility has become all too rare in today’s leaders. If you want to stand out and continue to grow in your leadership capacity, begin by embracing responsibility and behaving like a grown-up.

Getting Along to Get Things Done

The election is over and it is time for our elected officials to get to work. The American people have spoken so our leaders can stop campaigning and start governing. And governing means doing what we elected them to do, which is to get things done.

Our politicians need to follow the lead of President Obama and New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie who recently overcame ideological differences to work cooperatively and deal effectively with the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. The so-called looming “fiscal cliff” now has the same immediacy and perhaps greater severity to more people’s lives.

Living in this especially contentious time, we as a people seem unable to have a meaningful and respectful dialogue in order to better understand each other’s position.

In their book You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought, But You’re Still Wrong by Phil Neisser and Jacob Hess, the authors present how a stanch conservative and a die-hard liberal can appropriately converse and agree to disagree.

“We have thus reached a point where conservatives are more interested in what Bill O’Reilly says about liberals than what their own liberal neighbors say about themselves,” write Neisser and Hess. “Likewise, many liberals ‘know’ about conservatives from reading updates on Huffington Post as opposed to getting to know actual conservative acquaintances.”

Rather than seeking to truly understand each other, we look for shortcuts from partisan media, make assumptions based on stereotypes and all too often take as fact what the pundits pontificate about. This leads to further misunderstanding and deeper resentment.

Authors Neisser and Hess explore the notion that despite political differences of people on the left and the right, many share a deep desire to work for the greater good of society. In a divided congress, it is essential that our politicians are able to do this.

It is also necessary for the rest of us to stop thinking in terms of competition between the blue and red teams, and start working together to build bridges of understanding. This understanding should demand that our elected officials no longer persist in simply holding firm to their positions, but instead find ways to compromise for the benefit of all.

Divisiveness cripples our politics, but also the rest of our lives. Only through working together in spite of conflict can we get to a shared place of understanding and growth. This requires being open and trying to really appreciate the other’s perspective. It requires having respect and taking responsibility for maintaining a positive relationship.

These traits of being open, listening for understanding, and working hard to fully appreciate the other’s perspective are vital to all our relationships. At work, assumptions you make about your colleagues will continue to keep you divided and conflicted. If instead you try to find common ground and see others for who they really are, you will be rewarded with a more congenial workplace where things are getting done.

Workplace & Leadership: This I Believe

In my work with organizations both as an employee and external consultant, I have learned (and continue to learn) many things over the years. Many of these have evolved or been entirely reversed, which is indicative of the fact that we are living at a very dynamic time.

For example, in a recent article in Harvard Business Review magazine, Michael J. Mauboussin writes about how organizations are so often using the wrong metrics to measure success. The continual focus on earnings per share instead of other metrics and statistics prevents these companies from fully understanding their business. It’s time for business leaders to adapt their thinking.

In this blog post, I thought I would simply state some of what I believe with regard to the workplace and leadership. Although these statements are likely to continue evolving over time, I believe they will retain a kernel of truth that should remain constant.

I am indebted to many great business leaders and theorists for these ideas and I apologize in advance for a lack of attribution.

• Most people want to do their very best at work.

• More autonomy for how the work gets done leads to greater employee satisfaction and higher productivity.

• Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them. They hire motivated people and inspire them.

• Character traits like zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity are common among great employees, yet are rarely advertised for or even looked for when seeking and interviewing candidates.

• Emotional intelligence may not get you the job, but it will undoubtedly keep you in the job and help you get promoted.

• Getting the right people focused on the right task is the most important objective for any organization to reach its goals.

• Focusing on employees first is what will make customers happy and this leads to happy shareholders.

• The role of a great leader is not to come up with great ideas. Instead, a great leader should create an environment in which great ideas can happen.

• Everyone has the capacity for leadership no matter the position.

• Leadership development should not be restricted to executives, but implemented throughout every level of the organization.

• Most of the billions of dollars companies invest in leadership development fall short of success because the programs are so heavily focused on data and assessment gathering and very little on people and processes.

• A high level of trust in the workplace is directly related to greater productivity, higher profitability and more engaged employees.

• Building trust and accountability are the most important things a manager should work on in order to get the most out his or her people.

• Praising workers in a meaningful way is a simple, yet highly effective means of raising employee satisfaction and overall productivity.

I welcome your thoughts and comments as well as other statements with regard to what you believe in order to extend the conversation.

Negative Emotions Impede Organizational Productivity

In your workplace you probably know a Debbie Downer or someone who is always able point out what is wrong and how the glass is really half empty.

Such a constant negative perspective can have a contagious effect on others and should be monitored so it doesn’t impede productivity throughout the organization.

Emotions, both positive and negative, can and do play a role at work even though we may think we are effectively holding them in check. This is because emotions impact our behavior—whether we want to admit it or not—and others see this behavior.

I grew up in a family where sarcasm was considered a high comedic art form. In reality, sarcasm is typically ridicule or mockery and usually used for destructive purposes. Sarcasm usually has some underlying and unexpressed emotion attached to it.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky considered sarcasm a cry of pain when he said it is “usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”

In a recent Harvard Business Review post by Tony Schwartz, he wrote how the negative emotions of a new executive at his company altered the corporate culture such that the entire organization was more negative. It wasn’t that this leader was only being critical, but he was so “singularly focused on what was wrong that he lost sight of the bigger picture, including his own negative impact on others.”

This emotional contagion resulted in others taking on these same negative feelings and sapping the vital energy from the organization. Ultimately, this leader had to be let go because of the ramifications his negative outlook had on the leadership team and overall employees.

I am not advocating wearing blinders to what is wrong within an organization. Instead, it’s important to seek out what is indeed wrong and then have an optimistic vision on how to improve things in order to get to a sustainable change.

We also need to keep in mind how our behavior and attitude can impact those around us. Even though we may not feel we are being overly critical when pointing out flaws in a product design or service procedure, others may feel it is. Sometimes this is only a matter of being more tactful in our delivery.

And this is not to say I mean avoid being authentic at work. Authenticity is vital to your emotional well-being, and emotional intelligence can help you understand and regulate your emotions as well as be aware of the emotions of other people. Then you can choose how to appropriately respond to any given situation.

Negativity is a powerful force and can spread quickly throughout an organization, especially if it is the predominant emotion witnessed in leaders. Many leaders will defend this perspective as they believe it is a powerful motivator, and it may very well be for some employees and for some period of time.

But in the long run and for the majority of people, a negative perspective will suck the energy and productivity from an organization. It will reduce employee engagement and it will harm the bottom line.

Is there someone in your organization draining it of energy? Does the leader exhibit generally positive or negative emotions and how have these influenced his or her management team and the entire organization?

Do the Work to be Lucky in Your Career

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”  — Seneca

I often encounter people I admire who seem extremely lucky in getting a great job, regular promotions, and seemingly unlimited professional success.

For the most part, I believe these people earned this fate through taking responsibility for their luck. What I mean by taking responsibility is that they are doing the work necessary to be lucky in their careers.

In psychologist Richard Wiseman’s book “The Luck Factor,” he studied thousands of exceptionally “lucky” and “unlucky” people. What he found was that those who considered themselves lucky tended to exhibit similar attitudes and behaviors. And those identifying themselves as unlucky tended to exhibit the opposite traits.

His 10-year study revealed that good fortune is not primarily due to talent, hard work or intelligence. It is the attitudes and behaviors you have that can help determine how lucky you are in your career.

Wiseman identified four principles that characterize lucky people. They:

1. Maximize chance opportunities and are especially adept at creating, noticing and acting upon these opportunities when they arise.
2. Are very effective at listening to their intuition and do work—like meditation—that is designed to boost their intuitive abilities.
3. Expect to be lucky by creating a series of self-fulfilling prophesies because they go into the world anticipating a positive outcome.
4. Have an attitude that allows them to turn bad luck into good. They don’t allow ill fortune to overwhelm them, and they move quickly to take control of the situation when it isn’t going well for them.

Wiseman recommends listening to your gut, being open to new experiences, remembering the positive in situations and simply visualizing yourself as being lucky. By actively practicing these principles, he says you too can find more luck in your professional growth and development.

According to a survey from the professional networking site LinkedIn, 84% of professionals believe in career luck. And 48% consider themselves to have better career luck when compared to other professionals.

These LinkedIn professionals attribute their luck to having strong communication skills, being flexible, acting on opportunities, compiling a strong network, and having a strong work ethic.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says 70% of all jobs are now found through networking. It seems obvious that the more you pursue the sort of people who can help you in your career, the higher the probability that you’ll meet them.

So what exactly is the work necessary to bring more luck into your career? I believe you can position yourself to be lucky in advancing your career by the following:

• Become more aware of what’s going on around you. The first step in any change begins with awareness. Not only of where you are, but who you are, and what you want to be. Practice mindfulness to be more conscious of the abundance all around you.

• Follow your passion and pursue those who fascinate you. Just because you’re doing one type of job, doesn’t mean you can’t talk to people outside of this niche. Don’t limit yourself just because you don’t have any experience or education in a certain field. If you’re passionate about something and have some talent in it, then find those who can help you nurture this.

• Open yourself to serendipity. A chance encounter is how so many great innovations and breakthroughs occur. Serendipity is the ability to take a chance occurrence—a surprising idea, person or event—and make creative use of it. Connecting the dots and seeing patterns can lead to novel ways of doing things and enterprising opportunities.

• Always be on the lookout and be ready to pounce. This is all about the preparation necessary to seize opportunities. It means having your elevator pitch always at the ready. And it means being able to pursue your interest when the right connections appear before you.

• Don’t count anyone out: see every encounter as potentially fruitful. You never know who you may meet who can help you take your career to the next level. Keep an open mind with everyone you meet to let them know what you’re looking for. Most people will want to help you if only given the opportunity.

• Seek out and listen to advice. Keep an open mind to others’ ideas and suggestions so you can expand your thinking. Learning should be a lifelong pursuit no matter where you are in your career. Ask questions and really listen in order to learn.

• Be nice even when others don’t seem receptive. Maintaining a positive attitude and showing appreciation is vital to attracting people and opportunities. People want to hire and work with people who are nice to be around. Make sure to demonstrate you are nice be around even when it may be difficult to do so.

• Reframe the situation. Your perspective can influence events. Crisis can mean opportunity. Getting fired from a job that is not aligned with who you are can lead to your finding the job that is. I’ve always believed that if you raise any glass high enough, it will look half full rather than half empty.

While acquiring knowledge, skills and experience are important to any career, luck also plays a significant role. And though many people think of luck as something passive that either happens or not, the lucky ones know it is much more active and requires work.

So do what’s necessary to adequately prepare and remain open to see the opportunities in front of you. Then you’ll have luck on the side of your own career development.

Increased Productivity Through Mindfulness

In this global economy with virtual meetings, social networking, and hyper-competitiveness, it is encouraging to see a large corporation choosing to embrace mindfulness. This mindfulness training is seen as a means to increase productivity as well as employee happiness.

Google’s popular course called “Search Inside Yourself” was designed to teach emotional intelligence through practical, real-world meditation. But this is not about sitting in the lotus position reciting “Ommmmm.” Instead it is a pragmatic approach for raising awareness in order to be more productive and happy.

Based on curriculum from his popular class which has been offered to Google engineers for the past five years, Chade-Meng Tan wrote a funny and practical book titled, Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace).

What I find particularly compelling about Chade-Meng’s book and course is that he applies these ancient principles in the 21^st century workplace. He believes that we can all achieve inner peace (and ultimately world peace) as well as become more productive in the workplace setting.

According to Chade-Meng, the course has been able to provide the knowledge and practices that can increase creativity, productivity and happiness. The book promises readers will learn to:

• Calm your mind on demand
• Improve your concentration and creativity
• Perceive mental and emotional processes with increased clarity
• Discover that increased confidence is something that can arise naturally in a trained mind
• Develop optimism and resilience necessary to thrive
• Deliberately improve empathy with practice
• Learn that social skills are highly trainable

This mindfulness is developed through learning the skills of emotional intelligence, which I’ve written about in previous posts. Based on the neuroplasticity of the brain, what we pay attention to gets done. What we think, do and pay attention to actually changes the structure and function of our brains. And like any training, practice is required for this to take full effect.

Mindfulness, according to Jon Cabat-Zinn, means to pay attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. This enables you not only to become calm, but also more and creative.

A successful practice supports reflection over reactivity, encourages feeling your feelings rather than acting on them, and opens awareness to what is really going on. This means slowing down to notice. Any mindfulness is good mindfulness.

If Google has seen fit to offer this free course to its employees for more than five years, they certainly must have vetted its overall effectiveness. Analyzing qualitative data such as happiness is extremely difficult, but I suspect Google has found that those who have completed the course are in fact more productive.

And I strongly believe happy employees are indeed more productive employees.

You can see an hour-long presentation about this by Chade-Meng in this YouTube video.

Working for the Best Companies

Fortune magazine’s recent “100 Best Companies to Work For” list made me curious as to how they determine such a list. I also wanted to know what traits these companies look for in potential employees.

The 100 Best Companies list was compiled through a partnership with the Great Places to Work institute, and they determine ranking based on the results from survey questions sent to a random sample of 260,000 employees from the 280 companies that participated.

To be eligible for the list, a company had to be at least seven years old and have more than 1,000 U.S. employees.

Two-thirds of the questions from the institute’s Trust Index Asseessment & Employee Survey were related to attitudes about management credibility, job satisfaction and camaraderie. The other third were based on responses to the institute’s Culture Audit, which includes detailed questions about pay and benefit programs and a series of open-ended questions about hiring practices, methods of internal communication, training, recognition programs and diversity efforts.

This is obviously not a list compiled based on popularity, exceptional salaries or who has the most celebrated CEO at a given time.

The goal of the list is to help “tie Trust Index metrics to your organization’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so that you can understand the relationship between your organization’s business goals and your employees’ workplace experiences.”

This sounds like a worthy goal, especially in light of recent news about the deplorable working conditions in the Foxconn factory in China.

Companies are are broken down into groups such as the number of employees and include sub-groups such as job growth, low turnover, no layoffs, percentage of women, percentage of minorities, and all stars—companies that have been on the list every year since its inception in 1998. This includes 13 companies like SAS Institute (3), Wegman’s Food Markets (4), REI (8), Goldman Sachs (33), Microsoft (76) and Nordstroms (61).

Best perks can include things like health care (14 of the companies pay 100% of their employee health-care premiums), child care, work-life balance, telecommuting, sabbaticals, and unusual perks (Google has nap pods and in-house eyebrow shaping).

In this economy perhaps most important is the category of who is hiring and most of these companies are now looking for talent. In fact, there are more than 56,000 openings currently available in these 100 companies.

Human resource and recruiting personnel at these companies say they are looking for candidates with traits like passion, attitude, communication skills, collaboration, an interest in learning and values that align with our organization.

Here are some examples:

At Google (1)“. . . in addition to looking for strong cognitive ability and meaningful work experience,” says Yolanda Mangolini, director, global diversity, talent & inclusion. “We also want people with interesting and unique accomplishments—sports, music, starting a business, or writing a book, for example. Cultural fit and diversity are very important to us.”

Whole Foods Market (32) say they hire for attitude and train for skill. “If we can find applicants who have strong customer service skills and high energy, and are enthusiastic about the organic and natural foods industry (and who love food), then they are a fit for us,” according to Janet Lapaire, CHRP team member service coordinator.

Adobe’s (41) VP of global talent acquisition Jeff Vijungco says, “We want candidates to share some of the biggest failures that have shaped who they are as a leader because we celebrate failures as defining moments in an employee’s professional development.”

Intel’s (46) greater Americas staffing manager Cindi Harper, says they look for candidates “with behavioral characteristics that extend beyond their specific educational training.”

Brent Bultema, director of recruitment strategies at Mayo Clinic (71) says “strong candidates are people whose personal values align with those of Mayo Clinic. Individuals who are collaborative, collegial, professional, respectful and passionate will be a good fit.”

“Cisco (90) looks for people who are strong collaborators and communicators,” says Bronwyn White, director of human resources. “We look for people with a track record of continuous learning and who are prepared to question the status quo within their discipline. We value flexibility and promote work-life integration while making sure that we focus on results.”

“I have the great fortune to work with people everyday that love what they do and where they work” says Jack McCarthy, a recruiter at CarMax (91). “We want to see that same passion from candidates throughout our entire interview process. My advice to candidates is along the same lines; figure out what you do really well and enjoy, and find a company that has the right culture fit.”

In addition to general technical competency for the specified job, all of these Top 100 Companies are looking for candidates who have behavioral competencies also known as emotional intelligence or EQ.

The EQ traits they look for can include things like interpersonal communication, collaboration, empathy, creative problem solving, and conflict negotiation and resolution. And these companies want people who fit in with their organization’s values and culture because that is what keeps them on this best companies list.

EQ traits are not easily conveyed via a resume and therefore it is vital that they be demonstrated throughout the interviewing process. If you are serious about joining one of these companies, keep this in mind as you navigate the opportunity.

Redefined Leadership through Greater Gender Diversity

Women have made great strides succeeding in every profession, yet still find little opportunity in the executive office and corporate boardrooms.

By 2009 women made up more than half of America’s labor force, however, only 12 women were CEOs or presidents of Fortune 500 companies and just 25 of Fortune 1000 companies.

Recently, former Ebay leader Meg Whitman was appointed CEO of HP and Virginia Rometty will soon take over as the first woman CEO of IBM. But these are anomalies as only 3.2% of CEOs in the 3,049 publicly traded companies analyzed by GMI were women.

According to a 2010 study, men hold 82% of seats in Fortune 100 corporate boardrooms and an even higher percentage in Fortune 500 companies. Women and minorities have actually been losing boardseats in large corporations since 2004.

A case could be made for increasing gender diversity not only to provide greater opportunities for women in business, but also to improve overall business.  This is not to say women necessarily make better leaders than men. I only suggest that the yardstick we use to identify successful business leaders may need to be recalibrated.

Leadership qualities in business include such personal behaviors as decisiveness, goal-directedness, and performance-orientation, and we should complement those with social behaviors like relational awareness, emotional intelligence, inclusion, empathy and intuition. These social behaviors are more often associated with women than men, but they can be learned by anyone.

Do the personal and social pressures women face make it harder for them to succeed as leaders in a corporate environment? Countless factors may come into play for women including, maternal and domestic priorities, greater societal pressures, double-standard for behaviors in the office, and the burden of maintaining physical appearances.

The fact is that standards in the business world are still made and enforced by men, and this makes it difficult for women to reach the top in any corporation.

This is especially unfortunate as studies from McKinsey and Catalyst continually find that companies in the US and Europe with a high number of women executives and board members perform better organizationally and financially.

According to Catalyst research, the 25 Fortune 500 companies with the best records for promoting women to senior positions have 69 percent higher returns than the Fortune 500 median for their industry.

The results of a 2010 McKinsey Global Survey found 72 percent of executives say they “believe there is a direct connection between a company’s gender diversity and its financial success.” According to the study, companies with the highest levels of gender diversity also had higher returns on equity, operating results, and growth in market valuation than the averages in their respective sectors.

Research on collective intelligence by Christopher Chabris at MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence and Anita Williams Woolley at Carnegie Mellon University found that the one predictor that a specific group will have high collective intelligence requires that at least half the chairs around the table are occupied by women.

According to Chabris and Woolley it is this superior social sensitivity in reading non-verbal cues and other people’s emotions, and fairness in taking turns that make the difference. Superior social sensitivity includes things like emotional intelligence, a holistic perspective, empathy and intuition.

These traits or “soft skills” are often marginalized or dismissed altogether in the business world. And though they are regularly associated as more feminine characteristics, effective soft skills have proven to be a powerful predictor of career success for both men and women.

Leslie Pratch is a clinical psychologist who headed research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business investigating the longer-term personality predictors of leadership. She found that gender-based expectations for behavior very much influence the styles and evaluations of leaders.

According to Pratch’s research, women are expected to display high levels of social qualities, including the need for affiliation, a tendency to be self-sacrificing, a concern for others, spontaneity, and emotional expressiveness. Men, on the other hand, are expected to show high levels of qualities associated with acting or exerting power, independence, assertiveness, self-confidence, and instrumental competence.

When applied to leadership, female-stereotypical forms of leadership are interpersonally oriented and collaborative, whereas male-stereotypical forms of leadership are task oriented and dominating.

At a time when strong leadership is so desperately needed, it may be necessary to redefine what it means to lead.

To be a successful company and thrive in a global economy, leaders need to lessen their grip on independence and domination, and embrace the distribution of power by engaging others in a collaborative manner to encourage diverse opinions that can bring about successful solutions.

This means hiring and promoting people who have both a task- and collaborative-orientation. In the near term, they may need to promote those people who primarily demonstrate relational intelligence, empathy and intuition to complement those who already demonstrate decisiveness, goal-directedness, and performance-orientation.

And this, more than likely, means hiring and promoting more women into leadership positions.

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Better Communication with a Direct Approach

An angry boss of an internet start-up firm is repeatedly coercing his employees to work long hours with the threat of losing jobs and the potential for vast riches if the company succeeds. If this man were to express his needs in a more respectful manner rather than through mandates, would he get more from his employees?

A recent report on NPR revealed that two-thirds of doctors say they do not discuss losing weight with their patients, even though the vast majority of Americans are obese or overweight. If doctors were clear and more direct about the dangers of being overweight, would this help their patients lose pounds and avoid diabetes?

A middle-manager in a major pharmaceutical company is talking behind another manager’s back with derogatory statements about her character, which undermines advancement opportunities for both. If this middle-manager were to speak directly to the other manager about the character concerns, would it help build a more honest relationship between the two and improve their advancement chances?

Communication that is aggressive, passive, or passive-aggressive cripples our ability to understand each other and work together well. And poor workplace communication results in conflict that can create uncertainty, resource hoarding, ineffective teamwork, and spreading rumors and gossip.

There are many descriptors for communication styles, but they typically fall into four categories: aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive and assertive. Rarely do any of us stay in one style all the time, but instead move in and out of them continually, though we may remain in one longer than the others.

When using an aggressive style there is manipulation involved. This often means hurting others through guilt or anger, and using intimidation and other control tactics. Though this style may be effective in the short term like when playing sports or fighting in a war, it will fail if used repeatedly in relationships in or out of the workplace.

The passive style of communication is one of compliance with the hope of avoiding confrontation at all costs. Using the passive style means speaking very little and questioning even less. With this style of communication very little is accomplished and needs are unlikely to get met. In the workplace, this can stifle understanding and get in the way of moving forward.

Those in a passive-aggressive style avoid direct confrontation by remaining passive, but then use aggression—often behind someone’s back—in order to get even. This harmful communication style also uses manipulation and may lead to office politics and spreading negative rumors. It is also the most difficult to detect and deal with because it switches back and forth so often.

The most effective and healthiest form of communication is the assertive style. We all naturally communicate in this way when our self-esteem is intact because we have confidence. When using the assertive style we are able to communicate our needs with clarity and often look for win/win solutions with others.

Surprisingly, assertive communication is the style people use least often. This is unfortunate because when using assertive communication you:

• express your wants, needs, and feelings clearly, appropriately, and respectfully
• use “I” statements
• listen well without interrupting
• feel in control of yourself
• have good eye contact
• speak in a calm and clear tone of voice
• have a relaxed body posture
• feel connected to others
• feel competent and in control

You may notice that many of these are associated with being emotionally intelligent and thereby being able to navigate your relationships with self-reflection, self-regulation and empathy.

Assertiveness is based on mutual respect, and it’s an effective and diplomatic communication style. When you are assertive, you’re willing to stand up for your interests and easily express your thoughts and feelings. It also demonstrates that you are aware of the rights of others and are willing to work on resolving conflicts.

With assertive communication, a boss’s urgency could be better communicated to motivate his employees in a healthy manner, doctors could make a clear and compelling case for overweight patients at risk of getting diabetes, and middle-managers could stop sabbotaging careers by being more straight-forward with each other.

If you’re in conflict with someone at work, notice what kind of communication style you are using as well as the other person. See if you can make a conscious effort to change your style to be assertive. You may find that the other person will begin to reflect that same direct approach back to you and help resolve the conflict.

Using this direct assertive communication style more often in the workplace can dramatically improve engagement, teamwork and productivity.