Blog, culture and engagement | Ambition In Motion

by Grace Tripathy

Tue 2 August 2022

In the last couple of months, Sam’s team has grown immensely. They have good ideas, insights, and most importantly, engagement and the ambition to work together and take on more has spiked.

Sam’s team’s engagement levels have been increasingly growing, making his team and company much stronger and ultimately more successful. However, he doesn’t have any quantitative results to show this because of economic and regulatory factors that have impacted his team’s ability to achieve the results they set out at the beginning of the quarter (before the economic and regulatory changes occurred).

It takes time and effort to grow a team to reach success. If people aren’t engaged, then a team’s overall efficiency and success rates will reflect that. However, when a team is engaged, the company is open to reaching high levels of success.

In Sam’s case, the CEO found their lack of quantitative results concerning. Going into the meeting, Sam was excited to present their team’s growth and improvement as a unit. How can Sam approach this conversation with his boss, and show the team’s growth and improvement over the last couple of months, without quantitative results?

Here are some helpful tips when having a performance review discussion with a boss who doesn’t think you’ve accomplished much:

Mentally prepare yourself before the conversation

Before entering the meeting, tell yourself that regardless of how the meeting goes, it's just a meeting about one individual's perspective of your performance. Performance discussions are simply a way for you to receive information and feedback about how you're performing in a particular position within the company.

It isn't an evaluation of your personal worth or how you would perform in a different position or with a different company. Don't take the feedback too personally. Instead, use their comments as you see fit to improve at your job and interact with colleagues.

Think before you react

When receiving negative feedback for poor work performance, it can stir some emotions that can quickly surface. If this happens to you, do your best to take a deep breath and count to three before you react with an outburst that might make matters worse. It's best to take the time to listen to your manager's input and allow yourself a few days to process the information before reacting or responding.

If this is a case where your boss may not realize that your team is growing stronger and making improvements as a unit, but may not have reached a big goal yet, you can take a moment to show your boss that you hear what they’re saying, and then communicate the growth that is progressing between you and your team. At the end of the day, your boss may not empathize why regulatory/economic/any other factor outside of your control is impacting your team’s ability to perform, but it is critical that your boss understands that they are occurring and that your team is pivoting and making improvements given the circumstances.

Ask your boss for a performance improvement plan

If you believe there is validity to your manager's points, ask for an improvement plan that outlines specific goals and objectives. Make sure you align with your manager on specific ways to improve your work performance. This is a radical suggestion as typically performance improvement plans come from the top down. But if you specifically ask for it and craft it with your leader, you can control the outcomes in which you are being measured against versus them determining them for you (without their empathy or understanding of the situation).

The goals and objectives should be specific and quantitative with a specified time in which to reach them; the more specific, the clearer it will be that you have met the goals as requested.

Keep the communication open

Ask your manager if you could schedule some regular meetings with him or her so you can discuss your progress and the current state of performance.

Having regular communication with your manager is beneficial regardless of performance, but especially when performance is a concern.

One easy and effective way to boost your communication with both your boss and your direct reports is via AIM Insights.

Every month with AIM Insights, direct reports are sent to an automated survey from the AIM Insights platform. The average monthly survey is about 10 questions long and takes about two minutes each. The end of every quarter culminates with a 50-question survey, which is still fairly short, amounting to about 5-8 minutes each.

Seek training and education

Ask your manager for suggestions or training resources that could help you improve in the work areas that were identified as your problem areas.

This type of action demonstrates initiative and shows that you genuinely care about your work performance.

Another simple and easy way to demonstrate this initiative is via AIM Insights.

Similar to other HRIS systems, AIM insights has a task management and assignment feature. This allows you to determine priorities, importance, deadlines, and many other important factors in goal setting. More importantly, you can also assess your direct reports’ goals, and then enter your own feedback through the program on how these tasks were completed.

AIM Insights Executive Coaches can analyze all of this data as well and give you additional feedback on your goals.

Work with a career or personal coach

If you're struggling at work and genuinely want to improve, consider hiring a career or personal coach to help you.

Sometimes hiring a coach can be very expensive. One cost-effective way to get coaching is via AIM Insights.

Not only can AIM Insights seamlessly work with the HRIS systems you already have in use, but it can then proceed to add to your current processes. Direct reports are sent regular monthly surveys to complete, which are then reviewed by AIM Insights Executive Coaches. After this review, these coaches will then discuss these responses with you and your fellow managers to see how you can improve and what topics you should discuss within your direct report 1:1s.

These surveys are anonymous and are only between direct reports and AIM Insights. With anonymity, direct reports are more likely to give candid feedback, and more thorough feedback. The surveys do not require much time and are easy to take.

Why is it important to track employee engagement as a form of team progression?

To analyze employee engagement, you need to know what your organization is doing well and where you can improve. Knowing how to measure employee engagement is the jumping-off point for evolving your engagement strategy.

Some things are easy to measure because they are concrete, individual concepts: like the time it takes you to drive to work or how many red lights you can hit without being late. But employee engagement is a bit more difficult. It isn’t concrete, and it’s influenced by many factors.

Before we talk about measuring engagement, let’s review how we define it:

Employee engagement is the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward their places of work.

According to Gallup, organizations with highly engaged employees have 17% higher productivity and 21% higher profitability.

Bottom line: engaged employees work harder and stay longer.

Here are some key benefits of measuring employee engagement:

To build trust. Asking for feedback from employees shows that you care about their opinions and how they feel at work. Prove that you’re there to listen and you want to create the best experience possible.
To help everyone understand what’s going on. Once you have the data—share it with everyone—leaders, managers, and front-line employees. This gives everyone the opportunity to help contribute to a better culture.
To understand trends. Understand what’s happening in your organization by location, team, over time, or compared to industry benchmarks. Keep a pulse on how and where the organization is (or isn’t) progressing.

Engagement is the culmination of how team members feel about:

· Their camaraderie with other team members

· Amount of energy they receive from doing the work

· Whether or not the work compliments their strengths

· How much they align to the mission of the company

How can I showcase my employee engagement?

One unique element of AIM Insights is its ability to deliver data on a team-by-team basis in terms of engagement. E.g. it can inform me how engaged my team is which impacts engagement, productivity, and retention.

There’s no better way to ensure that your managers are the utmost prepared to lead at your workplace than the AIM Insights People Leader Certification.

After all, managers and leaders provide direction to staff and ensure they are performing at or above expectations. They need to have the ability to assess problems, manage situations, and provide sensible solutions.

Even if you haven’t had any big recent wins, tracking your overall employee engagement and metrics that showcase that you have been able to pivot, despite not many tangible outcomes yet, allows you to see your team’s progress over a period of time and show your boss that you are putting in the work to get on track.

by Malhar Lakshman

Tue 2 August 2022

It is exceedingly important to build an environment conducive to allowing team members to communicate with each other as well as with you, their manager. This is particularly important as it pertains to feedback.

In fact, according to Gallup, managers who receive feedback on their strengths and weaknesses show an 8.9% increase in profitability, while teams with managers that gave feedback report a 12.5% increase in profitability.

Feedback can truly add to the workplace. But while it is often a stated responsibility for a manager to give critical feedback, it is often difficult to encourage your direct reports to give feedback as well. This is a concept known as 360-degree feedback or two-way feedback. And you can alleviate this problem in a few ways.

Creating an environment in which Feedback is appreciated

Whenever you inherit or create a team, you should have a good 1:1 with any member of staff. This should help you not only inspire your team and show them your mindset but also allow you to set an environment in advance. While in this meeting, you should not hesitate to explain how you value both giving and receiving feedback, but also explain why you value this so much. The key is creating a culture where people feel enough psychological safety to give feedback – not a passive-aggressive culture that says the right words but doesn’t deliver psychological safety.

In addition to this, you should also model certain behaviors through your own work to help demonstrate your passion for this. Try doing some of the following:

1) Show interest in what your direct reports are doing- keeping a common image of you caring for their interests will help foster this environment where they don’t feel uncomfortable with conversations with you.

2) Accept your mistakes and acknowledge them- most people will feel more comfortable with telling someone if they’ve made a mistake if this person frequently acknowledges their errors. Own up to your mistakes!

3) Recognize the power dynamic- To your direct reports, you rank higher than them. There is an inherent power difference here, and it is natural for them to be nervous about calling you out.

4) Read Implicit Language- Before asking for feedback, it is important to figure out the ideal time and appropriateness of asking for feedback. Sometimes, when an employee is particularly stressed, they may not be able to give the most effective feedback.

5) Take Immediate Action- If you are getting feedback from your direct reports and proceeding to not act on it, do you really think that they will be giving you any more feedback in the future? Taking action on feedback signifies your dedication to your direct reports, as well as how much respect you have for them. Not acting on it would show that you either don’t care or don’t respect their feedback. Don’t be that person.

How to Receive Feedback as a Manager

Ironically, the same way that your employees should receive feedback is the exact same way that you should receive feedback. This is a process of grace and dignity. Here are some concepts to keep in mind while accepting feedback.

1) Be an Active Listener- Being an active listener means asking for details, presenting interested body language, and being polite. Leaning in, using facial language, and using hand gestures are all good examples of body language. It is important to let the other person speak, and not try to stifle them though.

2) Cross-Check Feedback- The more people that are saying a specific topic, the higher chance that this topic holds true. For example, if most of your direct reports are noting that you have trouble issuing deadlines, then this is probably a very discerning feature of yours. If a topic is mentioned by one direct report, it still is worth looking into, but the more frequent a topic is, the higher priority it should be.

3) Be Polite- This should go without saying, but at any point, if you feel that you are getting emotional, adjourn the meeting or discussion in favor of a later date. It is not a good idea to have emotions while in this discussion.

4) Ask for Examples- Anecdotes and specific examples can be very handy for the effectiveness of feedback. If an employee says that you have trouble delegating duties, it may be hard to understand how. But imagine if you received this feedback: “During the period of time that we were working with company A, you had a lot of tasks on your plate while we were unused, and you were frequently irritable.” That says a thousand times more than the former feedback.

5) Be Aware of What you Say or Do- The actions that you take while and after receiving feedback can dictate your entire reputation in the office. If you overreact in front of one of your direct reports, imagine how the rest of them will feel about giving you feedback.

Using Services to Garner Feedback

HRIS systems can often be your best friend in terms of getting feedback from your direct reports. Many of them can automatically prompt direct reports to submit their own feedback.

Ambition In Motion also offers a service known as AIM Insights, which can assist you with communication between you and your direct reports. Each month, a survey is sent out to your direct reports to fill out. The most important questions on this survey pertain to performance, task completion, and rigor over a period of time. These allow you to get candid feedback and then see how your direct reports feel about their tasks.

In addition to that, AIM Insights’ Executive Coaches will give further evaluation and feedback to you and your fellow managers. Feedback between you and your direct reports can also be anonymous, allowing your employees to feel safer expressing their opinions.

Sometimes, it’s not only scary to receive feedback or criticism but equally scary to give it. Understand the position that your employees are in, because at the end of the day, it is their company just as much as it is yours. You might organize them, but their day-to-day work will define the company. Let them make it a better place for themselves, as well as you and your fellow managers. Be empathetic, welcoming, and an active listener, and you will turn out just fine.

by Garrett Mintz

Sun 31 July 2022

The great resignation has impacted companies in many ways, and this has helped employees gain more leverage. Companies gave out inflated titles and higher salaries to lure workers, and organizations became less concerned about hiring people with frequent job changes in recent years.

More recently, however, rising inflation is causing fear of an imminent recession, and that volatility ends up diminishing the incentives for job-hopping. This may signal the beginning of a new post-great resignation era, but its consequences will continue to ripple out in the coming years. The companies that can successfully maneuver through this transition will be far better off than the companies that don’t.

The great resignation provided many companies with an opportunity for growth in the years to come, but this opportunity requires these companies to grapple with the effects of high managerial turnover. Many 1st or 2nd-year employees have had three or four different managers since starting work, and frequent manager turnover is a major drag on building an engaging and productive company culture.

Some of these new managers are newly promoted novice managers from within the organization that must learn on the job. Others are highly experienced outside hires that must learn the company culture with a new team. And some new managers were outside-hires without any experience managing and had to learn how to manage a team while learning the company culture as well. These all can cause friction at the company, but even a perfect hire requires more than a few months to establish a resilient team culture that can handle turnover.

Because of the transient nature of the great resignation, employees have become used to expecting to be working under a new manager every six months. This lack of consistent leadership has eroded the trust and sense of identity professionals have with their company and companies need to start addressing this now because this erosion will have lingering ramifications for years to come.

Why?

Because professionals that identify with their organization are what make an organization profitable. I am a sports fan, so I will create a football analogy. Most general managers in the National Football League (NFL) prefer to build the core structure of their team through the NFL draft. Rookies have relatively cost-effective contracts and are locked into those contracts for 4-5 years. Once the rookie contract ends, NFL teams determine if players are worth the massive salaries that come with paying a veteran player. Considering that the NFL has a salary cap, there is a finite amount of money that can be spent on each player, so teams that win are the ones that can get the most ROI from their players and their contracts.

Employees that identify with their company are like football players on their rookie contracts. They are creating a surplus for the team because they are providing more value than they are receiving. I am not suggesting that companies underpay their employees. But I am saying that employees that identify with the company in which they are working will go the extra mile to make sure their work is done right.

When those employees that identify with the company become leaders, this directly benefits the company. This increases their long-term value, and this effect is multiplied as their impact propagates across multiple direct reports.

Granted, not all employees that identify with the company are great leaders – there is typically training that is necessary for these new managers to become effective leaders.

But my argument is that leaders that don’t identify with their company will never go the extra mile to make sure that things are done right. They will follow core leadership tenets (if they are trained), clock in, and clock out. Going the extra mile just isn’t worth it for them because whether the company succeeds or fails isn’t a major factor to them. Under normal circumstances, this doesn’t usually matter. But sometimes a make-or-break moment arises, and team success, project success, or even company success will be determined by how one leader responds to a new situation.

How can you tell if your employees have formulated an identity within your company?

One early indicator is in the words people use to refer to the company, especially around people outside the company. If they refer to the company as “they” or “them” or “it” instead of “us” or “we”, that is typically an indicator that they don’t strongly identify with the company.

Another indicator comes from responding to bad news. If bad news comes out about the company or if the company is going through a particularly stressful time, how leadership responds will be a critical factor for employees. Are your leaders going to defend the company and work through it? Or are they going to deny responsibility and make excuses?

Employees that identify with their company will go far to defend their company and ensure its success. And when things are stressful, they will stay late, take on extra tasks, and do what is necessary to make the team succeed.

Why?

Because they identify the company’s success with their success. When the company succeeds, these employees feel a sense of pride in the company. When the company makes a mistake, they feel it and want to be better.

Therefore, companies that can build that sense of identity faster than others are the ones that will succeed.

Before spending any money on leadership training and developing managers into effective coaches, mentors, and leaders, companies first need to focus on making sure that all their managers identify with the company and know how to inspire that same mindset in their direct reports.

The best way to increase the number of employees that identify with the company is by increasing engagement.

Engagement is the combination of:

· The amount of energy employees receive from doing the work

· The connection employees feel to the mission of the company

· The camaraderie employees have with fellow employees

· How much the work complements their strengths

Your plan for increasing the amount of employees that identify with the business should start with increasing all four categories of engagement.

Therefore, if you are a business owner or leader, the questions you should be asking yourself are:

· What are we doing to ensure that employees are getting into flow when they do their work? Are we scheduling meetings at inconvenient times for them? Are we creating bottlenecks for them from doing the work that they get energy from doing? What are we doing to help our employees manage their time? How can we help them spend more time on tasks that give them energy and optimize the time for the work that detracts from it?

· What are we doing to connect the mission of the company to their own personal mission and goals in life? Are we tactlessly shoving the corporate mission down their throats? Or is our mission an uninspired afterthought that’s rarely shared? Are we adequately meeting the mission on our end or is there a blind spot between leadership and the rest of the company?

· Are we creating an environment in which employees can have a good time together on non-work tasks? – Most companies are pretty good at this but this is only ¼ of the equation for boosting engagement.

· What are we doing to identify our employees’ strengths and how are we putting them in a position to succeed? Are we only promoting strong individual contributors to management roles, even though the skills set to be successful as a manager is different than the individual role they were performing?

Companies that can set a plan to boost engagement faster than other companies will become an ideal destination for prospective employees that want to work for a company in which their employees will work hard for them because they identify with the company.

by Grace Tripathy

Wed 27 July 2022

Congratulations, you’re in charge of your team now! The dynamic at work is changing, but don’t worry, you got this!

If you want your direct reports to respect you, it’s important that you first show them the respect that they deserve.

Actively treating all of your workers fairly, demonstrating your value for them through your words and actions, listening to their concerns, and addressing them as best you can will set you apart as a leader that they can trust and respect.

Remember, you are in charge of your direct reports! The respect that you receive from them must be earned, and it begins with your ability to be confident in your actions and malleable to your new work environment.

At Ambition in Motion, we understand the struggle of inheriting a new team of individuals who have already been working together, whether they previously knew you or not.

How to ensure that your inherited team is successful

Inheriting a team can be very successful if you focus on the right ways to channel its energy.

The first step when inheriting a team is to thoroughly assess it by holding a mix of one-on-one and team meetings, supplementing with input from key stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and colleagues outside the team.

You’ll also look at team members’ individual track records and performance evaluations. After you’ve interviewed everyone, discuss your findings with the team to ensure that you are all on the same page in regards to overall performance and your shared goals, individually and as a team.

Winning over a team is hard. Any time employees have to adapt to a new manager, they may take time to open up and be vulnerable.

No matter how sensitive you try to be, and how much you try to avoid new manager mistakes, just being there might send shock waves through the team.

Don’t take it personally: It’s just part of how teams work. The introduction of any new person, including a leader, requires the group to do a collective reset. With that said, you can control how your employees get to know you as their manager (and you should).

Here are five tactics that help you win them over:

1. Go First

Don’t hang back waiting for the people on your team to come meet you: Seek them out.

Remember, one of people's top desires is to be seen and acknowledged (by their boss, but also, generally). When you start, do some managing by walking around. Introduce yourself, and ask questions.

It may be awkward at first, but introducing yourself and meeting people on their own turf is a great first step to build trust and credibility with your employees. Sometimes meeting people on their own “turf” in a virtual setting can be meeting with them at times that are convenient for them.

2. Understand the Team Culture

Culture; the beliefs, assumptions, and unwritten rules that guide and inform people’s behavior; is a sensitive thing. Seek to understand before being understood.

No one likes being told their culture is wrong or broken (even if it is). For example, maybe people have a habit of chatting across their desks all day long, and you think it’d be an instantly more productive environment if these conversations were moved online or set times on the calendar.

While your goal is to help everyone work more efficiently, they’ll view you as someone who’s instantly upending their workflow.

A smart move is to wait and talk to team members about how you think this shift will be helpful. Instead of rushing to make cultural changes, take the time to make everyone feel like they’re a part of them.

3. Roll Up Your Sleeves (and Get to Work)

First impressions really do count, and people like to know their boss cares. Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and help out when the group’s under pressure to deliver and you can help.

In other words, be the leader who sits with the rest of the team for a bit and stuffs envelopes on the day of a major mailing, or help carry event materials from the service elevator along with everyone else. This is what AIM Insights calls organizational citizenship or work that needs to get done but isn’t expressly assigned to you.

Taking part in that “no-fun but highly necessary” team activity shows you don’t believe you’re too good to do the hard, mundane tasks. It’ll make talk about being a team player that much more believable because you’ve already demonstrated you mean it.

4. Create a Team Goal List

A goal list is a descriptive and compelling statement of the beliefs and values that guide the team’s actions. Over time, you’ll want to take what you learn about the team and their work to form a goal list, and invite them to help you create it!

A goal list is best when followed by a mission statement that motivates the team each day, and helps them feel more like a unit.

5. Celebrate the Team’s Accomplishments

School yourself on the history of the team by asking each person what he or she’s most proud of to date.

Ask about successes (and failures) and how those events have impacted people. As you learn about those things that make the team strong, celebrate them. For example, are there any traditions to acknowledge top performers or hit new milestones?

If everyone enjoys team lunch after something major is wrapped or getting a shout-out in a department-wide email, don’t feel like you have to establish new ways to mark success.

Not just that, but people will remember what you do first. If you begin by acknowledging what’s working, as opposed to leading with criticism, people will be more excited to work with you.

So how can you stay organized in effectively getting your newly inherited team to buy in?

There’s no better way to ensure that you are the utmost prepared to lead at your workplace than the AIM Insights People Leader Certification.

Taking the time to become AIM Insights People Leader Certified will evaluate how your leadership is impacting the quantitative output of your team paired with the qualitative sentiment of working for you as a leader, and overall it will show prospective employers why you are a great leader of people.

Supplement your own managerial abilities with compelling employee coaching and counseling skills, and watch the incredible results.

This team-building seminar will teach you step-by-step, how to produce a manager's "game plan" to ensure you'll reach your goals and objectives. Plus, find out how to maximize every employee's best abilities and uncover strengths and talents you never knew existed!

Many managers fear that they won’t have time to complete a Leader Certification during their work-life routine.

However, the AIM Insights People Leader Certification acts as an active learning program that goes along with your day-to-day management tasks and provides you with a leader certification that will boost your career benefits.

In a lot of ways, the program saves you time because you can move around to different modules of the learning program as they fit into your schedule at work; instead of having to prepare for 1:1’s with your direct reports, you can use the AIM Insights People Leader Certification program to help you prepare.

Click here to learn more about the flexibility and benefits of receiving an AIM Insights People Leader Certification: https://ambition-in-motion.com/blog/how-to-get-a-leadership-certification-at-your-own-pace

AIM Insights Challenges Experienced Leaders to Do Better

At Ambition in Motion, we don’t control the execution of one’s work but we can have an impact on how people interact with each other at work.

The AIM Insights People Leader Certification is designed to teach you powerful employee coaching methods to open up a multitude of opportunities and solutions for any situation your career takes you to and monitor the impact of your leadership.

This is what makes the AIM Insights People Leader Certification the only management certification that both teaches and evaluates a leader’s ability to impact their team over time.

Winning over a new team, especially a well-established one, takes humility, patience, and restraint.

And remember, even if you’re the most experienced leader, it never hurts to brush up on your skills by seeking out advice and taking the AIM Insights People Leader Management program to advance your career with an official certification in your management skills.

Most important of all, give the team time to get to know you and accelerate the process by being curious and appreciative.

by Malhar Lakshman

Wed 27 July 2022

A good workplace is only as strong as its weakest link. In most cases, the weakest link in a work environment is actually poor communication and engagement. Miscommunication costs many companies large sums of money and can severely damage their employee retention as well.

In a research report conducted by Expert Market, 28% of employees cite poor communication and engagement as the main reason for not being able to deliver work on time. They also found that miscommunication can cost companies with one hundred employees an average of $420,000 per year. In 2019, 80% of the employee workforce reported feeling stressed in their positions due to poor communication.

How does workplace engagement really help in the workplace?

Gallup has much to say about poor workplace communication as well. Higher employee engagement can translate into 24% better retention, 21% more profitability, and 17% more productivity. In addition to that, 90% of employees rank good communication as key to a healthy work environment.

So how do you boost your engagement rates? Especially in a time when more and more direct reports are looking for remote work? Even if you may be socially distanced, there is no reason that you cannot be properly communicating and engaging within the workforce. AIM Insights can assist with all of this, along with so much more.

How does AIM Insights Work?

“At first I was a little nervous getting started (using AIM Insights) because I didn't know how my team would receive the survey. But after using the tool, I am learning so much more about my team that I didn't know from our previous 1:1 conversations and it is helping me connect with my team on a deeper level.”

These words were used by the Vice President of Sealed Success of Zendesk, a software-as-a-service company. AIM Insights utilizes a horizontal mentorship strategy combined with additional employee feedback programming to assist with communication. Ambition In Motion has realized that there is a science behind the relationships between mentors and mentees, and why some are successful, and some aren’t.

The main goal of Ambition in Motion is to work with companies to connect their people together in order to improve engagement, productivity, and retention.

Not only can Ambition in Motion seamlessly work with the HRIS systems you already have in use, but it can then proceed to add on your current processes. Direct reports are sent regular monthly surveys to complete, which are then reviewed by AIM Insights Executive Coaches. After this review, these coaches will then discuss these responses with you and your fellow managers to see how you can improve and what topics you should discuss within your direct report 1:1s.

How can you improve communication between you and your Direct Reports using AIM Insights?

Every month, direct reports are sent an automated survey from the AIM Insights platform. The average monthly survey is about 10 questions long and takes about two minutes each. The end of every quarter culminates with a 50-question survey, which is still fairly short, amounting to about 5-8 minutes each.

Each of these surveys will have questions pertaining to the following categories:

· General Overview questions- introductory questions acquainting executive coaches with direct reports

· Performance Questions- Questions discussing Performance and Task Completion and Rigor over the past 30 days

· Goal Questions- Questions asking about some of the Direct Reports’ Goals over the near future

· Work Orientation Questions- Questions regarding how an employee views work

· Job/Career/Calling Outcome Questions- Questions pertaining to how a direct report views work, and what they hope to achieve from their occupation

· Engagement Questions- Questions asking about how an individual feels about their involvement at work

The end goal of these questions is to get a better understanding of what you should discuss within your 1:1s. Proper communication can allow a tailored 1:1, which is just overall more beneficial to both you and your direct reports. Tailoring these periodic discussions allows you to eliminate answers to questions you both already know and have a healthier conversation.

How can you improve your Direct Report Engagement using AIM Insights?

AIM Insights Executive Coaches can analyze all of this data as well and give you additional feedback on your goals. For example, take this anecdote into account:

Imagine you have a direct report; let’s name him Bryce. He is an entry-level direct report, recruited straight from his university, and is still fresh to workplace dynamics. Bryce has been noted to prioritize his work/life balance, being an avid golfer and about to be married. You recognize that Bryce has a large amount of potential, and thus, plan to give him more responsibilities. Therefore, you give him direct control of an extensive project requiring constant attention and feedback and cannot be accomplished within 40 hours a week. Instead, it would require about 80 hours of attention to complete.

To your dismay, instead of showing excitement and anticipation with this new responsibility, he declines the opportunity and hands in his two-week notice to Human Resources. Despite the fact that you had been giving him more out-of-work opportunities, and more and more responsibilities, he chose to leave. What went wrong?

If you had more information about your direct reports, you would have been able to see how you made a mistake interacting with Bryce. With Ambition in Motion, the monthly surveys and executive coaches would have alerted you to the fact that Bryce is a Job Oriented Professional. Consequently, it is frustrating for him to lose control and freedom over his life. He would not have been the best candidate for this role, which would be better suited to someone who is Career Oriented.

It’s okay to have trouble with communication. What matters is how you address these flaws. AIM Insights can make a large difference in how you fix this.

by Grace Tripathy

Thu 21 July 2022

There’s no better way to ensure that you, as a manager, are the utmost prepared to lead at your workplace than the AIM Insights People Leader Certification.

However, this certification cannot be easily gained. Not only will this program test your skills and knowledge of management, and allow you as much or as little time as you need to practice these skills within your workplace, but you will also be challenged to learn more and be the best manager that you can be.

The AIM Insights People Leader Certification requires you to engage your direct reports in your certification process to prove your qualifications as a leader.

This is how the AIM Insights People Leader Certification is the only management certification that both teaches and evaluates a leader's ability to impact their team over time.

How does the AIM Insights People Leader Certification engage your direct reports?

To get the aim insights certification, you need to have at least 75% positive response rates from your direct reports.

This means that your employees will take surveys assessing their feelings about their task performance, team cohesion, team productivity, organizational citizenship, engagement, and how they feel about you as their manager.

If the scores come back low, it reflects on the manager. However, if your direct reports like you and your management skills, they’ll give you great feedback, resulting in great scores.

This is how the AIM Insights People Leader Certification drives accountability from managers.

However, don’t let this scare you. Although this management certification must be earned, the AIM Insights team is ready to help you learn how to be the best manager that you can be in order to earn this certification.

Employees want to feel like they belong, like their work matters (to the customer, team, or organization), like they have the tools and skills to do the job competently, and they are positioned for stability and relevance.

In addition, many employees want to feel like they are growing and making progress.

With these needs and concerns of the direct report in mind, let’s go through some general questions that you should be sure to ask your direct reports during regular check-ins to create a better and more inclusive employee experience.

1. How would you like to grow within this organization?

It’s important to figure out what growth opportunities each employee needs for optimum development, whether through coaching, mentoring, visibility, or challenging work assignments.

You might also ask, “What role would you love to do (whether it exists or not), and what can I do as your manager to encourage your development in this company?”

2. Do you feel a sense of purpose in your job?

Managers can play a meaningful role in helping employees understand how their roles contribute to the organization’s broader mission. But helping employees feel a sense of purpose must go deeper than this to tap into what’s purposeful to employees about their job and connects with their own values.

3. What do you need from me to do your best work?

The most effective managers respect and care about their employees by knowing them as individuals, acknowledging their achievements, having performance conversations, and conducting formal reviews.

These supportive behaviors build a work environment where employees feel safe experimenting with new ideas, sharing information, exploring development opportunities, and supporting each other.

As you explore what your employees need to do their best work, you might also ask, “What is your biggest frustration, and what action can I take to help you deal with it? What have you been trying to tell me that I’ve not been hearing? How would you like to be recognized?”

4. What are we currently not doing as a company that you feel we should do?

The best managers let workers know that their opinions count by promoting open dialogue and providing honest feedback on employees’ opinions and suggestions, supporting good ideas, and addressing unfeasible ones.

By asking individual team members what they feel the company could be doing better, what market opportunities the organization might be overlooking, and how to leverage company resources more effectively, you’re validating that their thoughts matter.

You might also ask things like, “Are you satisfied with our current work from home/hybrid policy? If not, what do you think needs to change? How satisfied are you with the tools you use to communicate with your colleagues when working remotely?”

5. Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

To determine whether your employees are focusing on their strengths, you might also ask, “What is the best part of your job? Which of your talents are you not using in your current role? What part of your job would you eliminate if you could?”

When managers make checking in with these five questions a regular part of how they interact with their employees, it helps ensure that people feel seen and valued. And when managers help individuals on their teams feel that way, they’re more likely to be rewarded by employees who become advocates for the department and organization, no matter how long they stay.

The AIM Insights People Leader Certification program is for managers who strive to become elite and grow to more senior roles in their careers. So what’s next?

To recap, this management certification cannot be gained. It has to be earned. And the work and relationships that you build with your direct reports will show to your certification, including the following:

● You need at least 75% positive response rates from your direct reports

○ What they think about you as a leader

○ Performance review from your direct reports

○ Good scores/feedback

● Your direct reports sign off on your certification by evaluating your performance

● AIM Insights People Leader Certification drives accountability from managers

Begin by scheduling an interview to see if you qualify - you must be currently leading a team in a management role in order to qualify for the certification!

Proceed to set up AIM Insights for your team, and review your monthly data with an executive coach who guides you on how to improve your overall performance management scores.

Click here for more information: https://aiminsights.lpages.co/aim-insights-people-leader-certification/

Become AIM Insights People Leader Certified after 12 months, and reap the benefits as follows!

● Understand how your performance as a leader compares to other leaders

● Leverage this data (and certification) as a basis for negotiating a bonus, raise, or promotion

● Gain insight into why certain team members are performing better than others

● Receive executive coaching guidance to help you gain certification

● Showcase your certification to prospective employers and on LinkedIn

● Distinguish yourself as an incredible people leader from others vying for similar opportunities as you

The AIM Insights People Leader Certification is the only management certification that both teaches and evaluates a leader's ability to impact their team over time.

by Malhar Lakshman

Thu 21 July 2022

Recently, I wrote an article on the differences between a professional degree and a people leader certification. While most people understand how a graduate degree is earned, such as the coursework, thesis, and potentially work-study, not many people really know the processes behind a leader certification program due to its novelty. Recently, Ambition in Motion pioneered their own AIM Insights People Leader Certification, and we’ll be giving you a little more information on it as well.

How to sign up for the AIM Insights People Leader Certification

To be able to enroll in this program, you need to be leading a team. Direct Report reviews are a critical part of this program, and without them, you will not be able to receive the full benefits of the certification. In addition to this, you must have a certain level of engagement and response rates from your direct reports from the previous six months. You will also need to enroll in the AIM Insights program. If you believe you fit these metrics, feel free to schedule an interview with CEO Garrett Mintz at your convenience.

What is included in the AIM Insights People Leader Certification Program?

· Unlimited Email Executive Coaching Guidance

· Conversation Prompts for your 1:1s

· Certification

· Customized monthly executive coaching videos and guidance

The First Tier of the AIM Insights People Leader Certification

There are three tiers to the AIM Insights People Leader Certification- Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. These can all be worked on concurrently, but each tier has certain requirements and unique features.

The first tier of certification allows you and your direct reports to get an understanding of AIM Insights and its platform. Ideally, this should take about six months, but can be retaken if necessary. The main goal of this tier is to become acquainted with AIM Insights but also to increase communication between you and your direct reports.

Direct report responses are requested by the platform once a month, asking about goals, personal feelings, and feedback about the team. The primary requirement to pass Level 1 is to have at least 75% of your direct report responses within a 6-month period. For example, if you were managing ten direct reports, the highest amount of reports you could have would be 60. Ideally, you should be aiming to get 60 every period. However, the minimum number of responses required to get a Level 1 Certification would be 45.

This certification signifies that you have been consistently measuring your team’s productivity throughout the period, as well as their sentiment. Level 1 also demonstrates how you have assisted your team and how they feel about their cohesion, productivity, and engagement.

The Second Tier of the AIM Insights People Leader Certification

The second tier of certification can be worked towards starting on the fourth month that you are using AIM Insights. This is to allow you as a manager to work through an acclimation period for not only yourself but for your direct reports as well. Level 2 of the AIM Insights People Leader Certification not only focuses on consistent measurements, but also on Goal setting, Productivity, and Positive Sentiment.

To earn the Level 2 Certification, you will need a 75% response rate from your direct reports, just like in the Level 1 Program. However, you will now need to demonstrate this response rate over a period of 12 months or over 12 of whatever period length you have decided upon.

Your productivity metrics are evaluated, and must meet our average manager threshold in at least two of the following four categories:

· SMART Goal Quantity- At least 70% of your goals should be rated as SMART

· Goal Relevancy- At least 70% of your goals must be rated as relevant to team goals

· Goal Impact- At least 70% of your goals must be rated as either medium or high impact

· SMART Impact Score- Each of your direct reports must have a SMART Impact Score of at least 30, with a maximum possible score of 108- This is flexible!

A Smart Impact score is designed to have each of your Direct Reports have at least 1 medium or high-impact goal per month. A 50/50 Split allows for 30 points. For goals accomplished, each medium goal is worth 2 points, while a high impact goal is worth 3 points.

For those of you who may also be unfamiliar with the term SMART, it is a mnemonic devised by Management Review to guide in the setting of goals. SMART describes the following descriptors for any goals that are set by management:

Goals should be:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-bound

In addition to this, you must achieve at least 80% in 3 areas of your sentiment review from your direct reports, or an average of 75% across all of these metrics. This requires at least 6 cycles of data, and only cycles with at least a 75% response rate will be counted in this.

A level 2 Certification signifies that your team has higher productivity than the average manager and shows more concrete proof of how well you work with your team. With more quantitative data supporting this such as SMART Goals and tracking, combined with more qualitative data, your certification is much stronger.

The Third Tier of the AIM Insights People Leader Certification

The final level of the AIM Insights People Leader certification is the Level 3 Certification. Similar to Level 2, this combines goal setting with productivity and team sentiment. However, in comparison to Level 2, Level 3 focuses on having even stronger productivity.

Like the Level 2 certification, you need to have at least a 75% response rate from your direct reports. You can’t improve without any feedback! Once again, similar to the Level 2 Certification, your productivity is measured, but using higher numbers.

· SMART Goal Quantity- At least 80% of your goals should be rated as SMART

· Goal Relevancy- At least 80% of your goals must be rated as relevant to team goals

· Goal Impact- At least 80% of your goals must be rated as either medium or high impact

· SMART Impact Score- Each of your direct reports must have a SMART Impact Score of at least 30, with a maximum possible score of 108- This is flexible!

Your sentiment rating needs to also be higher for every cycle. You now must have an 85% average across all of your metrics, with only cycles with more than a 75% response rate counting for this. The end goal of this certification is that your team’s productivity is now over 5% greater than the average team’s, and that you are also having better sentiment scores than the average manager.

All in all, the AIM Insights People Leader Certification can offer a lot to both you as a manager, as well as to your team.

by Grace Tripathy

Wed 13 July 2022

Do you have big dreams of advancing to a management role within your company, becoming a CEO at a top firm, or maybe even owning your own business one day?

Having the proper leadership and management training will help you turn those dreams into reality.

Solid leadership is important in all organizations and companies, especially in today’s fast-paced business world.

Without solid leadership, companies fail to build trust with their customers and employees, which could result in uncertainty and inefficiency, and subsequently, lead to some unfortunate consequences.

As a manager, what kind of relationship would you like to have with your employees … Leader? Friend? Teacher? Mentor?

… the person who motivates them, guides them, encourages them, and makes them want to win?

Forward-thinking managers have discovered the same skills coaches use to create winners in athletics work in a business setting as well.

What is the AIM Insights People Leader Certification?

There’s no better way to ensure that your managers are the utmost prepared to lead at your workplace than the AIM Insights People Leader Certification.

Begin by scheduling an interview to see if you qualify - you must be currently leading a team in a management role in order to qualify for the certification!

Proceed to set up AIM Insights for your team, and review your monthly data with an executive coach who guides you on how to improve your overall performance management scores.

Become AIM Insights People Leader Certified after 12 months, and reap the benefits that come with being an incredible manager.

Evaluating the effectiveness of leadership within this program helps leaders identify strategies and techniques that can be utilized to encourage the durable effectiveness, performance, and productivity of the organization and its members. Management training that comes with the AIM Insights People Leader Certification program provides feedback that managers can turn into immediate actions.

The AIM Insights People Leader Certification is the only management certification that both teaches and evaluates a leader's ability to impact their team over time.

Learn at Your Own Pace with AIM Insights

The flexibility of an online leadership certificate is a huge career benefit. It enables you to spend time on your professional development when it suits your busy schedule.

You can learn at your own pace and access on-demand materials anywhere, anytime. Developing good online learning habits will help you manage your time and stay focused.

Many managers fear that they won’t have time to complete a Leader Certification during their work-life routine.

Self-paced learning is perfect for anyone with a busy work schedule or hectic family life. It allows you to fit your learning in pockets of the day that suit you. Learning at your own pace can mean a lot more than just being able to study at night or after work.

And most importantly, you can change the due date of your own surveys so that you can go as fast or slow as you want to through the AIM Insights People Leader program. On top of this, demonstration videos can be fast-forwarded or slowed down!

Why is the AIM Insights People Leader Certification worth your time?

Make your team members want to give 110% for themselves, and for their team.

You'll instill the kind of energy and enthusiasm that makes productivity soar.

How?

Supplement your own managerial abilities with compelling employee coaching and counseling skills, and watch the incredible results.

Transform your work group into a cohesive, coordinated team!

Imagine how much your team could accomplish if it functioned as one well-organized unit. This team-building training shows you how to pull everyone together with a shared drive and purpose.

Invest just one day of your time, and the benefits of employee coaching will change your life as a manager.

You'll witness an exciting synergy among your employees, mutual support within your group, a sense of interdependence and exchange, and, most of all, incredible productivity from your team as a unit.

To recap, these are the top benefits that the AIM Insights People Leader Certification provides, accommodating your busy schedule:

· Understand, on your own time, how your performance as a leader compares to other leaders

· Utilize the AIM Insights program performance management assessments to gain insight into why certain team members are performing better than others

· Conduct performance management during your regularly scheduled time at your workplace and use the certification program as a guide

· Prepare for 1:1’s with your direct reports using surveys and guides provided by the AIM Insights People Leader certification program

· Receive executive coaching guidance on your time, at your own pace

· Leverage this data (and certification) as a basis for negotiating a bonus, raise, or promotion

· Showcase your certification to prospective employers and on LinkedIn

· Distinguish yourself as an incredible people leader from others vying for similar opportunities as you

by Malhar Lakshman

Wed 13 July 2022

More and more senior leaders are pushing for increased credentials from their managerial staff. In 2020, 43% of US firms had business managers holding an MBA or some form of advanced business degree. This is almost twice that of the percentage in 1980, which was 26%.

Recently, companies and schools have been creating certification programs in lieu of these postgraduate programs. These include Cornell’s business strategy certification, Harvard’s Executive Education Certification program, and Ambition in Motion’s AIM Insights People Leadership Certification. How do you choose what type of education you want? How do you choose between an MBA and a people leadership program?

The costs of an MBA vs the costs of a Certification

It goes without saying that college is expensive. An MBA holds true to this statement. According to Experian, the average tuition cost of an MBA is $66,300. However, this is an average and falls victim to outliers. The online MBA program from the University of Texas Rio Valley is relatively inexpensive $17,000. However, the MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania costs $161,810.

MBA Today lists that among the top 30 MBA programs, the cheapest one would be $55,727 for a full-time two-year program. This means that working will be much more difficult due to academic commitments. In addition to tuition and administrative fees, students need to pay for textbooks, supplies, any equipment (such as laptops, computers, electronics), and transportation. If you are required to relocate to study in this MBA program, you may also need to pay for moving costs and rent. Out-of-state students may even need to pay additional tuition.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, over 50% of graduate students take out student loans for an MBA program and complete their programs with an average of $74,707 in debt.

In contrast, a leadership certification program rarely leaves the 4-figure mark at all. According to CIO, the costs of these programs range from $1800 to $5700, while the leadership coaching for executive training ranges between $150 an hour to $500 an hour. There are generally no textbooks or supply costs, and most definitely no moving costs. Certification programs have the capability to be held completely online.

In addition to this is the cost of lost wages. During a full-time MBA, it is difficult to hold a job, and you will often have to teach a course at the school you are matriculating in. At the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, full-time MBA students are required to teach managerial and financial accounting courses to undergraduate students. This holds true for many other schools.

Under a certification program, you can actually hold your position and continue work as normal, since it will allow you to practice skills that are taught in these courses. Therefore, you don’t lose any wages.

Applications

Applying to an MBA program is completely different than applying for a certification program. An MBA program has a much more comprehensive application process and runs the risk of applicant rejection.

Most MBA programs require either a Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT for short, or a Graduate Record Examinations, or GRE. Some schools actually require scores for both examinations. Applicants are also required to provide letters of recommendation from managers, colleagues, and mentors, and potentially provide references as well. In addition to this, undergraduate grade point averages are taken into consideration. Finally, to complete the first stage of the application, applicants are then required to write a statement of intent, which is similar to an undergraduate college application essay.

After all of this is completed, applicants then need to wait a few months, and may have the opportunity to be granted an interview. Most MBA programs require an interview before officially accepting a student. The acceptance rate for the interview stage ranges from 34% to 75% in the top 20 MBA programs. The averages end up being a 62% rate of acceptance. After a long and grueling interview, you have between a 10% and 40% chance of being accepted.

A certification program is much easier. Simply verify your identity, provide billing information, and register for the course. If there is an executive coaching portion to the program, your company may have to meet some performance metrics as well.

Time Commitment

The average MBA program takes about two years to fully complete, assuming that it is a full-time program. Online MBAs or Hybrid MBA programs can take a while longer. During this time, expect a majority of your day to be occupied by classes, homework, research, as well as any other responsibilities required by your programs, such as being a Teaching Assistant or an exam proctor.

People leader certifications are more fluid. Since you can view most of the coursework asynchronously, or entirely online, you determine how long the program will take. If there are executive coaching or mentorship programs in your certification, you may have to give up an hour per month or a period of time similar to this.

The Curriculum of an MBA vs the Curriculum of a Certification Program

Courses for an MBA are often very generalized, with a skill set focused on financial management and structural management. Some of the courses include the following:

1) Business Essentials

2) Exploring Business Strategies

3) Marketing for the 21st Century

4) Business and Law

5) Management Analytics

6) Management Accounting

These are all important topics and can definitely add value to a company if a manager executes them correctly. However, an MBA doesn’t necessarily help with soft skills and isn’t marketable in all scenarios. If you want practical and applied skills, an MBA isn’t for you. For example, if you are working as a manager in a field outside of finance, such as in a scientific field, or engineering, it would be best to either get a leadership certification or a degree more relevant to that workplace.

A people leadership certification utilizes soft skills and is much more specialized than an MBA. Examples of topics covered in a certification course include the following:

1) Personal Leadership

2) Intercultural Leadership

3) Service Leadership

4) Strategic Planning

5) Conflict Negotiation and Resolution

6) Organization

These topics are frequently discussed and encountered in the workplace and are important points to address with your direct reports, peers, and superiors.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, an MBA can be a very powerful tool, and in the right hands, can dramatically improve a company. However, with all of the expenses and rigor in mind, along with the focus, it is also best to consider if a people leadership certification might be a better fit for you. Neither is worse than the other, but some may be better in certain scenarios. Evaluate yourself, and your ambitions.

by Grace Tripathy

Wed 6 July 2022

What is a People Leader AIM Insights Certification?

The time has come to train your managers to be the best that they can be.

To be consistent with the visions, values, and strategies of most organizations, managers need to receive information on how to strengthen their capability to meet their organization’s goals. Accordingly, if those skills and capabilities are left unattended, managers will not achieve the desired impact and effectiveness of the company.
By training your managers in effective leadership skills, you can increase the productivity of your workforce.

There’s no better way to ensure that your managers are the utmost prepared to lead at your workplace than the AIM Insights People Leader Certification.

Evaluating the effectiveness of leadership within this certification helps leaders identify strategies and techniques that can be employed to encourage the durable effectiveness, performance, and productivity of the organization and its members. Management training that comes with the AIM Insights People Leader Certification program provides feedback that managers can turn into immediate actions.

The AIM Insights People Leader Certification is the only management certification that both teaches and evaluates a leader's ability to impact their team over time.

Why is AIM Insights Leadership Training important for managers?

1. Enhance Your Skills

Do you want to improve your ability to negotiate, communicate, critically think, manage time, or collaborate with your team?

The AIM Insights People Leader Certificate program strengthens your skills as a leader and decision-maker within your company.

Achieving this certificate is the key to every company enhancing management skills as leadership and management skills are among the most important qualities of top executives.

2. Gain Practical Knowledge

You’ll gain practical knowledge by analyzing case studies and real-life examples.

The AIM Insights People Leader certificate program incorporates the latest management concepts, such as employee engagement, company culture, incentives and rewards, purpose-driven leadership, and how to lead multi-generational teams.

Studying such concepts will improve your ability to lead and direct your business’ operations and people.

3. Expand Your Network

When you earn the AIM Insights People Leader Certificate in management and leadership, you have the chance to connect with like-minded individuals from around the world.

You can consult your community of AIM Insights mentors and teammates to share career interests, pose course questions, seek advice regarding a work challenge, learn about a new industry, or connect about another topic.

Networking with other leaders and managers is a great way to share experiences and gain new perspectives in any workplace.

4. Share With Your Team

Through your learning, you may uncover a cost-saving strategy or come up with an idea to improve your company’s culture.

Sharing your leadership certificate knowledge with your team is an influential career benefit. It’s also a strong selling point if you’re trying to convince your boss to pay for your professional development.

If you’re part of your organization’s management team, you can share leadership insights directly with your team.

5. Develop Your Leadership Style

Investing time to study leadership and management with AIM Insights will help you develop your leadership style. As you complete coursework, certain approaches may resonate with you more than others.

The advantage of studying while working is that you can apply course knowledge to see what leadership styles work best for you and your team.

As you do this, you’ll also become more confident in your management abilities.

6. Boost Your Competitive Edge

Completing the AIM Insights People Leader Certification in leadership and management demonstrates your business expertise.

It also builds your resume and can make you more qualified for senior positions, especially compared to individuals who haven’t invested in their professional development.

Earning certification shows drive and passion for improvement.

After all, the best leaders never stop learning.

Explore the AIM Insights People Leadership Certification

It couldn’t be easier to become a Certified People Leader!