I have talked to several leadership execs in the  last few months who are saying that they have cut leadership development and recruitment efforts for top talent from their budgets…that all they can do right now is just pay the bills.

I completely understand this, but in my opinion, this view is very short sighted and not very creative.

When it comes to building a strong company for the present and the future, focusing on recruiting top talent and then developing that talent are two critical steps which will secure your future.  We have to all be seeing the big picture.

I have read a lot of top leadership books, and of course, we have written a leadership book (EDGE! A Leadership Story,) and at the end of the day, people will tell you that they will leave a company over salary and benefits, but if you dig deeper, they will tell you that they are bored, tired of the same old, same old and they are restless for something exciting.

So, it’s time to really buckle down and start considering how you can pull in some top talent without breaking the bank and how to begin developing out your entire team so that they stick around.  Once the economy does turn around, we are all going to be back on the topic of war for talent, and you don’t want to be the company left without strong employees who can move your company in the direction of innovation.

So…here are just a few ideas on the topic:

1. Start looking closely at top talent who are sophomores and juniors in college and offer them a low cost paid internship.  They will develop loyalty to your company if they can get their foot in the door.

2. Treat people like you would treat your grandmother…yes…you have to treat people as well as you can.  Show them respect and compassion and keep people happy.

3. Come up with at least five creative ways to train people without spending a dime.  This could be an internal shadowing program, a “tip of the day” posted on a big white board or a tour to a local historical site…a site that would stimulate ideas and growth.

4. Don’t ignore Generation Y.  They need your focus right now.  Simply because you are not in “hiring mode” does not mean that you can ignore this generation.  If you cannot hire them, then look for creative ways to educate them about your company and about topics related to your industry.  This can be accomplished with a great blog and a forum to get Gen Ys to interact with you.

5. Bring in a movie that has a leadership message and offer a two-hour lunch break one day for brown bag and to watch the movie.  At the end of the movie, have a discussion about the leadership lessons learned while watching the movie.  A few that are tops for this purpose are movies like 21, Wall Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, Hoosiers or Citizen Kane.

For those of you who were unable to attend the webinar yesterday: Coaching for 2010 and Beyond: 5 Critical Strategies for Leading During Uncertain Times, the video presentation is here courtesy of Free Webinar Wednesdays.

My husband Mike and I had dinner out last night (was a great break after a long day.) The restaurant we chose is one that has great food, but….the service is sometimes a bit on the slow side. The last time we ate there the service was just downright lousy. I was served the wrong drink, we never got our salads, and I ordered butter on the side and it came plopped right on the potato.

But…last night was a completely different story. When we walked up, an employee opened the door. We were seated and immediately greeted by not 1 but 2 eager, happy, upbeat waiters. Our drinks came to our table in about 2 minutes, salads came in about 5 minutes then dinner (all served to perfection). We were in and out of there in about 45 minutes. As we left, another employee kindly opened the door for us, thanked us for coming, wished us a great night and asked us to come back again. Guess what? We will!

This restaurant has figured out something very important about what it’s going to take to survive during this down economy! Customer service has to be tip top. They are going to have to go over and beyond to make their customers happy (which does not include lousy service.) My hunch is that some customers complained about the service, and they answered a few questions and got their act together.

So, as you are considering your situation in 2009, before you start cutting out money, people, training, products and services, sit down and answer these 10 critical questions and THEN, make your decisions about what to do next.

1) What strategies have made your organization successful in the past that just aren’t working today?

2) What are the current and future opportunities for growth your organization? —What territories/markets have you not tapped that are prime targets for your company given the state of the current economy?

3) What skills do you need in your organization to be successful in the future?

4) Who on your team has the skills you need in your organization to be successful in the future? (Hint:  These are the people who can help get your team trained up!)

5) —How have you been able to improve profitability in the past? —Which of those strategies need to be ditched? Which ones are still relevant?

6)How have you been able to stay competitive to this point? —

7) What steps do you need to take to stay competitive? (i.e. when was the last time you performed a competitive analysis?)

8. What funding is available, and how can you get it? —

9)What low or no-cost services can you enhance or improve to add value to your customers and build customer loyalty? —

10) What are the 10 ways you can increase both the efficiency and effectiveness in your organization?

Once you have answered these questions, it’s now time to sit down and formulate a plan. This action plan should include people, processes, funding, equipment and the training you need to move ahead sooner rather than later.

If you are someone who is looking for an opportunity to expand your business and grow your leadership in 2009, please contact me for a 15 minute complimentary consultation at (910) 692-6118.

And…if you have not yet read EDGE! A Leadership Story, I encourage you to do so.

From all accounts, it appears that it is going to become more and more difficult in the future to stay ahead of your competition if your team is not the best and the brightest in your industry. Intellectual horsepower includes not only IQ (many people believe that an IQ of 130 is needed today to be a top player) but includes transferable skills, the ability to understand and break a complex situation into logical steps and being super sharp, agile and a quick study. Intellectual horsepower also includes being able to embrace paradox and ambiguity and being adept at functioning effectively in the midst of opposing ideas or forces.

If you go back and consider the blog post Is Your Company Truly Designed for Innovation and the topic of mapping the job the customer needs to get done, you will be able to identify the skill deficits in your organization. Each time a customer voices a success, ask yourself “Who worked with this client, and what skills were at play to make this customer experience outstanding?” On the same note, if a customer’s job is not getting done, it’s time to step back and ask “What skills are missing from this process that we need in place?” From there, you can provide your team with the training and development needed to create outstanding customer experiences. Once you have trained your employees, if you have someone on your team who just doesn’t “get it”, then it’s time to replace that player with someone who can “get it” and get it quickly.

I also recommend looking closely at Executive Intelligence. This article from HBS spells this out nicely.

I was talking with a young woman yesterday who recently left a company after she was written up for “walking too fast”. She told me this, and I thought I had heard her incorrectly. I said “Can you say that again?” She then said “I just left XYZ Company, and a part of their culture is to walk slowly to reduce stress, and I was reprimanded for walking quickly”.

She then proceeded to tell me that she was hired to do a job for which she was highly skilled and then was actually assigned another job (70% of her day) and that the job she was assigned was one of her biggest weaknesses. She was given high marks on the 30% of her job for which she was highly skilled and low marks on the job that was her weakness (duh?). And, supposedly she told them upfront that this particular skill was not her job and, the company did they tell her that “walking slowly” was a part of the culture (this woman is very fast moving and highly energetic, and any person with a brain could see it a mile away).

Why is it that we continue to do this to people in our companies? I hear this constantly, yet many leaders don’t stop to consider the consequences of blindsiding people on the job. Leaders get employees quickly to fill a position, feed them a bunch of bull during the interview and then blame them when things go wrong! Come on! Stop it!

My question for today is “Are you leading in a blaming organization? Or are you working for one?”

If you are, some of the behaviors might include:

1) Shooting the messenger

2) Squelching employee’s opinions

3) Saying one thing and doing another

4) Passing the buck up or down when you encounter a mistake

5) Closed-mindedness to new ideas

6) Poor training (or you are providing training one time a year in a classroom thinking this will do the job)

I believe that we can change this blaming organization to an organization which thrives on responsibility, respect and support. We can all start by implementing these steps:

1) Deploying talent (putting people on the right job where they can thrive and succeed).

2) Shifting our language “he or she did it” to “I take full responsibility for this incident” (if you are a leader or a manager involved in an accident [notice I don't use the word mistake], then you are ultimately responsible).

3) Listening and appreciating your employees’ opinions by saying “Thank-you for your idea. I will sleep on this.” Then, get back to them on your thoughts around their suggestion.

4) Under-promise and over-deliver. If you tell an employee they are being hired for a certain job, don’t give them another job or make promises you cannot keep.

5) When you get bad news, sit down, take a deep breath and stop talking! Just listen, take it in, step back and calmly thank the person for the news.

6) Start providing on the job training and coaching on a daily basis. The best way to stop the blame game is to train people well on each and every step of the process and then make yourself and them accountable to their success (yes…you are accountable for your followers’ success. If they don’t get it after great ongoing training and coaching, then it’s probably time for them to move on).

We encourage your comments on this subject.