There is more potential to learn from failure than from success, and creative firms that focus on proving themselves wrong experience those failures and learn those lessons sooner, according to Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson. Following are several organizations whose leaders embrace risk and failure as necessary to growth.

• Coca-Cola Co. chairman and CEO E. Neville Isdell reassured employees and shareholders that he was willing to tolerate the failures that may accompany risk-taking as the organization strives to change the nature of its historically risk-averse culture. Using the 2006 annual shareholder meeting for his platform "elevates the statement to another order of importance," said Isdell.
• IBM Research balances performance evaluations with the encouragement of risk by using two evaluation timelines - a one-year evaluation on which bonuses are based and a three-year evaluation that determines job level and base salary. The longer evaluation period encourages innovation risks and allows potential setbacks from those risks to be absorbed.
• General Electric Co. takes its best-practices sharing to another level and has added discussions of failures to its business unit practices. A conference call in 2005 brought together champions of eight "imagination breakthrough" projects that didn’t make it.
  (BusinessWeek [McGregor], July 10, 2006, pp. 42-52)

Engaging employees ranked third among the leading issues facing today’s managers, according to a 2006 survey by the Ken Blanchard Companies, an international learning and performance consulting firm. The organization polled 805 HR and line managers across a variety of industries and found that 53% of respondents identified engagement as a top concern for leaders, behind developing potential leaders and identifying and recruiting key talent, respectively. Blanchard’s 2006 findings compared with 47% of respondents’ noting engagement as a leading issue in the company’s 2003 survey. (2006 Corporate Issues Survey [Ken Blanchard Companies], 2006, pp. 1, 3, 6)

Trust trumps raises? Researchers in Canada found that a slight increase in employee trust affects a worker’s satisfaction as much as a hefty raise. University of British Columbia researchers found that "when an employee’s trust in management increases one point on a 10-point scale, it has the same effect on that employee’s level of life satisfaction as a 36% raise." Trust is the definitive best practice, according to economist John Helliwell, who says candid and open communication is the key to building or rebuilding trust. He claims that employees who trust their management and executives work harder and are often healthier, happier and more fully engaged, all of which reflects in the bottom line. (Canadian HR Reporter [Klie], June 5, 2006, p. 3)

I am fascinated, perhaps morbidly, by Linda Stone’s writings on what she calls “Continuous Partial Attention”. This new behaviour, in my view, is negatively influencing the conduct and the effectiveness of business meetings, which were never all that efficient in the first place. I hope in this blog, to stimulate a debate and forum for ideas to help harness this phenomenom and tame it.

Stone defines continuous partial attention as being in an artificial sense of constant crisis requiring us to continuously scan for opportunity, activities and contacts at any and all given moments. This means continuously accepting distractions by staying connected to our networks at all times.

I see it manifest in meetings at its most benign form when people sit down and place their Blackberries on the table in front of them, unashamedly declaring that their commitment to the purpose of the meeting is limited and will be bumped at the first buzz from the machine.

I can handle the disrespect to me as the meeting organizer and other committed attendees. What really bothers me is the damage this does to the prospect of getting a great result from a group of people whose single-minded attention might be required to crack the problem, generate the breakthrough, establish keen commitment and get us out of the meeting in the shortest possible time.

I have lots more to say about this but I would like to learn from others too. I will check in later.

John Eckmire
- Vice President, Public Programs & Education

As reported by HRI, In order to cultivate and maintain the kind of resilience they need to manage organizational change effectively, leaders need to recognize and undertake a four-part process, says Katie Cooney, vice president of the Minnesota-based executive coaching firm LeaderSource. Cooney points out that leaders often fail to recognize the need to rest and refresh themselves, not only physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. Her recommended approach begins with taking stock of one’s situation, including both internally and externally focused analysis. Next, says Cooney, "leaders need the ability to both acknowledge and feel emotions surrounding the situation." Once that is done, she explains, leaders can contemplate actions that they might take to address their circumstances. Finally, follow-through depends on leaders actually possessing the skills they need in order to carry out the actions they formulated in step three. (MWorld [Cooney], Summer 2006, pp. 40-41)

As reported by HRI, The savings gained from hiring and retaining older workers can more than offset what they may require in compensation and benefits costs, according to a 2005 cost analysis of older versus younger workers conducted by Towers Perrin for AARP. The study tallied the considerable turnover-related costs associated with search fees, exit interviewing, and termination processing, along with the diminished productivity levels typical of employees on their way out. Added to these were the costs of training new hires, who generally take some time before achieving desired levels of productivity. By contrast, the study identified a significantly smaller cost impact from workers age 50 and over with regard to retention (3%) and recruitment (1%) strategies. It thus argues that discouraging turnover among older workers and valuing the experience they bring as new hires can create both stability and cost savings that far outweigh the budget demands associated with compensation and benefits for older employees. (WorldatWork Journal [Feinsod and Davenport], Third Quarter 2006, pp. 18, 19)