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Jim Cardwell’s September Educational Webinar –
Leadership needs clarity. Without it a high performance organization cannot exist.
This topic was one of the primary themes in Jim Cardwell’s most recent Connect with Leaders webinar entitled, “The Five Biggest Challenges Facing an Internal Connections Consulting Team.”
The challenges Cardwell spoke about included:
1. Leader buy-in
2. Resource allocation (people getting overworked)
3. Authority to hold people accountable (non-performers)
4. Keeping consistency with the project management process
5. Sustaining momentum on any practice
The Connections Consulting Team in this case can be anybody in your organization, but the members have to be varied – such as a CEO, HR manager, marketing person, and other senior executives. Each member has his or her role to monitor, analyze, coach, mentor, and coordinate.
For example, a member of the team may coach staffers to lead or simply help them to win in the workplace. A coordinating team member may recognize and share best practices.
Another member who analyzes may identify trends, discover underlying issues, and suggest alternative tactics that fit a particular person or issue.
As a result, a team needs to manage these aspects of the organization. Not one person can do it alone – which brings us back to the Five Biggest Challenges that faces the Connections Consulting Team that supports the leader.
1. According to Cardwell, it all starts with the leader setting company expectations and understanding that they are the role model for the organization. Good leaders make it personal, expect a team to perform, make tough decisions, and relentlessly pursue impact.
2. Second is resource allocation that calls for managing priorities (80/20 rule) and avoiding the classic issue of having a few “go to” people within the organization getting more than their share of work. Broadening the competency of staff to evenly distribute work is the goal here.
3. Third is having the authority to hold non-performers accountable, so your organization can move beyond a culture of mediocrity. Setting performance standards in-house can greatly help in raising the bar with these employees. But if they don’t, time to politely show them the door.
4. Fourth is consistency with the project management process that calls for priority setting, implementing discipline, teamwork, and recognition.
5. Fifth is simply sustaining the momentum related to any process – where Cardwell cited a University of Wisconsin study showing how organizations that focus on what’s right instead of what’s wrong are more productive.
For details on Cardwell’s most recent Connect with Leaders webinar and previous ones, visit www.connectionsonline.net or call 800-395-1410. Click here to hear a recording of the presentation.
October Educational Webinar - Guest speaker will be Larry Biernacki – Wednesday, October 28th at 1:30 ET
We ended our September “Half Hour” session by summarizing a recent study conducted at the University of Wisconsin that found analyzing success can improve a process twice as much as problem-solving mistakes.
With this in mind, we are very pleased that Larry Biernacki, CEO of Arkansas Federal Credit Union will be our guest speaker at the next Half Hour with Jim Cardwell (1:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, October 28th).
Five years ago, Arkansas Federal was a slow-growth organization with significant communication, teamwork and project management challenges.
Today Arkansas Federal is a Connections Online best-practice site. Since Larry arrived as the new CEO (4½ years ago) they have nearly doubled in size (a “Double in Five” BHAG they will achieve). They have dramatically outpaced the industry in organic membership growth as well as net savings and loan growth. Their employee survey scores went from below average to ‘best in class.’ They just received the highest rating from NCUA. They have won two Credit Union Journal Best Practice Awards and were recently honored with the Business of the Year Award for the state of Arkansas. And, maybe most interestingly, this was all done with the same team!
We have asked Larry to share how he used Connections to transform the organization. He will provide insight on where they started; where they are today; and how they achieved such dramatic results. In the process he will show how Connections Online provides the skeleton that gives the Credit Union its strength. He will share how he has used a well-defined infrastructure; coaching and performance expectations to create a high-engagement workplace that is disciplined, productive and jazzed.
This session is intended for CEOs and members of your Senior Leadership Team. It will provide rich insight, tips and tactics. Please mark your calendar.
4.0 Tips of the Month
New Webinar Series: We will be doing monthly 30 minute webinars on specific functionality of Connections Online. These sessions will focus on using newly released functionality, advanced functionality of the current system, tips, and answer questions you might have regarding the application. This session will be recorded.
Please Note - Training Library – We have made changes to some of the links in the training library (old links are no longer working), so please be sure to upload the current document using this link: http://www.connectionsonline.net/docs/training-library.doc
Security – We have created an FAQ Security Summary document. Please go to this link for a more detailed explanation of our security: http://www.connectionsonline.net/docs/IT-security.doc
Whenever we have additional information to add to security information for you, we will add it to this document, as well as add the security update to the Connections Online Forum.
Informational Webinar: If you know someone outside of your company who may be interested in learning more about Connections Online, we have an informational webinar scheduled on Thursday, October 8th, at 1:30 EST. Please pass this link on to them: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/567313418 to register.
Client Care Notes
To view previous Connections Online Newsletters, go to http://www.connectionsonline.net/news and then click on the Newsletters tab for a listing of our past newsletters.
Connections Online Migration
In January 2009, we announced the migration from Connections Online 3.2 to 4.0. Since that announcement, we have completed a number of upgrades and are scheduling more. In fact, between new users and migrations, the number of users has doubled in the past five months. Our clients are very happy with the new features and functionality.
If you have not already done so, and are ready to migrate to 4.0, please contact Karla Norwood at 800.395.1410. For more information regarding what has changed with 4.0, you are welcome to join one of our Connections Online 4.0 Migration webinars. (See Monthly Calendar of Webinar Events link below.)
Monthly Calendar of Webinar Events Link:
Go to this link and click on the Events Tab - then choose Calendar of Web Events from the list:
http://www.connectionsonline.net/ShowNews.aspx?id=245
Connections Online
24481 Detroit Road, Suite 300
Cleveland, OH 44145
(440) 892-1410 or (800) 395-1410
www.connectionsonline.net
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