[MUSIC]
The final step in our change process is
called follow-up. Follow-up. And follow-up is critically important.
What does follow-up sound like? It's positive, simple,
focused, and fast--follow-up sounds like this. First, after
responding, and letting people know what, and listening,
and focusing, about every two months say something
that sounds like this. Miss Co-worker, two months ago I said I wanted to be a more
positive and open-minded listener. Based on the last two months, give me
some ideas for the next two months. It's been four months based
on the last two months, give me some ideas for the next
two months. It's been six months, it's been eight months, it's been
ten months. What happens if you engage in the kind of disciplined
follow-up that I just described? I'm going to answer this, not from
a theory point of view but from a research point of view.
I'm now going to share a study called Leadership Is a Contact Sport.
This is a study that involved 86,000 people from around the world. It's a study
that's been validated across countries, across cultures, across industries, and
at every level of management. Thousands of managers got feedback. They sometimes
went to training programs, sometimes had
coaches, sometimes some combination, there were commonalities.
Every leader in our study got 360-degree feedback from
the people around them. Every leader was asked to personally
pick areas for improvement. Every leader was asked to
do what I just described earlier--to respond to people, to
involve them, and to follow up. And then we
did a follow-up research to indicate: has the person become
more effective? Not as judged by himself or herself--as judged
by everyone around them. What did we learn in our
research? First, Table 1. If you look at Table
1, the first question is: Has this person become a
more effective leader? All the way from a minus 3,
less effective, 0, didn't change, plus 3, more effective, and
could be anywhere in between. Now what did we learn?
If you look at Table 1 that question says: My
co-worker did no follow-up. Now, what that means is, when
people were sent to a leadership program but didn't talk
to people like what we described and did no
follow-up. Look at that curve, five companies asking exactly
the same question. Well, if you observe that the
distribution. If you know about probability and statistics, that looks
slightly better than the normal distribution curve. I've done
a control group study--the control group did this well.
Table 1, these people might as well been watching
sitcoms as go to a training program or get feedback--total
waste of time. Now, let's look at Table 2. If you look at Table 2, what do you see?
Well, those scores now are getting a little better.
When the co-worker did a little follow-up, what do you
see? A little better. Table 3, some follow-up, a
lot better. Table 4, frequent follow-up, much better. And finally,
the amazing Table 5, consistent or periodic follow-up, massive
improvement. Learning point--these people often went to the same program.
Taught by the same person--me--and they had feedback on
the same process at the same time. What did
I learn? If you get better, it doesn't have much to do with me. It's got to do
everything with you. The stuff I've just been teaching
you works. It doesn't kind of work, or sort
of work, or a little bit work, it works,
it works around the world, it works at every
level of management--it doesn't work if you don't do it. Let's wrap up--ask
for input, listen to it. Think about it. Thank people,
respond, involve them, change, and follow up. And if
you follow these simple steps, if you look at the research in our study Leadership Is
a Contact Sport. You can become more effective
as a leader. You can become more effective
as a co-worker. And you know what, you
can even become more effective as a family member.
[MUSIC]