When I meet with clients or present at a conference I like to get people thinking about the ways in which the working experience will change radically in the next five years. I also like to demonstrate how HR is entering a critical period of decision-making around selecting the platforms and tools that will enable their employees to keep their businesses competitive. It’s important to remember that there are significant mega trends in technology that are pushing new HR technology options to emerge at logarithmic rates. Any forward-thinking HR strategy discussion should keep this point top-of-mind.

To help people understand this perspective, I often share historical analogies and present a few futuristic nuggets to enlighten their visualizations. The historical analogy I’ll share with you here highlights the rapid change in digital video from the late 90s through the middle 00s. The futuristic nugget is an example of a significant imminent engineering/technology breakthrough in the first quarter of this century. Combined, they should give you a good idea of why it’s so important to project out for the breakthroughs that lay ahead.

Burning a DVD in 10 Difficult Steps
In the late 1990s (aside from designing HR survey and analytics software), I was an early adopter of digital video (DV) and produced corporate videos, as well as music videos for bands. To produce a video, we would shoot footage on a $4,500 DV camera; utilize a high speed $600 8GB hard-drive in a souped-up PC to store the video; use a specialty computer card to transmit the files from camera to computer, and vice versa; use proprietary software to manage the file transmissions, which was supported only on Microsoft Windows NT (that's right, Apple wasn't supporting DV yet); edit the software in Adobe Premiere, where we'd integrate the video and graphics; render the final file (which could take hours); utilize a DVD mastering utility to design the DVD menu and navigation, assemble the video, audio and graphic assets, and create the DVD file image; then we'd use a Sony utility to commit the DVD image to a blank DVD on a $300 DVD-write drive. Done!

Kinda sounds like the way HR software works now, doesn't it?

This 10-step process felt revolutionary at the time because it replaced the previous $35,000 Avid solution that most video producers were using. I remember thinking about how smart I was that I knew how to do something that only a few other thousand people did. I also remember thinking that there was no way that this process could be simplified. I should have known better. Five years later you could upload video shot on a $300 mini-DV camera to a beautiful DVD with fancy graphics on an Apple iMac in 2 or 3 easy steps, optimized for the amateur user. And now in 2012, you can shoot video on an iPhone or Android phone in HD, upload directly to YouTube, edit through your browser on that same smart phone, add a few graphics and then publish to the world in HD quality. You don't even need a computer.

The rate of change for business and HR software over the next five years will feel a little like this evolution in video technology, only it’s likely to move even faster.

Cars Will Drive Themselves Within 10 Years
You may have heard about the Google driverless car and it’s a great example to help us visualize the dramatic technology shifts we will experience over the next 10 years. Self-driving cars will likely be commonplace by 2022, and we as consumers and workers will be increasingly comfortable with having software and devices manage the complex tasks and responsibilities of our lives and jobs. In fact, most technology won’t feel like a utility anymore, but rather a service that is taking care of us, giving us the gift of time, and making our lives’ easier and safer.

At some point in the not too distant future you will  be making a decision about whether you’re ready to drop the cash on a self-driving car, or perhaps helping your parents make a decision about a self-driving car (safety and convenience being a prime benefit). I predict that taxi companies will offer self-driving cabs in droves -- request a cab from your smart phone and a driverless car pulls up within minutes to take you to your destination.

The Future of HR
So, what will this future driverless world mean for HR? One important thing to remember is that many of the tasks and processes that we do by hand today (and feel so important doing) will be streamlined with integrated platforms; integrating those platforms to manage complex workflows will be shockingly easy (compared to the effort it takes now); and employees will self-manage many if not all of HRs standard services. This means that HR departments will become technology-centric and will likely require fewer employees to support them. The HR employees who remain will be focused more on managing a talent strategy to enable companies to be more competitive, efficient, and high performing.

The future of HR will come faster than you expect. If you’re not visualizing it and strategizing for change, you can expect to be outdated and overwhelmed in a hurry.

As the debt-crisis in Europe continues to unravel new leaders are taking over economies in desperate position and citizen populations wracked with worry. These leaders are saddled with the unenviable task of enacting fiscally responsible policies that can reduce spending while tempering the outrage of millions of unhappy people, many of which are unemployed and experiencing serious economic hardship.

Germany, the continent’s largest economy and the strongest voice in the European Union, has consistently demanded austerity measures for the EU’s most troubled member nations. But with political heads now rolling and riots continuing to erupt across the continent, the idea of prolonged and increasingly harsh austerity may be losing support.

In France, the conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated earlier this month in his bid for re-election by the socialist party candidate Francois Hollande. In his victory speech, Hollande proclaimed, “Austerity can no longer be inevitable!” As Europe’s second largest economy and a key ally to Germany in the EU Council, France’s changing position on austerity could recast the recovery outline for bailed out economies such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal, as well as faltering states like Italy and Spain.

In the same week, while anti-austerity demonstrations continued to erupt across Greece, the upstart political party Syriza (an acronym for “Coalition of the Radical Left”), which ran on a platform of disavowing the country’s bailout agreement, quadrupled its parliamentary seats, disrupting Greece’s traditional power structure and becoming the country’s second most powerful party.

Whether it’s the belt-tightening and increased taxation of austerity or increased spending with the aim of stimulating growth, the economic plans and polices enacted by governmental leaders will ultimately require the support of their citizen populations in order to succeed. Just as a struggling businesses need high levels of employee engagement to pull themselves out of dire financial straits, struggling nations need a citizen base that’s psychologically motivated to contribute.

One thing we’ve learned through Modern Survey’s study of employee engagement levels in the U.S. workforce is that fear can act as a motivator and will indeed boost engagement, but it’s not a sustainable source. You can only go to that well for so long before motivation starts to wane and fear turns into frustration. The same concept appears to be at play in Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.

Tracking employee engagement levels in six month increments throughout the past five years, Modern Survey found that engagement in the U.S. workforce actually rose from August of 2008 to February 2009, and again in August of 2009. In the midst of the worst period of the recession engagement went up. Considering all the layoffs, cutbacks and budget freezes taking place during that time, the increase in engagement likely had far more to do with employees being fearful for their job security and for the financial well-being of their employer than from any extra care or consideration from their managers or senior leaders. Employees were told they had to do more with less, and they responded. But it didn’t last. By February of 2010 engagement levels had peaked and the state of engagement in the U.S. looked far less rosy.

As the weight of a long, slow recovery has taken its toll on workers, the most effective tactics for driving engagement has shifted in the U.S. workforce. Over the past 18 months, faith in senior leadership and the direction of the organization have become increasingly critical to driving engagement, replacing historical top drivers such as providing recognition/appreciation, which may now seem like a luxury to many employees.

The big picture lesson is clear: Using people’s fear of losing their livelihood as a means to motivate them to do more with less will not work for long. More than anything else, leaders need to clarify their strategy for the long-term health of their organization (or country) and communicate that clearly to their constituency of employees/customers/voters.

If Europe’s new leaders are going to right the ship they need to think seriously about the lasting impact of their policies on the psychology of their citizens. Failing to motivate and engage their people in the plan for recovery will do more than just stir demonstrations, it may just leave their economies dead in the water.

Click the image below to learn more:

I am just back from Barcelona after a week in Portugal and Spain. Portugal is the 53rd country I've been fortunate to visit. There are 54 cards in a deck...if you count the jokers. To round out the deck, I took a one day trip to tiny Andorra. Andorra, however, was no joke. In fact, here are 10 reasons to love this country (one that you may not remember from 8th grade geography) high in the Pyrenees Mountains.

1.  The beautiful drive from Barcelona...snow-capped mountains, horses grazing in pastures, a 5km tunnel, stone churches, and small castles
2.  The cherry blossom trees that line the boulevards in the capitol city
3.  A melting clock Salvador Dali sculpture in the middle of the Capitol's walking streets
4.  78,00 educated, friendly, and prosperous citizens
5.  Impeccably clean streets
6.  Cheap gas...$8.72/gallon in Portugal, $7.75 in Spain, but a mere $6.04 in Andorra. It's all relative!
7.  A 360 degree view of the Pyrenees Mountains
8.  The river through town
9.  Affordable hotels
10.  The fresh mountain air

Andorra, you were a pleasant surprise and a highlight on a wonderful trip.

In a famous bit by Jerry Seinfeld the comedian claimed, “According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Seinfeld was just fishing for laughs, but there’s a remarkable truth there that goes too often ignored in the business world.

Many people don’t like to be the center of attention, let alone asked to address a large audience, yet employees who have accomplished something significant in their work are frequently given recognition in a public manner. Sometimes they’re even asked to discuss their accomplishment with their team or a larger gathering of their peers. Heck, many consultants and leadership experts encourage the practice!

It’s true that recognition/appreciation is a top driver of employee engagement, and virtually all employees across the board crave it to some extent, but what’s dead wrong is thinking that they all want it in the same way. Every employee has their own unique set of preferences for the ways in which they would like to be recognized. Good leaders may supply ample recognition and appreciation for their employees’ effort, but great leaders deliver it in the manner that’s most meaningful for the employee.

This same principle holds true for virtually all of the practices leaders can employ to drive engagement. Most every employee wants to be able to connect their work to some sense of personal accomplishment, but you may not always be able to guess what that means for an employee. Does fulfilling your organization’s mission give them a sense of personal accomplishment? Is it bringing home the bacon to support their family that gives them that emotional satisfaction? Perhaps there are specific technical challenges in their job that give them a boost of self-esteem and make them feel engaged in their work.

Career development, another key driver of engagement, can also mean vastly different things to different employees. You might assume employees want to ascend in the organization, take on more responsibility, get that bigger paycheck or corner office, but it’s not always the case. Some don’t want the headaches that come with another rung on the corporate ladder. Some simply love what they do and don’t want to change that. But even these workers can often be stimulated and more fully engaged in their work if they have a leader who takes an active interest in helping them create and execute on a personalized career development plan.

This is all pretty basic common sense stuff, right? People are unique, the more you can treat them as individuals the better leader you can be. Yet it’s frightfully rare for leaders to directly ask their employees about their engagement preferences. Unless you have a photographic memory or a nice lump of cash lying around for a private gumshoe, you might want to think about skipping to the chase and just asking them what they prefer. You may be surprised by what you learn, and you’ll definitely have a leg up when it comes to getting the most out of your people.

Modern Survey’s Newest Offering Delivers Real Onboarding Insight

Minneapolis — April 26, 2012 — Modern Survey, a human capital measurement and analysis company, is pleased to announce its new m/spark onboarding solution — the newest addition to its growing platform of human capital measurement tools.

The m/spark onboarding solution helps companies of all sizes use quantitative data to gain a true measure of the effectiveness of their onboarding program. By measuring the factors that are most impactful to employee engagement after the new hire’s initial week and throughout the first few months of employment, m/spark gives companies greater insight to ensure long-term retention and engagement.

Armed with powerful new insight from m/spark, organizations can access actionable data to create an improved onboarding experience for their valuable new hires. The advantages of using the m/spark onboarding solution drive right to the heart of employee engagement and down to the company’s bottom line. m/spark can help organizations:

• Decrease turnover and cost per hire by understanding and resolving employee needs and concerns quickly and effectively
• Accelerate engagement and productivity by identifying and measuring activities proven to increase new-employee engagement
• Improve performance by quickly identifying and responding to training gaps and inefficiencies
• Strengthen leadership with onboarding effectiveness reporting by manager, workgroup or other criteria
• Reduce potential flight risks with early identification and intervention of “hot alert” workplace issues

In a post-recession economy, many companies are slowly rebuilding their workforces by returning mission-critical knowledge workers to the organization. “With so much riding on the success of these hires, companies have to do everything possible to build engagement right out of the gate or risk losing those highly valued resources,” said Patrick Riley, CEO of Modern Survey. “m/spark not only gives you a measure of the effectiveness of your current onboarding program, it will also indicate best-practice onboarding activities that you may be missing. Using m/spark helps companies build and continually refine a comprehensive and effective onboarding program.”

Many organizations understand the benefits of a sound onboarding program, yet few have implemented a strategy to capture the real ROI of those practices within their organization. The m/spark onboarding solution provides the critical insight and trending data that companies need to ensure that their onboarding programs meet the needs of their newly hired employees and the strategic talent management goals of the organization.

Contact ask@modernsurvey.com and learn more today.

The m/spark onboarding solution is available now and further expands Modern Survey’s full suite of human capital measurement solutions. From employee engagement to performance, 360-degree feedback and custom research solutions, Modern Survey gives your company the insight and deep data needed for better decision making to improve organizational effectiveness.

About Modern Survey
Modern Survey measures workforce intensity — that fire in your company’s belly that makes all things possible. Our human capital measurement software combines feedback, benchmarks and data from enterprise systems to elucidate the correlation between employee performance and company success. We analyze the stuff your talent management system can’t — so that you know what to do next.

We are Modern Survey. And we are relentless.

The legendary musician Levon Helm passed away on Thursday last week. Levon was a founding member and drummer for The Band and was an important figure in the roots rock music evolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Before founding The Band, Levon played drums for The Hawks, who would become the backing band for Bob Dylan when he “went electric” in 1965. The Band recorded several masterpiece records between 1967 and 1977, which included the hits “The Weight”, “Ophelia”, and “Up on Cripple Creek”. Their final concert was chronicled in Martin Scorsese’s 1978 classic film “The Last Waltz”.

When news emerged that Levon had passed away last Thursday, I was amazed to see the amount of coverage his passing received. Many luminaries weighed in including Martin Scorsese, Elton John , Jeff Tweedy and even Slash from Guns and Roses. But the note that caught my attention the most was from Bob Dylan. On his website, Dylan wrote: "[Levon] was my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation. This is just so sad to talk about. I still can remember the first day I met him and the last day I saw him. We go back pretty far and had been through some trials together. I'm going to miss him, as I'm sure a whole lot of others will too."

After reading Dylan’s statement, the world for me became small, profound and sad. I realized what a huge effect Levon Helm had on American music. And I realized how much my past and personal history shapes who I am today, and where my restless and creative energy comes from.

I grew up in Woodstock, NY, the famous town in the eastern Catskill Mountains, two hours north of New York City. As I was growing up, Levon Helm and other members of The Band lived in Woodstock as well (Richard Manual, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson). Woodstock is a small town with a population of around 5,500. It’s so small there’s not a single stop light in town. While Woodstock is most famous for the concert in 1969, it has been an artist’s colony and creative community for the last 125 years, and it has to be one of the most creative communities on earth. (I found this list of notable people on Wikipedia who have lived in the Woodstock area at some point.) The list includes Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Thelonious Monk, Van Morrison, Bonnie Rait, Uma Thurman, Jennifer Aniston and Chevy Chase.

The truth is, I never did see Bob Dylan, or David Bowie, or Johnny Cash or Van Morrison walking around town. But in the late 70s and early 80s, we did see members of The Band all the time. At the Grand Union grocery store, at the Colonial Pharmacy, at Houst Hardware Store (where I used to work in high school), at The Meat Market, and at Cub Scout meetings. These guys and their families were part of the community. And growing up around living legends made the world feel small, magical and full of potential.

I’ve always felt growing up in Woodstock gave my brother Dan and me an unfair advantage because we learned how to mix different disciplines at an early age. Each day was born with potential to create new things and solve different problems -- in the same day we’d write and play music, engineer elaborate structures in the woods, shoot super 8 movies, and write software games on our IBM computer. We assumed that was the way the world worked everywhere!

In an LA Times Blog piece, Joe Henry wrote "In the same way that his great friend and sometimes-boss Bob Dylan connected the dots between Jimmy Reed, Arthur Rimbaud and Muhammad Ali, so Levon drew the second line that had Howlin’ Wolf, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Marvin Gaye and Hank Williams all dancing out in front of the same New Orleans funeral parade. (They all walked liked Bo Diddley and didn’t need no crutch.) He brought soul and an open heart to the darkest corners of rock music -- in a troubled era he helped shape and define -- and a rural humility to the grandest stages."

I realized that this kind of spirit -- living to connect the dots to create new and magical outcomes -- is deeply rooted in my upbringing, and I realized I was fortunate to be around creators and innovators who did this on a regular basis when I was young. I’m reminded how our mission at Modern Survey of “Accelerating People to the Extraordinary” is about enabling fantastic outcomes for organizations with the guts and confidence to take risks and soar. The world we live in now requires rich skills and cross-fertilization like never before, and there is a demand for innovation like never before. We’re at a place in time when an idea hatched from two entrepreneurs can change an entire industry. There is more potential to create a better world than ever before. To rise to the occasion, our students and workers need to master the skills of critical thinking, engineering, design, innovation, and all the while bask in the joy of breaking down walls, ideas and constructs through collaboration. Great artists and musicians continually remind us how essential it is to experiment and create. Heck, I’ve had some of my best ideas for new products while watching modern dance performances or wandering around art museums!

While it’s been a sad weekend thinking about the loss of Levon Helm, he’s reminded me how important it is to keep our eyes wide open while on the journey, lest we miss a line to draw between two unrelated dots…that small line might change everything.

I am writing this post on my way to Amsterdam. In the middle of the night on what had been an uneventful flight to that point, I was returning from the bathroom to my seat. A man who was walking toward me in the aisle stumbled, fell against an open seat, and collapsed in a heap in the aisle face down just 20 feet in front of me. I rushed to help him.

What happened next was incredible.

I felt for the pulse in his neck. Nothing. I tried his wrist. Nothing. Meanwhile the passengers next to me woke up and sprang into action. They alerted the flight attendants who called for doctors. Within seconds the flight attendants were there to help just as I began seeing the downed passenger's breathing pattern normalize.

A flight attendant called for a doctor. One came from first class within a minute. Another followed from coach seconds later. The doctors attended to the passenger for 20 minutes before he was able to sit up and be moved to a seat.

It all happened so quickly. People who had never met worked together to help this man. We assumed roles without question and deferred at the right times when more capable people arrived. It was an example of teamwork perfection.

Perhaps the most remarkable element of it all is the way in which people gave of themselves almost instinctively. In a world filled with self-absorption, this display of selflessness made me proud of my fellow human beings.

How is the passenger, you ask? I am happy to say that after the doctors and flight attendants revived him, he was sent to complete the remaining hour of the flight in first class. He has rug burns on his face and a bruised body from the fall, but is otherwise alert and coherent.

Modern Survey’s latest study of the U.S. workforce confirms a shift in the drivers of engagement

Minneapolis — March 30, 2012 — Modern Survey, a human capital measurement and analysis company, is pleased to announce the release of its Spring 2012 National Norms Survey on employee engagement levels in the U.S. workforce. Register to receive your free copy of the full report.

Conducted in March 2012, the most recent iteration of Modern Survey’s biannual study found that 67 percent of employees are either disengaged or under engaged in their current job and organization. While the study shows an increase of 2 percentage points in the number of disengaged workers at 30 percent of the surveyed workforce, the number of fully engaged and moderately engaged employees saw a slight uptick by 2 percentage points, to 10 percent and 24 percent, respectively. The study also reflects a 5 percentage point drop in the number of under engaged employees.

“When compared with the study’s September 2011 survey findings, engagement is slowly returning, but it is still far below acceptable levels,” said Don MacPherson, president of Modern Survey.

“Based on our new survey findings, the U.S. workforce reports that they want two things more than anything: They want senior leadership’s clear vision of where their organization is going, and they want the opportunity to personally grow and develop once again. Both of these things have been stunted during the economic malaise of the last few years.”

While the Spring 2012 National Norms Survey reports plenty of data on employee engagement, it also dives deep into what drives engagement and which people practices extraordinary organizations have put in place to enable engagement.

“Our free report is a must-read for any organization trying to understand the engagement issues and trends occurring in the U.S. workforce as well as their own organization.”

For more about the latest U.S. workforce engagement data from Modern Survey, register to receive your free copy of the full report.

About the Study
Modern Survey began conducting this study in August 2007 to a nationally representative sample of U.S. working adults (18+ years old) who matched census data in terms of age, gender and region. The most recent iteration, conducted in March 2012, polled 700 U.S. working adults matching the same census criteria. Multiple regression analyses were performed to determine which survey items best predict engagement mean scores — responses to these identified items are most significantly associated with overall engagement.

About Modern Survey
Modern Survey is a human capital measurement company. Providing a robust suite of proprietary technologies combined with an array of consultative services, Modern Survey helps organizations manage talent throughout the employee life cycle, measure and evaluate customer satisfaction, and gain insight into changing markets. Modern Survey’s products and services have spanned 100 countries on six continents in over 40 languages. Through direct and partner channels, Modern Survey’s solutions have been used by more than 500 companies, over 85 of which are among the Fortune 500.

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Media Contact:
Christopher Jensen
Modern Survey
cjensen@modernsurvey.com
612/399.3837

In recent years, more and more organizations have begun to explore the advantages of providing a flexible work environment. My colleague, Don MacPherson, wrote a blog series on the phenomenon back in early 2011, for a deeper look at what’s causing the trend and what organizations can do I would highly recommend reading it. But just this past week, the idea of tailoring a job and a workplace to the preferences of a specific employee has made headlines all over the world. Free agency began this past Tuesday in the National Football League. This is the time of the year when professional players with expiring contracts are first allowed to sign with new teams. What’s interesting is that this year there’s one player capable of completely transcending what talent recruitment looks like.

Peyton Manning is a once in a lifetime type of player. Not only is the former Indianapolis Colts quarterback and four-time league MVP one of the greatest players ever to play his position, but he also possesses the kind of football IQ that rivals the greatest coaching minds. Over the course of his fourteen years in Indianapolis Manning's gained more and more power to shape the team, from calling all of the team’s offensive plays (acting as a de facto Offensive Coordinator) to input on personnel decisions (typically a GM or President’s responsibilities) and even running team practices (one of the Head Coach’s primary duties).

NFL star Peyton Manning on the job hunt.

The conventional thinking is that teams that want to woo Manning to play for them will have to do much more than simply outbid their competition in terms of the length and total value of their contract offer. It’s expected that they would have to effectively hand over the keys to their offense and let Manning run whatever he wants to run. The Tennessee Titans have apparently gone so far as to offer Manning a job “for life.”

Titans owner, Bud Adams, recently told the media, "I want him to be with me the rest of his working period of his life, even when he doesn't want to play anymore." Now that’s a commitment! The assumption is that after Manning’s playing days are over he would immediately assume a leadership position either as a coach or executive.

While there aren’t too many Peyton Mannings in the world, what we’re seeing in the NFL is indicative of the kinds of tactics that are becoming more and more popular in the business world. Organizations are using flexible work schedules, unlimited vacation hour policies, mobile work environments and similar tactics to land top talent. And as millennials who grew up in an instant-access culture--ushered in by the internet, mobile phones and the 24-hour news cycle--continue to flood the job market, you can expect participants in the war for talent to delve even deeper into the possibilities of tailoring jobs and workplaces to fit the individual preferences of specific employees.

I was in a dentist’s chair yesterday, on the stretch run of a two-hour-plus appointment when my dentist turned to her assistant and said, “I always hate this part.” She was talking about free-handing the permanent build-up/filling I had put in place in preparation for an eventual crown. Now, I get that it’s a difficult assignment. The little ring they put around my tooth to shape the filling wouldn’t quite hold still and so she had to artfully shape it herself. But I don’t want to hear, “I always hate this part.” I want to hear, “Luckily, I’m like a goddamn Michelangelo at this!”

I was laying there with my mouth forced agape with a bite block wedged back into the deep recesses of my smile and two virtual strangers sticking god knows how many strange metallic devices and latex covered digits inside my oral cavity. So I was more than a little vulnerable when she made the offhand remark to her assistant—as if I wasn’t right beneath her in that awkwardly exaggerated dental chair recline—effectively saying she’s not confident she can do the job I’m paying her to do to keep my mouth functional and healthy. I don’t know about you, Ms. Dentist, but I use my mouth. Like, a lot. So how’s about a little confidence, eh?

In the end, my tooth ended up in fine shape and condition but in the dentist/patient relationship the dentist is unquestionably the figure of authority, or should be anyway, and when an authority figure isn’t confident in the work they’re doing it’s more than a little disconcerting.

At Modern Survey we often talk about how a lack of confidence can undermine a leader’s ability to engage their employees. After all, if you are insecure in yourself and your position at your organization it becomes difficult to provide career development opportunities to your employees. You could see them as a threat to take your job. Or you might worry that helping them develop new skills may lead to their departure from your team or organization. But ultimately, great leaders know that if employees leave you because they’ve outgrown their position, you’ll develop a reputation that will allow you to consistently attract and develop new high-potential employees. And if an employee jumps over you on the corporate ladder, you should feel good that you had a hand in helping them get to that next level and senior leadership will take notice that high-performing employees keep sprouting up out of your team.

Of course, you can’t be confident about everything you do. Foolhardy confidence won’t do you any good. Sure, there are things you don’t know, maybe important things, but you should be confident in the things that you do know. And you should be confident enough in yourself to know that you can learn new skills and improve upon your weaknesses. Chances are there’s a lot you do know. Own it. Having confidence in yourself will make your weaknesses look a lot less damning and your strengths a lot more visible.

That dentist of mine knew that sculpting a filling wasn’t her strong suit, but had I heard her projecting confidence in other areas of her work I would have felt a lot more comfortable knowing I had her at the helm of my oral hygiene. The next time you are in a position of authority, don’t fret your weaknesses, acknowledge them and flaunt your strengths. Confidence in yourself will grow others’ confidence in you. And that’s the kind of virtuous circle any idiot can get behind.