Civility At Work

Disagreements and anger are a reality in the workplace and in life in general. Various people react in different ways when under pressure. Some lose their cool completely and say things they instantly regret, while others launch into tormenting the perceived offender with the silent treatment. No matter the technique used to punish, all of these methods quickly become tiresome and, more importantly, adversely affect the workplace.

Too frequently in the work environment, many people just can’t suck it up and utter the two simple words, “I’m sorry,” even when they know they’re wrong. It’s not just a guy thing either.  I’ve seen women behaving just as unprofessional when they feel put upon.

What’s a manager to do when this stubbornness becomes problematic?  In a word: intervene. When not controlled, these unreasonable, obstinate antics can become time-consuming and disruptive. It could all start with an impetuous negative e-mail (can anyone say ALL CAPS) or a less-than-mature voice mail left in the heat of battle that cascades into a futile distraction, as otherwise effective and seemingly sensible employees act out as if they were back in the third grade rather than adults in the workplace.

The most expeditious method that works with either the protagonist or antagonist in an office drama is to call a spade a spade, so to speak, and get the feuding parties together and cut to the chase, making each person agree to bury the hatchet but preferably not in each other’s skull. If employees’ anger management issues are left to fester, they can easily result in other people in the same work environment taking sides, and in short order, you will find yourself in the midst of an all-out War.

The only thing guaranteed when this occurs is that there will be casualties. It is incumbent on the ruling manager to make sure that the company doesn’t wind up as the victim, incurring a loss of productivity and causing everyone around the two factions to feel as if they’re walking on pins and needles.

While many times it would be easier for the boss to ask one of the warring participants to approach the other to work out their differences, this tactic just takes too much time and the outcome can be iffy. It really doesn’t matter who is right or wrong but that the nonsense is stopped dead in its tracks. The best way to accomplish this is to make it more than abundantly clear that anger in the workplace is unacceptable and could be a career-inhibitor.

Allowing employees to exhibit a lack of civility will cause a domino effect that will lead to no good. Civility does not just apply to peers. Instead, it’s applicable to all who must work together, including superiors, subordinates and even fellow board members. And, don’t confuse civility with agreeing or disagreeing with someone. It also doesn’t mean one has to believe that someone is effective in his or her role. Instead, what must be required is that those within an organization, no matter what level, simply take the higher road and respect not necessarily the person but the role and make the assumption that everyone has a part in working toward shared goals, until it is proven otherwise.

Once everybody knows the rules of engagement, many times the negative engagement suddenly ends and it’s back to business as usual. When that doesn’t happen, it’s time for offenders to be forced to go to their respective corners so as not to do each other or the company any more harm.

To promote coexistence when no one wants to take the first step and say, “I’m sorry,” it’s up to the adult in the room — and that would be you, the boss — to step into the fray with your whistle to call a permanent timeout to these types of disruptive behaviors.

 

Cultivate Empathy: It’s Important

Empathy is the ability to read a person’s responses by visualizing yourself in his or her place.

Exceptional communicators and leaders have the ability to sense what others are thinking.  They don’t always have a quick answer or suggestion.  When you are listening to someone, turn on your intuition. Use your imagination and past experience in similar situations to give you some indications as to what the other person is feeling. Forget about yourself and what you want to say next. Instead, imagine that you are the other person, even if just for a minute.

When people tell you about something that’s bothering them, they often talk around a subject instead of getting to the point.

Here are four questions that may help you get more insight and be more helpful:

•    “What do you consider to be the fundamental issue underneath all of this?”

•    “”If you had the choice, what would you most like to have happen now given the situation?”

•    “Can you give me three specific things that concern you about this issue?”

•    “What other issues are also bothering you about this situation?”

When people are facing a problem and come to you for help, they want to know that you are listening and in tune with their feelings. Asking questions will help them see their situation more clearly and help you understand the real underlying concerns.  Sometimes just listening to your questions, people can think through the issue more clearly and resolve their own problem.

Identify a Listeners Preference to Gain Support

Listen, Understand, Act (Photo credit: highersights)

Managerial attentiveness is high on the list of stated employee wants and needs.
But how about when it’s time to gain support for your idea or program? Employees at all levels will give you their attention if you understand how to legitimately capture it.

Here are four ways to identify a listener’s preferences and plan and deliver your message so it can be heard.

1. The “Trend-Chaser”: Help Them Follow the Trend

These folks pay attention to what others are doing. Perhaps they need to feel like they “belong”; maybe it’s just a matter of not thinking too much. Who knows? It doesn’t make any difference. You need to provide social proof-testimonials-of what other people think about your ideas.
Use these phrases:

• “The benchmarking companies have implemented . . .”
• “The top experts in (name the appropriate field) have just written that. . .”
• “Statistical trends now show that. . .”

2. The Analytical: Facts and Stats

Even though we know for a fact that people decide based on emotion, these people need to hear supporting evidence. And you’ll be questioned on it, so be prepared. They won’t go to a fast food outlet without seeing which one has the “best” value meal: $1.00, $.99, or $1.03. Why? One reason is that they want to be confident that they can give a “logical” answer should someone ask them. So, give them the confidence with facts and figures. Quantify everything.

3. I Love A Challenge!: Overcome Obstacles
Routine bores this group. When the sun rises, they’re ready to assault a mountaintop. When they hear that something can’t be done, it energizes them to prove otherwise. So, tell them:

• The system doesn’t work
• It’s too late to change (or too early)
• They can’t afford to do what will really make a difference

Watch them leap into action when you present your ideas as barriers to be overpowered.

4. What’s the Payoff? Incentives & Rewards

Here’s the group that examines the benefits of your idea, both organizational and personal. They want to improve their situation every day. Show them “how to”.

• How to increase profitability
• How to reduce conflicts
• How to be more effective at managing
• How to leapfrog their career

These are the Four I see regularly. But there are many more.

Inspiring Communicators

In two decades (that sounds old) of working with CEOs, business owners and other senior leaders, I cannot recall one who I would have deemed to be stupid (ok maybe 1). But seriously most were intelligent, talented people. Yet, when faced with the challenge of change, or a crisis, many succeeded and some failed. Those who failed usually lost their jobs or businesses.

When I listen to the ones that succeeded consistently, I listened to inspiring communicators.

To be inspiring, however, was not the same as being a great speaker.   To be inspiring, you had to learn how to be a better listener, you had to fundamentally understand what was in the hearts and minds of the people in your audience, and you had to speak with passion and authenticity.

You could stumble and stutter over your words, but if people saw you speaking to the things you truly believed, and felt that you truly understood them and respected their views, you were far more likely to make the vital connection that would attract them to your vision.

HR leaders have recognized that leadership has changed. OUT has gone the command and control style of leadership, and IN has come a new, more empathetic, emotionally intelligent style of leadership where communication becomes one of the top two skills that you need to succeed. (The first is raw intellect and the ability to develop the right strategy.) The ability to understand, motivate and inspire others is the characteristic that is now second most important when recruiting senior leaders or anyone headed in that direction.

Great leadership ensures that the right conversations are taking place right across their businesses, for they understand it is those conversations that drive change and ensure progress.  Leaders have to learn how to engage people in and through conversations. They have to learn how to tell stories better, and they have to learn how to be themselves, only better if they want to lead in our changing world.

The task of a leader is to inspire others to achieve great results. It sounds simple, but leaders today are operating in an incredibly demanding environment. The difference between competent communication and inspiring communication can be the difference between poor performance and outstanding results.

In speaking with leaders I admire the most, two words that I consistently hear are relationships and trust. You cannot lead if you cannot establish relationships of trust, both inside and outside your company.

Effective communicators:

• Address the concerns of the audience BEFORE delivering their own messages,
• Learn to listen better and master the most difficult communication skill of all,
• Develop strong points of view on key issues,
• Use more stories to capture hearts and imprint messages on memories,
• Are aware of the power of unintended signals and messages,
• Prepare properly when appearing on public platforms, and
• Keep reviewing and developing your communication skills.

Driving Change

Nobody likes change and some of us hate it. As a leader, your job is to get others to want to change. I remember when I had a Palm as my smart phone and tried to transition to a blackberry. Didn’t work for me. My husband suggested an iPhone, I wasn’t even going there. However, when I needed to upgrade, he bought me an iPhone and gave it to me as I was boarding an airplane for a business trip. I went a little crazy, but I had several hours to play with it on my flight without any pressure and I knew I would return it when I got back, but, I began to see the value it offered. I learned to use it and have loved it since.

Getting others especially other leaders to open up to change is hard. You have to help them understand what’s in it for them, because suddenly you are changing something in their very comfortable lives. They are going to resist and find every reason to point out that your conclusions and recommendations for change are wrong. If you want change to happen, you have to help them understand that change is in their best interest. Show them you are trying to drive results or metrics they care about. Help them understand that they stand to benefit from the changes you are recommending.

Here’s an example of what I mean: When I was part of a large call center, there were very different sets of metrics that people received incentives on. There was the call center, which was receiving incentives based on operational efficiency. They were rewarded for how many calls they were handling an hour, their abandon rate, their customer service scores, and how many dollars were they collecting while they were on the phone (it was a credit card collections call center). On the other side of the fence, there were people like me who were looking at the long-term customer satisfaction and retention. Sometimes we were advocating for treatments in the call center that met short-term operational goals but missed the long-term goals. The leaders in the call center wanted their teams to get you on the phone and say “you owe us $100. Please pay now.” All they wanted to do (and what they received incentives for) was to get you to say “yes, I will pay you,” take a payment, and then get off the phone and move on to the next one as quickly as possible.

My team was concluding that the long-term value was building a relationship with the customer and understanding their financial situation. If we better understood how we could help the customer and what his long-term goals were, we found those accounts were more profitable than others. The operational effect of this approach, however, was that those phone calls started getting longer and longer and longer.

In the short-term we were messing up the call center’s metrics, but long-term building a more profitable relationship with the customer. What we had to do was sit down with the call center leaders, and help them understand the long-term behavior we were trying to drive. We had to explain why it was in the best interest of the broader organization and of the company as a whole. We were pretty up front with the call center leaders and we told them we understood how we were going to mess up their metrics. We knew if we wanted to achieve the long-term changes that drove profitability we had to blow up our call center operating efficiency metrics.

We as leaders knew if we wanted to make those changes happen, we had to be willing to stand side-by-side with that call center leader in front of their boss and ask that boss for relief on those operating metrics. He had to say “if you want to make a change that’s good for the long-term business, this is going to be bad for the short-term for operating metrics. We need you to change the operating metrics incentive plan.” As soon as those call center leaders knew we were willing to go to bat for them and they weren’t going to get penalized on their personal incentives, they were much more willing to support the changes.

In the end, we made the changes, changed the incentive plan, and improved the overall profitability of the business. If you want to get other leaders to change, you have to be willing to stand side-by-side with them. You have to help make their case for change and do what you can to protect their interests while simultaneously pursuing your own. When you partner with others in change, change can actually happen.

Why your staff may not be listening

“I have been telling my staff that for years………they don’t listen.”  I can’t tell you how many times managers say this to me. 

Today, it’s easy to communicate with one person or thousands very quickly. Too frequently, however, the message gets lost in the medium and fails to resonate with the intended audience.

Here are some tips I have recommended to leaders that encourage more effective communication:

• Be clear about what you need. Don’t expect your team to guess. Remember, that one size doesn’t fit all, so you may have to infuse your cut-to-the-chase request with humor or compliments to soften the message.

• Overhaul voice mail and e-mail. Survey your team members’ current responses for their business e-mail and telephone messages, and prepare to be shocked by the content and length! This calls for creating a template or script. Each script should be tailored to the person’s job function.

• Teach your team how to communicate. While you can’t control every word that comes out of your team members’ mouths, you can establish standards of what is appropriate.

• Have frequent in-person updates. Somewhere along the line, “micromanage” has become a  bad word. It conjures up images of bosses who can’t delegate, who don’t trust their team members and who don’t give employees room to do their      best work. No, you shouldn’t do your team’s work for them, you should get regular (and of course, succinct!) updates.

• Use your negatives sparingly. If you’re telling your team everything they need to know, but you still aren’t getting the results you want, try using more cut-to-the-chase sound bites. Be sure your announcements don’t always  start with a negative, followed by a litany of unpleasant consequences. If you frequently start each communication with negatives, your team will simply stop listening to your entire message.

• Look in the mirror.  The golden rule definitely applies to leadership and business. It’s always a good idea to treat your team as grown-ups and make them partners in whatever you’re doing.

If you’re not getting the results you want, you might be the problem. When you’re open about what’s at stake and use a logical, positive tone, you’ll find that your communications will gain traction.

The vehicle or venue you select to deliver your message is just as important as the point itself. Good news should be presented in an upbeat setting, and more serious subjects should be broached in a setting that’s “strictly business.”

If you’re open and succinct, you find that your team will mimic your style. Communications will become understandable and actionable.

Leaders capacity to relate

One of the most common complaints about leaders is that they are promoted for their technical skills and ability, and often have poor social and communication skills. A big insight that emerged in the 2011 NeuroLeadership Summit is that this may simply be a function of the leader’s
role.  I don’t agree with this conclusion, but it is a very interesting topic, especially when I applied it to some of the leaders I’ve worked with over the years.  It really got me thinking.

UCLA professor Matthew Lieberman, one of the founders of the social Cognitive Neuroscience field, presented research on our ability to mentalize, (their word not mine) or predict other people’s emotional or intentional states. It turns out this requires significant effort, attention and resources. People experiencing even a mild cognitive load or “stress” find their ability to think about what others are thinking or needing is impaired. The trouble is that our
ability to mentalize about other people’s thoughts is extremely poor even at the best of times. I certainly never thought of it this way, but it does make
sense.

In one study, an average of 50% of participants initially predicted that people would be able to work out the tune of a very well-known song by listening only to the beats being tapped out. It turns out only 2.5% of people could successfully guess the tune with tapping as the only information. I’m not totally sure how this relates, but I am not a scientist.  Their study found that our ability to the think about the minds of others is surprisingly poor, even when not under pressure.  Not a big surprise.

The other challenge is that the ability for thinking analytically, such as thinking about the future or about concepts, switches off the ability for thinking about others. People spending a lot of time being analytical, conceptual or goal focused may have diminished ability for thinking about the minds of others, simply through lack of use.  They may have a point here.

Leaders who spend too much time analyzing and strategizing may find it difficult to activate their rarely used social ability. Put this together with how hard it is to think about the minds of others when under pressure (and leaders are under massive cognitive load), and you begin to see why there is such an emotional divide between cognitively exhausted senior executives and the people they lead.

The big question now is what can be done to improve a leader’s capacity to relate and connect with others? Lieberman is studying this very question now.  I for one look forward to seeing the results.

The key to creating great employees

It’s hard to forget your first job learning office protocol, building a rapport with the team, impressing your boss and meeting the ever-intimidating CEO. You may have felt eager to be noticed or eager to just blend in — either way, there were likely moments of discomfort that you do not want to revisit anytime soon.

Similarly, you may recall the moment you first engaged with your mentor. The way that person took you under his or her wing, made you feel confident and inspired you to become the  leader you are today.

As leaders, we all want to be like our mentors but are cognizant of the intimidation factor that often comes with being a CEO.  It’s no secret that the best teams are made up of happy people who feel respected, appreciated and challenged in the workplace. I have experienced first hand how connecting with people makes them feel at ease in the workplace and much happier and therefore more productive.

Paul Damico, president of Atlanta-based Moe’s Southwest Grill recently told SmartBusiness his strategy for developing his workforce is creating relationships.  Below are some of the ways
this CEO builds relationships with his employees and stays plugged into his organization.

The best meetings are one on one

One way I connect with a team is by having one-on-one meetings with associates at all levels of the organization. As a rule, no one says no to a one-on-one. As the name implies, it is a face-to-face meeting with just me.  It provides a dedicated time to discuss ideas, feedback, goals, personal development or anything the associate wishes to discuss.  When someone within the organization, whether it’s me, a member of the executive team or an associate, requests a one-on-one, all parties know that no one is ‘in trouble,’ as is often assumed when you’re called into the boss’s office.

Not only are these meetings helpful for the team but also for me to keep my finger on the pulse, offer recognition, provide coaching and/or hear great suggestions.

Live the open-door policy

On my office door I have a sign that reads ‘This wood panel may look closed, but it’s open — no, really, come in.’ I want to be sure everyone knows, quite literally, that I have an open-door policy. I want the team to feel free to pop their heads in and ask a question or pull me into an impromptu meeting at any time.

I have found that the team can run faster and leaner with this policy in place. We can make decisions and go through the proper approval channels in a speedy manner when we eliminate the need to have a meeting to discuss setting up a meeting for another meeting. We’ve all been there.

Get personal

Another way I connect with my team members is by making the effort to get to know every one of them personally. I make it a goal to ask them about their personal lives, interests, families and goals. In fact, when we do our annual goal-planning sessions, we ask that associates include personal goals on their list. We find that if you’re fulfilled outside of work, you’ll be happier
on the job. A happy associate is, more often than not, a more productive one.

Mi casa es su casa

I think one of the most effective ways to instantly break down the barriers between myself and the members of my team is to open up my home. When we have company parties, I like to host them at my house with my family. When possible, we have the team invite their spouses, and we keep the vibe very laid back.

One of the guiding values at Moe’s Southwest Grill is to be yourself. We go out of our way to ensure everyone feels comfortable to do just that.

Next time you see the newest member of your team quietly lingering outside your office door, tell them to come in, just like your mentor may have done to you many years ago, and get to know them. And if all else fails, you can always just hang a sign on the door.

 

Trust in Leadership declines

The shaky economic and employment climate in the U.S. continues to make headlines.  In a recent poll of 1,857 U.S.-based employees identified another issue for employers to worry about: a lack of employee trust in management.

Among the findings:

Only 14 percent of respondents said they believe that their company’s leaders are ethical and honest.

Just 12 percent believe their employer genuinely listens to and cares about its employees.

A small 10 percent of employees said they trust management to make the right decision in times of uncertainty.

And just 7 percent said that senior management’s actions are consistent with their words.

Poor communication, lack of perceived caring, inconsistent behavior and perceptions of favoritism were cited by respondents as the largest contributors to their lack of trust in senior leaders.

It seems that a strong indicator of management mistrust is lack of shared values.  If a company truly wants to engage its workforce, drive trust and gain loyalty, it must implement a culture that recognizes individual behaviors that contribute to the company’s values and goals, and sadly, this isn’t common practice. … Only 8 percent of employees say they are frequently recognized for demonstrating behavior consistent with their company’s stated values.  And I hate to add that simple Thank You’s and other types of simple acknowledgement of employee efforts is sorely lacking in todays workforce.  Are we all so busy we forgot the fundamentals?

 

 

Getting advice that’s really helpful

Consider Several Sources

Rarely does one person have the full story on anything. Even if that were so, finding the perfect advisor could be quite difficult and time  consuming. (Unless you pick me), almost kidding!

But seriously, think about what you want? You want some one who is interested but not biased; someone who shows concern but doesn’t become emotionally involved; someone who is knowledgeable but not overbearing. So, if you can’t find one person who fits the situation on all counts, ask for counsel from multiple sources. Then pay close attention to where they agree and disagree. See if you can account for their disagreement—what are their inclinations and levels of expertise? It can be quite useful to go back and have a second, brief conversation with each, sharing the differing information and asking for their take on it. (You don’t need to reveal the sources, just the distinctions).

Remember: Advice Comes from Values and Philosophy

Very little advice, aside from facts or situational observations, can be separated from one’s values and worldview. For example, which carries more weight when considering a job change: Increased responsibility? Better salary? Job security? Relocation? Don’t expect your  advisor to give you the bottom line on the issues you are discussing. She/he can help you view your options, not score them.

When you want to be a helpful advisor, focus on asking questions that will cause your friend or colleague to look at their situation more deeply, or from a different perspective. You’ll soon be experienced as someone who possesses wisdom, not quick solutions.   And, that’s not a bad reputation to cultivate.