• 2-way communication, down to the employee and upward to the manager
• what should be communicated and when
• obstacles to communicating more openly
• how to solicit communication from staff
• listening
• creating a climate where it’s safe to speak your mind

This stuff just doesn’t go away as an issue, does it? I heard similar concerns when I started my training and consulting practice 22 years ago.

Nevertheless, my potential client is wise to address these concerns. Why? Look no further than Deloitte’s just published 2010 Ethics and Workplace Survey. A few findings from their research:

• 1/3 of employed Americans plan to look for a new job when the economy is more stable.
• 48% of these with an eye on greener employment pastures cite “loss of trust” as a major contributing factor to their intention to look elsewhere.
• 46% of them mention “lack of transparency in communications.”
• 40% include “being treated unfairly or unethically by employers.”

Now, is this 1/3 block of employees made up mostly of the best employees, the ones you really don’t want to lose, the ones who will cost you a ton to replace? My guess is yes.

So, transparency and trust from your leaders…not a bad place to focus your investment dollars. The evidence of a need for it is mounting every week, folks.

In his excellent recent book, Managing, Henry Mintzberg, the renowned expert in management and Professor of Management Studies at my alma mater (McGill), answers this question with a concise model. He says that managers get things done by operating:

• In two directions:
  • inward towards his/her unit or team
  • outward, toward the rest of the organization and beyond

• On three planes:
  1. information
  2. people
  3. action

It brings to mind the Roman god, Janus, who had two heads, looking in opposite directions. This is a vivid image to remember when you manage. We seem to focus so much attention in management development on only one direction, dealing internally, with staff. But the job of manager is made substantially more complex by the involvement called for in the other direction.

So, dealing outward on the information plane, our manager collects data, observations, the political winds, and evidence of what is going on outside his unit and assessing its implications. He also disseminates information from his operation to upper management, other departments, customer and so forth. Some call this latter “optics” or “impression management, or “internal branding.”

Externally, on the people plane, besides building his own networks of influence, he links his people into key relationships with influential others outside the unit who can help his team members be more effective and create greater results. With the net and social networking, some of this happens naturally but the manager has an important role in directing and sustaining the connections.

Finally, his outward action comes in the form of what Mintzberg calls “dealing.” The manager must build coalitions around specific issues and mobilizes support that will help his interests and those of his unit.

As you plot your own management growth, don’t forget your other head, the one concentrating in the other direction.

Carrier’s talk was about how they instilled in every employee’s mind and in every corner of their operations their core values that inform how the company operates, what they call, with great fanfare, “Our Big Three”:

1. Happy, professional team members who demonstrate aggressive friendliness.
2. A clean, crisp, safe property where everything works.
3. Guests and team members receive all that they expect…plus a little bit more.

Essentially, they apply the principles of traditional branding and direct it within the organization. With the aid of a recognizable logo and a variety of strategies, they have been working for five  years to gradually have all of their employees living the brand experience.

Here are a few of the many ways they do this:

• Their company mascot, “OB3 (see photo), appears at company gatherings, from shareholder meetings to employee parties.
• Each new manager receives a high quality pen with logo and is asked to use it whenever signing their name in the course of their work.
• Every new employee receives a pocket size laminated card with ten guidelines to work behavior that reflect the “Our Big 3″ values. For example: know your hotel, present a polished image, details make the difference, create a “wow.”
• The performance review document (which by the way, they call the “Big 3 Report Card,”) groups performance items under the Our Big 3 categories.

On face it struck me as a big hokey and over the top but, when you think about it, good marketing involves repeated messaging in a number of delivery formats. Besides, wouldn’t you be inclined to come back to a hotel where you experience aggressive friendliness, a clean/crisp/safe facility, and a bit more than you expect? I would.

I wasn’t surprised, as I encounter this as an issue for most managers. At the same time, a part of me was disappointed. How sad that so many managers out there encounter a negative outlook in the heads of their employees. Now, dear reader, we can commiserate about this fact and acknowledge that the sources of this negativity are many and complex.

Better, however, for us to direct our attention onto what a manager can do about it. So, here’s what I told the participants in my program.

Chronically negative people are blamers.

• They are continually filtering for what’s wrong and, at the drop of a hat, will let you know who is to blame for the problem. (BTW, it is never the blamer himself/herself. When is the last time you heard an employee say, “The problem around here is nobody communicates and, in fact, I am one of the worst offenders.”)
• They don’t really want solutions to their complaints. That will just jeopardize the (comfortable, thank you very much) problem-centered lens through which they view their employer organization.
• Life is simple when it’s not their fault. Add to this that wonderful feeling of being “right” and a tad superior to those who are running the place.
• These people let their “victim child” side of their personality run rampant. They refuse to allow their “adult” side to join the discussion and bring up how they might be contributing to the predicament and what responsibility they bear for working toward a solution.

Gently, with respect, throw a spanner into their thinking process.

• The next time your frequent complainer expresses a negative, unfocused criticism, respond with something like:
  • “How would you like things to be instead?”
  • “What would it look like if this problem were fixed?”
  • “What’s missing for you that, if present, would make this not a problem anymore?”
• When an employee complains to you about another employee, respond with:
  • “What would  you prefer that they do instead?”
  • “Are they aware of what they are doing?”
  • “Furthermore, do they realize how much it is bugging you?”
  • “Have you told them what you want from them?”

Be persistent and unwavering with these responses and before you know it they will stop being negative, at least with you.

By using approaches like these, you invite them to shift their focus from the problem to possible solutions for the problem. You are asking them to take accountability for getting their needs met. After all, that’s what adults do.

Of the group that said their boss focused on strengths, 61% were “engaged” in their work. 45% of those reporting a boss who attended primarily to their weaknesses were engaged but, at the same time, 22% were “actively disengaged.” Except for the appearance of the actively disengaged group, focusing on areas to be development or turned around didn’t do too much damage.

But here’s the shocker. Look at the right hand column, reflecting employees whose boss essentially ignored both strong and weak points, in other words, giving no meaningful feedback at all. Virtually none of these (2%) were engaged and the rest were either neutral or disengaged.

“But, wait a minute,” you say, “maybe engaged employees, the keeners, are more inclined to see their boss as noticing and commenting on their strengths. Besides, since they are engaged, they probably are demonstrating their best talents on the job anyway. Their boss is just noticing what’s clearly evident.” This, of course, is the classic question with a correlation between two variables: which one is influencing which?

Let’s not go there. Instead, just consider the consequences of not giving your people any concrete feedback to speak of. It can severely dampen your employees’ level of engagement in their work. With all the data out there linking employee engagement to business results, we are talking lost productivity and creativity–big time!

25% of that “ignored” group of employees had a boss who gave no feedback. I hope you wouldn’t have been one of them.

We all have a place of comfort along a continuum that extends from purely “Directing” all the way to purely “Informing” others. Take a look along the line and see which phrasing feels most comfortable to you and sounds like how you would express your need to others.

There are times when speaking from either extremity of the continuum is appropriate and not disconcerting to those who receive your message.

• When you choose speak from the directing end, it is usually because of a time pressure and/or the need to focus laser-like on the task at-hand. This context enables your demand not to come across as inappropriately bossy.
• Totally informing language works well when you want to motivate people to choose to do the action or when you want to enroll them in a wider process.

Those situations aside, a problem arises when a manager needs to get greater buy-in and participation from his or her people but is habitually directive in his/her speech. I encounter problems more often, however, in bosses who are looking to come across more assertively but continue to speak in a strongly informative style. Words do make a difference. Usually, if a non-assertive manager consciously adopts a more directive delivery, over time he/she will become comfortable with how that sounds and will incorporate it into his/her default speaking style. As a result, he/she will come across as more assertive and confident in situations that call for this.

Does what you say when influencing your staff project the “you” you want them to experience?

In a similar vein, I put it to you that your most important three feet as a manager is that space between you and your employee. I’m not talking about so much about the physical space but more importantly about the mental and emotional space. How you handle this “I-thou” space will determine how effective a leader you are. It’s a distance across which pass–in both directions–information, meaning, expectations, resistance, appreciation, criticism, enthusiasm, hope, discouragement, fear, and much, much more.

We hear a lot these days about employee engagement, productivity, and retention, about talent development, and about leadership. These are all central to the results your employees ultimately generate and how profitable and successful your enterprise will be in creating wealth and achieving its goals.

Look at the organizations that do these things well and trace back to what’s behind it. Your search will eventually take you to that same “yardstick” of distance across which exemplary managers are leading excellent relationships with their employees. This is where the important work of leaders at all levels lies.

During the facilitated debrief discussion an interesting issue emerged. One woman said that, when the process seemed to hit its highest point of chaos, she sorely wanted to get up, grab a marker, approach the flip chart, and start leading her colleagues by capturing what they were saying and organizing it into a coherent strategy to solve the problem more quickly.

I asked her, “Why didn’t you do that?” She replied, “Because I didn’t want them to think I was being too controlling. I wanted them to see me as a team player.” Notice the assumption she had made about how they would perceive her well-intentioned act to contribute her particular strength (organizing) to the success of the group effort.

I turned to the group and asked them, “If she had stepped up and done this, (1) would you have seen it as controlling and not being a team player and (2) would it have helped you solve the problem faster than you did?” They all agreed that they would have appreciated, not resented or judged, her action and that it would indeed have helped them perform better.

This was what we in the training field call a “teachable moment.” The woman who had hesitated to step forward in the exercise learned to question her assumptions and, if her spirit of intent is genuine, to take the risk of contributing where she has a skill. The group learned the importance of making it OK (i.e. safe) for individual members to step forward and take such risks. Both innovative thinking and improved group performance requires this.

Have you made it clear to your staff that will support them when they bring their particular skills and perspectives forward when they have an idea or a better way to proceed? You may think you have but don’t assume that they have received the message!

This is a powerful process which generates stimulating, problem-solving discussions. While I facilitate it and inject my perspective and suggestions, so many of the ideas come from the wisdom and experience gathered around the table. In addition, during the course of the conversation opportunities periodically arise for me to engage in an on-the-spot role play with a manager around a specific challenge with an employee.

At the end of one of the sessions, a manager said that she saw a pattern in all of the issues that she and her colleagues had brought up. She said that every case involved the manager acting too soon and without sufficient information to deal with the situation in the optimal way. She went on to say that we managers aren’t listening enough, aren’t asking enough questions.

It was a brilliant summation and I couldn’t have agreed with her more. In fact, as I cast my mind over the two other sessions I held that day, this pattern was present there too.

Each case involved, at least in part, an employee who wasn’t open with the boss about the employee’s motivations, needs, opinions, concerns, fears, assumptions, perceptions of their current behavior, reasons for poor performance, etc.

• An employee is bored and unmotivated. The challenge is first to get him to identify what he wants from his work.
• A staff member bickers a lot. The manager has to get her to shift from blaming to expressing what she needs instead, what is missing for her around each complaint.
• An employee believes he walks on water and rates himself a 5 (out of 5) in all areas. The manager must first get him to point to the specific results and/or behavior that he believes he is delivering in his job.

We talked that day about the strong tendency managers have to try too hard and too quickly to “fix” “people problems” with their own advice or direction. As a result, they usually end up pushing their own solution on the employee (boy, don’t we all love it when our boss does that?) or solving the wrong problem.

If only, as that manager said, we would first really listen in order to really understand.

Before getting into answer mode, ask “Whose decision is it?” If it is your decision to make (based upon your job description), ask questions that will help you arrive at the best answer. If it’s your co-worker’s decision to make, ask questions to help him or her–referencing his or her particular skills and tendencies.

What a great filter–Whose decision is it?–for a manager just about to open his/her mouth and EITHER tell an employee what to do to solve a problem OR get the staffer to come up with a solution.

Pretty well all managers who attend my leadership workshops, when faced with this decision in a case role-play about an employee’s poor performance, default to telling, not asking. It’s comical to watch it happen. Their advice streams out of the (person playing the) manager’s mouth before they realize what they have done. Then they look at me, smile, smack their forehead with the palm of their hand and say, “Man, I just did it again, didn’t I?”

This  is a huge lesson for managers to learn because they are working against synaptic pathways worn deep over years of giving their employees the answers.

So, the next time you sense you’re about to inform an employee of what he or she should do, swallow that golden piece of advice and ask yourself Gary’s question, “Whose decision is this, anyway?”

]]> http://buildbestbosses.com/2009/10/22/resist-the-temptation-to-tell%e2%80%a6ask-instead/feed/ 0