Tag: communication

By Scott

Rule 3 – NEVER cancel without rescheduling

Enough said?  You can stop here if you get it.  If you need more convincing here are 451 more words to get some clarity.

In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey said We judge ourselves based on our intentions.  We judge others based on their actions. Never is that statement more true than in the relationship between a leader and follower.  Do any of these examples ring true?

1.  A leader cancels a one on one because of a customer issue.  Does not reschedule it because he/she just talked to the person as they walked around the office yesterday.

Leader intention:  Customer is critical and everything stops when they call.  Plus we just talked yesterday and you know I care about you.

Leader action (as interpreted by follower):  Here we go again.  Your issues always trump mine and this issue could have been handled by the field service team with just a little support from us.  This is the 6th time this has happened in the last 8.5678 months (slight exaggeration on the number – but do not be surprised at the human mind to keep a key measure like this).

2.  A leader has the one on one and interrupts the conversation three times because of calls from home.

Leader intention:  Apology issued before each call, and since it was his wife on all three occasions and it was an emergency it was okay because family comes first.  Family is a core value of our organization.  (Emergency = at the mechanic with their new Audi A8 and the repairs were not going well)

Leader action (as interpreted by follower):  Would it be okay if I did this?  His/her spouse is a great person, but can’t this wait 20 minutes?  Isn’t this my time?  I will just cut my time/agenda short and let them deal with their issues.  Afterthought – A8?  I wonder why my evaluation/increase is six months overdue?

3.  Leader leads the time with two things that went wrong last week and they want to know what happened and why.

Leader intention:  Accountability.  If we cannot have the hard conversations then I am not doing my job.

Leader action (as interpreted by follower):  What a jelly fish.  There have been four days to talk about these things since they happened, plus I owned them and fixed them.  What about the bad decision he/she made yesterday that kept me here until 8pm to fix?  Can there be accountability there?

Being a leader is tough.  It is tougher when priorities are not clear and the tyranny of the urgent rules over the one on one time.  Never break this rule – and if you do point back to the last date/time/location/reason that it happened so they know you are keeping score too. 🙂

Talent management is about great conversations.  Follow these three rules for one on ones and you can have some great conversations.

Links related to this post:

By Scott

Rule 2 – Individual (not leader) owns the agenda

(This is the second blog in a series outlining the key rules for making one on ones work.  Here is a link to the first:  Rule 1 – Be in the same room together)

I stood in front of a group of human resource professionals and asked them Whats the #1 reason leaders would resist a regular one on one schedule? Their answer – Time.  It is a reality that another commitment, especially one that takes preparation, is going to be an issue.  This is one of the key reasons that Rule #2 exists.  While this time together requires presence from the leader, it requires only minimal preparation because the agenda is 100% driven by the individual.  Here are two reasons why.

First, the number one need for people at work is knowing what is expected of them. Gallup created a twelve question survey they could use to assess employee engagement at work.  They called it the Q12, and the very first and most important question was I know what is expected of me at work. Each day, new problems or opportunities arise in a business, and with each comes an event that could change the nature of the work that someone has to do. The key to a one on one is doing the five R’s around work duties:  refine, revise, reorder, reinforce, or remove.  Since it is a fundamental need for every person to have some level of focus in their work, they will have the strongest desire to own any activity that helps them achieve that.  The one on one is that activity.

Secondly, it addresses one of the top issues with any leader, the ability to effectively delegate work. The #2 best-selling Harvard Business Review article of all time is Management Time:  Who’s Got the Monkey? Leaders have long struggled with taking on too much work from their people.  The inherent question from the leader in the one on one conversation is –What do you need from me? There are four basic needs a leader has to be ready to address.  The need for . . .

  • A listening year
  • Encouragement to overcome a frustration
  • Coaching to see/define other options for getting through a barrier
  • Help prioritizing/re-framing an overbooked to do list

Notice your work is not on the list.  There will likely be some commitments for a leader after a one on one, but most should revolve around working with other leaders to deal with competing organizational priorities.  There is a natural need for leaders to take on the work of their people (for that perspective read the article).  The one on one all about helping the individual achieve a state of 3 Mores/1 less:  MORE focused, MORE autonomous, MORE  successful, and LESS stressed.  In that state, everybody wins, especially the leader.

More to come on one on ones.  If you are interested, here is a sample template for getting started.

By Scott

Rule 1 – Be in the same room together

According to a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, children 8-18 spend 7.5 hours per day using entertainment media, 4 minutes playing outside, and 3.5 minutes per day in meaningful conversation with their parents. Hmmm . . . .

I toured a company called Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor last month and was shocked to find a technology company that did not use email to communicate.  All project management was done with post-its on the wall and communication happened face to face.  When someone needed to address the group they called out the name of the team, everyone stopped their work, and communication happened.  The business has experienced solid growth and the they have enabled several product launches that prove their methods are effective.  By the way, this is also a place where all coding is done in pairs – two people sitting next to each other and working together.  You cannot work alone on anything.

In a world where everything seems to be going faster, maintaining the right pace in how we interact is still important.

Great leadership starts with purposeful facetime with people.

Step 1 – Be physically present with the people you lead.

Yes, that is impossible for people leading virtual teams.  So to you I ask – What would that presence look like for you?  How close can you come to ‘physical’ presence?

After 20 years working on corporate teams, being married, and being a parent I am passionate about enabling one single thing – great conversations. When I created this template, I thought of a meaningful 30 minutes together between a leader and follower.  If we spend 30 minutes, one on one, every two weeks with each of our people, that works out to  a guaranteed 15 minutes of purposeful conversation per week with each person, or 3 minutes a day.

Hmmm . . . still only 3 minutes a day.  Too much . . . Really?

Watch yourself this week – How is the quality conversation time looking for you?

By Scott

Everyone needs a Target. Everyone!

Great leaders paint their own destiny

Great leaders live/lead through ambiguity

All of these statement are true, and yet in the details of all of these statements is work.  Inherent in this work is the simple question of What is the work?

One of the core beliefs I have is that everyone needs a target. The details will vary based on the individual, their drive, experiences, self-confidence, etc.   That data that supports this is Gallup’s Q12 and the most critical question to measure employee engagement – I know what’s expected of me at work. There is no exception in the research saying This does not apply to executives.

Yesterday I saw some great training that a start-up organization had put together to help their new leaders understand the culture and expectations they were stepping into – and see the target.  I know it will make a difference as they grow, especially if their leaders provide the conversations to support the learning and build the bridge to performance.  This is the hidden ingredient to clear expectations – an ongoing conversation about wins, losses, and just being lost. This is called leadership.

When I sit down with leaders to create the one on one sheet, I am amazed at the conversation that often ensues.  Sometimes it is laced with frustration, but more often it is about relief because expectations are clear.

Everyone needs a target.  Everyone.

 

By Scott

Can the CEO Coach? 2 Myths that get in the way

I learned by diving in – Why can’t they?

This statement was not meant to be mean or pass the buck, it was born from the frustration of seeing senior level leaders not rising to the occassion after being given significantly more responsibility.  I see it happen too often.  It is a painful scenario, and it is one that can be avoided.

When the focus is put on answering the question – How did we get here?, the root cause ends up being some attitudes/assumptions that started the motion down the wrong path.  Here are the top two:

Myth #1 – I did it all on my own, why can’t they. Really?  As a parent, many times a day the thought creeps into my head “When I was little I had the same challenge, and I just figured it out .”  Nobody ascends on their own.  Whether its a spouse, mentor, friend, or some other significant person – someone stepped in hand helped you through rough spots.  Solution: Commit 30 minutes a week to review goals, review progress, and answer questions (called a one on one)  Here is a link to a template if you need one.

Myth #2 – It is okay to lose some of  my money while they learn.  Why do they not feel safe? Have you ever had the angst of telling your parents that you had an accident with their car?  It was one of those conversations that teens through the ages have crafted countless schemes to avoid.  We grow up, get a job, and all of the sudden we make a mistake that costs our organization thousands of dollars, and it is like we were a teenager again.  Solution: Make it okay to make a mistake, provided you own it and have a plan to fix it.

When people become leaders of leaders, they realize how difficult it is to work through others to get results, and sometimes the default is to either leave them alone to figure it out, or step into their lives and help manage the details.  Ken Blanchard called this Seagull Management.  Fly in, dump, then leave.

Find an answer somewhere in the middle.  Don’t be a Seagull.

By Scott

Building a Leadership Development Program from Scratch

I was presenting at the SHRM conference in Illinois and had a chance to sit in on a presentation by Benjamin McCall.  It was a solid and thought provoking presentation, and my big takeaway was the question How would I build a leadership development program from scratch?

It reminded me how times have changed around doing things from scratch.  A personal example for me is baking.  I grew up thinking everything – pie crusts, cakes, and even muffins were only made from scratch.  While I love to make bread, cinamon roles, and even pancakes from scratch, most of the time it is much easier to get it from a box or a store.  I started my leadership development career thinking the stuff from the box was what needed to happen.  If the name Ken Blanchard, Center for Creative Leadership, Executive MBA, University of Michigan, or Harvard was on the label then it was great.

Then I went to a small company and was asked to build one from scratch, for one person, and with a limited budget.  The other condition was that it had to work because our business growth strategy was depending on the leaders from this program to open the offices in our plan.

What I learned is that there are some core benefits that all participants in these programs takeaway, and it has very little to do with content.  I also learned that the two core benefits, self-awareness and peer communities could be provided even if it is a small company.  trU Tips 21 is coming out next week and I will provide an outline of how I would answer this question.

I still stop when I hear the words Center for Creative Leadership or Ross School of Business or Harvard, but I know now that anyone can make something  really good from scratch.

Finally – the key currency to support this being done well and on your own – time from you and the rest of the leadership team.  That is the magic ingredient.  More to come in trU Tips 21 . . . . . .

 

By Scott

5 Key Outcomes – Individual Development Plan Conversation

Talent Management is about putting the relationship first, building a process full of great conversations, and using goals to drive individual ownership

Based on surveying 150+ human resource and business leaders 20% seems to be the magic number.  Only 20% of organizations have development plans for ALL their high potentials and for their executive teams.   This is a key conversation because it allows for a great conversation around past, present, and future.  My standard measure for a great conversation around performance and development is 30 / 30 / 40.  30% focused on the past, 30% focused on where you are right now, and 40% focused on where things need to be in the future.5 Benefits from doing development plans

So why do development plans?  Below are five outcomes that happen when we invest 60 minutes 1-2x per year to update development plans:

1. Refined knowledge of talents/nontalents: Wisdom is knowledge gained from our experiences that we apply to influence the outcomes of some present or future situation.  When individuals develop wisdom about their talents/non-talents the success rate for taking on new assignments or successfully building a relationship with a new leader goes way up.  Development plans (see my template) always start with refining our picture of ourselves.

2.  Creates the building block for performance – A Strength: Gallup shared the formula Strength = Talent + Skill + Knowledge in their book First, Break All The Rules.  Research has also shown that achieving mastery in a discipline takes 10,000 hours of effort (see Malcolm Gladwell’s book – Outliers).  The core of the development plan is to script the building of skills and knowledge so that the effort people are putting into personal growth moves them towards mastery.

3.  Get Feedback From Others: Where a plan or measure exists, feedback has the best chance of happening.  Author Jodi Glickman (Great On The Job) says the goal of feedback – “. . . . is not to make you feel good.  The goal is to make you better at your job.”  We do not get better without understanding the perceptions of others.  In our own minds, we are all amazing performers. 🙂  A great development conversation confirms and challenges this belief.

4.  Proactively Deal With A Weakness: Weaknesses are either non-talents that are required for success in your current job or strengths that are being overused.  Whichever the case, spending time talking about weaknesses before a performance evaluation is done or before they evolve into a crisis provides an opportunity for that individual to make a conscious shift to address an issue before it becomes a big problem.

5.  Self Management of Stress: Development plans get people thinking about what their preferred future looks like, whether it is 6 months out or two years.  This includes what has to change in how they are feeling about their role – ie:  stress, balance, and focus.  It is not a leader’s job to fix how their team members are feeling, but it is their job to ask the questions, be present for the answers, and support the plans that are created.

When I first created the Talent Scorecard over two years ago this list was not in my mind.  Since learning that only a small number of teams have development plans for all their people (20%) and personally leading 30+ leaders through the creation of Individual Development Plans this list has emerged.   It is one of the new additions to my Talent Scorecard presentation that I will be sharing at the Illinois SHRM State Conference in a couple of weeks – and it has become one of my favorite conversations.

If you are interested in what your Talent Scorecard looks like – here is a link to an on-line version that will give you a printout of your results and some hints for what your priorities should be.

By Scott

Development Tips: Communication that Creates Momentum

This week I will be publishing a review of the book Great on the Job by Jodi Glickman.  One request I get often is for ideas for helping develop the skills/capabilities of people.  This book provides an opportunity for some great conversations around communication and initiative.

Here are 4 ways Great on the Job could be used as a development tool for people on your team.  Each is a 30-60 minute conversation, that could go longer depending on how much actual skill practice you do.  Always ask for a commitment to use it on the job and plan a time to debrief/share at the next team meeting.

1. Calling people they do not know: Sounds simple, but in the world of texting you will be hiring people that are used to providing sound-bits and not professional introductions.  This book has a great chapter that will help people get to the point on a phone call with a busy client/customer.  It is very applicable advice for friends doing a job or to build communication skills/professionalism of your team. Here is a sample outline of what learning time is with an individual/team:

  • Provide them with a scenario that requires them to call someone they do not know with a request.
  • Give them 5 minutes to craft a 30 second message they would leave.
  • Ask them to share their message.  Do very little editing/correction.
  • Follow-up questions.  What was the biggest challenge of this assignment?  Who gave the most effective message in your opinion?  Why was it so effective? (write answers on the board for comparing to GOTJ content later.
  • Review Chapter 1 with them in the book.
  • Give them 3 minutes to rewrite their introduction.
  • Go around the room sharing revised introductions.
  • Go around the room and ask for each person to make a commitment on how they will use it in the next week.  Some examples – “I commit to posting this on my phone and tracking how many times I use it this week . . ”  “I commit to meeting with ____ for 30 minutes and practicing it.”
  • Spend 10 minutes at next staff meeting reviewing commitments and learnings.

2.  Interacting with Executives/Leaders: The #1 question asked at work to start conversations is –  How is it going? It is a crappy question, but it happens and it does provide an opportunity for people to give a BRIEF update on one thing they are focused on.  Here is an example of how this could be used with a group of high potentials or new hires:

  • Put people in groups of 3 and give them a scenario that you run into the CFO in the elevator and he/she asks “How is it going?”  Craft a great answer.  Craft a terrible answer.
  • Go around the room asking for both to be shared.  (this should generate laughter . . . )
  • Debrief:   What is the difference between a great answer and a poor answer?  Which was easier?  (write answers on a white board)
  • Review the GOTJ chapter for Status Update and Outstanding Answer.  Give half the groups the class of doing a Status Update answer and half to do an Outstanding Answer update.
  • Go around and ask for both to be shared.
  • Assignment:  Ask groups of 3 to be learning partners and test each other randomly, either face to face or during the work day until the individual provides a solid response.  (ie:  When your learning partner asks How is it going? – answer them as if they were the CFO.
  • Set 30 minutes to get back together in a week to review commitments and debrief the practice.

3.  What to say when you are asked something that you do not know: Job scopes generally change before people get hired, and after they start there will be continuous creep into areas where they are not experts.  The formula presented in the book is simple:  Here is what I know / Here is what I do not know / Here’s how I’ll figure it out.  Here is how this would fit into an onboarding session for new employees:

  • Day 1 with new employee, share your support for them and acknowledge that you will be asking them questions they do not know the answers to.
  • Share the GOTJ methodology.
  • Ask them a question they do not know the answer to – and have them use the GOTJ method to answer it.
  • Commit, as their leader, to help them by being willing to pause a conversation where they are rambling and asking each one of these questions to lead them through an answer.

4.  Asking for feedback: Leave the “millennials need more feedback” excuse behind.  Everyone needs to know how they are doing, and yet asking for that feedback is tricky.  GOTJ offers some great advice for how to ask in such a way that it is easy for people to give you feedback.  Here is how a work team could use this:

  • Ask everyone to read Chapter 6: Ask for Feedback.  Set the expectation that you will spend 30 minutes on the topic at the next meeting.
  • Facilitate a discussion around feedback: How do you feel about getting feedback?  How do you like to receive feedback?  Share a time when you received some great feedback/poor feedback?
  • Focus on how it works today:  What are ways you receive feedback today?  What are two parts of your job that would be easy/beneficial for others to give you feedback?
  • Using the Chapter 6 material in GOTJ, what is one commitment you make for gather feedback this week?  (What feedback will you ask for? How will you ask for it (script). Which teammate will help you? When will it be done?)
  • Practice your response when people give you great feedback – Thank you. 🙂
  • Go around the room and ask everyone to share their commitment for the week on using this material.
  • Set 10 minutes at the next staff meeting to revisit commitments and talk about next steps.

90% of development/learning happens outside of the classroom.  Any of these activities is 30-60 minutes of focused time spent on skills that can help people of any age/experience levels.  If people are just afraid or nervous to speak, one year in a Toastmasters group is still the best option, but as a leader this book can be used to empower and refine the skills of your team.  The result, they will become better at communicating to each other and you – which will make your life as a leader easier.

Talent management is about great conversations.  Go have one.

By Scott

Listening – Add This 360 Habit

Recently a leader asked me a question:  How can I know what my people think about how I am leading?

My response – ask.  Then I filled in the blanks.

This leader had a very strong habit of weekly one on ones with their team (the 2nd question on the Talent Scorecard).  Building off that habit, at the end of each conversation ask the question: What is one thing that I can do (or stop doing) that would help you the most?

First, deal with the actions associated with the answer.  Secondly, write down what people share in a single place – and make it a personal habit review the list every couple of months, maybe in your own one on one with your leader.  Here is an example of how this would work.

If your recent input is centered around comments like:  “Give me a heads up when a leadership change is happening in another group.  I have been surprised lately and received some questions from my own team that caught me off guard.” or “Let me know what you are thinking.  You have seemed distracted lately and I often wonder what I can do to help.”  Action plan – Need to focus/refocus on communication with your team and keeping them in the loop.  Maybe add weekly phone call/stand-up on Monday am for 5-7 minutes to check-in or carve out a 3 minute update from you at your team meetings.

Talent management is about great conversations.  We use 360 evaluations as a tool to help leaders get feedback from others on what they could do to be more effective.  Making this one question a habit integrates the 360 process into your conversations.

By Scott

Process Trumps Solution – If relationships matter . . .

If relationships matter, then the process trumps the solution.

At a recent Family Business Alliance event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, family business expert Greg McCann shared this quote in the context of a story.  The story was of a older business owner who had just put together a plan for passing his business on to his wife and two sons after his death.  The plan assembled by his lawyer and accountants put one son in charge who was part of the business and desired the top job, and make the other two financially comfortable.  When McCann asked him when he was going to share the plan, his response was “when I die it will be part of my will.”  McCann’s only advice was simple – if you want this to work, they need to know about it now so that they can work out the details and any disagreements or problems can be addressed while you are here.  If relationships matter (this is a family, so this IS the goal), then process trumps the solution.

We can learn a lot in talent management and leadership about building relationships from family business.  I created a talent calendar with the single goal of defining the events (process) that produced the best opportunity to talk, listen, support, and problem solve throughout the year for a leader and a follower. While content is important, presence and process is the goal.

I am reminded of a study shared in the book SWAY by Ori and Ram Brafman.  A survey given to convicted felons about the judicial process and how fairly they were treated.  In the end, two factors emerged as significant on their perception of fairness.  As was expected, the inmates placed a lot of importance on the outcome, which was the sentence they received.  But almost equally weighted was how much time their lawyer spent with them.  Process matters.

If relationships matter, then open and honest dialogue during process of setting the goal is more important than the goal being set.  Talent management is about process and the relationships that happen when it is done well.