Could Rules Be Choking Your Team?

As enlightened leaders, many of us say that we want to empower our teams to bring out the best in each person working for us.  Sometimes we do many of the right things: focusing on solutions, transparency, giving challenging assignments, resisting micromanagement, and listening.  Yet, despite our efforts, we’re sometimes dismayed to learn that our teams don’t feel empowered. 

Perhaps we can take a lesson from United Airlines.  Their highly publicized fiasco last week where a passenger suffered injury being dragged off a plane was compounded by the company’s initial response, “Our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this.”

Some airline veterans that I know recalled a time when passenger agents were once empowered to do what was necessary to make things right for the passenger.  This common sense approach would likely have prevented an incident like this. How could last week's events have happened?  

Like many organizations, someone probably made a mistake once upon a time, and the organization’s response was to pile on more procedures.  Many companies have thousands of pages of policies and procedures.  In fact they are so voluminous, no employee could possibly know them all.

I once worked for an organization where I was told at an exit interview, “You talk about empowerment, but there are so many rules here, I feel like I'm in handcuffs.”  He went on to say how demoralizing it was to work in an environment where there was so little trust.

As I spoke to the man, who was soon to be a former employee, I saw that he was right.  I realized that the procedures that we put into place created a bureaucratic maze that often defied common sense and added needless cost and frustration for our team.  I never got a chance to address it because I too moved on, but last week’s events made me remember it.

Policy and procedures are important, especially when they provide for the health and safety of the public and employees.  Beyond that, organizations should consider whether they’re worth the cost to their business.  As a manager, I understand that it is comforting to know that your procedures cover you, but is it worth the cost of a disengaged workforce?

QUESTION: How do you determine if a procedure is really needed?

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The Secret to Meetings that Engage

We’ve all been subjected to staff meetings that seem to drone on for hours and at the end of it we feel that we’ve been robbed of precious hours.  Sometimes we wonder why the contents of the meeting couldn’t have been summarized into an email.

As the leader of a team, are your staff meetings any better?  You have important information to share, and sometimes it feels like you’re talking to a wall. It’s especially frustrating when you cover something in a staff meeting only to have people tell you later, “I didn’t know,” or “You never told me.” Many of us try to mix it up a bit by having several speakers, but if one speaker is as dry as the next, is this really going to make a difference?  So what do you do?

You need to engage your audience.  All of us demand engagement in everything we watch.  Everything from awards ceremonies, advertisements, and TV news (just watch some video from 30 years ago), has gotten flashier. I run a free job search support group where people come to learn job search skills.  Since I don’t put on a flashy show, I’ve learned that to keep people coming back, I need to engage them during my 90-minute sessions.

Communication is a two-way street.  For people to be open to listening to you, you need to make them feel heard.  Give the people at the meeting a chance to talk in small groups and then ask them to report to the bigger group or take their notes and send them out to everyone.  

You may say to me, that’s fine for a seminar, but what about real business?  At any given time there are things that are either in the planning stages or changes (internal and external) that have happened that have had a negative impact on your team.  Asking them for suggestions of constructive ways to cope with challenges is always a good thing.

When you ask for input, people are more likely to engage in small groups. Splitting the meetinginto groups of three or four and then having the groups report is effective.  During the small group discussions, the energy level in the room rises and when you pull the whole meeting back to debrief, the discussion is often fruitful and the whole room is engaged. 

One important thing about getting feedback from your team is that you need to show that you’ve incorporated it into your decision-making.  Failure to do this will lead people to conclude that these small group sessions are no more than fire drills. This shouldn’t be an issue if you’re on your game as an empowering leader.

QUESTION: How do you make your meetings engaging?

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Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.

The Truth You Need to Know About Influence

You’ve worked on a proposal to move your business forward.  You’ve put together a compelling argument supported by facts and figures.  You’ve made a flawless presentation that you think could only lead to the conclusion that you’ve reached.  But your audience is unmoved.

Much of my career has been around business transformation and I’ve been there.  A couple of times I made flawless presentations that didn’t lead the room where I wanted them to go.  Looking back on it, I must have delusional when I expected that I’d make a persuasive presentation and people would say, “You’re right Kris, we’ve been doing the wrong for years.  Let’s do it your way.” What I forgot on those occasions is how much people are personally invested in the status quo, and a basic truth about influence.

That truth is that influence is a slow process.  Think about it.  When was the last time that someone made a brilliant presentation to you and you said, “Yes I’ve been wrong for x years, and now I see the light.”  It doesn’t happen to other people either.

When people change their minds, they do it a little at a time.New York Magazine posted an article about news host Bill O’Reilly printing quotes reflecting his evolving opinion on the subject of gay marriage over nine years http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/bill-oreilly-gay-marriage-evolution-timeline.html .  No charismatic person convinced him that he was wrong one day.  His position shifted a little at a time.

When you’re seeking to influence someone or some people, recognize that it will take multiple conversations and that your approach with each person will have to be different.  You will have to listen to each person and likely compromise to get your message across.

This isn’t to say that there’s no place for a group meeting and a flawless presentation.  This can happen once you’ve moved your audience along the path of belief to the point where the your proposal isn’t a big leap for them.

In thinking about influence I think of the influencer as being like water and the person that I want to influence like rock.  A massive storm won’t change the rock, but water can erode and shape stone over time.  The big difference is that you have an advantage over water because you can use your intelligence and your connection to the person to to steer change more quickly.

QUESTION: What advice do you have for influencing others?

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Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.

The Secret to Getting Performance Feedback

“I’m always asking my boss how I’m doing, and he says fine.  Then when I get my review, I feel like I’ve been ambushed.”  I’ve heard comments like this from many people at all levels of their organizations.

The problem isn’t that those bosses don’t want to help.  People generally want to help others.  If you ask your boss the question, “How am I doing?” Typically bosses won’t deliver a performance appraisal, even an informal one, without thinking it through.  Perhaps you’ve asked this question with no warning and so the reflexive response to that surprise request is, “Fine.”

To take advantage of the human desire to help, you need to make it as easy as possible for that person to help you.  Asking for feedback in a manner that makes it easier for that person to help you increases the odds of getting a constructive response.  Career coaches tell job seekers the same thing about networking.  “Don’t make people uncomfortable by asking for something they don’t have (a job).”  Ask them for something they do have such as information about the company or field. 

So if you want feedback about your performance from your boss, saying something along the lines of “What’s one thing that I should focus on during the next month to upgrade my performance?”  This is a much easier question to answer than asking for an assessment of your performance.  Asking this question or variations of it throughout the year will give you helpful feedback.  You could even ask critical stakeholders, "What's one thing I could do to make me easier to work with?" or some variant of that question.

Whatever the question you ask, don't make them feel like they have to judge your performance. They'll probably feel comfortable suggesting one thing.

If you sense hesitation, tell your boss (or whoever you’re asking) that you realize you might have caught them off guard and that it would be great if they could get back to you at a later time.

Before you ask someone for help, ask yourself three questions: 1) Can the person give me the help I’m asking for? 2) Am I asking for it the right way so that they think it’s easy for them to help? 3) Am I asking for it at the right time and in the right place?  Remember that feedback is a gift.  If you as the requestor make it easy for them to help, odds are they will.

Question: How do you ask your boss for performance feedback between reviews?

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Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.

4 Steps to Leading People From Their Comfort Zone

There are new demands placed on us every day.  Leaders sometimes have to reshuffle assignments of members of the team.  Change can present opportunities for individual career growth, but even under the best of conditions, resistance goes with the territory.  How do you minimize it?

Early in my career, I worked for Bill who was a skilled storyteller. The first time I saw him use this skill was to persuade a person we will call Evan to switch assignments from managing a technically cutting edge system with a great business contact to a problem-ridden system built using obsolete technology with very difficult business counterparts. 

He started by talking about the business problem caused by our problematic system and how it was starting to cause operational problems.  Bill talked about how a more senior executive from operations had approached him about getting their best people together to solve the problem. The effort could culminate in a long-term solution which would lead to a technology upgrade. He then told Evan what gifts he had that made him uniquely suitable for this assignment. Bill then told Evan what he remembered about Evan’s career aspirations from their conversations, and explained how this assignment was a perfect fit and why. I knew that Evan loved his current assignment, so I was really surprised when Evan agreed to the switch.

Later, when I wanted to change my team’s assignments, I remembered this experience and tried to emulate it.  It worked for me every time. Once, when I worked for a boss who had more of a command and control style– I followed her example once. I explained the bigger picture, how important the new assignment was to the company and our boss, and said that the new assignment would be a growth opportunity.  It was a dismal failure. The person was back in my office the next day saying that she couldn't do it.

Every time after that, I remembered Bill's example and those conversations were successful.

What do you need to do to lead your team to agree to major changes? 1) Learn what their hopes and dreams are.  2) Frame the change in terms of the bigger picture, being sure to identify potential opportunities inherent in the change, 3) Explain how the change supports the individual’s hopes and dreams, 4) Explain how you see that person’s skills as being a unique and perfect fit for the new assignment.

Don’t expect that your team member will agree to a major change on the spot.  Give them a few days to think about it and get back to you. Someone who chooses to make a change because she/he thinks it will be good for her/him will be more effective and successful than the one who is resisting it.

QUESTION: How do you help your team to buy into new assignments?====================================================================

Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.

Are You Really Accessible to Your Team?

A leader’s connection to his or her team is vital to success.  In order for the leader to receive all important feedback, he or she must be accessible.  

Many of us tell our staffs, “My door is always open.”  We think we’ve said it many times.  We are surprised when we find out that the people who report to us, especially those who report to others who work for us, are very unhappy about some policy or initiative.  Perhaps we need to look at the other messages that we’re sending.

How open are we to new ideas and other perspectives in meetings?  If we shut down conversation that isn’t consistent with our ideas in meetings, how will people think that talking to us one on one is going to be different?

We all have bad days where we aren’t proud of how we react to someone.  A leader who wants to be approachable needs to publicly apologize for their own bad acts.  So if we cut someone down to size in a meeting for making a negative comment, we need to apologize in that same forum to tell that person and others that we don’t consider our behavior acceptable. 

Do you interact with people below your direct reports on a formal basis?  You should at least know know who works for your direct reports.  How often are they included in meetings with you where there is discussion?  If they have limited to no experience interacting with you, what makes you think that they’ll turn to you when they’re unhappy?

Do you interact with people below your direct reports on an informal basis?  I once spoke to a man who worked twelve feet from his boss’s boss, yet in ten years they never spoke one on one! Do you think that this man would ever take advantage of that second level supervisor’s open door policy?

When your team talks to you in your office, do you give them your undivided attention?  I know that for awhile, I had the unfortunate habit of trying to multitask while people were talking to me.  Not only was it rude, but I was telling them that they weren’t really important to me.

Accessibility is an important aspect of forging connections to your team.  You don’t want to be the clueless leader that has to find out from a third party that you’re out of touch.  Looking at your practices and behavior can get you moving in the right direction.

QUESTION: How do you make sure that you are accessible?

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Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.

3 Steps to Rebuilding a Broken Business Relationship

Imagine this: you’ve stepped into a new job or assignment and one of the people that is critical to your success had a bad relationship with your predecessor and thinks your department isn’t worth talking to.  What do you do?

Obviously, you need to build a relationship, but that the bad history may make that prospect feel impossible.  So how do you approach it?

1. Reach out to the person and say that you’re new in the role and you want their advice. It’s fair to say that you know that things didn’t go well in the past and that you want to learn.   Suggest that you meet in their office if at all possible,  This shows your humility on your part.  Since you’re asking for their advice, like anyone asking for help you treat them like they are the master.
2. Your meeting is about hearing their point of view.  Even if you don’t agree with what they say, remember that you are there to listen, first and foremost.  Anything you can learn about what went wrong in the past, whatthey need and want from you going forward, and understanding their world so that you might be able to position yourself to help in the future is great information.  Also, if you can identify some low hanging fruit - something that you can easily do that would enhance the relationship, that’s a bonus.  Saying what you need is really secondary in this first meeting because you’re there to get advice and build a relationship.
3. Be sure to follow up with a timely thank you.  If you can follow up with an action that will build the relationship based on what you learned in step 2, so much the better.

Now you can begin to work with this person, bearing in mind all that you learned in that meeting.

I have used this approach many times, and found it to be successful.  This isn’t to say that you can just treat them like anyone else after that first meeting, but at least your foot is in the door.

QUESTION: What’s your advice for restarting a broken business relationship?======================================================================

Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.

2 Reasons Why EQ Is a Big Deal

Recently I was talking to a director in a big company and he asked “Why is EQ (emotional intelligence) such a big deal?  I’m so sick of people and their emotions.  What about intelligence and decision-making?”  Well leadership is not only about great thoughts, it is about execution.  In other words, people need to follow you and your great thoughts for you to be effective.

Why are emotions important?  Because you’re dealing with people.  People, like you have emotions.  I’m sure that we can all think of instances where we dealt with customer service representatives when we were having a problem.  Some went well and others didn’t.  

If you think back to those instances where things went well, the representative probably expressed sympathy for your situation and was attentive to your problem.

By contrast, those instances that did not go well the representative probably made you feel that you were wrong.  Just thinking about those situations probably makes your blood boil just to think of them.

In the first instance, the representative showed emotional intelligence or EQ.  He or she made you feel heard and didn’t make you feel wrong.  When someone’s trying to get you to see their point of view and get you to help them, aren’t you more likely to help if you’re approached by someone who honors you and your values and doesn’t make you feel wrong?

Have you done your best work for bosses who believed in you and gotten you excited about the work or have you done your best work for bosses who just ordered you around?

So my two reasons why EQ is a big deal are:

1. People are more likely to follow others who are sensitive to them as people.  Even if you don’t personally care about people’s feelings, acting as if you do will make you a more effective persuader.
2. You will find more pleasure in your interactions with others and find that you are less stressed when people are more willing to follow your lead.

And yes, intelligence and decision-making are important, but they’ll just get you in the door.  If you want for people to follow you, recognizing them as people will make you more effective.

QUESTION: What do you say to people who don’t think EQ is important?======================================================================

Leadership/Career Coach Kris Ishibashi works with leaders to bring together their skills, their authentic selves, and their intentions to inspire their organizations to superior performance. Click here to set up a complimentary consultation.