What are “Needs” and why do they have everything to do with how things go at work?
Do you remember the last time someone pushed your buttons?
In that instant, did it seem like they crossed the line, almost intentionally?
What emotions got triggered, and how did you control your reaction?
That emotional reaction comes from having a need that isn’t being met, and this is important because almost every single ridiculous thing that happens between people at work, happens because someone has a need that isn’t being met. Most of us aren’t aware of our needs. We just experience spurts of annoyance and frustration with each other, but in a work environment, it’s an ongoing battle of unresolved animosity that undermines trust, communication, and productivity to the nth degree.
We may be able to hold ourselves back from reacting in the moment, but then we vent like crazy to our friends, we “forget” to provide information that the “button pusher” needs, we go out of our way to avoid him or her, and our judgments of each other get harsher. Eventually we decide we simply can’t work together at all.
All it takes is one struggle like this on a team to undermine productivity, but most teams have several “button pushing incidents” going on in tandem, and repeating themselves regularly.
If you make it your business to understand how needs work, you have the power to break through the barriers and maintain a productive work environment, both for yourself and your team.
Here are a few tips to get started:
1. Keep a log of all of your “emotional reactions” at work. Write down the situation and ask yourself “what did I need in this moment?” Listen to the first word or phrase that comes up, and write it down – even if it seems silly.
2. Once your log gets long enough, see if you can find a pattern. If the same words or phrases repeat themselves, you may have nailed an important need. You will also notice that the same people or situations will serve as a trigger for the need, over and over again.
3. At first, it will seem like the only solution is to make the person who is “pushing your buttons” change their behavior and treat you differently. Often the person is someone you have to work with a lot, like your boss, team-mate or subordinate. Unfortunately, you have to start this process by accepting that the person in question will probably not change. BUT the good news is that as you do the needs work, focused on YOURSELF, your reactions to the person move to neutral, and as a result you are able to provide more effective feedback, and the person does change. You just have to be willing to take the indirect route, work on yourself first, and trust that things will end up changing as a result.
4. The person who really has control of getting your needs met is YOU, even though it seems like other people are the source of what you need. What you’ll realize once you do some thinking, is that you have more power than you think, and you’ll also begin to see what you can do to influence the world around you and get more of what you need.
5. An interesting paradox about needs is that we often close ourselves off to receiving what we most need from others. It’s like having trouble accepting compliments. One of the biggest things you have to learn is to graciously receive what you need when it comes to you, even if you don’t really care that much for the source.
6. You also have to learn to give YOURSELF a lot of what you need – listen to that inner voice, and notice what you say to yourself over and over again. If you need to be accepted, are you accepting yourself? If you need to be heard, are you ignoring yourself? It seems like an odd thing to check for, but you may be surprised when you start paying attention.
7. Once you get a feel for how needs play out in your own life, start observing other people and their interactions at work. Pay attention in meetings and notice when someone has an edge to their voice, a hint of sarcasm or resentment. You’ll begin to pick up on the dynamics of others on your team, and may even find subtle ways to intervene and facilitate better interactions across the whole team.
At work, whenever things start getting weird, one of the most powerful things you can ask is this: “are you getting everything you need in this situation?” If you are genuine, this question can dissipate emotion from people who aren’t even aware they are reacting, and give them an opportunity to articulate what they do need. Sometimes it’s as simple as clarity on priorities, extra time to finish a project, or appreciation for work they did that is no longer going to be used.
As independent and self-sufficient professionals, we don’t want to “have needs”. But whether we want to admit it or not, we all have this stuff going on underneath, and if it’s not dealt with directly, it shows up anyway – resulting in poor communication, inefficient team-work, and wasted time, which no organization can afford these days.
No matter what type of organization you work in, you can take yourself to the next level by learning about your own needs. Start with the seven tips above, or you can join the Aspyrre Community, an ongoing professional development program, that provides insight to help you see what’s really behind challenging situations at work, and tools to manage the situations effectively and get better results. For more information on the Aspyrre Community, click here.
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Friday, June 06, 2008
Conflict at Work – Productive or Destructive?
Several months ago, I was reading the book “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, and learned about the concept of “artificial harmony”. This is when everyone is super nice to each other on the surface, but underneath they have different feelings, opinions, and perspectives that they aren’t sharing. It’s a great concept, because it helps us begin to see what’s going wrong in organizations where people seem to be getting along just fine, but the team is not achieving stellar results. What you learn from reading that book is the importance of what I call “productive conflict”.
Productive conflict is when people openly talk about their disagreements, and they may even get frustrated with each other at times, but they all stay with the conversation and work through it, and as a result you create a solution that is better than any one person could have created on their own.
Destructive conflict is when people go beyond disagreements to personal attacks, and this creates a stressful environment that drains most people and begets marginal performance at best.
If you aren’t clear on how to prevent productive conflict from deteriorating into destructive conflict, the “safer” road is to create an environment of artificial harmony. In this environment there isn’t as much stress, but you wont be getting as much out of your team as you could be, which could be a HUGE opportunity cost.
So how do you create an environment that supports productive conflict, but insures that it does NOT deteriorate into destructive conflict?
The key to this is creating a safe environment, where people have a solid level of trust and respect for each other, which means that when something starts going wrong, they’ll have a tendency to extend the benefit of the doubt to their co-workers, instead of quickly reacting and making character judgments. If they hold on to their character judgments of each other, then whether they express them (destructive conflict) or repress them (artificial harmony), the team cannot work effectively together.
Creating this environment takes time, because people are people and we all have personal baggage. The baggage usually shows up in our automatic reactions to things – especially the reactions that seem to be stronger than a given situation would warrant. Since we all react sometimes it helps to acknowledge this, and then set clear ground rules on how to handle our reactions:
Ground Rule # 1 – NOTICE THAT YOU ARE REACTING
If you notice that you are reacting, you can separate yourself from the reaction and that gives it less power over you. Remind yourself that most reactions come in the form of anger or hurt over how someone treated us in the past. So, although the extreme emotion you are experiencing has been triggered by a current event, it is really about something entirely different. You can’t handle a situation effectively while you are in a reaction, so knowing you are reacting enables you to hold off on firing off that angry e-mail or marching into someone’s office with a dramatic ultimatum.
Ground Rule # 2 – NO CHARACTER JUDGMENTS ALLOWED
Most reactions include a negative character judgment towards the person deemed responsible for the negative situation. But character judgments aren’t the truth. They simply allow you to feel self-righteous and superior when you are feeling threatened. When you feel completely safe, it’s easy to have compassion for people, even when they are behaving in a negative manner. So no matter how rude, inconsiderate, dishonest, power-hungry, manipulative, lazy, or unethical your mind is telling you a person is, you need to understand that your mind is making that up from the perspective of your reaction, and no matter how true it FEELS, it’s not the truth.
Ground Rule # 3 – WORK THROUGH YOUR EMOTIONS AWAY FROM WORK
Find a way to separate from your reaction, and take the time you need, away from the work environment. This where it’s great to have a coach, because you can call your coach, vent, get some perspective, and calm down without jeopardizing your reputation at work by venting there.
Ground Rule # 4 – COMMUNICATE AND FIND OUT THE WHOLE STORY
Once you are calm enough to refrain from saying something you’ll regret later, it’s time to ask questions, find out what perspectives others have related to the same situation, and especially to have a conversation with the very person you were reacting to. Find out what lead to their behavior. In most cases, you’ll find out their intention was completely different from what you originally thought it was.
Most professionals can manage steps one through three, but then go back to work and decide not to “dredge it up” again. That’s artificial harmony. When you don’t have the conversations that uncover real intentions, character judgments and mistrust persist.
It’s only when people have the courage to follow ground rule # 4 that you can create an environment of trust, productive conflict, and as a result, innovation.
For leaders, the key is to keep pushing the ground rules, and moving your team into conversations about issues even when they insist that they are ok. Once they’ve gone through the process a few times, and find out that their initial reactions weren’t based in reality, they begin to trust the process more than their reactions. Little by little, trust builds in the environment, and conversations happen more freely.
And then, hold on for a great ride – because your team will begin to feel a magical synergy amongst them, and they’ll take you places you’ve never imagined!
Several months ago, I was reading the book “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, and learned about the concept of “artificial harmony”. This is when everyone is super nice to each other on the surface, but underneath they have different feelings, opinions, and perspectives that they aren’t sharing. It’s a great concept, because it helps us begin to see what’s going wrong in organizations where people seem to be getting along just fine, but the team is not achieving stellar results. What you learn from reading that book is the importance of what I call “productive conflict”.
Productive conflict is when people openly talk about their disagreements, and they may even get frustrated with each other at times, but they all stay with the conversation and work through it, and as a result you create a solution that is better than any one person could have created on their own.
Destructive conflict is when people go beyond disagreements to personal attacks, and this creates a stressful environment that drains most people and begets marginal performance at best.
If you aren’t clear on how to prevent productive conflict from deteriorating into destructive conflict, the “safer” road is to create an environment of artificial harmony. In this environment there isn’t as much stress, but you wont be getting as much out of your team as you could be, which could be a HUGE opportunity cost.
So how do you create an environment that supports productive conflict, but insures that it does NOT deteriorate into destructive conflict?
The key to this is creating a safe environment, where people have a solid level of trust and respect for each other, which means that when something starts going wrong, they’ll have a tendency to extend the benefit of the doubt to their co-workers, instead of quickly reacting and making character judgments. If they hold on to their character judgments of each other, then whether they express them (destructive conflict) or repress them (artificial harmony), the team cannot work effectively together.
Creating this environment takes time, because people are people and we all have personal baggage. The baggage usually shows up in our automatic reactions to things – especially the reactions that seem to be stronger than a given situation would warrant. Since we all react sometimes it helps to acknowledge this, and then set clear ground rules on how to handle our reactions:
Ground Rule # 1 – NOTICE THAT YOU ARE REACTING
If you notice that you are reacting, you can separate yourself from the reaction and that gives it less power over you. Remind yourself that most reactions come in the form of anger or hurt over how someone treated us in the past. So, although the extreme emotion you are experiencing has been triggered by a current event, it is really about something entirely different. You can’t handle a situation effectively while you are in a reaction, so knowing you are reacting enables you to hold off on firing off that angry e-mail or marching into someone’s office with a dramatic ultimatum.
Ground Rule # 2 – NO CHARACTER JUDGMENTS ALLOWED
Most reactions include a negative character judgment towards the person deemed responsible for the negative situation. But character judgments aren’t the truth. They simply allow you to feel self-righteous and superior when you are feeling threatened. When you feel completely safe, it’s easy to have compassion for people, even when they are behaving in a negative manner. So no matter how rude, inconsiderate, dishonest, power-hungry, manipulative, lazy, or unethical your mind is telling you a person is, you need to understand that your mind is making that up from the perspective of your reaction, and no matter how true it FEELS, it’s not the truth.
Ground Rule # 3 – WORK THROUGH YOUR EMOTIONS AWAY FROM WORK
Find a way to separate from your reaction, and take the time you need, away from the work environment. This where it’s great to have a coach, because you can call your coach, vent, get some perspective, and calm down without jeopardizing your reputation at work by venting there.
Ground Rule # 4 – COMMUNICATE AND FIND OUT THE WHOLE STORY
Once you are calm enough to refrain from saying something you’ll regret later, it’s time to ask questions, find out what perspectives others have related to the same situation, and especially to have a conversation with the very person you were reacting to. Find out what lead to their behavior. In most cases, you’ll find out their intention was completely different from what you originally thought it was.
Most professionals can manage steps one through three, but then go back to work and decide not to “dredge it up” again. That’s artificial harmony. When you don’t have the conversations that uncover real intentions, character judgments and mistrust persist.
It’s only when people have the courage to follow ground rule # 4 that you can create an environment of trust, productive conflict, and as a result, innovation.
For leaders, the key is to keep pushing the ground rules, and moving your team into conversations about issues even when they insist that they are ok. Once they’ve gone through the process a few times, and find out that their initial reactions weren’t based in reality, they begin to trust the process more than their reactions. Little by little, trust builds in the environment, and conversations happen more freely.
And then, hold on for a great ride – because your team will begin to feel a magical synergy amongst them, and they’ll take you places you’ve never imagined!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Dealing with Frustrating People at Work
Do you ever wonder how much more work you’d get done without the people? And to prove it, do you sometimes go in on a weekend and notice that you got an entire week’s worth of work done in just two hours? Dealing with other people at work is one of the most time-consuming things you have to do. And dealing with frustrating people can downright stop productivity in its tracks.
One of the most common types of frustrating people are the ones who seem to be “blocking” your ability to move forward without any logical basis for their behavior. They might throw up additional hoops for you to jump through that seem completely insignificant. They might get distracted running in so many directions that the team can’t focus on one thing long enough to move forward. They may be polite and cooperative and seem to understand what needs to be done, but then never follow through. Or they may simply be “too busy” to help you and look completely offended and put out at the expectation that you would expect anything more out of them since they are already overworked.
We all have different work styles, and this tends to exacerbate the situation. Sometimes it can be really enlightening to learn about your work style and compare it to those on your team. Although there are many different “work style” assessments, almost all of them group people loosely into four categories:
The Visionaries: These are the leaders who see possibilities, get excited about them, and can get everyone else excited and moving in one direction, but they don’t like to bother with the details, and sometimes they get so many new ideas that they are off and running in a new direction before you have a chance to act on the first plan. If you are a visionary, process oriented people will bore you, and drive you nuts, because it will feel like they are slowing everything down to a snail’s pace while the window of opportunity closes. A good coping mechanism is to realize you need process oriented people to bring your ideas to life and build in the quality they need to stay alive.
The Systemizers: These are the process oriented people who care about the details and get things done thoroughly. They are behind high quality and reliability. Their diligence can make the difference between a brand you can trust and a “rinky dink” outfit. But they take a long time to think things through, and sometimes they are still working out the details of a project when everyone else has lost interest and moved on. If you are a systemizer, visionaries will seem like unstable lunatics, and it will be hard to see the method in their madness. One thing that can increase your appreciation for the visionaries is that they are usually the ones out there bringing customers in to appreciate what YOU have worked so hard to produce.
The Task Masters: Task masters are focused and they don’t mind pushing the team to get things done. Once their eyes are set on a goal, they drive everyone involved towards that goal and have no patience for dragging feet. Of all the work styles, task masters have the least patience for all the “people issues” that get in the way of progress. They aren’t interested in whether or not people feel fulfilled by the functions they perform, or whether people on the team actually like each other, or if things are “fair”. They just want to get to the goal as quickly as possible. If you are a task master, you may be puzzled because it seems like you are offending people left and right when all you want is to get the job done. One thing that may open your perspective to having a people pleaser on you team, is that when people are getting along emotionally, it’s amazing how much more productive they are.
The People Pleasers: People pleasers want everyone to get along, feel fulfilled, and enjoy working together. They care most about creating the kind of work environment that allows people to be their best and perform accordingly. What frustrates them the most is watching members of the team disengage because they aren’t feeling respected or valued, and they often build up a lot of resentment towards the culprits, labeling them as rude, political, or otherwise “unworthy” of respect because of their lack of consideration for their fellow human beings. If you are a people pleaser, one tool that helps is proactively looking for a positive intention behind the behaviors that offend, and taking the initiative to build stronger relationships with ALL personalities in the workplace. This enables you to use your natural strengths to help create the positive environment you cherish, and see people thrive as a result.
Understanding your work style and those of others you work closely with is a first step towards getting more done as a team. You can’t always get away from working with people, but the more you learn about how people work, the more work YOU can get done!
Do you ever wonder how much more work you’d get done without the people? And to prove it, do you sometimes go in on a weekend and notice that you got an entire week’s worth of work done in just two hours? Dealing with other people at work is one of the most time-consuming things you have to do. And dealing with frustrating people can downright stop productivity in its tracks.
One of the most common types of frustrating people are the ones who seem to be “blocking” your ability to move forward without any logical basis for their behavior. They might throw up additional hoops for you to jump through that seem completely insignificant. They might get distracted running in so many directions that the team can’t focus on one thing long enough to move forward. They may be polite and cooperative and seem to understand what needs to be done, but then never follow through. Or they may simply be “too busy” to help you and look completely offended and put out at the expectation that you would expect anything more out of them since they are already overworked.
We all have different work styles, and this tends to exacerbate the situation. Sometimes it can be really enlightening to learn about your work style and compare it to those on your team. Although there are many different “work style” assessments, almost all of them group people loosely into four categories:
The Visionaries: These are the leaders who see possibilities, get excited about them, and can get everyone else excited and moving in one direction, but they don’t like to bother with the details, and sometimes they get so many new ideas that they are off and running in a new direction before you have a chance to act on the first plan. If you are a visionary, process oriented people will bore you, and drive you nuts, because it will feel like they are slowing everything down to a snail’s pace while the window of opportunity closes. A good coping mechanism is to realize you need process oriented people to bring your ideas to life and build in the quality they need to stay alive.
The Systemizers: These are the process oriented people who care about the details and get things done thoroughly. They are behind high quality and reliability. Their diligence can make the difference between a brand you can trust and a “rinky dink” outfit. But they take a long time to think things through, and sometimes they are still working out the details of a project when everyone else has lost interest and moved on. If you are a systemizer, visionaries will seem like unstable lunatics, and it will be hard to see the method in their madness. One thing that can increase your appreciation for the visionaries is that they are usually the ones out there bringing customers in to appreciate what YOU have worked so hard to produce.
The Task Masters: Task masters are focused and they don’t mind pushing the team to get things done. Once their eyes are set on a goal, they drive everyone involved towards that goal and have no patience for dragging feet. Of all the work styles, task masters have the least patience for all the “people issues” that get in the way of progress. They aren’t interested in whether or not people feel fulfilled by the functions they perform, or whether people on the team actually like each other, or if things are “fair”. They just want to get to the goal as quickly as possible. If you are a task master, you may be puzzled because it seems like you are offending people left and right when all you want is to get the job done. One thing that may open your perspective to having a people pleaser on you team, is that when people are getting along emotionally, it’s amazing how much more productive they are.
The People Pleasers: People pleasers want everyone to get along, feel fulfilled, and enjoy working together. They care most about creating the kind of work environment that allows people to be their best and perform accordingly. What frustrates them the most is watching members of the team disengage because they aren’t feeling respected or valued, and they often build up a lot of resentment towards the culprits, labeling them as rude, political, or otherwise “unworthy” of respect because of their lack of consideration for their fellow human beings. If you are a people pleaser, one tool that helps is proactively looking for a positive intention behind the behaviors that offend, and taking the initiative to build stronger relationships with ALL personalities in the workplace. This enables you to use your natural strengths to help create the positive environment you cherish, and see people thrive as a result.
Understanding your work style and those of others you work closely with is a first step towards getting more done as a team. You can’t always get away from working with people, but the more you learn about how people work, the more work YOU can get done!
Monday, April 14, 2008
How to Get Cooperation when you Aren’t the Boss
One of the biggest frustrations in a busy work environment is having to depend on other people to get your work done. This can really drive you nuts if your personal reputation, performance review, and future at the company depends on getting results, and those results depend on others.
How can you get people to give you what you need to succeed? Especially if they are overworked, and you are not the boss? Some of the most common ways of handling this simply don’t work anymore:
1. You could send out several requests for help, document the e-mail trail, and not complete your project on time. You could show the evidence to your boss when asked. The problem with this method is that the company needs the project done in order to succeed, and whether or not they understand that you tried, they are still faced with the fact that they don’t have the results they need.
2. You could complain about the person’s lack of cooperation to their boss. However, in doing so, you’ve made them look bad, and while they may comply with your requests in the future so as not to get in trouble, they will not trust you, and may try to get by on giving you the minimum possible. This reduces your ability to put out your best work.
3. You could go talk to the person, and your success depends quite a bit on how you approach the situation. If your frustration and stress have already gotten the better of you, you may end up with less cooperation than when you started. However, if you approach the situation well, you will not only get cooperation, you will have created a long-term ally, and this insures success not only on this project, but many to come.
When thinking about the “right” approach, it often helps to put yourself in the shoes of your target, and imagine times when others have approached you for help. Stop reading for a minute and just do a quick exercise. Remember a time when someone approached you for help and you were more than willing to go beyond the call of duty to chip in, whether or not it was part of your regular tasks. Also remember a time when someone approached you for help and you just wanted them to go away. You did everything you could to get out of it. Write notes to yourself on what the situations were and what your reaction was based on.
What insights do you get from reading your results?
I did this exercise as well, and here’s what I came up with:
When I would be more than willing to go out of my way to help you:
1. I believe in your agenda, goal or purpose. Whatever you are trying to accomplish makes sense to me, and I think it should be done and done well – I’m personally on board with you.
2. I feel that you value, acknowledge and honor what I have to contribute, and I have no doubt that if given the opportunity, you will sing my praises loudly to those who matter.
3. I see a personal benefit to participating. It doesn’t necessarily have to be immediate and tangible. But if I can learn something valuable, or get to work with someone I respect, or even use this work on my resume for ongoing career growth, I’m in.
When I am NOT willing to help you:
1. I think this is your personal agenda and not necessarily good for anyone else or the company. Or, I sense that you are in conflict with someone else I respect, and I worry that helping you would put me in a difficult situation.
2. I think you are self-involved, and will use my hard work for your own gain, without crediting me for my contribution, or even appreciating what goes into what I do for you. If this is the case, I will only cooperate with you when I absolutely have to – and I will do the minimum possible.
3. I really like you and want to help you, but I am so overwhelmed with everything I have to do that I have to prioritize. There are other things that I will get into bigger trouble for not doing, and no matter how much I like you, I’m not willing to risk my job for you. While this situation requires an honest discussion with all available managers on resource allocation, if you seem seriously concerned and willing to do whatever you can to support me, I will still put you higher on the list than those who I’m not as personally connected with.
Once you’ve had a chance to consider how it would feel to be on the receiving end of a request to cooperate, here are some tips to help you more effectively get what you need from others:
1. Make sure that everyone who is contributing to your project clearly understands the purpose of the project, how it fits in with organizational goals, and what your personal agenda is related to the project. If you are hoping to get personal recognition, don’t hide this part of your motivation. People will trust you if you are up front, and it also gives them permission to expect personal recognition for their successes.
2. Make sure you always acknowledge everyone who goes out of their way to help you, and do it publicly, specifically and sincerely. Whenever you are speaking or presenting, make sure to share the positive contributions of others, whether they are present at the meeting or not. Also, send a thank you e-mail that not only acknowledges what was done but shares the value to the company and copies the person’s boss. This gift will be printed out and used many times! It doesn’t have to be contrived to be effective. Here is an example:
“Dear Kathy, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to dig up those statistics for me the other day. I used them in my presentation to over 50 potential customers Tuesday, and they are exactly what we needed to make a strong impact. I know you have a lot on your plate, and I appreciate your support. – K”
3. Take the time to understand the priorities and workload of everyone you need support from. Don’t just say, “I know you have a lot on your plate”, when you have no real idea what they have on their plate. Make an effort to find out what they have to do. Then make your request as easy to comply with as possible. For example, if you need information, some employees will spend 90% of their time formatting it nicely for you because they think their presentation to you is a reflection of them. If they are busy and you don’t need them to do the formatting, you can request an e-mail with five quick bullets, or a list of the top 10 hyperlinks, or just the raw spreadsheet data. You may also discover other ways to make their job easier, or ways to get the information you need in the future without taking as much of their time.
When you look at who gets the most cooperation in organizations, it’s not necessarily the “bosses”. Most people want to feel respected, valued, and part of something positive. You can generate this in everyone you work with. Give respect by making an effort to understand what life is like in their shoes. Give value by consistently showing them how their work positively impacts the company. Give contribution by helping people clearly see the vision and their role in it. These are leadership skills, but you don’t need traditional power to become a true leader. You emerge as a leader by building the skills and using them consistently.
One of the biggest frustrations in a busy work environment is having to depend on other people to get your work done. This can really drive you nuts if your personal reputation, performance review, and future at the company depends on getting results, and those results depend on others.
How can you get people to give you what you need to succeed? Especially if they are overworked, and you are not the boss? Some of the most common ways of handling this simply don’t work anymore:
1. You could send out several requests for help, document the e-mail trail, and not complete your project on time. You could show the evidence to your boss when asked. The problem with this method is that the company needs the project done in order to succeed, and whether or not they understand that you tried, they are still faced with the fact that they don’t have the results they need.
2. You could complain about the person’s lack of cooperation to their boss. However, in doing so, you’ve made them look bad, and while they may comply with your requests in the future so as not to get in trouble, they will not trust you, and may try to get by on giving you the minimum possible. This reduces your ability to put out your best work.
3. You could go talk to the person, and your success depends quite a bit on how you approach the situation. If your frustration and stress have already gotten the better of you, you may end up with less cooperation than when you started. However, if you approach the situation well, you will not only get cooperation, you will have created a long-term ally, and this insures success not only on this project, but many to come.
When thinking about the “right” approach, it often helps to put yourself in the shoes of your target, and imagine times when others have approached you for help. Stop reading for a minute and just do a quick exercise. Remember a time when someone approached you for help and you were more than willing to go beyond the call of duty to chip in, whether or not it was part of your regular tasks. Also remember a time when someone approached you for help and you just wanted them to go away. You did everything you could to get out of it. Write notes to yourself on what the situations were and what your reaction was based on.
What insights do you get from reading your results?
I did this exercise as well, and here’s what I came up with:
When I would be more than willing to go out of my way to help you:
1. I believe in your agenda, goal or purpose. Whatever you are trying to accomplish makes sense to me, and I think it should be done and done well – I’m personally on board with you.
2. I feel that you value, acknowledge and honor what I have to contribute, and I have no doubt that if given the opportunity, you will sing my praises loudly to those who matter.
3. I see a personal benefit to participating. It doesn’t necessarily have to be immediate and tangible. But if I can learn something valuable, or get to work with someone I respect, or even use this work on my resume for ongoing career growth, I’m in.
When I am NOT willing to help you:
1. I think this is your personal agenda and not necessarily good for anyone else or the company. Or, I sense that you are in conflict with someone else I respect, and I worry that helping you would put me in a difficult situation.
2. I think you are self-involved, and will use my hard work for your own gain, without crediting me for my contribution, or even appreciating what goes into what I do for you. If this is the case, I will only cooperate with you when I absolutely have to – and I will do the minimum possible.
3. I really like you and want to help you, but I am so overwhelmed with everything I have to do that I have to prioritize. There are other things that I will get into bigger trouble for not doing, and no matter how much I like you, I’m not willing to risk my job for you. While this situation requires an honest discussion with all available managers on resource allocation, if you seem seriously concerned and willing to do whatever you can to support me, I will still put you higher on the list than those who I’m not as personally connected with.
Once you’ve had a chance to consider how it would feel to be on the receiving end of a request to cooperate, here are some tips to help you more effectively get what you need from others:
1. Make sure that everyone who is contributing to your project clearly understands the purpose of the project, how it fits in with organizational goals, and what your personal agenda is related to the project. If you are hoping to get personal recognition, don’t hide this part of your motivation. People will trust you if you are up front, and it also gives them permission to expect personal recognition for their successes.
2. Make sure you always acknowledge everyone who goes out of their way to help you, and do it publicly, specifically and sincerely. Whenever you are speaking or presenting, make sure to share the positive contributions of others, whether they are present at the meeting or not. Also, send a thank you e-mail that not only acknowledges what was done but shares the value to the company and copies the person’s boss. This gift will be printed out and used many times! It doesn’t have to be contrived to be effective. Here is an example:
“Dear Kathy, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to dig up those statistics for me the other day. I used them in my presentation to over 50 potential customers Tuesday, and they are exactly what we needed to make a strong impact. I know you have a lot on your plate, and I appreciate your support. – K”
3. Take the time to understand the priorities and workload of everyone you need support from. Don’t just say, “I know you have a lot on your plate”, when you have no real idea what they have on their plate. Make an effort to find out what they have to do. Then make your request as easy to comply with as possible. For example, if you need information, some employees will spend 90% of their time formatting it nicely for you because they think their presentation to you is a reflection of them. If they are busy and you don’t need them to do the formatting, you can request an e-mail with five quick bullets, or a list of the top 10 hyperlinks, or just the raw spreadsheet data. You may also discover other ways to make their job easier, or ways to get the information you need in the future without taking as much of their time.
When you look at who gets the most cooperation in organizations, it’s not necessarily the “bosses”. Most people want to feel respected, valued, and part of something positive. You can generate this in everyone you work with. Give respect by making an effort to understand what life is like in their shoes. Give value by consistently showing them how their work positively impacts the company. Give contribution by helping people clearly see the vision and their role in it. These are leadership skills, but you don’t need traditional power to become a true leader. You emerge as a leader by building the skills and using them consistently.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Scary Conversations
Often, when I talk to clients about very different things, I notice a theme emerging. This week it had to do with avoiding important conversations. It's one thing to read the book "Crucial Conversations" and get excited about how it can change your life. It's quite another to be confronted with a sticky situation at work, and contemplate having a conversation about it. So much can go wrong! What will other people think? What is at stake? Couldn't the consequences of having the conversation be worse than avoiding it?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes and no. The consequences of being defensive or reactive in an important conversation usually aren't positive. BUT the consequences of avoiding a conversation are usually worse. In an ideal scenario, you would have no fear about talking with other people at work, you could talk about anything directly and honestly, and you would also have a knack for being sensitive, compassionate, and positive, even when the topic is controversial.
This isn't a skill you can master overnight, but the good news is that every time you improve a tiny bit, it makes a big difference in your results. Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. Understand the limits of your power. Sometimes we avoid conversations because we think we need to achieve a certain outcome in order to be successful. You can't control other people, so you need to know in advance how you'll handle the situations where you don't get what you want. Once you've figured that out, you can walk into a conversation with less fear, and you have a better chance of achieiving a positive outcome.
2. Understand that people's opinions of you have almost nothing to do with you. Other people respond to how they feel about themselves when they interact with you. If someone lashes out at you, or says something condescending, or mean - it's usually because they feel bad about themselves. While that doesn't excuse their behavior, knowing it's not really about you makes it easier for you to emotionally separate and handle the conversation better.
3. Know that withholding bad news only exacerbates the situation. If people know something's up, but aren't given clear information, what they imagine is usually ten times worse than the truth. When you are up front with people on a consistent basis, you'll find that they trust you, and are willing to work with you when the going gets tough.
Mastering your conversations is one of the most critical skills related to success. Studies have shown that the one skill the most respected leaders share is the ability to communicate effectively in sticky situations.
What conversations are you avoiding? If you were able to have them, and have them well, what would change for you?
Often, when I talk to clients about very different things, I notice a theme emerging. This week it had to do with avoiding important conversations. It's one thing to read the book "Crucial Conversations" and get excited about how it can change your life. It's quite another to be confronted with a sticky situation at work, and contemplate having a conversation about it. So much can go wrong! What will other people think? What is at stake? Couldn't the consequences of having the conversation be worse than avoiding it?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes and no. The consequences of being defensive or reactive in an important conversation usually aren't positive. BUT the consequences of avoiding a conversation are usually worse. In an ideal scenario, you would have no fear about talking with other people at work, you could talk about anything directly and honestly, and you would also have a knack for being sensitive, compassionate, and positive, even when the topic is controversial.
This isn't a skill you can master overnight, but the good news is that every time you improve a tiny bit, it makes a big difference in your results. Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. Understand the limits of your power. Sometimes we avoid conversations because we think we need to achieve a certain outcome in order to be successful. You can't control other people, so you need to know in advance how you'll handle the situations where you don't get what you want. Once you've figured that out, you can walk into a conversation with less fear, and you have a better chance of achieiving a positive outcome.
2. Understand that people's opinions of you have almost nothing to do with you. Other people respond to how they feel about themselves when they interact with you. If someone lashes out at you, or says something condescending, or mean - it's usually because they feel bad about themselves. While that doesn't excuse their behavior, knowing it's not really about you makes it easier for you to emotionally separate and handle the conversation better.
3. Know that withholding bad news only exacerbates the situation. If people know something's up, but aren't given clear information, what they imagine is usually ten times worse than the truth. When you are up front with people on a consistent basis, you'll find that they trust you, and are willing to work with you when the going gets tough.
Mastering your conversations is one of the most critical skills related to success. Studies have shown that the one skill the most respected leaders share is the ability to communicate effectively in sticky situations.
What conversations are you avoiding? If you were able to have them, and have them well, what would change for you?
Monday, November 13, 2006
Instincts or Impulse?
You walk into the office one day feeling positive and exhilarated from a brisk walk in the fresh air, and as you pass the coffee machine you notice two co-workers speaking intently to each other in hushed tones. They notice you looking at them and stop talking, looking somewhat uncomfortable. The exhilaration you felt a moment ago dissolves, and a surge of adrenaline charges through your body. You have a strong instinct that you know who, if not what, they were talking about.
About an hour later, one of the co-workers comes to ask if you have a few minutes, and the adrenaline comes back. You do your best to maintain your composure, and the two of you go to a private place to talk. She begins, “We just realized that we completely forgot about Callie’s birthday last week, and we aren’t sure if she hid it from us purposely because she didn’t want us to make a big deal out of it, or if we should do something this week to make it up to her. What do you think?”
Hmmm…. could this have explained the coffee machine conversation? Relief sets in, and you continue on with the conversation at hand.
But what if you hadn’t had this conversation? What if you kept whatever story you originally created about the “coffee machine conversation” as your truth? How would you respond if that same co-worker sent you an e-mail requesting some information? Could this set off a chain of events, with your e-mail response coming across as a tad more abrupt than usual, eliciting some new adrenaline in your co-worker related to you? And could that lead to less-than-friendly behavior on her part, which confirms your truth for you, and so on, and so on, and so on?
This kind of emotional misfiring happens a lot in organizations, and even more so when we have so much work to do that taking the time to address what seems like a minor issue gets relegated to the bottom of the “to do” list.
As time goes by we begin to characterize and stereotype each other, and it’s hard to tell when someone is behaving “in reaction” to something they’ve created in their head, or “on purpose” based on clear and positive intentions.
If you observe emotional misfiring reeking havoc in your organization, what can you do about it?
1. Watch your assumptions, especially those you make about the character of another person.
2. When someone complains to you about a co-worker, help distinguish between actual behavior and assumptions made about the behavior.
3. Ask yourself, “If I knew this person was a decent person and only had the best of intentions” what are some possible explanations for the behavior?
4. Talk. All the time. Maintain ongoing dialogue with everyone who is important to you at work, so when something does come up, it can be dealt with naturally, and without an excessive amount of time or emotional investment.
In our coffee machine conversation example, a great way to casually check facts is to say something like “You scared me this morning when I walked in and you stopped talking – were you planning my execution?” Generally, humorous comments can give you an easy reality check. The person has an opportunity to respond in kind, without either of you feeling the weight of an “issue”. They might say, “well we were sort of planning someone’s birthday party – which can sometimes feel like an execution – but it’s a secret – so if you want in on it….” and your fears are quelled in a minute or two of light banter. On the other hand, if you try to “reality check” a few times and feel like you are getting consistently evasive responses, it might indicate that there’s something that needs to be discussed more seriously, and you can take it to the next level.
The most important thing to remember is that your truth may “feel” real – but feelings are created by thoughts, which are based on about 20% fact and 80% interpretation. Taking the time to question and reality check before jumping to conclusions can save you a lot of stress and friction, and pave the way to positive and powerful relationships with your co-workers.
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