Dealing with Resistance to Change
Any time you try to make a big change in an organization you will experience resistance. As a leader, you can make a big difference in how effectively you move forward by being aware of how change impacts people emotionally, and spending more time “with them”, almost like a parent understands and handles the phase of temper tantrums in toddlers. People don’t mean to be unprofessional or uncooperative during periods of change. No matter how confident they are normally, organizational changes force them to grapple with real fears. As a leader, you can make it much easier for them to handle their fears and move forward. Here are some tips:
1. When you notice people you thought you could count on resisting the change – don’t take it personally. Keep in mind that everyone struggles when things change, no matter how much they want to support you. A good way to handle this is to say (once you are calm and NOT taking it personally), “I noticed X [insert behavior], and I’m wondering if you are struggling with this change?” Your goal is to get them to open up and articulate their fears – which may be irrational. Just having a safe space to talk themselves through their resistance with your encouragement could be all they need to buy in completely.
2. Keep your eyes open for individual fears of losing power, prestige, or value in a new role. We all have egos, and even though we know intellectually that the change is really about the organization functioning better as a whole, which should eventually offer more individual opportunities – it’s scary to “let go” of something you’ve been attaching your personal identity to. And, unfortunately most people attach their personal identity to their work, in the form of how many people they manage, how large of a budget they control, what title they have, who they get to report directly to, etc. We may be embarrassed about clinging to these things, but it’s normal to feel like we are losing everything that makes us valuable. As a leader you can break through a lot of resistance by taking as much time as needed to talk to constituents individually and validating their value and their role in the new order.
3. Articulate the vision clearly and repeatedly. Every day. Several times per day. It takes SO much energy to do things differently that sometimes the only thing that keeps people going is a sense of excitement over what is possible. If you can keep people focused on the light at the end of the tunnel – they will walk faster.
4. Leverage the power of habits. Do whatever it takes to get people actually behaving in the new way you need them to behave as soon as possible, and as consistently as possible. As soon as people are “in action” they are building habits that will be difficult to reverse later. As long as they are “anticipating the unknown” their resulting anxiety and negativity will slow you down.
5. Talk to people openly about the cycles of change. Let them know what to expect, how long it might last, how you can work as a team to accelerate progress, what behaviors will slow things down, and what you are willing to do to support them through the process. Then keep talking, keep listening, keep “being with” your team emotionally, because that lowers their fear level and helps them stay focused.
Don’t expect change to happen in an instant, and take ownership of your role in the process. As a leader, you can keep people focused on the vision, confident in their new roles, and “in-action”, while also understanding and being patient with their emotional and seemingly childish resistance. You can make a big difference in how smoothly the change goes, and how quickly your team passes through the “unproductive” stages and gets moving to the next level.
Showing posts with label leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leadership. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, January 18, 2010
Your Presence Impacts Everything
My daughter wanted me to watch American Idol with her this season – from the beginning. So, of course, I had to pick everything apart in my curiosity about people and success. I immediately noticed stadiums of 20,000 or more hopefuls in each audition city, did the math, and wondered what the process of elimination was. I did some research and learned that regardless of what you see on television, the vast majority of those who try out for the show are excellent vocalists. In fact, people who are willing to make a fool out of themselves actually have better odds of getting through round one.
But that wasn’t the part that interested me. Less than 1% of the excellent singers who show up actually get to audition in front of the “star” judges. What I wondered is this: as producers watch rows and rows of these amazing voices, what is it that strikes them enough to move a person through to the next round?
Part of it may be having a good back story, like having broken both your arms falling out of a tree, or coming from an interesting part of the country or having an interesting family. But beyond that I believe it is presence. In this case perhaps it’s “celebrity presence”. You could call it charisma, but it’s even more distinct than that. It’s the ability to capture the imagination and emotions of an audience. Those who have it aren’t just singing in great voices, they are making a connection that “strikes” at an emotional level. It wakes people up and generates energy.
You don’t have to have celebrity presence to have presence. Everyone has some tone and level of presence, but we don’t think about it much, and we often attribute it to personality, assuming it can’t be changed, and therefore not bothering to develop it.
I would like to suggest that developing your presence could be the most important professional development work you ever do.
If you give presentations as a business leader or salesperson, you probably have a sense for when you are “on”. You can see from the faces in the audience that people are mesmerized. If you don’t develop your presence as a speaker, you give away your ability to influence your audience with the clear compelling messages that will get them moving in one direction.
Even in quieter interactions, such as one on one conversations with employees or small meetings, your presence will influence your audience far more than your words. See if you recognize these examples:
1. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who champions justice? In almost any situation they can find a story about someone taking unfair advantage of others. The person is appalled on behalf of the victim(s). The “presence” is that of self-righteous anger and the energy around it can be powerful. Some people are invigorated and inspired to jump on the wave of rebellion and take some action. To others it sounds like constant complaining and they feel drained by the negative energy. These are two ends of the same spectrum. If you want to be an advocate for change, working on your presence can make the difference between gathering a crowd of people ready to fight for your cause, and wondering why everyone is avoiding you.
2. I saw a speaker recently who was dripping with charisma, effervescence, and what I would call celebrity presence. Her stories were dramatic and mesmerizing, and her physical presence was beautiful to match. She compelled about half of her audience, but many of the intellectuals in the group were turned off by a message that to them seemed trite and empty. This is a great example of someone who has polished her speaking presence, and somewhere in the process it got overdone enough to lose some of its magic. The lesson here is that working on your presence is one thing, but taking it beyond authenticity may backlash you with a reverse effect.
Your presence doesn’t have to be big or loud to be compelling. If we take a look at quieter people, they tend to fall along a spectrum as well. At one end are those we barely notice, but at the other end are those who inspire us. They may sit quietly and listen most of the time, but when they say something it’s profound. When we read stories about powerful guides and teachers, they tend have quiet and peaceful but focused energy about them, and people come from miles around just to hear what they have to say.
Many of the most powerful business leaders are quiet intellectuals with a strong presence.
No matter who you are or what you do, working on your presence can help you be more successful. If you sing, it gives you a better chance of passing an audition; if you present, it gives you a better chance of having an impact on your audience; if you lead, it gives you a better chance of being willingly followed.
The two most important keys to presence are confidence and authenticity. Those are common words: easy to say, not anywhere near as easy to live. If you find yourself thinking about how you should say something so people will hear you or react the “right” way, you are already moving away from those keys. The tangible steps towards building presence involve becoming aware of and removing everything that holds you back from being present. For some this takes years of work, but the good news is, for every new level of awareness, you become that much more compelling in your interactions.
If you want to work on your presence, work with a coach who not only understands the concept of presence, but who IS present when you have your initial exploratory phone call. You will be able to tell this from your own emotional response during the conversation. Do you feel intrigued, interested, and inspired? If so you have found your coach. If you feel bored, not understood, or uninspired, keep making calls until the connection feels right. Trust your intuition, and good luck on your journey!
My daughter wanted me to watch American Idol with her this season – from the beginning. So, of course, I had to pick everything apart in my curiosity about people and success. I immediately noticed stadiums of 20,000 or more hopefuls in each audition city, did the math, and wondered what the process of elimination was. I did some research and learned that regardless of what you see on television, the vast majority of those who try out for the show are excellent vocalists. In fact, people who are willing to make a fool out of themselves actually have better odds of getting through round one.
But that wasn’t the part that interested me. Less than 1% of the excellent singers who show up actually get to audition in front of the “star” judges. What I wondered is this: as producers watch rows and rows of these amazing voices, what is it that strikes them enough to move a person through to the next round?
Part of it may be having a good back story, like having broken both your arms falling out of a tree, or coming from an interesting part of the country or having an interesting family. But beyond that I believe it is presence. In this case perhaps it’s “celebrity presence”. You could call it charisma, but it’s even more distinct than that. It’s the ability to capture the imagination and emotions of an audience. Those who have it aren’t just singing in great voices, they are making a connection that “strikes” at an emotional level. It wakes people up and generates energy.
You don’t have to have celebrity presence to have presence. Everyone has some tone and level of presence, but we don’t think about it much, and we often attribute it to personality, assuming it can’t be changed, and therefore not bothering to develop it.
I would like to suggest that developing your presence could be the most important professional development work you ever do.
If you give presentations as a business leader or salesperson, you probably have a sense for when you are “on”. You can see from the faces in the audience that people are mesmerized. If you don’t develop your presence as a speaker, you give away your ability to influence your audience with the clear compelling messages that will get them moving in one direction.
Even in quieter interactions, such as one on one conversations with employees or small meetings, your presence will influence your audience far more than your words. See if you recognize these examples:
1. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who champions justice? In almost any situation they can find a story about someone taking unfair advantage of others. The person is appalled on behalf of the victim(s). The “presence” is that of self-righteous anger and the energy around it can be powerful. Some people are invigorated and inspired to jump on the wave of rebellion and take some action. To others it sounds like constant complaining and they feel drained by the negative energy. These are two ends of the same spectrum. If you want to be an advocate for change, working on your presence can make the difference between gathering a crowd of people ready to fight for your cause, and wondering why everyone is avoiding you.
2. I saw a speaker recently who was dripping with charisma, effervescence, and what I would call celebrity presence. Her stories were dramatic and mesmerizing, and her physical presence was beautiful to match. She compelled about half of her audience, but many of the intellectuals in the group were turned off by a message that to them seemed trite and empty. This is a great example of someone who has polished her speaking presence, and somewhere in the process it got overdone enough to lose some of its magic. The lesson here is that working on your presence is one thing, but taking it beyond authenticity may backlash you with a reverse effect.
Your presence doesn’t have to be big or loud to be compelling. If we take a look at quieter people, they tend to fall along a spectrum as well. At one end are those we barely notice, but at the other end are those who inspire us. They may sit quietly and listen most of the time, but when they say something it’s profound. When we read stories about powerful guides and teachers, they tend have quiet and peaceful but focused energy about them, and people come from miles around just to hear what they have to say.
Many of the most powerful business leaders are quiet intellectuals with a strong presence.
No matter who you are or what you do, working on your presence can help you be more successful. If you sing, it gives you a better chance of passing an audition; if you present, it gives you a better chance of having an impact on your audience; if you lead, it gives you a better chance of being willingly followed.
The two most important keys to presence are confidence and authenticity. Those are common words: easy to say, not anywhere near as easy to live. If you find yourself thinking about how you should say something so people will hear you or react the “right” way, you are already moving away from those keys. The tangible steps towards building presence involve becoming aware of and removing everything that holds you back from being present. For some this takes years of work, but the good news is, for every new level of awareness, you become that much more compelling in your interactions.
If you want to work on your presence, work with a coach who not only understands the concept of presence, but who IS present when you have your initial exploratory phone call. You will be able to tell this from your own emotional response during the conversation. Do you feel intrigued, interested, and inspired? If so you have found your coach. If you feel bored, not understood, or uninspired, keep making calls until the connection feels right. Trust your intuition, and good luck on your journey!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
How to Deal with a Micromanaging Boss
Bosses are tough to deal with in general. They represent authority, and they often bring back memories of what we hated most in our relationships with our parents and teachers growing up. The micro-managing boss is especially hard to handle if you are creative, innovative, and want to make a contribution of your own in an organization. But since quite a few people in management positions fit this profile, chances are you will end up with one at some point in your career. Here are some tips to help you get the space you need to thrive:
1. Understand that micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing. Keep in mind that behavior such as constant checking on your progress or reviewing your work has NOTHING to do with how well you perform. It is about your boss, who has gotten so caught up in his or her fears and needs for reassurance that he or she is not aware of how this behavior may be impacting you.
2. You can give yourself space by playing to their standards for excellence and needs for reassurance. Initiate a conversation about expectations and standards of work output, and make sure your boss is clear about where your standards are. If you have a difference of opinion, get it talked out and come to an agreement about what standards you are both comfortable with. Then COMMUNICATE. It’s natural to react to micro-management by doing everything possible to avoid communication. But that just plays into the vicious circle of mutual mistrust and escalates the problem. If you develop a habit of sending a short e-mail on a daily or weekly basis that gives your status on a project and how you are handling situations, the boss gets a stream of continuous reassurance, and wont feel a strong need to check in.
3. Once you have developed a certain degree of trust with your boss, you may want to take it to the next step, and that is providing feedback on the impact of the micromanaging behavior. For example, “I notice that you have redone my last three powerpoint presentations. I understand your desire to have us represented in a positive light, but you may not realize that you are sending a subtle message, that I can’t do powerpoint presentations, and that makes me feel less excited about doing them well in the first place. Is there something specific you are noticing about the way I do my presentations that does not meet the standards we agreed on related to our work?”
Unfortunately, the micro-managing boss ends up fulfilling his own fears. As he takes more responsibility for the work of the team, the team feels completely disempowered and loses the motivation to produce their best work. Soon they are complaining and doing very little, and he is fretting about how they don’t care and he has the weight of more than one job on his shoulders. It may take several attempts to help him turn around, because he needs to let go and allow himself to look bad in order to re-empower the team, build trust, and get to the point where he gets results that are better than he ever dreamed.
If you are a micro-manager, or you work for one, anything you can do to facilitate the change will be a positive learning experience. Giving your boss feedback that enables him to become a better leader is a gift he will be forever grateful for. And if you are that boss, imagine getting rid of the experience of being overworked and not being able to trust anyone, and moving to a place where you get to work with people who consistently go well beyond the call of duty, and you are so honored to be their leader that you would never consider taking ownership for the phenomenal work they put forth.
Bosses are tough to deal with in general. They represent authority, and they often bring back memories of what we hated most in our relationships with our parents and teachers growing up. The micro-managing boss is especially hard to handle if you are creative, innovative, and want to make a contribution of your own in an organization. But since quite a few people in management positions fit this profile, chances are you will end up with one at some point in your career. Here are some tips to help you get the space you need to thrive:
1. Understand that micromanaging behavior is driven by the positive characteristics of conscientiousness, diligence, and responsibility; it’s just that they have been taken to an extreme. People often confuse themselves with the quality of the work they produce. As long as they can control the quality of their work, they are ok, but as soon as they have to depend on others for results, they are faced with the fear of representing sloppy or substandard output. Since putting out less than excellent work is SO personally humiliating, they need constant reassurance that the team is performing. Keep in mind that behavior such as constant checking on your progress or reviewing your work has NOTHING to do with how well you perform. It is about your boss, who has gotten so caught up in his or her fears and needs for reassurance that he or she is not aware of how this behavior may be impacting you.
2. You can give yourself space by playing to their standards for excellence and needs for reassurance. Initiate a conversation about expectations and standards of work output, and make sure your boss is clear about where your standards are. If you have a difference of opinion, get it talked out and come to an agreement about what standards you are both comfortable with. Then COMMUNICATE. It’s natural to react to micro-management by doing everything possible to avoid communication. But that just plays into the vicious circle of mutual mistrust and escalates the problem. If you develop a habit of sending a short e-mail on a daily or weekly basis that gives your status on a project and how you are handling situations, the boss gets a stream of continuous reassurance, and wont feel a strong need to check in.
3. Once you have developed a certain degree of trust with your boss, you may want to take it to the next step, and that is providing feedback on the impact of the micromanaging behavior. For example, “I notice that you have redone my last three powerpoint presentations. I understand your desire to have us represented in a positive light, but you may not realize that you are sending a subtle message, that I can’t do powerpoint presentations, and that makes me feel less excited about doing them well in the first place. Is there something specific you are noticing about the way I do my presentations that does not meet the standards we agreed on related to our work?”
Unfortunately, the micro-managing boss ends up fulfilling his own fears. As he takes more responsibility for the work of the team, the team feels completely disempowered and loses the motivation to produce their best work. Soon they are complaining and doing very little, and he is fretting about how they don’t care and he has the weight of more than one job on his shoulders. It may take several attempts to help him turn around, because he needs to let go and allow himself to look bad in order to re-empower the team, build trust, and get to the point where he gets results that are better than he ever dreamed.
If you are a micro-manager, or you work for one, anything you can do to facilitate the change will be a positive learning experience. Giving your boss feedback that enables him to become a better leader is a gift he will be forever grateful for. And if you are that boss, imagine getting rid of the experience of being overworked and not being able to trust anyone, and moving to a place where you get to work with people who consistently go well beyond the call of duty, and you are so honored to be their leader that you would never consider taking ownership for the phenomenal work they put forth.
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!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Taking "Win-Win" to a Whole New Level
I don’t know about you, but even though I really want to be a good and giving person, sometimes I get tired of being asked to donate to so many different causes. High school students knock on my door wanting me to order newspapers so they can go on school trips. I get endless calls from alumni associations and cancer societies. And my children always have something they “should” be selling to raise additional funds for their schools.
It’s not that I don’t believe in these causes, but I don’t like to feel manipulated into buying things I don’t really want, and I don’t like to feel guilty when I say no. I know we all have a choice, and I’ve learned to maintain my boundaries.
This solution doesn't feel quite right though. It still involves inner conflict. In order for one party to get what they need, others must give up at least some of what they value. What if it were possible for everyone to easily get what they need?
Last night my daughter showed me one example of what I call a “self-serving winners circle”. It’s an innovative way to give that feels much more like receiving than giving.
It’s a website called www.freerice.com. The organization’s mission is to end world hunger, and the way they do it is brilliant. They’ve created a fun vocabulary game that is easy to play and automatically adjusts to your level as you go, whether you are a second grade student or an English scholar. The site also has a place for banner ads. The companies who advertise pay and get visibility just like they would on any other site. A self-serving winners circle has been created with three winners and NO losers:
1. Winner # 1 – Anyone who likes to play on the computer and learn something incredibly useful at the same time. Go play the vocabulary game, improve your mastery of the English language, and every time you get a word right, you earn 20 grains of rice for the hungry. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but my daughter and I played for about an hour and got up to 7,000 grains pretty quickly. We were trying to figure out how much that was, and we decided it probably fed at least one person one meal. So not only did we both learn a few new words, we got to feel GOOD about making a contribution to something in the world, and she gets to take a print out of our results back to her teacher and get bonus points in school. To me, this is the essence of the joy of receiving and giving at the same time – freely.
2. Winner # 2 – The advertisers. Last I checked, the google rating for this site was a 6/10 which is pretty high, and my guess is that it will be even higher as the word continues to spread. I’m not exactly sure what the payment arrangement is for the advertiser, but whether it is based on “grains of rice earned while your banner is up” or some other formula, it’s probably similar to what they would pay for putting up a banner on any site. But in this case, they get the added benefit of being well-regarded and actually looked at with curiosity instead of annoyance. Site users wonder.. “hmm.. who are the cool companies advertising on this site – maybe I’ll take a more serious look at what they have to offer”. Imagine using the same marketing dollars to get visibility, increase good will, AND do good in the world!
3. Winner # 3 – The starving people who get to eat the rice that the vocabulary game players earn and the advertisers pay for. The site explains how they work with the UN food bank to make this happen.
To me, this is the essence of “win-win”. It’s about creating a system where everyone who participates truly wins in a tangible way, and no one in the system is giving just for the sake of giving. This is not a new concept. I remember learning about it in economics. Yet, it interests me that people don’t use it more.
It’s like we have a social paradigm that says giving has to hurt a little to be real. So we keep appealing to people’s sense of duty and morality to get important things done. But if there’s a more practical way to get the same thing done with less effort and fewer resources, why not?
My question is, where else might self-serving winners circles be useful? In business, could a self-serving winners circle make it almost effortless to attract new customers? At home, could a self-serving winners circle make discipline effortless? In a school, could a self-serving winners circle make teaching effortless? Besides feeding the hungry, are there positive, synergistic ways to tackle some of the other big problems in the world, like healthcare, crime, or even terrorism?
I think www.freerice.com has created a self-serving winners circle to make feeding the world a good deal easier, if not completely effortless, and I think they give a good example of how to create a system where people will naturally and enthusiastically work together towards a purpose, not just because they believe in the purpose, but because doing so serves them as well.
Self-serving systems are self-feeding, so they are endless. Resources are not depleted, and in fact, every participant in the system is receiving something they need. Because participants are naturally winning, they stay engaged, and the system continues to grow, generating and receiving more positive energy along the way.
Think about the things you want to accomplish for yourself, at work, and in the world. What is getting in the way? Do you need more cooperation from other people to succeed? If so, is it possible to create a self-serving winners circle? I’d love to hear!
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.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Art of Inspiration
I love being inspired. It’s one of the greatest feelings I know – and it’s also a productive feeling, because it leads to positive action.
What I’ve noticed about inspiration is that it doesn’t happen often, and when it does, it’s usually triggered by those few charismatic speakers and phenomenal leaders who are able to infuse a profound message into a group of people, and they in turn absorb it into their culture.
At the international ICF conference this month, I closely watched the speakers who most inspired me, and it was something more than charisma that I connected to. It seemed that each of these people had the willingness to share their truth, even if it might be controversial. They had stepped forth to make a contribution based on their convictions, but they were also humble and human and honest, which allowed the audience to identify with them. And, they each offered a path to share in the contribution. They opened the door, so we could also feel the possibility of making a difference. I’m not sure if this describes the “equation” of inspiration or not – but it’s what I noticed, and I also notice these elements in coaching and in effective leadership.
As coaches, we relentlessly challenge our clients to face, share, and stand for their truth, even when it isn’t popular. We encourage our clients to live life according to their values, follow their dreams, and design lives of fulfillment and contribution. And, we open the door of possibility by witnessing and holding them accountable to their vision of success. The most powerful leaders mobilize groups around a common vision, and enable individuals in the group to connect their personal identities to making it happen. It enables individuals to become part of something bigger than themselves; it feels good and does good at the same time.
Have you ever wanted to be inspiring? If you are a leader, it can make all the difference in the world, and I don’t think it’s rocket science. I think it’s more about having the courage to be yourself and stand up for what you believe in. Cliché words – easy to say – way more difficult to do. Most of us can’t even see ourselves, and when we do look, we more often than not immediately react by wincing and changing the subject. Being yourself is NOT easy. But it IS powerful.
Think of all the people who have inspired you. I would love to hear your thoughts on inspiration and what is at the source of it. Share a lot on this one, it’s worth a discussion!
I love being inspired. It’s one of the greatest feelings I know – and it’s also a productive feeling, because it leads to positive action.
What I’ve noticed about inspiration is that it doesn’t happen often, and when it does, it’s usually triggered by those few charismatic speakers and phenomenal leaders who are able to infuse a profound message into a group of people, and they in turn absorb it into their culture.
At the international ICF conference this month, I closely watched the speakers who most inspired me, and it was something more than charisma that I connected to. It seemed that each of these people had the willingness to share their truth, even if it might be controversial. They had stepped forth to make a contribution based on their convictions, but they were also humble and human and honest, which allowed the audience to identify with them. And, they each offered a path to share in the contribution. They opened the door, so we could also feel the possibility of making a difference. I’m not sure if this describes the “equation” of inspiration or not – but it’s what I noticed, and I also notice these elements in coaching and in effective leadership.
As coaches, we relentlessly challenge our clients to face, share, and stand for their truth, even when it isn’t popular. We encourage our clients to live life according to their values, follow their dreams, and design lives of fulfillment and contribution. And, we open the door of possibility by witnessing and holding them accountable to their vision of success. The most powerful leaders mobilize groups around a common vision, and enable individuals in the group to connect their personal identities to making it happen. It enables individuals to become part of something bigger than themselves; it feels good and does good at the same time.
Have you ever wanted to be inspiring? If you are a leader, it can make all the difference in the world, and I don’t think it’s rocket science. I think it’s more about having the courage to be yourself and stand up for what you believe in. Cliché words – easy to say – way more difficult to do. Most of us can’t even see ourselves, and when we do look, we more often than not immediately react by wincing and changing the subject. Being yourself is NOT easy. But it IS powerful.
Think of all the people who have inspired you. I would love to hear your thoughts on inspiration and what is at the source of it. Share a lot on this one, it’s worth a discussion!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
