The Games People Play at Work

Missing Voices: Why Employees Do Not Speak Up

2010-03-09T03:42:00Z

When we are recruited by a new employer early on in our careers we believe in the ideal workplace. We expect everyone to work together and we anticipate environments that are safe spaces where employees can speak up and contribute.

Here is a common trap new employees can fall into. Your boss asks for your thoughts on a subject during a meeting. You were lulled into thinking the question is authentic so you state your position in the meeting but your ideas are not what the boss wanted to hear so not only are you attacked with overt ferocity at the meeting, you are attacked every time you state your ideas in a meeting. Your boss either wants to be sure will agree to everything or not say anything at all.

Saying nothing at all is fine with this type of boss because there will be no disagreement that can potentially expose the bosses’ knowledge or competence gaps.

Other employees fight their bosses to the point where they end up being terminated, which also suits the bosses because they are sending a clear message to the employees who remain, “Don’t you dare!   If you go against me, your job is not safe.”

This cycle of behaviour reminds me of a t-shirt I saw the other day bearing the words, “The beatings will continue until morale improves” with a picture of a skull and cross bones underneath. I thought this was an excellent metaphor for what sometimes happens in the work place because although we don’t use physical whips we do use words and the emotions behind them as whips.

Verbal attacks create a false sense of harmony that can be read by unseeing managers as high morale. What is really happening is that morale appears to be ok because attacked persons are reluctant to admit there is a problem because even this admission can lead to unfortunate consequences. They know the boss can make life exceedingly difficult at work either through constant attacks by ignoring them completely so they are careful about what they say.

Then there are others who know something is wrong perhaps a process was incorrectly done or someone was unfairly accused, and they won’t speak up because speaking up implicates them in the mistake in some way and they do not want to be linked to the error.

Being hesitant about speaking up is not limited to employees. There are some managers who are afraid to speak up for their staff to their bosses. These managers don’t have a voice in the organization so they can’t effectively represent their employees if something is needed.

There are other managers who are ill equipped to handle confrontational or abusive employees so they    avoid these employees, allowing inappropriate, hostile behaviours to infiltrate the team.   Abusive employees really need direction or corrective action and by ignoring them the boss weakens the entire team.

Some managers appear to allow opinions but manipulate the discussion back to their way of thinking. Employees see manipulation for what it is and it can have the same impact as a frontal attack because in the end, people will not make a contribution because the effort is viewed as futile.

There are managers who always speak about an “open door” policy, they even leave their doors open, but employees rarely enter their office because they usually encounter an unwelcoming atmosphere. Either the manager is busy typing while the employee is speaking or the manager constantly takes calls or they are abrupt or short with employees.

Some bosses avoid employees who want to have a voice because the boss has something to hide or because they can’t handle the truth. It may be that the boss is being confronted by an unfair decision or the boss may just not like the employee and they want them to suffer. They don’t understand or care that if you negatively affect one person on a team, the whole team is impacted.

Speaking up is about having a voice in your company.   There are some companies that are very disciplined about inviting employees to contribute and state their cases. In fact they encourage this because they value creativity, conflict management and team building. The management team consistently invites dialogue, they take corrective action when appropriate, they reward great ideas and they support their staff in developing their creativity.

In other work environments, speaking up is viewed as unwanted. The managers want everyone to sing from the same song sheet, not understanding the power of harnessing diverse views and integrating those views into a stronger solution.
Allowing managers and employees the latitude to express themselves and teaching them how to express themselves constructively, helps everyone to feel valued by the organization and helps the organization to grow.

Your ability to speak up is a function of the emotional competence, and openness of the leadership team. They are the primary architects of the culture of your company so here are a few ideas for leaders who are ready to create an environment that is safe for employees to contribute their ideas and thoughts:

• Some employers recognize that not listening to employees will not only lead to low morale, it can cause the management team to make the wrong decisions or miss opportunities for innovation. With this in mind, some companies set up meetings where groups of employees dialogue with the President or another Executive who will listen to employees’ suggestions and challenges.

• Some companies encourage employees to make suggestions using other communication tools. They use company blogs, employee hotlines, employee surveys or the intranet to accept and respond to feedback.   These tools are usually backed up with a process for reviewing suggestions and comments, taking action and communicating the actions or decisions to employees. Assistant Professor Ethan Burris stated, “Formal transparent follow-up is very important. It is counterproductive to ask an employee for feedback if you never do anything with that information. If staff see their ideas just disappear, they’ll stop offering them altogether.”

• Some employers develop leaders who use emotional intelligence when communicating so they can navigate their emotions and biases. They want to be sure managers are responding to ideas and not external personalities or internal emotions.

• To help with the transition to speaking up, some employers provide training to employees designed to help them communicate and support their ideas clearly and with respect.

Speaking up is really about opening top down, bottom up and lateral communication channels. Sharing important information, listening to employees and implementing their ideas helps them to feel valued and connected to the organization. This is an important part of the formula for attracting and retaining your best employees.

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Leadership Development company. If you are interested in exploring how you can create better collaboration and stronger leadership within your organization, you can contact her at www.orgsoul.com.

Younger Boss, Older Worker: A Multigenerational Collaboration

2010-02-21T17:49:00Z

They have the qualifications and the results to match. They are young, highly driven, talented, energetic, and they move through your organization at warp speed. They are the young executives or managers that skipped through the ranks or joined your company at a senior level.

The company has big plans for the young leaders but you are reporting to one of them and you don’t feel engaged, you feel fearful. You don’t feel energetic, you feel drained, voiceless, over worked and perhaps angry.

Based on interactions with a wide variety of businesses here are typical descriptions of the characteristics of younger bosses by employees of any generation:

• Younger bosses are not always sensitive to members of the team. These managers appear to be more focused on their personal performance and results and how employees can contribute to their success.
• Some younger managers lack the maturity and wisdom to resolve complex or emotionally charged situations.
• Younger bosses sometimes contribute to making the work environment highly political. Employees describe not being comfortable speaking up with younger bosses so they become adept at tip-toeing around issues in the office.
• Younger managers may intentionally or unintentionally create unhealthy competition that can lead to tension among team members and divisiveness instead of collaboration.
• Younger managers sometimes don’t listen to long tenured employees because they perceive them as complainers or as being resistant to change.   As a result there is no communication flow so younger managers make mistakes.
• Younger bosses are sometimes indecisive due to their lack of knowledge and experience.
• Younger managers don’t always have true authority. They can claim the executive or managerial job title, they are making the money but they don’t have actual authority because someone else is calling the shots. At times they can’t even approve a cheque for $50.00!
• Younger employees tend to be more comfortable communicating about difficult subjects via email. This is suboptimal for long tenured employees because by communicating about difficult subject matter via email, it becomes infinitely more difficult to get the message across accurately and constructively.

The intent here is not to say that all young bosses are the same because in the real world there are always variations. For instance, while long tenured employees can display problem solving prowess with the ability to integrate distinct technical and interpersonal skills some young bosses may also possess this characteristic.

Differences between Generations in the Workplace.

In a 2007 Forbes Article, author Tara Weiss quotes Jill Arlinghaus at Burke Incorporated saying, “Younger employees grew up using computers and Web-based applications, so learning new ones comes more intuitively to them. It's not that older workers aren't willing to learn, you have to walk them through it. The younger people are more willing to figure it out for themselves."

Long tenured employees tend to value loyalty and they show up at work on time or even an hour before time and they work until the job is done. Young bosses tend to work endless hours, sending emails to their direct reports at 2:00 am in the morning.
Long tenured employees are often repositories of institutional knowledge. They understand operations and they may have experienced various restructuring exercises so they may have a deep understanding of the business. Long tenured employees can be key points of contact if younger employees need information about what happened in the past but this won’t happen if the long tenured employee is perceived as resistant to change. Long tenured employees sometimes resist change saying things like: “We tried that before and it didn’t work” or “It is fine the way it is” and this perpetuates the stereotype.

In addition to change resistance, long tenured employees can be perceived as difficult for young bosses to manage because they perceive long tenured employees as know-it-alls.    Long tenured employees may even show disrespect to younger bosses because they feel they were not considered for a “deserved” promotion.

Coexistence – Making Differences Work

In a 2004 study conducted for the Society of Human Resources Management, one of the findings was that keeping workers of different generations apart is not a successful practice. Their findings indicated that diversity of insight, skills, communication styles and knowledge contribute to higher performance.

So how do you achieve coexistence in multi-generational workplace? Here are a few tips:

• Take the time to understand each others’ differences in values and skills. See differences as assets, not obstacles.
• Everyone has strengths and weaknesses so decide to demonstrate respect instead of impatience.
• Communicate appropriately with each other. Find the right balance between verbal communication and emails.
• Adopt situational leadership skills where you interact with employees in ways they will respond best. Gone are the days of “one-size-fits-all” leadership styles.
• Sometimes people in the work force find it difficult to give and receive constructive advice. This is one of the primary causes of stunted development. Learn to invite insights from each other and be receptive. Don’t let your biases and defenses interfere.

The only way to achieve coexistence in a multigenerational workforce is for all generations to make commitments to modify their behaviours.   Donald Trump once said “It can be tough to take orders from somebody younger than you are. And it can be hard to give direction to somebody older than you are. But good managers and good employees find a way to make it work.”

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Leadership Development company. If you are interested in exploring how you can create higher performing team leaders, you can contact her at www.orgsoul.com.

Is Effort a Predictor of Your Success?

2010-02-01T13:20:00Z

In a perfect world you go to work and you are an engaged employee, sometimes doing the little extras that help you and your coworkers to excel. In reality, different people exert different levels of effort at work for numerous reasons. In a work environment, this creates a situation where not everyone is applying themselves at the same level and this usually impacts the balance of work load and it can influence results.

Years ago I came across a basic formula for success that suggests that effort, skill level and opportunity can lead to success. Effort is supported by your drive and drive is what keeps you pushing toward your goal no matter how challenging or impossible circumstances appear to be. Drive is about your determination.

Your skill level also plays an integral part in your level of effort. If a skill comes naturally to you, your level of effort will seem low or even nonexistent to some. In the success formula, skill can be substituted with talent. If you are working in an area that brings out your talent, if your environment is supportive, your drive may be high. As you know, a high level of talent isn’t always linked to drive and many employers spend time encouraging talented employees to realize their potential but the employees have no drive. In cases like this, unless the employee becomes intrinsically motivated, the potential you perceive as an employer will not be realized.

For some people, motivation is extrinsic. You may be motivated by what people think about you or what they expect of you. This can lead to fear as a driver because of your need to please. For others, you are motivated intrinsically by your personal goals, values and purpose. What others think about you doesn’t impact your effort or your commitment levels. Your effort is primarily a product of your internal drivers.

You can encounter a variety of levels of effort in a work environment:

• Zero Effort: There some of you who are either lazy or disinterested in your jobs because you have been continuously overlooked or you are in the wrong job or because you didn’t want the job in the first place. You may come to work, you may not. Your results are below average and you really don’t care about your productivity or how your lack of effort impacts the rest of the team.
• Minimal Effort: There are others of you who decide to appear to be exerting minimal effort but you are only spinning wheels either because you are in a role that is beyond your capacity or because you are demotivated by dynamics within your work environment.
• Average Effort: Some of you can do the job but you exert a controlled amount of effort. You do just enough to obtain a satisfactory performance rating.
• Above Average and Exceptional Effort: Above average effort demonstrates commitment, drive and focus. Above average and exceptional effort may lead to different types of reward and recognition that may culminate in a promotion, or it may lead to intensified political tricks within the work environment. For some people, they exert maximum effort but because they are not talented in that area, their results are not aligned with their level of effort.

It is important to note that effort isn’t always an indicator of results because there is always diversity in individual skill sets and skill levels. If your skill level is advanced, a low level of effort can achieve strong results. If you are one of those people who is always trying really hard but your efforts do not produce the kinds of results you expect, you may want rethink your career goals.

Obstacles to Effort

There are a number of situations that can create barriers to effort:

• Low skill levels can lead to frustration because of high levels of effort and a lack of desired results. After experiencing repeated disappointment, effort levels may diminish.
• Highly political environments can cause you to lower your level of effort because you don’t want to become the target of jealous or insecure coworkers.
• There are some environments where the resources necessary for your performance are just not available. Resources can range from human resources to technology to stationery.
• Some of you feel you are in a hopeless situation because you perceive that if you exert effort you won’t be recognized and if you don’t exert effort you won’t be recognized. Externally, this could be due to a highly politicized environment, unfair practices or ineffective leadership. Or it may be due to a skill deficiency.

When someone starts a new job it is unclear at first how much effort is just the right amount. In your recruitment interview, your new employer may emphasize results or say they are looking for a change and when you start working, the people in your environment resist the changes you suggest. They say no to your ideas or they make life difficult for you, giving you only a fraction of the information you need. In a new role, it is suggested that you seek to learn the power structures of your work environment as a first step so that you can understand how to navigate the political land mines.

There are times employees approach me and say that they work so hard so they feel entitled to recognition or a promotion. What they fail to realize is that numerous work environments are cutting costs and this usually translates into doing more with less resources. So it is the norm that employees are working harder and so the only way to differentiate themselves in an environment where hard work is not a differentiating factor is to work smarter. This means finding new ways to improve your performance levels by increasing your value.

As you can see, effort alone is not a predictor of your success. Effort, skill and opportunity pave the way to success. I would suggest there a fourth predictive component of success. It is a type of skill but it needs to be highlighted. This fourth predictive skill is Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is about understanding right timing, managing yourself and difficult situations, choosing optimism and understanding the consequences of your actions. Emotional Intelligence can help you to differentiate yourself and can ultimately lead to recognition of your effort.

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Leadership Development company. If you are interested in exploring how you can create higher performing team leaders, you contact her at www.orgsoul.com.

Black Crabitis

2009-11-30T00:08:00Z

Different cultures refer to the “Black Crab” syndrome in different ways. Some call it “Crabs in a Bucket” others call it “Crabs in a Barrel”. No matter what it is called, the definition of the term is consistent.

When you observe a large number of crabs in an upright receptacle, typically none of them can escape. The reason is that each crab tries to escape the bucket by doing whatever it can to elevate itself out of the bucket. This includes using other crabs that are closer to the top as leverage. The trouble with this approach is that if all the crabs are using the same tactic, none of them can escape.

In researching this phenomenon, one writer asserted that when the Africans were taken from Africa to North America, the Caribbean and South America, various tribes were thrust together and slowly the displaced Africans stopped working as a family or part of a group. It was asserted that their mindset was eventually influenced by their captors who forced survival of the fittest versus collective survival.

Eventually the old values of lifting each other up or “standing on the shoulders of ancestors” were replaced by divisive philosophies that lead people to depend on the “dog eat dog” way of being or activities that diminish some so that others can raise themselves up.

As a result of these philosophies in our present day, cultural context, we adopt an approach in business where we never let the “left hand know what the right hand is doing”. This is an obvious trait that perpetuates mistrust, caution and individual survival as opposed to support, trust, openness and collaboration.

One way the “Black Crab” syndrome manifests itself in business is through the lack of mentoring and coaching. Managers and supervisors constantly complain about employees being too dependent and not making decisions. These managers are not realizing that they are creating the situation. For instance, a manager has a deadline and an employee is taking longer than appropriate so instead of using this as a developmental opportunity, the manager takes the work and completes it himself.

The manager then gets overwhelmed with the added responsibility of work that was originally delegated and appears to be unproductive, always complaining about employees and the volume of work. In these circumstances, employees are not developed because they are not given the opportunity to try or even understand the delegated work request. When this happens, no-one wins.

Other “Black Crab” situations are clearly evident where employees point out the errors of other employees or they complain about each other to their bosses. If they all do this to each other, no-one wins unless you have discerning leaders.

In both of these examples, individual survival outweighs the need for the survival of the collective.

Building a System of Support

Building a system of support can start at an individual level. If you perceive someone to be in a better position than you and this evokes an unproductive emotion within you, it is time to make a paradigm shift so that other people’s success won’t negatively affect you.

If you fall within this category, you perceive things from a place of limitation and lack and these thoughts lead to unproductive thoughts of impossibility, hopelessness, resentment of yourself and jealousy of others. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some of you who witness success in others and this inspires you, teaching you that you can achieve your goals.

Emotional Intelligence skills of emotional literacy, navigating your emotions and optimism can help you to make your internal adjustment. Emotional literacy helps you to identify your emotions and emotional navigation helps you to move around these emotions so that you can respond in a way that helps build collaboration. Optimism is a skill that moves you from a place of powerlessness to empowerment with the ability to perceive opportunities.

From a team building perspective, “black crab” work environments tend to be devoid of trust and mutual support and rife with office politics. In these environments, leaders are not effective at picking up the leadership mantle so the, “Every man for himself” value system pervades the work place.

Another one of the first steps in building collaboration is to identify if the leaders are the right people to take the team forward. If so, they should be developed, if not, the right team leaders should be appointed. In addition to performance, one of the leaders’ primary objectives should be to hold members of the team accountable to supportive behaviour through coaching, aligned reward and recognition and if necessary, corrective action which could lead to termination or reassignment.

One of the underlying assumptions in creating a high performing, mutually supportive team environment is that the decision makers are not afraid to make the tough calls. Many decision makers are very aware of who is obstructing the flow of collaboration but they are unwilling to make the tough decision, rationalizing their hesitance by putting significant weight on the positive contributions of the persons creating barriers. This decision making process focuses on individual, short term results as opposed to collective, synergistic, long term results and rewards.

The “Black Crab” phenomenon can be transformed through the right leadership competencies. Most leaders already know the “Black Crab” way when they see it so they need to take a stand by developing a focus on collective performance enhancement, introducing the right accountabilities, facing resistance to change and making tough decisions designed to consciously transform the culture of the work place.

Jealousy: An Ugly Reality

2009-11-30T00:06:00Z

I had several conversations during the past week and jealousy seemed to be a unifying theme in each conversation. One person described a situation where she was being left out of the communication loop so that information critical to her performance was being withheld by her manager.

There was another person who described a situation where he felt a project wasn’t rewarded because of a past experience with the decision maker which was based on gossip. Uninterestingly enough, the decision maker never even bothered to find out the facts; she accepted the statements at face value.

There are others who use gossip and attack others, some use exaggeration or minimization as malicious tools. There are numerous ways that jealousy raises its unwelcome head and when it infiltrates the workplace, it impedes teamwork and productivity because working relationships are impaired and trust levels are low to non-existent.

Here are a few situations that can typically attract a jealous reaction:
• When someone achieves something you have been wanting.
• When someone you dislike succeeds.
• When someone gets something you don’t think they deserve.
• When someone seems to be favoured by a decision maker.

Jealousy in any situation is undesirable and destructive but the intensity of jealousy tends to vary depending on how the jealous person feels about the target of their jealousy.

At times jealousy is open and detectable so persons targeted are very clear that they are not liked. Then there are the undercover forms of jealousy that you cannot prove and they tend to be more damaging.

Here are a few examples:
• Persons planting seeds of doubt about you, twisting the facts behind your back.
• Persons surreptitiously “bad mouthing” your accomplishments or not acknowledging them at all so they can appear to be better than you in some way.
• Gossip

What Causes Jealousy?

Sometimes jealousy is centered on financial status, other times it is based on physical traits or style. For some it is sparked by academic achievements and for others it is caused by lifestyle and possessions.

Jealousy is the result of a person’s view of themselves. It surfaces when someone perceives you as having something they don’t have and because they see the world in terms of lack and not abundance, this makes them angry or fearful. Some jealous people will fake it and overextend themselves so that they can appear to be your friend, others will not try to be congenial at all, their mission is to bully or sabotage you.

Fear is another cause of jealousy. For instance, when new, skilled persons start working in a department, the fear of the unknown change in team dynamics causes jealousy because there is the risk that the new person will drive up the standards within the department. This is frightening to the keepers of the status quo. Employees who are targets of jealousy are often discredited, sabotaged and left out of communication loops. Non-jealous members of the team are sometimes forced to take the side of the jealous ones because they don’t want the hateful behaviour to be directed at them.

What can you do if you are the target of jealousy?

The root cause of jealousy is low self esteem so there is virtually nothing you can do to change the jealous people around you. Self esteem building and empowerment are personal responsibilities so your attempts to help the jealous person can backfire. Instead, here are five options that are within your control:

• Be selective with the information you share about yourself. It can be distorted by malicious intent.
• Refuse to stoop to the same level as the jealous people around you.
• Know that you have a right to choose healthy relationships and healthy work environments. Don’t see yourself as stuck. Jealousy can sometimes present itself as bullying so make a choice if you must.
• Many people dumb down to minimize jealous attacks. This negatively affects you, your professional growth and your ability to enjoy your job because you are playing small. Be who you are, jealous onlookers will see your light no matter what you do.
• Don’t be seduced by friendliness. Robert Green, author of “The 48 Laws of Power” states that one of the Laws of Power is to, “Pose as a friend and work as a spy” so beware of this type. Another law is, “Do not build fortresses to protect or isolate yourself – Isolation is dangerous”. By falling into the isolation trap you will not be able to access useful information and consequently, you can become an easy target.

What can you do if you feel jealous?

If you are typically negatively affected by other people’s perceived success, understand that you are experiencing emotions somewhere on the spectrum of fear and anger. Once you identify your emotions, identify what your emotions are teaching you. Ask yourself why you are jealous or why you feel threatened by another person’s talents or achievements. Find your talents; you definitely have unique abilities, so cultivate your strengths by focusing on your goals.

When you identify the personal belief systems that are causing you to feel jealous, take conscious steps to improve in the areas you feel are underdeveloped and if this doesn’t work for you, focus on your strengths. Learn to see yourself as empowered and choose to reframe your thoughts so that you can see your personal potential clearly. We all have different talents and proclivities, so focus on becoming the best at what you do best and understand that everyone is different.

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Leadership Development company. If you are interested in exploring how you can create higher performing team leaders, you contact her at www.orgsoul.com.

Communication Catch-22

2009-09-28T12:41:00Z

An old friend approached me last week and told me this story. An employee approached him to speak to an executive about a matter because the employee wasn’t comfortable speaking to the executive directly. In the spirit of helping a fellow co-worker, my friend approached the executive on behalf of the employee and the executive was subsequently preoccupied with why the employee didn’t approach her directly instead of focusing on resolving the employee’s concern.

So my friend asked me, what do you do in a situation like this? This option was the most palatable to the employee because if the employee decided to do nothing, the issue would remain unresolved. Alternatively, the employee perceived high risk in approaching the executive directly, and lower risk in having someone represent the situation to the executive on her behalf and it still backfired.

A Catch-22 is described as, “A contradictory or self defeating course of action or a tricky or disadvantageous condition.” (Farlex) Based on the information given to me by my friend, the employee appears to be in a Catch-22 where both inaction and attempts at resolution lead to perceived undesirable results. In environments like this, the end result is that the majority of employees collectively refrain from speaking up because they prefer to experience a proliferation of dysfunction collectively instead of being singled out and targeted as the enemy because they spoke up.

I received a similar call this week from a fellow consultant in Canada. She said that she had a large client with whom she had a long standing, positive relationship who wanted her to perform a certain task. The task was something she was not willing to do and when she refused, her reputation was attacked and all her contracts within the organization were terminated. She paid the price for speaking up.

In unhealthy work environments, speaking up may be viewed as harmful to career progression. In these types of environments, the status quo is maintained at all costs and people in positions of authority cover up the issues, distorting the truth through self deception, minimization and other types of camouflage techniques. In fact, entire systems of reward like promotion and bonuses perpetuate this type of censorship and suppression.

So what do you do if you are caught in a Communication Catch-22? As I mentioned previously, based on anecdotal evidence, the vast majority decide to say nothing and just “kiss until they can kick”. I witness this approach a whole lot, but years later I often meet the same people in the same company, sometimes in the same position saying the same thing and praying for early retirement. So here are four tips to help you to be proactive.

Strategize
In the first example, the employee deployed a strategy to ask someone to represent his case because he felt the other person could influence a desired outcome and lower his exposure to the risk of victimisation. This is a reasonable strategy in theory but always remember to factor in as many variables as possible. Give some thought to more of the dynamics of the situation which include:
1. The executive’s desire to help vs their need to cover up and perpetuate the system of dysfunction. This is sometimes hard to uncover because some of us expect executives to be interested in the well being of employees.
2. The executive’s value system (does the executive value being liked, approachable and right over being challenged respectfully). In making this evaluation, the employee should take a look at what motivates the executive to further mitigate risk.
3. Is there another way to get the message across other without using a direct approach.
4. Who is the right messenger?
5. Is there a bias against you?

Work Together
At work we learn that we have to “look out for number one” because no-one can be trusted. One way to start changing the entire system of support for dysfunction (Silence is part of the support system) is to see yourself as part of a whole and not a single unit constantly in self preservation mode. While self preservation may be appropriate, think about what you can do to support your co-workers.

Connect More Effectively
Hone your communication skills so that you don’t inadvertently put the listener on the defensive. You have no control over someone else’s ego but you do have control over the verbal and non-verbal signals you transmit. Improving your communication arsenal by improving your listening skills, emotional intelligence, authenticity, negotiation skills and optimism can help you to connect at a deeper level and mitigate some of the risks of communication. Authentic connection can lead to building healthy, trust based work relationships that can give you the leverage you need to speak up with lower threat of victimization.

Create or Update Your Career Plan
Everything starts with you, so think about a proactive approach designed to help you develop yourself and start on a path to finding or creating the right career and right working environment. This may mean you will take the risk and say things that may not be palatable or you may decide to seek another work environment. It is important to make a decision regarding whether you will stay or go and whatever the decision, create your plan. “Knee jerk” responses are not optimal because they don’t equip you with the skills you need to successfully navigate similar situations in the future and they can create irreparable damage.

Ideally, the vision for and commitment to driving positive cultural change should start at the top of the organization and cascade throughout. If you are not being supported by an executive vision for positive change, you can only do what is within your control. Each of the tips will take time, commitment, wisdom and creativity and they are centered on what you can do to improve your circumstances.

Constructive Confrontation

2009-09-14T12:54:00Z

Confrontation is a “four letter” word in various business environments and typically, it is avoided at many costs. Here are three scenarios that can happen in any office at any level:

Scenario 1
Jenny is a supervisor who took over a new team this year. Jenny inherited Sandra, who is quite skilled at disappearing during peak periods of work. Jenny is hesitant about saying anything to Sandra because Sandra is friendly with the CEO and so when Sandra disappears, other members of the team begrudgingly take on the extra work. Over time, the work falls behind and when Jenny addresses the team about their productivity, an aggressive, heated exchange ensues.

Scenario 2
James is a good worker and contributes positively to the performance of the team. Whenever he participates in a meeting, he cuts off the person speaking, always seeming to have a logical reason why something cannot be done. Over time, other employees stop offering their ideas, and the meetings become less productive because everyone has disengaged.

Scenario 3
Ronnie is a very nice person but she doesn’t get her work done. At lunch time she collects lunch from various restaurants for her coworkers, she bakes pastries and brings them to work and she always has uplifting words for her colleagues. She is congenial, but her work misses deadlines, is incomplete or contains errors. No one wants to be the “bad guy” and tell Ronnie that she is not performing.

In each of these scenarios, the use of constructive confrontation skills would help to ensure trust levels are not eroded by festering resentment caused by perceived avoidance. Constructive confrontation is an assertive approach to building healthy working relationships that engenders open communication and collaboration. Constructive confrontation is not blaming or biased, it is engaging, fact based and solution driven.

In many work environments, employees, supervisors and managers seem to use the word confrontation interchangeably with conflict. This is because they usually delay addressing issues for so long that the confrontation ends up erupting into an exchange laced with anger, disappointment or frustration. In other realities, when confrontation is well timed and used in a constructive way, it can actually build productivity, collaboration and morale.

Tips for Making Confrontation Constructive
• The first tip is to manage the issue as soon as possible. While waiting may be an effective plan in some instances, it is usually ineffective because frustration “brews” the longer you take to contend with a situation. If you tend to take long to manage an issue, respect for your leadership will erode and employees will view you as someone who is either unfair or afraid to do what is right. Another reason you should not wait too late to deal with conflict is that early on, a situation may be resolved with a coaching session. If you wait too long, it can lead to disciplinary action which could mean termination.
• Don’t assume confrontation has to be negative or unpleasant. Reframe your biases and remember if you stick to the facts and avoid words that label, blame or express a negative opinion, you can create a constructive conversation.
• Avoid confusing confrontation with conflict. While confrontation can show up as conflict in the form of an angry or aggressive exchange between individuals, it can also present as an open, assertive, coaching dialogue designed to develop conscious, engaged employees.
• Be clear about what you have to say because constructive confrontation can be derailed by unclear, vague language that “tap dances” around root causes.
• Be solution driven and ensure there is a clear understanding at the end of the conversation about expectations and next steps.
• Make your approach through the language of curiosity. Blame and judgment will attract defensiveness and positioning, not transparence and collaboration.
• Be open to listening. You are probably contributing to the challenge.
• Manage your emotions no matter what is being said to you.
• You can use the performance appraisal process to confront undesirable behaviours in employees. Take note, this should not be the first time they hear about your dissatisfaction but it should help to hold them accountable to sustained changes in their behaviours.

Let’s go back to the three scenarios. Ask yourself if you have a Jenny, James or Ronnie on your team. Alternatively, think about if you see yourself in any of them. Then ask yourself which combination of these tips can help you to confront the issues constructively. Avoiding these opportunities to confront can lead to lowered employee morale, compromised productivity and a lack of respect for leadership.

In the book, The Art of Constructive Confrontation by John Hoover and Roger DiSilvestro they assert that, “Constructive confrontation increases accountability and decreases conflict. When things are not confronted early and often, they tend to crash and burn. By then, there’s nothing left but conflictual, accusatory, negative, blame-placing, find-a-scapegoat, search-for-the-guilty-and-punish-the-innocent, confrontation. No thanks… Confrontation keeps accountability high and conflict low by eliminating confusion, chaos, inconsistent messages, and double standards... Constructive confrontation is the strongest tool available to ensure effective leadership across an entire organization, at every level.”

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul Ltd., an HR Consulting and Training Company. Contact her at info@orgsoul.com or at www.orgsoul.com.

Making Criticism Constructive

2009-08-17T01:21:00Z

Constructive criticism is usually hard to give and receive because the receiver can react negatively to any type of criticism, especially if they regularly receive criticism that is angry, blaming or condescending.

I come across managers, supervisors and employees who avoid giving any type of criticism for fear of the conversation going in an undesirable direction. So what usually happens is the target of the criticism is allowed to get away with inappropriate behaviours because the boss is reluctant to take any type of corrective action.

Then there are managers, supervisors and employees on the opposite side of the spectrum who tell the cold, hard truth, with good intentions. Unfortunately, depending on how cold and hard the truth is, it can strip away the dignity and humanity of the receiver and can lead to an angry or withdrawn response.

A Model of Constructive Criticism

Managers sometimes use approaches designed to deliver criticism in a constructive way. There are writers that suggest the “oreo” approach where you start the conversation with something positive, then introduce the criticism constructively and then you end on a note that reinforces the employee’s strengths and your intent to provide support. A key consideration is to try not to sound rehearsed because you will be perceived as inauthentic or phony.

Authenticity

There are people who avoid telling the whole truth when providing criticism because there is the clear and present risk that it can be held against them by the receiver. This is because most people don’t want to hear the truth if it isn’t aligned with their perception of the truth, even when they ask you for your views.

Curiosity

Curiosity is open, interested and unbiased. It invites trust, openness and creativity by:

• Posing questions that are not assumption based
• Being open to diversity
• Avoiding placing labels on people and situations

Questioning is an important tool that is an integral part of curiosity. A leader should never have all the answers or advice so you can invite the person receiving the criticism to provide their views and alternative solutions. The best questioners are skilled at formulating questions that will help the receiver of criticism build their confidence and knowledge. Two quick tips for questioning in situations where you want criticism to be constructive are to avoid questions that lead the receiver to your desired outcome or ones that cause the receiver to feel interrogated.

Timing

When providing anyone with criticism, timing is everything. The first tip is to avoid telling them the truth in front of others. This causes you to appear to be unprofessional and it is easier for someone to accept criticism if they are not embarrassed.

Secondly, avoid providing criticism if you are in a negative emotional state. Finally, try to avoid constructively criticising someone if they are in a rush. They may not decode your message accurately because they are in a stressed state or because they are focused on something else.

Communication Tips

Respect is very important if you want your communication to be constructive. Avoid labeling people using words like liar or stupid. Stay away from shouting and profanity or using words like never and always. You can get your message across effectively without expressing your negative opinions.

For instance, if an employee tells you something that sounds like an untruth, you can say, “I realize you think that is the case but based on my investigation I found something else to be the case. Help me to understand the gap between what you are saying and what I found to be the case.” In this example, you are not calling the person a liar, you are inviting them to help you understand the facts because you may have been provided with misinformation.

Another communication tip is to be clear and concise. Managers, supervisors and employees start out with good intentions to provide constructive criticism but they “chicken out” and use language that is so vague and tactful that the real message is lost in tactfulness.

The Art of Listening

When providing constructive criticism, you will be more effective if you are equally adept at listening objectively to the person receiving the criticism because you need to know if they are listening to you. You can tell if the message is not being received as constructive if they are defensive, blaming or giving excuses.

In closing I would like to leave you with a quotation from an unknown author, “Constructive criticism is essential in any arena that requires creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. Since leadership requires all three, leaders need to be sure they are not only open to criticism, but that they actively seek it out. Ask people — direct reports, peers, customers — to poke holes in your ideas and approaches. Critique can be a useful approach to test ideas.”

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Training Company. For more information contact us at info@orgsoul.com.

Authentic Customer Service

2009-08-03T18:40:00Z

A few days ago I was sitting in a restaurant and there was a change in shifts. As a result of the shift change, a new waitress approached the table and started clearing the used dishes and utensils without saying a word, making no eye contact with me, not even asking me if I was finished. She seemed preoccupied about something.

Until the new waitress approached the table, I was experiencing a series of gastronomic delights. Not only was the food delicious, the table service was meeting my expectations. So back to the new waitress. There could have been many things going on with her but it appeared to me, that serving restaurant patrons was a necessary evil and this negatively affected a previously delightful experience. The impact of the surly waitress was that I will probably go to the restaurant again but not soon.

Business owners and executives know that quality customer service can help to differentiate their products and services so they often lament the bad customer service attitudes displayed by their front-line employees. Their first thought is that they need to find a good customer service trainer to provide employees with training designed to improve customer satisfaction levels.

The trainer is hired and comes and goes. The participants have a learning experience and training evaluations are completed. Based on the fun in the class and the positive training evaluations you are thinking the training day was a success. You are optimistic about your plans for differentiation and then the following week, you watch for modified behaviors but the new skills are not being integrated into everyday customer service routines.

Last week I read an e-mail by a consultant that was part of a Caribbean HR Forum dialogue that sums this up. The Consultant stated, “We ‘spray and pray’, with our myriad of training initiatives providing individuals with techniques, leaving their serving spirit underdeveloped. With their awareness untouched, participants return to the workplace with great intentions that easily evaporate with uncaring, uninformed, busy and toxic Supervision. How therefore do we get past these knee-jerk, reactive, piece-meal (customer service training) initiatives?”

I always took the position that training in isolation will not work unless you have an extraordinarily motivated team and an organizational culture that wont “chew up and spit out” all attempts for cultural change.

Here is an example. We usually go into a restaurant and no matter the quality of service we are obliged to pay a tip. This creates a culture where the tip becomes an entitlement and not a motivator of quality customer service. So how do you expect training alone to make a meaningful difference if your system undermines your training efforts?

Here are a few tips to help you to bring about authentic changes in customer service:

Create a Service Strategy

Your Customer Service Strategy should start with a vision for customer care. Decide what you want customer service to look like and how you plan to move from your current state to your desired state. This means you need to evaluate your actual service gaps and conduct cause and effect analyses so that you are strategizing based on root causes.

Customer Service Standards

As part of your Service Strategy exercise, create service standards. Everyone should know and have access to the standards for customer service. All employees should know that internal customers are just as important as external customers because in many cases, internal customers are serving external customers.

Performance Management

Identify key customer service competencies you would like your employees to embody so that customer service training can be specifically targeted at skill gaps. The competencies can be integrated into performance appraisals so they can be used as drivers that will help you to customize customer service training.

Compensation and Reward

Review your compensation and reward systems to determine if they support the changes you would like to observe. Whether or not employees are in an environment that makes gratuity part of the bill, employees probably expect tips. The big tippers usually get the best service. Others who stick to the prescribed 10-15% don’t usually receive any extra effort. Some organizations combat this by setting policies related to accepting tips so that employees are aware that there could be corrective action but this is difficult to monitor.

Customer Satisfaction Metrics

Decide how you will measure customer satisfaction. Many organizations conduct customer satisfaction surveys and hold managers and supervisors responsible for results and action plans. This process introduces an accountability factor that can lead to quality customer care.

Training

Customer service training should target actual deficiencies identified by your customer satisfaction survey and internal observation. Targeted training practices combined with a customer service strategy can bring about meaningful results and authentic customer service.

Performance Management: A Tool for Productivity Improvement

2009-07-20T10:50:00Z

There are many business owners and executives that go through the painstaking process of creating job descriptions for each position and then an annual process of assessing performance. On the surface you took a step in the right direction. You implemented a process to manage performance but are you really managing performance or are you using performance management as a tool to assign bonuses and merit increases while performance levels remain static?

In some cases, performance reviews happen once per year. Annual reviews with no other reviews during the year are a sure recipe for drama, suspense, surprise, disappointment and anger. When there is only one review each year, some employees are rated higher than they actually performed because you never told them they are not meeting your expectations. These employees end up with inflated assessments and this has the reverse effect of disappointing employees who actually worked harder and smarter than the employees with the inflated ratings.

Then there is the drama linked to annual appraisals. All year round employees are blissfully unaware of your perception of their performance and then they receive unexpected news that all year they were not performing as they thought. The employee had absolutely no indication there was a gap between their perception and yours. Managers tend to avoid these performance discussions, leaving them until the end of the process.

In a high performing work environment, performance is managed more than once a year. This sounds like more work, and it is, but it also leads to less stress at the end of the year because you are arming employees with feedback so they can recalibrate before the final rating.

Performance Management Basics:

In tough economic times, Managers look for ways to create higher productivity. Here is how you can use performance management tools to improve productivity:

Job Descriptions

Create clear job descriptions. There is nothing worse than working in an environment where duties are not clearly defined. Overlap can occur and turf wars can result because employees claim duties they prefer for various reasons. They may perceive the need for status, visibility and familiarity and low morale will inevitably result.

Recruitment

Effective recruitment practices are essential to high performance. The key is to select the right people for your vacant jobs. In the book “First, Break all the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, they state that hiring managers get duped into thinking experience and training in an area are equivalent to talent and performance. Buckingham and Coffman assert that we should hire based on talent, not experience because experience can sometimes be misleading. They also maintain good managers recognize, “People don’t change that much so don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in.”

Objectives

Job descriptions should not exist in isolation. Employee objectives are a necessary piece of the productivity enhancement puzzle. Objectives are measurements and they reduce subjectivity and introduce accountability. More objectivity in the process also means less “wailing and gnashing of teeth” at the end of the year because measurements are unmistakable. Deadlines, volumes and ratios are all examples of ways you can introduce objectivity to the process. Ideally, your objectives should flow out of your company’s strategic plan so that every employee is aligned with the strategic targets.

In some companies, the strategic plan is a shrouded in a cloak of obscurity. For higher performance, your company can create higher levels of transparence and cascade key components of the plan into employees’ objectives.

Appraisals

There are Performance Appraisals that exist that are purely subjective. They leave it up to the manager to decide on ratings based on perceptions. Then there are appraisals that are based primarily on measurements. While there is more objectivity in the latter process, the process isn’t always completely objective because it is not always easy to measure important behavioural competencies.

Performance Coaching

Effective coaching routines complement the Performance Management process by providing a stream of continuous feedback to employees. The more you provide constructive feedback the higher the possibility for improved productivity and the more employees feel valued. Some people leaders coach employees weekly, others every two weeks or monthly. One caution here is for you to be careful not to use the coaching process to micromanage unless you have a disciplinary issue.

Appraising employee performance doesn’t have to be an unpleasant exercise at the end of your fiscal year. Once you lead constructive performance coaching conversations regularly, employees will have opportunities to improve their results and you can avoid the disappointing conversations that affect employee morale and impair trust levels.

Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul Ltd., a HR Consulting and Training Company. Contact us through our website at www.orgsoul.com.