Tag Archives: Performance

Three questions for helpful feedback

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It can be daunting, intimidating and downright scary to ask people to give you feedback on your performance. You know you need it, but it seems both time-consuming and full of potential emotional land mines. After all, there are going to be things that are difficult to hear.

Seek regular feedback by asking people three simple questions:

What should I keep doing?

What should I start doing?

What should I stop doing?

While you can ask these in any order, we like starting with what you should keep doing. This reinforces the point that everyone has strengths – and those strengths will be the foundation for building new capabilities and eliminating bad habits.

Make it easier for people to do by giving them the questions in advance, then schedule 20 minutes of their time. Don’t feel like you have to react to what they say real time. You will want to process the feedback. Make sure to thank people for their time, preparation and input.

Once you have received the feedback, use MindTool’s guide to help you interpret what you hear. You’ll not only understand the feedback better, you’ll be able to act on it to improve your performance.

We say feedback is a gift. These three simple questions can yield a treasure of insight you’ll really appreciate.

 

Want to make a step change in your performance? Contact Humanergy.

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Three reasons NOT to have a meeting

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I saw a post today about how to drastically cut meeting time by sending out relevant materials in advance and proceeding right to discussion. Margaret Heffeman writes in her blog at cbsnews.com that assuming people do their homework and proceeding right to discussion will save about 90% of your meeting time.

I have an even better idea. Cancel the meeting! Here are three reasons people often meet when they should not:

To discuss an issue. If you don’t need to decide what to do right away and the issue isn’t sensitive or complicated, people can find other ways to share ideas. Use a chat board or other social media, ask people to respond to a targeted survey or simply use natural opportunities (like hallway conversations) to ask people what they think.

To build relationships. People who work together do need to create a connection that allows for open communication and mutual trust. Opportunities to build relationships can and should be built into a meeting agenda. However, if you’re having a weekly meeting with no other defined and necessary outcomes, you’re probably wasting everyone’s time. Try a monthly lunch instead, and keep meetings focused largely on achieving business results.

Because it’s on the calendar. This is the most frequent type of meeting that should not happen – meetings that are on a regular basis without regard to the need/focus. Schedule the fewest number of recurring meetings possible and feel free to cancel them if you don’t have an output-based agenda.

What are the worthwhile reasons to meet? Hold a meeting if you need to make a decision, engage the group creativity, get aligned on direction or improve a specific aspect of team functioning.

Meeting when it isn’t absolutely necessary wastes everyone’s time, and may actually create more issues. “Our meetings are held to discuss many problems which would never arise if we held fewer meetings” (Ashleigh Brilliant). 

 

Need to make your (fewer) meetings count? Contact Humanergy.

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The most powerful word

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You’re in a heated discussion with your colleagues. You need to make a decision and move forward collectively.

What one word will help you reach alignment? And.

When I strongly believe in my position, it is all too easy to counter the other person’s view with a firm, “BUT……” However, if I use “AND” instead, my argument stands on its own merit. I reduce the conflictual tone and set everyone up for success.

Here’s an example:

“I want to hire 7 new interns in the fall, and you’ll train them.”

“I think that interns are great value, and I can’t train them during that time frame. Josie would do a great job with the interns.”

“What? You’ve always trained and supervised our interns.”

“Yes, and given the strategic plan priorities, I need to focus on the customer needs survey. Would you like me to speak with Josie and help her prepare?”

Try reading through this scenario replacing the two bold “ands” with “buts.” Those two short words make a dramatic impact on the tone of the discussion.

Using “and” instead of “but” decreases the confrontational aspect and boosts the authoritative tone as well. You are able to state the facts and defend your position without sounding oppositional. Now, that’s powerful communication – packed into three letters!

 

Need some help communicating for alignment? Contact Humanergy.

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Feed your team

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I am a card-carrying member of ASDT (Adult Survivors of a Dysfunctional Team). I am sure that it is just a coincidence (or the fact that I have been working for many, many years), but I’ve served on a few teams that were not productive.

Dysfunctional teams do tend to get attention, even if the intervention doesn’t always work. The teams that get short shrift are the okay, average and good ones. As long as the team isn’t hopeless or causing too many problems for others, it’s not likely to rise to the top of the boss’ priority list.

Too bad. Great teams are the drivers of amazing results, as reinforced by Harvard Business Review blogger, Judith A. Ross, in Make Your Good Team Great. Research shows that the qualities that drive top team performance can be described as group Emotional Intelligence. In other words, these teams know how to recognize and manage the emotions of their members.

Ms. Ross recommends making time for the team to connect both inter-personally and around their strengths. This will help them appreciate each others’ contributions and tap each person’s strengths. She also emphasizes the importance of teams recognizing and managing the emotions that are sure to arise – the conflicts and the joys.

Kim Kanaga and Henry Browning authored the Center for Creative Leadership’s Keeping Watch: How to Monitor and Maintain a Team. They recommend that leaders regularly monitor a team’s status in six dimensions of team performance:

Clear purpose

Empowering team structure

Strong organizational support

Positive internal relationships

Well-tended external relationships

Efficient information management

The authors suggest ways to evaluate each of these six dimensions, and also expand upon four key indicators, which they liken to the gauges on a car’s dashboard.

Effort – Extent to which members devote time and effort to the task

Knowledge and skills – Degree to which the team possesses the right competencies

Tactics – Using rational, logical and direct approaches to accomplish goals

Group dynamics – Extent to which the team works without undue friction or waste

People who lead teams must regularly “take the pulse” of the team and help them adapt to changing circumstances. Teams need a leader who can smooth the way, ensuring that the team has the information, resources, autonomy and management support that will ensure success. What can you do today to make the life of your team better?

Need help leading your team? Contact Humanergy.

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Evaluate results not time

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We all know the workers who are the first to arrive and last to leave. They don’t take time off. You wonder if their kids even recognize them anymore. Contrast that person with an employee who leaves early for parent-teacher conferences and usually walks out the door in time to have dinner with his family.

Which is the preferable employee? That question is being bantered about more than ever, as young workers in particular strive for a life that balances work, home and community.

Kate Rogers wrote “Might Be Time to Tell Your Employees to Get a Life” on foxbusiness.com. She notes that more top-level execs are embracing a flexible approach to when, where and how work is done. They hold themselves and others accountable for the quantity and quality of performance – because that produces business results.

Rewarding “face time” at the office encourages people to look busy and be present, even when they’re not giving it their all. For some, being busy becomes a way of life and a means of avoiding other brutal realities. Tim Kreider notes in “The ‘Busy’ Trap at NYTimes.com:

“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

Think about how you use your  time and help your team create real success. Is it all about being busy, or are you zeroing in on the business results that matter?

Need to refocus on the right results? Contact Humanergy.

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Great expectations

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It may seem like common sense that when a teacher expects students to excel at a certain level, the students do. Grading can be subjective, after all. It is more surprising that studies of teachers have found that students’ scores on objective IQ tests correlated with teacher expectations.

Specifically,  if teachers are told that a randomly-selected student is expected to realize a large gain in IQ, that is exactly what happens. Why? Teachers begin to treat them differently. These “expectations affect teachers’ moment-to-moment interactions with the children they teach in a thousand almost invisible ways. Teachers give the students that they expect to succeed more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval: They consistently touch, nod and smile at those kids more.”

Transferring this phenomenon to a work setting, research by Jean-Francois Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux indicates that the boss is often inadvertently complicit in the failure of an employee. This dynamic begins with an early mistake, lukewarm recommendation or personality clash and is set in motion as the boss questions the employee’s competence. Under increased scrutiny by the boss, the employee loses confidence. He freezes or over-reacts. The syndrome is then in full swing, and it is no surprise when the employee fails.

Think about the people you supervise, and ask yourself these questions:

What do you expect your people to accomplish?

How does that impact your behavior and thus, their achievement?

How should you change your thinking and behavior to remove the impact of unwarranted low expectations?

Need help managing your expectations and your people’s performance? Contact Humanergy.

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Name your leadership genius

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Should you spend more time leveraging your strengths or fixing your weaknesses? Evidence suggests that leaders are more effective when they focus on maximizing their natural capabilities. Stories abound of people who failed when they jumped into positions that did not align with their core areas of competence.

You probably have a pretty good idea of what you do well and could list your strengths. A somewhat tougher question is, “What is your unique, distinguishing ability as a leader?”

That area of competence is the quality that you should be zeroing in on to accomplish your goals. Bob Rothman, co-chief operating officer at Gap International, says this is your genius – your best thinking that leads to outstanding performance.

Your leadership genius might be articulating the vision for the organization or helping employees grow and develop. If you’re not sure, ask a few trusted colleagues. To make the most of your capabilities, figure out “What is my leadership genius and how can I leverage this extreme competence?”

 

Need to make the most of what you do best? Contact Humanergy.

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Can you fix people?

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We have heard it before. “You can’t change people.” Yet we persist with the idea that if we just use the right words at the right time, the other person will “get it.”

In “Leadership in the Age of Complexity: From Hero to Host” Margaret Wheatley (no relation to Humanergy’s co-founder, David Wheatley) talks about the myth of the heroic leader. One thing the heroic leader believes is that people will do what they are told, if they are given good enough instructions.

The problem here is the illusion that leaders control what they cannot, like what others do, think or feel. What you can control is your own actions.

Rather than jumping in to correct what’s wrong with their people, leaders can be a positive influence and provide support. They can:

Articulate a vision for the future

Be specific about expectations

Ask great questions

Give feedback on behaviors

Protect people from bureaucracy, politics and other distractions

Celebrate wins

When you feel the urge to jump in and fix a person, say, “I want to help. How can I best do that?”

Want to help your people navigate choppy waters? Contact Humanergy.

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How to kill wisdom

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Barry Schwartz studies wisdom and gave a brilliant Ted lecture on the topic that you won’t want to miss. In case you don’t have 20 minutes to watch the whole lecture now, here are the highlights.

Leaders want to encourage certain behaviors in their employees, ones they believe will advance the organization’s mission. The goal is for people to grow in wisdom – acting based on intelligence, experience and common sense. Dr. Schwartz discusses how to promote practical wisdom, which he defines as the moral will (I want to contribute) and skill (I know how to help) to do the right things.

Using the example of hospital janitors, Dr. Schwartz outlined how people use practical wisdom to make a difference. Although their job descriptions included nothing about contact with human beings, their care for and interactions with others positively impacted patient care and outcomes. The janitors:

Ignored orders in order to help people. A janitor skipped cleaning the waiting room out of respect for sleeping visitors who had been at the hospital for days.

Improvised based on the situation. Because a parent did not see him do it the first time, one janitor re-mopped a comatose patient’s room.

Used their skills to serve others, not themselves. These janitors often added to their own workload, so that patients’ and families’ needs were met.

Leaders often create rules and incentives to increase the likelihood that people will exhibit desired behaviors. Dr. Schwartz cautions that rules keep people from making well-reasoned judgments and don’t allow improvisation in the service of what is right.

Incentives seem harmless, but they shift people’s thinking from, “What is my responsibility?” to “What is in my best interest?” In effect, activities that involve incentives have been shown to reduce morale and morality.

Rather than more rules, incentives or ethics policies, Dr. Schwartz advises us to:

Celebrate moral heroes who show practical wisdom every day.

Get to know the people in your organization in order to know how to encourage moral will and skill.

Allow people the time and give them permission to do the right thing, because moral heroes are made, not born.

Think you’ve got the right amount and types of rules and incentives? Maybe it’s time for a second look. As Dr. Schwartz says, without wisdom, brilliance can get you into trouble. Watch this Ted video now.

Need help developing practical wisdom in your organization? Contact Humanergy.

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Are you in danger of losing your high potentials?

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Retaining employees with high potential is essential to the success of your organization.

The Center for Creative Leadership’s High-Potential Talent: A View from Inside the Leadership Pipeline defines “high-potential talent as an employee who is assessed as having the ability, organizational commitment, and motivation to rise to and succeed in more senior positions in the organization.”

How are high potentials different from other employees? According to research by Ready, Conger and Hill (Are You a High Potential?, Harvard Business Review, June 2010), companies tend to describe high potentials this way:

“High potentials consistently and significantly outperform their peer groups in a variety of settings and circumstances. While achieving these superior levels of performance, they exhibit behaviors that reflect their companies’ culture and values in an exemplary manner. Moreover, they show a strong capacity to grow and succeed throughout their careers within an organization—more quickly and effectively than their peer groups do.”

To create a nimble strategy for managing your leadership pipeline, follow these steps:

Identify. Who are your high potentials? Though you may balk at creating a formal list of high potentials, many concede that identifying individuals with potential for growth is important for the organizations and the people themselves.

Engage and develop. Now that you have your list, create a plan to nurture your high potentials that includes both access to upper management and opportunities to grow. CCL’s research on high potentials notes that “high potentials receive more development opportunities – such as special assignments and training as well as mentoring and coaching from senior leaders – than other employees.” This gives them role models and advocates to develop those relationships that are the connective tissue within the organization.

Retain. CCL’s research indicates that people formally identified as high potentials have a higher retention rate than those not formally identified. Be aware, however, that identification as a high potential can trigger anxiety as well as excitement. Your strategy should manage for both, providing support to deal with the inevitable pressures as well as opportunities for development.

Deploy. High potentials want to understand the path that lies ahead, even if the specifics are a little vague. Provide answers to questions such as, What is the next step? What do I need to do or learn to get there? Communication, feedback and increasing levels of authority are critical to leveraging the talent pool, according to CCL.

Maximizing the potential of your organization’s future leaders requires planning and commitment. Allowing the “cream to rise to the top” on its own is not an option if your goal is converting raw talent into exceptional leadership for the long-term benefit of the organization.

Need strategies to engage your high potentials? Contact Humanergy.

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