The Enlightened Manager

Another Great Leadership Blog

Have you checked out Samuli Pahkala's blog, The Manager's Toolbox?

Good stuff there.  I recommend it.

What other leadership blogs do you enjoy?  Let's get a list going!

Working with people in emotional crisis - some thoughts.

I'm not a therapist.  The work of organizational psychology runs almost up to the edge of the discipline of therapy, but I'm not so much a fool to pretend I have clinical skills when I clearly don't.  But that being said, most of us will find ourselves working with someone who is in a state of emotional crisis.  I've had situations like this, both as an HR manager and a coach.  They are all different, and they are all challenging.

In your work as a leader you'll find yourself in a situation when you're working with a person and what appears to be a simple communications issue starts to look more and more like a mental health problem.

You'll work with people who walk around wearing their pain on their sleeves, telling you in gory detail about the parent who abused them over sandwiches in the break room.

You'll also work with people who beneath their professional demeanor hide a lifetime's worth of blame, shame, or self-loathing. 

Let's face it, we all have baggage.  Some of us just carry it in more public place is all.  It does create a leadership challenge.  And so when you have someone in emotional crisis in the workplace, what do you do? 

Some tips to keep you steady:

1) DON'T diagnose.  You may think your employee is bi-polar or depressed, but you're not qualified to diagnose them.  Even if you are qualified, as a boss it is not your role.  Don't diagnose, and don't label. 

2) DO talk to them about observable behavior.  For example "John, I've noticed that some days you seem very lethargic and unhappy, and other days you are full of energy and practically bounce off the walls.  It's hard to know how you'll react when I see you in the morning, which makes it harder to communicate with you. I'd like to see you being pleasant on a consistent basis.  What's going on?"

3) DO call your HR/legal department for advice.  For example, HR may want to notify them of their FMLA rights if they need time off.  You may also need to educate yourself on Disability Rights in the workplace.  This doesn't need to be a 'big deal' but do get your ducks in a row.  Get educated.

4) DON'T let poor performance slide.   If performance slows down, talk to the employee like you would anyother employee.   If they cite a medical reason for the slowdown, connect up with HR to discuss options, such as a leave of absence.  Yes, you will want to try and reasonably accommodate this person during a tough time.  Yes, you will want to be supportive and flexible as much as you can.  But this flexibility should not include a slide in work performance for more than a short period.

Tip: If you have an ill employee out on leave or unproductive while you work things out, take some pressure off.  Get a temp.  It may not be convenient to add temp staff, but it's certainly better than feeling pressure to fire someone who has cancer, right?

5) DO seek out supportive resources.  Your organization may have an employee assistance program.  Call around, and encourage your employee to use those resources.  You can also encourage them to reach out to a family member, a church leader, or anyone else in their lives that can be an advocate for them. 

6) DO keep your compassionate heart.  Some managers feel that because they have to manage performance, they must "harden their hearts" against employees in crisis.  This may seem to be an easy way out, but don't take it.  You can remain compassionate while doing your job.  This isn't always easy, but who said leadership is? 

7) DON'T rescue.   You can't be responsible for the emotional lives of others.  We all have certain "hats" we wear, and as a leader you can't be therapist, mother, or best friend.  Be supportive, offer resources, and keep your heart open.  But as a manager you can't save people from themselves or their medical conditions.  Setting that expectation for yourself can only lead to pain and failure.

As a leader, you'll find yourself juggling the sometimes competing interests of organizational productivity and the needs of employees in crisis.  In these situations there is often no "one right answer" but these tips can help you on your way.

And remember: breathe!  And take care of yourself too.  If you're feeling stressed, find someone to lean on.

Leadership in a Down Economy: Language Lessons from Obama

How do you communicate when morale is low and times are tough?  How can the survivors of a layoff take heart and keep productive?   How can leaders turn depression into action?

I was at a meeting recently where a manager said the following:

"We've cut back staff, and now everyone has extra duties added to their job description.  Morale is low.  How can we motivate people?  We can only say we're sorry about the changes so many times."

This is not a unique challenge, but one that is facing so many leaders across the world right now.  The sadness of the current situation is at odds with the need for positive and assertive action. 

We may not have the power to hire more staff, but what we do retain is our power to motivate others through the power of language.  Language is so much more than words, it can actually change the way people think and act.

A key strategy, and one which has been used expertly by President Obama, is to frame the challenges in terms of a "shared endeavor."

For example:

"Acme company is going through some hard times.  We're not alone, this is a challenge being faced by our entire industry.  Our recent layoffs have been hard on everyone, and now many of you are wondering what happens next.

We're faced with a daunting challenge - a mountain of uncertainty.  We're faced with another choice.  Do we put our fears aside to climb this mountain together?  Or do we sit at the bottom of the hill feeling powerless and sad?  I believe that we can climb this mountain together.  We have the creativity, the skill, and the strength to meet our challenges.  It's these strengths that have made us the #1 in customer satisfaction for so many years.  Our customers are struggling financially and so are we.  It's time for us to put our sadness to one side and to believe in ourselves again.  We need new ideas, new action, and a whole lot of commitment to pull this off.

Will you join us in climbing this mountain?  The time to start is now."

Can you see how the language of shared endeavor is very different than the dynamic of management needing to "say sorry" for the plight of employees?  The latter creates a kind of mental division where leaders deliver something (stability, instability) to others in the company.  This creates a concept of dependency which does NOT spark action.

Inspirational language alone is not enough.  A message like the one above should be coupled with a tangible plan for turning around the company situation.  This could be something as simple as a series of departmental "brainstorming" meetings to generate ideas for a company turnaround.

As members of the human community, most of us are inspired by this notion of shared endeavor.  As a leader, you can use this basic human strength to spark action in dark times.

A Few Tips for Speaking the Language of Shared Endeavor:

1. Acknowledge negative facts AND feelings, briefly.
2. Offer a choice between action and inaction.
3. Use metaphors.  (The sample metaphor above was a mountain.)
4. Always speak in terms of "We/Us"
5. Do not cast blame - talk about shared responsibility.
6. Share your authentic belief in the people you are speaking to. (I believe in you...)
7. Talk about how existing strengths can be used as a foundation for action.
8. Speak from your heart.
9. Channel the energy/momentum from your talk into a specific action plan, which relies upon staff creativity/ideas.

Embracing Resistance: An Unorthodox Strategy for Change

I was at a meeting last week where an HR leader was talking about the challenges of creating culture change in an organization.  In this case, the HR team had conducted a survey of staff asking for input and ideas on the change process. 

They found a number of the surveys lying crumpled in the trashcan.

How is someone to interpret this information?

Option One:  Get frustrated.  Here you are trying to make things better and people just throw it in your face.  How rude!  How inappropriate!

Option Two: Get curious.  Ask people why they are resisting.  What is going on here?

Option Three:  Get logical.  Explain to staff why the changes are important, and sell the changes.

Option Four: Get compassionate.  Embrace the resistance as a normal and healthy response to change, and move forward with empathy and clarity.

Option Five:  Get excited:  Embrace resistance as a signpost on the journey to change.  Recognize it without slowing you down.

Option Six:  Get patient.  Acknowledge that acceptance will take time.

These are some of the options that you have in front of you when employees resist a change.  In my experience, the organizations that use a combination of options 2-6 have better successes when creating change.  Option one may be a natural "off the cuff" reaction, but acting on frustration may hurt rather than help. 

At it's core, employee resistance is simply data.  How you interpret that data is up to you.  The trick is to embrace that resistance constructively, without letting it derail your change.

Here is some language that I've used in situations where resistance is high:

"I hear that you are skeptical about this change, and that you have concerns.  I might feel the same if I were in your shoes. There is nothing wrong with skepticism!  No one can tell you how to feel.

The reason why we are making this change is (reason).  So I ask you to give us the benefit of the doubt as we work towards (change).  But along with this, I commit to being open to your feedback, because I know we'll be better off as an organization if we bring the best ideas of our team together.  I can't promise we'll always agree, but I do promise to listen."

Jealousy in the Ranks - Dealing with Unfavorable Performance Comparisons

Have you ever been in a situation where your good performance has put your peers in a bad light?  It's a tricky situation, and one that requires diplomacy. 

A couple examples:

A friend of mine operates a business where she is a "manager for hire" on a short term basis.  Recently she took an assignment covering for someone's personal leave.  She did excellent work, and now that the real manager is back people are making unfavorable comparisons between my friend and the manager.  My friend, in short, was "too good" and "made" the manager look bad according to the grapevine.

When I was early in my HR career, I took a job in a department with some very fun but low performing peers.  I worked very hard and gained the respect of just about everyone but my peers, who complained resentfully that I was making them look bad.

So what can you do when you are performing at a high level, and there is a risk that you are "making others look bad"?   Here are some strategies to consider.  Pick and choose what works for you, depending upon your situation.

1.  Don't worry about it.   -  Sometimes these scenarios just come down to grumbling, and it's best not to be distracted by it.  Besides, we all know that in a world where everyone is accountable for their own performance, we will never "make" someone look bad.  Don't take responsibility for the jealousy of others.

2.  Create Shared Wins -  If you are casting a certain amount of "light" because of your performance, why not share it?   Don't give others credit for work that is solely your own, but look for ways to invite others to participate in your success.  Share the work and then share the credit.

3. Distinguish between whiners and learners -  In the example above from my HR career, I was dealing with jealous coworkers who had no interest in increasing their own efforts.  In this case, there was no desire to learn - but a big desire to whine and make me feel guilty.   In other situations, I've seen people make the commitment to ramp up their own performance.  These are situations where you can take the opportunity to teach and coach - being a team player instead of a lone superstar.

4.  Don't brag or put others down -  A star performer who is humble and open to learning will gather less ill will than someone who puts others down or is self aggrandizing.  Those actions will only contribute to the negative dynamic.

I think the distinction here is that you should never be tempted to be less of a superstar simply because others feel bad.   That is their problem - not yours.  However if you can find an opportunity to use your strength to lift others up - why wouldn't you?  Ignore the whiners who are jealous without ambition, but help the ambitious stand up on that pedestal with you.

Just some ideas. Feel free to add your 2 cents below!

Individual Interviews: A Powerful Employee Development Strategy

Enlightened Managers -

Hello, and I hope this post finds you well and happy wherever you are.  I'm in that emotional state where tiredness meets deep contentment.  It's not a bad place to be.  The events that have brought me to this place are what I want to write about today.

I've been firming up a belief in my mind that there is training, and then there is development.  The difference comes down to this:  Development is a wholistic learning process that integrates context, content, reinforcement, accountability and support.  (These last three are heavily leader-dependent.)  Training is what happens when you plop a random workshop into your team like a loogey dropped on the sidewalk.   I'm a big fan of development, and highly skeptical of training.

If you want your development program to be context-specific, where do you start?  Interviewing participants pre-design phase is a good strategy.  Some of my clients have balked a little at the idea of prefacing a development program with individual interviews (yes it does take time) - but those interviews are often what provide me (the consultant) with the context needed to create programs that are rich, relevant, and have sticking power.

Today I just finished up a round of individual interviews at a client site.  Over the past two weeks, I've met with over twenty five employees to ask them to share their context with me.  What works well?  What could be improved?  What kind of training would be helpful?  What kind of learning styles do they have?  I have eighty pages of notes, and a very full brain.  This weekend I'll sort and parse that data methodically.  It's a lot of work, but it's worth it - every bit.  Why?

Here is what you get when you incorporate interviews into your design process:

1. You (the interviewer) can "collect" examples, stories, and lingo that can be used to create curriculum that is relevant and real - drawing on real situations.

2. You can begin to uncover some of the motives and assumptions that go behind employee behavior, to assess what kind of development would be most effective for that group.  (ie: what is making this group 'tick?')

3. You can distinguish between one-off comments and patterns, enabling you to target the deeper areas of concern.

4. You can assess the alignment between management and non-management goals and perspectives, and then share any gaps with the team to assess and bridge.

5. You can get a better understanding of the work itself, giving you an appreciation for operational realities that you can use to avoid making faulty assumptions when providing advice.

6. There is a kind of magic that happens when you genuinely want the feedback of each team member.   By listening openly and incorporating that feedback you empower people to engage with the process, and make it harder for participants to 'write off' the whole thing as "just another training exercise."   I've literally seen people come into interviews with skepticism and leave enthusiastic with full support, due to nothing more than the fact that they were genuinely listened to.  I keep learning this over and over again: Listening is powerful!

7. You are able to design a development program which every member of the team can say was created with their interests in mind, and this creates both appreciation and accountability.  The learning "speaks" to the group in a way that a canned workshop never will.

8. You're sending a message that you (consultant/trainer) and management do not have all the answers.  This is always true, but is rarely articulated.

9. If you conduct both interviews and the actual development sessions, you enter those sessions not as a stranger, but as a collaborative partner.  It's a less intimidating atmosphere for learners. 

So I'm tired and happy because it's been a busy couple weeks, and also because my mind is swimming with all of the stories, smiles, candid remarks and wise advice I just heard from employees in the department I'm serving.  I even love the skepticism. I can't share those stories with you, because they're not mine to offer, but I sign off tonight with a full mind and a grateful heart.

It is such a pleasure to be able to co-create these kind of learning opportunities with a whole department.  You can too, and it comes down to  context, content, reinforcement, accountability and support.  To find the context in the team you're developing, you could do far worse than to make up a list of questions and have a chat over tea with each person, incorporating that diverse wisdom into a seamless whole.

:)  Have a good day.  Besides, Friday is coming!

Administrivia: A New Design & Social Networking Experiments

A few administrative updates:

We have a new look!

If you get the Enlightened Manager via email or in a feed reader, you may not have noticed that we have a new design and graphics.   Your feedback is welcome, and I extend my thanks to Nancy Owyang, the talented owner of Eye2Eye Graphics in Seattle who developed the graphics and color palette.

Cheri is on Facebook!

I've been making some tentative forays into the world of social networking, and as such you can now access my profile on Facebook.  Facebook is an odd sort of phenomenon, blending together the business and personal aspects of life on one site.  If you are a member of Facebook and a reader of the Enlightened Manager, I invite you to connect to my profile.  Note: Please mention the Enlightened Manager in your note so I know to accept your invite.   (Cheri Baker, cheri (at) emergenceconsulting.net) 

Tip: Facebook is far more informal than LinkedIn.  It is interesting, but it doesn't suit everyone.

We're having an identity crisis!

I recently received some feedback saying that this blog should really be called "The Enlightened Leader" instead of "The Enlightened Manager" since the focus is on leadership, rather than strictly management.   I'm interested in what you all have to say about this.  Good idea?

That's it for updates.  Have a good day.

Video: On the Power of a Smile

This award winning short film would be a good one to demonstrate the power of a smile, in customer service senarios.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

"Validation" is a fable about the magic of free parking. Starring TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis. Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne. Winner - Best Narrative Short, Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Jury Award, Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, Winner - Audience Award, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Comedy, Breckenridge Festival of Film, Winner - Crystal Heart Award, Best Short Film & Audience Award, Heartland Film Festival, Winner - Christopher & Dana Reeve Audience Award, Williamstown Film Festival, Winner - Best Comedy, Dam Short Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Film, Sedona Int'l Film Festival.

Category:  Comedy

On Ignoring Naysayers

Hello Enlightened Managers.   I hope this post finds you well and enjoying your week.  I'm having a good week, but also a long one.  Too many twelve hour days stacked up like towels in a too-small linen closet.  But better busy than not, and better a full life than an empty one.

Because I'm eager to get away from my computer and plop down on the bean bag with my hubby in front of the TV, this will be a short post.  But an important one I think.

Do you have nay-sayers in your life?  People who are lovable and good but tend to think your ideas are a bit off the mark?  I do.  Some of my friends just "don't get" what I do, and so when I show them something I'm working on (like a new training tool) they tend to smile politely and make one of those annoying comments.

"I suppose some people might find that useful."
"I never have that problem myself.
"Good luck with that - it's not really my thing."
"I already do that all the time."

In the past, I tended to take these kind of comments too much to heart.  I'd come up with a fun and funky idea on how to do something, and then one expression of indifference would just burst my bubble.  Not so much anymore.

As an example, I recently had the idea to send a small can of playdoh to some of my "prospects" (business speak for people who I'd like to work with) to remind them that employee development can be fun as well as profitable.  I included a nice letter to go along with the toy.

I told a friend about this, and he told me through body language and tone of voice that he thought this was a pretty silly idea.  He was polite, he didn't mean any harm, but he also showed pretty clearly that he thought I was being a dork.

I went ahead anyway.  It was a success.  People have emailed and called me to say how much they appreciate the Playdoh and that they would like to talk about some development work this year.

The magic wasn't in the Playdoh.  It was in the fact that I didn't let naysayers dampen my enthusiasm. 

My advice to you this week, is to try and do the same.  Feedback is good, but there are also times when you just need to follow your bliss.  Shake off the negativity people throw your way, and just keep on dancing towards success.

OK, time to go get flat for a while.   Until the alarm goes off and we start all over again!

(By the way, Playdoh is a registered trademark.)

How to Make Decisions (10 Tips)

Today's post is a quickie, 10 different tips on how to make decisions.

1. Gather More Data -  When you're not sure what to do, it can be helpful to gather more information.  You can do this by looking at quantitative data (numbers, statistics) etc or qualitative data (interviews, surveys, etc.)

2. Ask your "Boss" - Is there someone you defer to in the matter you're addressing, be it your manager or your spouse?  Ask them what they think. 

3. Call a Smart Person -  No, not "IQ" smart - but someone you trust.  Tell them what you have going on and ask them what they'd do in your shoes.

4. Make a Pros/Cons list for your Options.  "Should I Quit my Job Today?"  Pros: More time to watch Oprah.  Cons: Would have to move into Mom's basement.   You get the picture.

5. Be Your Own Best Friend - Ask yourself "If my best friend were in my situation, what advice would I give them?"  (Seems simple, but I've seen this question break through a lot of blocked decisions.)

6. Follow your Gut - Did you know that you have neurons in your guts as well as in your brains?  This may explain why our "gut" is often a source of decision making power.   Be cautious.  Some "gut" decisions are good and some are plain emotional.  Know how smart your "gut" is before you listen to it.

7. Take a Break -  See a movie, relax with a friend, or sleep on it. Sometimes you need a little time before coming to the right decision.

8. Accept the Ambiguity - Sometimes there is simply not enough information to know what is right.  In these cases make the best choice you can and be prepared to deal with the consequences.  Such is life.

9. Defer to the Group - In some cases, you might turn to a democratic process.  If so, gather up the interested parties and take a vote.  Even better, have a nice long chat until there is consensus on a decision everyone can live with.

10. Take a History Lesson - Chances are that you are not the first person in history facing your decision.  Read up on case studies, or ask experienced folks what they did in your situation.

Do you have tips to add?  Leave a comment!