Peter Barron Stark Companies » Communication

9 Steps to Effective Problem Solving

Peter Stark — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:06:40 +0000

Every day we are each faced with problems to solve: the large problems can be intimidating and the small problems can be mind-numbing. Either way, there is no avoiding problems. You are in your leadership position, title or not, because you have the reputation for spotting and solving important problems while rallying others, and yourself, to action. However, every now and then a problem sneaks past even the best leaders and causes a stir. Where do you begin and how can you help deter the issue from becoming an even bigger problem?

The best outcomes usually come from problems that are dealt with early on. Problems can be identified in the early stages if you make it a habit to frequently ask peers and team members how things are going and what challenges, if any, they are facing. Encourage others to provide information on problems as soon as they arise. Be open to their input and suggested solutions, and thank people for bringing issues to your attention and allowing you the opportunity to address and resolve their concerns. Be sure to follow-through, or people will become reluctant to provide information as they may assume nothing will change.

Problem solving requires a high level of information about the issues and the needs of employees. This requires open communication. In order to become an effective problem solver, remember that this skill requires all parties to share control over the emerging solution. By using the following problem-solving model, you will generate a number of alternative solutions and increase the probability that the final solution will be the best one.

Step One: Define the Problem
What are the symptoms of the problem? Why is it a problem? What is the impact of the problem?

Step Two: Gather Facts, Feelings, and Opinions
What is happening? Who is involved? What is the impact of the problem? Who does it affect? What are the causes of the problem?

Step Three: Identify the Real Problem
After you gather the facts, feelings, and opinions, it is important to discover if you are working on the real problem or only a symptom of the problem. This may require restating the problem in a totally different format. Be willing to start over with the real issues if that is what it takes. Why spend valuable time trying to solve something that is not the problem in the first place?

Step Four: Generate Possible Solutions
The next step requires generating as many solutions as possible. In this stage, the goal is to generate alternatives. Avoid any judgment or evaluation of solutions at this point.

Step Five: Evaluate Alternatives
After you have generated as many alternatives as possible, you want to start deciding which alternative will be the best. Now is the time to be critical about the different alternatives. Be cautious or hesitant when everyone agrees on which alternative to take.

Step Six: Select Best Alternative
Once you have evaluated all the alternatives, you are then ready to pick the one you think will solve the problem in the best way. Most people start at Step One by defining the problem and then move right to Step Six by making a choice. If we do Steps Two through Five correctly and thoroughly, Step Six should be relatively easy.

Step Seven: Gain Approval and Support
Any time you are going to change something, you will always need to rally approval and support. Do not think that the only thing that needs to be done is to select the alternative and then implement it. The negative thinkers will come up with obstacles and possess a “show-me” attitude that must be overcome. It helps if you involve such thinkers in the beginning of the problem-solving process so they become part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Step Eight: Implement Decision
After support has been developed, you are finally ready to implement the decision.

Step Nine: Evaluate Results
If you do not have a follow-up or monitoring system in place that allows you to check results, the chances for success diminish. If people do not know how the results are being measured or that they are going to be held responsible, problem solving becomes a difficult task. When things go right, recognize success. When things go wrong, go back to Step One and start the process again.

It’s impossible to avoid all problems, but by following the above steps, you can minimize the impact of a problem and often come out of it better for having faced the challenge.

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Peter Barron Stark Companies is a nationally recognized management consulting firm that specializes in employee opinion surveys, executive coaching, and leadership and employee training. Send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com for more information about how we can help you create an organization where your employees love to come to work and your customers love to do business.

The Case for Introverted Leaders

Peter Stark — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:50:51 +0000

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A quick search for introvert on Thesaurus.com retrieves synonyms such as brooder, egoist, loner, self-observer, solitary and wallflower, while the synonyms for extrovert include character, gregarious person, life of the party, show-off and showboat. Neither of these references paint a completely positive or accurate picture of either preference but perpetuate the overall misconceptions floating around about introverts and extroverts.

This explains the question I have been asked on several occasions: “Can introverts make great leaders?”

My response? “Yes!” Introverts and extroverts can both make great leaders, but for introverts, leading others requires more effort towards adapting their natural style.

In a recent poll of executives who are our clients, approximately 40 percent described themselves as introverts. Are you an introvert? If you can answer “yes” to the majority of the statements listed below, there is a good chance you are an introvert:

You believe that if everyone just did their job, there would be less need to communicate and there would be no need to go to a team building session.
You would prefer to communicate by email rather than by phone or in person.
You work hard to minimize the amount of time you have to spend at social events.
You are more comfortable being with people you know well, rather than in situations where you have to hold a conversation with people you do not know.
You actually re-charge your batteries by spending time by yourself.
You believe that since you do not need a lot of praise and recognition, others should be content and not look for acknowledgement for just doing their jobs.
You do not like to speak your mind until you have listened to all of the options, both pro and con, and then have the opportunity to prepare a well thought out response.
You prefer to dig deep into an issue rather than focus on someone else’s vision. To you, depth is more important than breadth.
You prefer to work with people and in situations where people are calm, objective and there is an absence of emotion.
You really enjoy calmly analyzing challenges and solving problems that are troubling to others.

If you are a leader who is an introvert, you are in good company. Great leaders who have classified themselves as introverts include: Bill Gates; Warren Buffet; Douglas Conant, the former CEO of Campbell Soup; Mahatma Gandhi; and Abraham Lincoln.

For many people, the stereotype that you need to be an extrovert to be a great leader still exists. In a study published by USA Today, 65 percent of executives stated that they perceive introversion as a barrier to leadership, and only 6 percent said they believe introverts make better leaders. The University of Notre Dame, in an analysis of approximately 70 leadership studies, found that extroversion was a major predictor of a person’s leadership potential. Most likely, these findings are because extroverts, through their comfort of networking and their ability to build relationships, are more likely to be noticed and considered for promotions.

The reality is that there are about an equal number of introverts and extroverts at the executive level of the organization who are great leaders. What makes both extroverts and introverts great leaders is the ability to adapt their style—even when it is uncomfortable for them to do so—when that is what is needed for their people or for the situation within which they are leading.

Although remaining introverts to the core, successful introverts learn to adapt when certain behaviors are necessary for influential leadership. If you are an introvert, the following six tips will help you in becoming an even more successful leader:

Get out of your comfort zone. If you are most comfortable being in your office responding to email, then set a goal that three times a day you are going to make the rounds. Ask each person you talk to the following questions: How are you doing? What are you working on? and What support do you need from me? The best part about asking these three questions is all you need to do is listen, possibly take notes, and take action if needed.
Connect with others. Introverts have the habit of walking by others and just hoping that no one will try to connect with them. Stop it! Start walking by others and greeting them with, “Good morning,” or ask how their day is going. When you ask a question, it is then important to stop and listen to the response. This reminds me what our 91-year-old dad has preached since we were kids, “People like you so much better when they do the talking.”
Participate in meetings. Don’t just sit in meetings looking at others (and thinking in your own mind how stupid people can be and what a complete waste of your time this really is). Get involved. Ask questions. Acknowledge people’s contributions. Ask what you can do to help the team or to help others be even more successful.
Acknowledge other people’s emotions. Recognize when people tell you what they are looking for, they most likely are feeling some emotion, whether it is pride or frustration. If someone is telling you about their family or children, acknowledge the emotion by saying something like, “You have to be really proud of what John has accomplished in sports.”
Prepare in advance. If you are going into a public setting, have your presentation/questions prepared in advance. As an introvert, the more prepared you are, the more confident you will be.
Honor people’s need to be valued and appreciated. While introverts do not have a high need to be valued and recognized, most people do, whether it is at home or at work. Don’t be like the man whose wife said, “You never tell me you love me,” to which he responded, “I did on the day we were married. If anything changes, I will let you know.” Set a goal to let three to five people know each day that you appreciate their contributions, recognize their success and are grateful that they are involved in your life.

Introvert or extrovert, your preference doesn’t determine your leadership ability. What makes you a great leader is the flexibility to adapt your behavior so that you can bring out the best in others and connect with your team members in such a way that they are motivated to follow you.

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Managing a Team of Different Personalities

Peter Stark — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:00:46 +0000

“He’s so driven and absolutely clueless as to how he comes across.”

“She is overly sensitive and takes everything so personally.”

“He might be able to solve the problem, but by the time he comes up with a solution, we’ll be out of business.”

In our consulting business, we routinely hear comments like those above, typically followed by: “He (or she) just doesn’t fit here. This person is not a good match for our culture.”

Often, when probing further, it becomes apparent that the team member being described is a square peg in a round whole when it comes to this organization. He or she just doesn’t think or act the same way as the majority of the rest of the team, which makes him or her stand out as being different.

Often this person is perceived to be a roadblock in terms of effectively contributing to the success of the team and organization. In other words, this person’s way of thinking, or approach to work, is radically different than that of the majority of the other team members.

Although the different approach may be challenging for some team members, it is important to remember that in building a highly effective team, different is good.

There are hundreds of different instruments to define/analyze behavioral and communication styles. To keep it simple, we’ve just assigned simple descriptive words to talk about some of the more challenging behaviors displayed by different team members.

Here are some tips on how to interact with different or difficult team members.

Style: Driver (Red)
Primary Driver Focus: Task Orientation . . . Get it done
Motto: “My Way or the Highway”

Gifts Brought to the Team	Challenges
Fast paced, driven behavior	Burnout; other team members can’t keep up
Task oriented; continual focus on getting it done	Done so quickly, it may not be right and need to be redone, ultimately taking more time
Focused on big picture	Not process oriented; misses details; makes errors
Self-confident	Can be seen as arrogant when confidence is overdone
Comfortable taking risks	Risks can be costly to the team or organization
Competitive	Can compete with other team members , rather than what’s best for the team/organization
Decisive	Decisions made don’t always reflect careful analysis of the root cause of the problem; bad decisions can be costly and detrimental to the team

Tips for dealing with the Driver team member:

Give recognition to their accomplishments. Drivers thrive on acknowledgment of their successes.
Don’t tell them. We are fond of saying, “You can tell a driver, but not much.” Don’t try. Instead, ask questions that allow them to discover things.
Be time efficient; don’t waste their time.
Be organized and concise.
Provide viable alternatives as solutions to problems and let them pick the best alternative.
Keep your relationship business-like.

Style: Amiable (Blue)
Primary focus: Relationships . . . how we feel about working together
Motto: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Gifts Brought to the Team	Challenges
Caring and empathetic	Can make decisions that are emotional and not reflective of what’s best for the team or organization
Great listener	Will listen to anyone; can be at the expense of productivity
Supportive, high concern for others	When overdone, can enable others
Sensitive	Gets hurt and takes things personally
Comfortable taking risks	Risks can be costly to the team or organization
Competitive	Can compete with other team members rather than working towards what’s best for the team/organization
Shares personal feelings	Can be taken advantage of when personal information is used against the Amiables

Tips for dealing with Amiable team members:

Don’t view an emotional response as being unprofessional. For Amiables, it is often just their first response. Help them move beyond the emotion to make good business decisions.
Try to be understanding and supportive of their feelings.
When you disagree, don’t debate facts and logic. You might approach a challenge this way, “I am sensing that we are not in agreement. Let’s talk about what you are feeling.”
Show Amiables that you are actively listening, even when the conversation seems to stray from business to a personal conversation. Acknowledge what is being said, then reroute the conversation back to business.
Avoid conflict, but do hold Amiables accountable to meeting agreed upon deadlines.

Style: Analyzer (Green)
Primary Focus: Process – How We do Things
Motto: “Do it right the first time”

Gifts Brought to the Team	Challenges
Independent, autonomous	Can move in a different direction than the rest of the team and lose sight of the end game
Precise	May spend too much time on unimportant details
Detailed	May provide too much detail; other team members may see excess information as a data dump
Organized, thorough	Can get bogged down in minutia and lose sight of the end result
Curious	Has a high need to make sure that all factors are thoroughly researched and considered before coming to closure or making a decision
Well researched	Takes time; may slow down other team members
Disciplined	Can’t skip steps in the process

Tips for dealing with the Analyzer team member:

Get them involved in projects early on. Don’t exclude them because you think you’ll be more time efficient. Analyzers see things at a much deeper level than other team members. You need their contribution.
Give them all the facts up front. Then, tell them what you need from them, but not how they should accomplish the work. For a Green, the process is critical. Tell them what you need, but not how to do it.
Be specific about time frames for work to be completed. Hold them accountable to meeting the deadlines.
Respect and value the Analyzer’s contribution. Look for opportunities to provide meaningful recognition.

Although it may feel good in the short run to hire people just like you, in the long run, cloning yourself will spell disaster for your team. Ultimately, the way to build a highly effective team is to consciously think about hiring, developing and retaining different or diverse thinkers and doers. Remember, great leaders treat team members the way they want to be treated, even when they are different. When it comes to building a successful team, different is good.

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We are a nationally recognized management consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement surveys, coaching, and training. Send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com for more information about how we can help you create an organization where your employees love to come to work and your customers love to do business.

Successfully Saying ‘No’

Peter Stark — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:37:26 +0000

To be a successful leader, it is equally important to know when to say ‘yes,’ as it is when to say ‘no.’ In life, there are times when you have to successfully tell people ‘no’ in a way that builds a relationship even stronger. The challenge is that for some managers, the word ‘no’ is the equivalent of a four letter word. The managers who don’t like the word ‘no’ believe that telling someone a resounding ‘no’ could cause the relationship to deteriorate to the point that others on the team or in the organization will not like or support her as a leader.

A portion of your success as a leader is in telling people ‘no.’ The following are examples where it is most likely in your best interest to tell others ‘no.’

An employee wants a raise that is not justified
A customer or vendor asks you to do something that raises ethical concerns.
An internal customer requests a project completion date that you do not feel can be met
One employee asks you to share confidential information about another employee
Someone tries to sell you something that you do not believe you need
A manager wants to fire an employee without having completed the proper steps involving HR, documenting and communicating the performance discrepancies to the employee

Here are 8 tips to help leaders say ‘no’ and continue to build relationships where people are motivated to help the leader and the organization accomplish the mission, vision and goals.

Just say it: Although uncomfortable for some people, the easy way to say ‘no’ to someone, without any mixed signals is simply to look them in the eye and say, “No, I am not going to agree to that.”
Conditional ‘No’: This technique works exceptionally well for the amiable person who does not like looking people square in the eye and saying ‘no’ outright. Instead of telling a team member, “No, I can’t/won’t do that for you,” use a conditional ‘no’ and say, “I can’t get the project done for you this week, but I can work on it later this month, if that will work for you.”
Anticipate the Objection: Before someone asks you for something that you cannot agree to, say something like, “I know your union members feel they have earned the right to their health benefits. In today’s economy, though, with our margins shrinking to the lowest levels in our history, we can no longer continue to carry the full burden paying for the same portion of health care expenses.”
If-then: In some situations, if your counterpart was willing to meet certain conditions, you would not then have to say ‘no.’ For example, “If you could agree to get your members to pay $100 per month toward their health care, instead of the $150.00 we were originally asking you to do, then we could make this work.”
Selective Agreement: In this situation, you can actually agree to a portion of what your counterpart says without saying, ‘no,’ to the entire statement. For example, an internal customer states, “Your department is always late, you have missed every deadline.” Instead of agreeing to what was said, you might respond, “We did miss the XYZ project deadline we are discussing. I agree with that.”
If You Were Me: When your counterpart makes a request that makes no sense for you to agree to, one great way to say ‘no’ is to ask a great question like, “If you were in my shoes representing our shareholders, how could you agree to a health care concession that will bankrupt the business and leave everyone without a job?”
Ask for Clarification: Before ever saying, ‘no,’ to someone, don’t assume you know exactly what they are asking. Ask clarifying questions to gain a better understanding. With a better understanding, you may be able to use one of the above options rather than an outright ‘no.’
I will think about it and get back to you: In certain situations, it may be in your best interest not to say ‘no’ to someone. For example, if you are not sure if you have another option or a different way to resolve the problem, you may want to keep your options open. Let your counterpart know that you will think about it and get back to them. One caution with this option: amiable people use this option when they do not feel comfortable saying ‘no.’ They will tell you they will get back to you when they have no intention of doing so. They use this strategy to simply give them distance from their counterpart and buy time in saying ‘no.’

Use these strategies to help you build strong leadership relationships even when you have to say, ‘no.’

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How to Communicate Your Vision Like Steve Jobs and the Best-of-the-Best

Peter Stark — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:02:29 +0000

From the October 2011 Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

For nearly thirty years, executives, managers and employees alike have marveled at Steve Jobs’ ability to innovate. After all, Jobs did not only foresee the future of technology (and music, and animation), he created it. It’s clear that Jobs was one of the most visionary leaders of our times. But, what most people don’t realize is that if it were not for his dedication to communication, the way we interact with technology today would be vastly different. His excitement when introducing new products mesmerized customers. His commitment to specifically communicating what he envisioned motivated employees at all levels and made revolutionary products and services possible.

With poor marketing and ineffective organizational communication, his visions would have remained just that: visions.

Looking at the way that Jobs’ visions were turned into reality serves as a reminder of the importance of communication. The picture he had in his mind for the future was brought to life by his ability to trickle communication of his vision down to all levels within his organizations. It is difficult, if not impossible, for employees to arrive at their destination if you, their boss, are not crystal clear in providing them with the directions and road map detailing their journey.

Steve Jobs’ clear communication of his vision is also consistent with what we have found in our employee opinion survey results.

In our twenty years of conducting employee opinion and engagement surveys, we have collected data from 100,000 employees and have noted significant variances between the Overall PBS Benchmark (all employees surveyed) and the Best-of-the-Best PBS Benchmark-the top 25% percent of organizations surveyed. (Click here for more information on PBS Benchmarks)

One thing that has remained consistent over the years is that the Best-of-the-Best PBS Benchmark is significantly higher than the Overall PBS Benchmark in the communication category. Here’s what the Best-of-the-Best organizations do better:

First, leaders in the Best-of-the-Best organizations do a better job of telling employees about their vision for the future. Like Jobs and the leadership at Apple, the Best-of-the-Best leaders clearly define goals and ensure that each employee understands how their contributions help the leader and organization achieve the vision. For example, executives at Apple who met with Jobs as frequently as once a week, gave every junior level designer direct regular feedback on projects. This way the junior designers had a direct line to the top to ensure the project’s alignment with the overall goals. Here’s how our two Benchmarks compare on the question regarding clarity of the organization’s goals and future direction:

Percentages in the benchmarks are the number of employees who either “strongly agreed” or “agreed” in response to a statement in the survey.

Second, not only do employees need to be clear on the organizational goals, they also need to be clear on how their job relates to those goals. Even though Apple has about 50,000 employees, each employee is crystal clear on how their job relates to the organization’s vision and what exactly they are expected to do next. According to Forbes.com, “Internal Applespeak even has a name for it, the ‘DRI,’ or directly responsible individual. Often the DRI’s name will appear on an agenda for a meeting, so everybody knows who is responsible.”

Apple’s organizational structure is relatively straight-forward which employees have said makes communication and projects more efficient and successful. According to one insider, “It’s not synergy that makes it work. It’s that we’re a unified team.”

Looking at the results from the statement below, it’s clear that employees at the Best-of-the-Best organizations also understand the importance of employees seeing themselves and their tasks within the big picture.

Third, although most companies hold regularly scheduled management meetings, when the Best-of-the-Best leaders exit the meeting, they are significantly more likely to make sure they communicate important information to their employees.

Fourth, although vision is usually the responsibility of senior leaders like Steve Jobs, the challenge for these leaders is that they will never be fully effective at getting the message down to the front line unless supported by managers and supervisors who place a high value on keeping their employees in the loop.

Finally, reward innovative ideas. Communication, vision and innovation are three strong components of a successful business in any industry. Every year at Apple, Steve Jobs chose the Top 100 employees to accompany him to a three day strategy session. This Top 100 were not chosen based on rank, but on individual contributions and it was considered a privilege to attend. The Best-of-the-Best organizations are clearly in agreement with the importance of rewarding contributions based on our findings:

To ensure that you are on the right track to successfully communicating your vision to employees, follow these tips:

Make sure the vision is more than a framed document hanging on the wall. Employees are more apt to act off what they see in the hall versus what they read on the wall. It’s not good enough for senior leaders to develop a powerful vision. They need to make sure that the vision is clearly communicated to every employee, along with the goals that will help bring the vision to life. When people are clear on their destination, and are given a map to get there, as well as a tour guide communicating along the way, they will not only support the expedition, but usually will really enjoy the trip.
Meet often. Every Monday Steve Jobs would meet with his executive management team to discuss strategy and current projects and on Wednesdays he would meet with his marketing and communications team. It’s not always necessary to hold meetings this often but it is important to keep the lines of communication open.
Plan a positive delivery. Part of the reason behind employees’ and customers’ excitement over Apple’s products were due to Jobs’ delivery of his vision to employees and his delivery of the product itself to customers. He was always positive and excited, which is contagious. Your attitude, when delivering the message, will in a large part determine the response of your employees. If you present the idea as positive and exciting, your employees will be more positive in their response and more apt to buy-in to what is being proposed. If you express doubt, we guarantee you that your employees will quickly support you in finding ways to prove that “it” won’t work and is just another one of management’s off the wall ideas.
Place a high value on two-way communication. Get in the habit of actively seeking employees’ thoughts and opinions, especially prior to making decisions that impact their work. You’ll experience fewer surprises along with greater employee engagement and productivity if you consistently encourage your employees to think and provide their input to help you and your team make the best decisions possible. Look at the significant difference between responses to the following statement:
Over-communicate. In this interconnected, global market place, keeping pace requires change after change. Most employees understand that to be successful, plans will frequently change. What they don’t like is being blindsided because they did not know that the plan had changed. Make it a high priority to provide timely updates when plans change.
Choose your words carefully. Know your audience and appreciate their background and level of understanding. While you would never knowingly “talk down” to employees, make sure that the examples you use and the words you choose are understandable and appropriate. Words and concepts that you routinely use in management circles may not be the right ones to use when talking with employees. Check for understanding and make adjustments to your delivery, when needed.

Great leaders do a great job of communicating vision and values. Make it your personal responsibility to tell the right people, the right information, at the right time – all the time.

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How to Communicate When Under Stress

Peter Stark — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:10:43 +0000

As a leader, you have two important goals. First, you need to build relationships where people want to follow you and help you accomplish the mission, vision and goals of your team or organization. Second, you want to develop future leaders.

If building relationships where people were motivated to follow was easy, then every manager would be a leader. Most managers are not leaders. Direct reports do what they are told to do because the manager or boss said to do it. If another job came along somewhere else in the organization, even at the same pay rate, these employees would gladly move because they have no relationship with a leader. One of life’s great leadership examples is when a manager leaves one company, joins another, and then offers that employees from his old organization take a job at the new company for less money than they currently make. When employees make the decision to join their old manager at the new company, is it clear that manager has risen to the status of leader. These employees had a choice to make, and they choose to follow the leader.

Here is the challenging question: when you open your mouth, do you consistently build relationships that motivate people and inspire them to consciously decide to follow you? Leaders who have this ability build strong relationships where people know their leader cares about their personal and professional success.

When opening their mouth, however, some managers become the equivalent of leadership repellant. Because these managers say things in frustration, stress or anger, if the employee had a better job offer working for a different manager, they would quit. Some employees take their concerns to human resources and tell them about the way they are being treated by their manager. Some organizations even hire a coach to help their executives and managers build even stronger leadership skills.

Most managers find it easy to build relationships when everything is going well or right. The more difficult skill is to be able to build relationships when things are not going well, for example:

A meeting goes off-track

An employee is not accountable for their actions and blames a situation on someone else

A vendor drops the ball and is making you look bad to your organization

Another department or manager blames you for a project being delayed

A customer is not happy

These are the types of situations that cause managers’ stress, frustration and even anger, ultimately making it a challenge to open their mouths and build an even stronger relationship with team members . . . a relationship where people are highly motivated to follow them. Here are seven tips that will help you build relationships in difficult situations:

Shut up! In the height of emotion, most people are not good at communicating in a way that builds relationships. Instead of firing off an email in an immediate response to someone who has sent you a nasty e-gram, wait an hour, wait four hours, better yet, wait 24 hours before sending your response. Don’t let your ego get bigger than your brain. Buy a little time to get your ego out of the way and think rationally about how you will honestly communicate your concerns. Take time to make sure that your actions, even in difficult situations, build relationships, not tear them apart.
Ask Rather than Tell. If you do feel a need to talk, ask an open-ended question. Something like, “We do need to talk. Would you have time available tomorrow or later this week?” You don’t want to be non-responsive. You just want to buy time so you can think of exactly what you want to say to convey your message and build a relationship. If your open-ended questions are asked with genuine concern, no one will ever accuse you of being rude, offensive, condescending or abrasive.
Communicate in Person. When conflict is involved, talk to the others involved in person rather than by phone or email. When you see someone has invested half of their life in sending you a long email that covers their assets and provides amble supporting documentation to blame you, don’t participate in an email war. Email them back one line, “John, we need to meet. Will 4:00 today work or is tomorrow at 9:00 better for your schedule?”
Soften Responses. When you assume you are right, you automatically assume that someone with a different viewpoint is wrong. People are not excited to follow people who take pride in proving other people wrong. A good practice, when there is a difference of opinion, is to soften your questions with a response like, “Maybe I am missing something. Help me understand how the project schedule became so off-track?”
Fill Your Praise and Recognition Account. Keep finding ways to praise and/or recognize people’s contributions daily. The goal is to build up your deposits with all the team members in the organization you work with so that if you do slip and have a communication withdrawal, you still have a lot of deposits with the team member and the continued basis of a strong relationship.
Under-Promise and Over-Deliver. If you work hard daily on meeting your leadership commitments and on keeping your internal and external customers happy, you will find that you have far fewer situations where you feel either stress, frustration or anger.
When You Slip, Quickly Apologize. Every leader has days when they say something to a team member that they wish they had not said. When this happens, quickly apologize with a genuine statement like, “In yesterday’s meeting, I feel I communicated to you in a way that may have come across disrespectfully. For that, I apologize, and promise I will not communicate like that again in the future. We have a deadline challenge on the XYZ project and I want to get your input on what you feel we need to do to bring the project back on schedule.”

Every manager slips at some point and says something that tears down or undermines a relationship. When that happens, leaders recognize that this is an opportunity to shine and build an even stronger relationship. These seven tips will help to build a relationship and become the leader that people want to follow.

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Coaching Employees

Peter Stark — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:00:28 +0000

The Coaching Discussion Model

On Tuesday, we shared some tips on how to address employee issues when they occur. Our goal was to help you get the employee to acknowledge inappropriate behaviors and come up with a plan for what he/she will do differently in the future. Today, we’ll give you some guidelines for addressing more challenging, reoccurring behaviors . . . issues that you have addressed in the past, but the problem hasn’t been resolved. This is where the coaching discussion comes in.

The purpose of the coaching discussion is to redirect the employee’s behavior. You want the employee to stop the inappropriate behavior and start demonstrating appropriate behavior. It is a two-way process, a discussion. The intended purpose is for the employee to be engaged in the discussion as well. In fact, the employee should be talking more than the supervisor or the manager. Using the following six steps of the Coaching Discussion Model will make your coaching discussions effective.

Step One: Recognize the Employee’s Positive Contribution

Sometimes the most difficult employee is also a major contributor to the team’s success. Start the coaching discussion off on a positive note. Recognize the employee’s successes. For example:

“Thanks for meeting with me today, Monica. I’d like to talk to you about some concerns I have regarding the accuracy of your work. On a positive note, our customers love working with you. Twice in the last week, I’ve received favorable comments about your interactions with customers. Today I’d like to talk about some errors in your loan applications.”

Step Two: Help the Employee See the Existing Problem

This is the most important step of the entire coaching discussion. If the employee does not agree there is a problem, then the manager actually has two problems to deal with: 1) the inappropriate behavior and 2) the employee not thinking the inappropriate behavior is a problem.

This step is a difficult area for managers. Many lack a feeling of competence in this area. Without preparation, beginning the coaching discussion can be difficult; therefore, many managers want to just skip over this step. But, if the employee does not agree there is a problem, he or she will probably lack the motivation to improve behavior.

After recognizing the employee’s success, begin by clearly defining the problem. For example:

“Three times in the last two weeks, your applications have been returned for additional information.”

Step Three: Ask Questions to Gain Agreement that a Performance Problem Exists

To get the employee involved in the discussion, ask questions to gain agreement that a performance problem exists. For example:

“Do you see your work being returned for errors or omissions as being a problem?”

Below are some examples of questions to ask the employee to help him/her understand the impact of their negative behavior follow:

“What is/are the result(s) of this behavior (non-performance)?”
“What impact does this behavior have on other employees/departments?”
“What would happen if all employees did this?”
“What would happen if I (the supervisor/manager) ignored this behavior indefinitely?”
“Do you know how many times you have done this behavior in the last _______?”
“What impact does this behavior have on our customers?”
“What credibility do you feel I have with my boss when I allow this behavior to continue?”
“I am puzzled why you don’t perceive this as a problem, so can you elaborate?”

If the employee is still unwilling to admit there is a problem by answering any of the above questions, you may need to move to the second stage of questioning.

“What will happen if you continue with this behavior?”

When the employee responds with, “You could write me up or suspend me,” you can then respond with, “You are right. And if you continued with this behavior after I documented this problem or suspended you, what else could I do?”

A second question you may try is, “Do you think I can decide to let you continue this behavior?”

If the employee states that allowing the negative behavior to continue is not your choice, you can respond with, “You are right! What do you think you can do differently so we no longer have this problem?”

If the employee states that you can decide to allow the behavior to continue indefinitely, you can respond with, “You are incorrect. As a manager, I am responsible for seeing that (the area of concern you are discussing) is not a problem in our department/company.”

The employee’s comments might include:

“You could suspend, demote, inhibit my promotion, put something in my personnel file, fire me…” Your response could be, “You are right, because I need someone in that position who will do (describe the behavior) what needs to be done.”

“You could do anything you want, because you are the boss.” Your response could be, “No, I cannot. Your choice of behavior limits my behavior.”

If you think that some of these questions and responses in this second round sound threatening, you are right. If the consequences are realistic–that the employee could be suspended or fired–and if he or she is unwilling to change his or her behavior, it is important that the employee understands the consequences of his or her own behavior.

Step Four: Mutually Discuss Alternative Solutions

Once you have gained agreement that a problem exists and you have clarified the cause of the problem, you are ready to move to solutions. You can say to the employee, “Now that we agree there is a problem, what do you think you can do differently to solve the problem?” Make sure to focus on the word differently, because if the employee keeps on doing the same behaviors, he or she will keep getting the same results. It is important that the manager lets the employee generate solutions. For example, if the inappropriate behavior was errors in a document, then we would want to ask the employee what he or she thought could be done differently to produce less typos.

The employee might reply:

“I could proofread each page.”
“I could have someone else proofread each page.”
“I could read the document one final time to ensure accuracy.”

With each response, acknowledge the good ideas. Ask, “What else could you do?” Remember, you are trying to generate viable alternatives. If the employee cannot think of any ideas, you need to be prepared to ask questions to help steer him or her down the right path. For example, you could ask:

“Would it be beneficial to spend more time proofreading each page?”
“Would it help you to have someone else proofread each page?”

Step Five: Agree on Actions to Correct the Problem

Once the employee understands the problem and resulting impact, and has generated solutions, mutually agree on what actions will be taken. For example:

“You’ve agreed that you will first proof your own work, then ask a co-worker to review your work before you submit your documents for review.”

Step Six: Discuss Positive/Negative Consequences for Changing/Not Changing the Behavior

“It sounds like you have a good plan for checking your work to ensure that it is complete and error-free. I am hoping that your solution resolves this concern. I think you’ve got a workable plan. Should this problem continue, however, we will meet again. I am committed to upholding high standards and need all team members to produce complete, error-free applications.”

Step Seven: Review Progress/Achievement on an On-Going Basis

Make sure to follow up with employees to see how they are doing. Many managers make the mistake of not following up to ensure that the agreed-upon action has been taken. The manager may be too busy to check or may trust the employee is going to change his or her behavior. The employee will often change the behavior immediately after the performance improvement discussion. But, because there is no recognition for the improved performance, the employee slips back to inappropriate behaviors. Two months later, the manager sees the negative behavior again and assumes that there has been no change. If the employee has not modified his or her behavior, the new problem becomes that the employee did not do what he or she agreed to do.

Step Eight: Recognize Effort and Achievement

If you want the employee to be motivated to change behaviors, the key is to recognize it–no matter how small! Recognize the employee’s progress. Then, ask the employee what can be done to bring the next round of improvement to an even higher level.

This model is successful in handling the majority of employee-related problems. If you adequately plan for the discussion, you will have positive results. However, if the employee behavior does not improve after coaching, it may be time to share them with a competitor. Using the model of train them, coach them, and if that does not work, share them, will ensure that you have a strong, competent and accountable team.

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How to Handle a Difficult Employee

Peter Stark — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:00:15 +0000

If you are a leader, chances are good that you have had at least one employee in your career who has caused you to lose sleep. Maybe the employee is frequently late, is participating in gossip or is making reoccurring mistakes. Our advice for difficult behaviors in employees is to train them, coach them and if that still doesn’t work, share them with a competitor.

When you address the issue appropriately, it may even shed light on a behavior that employee wasn’t aware that was an issue. Open up the lines of communication through the following actions:

Remain calm. If you have ever driven home from work saying, “Now, why did I say that?” chances are you may have regretted giving feedback to an employee when you were mad. If you are angry or emotional, postpone the discussion until you are feeling more in control. Remember, communication is permanent. Do not lose control of the discussion or say something that may later come back to haunt you.

Remain positive. Keep your thoughts positive. Help the employee identify what is causing the problem, and what the employee will do to help resolve the problem. Remember, the goal of this discussion is to make the employee more successful. Only in rare instances is an employee not willing to grow by changing negative behaviors.

Take immediate action. The longer you wait to confront a negative behavior, the harder it will be to change. It does not take long before the inappropriate behavior becomes a habit and habits are very hard to break. Once you have determined that a negative pattern of behavior exists, take action.

Give feedback privately. Prior to beginning the discussion, you should make sure that you have a private location to meet. Take steps to ward off any interruptions. If at all possible, hold the meeting one-on-one. Only in rare instances is a third party necessary. (If the employee is to be terminated or is unwilling to cooperate, you may need a third party, such as a union representative or a human resources representative.)

Be consistent. Do what you say you are going to do. If you tell employees you are going to do something if their inappropriate behavior does not change, stick to what you said. If employees do not feel you are going to take action, they may see no need to change.

Correct behaviors selectively. Do not use a correcting session to point out all the negative things that you have seen over time. If you coach properly, you should only be dealing with one or two inappropriate behaviors at a time. If you do not participate in ongoing communication with your employees, you may start to generate a laundry list of behaviors you want to discuss. The laundry list will have little impact and will likely get thrown out in the wash. Our general rule of thumb is, “If it’s more than two, they think it’s you.” Meaning, if you do bring out your long list of inappropriate behaviors, after about point five or six, the employee begins to think, “Why bother to even come to work? I must not be doing anything right. I never thought my boss liked me anyway. She’s always picking on me!”

While most behaviors can be improved, there are some employee issues that absolutely cannot be over looked and may even warrant termination. Some of these issues include violence, or threats of violence, and sexual harassment.

For most other employee problems, taking the above actions will help to get the employee back on track. However, if the employee is still struggling, you may need to sit down with him or her and discuss the behavior more thoroughly in a coaching discussion. Check back next Monday for a walk through of conducting an effective coaching discussion.

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Getting Leadership Buy-In

Peter Stark — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:00:10 +0000

How to Get Leaders on Board with a Change

There is no such thing as organizational change. Organizations don’t change. The only thing that does change in an organization are the people within it: when enough people have bought into the change, we then see the changes happening.

Any change that impacts our life is uncomfortable. If you don’t believe that, just move your watch for one day to the opposite arm. Most of us like the comfort of predictability. When organizational change impacts us personally, it rocks our status quo. If given a choice, we’d typically rather keep on doing it the way we’ve always done it.

How do organizations successfully lead organizational change? They don’t, until their leaders champion the change. Organizational leaders have the power to lead the change, or sabotage it. Employees grow immune to the flavor of the month when it comes to accepting change and will look closely at their leaders to see if they are walking the talk when it comes to buying into the change being mandated.

The following tips will help ensure that your organization’s leaders are role models for leading the change being proposed.

Sell Problems
As you roll out the change, give the why behind the need for the change. Sell the problem that is resulting in the need for change. Rather than saying, “We need to give a service guarantee because all our competitors do it,” say instead, “Our competitors are advertising that they will complete the entire process on the same day or the service is free. If our competitors have a service guarantee and we do not, is it possible that our customers will migrate to our competitors? Do you see that as a problem?”
Communicate a Clear Vision and Goals
Multiple times, in multiple formats, communicate to every leader and employee the desired outcome is, as well as what the goals and milestones are to fully implementing the change. Your communication should leave no room for fabricating facts, cloudy visions or unclear goals.
Clarify Actions
Once the problem has been analyzed and the root cause determined, design actions to address the problem, assign who is responsible for those actions and specify when the actions will occur.
Hold Leaders Accountable
The successful implementation of any change is tied directly to the leader. Leaders need to be on-board with the change, even if they personally don’t think it is best for the organization. It’s okay for them to communicate their concerns to their boss, but once the boss and the senior management team has decided on the change, these leaders have the responsibility to make the change happen. Once a clear course of action has been identified, individual leaders need to be held accountable for taking ownership for positively driving the change within their area of influence.
Demonstrate Support for the “First Team”
When it comes to leadership support of change efforts, there is no middle ground. Leaders need to be positive, both verbally and non-verbally, in their support of the change. They need to demonstrate their commitment to the success of, not only the change, but support of the leaders above them who are driving the change. They need to be supportive of the goals that the leadership team decides are best for the organization.

If they don’t support the change, and are vocal about their opposition, they’re sabotaging the change effort. In today’s competitive market, there is no excuse for stonewalling a change effort, unless of course a leader can’t ethically support the change.

If you, yourself are ever asked to support a change that is in direct violation of your values, it would be best that you look for another job where your values are more in alignment with the new organization. Until then, be a role model for others by embracing the change, regardless of whether it was initiated by you or another leader in your organization. Your positive vision of the outcome will be contagious.

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How to Sabotage Your Team

Peter Stark — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:30:53 +0000

12 Leadership Traits That Are Guaranteed to Sabotage Your Team and Lower Morale | Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

We have spent the last 20 years identifying the traits that make leaders successful. This has led us to strongly believe that there is a significant difference between leaders and managers. Managers always have a title and a formal position on the organizational chart. Leaders may or may not have a title but they always have a relationship with people who make a conscious decision to follow them.

Over the past several weeks, we have conducted executive coaching for leaders who were in jeopardy of losing their jobs. Our prediction is that they will lose their jobs… it is just a matter of time. Based on our work with leaders, here are 12 leadership actions we have found that undermine a leader’s ability to build relationships where people are highly motivated to help the leader accomplish goals:

Refuse to take personal accountability. Instead of being responsible and accountable to solve problems, these leaders tend to blame others for their department or office problems.
Incorrectly diagnosis the problem. When turnover is high in the organization, and it almost always is with these leaders, the leader will tell you the problem is the hiring of lousy employees.
Have a negative vision. A vision is a clear mental picture, described with words, of your department’s or office’s future. There are three types of visions. Positive – you believe tomorrow will be even better than it was today. Status quo – you hope that tomorrow will be like it was today because you survived today. The third vision, which most of the leaders who sabotage their team have, is a negative vision. Leaders with a negative vision believe that today was bad, but tomorrow will be even worse.
Disrespectful communication. The fastest way to lower morale is to not listen to your team members and ignore their contributions. Disrespectful leaders sometimes communicate in a manner that uses foul language, is condescending, or implies threats.
Withhold positive recognition. Negative leaders tend to believe that if they are not communicating with you, then you must be doing a great job. With this philosophy, they don’t have time to give you positive feedback, but always find the time to tell you what you are doing wrong.

Resent feedback. Since sabotaging leaders tend to not take responsibility for their actions, they are likely to resent those who give them feedback meant to help them improve. I once told a leader, “You may not agree with what others are telling you on your 360 Leadership Development Assessment, but, if fourteen people are telling you that you have a tail, you might find it valuable to turn around and take a look.”
Do not ask for help. Leaders who sabotage their teams tend to believe that the less people know about them and their department or office, the better off they are. Hence, they refuse to ask for help and don’t get others involved because others may learn too much about the root of the problems.
Leave employees out. These leaders tend to believe that they need to set the goals, make the decisions and tell people what needs to get done.
Lack of team member accountability. These leaders are always quick to give you a reason why they cannot hold their team members accountable. Some of the excuses include: the employee is a top producer; the employee has been with the organization for a long-time; the employee has a strong relationship with someone in power; and last, if they deal with the performance problem, the situation may get worse or the employee will quit. When leaders do not hold employees accountable for both outstanding results and working well with others as a team, almost always, morale and productivity are guaranteed to suffer.
Lack of trust. When a leader lacks trust in their team members’ ability to do their jobs, they will not allow team members to take responsibility and make decisions regarding their work. Rather, they find it necessary to micro-manage the work and decisions of their team members.
Display inconsistent values. Leaders who sabotage their teams tend to want people to do what they say and not what people see the leader do. They may tell others not to gossip but then speak poorly about another team member.
Stay. You would think that anyone who had a bad vision of the department or organization’s future would leave the company and find another job. These bad leaders do not leave. Rather, they tend to feel it is their mission in life to tell people how bad things really are, and if it were not for him/her, the organization would be even worse off. In this bad environment, all the people in the office and/or department are not happy, even the leader.

It is important to remember that even great leaders exhibit some of these demeanors once in a while. What sabotages a team is when a leader repeatedly exhibits one of these behaviors or consistently practices several of these behaviors. Most people are quick to forgive if a leader slips once in a while and demonstrates an undermining behavior. They are even quicker to forgive if the leader quickly apologizes and never practices the behavior again. Nevertheless, be sure to keep these behaviors in check to ensure an engaged, successful and highly motivated team.

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We are a nationally recognized management consulting firm that specializes in executive coaching, employee engagement surveys and leadership and employee training. For more information about how we can help you create an organization where your employees love to come to work and your customers love to do business, send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com.