Feedback: How to Avoid Shooting Yourself in the Foot

When I asked how she tended to give feedback to staff, the Chief Executive told me, “Oh, I’m very direct. They always know where they stand with me.  I tell them straight.”

In her mind there was no contradiction with what I’d witnessed at her meeting less than an hour earlier.  She’d told the 40 staff attending, “Some of you were late for this meeting, though you’ve known about it for weeks.  It’s disappointing and disrespectful behaviour.  You need to do better.”

At this, among the 36 attendees who had arrived on time, there was much eye-rolling and raising of eyebrows.  As people filed out of the room I heard a number of sotto voce exchanges in which “Blah, blah, blah, blah  . . !” featured prominently .

This leader’s self-assessment of practices, while remarkable because it was in such immediate contrast with what I’d directly witnessed, was not otherwise surprising.  Much workplace feedback is given similarly – indirectly shotgun-scattered, and insulting or embarrassing to those for whom it’s intended, in the style of a scolding, judgemental parent to errant children in front of their peers. You kids had better behave yourselves . . !

Feedback like that may contribute to a reduction of the unwanted behaviour, but it’s counterproductive;  it weakens trust, damages relationships and eventually becomes boring and annoying.  People will turn off, long before the speaker finishes their comments. Did you intend that they hear you out?  Uh-oh, shot yourself in the foot.

In the same week I’d asked 16 senior managers at one of my skill-training workshops to carefully observe my behaviour to later give me feedback as I demonstrated four different ways of setting limits over a minor dispute with a colleague. This is an exercise I’ve conducted many times in all kinds of organisations, industries and levels of seniority, always with identical results.

After each instance I asked them to describe the behaviours I’d used.  As they reported them I silently wrote their verbatim comments in various groupings on the whiteboard.  Afterwards, I added headings to each group: Judgements.  Labels.  Interpretations & Assumptions (about my attitudes known only to me). Absence of Behaviours (rather than their presence). Description of Specifics Observed.  You’ll be way ahead of me in understanding the outcomes of this . . .

• The Description of Specifics grouping contained the fewest (three) comments.
• All other lists were (very) long.
• They commented on a similar paucity of really constructive feedback in their workplaces.
• They all found that feedback given to them as Description of Specifics Observed helps consideration of the speakers’ views;  and that all other categories contribute to making feedback difficult to hear but easy to react to negatively or defensively.

If you recognise some of your own needs in this story, what to do about it and how to begin?

For immediate support of some simple concepts and strategies, download Giving Constructive Feedback [a comprehensive practical guide to giving feedback on workplace performance. Why, when, how, how much and in which order. Principles and guidelines applicable to all workplace relationships and to many elsewhere. Liberally illustrated with examples.]

Read Encouraging the Heart too, if you need to give more positive, appreciatory feedback.

If you really want to make lasting change by habituating new practices consider taking the Hear & Be Heard online programme.  You’ll get up to four hours of my personal support by email, phone or Skype.

Four-Minute Emails

Overwhelmed by relentless busyness . . ?  Trying to juggle meetings, e-mails, a torrent of top priorities and projects, perpetual uncertainty and endless changes . . ?  That’s become pretty much normal in most workplaces;  how should we deal with it?

When there’s increasing pace or demands, and we start to sweat both the Small Stuff and the Big Stuff, we must step back to step ahead. Slow down to go faster.  Take a progress check to improve progress.

It is  possible to pause, reflect, and refine, without causing problems. Isn’t it odd, that it often seems like an unreachable achievement? We should remember that everything stops for dysentery:  you will find time to pause and reflect when you make it the priority it must be.

When the way we’re working isn’t dealing well enough with all that’s to be done, we should check how we’re working. Become more strategic and less operational. Less transactional and more transformational. Get Small Stuff back in proper balance with the Big Stuff. Put things in perspective by remembering that we are not our jobs – and that the job may well be too big for anyone.

So, call time out, for yourself or with your support crew, long enough to put a few commonsense ideas into practice. [Calling time out may be the first.]

Look first for improvements you can make without requiring anyone else to change.   Here’s  a few ideas:

Get your team together to focus on one of the stressors common to you all [e.g., meetings, emails, too many high-priority projects], establish what causes most of the problem, pool remedial ideas and activate an improvement plan of incremental steps.

For example:  A  leader I know, who receives 80 – 100 emails daily, established that each one takes an astonishing four minutes to attend to on average.   He’s had his team agree to reduce emails generated within the team. They’d all been sending the whole team emails on their progress, to [thoughtfully but unnecessarily] keep everyone “in the loop”. Now, progress of projects is monitored at pre-determined points with only the people directly affected.

On average, 10 – 20 fewer emails a day frees-up 40-80 minutes. What could you do with that “extra” time?

List three small steps you could take to build more trusting workplace relationships, coach and develop others, or provide increasingly strategic and proactive leadership .  Act on one of these today, and the others within a week.  Then select another three.

Got a few minutes to get off the treadmill?  Take 10 minutes to revisit some of your Big Picture.  See  How Are You Doing . . ?

Establish how many meetings are irrelevant to participants, and how much meeting agenda is irrelevant to all or some of them.  Reorganize agenda so as to release early, those for whom other matters are irrelevant or marginally relevant.   Make the crucial distinction between the purpose of a meeting and its agenda: [see pp 4 - 6 of  this resource].  Regularly monitor the effectiveness of your meetings.

Can you choose to be calm rather than hectic? Read this two-pager:  Hecticity, Imperturbability  and Intelligence

90 Miles an Hour With the lights Out?  See:  Manage Priorities, Not Time (8 pp.)

Need to reduce unhealthy stress?  See: Personal Strategies for Reducing Stress and Organisational Strategies for Reducing Stress.

[Browse my free resources website Thriving Workplace, for other small-step changes.]

I’m sure you know all of this.  However -

“There is a crucial difference between declarative knowledge ,[knowing a concept and its technical details], and procedural knowledge, [being able to put those concepts and details into action].  Knowing does not equal doing, whether in playing the piano, managing a team, or acting on essential advice at the right moments.”

 [Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence.]

If you need someone to talk things over with, consider setting up some time for a phone, email or Skype conversation with me:

E:  Tom@EncourageMentors.com.

Hearing Differences, Building Reputations

Competing monologues do not constitute a dialogue

Ten days ago a delegation of about  15 people kept an arranged appointment with their local MP (Member of Parliament) at his electorate office, to voice their concerns about a current New Zealand Government initiative.

Each time the visitors spoke, he interrupted to explain and defend his Party’s position, or to rebut their concerns by deflecting talk to other issues, and telling speakers they were mistaken or uninformed.

I heard about this from one of the group, annoyed about what she regarded as the MP’s arrogant and disrespectful behaviour:

We aimed to make a dignified presentation of our position and all we wanted from him was evidence that he’d heard and understood it.  He listened only to create an opening for his own views. His questions were disguised statements. He couldn’t get rid of us soon enough.  We left with no confirmation that he’d actually heard us.

[It hadn’t helped that as the delegation arrived, the MP had begun eating his lunch sandwich, though he offered the visitors no refreshments.  Getting Offside with the Constituents 101, I’d have thought.]

The MP had listened well enough to find opportunities to present his own position, but he was hearing impaired.  He made a common error, the guidelines for which go something like this:

When faced with evidence of a difference in human perspective and values, first find opportunities to refute, contradict,  point out the logical flaw and disprove the other’s position. 

[Although I do not know for certain, it would be surprising if members of the delegation had not made the same error in the face of the MP’s own wish to be heard and understood.]

That kind of behaviour often lies behind intractable conflict with staff or between colleagues, and the “inability to get on with my manager”.  It very quickly (a) inflames the original speaker who then assumes that to be heard, the intensity and volume of their argument must be increased;  or (b) causes the speaker to abandon the dialogue in disgust or despondency.

Thus do simple differences of opinion become gaping divides, and disagreements transform into flaming rows.

Today I called my friend to ask how many people she had told about the MP’s “arrogance”.  She estimated twenty at least, and knew of two others in the delegation who had told as many.

Let’s see:  if 12 people in the delegation have each reported this to, let’s say 15 others . . . that’s 180.  And if 125 of those have repeated the story to seven others . . .  that’s 1,055 people (in 10 days so far) who were not at the original meeting but can now add this information to whatever other knowledge they have of this MP’s  reputation.

All the MP needed to do to impress as many people favourably, and gain a reputation as someone with whom an open exchange of views is possible, safe and a respectful process, was question his visitors thoughtfully to clarify meanings, and accurately paraphrase their viewpoints to reflect and show complete understanding.  It’s likely that they may then have been open to hearing his position. A constructive dialogue could then have ensued, not shut down.

I say “all that was necessary . . .” but I know from my interpersonal skills training work with managers and leaders over many years, that these are rare workplace skills.  Far too many people don’t have them – or don’t use them when they’re needed.  Happily, developing good practices is a simple matter.  Simple but not necessarily easy, as hard work is usually required.

Could you benefit from a comprehensive interpersonal communication practices audit, or support to develop better listening skills?  Visit this page at Thriving-Workplace.com to find out.

As a footnote, my friend reported that when she led a small delegation to a local Regional Authority a few days later, her party was received graciously, questioned thoughtfully, paraphrased accurately and promised feedback on the effects of their submissions.  She named the officials, whose reputation for trustworthiness has thus been much enhanced.

It’s not rocket surgery.

Got a minute . . ?

Yes, of course . . , is the usual and expected response when someone asks that question as they drop-in with a query, a problem or a story they want to share.  And why not?

Because to do so contradicts a basic rule of successful priority management. Two of them, in fact:

Yielding to unscheduled interruptions without first checking their importance, and attending to unsorted tasks in the order they catch the attention contribute, eventually, to overdue and time-critical projects, to fire fighting, emergencies and crises.  It’s how we fail to keep the Main Thing the main thing.

“Got a Minute . . ?” is usually an opening gambit or a code for what may actually mean, “I’d like you to help me clarify or work through something, or persuade you to a point of view; or have you listen a piece of gossip; or agree with a gripe I have  . . . however long it takes. And I haven’t considered how long that might be.”

It may really take only one minute but it’s often much longer.

I’ve trained myself to respond to the inquiry with questions designed to clarify the request or with statements designed to indicate my current limits:

• How urgent is this?  (Which allows me to consider adjusting my priorities to take account of others’.)
• How much time do you (really) need?
• I have five minutes (or three or two or twenty).  Will that do?
• No.  I’m not available right now but I’ll have 15 minutes at . . . 

To treat others’ needs with the same respect and to model constructive practices, I’ve also trained myself to first take care to clarify my intentions, and to realistically estimate my needs.  I like to make my first question, Are you interruptible . . ?  If so, I follow-up with:

• I want to discuss X . . . with you,  to Y . . . 
• I’m working on X . . and need to involve you in the Z part of it . . .
• How soon can you give 20 minutes (or 10 or 15) for this?

These are very simple techniques but not easy to apply if you’ve habituated yielding unquestioningly to Got a minute . . . ?  Acquiring a new habit takes discipline and continual practice.

They also apply to meetings. Far too frequently, workplace meetings begin with an unclear purpose (which is quite different from a meeting’s agenda), little thought to their agenda or the order of agenda items, and often with no consideration to an appropriate duration:

Can we meet at 2pm?  I’d like to go over your progress with the X project.

We have a regular a team meeting on Mondays at 10am.

Let’s get together this afternoon to check-in with one another about work in progress.

Taking a moment to consider (i) where requests for meetings fit within our Bigger Picture and Main Thing; and (ii) requesting greater clarity or providing it ourselves, can save a lot of valuable time.

Try one or more of these practices, this week.  Set out to create new habits, wherever you can.

You’ll find detailed guidelines for these topics at, www.Thriving-Workplace.com.    These days, 80% of the resources there are available at no cost and no subscription is necessary; you may dip-in at any time.

Here are some suggestions, related to the topic of saving time:

• Manage Priorities, not Time (eight pages) includes a discussion of The Main Thing.
•  Articles (nine of them) on improving the quality of meetings (includes a Meeting Planner and a planning template).
•  Setting Limits and Holding Boundaries – within the Interpersonal Communication pages of the site, to which payment of either a $US30 or $US45 fee provides full access.

Tom Watkins

That’s the problem – right there

We met on a short plane ride.  Turned out he lived and worked near my town.  And what do you do, he asked?

Whenever that’s pretty much the opening gambit I’m tempted to answer, My best . . , but that would’ve been unfriendly; he was merely making conversation and I was glad to go along.

I spoke of my work helping organisations and teams improve productivity by focusing more than the usual 5-10% of their efforts on methodically developing individual and collective capacity for effectiveness . . . of how this can avoid an extraordinary waste of human energy . . . and of how it’s often like suggesting people stop to sharpen the blunt tools they’re using and being told, Can’t stop . . .  too busy.

As his eyes began glazing over, I invited him to talk about his work.  (Men are so predictable.)

He spoke of recent developments in his professional field and the challenges he faced in bringing about focus, motivation and cohesion among his staff . . .   developing them while under a constantly increasing workload . . . reducing tension, friction, cynicism and resentment . . . delegating work to people who  are already overwhelmed . . . doing anything really well when everything is urgent and important.

As we landed, I offered him my business card.  He said Ah . . .  OK . . .  I’m a Team Leader . . . I’ll give this to our HR Manager.

There’s the problem. Too many leaders believe that their responsibility for developing staff ends with a focus on their organisation’s primary purpose (hard stuff); that developing individuals’ capacity for that purpose and for working cohesively with others on it (the so-called soft stuff), is something that HR should take care of.   They’ve got it entirely wrong.

They don’t realise that their own improvisational approaches to managing priorities, plans, decisions, problems, delegation, team development, workplace relationships, coaching practices and their own stress levels, cause many of their everyday challenges.

They don’t see the potential for efficiency and effectiveness in developing them in others – especially by modelling better practices themselves.

If my fellow traveller checks out my Thriving-Workplace.com resources website, he’ll find that 80% of the resources for leadership and self-management practices are now available at no cost.  He can freely download them. You too. No subscription is necessary.

A new Thriving-Workplace service is available, at modest fees, for interpersonal communication and relationship management skills development; it starts with a comprehensive self-assessment process.

New Thriving-Workplace material is added continually, arising from our own and others’ workplace research. To keep up to date, stay subscribed to this blog: I’ll let you know when there are new postings. Pass them on.

These, for instance, are recent additions:

Delegation

Developing the PA Role and Leader-PA Relationship

What’s Wrong With Our Meetings?

You can access them here:  http://www.thriving-workplace.com/start.html

Imperturbability Amidst Adversity & Uncertainty

I was in Christchurch (New Zealand) during the severe February earthquake, lunching downtown with my grandson when the city fell apart.  Injuries and death occurred within 100 metres of us in every direction.  It was an intense experience providing many opportunities to observe human responses to crisis, hardship, confusion and uncertainty. 

Initially, most uninjured people appeared stunned.  Many were hysterical or immobilised. Some were so narrowly focused that they seemed unaware of other people or the bigger picture.  Others quickly overcame their initial shock and became methodically purposeful, either for their own safety or helping to bring about order, safety and helpful guidance to many others.

The café staff rose above considerable personal distress to give urgent support to a colleague, attend to shocked customers, and calmly help people see how they needed to move to safety.  Their composure and staying in role while following predetermined procedures, was remarkable.

On the street, ordinary people tended to those in trouble.  Passers-by took up point-duty and kept traffic moving to the few open roads.  Workers checked and marked hundreds of crushed vehicles “Clear” or otherwise, long before I’d considered the probabilities this signalled.  When I became separated from my grandson, a police officer helpfully stood with him until I returned.  Improvised ambulances appeared. Emergency services mobilised.  Small and great acts of courage and kindness were everywhere.

Much of what I learned or had reinforced from this experience and later from the stories of Christchurch families at our home further north as temporary “refugees”, has wide application:

If you don’t have a well-honed, pre-determined generic response to a crisis or challenging situation you’re likely to be hopelessly adrift in the middle of one.  Things can’t go according to a plan you don’t have.

If your normal tendency is to wing-it or make it up along the way, understand that this habit becomes increasing difficult and sometimes impossible in emergencies.

If you don’t already know what to do when you experience real misfortune or hardship, you’d better practise containing things – with processes for managing your distress, maintaining clear-thinking, good problem-solving, stress-reduction and strategising – so that you don’t freak out, spin out, lash out or fall apart when the ground shifts under you; so that you can be comfortable with long periods of uncertainty.

Methodical processes provide consistency and can be trusted to bring clarity, well-coordinated cohesion and helpful progress – at any time but especially where there is disorder or confusion. When groups work within them, people share an awareness that informs participation and eases collaboration and efficiencies.

Recently I’ve observed three businesses dealing with exceptional difficulties – one methodically and well; two of them improvisationally with damaging consequences. They differently demonstrate the wisdom of habituating before they are needed in a dilemma, agreed  management operating systems for exercising leadership, organising, planning-and-managing-plans, solving problems, making decisions, managing priorities, responding to others’ distress, resolving conflicts, working together, and for getting the best from teams. [The resources of my website Thriving-Workplace.com address and provide guidelines for these matters.]

But it doesn’t take dramatic events to understand how crisis-ready our organisations are.  Every contact with them provides insights into how methodically they and their constituents behave.  In most, there are massive gaps currently filled with improvisation, and un-preparedness for adversity and uncertainty.  Until leaders get serious about systematically learning from and continuously improving their organisations’ everyday activities, improvisation will predominate.  In a tight-spot, they’ll struggle to act wisely.

From their earlier earthquakes in the previous five months, Christchurch people learned a good deal about methodical preparation.  I am deeply grateful.

On the Same Page?

“It’s not rocket science. It’s everyone being on the same page and doing it well.”

[Richie McCaw, current captain of the All Blacks (New Zealand’s national rugby team) commenting on his team's latest major challenge, 11 September 2010.]

A merger-in-progress of two large service groups is struggling to achieve its intentions. The distinctly different organisational cultures are not a natural mix; each has a long history of operating idiosyncratically in separate regions, serving distinctly different demographics with strong local loyalties and attachments, and of growing their own responses to unique local problems over many years. Their leadership and management practices appear to be entirely dissimilar. Poles apart, people say. Chalk and cheese.  Oil and water.

What’s happening within this project has many lessons for everyday leadership, management and self-management practices.  In short:

Well-honed, generic personal and group management operating systems can provide clarity where there is confusion, wisdom in the midst of disorder, and procedural certainty when we don’t know what to do. Acquiring them should never become a matter of urgency.  If you don’t routinely hone and habituate them, don’t expect to access them easily in difficult times when they’ll be vitally important and urgent. When there is no reliable map, use your management operating systems as your compass.  Check its alignment with others’ compasses.

The merger in question is a forced marriage; neither party has a natural inclination to join forces but they are required to bring about a wide range of services operating seamlessly over a large geographic span at a number of different sites.  Senior managers are seriously alarmed by the level of challenge ahead.  Some despair at the prospect and the lack of progress.  Several key players predict an expensive and messily irresolvable impasse.

Much frustration centres on the difficulty of “. . . getting them [their counterparts in the other organisation] to understand what’s important and what’s required for this to work.  They can’t keep doing it the way they’ve been used to, because that doesn’t and won’t work here.”

They are not even close to being on the same page.  They’re reading and quoting from different books, written in languages incomprehensible to the other.  And the difficulties are hugely magnified (in the order of trying to swim through molasses) when the required progress is attempted in discussions between and amongst groups rather than between individuals.

I don’t know if this merger should be attempted and whether or not it will succeed. [Though I have an opinion about it and forced mergers generally:  see Reorganising and Squandering, my earlier blog.]  However, I’ve observed by working closely with some of the key people, many of the usual suspects for organisational dysfunction.  Attending to them would help the parties get closer to making headway, in the same book if not exactly on the same page.  Here’s a discussion about three of those, the most obvious likely suspects:

1. People focus on tangible goals, tasks, implementation plans and other “practical” agenda while making untested, unsafe assumptions about basic processes (personal and group management operating systems, for example) for developing capacity and working together.

Assumptions are suppositions or premises incorporated into thinking and regarded as true. If made unawarely, reached without positive proof, or not tested with others presumed to also hold them, they may be entirely invalid and lead to misdirection, confusion, conflict, blocked progress, inappropriate conclusions, unwise plans and initiatives.[See Clarify and Test the Working Assumptions, in the Leadership or Teamwork sections of Thriving-Workplace.com.] Many unsafe assumptions are being made in this case.

I’ve asked leaders involved in this merger, Does your work on this project include solving problems, making decisions and plans, trying to form teams, resolve conflict and run constructive meetings? Yes, of course, they tell me, recognising that these processes are generic and fundamental to their merger initiatives and everyday work.

I’ve then asked, Have you determined for yourself, the models or conceptual frameworks and assumptions you make about these matters for your work on the merger project?  Have you raised those assumptions for discussion with your counterparts with a view to reaching agreement on appropriate processes – or at least to acknowledging and working around the differences? The answer to these questions, universally and unfortunately, is No.

Of course, those who haven’t yet deliberately honed and habituated constructive operating systems of that kind in their day-to-day work will, of course, find it difficult or impossible to do so.  Especially when those practices are most required – where differences are at their peak, tension and feelings are running high, and the consequences of misjudgement and failure are particularly serious. They can expect unnecessary complications and problems – although these can be significantly eased, by shifting focus.  [See a discussion of meta-level leadership in Lead, Manage & Strengthen Your Leadership Practices, at the Leadership section of Thriving-Workplace.com.]

My questions are intended to help bring important unconscious assumptions to awareness. I remind my clients that not all those assumptions need be addressed at once; just those that are most basic, pertinent and pressing.  Methodical Priority Management suggests they should always be within the Never Urgent, Always Important practices category.  [See Manage Priorities, Not Time in the Self-Management section of Thriving-Workplace.com.]

Making unwise and unsafe foundational assumptions appears to be commonplace in every workplace at the start-up for example, of working-parties, project work, teamwork, meetings, planning and strategic planning, problem solving and change initiatives.  As with house-painting, careful preparation is often tedious but everything applied to a poorly-prepared foundation is wasted effort.

2. Managers and leaders often have perfect hearing, but their listening is seriously impaired. In their interpersonal and relationship management practices, they tend to present, describe, explain, advocate for, justify or defend positions, rather than listen to one another to hear and understand differing perspectives – especially to resistance, concerns and anxiety about change. They tend to push predetermined solutions, or to solve problems by arguing about solutions, rather than hear and explore challenges, issues and their causes. People on the receiving-end often become more solid in their opposition to what is proposed.  Opportunities to build trust, respect and understanding are lost.

When I know that whatever I say and however I say it, you will honour, explore, ask questions to elicit details, and reflect and demonstrate your understanding of my intentions until you have it right – you clarify, develop and illuminate my thinking and you gain my trust.

When you engage in discussions about problems with high-quality listening and within a methodical problem solving framework, you facilitate (ease) the process.  Solutions arrived at this way are likely to deal with root causes, endure, and not cause further problems.

That high-quality active listening and good-sense problem-solving processes are far from routine in interpersonal and group relationships, ought to be plain to anyone capable of paying attention to process as they also engage in workplace tasks and agenda.  Trouble is, few make the effort to bring these practices to awareness and many are unconsciously incompetent in their application.  I am often shocked by how unaware are managers and leaders of their skill levels in this regard.  Possibilities for real colleagueship can be vastly enhanced by a determination to change this. Enhancing these skills is simple, though not necessarily easy.  How well do you listen?  How do you know?

3. There is no clear Big Picture or strategic direction to guide other plans, other than a loosely-stated broad intention. There is very little methodical planning, a great deal of improvisation and many unclarified assumptions made about the planning process.

It’s common for organisations, leaders, managers, groups and teams to behave as though planning is a matter of tossing ideas around, arguing about them under the misconception that they are ‘problem-solving”, “brainstorming” and “reaching consensus”, and then somehow prioritising them as a lightly-sketched list of actions. Although this sort of improvisation may succeed, its progress is frequently marked by the eventual need to revisit the issues from scratch or by having to undo things already done.

Things won’t go according to a plan you don’t have.  [Don’t get me started! See the many discussions and guides on this topic in the Planning section of our subscriber library at Thriving-Workplace.com.]

Merger and restructuring initiatives as conventionally practised often involve trying to do the wrong thing (that is, business as usual without regard to the causes of systemic problems), better (that is, with reduced resources and fewer people).  The people in these organisations who lack the ability to resist or influence the process will live through slow motion catastrophes.  Those who can influence it, hold extraordinary potential for developing everyone’s capacity.