“An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.”
~ Peter Drucker
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Bernie May
What do you think is an essential skill for good managers? E-mail me bernie@practicalmanagers.com and share!
Monthly Archives: March 2011
An Executive Should Be A Realist . . .
Managing Your Boss
There are keys to success in managing bosses. First, put down on a piece of paper a “boss list,” everyone to whom you are accountable. Next, go to each person on the list and ask, “What do I do and what do my people do that helps you do your job?” And, “What do we do that makes your life more difficult?”
~ Peter Drucker
Posted in execution, listening, relationships
Tagged managing upwards, managing your boss
You Talk Too Much
It is better to keep you mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and confirm it.
Ever worked with or for somebody who thinks out loud? Who says: “My point is . . . ” and then spends the next five minutes looking for it with his lips? If you don’t know somebody like that . . .
. . . it might be you.
Here’s What They’re Thinking
Here’s what everybody else wants you to know: they stop listening after the first sentence.
You’re wasting their time, and they resent it. They’re bored, they’re frustrated, and the more you talk the less credibility you have. Even if you did have a point, nobody can hear it for all the words. The more you talk, the less they hear.
You’re Not Communicating
You’re not communicating, you’re just talking. Frankly, you make others feel like you don’t care about them. The only thing you seem care about is the sound of your own voice. What you might think of as “connecting” to other people is doing exactly the opposite.
Your Actions
This could apply to everybody, especially if you think it doesn’t apply to you:
- Think before you speak. Take a deep breath and decide what you’re going to say before you say it,
- Keep it to one sentence, then…
- Stop talking.
If you know somebody that fits this profile:
- Give them a copy of this blog article. How is up to you. I suggest some straight talk, but that doesn’t mean you have to be mean.
- Review the first three bullets above and figure out what you can use. It never hurts to get even a little bit better.
Other Reading:
The Lost Art of Brevity – Mike Myatt, N2Growth blog
Your Emails Are Too Long – Leo Babauta, Zen Habits blog
Quiet Leadership – Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work – by David Rock
Discussion:
How have you dealt with blabbermouths in the past? What worked and what didn’t work?
What other techniques have you used yourself to communicate more clearly?
What affect did cutting your speech down to one sentence have?
Why Do Looks Matter?
My son is happy working as a printer, running a fairly complex machine. He has a good work ethic and is loyal to his family and friends. I like him. He’s a good kid. Yet he and I have an ongoing argument. It’s been going on for years. I can see his point of view because when I was a kid I felt the same way. It kind of goes like this:
It shouldn’t matter what somebody looks like. It’s what’s on the inside that counts
People Trust What They See, Not What They Hear
On some level it really shouldn’t matter what somebody looks like. Sometimes a person’s qualities and contributions are overlooked or missed because we’re caught up in making judgements about their credibility based on appearances. The obvious examples are skin colour or gender. How somebody speaks, how they’re dressed, what school they went to also might have an impact on our impression of them. More subtly and more powerfully, how they stand, personal grooming, smiling also have an effect. Is this always right? Probably not.
So my son is right, but he’s also wrong at the same time. When we’re trying to be effective in an organization full of people, when we’re trying influence other people, what we think doesn’t matter. It’s what they think matters. The alternative is to give the world a great big middle finger and walk away from society. Which is a choice some people have taken.
Most of us make instantaneous, unconscious value judgements based on peoples appearance. Even when we try not to. We’re visual creatures. Our eyes over over-ride ears most times, and it happens faster than a Maserati can make it to MPH. About 4 seconds. After that “cognitive bias” (also known as “people enjoy being right”) sets in, and we begin to disregard everything that doesn’t fit. We only remember the behaviours that fit our first impression.
Always On
This means we leaders, managers, and influencers need to be on our game all the time. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is an old saying because there’s some element of truth to it. Even when we’re not at work, people are watching us. I remember getting a little silly at a bar in my early days as a young officer. For me that means I spent some time on the dance-floor in front of the band doing my best impression of what I think of as dancing.
I heard all about it from my sergeant the next day, because I had been seen. A couple of my privates that happened to be at the same bar. They had duly gossiped, uh, reported it to the rest of the squadron. It was a quick and easy lesson in how leaders are always leaders. I had another reminder of this the other day, when I had an e-mail come through my blog, asking me to do a favour. My anonymous peer asked me to remind managers of some basics. There’s no nice way to say this, so I’ll just quote:
Love your articles, but there are aspects of leadership you haven’t mentioned and to be honest I didn’t think of them either until I had lunch yesterday with an old friend from the [multi-national name deleted] days. Anyway this person was totally grossed out when his manager, who also dresses shabbily, started to scratch his balls during a meeting. Don’t know how you would write an article about that, other than to suggest that managers should strive to maintain a dignified demeanour at all times.
How much credibility and influence do you think this manager has in his organization? No matter how technically savvy he is, probably not a lot.
Your actions:
- Brush your teeth and shower regularly
- Dress appropriately
- Smile
- Speak clearly
- Sit or stand up straight
- Don’t scratch your privates or pick your nose where others can see you
Do these things for a week if you don’t already, and notice what changes happen in your interactions with other people.
Other Reading:
Fashion tips for grown-up men
On matching shoes and socks
How to dress to impress – professional grooming tips for business women
First impressions and giving employee feedback
Posted in behaviour, body language, effeciency, effectiveness, engagement, getting dressed, influencing, leadership, relationships
Tagged first impressions, grooming, influence
On-line Job Hunting Resources Podcast
Karl of the White Noise blog and I have put out our third podcast all about on-line resources for job hunting. Enjoy!
What Is Accountability?
Every had this question when assigning work:
“Do you want me to do the work, or do you want me to spend my time reporting on the work?”
If you’ve ever worked with engineers, programmers or other “High C” personalities you may have run into this before, but it could happen anywhere. Here is the proper response:
“Reporting on your work is part of the work.”
When I ask my clients what accountability means I get quite a variety of answers, some of which are entertaining. Here’s my perspective.
For any task, process, or project, high-performance accountability has several components:
1) One Person is Accountable
Only one person is ultimately liable for the correct completion of the task. If more than one person is accountable, then nobody is accountable.
Who is the champion? Who is the owner? The responsibility for actually doing the work may be delegated to somebody else. The accountable person may get help from somebody else, or need to coordinate multiple people and resources, but only one person can be accountable.
2) Work is Measured
In my days as a project manager one of my favourite questions when nailing down the requirements for a system was: “How are we going to test this?” For example,
“…detect 95% of land mines in a dry field of size x, with y mines, distributed in pattern z, in clear summer weather in less than five minutes and with less than a 5% false positive rate…”
gives us fairly clear understanding of what is expected and a way to measure it.
You may end up debating why or why not your goal was reached, and you may argue about changing circumstances and contexts (like the real estate market collapsed), but you won’t be arguing if you did or didn’t meet expectations. This is where using SMART goals become useful.
Well defined measurements of the work also allow you to measure progress, which is a great way to motivate. Yea, having a coloured thermometer that shows how many widgets have been built or how close we are to reaching this quarter’s sales goals might seem a bit hokey, but it works. At least it works better than not doing it.
3) Progress is Reported
How do project become late? One day at a time.
When assigning work, the first thing I ask for is a schedule. Every project large or small needs milestones or even inch-pebbles that explicitly measure and report progress. That first milestone, having a schedule, is something I would expect to see the next day after assigning the work.
This avoids the 90% done 90% of the time problem. Also known as getting to the end of a six month project and realizing there’s still five months of work left to do. If you are accountable for a task, then you are responsible for reporting on progress of that task. This is also known as the “liability to render an account”. Hence “accountability”.
4) There Are Consequences
The last part of accountability is the obligation to bear the consequences of failing to perform as expected. This also means the obligation to celebrate success!
I’m not just talking getting fired here. Consequences run the gamut from small to huge. In poorly executing organizations there are seldom consequences for poor performance. Usually because there is nothing in place to measure performance, nor is it reported. In these instances mediocrity attracts more mediocrity.
For entrepreneurs, who sometimes roll pennies to make payroll, the consequences can be far beyond losing a job. They could lose their home, all their worldly goods, perhaps even a marriage with the failure of a business. The owner is ultimately accountable.
Of Feedback, Sambuca, and the Future
I look forward to Friday nights. Usually I’ll be at the archery range followed by a beer at the local watering hole with my lovely wife and fellow archers. I was especially looking forward to this week since I won an archery tournament last weekend up in Edmonton. Woohoo! I was ready to celebrate.
Alas, I’ve come down with a cold. I’m sitting at home watching an Auction Hunters marathon instead, and trying to kill my infection with Sambuca. It seems to help the sinuses. Maybe not, but by the time I finish writing this I won’t care.
Nothing bad (or good) lasts forever. I know I’ll whine and snivel my way through the weekend, and be back on my feet and ready to rock by Monday morning. Attending the team meeting and doing my client preparation for the week. The ability to look to the future is a good thing. Without it we sometimes tend to wallow in our present miseries, and maybe even get stuck there.
Without knowing or imagining what’s going to happen next we might feel trapped and helpless, or even overwhelmed. Many inspiring things in life are future oriented, and they pull us along into the desired next state.
The Value of Concrete, Visual Language
A concrete and visual future can be inspiring, but warm and fuzzy future is useless. The brain is a visual (and emotional) machine. That’s why when CEO’s want a collectively motivating vision, mission, or purpose, it’s based on concrete visual language. On of my favourite examples is this quote often mis-attributed to General George S. Patton
“I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.”
That’s very concrete language, no?
Recruiters also use visualization. First, if they can see the job they are recruiting for, they have a better chance of filling it with the right person. Secondly, if they see you performing the job, based on your description of the work you’ve done in the past, then you’ve got a better chance of landing it.
What’s This To Do With Feedback?
Practise doesn’t make perfect, but perfect practise does. Feedback needs to be future oriented. It also needs to be specific and concrete. Pointing out to one of our direct reports that they screwed up / performed brilliantly is not enough.
We have to be specific enough that they know what they’re being criticized / praised. It is necessary but not sufficient to point out the error. They must also rehearse how they are to change their behaviour in the future. Even if this rehearsal is only mental. Otherwise, what you’ll get is the same behaviour next time.
We also have to cast their thinking into the future. They need to take the responsibility for fixing the problem, changing their behaviour, or doing things differently. This is the purpose of feedback. They need to be able to see themselves doing it differently next time.
Without this last step in the feedback process what will usually happen is that they’ll just do the same thing again. Not out of habit, not out of laziness, not out of stubbornness or thoughtlessness. They just won’t think about it because they haven’t “seen” it done differently.
The Last Question
Assuming we’re giving corrective feedback, the last question in any feedback process needs to be a variation of:
“What are you going to do differently next time?”*
Questions engage the mind of the person being asked. It allows them to take responsibility for the outcome. Asking the future-oriented question gives them the problem to solve. Instead of waiting for you to hand them the solution.
Which is the point of giving feedback. They change their behaviour. They take responsibility. If you have to do everything for them then what’s the point of having employees? Give them something to do about it, or even mentally rehearse for the future, so they don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over.
So, what are you going to do next?
Other resources:
Coaching for Performance: GROWing Human Potential and Purpose – The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership
*If you’re dealing with positive feedback, the question “What are you going to do differently”. A “Keep it up.”, or “Keep doing that.” works better instead.
Posted in behaviour, coaching, communications, developing staff, effectiveness, emotional intelligence, engagement, feedback, focus, influencing, leadership, motivating, productivity
Tagged constructive feedback, corrective feedback, feedback, future, giving feedback, negative feedback, positive feedback, visualization
