Part 2 of Karl & Bernie’s conversation about how the rules for comedy improvisation can and should be applied to business and life. Have fun!
Posted in behaviour, communications, emotional intelligence, engagement, execution, feedback, focus, listening, motivating, persauding, teamwork
Tagged comedy, improvisation, listening, teamwork, trust
So my buddy Karl and I finally recorded another podcast on the topic of Improv Lessons for the Corporate World. Give a listen and let us know what you think.
You can also find some previous resources at:
Karl’s guest blog on Give Feedback
Rules of Thumb for Improv in Life and Business: Embrace Failure, Reject Fear
Posted in behaviour, communications, creativity, focus, leadership, listening, teamwork
Tagged improv, improvisation, listening, teamwork, theatre, trust, workplace
Fast, Friendly, Frequent, Focused
Giving feedback sucks. For whatever reason many managers aren’t good at it. I won’t list all the reasons I’ve heard , but I’m sure you can think back to some of your own, perhaps from bitter experience.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
It doesn’t have to be torturous, drown-out, or dramatic. My clients who give fast, friendly, frequent, and focused feedback to their staff have found it doesn’t take very long to see huge changes in performance, both individually and at the team level.
Fast
10 seconds is all you need to give feedback. Longer that that you’re not getting to the point. Think about what you want to say, then say it. End of story. Don’t make a big deal about it. Giving feedback should be as natural as breathing for a leader. Treat it that way.
Friendly
Giving somebody feedback is an act of love. You’re trying to help them get better. Helping people do better is part of your job. It’s not the end of the world. If the person you’re giving feedback to treats it that way, it’s their choice, and that’s a different conversation.
Keep it friendly, keep it relaxed, keep it informal. Remember also that while positive feedback isn’t as powerful a kick in the pants as constructive feedback, it’s more likely to result in the behaviour you want. You just have to give it more often. Catch them doing something right.
Frequent
My wife was driving back from giving a presentation in small-town Saskatchewan once. It was late, it had been a long day, and she was tired. She fell asleep in one town and woke up in another 50 kilometers later when the smell of farmers burning their fields got her attention. Good thing the highways in Saskatchewan are so straight.
Usually when we’re driving we are continuously making small corrections using the steering wheel, instead of waiting just before we hit the ditch to yank on the wheel to get us back on course. Feedback is the same thing.
Start by giving feedback once a day. You’ll quickly see what difference it makes, and you’ll want to do it more often.
Focused
By focused I mean specific and actionable. Tell them what you want them to do, what behaviour you want them to change (or keep doing), or what physical, tangible action they need to take in order to improve for next time. Feedback is useless if the target of your feedback doesn’t know what to do with it.
Posted in behaviour, change, coaching, communications, feedback, focus
Tagged feedback, giving feedback
Confronting somebody at work about a missed deadline, unacceptable behaviour, a poor quality deliverable can sometimes feel like looking over the edge of a tall cliff. When was the last time you had a courageous conversation at work? Said something to somebody that needed to be said, but had held back for whatever reason?
If you done have regular “courageous conversations” in your role as a leader, then you’re not doing your job. Either that, or you work in the perfect office. More likely the former.
If you’re just starting as a manager / leader, or you’re looking for tips on having the courageous conversation, keep these points in mind:
And remember that true leaders run towards a problem, not away from it.
Imagine the following unfolding in a boardroom: the CEO is holding his head in his hands, both palms covering his entire face. The person reporting to him is leaning back in his chair, ankle on knee, hands behind his back. The subordinate seems to be totally oblivious to the CEO. Even without hearing the words being spoken, what conclusions can you draw from this scenario?
My perception of the message was: “To hell with all of you. I didn’t meet the commitments I made. I don’t care, and there’s nothing you’re going to do about it.” Without intending to, and totally undermining his own credibility and long-standing relationships.
Was this his intended message? Probably not. He works in a high-stress, highly volatile, deadline driven world. He’s good at what he does. I assume he wants to see the company succeed and grow. So why the subtle but loud message that contradicts this?
Bottom Line:
1. Watch your own body language. Especially when you’re under the gun.
2. You get paid for results, not effort. When reporting, give the results first and the story second.
When you’re reporting to your boss, you’ve either delivered what you promised, or you haven’t. If you haven’t and you start be describing all the effort (not the result) you’re not fooling anybody. If you have and you start with the story, you’re giving the (false) impression that you’re making excuses.
Further Reading:
Body Language Basics for Dates and Job Interviews
How Science Can Teach You to Spot a Liar
How To Build Relationships Without Talking
Posted in behaviour, communications, conflict, emotional intelligence, engagement, influencing, listening, relationships, self-awareness
Tagged body language
Here’s a quick but powerful tip for building relationships, even while you’re sitting in meetings all day:
Pay attention to the person who’s talking.
Sit up, shut up (your electronics), turn your chair and actually face them. Make eye contact. Not the stalker kind of eye-contact, but enough so they know you’re paying attention to them.
Don’t believe it’s that simple? Next time you’re in a meeting, take a look around at who’s paying attention or not. Not just turning their head, but actually turning their entire body and facing the speaker. Now compare that to somebody who’s merely turning their head. While this is better than not paying attention at all, just turning your head gives off the body language “I’m better than you” message.
Try it and see what difference it makes in the follow-up relationships you have with the people you meet with regularly.
Posted in behaviour, communications, engagement, influencing, relationships, self-awareness
Tagged meeting, relationship
One of the more frequent issues facing organizations is around internal communication. Sometimes employees say they don’t know what’s going on despite great effort made at communicating, or the leader has a clear idea of where they want to go but nobody seems to be following.
Even worse is when the leadership thinks it’s doing a good job communicating (“Look, we have a newsletter!”), but the internal survey comes back with “lack of communication” written all over it. This is what I like to call failing the “Am I smoking crack?” check.
Good news: at least you’re checking. That puts you ahead of 90% of the companies out there.
What simple behaviors do leaders who communicate well engage in? Here’s a couple of things I’ve noticed.
Posted in behaviour, change, coaching, communications, conflict, delegation, engagement, execution, feedback, influencing, listening, mentoring, motivating, persauding
Tagged communicating, influencing, listening
I was working on my old motorcycle in garage this winter with a friend who spent some time in the Canadian navy. He reminded me of the old military phrase “Communicate, navigate, and fight.”
A ship, a plane, a soldier all have to be in the right place (navigate), do their job (fight), and tell their superiors what they’ve done (communicate).
I sometimes have interesting conversations in the strangest places.
What It Means In Business
In business, communication is communication. Getting the right information to the right person at the right time so that they can execute their tasks and responsibilities as effectively and efficiently as possible. Which is why the leader(s) of an organization need to have a clear vision of where they’re going (navigate) from the leader of the organization, and be willing to not tolerate lack of performance either in themselves or the organization (execute).
What’s More Important?
Which one of these three is the most important? No matter what level you are in an organization, if other people report to you my answer would be communicate.
Communicating the vision (navigate), communicating the plan (execute), communicating the results (accountability) are a big part of the job. Yes, you have the do your job, but most of what any manager or leader does has to be communicate.
A soldier has a gun and a shovel. Their “execute” is straight-forward: dig a trench, shoot at the right target. As a leader in a business or otherwise, our execute is done through other’s actions. We set those actions in motions by “communicating”.
Everything is Communication
I’m not just talking newsletters and slide presentations, although these have a place. We “communicate” in almost everything we do in a business, including but not limited to: hiring practices, performance reviews, weekly one-on-one meetings with our direct staff, giving feedback, what we choose to delegate to whom, who we fire, who we promote, who we don’t promote, what we celebrate, who we pursue as customers, which customers we chose to drop, etc.
These are all forms of and opportunities to communicate.
What Most Businesses Suck At
. . . and yet when my clients ask they’re employees what their company could do better, “communicate” comes up over and over again. So ask yourself the following two questions:
1. Do you communicate with your subordinates often and well enough?
2. Does your boss communicate with you often and well enough?
If you ask a room full of managers and executives these questions, many of them will answer “Yes” to the first question, and “No” to the second. Even with their bosses and subordinates in the same room at the same time answering in the same way. Without a hint of irony.
Think about it – are you really better than your boss at understanding where the company is going, and conveying it to your direct reports if she’s not doing a good job with you? Really?
Communicate Until You’re Sick Of It
How much do you need to communicate? Constantly. I like to tell my clients that if you tell everybody in the company the same thing seven different times in seven different ways, it might stick. When you’re sick of talking about your company’s values, vision, and goals, when you think you can’t give the same spiel one more time, then you’re probably just starting to communicate enough.
Who’s the best communicator you ever worked for? What do you think they did well that helped them get their message across?
Last week I promised that I would talk about managing your boss. I’ve written about this in the past, albeit in bits and pieces.
The first step, of course, is to actually do your job.
The second is to communicate to your boss on a regular basis, at least weekly. But first, an important message:
“Managing Upwards” is Stupid and Dangerous
In most cases most of the time your boss is your boss because they’re good at their job and they get things done. Acting like you think they need to be “managed” will only piss them off when they figure it out, and they will. This is a person who has control over your addiction to food, clothing, and shelter. Acting like you think they’re a moron that needs to be controlled is not a good strategy.
Besides, we can’t really control how other people behave. Trying to do so is futile and counter-productive.
What Can You Do?
We can deliver, we can manage the relationship between the boss and ourselves, and we can communicate.
Assuming that you’re competent at your work, whatever that might be, productivity shouldn’t be the issue. If it is, work on that first. Being somebody who delivers what they’re supposed to when they’re supposed to gives you credibility.
Without that credibility, whatever else you do to influence the relationship is just manipulative. In the worst sense of the word. Don’t think people don’t notice. They do.
Deliver The Right Thing
There’s no use climbing the corporate ladder (or getting through the daily grind) if your corporate ladder is against the wrong wall. You may be great at your area of expertise, or maybe you were hired because you certain skills and influence, but . . .
Being really good at your job and delivering the right work products are two different things. I’ve been guilty in the past of working on the things I enjoy doing. Which was fun for me. Not so much for some of my early bosses.
Some of them had the intestinal fortitude to give me the feedback I needed and set my feet upon the right path. The conversation wasn’t always pleasant at the time, but in hindsight I am grateful to them.
What Are Your Boss’s Priorities?
Bosses have priorities, trade-offs, and pressures too. Do you know what keeps your boss up at night? Do you know what company strategic priorities she’s responsible for delivering on? Do you know how what you’re doing supports what she’s trying to accomplish?
What are your company’s, division’s, department’s, and team’s priorities? If you don’t know, how will you find out? Does your organization have them? What is your boss trying to accomplish?
Whether you’re a machinist or a technical writer you probably have the skills, experience, and knowledge needed to perform your job. If you’re really good you’ll understand your part in what your company is trying to do and adjust your priorities and work to line up with what it’s doing.
Shouldn’t that be enough? Unfortunately, it isn’t.
Next Week
Communicating with your boss: do you know their preferred style?
I recently got an e-mail from a former co-worker and current friend, who asked:
Do you think managers should be more ‘touchy-feely’? Here is a pretty interesting collection of studies, summaries that have looked at the power of non-sexual touch.
Gord
Hi Gord,
I’ve done a little experiment since you sent this link to me. I’ve reached out and touched some of my clients at the end of our sessions – usually a full open palm on the back, shoulder, or arm. It’s had mixed results. Some seem to welcome the touch. They know that we’re connecting and supporting each other. Others seem to tolerate it, or wonder what I’m up to. I’m not a touchy-feely guy by nature, so my first advice would be:
It Depends
Some people will welcome it and need it. It’s reassuring for them. For others it’s threatening and unwelcome. Likewise unconsciously pulling away from somebody with whom you’re trying to build a relationship, and who reaches out to you, is counter-productive. So my second piece of advice would be:
Watch Carefully
Watch carefully how they react and watch carefully how you react. It comes back to being mindful of what’s happening around you. For those of us who are task/doing oriented versus people oriented this is a conscious effort.
I’m not saying you should start working the room and back-slapping it that’s not your nature (or stop if it is). It might be as simple as not making a face when somebody shakes our hand for a little too long (or noticing when somebody is being uncomfortable with your too-long-for-them handshake).
If you’re more people oriented remember, not wanting to be touched doesn’t mean we don’t like you. Your enthusiastic approach to life is great, but there are some out there who might misinterpret your intentions.
Be Sincere
So if you’re trying to fake sincerity, and if you do you’re going to get busted, you’ll be harming the relationship. If somebody suspect on a subconscious level that you’re hamming it up just to influence them, even if that isn’t your intention, the trust you’re trying to gain will be lost instead. You’re better off keeping your hands to yourself (if that’s who you really are) than coming across as awkward and fake.
The opposite is also true – if you’re an outgoing person by nature, being stiff and formal will be odd, and people will notice. Like a tie that doesn’t match your suit. Better not to wear the tie than to try to fit in.
If you’re Bill Clinton or Tony Robbins, this advice doesn’t apply to you. Influences of that skill and depth have their own personal reality-distortion fields. If you’re not, don’t try and fake it.
In order to influence people, we have to make them feel comfortable and safe. So my last piece of advice is:
Pay Attention
Adjust your behaviour to your audience. Drucker said “Communication is what the listener does.” In this case it means learning to adjust our style on a moment-by-moment basis to the people we’re with and the situation we’re in. Nothing tells somebody we care as much as paying attention to them. There are no cookie-cutter solutions when it comes to people. You want to influence them? Pay attention.
What do you think is an essential skill for good managers? E-mail me bernie@practicalmanagers.com and share!
