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
Serious about improving your leadership and management skills? Here are some very basic, available now, actionable resources for you to get started (or keep going)
5. Getting Things Done
4. The Effective Executive
3. Manager Tools / Career Tools – the ultimate career and management podcasts. In business for over five years and going strong. Actionable, entertaining, smart.
2. RESULTS.com Business Growth Tips – 30 seconds to business enlightenment. The weekly business tip going out to over 50,000 subscribers world-wide.
1. This blog – Find something from this list, no matter how big or small, to implement every week.
Survival, focus, feedback seemed to come out on top this year. I was surprised by some of these, but not by others. Here’s an obiligatory year-end top five list of the most popular Practical Managers blog posts:
5. The Definition of Business Focus
“If we did not do this already, would we go into it now? If not, what do we do now?”
One of the shortest blog posts ever, and quoted from Drucker.
4. Before Leading Others, Lead Yourself
I am more and more convinced that the biggest obstacle to leadership is the self-imposed lack of regular blocks of uninterrupted time to think. This article came out of what happened when one of my clients went to France for a week on a family vacation, without his Blackberry. Since then he’s doubled the size of his business.
3. How to Give Corrective Feedback
2. How to Give Positive Feedback
One of those simple things that outstanding managers do well – giving continuous, mostly positive feedback. Can you become an okay manager and still avoid giving feedback? Maybe. Can you become an outstanding manager? Absolutely not.
Here’s the four “F’s” of feedback, in an easy to remember mnemonic so that you have no excuses: fast, friendly, frequent, focused. Make it factual and actionable. That is all. Now go practice.
1. Deep Survival: Business Lessons From the Wild
I’d like to say that this is the most popular article because of my deep insight and wildly lucid writing style. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. More likely it’s because the work “survival” is a popular search term. Which just goes to show that sometimes you have to get lucky to make the hard work pay off, but if you don’t do the work you can’t get lucky.
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
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.
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:
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
My wife and I spend the last couple of weekends with friends, and for the most part it’s been great. Having them over to our place for coffee last weekend, or eating Chinese take-out and drinking beer after an evening at the archery range this weekend. New friends and old mixing and matching.
Yet twice in the last ten days I’ve had friends tell me they can’t be in the same room as so-and-so. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but so-and-so were also long-time friends. Naturally I asked why. The answer surprised me. Not only the answer, even though the we’re talking about completely different people, but also because both times the answer was the same: so-and-so is a sexual predator.
Imagine my surprise.
First impressions are funny things. In Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw he describe a situation where teachers’ abilities judged over a year is remarkably similar to the same evaluation of the teacher based on four seconds of video tape.
It seems that first impressions are remarkably accurate, or permanent and consistent, depending on your point of view and awareness of cognitive filters. That is, once we’ve decided what kind of person we’re dealing with based on our first impression of them, we immediately shift to either ignoring all evidence to the contrary or emphasizing any and all evidence to confirm our initial bias.
Which means you have about four seconds to make a “good” first impression. That’s faster than a Mazaratti goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour.
What does this have to do with giving feedback to? Everything and nothing. In a perfect world our biases of who a person is (or should be) won’t play into our management of their performance. But people are people, and our biases and filters affect how we perceive everything and everybody. It also affect how our direct reports perceive our feedback.
Here’s an interesting though experiment: What percentage of police officers, detective, judges, and psychologists do you think can tell when somebody is lying or guilty? They should be pretty good at it because of their training.
Got a number? Good. Now how many of those same officers believe they can tell when somebody is lying or guilty? Is your second number higher or lower than the first one?
Here’s the research-based number: in a 1984 study of 14,000 police officers, only 33 of them had an above random chance of detecting deception. That’s 0.2%.
This means that of all bad attitude, spitefulness, ignorance, stupidity, laziness, or predatory behaviour we might meet in our daily lives probably isn’t. I’m not saying that they doesn’t exist. I’m saying the we can’t crawl into somebody’s head and know what they’re thinking. We certainly can’t and shouldn’t give feedback meant to improve performance based on our assumptions of somebody’s motivation or mental state.
Projecting our own biases on a direct report whose behaviour we’re trying to influence is not effective at best, and counter-productive at worst . What can we do about it?
There are three things happening before we decide why somebody is doing what they’re doing, or are the person we think they are. They do something, we feel something, we make conclusions about their motivations. They say or do something that triggers an emotion in us. The emotion becomes our understanding of why they behave that way. Body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye-contact, words used are what make us feel threatened, unsafe, disrespected, or ignored. Those feeling drive our assumptions about their intentions.
The problem is some of us leap directly to the motivation, without being aware of what the behaviour was , or even our feelings that triggered it. Our unconscious biases, based on our feeling, emotions, experience, and culture, are constantly filtering for us the things we are aware of.
To become good at giving effective feedback, we need to become aware of the behaviour that triggered the effect it has on us and the people around us. When we can name the behaviour, we can start to give effective feedback to change that behaviour.
Spend a week noticing your judgments of other people. Notice when somebody’s behaviour affects you positively or negatively. What was the emotion your felt, and the conclusion you drew from it?
Now, dig into this emotion – what did that person say or do that drove you to that particular conclusion? What was their body language, facial expression, eye-contact, words they used, tone of voice, or work product? What did you hear or see that made you feel what you felt, and therefore draw the conclusion you drew?
Further Reading:
Malcolm Gladwell What the Dog Saw
Joe Navaro What Every Body Is Saying (Joe Navarro is a former FBI counter-intelligence agent and behavioural assessment expert)
E-mail is a great medium for communicating simple facts, figures, and actions. It is best written in short, declarative sentences. It is not best for socializing, explaining, or instructing. Especially in a work context. That’s best done face-to-face, or if need be, over the phone.
You can help other (and yourself of course) by keeping your e-mail relevant. Relevant e-mails get better results.
You may also be interested in:
E-Mail Made Simple: tricks for getting through the daily e-mail storm
Career Gotchas: guidelines for keeping your e-mail use professional
What Goes In An E-Mail: and when you shouldn’t send that pithy rocket that will make stupid people quiver in their booties.
What do you think is an essential skill for good managers? E-mail me bernie@practicalmanagers.com and share!
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