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Successful Supervisor 44 – Managing Change for Results

September 17, 2017

John F. Kennedy once said,

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

In any organization, change is a given, so every supervisor has a choice: she can either choose to endure the changes or she can learn to manage the changes in order to thrive.

This article is about the tools needed to manage change in a proactive and pragmatic way.

For the supervisor the challenge is to not only learn to manage change in her own mind but also teach the people who report to her how to deal with change.

Simply stated, there is no option to avoid change, but there are effective ways to deal with it. The following tips are things that I find helpful when teaching leaders to manage change.

1. Help people understand the need for change

The best way to describe this tip is the old “boiled frog” analogy. If you place a frog into boiling water, it will feel the heat immediately and jump out. But, if you put a frog into a pan of cool water and slowly heat it up, the frog will sit there and boil to death.

It becomes used to the heat and cannot feel the danger until it’s too late. Good supervisors make sure that people feel the “heat” early enough.

2. Communicate a compelling vision of the future

It is incumbent on the supervisor to not only let people know they will be better off once they reach the vision but that it is worth the effort to get there.

In other words, if the supervisor extols the benefits of the view that awaits from the top of Mount Everest, but fails to generate enough enthusiasm to make the arduous climb worth it, the vision is worthless.

I wrote in one of my books that

“Leaders are the artists who paint the vision of the future on the canvass of today’s paradigm.”

This means that not only must the image itself be compelling but the supervisor must paint a pathway to the future to make it real.

3. Build an environment of TRUST

Supervisors interact with many people and build trust-based relationships with each of them. Trust between people can be compared to a bank account, where actions consistent with shared values represent deposits and inconsistent actions represent withdrawals.

Every action, word, or decision between individuals either adds to or detracts from the balance. It is a very sensitive system that can be affected even by subconscious thoughts or small gestures.

Making small or medium deposits is easy, but large deposits are rare. I advocate a four-step plan to build trust with people that I call “reinforcing candor.”

a. Start by laying a firm foundation with your team. Identify the values of your group along with a clear vision, behavior expectations and strategic plan.

b. Encourage people to tell you any time they believe your actions are not congruent with your foundation.

c. Reinforce them every time they do it, no matter how challenging that is. Make them glad they told you about it.

d. Take appropriate corrective action or help people think through the apparent paradox.

4. Value diverse opinions

People closest to the work generally have the best solutions. Supervisors need to tap into the creative ideas of everyone in the organization to allow successful change initiatives.

This also allows people to “own” the change process rather than perceive it as a management “trick” to get more work for less money.

5. Ability to accept risk

No progress is made without some kind of risk. As a supervisor, you need to empower people so they feel free to try and not get squashed if they fail.

Tolerate setbacks along the road to success and don’t lose faith in the eventual outcome.

Try to manage the risk so the consequences are minor, if failure occurs. For example, have a back up plan in place for changes that involve risk.

6. Build a reinforcing culture

Many groups struggle in a kind of hell where people hate and try to undermine one another at every turn. They snipe at each other and “blow people in,” just to see them suffer or to get even for some perceived sin done to them. What an awful environment to live and work in, yet it is far too common.

Contrast this with a group that builds each other up and delights in each other’s successes. These groups have much more fun. They enjoy interfacing with their comrades at work. They are also about twice as productive!

You see them together outside work for social events and there are close family-type relationships in evidence. Hugging is spontaneous.

Let your reinforcement be joyous and spontaneous. Let people help you make it special. Reinforcement is the most powerful elixir available to a supervisor.

Don’t shy away from it because it’s difficult or you’ve made mistakes in the past; embrace it.

7. Integrate new methods into the culture

Document new procedures in a user friendly way; avoid long complex manuals that nobody has the time to read. Have a check list for new employees and make sure they understand the culture. Reinforce consistent behaviors.

8. Foster constancy of purpose

Effective change programs require constancy of purpose. Avoid the “flavor of the month.” Expect setbacks as part of the process and don’t jump ship to a new program when things get rough. Don’t call it a “program”. Instead refer to it as our culture.

9. Understand the psychology of change

If you think of change as a system, you can help people through the process more quickly. Recognize there will be times of confusion or anger, and use the energy to propel the process forward rather than slow it down.
I favor using the Kűbler-Ross Model of the five stages of grief to help teams move through the phases of dealing with change. The stages are:

1) Denial,

2) Anger,

3) Bargaining,

4) Depression, and

5) Acceptance.

I have found that using this model to explain why people are struggling at times with a change helps them move toward acceptance much faster.

Being a supervisor carries a mandate that you help manage the change process so improvements can be made without having the people become dysfunctional in the process.

It is your responsibility to accomplish change on a frequent basis. Using the nine tips above will make it possible for you to excel at this critical leadership skill.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

3 Comments | Candor creates trust, Communications, Enabling Actions, leadership, Organization, Teamwork, Trust | Tagged: change, Change management, culture, diversity, Kubler Ross, Reinforce, risk, Supervisor, Trust, vision | Permalink
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Successful Supervisor 43 – Onboarding Tips

September 10, 2017

Think back to the day you took your first job. It makes no difference what the nature of that job was.

You had to go through an acclamation process when joining the new entity. If you are like me, you remember a lot of detail about those first few hours.

It is similar to when you meet a new individual for the first time; you make an initial judgment very quickly.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Blink” describes human ability to put together a mosaic of “Thin Slices” of data to form an initial conclusion about a new environment. Malcolm says people can form an initial judgment in three seconds.

The first few hours of a person’s employment are pivotal for good contact and information sharing. It is really up to the supervisor to manage the transition process so the employee gets off to a great start.

The remainder of this article contains some tips that may be helpful for supervisors to consider.

1. Outline duties and goals

The new employee needs to know precisely the goals of the organization and what he or she is expected to do. It is amazing that many supervisors give kind of a vague description of what is done in their area and expect the new employee to pick up his or her specific contribution almost by osmosis.

A hands on tour and discussion with existing employees is often helpful right at the start.

2. Make it a formal process

Since the new person is, hopefully, going to be an important part of the future of the team, it is worth it to invest in some organization of information for the start of this relationship.

I do not advocate scripting every word that is said or making a video introduction by the most senior person, but it is good to think through and outline the points to cover during orientation.

3. Don’t be Boring

So many organizations make the mistake of sitting new employees down in front of a “trainer” for several days, and the trainer works off a script or set of PowerPoint slides.

After about the first 30 minutes, the new employees are bored to tears and not paying any attention to the information being given. What a horrible way to begin a new relationship with employees.

4. Describe your culture and the most important points to remember

Culture is how the organization thinks and acts as a whole. Make sure the new employees fully understand how they will interface with their new peers, customers, suppliers, and management.

You might even make up some brief role play activities that illustrate these important concepts.

5. Encourage questions and be transparent

New employees are usually a little shy about asking questions. They don’t want to appear to be dumb by asking questions that would be obvious to seasoned employees, so they may be a bit hard to draw out.

Having a set of “Frequently Asked Questions” is a good way to get some information transferred and to get the new employees to open up and realize that the only dumb questions are the ones they are too shy to ask.

6. Explain the Values

The most important thing for the new employee to pick up is the values for the organization. I know several organizations that spend significant emphasis having the CEO explain the values in detail and share some stories on how the values are put into practice in daily activity.

I think it is also helpful for the supervisor and some other employees to share what the values mean to them personally.

7. Do Some Experiential Training

Don’t let new employees sit around all day listening to a stream of managers. Build in some time for people to interact with other workers and just talk.

The general rule is to have not more than 30 minutes of training time without some kind of a mental break.

Include practice time outside the classroom to break up the time and give people some variety.

8. Ask the employees what additional points they want to cover

Getting the trainees involved in selecting the content is a great way to keep them engaged in the process. Since the trainers are intimately familiar with the jargon of the organization, it is not uncommon for new recruits to be in a total fog with the unique acronyms that seem obvious to the trainers.

I recommend that each new employee be given an alphabetized list of acronyms used by the organization. Once you start listing the acronyms, you will be amazed how many there are.

I recall joining one organization and was quite confused about what they were talking about for several months.

9. Include on the job, hands-on training

It is one thing to sit in a conference room and listen to the functions being described by a trainer and something completely different when actually performing the tasks.

I like to assign a “work buddy” for several days or weeks so the employee can perform tasks under the watchful eye of a seasoned veteran.

Make sure the new employee not only knows the goals of the organization but is familiar with how progress toward those goals is measured. Have the new employee sit in on a formal progress review, if possible.

All of these suggestions seem pretty logical, but you would be amazed how few organizations do a great job with bringing new talent onboard.

Since the employees, and how they perform, are really the lifeblood of any organization, skimping on their initial education makes no sense at all.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

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Hiring the Right People

September 3, 2017

Selecting the right people to bring into the organization is undoubtedly one of the most critical functions any supervisor has to perform. Bringing in a problem employee can set an operation back for months.

Most organizations have a set hiring process that needs to be followed, but normally the supervisor has a lot of latitude as to who gets selected. In making the best hiring choice, I believe it really matters what kind of function your group is called upon to perform.

First let me describe the most typical supervisory situation, where the job is a production function, like running an assembly line or a packaging operation.

In this situation, you want the group of individuals working as a team and with the ability to swap workers to different stations as the situation requires it.

It is a good idea to select people who will blend in well with the existing group from the outset. Select people who are similar in outlook and demographics so there will be less need to play referee down the road.

Have a specific program of cross training workers on each function, so there is maximum flexibility for backfill in case of absence or to accommodate peak loads in one part of the process.

The ideal set up for an assembly line operation is if each person can perform any of the functions equally well as another individual.

The logic is quite different if you happen to be supervising a group of people who have jobs with highly creative requirements, cognitive skills, or customer/supplier interfaces.

In this case, diversity is superior to a homogeneous group philosophy, and yet the temptation is strong to try and find people who match perfectly with the existing team.

I often hear a phrase that makes me cringe coming from the lips of these managers: “We want to hire someone who will ‘fit into’ our group.”

A lot of effort is expended in screening candidates with personality tests, multiple interviews, even role plays in order to determine that the new hire will be similar in thinking to the existing team. I think this is a big mistake, if the work to be done requires a high degree of mental capability.

It is often the maverick or even rebel among a group of people who comes up with the genius solutions to problems or creates entirely new streams of income.

When we seek to have everyone “fit in” we lose the potential for diversity of thought that is a major part of the creative process.

When creativity is a significant aspect of the work, you do not want a team of people where everybody looks, thinks, and acts the same. A room full of clones may look reassuring to the boss, but it is not the pathway to peak performance, unless you are running a production line operation as described earlier.

Obviously, it is a good idea to avoid putting a person on the team who is a total misfit, is disruptive, or always brings up a contrary point of view, creating dissent. Instead, try to foster a mixture of ideas and points of view when hiring new team members.

As the supervisor, you need to pay special attention to the team dynamics and interplay during the time when a new person is settling in.

The team will eventually morph into a way of operating that takes the newcomer into account, but it may take quite a while, and you may not be happy with the new equilibrium if you let it happen naturally.

My rule of thumb is to double your interface time with the team when they are assimilating a new person. Doing this teambuilding is your best way to have a good result.

Recognize that each time you bring a new person onto an existing team, there is an adjustment period where new team norms are established. It is the old familiar Bruce Tuckman Model (1965) of forming, storming, norming, and performing that always occurs when there is a change in personnel on the team.

Expect this pattern and help the team work through the phases efficiently. When the team expresses frustration with the storming phase, point out that it is perfectly normal for a team to go through and ask the group for patience. Point out that when the team figures out what rules they want to play by, the stress will go down again.

The first few weeks, or even days, are critical to bringing a new member onto an existing team. I will deal with some tips for the onboarding process next week.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

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Successful Supervisor 41 – Terminating People Well

August 27, 2017

Occasionally supervisors are called upon to terminate an individual who is no longer being helpful to the group.

There is no easy or pain-free way to fire a worker, but there are some mistakes that, if avoided, allow the supervisor, and others, to get through the difficult matter with grace.

There are a few different categories to consider, and the appropriate behaviors are very different depending on the situation. The easy termination is where an individual has threatened bodily harm to someone else and/or has a weapon capable of doing it.

In these cases, it is always important to get Security or Police involved as early as possible. The termination needs to happen immediately without any chance of recovery. When a person goes to that extreme, he or she is an eminent danger to the population.

I recall one instance when I was a young Department Manager where an individual came into my office and made threatening gestures with a knife. He actually wanted to be terminated, and I granted his wish without any discussion.

That situation actually had a comical element to it. The termination happened when I was working for Kodak. I immediately engaged Security to escort the individual to his locker to clean out his personal effects, then accompany him to the other end of Kodak Park on a bus. He needed to go through the Senior HR Manager to get the paperwork signed prior to being released.

It turned out that the HR Manager was on his lunch break at the time and was sound asleep on the couch in the library.

The guard woke up the HR Manager, who became angry and told the guard to take the individual back on the bus to the Department and return after his nap.

That was a rather awkward situation for me, but we got through it. The point is that in extreme cases, you need to act with the appropriate urgency and not be worried about finishing your “nap!” There are times when people’s lives are at stake, and you are responsible for their safety.

It is far more common to have to terminate an individual who has been pushing the limits for some time and is deep into the progressive counseling process.

Normally the person is on “final warning” and is not particularly surprised to get the bad news. Even in those cases, it is a challenging period that requires firmness and poise on the part of the supervisor.

Avoid making a public spectacle of the firing. Usually the rest of the crew will be happy about the departure of a lagging workmate, but the individual doesn’t need to witness the shop floor celebration on the way out the door.

Most of the time, it is a wise idea to have Security or the Police involved in any termination, but there can be exceptions to this rule.

A category of termination that is pretty common is a layoff due to slack work. In this case, it was not the individual’s fault directly, but the end result is the same: loss of employment.

In these cases, showing deference to the impacted individual helps ease the pain just a bit for the person being let go, but more importantly, it shows the people who are to remain that management is not clueless to the plight of an impacted worker.

Some organizations have actually experimented with allowing impacted people to use the office as a staging platform for their next job search. In these cases, it is important to stipulate that the people affected not cause any trouble while they are physically present in their former employer’s facilities.

Such a policy is a signal of trust being extended to people who have performed well in the past and are impacted due to things out of their control.

One of the best ways to build higher trust is to extend trust to others. In this case the trust built will be felt by the people who remain in addition to the people who are leaving. These cases are rare, but they do happen.

The vast majority of terminations involve a paper trail of progressive counseling and a sign off by higher management as well as HR. The key thing is to know the process for your area of responsibility very well and not deviate from it without express permission from HR.

If you have not done the homework of providing documented counseling along the way, expect to get pushback from HR if you attempt to terminate an employee for cause.

Terminating people well is a sign of a mature and secure supervisor. There will be times when you need to perform this delicate chore, but doing it well is a sign of your worth to the organization.

Next week I will deal with some tips for hiring people well. That process is a LOT more uplifting, but there are definitely some traps to avoid.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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Successful Supervisor 40 – Engaging People

August 20, 2017

In this article I want to share some of my personal experience on the topic of how to obtain the full engagement of people.

Getting the maximum discretionary effort of each individual on the team ought to be a top priority for any supervisor, yet in an attempt to “maintain control,” many supervisors make critical errors that undermine their intentions. Control is extremely important, and yet there are right ways and wrong ways to obtain it.

First, there is a term that I often hear which puts a negative slant on the concept of coaching people to do better. That term is when the supervisor “writes up” an employee.

Let’s say I am an employee, and you are my supervisor. You have noticed that my breaks are too long, so you tell me that you are going to “write me up” for not following the break rules. Let’s break down some of the implications around that statement from my perspective.

1. First, you have historically failed to provide the kind of culture in which I decide, on my own volition, to take a standard break because it is in my best interest to do so. I should be writing you up for poor leadership.

2. Second, you reveal yourself to be a “Theory X” type of leader, who believes that to get people to perform their best, they need to be beaten.

3. Third you insult me by putting my “sin” on a piece of paper that you can use in the future to punish me in dark and mysterious ways.

4. Fourth, you are treating me like one of Pavlov’s dogs by expecting me to toe the line now that you have demonstrated your authority over me.

5. Fifth, you have encouraged me to figure out some ways I can get even with you in the future without being detected.

6. Sixth, you have put me on the list of enemies of the state, so I have lower engagement in the work I perform at your behest.

7. Seventh, you have lowered teamwork within the crew because some people with the same time pattern as me were not “written up.”

8. Finally, you have helped me picture you as the enemy from now on. You are not interested in me as a person but only as a cog in your machine, so I will restrict using my precious discretionary effort to some extent in the future.

Granted, some of these consequences are a tad exaggerated, but there is some truth to every one of them.

The flip side of the coin is that you would be doing a bigger disservice to me and the entire crew by ignoring my tardiness and letting me get away with it. So, what alternative methods might there be to prevent the need for you to write me up?

1. Start by treating me differently from the outset. Show by your prior behaviors that you are a different kind of leader who establishes trust with your employees. There are numerous ways to do this, but establishing a “safe” environment where I do not need to worry about speaking my truth is a key method.

2. Get to know me as a person, and show an interest in my family situation.

3. Value me for my brain as well as for my hands. Let me know what is important to accomplish in our crew and why that is.

4. Train me very well from the start, so I understand what behaviors are important to model, and provide me with a buddy who will help mentor me when you are not around.

5. Develop within me a sense of pride that I am doing good work for a reason: that while providing for my family, I am also part of a larger system that serves humanity.

6. Praise me when I do things well or at least according to the behavioral norms. Celebrate with me and the crew that we are capable of performing at a very high level and challenge me with good stretch goals.

7. If I do something wrong, speak to me in ways that maintain my self esteem while simultaneously letting me know that I need to improve in this particular area. Ask me how you can help me link my behaviors to the goals and needs of the organization.

8. Continually model the values that you preach, and explain to me why you are making the calls that you do. Illustrate that you are true to the values at all times, and stress that I need to act in ways that are consistent with the values too.

9. Help me understand how valuable I am to the organization for the work I do and also for the attitude I demonstrate, which has a real impact on the entire crew.

10. Foster a level of esprit de corps within the crew that transcends teamwork and leads to a true sense of belonging and affection.

11. Be open with me and accessible to me. Never punish me for sharing my thoughts and ideas, even if they were not what you wanted to hear.

12. Be transparent and admit when you have made a mistake.

13. Represent my viewpoint and that of my coworkers well to higher levels of management.

If you do all those things, I feel confident that there will be little need to beat on me to abide by the rules, but just in case I do not respond in a way most people do, and seem to get off track often, follow these ideas to bring me back to reality:

1. Hold me accountable in a balanced way: not just when I mess up. Let me know when I am doing well and when there is a need for some correction.

2. Enforce the rules with an even hand, and do not play favorites, but do not always treat each person exactly the same way. Recognize that my needs may be somewhat different from my coworkers.

3. If I have the same pattern of poor behavior more than once, remind me that I am an adult and am capable of learning the right way to do things. If I am habitually late or in other ways miss the mark, it is OK to put down the expected behavior on a note to remind me of the correct thing to do rather than to write me up for being bad.

Try to find out what is going on in my life that is causing me to act out at work. Show that you care about me as a person.

4. Discuss with me that the employment situation is a matching phenomenon. Not all organizations are right for a particular individual and not all individuals are right for a particular organization.

5. If I continue to struggle, look for ways to help me find a better situation where I can be more successful. Get involved in helping me make a transition to a future pattern of employment either inside the current organization or elsewhere.

Being a great supervisor means juggling the needs of each individual on the team and keeping discipline without resorting to Theory X type command and control logic.

Great leadership is an art, and if you are an excellent artist, you can paint the vision of the future on the canvass of today’s paradigm in a way that empowers and engages all members of the team because they trust you.

Following these ideas can not only lead to less documentation; it can also mean that your team operates as a world class group with high trust levels.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

2 Comments | Candor creates trust, Communications, Enabling Actions, HR, leadership, Organization, Teamwork, Transparency, Trust, Trust and fear, Trust and motivation | Tagged: engagement, Supervisor, Teamwork, Theory X, Trust, write up | Permalink
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Successful Supervisor 39 Measuring Performance

August 13, 2017

There is an old adage in quality circles that “What gets measured gets done.” The saying is often attributed to Edwards Deming, although there is some debate on it.

The issue of what to measure and how to feed back performance is a lot more complex and important than many supervisors recognize. This article is to shed some light on common problems that can come up when trying to measure performance.

Selecting the right measures is a first consideration. Believe it or not, it is common for supervisors and managers to select measures that drive performance in the wrong direction.

I know that sounds incredulous, so let me provide a few examples to demonstrate that what may seem to be a logical measure can drive poor performance.

In an effort to increase revenue, a computer company decided to measure the number of calls made by the sales force. History showed that the level of sales was correlated to the number of calls.

When the measure was instituted, sales people quickly realized they could make more money by making more calls, even if the calls were short and did not produce actual sales. The result was a reduction in revenue.

Make sure to verify that all your measures are driving the right behaviors.

An organization was concerned that the “employee satisfaction” numbers were slipping in the Quality of Work-Life Survey. The HR manager read that satisfaction in many organizations is highly correlated to the amount of development conducted in the organization. To improve satisfaction, they mandated at least 50 hours of training for every employee.

The problem was that the managers implementing the training did not deploy it well. They forced people to go to meaningless training in order to make the 50 hour mandate.

They did not backfill for employees when they were out for training, so when the employees returned to work, they found a huge mess. “Employee satisfaction” actually got worse, even though the measure (number of training hours) showed they met the goal.

Make sure your program to improve one measure does not drive a more important measure to get worse.

A plumbing supply house was interested in improving customer satisfaction, so they asked the counter personnel what they heard from customers. They tried to measure what would make customers happier, so they increased the lighting in the showroom and arranged for better snow plowing of the parking lot.

It turns out the actual customers (not the counter personnel) were contract plumbers who were most interested in getting all of their parts delivered to the jobsite exactly on time. The store was measuring the wrong variables.

If you want to know what the customer really wants, don’t ask a surrogate to give you the information.

It is so easy to fall into these traps when inventing measures. The antidote is to always verify that every measure is doing the following five things:

1. Actually measuring what is important
2. Driving the right behaviors
3. Not easy to manipulate or “game”
4. Easy for people to understand
5. Producing the desired results

I believe that imagining pushing the measure to the extreme case often will reveal a flawed measure. Looking at the computer sales example, you can easily see that while encouraging more customer interfaces is a good thing, when you push it to the extreme and make the individual sales calls so short that no business happens, the measure actually reduces sales.

The verification step is extremely important to do before, during, and after implementation of a new measure. If you forget to do this, it is entirely possible that a well-intended measure is working at cross purposes to your objectives.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

1 Comment | Candor creates trust, Communications, Enabling Actions, HR, leadership, Organization | Tagged: ill advised, Measures, performance, short sighted, Supervisor | Permalink
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Successful Supervisor 38 Maintaining the Ethical Edge

August 6, 2017

I spend a great deal of my time working to help organizations understand the benefits of running an ethical culture. Believe it or not, there are many highly placed leaders who believe that making ethical decisions means lowering the organization’s performance numbers.

The truth has been revealed in numerous books and articles that organizations that make the ethical choices, even though they may be difficult or costly in the short term, outperform unethical organizations by a factor of at least 1.5, often 2, or even more.

Producing an annotated bibliography is not the purpose of this article; if you want to read up on the topic, look up “Business Ethics” on Wikipedia. There are over 200 references listed.

As a “CliffsNotes” approach for this blog, I will refer you to the work of Raj Sisodia from his book “Firms of Endearment,” which is one data point among dozens that all point to the same conclusion: organizations that do the right thing, even though it is difficult at times, end up thriving.

I serve on the Board of Directors of Elevate Rochester, where we seek to celebrate local organizations that are running their businesses with high ethics and are benefiting from that practice. Rather than gripe about corner-cutting operations that sacrifice the long term health for short term gains, Elevate Rochester seeks to champion those organizations that are doing business the right way and gaining huge sustainable benefits, including higher trust for all stakeholders.

You may ask what has this to do with being a supervisor? Well, it has a lot to do with it. I will grant that the ethical tone of an organization starts at levels far above the supervisor, but dealing with ethical dilemmas occurs at all levels, and supervisors are not exempt from the pressures that sometimes lead to ill-advised decisions.

If you are a supervisor, I guarantee that you have to make many ethical decisions every day. You may not recognize them as such, but you are routinely confronted with the opportunity to make choices that support or undermine the ethical standards that are espoused by your organization.

The first, and most important, consideration is how you can tell if you are facing an ethical dilemma. Nobody is going to sneak up behind you, tap you on the shoulder, and whisper into your ear, “Pay attention Bub, this is an ethical choice you are making here.”

The answer is disarmingly simple: you are facing an ethical dilemma if it is unclear to you what the “right” decision is. There are positive and negative consequences for every course of action you might take. Think of it this way: if the “right” thing to do is evident, then you have no problem making an ethical decision.

Once you are aware that you have an ethical decision on your hands, you have arrived at the moment of truth. You can rationalize the situation and make the “easy” or “most popular” decision regardless of the ethical considerations and be done with it.

That action leads to a kind of dry rot within the group where you may actually be putting the larger organization on a slippery slope in terms of lost trust. Small unethical decisions often lead to larger ones, and at different levels, so the reasons why get obscured in the thinking process, and standards get lowered across the board.

Here are some suggested approaches that can protect you from making unethical decisions.

1. Clarify your values and make sure people know what they are

Values written on a chart on the wall are useless unless you follow them, even when it is difficult to do. By compromising on a core value when it makes you swallow hard to follow it, you show that the entire list is a sham, so not only do the values lack power, they actually reveal an hypocrisy that tells people we follow our values only when it is convenient to do so.

2. Consider the context and all stakeholders

Before wrestling with what the “right” approach is, you need to get the facts. Difficult ethical choices are contextual. For example, we would all agree that taking someone else’s property is an ethical violation, but if you find an interesting book someone left in a recycle bin, it would not be a violation to take it. Consider all of the stakeholders when gathering the facts around an issue.

3. Don’t deal with the decision in a vacuum

If you go through the logical calculation alone, you can often talk yourself into the expedient or less than ethical way out. That process ultimately leads to the need to explain your actions to others who can take pot shots at your judgment.

Once you recognize the “right” thing to do is hard to identify, get some help from others who might be able to add different perspectives to the discussion. This approach has the additional advantage of gaining buy-in of the decisions from others.

4. Look at the issue through different lenses

In ethics classes, we teach a whole array of methods to analyze ethical dilemmas. I will briefly outline just four of the more popular methods here, and you can look up about a dozen other ways in any ethics text.

o Utilitarian – Do the greatest good for the greatest number – Consider the whole population and do that which provides the highest value for most of the people.

o Limited Egoism – Attempt to help others and do not violate their rights – This method comes from your attitude in making a decision. You attempt to assist other people and do so with a sense of fairness.

o Kantian – All correct behavior must be reversible or reciprocal, i.e. follow the Golden Rule. If I take an action that impacts another person, would I be willing to have that action taken on me if the roles were reversed?

o Consistency – is a form of moral reasoning that employs counter examples. Explore some analysis of what would happen if conditions were different. For example, you might ask “would I make this decision if I was starving”?

Your decision could go one way when looking at the problem from a Kantian perspective but a different way if you focus on Utilitarianism. Having more than one perspective adds work and potentially confusion, but it does help with the depth of your analysis.

5. Make a concrete decision based on the logic you are using

Often supervisors will equivocate and postpone making a decision because of the difficulty. This is a trap. Kicking the can down the road to next month or delegating the decision upward because you cannot make a call are ways of procrastinating, but they lack commitment.

Make your decision once you have thought the problem through and consulted with others who might have alternate views.

6. Communicate your decision widely

Don’t just tell people what your decision was, but lead them through the logic you went through to make the call. It is usually good to go all the way back to one of your values, and then describe how your decision was based on adherence to that value.

You can share that other decisions were possible, but you feel, based on your analysis, that the one you made is the best long term course of action.

Leaders are faced with ethical dilemmas on a routine basis. It is how you react and deal with these decisions that will govern how well you do personally and how much trust your organization generates with all stakeholders. That increased trust is the basis for the productivity and profitability advantage of running an ethical organization.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

2 Comments | Candor creates trust, Communications, Enabling Actions, leadership, Table stakes, Transparency, Trust, Trust and fear, Trust and motivation, Trust and respect | Tagged: Do right, Ethics, Kantian, Supervisor, Utilitarian, Values | Permalink
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Successful Supervisor 37 – Mastering Body Language

July 30, 2017

The topic of Body Language has fascinated me for decades. There is no way to cover the topic completely in a short blog article, but I can give some tips that may help supervisors know how to prevent misreading BL and how to control their own so the message they are sending with their body is consistent with their verbal message.

I will also share some resources at the end in case this brief introduction whets the appetite for further study.

Body language points us in the direction of what people are feeling, but it is not an exact science. A person could make a gesture that is a random act or something not indicative of the classical meaning.

For example, if a person touches the side of his nose when giving a response, the experts would say that he is lying or exaggerating. Alternatively, it could simply mean that he had an itchy nose at that moment.

Taking singular pieces of body language and assigning specific meaning can result in some wrong conclusions. So how do we know which things are the real meaning?

In interpreting body language, keep the following five “C’s” in mind, and you will improve your accuracy at reading people.

1. Context

Pay attention to what is going on around the person. Body language is contextual and can vary greatly due to ambient conditions.

Folded arms at a cocktail party might suggest the person is being defensive, but folded arms in a snow storm is more likely to be the result of the person being cold.

2. Congruence

Do the words and body language match? If we are faced with two signals, one from the words that are spoken and another from the body language, then we will likely believe the latter.

For example, if I ask a coworker if he is angry with me and he glares at me with a scowl and clenches his fists while he says “NO!,” I am most likely to believe he is angry with me, even though what he said denied it.

3. Clusters

If we see a single bit of body language, we might suspect that it is an indication of something, but it is hard to tell. However, if I see an individual exhibit several signals of a particular body language cue, then I can be very sure of the conclusion.

For example, if a person is wringing his hands and shuffling his feet while wrinkling his forehead and not maintaining eye contact, I can be pretty sure the person is feeling anxious.

4. Consistency

We all have habitual patterns of body language that we revert to when nothing special is going on. While you are sitting in a classroom or in church, you will habitually cross your legs in a certain way or touch your face in a certain spot.

It is best to not interpret body language that is habitual as some kind of signal, but if the habitual position changes, especially as a result of some comment or other stimulus, then the change in body language is probably a signal.

For example, if a person is listening to me and suddenly starts pulling on his ear lobe as I shift the conversation to the new employee, he is likely showing high interest in what I am saying.

5. Culture

Body language and proximity (which is a part of BL) vary greatly from one region of a country to another and even more so from one country to another.

If I am a USA-based business person and I am doing some work with a person from Saudi Arabia, I may find that he stands a little too close for my comfort level.

Likewise if I meet an Eskimo, I might interpret his head shaking side to side as a “no” response, when he is actually telling me “yes.”

Beyond these five general rules, there are thousands of facial expressions and other cues relative to body language. The more you know these cues the better off you will be at interpreting their meaning accurately.

A few of my favorite resources:

1. A very old book, but still available is “How to Read a Person Like a Book” by Nierenberg.
2. A great online test of your ability to read facial expressions accurately.
3. Online resource Body Language Dictionary
4. A DVD of Bill Acheson; a body language expert from University of Pittsburgh

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

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Successful Supervisor 36 – Improving Virtual Communication

July 23, 2017

For the past couple decades, I have been fascinated by the topic of virtual communications. This topic was the subject matter for my second book, Understanding E-body Language: Building Trust Online.

For many supervisors, the need to communicate clearly in virtual situations is becoming more important. Unfortunately, very few supervisors have been trained on how to communicate well virtually. This article will provide some tips to help fill the void.

In most cases supervisors are local managers, and these people are not charged with managing teams in different parts of the world. For those supervisors who do deal with subordinates in remote locations, I recommend the work of my friend Nancy Settle Murphy and her wonderful searchable blog Guided Insights. She has a wealth of information on how to be an effective manager of remote teams.

This article is for supervisors who work with people locally, but do a lot of communicating with subordinates via some form of computer. I will use email as the example, because that is a common form of virtual communication, but the principles will apply to texting or any other non-verbal communication method.

1. Use the right mode of communication

For many applications, a digital note may be the expedient way to communicate, but it may well not be the best way. Consider whether having a face-to-face discussion or a phone call might be the more efficient route in the long run.

Having your cell phone or iPad in your hand is not a reason to use the wrong mode of communication for important topics.

2. E-mail is not a conversation

We often think of email as a type of conversation where one person makes a point and the other person responds. Thinking of e-mail communication like it is a conversation is very dangerous because the two modes are completely different.

When we converse with someone face to face, we modify the pace, tone, cadence, and even the content based on the visible reaction we are seeing in the other person. If we detect misunderstanding based on a quizzical facial expression, we know to back off and try a different approach.

In electronic communication, there is no ability to modify the message as you are giving it, and you get no feedback as the person is absorbing your points.

Therefore, if you start to diverge in terms of understanding, there is no way to correct the problem in real time. The disconnection simply grows as the reader plows on to the next point.

3. Get the right tone at the start

In any message, even a tweet, you need to set the tone at the very start so the other person understands your frame of reference. If not, the message can be read in a way that is totally opposite to your intention. With longer email messages, this is a critical element.

4. Keep the content brief

Twitter helps us in that regard, but the side effect is that sometimes the true intent can be lost in the extreme brevity. With social networking and email, less is often more, because people do not take the time to wade through mountains of text to get the meat.

5. Avoid Absolutes

If I write that you are “always late for meetings,” it is not likely an accurate statement. “You never call me,” is usually proven to be incorrect.

Even if an absolute word is technically correct, it has an accusatory tone that sets up a negative vibe in the mind of the reader who will try to prove the writer is incorrect.

6. Don’t play one upmanship

Escalating emails in an organizational context are familiar long strings of increasing rancor and expanding distribution. I call these diatribes “e-grenade battles.”

The antidote here is to refrain from taking the bait. Simply do not reply in kind to a message that gets under your skin. Instead, pick up the phone or walk down the hall to clear up any misunderstanding.

7. Read before sending

Depending on the gravity of the message, you should reread it at least twice before sending. With social networking this is also true.

Make sure you attempt to put yourself in the place of the reader. Think how the information might be misinterpreted, and make sure you spell things correctly, at least most of the time.

8. Recognize you cannot take them back

Most digital messages are permanent data. They do not atrophy with time like verbal communication does. You can apologize all you want, but the other person can demonstrate that you said this or that.

Make sure you write what you mean to communicate. Emails never go away.

9. Understand you lose control of the distribution

Once you push the send button, it is all over. You cannot get the message back or delete it. It is out there for the intended recipient and potentially any other person in the world to view.

That includes your harshest critics or worst enemies! We all learned that lesson in the last election. Email can become an Achilles Heel, because it can always be recovered somehow.

There are numerous other ways to improve digital communication, but if you keep these nine concepts firmly in your mind, you will have a much more fruitful interface with other people online in the long run.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Leave a Comment » | Candor creates trust, Communications, e-mail, Enabling Actions, leadership, Transparency, Trust and respect | Tagged: communication, email, Guided Insights, remote, Supervisor, text | Permalink
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Successful Supervisor 35 – Communicating with your Group

July 16, 2017

In my last article, I dealt with improving face-to-face communication with individuals using the VARK Model, but often supervisors are called on to communicate information verbally to their entire group.

The skills to do this successfully are different from the ones used to get a message across to a single person, because the group contains people with different communication styles.

There is a group dynamic that can create negative momentum that is not present when working with one individual. Normally, you can read the body language of one person rather easily.

When the information to share is good news, supervisors usually have no problem just getting everyone together and sharing the information. When the news is problematic for the workforce, supervisors often make mistakes that lower trust or even cause more angst than is necessary. It is this case that I want to explore in this article.

When the supervisors are faced with trying to explain information that people really don’t want to hear, it is a real test of their leadership ability and communication skills that many supervisors cannot pass.

Here are some tips that will be helpful to improve the results when communicating negative information.

Have a Plan

If the subject is difficult, it is worth the time to do some concrete planning. Don’t just call everyone together and “wing it.” Consider the reaction you are likely to get and think through how to keep things from spiraling out of control.

You may want to have an HR manager attend the meeting, or you may want to even have some security people available and ready just in case.

Outline the key points, and make sure the sequence is not confusing. Put yourself in the seat of a person who is known to react strongly and test the validity of your approach based on that insight.

Anticipate the issues, fears, and questions people might have and be ready to address them.

Use Different Forms of Communication

Each individual will absorb information most readily based on whether he or she is a visual, auditory or kinesthetic communicator. If the supervisor just speaks (auditory) the information, it will be picked up accurately by the auditory learners but often not by the people who have alternative styles.

Use a chart or a slide to illustrate (visual) your message visually and then get people to share their feelings about the message (kinesthetic).

It will not make the information any easier to take, but it will ensure a better understanding of the message by everyone.

Try Communicating with Smaller Groups

If the news is particularly bad, like an impending layoff, the supervisor would be smart to deal with small family groups rather than a large room full of all the people impacted.

For example, she might get together with the crews on a packaging line for a briefing early in the morning and have a separate meeting with the inspectors later that same morning. Recognize that the rumor mill will spread the bad news very quickly, so do not space out the small groups with a lot of time in between.

Since this communication is one person to many by design, it is important to keep people from shouting insults or derogatory comments and keep the focus on questions for clarification. The smaller group format will be particularly helpful for this.

Body language is extremely important to convey a calm demeanor, even though the topic is troubling. The tone of voice should be soft and low, and the information should be shared in its unvarnished ugliness, but avoid using inflammatory words in the description.

Rehearsing the delivery is important for very sensitive discussions. Trying to sugar coat bad news is a mistake many supervisors try to use in order to get out of a tough situation. It usually does not work.

Allow People the Opportunity to Grieve

Upon hearing bad news, people tend to go into shock. They need to go through the stages of grief in order to work their way through a transition. If you try to deny the grieving period by promising some good things to come, they will become hostile and make the situation worse.

Allow them to feel badly, if that is appropriate, and promise that you will be there for them as they work through the situation. By acknowledging the grief and showing you care about them as people, you will actually be helping them cope during the shock period.

Don’t Lie or Weasel

Often supervisors try to protect themselves by blaming other people or some situation out of their control in order to soften the blow. This strategy will usually backfire.

People have a keen ability to sniff out the BS, so be sure to tell the truth and do not try to weasel out with some lame excuse why it is not your fault. If they are going to blame you anyway, there is nothing you can say to stop that, and any attempt to deflect blame will make things a lot worse for you in the end.

Keep in mind that to these people, you represent the organization.

Set up an Open Channel for Future Communication

Most supervisors have an “open door” policy where people can stop in the office to chat whenever they need it. When there is bad news, it is smart to redouble the accessibility and make an overt attempt to be out there with people.

In doing so you will be one-on-one with individuals, so you can use the VARK Model to match your communication style to their preferred channel.

As a division manager, I noticed that when there was bad news in the air, supervisors tended to cloister themselves in their offices, thinking it would reduce exposure. That behavior only inflames the matter.

I always advocated that supervisors (and managers at all levels) consciously double the time they spend mingling with people in the difficult times. It allows people more opportunity to vent, which reduces the pressure.

In addition, you have the opportunity to squash any false rumors that happen to spring up. During difficult times, rumors seem to take hold and spread with ease.

Make Small Gestures that Show You Care

There is an old saying that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Look for ways to show empathy, but avoid saying something false like saying “I know exactly how you feel.”

I learned a long time ago to avoid saying that phrase to someone who just lost a loved one. It is better to say something like “I cannot imagine the pain you are going through now.” At least that is an honest statement.

The very best approach to use with people is to ask yourself how you would like to be treated if the roles were reversed. This “Golden Rule” approach normally is the safest one to use in sensitive times.

All supervisors and managers go through times where difficult messages need to be disseminated. If you approach this task delicately and with sincerity, you can get through it with grace, and your subordinates will appreciate it, even though they are not happy about the message.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Leave a Comment » | Candor creates trust, Communications, Enabling Actions, HR, leadership, News, Organization, Teamwork, Transparency, Trust, Trust and respect | Tagged: allow people to grieve, communication, groups, Supervisor, VARK Model | Permalink
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Successful Supervisor 44 – Managing Change for Results

Successful Supervisor 43 – Onboarding Tips

Hiring the Right People

Successful Supervisor 41 – Terminating People Well

Successful Supervisor 40 – Engaging People

Successful Supervisor 39 Measuring Performance

Successful Supervisor 38 Maintaining the Ethical Edge

Successful Supervisor 37 – Mastering Body Language

Successful Supervisor 36 – Improving Virtual Communication

Successful Supervisor 35 – Communicating with your Group

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