Leaders: Wag More, Bark Less

February 28, 2015

dogI confess, this title was not made up by me. My wife saw a bumper sticker with this sentiment and shared it with me.

I think the basic wisdom in the phrase is great and wish there was a way to get some managers to understand the simple logic here. Why is it that some bosses feel compelled to bark when wagging is a much more expedient way to bring out the best in people?

The barking dog is simply doing its job. The dog only knows that to defend his territory, he needs to sound off at anything that might encroach.

The frequency of barking is an interesting aspect. Why does the dog bark at intervals less than about 10 seconds?

Is it because he has a short memory and can’t remember that he just barked? Is it because the potential invaders of his territory need to be reminded every few seconds that he is still around? Is it because he simply enjoys keeping the neighbors up all night?

Is he showing off his prowess or having some kind of dog-world conversation with the mutt down the street? I think all of these things could be factors in the frequency of barking, but I suspect the primary reason is a show of persistence.

The message we get from the barking dog is “I am here, I am formidable, I am not going anywhere, so keep your distance.”

In the workplace, if a manager sends a signal, “I am here, I am formidable, I am not going anywhere, so keep your distance,” the workforce is going to get the message and comply.

Unfortunately with just compliance, group performance and morale are going to be awful, but the decibel level will at least keep everyone awake.

When a dog wags its tail, that is a genuine sign of happiness and affection. You can observe the rate of wagging and determine the extent of the dog’s glee.

Sometimes the wag is slow, which indicates everything is okay, and life is good. When you come home at night and the dog is all excited to see you, most likely the wag is more of a blur, and it seems to come from way up in the spine area.

The wag indicates, “I love you, I am glad you are here, you are a good person to me, and will you take me for a walk?”

Dogs are incredibly loyal, even beyond human reason. For example, I am reminded of the picture of a Labrador Retriever lying next to the coffin of his master who was killed in Afghanistan. The dog refused to leave the area.

Even when a dog is not treated well, it does not become critical or judgmental. The wag is not withheld because the dog had a bad day. The dog looks for the good and appreciates it. The dog is ever hopeful, ever optimistic, ever grateful. The wag is still there unless the dog is seriously sick. It is amazing.

A manager who wags more and barks less gets more cooperation. Life is better for people working for this manager, and they simply perform better.

Showing appreciation through good reinforcement is the more enlightened way to manage, yet we still see many managers barking as their main communication with people. Look for the good in people, and appreciate it. Try to modify your bark to wag ratio and see if you get better results over time.

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Merger Problems

January 23, 2015

M&A or Merger and Acquisition text on blockNumerous studies have found over 50% of mergers and acquisitions fall short of expected results, primarily due to the failure of the cultures to integrate well. Why, then are CEOs so cheerful when they head into one of these major restructuring activities?

 

In my book, Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change, I discuss 30 different systemic problems with making mergers work and give antidotes to each of them. In this brief article I will describe what I believe are the five most serious problems and suggest ways to mitigate them.

1. Relying too much on the mechanical process

When MBA students learn about M&As, the content usually is focused on the financial and legal details of setting up a combined entity from two unique groups.

Topics covered include asset valuation, due diligence, negotiation, legal aspects, management structure, and numerous other organizational things that must be considered. Few programs give equal attention to the cultural part of the equation.

Students are left to assume that the culture simply “sorts out” by itself over time. That oversight is huge because cultural issues are usually the root cause of merger problems.

For example, the Daimler-Chrysler merger in 1998 was a classic debacle that cost Daimler nearly $36 billion over a decade. The magnitude of a loss that large, was almost $10 million per day for 10 years! The major reason for the breakup was the failure of the two cultures to integrate.

To improve the M&A process, it would be helpful to give the cultural integration equal footing with the legal and financial aspects of the activities from the start.

2. Loss of objectivity leads to inadequate planning

Top leaders can easily see the benefits, and they look seductively attractive. The costs and hassles seem to be manageable, so not much energy is spent on internal culture issues or potential external problems for customers.

The upside of the deal is championed, while challenges are pushed aside. Objectivity gives way to passion for the deal.

Anyone who questions the validity of an assumption or brings up a potential problem is labeled as “not a team player,” so reasonable dissent is extinguished.

Here are three antidotes for this situation:

1) have a trusted Devil’s Advocate on the senior team who will prevent myopic optimism,

2) explore potential problem areas and design solutions that mitigate risk, and

3) calculate the ROI based on the best guess of the benefits, but inflate estimated costs and problems, because real costs will surface later and often be larger than anticipated.

3. Lack of adequate training

Leadership training is crucial during any kind of reorganization. Many organizations back off on training for leaders because there is so much chaos during the integration that most leaders are “too busy to sit in the classroom.”

Antidote: Bring the classroom to the chaos. What better time is there to do leadership development than right there in the middle of the crucible? Skilled L&D professionals can leverage the urgent need for solutions into pragmatic problem solving and motivational skills.

Supervisors are also in urgent need of leadership training during a reorganization. Reason: they form the critical trust link between the management layers and the workers. Changes faced by each supervisor are stressful personally, yet this individual is vital in creating order for the other people.

Weak or bully supervisors often come unglued due to the pressures of a merger. They need training and assistance in order to perform their function when it matters most.

4. “We Versus They” Thinking

From day one, the leaders must not only preach the avoidance of “we versus they” thinking, they must model it and insist on it.

I often hear language that indicates lack of full integration years after a merger has been supposedly completed. It is essential to replace parochial thinking with “us” type language and actions.

One way to help speed the integration is to co-locate the groups. That is often impossible in the short term, so transplanting some key resources from one group to the other is another way to make it harder to tell who “we” are and who “they” are.

5. Loss of Trust

In the anticipation of a merger or acquisition, adrenaline drives expectations of what the merged entity can accomplish. It is easy to assume the individual needs will be resolved and team cohesion will somehow settle in quickly.

That is usually not the case, and often bitter feelings linger on, hurting the integrated organization for years.

Candid and frequent communication is needed to keep people informed and allow top managers to feel the angst of workers. It is in these interfaces that trust is either maintained or destroyed by the behaviors, words, and body language of senior leaders.

Ten Best Practices

Anticipate a bumpy ride, and expect that significant psychological calming is going to be needed at times. Here are some additional ideas that may be helpful:

1. Be clear and transparent throughout the process.

2. Create design teams early to help people connect with the future more quickly.

3. Include the customer in every decision, especially during the chaos phase.

4. Assume the risk of setbacks willingly, and do not let unexpected issues spoil the overall process.

5. Invest in some Emotional Intelligence training for people in the organization, especially management.

6. Celebrate positive movement in an integrated way to model the spirit of the merged culture.

7. Bring in a grief counselor to help people cope with the loss and the transition.

8. Train leaders to model the integrated behaviors, and do not tolerate silo thinking.

9. Consider cross-locating or co-locating people, where possible.

10. Prune redundant resources delicately with a sharp scalpel rather than a long line of guillotines.

There can be times of joy and accomplishment during any merger or acquisition. It is possible to maintain trust, even amidst the chaos. After all, the vision for the whole activity is a brighter future.

The wise leader will recognize that changes of this magnitude require extraordinary effort and patience to achieve the anticipated result.

By focusing the same level of effort on establishing the right kind of culture as they do on the financial and legal aspects of reorganization, leaders can ensure they meet or exceed their goals.

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Don’t Eat Dessert First

July 19, 2014

Cheesecake with fresh strawberries on white plate closeupAs a leader, how many times a week do you say, “We’ve got to motivate our people?” When you do, you make a mistake that often leads to lower rather than higher motivation.

Seeking to motivate employees is the most common thought pattern leaders use every day, so what’s wrong with it?

Trying to motivate workers shows a lack of understanding about what motivation is and how it is achieved.

Leaders who think this way want to eat the dessert before the entrée. While the temptation for the tasty stuff may seem irresistible, it is not a wise strategy because after dessert, the main course is less appealing.

Leaders do not make the necessary mind shift to do the things that actually do improve motivation. So, what is the dessert and what is the entrée?

The entrée is the culture of the organization that either enables or extinguishes motivation. The dessert is how satisfied people feel at any particular moment.

Why do many leaders try to reverse the conventional order; try to motivate people by making them feel good?

1. Poor understanding of motivation –

The notion that by adding perks to the workplace we somehow make people more motivated is flawed. Over 50 years ago, Frederick Herzberg taught us that increasing the so-called “hygiene factors” is a good way to sweeten things (reduce dissatisfaction in the workplace), but a poor way to increase motivation.

Why? – because goodies like picnics, pizza parties, hat days, bonuses, new furniture, etc. often help people become happier at work, but they do little to impact the reasons they are motivated to do their best work.

2. Taking the easy way out –

Many leaders believe that by heaping nice things on top of people it will feel like a better culture.

The only way to improve the culture is to build trust.

By focusing on a better environment, managers enable people to motivate themselves.

3. Using the wrong approach –

It is difficult to motivate another person. You can scare a person into compliance, but that’s not motivation, it is fear.

You can bribe a person into feeling happy, but that’s not motivation it is temporary euphoria that is quickly replaced by a “what have you done for me lately” mentality.

4. Focusing on perks –

Individuals will gladly accept any kind of tasty dessert the boss is willing to dish up, but the reason they go the extra mile is a personal choice based on the level of motivational factors, not the size of the cheese cake.

Putting the entrée before the dessert means working on the culture to build trust first.

Improving the motivating factors, such as authority, reinforcement, growth, and responsibility creates the right environment. Motivation within people will happen. Then, when dessert is added, it is much sweeter.

Why do I make this distinction? I believe motivation comes from within each of us.

As a manager or leader, I do not believe you or anyone else can motivate other people. What you can do is create a process or culture whereby employees will decide to become motivated to perform at peak levels.

An example is when you set a vision and goals then allow people to use their initiative to get the job done as they see fit.

How can we tell when a leader has the wrong understanding about motivation? A clear signal is when the word “motivate” is used as a verb – for example, “Let’s see if we can motivate the team by offering a bonus.”

If we seek to change other people’s attitude about work with perks, we are going to be disappointed frequently.

Using the word “motivation” as a noun usually shows a better understanding – “Let’s increase the motivation in our workforce by giving the team the ability to choose their own methods to achieve goals.”

An organization where all people are pursuing a common vision in a healthy environment has a sustainable competitive advantage due to high employee motivation.

The way to create this is to build a culture of TRUST and affection within the organization.

You accomplish this through consistency and by letting people know it is safe to voice their opinion without fear of reprisal.

You work to inspire people with a vision of a better existence for them and by really hearing their input. Doing this helps employees become motivated because:

• They feel a part of a winning team and do not want to let the team down. Being a winner is fun.
• They feel both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards when they are doing their best work and that is what drives their behaviors.
• They appreciate their co-workers and seek ways to help them physically and emotionally.
• They understand the goals of the organization and are personally committed to help as much as they can in the pursuit of the goals.
• They truly enjoy the social interactions with peers. They feel that going to work is a little like going bowling, except they are distributing computers instead of rolling a ball at wooden pins.
• They deeply respect their leaders and want them to be successful.
• They feel like they are part owners of the company and want it to succeed. By doing so, they bring success to themselves and their friends at work.
• They feel recognized for their many contributions and feel wonderful about that. If there is a picnic or a cash bonus, that is just the icing on the cake: not the full meal.

For an organization, “culture” means how people interact, what they believe, and how they create.

If you could peel off the roof of an organization, you would see the manifestations of the culture in the physical world. The actual culture is more esoteric because it resides in the hearts and minds of the society. It is the impetus for observable behaviors.

Achieving a state where all people are fully engaged is a large undertaking. It requires tremendous focus and leadership to achieve.

It cannot be something you do on Tuesday afternoons or when you have special meetings. Describe it as a new way of life rather than a program. You should see evidence of this in every nook and cranny of the organization.

Do not skip directly to dessert by attempting to motivate people with special events or gifts.

Instead, dine with your people on motivating factors and build the meal around a culture of trust.

The end result is that many people will choose to be highly motivated, and the organization will prosper. Then, if you give some tangible perks for reinforcements, they will be like a wonderful dessert that is more meaningful and longer lasting.

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Do Leaders Motivate or Demotivate?

December 28, 2013

Business problemsI have written about the connection between leadership and motivation in the past, but I have not coupled that with the connection between leadership and demotivation.

By the way, just because my spell checker keeps underlining the word “demotivate” does not mean it’s an illegal word. It is not in many dictionaries, like Websters, but it does exist in some of them, like The Cambridge Dictionary.

There is even an organization ( Despair Inc. ) that sells demotivating posters and other strange products. I love their motto, “Motivational products don’t work, but our demotivational products don’t work even better.”

There is also a fun website completely devoted to demotivation.

In this article, I reveal some truths and myths about how leaders motivate and demotivate.

My thesis on motivation is that leaders really cannot motivate individuals. When leaders use the word “motivate” as a verb, as in “We need to motivate the team,” it is incorrect usage.

What leaders do is create the culture in which people react with high motivation. A prime example is when leaders create an inspiring vision, shared values, and an environment of high trust, where people feel valued.

Motivation comes from within an individual, and a person working in a culture of trust is more likely to feel motivated.

Once motivation is generated within someone, that person owns it. The sad truth is that the precious commodity can be snatched away from that individual as quickly as a seagull can snatch a discarded scrap of bread at a beach picnic.

I believe that leaders can easily eliminate the motivation within a person. Many leaders are masters at it, demonstrating their skill numerous times a day.

Taking away the motivation of an individual is easier than doing the Chicken Dance.

Here is my top 10 list of things that leaders do to demotivate people at work. See if you agree, and let me know if you have pet peeves of your own to add to the list.

1. Trivialize what an individual is doing or make fun of the employee

2. Claim credit for the good work of an employee

3. Give an assignment, then micromanage the employee

4. Ignore the employee when he or she does some spectacular work

5. Punish the employee who brings up a concern

6. Play favorites or appoint a relative to a position of power over others

7. Insult the employee by drawing attention to what he or she cannot do

8. Engage in sexual or other forms of harassment with the employee

9. Set impossible goals and berate the employees for missing them

10. Demand honesty from the employees but demonstrate low integrity him or herself

In reality, there are thousands of ways a leader or manager can demotivate an individual who has already been inspired to become motivated.

Elite leaders realize that the way to encourage top performance is to set up conditions such that individuals motivate themselves, and then stand out of the way and let them turn the motivation into positive action for the organization.

My advice for leaders is to create enduring trust, which is the environment for high motivation, and then when motivation occurs, don’t kill it.

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Five C’s of Accountability

October 27, 2013

Letter "C" - See all letters in my PortfolioAccountability is a very popular word these days. In my consulting practice, the word comes up on a daily basis. I have written articles on various aspects of accountability, from the attitudes that make it more constructive (not always negative) to how leaders should feel more accountable for their own actions before blaming others.

This article outlines five principles of accountability that can help any leader do a better job in this critical area of performance management.

The five principles are 1) Clarify Expectations, 2) My Contribution, 3) Care, 4) Comprehensive and Balanced, and 5) Collective Responsibility. Putting these five practices in play on a daily basis will improve the performance of any organization. Let’s see why that is:

Clarify Expectations

People must understand expectations to have any shot at meeting them. In some complex situations, a written document is required, but most of the time it is a matter of spelling out what the requirements are and gaining a verification that the employee has truly internalized them.

Often a failure to perform at the prescribed level can be traced to a misunderstanding between the supervisor and employee.

Supervisors sometimes make the mistake of assuming the employee understands what is required because he or she has heard the instructions. To verify understanding it is critical to have the employee state in his or her own words the specific requirement.

It needs to be framed up in terms of the specific action to be done by a specific time and with certain level of quality level. The employee can decide how to accomplish the task, but the deliverable must be crystal clear to avoid ambiguity.

Having the employee parrot back the expectation has the additional benefit in the event the deliverable is fuzzy. The supervisor can take the time to reiterate the specific deliverable before the employee attempts to do it. This saves time, money and reduces frustration.

My Contribution

Often the supervisor will attempt to hold an employee or group accountable when the reason for the shortfall was a blockage caused by the supervisor rather than the workers. Most people will do a good job if the culture and environment set up by management are conducive to working well.

When supervisors micromanage or otherwise destroy positive attitudes of the workers, they are contributing substantially to the shortfall they see within the workforce. They are quite often the root cause of the problem, yet they find it convenient to blame the workers for not toeing the line.

I recall one VP who lamented that “all my people are lazy.” As I dug into the situation, it was evident that the bully attitudes of the VP had caused people to become apathetic and perform only when beaten.

The VP blamed the workers, but he was clearly the source of the problem. He could not understand this connection of cause and effect. If this VP was replaced by an empowering leader, those “lazy” workers would quickly become productive and show high initiative.

Care

When giving feedback on performance, especially if performance is not at the level expected, be sure to treat the employee the way you would want to be treated if the situation was reversed.

The Golden Rule provides excellent guidance in most cases.

There are some exceptions where the Golden Rule breaks down (suppose I enjoy being yelled at and confronted), but they are rare. If the manager demonstrates real care for the individual, even when the feedback is not positive, the employee will usually respond well to the input.

Comprehensive and Balanced

This principle means that the leader must take the big picture of what is going on into account when deciding if an individual is meeting what is expected. There may be a specific reason for not living up to the agreed performance that is totally out of the control of the employee.

If a dog is left locked up in the house all day, it is entirely possible you will find a mess on the floor, even if the dog would have loved to have been let out.

Make sure that the feedback is balanced such that you account for the good things they do as well as for times they fall short. Since most people do things right far more than they fail, your holding people accountable should normally be a positive discussion.

Rapport and trust are destroyed when employees only hear from management when they are having problems.

Collective Responsibility

If the accountability discussion has the flavor of everyone, including the manager, being responsible, then that feeling of a family working together will permeate the discussions, and they will be more fruitful.

When the manager points the finger at a specific worker and fails to involve the other people who also make up the system, the employee feels picked on. This results in hard feelings and creates more problems than it solves.

These five C’s will help you create an environment where holding people accountable is more productive and effective. Try to remember these principles when you are dealing with the people in your life.

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Hold Employees Procountable

June 16, 2013

Thumbsup croppedNo, that is not a typo in the title. This article is a twist on the concept of “holding people accountable.” Those three words seem to be the mantra in management circles over the past few years. When used, these words almost always mean that someone has fallen short versus expectations, and the supervisor needs to point out that lapse and have a discussion about improving performance. If you listen carefully, nearly 100% of the time managers use “hold them accountable,” it is coming from a failure point of view.

One source of the problem is the word “hold.” It conjures up an image of holding a person’s feet to the fire. The transitive verb to hold means, ” to make liable or accountable or bound to an obligation” (Mirriam Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary). In other words, when we hold something in this sense, a force is acting to restrain it, and make it liable to a prior obligation. That is clearly negative spin rather than the alternate concept of helping people do the right thing for the betterment of the organization.

Imagine how the world would be different if we eliminated the negative concept of accountability and replaced it with a positive concept called “procountability.” In this case, the action would be to reflect on the many ways an individual is doing well and measuring up to, or exceeding, expectations.

For most people, being held procountable would be a positive experience that would encourage more of those actions rather than cause a person to cower in fear of the next chewing out from the boss. Sure, there would be times when a person did not measure up to expectations, so the procountable discussion would point out that the intentions of the individual did not produce the expected result in this instance. Some coaching may be needed, and occasionally a kick in the butt may be helpful, but most of the procountable discussions would be supportive and lead to higher productivity on the part of the individual.

The logic here is that most people come to work on most days with the intention of doing the right things. Very few people actually try to mess up at work, and if you tolerate any of these people on your team, shame on you. Get rid of them as fast as you can. So, if most people are doing the right things most of the time, we could have numerous procountable discussions relative to their successes. When a occasional lapse does happen, for whatever reason, it would be the exception rather than the rule on feedback. That difference alone would change the equation greatly. If 95% of the feedback is coming in the form of supportive comments, and only 5% coming in the form of potential improvements, the working environment would be a much better place for most employees.

Unfortunately, in most organizations that obsess on holding people accountable, the feedback employees hear from managers and supervisors is 95% negative and only 5% supportive. After a while, the culture gets beaten down, and the need for more corrective and punitive discussions becomes more frequent. The common phrase uttered by thousands of workers over the decades is “the only time I ever hear from my boss is when I screw up.”

Try reversing the logic and encourage managers to hold employees procountable rather than accountable. It will change the entire environment at work. Soon there will be a lower propensity for problems because the overwhelming volume of feedback produces a positive feeling that comes from being recognized for doing the right things.

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Do Not Mix Empowerment and Morale

May 11, 2013

Girl with thumbs upMost of the time morale and empowerment are linked, but they do not always have to be. When we think of empowered people, we imagine individuals who are allowed to figure out how to do their work the best way they know how. When we think of people with high morale, we envision individuals who feel really good about what they are doing for some reason.

I can imagine a situation where my morale would be high but I am not empowered very much. Suppose I am stuffing envelopes at the United Way Office. I have very little freedom to put creativity into the job. It needs to be done just exactly the prescribed way each time. I have very low empowerment and a huge stack of routine work, yet I have a feeling that I am making a contribution to a good cause, so my morale is very high. As a result of my work, many families will be receiving the services they need. My heart is light as I am doing banal work that is incredibly tedious.

On the flip side, imagine I am given an assignment to run the weekly parts inventory as a substitute for the regular technician. I am given the freedom to organize the job and get it done any way I wish. I can come in during evening hours or on the weekend when things are quiet if I like. I am not bound to do the job a specific way as long as I get the job done in a responsible way. My empowerment is pretty high. Unfortunately, I am not a numbers person, and I hate doing inventory. I think it is boring, and it feels like a prison sentence until the job is done. As I launch into the work, my morale is very low. I do not want to do it, yet I am empowered to make all kinds of decisions about how it will be done. In this case, we see high empowerment coupled with low morale.

Most of the time morale and empowerment occur at the same time, but it is a mistake to think this is always the case. The two concepts are different and are impacted differently based on what is going on in a particular case.

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Measuring Morale

April 13, 2013

scaleCan you measure morale accurately by simply walking into a room and observing people? I think you can. In my courses, I often ask participants to tell me the best way to measure morale. Most of them come up with the idea of an employee survey or some other form of lagging indicator, like turnover rate. While both of these techniques are useful, I think there is a far faster and more accurate way to measure the morale of people in an organization, and you can do it while there is still time to take corrective actions. All you have to do is observe the individuals, and they will give ample clues as to their morale.

Here are seven ways to measure morale by watching and listening to what people do:

1. Posture

If people are standing with one hip raised, that is a sign of a poor attitude. It is a hostile gesture where the individual has a chip on his shoulder and he is daring you to knock it off. If people are sitting in a slouched-over configuration, that may be simple fatigue or it may be they feel beaten down and fearful when managers are around. If you walk into a room and people are sitting around a table leaning back with their arms folded, you can immediately sense these folks are dug in, grumpy, and not happy. The most sensitive areas for posture are in the shoulders and the position of the spine. I once walked into a restaurant to meet up with a colleague for a chat. She was sitting in a booth with her back to me and did not see me approach. All I could see of her was the back of her head and the upper 6 inches of her shoulders. I accurately determined before seeing her face or hearing her voice that she was in crisis mode due to a family tragedy.

2. Gestures

When people are together, watch the gestures. If they are doing a lot of finger pointing as they speak, there is a hostile environment. If their hands are most often open with palms up, that means they are open to ideas and suggestions. Watch to see if the gestures remain the same as managers come in the room. For example, if people are having an animated conversation about some outside event but clam up both verbally and with gesturing when the manager walks in, it is a sign of either fear or apathy. Certainly hostile or vulgar gestures are obvious indications of poor morale. The best display of good attitudes is if the gesturing remains the same when a manager approaches. People are comfortable and not threatened by this leader.

3. Facial Expression

There are thousands of facial expressions that have meaning, and many of these are specific to the culture in which they are used. The eyes and mouth hold the most information about attitude. For example, when a manager is giving information, if people roll their eyes, the meaning is that they believe the manager is basically clueless and is wasting their time. If they are tight lipped, it is normally a sign of fear and low trust. The most positive expression for morale is a slight smile with bright open eyes and highly arched eyebrows. This expression indicates interest and openness.

4. Tone of voice

When people speak, their tone will give away how engaged they are in the conversation at hand. Apathy is easy to spot with a kind of roll-off of words in a low pitch that says “I don’t care.” If the voice is stressed and shrill, that usually connotes fear of some type. Anger is easy to detect as the voice becomes choppy and the pitch and volume go up dramatically. The sneer also can be detected as people take on a mocking tone when they mimic other people. Medium voice modulation with good diction usually means good engagement and attention.

5. Jokes

When people make jokes at the expense of the other people, it is often thought of as just kidding around. The fact is, there is always some kind of truth underlying every dig. So if people are mocking a manager for always showing up late to the meeting, it may cause a chuckle, but it actually reveals that people believe the manager has no real respect for them. Some groups are world class at making jokes at the expense of team members. I maintain this is a sign of poor rapport that will show up as lack of good teamwork. This poor behavior can be easily stopped by just coming up with a rule that we will no longer make jokes at the expense of others.

At one company where I was teaching, the rule about not making jokes at the expense of others was the third behavioral rule on their list (I always have groups create such a list). It was easy to extinguish the bad habit because we just allowed people to hold up three fingers whenever anybody violated the rule. The poor behavior, that had been going on for decades in that organization, was fully extinguished in less than one hour.

6. Word choice

When people are honestly engaged in positive conversation and are making constructive observations or ideas, it shows high morale. If they undermine the ideas of others or management, it shows a lack of respect that has its roots in low morale. If the leader asks for a volunteer and you can hear a pin drop, that is a different reaction than if three hands go up immediately. People with high morale spontaneously volunteer to help out the organization. They respect their leader and truly want him or her to succeed because they know if the leader is successful then good things will happen for them.

7. Reinforcement

In a culture of high morale, people have a tendency to praise each other and seek ways to help out other people. When morale is low, everybody is in it for themselves and will discredit the ideas or desires of other people to preserve their own status. Leaders who know how to build a culture where individuals spontaneously praise each other for good deeds can foster higher morale by that emphasis alone.

These are just seven ways you can identify the morale of a group simply by observing what people are doing and saying. You can go to the trouble of a time consuming and suspect survey, but you do not need to in order to measure morale. Measuring turnover or absenteeism will be an accurate long term reflection of morale, but by the time you get that data, the damage is already done. You have often lost the best people. By observing people every day and making small corrective actions along the way, you can prevent low morale and build an environment of higher trust. In that kind of culture, productivity will go up dramatically.

15 Comments | Candor creates trust, Communications, leadership, Organization, Teamwork, Trust, Trust and fear, Trust and motivation | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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Is Happiness the Same as Morale?

March 23, 2013

Laughing out loud croppedAre morale and happiness really the same thing? We say that people at work have high morale when they are happy, but does one always follow the other? I can imagine that they are linked in some way, usually, but I suspect it is possible to have high morale even if you do not particularly like your job.

Think about some job or activity that you have had in the past that you really did not enjoy very much. You were not cheerful while on the job, but you might have had high morale because it was getting you somewhere.

A good example might be working toward a college degree. I recognize that, for most people, reading books, writing papers, and taking exams are not fun activities. I remember being very unhappy as a student many times, as the stress would get to me. Yet, while not enjoying the work at all, I still had very high morale because I knew the education would pay off in the end, which it did.

Let’s find an example of the reverse situation: Happy but with low morale. There are numerous ways this can happen. You might be in a situation where you are working for a leader you do not respect and who tries to bribe people into being engaged in the work by letting them get away with things and giving away perks beyond a reasonable level. This leader has one thing in mind, make people at work happy. Well, he can accomplish this and make me happy about all the goodies he is providing and that he lets me go home early whenever I want. It is not hard to imagine my morale being rather low after a while. Reason: I am not challenged and am given things that I do not deserve.

Another example might be when working on a specific project that I know is important. I am working in a not-for-profit organization. Here I am happy because my labor is going for a good cause. The result of my work is helping many needy families. I have to tolerate the fact that my boss is a hopeless micromanager who needs to know the details of everything I do and wants me to do everything how he would do it. I can be happy with the contribution I am making to society, but my morale is low because of the working conditions I must endure for the privilege of making that contribution.

Most of the time we see a linking of happiness and morale. Workers who are satisfied usually also exhibit high motivation, but it does not always have to be so. In fact, Frederick Herzberg taught us over 60 years ago, with his Two Factor Theory, that the controlling factors for satisfaction are different from those that generally cause motivation. He called the things that keep people from becoming unhappy “hygiene factors.” These would be things like pay, bonuses, nice offices, clean restrooms, comfortable furniture, and parking close to the building. If the hygiene factors are missing, then people are going to become dissatisfied, but piling on more hygiene factors is not the way to create higher motivation or morale. The “motivating factors” of responsibility, accountability, autonomy, flexibility, caring, and other less tangible factors have more power to create morale and motivation.

We see that there is a general trend that happy workers have high morale, and I grant that is usually the case. The two concepts are not the same, and neither are they hard-wired together. To have the most productive workers, not only do they need to be reasonably happy, but they must simultaneously have high morale. Leaders need to test for both conditions.

7 Comments | Communications, Enabling Actions, HR, leadership, Trust, Trust and motivation | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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Murders and Apparitions

March 9, 2013

Knife in handMost business people call them Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), but my wife calls them Murders and Apparitions. M&As are supposed to make things better, but far too often they create ghosts that spirit away trust or lead to outright “companycide.”

For those who have not studied the subject, the failure rate of M&As typically runs between 50% and 80%. Don’t believe me? Look it up! Of course that statistic depends on how you define failure. A “failure” does not always mean the merger needs to be broken up or the acquisition resold. Generally, people refer to an M&A failure when organizations have preconceived expectations from a merger or acquisition that are not realized within 2-3 years after the event.

M&A failures are common, but it is not because the lawyers, accountants, and managers of the entities do a poor job with the mechanical parts of the action. The negotiations, due diligence, formal papers, tax considerations, asset valuation, and other tangible things are taught in the business schools and are normally pretty well done. What invariably destroys an M&A is a failure to merge the cultures of the two entities into a reasonable blended culture.

Murders

Many things get killed off in a typical merger or acquisition. First, the culture of both groups is lost. What emerges often is unsatisfactory to both groups of people. It is amazing to interview people in the throes of an M&A, because often people in both groups believe they got the shaft and the other group received the lion’s share of benefits. Motivation is squandered when a culture is murdered. People are lost, walking around like zombies, not knowing if they even have a job, let alone exactly what that job might be.

Another fatality is customer service. While most people in both groups are in disarray, and this can take years to fix, the customer assumes second place. Survival for each individual becomes paramount. The customers do not care at all about the merger or its success; the customers just want high quality products on time and at the expected price. They expect rapid and friendly service if something goes wrong, but they find it hard to even contact people, let alone get swift answers to technical problems.

Death also comes swiftly to teamwork. In most situations there will be future job cuts. This realization pits people against each other. One can observe all kinds of backstabbing activities or even outright sabotage. Sometimes cliques will emerge where groups are openly combative in the mad scramble for ultimate survival.

Apparitions

There are numerous factors that, while not deathlike, will seem to be ghostly or somehow haunted. A good example is the development of people. Prior to the merger or acquisition, both entities have concrete development plans for most employees. During the transition, these plans are usually put on hold because nobody knows who the survivors are going to be. It takes a long time after the full integration happens to get back to a documented and well-understood plan for developing people.

Another apparition is communications. It turns out that during normal times, poor communication is the number one or number two complaint for most employees. Imagine how communication suffers when managers are totally preoccupied with putting out fires and there are no real answers to logical questions. The lack of solid information generally tends to add both time and cost to the process, which lowers the chances of success.

A third apparition is the spirit of the employees. Since the ultimate blended culture is going to be somewhat different than either of the two initial cultures, people quickly become discouraged. Therefore, during an extended period, there really is no definable culture for the organization. This exacerbates the problems.

A final example of an apparition is the role of HR. The HR departments of both the pre-merged entities were functioning as highly taxed groups struggling to keep up. In the merged configuration, HR is burdened with about three times the load of critical work at a time when many of the HR staff do not know if their own jobs are secure. The service level of HR appears ghostly to most employees because HR is in no condition to provide basic service, let alone meet the significantly enhanced challenges.

During a time of trying to integrate two entities into one, there are a multitude of problems and issues. A large percentage of these issues were not anticipated by the well-intended mangers who dreamed up the wonderful new configuration. With all the problems outlined above, it is no wonder people are extremely wary of mergers and acquisitions. It takes exceptional leadership to prevent chaos and loss of market share when organizations go through these major upheavals. The fact that some M&As do succeed is a testament to the skill and fortitude of the people involved in the successful ventures.

2 Comments | Candor creates trust, Enabling Actions, Mergers, Organization, Teamwork, Trust, Trust and fear, Trust and motivation | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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