There has long been a serious trust deficit between leaders and their people, and the pandemic has exacerbated it. But before examining this, let’s explore the meaning of trust and COVID’s effect on it.

Trust is often a misunderstood concept. People often say things like “I don’t trust that person,” making it sound like our decision to trust is a gut feeling or emotion. But we actually make our judgment to trust or not trust based on another person’s behaviors. When people don’t trust their leaders, it’s because there are untrustworthy behaviors happening, intentionally or unintentionally.

COVID and Trust

The pandemic has pushed the issue of trust to the forefront. We are no longer connecting at the proverbial water cooler, at lunch, or during happy hour. Our lack of face-to-face interactions has weakened our ability to connect. This has a cascade effect that also weakens the other three elements of trust. (See sidebar.)

Trust is the foundation of every relationship. If you don’t think your leader is there for you, there’s no real possibility for commitment, engagement, or collaboration. And being there during the pandemic is vastly different from the pre-COVID world.

Consider this example. Now that we have so little contact, it’s easy for a person to wonder if their leader really has their back. And if someone questions this fundamental need for a leader to stand up for their people, it’s extremely challenging to coach, have difficult conversations, manage performance, help someone navigate their career, or give meaningful feedback. The rift between the leader and their people grows.

In the pre-pandemic world, it was assumed good managers held weekly one-on-ones with their people where they gave them their undivided attention. But if leaders weren’t doing that before the pandemic, it’s not likely they’re doing it now. In this difficult moment, leaders have to be especially intentional. They must make it a point to communicate and connect if they are to build trust. They must show their people they care about them.

An Example from My Life

I’ll share an example from my life that shows how actions can be misconstrued and how leaders need to connect intentionally. I really worked to master my craft as an instructional designer and solution architect. I tend to get so excited about my work that it’s easy for me to overcommit.

What does overcommitment look like in terms of trust and untrustworthy behavior? I often have back-to-back calls (because it’s hard to say no), and when that happens, I’m habitually late. That’s a ding on my dependability, which breaks one of the four elements of trust.

When you’re not dependable, it can undermine trust. My people may begin to think “Britney’s always putting something else before me. Is there something more important than our time? If she’s not dependable, does she really care about me?” So even something as simple as being late to meetings can profoundly impact relationships with people.

How Immersive Learning Closes the Trust Gap

Trust has been taught as a central principle of good leadership for as long as leadership development has been around. But it’s not a simple thing. No one willingly says “Hey, I’m a total jerk. I’m untrustworthy and I need your help.” So subjective assessments about our trustworthiness are the norm. And when it comes up in training, learners gloss over it. They click through the module, multi-task during the virtual session, or scroll through the PDF. They think “Yeah, I got this! It’s easy to understand.” They aren’t wrong—it is easy to understand. But it’s hard to practice.

Immersive learning and VR, on the other hand, provide the objectivity needed for self-awareness. It helps the learner understand that trust is built on behaviors. It has nothing to do with how long you’ve been a leader. It forces people to consider whether they are intentional with what they say and do during a conversation. The focus is on behaviors: how they care about their people; how dependable they are; how authentic they are; how competent they are. Learning through immersing in scenarios and relevant situations in a realistic setting shows that there are many factors that contribute to a strong relationship built on trust.

Blanchard’s Building Trust Immersive Learning modules give individuals the opportunity to talk to Sherri, a leader who is having trust issues with her team. Through a lifelike conversation, individuals help her see and understand the impact of her behaviors on building or eroding trust and identify the elements of trust that need improving to build and maintain trusting relationships.

The ingenious part of each scenario is that it doesn’t immediately present itself as a trust problem. It starts with how Sherri is behaving. The learner’s challenge is to figure out what Sherri can do to improve the situation. This gives learners the chance to absorb the elements of trust and practice the conversation in a realistic and safe environment. You can ask yourself what you would do if you were Sherri, and it happens through a lively and casual discussion. You can’t do this with a static medium like a video, an article, or an interactive PDF.

Why VR Works

While the Building Trust modules are available to stream via a desktop computer, experiencing the modules in a VR headset offers a massively differentiated experience, as VR allows individuals to be more focused and more emotionally connected to the content. VR also helps participants learn faster than if they were in a classroom and be more confident when applying the skills.

When you have a sophisticated VR simulation like Blanchard’s Building Trust, you get to practice what you would say, help Sherri build trust with her team, and make her more mindful of her behaviors. And when you put on the VR headset, you’re immersed in the environment. You remember Sherri’s face, the clothes she was wearing, the look of the office. Because of this, you vividly remember having the conversation. It becomes something you can recall more fluidly. It becomes an experience instead of a memory.

Research shows that learners don’t have the same sort of experience with a traditional eLearning course.

The VR Moment

VR has many benefits other than the ones I shared. It’s a way to have real interaction in a time of social distancing. It’s ideal for a global, virtual, and matrixed business world, because time and place no longer matter. Everyone has equal access to the same learning materials. VR creates equality.

Using VR to build trust is a way to help people build better relationships, which is the foundation of great leadership. It brings a human element to learning. It lets people practice and then transfer new behaviors to the workplace. It’s also scalable and immersive. And it’s going to be a key pillar in leadership development in the years to come.

The time for virtual reality (VR) in leadership development has arrived.

VR simulations are becoming more immersive. Equipment and development costs are falling. Leaders are busier than ever. And the pandemic has scattered workforces and required social distancing.

A Giant Step for Leadership Development

VR represents such a giant step in leadership development that it’s worth reviewing the past. Ten years ago, most leadership training happened in face-to-face classrooms. Over the last few years, much of it has evolved into online training modules and stretched learning journeys. While these modalities are more accessible to the learner in a moment of need, these online modalities came with the difficult challenge: how do you allow people to practice new skills and reinforce new concepts in an e-learning design?

VR for leadership development addresses these challenges by integrating learning into the flow of work. New concepts and skills are immediately reinforced. This turns theory into behavior.

That’s just the beginning. We are truly at a watershed moment.

Learning Becomes Behavior

What makes VR so powerful is that it is experiential. It sticks with the learner as a lived memory. In scientific terms, experiential learning creates episodic memory. For the purposes of learning, episodic memory results in unmatched retention and behavioral change. That makes VR one of the most powerful ways to turn learning into behavior.

Another powerful benefit of VR is that behaviors in real and virtual worlds are easily transferred. L&D professionals can create experiences that intentionally cultivate specific behaviors in learners. And what learners practice in simulation is likely to be demonstrated in the workplace. In fact, VR is so powerful that skill transfer can happen spontaneously and unconsciously.

Safe Practice Builds Skills

VR lets leaders practice new skills without worrying about real-world consequences. While this “safe sandbox” benefit applies to any type of online training, the stakes within leadership development are often much higher, as they can have ramifications across an organization. VR defuses much of the performance anxiety a learner might have.

VR is also less likely to produce anxiety in learners. People aren’t as worried about making a mistake or saying something stupid. When the brain is less preoccupied with stress, it can learn more easily.

VR Gives Objective Feedback

It’s common for trainers in face-to-face workshops to facilitate 20 to 30 people, with ten or more table teams or breakout groups to coordinate. Even the best facilitators will struggle to keep track of how all the learners are faring and to give each learner thoughtful and objective feedback. Additionally, learners can be biased and ill-informed when they evaluate themselves and their colleagues.

VR removes any subjectivity and inexperience from learner evaluations. Every learner choice is scored, every individual receives a thorough diagnosis, and every leader receives impartial feedback.

It also ensures consistency of experience. When you’re partnered with another learner, your experience is largely dependent on the aptitude of your partner. With VR, you’re always working with the perfect partner.

VR Is Incredibly Powerful

Early research shows that VR may be the most powerful learning modality. PricewaterhouseCoopers found that VR learners got up to speed four times faster than classroom learners and almost two times faster than with e-learning alone. VR also results in greater focus and fewer distractions on the part of learners.

VR is accessible when you need it. It offers a risk-free proving ground. It enables real learning and behavior transfer. And it provides personalized, accurate feedback every time. Put leaders in a well-designed simulation and they can quickly master skills that may have eluded them for some time.

VR has changed the way pilots and surgeons train. Leadership is next in line.

Dear Madeleine,

Ever since the beginning of this work-from-home situation, our entire department feels like it is on hold. The reason? Our seriously old school boss is not at all comfortable with meeting via phone or web conferencing. He was always a stickler for meeting in person, and has just kind of fallen apart. I can’t even get him to return calls or respond to emails.

I have serious questions about how to prioritize work—about 50% of our department has been laid off and the workload is staggering. I have no insight into what is going on in our organization and I am having a hard time concentrating.

On My Own

Dear On My Own,

Things are unsettled enough without your boss going radio silent. That must feel scary. Now is the time for managers to be spending more time with their people, not less! Here are some ideas for you.

• Ask for feedback on your communication style. Maybe you are annoying. Maybe just ask, “Is there something I should know?”

• Make your communications easy to answer, with clear subject lines and questions that can be answered with either yes or no. When people get “wall of words” emails with lots of ideas in them, they sometimes leave them for later because they require focus and time to respond. Relieve your boss of the need to think, and you might just get a response.

• If you really need your boss to think, make your emails super succinct and easy to read. One of my favorite tools is the ABC method from The Hamster Revolution. The ABC method splits your message into three parts: Action, Background and Close. A – Action summarizes exactly what you want. B – Background provides key context; why you want it. C – Close proposes next steps and how/when you expect follow-up.

• In terms of priorities, use your own judgment to lay out what you think they should be. Put your work/task list in priority order and make clear what will not get done in a normal work week. Make your subject line: My Priorities Unless I Hear Otherwise. (Well, that’s what I would say—that might feel aggressive to you. Soften if you must.)

• I have no sense of what your work life was like before the Covid crazy. Did you and your boss have a decent relationship? If so, you might ask him if he is okay and if there is anything you can do for him. Maybe tell him you are worried about him.

• If you don’t hear anything in the next seven days, go to HR or your boss’s boss. Maybe he was fired, or has gone on leave of some sort, and they forgot to tell you. Crazier things have happened—and goodness knows, these are certainly off times.

• It sounds like you are awfully isolated. Get in touch with peers and friends you have in the organization to see what you can find out, and make some connections.

Breathe deeply—and remember, before all of this you were capable, competent, and able to concentrate. Now use your best judgment about how to spend your work time and go to it. Do your best. That’s all you can do.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I know you have heard it before, but I just don’t know what to do about the amount of email I get. I cannot possibly attend to it all.

I am constantly showing up at meetings and facing the question “Did you read my email?”

The answer is almost always no, but people expect me to be up to speed and I am embarrassed. I am pretty sure that if I really spent the time I need to deal with email, it would take another 3 hours—and I am already working 10- to 12-hour days.

My team feels the same way, yet we continue to drown.

Drowning

Dear Drowning,

I have heard it—a lot—and I am right there with you. Just when I think I have it figured out, I am once again way behind. And god forbid you come down with the flu and are out of commission for a few days. I don’t know about you, but more business messages are now coming via social media and text, adding to the pileup.

You don’t say what level you are in your organization, so it is hard to tell how much power you might have to affect organizational email policy. You can certainly raise the issue with the powers that be to make that happen, as many organizations have. But you do have immediate control over your team, so I highly recommend you start there. Get together and brainstorm some team protocols to help you manage the onslaught. Examples are:

• Make sure that all email communication is somehow connected to team’s goals and outcomes.
• Use interoffice IM for quick questions.
• When possible, use the subject line to get the message across; e.g., Blue Team not required at Thursday staff meeting; details upon request.
• Use the subject line to indicate level of urgency; e.g., ACTION NEEDED for Friday’s presentation; or FYI only; or URGENT: 12-hour deadline.
• Only send email to the people who really need it. Step away from the cc and the reply all.
• Use your Out of Office when you have a day of back-to-back meetings to manage expectations.
• Find ways to shorten emails to get salient points across efficiently. At Blanchard, we use “ABC” and it works really well: Action Needed, Background, Conclusion. Do not send an email unless you can boil down your thoughts into 3 lines.

There are a lot of great ideas in The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before it Manages You, and of course there are other excellent books. The thing is that we are all in this mess together and we can agree on some ways to cope that will serve all of us. As the leader of your team, you can take a stand.

You can make your own rules, too, and share them with your team. I work with someone who has made it clear that he will not read anything on which he is cc’d. His staff expected him to stay abreast of all their dealings by reading everything he was cc’d on, and finally he asked everyone to compile a quick list of everything they think he needed to know and send it along once a week.

So put some method to madness. You can do it. In the meantime, stop blaming yourself and being embarrassed. If you haven’t read an email, the answer is, “Nope, haven’t gotten to it, sorry.” I guarantee you aren’t the only one.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

• Listen intently and ask yourself what are they asking from you? Sometimes people just need to air their thoughts, sometimes they want some direction from you.
• Make it about them not you! Ask questions to get a better understanding, show you are listening.
• Only speak and share your experiences if it adds value to them. Think, is what you’re about to say going to add value or is it just a way for you to talk about yourself.

When you want to be listened to

• Firstly no one is going to be able to listen attentively to someone who is highly emotional and talks all the time. Emotions can alter the way people listen to you. So if something has immediately annoyed you, take 10 minutes to gather your thoughts before talking about it.
• What do you want to achieve from the conversation? – Tell the person you are speaking too ie.) ‘I just need to vent’, or ‘I need your advice’.
• Ever been in a meeting , walked out and forgotten to say something really important. Write down a couple of key bullet points that you want to discuss to make sure you don’t miss something out.

One last tip – With the world at our fingertips it’s easy to get distracted and try and multitask when someone is talking to you. Don’t do it. There is nothing worse than talking to someone and they are typing away or checking their phone. It’s just rude.
Listening isn’t easy, the first step is awareness: Ask yourself, colleagues, friends and family – Are you a good listener?
Sarah-Jane Kenny – Channel Solutions Consultant at The Ken Blanchard Companies

That was all good. But here’s the thing. Despite the fact that elearning today is a $56.2 billion industry, and corporations are reporting that elearning is the second most valuable training method they have, it turns out that the reports of the death of traditional training were premature.

The truth is, human beings are social. They learn better together than they do apart. We’ve spent the last decade realizing you can lead a learner to great content but you can’t make them think, especially when you are asking people to change—to evolve—to consciously choose to develop themselves as leaders. The act of learning is an evolutionary necessity, but in our experience people are willing to change only when they are given the right conditions.

To change, people need:

• A vision of how they will be more successful if they change—or, even better, a tangible sense of the pain they will suffer if they do not The aversion to possible pain is stronger than the siren song of potential pleasure.
• A very clear and tangible way to change. People need to be able to see where they are right now in terms of their development and where they want to be. They also need a sense of the road they will need to travel to arrive at their destination.
• Time and permission to focus on change. Getting people into a classroom for a day is no more effective than sending them a URL and login for elearning if there is zero support for the time and effort needed to apply new behaviors.
• Support for the change from people around them. Learning in groups and communicating what is going on to relevant stakeholders enables people to practice and make mistakes.
• Accountability for change. It doesn’t really matter who holds the person accountable— it can be a professional coach, a peer coach, a boss, a learning cohort, or an HR sponsor—but without accountability, very few people will make a change.

In our newest offering, Blanchard Online Learning, we’ve built in these supports. Our vision is to make Blanchard content more accessible and usable to a wider audience of people. We know that just because people prefer to get their online content in small, manageable chunks, enjoy using games to make it fun and video to make it fast, and embrace the concept of flip learning, it doesn’t automatically mean they will actually make that change. But with a little bit of work and know-how, you can greatly increase the chances they will succeed.

About the Author:

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard is a Master Certified Coach, author, and speaker and is a co-founder of Blanchard Coaching Services.

How quickly things change in 10 years

Technology changes so rapidly that it is incredibly difficult to keep up with the rate of change. But looking at leadership, have there been as many revolutionary changes in the last seven years as there have been in technology?

Mobile World Congress was this week in Barcelona. For those who don’t know, it’s a huge annual conference where some of the top smartphone manufacturers introduce their latest products. Though Apple was absent, Samsung announced their latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S5. Some advances from the previous version include improved battery life, updated camera, faster processor, a heart-rate monitor, and a new fingerprint scanner (a la iPhone 5s), but despite all of these, its reception has been generally lukewarm because the changes weren’t quite revolutionary.

The response to the S5

Consumers of technology these days demand constant innovation from products. Why shouldn’t your direct reports, the consumers of your leadership, demand the same? Would you be able to keep up?

Let’s get the ball rolling on change. Are you currently doing something differently from other leaders to improve your leadership skills and/or meet the needs of your direct reports? Perhaps that thing you do is actually the game-changer that will revolutionize leadership as we know it. Share it in the comments.

Image Credit: 1 | 2 | 3

The room was impressive. The huge wall screens provided a full view of participants at tables in other locations. The ceiling-mounted microphones and speakers and the large, locked cabinet of sophisticated controls showed the effort and expense invested in this facility.

The only problem was that this room—like most expensive videoconference facilities I’ve toured—was rarely used, required an IT person to assist with the complex setup, and was so precious that executive approval was required for use.

Sometimes, the same attitude prevails when shopping for virtual team technology. But what I’ve found is that the best technology for virtual work isn’t the most elaborate—it’s the most easily used. This prioritized list is based on the belief that for effective virtual teamwork and collaboration, accessibility and simplicity are most essential.

1.     Phone headset. When we don’t have visual cues, we need to listen more carefully for tone, hesitation, word choice, and what isn’t being said.  A speaker phone simply doesn’t have the microphone and speaker quality needed for deep listening.  If you can add only one piece of technology, this provides the greatest return on investment.

2.     Shared calendar. Working across time zones to coordinate meetings is often cited as one of the most challenging issues virtual teams face. A shared calendar that displays availability and automatically places the meeting in the time zone of each participant saves hours of coordination time. 

3.     Phone rollover. Rolling your office phone to a home line or a cell phone means that your customers and colleagues only place one call to find you. Make sure that a voice mail feature is automatic if you aren’t available. 

4.     Instant conference lines. These services provide global toll-free numbers and access codes and don’t require a reservation. This is the best resource for an instant or planned conversation within a team. 

5.     Webcam. Most modern laptops have a built-in webcam and many types of communication software allow its use. If you want people to truly collaborate, handle conflict, and build relationships, encourage your team members to see each other while chatting. Seeing facial expressions increases trust and personal connection. 

6.     Two screens or large computer display screen. The ability to have your calendar, document, and video connection up at the same time makes it easy to collaborate, share thoughts, and coordinate work. 

7.     Shared document site. This is the most complex of the technology tools listed here. Shared sites require team agreements around maintenance and use (such as document-naming conventions). Whether your team uses a public or private platform for sharing is an important decision. But when used well, these sites can reduce email, provide a way to instantly update project plans, and allow around-the-clock collaboration with a single focus and product. 

There are many other innovations that are also useful. Technological platforms that allow screen sharing and polling, project tracking software, and, yes, even video conferencing can be useful and worth the investment if used and readily accessible.

Well, that’s my list—what’s on yours? Any other tools you would add as accessible and cost-effective?

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world.

1. Don’t doubt yourself. Doubt can be quite the speech-killer, so believe that you can overcome and succeed. The brain can make surprising connections under high pressure situations. Or, in my fellow instructor’s case, make no connections… and then, you just might put yourself and/or someone else in an awkward situation.
2. Take everything as a learning experience. This mindset can help you get more from your best moments, as well as really understanding your worst ones.
3. Just go with it. Never think that something is ruined if it doesn’t pan out the way you thought. Be creative. Sometimes, things can turn out better than how you’ve planned.

You never know when a moment of unexpected leadership will strike next, but these tips can help you turn things around and make the outcomes a bit more… expected.

• Are you having regular 1 on 1’s with your team members?  In other words, are you giving them the time they need to address issues about their performance and struggles?
• How much do you know about what’s going on in each team member’s personal life?  There could be personal issues your team members are dealing with that could be affecting their performance.
• Do you know what their career paths are?  If you don’t know where your direct reports are trying to go, don’t expect them to be working for you for long.
• How connected are your team members to one another, especially if they work virtually?  Do they have a team culture set up in order to avoid barriers and perform at higher levels?
• Are you taking advantage of technology?  If available, video chat services such as Skype Google/Yahoo/MSN video chat, etc… are free ways to give more of a personal touch to your interactions.

While working from home allows me to work in my PJ’s all day (a dream come true, I might add), it gives me another set of challenges to deal with in managing a team that might not be as hard as if I could manage them from the office.
Do you work virtually, whether that be as a leader or a direct report?  What do you do to stay connected with your team members?  Leave your comments!