Dear Madeleine,

I work for a global company that had a very flexible work-from-home policy before Covid happened. I have been managing hybrid teams for more than 20 years and have never had trouble with performance.

We got a new CEO last fall, and he has a very strong belief (despite all the research that says otherwise) that people simply don’t work as hard when they work from home. One of his opening moves was to institute a full-time return-to-office plan that started in January.

I’m lucky. I have always come in three days a week, and I have a short commute. But about half my people had just enough time to move back, or simply move, so they could keep their job. I had to replace people who didn’t want to move, or couldn’t, and we lost some excellent talent in the process. The disruption has been epic. It all feels like a waste of time, energy, and focus.

Now that everyone is getting into the groove of coming into the office, there is a new problem no one seems to have anticipated: We don’t have enough room for everyone! People are sharing offices and cubicles, which is tricky since almost everyone is on conference calls all day. There weren’t enough headsets to go around and people had to bring their personal ones from home. There aren’t nearly enough conference rooms, and if you have one reserved and someone else gets there before you, it is a standoff. People can’t hear themselves think.

There aren’t enough parking spaces, so people are late because they must drive around looking for a spot. There aren’t enough restrooms—people have mere minutes between meetings only to encounter a line, so many are forced to step out in the middle of meetings. The cafeteria was not remotely prepared to manage the volume, so lunch hours had to be staggered and regular meetings moved. Not only are we not more productive, we are way less so.

My boss has assured me that all of these issues are being worked on—but in the meantime, no flexibility has been offered to help alleviate them. Everyone, myself included, is in a constant state of annoyance. The whole policy has been an unmitigated disaster.

I just don’t know what to do. I hate inefficiency. I hate policies that are out of touch with reality. I hate to see my smart, hardworking people struggling with stupid rules. As a senior-level manager, I have taken great pride in walking the fine line between taking care of my people and supporting senior leadership, but I am really struggling to do that at this point. I have completely lost respect for the CEO, who is oblivious to reality and blathers on about how great it is to have everyone together. He thinks he appears tough, while everyone who works for the company seems to agree that he is just stupid. More to the point, my team’s morale has nosedived and I can’t do anything about it.

I have run out of the energy needed to hold the company line and not betray that I am 100% opposed to the way things are being handled. I feel like I can’t support my boss, who is cowardly and keeps acting like everything is fine, or the executive team he reports to—and it makes me feel like a traitor. I have headhunters calling me constantly and am starting to take their calls, but I feel like I would be letting my team down. Can you think of anything I could do to turn this around?

Done

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Dear Done,

There is nothing quite as dispiriting as a new CEO who imposes new rules based on opinion versus facts and causes needless chaos for their people. It sounds like you had a good thing going and it has all been blown up. I do wonder how the whole company is doing, and if the new CEO is doing enough good things to offset this one really stupid thing.

Do I have any bright ideas for you? I wish I did. I read your letter several times, trying to spot a silver lining or creative ways you might approach the situation. You might check with your team and see what viable tactics come up—carpooling, bringing lunch from home, ways to share space that make sense. The bathroom situation is way beyond me. But I don’t think this is what you are looking for.

My suggestion is that you read what you wrote and ask yourself these questions: Whose permission do I need to find a better leader to work for? What is keeping me from finding a better situation—and taking my best people with me?

The principle here is that a leader is only a leader if people follow them. You feel like a traitor, but it doesn’t sound like your CEO has done anything to earn your loyalty. So, really—what is keeping you from voting with your feet?

Your team will be fine. One of them will probably be delighted to take your job. You won’t be betraying anyone or letting anyone down by remembering that the only people you owe anything to are yourself and a leader worthy of your respect that you choose to follow.

I could be totally off base here. If that is the case, it will probably have the effect of helping you see the silver lining and find the wherewithal to stay the course where you are. The key is that it will be a conscious choice and you won’t feel like a victim.

I wish you effective and efficient policies that make going to work and doing work fulfilling again.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. 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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I thought you might weigh in on an ongoing debate I have with a friend. We met in college, have been working at different companies, and were promoted to management at about the same time.

He believes his direct reports are lazy and will do the bare minimum if he isn’t constantly breathing down their necks. He (a millennial) frequently complains about how entitled Gen Z’ers are. I am having a totally different experience. I see the people on my team as amazingly smart. They go the extra mile and sometimes they work even harder than they need to.

My company provides a lot of training to managers and unlimited access to tons of resources on management and leadership. My buddy’s company provides no training at all. I am pretty sure there is a connection here.

I don’t want to lord it over my friend, but I do think learning basic leadership techniques has helped me to get things off on the right foot and get the best from my people. I am convinced my friend’s negative attitude is part of the problem, but I hesitate to point that out to him. I am finding him less and less fun to hang out with and am getting tired of biting my tongue. I don’t want to become just one more thing he complains about.

He wasn’t always so doom and gloom. Maybe his direct reports really are awful. I just can’t help thinking he at least partially to blame for his predicament. But what do you think?

Biting My Tongue

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Dear Biting My Tongue,

I think I hear a couple of different topics in your letter. The least direct one is “how does this happen?”, another is “do leaders affect workers motivation” and finally, “should I try to influence my friend?”

So—how does this happen? I think your friend’s attitude is the result of a combination of personal outlook, lack of curiosity, and working in an impoverished company culture. Research supports two arguments: a company that invests in its leadership will end up with better leaders, which results in an empowered, motivated workforce; and a company that promotes people because they are solid individual contributors (a standard, if misguided, norm)—without training them to be at least technically proficient managers—is going to end up with, well, people like your friend.

A culture in which people adopt a growth mindset and thrive doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a great deal of intention and relentless work. So the lack of training isn’t your friend’s fault—but neither is there anything keeping him from taking responsibility and seeking help on his own. I would submit that he has been ground down enough to invest in being a victim of circumstances, which, in turn, has contributed to the reality he is experiencing.

Which brings us to your friend’s general outlook. Most likely, your attitude about workers was fairly optimistic to begin with and has been further developed by good training. It is entirely possible that your friend might stick to his original attitude regardless of training opportunities. This difference in your attitudes is beautifully described in the work called Theory X and Theory Y. These contrasting theories, postulated by Douglas McGregor, represent different assumptions about employee motivation. 

Theory X holds that employees dislike work and need strict supervision, while Theory Y assumes that employees are intrinsically motivated and seek responsibility, preferring a more participative approach. Anyone who takes on the responsibility of managing people will either consciously or unconsciously subscribe to one of these theories or the other and will treat their direct reports accordingly.

This is an old pair of theories, and many others have refuted or built on them since this work was first published. I only mention it because you seem to be a student of leadership, and it appears that you and your friend are operating on these exact diametrically opposed theories. You can enjoy a deep dive on this topic here.

You asked my opinion, so here it is: I don’t think anything involving human beings is ever that black or white, because each individual is different and will be motivated by vastly different things. I also know—because research shows it and I have observed evidence over 35 years of managing people—that a leader’s attitude toward their people 100% affects employee engagement.

So is your friend part of the problem? You know it. Is it common sense that if you believe people are untrustworthy, and treat them as if they are, they will know it and won’t even bother trying to prove you wrong? I think so. Your friend has produced a self-fulfilling prophecy and suffers from confirmation bias, which is when humans seek evidence for what they already think is true.

One theory I have been testing for over twenty years is one of Ken Blanchard’s most enduring ideas: everything will go better if we catch each other doing things right. Not that as the person in charge we shouldn’t re-direct when something isn’t right, but that the more we focus on what is working, the greater the chance people will be inclined to repeat the winning behavior. This is true of animals and people. The more we focus on the positive and expect the best from people, the more positive things will come to our attention. I am sure you have been seeing this as you continue to have success with your folks.

Should you try to influence your friend? I appreciate that you are tempted to show your friend the error of his ways, but also that (so far) you have the wisdom not to. My experience is that most people are not willing to change a mindset they have committed to—at least not until the misery they are causing themselves becomes unbearable. And, even then, many aren’t willing.

The more salient point may be hard to hear: you are going to have to either influence your friend or stop hanging out with him. Fond as you may be of your friend, being around him has become a bummer. You can suffer his company or you can tell him the truth: he is no fun, all he does is complain, and you don’t enjoy being around him. He will no doubt be insulted to the core and maybe won’t speak to you again. If, however, he trusts you and has the wherewithal to listen, you can ask him some questions:

• What if there were a way to shift things so that work weren’t such a misery for you?
• Do you really think your people are so different from you? Are you lazy, unmotivated, and entitled?
• Do you remember how much the boomers complained about the millennials? How is Gen Z so different from us, and how might we capitalize on their strengths?

Maybe asking some decent questions—in essence, planting seeds for him to consider—will be just the ticket to get your friend to shift. Maybe not. Not all friendships last forever, and that’s okay.

I hope this provides food for thought.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. 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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I run a commercial retail real estate firm in a big city in the Midwest. We have some seasoned senior brokers, all of whom have done well working with junior brokers, training them while also benefiting from their help.

The model has worked really well, except in the case of one senior broker. He does very well financially, but has developed a reputation in town of not following through. Also, he sometimes fails to show up for meetings with landlords and even prospective renters.

He has gone through several junior brokers in quick succession because he treats them like trash and does not properly share commissions. He was a lot of fun our first ten years in business, but as the business has grown and we have all matured, he seemingly hasn’t grown up.

I am the owner of the business, but other than overseeing legal compliance and providing basic guidelines, I have been hands-off—not really a boss. I have pointed out some of this person’s more extreme behavior to him, but it is getting to the point of no return. Everyone knows everyone in our town, so people know his antics are not a reflection on me or my firm, but it is getting out of hand.

How do I get someone in their mid-40s to stop behaving like a child? I really need him as a senior broker to develop the juniors so that they want to stay and grow. And I need to stop the gossip about his partying and the impression that our entire firm is filled with people who are not serious about their profession. I should mention that he and I are longtime friends. He has been with me since the beginning, which complicates things.

Man-child Mayhem

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Dear Man-child Mayhem,

It can be hard when you outgrow longtime friends—and when they work for you, it can make things downright impossible. I am struggling with finding a way to say what I want to say without offending you, so please forgive me in advance if I miss the mark. Here goes.

You need to face two essential truths:

1. You are the boss.
2. People don’t change until the cost of not changing becomes too high to bear. This applies to both you and Man-child.

Some food for thought based on these two truths:

You may not want to be the boss, but you are. The whole “not really the boss” thing can work as long as everybody behaves themselves, but not so much (as you are currently experiencing) when they don’t. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and that someone is going to be you. Again—you are the boss. The only way you are going to get the Man-child to grow up is to insist on it and enact appropriate consequences if he fails to comply.

There is a chance that he just doesn’t know how to be a grownup. If that is the case, you can give him very clear instructions on what is grownup behavior and what isn’t. And when I say clear, I mean literally put his dos and don’ts in writing so that you can pull up the document when you have to discuss it. Give him a few chances to get used to acting like a grownup at work.

If he does know but just doesn’t care, well, you have a choice. You can choose to tolerate the unacceptable or you can choose to part ways. If you need to part ways, you can certainly share that you hope not to lose the friendship—but you should be ready for that eventuality.

It is up to you. It is your business and your reputation on the line here. Way back when, people in your town were in the know and were able to separate the Man-child from you. But as you grow and he crosses paths with new people, they will absolutely wonder what kind of an operation you are running.

You have grown up—well, almost. You are suffering from the effects of not having completely grown up. Now is time for you to take full responsibility for your business or suffer the consequences. You know what you need from your people and you seem to be getting it from everyone but Man-child. You might consider taking it to the next level by checking out the work of Henry Cloud, an expert on boundaries. His book Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships and Being Ridiculously in Charge might give you just the step-by-step direction you need to step fully into being a real boss.

Look, I hate making anyone comply with anything, so if you are having an allergic reaction to what I am saying, I get it. But part of being a grownup means accepting reality. And reality can be a harsh taskmaster.

Have the hard conversation. Don’t sugarcoat anything. Reward good behavior and do not, I repeat, do not look the other way when Man-child acts like an idiot. Give him a few chances and then—if he cannot or will not raise his standards—pull the plug exactly the way you said you would. Your business is at stake.

I’m sorry. I hope I am wrong about this. If you get a better idea from someone else, please share it with me.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. 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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a mid-level manager in a global software company. I have been working here for about ten years and I lead three teams. Right now I am working with my manager on our goals for 2024 and I can already tell that there is no way my teams are going to be able to deliver on all of them.

We have been pushing like crazy all this year with a promise that the pressure would let up at the end of the year. As it is, I have to talk someone off the ledge daily. Now I am looking down the barrel of another year of nonstop work. I feel terrible about this—like I am breaking a promise to my people.

My boss isn’t a jerk. I know she is being pressured from above. She would never say it, but I can sense the unspoken “if you can’t get this done, I will find someone who can.” There has to be some way to manage my people’s and my boss’s expectations more effectively, but I don’t know what it is.

What do you think? I am beginning to think that I can’t live with the kind of anxiety that is building up with no relief in sight. How do I manage this relentless tension?

Pressure Cooker

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Dear Pressure Cooker,

Well, this sounds like situation normal. Almost everyone I speak to is feeling this way. Here are the choices you have to consider:

• Negotiate for more (or more skilled) resources.

Carefully break down each goal into discreet tasks and estimate the time required to complete it. If you can show the math of what it will take to complete all of the required work, and how it will be physically impossible for your existing people to do it, you may be able to get more help. It is hard to argue with math.

You may get countered with “work smarter, not harder.” If you think that might be the case, be prepared to request the kind of training that would help your people to do that. (There might not be any.) With your experience, you probably know how long it should take people to do certain things—and some things just take the time they take. Doing this will also help you pinpoint if you have any team members who cannot get the work done in a reasonable timeframe. You may need to upskill or replace some folks. This can be hard, but honestly, sometimes people are in the wrong job and it isn’t doing them any favors to not address that. You can take a stand as long as you can show that you have really thought it through.

• Negotiate a reduction in distractions.

Of course I don’t know how much of an issue this is, but if your company is like anyone else’s, you and your people are probably asked to join any number of meetings that don’t contribute directly to getting the job done. Look at what those are, and do everything you can to get a few of those items off of the required list.

• Negotiate to reduce the deliverables.

This is the most obvious, and the one your boss is expecting from you. This is probably the least effective option for you at this time. However, I do urge you to check out the boss’s unspoken threat—you might be making it up. This is a classic way for people to needlessly ratchet up their stress levels. You can literally ask your boss what the consequence would be of not being able to deliver on everything.

You absolutely can and should:

• Work with your boss to prioritize.

In the spirit of wanting to under-promise and over-deliver, you can ask your boss to put each required outcome in order of priority. The hard truth is that if everything is a priority, that means nothing is a priority. I suspect your boss knows this as well as you do. So as long as you know your people are focused on the must-haves and will get to the nice-to-haves, that should help you manage your stress level.

• Work with your team to design sprints.

Since no one can go full-out all the time, work with your team leads to design one week of go-hard sprints and then one week of regular work. It isn’t a new idea, but I have seen it work well. You can read more about that here.

In the meantime, I hate to say it, but the intensity in most workplaces seems to be here to stay. You must decide whether you are going to live with it or try to find a more forgiving environment. If you choose to live with it, you have to find ways to take care of yourself and encourage the same for your people. Find one thing you can do to help you manage your stress and commit to it. Meditation, exercise, yoga—whatever has worked for you in the past. You also need to get some perspective. Breathe, do your best, remember that nobody dies in software development and that what gets done is what gets done, and be okay with that. A little perspective can go a long way.

I know it feels like you are breaking a promise, but the fact is that you have limited control over your environment. You can explain that to your people and share what you are doing to advocate for sanity. And at least now you know to be a little more cautious with your promises in the future.

Part of being a leader is choosing one’s attitude and what to focus on. This is your opportunity to do that. Your people will follow your lead.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I work for a national mortgage company and recently took over a team from a leader who had led it for 37 years. Every single person on the team is more experienced in the business of the team than I am. And every one of them is very disengaged because their former leader clearly had checked out a long time before he left.

A lot of the processes—some of them possibly of no use whatsoever—are outdated and labor-intensive. When I ask why things are done the way are done, the answer is always a variation on “that’s just how we’ve always done it.” There are some time- and labor-intensive tasks where the owners aren’t clear why they are done or who cares about them.

All of my questions seem to be making people nervous. I am confused as to how this happened. The other parts of the company I have worked in are well run and up to date, and we were always asked to look for efficiencies. My manager has no explanation for me, and precious little guidance.

I am intensely frustrated with the condition of the team. It feels like everyone is lost in the land that time forgot. It needs a massive overhaul. I am pretty sure we don’t even need half the people on the team. I don’t want to scare anyone, but as the team leader, I can’t let things go on like this.

Any suggestions for how to approach this mess?

Need a Reboot

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Dear Need a Reboot,

I understand your frustration and your confusion. It is uncommon these days to uncover parts of a business that have not been forced to slim down or to leverage technology to do more with less. For reasons you may never know, your predecessor was left to his own devices with little to no oversight. The people he left behind probably are either delighted to have a job they can coast through, completely burned out, or too bored and worn down to care.

I think you have a great opportunity here to rebuild your team from the ground up. At Blanchard, we define team leadership as an influence process focused on helping the team reach and sustain high performance. We define a team as two or more people working interdependently to achieve a common purpose with shared accountability for results. Let’s not call this group of people a “team” until they actually behave like one. You can find more detail on our thinking about teams here.

The thing that will trip you up is a deadly combination of too much, too soon, too fast. Slow and steady wins the race. It doesn’t sound like your manager is paying attention anyway, so why rush?

You might start by sharing your vision for the team with the team. This will be personal and sound something like, “Our team is an energetic and creative group that adds value to the organization by providing x, y and z.” You can share your plan to make some changes, but that you are committed to carefully planning each step so that all points of view are considered, nobody feels overwhelmed or left behind.

Next, outline some high-level goals—the first of which is to really understand all critical deliverables, who in the organization wants/needs them, and the purpose of each one. Once you have that figured out, you can brainstorm ways to go about delivering on them.

Then, get to know each individual on the team. Get detailed information about what they do, what they are good at, what they like to do, and how they see themselves contributing moving forward. You can assign specific tasks like research around software or updated ways to accomplish things to match skills and interests.

Create a first draft of a plan, get input from everyone on the team, tweak, and refine. Once you have a plan, you might think about creating a Team Charter.

A Team Charter is a co-created document that outlines:

• Your company’s vision
• Your company’s values
• Your company’s purpose: What does the organization do? For whom do they do it? Why do they do it?
• Team Purpose: What do we do? For whom do we do it? Why do we do it?
• Team Goals: What are the measurable outcomes the team is responsible for in order to achieve the team’s purpose?
• Team Roles: What are the key responsibility areas of each team member for achieving the team goals?
• Behavioral Norms: What are the behavioral expectations and team practices (strategies and processes) that the members agree the team should follow? What are the ground rules? These can include but are not limited to: communication, decision making, problem solving, and accountability.

Along the way, your group of employees will either be excited by the opportunity to make a tangible contribution to your company or they won’t. If you are vastly overstaffed for the work required of the team, this process will make it easy to identify the people you can probably get along without.

Stay focused on moving forward and let go of your distress about the past. Make a concerted effort not to criticize anyone or anything done in the past—the person responsible for it is gone, and it will just make people feel like you blame them. Let people know you have the backs of those who are all in on creating a future together. Put a road map together and move deliberately, step by step, toward your milestones. You will definitely have some bumps, but at least you will be acting as a team and creating a landscape that makes sense.

It will be an adventure, but it sounds like you are ready for one!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I lead a business unit for a global manufacturing company and have been in the role for about 18 months. I took over for someone who was completely checked out and it was a bit of a mess. It has taken me this long just to untangle the log jams and uncover all of the critical tasks that weren’t getting done. I had to replace a few key managers who weren’t enthusiastic about being held accountable.

All of the processes and systems are now up and running, and things are smooth enough that I have devoted some time to doing skip-level meetings with people who report to my executive team members. These have been enlightening, to say the least. It has become clear to me that one of my team members, who has delivered stellar results, has also created a toxic work environment. He yells at people in front of others and his team members live in fear of making a mistake. I believe it is only a matter of time before they start quitting in droves.

I was put in this job because my strength is process, so I am a little at sea about what to do about this situation. My instinct is to call him out in front of the rest of the team so he knows what that feels like, because that’s exactly what he is doing. I am so mad that this is the only thing I have come up with so far. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Process Master

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Dear Process Master,

Congratulations on your success.

Skip levels can indeed be illuminating. You have somehow earned enough trust in the organization that people are willing to tell the truth about their experience. The problem is now that you know, and people know you know, you do need to do something about it or you risk losing that trust.

The question is: what?

Your instinct is understandable and your hesitation is smart. You don’t want to role model the exact behaviors you are trying to curtail. You have already shifted the culture of the organization to be process focused. What else do you think is important to the culture? If culture is values in action, what are the values you want to see? There are clues in your allergic reaction to the way your direct report is treating his people.

If you see yelling at people—especially in front of others—as unacceptable, what should replace that behavior? Possibly this indicates that you think leaders should treat their people with respect and should give feedback in private. What exactly would that look like?

If people live in fear of making a mistake, how should mistakes be dealt with? The way you answer this question reveals the value you want your leaders to embody. Perhaps you think that mistakes reveal a lack of competence that needs to be addressed. This might represent the value of preparedness. Possibly you feel people have too much on their plates and need help to balance their workload. That might represent the value of fairness, say, or load balancing.

What else did you hear from your skip levels that leads you to diagnose the environment their leader has created as toxic? What exact specific things did you hear that the leader does that makes you believe people will quit in droves? This is the only way to shape the requests you can make of your direct report. It should be direct and straightforward, so that there is no confusion about the message you are sending.

It might sound something like this:

• “I understand you routinely yell at your people in front of their peers. That is not an effective way to build trust among your people. I request that you never raise your voice and offer redirection in private. Keep things matter of fact, never personal.”
• “I heard your people live in fear of making mistakes. I request that you treat people with respect and treat mistakes as information that something is not quite right. Get to bottom of what is causing the mistakes and fix it.”
• “Your results have been excellent, but you won’t be able to sustain them if everyone quits. So I need to see if you can produce the same results while creating an environment that people enjoy working in.”

Write down your requests, and, if possible, practice with someone safe. Do not allow yourself to make room for excuses or get drawn into a debate. That will take you down a road that will not serve you.

Once you make clear requests, make sure your direct report knows you will be following up to check on his compliance with them. Be ready to share the consequences he will face if he does not change his behavior. He has already seen that you will not tolerate lack of accountability, so that should work in your favor.

As the leader of your unit, it is your responsibility to share the values you expect your team to use as they lead their people. You seem to have gotten the message across that process alignment and task completion are the most important. Now you can add other values—maybe respect, or kindness, or appreciation for employees. One leader I worked with had a value he called “No Jerks.” His people knew exactly what that meant.

I can’t tell you what your values are—only you can sleuth those out by noticing what you don’t want. That will help you to articulate what you do want, what is most important, and what is unacceptable. Those are your values. Once you figure them out, share them with your people regularly. Use them to shape the feedback you give. Track the extent to which your leaders are guided by those values in performance reviews. As you know, anyone can get great results through bullying in the short term, but it will tank results in the long term.

I suspect you will rise to this new leadership challenge.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am the CEO of a small but rapidly growing global employee relocation services organization. It is a complicated business. One of the complexities is that employment laws are different in every country and they change constantly.

Our chief legal counsel is very talented and business savvy. But when we are trying to land new business, when time is of the essence, she never seems to be able to review contracts in a timely manner. She has the largest team by far on the cost side of the business and she doesn’t delegate well. When she thinks her people are overwhelmed she takes over their tasks, which I think is ridiculous because she has her own very critical time sensitive work that needs tending to. My top salespeople get frustrated and call me and then I have to call her out, which creates a lot of tension.

I want to talk to her about this but I am stuck. I just don’t think someone at her level (not to mention her salary) should need her CEO to talk to her about how she is managing her time.

Replacing her is not an attractive proposition. This is a highly specialized industry and she does know a lot. When she actually focuses, she is brilliant and has helped us avoid a lot of challenges. But something must change. Thoughts?

Sick of Babysitting

_________________________________________________________

Dear Sick of Babysitting,

This does sound frustrating, but you have everything you need to rectify this situation.

One obstacle you can clear easily is your own attitude, which sounds roughly like: “I shouldn’t have to provide direction to someone this senior who is so well paid.” You are not alone. This mindset is pervasive. I hear it all day long—and I get it, I really do. But it is the natural result of the fact that people tend to be promoted because they are smart, hardworking, and technically excellent in their area of expertise—not because they are good managers or particularly talented businesspeople.

You are the CEO and it is your responsibility to make sure each person on your executive team:

1.  is crystal clear on their priorities, and
2. demonstrates that they have arranged what they focus on and how they allocate their resources (time, people, budget) in ways that are aligned with those priorities.

This essentially bypasses any confusion about what senior level, highly compensated employees should or should not be able to do. If such people are not doing what you think they should be doing, in the way you want it done and in the proper time frame, it is almost always because they either don’t understand the priorities (or don’t think they are important), they disagree with your priorities, or they simply don’t know how.

If the situation you describe continues, you can ask these branching questions:

• “Are the priorities clear?”
  • If the answer is no, repeat them. If it is yes, then ask:
• “Do you disagree with these priorities?”
  •  If yes, listen carefully, discuss, and find some middle ground. If no, then ask:
• “Do you need some help with figuring out how to align with them?”
  • If no, great, you can expect to see specific changes and you can brainstorm ways to track accountability for these changes. If yes, brainstorm what would be most helpful.

If it seems she can’t figure it out and does need some help, you can provide her with training or a coach or spend a little time with her yourself.

All this needs to be done without any blame or judgment on your part, so you will probably have to practice some self-regulation. It will help if you can convince yourself of the fundamental truth that just because you think someone should know something doesn’t mean they will.

From what you shared, it seems that your CLC’s priority is taking care of her own people, which is admirable, but serving her internal customers should be at least equally as important.

This plan assumes that the two of you have a decent relationship and that she will feel safe enough to tell you the truth. If you don’t think that will be the case, you may want to look at the possibility that you have built a culture of fear, and your direct executive team has stopped challenging you. This would mean you have a bigger problem: you have surrounded yourself with yes-men and yes-women and are flying blind. Let’s follow up on that if you think it might be true.

To put it in a nutshell, get over yourself and help out your legal eagle.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

Your advice has been very helpful in the past, so I couldn’t stop myself from writing to you again about a tricky situation.

I have recently taken over the area of learning and development as part of my portfolio. With that came the discussion of a resource with my boss. My boss suggested a name (K) from HR ops team who is interested in L&D.

K is more of a generalist who coordinates internal events and manages onboarding. I talked to K’s current boss. There are some transferable skills but there will be a huge learning curve (like instructional design, empathetic written communication skills, critical thinking) and I am open to invest my time in growing them (K’s preferred pronoun).

From where I sit, I have always viewed K as someone with a fixed mindset in their partnership with my team and someone I would not have hired myself. Also, in my last year and a half, they have never called me by name or even started a written communication by simply saying hello. That being said, we are on respectful terms but have zero interpersonal connection. 

Last week I learned K has big hesitation in reporting to me. I can only guess it is because I had to make some needed changes when I built my team and, in doing so, I parted ways with two of K’s professional friends. With my current team of 12, I am a strong and empathetic manager with a 100% score on my feedback survey. 

I am still confident that if hiring from scratch I would not have hired K. I have a deep understanding of what good looks like for the role and team culture. 

With the organizational changes, if K accepts the job, I am stuck with her. If she doesn’t, I can go outside the org to hire. I am trying to gain insight into my biases and to put my preconceived notions aside to manage K and help them grow, but it is a weird start of relationship when there’s a team member who doesn’t want to report to you. I worry about my current healthy team culture getting disturbed.

What advice do you have for me?

Uncertain 

______________________________________________________________________________

Dear Uncertain,

Thanks for the kind words and the trust you are placing in me. I really appreciate it.

When Jim Collins’ Good to Great came out in 2001, I remember thinking how smart, simple, and obvious his advice was to have the right people in the right seats on the bus. What took me a long time to understand is just how tricky that can be. Simple, yes, but not easy. What Collins failed to mention was that his advice also means is getting the wrong people out of seats they are already in and navigating organizational demands to hire from within. The strategy is sound, but the execution requires excellent hiring skills and the freedom to hire as you see fit—not to mention an available talent pool!

Assuming you have the hiring skills, the other two requirements might leave you stuck with K.

So now what?

Congratulations on your efforts to be aware of your own biases; that is a great place to start.

I would caution you against judging a person’s character based on email transactions. Many people aren’t warm and fuzzy over email. Possibly K is not comfortable making strong connections through media and needs to build trust one on one in person. It sounds like you are senior to K, so you never know—it’s possible they think it is appropriate to maintain strong professionalism because of that. You just won’t know until you get a chance to meet in person (even if it is over Zoom).

Your other misgivings are fair, though. And you must honor your own impressions and instincts.

I think your only option is to have the super candid conversation with them. In this conversation you need to assess a couple of things:

1. What are the reasons behind K’s hesitation about reporting to you—and can they be overcome?
2. Will K be ready and willing to give you a chance?
3. Does K really want the job, and why?
4. Is K prepared to throw themselves at the learning curve ahead?

To prepare for each of those topics, you will want to find the sweet spot between Candor and Curiosity. You can check out our Conversational Capacity model here.

The author, Craig Webber, says you should be ready to:

• State your clear position
• Explain the underlying thinking that informs your position
• Test your perspective
• Inquire into the perspective of others

It might sound something like this: “I understand you may have a hesitation about reporting to me and I would like to know more about that. I think it is critical that we get off on the right foot and be able to build trust together. What do you think?”

Or

“What makes you interested in the job? What is it specifically that you hope to learn? How will it be different from the job you are doing, and what makes it attractive to you?”

Or

“If you were to step into the job, the learning curve will be quite steep. Are you prepared to withstand the discomfort of being in learning mode for a while?”

You will want to mostly stick with questions while avoiding “why” questions which tend to put people on the defensive. Your candor and insistence that K be candid with you will tell you everything you need to know about whether or not bringing K onto your team will be a disaster. And if you really think that will be the case, you need to be prepared to tell them that you don’t think they are a good fit for the job. You must have the courage to tell the truth, even if it means taking some time to think about it after the conversation.

Hopefully, if you do that, it will discourage K enough to keep them from taking the job and it will free you up to hire a more appropriate candidate. Of course, if you do that and K still takes the job, you will have to start off with another candid conversation.

On the upside, you may clear up some misunderstandings on both sides and find that the job is just the change K is looking for and they are right for your team. Wouldn’t that be grand?

But taking the leap without the heart-to-heart is non-negotiable. You will so regret it if you don’t.

You have clearly worked very hard to build a high performing team. You must honor your instinct to protect that hard-won accomplishment.

Be kind and tell the truth. Ask the hard questions. If that scares K away, so be it.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a junior partner in a small investment firm. My job is huge—there is always more to do than time to do it.

Last year, the firm hired a junior analyst to work with me. I did my best, but things just didn’t work out. He worked very slowly, made lots of mistakes, and got super defensive every time I tried to give him feedback. Our HR person told me the fit was all wrong. They found another position for him in the company and I have been limping along without help.

I have finally found someone else but I am terrified of repeating what happened last time. The first guy told my boss that he was intimidated by me. I don’t know what do with that. To be fair, I am a type A personality, I’m good at figuring things out and getting things done, and I guess I expect other people to be like that, too.

I realize I don’t know the first thing about managing someone. I am so gun-shy now. Can you give me some ideas about where to start?

New Manager

_________________________________________________________

Dear New Manager,

Well, there are about a million books on this subject and even more people out there offering classes on the topic. However, you asked me, so I will take a crack at it.

First let me say that I spent thirty years working hard at being a decent manager, which is not natural for me. If I can do it, so can you. I was never great at it but I was never the cause of a hostile work environment lawsuit, so I am calling that a win.

I have had more people tell me they are intimidated by me than I can count. It took me years to stop trying so hard not to be intimidating, and it never really worked. The only thing to do if people tend to respond to you that way is to make clear from the outset that you care deeply about their success, you intend nothing but the best for them, and you will have their back no matter what.

Avoid BLMS

The first thing you need to know is no one else is like you. You might have things in common with direct reports, but the big difference is that you are a manager and they are not. If they were like you, they would be managing people. Scott Blanchard calls this “Be Like Me Syndrome” (BLMS) – when you fail at managing people because you expect them to be like you. They aren’t. But if you do a great job, they will find their own strengths and become more themselves as they get better at what they do.

Get Better at Hiring

The next thing to know—and I am sorry if this is too late for your new hire, but you can tuck it away for the future—is that most of the battle with getting it right with an employee is hiring the right one. It sounds simple, but of course it’s anything but. I have suffered from hiring disasters and I have also been  lucky. You want to look for a couple of very specific things:

• A strong locus of control. This means they take responsibility for themselves, their own experience, and their own destiny, and are not inclined to blame others for their own lack of success.
• A growth mindset.  This means they trust themselves to be able to learn, to grow, to recover from mistakes, and to move on with the confidence that they will be able to rise to whatever challenge they face.

Skills and experience are always desirable, of course, but those can be learned and gained over time. For more on hiring, here is a great article by Adam Robinson, CEO of Hireology. Ultimately, you don’t want to hire a turtle if you need them to climb a tree. If you need someone to climb a tree, hire a squirrel.

Start with Crystal Clear Direction

Once you do get started with a new direct report (DR for short) the most important thing you can do is give them crystal clear direction about what the job is, the exact tasks they are expected to perform, the best way to perform them, and the timeline associated with each task. As Ken Blanchard often says, you must paint the picture of what a good job looks like, catch people doing things right, and offer gentle re-direction when they don’t. Anything you can do to help clarify will be useful, including checklists, examples, detailed instructions, and common pitfalls to avoid.

Explain to your DR that your job is to help them be as successful as possible. You will start by helping them identify transferable skills they can build on while you offer feedback on what is working and what needs to be sharpened. Explain that it will feel like you are a (dreaded) micromanager until you see evidence that they are able to go it alone on any given task, at which point you will loosen up. You will have to find a happy medium between “good enough” and “the way I would have done it” so your DR can build their own confidence and find their own way. Reassure your DR that you will start with tight supervision and loosen up as their competence and confidence increases.

This is a very short version of our flagship training, SLII®. You can find more on that here.

I managed people (badly) for years before I found SLII® and it felt like someone turned the light on in a dark room. I had shied away from giving clear direction because I didn’t want to come off as bossy. (Note: I am, in fact, bossy—how else could I write this column?) This often left me disappointed in what I got from people. Using the SLII® approach will help you to avoid the two biggest mistakes you can make:

• Breathing down people’s necks when they are perfectly capable of doing a good enough job (i.e., indulging your own perfectionism).
• Leaving people to their own devices and then criticizing their work after the fact (i.e., using hope as a management strategy).

Share Your Expectations

You will also want to state your expectations for your DR very clearly and be ready to reiterate them. Most managers I work with think their implicit expectations are obvious to everyone, so when they aren’t met, it seems shoddy or willful. But today more than ever, the things you expect to be obvious to everyone simply are not. Your employees will be coming from homes, cultures, educational systems, and generations that are different from yours, and you will need to make your standards clear.

Examples of things most managers think are obvious are their beliefs that people should:

• be on time
• ask for help when they need it
• figure out the platforms and systems you use in your business
• book time with you to review high stakes work and get feedback
• proof their work before sending it to you or to anyone else outside of your department
• review their work to catch egregious errors
• use spell check and Grammarly if they weren’t English majors
• try to see the bigger picture of how their work fits into the results of the whole department
• escalate when they are overwhelmed and cannot complete all of their work
• come to you for clarification about priorities
• dress appropriately for the business they are in
• take breaks and take proper care of themselves
• tell you when something is wrong.

It sounds like a lot, because it is. But unless you tell people what matters most to you, they will waste their time “boss watching” trying to figure it out and they will get it wrong. You simply cannot expect people to read your mind.

Lead with Values

If your company doesn’t have a strong onboarding program, you will want to explain to your new DR what the business does, who it serves, and how it generates revenue and profit. You will want to share the company values if any exist—and if not, share your own leadership values. If you have no idea what your values are, now is a good time to get some insight so you can share them with others. Read 4 Questions to Help Clarify Your Core Values to get started. It might be a good idea to have your new hire to do the same, so you can start a strong two-way communication about preferences and workstyles.

Scott Blanchard often shares the advice his boss gave him when he started his first job as a supervisor: “Remember that everything you do or say will end up being dinner table conversation tonight.” The fact that you even care enough to do a little due diligence on this is a good sign. You might make some missteps, but if you own them, share your awareness of them, learn from them, and keep trying to do better (all examples of a strong locus of control and growth mindset, by the way) you will be okay.

Be kind. Be clear. Be consistent. Go forth and win hearts and minds.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I get no feedback.

I like my job, my boss, the team I work with, and my company. At every annual review I write my own review first and my manager adds her two cents, always pointing out ways I contribute that I hadn’t thought about or had forgotten. So I do get feedback, and it is always positive, which is nice.

I realize this sounds crazy, but I want more constructive feedback so I can grow and get better. I guess I want to be more challenged.

How can I go about getting more feedback without seeming dissatisfied?

Wanting More

__________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Wanting More,

You don’t sound crazy. You sound lucky. Let’s all take a moment to appreciate your position, because it is a rare one: Your boss obviously thinks you are great and is totally happy with the job you are doing.

And—I get it. It sounds like you might be a little bored.

I think your first stop is your boss. Tell her you are looking for a challenge and you either want to get better at the job you are doing or maybe take on something new. You can be crystal clear that you aren’t unhappy or dissatisfied, just wanting to shake things up a little. The ideal time for this is at your annual review; but if that seems too far away, you can ask for a meeting. I am surprised your manager hasn’t checked in with you about your dreams, your job satisfaction, your career aspirations.

Another thought is to ask your colleagues, teammates, and internal and (if applicable) external customers for feedback to see if there is anything you could do that would make working with you easier. You could simply ask:

• Is there anything you wish I would start or stop doing?
• Is there anything you wish I did more or less of?
• Is there anything you think I should know that could make me more effective or help me add more value?

You never know what you might find out.

I guess it is always possible that there is something you do that stops people from offering suggestions or developmental feedback. Is it possible that in the past you have become defensive? Only you can know the answer to that, and it will serve you to admit the truth to yourself. If you think this might be the case, make sure you go into asking for feedback with an open mind. It takes some grace to accept feedback that might be a surprise or feel personal.

Prepare to respond to anything you hear with one of three options:

• Thank you.
• I understand.
• Tell me more.

This will ensure that people who have the courage to tell you something they think you need to hear will feel heard and won’t feel punished for going out on a limb.

There is also a big difference between seeking/hearing feedback and making a decision to actually do something with it. One way of rewarding people for giving you feedback is to loop back with them and let them know what you are doing with their advice. If you choose not to do anything, you can just tuck it away for future reference.

Remember also that feedback always says more about the person giving it than the person getting it. So write everything down. Give yourself some space and time to absorb, process, and decide what is going to make a difference to your success and what isn’t. Resolve to take nothing personally.

You might be opening a can of worms here, so you will want to be prepared for that. Or maybe you are like Mary Poppins—“practically perfect in every way”—wouldn’t that be grand? If that is the case, your next step will be to figure out if you are, in fact, bored and what goals you might set next to create your next challenge.

Thanks for asking such a surprising question.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a VP in an organization and I have a decent team, all of whom I inherited when I joined the organization two years ago. Everyone on my team is experienced and considered senior.

I have done everything I can think of to make everyone’s role and responsibilities crystal clear—yet I find myself constantly disappointed in my people. Examples of shenanigans I run across: one team member consistently fails to upload a weekly report that is required and needed by others and has to be reminded. Another creates emergencies where no emergency should be. And yet another recently failed to prepare adequately for a presentation to a team of my peers and my boss.

Am I overly critical? Are my standards too high? Should I be giving passes when I know people have a lot on their plate? Is it me? Is it my team? What is going on? Any light you are able to shed would be great.

Disappointed

_______________________________________________________________________________

Dear Disappointed,

It’s you. Sorry.

You know this isn’t personal because I don’t know the details. But it is always the leader. Always. When a leader is complaining about their people, it is time for the leader to look in the mirror. You’re the leader, so, yeah, it’s you.

So let’s look in that mirror. Have you always been disappointed in people on your previous teams? If the answer is yes, it means you have high standards that you have not properly shared with the people who work for you. If the answer is no, it means you have not done a good enough job of sharing your standards with this particular team. It isn’t that your expectations are too high; it’s that your people aren’t aware of what they are.

Somehow, although you have been clear about roles and responsibilities, you have not been explicit enough about your expectations. Somehow, you have sent the message that it is OK to miss deadlines with reports; you have sent the message that creating an emergency where none should exist is a judgment call that can be made without your input; and you have allowed your team members to think that showing up inadequately prepared is acceptable.

It is a common mistake to think that just because people are experienced and, as you say, “senior,” it means they will have the same professional standards as you. That just is not the case—standards for professionalism are all over the board. If you want your team members to rise to yours, you must tell them what they are.

I recently had a client ask “Do I really need to tell people I expect them to show up on time to meetings?” The answer is yes. Yes, you do. These days there is such diversity of culture, context, generations, and backgrounds that you just can’t expect everyone to read your mind. There is a good chance your team’s last boss either had different standards than yours or didn’t hold people accountable for the same things you think are important.

Just because something is obvious to you does not mean it is obvious to everyone else. So here are some examples of expectations you might want to share with your people:

• If you are presenting to people outside the team, please schedule time to review the content with me and make sure you do a practice session with the technology before go time.
• If you are considering escalating anything to emergency status with another department, please consult with me on the tactical approach first.
• Do what you say you are going to do.
• This report needs to be submitted on time and here’s why ________________.
• Submit all work at or before deadline or inform me you will be delayed and negotiate for more time.
• Be on time for meetings or let me know you will be late.
• Proof all final work before sharing it with anyone outside the department.

I just kind of made these up based on what you shared and some whoppers I have heard from clients. The beauty of disappointment is that it is data—it is information about something you think is obvious to others that, in fact, is not. Every time you are disappointed, it points to a standard you have that you have not made explicit.

Assuming you have good rapport with your people and they know you have their back, you can share your expectations and remind them as needed without judgment. In most organizations, people have more work than they can handle, so they will always look for places where they can cut. If they know you are paying attention, they won’t choose the places that matter to you if they know what they are.

Your job is to help your people do their best work and help them shine. As long as your standards are designed to do that, you will be just fine.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a regional sales director for a company that installs gutters for houses. I have spent endless time training my people to map out exactly what is needed for each house. We created beautiful online templates so salespeople could provide the detail that the install team needs to show up with the right equipment and the proper product cut into proper lengths.

The install teams seem to ignore all the information we give them. They show up with the wrong products, install things haphazardly, and the customers all call to complain that their gutters are not what was promised to them.

It is ridiculous. My salespeople are so tired of all their hard work being disregarded, and of course the unhappy customers call them to complain.

The director in charge of the install teams refuses to admit any fault and won’t force his people to use the information we provide. At this point, he is not answering my emails or phone calls.

We have a sales quota to meet, but the morale of my folks is at an all time low. I have talked to my boss about it, and his attitude is basically that it is my problem and I should figure it out. I just don’t know what I can do to change this situation without his support.

Thoughts?

Powerless

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear Powerless,

This sounds so frustrating. And this is a classic point of tension in most companies—the disconnect between what is sold and what is delivered keeps a whole lot of people up at night. It sounds like you have hit a brick wall with your boss, which is absurd, because it sounds like an organizational problem. But short of tackling your counterpart in the parking lot, I think you probably are on your own.

The only thing I can think of is to somehow get the salespeople to create relationships with their install team leads. Instead of simply sending a bunch of information to an install team, a salesperson needs to actually communicate—by phone, zoom meeting, or a quick conversation. I think we have all the evidence we need that nobody can keep up with all of the communications coming at them. People need to talk to each other, and that is something you can work with. Possibly create an offsite meeting to do some relationship and team building. I do think that, absent support from anyone else, your best hope is making sure people on both teams meet, get to know each other, maybe even brainstorm how to solve the problem as a group.

Once relationships are established, install teams are much more likely to be open to influence from the salesperson.

We all tend to look to processes and systems to fix big problems—and long term, you may be able to influence enough to get those in place. But until you can get there, your problem is still people needing to work with people. And for people to work well together, they need to know and care about each other. So that may be a place to start.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

As one of the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilots in the US Navy, Carey Lohrenz knows all about pressure. During her intense training, she learned critical lessons about navigating in the most demanding, high-pressure environment imaginable—the cockpit of an F-14 fighter jet. The genius of her latest book, Span of Control, is how she applies those lessons to everyday life and shows you how to do the same.

Lohrenz shares a process for managing uncertainty, stress, anxiety, and pressure to not only survive, but to thrive. The first step is to define the signs of crisis in your life so you can begin to take control. Once you are aware of what is causing the most stress, Lohrenz explains how to shift your mindset to focus on the most important things, define what you can and can’t control, and make better decisions. The last step is to create a personal action plan for moving forward that is based on a simple yet profound framework:

• Focus on what matters most by identifying your top three priorities and removing distractions.
• Formulate a flight plan for success by preparing, performing, prevailing, and never leaving success to chance.
• Communicate what’s possible and make sure it is concise, clear, and consistent.

Lohrenz offers powerful coaching throughout the book. One of her most impactful quotes tells us where to begin: “I gave up feeling like I had to be able to do everything right. I had to give up right for right for the moment.”

Span of Control is not only a great read filled with research and personal stories, it is a guidebook complete with step-by-step activities to help you take charge of your life. Be prepared to use the tools in this book to harness opportunities you might be missing and to take action. Give yourself the time to do the work Lohrenz presents, and you’ll navigate fear, ambiguity, and uncertainty to succeed in a difficult—or even chaotic—work environment.

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Carey Lohrenz, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today.

For more information about Carey Lohrenz, visit www.careylohrenz.com.
To pre-order Span of Control by Carey Lohrenz, click here.

Dear Madeleine,

I was promoted to VP of sales a few months before the pandemic hit. I feel like I have been in an industrial washing machine ever since, and am just starting to come up for air. There was a lot of training at the beginning but then our entire book of business and go-to-market strategies shifted. It has been mayhem, but things are starting to settle now.

I have an amazing team. I physically moved in order to take over a new region, so all of my people are relatively new colleagues, which is nice. About two years ago, our company changed CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. [Note: This is the system that sales leaders and marketing use to gain visibility into prospects, contact info, opportunities/pipeline, forecasting, account plans, competitive intelligence, etc.]

The new system is fine; not any worse or better than the old one. My people have figured out how to make it work for them and comply with requirements. But there are exceptions.

One sales rep, who creates amazing relationships with his customers and crushes his quota, cannot for the life of him get his info into the system. It’s great when he suddenly brings in huge projects, but then there is a scramble to deliver on the contract. Then there’s another rep who puts everything into the system beautifully but can’t seem to get anything done other than that—and she certainly can’t close.

My boss is giving me a hard time about both of them, but very little guidance on how to get them to where they need to be. Thoughts?

CRM Conundrum

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear CRM Conundrum,

I consulted our sales leaders here at Blanchard because I thought these may be common issues that they might have some good experience with. Judd Hoekstra and Sarah Caverhill both weighed in, so I credit them for a lot of this response.

I see 3 different issues in your letter.

1. One rep who crushes the numbers but won’t comply with keeping his data current in the CRM, which causes problems for you as a boss and for others downstream.
2. One rep who is very good at CRM management but doesn’t seem to know how to actually sell.
3. A boss who isn’t very helpful.

Today let’s deal with your sales genius who can’t/won’t comply, I will do a Part 2 later to address the other two issues.

There is an old New Yorker Cartoon of a guy in his underwear, smoking a cigarette and holding a martini at the water cooler, who says to another guy, “When you’re nailing the numbers, they don’t ask questions.” I bought a print and gave to our (then) VP of sales, but he didn’t think it was as funny as I did. I guess I have a really sick sense of humor. And until the advent of the now universally used CRM, I think it was kind of true that when sales reps would hit their goals, nobody much cared about how they did it or anything else. Your sales wiz is probably a bit of a holdover from those days. There is a progression to think through on this:

Get Clear About Development Level: What is your sales rep’s development level on using the CRM? In the language of our SLII® Model, development level is a combination of competence and commitment. There is a good chance that your rep hasn’t taken the time to get good at using the CRM because he doesn’t think he has to. The personality profile of people who are terrific at initiating and building terrific relationships that inspire buyers to commit usually does not include attention to detail and compliance with what they might consider to be annoying rules. And in today’s hypercompetitive job landscape, we are asking employees to be good at many skills. Being good at just one aspect of a job is no longer enough. So let’s be clear that you are asking a chicken to climb a tree or a squirrel to lay an egg—it won’t be natural or easy.

Gain Commitment: You are going to have to work with this rep on his willingness to commit to learning, getting good at, and using the CRM. First gain commitment, then get him the instruction and support that he will need to get skilled. How to do this? Explain how important the data is, why the organization requires it, and why you need it. Then set up small, reasonable milestones to get him where he needs to be. Sarah Caverhill shared an experience she had with a rep who refused to use our new CRM:

“I told her I understood she didn’t want to do it and asked her what was getting in her way. We identified a few things like ‘I get too busy in my day to do it’ and ‘I hate it—it’s drudgery.’ I explained that we need the data to run and grow our business. (Garbage in, garbage out—you want us to provide more resources? Then you need to do your part to help us see what’s coming down the pike. You want better project manager performance? Then you need to prepare your PMs with better info. And so forth.) I asked her if she understood the importance and she said she did. I then asked her what she could do to remove the things that were getting in her way and adjust her motivational outlook. We came up with several ideas. Eventually, she settled on one idea, which was to allocate 15 minutes each morning to updating the CRM before she started work. From that time on—and we’re talking years—I never had an issue with her opps being out of date. Sometimes the information was sort of a guess, but it was reliably input and often more accurate than I had expected.”

Be Fierce with Accountability and Enforce Consequences: If your sales rep simply refuses, you have a whole other problem. It sounds like he has gotten away with noncompliance thus far and is pretty sure that if he just ignores the situation, it will go away. If that is the case, you will have to discuss it with your boss and make a decision. There is probably a historical precedent in your organization that high performers can do whatever they want (in sales, especially, this is epidemic). So you need to choose to either perpetuate that culture or shift it—now. If you choose to perpetuate it, you will agree to let your rep not comply. Be aware that this will create issues of fairness if it hasn’t already: why do some people get away with bad behavior while others do not? All humans are hypersensitive to issues of fairness and will resent you for any preferential treatment you offer to anyone. On the flip side, you will have to come up with consequences for noncompliance, for which you are willing to hold both yourself and him accountable. This sets you up to be the compliance police, jury, judge, and parole officer, which will be a massive bummer—but that’s why managers make the big bucks. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.

Any system of requirements/consequences for noncompliance will work as long as you commit to it and take action according to plan. The final result could very well be that your rep will lose his job. This is why you need your boss to have your back. And, of course, it would hurt you to lose his numbers, so you will need to figure out how to cover your loss.

Judd Hoekstra says: “This is probably one of the more draining aspects of the sales leader role, because it’s ongoing unless there is alignment on tough consequences (like losing your job) for noncompliance.”

I will cover the other two issues next week, because this answer is already too long. I will float one more idea, though: Would it make sense to pair your sales rock star with your data tracking rock star? Pair a chicken with a squirrel? Have one show the other how it’s done? Is anyone else thinking that could be a good idea? Of course, then you would have a potentially fraught compensation formula to calculate.

Isn’t sales leadership fun? I admire all of you, honestly—I couldn’t take the heat.

More next week.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

“So many of us are dealing with changes to our work routines. It’s generating a mountain of new requests and tasks that require us to get things done using new guidelines, practices, and procedures,” says bestselling business author Dr. Vicki Halsey, VP of Applied Learning at The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“Leaders need to: (1) be sure direct reports are clear on what they have to do; (2) work with each of them to diagnose where they are on each task; and (3) get them the resources they need to succeed,” explains Halsey. “Managers need to be as clear as possible about what a good job looks like.

This can be more difficult than it seems on the surface—for example, when there are conflicting priorities. Managers are often asked to hit output quotas at a high level of quality but under a certain budget. In a call center, this might translate to workers being urged to solve every customer’s problem the first time they call while also maintaining a call volume of more than 20 calls answered per hour. That’s a huge challenge. The best organizations get clear on what is most important and set specific, trackable, and attainable goals while striving to maintain motivation and avoid burnout.”

Once goals are set, leaders need to be attentive to each individual’s level of competence and commitment for the new task or new way of doing things. Diagnosing development level is key, says Halsey.

“Help people see where they are on a specific task in terms of ability and motivation, which we describe as competence and commitment. A person can be high or low on either scale. When these measurements are combined, the person will end up at one of four development levels such as Disillusioned Learner (low on commitment, low on competence) and Self-Reliant Achiever (high on commitment, high on competence).

“As a leader, you need to listen and observe very carefully. If the person is a learner, you help solve the problem for them. If they’ve had some demonstrable success but they’re a little hesitant, you flip the conversation and ask them how they think they should solve the problem.”

Halsey says in all cases, the leader must stay involved.

“If you leave people alone, that’s when they will move the task to the next day’s to-do list. If you want to keep accelerating their performance, you have to stay with them. Are they letting you know their status on a task, or have they gone silent? Go and check with them. If you notice you’re not seeing the person as much as you used to, you need to connect with them, figure out where they’re stuck, and get them back on track.

“Your goal as a leader is to keep the conversations flowing. That’s the secret to productivity—clear goals, people aligned on performance, and being able to diagnose and then give what is needed to ensure they get the job done. When you accomplish that, you are working in a highly productive, aligned manner,” says Halsey. “That’s good for you, your people, and your organization!”

Would you like to learn more about helping the leaders in your organization have effective conversations in a changing work environment? Join us for a free webinar!

3 Performance Conversation Skills All Leaders Need to Master
Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Join Dr. Vicki Halsey for an in-depth look at the three skills today’s leaders need to master in our changing world—goal setting, diagnosing, and matching. Halsey will show you how to help your leaders diagnose people’s development levels on new tasks and goals and how to provide the proper amounts of direction and support to get people up to speed quickly. You’ll explore how leaders can:

• Structure new goals, tasks, and processes for team members
• Diagnose a direct report’s current development level for mastering a new skill
• Provide a matching leadership style with the right amount of direction and support

Don’t miss this opportunity to get people performing at a high level quickly in a changing world.

Register today!

Dear Madeleine,

Every time I hear the word “feedback” I have a strong, negative response. This comes from a recent experience with a manager. Going into the relationship, I had always been someone who asked for feedback. This manager, however, gave me feedback so often there was no need to ask for it. She seemed to enjoy it—like wielding power over me—and would sometimes mockingly comment “feedback is a gift!” She also would share gossip she had heard about me and call it feedback.

On a couple of occasions, this manager’s feedback about how she felt I was showing up at meetings—the way I sat, the fact that I read from the slides too much—caused me to cry. I am not sure if it was because in the beginning I felt safe to let my guard down, because she was a woman and we had been considered friends before I reported to her, because I was feeling shame, or because it has always been very important to me to show up well. It was likely a combination of all of the above.

A few months ago, this manager was passing along feedback from my skip-level. When I asked for some clarification and suggested that I might talk with him directly, she told me that he didn’t feel comfortable giving me direct feedback because he was afraid it might make me cry. Ouch! He could have known about this only if she had shared it with him. Essentially, my manager had labeled me as a crier. To her boss. Fantastic.

This experience taught me that processing my emotions with this manager wasn’t safe at all—and that she wasn’t as comfortable with my emotions as I thought she was. In that conversation, I told her that never in my 20 years at our large company had anyone given me the kind of harsh feedback she gave. But rather than hearing the feedback I was now giving her, her response was “Wow, you really haven’t received much feedback, have you?” Total deflection on her part.

I have since moved to a new company. I am in a senior role where I am expected to give feedback to my direct reports. Needless to say, I am now gun-shy about giving feedback. In fact, if I were to hear someone ask “May I give you some feedback?” I fear I would run down the hallway, screaming “No thank you!!”

I don’t feel everyone necessarily wants or needs feedback, and I’m looking to find a balance so I am not traumatized by this forever. I want to be a manager who gives helpful feedback, but I don’t want to upset anyone in the process. Also, I want to continue to ask for and receive feedback from my own supervisor in order to continue growing—but what if I cry again and am further humiliated?

What advice can you offer on how I might (1) develop some comfort with giving feedback? and (2) speed this healing process along?

Traumatized by Feedback

__________________________________________________________

Dear Traumatized,

I hope you found my response to your first question useful. For anyone who might have missed it, in the last post I addressed how to develop some comfort with giving feedback. In this (Part 2) post, I will address your second question: How do you speed the healing process of wounds received by a psycho manager so you can ask for feedback in the future? Clearly, you once trusted others to provide useful input to help you grow. So how can you find your way back to that?

“Why bother?” you might ask. Well, that’s a good question. After all, you have risen to a senior position in a new organization. You could just try powering through with a bulletproof protective shell.

But here’s the thing: research shows that feedback becomes less frequent and less consistent the higher people go. So if you aren’t actively seeking feedback, you’re probably not going to get much. The only problem with this is that if you’re doing things that aren’t effective, you might not know until it’s too late. You could end up being surprised in a bad way. It won’t serve you to live in a vacuum—and no (wo)man is an island.

First, take some time to heal. Shame, regret, and humiliation feel poisonous—and once you get a negative thought loop in your brain, it can be hard to interrupt that pattern. As neuroscientists say: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” That’s why it takes so much repetition to build and embed a habit.

Here are a couple of excellent techniques that have been shown to be effective at interrupting negative neural patterns.

Labeling: There is a misconception that talking about a difficult experience will only rub salt in the wound, but this is only true if you ruminate—revisit events with no tools to transform their impact. One way to change your response to past experience is to articulate how events made you feel, and then label the emotions. You can do this with a therapist, a sympathetic HR professional, or a friend who is a good listener. You’ve already started doing it by writing your letter. That’s a good first step.

The more detailed you can get and the more specifically you can label how you felt, the less sting you will feel over time. It might sound something like this: “In my last job, I had a manager who I thought was a friend. She started belittling me by saying mean things about my looks, body language, and competence. I was really hurt—but even worse, I felt betrayed and abandoned.” You can loosen the grip you experience instead of feeling like it has power over you.

Distancing techniques: Another tool to diminish the emotional turmoil you’re dealing with is to tell yourself the story of the events that happened but do it in the third person, as if it happened to someone else. For example, you might start the story with “I once knew this person who was badly bullied by her manager. Because she thought they were friends, she didn’t really know what was happening until it was too late and the damage was done. Here’s what happened…” It may sound hokey, but it really works to help you not only get some perspective but also rewire the circuits in your brain.

Reappraisal or reframing: Right now you’re still seeing yourself as the person who had an inappropriate emotional reaction. It’s really important to get your head wrapped around the fact that in the circumstances you described, anyone would have had that reaction. In fact, your emotional reaction was entirely appropriate. So in this case, I would encourage you to take your newfound labels—and your little bit of distance—and use them to look at your situation and see how you might reframe your interpretation of events. Consider how your nasty manager contributed to the situation, set you up to be vulnerable, and manipulated you.

These techniques, by the way, are useful for dealing with all kinds of deeply felt negative emotions that get in your way. Do not skip this step. This step puts you back on an even keel and sets you up to take charge of how you ask for feedback in the future and what you do with it. I guarantee it will not include tears or running down the hallway screaming “No thank you.”

Once you have done some processing, find your people. Identify those in your new workplace who will be on Team No Longer Traumatized, Now Healed. Find people you respect who have a stake in your success and who share your interests—the ones you like and feel you can trust. Click here for some information on our Trust Model – it may be my all-time favorite—that makes something layered and complex stunningly simple. Make a pact with these folks that they will come to you with input—and that when you ask for feedback they will give it to you straight, when it matters.

Ask your boss to give you very specific feedback having to do with how you are progressing on your goals and how to be most successful at influencing in the organization. If and only if you think you can trust her, share your negative experience with feedback. Ask her to be especially kind but not hold back when it’s something she believes will make a real impact on your success.

Encourage your direct report team to give you feedback, especially when it comes to creating an environment that brings out their best. You can make an explicit request of each person that you expect them to tell you if you have done something that has had a negative impact on them.

As a senior leader, you can create the feedback culture in your department—so it’s up to you to be clear about what is expected and what is out of bounds. Go back to last week’s post, write up your own rules concerning feedback, and share them with your team. Examples might be:

• Go direct: Give each other feedback. Don’t complain to others or go to the boss until you have tried to have a conversation.

• Ask yourself: Do I need to say it? Do they really need to hear it?

The thing you couldn’t do in your last job was set boundaries. It’s time for you to be ready to push back when someone crosses the line. When someone says something mean, you are allowed to say: “That’s mean, and my feelings are hurt.” If you get feedback that hurts from someone you trust, sit with your feelings about it, ask yourself “What if this were true,” and then take what you can and move on.

Finally, never forget that feedback says more about the person giving it than anything else. Take it all with a grain of salt. When in doubt, check it out with your people, then take what you can and let the rest go.

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,

Every time I hear the word “feedback” I have a strong, negative response. This comes from a recent experience with a manager. Going into the relationship, I had always been someone who asked for feedback. This manager, however, gave me feedback so often there was no need to ask for it. She seemed to enjoy it—like wielding power over me—and would sometimes mockingly comment “feedback is a gift!” She also would share gossip she had heard about me and call it feedback.

On a couple of occasions, this manager’s feedback about how she felt I was showing up at meetings—the way I sat, the fact that I read from the slides too much—caused me to cry. I am not sure if it was because in the beginning I felt safe to let my guard down, because she was a woman and we had been considered friends before I reported to her, because I was feeling shame, or because it has always been very important to me to show up well. It was likely a combination of all of the above.

A few months ago, this manager was passing along feedback from my skip-level. When I asked for some clarification and suggested that I might talk with him directly, she told me that he didn’t feel comfortable giving me direct feedback because he was afraid it might make me cry. Ouch! He could have known about this only if she had shared it with him. Essentially, my manager had labeled me as a crier. To her boss. Fantastic.

This experience taught me that processing my emotions with this manager wasn’t safe at all—and that she wasn’t as comfortable with my emotions as I thought she was. In that conversation, I told her that never in my 20 years at our large company had anyone given me the kind of harsh feedback she gave. But rather than hearing the feedback I was now giving her, her response was “Wow, you really haven’t received much feedback, have you?” Total deflection on her part.

I have since moved to a new company. I am in a senior role where I am expected to give feedback to my direct reports. Needless to say, I am now gun-shy about giving feedback. In fact, if I were to hear someone ask “May I give you some feedback?” I fear I would run down the hallway, screaming “No thank you!!”

I don’t feel everyone necessarily wants or needs feedback, and I’m looking to find a balance so I am not traumatized by this forever. I want to be a manager who gives helpful feedback, but I don’t want to upset anyone in the process. Also, I want to continue to ask for and receive feedback from my own supervisor in order to continue growing—but what if I cry again and am further humiliated?

What advice can you offer on how I might (1) develop some comfort with giving feedback? and (2) speed this healing process along?

Traumatized by Feedback

Dear Traumatized by Feedback,

Wow. Ken Blanchard does say “Feedback is the breakfast of champions” but this is not what he means.

First, let me say how sorry I am that your former manager was just mean. You aren’t really traumatized by feedback per se; you are traumatized by the fact that your manager used the idea of feedback to bully you. And she masqueraded as a friend and then used your vulnerability against you, which is manipulative and probably a sign of a personality disorder. (Wait, let me get out my DSM-5 for a quick diagnosis! Just kidding, but it is tempting.)

It sounds like you left your former company, so at least you got away from your very nasty manager.

I’m going to share with you our Coach Approach to Feedback. Linda Miller and I developed it as a special add-on to our Coaching Skills course because so many people equate coaching with feedback. (They are not at all the same thing, but that distinction is for another time.) For now, it might be helpful to read Marcus Buckingham’s take on it, which I agree with.

A couple of universal principles to get us started:

Feedback says more about the person giving it than the person receiving it. (I learned this from What Did You Say? by Charles and Edie Seashore—an oldie but goodie.)

The job requirement “give feedback” is not the same as “declare open season to share any personal opinion, no matter how potentially hurtful, that comes into my head.”

It is part of a manager’s job to share observations and information that will help people be as successful as possible.

The best managers always have as their intention “to do no harm.”

The manager must decide exactly what kind of feedback is being given, and the purpose for giving it. The more clear the manager is going in, the more clear the employee will be on what to do with the feedback. There are five distinctly different types of feedback:

1. Celebration Feedback: Acknowledgment of superior performance or marked improvement on a critical, difficult task.
2. Positive Feedback: Information about what is going well when performance meets expectations.
3. Observation Feedback: Information shared without any attachment to change.
4. Performance Request: Information in proper context with a clear, specific request for change.
5. Performance Demand: An escalation of a request to a demand for change with clear, specific consequences for lack of compliance.

Any feedback should be carefully crafted to meet the following criteria. Feedback must be:

Immediately relevant. All feedback should be grounded in a specific task, goal, or development area. Feedback is most relevant to performance needed for success when individuals:

• need to move to a new level of performance
• are new to a task or goal
• are not delivering on tasks or goals
• have conduct that is not aligned with policy

Managers may also want to give feedback to support development; for example, when someone is doing well and ready for the next steps or wants to be more fully rounded in their current role.

General or random feedback that is unrelated to the job at hand or the long-term success of the employee is just noise (e.g., the way you’re sitting at a meeting). At best, it can feel inappropriately personal and cause confusion. At worst, it makes the employee feel picked on.

Timely. The manager should take the time they need to think through the purpose and form of the feedback, but not so long that the moment passes and it gets lost in the scrum of the next big project. If the feedback will make a difference to a deliverable coming up soon, the manager should share it in plenty of time so it can be processed.

If you as the manager are angry, resentful, incredulous, or otherwise emotionally lit up, STOP. Stop, breathe, step back, step away, sleep on it, write (but don’t send) an email, don’t pick up the phone. If you are storming off, looking for the offender to give them a piece of your mind, STOP. It takes hundreds of teeny positive interactions to build trust and only one misstep to break it. Make sure you have your facts straight and are totally calm before going into the fray.

Thoughtful. Think long and hard about how important it is to give feedback. Ask yourself: Is this likely to resolve itself on its own? Did my team member already suffer the pain of their error and will probably never make the same mistake again? If the answer is no and the employee is likely to continue or even double down on something that is hurting them, go ahead and take the plunge. If you have to say something really difficult, write out what you want to say and practice with someone neutral. Getting the language right can make all the difference.

Non-judgmental. Feedback needs to be delivered with a neutral tone and behaviors must be separated from the person. When you want to say: “Wow, you were unprepared and under-rehearsed for that presentation—you seemed disjointed and lost credibility,” flip it and say: “In the future, it would be good to spend more time preparing. Run your content outline by me or some other trusted team members to make sure you are covering all the bases. And do a couple of dry runs with a safe audience—you’ll gain confidence with your material, which will vastly enhance the credibility of your presentations.”

Focused on the future. We can’t go back and fix the past; we can only learn and improve in the future.

Specific and descriptive. We tend to think people know how they have fallen short when that is often not the case. The more specific you can be, the better.

Based on personal experience. In our coaching team, our motto is go direct. We all commit to giving each other feedback as it relates to working together or how a colleague might be more effective. It isn’t always possible—it depends a lot on the culture of the team and the organization—but I think it’s unfair to expect a manager to give a direct report someone else’s feedback. If someone comes to you with feedback for one of your direct reports, consider whether the message is important to your person’s success. If you think it will really matter, encourage the source to go direct. Let them practice with you if they want—and you can help them make sure their feedback matches the above criteria.

Under no circumstances should gossip ever be shared as feedback. Gossip is toxic and should be stopped in its tracks. Gossip, fun as it may be, is never good, always bad. The best thing you can do as a manager is become an anti-gossip bulwark.

Finally, if you have any doubt about whether or not you should share an observation, ask yourself, “Do I need to say it, or do they need to hear it?” If you need to say it, stop. If they need to hear it, go. It is fiendishly difficult to keep our opinions to ourselves, but I have found that exercising that discipline has vastly improved my quality of life. At least I have to apologize a lot less.

Stay tuned for next week, where I will tackle your question about how to receive feedback and offer some ideas about how to heal from your experience with the nasty manager. The first step to healing is dedicating yourself to being the polar opposite of the meanie. If you follow the guidelines, you will probably not traumatize any of your people. It does take practice—which will take time—so cut yourself some slack.

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 have an amazing team except for one person. I’ve provided ample opportunities for this person to step up and she just isn’t picking up on them. I can’t tell what is going on. She seems bright enough. She can work hard—I’ve seen it—so I don’t think it is laziness.

Also, I’m about to hire a few more people and am wondering how to avoid hiring someone like her.

Exasperated

Dear Exasperated,

I have always said that a manager must not be more interested in an employee’s development than the employee is. And that may be the case here—but let’s check it out first.

The first order of business is to have a conversation with your person in which you explain your point of view. This is going to require you to be direct but kind. It is entirely possible that she hasn’t picked up on opportunities because she was waiting for explicit direction from you. Not everyone picks up on cues, especially if they are implied versus direct.

Be more directive and provide more touchpoints regarding her professional growth. The key here is for you to properly communicate and partner with your employee so that you understand her hopes and dreams and can allow her to drive her own development. Give this a serious try for at least a couple of months. You might feel as if you are micromanaging, but in some cases that’s what people need.

What if, after you have tried this approach, your employee still doesn’t show any ambition? One option may be to change her title to technical specialist or something similar and just stop worrying about her career path. Lots of organizations are filled with people who are perfectly happy to stay right in their lane without much growth or change—but in some organizations, the trajectory is “up or out.” If you know you’ve really given it a shot, and it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards, then you can decide what to do about it.

Now about your prospective hires. It sounds like you are looking for some key traits in your candidates. Research supports the idea that job seekers with the following four attributes are predicted to have significantly higher levels of success in any new job.

1. Work attitude
2. A sense of accountability
3. Prior related job success
4. Culture fit

Work attitude can be described as a positive disposition or attitude toward work that persists across employment experiences. Candidates who demonstrate high degrees of work attitude:

• will go out of their way to describe negative experiences in the positive,
• find it hard to describe negative situations without sharing how the situation made them stronger, and
• have a deep need to work hard and produce results that make them proud.

A sense of accountability means the extent to which a person believes they have control over their own outcomes—also called locus of control. Candidates who demonstrate a high sense of accountability:

• are 40% more likely to succeed in any role,
• believe in themselves, and
• will stand up under pressure and refuse to play the victim.

Prior related job success—the degree to which the candidate has met formal goals in past jobs that are similar to the job at hand. This is, of course, the most obvious factor and the one hiring managers pay the most attention to. It is important, but not the only important thing.

• Candidates who have achieved success in prior jobs, athletics, academics, or other meaningful pursuits are significantly more likely to succeed.
• Both success and failure become habits throughout a career.

Culture fit is the degree to which the candidate shares similar values with the organization and demonstrates an authentic interest in the job at hand. In this case, you clearly are creating the culture in your group and you need to hire people who will fit your standards for ambition and desire to develop.

• Effective hiring processes attract candidates who have similar values and repel candidates who do not.
• It is imperative for interviews and testing in the hiring process to identify honest, hardworking, and positive candidates.

You are going to want to do behavioral interviewing to find out an applicant’s history and assess for these four traits. For an in-depth guide on behavioral interviewing, look here.

Ideally, you have HR professionals who can help you with this. If not, you will be on your own to do your own crash course in hiring! In my experience, hiring is 90% of the battle when it comes to getting the right people in the right jobs. Everything else is tweaking the details.

Good luck on both challenges!

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I run a very lean team and one of my people is a hypochondriac. Every week there is a new reason he needs to go to the doctor. Any cold that comes through he gets, and it is worse for him than for anybody else. He gets the flu every year. It is always something with him—he is tired, he is on some new medication that makes him have brain fog—he always has a health excuse for why he is a little behind or doing a little less than the others. He uses all of his PTO for medical situations but there is never anything visibly wrong. He has never brought in a doctor’s note, although I have asked.

I am sick of it. I recently saw a team member roll her eyes in a meeting when he was looking the other way, so I know I am not alone. We are all bored with his excuses.

I feel bad and worry that I am being a judgmental jerk because I am hardy and rarely get sick. What if he really is sick all the time? What do you say?

Sick and Tired of Sick and Tired

Dear Sick and Tired,

I hear you. It is much harder to empathize with constant health challenges when you are gifted with glowing good health and strong stamina. You are only a jerk if you act on your opinions and are mean or cruel.

A rule of thumb you might consider is that you have to be able to trust your people and give them the benefit of the doubt—that is, until too much doubt creeps in. Then you have to talk about it. To talk about it, you must separate the two different issues: the constant health complaints are one thing, and the fact that he does not carry a full workload is another. One is simply irritating but the other is unacceptable. You have to address the unacceptable first, which is the classic hard conversation. State the facts as you see them and make a request for specific change.

Here is something I have tested with both myself and clients. It is a 7-step process for a conversation, taken from the book Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. This approach is a good way to call out behaviors that aren’t working.

1. Name the issue; e.g., “You aren’t carrying the same workload as everyone else on the team, and the issue of fairness needs to be addressed.”
2. Select 2 or 3 specific examples of the behavior or situation you want to change.
3. Describe your emotion about this issue (e.g., you are frustrated and are having trouble planning and assigning work tasks because you don’t know what you can expect of him).
4. Clarify what is at stake—and be very clear about this. What is the problem exactly and what is the negative consequence of not addressing it?
5. Identify your contribution to the problem. Is it possible you have allowed the bad behavior to go on too long? Be honest.
6. Indicate your wish to resolve the issue, being specific about what resolved looks like to you. This is critical and will provide you both with a measure so that you will know if the fix is successful.
7. Invite your employee to respond.

The thing I like most about this process is that it forces you to prepare for a conversation about one problem, and one problem only. Once the workload issue is addressed, you can embark on the one about the health complaining, which is a different kind of conversation. In that case, you are sharing an observation and making him aware that he is creating a reputation. You can leave to him what he decides to do about it, which will be his choice.

I once worked with a young man who was a little bit negative about everything. I shared with him that everyone on the team called him Eeyore. I thought he would get upset and try to change the perception, but instead he laughed and said, “Oh that is so perfect, I am totally Eeyore.” Your employee has a whole narrative going and he can decide to change it or not. It may be completely fine with him that people are rolling their eyes at him. Once you have helped him gain awareness, unless you plan to make a request for a change, your job is done.

Finally, there is an opportunity here for you to practice compassion. Next time you do feel under the weather, you might ask yourself what it would be like to feel that terrible all the time. Some people really do struggle with terrible health and you have to give them credit for carrying on under difficult circumstances.

And—the work needs to get done, so you are going to have to do whatever is needed to help him get the work done or change his schedule and workload to reflect what he can manage. To do that, you will probably have to HR involved, and a diagnosis and a doctor’s note, which nobody wants, but getting clarity will be key. Otherwise, resentment will build among the team and you will have a real problem on your hands.

Get clear. Deal with the work situation and raise awareness about the complaining. Continue to notice your own judgment and practice putting yourself in his shoes. Be persistent in getting clarity and kind all along the way.

I hope your own health continues to be excellent!

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I am at my limit and hope you can help.

I am a senior team leader with a very high performing intact team. We have a new, very inexperienced board who is wreaking havoc with the way I run my business. They are putting nonrealistic pressures on me to generate numbers that are simply not possible given our current structure.

My boss is changing my results presentations to the board without informing me or gaining my agreement so now we have a situation of overpromising and underdelivering. She will be protected, well, because she has powerful high-level sponsorship and she will be able to make it look like it was all my fault.

I have already pushed my team members beyond their limits, and I am literally having heart palpitations.

I think at this point I am so stressed that I can’t even think straight, what advice do you have for me?

Heart Palpitations

Dear Heart Palpitations,

Ah, the joys of a new board. Everybody always thinks they can do it better than you, right? OK. A couple of thoughts for you.

First, calm down. Take a step back and get some perspective. Pretend you are viewing the whole situation from a helicopter 2000 feet up. Call up a good friend and tell the whole story as if it were happening to someone else so you can get some fresh angles on it and loosen some of the emotional grip.

Another way to calm yourself down might be to talk through the worst possible case scenario here – which may or may not be your getting fired, but let’s face it, it shouldn’t involve you actually dying. So, seriously, you have to get a grip or you are no good to anybody and the next thing you know you are having a heart attack because of work, which would really be tragic.

Once you have calmed down enough and don’t feel like you have a fire alarm going off in your head at all times, sit down and think about alliances. Who do you have alliances with in the organization—or who can you create alliances with who can provide counsel or other forms of support right now? This is when you really need help from your friends and if you have been having success in the organization you definitely have some.

Don’t try to go this alone, get some help. If this is happening to you it is happening to others too and there is strength in numbers. The fact that your boss is lying and misrepresenting your presentations is deeply concerning and I think you just might have to ride that one out.

You might think about sending your correct presentations to folks you have an alliance with, who might share them with their own bosses. Just in the spirit of information sharing, but also so you have a dated record of the truth. Or even escalate to HR. Yes, she has protection, but it is possible that some behaviors are beyond the pale, and she will get what’s coming to her.

Of course, you might wonder why I am not suggesting that you just talk to your lying cheating boss; that is certainly a good idea, but I guess I am assuming you have tried that or think it won’t make a difference.

Finally, you say you can’t achieve the deliverables with your current structure, which implies that you might be able to with a different structure. What if you were to come up with the structure that would allow you to hit the required numbers and make a case for the resources to build a new structure? Be creative and pro-active. If you review your worst possible case scenario, you might see that you don’t have anything to lose.

But first…get that stress under control, it is no joke. Once you lower your adrenaline and cortisol levels you will find that you are much better at creative problem solving. Put your hand over your heart, tell yourself that everything is going to be OK and take a deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in….

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!

Want a more purposeful, aligned, and engaged organization? “Make sure managers and direct reports are taking a collaborative approach to performance,” says Susan Fowler, senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies and coauthor of the company’s Self Leadership training program.

“It starts with agreed-upon goals,” Fowler continues.

“In my early days as a consultant, I was asked by leaders of an organization to help improve telephone communication skills. I soon realized that the organization wasn’t actually interested in general telephone skills but only wanted to address the mistakes being made at their front desk—especially the negative feedback from employees and customers about one telephone operator in particular. I decided to work directly with the operator on goal setting.

“She had been in her role for a long time but her manager had never attempted to work with her on setting goals—he had only expressed frustration about the complaints. Her service position was primarily reactive and the manager had found it too challenging to set goals for a job where there was little control.

“She and I tackled the negative feedback regarding mistakes by setting a goal to reduce mistakes by 50 percent over the next two months. We identified actions she could take to improve accuracy and customer service. We also asked company employees to monitor their messages for mistakes and to report any customer complaints.

“After a couple of months, I checked in and was dismayed to learn that inaccuracies and complaints had actually increased! We attributed the bad news to the fact that we had brought attention to the problems and asked for feedback. We decided to consider the feedback a gift and began analyzing the data we’d received.

“Together, we discovered that most of the mistakes were occurring between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time. When the business day ended in the Eastern and Central Time zones, calls were routed to the California office. The extra volume was too much for one person to handle, putting an unreasonable expectation on the operator and her ability to deal with calls in a friendly and effective manner.

“The data gave us the evidence we needed to ask for help. We asked the operator’s manager to put a second person at the switchboard for those two hours. Two months later, the operator had not only achieved but exceeded her goal,” says Fowler. “It was a simple solution—but without a collaborative goal-setting approach, we never would have understood the underlying cause of her poor performance. She would have continued to get negative feedback—and maybe lost her job.”

That’s why Fowler is so adamant about approaching goal setting as a joint responsibility where managers and team members work together to clarify expectations, identify challenges, and develop a plan for accessing the resources each person needs to succeed.

“Managers and direct reports need to sit down and talk about what it would look like if each of them were doing the best possible job. It is a rich, deep conversation that clarifies expectations on both sides about what the job is and how they can work together to create alignment in a way that is effective, engaging, and worth pursuing.”

Rethinking SMART goals

Fowler says this type of approach requires tweaking the SMART goal criteria used in most organizations.

“Most people know SMART as specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and trackable. At Blanchard, we recommend changing the M to motivating.”

Fowler explains that if managers don’t explore a team member’s motivation and create a way for each individual to connect their work to personally meaningful values, the manager ends up having to hold them accountable.

“Managers who focus on only being specific and measurable in goal setting end up spending their time holding people accountable. Why? Because the goals weren’t personally inspiring to the direct report. Help people be accountable so you don’t have to hold them accountable.”

Fowler teaches managers to make sure they have a conversation with each direct report where they explore the individual’s self motivation to achieve each goal. This ensures the person’s motivation isn’t dependent on external factors they can’t control.

“When someone can connect a goal to their personal values, the result will be a person who is accountable—because they have clarified, negotiated, or reframed the goal in a way that is personally meaningful and important. That’s a key learning objective in our Self Leadership program. We teach individual contributors that when they are given a goal, it is their responsibility to:

• Clarify the goal if it is unclear
• Negotiate if they don’t believe the goal is fair or relevant to their job
• Reframe a goal if it’s not personally compelling or in line with their values or sense of purpose

“Working collaboratively to clarify, negotiate, or reframe goals sets up a joint accountability between manager and direct report that leads to goal achievement.”

From goal setting to goal achievement

Clear goals set the stage and make it easier for the manager to provide the appropriate levels of direction and support a person needs to get the job done, says Fowler.

“The reality is that most managers have their own work goals at the same time they are managing the work of others. I’m always surprised when organizations expect managers to be aware of what is going on inside the heads of every one of their direct reports while they are each working on their different tasks.  We know from experience that even our loved ones—the people we are closest to—often don’t know what we are thinking. Why would we expect managers to know what each of their direct reports is thinking?

“At Blanchard, we teach managers and direct reports how to use a shared language to describe the four stages of development everyone goes through when presented with a new goal or task. This ranges from enthusiastic beginner when someone is just starting out, through the motivational dip we describe as disillusioned learner, to capable, but cautious contributor as they build competence and commitment, and finally, to self-reliant achiever when they’ve mastered the task.

“When managers and direct reports have a shared understanding of development levels, it provides them with a means to have effective conversations every step of the way. Now a person can go to their manager and say, ‘I’m at the D1 level of development (or the enthusiastic beginner stage) on this goal. I’m excited about the challenge but since I’ve never done it before, I need direction from you.’”

A shared language also makes it easier for the manager to respond appropriately and more effectively, says Fowler.

“If an individual needs direction, a manager can immediately provide it or find a resource that can. This same shared language can make it easier for a manager to say, ‘I don’t know how to do that either—let’s find a resource for you.’

“When goal achievement is pursued as a collaborative responsibility, it gives the manager permission to talk about other resources and ways of getting the team member what they need.”

An important twist when engaging in one-on-ones

One additional recommendation Fowler has for managers is to share ownership of one-on-one meetings.

“A lot of people think the one-on-one should be driven by the manager.  What we’re saying is that the agenda for the one-on-one should be directed by the direct report. If the manager is leading the one-on-one, it’s pretty hard to distinguish it from other kinds of performance management discussions, such as goal setting or feedback conversations. When the direct report sets the agenda, they are saying, ‘I understand this is my goal. Here is the progress I’m making and here is what I need, either from you or from another resource, to keep moving forward.”

A key skill for today’s successful organizations

Fowler encourages leadership, learning, and talent development professionals at companies of all sizes to consider how they can bring a more collaborative approach to leadership in their organizations.

“In the last 15 years I have seen a tremendous increase in research that identifies the importance of self leadership. In fact, increasing the proactive behavior of individual contributors has been identified as the single most important ingredient for the success of organizational initiatives.

“Teaching people how to use a shared language to self diagnose and partner with their managers is a great way to get started. It creates an engaging and motivating environment for the individual and helps the manager and the entire organization move forward more quickly to succeed.

“Don’t delay—start using a more collaborative approach today!”

____________________________________________________________________________

Would you like to learn more about taking a collaborative approach to performance management? Join Susan Fowler for a free webinar!

Partnering for Performance: 3 Ways to Help Your Managers and Direct Reports Collaborate to Achieve Goals

March 27, 2019 / 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern / 4:00 p.m. UK Time / 4:00 p.m. GMT

If you are a leadership, learning, or talent development professional, you know that it takes two to optimize performance—the manager and the direct report. As their leader, your dilemma is how to encourage and facilitate the crucial relationship between the two.

In this webinar, bestselling business author Susan Fowler shares how you can promote a collaborative approach to performance management that has been proven to get results with high levels of engagement. Fowler reveals the latest research-based strategies on self motivation and how to combine it with the time-tested principles of Situational Leadership® II (SLII®)—the most widely-taught leadership development model in the world.

Participants will learn how to position performance management as a joint responsibility—with managers and direct reports working together to make sure they set clear, motivating goals and effectively diagnose competence and commitment on key tasks so that everyone has what they need to succeed.

You will explore how to help managers and team members:

• Take a top-down, bottom-up approach to SMART goal setting with a focus on motivation and task competence
• Build mutual accountability for achieving agreed-upon goals
• Take a situational approach to performance management where direct reports self diagnose their development level and ask for the direction and support they need to succeed

Fowler will share how this joint approach achieves outcomes faster, more efficiently, and with a greater sense of engagement. It’s a 1+1 = 3 approach that yields much better results than when managers and direct reports work independently.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get your managers and direct reports collaborating for goal achievement!

Use this link to register today!

Dear Madeleine,

How do you guide a recent graduate—someone new to the work world—to not be so confident of his own work? How do you convince him to check his work, question his solutions, and search for the best answer instead of the first one?

I don’t want to tear down anyone’s confidence, but this person’s cockiness seems to be a surefire recipe for disaster. Plus, you really can’t learn if you think you already know. I appreciate your thoughts on this.

Want to Guide

________________________________________________

Dear Want to Guide,

You have to love it when a young new employee is an enthusiastic beginner and is cheerfully ignorant of the massive amount he doesn’t know! I’m not sure how long this newbie has been in your care, but of course there is no way to go back to the beginning to set the expectation that you will be watching carefully and giving feedback. (Note: It is always much easier to closely supervise a new hire and then loosen up as they demonstrate competence than to start loose and later attempt to tighten up. Tuck that piece of advice away for future reference.)

For your situation right now, I would suggest you go at it with subtlety. Next time the recent graduate turns work in, set up fifteen minutes to go over it with him. Call out what works with his first draft and then ask him some questions that will help him go deeper for the second draft. This way, it isn’t so much that you are criticizing as acknowledging the positives of his work so far and now asking him to go deeper.

Here are some examples:

• What don’t you know about this topic? Is there a way to find out what aspects of this topic you might be leaving out?
• What if you were to question the assumption in your first point?
• Let’s try looking at this from another point of view.
• What if you were to take nothing as face value?
• What arguments might you use to support your point here?
• How might you expand on the implications of this?

Hopefully, your new hire will gain some ground in the discussion and you can ask him to put himself through the same list of questions for his next presentation.

You can also proofread his work, track your changes, and ask that he proof his own work in the future. (He must have had to proof his work in school, no?) Here are some fundamental rules you can remind him of.

• Leave time between a first draft and subsequent edits. It is much easier to see errors with fresh eyes.
• Ask a peer to do the proofing. It’s always much easier to catch errors in work that isn’t your own.
• In a slide presentation, first go through it in “presentation mode.” Errors will stick out like a sore thumb in that format, and it is much better if there isn’t an audience for the discovery!

If you need to go at it directly, start by sharing your regret that you didn’t set the expectation up front that part of your job is to develop your people and that you would be giving feedback. You can also share that it isn’t your intention to demotivate him or shake his confidence, and that your input is designed to help him to grow and to achieve his full potential.

The key is to be clear that it’s fine for him to be where he is in terms of his development in the new job—but now it’s time to sharpen his skills. Make it all about the work, not about the person. Be kind, clear, concise, and relentless. Don’t let anything egregious get by you—this way he will know you are paying attention, and pay more attention himself.

Most employees report that they don’t get enough feedback. You would be doing him no favors by letting him skate by. Eventually, he will have to clean up his act, so he might as well get started now. Someday he will thank you for it.

You can do this!

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I’m a mid-level manager with a large team. My boss pretty much leaves me on my own to get my job done. He knows he can trust me. My problem is that I am constantly anxious about my performance, even though no one tells me it isn’t good enough.

Everyone keeps talking about people who are strategic, and I honestly don’t know what that means. I’m pretty sure I am not. Right now we are setting our goals for the year and it’s difficult for me. I think I’m just not a very good planner.

The more I think about this stuff, the more anxious I get. I feel like it is ruining my life.

Help?

Anxious

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dear Anxious,

Okay, let’s unpack one item at a time, shall we? First things first: your anxiety. It appears there is no rational reason for you to be anxious. Your boss trusts you, you are doing your job well, and you aren’t great at planning—but very few people are.

Have you always had a lot of anxiety, or is this a new development?

If you have always been anxious, you might consider working with a therapist to get to the bottom of it and get some real help. Most organizations have Employee Assistance Programs that are totally confidential and allow for at least a couple of visits with a professional. It can’t hurt and will probably help.

If your anxiety is new, you might examine what has recently changed. Are you watching the news more? That will ratchet up anyone’s anxiety. Have you altered your living situation? It’s possible that a change in routine has thrown you off balance. Often even small changes that we think shouldn’t affect us can throw us for a loop.

One client I worked with was a wreck. When we tried to pin down what was going on, I suggested that it might have to do with the fact that she was getting married. She kept saying, “But I am so happy, this is a good thing, I don’t know why I am so emotional and worried.”

Even the best change is hard and can throw us off center. So cut yourself some slack. Identify the source of new anxiety so that you can address the root cause. Sometimes just clarity and acknowledgment will help you get back on an even keel.

As it happens, there are a few little techniques that can reduce the hold anxiety can have. One is a gratitude practice. Any time you have a down moment—walking up the stairs, taking an elevator, waiting for a light to turn green—just make a quick list of all the things you are grateful for. Your cat, your new phone, the lunch you had today, your best friend, your best employee; anything good or even kind of good that comes to mind. It literally shifts your thinking and your brain chemistry and will always help, never hurt.

Another thing to try, especially at work, is to list your strengths and everything you are good at. Is there any harder job than mid-level manager? I don’t think so. It is fiendishly difficult to be squeezed by top leadership and by the people you are sworn to protect and serve. I wrote an article about this a few years back. I’ll bet you are actually really good at a lot of things that are easy to overlook when you are super focused on your least strong suit.

Let’s talk about the strategy thing now. Strategy is a big word that means lots of things to different people. The actual definition of strategy, from dictionary.com, is: “a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.”

You clearly can do that, because you have done it in the past. It may not be easy for you—but if pressed, I am certain you have a strong grasp of what your team needs to achieve and what you all need to do to achieve it. You may need to think out loud with a trusted co-worker or one of your team members, and you may have to create several drafts until you get it right.

Planning does require a lot of mental horsepower and some creativity; so, really, it isn’t easy for anyone to do. Try blocking off some quiet time, especially in the morning when you are fresh, to map out your ideas. It will be messy at first but you can put it all into order after you get all your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. It will also take a few iterations to get it right. Perhaps you are not comfortable with mess and expect yourself to get it all crystal clear and correct on the first pass. You will need to get past that expectation.

If you really feel stuck, there is no reason not to discuss this with your boss. Just because he can depend on you doesn’t mean you are on your own and can’t ask for direction and support when you need it.

When people talk about others being strategic, it can mean any number of things: they are making every decision according to a big master plan, or they have a perspective of the big picture, or they can see how multiple departments should work together to reach a common goal or how the company fits into the industry and the trends in the marketplace. Keep in mind, it could also mean the person is masterful at delegating brilliantly so that they never end up having to do any actual work.

I worried the same thing about myself a few years ago and ordered the book Learning to Think Strategically by Julia Sloan. Some of the material—more than I expected, actually—was not news to me, but the author had some good tips I had never heard of for thinking things through. I would submit to you that a book like this will help to remind you of how much you actually do know and fill in a few blanks. Strategy just isn’t that big a mystery. I think the word just scares us.

Finally, anxiety is no joke. It can color every facet of your life and make everything difficult. Don’t try to gut it out alone if this little chat doesn’t help. Get some real support. It can make all the difference.

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I am serious person. I was a serious child, raised by very thoughtful and serious immigrant parents. I have always had high expectations and standards for myself.

I am now a manager of a large group of people and I am continually frustrated that almost none of them live up to my expectations. The typos in people’s emails make me tense and it is almost impossible for me to point out the mistakes without being mean.

I am in a constant state of agitation, with an equal amount of energy going into self-regulation. I know I should let people be themselves and be more accepting, and that most errors ultimately don’t really matter.

I am trying to be more at peace, and in fact, I have started a mindfulness program. But I keep circling back to taking it personally when my people turn in substandard work or miss deadlines.

How can I stop being so rigid?

Too Serious

Dear Too Serious,

You are who you are. It’s a combination of nature and nurture—and no matter how hard you try, you are not going to achieve a personality transplant. I know. I have been trying my entire conscious life.

Your foray into mindfulness training is an excellent step. Mindfulness is defined by researchers as “self-regulation of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience thereby allowing for increased recognition of mental events in the present moment,” and “adopting a particular orientation toward one’s experiences in the present moment, an orientation that is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance.” *

The practice of curiosity, openness, and acceptance will help you to relax a little bit. However, you are still going to wake up tomorrow and be yourself. So here is another idea.

Clearly, thoroughly, and honestly, share with your people who you are, what you expect from them, and what they can expect from you.

At our company we call this sharing your Leadership Point of View (LPoV). In essence, it is an examination of your leadership values—the values that inform your standards for yourself and others. These often come from your parent role models, but also from the observation of leaders you admire and from your own life experiences.

In your LPoV you tell the very human stories that explain and give context for your leadership standards. This information will help your people to understand you better and to know what your rules are. Almost everybody wants to make their boss happy, so giving them the very clear roadmap of how to do that is usually appreciated.

The act of creating your Leadership Point of View will help you to define, for yourself and others, what you will insist on and where you are willing to let things slide. You already know which battles aren’t worth fighting. Making it explicit for yourself will help you choose when to give feedback and when it just doesn’t matter.

When you present your LPoV, you share these expectations explicitly. Right now, your expectations are probably mostly implicit, and you are hoping your people will read your mind.

Instead, spell it out. For example, as surmised from your message to me, you could share:

• I expect all written communication to be well organized and free of errors.
• I expect all team members to meet deadlines, or, if this is not possible, to re-negotiate deadlines before the actual deadline.

Our coaches and I have worked on LPoV with countless clients and it makes a big difference for them. I use it myself and I share it in writing whenever I onboard a new employee. It will feel very risky to you, but do it.

On the topic of taking things personally, I am reminded of a book by Don Miguel Ruiz titled The Four Agreements. It is essentially a code of conduct based on ancient Toltec wisdom that can help to unwind deep seated self-limiting beliefs. In short, the Four Agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

You are probably already impeccable with your word, and clearly doing your best. However, you are taking too much personally, and you are almost certainly making assumptions.

Mr. Ruiz’s prescription for not taking things personally starts with a reminder that nothing is actually about you. You might share this book with your team and encourage discussion about it. A lot could change if everyone on the team agreed to use the Four Agreements as a guide.

In the meantime, keep up that mindfulness training, and breathe. Next time you are annoyed at someone around you acting like the human being they are, just take a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

Craft and share your LPoV. Let your people in on how hard it is to be you. Be clear about your standards. Be persistent with holding them to your standards but also be curious, generous, and kind. They will come around.

Love, Madeleine

*Bishop, S.R., et al; “Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition”; Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, V11 N3, 2004, pp. 232

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!

In his work consulting with business leaders at top organizations around the world, best-selling author Ken Blanchard explains that for best results, leaders need to combine a focus on people with a simultaneous focus on results.  It’s this one-two combination that delivers the greatest impact.

Managers need to have a shared responsibility with direct reports for achieving goals, explains Blanchard.  As an example, Blanchard points to the philosophy of Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40 Company and Blanchard’s coauthor on the book Helping People Win at Work.  At WD-40, if a manager is considering an unfavorable review for a direct report, the first question asked of the manager is: “What have you done to help that person succeed?”

One of the benefits of this mutual accountability approach is that it gives leaders permission to step in when tough love is called for—for example, when performance or behavior is off-track.

Colleen Barrett, former president of Southwest Airlines, shares her organization’s philosophy about joint accountability: “We are very clear in telling our people what our expectations are. We hold them and ourselves accountable for meeting those expectations every day. Sometimes this means having a real heart-to-heart with someone and reminding them what our values are. If we have been intentional and firm in explaining what our expectations are, that gives us the opportunity to point to specific examples where the person hasn’t exhibited the required behaviors.”

Blanchard believes that this approach to management requires a special kind of leader—a person who sees leadership as an opportunity to serve instead of being served.

“We have all seen the negative consequences of self-centered leadership,” says Blanchard.  “Today we need a new leadership model—one that is focused on accomplishing the goals of the organization as a whole, with an equal emphasis on people and results. The best leaders identify the hidden strengths in people and organizations and lead them to a place they couldn’t get to on their own.  In this way, they truly serve.  And when the leader’s work is done—to paraphrase Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu—the people will say, ‘We did it ourselves.’

“The most effective leaders realize that leadership is not about them—they are only as good as the people they lead. It’s what servant leadership is all about. Once a vision has been set for the organization, servant leaders move to the bottom of the hierarchy, acting as cheerleaders, supporters, and encouragers for the people who report to them.

“The best organizations don’t see relationships and results as an either/or proposition,” says Blanchard. “They know if they focus on both people and profits, success will follow.”

Would you like to learn more about creating an others-focused culture in your organization?  Join Ken Blanchard for a free webinar on September 12,

Servant Leadership: 4 Keys to Leading at a Higher Level.

The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“Part of effective communication between manager and direct report is a mindset and part is a skillset. Both are required,” says Phillips. “It’s easy for managers to convince themselves they don’t have time for quality conversations, especially when they aren’t particularly interested in having them and don’t really know how to do it.

“Every manager I’ve worked with has so much of their own work to do all day, every day, that some can’t see their way clear to spending time with the folks who work for them—other than performance reviews, rushed interactions, or crises,” explains Phillips. “Conversations between these managers and their people are mostly manager-led directives of ‘this is what I want you to do; here’s how to do it.’ The manager is focused on getting stuff done and on what needs to happen—not on their direct reports’ career growth or needs.

“Unfortunately, when individual contributors in this scenario become managers, they treat people exactly the way they were treated. Sub-quality conversations become a cultural norm.”

The good news, according to Phillips, is that managers can learn to be more effective in their work conversations.

“If a manager has the right mindset and training, it’ll drive the right behavior,” says Phillips. She recommends focusing on three specific conversations to get started.

The Goal-Setting Conversation

“All good performance begins with clear goals. Effective goal-setting conversations begin with clarity—what to do, by when, and what a good job looks like,” says Phillips. “Be specific—and don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s critically important to take the time to make sure both parties are interpreting the same words in the same way to avoid misunderstandings.

“Conversations and relationships can go sideways when people interpret things differently but don’t have a conversation about that interpretation. Never assume!”

This leads to the second important conversation at which managers need to excel—giving feedback.

The Feedback Conversation

“A friend of mine recently told me I tend to hijack conversations,” says Phillips. “The funny thing is, I was just about to tell her she does the same thing! We discovered that what I interpret as hijacking and what she interprets as hijacking are two different things.

“We talked about how, when she’s talking and pauses to think, I rush in to fill the empty space.  It goes back to my experience at home. In my family, you talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and there are no pauses. So when my friend goes silent, I fill in the gap and start talking about something.

“Then I explained to her that I feel she hijacks the conversation when I tell her about something happening in my life and she immediately turns it into a discussion about something that’s happening in her life. It’s related, but it still feels to me like she is making it about her.

“Because we are committed to our friendship, we’re willing to discuss things that are uncomfortable and to consider each other’s point of view. That’s important at work, too. Managers and direct reports need to have the type of relationship where they can talk honestly. When a manager cares about a direct report as a human being—and vice versa—they build up an emotional bank account they can draw from.  That allows them to have difficult conversations when they need to.”

Sadly, the word feedback has a negative connotation in business today, says Phillips.

“People seldom think of feedback as praise or recognition. When people hear that word, they think at best it’s going to be constructive criticism. But it rarely feels constructive—it just feels like criticism.

“It’s another area where most managers don’t have the skills they need—especially feedback around performance improvement and redirection. Managers are so concerned about how someone might respond to feedback, they tend to avoid it altogether.”

One way managers can be more successful when preparing to give feedback is to make sure they are coming at it from the right place.

“Your feedback can’t be based on your own personal agenda,” says Phillips. “It has to be about helping other people be successful or otherwise improving the team. If you come from a personal agenda, your feedback will come across poorly.

“In my conversation with my friend, she gave me the feedback about the way I hijack conversations because she wanted our conversations to be better.  I knew that, and it gave me a chance to think about my behavior and run it over in my mind. That was a good learning for me—to recognize that behavior I picked up from my family might be misinterpreted when I’m dealing with other people.”

The One-on-One Conversation

Listening and focusing on the other person’s agenda is especially important when managers conduct one-on-one conversations with their direct reports, says Phillips.

“It’s easy to fall into the manager’s agenda, where one-on-ones can turn into a review of how the direct report is doing on each of their goals. At The Ken Blanchard Companies, we teach managers to schedule semi-monthly one-on-ones, where the agenda is driven by the individual contributor and what they need.”

The manager’s primary role is to listen and provide support, says Phillips.  Senior leaders are generally better at this than are new managers.

“At the senior levels of an organization, a VP typically will have more experience asking a direct report how things are going and finding out what the direct report needs to succeed. As you move down to the frontlines of an organization, managers are less experienced at taking the lead in a conversation like that.”

Especially at the frontlines, Phillips observes, managers and supervisors need training in how to have effective one-on-one conversations. Otherwise, the direct report is likely to default to the manager and ask the manager what they want talk about.

“It’s important to teach managers to ask open-ended questions about what an individual contributor’s needs are. Suppose the direct report comes into the meeting with a blank piece of paper and says, ‘What do you want talk about?’ The manager should take that opening and say, ‘Let’s talk about some things you are working on. Let’s list the three or four tasks, discuss your development level, and talk about how I can help you.’ Eventually, that direct report will become more proactive and learn to take the lead in those conversations.”

It’s a process and a joint responsibility—one where everybody benefits, says Phillips.

“Leaders influence through the power of their conversations. Train your managers—and your individual contributors—in the skills they need for more effective conversations at work. It’s one of the best ways to improve performance and satisfaction.”

Would you like to learn more about improving the quality and frequency of conversations in your organization?  Then join us for a free webinar!

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 101: 3 CONVERSATIONS ALL MANAGERS NEED TO MASTER

Wednesday, August 1, 2018, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Managers influence and lead through the words they use and the communication skills they apply. In this webinar, Blanchard senior consulting partner Ann Phillips will share the three types of conversations managers must know how to conduct.

1. The Goal-Setting Conversation—how to set goals collaboratively with a focus on motivation.
2. The Feedback Conversation—how to praise performance when it is aligned and how to redirect performance when it is off track.
3. The One-on-One Conversation—how to set aside time to hear from direct reports using high levels of inquiry and listening.

Don’t miss this opportunity to evaluate how your organization is currently addressing performance management. Learn the elements of masterful performance management and how to apply these principles in your own organization. Ann will share tips and strategies you can put into practice immediately. The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Register today!

Dear Madeleine,

I have been described as a high achiever—and a lone wolf—for much of my career. After more than 20 years as an individual contributor, I finally succumbed to the pressure to become a people manager.

Here’s my problem. Most of my people are fewer than five years away from retirement and not very interested in growing and developing. It is clear to me that not everyone is as driven as I am or as willing to put the time in to produce the quality of work I expect. Am I too demanding?

Driven

Dear Driven

I understand your frustration. Of course, I wonder what leeway you might have to replace a couple of your worst offenders. You don’t mention that as an option but I have never, not once, experienced a client having regret after letting go of a low performer. Jim Collins, in his research of companies who do well over decades talks about getting the right people on the bus, which sounds simple, but it is in fact really hard. So, shaking up your team and adding a little new blood might be an option. You will probably have to document substandard performance over a period of time to do this which means performance expectations would need to be crystal clear.

You might benefit from understanding temperament theory. It outlines the way in which people are different, why it matters, and what to do about it. I suspect you are a very specific personality type and your employees are not like you at all. Understanding how you approach work and communication—and how you are perceived by others—will almost certainly clarify things for you.

Your people might be roused by a compelling goal. Do they know how they are contributing the greater good? How important their hard work is? Do they know the why? It’s possible they are not in touch with the bigger picture—in which case, you might share it. Bear in mind if this is what’s missing, you will have to share it on a regular basis. It’s human nature to forget the long term in favor of focusing on short-term rewards.

You also might consider articulating and sharing your Leadership Point of View, in which you outline your values and what you expect of your people. In it you can state your standards—perhaps they have not been made explicit?

Finally, maybe you do need to chill out. I have worked with many perfectionist clients who have had to ratchet back their standards because they were causing themselves (and everybody else) unnecessary pain without adding any value. Are you too demanding? Very possibly. The person who might be able to help you with this is your boss. You might as well ask and see what he or she says about it.

You may not be able to stand being a manager for long unless you can inspire your people to be the best they can be. But if you can harness your drive to do just that, what a win that would be!

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a large team of graphic artists for a popular online magazine. A few of my people are employees who do other tasks for the magazine, but most of my artists are independent contractors.

On the whole, they are professional and easy to work with—but a couple are simply a pain in my neck. They don’t take feedback, they try to re-negotiate the fee after we have signed the contract, and one routinely misses his deadline.

Of course I like to give the bulk of the work to the ones who are easy to work with. One of the difficult ones called me recently and challenged me on giving preferential treatment to a favored few. I was tongue tied and didn’t know what to say. I basically ended up stammering that I would pay more attention in the future. Am I being fair?

Feeling Unjust

Dear Unjust,

You are clearly a very nice person who worries about fairness. I am really trying to understand what it must be like to be you, and I am having a hard time—because I am not nice and I am pretty sure that nothing in life is fair. So bear with me, because I am going to give it to you straight here.

You are absolutely, 100 percent, no arguments about it, within your rights to choose who you want to work with. If all of these folks were full-time employees, you would have a different situation on your hands. If you were an evil genius who lived to negotiate professionals down on their fees by playing on their fears and making promises you didn’t intend to keep, you would be tempting karma.

But these folks are independent professionals—presumably adults—and you seem to be reasonable and kind. Your answer to the difficult person is this:

“I choose the best person for the job by considering style, professionalism, and how easy the person is to work with.”

Period. Full stop. That’s it.

It is not the place of anyone but your boss to challenge how you make your staffing choices. Your difficult artist is out of line and there is absolutely no reason for you to work with him ever again. If he were to ask for feedback, you could certainly give it to him—but to be honest, feedback is a gift and it is hard to give. So if he doesn’t ask, you don’t have to tell.

What I want for you, Feeling Unjust, is an entire group of artists who can get the job done on time, on budget, and with a relentless service orientation. Because you are the customer—and for most professionals, 100 percent of their income comes from customers.

You are probably going to feel like a big meanie, but you owe it to yourself to surround yourself with people who do high quality work and who are fun and easy to work with. You owe it to your company to choose the best people for the job. And you owe the people who do great work your gratitude, a good recommendation, and more work should it be available. You don’t owe anyone else anything at all.

Stand strong.

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a manager of a large team. I like my work, the mission of the company is meaningful, and we make a difference in the world. I have a reputation for being a good manager and getting things done on time and under budget. My boss, who is fairly new—and, frankly, in over his head—is constantly coming to me with new projects and never seems interested in the projects we are already working on. He says he trusts me to get it all done.

My problem is that the strategic direction and priorities are constantly shifting and I can’t keep up. I can’t possibly get it all done, and my team is maxed out. I am becoming demoralized by not really understanding the point of what we are being asked to do. I know I need to talk to my manager, but I don’t want to come off as a whiner. How to proceed?

Shifting Winds

Dear Shifting Winds,

This must be so frustrating. It sounds like you do need to talk to your manager and get some clarity on what to focus on and the timelines for each item. You appear to have a low opinion of your new manager’s capabilities—and you may be right about him—but you also don’t know what he is up against. Until you actually know what is going on, I’d suggest to start off by assuming the best of intentions.

In any case, definitely get a meeting on the calendar and set the context carefully. Make it clear to your manager that you appreciate his trust; however, there is more work here than can be done and you need direction in prioritizing the projects. Tell him that to set priorities you normally use your knowledge of the strategic focus for the company—but lately you have been confused about what that is and you need his help.

To communicate with your boss as effectively as possible, first you need to assess his style. Which do you think would work best: Charts outlining all of the different projects on a big whiteboard? An excel spreadsheet with all of the project plans? A presentation with a little bit of story? Your manager needs a quick and easy way to grasp all of the assignments you are working on and how many hours are needed to complete each project. That will help him see how overworked your team is and will help you make the case for getting another person on board to ensure you can complete everything.

Having each project visually represented might also make it easier for you to see the point of each one—but even if it doesn’t, it will make it easier to talk to your boss. You can explain that your people get inspired when they understand the reason they are working away at something. Most people—especially millennials, research is showing—want to know the context and meaning for their tasks.

Next, rehearse, prepare, and be succinct. You won’t be perceived as a whiner unless you actually whine.

You are going to have to stand up for yourself and your people at some point. Many managers are so overwhelmed themselves that they will just keep throwing work at their people until someone cries uncle. He may be waiting for you to do just that.

Good luck.

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I report to the general counsel of a large global organization and I have a team of seven attorneys. I routinely work at all hours of the night finishing projects my people committed to completing and then didn’t—and the deadline, of course, can’t slip.

My husband says I let my people walk all over me. I think we all have too much work so I try to protect them from burning out.

I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to wear my people out, but I also don’t want to be a doormat.

Am I a Wuss?

Dear Am I a Wuss,

You might be, but we don’t need to call anyone names, do we? It sounds like it all comes from the best of intentions. One of the hardest things about being a manager is keeping everyone’s energy and engagement high when the workload is crushing. Internal law groups are notorious for working their people to the bone, so if you don’t want to burn your people out—or worse, burn out yourself—you are going to have to be super strategic.

Here’s the thing. You have trained your people to think they can get away with making a commitment and not following through. The result is, when you give out work assignments, your team members know there isn’t much of a consequence for shoddy planning, so they plan shoddily. This needs to be corrected or you will just keep repeating the same pattern.

You need to start with naming and claiming the reality of the situation. Do your people have any idea how put upon you feel? You probably want to say “I am sick and tired of you leaving me holding the bag,” which is why you haven’t said anything – you know that isn’t going to be effective. So how might you express it? You want to craft a neutral statement with no blame or judgment. Practice with a friend to get the wording right—something like, “Lately, in order to meet deadlines, I find myself finishing work that you had committed to completing. This isn’t sustainable and it needs to change. Let’s talk about what we can do to prevent this situation in the future.”

Here are a couple of ideas to get you started:

• Be clear that deadlines are non-negotiable. Perhaps your team members think the deadlines you give them are soft ones. If this is not the case, you need to tell them.
• When you give out work assignments, spend a moment with each person to talk through the steps involved. Scope out the time requirement for each step so that the work can be broken down into manageable pieces. You probably don’t think you should have to do this, but sometimes you need to go back to basics.
• Rotate the crazy deadlines so that you take some, but not all—and so does everyone else. Make sure your team knows that everyone is expected to step up and go the extra mile when things get tight.

If it is really true that there is too much work, it is up to you to make the case for a new hire. This means that everyone, including you, needs to track their time on work projects in fifteen-minute increments. You will need this data to be convincing when justifying another body.

Your team members are going to have some good ideas, too. Put the reality of the situation on the table, listen carefully, and engage them in crafting a solution for moving forward. You clearly have empathy for them, which is great. Now you have to advocate for yourself—and from that position you’ll be able to craft something that will work. And you won’t have to put up with your husband’s criticism on top of everything else.

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!

This guest post is by Doug Hung, Director, Blanchard Taiwan.

Every year, China conducts a nationwide college entrance exam for all high school graduates. The exam spans two days and covers Chinese, foreign languages, mathematics, and a student’s choice from one of the humanities (politics, history, geography) or sciences (physics, chemistry, life sciences).

Students are also required to write an essay to demonstrate their critical thinking and analytical capabilities.

In 2016 the national exam board provided a pair of portraits as the essay prompt. Students were asked to write an 800-word essay based on the picture.

In the top example, a student is shown receiving a perfect score of 100 and a resulting kiss on the cheek from a pleased mother, while the other student receives a below 60 percent failing grade with a resulting mother’s slap to represent disapproval. In the bottom example, the passing student scores 98 percent but doesn’t meet his mother’s standards, while the other student barely passes and gets an approving kiss.

This essay prompt points to a truth that is often overlooked when measuring performance at work—the subjective nature of measurement.

Corporations set elaborate guidelines for performance reviews, designed to promote and enhance meritocracy. Yet in reality, all systems have flaws—and when they are carried out by individuals, who have inherent bias, performance evaluations can often overstate or understate an individual’s actual contribution within the organization.

Every organization has both stars and laggards. We tend to shower stars with praise and opportunities; yet, as stars take on more responsibility, the likelihood of them making mistakes gets higher. Is the organization prepared to reward them or to criticize their failures?

On the other hand, oftentimes little is expected of low performers, and organizations are known to direct a substantial amount of resources to manage them. When laggards demonstrate initiative or spurts of excellence, teams seize the moment and shower them with praise in hopes of continuing progress. If an organization and its stewards really hold performance standards equally across all types of performers, all performance results should be treated equally.

Whether one believes management resources are better spent strengthening stars or improving low performers is a matter of debate. The reality is that managers do—and should—inject subjectivity into their evaluations.

The key is to recognize that performance reviews should be clear in definition but flexible enough to acknowledge the nuances that come with human interaction. Failure to do so undermines faith in the objectivity of any performing benchmark.

We all use metrics to measure others and ourselves. As companies continue to examine their performance review processes, we should remember that all metrics are ultimately references of an individual’s contribution. Performance reviews must be used to encourage people to excel. This can be done only through an approach that is objective, constructive, and judgment free.

To be effective, coaches at every level need to follow five principles. Failure in any one of these five areas can quickly take a positive coaching experience and turn it negative.

1. Confidentiality

Even if they don’t mention it openly, people often are concerned about whether details of their conversations with coaches will get back to their managers with potentially negative effects. Some hesitate to be vulnerable or to share their real issues until they are convinced that the coaching relationship is safe. Being crystal clear about what is confidential (and what isn’t) is critical. A breach of confidentiality will harm not only the coaching relationship, but has the potential to harm ALL coaching in an organization. Word gets around.

2. Defining Success

As an external coach and subject matter expert, I often work with clients who are building an internal coaching capacity or hiring external coaches to work with their senior leaders. One of the key conversations I have with organizational sponsors is how they define success measures. It’s disappointing when a client makes huge leaps and gains, only to find out that the boss or others don’t feel the right targets were hit.  Identifying success measures can be hard work.  It is surprising how often the boss says “I’ll know it when I see it” but can’t articulate the change. (Note: this should be a warning sign to a coach.) If success measures can’t be defined, it is even more important to ensure that the boss or others stay informed throughout the process about coaching impact and outcomes.

3. Clear Agreements

A skilled coach never walks away from a coaching session without ensuring that their client is clear about what happens next. A good guideline is to follow the old journalistic rules of what, who, when, and how. It is also important that both the client and the organization are clear on agreements to ensure everyone is on the same page. Who gets informed of what, and when? What reporting will be done? How will vested parties know the coaching is working? What is the organization’s responsibility in supporting the client being coached?  For example, examine assumptions to ensure everyone defines the experiences the same way. Getting agreements in place before coaching starts increases the likelihood of successful outcomes.

4. Permission to Give Feedback

While it’s often assumed that a coach has full permission to give feedback, it is important to check in with the client. Asking “May I give you some feedback?” signals to the client that useful information is coming. There is an art and a science behind giving good feedback. One of the reasons feedback works so well in a coaching relationship is that the coach has no other agenda other than to serve the client.

5. Managing Multiple Agendas

It is a naive coach who thinks the client’s agenda is the only one that needs attention. If you are an independent coach working with a client who has come to you for support, you must manage at least two sets of objectives:  to serve the client’s desired outcomes and successfully run your business.  As an internal coach, you must balance the needs of the client with the needs of the organization.  As an external coach working for a company that provides coaching to other organizations, you must meet four sets of objectives: the client’s agenda, your own need to schedule and complete the coaching, the needs of the organization you work for, and the needs of the organization who is bringing in the coaching.  Making sure you know what weight to give each and how to blend each seamlessly takes thought and practice.

Set Everyone Up for Success

Effective coaching requires that a coach be strong in all five of these areas. Missing any of these critical factors will negatively impact the coaching outcome. Take a minute to check your own coaching agenda.  Make sure you are setting yourself—and your clients—up for success!

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I recently joined a small but global organization as COO. I am tasked with looking at all of our systems and processes and finding ways to streamline, upgrade, and reduce our manual processes and the resulting human error. My problem is that the team I inherited is committed to keeping things exactly the way they are. Many of them are the inventors of the current systems and home-grown software programs. I’m not very optimistic about getting anything done with this group.

I asked the CEO and the Board if I could bring in some of my own team—fresh eyes, people who don’t have any attachment to the way things are now—but they want me to make a concerted effort to change the systems while keeping these people. I just don’t know how I can do it.

Hobbled

Dear Hobbled,

It sounds like your CEO and Board missed the memo that the biggest impediment to change is …people. People hate change. Not all people, but most people. We are evolutionarily wired to hate change—even good change—because, simply put, it forces us into the unknown. The human brain is predisposed to avoid the unknown at all costs.

It sounds like you were hired because you are an expert in systems, not because you have a lot of experience leading change. But leading change is what is required of you now, so you are going to have to saddle up and work harder than you ever thought possible.

Before you change anything, though, you are going to have to work with your group to shift the culture. Tell your people that you are explicitly requesting shifts in their outlook. Make the shifts you are asking people to make absolutely crystal clear. For example:

I made these up, but you get the idea.

You cannot underestimate the power of the current culture to kill any change you might conceive of, no matter how brilliant it might be.

Tell people the qualities you are looking for in the team. I am assuming it will be things like open mindedness, innovation, creativity, and eagerness to experiment. Tell them that these qualities will be expected and measured.

Tell your people what will not be tolerated, such as: protecting turf or systems; unwillingness to try new things; gossip about anyone. Again, clarity is key here. Give examples. Explain what will happen when you notice intolerable behavior, and what the consequences of such behavior will be. You don’t have to be mean about it, just clear and consistent.

Your new bosses have asked you to make a concerted effort, so you have to define for yourself exactly what that means. Maybe it means that you give every person 3 chances to get on board, or maybe 5. Whatever it is, tell people what the criteria are and track behaviors like the analytical thinker and Excel spreadsheet user you are. Then you can share your method of making decisions about who stays and who goes with the powers that be and they will know that you have acted in good faith and have made a concerted effort to keep as many people as possible.

Without the kind of clarity, criteria and scorecard I am recommending, you will be floating around in feelings and subjective opinions. Don’t do it—you will get lost and confused and you will fail at your task.

Our change model directs you to talk to people about their concerns, and there are many. Most people are simply worried about losing their jobs, which is fair. Get on board with helping the company figure out what’s needed in team members to be invited to stay, or the consequences of resisting at every turn and being invited to leave. Put the options in their hands. That way you at least have the right people on the bus—over time you will figure out where the bus is going and how to get people into the right seats. And you can deal with concerns as they surface, such as being asked to learn a lot of new things, etc.

Does this sound like more than you signed up for? I suspect it does. Many people sign up for a job they thought was about processes and systems only to realize that it is about leading people through change. This requires a sophisticated and advanced set of leadership skills you may not have been asked to develop in the past.

But you can win if you want. You will need to gather your warrior energy and be fearless and fierce. There are a bunch of great books on managing change—some of them Blanchard books. Get one and use it. You have an opportunity to have an extraordinary leadership journey.

Good luck.

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!

Traditionally, this term refers to those who choose to work while sick or unwell. But this definition has now widened to encompass a generation of young people who feel they are forced to fake the extent of their workloads in order to win favor with their superiors, according to research conducted by Ricoh with office workers in the UK.

A new report entitled Overhauling a Culture of ‘Presenteeism’ at Work points to the belief among many employees that working long hours at their desk is the best way to secure career progression and positive endorsements from senior stakeholders at work.

Additionally, the report reveals that 39 percent of currently employed 18- to 26-year-olds believe working away from the office could damage their career progression, while nearly half (41 percent) feel their bosses favor staff that work in the office longer than their contracted hours. Perhaps as a result of these perceptions, more than two-thirds (67 percent) of the 18- to 26-year-olds admitted to faking the extent of their workload by staying late at the office.

The study recommends that employers consider different attendance standards based on changing work styles.  I agree.  We are experiencing a changing of the guard when it comes to the work style of a group I call the inbetweeners (millennials).

As the report concludes, “By embracing a culture in which the onus is placed on outputs and delivery of work, rather than being present in the office, young professionals would be happier, more motivated and would benefit from an improved work / life balance.”

If you are skeptical about the less-is-more work style theory, here’s a story from my home town of San Diego that may convince to at least take a second look.

One good way to measure productivity is revenue per FTE (Full Time Employee). This year, Tower Paddle Boards in San Diego will generate $9 million in revenue with just ten employees—a small sample, but still very impressive at $900K per FTE! Did I mention that Tower employees work only five hours a day? This is a staggering metric when you put it into perspective.

If some employers are able do more with less time, what can the rest of us do to move in that direction? Remember, the goal always must be efficiency and output. Neither of these should be sacrificed in exchange for a person simply being present.

A new working generation of Americans is seeking a new level of flexibility. If you are a manager, which do you think is more important: quantity of hours put in or quality of work?  Both have impact. Only you can decide which one has a more positive and productive outcome for your organization.

Surprisingly, while meetings should include discussions about goals and objectives, it’s not happening as often as it should.

Survey participants were polled on a wide variety of issues related to one-on-one meetings—including frequency, duration, and topics discussed.  In three key performance management areas—goal setting, goal review, and performance feedback, respondents identified a serious gap between how often they discussed these topics versus how often they wish they were discussing them.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Goal Setting Conversations—Some 70 percent of people want to have goal-setting conversations often or all the time, but only 36 percent actually do. And 28 percent say they rarely or never discuss future goals and tasks.

Goal Review Conversations—Some 73 percent of people want to have goal review conversations often or all the time, but only 47 percent actually do. And 26 percent say they rarely or never discuss current goals and tasks.

Performance Feedback Conversations—Some 67 percent of people want to have performance feedback conversations often or all the time, but only 29 percent actually do. And 36 percent say they rarely or never receive performance feedback.

IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERS

The performance management literature is clear on the importance of setting goals, providing feedback, and reviewing performance on a frequent basis. How is your organization doing with helping managers get together with direct reports to set goals, provide feedback, or discuss direction and support where needed?

If people haven’t been meeting as regularly as they should, use this survey data as a starting point to encourage managers and direct reports to schedule their next one-on-one soon. People want and need to have conversations with their immediate supervisors. It’s one of the foundations for strong, productive relationships that align people with the work of the organization in a satisfying and meaningful way. Don’t wait—your people and better performance are waiting!

*Learn more about the original survey and view the complete results by downloading the Blanchard white paper Are Employees’ Needs Being Met by One-on-Ones?  Also check out Blanchard’s brand new look into The Problem with Performance Review, just released this month.

Want to share the infographic?  Use these links to download a PDF or PNG version.

Hi Madeleine,

I work in the health profession and I’ve just accepted a position in management at a new facility. I don’t know the staff at all. All I know is that the senior leadership wants a change in the management at the facility.

What advice would you have on how to tackle a new job at a new place with a heavy agenda? What should I do first???

 New Healthcare Leader

Dear New Healthcare Leader,

Well, congratulations! Isn’t this exciting? It sounds like you have a great opportunity here! I can’t tell from your letter if the facility is new overall, or if it is just new to you. If it is actually new, this could be good because you won’t have the burden of history—it can be hard to make changes when it’s “always been done that way.”

If it is just new to you, you will need to spend some time asking questions and listening to understand the culture of the organization. Working with people to change things begins with understanding and meeting them where they are.

In terms of change, you will want to press senior leadership to understand what exactly the prior management did wrong, so you don’t repeat those mistakes. If they won’t tell you, it was probably something illegal, immoral, or both. I imagine this won’t be a problem for you.

What they must tell you though is what a good job looks like. This answers the question, “How will you know you are successful?” You say “heavy agenda” but you have to make sure you know what it really is. Ask them for crystal-clear goals, and if they don’t provide them, come up with your own and present them for approval. Some senior leaders simply don’t have the skills or the patience to articulate the vision or the goals of the organization, so if they won’t do it, do it for yourself.

Once you have your goals set, work with your people to get their goals super clear. Also, spend as much time as you can getting to know your people and assessing their strengths. Work with each of them to ensure that their goals leverage their skills, interests, and talents.

Once everybody knows what they are supposed to be doing, make sure they are getting the proper direction and support they need to do it. Make sure everyone, including you, has a short-term goal that they can achieve so that you all have the experience of early success together. Share stories of any and all wins. People will remember stories and it will feel good.

Finally, we have a lot of books here at The Ken Blanchard Companies, but the definitive one on this topic is not by Ken or any of us. It is The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins and I have worked through the book with many clients. Google it, read summaries, and be sure to look at the templates of what to do in your first 30, 60, and 90 days. I highly recommend it.

Best of luck in your new role!

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!

Sharing your Leadership Point of View is one of the most powerful ways to accomplish that, according to coaching expert Joni Wickline.

In the August issue of Blanchard Ignite, Wickline describes a Leadership Point of View as a story about“…the people and events that have shaped who you are. It also speaks to your values, your beliefs, and what drives you as a leader.”

For many, creating a Leadership Point of View (LPOV) is an emotional journey. Wickline says a lot of leaders play it safe when first given the chance to share.

“It’s hard to share some parts of your Leadership Point of View because it’s so personal. It’s normal to be apprehensive talking about people, experiences, and values that have made you who you are, including your expectations for yourself and others. But it will deepen the relationship between you and your direct reports. It dramatically shortens the time it takes people to get to know you as a person and as a leader.

For leaders who have never even considered sharing personal experiences, Wickline suggests a couple of first steps.

Take a Minute to Reflect. Going through the process of identifying your LPOV requires time—time to reflect on yourself; what brought you to where you are today; what makes you tick. Most leaders haven’t spent much time looking back to identify where their values and beliefs came from. Wickline would be the first to admit that she fell into the same category.

“When I started working on my Leadership Point of View, I had to think long and hard about my current attitudes and how they came to be. For example, when somebody tells me I can’t do something, I immediately fight against that and do whatever it takes to prove them wrong. Where on earth did that come from?”

Tell A Story. Wickline says when leaders spend time thinking about where their values and beliefs originated, they will come up with stories they can share with people. And stories are important.

“People remember stories. If I just say, ‘Here is a list of things I think are important,’ people won’t remember that. But when I tell stories about experiences I’ve had or share something I learned from my mom or dad, it makes a connection.”

Make Sure It’s Your Story. It’s important to share your authentic self, reminds Wickline. She once worked with a leader who asked to hear her story as an example of a good presentation so that he could better shape his.

“He told me he really resonated with my story—but I reminded him it was my story, and he needed to tell his. He insisted he could just refine mine with a little bit of tweaking here and there, but I continued to steer him away from that idea.

“I told him, ‘No, the story won’t sound authentic if you try to frame it as your own.’ The goal—and the power—is in sharing your true, authentic self. We each have many stories no one else can tell.”

Creating a Deeper Connection

In encouraging leaders to share their story, Wickline relates positive experiences others have had after crafting their LPOV. “People who put the time and energy into this process consistently look back on the experience as something that helped them rediscover the values and beliefs they hold dear. Sharing your story with your team creates a deep connection.

“So what are the stories that illustrate your values that you could share with others? What’s happened in your life? Who can you point to as a personal influence that will help your team learn more about what makes you tick? Creating and sharing your Leadership Point of View is a wonderful gift to give to yourself, your people, and your organization.”

You can learn more in the August issue of Blanchard Ignite.  Also be sure to check out a webinar that Wickline is conducting on August 24, Creating a Deeper Connection: Sharing Your Leadership Point of View—it’s free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior project manager in a service organization. I manage client-facing work as well as hundreds of independent contractors. 

I recently got behind on my list—the endless small tasks that add up to outstanding service—and I shelved a few items to take care of when I came back from a week’s vacation. 

Big mistake. 

I returned to a debacle with one of our significant internal clients and her handful of potential clients.  A whole incident had been escalated to the colleague who was covering for me, then to my boss.  

My boss was pretty nice about it but I can tell I have lost her trust.   I was disappointed in myself—but more than anything I was really embarrassed.  I don’t know what I was thinking. I misread the time frame and the requirements and thought the matter could wait. 

Here is the bigger problem: I now have constant anxiety that I might be dropping a ball. I feel like I can never take a vacation again.  I have gotten myself into a trap of working all hours and checking email and texts constantly out of fear that I might miss something. My husband and kids are really getting annoyed with me.  I feel the stress ratcheting up—like I am losing control of my life. Help!

Losing Control

_______________________________________________________

Dear Losing Control,

I am sorry. I so know the feeling. And so does every other member of PA—“Perfectionists Anonymous.”   You really do need to be a perfectionist to be a project manager; it is an impossible job that never ends.  You are apparently very good at, and you are now experiencing the dark side of being naturally detail oriented and what I call a control enthusiast.

The bad news is that you are destined to burn out dramatically if you don’t take some significant steps to get yourself back on an even keel.   Constant anxiety will take a toll on your health and ultimately will cloud your thinking and make you less effective at your job.

First stop: your boss.  Have the hard conversation that starts with your feeling of losing her trust.  You actually might be making that up.  If you aren’t making it up and you do need to rebuild trust, you need to set clear milestones that the two of you can track.  Make it concrete—get the “feeling” out of it.  I think it is also important for you to discuss your stress level with your boss.  As you get yourself to a better place, you may need help managing your workload—and you will need your boss’s support to do that.

Which brings me to the next step:  tell yourself the truth about how much work you can do.  Then draw a boundary and do not say yes to more than you can reasonably take on.  You may worry that this could put your job in jeopardy, but honestly—most bosses will just keep loading it on until the employee cries Uncle. And, ultimately, if you find that more is expected of you than you can give, it’s time to find another job. You can’t live your life as a total nervous wreck.  Life is too short—and too long—for that.

Everything is easier with stress management techniques.  There are many methods. Explore them and find one thing you can do to ratchet down the stress.  A short walk at lunch time, ten deep breaths three times a day, prayer, a gratitude practice, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, homeopathic remedies.  None of this has to take a lot of time, but you have to find something and practice it religiously.  This is not optional.

Finally, stop trying to go this alone. Here is a new mantra for you: GET HELP.  Ask a colleague to help out when you are overwhelmed with to-do’s. Ask your boss for help. Use your Employee Assistance Program and go get 6 therapy sessions. Talk things over with your spouse, sibling, parent, or best friends.  Don’t hide your situation from anyone who cares about you. I guarantee the right kind of help will come your way.

Now take a deep breath.  You are going to be okay—but you do need to put your sanity first.

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!

A good way to address this situation is to provide real life examples by sharing success stories. At The Ken Blanchard Companies, we call these behavioural examples. An example provides a concrete picture of the desired behaviour.

Let me share my recent experience of great customer service I received. Consider how many details this example provides for employees at this company who might be wondering what legendary service looks like.

My customer service story

I purchased a skincare product from a well known luxury brand and the product reacted badly with my skin. I purchased the product four months ago from an airport store and had no receipt.

I emailed the luxury brand, explained the situation, and asked for a refund or exchange. I received a reply within an hour. The representative not only explained how the products were made and what ingredients were used, they also acknowledged that the formula may not suit some customers and offered an apology. They sent me a stamped, self-addressed envelope so that I could send the product back to them and offered me an alternate product of similar value free of charge.

What are some of the details about customer service that this story illustrates?

• How to acknowledge: Instead of making excuses, they conceded their product doesn’t suit all skin types. They also acknowledged and appreciated my feedback.
• How to respond: Within an hour, I had a reply. They immediately sent a stamped self-addressed envelope for the return.
• Rules of empowerment: Purchased over four months ago? No receipt? No problem. My customer service rep was able to offer a solution to my dilemma. Then she went beyond my expectations and sent an alternative product of similar value, free of charge.

Stories bring strategies to life

Stories of real life customer service experiences are a great way to articulate what customer service means for your company. So much can be said with a simple story.

Think about what customer service means to you. Consider how you could use stories to fill in the gaps and provide behavioural examples for your people. It’s a positive way to define what good service looks like in your organization—and celebrate it.

And me? Due to my positive customer service experience, I am 100 percent sure I will purchase another product from this luxury brand and will tell this story to my friends and family. Why? Because I have confidence that I can trust the company and the brand in the future.

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a large retail chain store and have been in the job about four years. Up until now, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I recently promoted an excellent worker to a supervisory position—and now I seriously regret it. All of a sudden, it’s like she is a different person.

She seems to be having delusions of grandeur and drunk with power. Every day there is a new disaster: most recently, she gave someone personal feedback that caused a storm of tears and then she somehow offended one of our vendors. She walks around the store as if she is trying to catch people doing something wrong so that she can yell at them.

I am shocked at this transformation. She used to be a stable, soft spoken, low key person. I feel I have unleashed a demon. I have promoted others with great success, but I am stunned and befuddled with this one.

Stunned

Dear Stunned,

Oh, I am sorry for you. Ambushed by a hidden personality—it is so unnerving. You must move very fast and nip this in the bud by going at it head on. You can let her go right now or you can give her a second chance. If you decide to give her another chance, be sure to be clear, concise, and direct.

Because you are a well balanced, sane professional, you expect others to be as well. Clearly, you thought the rules were obvious—but in this case you will need to make them explicit.

For example:

• No yelling
• No getting personal
• No name calling
• Correct the behavior, not the person
• Be kind

Make a list of every behavior she exhibits that is not working, and pair each with an example. Give her absolutely clear, step-by-step directions on the behaviors you want to see instead.

For example:

“When you observed Mary stocking the hiking boots in the wrong row, you started yelling about her inability to do anything right. I request that you simply, kindly redirect employees and correct mistakes without insulting them.”

Make it clear that you won’t tolerate meanness, a loose cannon, or a short fuse.

Give her only a short period of time to turn it around. Keep a record of every infraction and give her feedback each time. Let her know when she is down to her last chance and, if she crosses the line, let her go immediately. Your people will respect you all the more for it and will thank you.

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!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a newly promoted senior VP of sales for the North American division of a medical devices manufacturer. My boss is a new COO brought in from the outside. He lives in Germany and I live in Colorado, although I am on the road constantly.

I’ve met this guy only once and he shared almost zero information about himself. I went to LinkedIn to find out more, but there’s not much information there, either.

I have no idea what his plans are for sales—all he told me is to keep the numbers up and it’s all good. I don’t have a clue how I am doing in his eyes. I’ve asked for feedback but his response on the last monthly report I sent him was—I am not kidding—one word: “Good.” What should I do? The silence is killing me.

Need Feedback

Dear Need Feedback,

Welcome to senior leadership—the land of no feedback. You’ve heard it’s lonely at the top? This is why. The only feedback you may get is how your people are doing vis-a-vis goals. Everything else you’ll have to provide for yourself.

Just like you, your new boss has a big new job and he’s trying to figure out how to win. You’re keeping your numbers where they need to be, so right now you’re the least of his worries. I would say the fact that you got a response at all is positive—and the response itself is probably high praise coming from someone who plays his cards that close to the vest. You are a warm, extroverted communicator; he is a private, introverted, analytical type. Don’t take his style personally.

What exactly are you worried about? Did your old boss give you a lot of feedback? If you need to know how well you are doing, check in with your people. Ask them what you could do more of or less of. Ask them what they think you should start doing or stop doing. Ask them if there is anything they think you should know. Ask them what you could do to help them be more successful.

If you need more affirmation, develop a relationship with your counterparts in other regions. Build your network of peers so that you have a sense of how you are doing in relation to them. It’s not that I am big fan of comparison per se, but this will give you at least a bit of a reality check.

Finally, do anything you can to spend more time with your new boss. Include him in your travels. Show up at any and all leadership team meetings. Keep communicating with him, and keep up the good work. And relax. When he has feedback for you, you’ll hear it.

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!

This interesting video points out how every weakness has a flipside—a strength. And vice versa.

When you understand not only the strengths but also the weaknesses of your direct reports, you can better tailor their work to help them achieve their goals. For example, someone who is extremely creative and bright may lack organization. When providing this person with a project, give them a short outline to help them stay on track or set up regular check-ins to ensure they are making progress.

Next time you feel let down as a leader, learn to find the strength within the weakness. Practicing this skill will demonstrate your appreciation for each person’s value and make you a better leader.

Researchers from The Ken Blanchard Companies teamed up with Training magazine to poll 456 human resource and talent-management professionals. The purpose was to determine whether established best practices were being leveraged effectively.

The survey found gaps of 20-30 percent between what employees wanted from their leaders and what they were experiencing in four key areas: Performance Planning (setting clear goals), Day-to-Day Coaching (helping people reach their targets), Performance Evaluation (reviewing results), and Job and Career Development (learning and growing.)

Use these links to download a PDF or PNG version of a new infographic that shows the four key communication gaps broken down into ten specific conversations leaders should be having with their team members.

Are your leaders having the performance management conversations they should be? If you find similar gaps, address them for higher levels of employee work passion and performance.

You can read more about the survey (and see the Blanchard recommendations for closing communication gaps) by accessing the original article, 10 Performance Management Process Gaps, at the Training magazine website.

“As a first-time manager, you want to make a good first impression by demonstrating confidence and capability in managing the work of others. But new managers sometimes get over-invested in people and projects. As a result, they can overreact—getting too excited or upset when things don’t go exactly as planned.”

In the February issue of Ignite, Blanchard shares a story about his own experience.

“I remember being a new parent—you worry about every little thing. Every sniffle is a trip to the emergency room. You find yourself freaking out all the time. But by the time you get to the second kid, you have a whole new perspective. And if you get to a third or fourth, the kids practically raise themselves because you’ve gained experience—you don’t overreact to things like you did before. New managers are sometimes like new parents in that regard.

“As you become experienced as a manager, you are able to respond on a scale that is appropriate. Your energy, tone, and actions are more nuanced. Managers who have been around for a while draw from a larger barrel of knowledge and experience than new managers. They tend to be more patient and calm when things don’t go as planned because they’ve seen it many times before.”

According to Blanchard, experience also teaches managers how to set things up with team members in the beginning so that performance management doesn’t become an emergency issue later on.

Blanchard believes first-time managers need to be prepared for four types of conversations: Goal Setting—to establish performance expectations; Praising—when things are going well; Redirecting—when a mid-course correction is necessary; and Wrapping Up—bringing closure to a task or project. Each of these conversations can pose challenges for new managers.

With skill training and practice, Blanchard believes new managers can get off to a much faster start than they would by using a typical trial and error approach. This can prevent overreactions that can damage a new manager’s reputation and effectiveness.

You can read more of Blanchard’s advice in the February issue of Ignite.  Also be sure to check out the complimentary webinar Blanchard is conducting on February 24—First Time Manager: Performance Management Essentials.  It’s free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Blanchard Companies.

In conducting classes with organizations eager to develop their own one minute managers (and, more recently, situational leaders), Blanchard and his work colleagues have often used an exercise that brings the distressing state of goal setting into sharp focus.

In this exercise, class instructors work separately with groups of managers and their direct reports. First they ask the direct reports to identify and rank order their top ten priorities at work. Separately, they ask managers of those individuals to identify their direct reports’ top ten priorities. The instructors then compare the priorities identified by team members with those identified by their leaders. As Ken Blanchard tells it, “Any similarity between the lists is purely coincidental.” In most cases, priorities are rank ordered quite differently by manager and direct report, with some important goals missing.

Digging into causes, Ken and his colleagues have found that day-to-day emphasis by managers on tasks that are urgent, but not necessarily important, are often to blame. Managers tend to focus on short term issues when delivering feedback, which causes important long term goals to fade into the background. Only when performance review comes around are the long term goals re-identified. Of course, by then it’s often too late to make any real progress. This results in missed targets and, often, hard feelings.

Don’t let this happen with your team. Take some time between now and the end of the month to make sure you and your team members are focused on the same priorities. Using the same exercise Blanchard instructors employ, ask your people each to identify their top five priorities for the coming year. At the same time team members are working on their lists, take a minute to identify what you believe their top five priorities are, given department and organizational goals.

Then, in your next one-on-one conversation with each team member, compare your list with that individual’s list. Identify and discuss differences. Gain agreement on the team member’s top five priorities and set goals around each priority that are SMART: specific, motivational, attainable, relevant, and trackable. Getting clear now will set up follow-up conversations during the first quarter where you can work together to review progress and make adjustments as necessary. The goal is to partner with your people to keep priorities top of mind so that important goals are achieved.

Don’t let the urgent crowd out the important in your organization. Re-examine priorities today—it will make all the difference down the road!

PS: Interested in a deeper dive on goal setting? Join Ken Blanchard for a free goal setting session on January 27. Ken will be helping hundreds of managers and individual contributors from around the world effectively set work and personal goals for the coming year. The event is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

In these conversations, I’ve learned that a leader believes she’s been clear about what needs to be done, or a direct report thinks he knows what is being asked of him. But then the deadline comes and goes without delivery. Or the project is presented, but only in the most rudimentary manner.

What happened?

In reviewing these situations with clients, regardless of whether the client was in the role of leader or direct report, the expected steps emerged: goals were set and deadlines were mentioned—but what didn’t happen also surfaced. Missing in these conversations was the opportunity to review and confirm what was discussed. The leader stated the deadline, but did the other person hear it? Did the leader mention the milestone delivery dates? Did they define the elements of the presentation? Did the direct report know how to deliver on what was expected, who to consult with, and what was not to be done? Did they know what a good job should look like?

To support someone in achieving a goal, it is essential to move from the implied to the specific. Almost everyone has the best of intentions. But to achieve success, people need more than good intentions—they need clarity.

Leaders need to make time in work conversations to add the essential step of reviewing what is expected. For best results, the person who received the assignment should do most of the talking during the review— this will clarify what they see as their responsibilities while illuminating any missing steps or misunderstandings. Remember, the person who does the talking learns the most. Finally, this kind of review will allow the leader to listen and endorse the direct report.

Taking the extra step to review and gain clarity before work starts will position both leader and direct report on the side of success. There is a huge difference between almost complete and complete. Leaders who take the time to review will enjoy the satisfaction of hitting the target every time.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

During our coaching, my client and I spent much of our time uncovering what was going on and what he might be able to do differently. He narrowed in on some actions he could take and he set to work. Here’s what he did:

• Identified top priorities. My client made a commitment to himself that every morning he would schedule an hour alone to identify his top five priorities. He thought clarifying his priorities each day might stop the constant feeling of being pushed and pulled by whatever was shouting the loudest.

• Stopped saying yes to everything. As a smart, hardworking, and knowledgeable manager, he often was the person others came to when they needed something done. He initially appreciated being the go-to guy, but eventually realized he always had more work than time to do it. Through our coaching, he acknowledged to himself that he was a very hardworking and capable person. This helped him see that the reason he couldn’t get all his work done was because he was taking on too much. He realized he didn’t have to try to be all things to all people. Using his newly established priority list helped him determine when to say yes and when to say no.

• Guarded his calendar. Setting priorities and being willing to say no created another new awareness for my client—that he was getting sucked into multiple meetings every day. No wonder he was always on the run! He determined that he didn’t have an active role in many of those meetings, nor was he gaining mission critical information. So he slowed down and considered what meetings he could drop off his calendar. In their place, he worked on his priorities.

I want to point out that these action steps were not easy for my client—because he wanted to be known by his colleagues as a team player. He wanted to be readily available to his direct reports. He wanted others to recognize his can-do attitude. But, more than all of these things, he wanted to stop working twelve-hour days.

I spoke to my client a few months after he began implementing this action plan. There was a lightness in his voice. He told me he felt his efforts were truly paying off. He was finding himself working more on tasks that were really important, which was resulting in better quality work. He was now able to give higher quality attention to his staff and co-workers. All of this had produced a greater sense of accomplishment—and, most days, he was able to leave the office on time.

If you can relate to the feeling of not enough hours in the day, maybe you’d benefit from affirming your priorities, learning to say no, and controlling your calendar. Implement these three changes and let me know how it goes!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I run the Americas finance for a large global company. I am very good at my job and people give great feedback about working for me. Their only real complaint – and mine – is that the workload is crushing. We all work absurd hours and when we need to prepare for big board meetings, it’s all-nighters and weekends.

I have lost two managers in the last six months—which, of course, adds greatly to the problem—and haven’t even had time to hire replacements.

I recently went to my boss to talk about hiring requirements and he said, in essence, “We’re doing so well without those folks, why replace them?” I nearly blew my top – but of course that isn’t going to help me. What will?  –Overwhelmed

Dear Overwhelmed,

I assume your boss is the CFO or some other kind of numbers guy. Tales of woe about how hard you and your people are working are not going to be effective. Speak to a numbers person with numbers—it’s the only language that will be heard. Create a spreadsheet showing how much time all of the tasks need and what it takes for your skeleton crew to deliver. You need to show, in concrete terms, the toll this situation is taking and how hiring one or two folks will add value in the long term. One theme you might bring up is the consequences the department will face if a team member is out with the flu, what effect the holidays will have on work getting done, etc. Take the emotion out of it. Tell the story with facts and numbers, and you are much more likely to get what you need.

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!

Instead, I recently have been working with clients to approach performance management as a way to leverage an employee’s contributions toward organization goals.

The subtle but important distinction between performance management and contribution management can turn a once-negative process into a positive “How can I help you succeed?” approach.

For this kind of partnering to work, managers need to have a few prerequisites in place.  Without them, you will continue to find yourself assessing and evaluating performance instead of working in tandem with direct reports to help them succeed. Think you are ready for this more positive approach?  See how you would score yourself in each of these key areas.

Well defined goals with a clear line of sight. Employees need to own their contribution. This occurs when they can clearly map their work to overall department and organization goals and are empowered to take action.

Surprisingly, though, survey results of over 500 managers in our leadership development classes show only 20 percent of managers reporting alignment between themselves and their direct reports.  Without defined goals and a clear line of sight, people are left in the dark. Work becomes a guessing game where workers are on a need-to-know basis. This creates a dependency, not a partnership.

Identification of current development level. For contribution management to truly work, a manager has to be able to accurately assess the employee’s development level on a given task, identify what the person needs to succeed, and then partner with them on the proper amounts of direction and support.

Assessing these needs accurately requires identifying an employee’s current competence at a task and commitment to achieving it. Competence is the knowledge and skills an individual brings to a goal or task and is best determined by demonstrated performance. Commitment is a combination of an individual’s motivation and confidence on a goal or task.

Ongoing coaching. Once clear performance objectives have been set, the next step is to set up recurring one-on-one meetings to regularly monitor progress against goals. This time also can be used to problem solve roadblocks, change goals as business direction changes, and re-evaluate training and resource needs.

The one-on-one conversation is critical and allows leaders to leverage the competence and commitment of their people in an efficient way. A coach-style approach allows managers to connect with each employee, focus the conversation, develop an action plan, and review next steps and resources needed to succeed. 

More Than a Name Change

It’s time to think differently about the relationship of the individual to the organization. Instead of assessment and evaluation, focus on alignment of goals, identification of development level, and providing day-to-day support.

When it is done right, contribution management is much more than a name change. It is a complete rethinking of the performance appraisal process that offers managers and direct reports the opportunity to build their relationship as they work together on objectives and create a road map for success.

About the Author

John Slater is a Senior Director, Client Solutions for The Ken Blanchard Companies working out of Blanchard’s Toronto, Ontario regional headquarters in Canada.

Dear Madeleine,

What’s the best way to give correction to a sensitive top performer?

I have a senior person on my team who is good at her job and takes great pride in performance excellence.

But when I try to give her anything less than positive feedback she’s practically in tears and proceeds to beat herself up for days: “Oh, I should have known better! I’m such a loser! You should just get rid of me!”

I’ve become hesitant to say anything that hints of criticism because of the emotion it produces. –Withholding Feedback

Dear Withholding,

This is a tough, but fairly common, situation when dealing with top performers. Many are driven by a need to avoid being criticized.

But before putting this all on her, let me first ask you a question: Is it possible your feedback comes across as harsh? The distinction can be as subtle as “You were late turning in that brief” vs. “That brief was late.” Using you can make people feel defensive, as can asking why.

If you are confident your delivery is not the problem, plan for the conversation thoughtfully. Be sure to broach the subject when things are going fine—in other words, strike while the iron is cold. Now be clear, concise and forward-focused. Here are some guidelines:

1. Identify the pressing concern. For example, “When I give you redirection or make suggestions for possible improvements, you seem to take it to heart, and very personally.”
2. Clarify the issue. Cite specific examples of the behavior in question. Keep things neutral by sharing only your observations.
3. Tell her how you feel the current situation affects both of you. Share with her that her behavior has caused you to become hesitant to give her important feedback you believe would be to her benefit.
4. Find out if she believes the problem lies with you. Ask her if she has any observations on how you might be contributing to the situation.
5. Determine the future implications. Have a discussion about what may happen if nothing changes.
6. Commit to making a request. Think about what you want her new behavior to look like and then ask for exactly what you want. Offer to support her in making the change.
7. Describe the ideal outcome. Talk about the difference it would make for both of you if her behavior were to change.
8. Reinforce her value. At the end of the discussion, it’s essential to endorse the things she does well and share the ways in which she is an asset to the team. This step is even more important when you are dealing with a high performer.

One caveat, though: following these eight steps doesn’t guarantee a quick change. Her behavior could be a lifelong habit born from a need to protect herself. But by following the eight guidelines above, you should find yourself in a better position to offer necessary redirection while avoiding most of the emotion. It’s worth the effort. Let me know how it works out.

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!

In The New One Minute Manager, just released this week, authors Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson lay out a time-tested approach to help managers deliver needed feedback. Here are some key takeaways you can use to improve your feedback skills.

Do Your Homework

Before you rush to deliver feedback, make sure clear agreements about goals, norms, roles, and expectations have been established. Often the root cause of poor performance is a lack of clarity around goals. Verify with your direct report that the two of you are operating from the same set of expectations. Many performance issues can be rectified at this stage.

Focus on Behavior

If goals were clear and there is a gap between expectations and observed performance, talk about it. Describe the behavior in specific, not general, terms. Use a neutral tone to ward off any sense of blame or judgment—remember that you are addressing the behavior, not attacking the person. The goal is not to tear people down, but to build them up. As Blanchard and Johnson explain, “When our self-concept is under attack, we feel a need to defend ourselves and our actions, even to the extent of distorting the facts. When people become defensive, they don’t learn.”

Let it Sink In

After giving feedback, pause for a moment so you both can process the situation. Let your direct report feel your concern as well as their own.

Move On

When it’s over, it’s over. Don’t dwell on the experience. Be sure to reaffirm your belief, trust, and respect for your team member so that when your meeting is over they are thinking about how they can improve their performance, not about how you mistreated them. Expect that the feedback will be received and acted upon. Be ready to endorse and praise performance when you see improvement.

Take an Extra Minute with Your People

Blanchard and Johnson like to say, “The best minute I spend is the one I invest in my people.” Feedback is an essential managerial skill. Take an extra minute to improve your skills in this important area.

To learn more about the authors’ approach to performance feedback, check out The New One Minute Manager book page. You’ll learn more about the book and see what others are saying. You can even download a free chapter!

Leadership is not something you do to people, it’s something you do with people. Letting people know what they can expect from you underscores the idea that leadership is a partnering process.

That’s one of the messages that Ken Blanchard highlights in his work with senior leaders.

Blanchard underscores the idea that leadership transparency is a key element of success in today’s organizations. That’s because transparency gives employees a chance to see the “person behind the position” in their organization.

This willingness on the part of leaders to share a little bit of themselves helps to build trust and confidence in a powerful way—and it encourages others to share information about themselves as well. The result is greater openness and stronger bonds throughout the organization.

3 Ways to Be More Open

For leaders looking to be more transparent with their people, Blanchard recommends three steps:

1. Identify your beliefs about leading and managing people. Who are the people that have influenced you in your life? Most people think about traditional and famous leaders first, but the reality is that parents, teachers, and other important people in our lives are the ones who have usually influenced our thinking the most. Given what you’ve learned from past leaders and your core values, what are your beliefs about leading and motivating people?
2. Share your leadership point of view with others. How can you communicate what you believe and how it influences your behavior? When you share your leadership point of view with your direct reports, they will not only have the benefit of understanding where you’re coming from, but they’ll also understand what you expect from them and what they can expect from you.
3. Think through how you will set an example for your people. Your leadership point of view lets others know how you will set an example for the values and behaviors you are encouraging. We all know from personal experience that people learn from behaviors, not from words. Leaders must walk their talk. Developing a leadership point of view creates a clear path for you to follow. Now you need to walk it.

Openness and transparency are powerful signals that a leader can be trusted and followed with confidence.  How transparent have you been?  Do people know where you are coming from?  This three-step process—identifying your values, sharing them with others, and demonstrating them on a daily basis—is a great way to start!

The article describes the results of a Gallup study showing that employees want communication, a trusting relationship, and clear measurement standards from their immediate supervisor.

I messaged some of my friends to learn why they posted the article. They all replied that the findings matched their own experience and they wanted to share. In fact, each of them told me about how a negative experience in one of these areas had resulted in their search for a new place to work.

That’s pretty sad.

The findings identified in the Gallup study are consistent with those uncovered through research by The Ken Blanchard Companies on the subject of Employee Work Passion. We frame these elements as Connectedness with Leader, Feedback, and Performance Expectations. Blanchard research shows that when there are significant gaps between what employees expect and what they actually experience at work in these areas (as well as nine others), their intentions to stay with the organization, perform at a high level, apply extra discretionary effort, be a good organizational citizen, or endorse the company to others are lowered.

That’s even sadder!

Here’s the good news. Leaders can help create the type of environment people are looking for at work. One strategy we recommend for all leaders is to increase the frequency and quality of their conversations with their direct reports.

A good way to start is by scheduling a special type of one-on-one meeting in addition to performance review meetings.  In this meeting, the direct report is responsible for setting the agenda and capturing the required action steps. The manager’s job is to simply show up and listen.

This kind of meeting helps in many ways. The leader shows an interest and commitment to the employee’s success by listening to what is working well and providing feedback in areas where the employee needs help. And by taking the time to clarify performance expectations, the leader demonstrates to the employee that not only is their work important, it also plays a valuable role in achieving overall organization objectives.

What can you do to create connection, provide better feedback, and set clearer performance expectations with your people? As my Facebook friends point out, we all could benefit from better communication with our leaders.

For more ideas, be sure to read the Blanchard white papers, Ten Performance Management Process Gaps, Are Employees’ Needs Being Met by One-on-Ones?, and Employee Work Passion: Connecting the Dots. They are all available, free of charge, from the Blanchard research archives.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

How about at work?  Would you be categorized as an earnest leader?  Are you intentional and purposeful?

One of the best ways you can reveal your leadership earnestness is by creating and sharing your Leadership Point of View (LPOV).  This is a process where you consider the key people, events, and beliefs in your life and how these events create a clear line of sight to the leader you are now.  As a coach who has worked with many leaders on considering and sharing their leadership point of view I can tell you that it ain’t work for sissies!  It is more like an excavation project, where specific experiences in your past are examined to see which can best illustrate to your present team members the leader you are now.

An LPOV teaches people what you expect from yourself and from them so that, together, you can succeed.  Working to reflect on, craft, and then share your leadership point of view will help you to:

• Be more authentic—more fully yourself as a leader
• Show up as who you are, not as who you think you should be as a leader
• Become more intentional in your leadership
• Become more congruent in your leadership
• Inspire others to think about their values and their Leadership Point of View

While it is a challenge, sharing your leadership point of view transforms you, your team, and your organization.  To earnestly reveal your LPOV is to communicate with people’s hearts. The benefits I’ve seen include:

• Your team will follow you. People will be committed to achieving what is important to you and your organization.
• Your team will listen to you. People will remember what you say when you talk to them.
• Your team will have faith in you. People will trust you and be quicker to act on your requests.
• Your team will give you their best. People will strive to be extraordinary.
• Your team will stay. People will commit to staying and growing with you.

Leaders who have honed and crafted their Leadership Point of View are more effective and intentional.  Because they let others know what they stand for and why, their teams desire to stand with them, too.  People have short memories about events and outcomes, but long memories about the personal impact others have had on them.

What legacy do you want to leave? Don’t keep it a secret.  Share it with others.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

I asked the leader if she had clarified for her direct report at the start what the task was and exactly what a good job would look like.

There was a long pause; then my client said, “No, looking back, we never clearly discussed the desired outcomes. Now that you say it, I can see how that would have been helpful.”

Of course my client was bothered that she hadn’t thought about clarifying her expectations. Yet the reality is, when leaders are constantly being pulled in different directions, this often happens.

Slow Down To Go Faster

Sometimes leaders need to slow down to ultimately go faster. They need to take the time initially to clarify for themselves what successful accomplishment of an objective would look like. Then they need to communicate that expectation clearly to those who are tasked with achieving the objective.

When partnering with others to get something done—not only direct reports but kids, spouses, peers, even your manager—would you benefit by slowing down to ensure everyone is on the same page? You can do so by:

• Clarifying the exact goal or task at hand
• Defining and sharing a vision of what a good job looks like
• Making sure all those involved are in agreement about the expected outcome.

Team members can’t hit a target if they don’t know where it is or what it looks like. Taking the time to clarify expectations and agree on outcomes greatly enhances the chance that your people will hit a bull’s eye.

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have coached over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every weekat Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Please don’t be too alarmed if you see yourself in one of these descriptions—that was one of my intentions. I wanted to make it easy for you to identify yourself. After all, you can’t craft a solution until you identify the real nature of the problem. My intention in using the labels is to keep things fun and light, but also to be clear.  Okay, here goes:

The In-Director. You believe people don’t like to be bossed around, and you don’t want people to think you’re bossy.  So you don’t give super clear direction—but then you’re disappointed in the results.

The Punch Puller. You are afraid of damaging the relationship or demotivating the employee, so you don’t give constructive, developmental feedback when needed. Even when you are forced to give feedback, you fail to make clear requests.

Ms. Max Flex. You are so sympathetic and so empathetic to the needs of your employees that you—perhaps inadvertently—put their needs ahead of the team or the business.

Captain Empowerment. You have such a high value for fairness that you treat everyone the same way regardless of their competence or skill levels. Your mantra is “You can do it!” despite ample evidence to the contrary—and you think if you believe in people enough, they won’t let you down.

The Freedom Fighter. Your own need for freedom blinds you to the fact that not everyone has the same needs. You give people way more rope than they want and the result can be frustration—or even failure.

Horton the Elephant. Maisy the flaky bird flies south for a nonstop party while Horton sits on her eggs through rain, hail and snow. Are you Horton? Simply too patient for your own good and letting your people take advantage of you?

The Wuss. You let your need to be liked get the better of you, at great cost to your own success. You may suffer from aspects of some or all of the above conditions. What you know for sure is that you tolerate way too much and let your people walk all over you.

Is There A Cure?

The good news is that all of these behaviors stem from your being a generous and kind person—but they can really hurt you and your team. Stay tuned and I’ll go into a little more detail about each one over the next few weeks. In the meantime if you recognize yourself, one of your direct reports, or your boss here, note examples of these behaviors as you move through your days. The more specific and concrete you can be about behaviors that aren’t working, the easier it will be to shift them.

PS: Are there other behaviors you’ve seen that I’ve missed? If you have an idea for a different challenge or label, I would love to hear it.  Just add it to the comments section below!

About this column

Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned 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.

Previous posts in this series:

The Well-Intentioned Manager’s New Year’s Resolution: Have More Fun

The Top Three Mistakes Good Managers Make

Managing Polarities: A Key Skill for the Well-Intentioned Manager

• You made a bad hire—and the person does not have the skills or ability to learn the skills needed for the job, or is not a cultural fit for your organization; or

• The individual’s bad attitude negatively affects others and the work—no matter how much coaching and encouragement you provide.

In my experience, most of the time we can avoid letting someone go by following a simple four-step process that eliminates the problem instead of the employee.

Step 1: Set clear expectations for performance. 

People need to know what a good job looks like. Leaders must be able to paint a clear picture of the results they want employees to achieve. That includes clear measures of success. Performance is sometimes off target because clear targets were never set.

Step 2: Provide day-to-day coaching.

Make time to provide direction on new tasks, to praise progress and acknowledge results, and to listen and encourage as needed. The amount of direction and support you provide should correlate to the person’s competence and commitment on each goal or task. Make sure you get to know each individual personally so that you may effectively adapt your coaching to their situation.

Step 3: Hold regular one-on-one meetings.

At least once a month, get together with each of your direct reports to discuss how things are going. The best one-on-ones are scheduled by the manager but led by the direct report. It is their chance to share progress, talk about obstacles they are facing, and work with you to solve problems.

Step 4: Catch performance problems early and solve them together.

The sooner you catch a performance problem, the easier it is to address. As soon as you notice a pattern of poor performance, have an open discussion. Involve the person in solving the problem. Set a time to follow up to ensure that the problem is solved.

On the surface, these four steps may seem like common sense—but they are far from common practice. Take some extra time with your people. Following these four steps will not only dramatically reduce the number of performance problems in your team but also result in an increase in overall employee productivity, engagement, and retention.

About the author

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in productivity and performance management.

For many managers and their staff, the term fills them with dread. A major reason for the negative reaction comes from the typical way performance management is implemented.

Traditional performance management systems focus on evaluation. Managers set goals for direct reports at the beginning of the year, meet with them at midyear to see how they are doing and provide feedback, and meet with them again at the end of the year to assign them a grade. That grade is used to calculate pay increases and bonuses, and often to determine who to let go if there are layoffs. This process treats employees like cogs in a machine to be tweaked, oiled, and fixed if needed.

A different approach to performance management requires a different mindset—for organizations, managers, and employees. Ken Blanchard and WD-40 Company CEO Garry Ridge discuss this mindset in their book Helping People Win at Work. They suggest a new approach to performance management that’s based on a concept they call “Don’t mark my paper, help me get an A.”

This new approach to performance management creates a real partnership between managers and direct reports. With this process, the manager and the direct report work together at the beginning of the year to set meaningful goals. Then, at least every two weeks they meet one on one, which provides an opportunity for the employee to let the manager know how things are going and to ask for what they need in the way of direction and support to achieve their goals.

Throughout the year the manager provides specific, meaningful praise and encouragement, as well as redirection if needed. When this process is followed, the end of year meeting becomes a time to review and celebrate the employee’s accomplishments.

Many organizations have adopted this new approach. For example, Adobe has dumped its old performance management system with its formal review forms, rankings, and calibration systems. The new approach encourages people to collaboratively set expectations for the year, get feedback on a regular basis, and create a plan for growth and development. The process is referred to as “the check-in.” A year after instituting this new approach, voluntary attrition has dropped and the organization is seeing an upward trend in both employee sentiment and organizational performance.

Another example comes from Australian enterprise software company Atlassian. Leaders found that their old performance management system did exactly the opposite of what they wanted to accomplish. Instead of inspiring discussions about enhancing people’s performance, the old system not only caused disruptions and anxiety but also demotivated both team members and managers.

To solve the problem, the company replaced its old system with a model that emphasizes regular weekly coaching conversations. In these meetings the manager and employee discuss what the employee can do to enhance their own performance and play to their strengths. The company also removed its traditional performance incentives and moved to a motivational model that encourages performance through coaching. Atlassian is now recognized as an employer of choice.

If you are a manager whose organization still participates in the old performance management model, adopt this new coaching model for yourself. Create a partnership with each of your direct reports—and help them get an A.

About the author

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in productivity and performance management.

You probably can identify with experiences like this. Isn’t it annoying?

There are always choices—of food, toys, hotels, cars, etc. The list goes on ad infinitum. Prevailing wisdom is that the more options, the greater the likelihood of being satisfied. How many different varieties of coffee drinks can you get? Baristas will tell you “happiness is in your choices.” After all, it seems to work for Starbucks, doesn’t it?

Walmart carries approximately 100,000 products. Amazon offers tens of millions of options. The whole world seems to be exalting in the number of choices we get these days. Isn’t it great? It certainly seems to be the rage. But there’s another side to this movement—a dark side. Having too many choices makes many people uncomfortable. In my own case … well, it just about drives me crazy.

Professor Sheena Iyengar at Columbia University has studied how people deal with more choices in business situations. The results aren’t pretty—whether it’s from the perspective of the seller or the buyer. To summarize the results of one such study: when people were offered different numbers of jams to choose from on a grocery store shelf, sales were higher when there were fewer options. Specifically, when the store displayed 24 types of jam, ~ 3 percent of customers selected and bought a product. When offered only 6 choices, 30 percent ended up purchasing.

Are there other applications of this?

• Let’s say you’re a member of a problem solving group or a decision making committee. Is it really necessary to identify every single available option? It might make sense to reduce the number of choices as early as possible, or at least when it becomes apparent that the likely best selection is only one of a relatively small number.
• It’s the same with business models, or lists of values, or marketing plans, or guiding principles, or focusing strategies. At some level of complexity or sheer number of factors, we start dealing with the dreaded Law of Diminishing Returns. There comes a point when the list loses its meaning; i.e., if our company claims to focus on 150 values, in effect it doesn’t focus on any.
• How about laws and rules? There is a level of legislation where over-codification of requirements threatens the central theme of the initial effort. Once we reach that level—for example, a large list of things people are prohibited from doing—those people begin to assume they can do anything that is not on the prohibited list.
• One last application. We can’t keep adding to people’s to-do lists. The concept of time is a fixed-sum concept. If it will take an extra hour to do a new task every day, that one hour will have to come from somewhere. Worse yet, everything can’t be the top priority. The person who tries to emphasize everything, emphasizes nothing. In this case, there is only one fix: when new responsibilities are added to someone’s workload, something else must be removed.

Remember: the more options, the less comfortable we are with making any choice at all.

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

The moles don’t stay up for very long. As the game continues, two moles pop up simultaneously, then perhaps three, and eventually on opposite sides of the grid. In the end game, it gets crazy, because time is running out fast.

Does this remind you of your job? You have to move quickly to respond, sometimes without much real information.  You knock one mole down and two others pop up.  It’s always nuts close to deadlines. The more you do the harder it gets…

And how about that other player—obviously not as good a corporate citizen as you.  While you’re trying to whack as many moles as you can, you observe the peer next to you, who is being very selective, perhaps only focusing on one or two moles. 

You’ve got to wonder, don’t you, “Is that a better way?”

Here are three actions to help you deal with the Whack-A-Mole conundrum:

• You don’t have to whack every mole. It’s not possible, and you really shouldn’t try. So don’t.
• Your workday is a zero-sum game.  You don’t likely have bundles of free time at your disposal. If you add a new chunk to your workload, something somewhere is going to have to give. As former Medtronic CEO and Harvard professor Bill George says, don’t keep piling stuff on. If you’re considering adding to your to-do list, then immediately ask, “What can I add to my not-to-do list.”
• You’re probably going to have a dramatic turn of events everyday; the negative ones are the most memorable. You’re going to miss some moles. But the sky isn’t falling, and you have a sacred responsibility to be a healthy role-model to those you lead. 

Having a strategic focus is critical. People either get that or they don’t. Be one of those who get it. 

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Photo Credit: Whack-A-Mole photo courtesy Miami Herald blog (miamiherald.typepad.com)

Well, let’s read it first, shall we?

Dear Dr. Reality:     

You have always been so candid and practical with your advice. This is my first time writing you, and I have a particularly challenging dilemma that is driving me nuts.

I invest totally of myself on the job. I do so with largely altruistic motives, but of course I also want to have a successful career. My problem is that the more I do, the more I do. It has reached the point where I find myself routinely doing two, or even more, tasks at the same time. I suspect that the quality of my outputs may be suffering as a result.

At the same time I have continued my practice of doing favors for people and taking on extra work. I polish the right apples, gladly offer my help and participation, and believe I have a solid image within the organization. In short, I’m a good corporate citizen, and doing okay. The problem is that “going nuts” thing.

So Dr. Reality, can you give me a strategy to negotiate my way through this workload swamp? I want to help, and I want to go the extra mile. But now I’m the one who needs help. I don’t know whether to go to a shrink, or go bowling.

Successfully yet exhaustedly yours,
Concerned Corporate Climber

Dear Concerned:

Swamp it is, indeed, complicated by excessive commitment and unlimited demand. Who among us has not had lunch with a colleague who is trying to maintain the conversation while simultaneously taking calls, checking emails on their smart phones, and preparing the agenda for their next meeting? You didn’t use the term “multitasking,” but it sounds as if that’s also part of your uphill battle.

Don’t misinterpret Dr. Reality. He knows that work is part of the stuff life is made of. And he commends you for your inspired willingness to do whatever it takes, often concurrently with other tasks. But it is much better to underpromise and overdeliver than to overpromise and underdeliver. And unfortunately, in the counting house of life, people soon forget the many things you did very well and remember the few that barely met the minimum standard.

So be careful, Concerned, that in trying to be a top performer, you don’t hoist yourself on your own petard. The next time you feel it’s happened again, ask the following question: “Why did I do this to myself?”

Sympathetically yet emphatically yours,
Dr. Reality

Additional thoughts from the good doctor:

At this time of year when we make and break New Year’s resolutions, it may be helpful for Dr. Reality to point out a few absolute and undeniable truths about the way things are:

• In order to complete tasks, people frequently need help from others.
• Influencers holding responsibility often select some milestones and declare them to be crises. The announcers may be bosses, peers, or (gasp!) direct reports.
• Prospective helpers obligingly pitch in, but when word gets out that this strategy works, there is a marked increase in crisis declarations throughout the organization.
• Before long, everyone’s hair is on fire.

Make no mistake. Dr. Reality fervently believes that doing work, even a lot of work, is a wonderful idea. It’s good for the job, and also for the career. However, over time, trying to be everything to everyone carries the risk of becoming counterproductive. With a high level of motivation and willingness, it is possible to go too far in one’s efforts to add more value. Solution: By all means consider extraordinary requests, but mind your priorities.

Dr. Reality agrees with Peter Drucker, who once said that when it comes to taking on additional work, almost everybody is a volunteer. But do you know people who regularly, perhaps unwittingly, throw themselves under the bus? Ironically, they later complain about their plight, apparently forgetting they did it to themselves.

Picture this: a construction worker opens his lunch pail, and loudly complains, “Oh no, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I hate getting this for lunch.” The next day, the same thing happens. He says, “I can’t believe this, another PB&J sandwich. Not again.” This happens day after day, and finally another worker asks, “Why don’t you just ask your wife to make you a different sandwich?” The guy answers, “What are you talking about? I make my own lunch.”

In real life, you can’t unbury yourself. But you can prevent yourself from being buried in the first place.

Editor’s Note: Dr. Reality is the alter ego of Dr. Dick Ruhe, senior consultant and keynote speaker with The Ken Blanchard Companies.  If you have problems, he can help. Simply email us here at LeaderChat. His solution will both amaze and help you. (Why? Because he’s simply that good.) Let us know what you think.

The answer to this entrenched belief is so obvious that at a recent speaking engagement, I had over 300 people spontaneously fill-in-the blank by yelling in unison, “Results!”

I then asked them to consider the affect this tyranny of results has on the workplace. It was not easy. Leaders tend to tune out as soon as you mess with results. Executives cannot imagine what else matters at the end of the day, but results.

As it turns out, the science of motivation is shedding light on the high price being paid for blind allegiance to results and leaving alternate opportunities unexplored, unmined, and under-appreciated.

Consideration #1: Redefine and reframe results.

If you are like most leaders, you define results in terms of quantifiable goals and specific outcomes expressed through ROI, net profit, financial gain, labor hours, reduced costs, lower turnover, productivity measures, and other dashboard metrics. Reasonable, but here is the irony: Your persistent focus on driving for results without emotional meaning may be creating the psychological distress, tension, and pressure that undermines achievement and makes it less likely you get the results that you—and those you lead—are seeking.

If you ask managers what matters at work, they will point to results such as achieving high standards on goals, making numbers, reducing production times, increasing output, and eliminating waste. Ask individuals what matters at work and you get a different response. Yes, people want to achieve those goals (when they are fair and agreed upon), but more important than a quantifiable goal is a meaningful one. Research concurs—in the end, it is the quality of the goal being achieved, rather than the quantity of something being achieved, that matters most.

Leaders and individuals need to learn how to frame results differently and trust that they will achieve organizational metrics.

When I was an itinerant speaker for the world’s largest public seminar company conducting over 100 day-long events a year—each one in a different city, state, or country—I appreciated the work, but I was literally bone weary. The company had a hard metric that meant termination of your contract if not met: Collect 75% or more of participant evaluations (typically 200) and score a 4.5 or better on a 5-point scale.

Those goals made me feel even more exhausted! If I had focused on meeting them, I would have burned out and then quit—as many of my colleagues did. Instead, I reframed the goal in ways meaningful to me. I will remember at least 20 people’s names and something about them by the end of each day. If at least one person tells me I made a difference in their life, then it was a good day.  (After all, that was why I was doing what I was doing.) By reframing what results looked like to me, I was energized—and consistently achieved the organization’s measures of success.

Consideration #2: Ends do not justify the means.

If we believe that results are what really matter without consideration as to why those results are meaningful and how people go about achieving them, we are in essence saying the ends justify the means. What a sorry picture this paints. We do not need the science of motivation to prove that means matter as much, or more, than the ends—we see the scandals and horror stories of people, organizations, industries, and countries who prize ends over means every day in the news.

However, we tend to overlook the obvious in day-to-day practice. The evidence is clear that even if people achieve the results you want, they are less likely to sustain or repeat those results if their basic psychological needs are thwarted in the process. You may experience short-term gains when you have a results focus, however, those gains are at risk and compromised when people feel pressure instead of autonomy, disconnection instead of relatedness, and “used” without a sense of the competence they have gained.

Try this for the next month: Reframe the belief that the only thing that matters is results. Consider this belief instead:

In the end, what really matters is not just results, but why and how those results are achieved.

Observe the shift in energy when you focus on what really matters in the workplace—achieving meaningful results that are also psychologically fulfilling. Then trust the numbers will add up.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

Editor’s note: This post is the fourth in a five part series on beliefs that erode workplace motivation. You can read Susan’s first three posts in the series by clicking on Rethinking Five Beliefs that Erode Workplace Motivation , Five Beliefs that Erode Workplace Motivation, Part Two , and  If You Are Holding People Accountable, Something Is Wrong.

Years ago, the woman had worked as a barista at a coffee house. The holidays were just around the corner and she was asked by her manager to get the store ready for the holidays.  It was almost closing time and she told her manager that she was happy to stay late and get it done, but also that she had never done displays before and wasn’t quite sure what to do. Her manager responded with a quick, “You’ll be fine,” and left for the night.

She stayed for a few extra hours after closing and put all of the holiday decor on display. It took awhile but she got it done and thought it looked good.

That’s why she was so surprised when she walked into the store the next day and saw that all of her displays had been completely rearranged. When she asked her manager about it, the first thing he said was, “You set it up all wrong—you didn’t follow the book.”

“What book?” she replied.

“The book that is in my car—I guess I forgot to give it to you.”

Use behaviors that help (and especially don’t hinder) performance

As you might expect, this young woman walked away feeling frustrated. The sad part is how many times this happens to people in their jobs every day. I don’t think managers intentionally forget to give employees the book, but unfortunately, employees don’t know what your intentions are—they only see your behaviors.

If you are a manager, keep these three things in mind to set your people up for success:

1. Do your homework.  Check to see if employees have experience with what you are asking them to do.  And if they don’t, teach them.
2. Praise employees’ progress or redirect them if they are still learning.
3. Never reprimand a learner.

Don’t frustrate, or even lose, good employees because of your lack of leadership. Remember, your first and most important customers are your employees.

About the author:

Kathy Cuff is a senior consulting partner and one of the principal authors—together  with Vicki Halsey—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Legendary Service training program.