Dear Madeleine,

I am a fairly new manager, and I really like managing. My issue is that a young woman I hired a few years ago either cannot or will not meet expectations.

She excelled at the job during her six-month probationary period, and then went off a cliff. She has been on one performance plan after another. She often will improve in the area under scrutiny, but something else always suffers.

She seems to accept feedback and seems to be eminently clear about what needs to be done. She doesn’t miss meetings, but she just can’t seem to hit a deadline no matter how much support I offer or how much I have stressed the importance of the deadline.

It is confusing because she was so great at first. It is obvious that she can do the job. I can’t tell if she is simply lazy or maybe has personal problems she doesn’t feel comfortable mentioning.

It would be easy to simply let her go. The problem is that she has endeared herself to everyone on the team and many people across the organization. I know many people will be upset with me. I feel like I’m a failure and people will hate me.

Task Master

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Task Master,

It can be so confusing when someone provides credible evidence that they are able and willing to do a job only to stop performing for no apparent reason. I caution you against the impulse to use the L word. Not because it isn’t possible that your low performer (LP) might be lazy, but because she will intuit any judgment you have about her character—and it has probably already made her feel unsafe about telling you the truth about what is going on. So let’s start with giving LP the benefit of the doubt. It will vastly increase your chances of success here.

I think you have two challenges: the first is to pull out all the stops to get the bottom of what is going on, and the second is to stop trying to win a popularity contest. Let’s tackle them in order.

I know you say LP went off a cliff right after her probationary period ended, but there is a good chance that something else changed for LP at around that same time. We can speculate all day long, but you are never going to find out unless you set aside the time, explain what is at stake (her continued employment), and make sure she feels safe enough with you to be candid about what is going on.

The list of things that might be affecting LP includes but is not limited to the following:

Personal Issues

• Health problems (mental or physical)
• Family issues or caretaking responsibilities
• Burnout or exhaustion—especially if she had been overperforming
• Life changes—divorce, loss, moving, financial stress

Workplace-Related Issues

• Conflict with coworkers or you
• Feeling unrecognized or undervalued
• Perceived unfairness (pay, promotions, workload)
• Toxic work environment or sudden shift in culture
• Micromanagement or loss of autonomy
• Lack of challenge or feeling stuck

Motivational Drop

• Loss of purpose or disconnection from the work
• Mismatch between her values and company direction
• Boredom or lack of growth opportunities
• She checked out because she’s job hunting

Change in Role or Expectations

• Role drift—maybe the job morphed into something she didn’t sign up for. Even a small change can be destabilizing.
• Overload—expectations increased without support. These may have been so small that you thought they wouldn’t make a difference, and you may have even forgotten about them.
• Poor communication about priorities or goals.

Leadership or Management Changes

• New manager, new policies, or new direction could cause a shift in behavior, especially if trust was lost. This seems like unlikely based on your letter.

I am hoping this list gives you some ideas about what you might be missing.

Prepare carefully for your conversation: stick to questions, be open and curious, and refrain from being defensive or explaining your own position until you have brought all the issues to the table. Essentially, go into it ready to listen to learn something new. Once you have done that, your path forward will become clear.

Now. Let’s talk about your concern that people will hate you if you can’t find a way to help LP get back on track and you let her go. This is one of those things that makes being a manager so tricky: you are always balancing the needs of the organization, the needs of the team, and the need to create the best possible environment for each individual to thrive.

But here is a truth that may help: team members know when someone is a low performer. And as much as they may like the person, they inevitably will come to resent them. Why? Because our brains are wired to constantly look for and fight against unfairness. There is always that little voice in the back of our heads that wonders “Why am I killing myself over here when so-and-so is slacking off?” And when the manager of the team allows a low performer to get away with doing poor work, or not as much work as everyone else, the team members will eventually lose respect for the manager.

So if you do your due diligence, create a safe space to understand what is going on, use the information to help LP get back on track, and still can’t get her to where she needs to be, you must let her go. Some folks may be bummed about it but they probably won’t hate you. If you do it appropriately, are careful about how you share the news (meaning you don’t say anything derogatory about LP), and stick to the facts, people will almost certainly respect and appreciate the decision.

If it is any consolation, this kind of scenario is the bane of all managers no matter how experienced. You stand to learn an awful lot from it, painful though it may be.

Good luck!

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

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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 Intern,

I just got hired as head of sales for a marketing services firm. I’m really excited to drive the future growth of this small and mighty company.

My new team includes several very young team members. For some, this is their first professional job. I have always led more senior sales professionals and leaders of sales teams, so to lead individual contributors—especially at this junior level—makes me a bit nervous. I have children the same age as these employees, and it is a big challenge to engage and motivate them.

I’ve noticed they seem to get frustrated easily. They have a hard time dealing with the pressure of deadlines and don’t like receiving negative feedback or criticism. Also, I already see them taking advantage of our flexible time off and work from home policies.

How am I supposed to help them grow if they can’t accept that they have to change? I want to develop them into productive team members, but the level of work I need to do makes me think it’s not worth it. I’d rather just manage them out and replace them with more senior roles. Any advice before I bail on them?

Stressed-Out Boss

___________________________________________________________________

Dear Stressed-Out Boss,

It’s totally normal, no matter who your employees are, to have communication gaps and growing pains when leading a new team and establishing new team roles and norms.

Don’t get too nervous about your new employees; I’m sure they are just as nervous as you are. If you think back to when you started your first corporate job, I’d guess it was nerve-racking for you too! Just try to put yourself in their shoes.

You talk about how your new members become easily frustrated and have a hard time with the pressure of the deadlines they are given. Pressure is a common stressor for all of us, emerging and established professionals alike! Have you tried talking to them about this issue? There is a possibility they don’t know they can go to you with their problems. They may not want to disappoint you by coming to you with these issues, so they just sweep them under the rug in the hope they will be resolved on their own.

If I was in their situation where I felt I was struggling but was too nervous to tell my boss, hearing something like this would have gone a long way: “I notice you are having a tough time keeping up with deadlines lately. Why do you think you might be falling behind? What can I do to help you?”

If I know anything about my own generation, it’s that we are generally aware of our flaws—but we don’t always know how to ask for help so that we can rise above them.

Let’s be honest: nobody likes to hear that they’re doing something wrong, no matter their age. If your team members see you as someone who isn’t there to support them, they won’t open up to you—and this could become an ongoing issue. On the other hand, if your people see you as someone who wants to help them get better, they will be more likely to come to you for help in the future.

In my experience, most young professionals will respond positively once their leader cracks through that shell and listens to their needs. We really are driven by purpose! Gen Z sometimes has a reputation as difficult to manage—but in reality, we just want to make a difference in our workplace and feel that we are being heard.

As someone who works from home, one important factor that I always appreciate being set in place are the expectations my boss has for me. For example, you could try saying something along the lines of: “I would like you to start coming to the office Monday through Wednesday. On Thursdays and Fridays, you can choose whether you want to work from home or the office.” I think by solidifying these expectations you would see the results you are looking for from your team.

The same thing goes for flexible time off, although this one could be a bit trickier. When employees get their work done and demonstrate good time management skills, time off isn’t a bad thing. This situation also would benefit from a good conversation if you feel they are taking too much time off.

All this to say, don’t bail on your new team without at least trying to talk to them. Yes, they may operate in a way you aren’t quite used to yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good workers! You just need to find what clicks for them when you bring your concerns to their attention.

I hope this advice helps you so that you can feel confident in the future when you get your next round of young professionals in the workplace. I know your new team will appreciate the extra time and attention you are putting in to try and become a better boss for them!

Best of luck!

Jaida the Intern

Editor’s Note: While Madeleine enjoys a well-deserved summer break for the next several weeks, instead of “Ask Madeleine,” we will “Ask the Intern.” We will field questions like yours and present ideas and solutions from several of our Blanchard interns and their peers in other companies. 

This week’s response is from Jaida Hess, Intern for Blanchard Innovation Lab.

Dear Madeleine,

I have a high performer on my team (HP) who does very good transactional work. They work with speed and most people outside our team like them.

HP has managerial ambition but does not have capabilities to be a manager. We are a small, lean team after two rounds of layoffs, and there is simply no opportunity to promote anyone in the foreseeable future. When the time does come to promote someone, it won’t be an option for HP, as they have squandered every opportunity I have given them so far.

I have been invested in HP’s growth since the beginning. In the past, I’ve given them some dotted-line reporting opportunities for more junior team members, which did not go very well. Several of the junior members on the cross-functional team mentioned that HP bossed them around and was unpleasant.

I had high hopes for this person. Unfortunately, they took my positive encouragement as a promise. I have made the situation clear and have also told them directly that they should use special projects and other growth opportunities to develop their skills. My peers have reported that they experience HP as having a fixed-mindset. HP is never interested in the growth opportunities we have on the team where I could use their help. It seems the only option that will make them happy is a promotion and a raise.

I have tried other methods: encouraging talent mobility, giving unique assignments, investing in leadership training, giving extra attention and recognition, trying to build a deeper relationship, and being vulnerable. But nothing is working!

At one point, HP said “You are dumping this job on me because no one else can do it.” So I picked another team member who successfully completed the project with a great attitude.

I am equally fair with all my direct reports, but when I recognize anyone else, HP gets very jealous. They haven’t given me bad feedback directly, but because we are so small I know that on our last two annual surveys they were the person who gave me the worst scores on my effectiveness as a leader and wrote nasty comments. HP has shown themselves to be selfish in their actions. They show team spirit and alignment outwardly, but behind the scenes they say mean things and disagree with everything. I am finding them becoming more and more unfair, manipulative, and not appreciative of opportunities given to them. 

It wasn’t always like this. Everything changed when it became clear that we don’t have a business need for another manager on our lean senior team. I am trying to keep things in perspective but am deeply hurt.

The first thing I want to do is look inward and see if I can change something or do anything else to revive my relationship with this team member and help them grow in other ways. Could you share two or three growth tips for me as a leader? I am at a loss and would love a word of advice.

Hurt

____________________________________________________________________________

Dear Hurt,

My first thought is this: if a friend you admire and respect were to put this case to you, what would you say?

I very much appreciate your desire to improve and grow as a leader. Some qualities you seem to have in spades: a growth mindset, an impulse to take personal responsibility, generosity of spirit, and a desire to help others on their journey.

Your High Potential (HP) had a lot of promise and did well at first. This early potential is clouding your vision, making it hard for you to see the current reality that HP’s most recent behavior betrays a rather staggering lack of character: 

• Refusing work assignments that would help you;
• Displaying a fixed mindset (one of the hardest things to help others shift, in my experience);
• Displaying jealousy when others are recognized;
• Essentially not taking advantage of opportunities that you take pains to arrange;
• And, finally, retaliating against you with nasty feedback for circumstances beyond your control.

In short: this person is selfish, small-minded, and nasty.

It sounds like your organization has been through a lot, which curtailed HP’s potential trajectory. People show their true colors when they are under pressure. I am glad for you and your organization that HP’s pettiness was revealed before they got into a position to do some real damage.

We can speculate about what caused HP to fail to rise to their best self, but there is no way to really know. It doesn’t matter in the end. You have given them every opportunity—which, as you say, they have squandered, blaming you for their own failures.

Clearly, you err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt, and you’re a big believer in second—not to mention third and fourth—chances. Which is to your credit. In this case, however, you are still giving them everything you’ve got while they haven’t been bothered to meet you at all, let alone halfway.

I have only growth tip for you: You must not be more generous with others than you are with yourself. You can be generous, kind, and caring while maintaining a standard for civility and decency.

What should you do about HP? You didn’t ask me that, but I can’t help myself.

Take off your rose-colored glasses and stop taking HP’s behavior personally. I understand why you feel hurt after all your efforts, but this isn’t about you. This person has declined every opportunity to do the right thing and needs to go. The sooner you replace them and eliminate the toxicity they bring to the team, the better. More to the point: the risk you run by letting HP’s antics continue is that you could lose the respect of the rest of your people. Don’t let that happen.

I wish you luck.

With admiration, respect, and, as always, 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 president for a global services company. One of my executive team members recently retired, leaving rather suddenly as the result of an unexpected health issue. We interviewed some candidates to replace him but, ultimately, I took his recommendation to go with the person who had been his chief of staff/second in command.

She interviewed well, outlined her vision and plans, and referred to herself as “strategic” multiple times. She has a lot going for her. But she has been in the role six months now and is just not stepping up the way I had been led to expect. I’m not seeing the strategic capability I need.

I know I’ve been spoiled by having a mature, experienced executive team for a long time. But I find I have little patience when providing detailed direction to someone who I think should not need it at this level. I struggle to explain exactly what she should be doing differently, but I think I’ll know it when I see it.

There are days I want to just call it a bad hire and try again—but I also don’t want to waste more time getting someone from outside the organization up to speed. Part of me feels like I should give her a chance to prove herself.

We are located in South America, so things get slow with vacations, etc. She is out for the next two weeks, and I want to be ready with a plan when she comes back. Any ideas?

Disappointed

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Disappointed,

At the risk of insulting you, “I’ll know it when I see it” is just not good leadership. It is possible your new person won’t have what it takes to succeed, but I can guarantee that if you continue to make her guess what that is, you will both be miserable.

The leap from second in command to executive in charge of an entire business function is notoriously fraught for anyone. Based on my experience coaching clients who have been promoted into executive roles, the biggest shock is that they are expected to make recommendations and decisions. Most people, prior to becoming a senior executive, have spent their entire careers enjoying the luxury of knowing someone else is responsible for making decisions that will be either the right ones or the wrong ones. Mistakes at this level have massive consequences, and to suddenly be the one potentially making them can be terrifying enough to cause paralysis.

In addition, I think it can be especially challenging to join an intact executive team that has been together for years. You all have a shared history, language, and way of operating together that will take a newcomer a while to learn how to navigate.

I have some ideas that will help you be ready for your newbie’s return from holiday and get you both on a promising trajectory.

I agree that bringing someone in from the outside will take more time than getting your new exec where you want her to be. It will solve some issues and present a set of new ones. Either way, there are things you will need to do for a brand-new person and/or your existing person.

1. Integrate the Person into the Executive Team

Work with your HR Business partner to create a new Team Charter that lays out the mission of your executive team, the exact roles of each team member, and the behavioral and communication norms you can all agree to. You had this with your former team: a set of implicit rules you all abided by that probably developed organically over time. It is so subtle you didn’t even realize what you had until it was gone—but if you want to get it back, you will have to be intentional about it.

If you are like most senior leaders you will find this kind of work unbearably tedious, but I promise it will be worth it. It will give everyone on your executive team a chance to reboot and create clarity about what is expected by and of each member of the team. For more detail about that, here is an eBook that may help. This will lay the foundation for the next step.

2. Find a Way to Express Exactly what a Good Job Looks Like

I know you struggle with practicing patience, which I can understand, but putting a little effort into articulating what you need will pay off. It will either provide the clarity your new executive needs to succeed, or it will provide you with the evidence you need to replace her.

To get the kind of detail required, ask yourself some questions:

• What did your former exec do that made him so great?
• What did he not do?
• What are you hoping for that you are not seeing?
• What do you wish your new exec would do more of? Less of? Start doing? Stop doing?
• What needs doing that you take for granted and you think is obvious to everyone?

You have been a senior leader for so long, you and your team have forgotten how you got to be so competent. Consider these strategic management behaviors:

• Articulating and sharing vision and overall objectives
• Formulating goals
• Assessing internal environment and external threats
• Creating action plans to achieve goals
• Planning organizational structures and resource allocation
• Process re-engineering
• Providing direction and support to one’s own team
• Being a role model for organizational values and culture
• Leading change initiatives
• Evaluating results and responding accordingly

Use this to create your own list. What is missing from this list? What is on this list that isn’t important to you? Hopefully, getting to this level of detail will help you identify the exact areas where your new executive is falling behind.

Once you have made it crystal clear to your new team member what you need from her, only then will you know if she will be able to rise to the job. Otherwise, you are expecting her to read your mind, which isn’t clear to begin with. I expect if you hired a new person for this role, you would find yourself with the exact same problem.

After you have done a little bit of re-chartering with your senior team and have made clear what a good job looks like, you will need to bolster your newbie’s confidence. It will take time for her to get her feet under her, to trust what she knows, and to develop the courage of her own convictions. If you have done your part, she will feel more integrated with her new peers and be able to hear and respond to your direction.

I hope, for both of you, that she surprises you.

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,

My company offers a lot of classes, and about six months ago I learned SLII^®. I have been managing people for about a decade and honestly, learning SLII^® changed everything for me. I realized my biggest issue was that I hold back when it comes to giving people crystal clear direction or providing close oversight when people are starting a new task or embarking on a goal that is new to them.

Early in my career, I read a lot about the horrors of micromanagement—and I have always hated being micromanaged myself—so I think I have often over-corrected to avoid ever being accused of it. But now in hindsight, I see that caused any number of problems.

Here is my situation: I work from home a couple days a week, and quite recently my husband got a new job which allows him to do the same. The other day, he was walking by my office and overheard a conversation I was having with a new hire. We hired this person specifically to have someone tackle a massive technical job that has been backlogged for a long time. It is critical that the job be done in a way that doesn’t mess up a bunch of other systems. So I have been using a Style 1 with her—giving her very clear direction and giving her daily checklists for practicing in a demo system before I let her loose on the real thing. She is picking it up very fast, but the system was custom built for our company, so she has never worked in it.

Later in the day, my husband casually remarked that I am “really bossy.” He was kind of teasing me, but it threw me for a loop. I tried to explain that the person I was speaking to is new and really needs the clarity I was trying to give her.

I am now back in the uncertainty and fear of all the negative things that come with the word bossy. We had a joke about Bossy Cow in our house when our kids were little, but I am not laughing.

Am I a—

Bossy Cow?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Bossy Cow,

Oh, my dear, I hear your pain and confusion.

Before we dive in, I just want to provide a little context about SLII^® and what Style 1 means. SLII^® is a leadership model that helps managers offer their team member the best mix of clear direction and support as they tackle a specific task, depending on their mix of competence and confidence on that task. In that context, a Style One (or S1), means giving clear directions and painting a picture of what a good job looks like—with step-by-step instruction, if needed. For a deeper dive on this, here is an e-book that will provide more detail for those who want it.

Okay my friend, I will not call you Bossy Cow, because you are not one. What you are is someone who is clearly setting your new employee up to crush it. You are, in short, someone who is doing her job.

Please forgive me for succumbing to my own frustration around gender stereotyping and bias that tends to be a sore spot for many women. There is a meme that’s been around forever that points out that when little boys boss people around they are showing leadership ability, but when little girls do it, they are just bossy. It is so tiresome. And you know what? I think your husband could have inadvertently poked at that sore spot. This may not even be true for you, but now I have gotten it out of my system so I can move on.

Part of what causes burnout or apathy for people in organizations is when they don’t really know what is expected of them at work, or aren’t getting enough feedback to know whether they are doing a good enough job or how to get better.

One recent study found that only 45% of younger workers (those under 35) clearly know what is expected of them at work. Seriously, how can anyone be expected to do a good job if they aren’t sure what the job is?

Another one found that 96% of employees say getting regular feedback is a good thing.

Setting people up to be successful takes a lot of time and attention. You are clearly providing your newbie with plenty of both. This is a good thing. But, more important, you are establishing a partnership with your employee and sending the message that you care about her and her success.

Finally, if you are really worried that you might be micromanaging inappropriately, remember a key tenet of SLII^®: you must partner with each of your direct reports to establish exactly what they need from you on each task or goal. Giving direction is only micromanaging if the person being managed doesn’t need it. Not giving direction to people who really need it is just—bad management. Or no management.

Ultimately, the only accurate arbiter of whether or not you are giving the right amount of direction and support is the person who is getting it. So if you are concerned that you are being too bossy, ask your employee questions like “Am I telling you stuff you already know?” or “Will you be sure to tell me if I am over-explaining stuff?”

The more you ensure that your people feel safe letting you know if they need more or less from you, the more secure you will feel. And when your new kid hits D2—the stage of being disillusioned and realizing the job is harder than she thought it would be—she will tell you and you will be ready to add plenty of support. She will be a strong, independent performer before you know it!

You obviously care, and you are doing it right. Next time your husband calls you bossy, just laugh and say “Moo.”

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 read your last blog Not Sure How to Address Burnout? with interest. I work in consulting with one of the big five consulting firms. We hire go-getters and work them hard. The competition is fierce and only the most driven get promoted. The rewards are, shall I say, significant—but I won’t lie, the workload is intense. We never pretend otherwise.

We hire kids straight out of the best business schools because we know they’re the brightest and are used to brutally hard work. Yet, in the last few years, I have noticed a lot more complaining about workload. There seems to be an expectation among our newbies that they should get to have lives outside of work. WTH?

Frankly, that just isn’t the way it works. I keep referring them back to what was shared with them before they signed on:  There is quite literally—I mean, in writing—the expectation set that, at least for the first couple of years with us, people should expect to not be able to do much other than work. I don’t know how we could be more explicit.

I find this very tiresome. What happened to paying your dues? What happened to sucking it up and devoting oneself to high performance? What happened to dedication? I know I should be more empathetic, but when I try to empathize I always go back to feeling resentful. The voice in my head says, “Well, I worked like a dog for umpteen years, I figured it out, I never whined like a big baby, which is why I make the big bucks and get to boss your sorry ass around.” I know that attitude is not getting me anywhere, but I am not sure what to do with it.

Any insight around this?

Exasperated

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Exasperated,

If you found my blog, you must have an interest in leadership—which is good, because ultimately it is your job to figure out how to lead these young people. Your long-term success and the continuation of the big bucks, as you say, depends on it.

At the risk of offending you, may I point out that you sound like every boomer and Gen Xer who complains about millennials and Gen Zers? To be fair, you sound like every member of every generation who has reached middle age and complains about “kids nowadays.” You probably have trouble getting your head around their music, their fashions, and the way they use social media. And I can just hear you rant on the topic of gender politics. But that’s okay. It is only human.

Let’s take a look at your industry. Like high finance, medicine, and the law, many people were attracted to your kind of work back in the day because of the promise of status, money, and material success. Most of the millennials I know today are attracted to professions that are likely to afford them some stability and a shot at achieving or sustaining what you and I once thought of as middle class, let alone the opportunity to build generational wealth. The specter of student loans is big, dark, and chilling. That is how radically the world has changed.

The generations you now manage are also much more interested in meaningful work, personal fulfillment, and life/work balance, possibly because they witnessed their parents work like dogs and take very little pleasure in life. Just to provide some clarity about what younger people today don’t want, envision someone watching their dad devote thirty-five years to paying down the mortgage and trying to put something away for the kids’ college tuition only to see him drop dead a week after retiring. It’s a bracing cautionary experience.

These generations have also grown up with constant one-upmanship and unrealistic expectations set by the fairytale lives they see on social media. By the time they arrive on your doorstep, they’ve been under absurd amounts of pressure since middle school. If you are exasperated by their behavior, imagine what it must feel like to them to be judged and found wanting at every turn.

You say they are complaining. To whom, I wonder? About what? Did you never complain when you were in their shoes? I’ll bet you did. And I’ll bet that if your superiors heard about it, they ignored it. It is a normal thing to do, it is a way of letting off steam, and in no way does it indicate burnout. Complaining vociferously about how hard you work is a time-honored form of boasting—what the kids call “humble bragging.” If you are actually worried about burnout, watch for symptoms such as a radical reduction in productivity in someone who was once a star performer, unusual amounts of absenteeism, or an uncharacteristic lack of civility.

I appreciate your attempt to be empathetic. That is a great impulse. You are right that the voice in your head (which made me laugh btw, thanks for that) isn’t helping you. But if you think people can’t hear that voice, you are dead wrong. They hear it loud and clear, and it is eroding their trust in you. I encourage you to find another talk track for the voice. Perhaps a curious voice; one that asks “What might be motivating to this person? What are they looking for that they aren’t getting?”

Seek to understand what your people are really saying. Ask questions like:

• Can you tell me more to help me understand what is really going on right now?
• What exactly would you want to be different?
• What would work better for you if we could make changes?
• What does it mean to have a life? How is that different from what you have now?
• What is missing that would make a big difference to your quality of life at work?
• What strengths do you bring to the table that you might be underutilizing?
• What else do you want me to know?

Listen for what is real. There is a good chance you will find it much easier to empathize. It is entirely possible that, like most young people, your employees are perfectly happy to work incredibly hard as long as they have the flexibility to do the other things that are important to them. It is possible that just being asked the question and having a chance to talk out the answers will be all they need to go back out there and crush it.

One thing every person from every generation has in common is that no one wants to be judged. Chris Argyris, a Harvard professor and an influential authority on organizational behavior, said in the 90s that the secret to the success of the big five consulting firms—including yours, presumably—was that they identified and hired “insecure overachievers.” (I can’t find the exact quote, so it might be an apocryphal anecdote I heard from someone who worked at Boston Consulting Group.) You’ll know if that was true when you were a newbie, and if it is still true now. The reason it matters is that there is a fine line between harnessing anxiety and fear of failure to drive successful behaviors and letting it reduce you to a quivering mess. If it is still true, your job is to help your people walk that fine line to ensure their own success and, therefore, your own.

Your job as a leader is to influence your people; to help them connect to the meaning of what they are engaged in and what matters most to them. If they are in it for the money, that is an easy motivator. But many of your people may be driven by other things. Find out what they are and have conversations in which you brainstorm how to connect the work with what drives them. Listening without blame or judgment will send the signal that you care. Wait till you see how people perform when they think their manager actually cares about them. You may see a radical turnaround. Ask yourself the question “What do these kids bring that we didn’t have, and how can we leverage that?”

If you resent that nobody ever cared about you, and you had to soldier through with horrible bosses, well, okay, I am very sorry about that. But isn’t that all the more reason not to inflict those experiences on anyone else?

So suck it up, Exasperated. Cut out the judgment, get curious, and see what there is to learn in all of this. There is a good chance you could become an expert at this approach and even influence others in your company. Wouldn’t that be something?

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 recently recommended a former colleague for a job in my company. Months have gone by since then, and our company has restructured. The job she applied for was recently offered to her, and she has accepted. When I made the recommendation, she would have been joining a different department so would have reported to someone else.  Since then, we have restructured and now she is going to report to me.

When I worked with her ten years ago, she was senior to me. She is at least fifteen years older and I was just getting started. She has remained at the same level. I know this because she was vocal about how she didn’t want to trade her family life for work advancement. I, on the other hand, have basically done that because I am super ambitious.

I recommended her because I know she is smart and competent, but it never crossed my mind that I would be her boss. God knows I need the help, so I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. But I am really worried and not sure how to handle the weirdness of this.

What would you recommend?

The Junior Is Now the Boss

__________________________________________________________________

Dear The Junior Is Now the Boss,

You’re right. Weird indeed. But not unheard of. You don’t have to apologize for your ambition or your success, so don’t do that. But you don’t have to lord it over anyone either. Just the fact that you are concerned about the potential awkwardness of the situation makes me suspect that you wouldn’t. You both made choices, and that’s okay.

I think the only way to approach the situation is to initiate a conversation about it. Be honest about how you feel and encourage her to be honest about how she feels. You should be ready to share your desire to help her be as successful as possible in her new job and invite her ideas about how you can do that.

Help her understand the culture of this company and specifically how it might be different from where she came from. Make sure she fully grasps her job responsibilities, how to prioritize, and when to escalate when she is unsure. She obviously brings a lot of solid experience—so you can assess together what skills you think might be transferable and what might be new to her.

If you aren’t familiar with our SLII® Model, which will help you partner with your former colleague and give her what she needs when she needs it, you can find a handy e-book here. This will make it easy for you to let her fly in the areas that make sense and offer the right mix of direction and support in areas where she may need to find her feet.

The last thing you want is an elephant in the room that you both tiptoe around. Get all the cards out on the table, show respect for her experience and skills, and you will be 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 sales manager for a specific product in a large US company. My team is small and we all work very hard. As a result, I applied to hire a new team member to accommodate the sharp increase in opportunities.

I ended up going with an internal hire who came from another sales team. I will call him K. He got up to speed pretty quickly and seemed to settle in well. At about the same time he started, my boss, the EVP of sales, rolled out a new CRM system.

Even though learning a new system was stressful for everyone, we all got a lot of training. This system does things our old one didn’t do, so we were all enthusiastic about the change.

We are now held accountable for several new tasks as part of our sales approach. One is to ask for introductions to other potential buyers in the organizations we sell to and to provide detailed records of this effort. Another is to keep detailed notes of all contacts that are made.

Most everyone on the team, except K, seems to have found a groove with these new requirements. We all keep the system open all day and enter information as we go. It isn’t hard once you get the hang of it. K, on the other hand, is using his old system of keeping his incremental activity in a notepad. He claims he will enter everything at the end of the week.

Part of my job is to go into the system at the end of each week and create a report for my boss of all activity. The first month we were all on a learning curve, but now, three months in, K’s records are spotty at best. I am cc’d on a lot of emails and also have attended some of K’s sales calls, so I know for a fact that some information is not where it should be.

I have spoken to K about this three times and pointed out the gaps where things are missing. I’ve asked him if he is having trouble getting the hang of the new system. Last Friday I offered to sit with him and help while he got all of his information in, but he declined. He tells me he will absolutely pay more attention to putting his information in, but then Friday comes and—no change.

My boss is concerned and is challenging me to confront K, but I just don’t know what to do when he keeps yessing me and then not doing anything differently. I don’t know if he is just not taking me seriously, if he thinks I am pushover, or if he thinks he can fly under the radar forever. I don’t want to be mean, but how do I get across that he needs to step it up and comply with using the new system properly?

Being Yessed

___________________________________________________________________

Dear Being Yessed,

This kind of situation is so frustrating. Being unable to gain insight into what is getting in the way of someone doing what they say they are going to do (and what they need to do) leads inevitably to speculation about what is going on in their head. Speculating can lead to making assumptions, which can lead to all kinds of trouble.

Our time-tested performance management model, SLII®, would suggest that K is stuck at the development stage called “the disillusioned learner.” This stage is a deeply unpleasant combination of low competence, often a lack of confidence, and low commitment to improving. It can look a lot like an attitude problem. If you as the leader cannot successfully help him find his way past it, this stage could easily be terminal—meaning you would have to let him go.

I think one fair assumption is that something is getting in the way of K’s lack of compliance. The only way to find out what it is, is to ask him. You can start with questions like:

• What is stopping you from using the system the way the rest of us do and keeping track of your activity as you go?
• What is really going on with you?
• Do you understand that our keeping detailed reports is a requirement? That it is not optional? That I am held accountable by my boss to ensure compliance, and that I am now getting in trouble?
• Do you understand why my boss and I both think having accurate records is important?
• What do you think might help you to get the proper records done by end of business every Friday?
• What kind of support or extra training might be helpful?

If K persists in shutting you out, you can explain that your job is to partner with him to help him be successful, but he has to meet you halfway. If that doesn’t help, you can explain that compliance with basic processes is a condition of employment, and if he is unwilling or unable to do the job the way it needs to be done, you will have no choice but to replace him. That sounds harsh, but it is the truth. You can tell the truth as long as it is without blame or judgment, and it might actually get the message across.

You may or may not be able to compel K to change, and you need to be prepared to respond appropriately. Be ready to explain the consequences of his choices.

You can certainly ask if there is anything you are doing that is contributing to the situation—but ultimately try to not make it about you. Keep the focus on K and what he needs.

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,

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.

The business world is only going to keep moving faster, which is forcing leaders to become increasingly adept at managing their team’s priorities and delegating tasks. But that can be a tricky undertaking.

The way leaders manage their team’s priorities and delegate runs the spectrum. On one end are leaders who don’t know what their people are working on, can’t set priorities, and have delegated to the point of abdicating their responsibility. This style is obviously dysfunctional. On the other end are leaders who are doing the work of their employees, micromanaging them, and disempowering them. This style denies people the chance to learn and grow on the job. It makes employees dependent on their managers.

You want to be in the sweet spot when managing your team’s priorities and delegating, adjusting the direction and support each person needs in each case. That will balance performance with learning while helping your people develop and be successful. It’s a place where your people truly work as a team and you provide inspiring leadership.

Here are some tips for getting there.

Define Priorities and Goals

Defining goals and objectives with your people is the first step. This might sound obvious until you consider that only 50% of employees strongly agree that they understand what is expected of them at work.

A useful practice is to ask your people to listen to the goals you verbalize and restate them in their own words. It sounds simple, but there are many layers of interpretation, storage, recall, and reinterpretation that can change the meaning of even simple goals. How well can you expect someone to fulfill a goal if they don’t even start out on the same page as you?

Defining goals and objectives shouldn’t be done just at the start of a project. For most of us, goals will evolve along the way as new information becomes available. That means revisiting the goals regularly to keep people on track.

Collaboration is Key

Prioritization should be done collaboratively. Great managers treat their people as intellectual peers, discussing tricky choices with them and debating tradeoffs. This includes empowering them to make their own decisions. Even if people don’t have answers at the ready, they feel highly respected when their leaders treat them as equals.                                                                                         

The key is to make your people real partners when setting priorities. When you do this, you show you care what they think. This inspires them to be more invested in their work. These exchanges also give you an opportunity to emphasize timelines and stakeholder needs.

Delegation Depends on Follow-Up

Delegation isn’t a one-and-done affair. Assigning a job and not following up on the task isn’t a successful strategy. The better practice is for the leader to check in on the assignment and offer support when needed. Your goal is not to hover or micromanage but to show you are still aware and interested about the assignment. If your people know something is important to you, it will be more important to them.

Praise Regularly

Praising people when they do a good job is one of my favorite practices Ken teaches. It makes the receiver feel good, drives engagement, and brings a host of other benefits. It also plays an important part in delegation.

When you’ve delegated a big project, praising is a great way to sustain a person’s enthusiasm. Think of praising as a way of locking in the best behaviors of your staff to leverage in every future task they take on. You’ll help them be more successful in the future if you recognize praiseworthy behaviors now.

Delegation and Trust

As a leader, delegating a task requires a certain amount of trust on your part. You are trusting people to complete a project without much oversight. But what can you do when your trust level is moderate or variable?

It helps to view trust as an analog variable—ask yourself “how much can I trust them?” rather than “Do I trust them?” 

For most tasks and projects, delegation doesn’t have to be a black or white request. For instance, if the project is to create a final report, you can ask people to complete tasks ranging from small (e.g., pull together some talking points) to medium (e.g., draft some slides) to large (e.g., deliver the final presentation on your own).

It’s also helpful to consider the stakes. Does this task have a high-risk profile? Are the consequences significant? If the stakes of a task are low, little trust is required to delegate. You might decide to hand the task off and make it a learning opportunity for the individual. If the stakes are high, you would more likely need to have considerable trust in the person and may want to check in regularly.

Leading from the Sweet Spot

Managing your team’s priorities and delegating work requires skilled leadership. If you do it well, you’ll empower your people with new skills and confidence. And you’ll have more time to work on other projects.

It might be challenging, but the rewards are worth it.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a fairly new manager for a well established and growing not-for-profit organization that brings arts education to underserved communities. When we have open positions, we prioritize hiring alumni of our programs.

About nine months ago, I hired a promising alumnus who seemed perfect for an entry level program administration job. She had graduated college with excellent grades, had glowing recommendations, and is a delightful person.

I expected her to take to the job quickly and blow us all away. That hasn’t happened. She just doesn’t seem to be able to retain any information about how to do certain tasks. I keep having to walk her through the directions for tasks every time, even though I have done it repeatedly.

The purpose of hiring someone for this position was to free me up to do other critical tasks—but I am spending so much time teaching and re-teaching this person that I now seem to have double the work.

I am frustrated and confused. I can’t tell whether she can’t do the tasks or won’t. I don’t want to make her feel like I’m not happy with her performance (even though I’m not) but I have no idea how to get her to up her game without making her feel criticized.

Any advice would be welcome.

Beginner Stalled at Go

____________________________________________________________

Dear Beginner Stalled at Go,

This sounds frustrating. I am sure your new hire is equally frustrated and confused, because everyone wants to be successful. This sounds like a perfect occasion for you to apply SLII®, our company’s time-tested, research-based development model.

Essentially, SLII® helps managers and direct reports break down all goals and tasks, diagnose the competence and confidence of the employee in relation to each task, and then identify exactly what kind of leadership style is needed. You can watch a little video that describes it here and download a cool e-book about it here.

In the language of SLII®, your alumnus—Let’s call her A for the sake of clarity—is stuck at Development Level One, “Enthusiastic Beginner.” She seems to believe she needs to come back to you for clear direction for every task, every time. What could be going on? Is it that she can’t build competence or is it her confidence that is lacking? Here are some ideas:

• It’s possible A has a learning disability she hasn’t shared with you and is somehow not able to retain your instructions. You can’t really ask without insulting someone (“what’s wrong with you?” never lands well) but some questions (see below) may help to surface an issue like this. If a learning disability is, in fact, present, you might consider having A take notes when you give instructions and send them to you for editing so she has written instructions for next time.
• Maybe A doesn’t believe she is ready to do things on her own. She thinks she knows what to do and how to do it, but still needs permission from you to try it and some reassurance that it will be okay if she makes an error or two. Sometimes young people new to the workplace just need permission to go for it.
• Perhaps A isn’t crystal clear that you expect her to do things on her own yet. I know it sounds crazy, but I worked for a lovely man long ago who kept saying “we need to get this done and that done,” and he would go down the list of everything we needed to do. I kept waiting for him to come to me and get my help with all of things on the list. After a couple of weeks, I asked him how he thought things were going and he said, “I am confused, I keep asking you to do all of these things, and you seem eager, but then you don’t do any of them.” I was shocked. I told him I was waiting for him (he was, after all, the boss) to initiate the tasks “we” needed to do, but it turned out that every time he had said “we.” what he really meant was “you.” I guess he didn’t want to sound bossy—but he was so indirect, I didn’t understand what he wanted. I was young and was used to being bossed around by teachers, bosses, parents. Today I would just say, “do you actually mean ‘we,’ or are you telling me to do it?” But that is the beauty of being older.

We can speculate all day long, but ultimately you are going to have to ask A what is going on. Let go of your judgment and pre-conceptions and gently ask the questions. They might go something like this:

• I have explained how this task needs to get done several times now, which is okay. However, I had anticipated that you would be able to do it on your own at this point. Can you help me to understand what is getting in the way of that?
• Is it possible that the way I have explained this is not clear enough?
• Would it be helpful for me to create written instructions for some of these tasks?
• Is there something I am doing or saying that leads you to believe that I don’t trust you to do this task on your own?
• What would give you the confidence you need to do this task on your own?
• What do you need from me that you are not getting?
• Are you worried you will make a mistake? I expect that you will make mistakes—that’s okay. I will show you the little spots where errors are likely to occur and what to watch out for.

The key is for you to kindly share your expectations for how she should be progressing and ask her how you can craft a plan to help her get there. Pretending everything is fine is not going to get either of you anywhere.

So bite the bullet and raise the issue. The sooner you do, the sooner you will know what’s what.

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 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

______________________________________________________________________________

(If you missed last week’s blog, Part 1 of the response can be found here. This is Part 2 of the response.)

Dear CRM Conundrum,

Last week we discussed how to deal with the rep who won’t use the CRM. Now let’s take a look at the other two situations you are dealing with.

1. One rep who is very good at CRM management but doesn’t seem to know how to actually sell.
2. A boss who isn’t very helpful.

Your rep who can’t sell probably needs some training on mechanics as well as a ton of support to boost her confidence. If she already has been through training, and can tell you what she should be doing but can’t seem to do it, you have a confidence issue. Perhaps she used to be good at selling and something happened that made her start doubting herself.  

However, if she’s never been successful, she probably doesn’t know exactly what to do and how to do it. Whatever your company’s sales training is, she will need to attend. She will also need super clear direction from you, and then extra time. If you can attend some of her sales calls with her as a fly on the wall and then give her feedback, that would be ideal. Or, if she could tag along with some of your superstars and see how they do it, that would also be great.

In the last post, I floated the idea that this rep might apprentice with your sales rock star who can’t (or won’t) use the CRM, and they could tutor each other on their strengths. Role play is also a terrific tool—it is much easier to say certain things if we’ve practiced.

If she was once great and lost her mojo, you’ll need to ask some open-ended questions to help her talk things through so that you can gain some insight into what is getting in her way. Ask questions like:

• What happened that shook your confidence?
• What do you think might be going on?
• What might help you get back on track?
• What would be helpful to you right now?
• What kind of help would feel right?

Make sure your employee knows that you are on her side, you really want her to win, and you’ll do anything in your power to help her get there. Help her build a step-by-step action plan that will get her to her goal.

If there is still no improvement over time, just as with your other situation, there will need to be consequences. Not everyone is cut out for sales and it won’t serve you to belabor things. If that is the case, the faster everyone comes to terms with a mismatch, the better off everyone will be.

Now. Let’s talk about the fact that your boss offers neither direction nor support, just a “hard time.” That isn’t a shocker, but it does mean you are probably on your own. If you are like most managers, you were promoted because you were an amazing salesperson, not because you demonstrated skill at managing people. The sad and kind of scary fact is that most managers are in their jobs for ten years before they get any kind of training. You sound like you have great instincts, but why learn by trial and error if you really don’t have to? There is no shortage of brilliant advice out there for new managers. Of course, I think ours is top notch, but I wouldn’t want to limit you. I guarantee your organization has some kind of training available. Attend. Pay attention. Take notes. Formulate intentions and practice new skills.

You are probably thinking you don’t have time. You won’t remember the opportunity cost of the time you took, and you will remember three or four tidbits that will change your work life. Your people will thank you and you won’t regret it. I promise.

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 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!

Best-selling business author Scott Blanchard says managers who are effective at goal setting with their people keep two things in mind:

1. The big picture—why we are doing it and what matters about it?
2. The short term—what do we need to do now to move forward toward the larger goal?

Blanchard gives an example of this process:

“I just finished some work with a fairly large organization that has sixteen general managers. I asked if I could interview two of the GMs who were achieving the best results. Even though I interviewed them independently, their approach to goal setting was remarkably similar.

“Both of these GMs set big goals and have clear expectations with their people that the goals will be met. They also stress the importance and discipline of a weekly Monday meeting to discuss with their team what’s in front of them this week, what they can handle, and what they need to do to accomplish the larger goal. They succeed in the long run by focusing on the short run and connecting the two.”

Blanchard says another important key for successful goal setting is resilience—the ability to adjust when things don’t progress as planned.

“Rarely do things go exactly as planned. But too often when things go awry, instead of talking about what can be done to get things back on track, people come to a full stop.

“My clients referred to what they call “mental toughness”: the ability to keep performing when things change, go sour, or take longer than planned. Early in the process, teams are primed with the mindset that things aren’t always going to go smoothly—and they are given ways to respond in the moment to achieve the best possible result. Goal setting is not meant to be static. If the team is stuck or heading in the wrong direction, the manager works with them to restate the goal and make adjustments.”

Blanchard also emphasizes that regular check-ins are especially important when the goal is new, difficult, or one the team has not achieved successfully in the past. “When a team is focusing on something new or challenging, frequent check-ins with the manager are essential. As the team gains confidence and demonstrates competence, these meetings can be scheduled further apart.

“In both our SLII® and our First-time Manager programs we teach that once goals are set, managers need to check in with team members on a regular basis to remind them what they are trying to accomplish and why it matters. Managers also need to take opportunities to have praising conversations when things are going well and redirection conversations when things deviate from the plan.  

“Over time, as people become more confident and trusted, the manager can delegate more and pull back on the frequency and intensity of these conversations. As people become self-reliant, the manager can turn over the responsibility for achieving the goals to the individual or the team.”

It’s all part of seeing the leader/direct report relationship as a partnership, explains Blanchard.

“It’s about working side by side with people—providing direction and support in a way that lets them grow into their autonomy. For example, when a salesperson is working for a sales manager, their goals are interdependent. As the salesperson demonstrates an increased capacity to achieve the goal, the manager can direct a little less and use more of a coaching style. Instead of telling, the manager is asking and listening.

“Setting goals is a foundation for success,” says Blanchard, “and having clear agreements about performance expectations, with regular check-ins, is the process for getting there. Obstacles that can undermine relationships and results are a lack of clarity and a lack of clear agreement.

“When things really matter, effective managers make the effort to ensure the team is crystal clear on goals and procedures. This takes extra time at the beginning of a project, but it will pay dividends in the long term. Plus, it sets a process in place that the team can use on future projects.

“That’s a win-win for everybody,” says Blanchard.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Would you like to learn more about helping your managers develop their goal-setting, direction, and support skills? Then join Scott Blanchard for a free webinar!

3 Steps to Building a Purposeful, Aligned, and Engaged Workforce

February 20, 2019, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

In this webinar, best-selling business author Scott Blanchard will share a 3-step process for creating a focused, purpose-driven, and engaged work environment. Blanchard will show participants how to

• Set clear goals at the individual, team, department, and organizational level
• Identify motivation and competency for identified tasks
• Ask for—or provide—the resources needed to get the job done

This webinar is designed for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals charged with improving leadership skills and overall organizational performance. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to create a focused, purposeful, and aligned work environment in your organization.

Use this link to register today!

Dear Madeleine,

I have a high-stress technical job serving the sales department of a professional services company. I have one direct report I am struggling with.

Everything is an emotional event with him. He takes everything personally and even finds ways to get offended by positive feedback. He is always melting down and getting sick. I am doing more and more of his job myself, and I spend inordinate amounts of time talking him off the ledge.

In his defense, our sales people move fast—and it’s true they have dumped extra work on him, and even some work he shouldn’t be doing. I have talked to my boss about getting more help, but my boss tends to stay out of things like this as long as the work is getting done. In this case, he just smiles and tells me I can do it!

I am at my breaking point. I just don’t know what to do. Help?

At Wit’s End

___________________________________________________________________

Dear At Wit’s End,

You are clearly kind, compassionate, competent, and over-functioning for everyone else. It will feel mean when I point out that you are role modeling perfectly how to allow yourself to be taken advantage of. So, stop it. Right now.

Your battle is on two fronts: 1) the problem with your direct report 2) the problem with getting what you need from your boss.  Decide which to tackle first and then get up on your horse and charge. Remember, you say you are at your wit’s end, so at this point you have nothing to lose.

Regarding your direct report: first go to HR and get yourself some help. You need to put your direct report on a performance plan and hold him accountable for his share of the work. You can provide him with information about what the company offers in terms of psychological support. Many Employee Assistance Programs offer at least six sessions with a qualified therapist and it would at least be a start for him to address his emotional instability.

A manager can only provide so much support, and it sounds like you crossed that line a while back. The guy must get professional help or risk losing his job. I know it sounds harsh, but honestly—he is not going to have a successful career without some real help, so you are doing him a favor. The longer you cover for him and spend critical work time providing amateur psych services for him, the deeper you are digging your hole. Heck, get some of that psych support yourself—talk things through with someone and develop a strategy to protect yourself from your own niceness in the future.

In terms of your boss: it’s hard to tell, but because you are so nice, I’m guessing you aren’t being direct about all aspects of this situation. Get super clear about what you need. If necessary, use a spreadsheet to show the amount of work coming in and how many hours go into different tasks. That will paint the picture of how out of whack things are.

You may have to threaten to quit if you can’t get the support you need, which means you should be answering calls from headhunters, trolling job sites, brushing up your LinkedIn profile, and preparing to make your move. Be prepared for the possibility that you might have to go, it will strengthen your position. But don’t think you can run away from your own inability to set boundaries and stand up for yourself – if you don’t really work on this now, you will get yourself right back into a similar pinch in your next job. Use this opportunity. It will be really uncomfortable, but worth it. I promise, you will never look back.

You can do it. Apply the same fierce analytical skills and high-level competence to this situation that you use in the technical parts of your job. 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!

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 this link to download a PDF 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.

Would you like to learn more about improving the quality of management conversations in your organization? Join Ann Phillips for a complimentary webinar on Performance Management 101: 3 Conversations All Managers Need to Master. The event is free courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can learn more and register using this link.

I hear that statement all the time from my coaching clients. I get it—no one wants to be known as a boss who hovers over people and tells them what to do all the time. However, what I’ve noticed with some clients who desperately do not want to micromanage is that they often go to the other extreme and completely abdicate their leadership responsibilities.

So how does abdicating—which we also label as under-supervising—frustrate? Let’s look at one common example.

Under-supervision is most damaging when a leader says to a direct report who is unfamiliar with a task, “I know you will be fine. Just let me know when you’re done.” The direct report very likely won’t be able to do a task they haven’t been trained to do. Then, when the task becomes difficult or the person experiences some natural early failure, it’s normal for them to think, “My boss thinks I can do this. There must be something wrong with me!”

This begins a stream of negative self-talk, which can kill creativity. People in this state rarely give themselves permission to be a learner, to take risks, or to experiment with possible solutions. Isolation can also set in. People are often hesitant to reveal that they don’t know something—and are even less likely to do so if they think their boss expects them to know it.

Finally, forward motion is thwarted. When someone doesn’t know how to do something and doesn’t have anyone to guide them, they will often work on the tasks they do know how to do and set the other task aside. It appears to be human nature. I’ve witnessed people who are otherwise brilliant do this many times.

I’m convinced that abdicating behavior from a manager can be just as frustrating to a direct report as the dreaded micromanaging. The ideal balance would be to provide the right kind of leadership style depending on direct report’s development level on whatever task or goal they are working on. As Ken Blanchard says, a leader needs to “Slow down to go faster.” Here’s how it works:

1. With your direct report, articulate the goal for any assigned work. Express what a good job would look like. And this is a vital step: have your direct report repeat back to you what they heard you say about the goal and the desired objective. This will ensure you are both on the same page.
2. Next, ask the person how they would go about achieving the goal. And then really listen.
3. If they list out what they would do and it sounds like a good plan, send them on their way with your blessing. Of course, always let them know you are there if they need anything along the way.
4. On the other hand, if you hear “I’m not sure,” “I haven’t done this before,” or other statements of self-doubt, take it as a sign the person needs more supervision. Partner with them to create a plan for getting the job done—and be sure to check in with them regularly.

I always think using this style is like offering a thirsty person trekking through the desert some water. It’s giving them something they desperately need.

The hope is that a direct report who isn’t yet self-reliant on a task will grow and develop autonomy as they go forward. As the direct report develops competence and confidence doing the task, you, as the leader, can pull back on supervision.

Matching your leadership style to the specific needs of your direct reports will allow you to always correctly supervise versus under- or over-supervising. In this way, your leadership actions will always be just right!

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.

“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!

My wife is a big fan of TV cooking shows. You name it, she likes to watch it: IronChef, TopChef, Great American Food Truck, and MasterChef, just to name a few. Since she owns the TV remote control in our house, I’m pretty much forced to watch all these shows with her (I know, I should turn in my man card now!). Might it be I secretly like watching them as well? The answer is ‘yes.’

While recently watching an episode of MasterChef Junior, the show featuring young children displaying their culinary talents in competition with each other, I was struck by how the show illustrates the three fundamentals of effective performance management: goal setting, coaching, and evaluation.

Goal Setting

The young chefs are presented with various challenges that test their culinary expertise. The challenges are all unique. One may require the contestants to create an exact replica of a dish made by an adult chef, or another may be to create a dessert using a few specific ingredients, or yet another may be to create their own signature dish that follows a certain theme. Regardless of the unique challenge, the goal is clear. All good performance starts with clear goals. When goals are fuzzy or non-existent, energy is diffused and productivity suffers. But when goals are clearly defined, people’s focus is sharp, effort is purposefully directed, and productivity accelerates.

Gordon Ramsay Setting a Clear Goal on How to Cook Filet Mignon

Coaching

Once clear goals have been established, the second fundamental of effective performance management is day to day coaching. People need direction, support, and feedback in real-time to help them address competency gaps, make course corrections, or consider alternative approaches. In MasterChef Junior, this is illustrated when the judges connect with each of the chefs during the preparation of their dishes. They ask questions that get the youngsters thinking about the vision and strategy of their meal, or the judges will give advice if they notice something is not up to par, or they’ll offer warnings of things to pay attention to or avoid. The goal of coaching is to help the individual produce the best outcome possible.

MasterChef Judges Coaching a Contestant

Evaluation

Dumping the once a year formal performance evaluation is all the rage right now. What gets lost sometimes in this popular trend is the need remains to do some sort of performance evaluation with your employees. The timing, frequency, and format of the evaluation may change, but evaluation is still a critical component of the performance management process. It allows both the leader and employee to assess the effectiveness of the employee’s efforts, what worked well, and what could be done better. In MasterChef Junior, the judges offer each contestant a critique of their dish. I’m surprised, yet pleased to see, the candid nature of the judges’ comments. Rather than falling into the trap of over-praising effort to the neglect of constructive criticism, the judges deliver feedback in a factual, straightforward manner. The young chefs know clearly what they did well, where they came up short, and how they can get better in the future. Isn’t that how it should be in our workplaces?

Example of MasterChef Junior Performance Evaluation

Life at work doesn’t fall into the neat, 1-hour, edited format of a TV show, but the principles of effective performance management we see in MasterChef Junior are still valid. Good performance starts with clear goals that enable individuals to understand what they’re trying to achieve. Good leaders provide real-time coaching on an as-need basis to help employees stay on course, get back on course if they’ve strayed, or to consider ways to improve their performance along the way. And finally, once the goal or project has been completed, the leader and employee review the performance and celebrate things done well, and if needed, discuss how to improve performance in the future.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Dear Madeleine,

I am an experienced manager but I am in a situation that is stumping me. I have a large team, and we have a reputation for getting a lot done, very efficiently. One team member—L— has been with the team since before I took it over. She is in her early 40s, a single mom, and very good at her job.

The problem is that she is too nice. People on the team who are behind on their tasks always go to her for help. She is a wiz at certain obscure programs that we must use from time to time, and people get her to help them instead of learning the programs themselves.

L is very active with our company foundation and is often involved in big events that take up her time. She participates in several other committees for the company as well. I can’t keep track of them all. She is always the one to show up with a home-baked cake when there is something to celebrate. She even made gluten-free cupcakes recently for my birthday! She has to leave at a set time to pick up her kids from daycare and I know she goes home and does volunteer work.

This would be all fine and well if L didn’t miss her deadlines on a regular basis. We recently met for her performance review and I was chagrined to see that she hadn’t hit any of her goals at 100%. I was forced to give her a lower rating than I would have liked. I feel like a jerk because she is such a strong addition to the team. I don’t want to demotivate her. How can I fix this?

Feel Like a Jerk

Dear Feel Like a Jerk,

You clearly value your “giving” employee, as well you should. Adam Grant, a highly regarded organizational psychologist, has researched the phenomena he calls givers, takers and matchers, and has established that givers make organizations better. According to Grant, it is not unusual for givers to do less well on their performance metrics than takers or matchers. The key here is to find a way for L to win at work doing what she does naturally and well.

What if you were to shape into goals the things L does naturally, so that she is measured on things she will definitely excel at? Make her Team Den Mother (or come up with a name that suits) so remembering and honoring notable events among the team is a task she is measured on and acknowledged for. Make being a high contributing organizational citizen a goal and map out a limited number of committees she will be on and what her goals will be. Again, she will no doubt knock that out of the park.

Finally, you can designate one of her key responsibility areas as being an expert on certain processes or programs that the team uses. This way, when she spends time helping others, it is actually part of her job. This means some of her other tasks or goals will have to shift to others on the team.

Discuss this idea with L. She will probably help you think it through so that you can arrive at a fair way to recognize her contribution.

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!

Hi Madeleine,

I run a business where we manage large projects and serve customers all day long. I have a new hire who just isn’t working out. She is rude to customers and makes constant errors. She needs to have instructions repeated again and again and just can’t seem to retain anything.

Last week I told her that it is possible she is not suited for our business and she might be happier doing something else. I was as diplomatic as I know how to be. She insisted she loves it here and that this is what she wants to do. Then she went and told everyone that I think she is terrible and I hate her.

What a mess. What on earth do I do now?

Made a Mess

Dear Made a Mess,

I’m not sure you can salvage this situation—and even if you could, I’m not sure you should. You may be right that your employee is not suited to the role if she not only has the undesirable qualities you first mentioned but also gossips to anyone who will listen.

My first instinct is to advise you cut your losses and let her go.

My second, more kind instinct is to suggest you sit down with her to have the difficult conversation. Explain that you don’t hate her; in fact, you want to help her succeed and do a reset.

My third instinct is to let you know that in my 28 years of coaching, I have not once had a client regret letting go of an employee that was taking up the bulk of their waking hours. So there you go.

To avoid this kind of thing in the future, put some focus on business fundamentals.

Hiring: My experience and research shows that hiring is 90 percent of the battle in getting the right fit for the role. Attention to detail and service orientation are inborn traits that are hard—maybe impossible—to train to people who don’t have them. As they say, it is easier to hire a squirrel than to train a chicken to climb a tree. It sounds like you could use some behavioral interviewing techniques. Once you find a new employee who seems to be a good fit, start with a three-month trial before going to a full time contract. This will give both you and the new hire time to assess the job and culture fit.

Onboarding: When you find that you’re always repeating yourself, it may be best to use checklists or put step-by-step instructions in writing. Create a manual accessible for new employees to review. You will also want to state your values, in writing. For example, if it is not okay for employees to gossip, this should spelled out in your values.

Use Situational Leadership® II: Our flagship product at The Ken Blanchard Companies is essentially a prescription for foolproof performance management, in which a leader provides exactly what the employee needs to be successful at any task or goal. You can read more about it here. In your case, you would need to provide consistent and repeated clear direction to help your employee succeed. Perhaps you aren’t good at that—or maybe she just can’t or won’t follow directions. In any event, this is a very worthwhile leadership model to know about.

It sounds as if you have been flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to performance management up until now. You’ll avoid trouble like this again in the future if you put some processes and systems in place to protect yourself from time sinks and embarrassments moving forward.

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!

In the second, Ken identifies the three aspects of performance management—goal setting, day-to-day coaching, and performance evaluation—and identifies which gets the most attention (and which aspect is the most important.)

What’s the common thread that runs through both videos?  The importance of coaching.

Check out Ken’s message.  What’s your experience?  Share your thoughts below!

About Coaching Tuesday

Check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching. 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.

I love being permanently connected to the world and I adore the feeling of control I get from remaining on top of everything that comes my way. I guess this means I don’t really know how to distinguish between work and life anymore. They’ve merged into one.

Many articles online feature people who chip away at the time they spend with their families and friends, lose sleep because they’re too busy speaking to the boss or check work email during dinner or on weekends. But this goes beyond work interfering with life. What happens when life interferes with work?

What do you do when a message comes in from a friend who works a different shift so weekdays are the only time they have to chat? What happens when your plumber is available to fix the sink only during your working hours? What if you need to go to your child’s school play on a Friday morning?

For me, the lines between work and life are so blurred that I can barely see them. Generally, when I’m physically in the office I’m at work and when I’m out of the office I’m not at work. However, I work remotely one day a week, so my physical location isn’t much of a distinction. I often check work email when I’m out of the office—and I often check messages from friends when I’m in the office.

These fuzzy boundaries have no effect on my productivity. I’m still an effective member of my department team and I get my work done. If I need to concentrate on a task, I set my phone to Do Not Disturb so that I can focus. If I take a lunch break with a friend and we run late because we are busy catching up, I work a little later to make up the time and get everything finished. So far, I haven’t had the feeling that work is taking over my life. I can still easily walk away from email, go read a good book, and switch off from all electronic connectivity.

I love this flexible approach to working and balancing my life however I please. In earlier posts I have identified that, as a millennial, I’m drawn to the concept of flexible work—and today’s technology makes this work style increasingly achievable. When my parents were my age, as soon as they stepped out of the office they weren’t readily contactable, so their work needed to be completed before they left. Now, I can leave the office at 5:00 p.m. and continue to work if I want to. If I were job hunting and found two equivalent jobs at different companies, one offering flexible work and the other offering a 9-to-5 fixed schedule, without a doubt I’d happily choose the company that offered flexible work.

Organisations who want to attract younger workers need to be increasingly open to flexible work while at the same time deciding how their company will define the concept. Can people check their social media occasionally in exchange for an extra 30 minutes of work, or will their policy be more (or less) strict than this? Are employees allowed to take half a day off with the understanding that incomplete work will be finished another time—for example, taking a morning off in exchange for working into the evening? Could people have the freedom to compress their work week into four 10-hour days and take Friday off?

It is important to note that flexible working does come with a price—and it isn’t for everyone. Stuart Heritage, writing for The Guardian, identifies in his article that each employee needs to make sure they are the right kind of person for flexible work. If you can’t make a clear switch between your work and your personal life it might not be the right move for you. Employers must take on the burden of not only recognising the symptoms of burnout and identifying when people are working too hard, but also calling out someone when their life is taking over and their work output isn’t quite up to scratch. Keep in mind, too, that flexible work isn’t possible for all professions. My mum, for example, is a nurse. She can’t exactly nip out on a Tuesday afternoon to do her Christmas shopping and then pop back in later to finish her shift, when there are patients in need of urgent care.

What do you think? Do you think organisations need to harness the flexibility of new technology and changing attitudes, and be open to flexible work for their employees? Do you think there’s a place in today’s constantly connected global market for people to choose when, where, and how they work? Or do you think it’s more important for employers to control the exact hours employees work to maximize productivity and avoid employee burnout? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Dear Madeleine,

I am the manager of a large group of service professionals. Earlier this year, I was inspired by a management book to set goals with my people and then give them the autonomy to decide how to achieve them.

It sounded good on paper, but here we are at the end of the year and not a single one of them has done well on their goals. As a result, I have given them all less than stellar ratings on their performance reviews. They are all surprised and upset with me.  —Confused

Dear Confused,

Managing people is complex, and managing high level professionals is maybe even more so.  So I checked out the book you shared and I think I know what went wrong.  You gave people goals and the autonomy to figure out how to achieve them—but you seem to have missed the rest of the steps outlined in the book, which go something like this:

• Work with each employee to identify actions that will be most likely to move them toward achieving their goal.
• Create a visible scorecard that shows both you and the employee how they are tracking to their goal.
• Meet weekly to review progress, brainstorm obstacles, and inspire the employee to stick with the plan.

In other words, you should give people enough autonomy that they feel like they own the goal—but not so much that the goal falls off the to-do list without anyone noticing.

There a lot of reasons people don’t achieve their goals. The most common ones are shockingly simple:

• They didn’t really know what to do or how to do it
• They didn’t really want to do it
• They didn’t think it was a good goal
• They didn’t think it was that important and prioritized other things above it
• They had too many other things to do
• They simply forgot

That last one is my personal favorite because it has happened to me.  I sat down with my manager to review the year and he asked how things went with a project we had discussed some months back.  I was appalled to realize that I had forgotten all about it and had done absolutely nothing.  I was lucky to have an understanding manager who also took some responsibility for the fact that we hadn’t talked about it since that first discussion.

Just think, for a moment, about what competes for our brain space on any given day.  Anything that actually gets done only does so because of relentless attention and focus to ensure that it does.  Otherwise, the goal might as well not exist.

I am sorry you are now in the position of feeling like the bad guy.  I recommend that you not give your people a bad rating on this part of their review—and that you take responsibility for essentially setting them up to fail.  Try the same approach this year, but include the part about working with each person to identify action steps, build the scorecard, and have regular reviews to check progress and offer support.

I’m certain that when you incorporate the additional steps, your people will come through with flying colors.

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!

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.

When these same respondents were asked to look at a list of common mistakes and choose the five biggest missteps by leaders, two responses stood out.

Not providing appropriate feedback was chosen by 82 percent of respondents. Failing to listen or involve others came in a close second, cited by 81 percent. (Failing to use an appropriate leadership style, failing to set clear goals and objectives, and failing to develop their people rounded out the respondents’ top five of things leaders most often fail to do when working with others.)

A 700-person follow-up study conducted by Blanchard in 2013 with readers of Training magazine found similar results. In that survey:

• 28 percent of respondents said they rarely or never discussed future goals and tasks with their boss—even though 70 percent wished they did.
• 36 percent said they never or rarely received performance feedback—even though 67 percent wished they did.

Why are communication and feedback such a challenge in today’s workplaces? The fast pace of work and increased workloads are certainly part of the equation—but another possibility is that new managers are not trained in either of these essential skills. Research conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity found that 47 percent of organizations do not have a formal training program in place for new managers. Research by leadership development consultancy Zenger Folkman has found that most managers don’t receive training until they are ten years into their managerial careers.

That’s too late. Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill has found that most managers who survive their first year develop habits—good or bad—that they carry with them for the rest of their careers.

The Ken Blanchard Companies believes it is essential for new managers to develop good communication skills as they step into their first leadership roles. In a new first-time manager curriculum, Blanchard identifies four communication skills new managers need to develop as well as four conversations new managers need to master.

Four Essential Communication Skills

• Listen to Learn—a deeper type of listening where the goal for the manager is to hear something that might change their mind, not just prompt a response.
• Inquire for Insight—when the manager uses questions to draw people out and probe for understanding that might not be shared at first.
• Tell Your Truth—being direct in communication in a way that promotes honest observation without assigning blame.
• Express Confidence—conveying a positive attitude toward the other person and toward future conversations, regardless of the subject.

Four Performance Management Conversations to Master

• The Goal Setting Conversation—setting clear objectives: all good performance begins with clear goals.
• The Praising Conversation—noticing and recognizing progress and good performance: catch people doing things right.
• The Redirecting Conversation—providing feedback and direction when performance is off-track: seize the opportunity before the problem escalates.
• The Wrapping Up Conversation—conducting a short, informal review after a task or goal is finished: savor accomplishments and acknowledge learnings

Becoming skilled in each of these areas not only helps new managers get off to a great start but also can help them succeed for years to come. How are your managers doing in these critical areas? You can read more about the Blanchard approach to first-time manager development in the white paper Essential Skills Every First-Time Manager Should Master.

“I’ve always talked about helping people get As. Early in my career as a university professor, I was often in trouble because I would give my students the final exam on the first day of class. Then I would spend the semester teaching them the answers so that they could pass the exam. I didn’t see why I should spend time trying to sort people out. It makes even less sense in a business organization where leaders should want everyone to succeed.

“For example, a manager who wants a direct report to get an A wouldn’t say to the person, ‘One of your goals is to set up a major client conference by the end of the year’ and then just wait around to see if it happens. Instead, the manager would say, ‘This is January and the client conference needs to occur in October. So within the next month, I’d like you to identify clients we should invite and maybe get a start on organizing the publicity.’ The manager would work with the direct report to identify all the different pieces that need to come together for a successful conference.

“There’s no value in seeing where everybody falls on a standard distribution curve. Organizations focused on that usually don’t have their eyes on the goals they are trying to achieve. Why would you want a certain percentage of your people to accomplish their goals and not the rest? Why wouldn’t you want everybody to get an A?”

Helping people get an A begins by setting clear goals for them at the beginning.  In the latest issue of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter, Blanchard explains that, “The best organizations hire high potential people, set clear goals with them, and help them achieve success. All good performance starts with clear goals. If people don’t know what you want them to accomplish, what are the chances they will be successful? Not very good.

“It’s very important to have work goals that are observable and measurable,” explains Blanchard. “Peter Drucker used to say, ‘If you can’t measure something, you can’t manage it.’ Measurements are important to give both managers and direct reports more clarity when assessing performance.”

The difficult part of goal setting is that it takes real focus and time, says Blanchard. “You have to think it through. You can’t do it by yourself.  It works best when it is a continuing dialogue with your boss and coworkers.”

Blanchard points to leaders like Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40 Company, who coauthored the book Helping People Win at Work. “At WD-40, everyone sees the organizational goals, which are observable and measurable. Then the managers and direct reports work together to examine the individual’s job responsibilities and identify three to five observable and measurable individual goals that will contribute to the organizational goals.

“We want individuals to focus on the 20 percent that will give them the 80 percent. That doesn’t mean they don’t do some activities that aren’t on the goals, but you want to make sure goals are set on the key activities that will help the person become a high performer.”

Blanchard encourages all organizations to take the time to make goal setting a priority.

“Whatever you do with people, it has to start with clear goals. Identify what are you working on and what good behavior looks like. If you take the time up front to do it right, it really makes all the difference down the road.”

You can read the complete article with Ken Blanchard in the January issue of Ignite.  Also, be sure to check out the free goal-setting webinar Ken Blanchard is conducting on January 27.  Blanchard will be personally helping over 500 individuals and teams from around the world complete their 2016 goal setting during the online session.  The event is free courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

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,

I have an excellent employee who has been working for me for over three years. She has always had a good attitude and she meets her deadlines, turns out reliable work product, and gets along with others—truly a model employee. 

The problems started about four months ago when she started coming in late, leaving early, missing deadlines, and making excuses.  I have been cutting her a lot of slack because she has always been so great, but now her peers are coming to me with complaints and I need to do something. I don’t want to hurt her feelings or make things worse by de-motivating her. I don’t know where to start. – Cutting Slack 

Dear Cutting Slack,

This is a classic situation—and boy, is it tough. When excellent employees like this one start letting you down, it is almost always because of something going on in their personal life. It could be a health problem or some kind of big transition involving herself or someone close to her, or serious money trouble. Sometimes there is a mental health or addiction problem at play that might cause your employee to be secretive because of embarrassment. The usual instinct for a great employee is to buckle down and try to tough it out without making a big deal of it at work, which is often not realistic or sustainable. If your employee is a very private person it will be even harder for her to talk about what is going on, even without sharing details.

Your big job is to not let this situation go on—especially since others have noticed. You must confront her, gently and kindly, with the truth. And HR needs to get involved, for several reasons. You have to document what has been going on so that you have a reasonable and objective record. When your people are going through tough times it’s really easy to cut them a break for a little while, but over the long term you may be left holding the bag. So after you understand the situation, set up a timeline for getting back to normal and create a contingency plan in case getting back to normal is not an option. Your employee may benefit from EAP offerings, or she may need some kind of compassionate or long-term unpaid leave.

I know it will feel like you’re kicking her when she is down, but most workplaces are set up to require 100 percent from each person. It is ultimately unfair to you and your team members to let someone underperform too long for any reason. If your employee really does have a big problem, you can organize your team to support her outside of work by setting up a meal delivery schedule, for example.

Don’t delay, Cutting Slack. Deal with this situation with compassion and care—but deal with it head on.

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!

The majority of respondents are looking for either 30 or 60 minutes of one-on-one time with their manager on a regular basis.

The survey also identified six specific topics that direct reports want more discussion around in their one-on-ones:

• Goal setting
• Goal review
• Performance feedback
• Problem solving
• Soliciting support
• Problems with colleagues

Of these, the topic that is most often neglected is Problems with colleagues. An astounding 64 percent of respondents wish they could talk with their manager about problems with colleagues either “often” or “all the time,” but only 8 percent actually do.

Tips to get the most from your one-on-one

For the direct report:

• Update your manager on what has happened since your last meeting. Share progress against goals and follow up on action items from earlier meetings.
• Ask for what you need. Be open regarding any need for direction and support.
• Use the time for problem solving. Share obstacles you are facing and work with your manager to develop action plans.

For the manager:

• Use the time to listen. Listen to understand and advise only when needed.
• Give specific, meaningful praise. Look for opportunities to not only praise results but also praise progress on newer tasks.
• Redirect as needed. Help the direct report recognize possible gaps in performance and redirect their path.

Important note for managers

Do not cancel a one-on-one meeting with a direct report. Postpone it if necessary, but do not cancel. In our Situational Self Leadership workshop, I always ask participants how it makes them feel when their manager cancels a one-on-one meeting. Overwhelmingly, they say “It makes me feel as if I’m not important.” Note that they don’t say “it’s not important”—they say “I’m not important.”

What do you do to get the most from your one-on-one discussions?

__________________________________

About the author

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

Is the solution to abandon the process? Quite the contrary. A recent survey by The Ken Blanchard Companies found a 20 to 30 percent gap between what employees desired from their leaders during performance management conversations and what they were receiving. Simply put, employees want much more from their leaders than they’re getting!

So what do direct reports want more of?

• More specificity: Be clear on expectations. People want to know what their key responsibility areas are, how they are going to be measured, and what a good job looks like.

• More coaching: People are looking for regular ongoing coaching aimed at helping them to be successful in their job. This includes timely, constructive feedback, regular one-on-ones, and specific, meaningful praise.

• More frequent evaluation: People want to know how they’re doing and what they can do to get better. Don’t wait until the end of the year—make evaluation at least a quarterly conversation. Do your homework and take the time to give meaningful feedback.

• More time spent on career development: Show an interest in your direct reports’ career aspirations. Provide development opportunities. When they participate in a learning event, follow up to see what they learned and have them share their action plan. Chat regularly to check their progress and offer assistance.

No matter what your organization’s performance management process, remember that employees want more and better quality conversations. Take the time to meet with people on a regular basis to discuss performance and help them be successful.

What other ideas do you have to improve the quality of your performance management conversations?

About the author

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

It’s a common pattern anytime people take on new tasks that require time, persistence, and effort.  Initial enthusiasm turns into disillusionment as beginners realize the task is more difficult than they anticipated, progress is slower, and the time required to accomplish the goal looks like it will be greater. Leaders and coaches need to be aware of this natural dip in motivation and take steps to make sure that this little dip doesn’t turn into a big fail with people quitting the task before accomplishing the goal.

In the health club industry, the best gyms keep a close eye on new members, noting attendance patterns and making sure to call, encourage, and check on progress that new members are making.  They know that without this type of support they can lose 30-50 percent of their people.

Managers need to do the same thing when their team members are starting projects that may be new to them or a stretch of existing knowledge and skills.   And while leaders don’t usually have to worry about someone physically quitting a task or goal, there is a very real possibility of a team member quitting it mentally, putting it on the back-burner, and moving on to other things that are easier to accomplish.  This “quit and stay” mentality is well known in business and difficult to root out once it settles in.

Leaders can head off this common occurrence by recognizing that this motivational dip is normal and by taking steps to provide direction and support to help people continue moving forward toward their goals.  For example, in The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Situational Leadership II training program, managers are taught to help Disillusioned Learners by:

1. Listening and acknowledging concerns
2. Brainstorming possible solutions
3. Identifying action steps
4. Reminding learners of the importance of the task
5. Providing support, reassurance, praise, and encouragement

Leader as a coach?  By providing direction and support when people need it most, managers can help their people move along a steady path toward progress.

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.

Did any of those family battles end up with your mom or dad saying “Do it because I said so!”—after which you skulked away under threat of grounding and did the minimum possible to complete the task so you could go back outside to play?

Why did you resist your parent’s request? Didn’t the battle take longer than the actual task?  Did you have better and more fun things to do? Did you just not like being told what to do?  Maybe you didn’t know exactly how to do it? Or maybe it was a little of all of those things?

Déjà vu

Fast forward to now. You find yourself engaged in the same battles with your own children and hear yourself saying the one thing you promised yourself that you would never say to your kids: “Do it because I said so!” Then you wonder why you did not keep your promise. Expecting some relief from that question, you go to work. At 9:00 a.m. your employee, Gilda, walks into your office and says she’s going to be late updating her accounts in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. You aren’t surprised. She has yet to meet a CRM deadline.

In response, you reiterate the importance of keeping her account details current. She tells you she understands, but she has too many other things to do. You argue a bit—politely, of course—until, after a few rounds of back and forth, you throw up your hands and say, “Do it because I said so!” Gilda skulks out and inputs the data, but you can tell that she did not put much effort into it and the updates are not what you expect. Is this déjà vu? You wonder, was this a grownup version of the conversation you had with your kids earlier that morning—and the ones you experienced when you were a kid? Surely there is a better way.

Recent motivation research shows that a subtle shift in outlook on these less than desirable tasks can make all the difference in not only well-being, but also goal achievement. So how can you help Gilda feel less imposed upon but still complete the CRM task? As we teach leaders in our new program called Optimal Motivation, the first step is to check out the employee’s basic psychological needs—Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence—on the task. The more fully that the employee has these three needs met, the more likely she will be to complete the task, resent it less, and possibly even enjoy it while she does.

3 Steps to a Better Way

In your next meeting with Gilda, instead of getting upset, you decide to use three steps to helping her improve her motivational outlook.

1. Empathize with her reality. Start by acknowledging that with her sparkly and people-oriented personality, this CRM task probably feels dreary compared to being out with clients. She agrees. You reiterate the importance of getting the data into the system quickly, and you point out that by doing so she will make herself more positively visible in the organization, and that will help get her contributions to the company recognized.
2. Ask for permission to proceed. Next, ask if it would be okay to examine her point of view about the process so that you might help her find a way to make it feel more rewarding. As she begins to open up, you talk about her love of being with clients. She talks about her desire to make an important contribution to the company and to help her clients succeed. She begins to really understand how the CRM might support those goals.
3. Explore positive possibilities. Inquire about ways she might both update the CRM system regularly and accurately and also feel better about doing it. Explore whether she would like to shift her outlook from feeling imposed upon to being more aligned around the importance of her keeping her CRM details up to date. While it may not happen in the snap of your fingers, you are trying to help her decide to spend the necessary time—probably half an hour each morning—updating the system instead of waiting until the end of the month when it becomes overwhelming. By coaching her rather than driving her, you are both much more likely to feel positive and confident about her solution.

A True and Common Story

Gilda’s story is real. From that point on, her information was always up to date in the CRM. It is still not her favorite task, but she sees the value of it and that makes her outlook more positive. And as her boss, you feel better about saying, “Because I said so” less often.

Who knows? Maybe your success with Gilda—and your new awareness of the better way—will help you with your kids, too.

About the Author

Sarah Caverhill is Vice President–East Region of The Ken Blanchard Companies. Sarah holds a master of business administration degree and a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Sarah is also coauthor of the book, Your Leadership Legacy.

Performance management is a key leadership responsibility. This survey suggests that significant gaps exist between employee expectations and what they are experiencing at work. Left unaddressed, these gaps represent a drain on overall organizational vitality through lowered employee intentions to stay, endorse, and apply discretionary effort as needed.

For leadership development professionals, these study results provide an opportunity to take a more targeted approach to improving perceptions in each of these areas. Here are four ways to get started.

1. Take a look at the overall design of your performance management process. Are managers following best practices in setting goals that are specific, motivating, attainable, relevant, and trackable? What percentage of employees have current goals listed? Have leaders conducted an internal assessment to measure the degree to which employees feel that their goals are effective in directing and motivating their performance?
2. Take a second look at the amount of time your managers are spending with their people. The Ken Blanchard Companies advocates that leaders meet with their direct reports a minimum of twice a month to discuss progress toward goals and address employee needs for direction and support. Monitoring progress and providing feedback are two of the key ways for a manager to stay involved and partner with an employee to achieve goals. Both activities directly influence improved performance.
3. Review your performance review process. In many organizations, goals are set at the beginning of the year and not seen again until the review process at the end of the year. Blanchard has identified that a best practice is to conduct a series of mini-reviews throughout the year—every 90 days is the recommended standard. This allows leaders to make midcourse corrections, eliminates any surprises for individual employees, and keeps the partnership between manager and direct report strong and vibrant.
4. Don’t forget job and career development. Growth opportunities at the job and overall career level are important drivers of employee work passion and one of the better ways that leaders can show team members that they care and are invested in them. Be sure that all performance review conversations include time for a discussion on ways that employees can improve their skills in their current role and also what the steps are that they can take to continue to advance in their careers.

A renewed focus on performance management can have significant results on the performance of an organization. Give your performance management system a review—and if you find similar gaps, address them for higher levels of employee work passion and performance.

To learn more about the research, read the complete article, 10 Performance Management Process Gaps (and How They Negatively Impact Employee Intentions) in the July/August issue of Training magazine.

Liberman’s basic point is that people are having trouble keeping up with the amount of tasks added to their plates and the pace of change occurring in their organizations. Recession-driven layoffs, restructures, and job modifications have forced people to take on extra work, new job duties, or assume different roles and it’s taking a toll. As job scope increases, people feel overwhelmed with the amount of work they have to accomplish, and it leads even the most engaged employees to gravitate toward focusing on the least complex, simple tasks they can control, rather than focusing on the most important and complex issues that need to be addressed.

According to Liberman, much of the fault lies at the feet of senior leaders. Whether it’s pursuing the latest management fad, reorganizing on a whim, or doing a poor job of managing change, senior leaders can be prone to lay the blame of organizational failure at the feet of employees who aren’t performing up to snuff, not taking into account those same employees are still trying to come to grips with the previous round of changes. Wharton professor Peter Cappelli says, “Today, work demands are through the roof. Not just the amount of work but challenges that employees do not know how to meet, in part because they may not be achievable.” Workplace frustration leads to insecurity which leads to a lack of trust and confidence in leadership.

I can identify with these conditions. The team I lead has experienced increased job scope and responsibilities over the years as our business has grown more complex and demanding in today’s global economy. “Task saturation” is a word we’ve used to describe this condition and the insecure, frustrated state of mind it induces. Here are six strategies I’ve found helpful to deal with this “performance anxiety” in the workplace:

1. Create a safe and trusting environment—The number one job of a leader is to build trust with his/her followers. Fostering a culture of safety is essential for trust to not only survive, but thrive. People need to know they can count on their leaders to look out for their best interests, protect them when necessary (even from themselves sometimes), and to genuinely care about them as people and not just worker drones showing up to do a job. Simon Sinek speaks to this truth in his insightful TED Talk, Why good leaders make you feel safe.

2. Ask people for their opinions—One of the most tangible ways leaders can combat frustration and insecurity in the workplace is to ask people for their opinions. But asking is just the first step; you have to do something with what they tell you. The higher up a leader rises in the organization, the easier it is to lose touch with the daily frustrations and battles your employees face. It’s easy to oversimplify the problems and solutions our people face and dismiss their expressions of frustration as whining or griping. Listen with the intent of being influenced and be willing to take action on what you learn.

3. Start, stop, continue—As you consider your next round of corporate restructuring, job modification, or process improvements, ask yourself these three questions: What do we need to start doing? What do we need to stop doing? What do we need to continue doing? I’ve found it’s easy to keep adding new tasks while continuing to do the old tasks. It’s much, much harder to identify those things we should stop doing. We can’t continue to pile more and more work on people and expect them to perform at consistently high levels. There is only so much time to accomplish the work at hand. As an addition to the start, stop, continue strategy, I’m seriously considering adopting a strategy from the simplicity movement: for every new task I add for my team, we have to eliminate one task. Enough of task saturation!

4. Manage change, don’t just announce it—Managing a change initiative involves more than just announcing a new strategy. That’s the easy part! The hard part is actually implementing and managing the change well. People go through specific stages of concern when faced with a major change and leaders need to be equipped to address those concerns throughout the process. By addressing the information, personal, and implementation concerns of employees, leaders can be much more successful in helping their people adapt and endorse the change initiative.

5. Focus on development of boss/employee relationship—One of the primary factors in an employee’s success, satisfaction, and engagement on the job is the quality of the relationship with their boss. Intentional effort needs to be placed on cultivating high-quality boss/employee relationships founded on trust and mutual respect. Frequent and quality conversations need to occur regularly between the boss and employee so the boss is aware of the daily challenges faced by the employee and can work to remove obstacles.

6. Foster empowerment, control, and autonomy—People don’t resist change; they resist being controlled. Much of today’s workplace frustrations are caused by workers having a lack of empowerment in their role, little control over what effects them at work, and scant autonomy in how they perform their tasks. Leaders can build engagement by focusing on the development of these three qualities in the work people do.

Workplace frustration and insecurity is like organizational high blood pressure—it’s a silent killer. This silent killer is not always evident through outward symptoms, but it’s always lurking underneath causing damage day after day. We have a choice…will we do anything about it?

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

A number of years ago when I went through Ken Blanchard’s SLII^® workshop for the first time, I struggled with the concept of the Directing Leadership Style. I kept telling myself that I would never use that style.

In the years since, I have discovered that my initial fear of the Directing style came from my having been on the receiving end of that style when I didn’t need direction because I was already competent at the task.

It turns out the Directing style is a great style to use as a leader when the individual you are leading lacks competence at a particular goal or task, but is highly motivated and confident to accomplish the task. In addition, the person must recognize their lack of competence or the Directing style will still feel like micromanagement.

Five Steps to Better Direction

When a Directing style is needed, remember to do the following:

1. Be clear and specific in describing the goal or task.
2. Contract with the individual to use a Directing style. Use language such as: “Since you’ve never done this before, would it be helpful if I provided some direction to help you get started?”
3. Adapt your direction to match the individual’s learning style. Ask: “How do you like to learn?” and adapt your direction to meet their needs.
4. Check in often for understanding and provide feedback. Don’t just let the person go at this point. Continually check in to see how they are doing and provide praise for progress and redirection where needed.
5. Adjust your style as the individual progresses. They won’t always need high levels of direction. As they demonstrate competence on the goal or task, gradually pull back on the direction and let them take more of a lead. 

Dealing with Disagreement

What if they don’t agree? What if they believe they are already competent at the task? When that happens, follow these steps:

1. Clarify the goal or task. Chances are the person doesn’t fully understand the scope of the goal or task. Describe the goal in greater detail and clearly identify a standard for success. At this point, you are hoping they have an “aha” moment when they realize that they haven’t actually done the task before. 

If Step 1 doesn’t work, move to Step 2.

2. Ask them for more information regarding their experience on the goal or task. Be open to the fact that they might have competence you haven’t seen and they don’t need as high a level of direction on this task. 

If you still aren’t convinced, go to Step 3.

3. Compare their past experience to a clear standard of high performance on the goal. Try to help the individual see the gap between their experience and the level of competence needed for you to “let them go” on this task. 

If the individual still believes they have demonstrated competence in the past and you disagree, move to Step 4.

4. In most instances, go with their perception and let the individual take the lead on how to accomplish the goal or task, but monitor them closely. For example, if you are asking them to lead a project team but have never seen them demonstrate competence as a project manager but they insist they are competent, give them the assignment to develop a project plan. Let them complete that “sub-task” without direction and then check in to see if they demonstrate competence. 

Remember: The Directing style is highly directive but includes low levels of support—not no support. If it was no support, it would be a Dictator style!  We’ve all been on the receiving end of a Dictator style at some point in our careers.

Share Your Experience

Recently, I asked participants in a workshop to do some field work between sessions and have a partnering conversation with one of their direct reports on a new goal or task. In many instances, they reported using a Directing style with very experienced employees on new tasks they had never done before. In the past, they had been afraid to provide direction for fear of micromanaging. What they discovered was, if used correctly, the Directing style was exactly what these individuals were looking for to help them get started.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences on using or receiving a Directing style when it matched an individual’s development level.

About the author

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in performance and self-leadership.

Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers – How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, spoke at Blanchard’s annual Client Summit the past two days. She shared the following six ways leaders diminish the performance of their team and offered strategies to combat these tendencies. Do you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions?

1. The Idea Guy – You know this kind of leader…He never came up with an idea he didn’t like! Every new business book he reads is a reason to redesign the organization. Every wild idea about a new product or service results in changing business strategies. His ideas are always the best, and even though he may pay lip service to the input of others, he’s always the smartest guy in the room and his ideas prevail. At some point team members get their ideas shot down enough that they stop trying. Even though this leader thinks he’s doing a good thing by coming up with new ideas, he’s actually diminishing the performance of his team dramatically.

How to Fix It: Instead of offering ideas, consider asking questions like: What do you think? How would you solve this problem? What are the pros and cons of our alternatives?

2. Always On – The Always On leader is, well, always on! He doesn’t have an off switch and he’s constantly moving at Mach 5 with his hair on fire. It’s one thing to have a strong work ethic and give work your all, but it’s a whole other thing to expect (or require) people to live at the same breakneck pace you choose for yourself. You’ll eventually burn people out and reduce their effectiveness.

How to Fix It: Play Your Chips – When you go into meetings with your team, pretend you only have 3 to 4 poker chips to play. Reserve your input for the most strategic and important times where you feel you can add the most value. That will allow your team members the space to breathe and devise their own strategies for managing the work.

3. Pacesetter – In a noble effort to set the pace for his team, the Pacesetter leader takes pride in being out in front of his team and setting the example they should follow. That’s a key function of being a leader, but it can diminish your team’s performance if you get too far out in front of your team. If your performance, goals, and expectations are so ridiculously high, your people will give up before they even start the race. Why? They know they don’t have a chance to win. You’ve already got too far of a head start.

How to Fix It: Stretch the responsibility of your direct reports. Instead of you leading the charge on all the important projects, delegate assignments to your team members. Assuming they have the competence and commitment needed to succeed on the particular goal or task, you’ll not only get more work done by involving others, you’ll also increase their engagement and morale.

4. Rescuer – Leaders like to feel needed, and there’s no better way to feel needed than coming to the rescue of your team members (cue Superhero music). Unfortunately, constantly rescuing your people creates learned helplessness on their part, and because you are required to always step in to save the day, it lowers the performance and capacity of your entire team.

How to Fix It: Learn to hold and fold and give the work back to the person who owns it. Assuming you hired the right people and properly trained them, they should be capable of handling their own work.

5. Rapid Responder – The Rapid Responder diminishes the performance of his team because he’s always the first one to respond to a problem or challenge. This leader seems to be everywhere at all times, always putting out whatever fire might exist. What happens over time? Your team members eventually learn that you’ll be the first one to tackle the issue and they can just sit back and watch you do your thing.

How to Fix It: Pause and allow debate. Give your team a chance to respond and figure out a solution before you jump into action.

6. The Optimist – I can identify with this diminishing behavior. In an effort to minimize negative energy or dissent, it’s easier to play the role of the optimist, cheering your team on to success while blindly ignoring the difficult realities of the situation. Life isn’t always full of sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, and your insistence that “this shouldn’t be too hard” destroys the morale of your team.

How to Fix It: Create space for mistakes. Acknowledge the hard realities facing your team and let them move forward, knowing they’ll make mistakes, learn from them, and improve along the way.

These behaviors are idea killers, energy sappers, intelligence drainers, and diminishers of talent and commitment. With a little self-awareness and self-control, leaders can shift from being diminishers of talent to multipliers of talent.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

That analysis found a 14-point customer satisfaction gap, a 16-point employee productivity gap, and a 45-point employee retention gap which translates into over $1 million dollars for the average organization.

In looking at the ways that leadership impacts each of these three areas, separate Blanchard research into the Leadership-Profit Chain and Employee Work Passion has found that better day-to-day operational leadership practices—including those that promote autonomy, collaboration, connectedness, and growth can significantly improve employee intentions to stay with a company, perform at a high level, and apply discretionary effort in service of company goals.

Taking some first steps

Looking to identify and address operational leadership in your own organization?  Here’s a three step process for getting started.

1. Double-check on goal alignment at the team and department level.  Make sure that all team members are working on the highest priority tasks.  Ask managers to check in and review priorities with their people.  Make sure the work is meaningful, on-target, and contributing to overall organizational goals.  You’ll be surprised at the amount of misalignment that occurs over time.
2. Identify what people need to succeed at their high priority tasks.  Depending on their experience and confidence with the tasks they are assigned, people can be Enthusiastic Beginners, Disillusioned Learners, Capable, but Cautious Performers, or Self Reliant Achievers.  Each of these development levels requires a different style of leadership—either Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating.  (Surprisingly, without training only 1% of managers are skilled at identifying and being able to deliver all four styles when needed.)
3. Make sure managers meet with their people on a regular basis.  While it is always best for managers to be able to adapt their leadership style to perfectly meet employee needs, that doesn’t mean that they should put off meeting on a regular basis to review goals and provide direction and support as best as possible while learning.  Even if managers aren’t perfect, people still appreciate a chance to talk, discuss progress, and ask for help.

Begin today

Academic research has established a strong correlation between leadership practices, employee engagement scores, and subsequent customer satisfaction scores.   The bottom line is that leadership practices matter. Encourage your leaders to review goals with their people, identify how they can help, and set up a regular time to review progress.  Take care of the people who take care of your customers.  It’s good for them—and your business too!

Interested in learning more?  Join me for a free webinar!

On October 30, I am going to be presenting a more in-depth look at the Cost of Doing Nothing analysis and sharing some strategies for addressing it.  This is a free webinar courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Over 500 people are registered and I hope you’ll join us also. Use the link below to learn more.

High Potential Leadership: Three Strategies to Boost Your Bottom Line

You’ll learn that:

• Less-than-optimal leadership practices cost the typical organization an amount equal to as much as 7% of their total annual sales
• At least 9% and possibly as much as 32% of an organization’s voluntary turnover can be avoided through better leadership skills
• Better leadership can generate a 3 to 4% improvement in customer satisfaction scores and a corresponding 1.5% increase in revenue growth

LEARN MORE >

Oomph! Those words feel like a punch to the gut of the employee on the receiving end, and for the leader delivering the bad news, those words create anxiety and many sleepless nights leading up to that difficult conversation.

No leader likes to see an employee fail on the job. From the moment we start the recruitment process, through interviewing, hiring, and training, our goal is to set up our employees for success. It takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and expense to bring new people into the organization and ramp them up to full productivity so it’s in everyone’s vested interest to see an employee succeed. Yet we all know there are situations that, for whatever reason, an employee struggles on the job and there isn’t much hope of turning it around.

I recently met with a group of HR professionals and line managers to debrief employee termination situations. As we reviewed the cases at hand, the following nine signs emerged as warning signals, that had they been heeded early on in the employee’s career, a termination decision could have been made much earlier in the process that would have saved everyone a lot of heartache and the company a lot of money. Any one of these signs is alarming in and of itself, but when you combine all of them together…KABOOM! You’ve got an employee meltdown waiting to happen.

Nine Warning Signs of a Failing Employee

1. Things don’t improve with a change of scenery – Maybe it’s the relationship with their boss, certain peers, or the nature of the work has changed and the employee is struggling to perform at her best. Whatever the reason, moving the employee to another role or department can get her back on track. I’ve done it myself and have seen it work. But if you’ve given someone another chance by giving them a change of scenery and it’s still not working out, you should be concerned. The scenery probably isn’t the problem.

2. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around the employee – We all have personality quirks and some people are more difficult to work with than others, but when an employee becomes cancerous to the morale and productivity of the team and everyone feels like they have to walk on eggshells around the person for fear of incurring their wrath, you’ve got a serious problem. Don’t underestimate the destructive power of a toxic, unpredictable employee.

3. Emotional instability – Part of being a mature adult is being able to manage your emotions and it’s critically important in a professional workplace. If you have an employee that demonstrates severe emotional mood swings on the job and in their relationships with others, you need to pursue the proper legal and ethical guidelines in dealing with the employee and getting them the support they need. Don’t ignore the behavior by chalking it up to the heat of the moment, the stress of the job, or excusing it by saying “Oh, that’s just Joe being Joe.”

4. Trouble fitting into the company culture – Perhaps one of the earliest signs that you have a failing employee is noticing she is having significant trouble adapting to the culture of the organization. There is a natural transition time for any new employee, but if you’re constantly hearing the employee make negative comments about how the company operates and criticizing leadership, or not developing solid relationships with others and becoming part of the team, warning alarms should be going off in your head.

5. Blames others, makes excuses, and challenges authority – You know the incredibly loud sound of air raid sirens used in civil defense situations? That’s the sound you should be hearing if you have an employee with a track record of blaming others and making excuses for her poor performance. Failing employees will often challenge authority by trying to lay the blame at the boss’ feet by saying things like “You should have done this…” or “You didn’t address that problem…” or whatever the case may be. If you have an employee who always seems to be involved in drama, ask yourself “What (or more appropriately ‘who’) is the common denominator in these situations?”

6. Distorts or manipulates the truth – I’ve dealt with employees who were very skilled at manipulating or distorting the truth. In whatever difficult situation they were in, they would find a kernel of truth to justify and excuse their involvement to the point that I would feel compelled to side with them. I learned you have to be discerning and consistent in your approach to dealing with manipulative people and make sure you document your interactions so you have sufficient data to support your termination decision.

7. Unseen gaps in performance – One of the most challenging situations is when an employee seems to be performing well by outside appearances, but when you explore behind the scenes you discover there are gaps in her performance. Maybe it’s sloppy work, not following correct procedures, or even worse, being intentionally deceptive or unethical. Be careful, things may not always be as they seem.

8. A trail of broken relationships – Employees don’t have to be BFF’s with all of their coworkers, but they do need to respect others and be able to work together. A person may be a high-performer in the tasks of her job, but if she can’t get along with other people and has a history of damaging relationships with colleagues, eventually there will come a point where her contributions are outweighed by the damage and drama she creates.

9. Passive-aggressive behavior – You know those smiley-face emoticons at the end of slightly sarcastic and critical emails? A classic example of passive-aggressive behavior where the sender is trying to couch her criticism in feigned-humor. This is toxic and can be hard to manage because it manifests itself is so many ways that appear to be innocuous in and of themselves. Veiled jokes, procrastination, sullenness, resentment, and deliberate or repeated failure to follow-through on tasks are all signs of passive-aggressive behavior. Be careful…very careful.

The number one job for a leader is to help his or her employees succeed. Before an employee is terminated, a leader needs to be able to look in the mirror and honestly admit that everything possible has been done to help the employee succeed. These nine warning signs should serve as critical guideposts in helping any leader be alert to a failing employee.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

But leaders still play a vital role. The next advance needed in today’s organizations is to develop motivation into a strategic leadership capacity. When leaders treat employee motivation as a strategic issue, they create a distinctive advantage that is not easily matched by competitors. This strategic approach results in higher quality individual performance on everyday goals and projects, more “out of the box” thinking, faster innovation, greater acceptance of change, and greater “idea velocity.” Sustaining high quality motivation as a strategic capability also creates a magnet for talent.

Where to start?

The path to competitive advantage is paved with autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Focus on honoring employees’ legitimate needs for a sense of freedom in their work, their natural desire for warm relationships that are free of manipulation, and the natural striving for ongoing competence and growth.

One powerful place to start is with what you write and say to employees.  Here are three simple upgrades that you can make to your communication style to build more autonomy, relatedness, and competence in your interactions:

1. Offer as many options as possible when making requests for action, and make them true options. Employees need to feel a sense of freedom and control over their work. Try to avoid false options that really pressure them toward the single outcome you think is best.
2. Highlight the extraordinary learning that everyone is doing, particularly when times are tough. People are less afraid of difficult challenges when they realize they are successfully learning their way through them.
3. Balance focus on final results with focus on team, community, and collective effort. Be sure not to bang the table for results without expressing your gratitude for individual and team effort along the way.

Distinctive motivational capacity across the entire organization, in all functional areas, and among every level of executive, can be built by more carefully cultivating the work environment. Optimal motivation is fostered when you upgrade the quality of the language used in everyday meetings, in email, and even in how senior leaders speak to the financial markets. Such improvements tell employees what matters most—and whether employee well-being is really a central management focus.

The more you show that you genuinely care about your people as human beings, and are thankful for all they strive to achieve every day, the more likely you are to set your organization apart from the rest.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

More than 700 of the magazine’s subscribers were asked what they wanted out of their individual meetings with their managers and how that compared to what was really happening.

Questions were asked 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, employees 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!

PS:  You can see all of the data and charts by downloading the article PDF from the July/August issue of Training magazine.

• It’s not personal, it is just ________.
• The purpose of business is to _____ _______.
• We need to hold people ___________.
• The only thing that really matters is _______.
• If you cannot measure it, it _________ ________.

We have embedded these beliefs so deep in our collective psyche that I bet you do not even need to check your answers. However, just because these belief statements are common, does not mean they are legitimate. I encourage you to consider that holding these beliefs may be undermining your ability to effectively cultivate a motivating environment for those you lead.

In this blog we will explore the first eroding belief: “It’s not personal, it is just business.”  We will tackle the other belief statements in upcoming posts.

Are You Kidding?

As a manager, you deliver information, feedback, or news to an individual that affects his or her work, livelihood, opportunities, status, income, mood, health, and/or well-being. How is this not personal?

On average, employees spend 75% of their waking hours connected to work—getting ready for work, getting to work, working, returning home from work, and decompressing. Oftentimes, employees spend more time interacting with coworkers than family members. Yet managers believe their actions are not personal and just business? Are you kidding?

Getting at the Root of the Belief

Trust me, what you say and do feels personal to the people you lead! Therein lies the issue. The new “F-word” in business, it seems, is Feelings. Is this because we hold a belief that expressing feelings does not belong in the workplace? If so, where did this belief come from?

I welcome your opinion. Here is mine: Feelings are discouraged in business because managers do not have the skill to effectively deal with them. True, some employees do not self-regulate well and may let their emotions get the best of them from time-to-time. But the fear of unruly emotions is disproportionate to the occurrence and severity of emotional outbreaks.

Research shows that even though people judge their work environment both emotionally and cognitively, emotions are the primary determinant of their sense of well-being[1] As a manager, your actions strongly influence the outcome of an individual’s appraisal process that results in a sense of well-being—or not. If you do not notice, acknowledge, and deal with a person’s emotions, you may unwittingly be undermining that sense of well-being that is the vital link to a person’s intentions and behavior.

Try this for the next month: Instead of holding on to a traditional belief that potentially undermines people’s motivation, listen to your heart and acknowledge the crucial role that feelings play in work and life. Try changing that traditional belief to an Optimal Motivation belief: “If it is business, it must be personal.”

Watch how your leadership changes as your belief changes. Then notice the positive affect your changed belief has on those you lead.

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.

Eventually people get there—but it comes with a cost, says Ann Phillips in an interview for The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter.

“It’s one of the toughest types of issue to address because on the surface everyone’s putting on a brave face and pretending that everything is okay. But if you scratch a little underneath you’ll see the level of dissatisfaction that’s costing organizations billions of dollars in untapped productivity, creativity, and innovation.

The biggest problem getting in the way of managers delivering the direction and support people need is an overestimation of their current skills.  As Phillips explains, “Leaders often believe they are providing direction when they tell people to ‘Do this, and then do that, and be sure to get it done by this date,’ but that is only part of providing direction—and probably the lowest form of the behavior.”

The same is true when it comes to supportive behavior, says Phillips. “Managers feel as if they know what supportive behavior is and usually have their own ideas about what it looks like. But without instruction, most people default to behavior that consists mainly of encouragement.

“People are good at encouraging others with phrases such as, ‘You can do it. We’re glad you’re here. We believe in you. Use your best judgment.’ But they miss out on all of the other supportive behaviors that are just as important such as listening, sharing information, and facilitating self-directed problem solving.”

“So folks are good at telling people what to do and then cheerleading them on to accomplish the task. And that is the one-two, ‘I want you to do this, and I know you can handle it’ combination that most people are getting in terms of direction and support from their managers. On the surface this may seem reasonable, but it is a style that only works well for direct reports who are already accomplished at the task. For people who are new to a task or are running into problems or are unsure of themselves, it’s a style that actually hinders progress—and can be damaging to overall growth and development.”

For managers looking to increase their ability to offer direction and support for their people, Phillips has three key recommendations.

Recognize your own default settings. Most leaders are unaware that they have a default setting when it comes to leadership even though assessments show that 54% of managers use only one style when it comes to providing direction and support for their people—either Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating. Each of these styles is great if it is a match for what a direct report needs. Each is also a hindrance if it is the wrong style for the situation.

Expand your repertoire of directive behaviors. Leaders need to think beyond just issuing directives and holding people accountable. Phillips encourages leaders to become more skillful at goal setting and putting in the time to provide day-to-day coaching as needed..

Expand your repertoire of supportive behaviors.   Leaders need to improve listening skills and be willing to share information to facilitate self-directed problem solving. This includes listening with the intent to learn, to be influenced, and to understand—not just respond. People recognize that information is power, yet many managers still try to maintain control by keeping information to themselves even though it undermines employee development.

Start today

Phillips notes that, “Managers have the ability to bring out so much more from their people. Find out where your people are at with their tasks. What do they need from you in terms of direction and support? Improve your skills in both of these areas and see what a difference it makes.”

To learn more, read Phillips’ original article on Direction and Support: It’s harder than you think! or check out her free on-demand webinar, People Management 101: Providing Direction and Support, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

In an extreme case, maybe they actually punished you for offering an opinion that they didn’t want to hear. In fact, at some point in the “conversation” you actually wished you could close that open door, because with it open, the whole world could overhear the public flogging you were receiving for voicing your honest opinion.

Ever been there?

For starters, decide that you are not going to behave that way. Decide that you are not going to be the kind of leader whose door may be open, but that’s the only thing that is.

People are understandably uncomfortable dealing with opinions different from their own. It is an unusual person who looks forward to hearing what they didn’t want to listen to in the first place. And we all learn that it just isn’t worth the risk of being candid with others, particularly if they’re more powerful than we are. In short, political behavior trumps productivity improvement.

So what can you do to address this? Here are three recommendations:

1. It’s about opening your mind, not your door. Force yourself to listen to what people are telling you. As they’re talking, keep telling yourself that there is at least something correct in what they’re saying. Listen for it. Unfortunately, many of us do the opposite: we listen for the weak link in the logic chain of what people are saying. It’s fun, isn’t it, to suggest an improvement to someone else’s viewpoint or plan. It makes us feel good about our contribution, our value added, our incredible wisdom, insight, and—now that you mention it—genius. But are we reducing the personal commitment level of the person we’re talking to? And is a 5 percent improvement of the strategy worth a 20 percent reduction of the activation energy it will take to get the idea off the ground?

2. Your door may be open, but you don’t have to know everything about what’s going on.  The only thing worse than not having an open door policy at all is having one, and there are people standing in your threshold all the time. Make it clear that you want people to take responsibility for doing the right thing, not sharing it with you. Decisions should be made at the lowest operational level, by people who are closest to the action. You’re not protected by a policy that was made by someone who isn’t involved in what’s happening right now. If you are executing on something that you think is bad, even though the order came down from the top of the organization, you are abdicating your moral responsibility. Napoleon said such a leader should be seen as a criminal.

3. Tell people you really do want their best. A strategic use of the open door can be quite helpful. But you want spontaneity and candor. You want it with the bark on. Political correctness is of course appropriate, but it should be used sparingly. The focus here is getting the job done, to specification and on time.

Open doors should prompt people to collaborate appropriately, not abdicate their responsibility. These should be occasional opportunities to give and receive feedback and suggestions. Properly used, they can expedite progress. But improperly used they can be more trouble than they’re worth. As Drucker said, more or less, “So much of what we call leadership consists of making it harder for people to do their work.”

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read his posts here on LeaderChat the fourth Saturday of each month.

Here are ten blunders organizations typically make when implementing telework.

1. Let everyone telework. Employees who are effective teleworkers have strong organizational skills, self-discipline, and comfort with a lack of frequent social interaction. Select good or great performers with the right skills and attitudes to ensure success
2. Provide no orientation to life in a virtual office—assume they’ll figure it out. Working virtually requires clear agreements on how and when communication happens and how to keep aligned to goals and motivated by the “esprit de corps” necessary for true teamwork.
3. Provide inadequate technology support. Make sure teleworkers can conduct basic troubleshooting of their own system, and ensure quality IT support is available when needed. Continually monitor issues such as bandwidth and ease of access to systems.
4. Assume your managers know how to lead virtually. Many leadership practices we have learned work only in a face-to-face setting. Leading people you don’t see requires a more sophisticated level of leadership—new skills are needed.
5. Have no structure to ensure collaboration and team spirit. One day every week or two should be set aside when everyone needs to be on site to enable collaboration, the sharing of best practices, and good old-fashioned face time. Though we often are not aware of its importance, the informal team building that happens naturally when people work together needs to become a priority now.
6. Insist on frequent conference calls to share information. Conference calls are for collaboration, decision making and involvement. One-way communication in conference calls interrupts real work and leads to multi-tasking and disengagement.
7. Hold meetings where some are in the room and some are calling in. These types of meetings increase disengagement and feelings of isolation. If you must have these meetings, use our tips from previous blogs: 3 Ways to Put Life Into Deadly Virtual Team Meetings, 4 Tips to Make Your Next Virtual Meeting More Compelling, to maximize their effectiveness.
8. Have no plan for monitoring performance or recognizing effort. Rewrite your performance measures so you monitor results instead of activity. Although this can be a challenge, everyone benefits when accomplishments are clear and recognized.
9. Promote people based on visibility. This is a secret, and often valid, fear of many who agree to telework. Individuals who are seen in the hallway often are selected for special projects, recognition, and promotion. Make sure visibility happens for work results, not just for showing up on site.
10. Implement it and forget it. Telework, whether routine or in response to a crisis, is a change for leaders, workers, IT departments, and customers. Continuously monitor how well it is working for all stakeholders, and build in strategies to both recognize success and improve processes.

Work is what we do, not where we sit. If implemented effectively, telework can empower employees, increase innovation, improve customer service, and save money and time for everyone. Use this list to ensure your effort succeeds in every way.

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

The question they were asking was, “How do we keep our people motivated?”  I asked why they think they have an employee motivation problem.  They explained that while same-store and company-wide performance has been terrific, it is slowing, and some employees are becoming less enthusiastic.   Those employees are becoming more frustrated when they do not delight a customer and earn a sale.

“What do you currently do when an employee gets upset that they did not fully satisfy a customer?” I asked.  One regional sales manager explained that they talk with the employee about things the employee could have been done better.  After all, I was told, “the employees need to be accountable for the results.”

The most important detail here is that the employee in that example works in a successful store, and is already disappointed to have not delighted a customer.  The sales associates—often in their late teens and early twenties, and highly skilled—take great personal pride in delighting customers.  The managers said they work hard to make the in-store experience fun for their child customers and their parents.  So, the motivational question here is: What are the best ways to help a salesperson (or any employee) who is already eager to delight a customer do it better in the future after they fail to meet a high standard held by both their organization and themselves?

First, let me say that the accountability approach is the last appeal you want to make.  No matter how skillfully we parse it, and no matter how sweetly we explain the situation, the accountability discussion is a thinly veiled form of control.  It says very clearly: You are responsible for this and I need you to really get that. Do you understand?  I have met very few employees who walk away from accountability discussions feeling good about themselves, their managers, and the company.  Instead, try using a less controlling, autonomy-supportive approach.

Here are some methods you might consider.  Research shows these approaches are much more likely to stimulate positive motivational responses than emphasizing accountability.

1. Take the employee’s perspective.  Listen carefully to the employee’s experience so you understand it deeply.  In this case, recognize that the employee is already disappointed and desires to do a great job.
2. Encourage initiative and choice.  Help the employee discover several new options for future action.  Be careful not to tell them everything they need to do.  Encouraging initiative means listening and guiding first and foremost, not pushing your formula.
3. Help the employee take on more challenge—but not too much.  One or two more challenging steps at a time will generally work well.
4. Provide a logical rationale for any direct requests you have.  They need to make their new actions their own.  The more you push the less likely they will experience optimal motivation. 
5. Minimize use of pressuring language and controlling tone of voice.  Dialing down fear, concern, and pressure is vital to tapping into the employee’s natural desire to improve, grow, and perform at high levels.

All of the above approaches have been shown to result in positive behavioral responses because they help people feel validated, safe, and free from unnecessary controls.  They are like honey to accountability’s vinegar.  After all, which would you prefer?  Honey or vinegar?

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

Here are a few creative ways to get the emotions out. Any number of these may work for you—so pick one you like, or try them all.  (Preparation is also important—if you could use some help in that area, see my earlier post on Preparing for A Challenging Conversation.)

Fast Writing

This is a 30-minute “brain dump” in which you simply write down anything and everything that comes to you. This stream-of-consciousness style keeps you from making a real discourse out of your thoughts, and frees you to just “get the emotions out,” regardless of how incoherent they may be. Most authors suggest doing this writing longhand as opposed to on a keyboard. The purpose is to clear your mind.

Write whatever your head says and don’t edit yourself. If you go blank, write dots on the page until something comes into your head, and then write whatever shows up. Keep writing. Then, when you’re done, throw it away. Physically destroy the paper. Sometimes the more physical action feels more “real.” Burn the paper, if it helps.

The process is the important thing, not the product. The point is to do something that gives you enough relief that you can have the conversation without the distraction of strong emotions that you haven’t addressed yet.

Email to No One

This is similar to fast writing in that you won’t be keeping it, but here you are writing the email intentionally and specifically—as if you were saying all the hard things you need to say to this person or telling your best friend how you feel. Having those thoughts and feelings out where you can look at them helps dissipate the emotional impact of them. It may also clarify any still-foggy areas.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you don’t put anyone’s address in the “To:” box!

The good thing about email is that if you don’t save it, and you don’t send it, it goes nowhere. Once you’re done writing and you feel some relief, delete the email permanently. Then when you have the actual conversation, you can set these feelings aside, knowing you’ve already gotten them out and dealt with them.

Journaling

When you can take the time to write down your thoughts on paper, sometimes they become clearer. Even a little bit of this can be useful. The difference between journaling and fast writing is that the journal is intended for future review. You may find it useful to reflect later on what you were thinking before the conversation and how things changed afterwards.

Your journal entry doesn’t have to be shared with anyone. This can be especially helpful for more introverted people who really aren’t comfortable letting others in on their personal thoughts and feelings.

Talking to a Trusted Friend

All of us get by with a little help from our friends. This is one of those things a good friend can do for you. Make sure the friend isn’t entangled in the issue you need to talk about—just someone you trust to help you get your emotions out without judgment. What you need is a chance to work things out verbally. If you want advice, that’s fine, but if it’s not useful at this point, let your friend know what you need before you start.

A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

Even if you believe you have no artistic talent, making a picture of what you’re feeling can go beyond trying to talk about it. You may just be scribbling, but you can express your feelings deeply by scratching out lines or painting colors on a receptive surface. If it feels dark, make it dark. If it feels sharp and angular, make it sharp and angular. You can make it look angry, hurt, frustrated, afraid, concerned—whatever you’re feeling.

Then, when you’re done, once again, leave your emotion there. Now you can set the art aside, or destroy it—whatever feels best.

Physical Activity

Lots of people feel great emotional relief when they do something physical. A good workout can help clear your head before a difficult conversation. Go for a run or a bike ride, or shoot some hoops. Swimming always helps me clear my head.

I hope these ideas have helped. What other ideas do you have to let go of the emotional baggage prior to having a challenging conversation?

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in performance and self-leadership.  You can read John’s posts on the second Thursday of each month.

But what happens if the environment is altered and obstacles are added? Researchers experimented with just that by lowering a glass barrier into the aquarium separating the pike on one side from food fish on the other. When the pike goes after a nearby minnow, it runs into the invisible divider. And after a while, the pike stops trying.

But this gets even more interesting. The observers next remove the glass, and the pike continues to avoid going after its natural food.  The learned behavior is so strong that some pike have actually died of starvation during the experiment even while minnows continue to brush up against them.

This same type of learned behavior can sometimes be seen at work. It’s a learned helplessness that occurs when you, or someone with influence over you, decides that something can’t be done, or perhaps in the case of business, can’t be done right. In short, the Pike Syndrome is a debilitating situation.

For example, if someone approaches you for feedback on a project or job they’ve been working on, and rather than emphasizing what was done well, you point out what could have been done better. Even if you were right in your critique, almost inevitably there are potential negative consequences.

Or, possibly you are the type of manager who tells people, “If you’re doing your job, you’ll never see me.” When that’s the case, good work goes unrecognized and it is only shortcomings that draw a response from the supervisor.

When good performers experience that type of environment, they learn to avoid their leader’s dissatisfaction rather than risking new behavior that might lead to better results. In the longer term, it may be difficult for them to unlearn that.

So avoid being part of the problem. Give your people their best chance to succeed by removing barriers to performance.  Next, acknowledge them when they are making progress. One more thing … it’s critical to get your own behavior in line, before you can help others to do the same.

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read his posts here on LeaderChat the fourth Saturday of each month.

Alexa took her current post in 2010.  That year she led her group to earn Best Retail Operation for the region, going from worst-to-first in a single year.  Along with a public award, Alexa received a “Far Exceeds” rating on her annual performance appraisal.

Unfortunately, at the time of her next review, Alexa’s group was slightly below its Key Performance Indicators (KPI) targets and so her boss rated her performance as only “Meets Expectations.”  It turned out to be a case of poor timing as the group rebounded and by year’s end had once again won Best Retail Operation.

An important and tangible difference

For Alexa, the difference between “Meets Expectations” and “Far Exceeds” was important—and tangible.  In her company, a rating of Far Exceeds meant the employee had a greater chance of a promotion in the next 12 months, a greater opportunity to participate in juicy cross-functional projects that C-level executives track, and a larger base salary and bonus package for the coming year.

Alexa’s boss apologized for the 2011 rating and said he would make it up to her in the 2013 review.  Unfortunately, the damage was done; Alexa interpreted her boss’s decision as unfair given her history of taking a last place group to first place in less than a year, and then repeating that high performance.  Her boss said nothing could be done.

The impact of that interpretation was that Alexa went from being highly interested and innovative in her role to being more or less disinterested—just going through the motions.  She said, “You rate me as Meets Expectations, and I will meet expectations.  Nothing more.”

Leading with Optimal Motivation

When  talked with about  this, Alexa was immovable, so deep was the sense of betrayal.  In considering ways to help her, a purely rational, left brain, traditional business analysis of this situation would have us evoking some version of the Nike slogan—Just Do It.  In other words, “Alexa, change your attitude, accept your boss’s apology,  and get back to it.”

But, that’s probably a fantasy at this point.  Alexa now perceives the performance management system as unfair, so she feels hurt by it and wary of it.

Our Optimal Motivation process suggests a different approach.  Instead of suggesting that she just get over it, we would recommend that Alexa’s leader’s work would be to address how Alexa feels, and  to help her reconnect with her passion for delighting customers, her passion for making the workplace amazing for her employees, and the important financial and competitive contribution her group makes to the welfare of the entire organization.  Her manager, then, would be engaging with Alexa in a series of Motivational Outlook Conversations.

What Would You Do?

That’s our approach (and we would be happy to talk with you more about that) but for now, let’s make this interactive.

• What would you do to help Alexa return to the proverbial sunny side of the street?
• How would you engage her manager?
• What changes do you think her manager would want to make so that she or he is successful with Alexa?

Use the comments feature.  It would be great to hear your thoughts and how you would address this situation.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

That’s a limiting perception. The job of managing people includes managing roles, goals, and day-to-day performance. Redirection is a part of that process.

In some ways it’s like flying airplanes where flight plans are set and frequent corrections in the air keep the airplane on course. The goal is a smooth flight that will arrive at the desired destination safely. But a surprise bout of turbulence may force the plane to change altitude to find smoother air space.

The same is true in the workplace. We all hope for a smooth ride in the course of achieving our goals but people sometimes experience turbulence and need “in-flight” corrections, too. This type of correction is what I call redirection.

A Closer Look at Redirection

A redirection is used for learners in a “can’t do” situation, not in a “won’t do” situation. With constantly evolving priorities, technology, and demands, many a worker is learning something new every day. Add in unclear vision, goals, or roles, and a worker can fall behind or make mistakes.

How should a new manager approach a person who needs redirection? Ken Blanchard shares a five-step process in his bestselling book, Whale Done! The Power of Positive Relationships.

Here are Ken’s five steps for redirection:

1. Describe the error objectively, without blame and without drama.  Example: “Your report was two hours late.” No eye-rolling, desk-pounding, or sarcasm. Just the facts.
2. Describe the negative impact of the error.  Example: “As a result, I had to cancel an important meeting because I did not have the data I needed in time.” Again, no emotion. Just the facts.
3. If appropriate, take the blame for not being clear.  Example: “I was giving you a lot of direction about several projects at once. Perhaps I wasn’t clear about the absolute deadline for your report.” This is an important step and can be a powerful, face-saving, loyalty-building action to take. It’s entirely possible that a new manager was not clear or specific enough.
4. Go over the task or goal again.  Example: “To be sure that I am clear this time, let me review with you what I need and when I must have it. I need….” It’s important to give very specific information and also to get agreement that what you are asking for is possible.
5. Express continued trust and reaffirm your belief in the person’s abilities.  Example: “Now that we have talked about this, I’m sure we’ll have no problem next time.” People need to know that an error will not permanently taint them.

It’s normal to occasionally get off course—especially when you are learning a new skill or taking on new goals and projects. Redirection is a natural part of the process even though it can be uncomfortable at times.  As Winston Churchill said, “I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught.”  When a correction is required, this 5-step redirection can get things back on track.

About the author:

Cathy Huett is Director, Professional Services at The Ken Blanchard Companies.  This is the third in a series of posts specifically geared toward new and emerging leaders.

Most challenging conversations are more effective when we take the time to prepare for them. I’d like to suggest five things you can do to be better prepared to guide your next challenging conversation to a successful outcome.

Gather the relevant information.

First of all, collect the relevant information pertaining to the topic of the conversation—the who, what, and why. Ask yourself:

• Who do I need to talk to?
• What is the problem?
• Why might this problem be occurring?

Envision the desired outcome.

Imagine the best possible outcome. If the conversation goes well, what will be the result? Be specific as you visualize this. Being keenly aware of your intentions will make preparation easier—and keeping those intentions in mind will guide the conversation in the direction you want it to go.

Anticipate the other person’s reactions and your response.

Think about ways the other person might react to the conversation to guard against the possibility of being blindsided by their words or actions. If you have considered their probable reactions and determined how you will best respond , you will be ahead of the game. Remember, though, that you can’t predict every reaction—even from someone you know well.

Pay attention to logistical issues.

The environment surrounding a difficult conversation can affect its outcome. A bit of forethought and preparation can have a significant positive impact. Here are some best practices for handling the logistics of the conversation.

• Schedule more than enough time – 30 minutes more than you expect.
• Hold the conversation in a private, safe, neutral location if possible.
• Make sure you will not be interrupted.
• Turn all phones and devices off.
• Have tissue available if tears are a possibility.
• Have a glass or bottle of water handy.
• If the conversation is with a direct report, be prepared to give the person the rest of the day off if needed—and do not have the conversation at the end of the day on Friday.

Decide if the conversation is worth having.

Note that I put the decision about actually having the conversation last.  Sometimes you find that the conversation itself is not as important as the deliberations you went through to prepare for it. What you really needed was to sort out your own thoughts and feelings. After all of your preparation, if you determine that you don’t need to have the conversation, you will lose nothing by changing your mind.

What other ideas do you have for preparing for challenging conversations?

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in performance and self-leadership.  You can read John’s posts on the second Thursday of each month.

Consider these five statements. True or False?

1. Money cannot buy you happiness.
2. Money may not buy happiness, but it will buy things that make you happy.
3. The more money you have, the happier you are.
4. Seeking wealth, status, or image undermines interpersonal relationships and connectedness to others.
5. Pursuing money or other materialistic values results in feeling pressured and controlled.

Did you answer True to #1? Most of us have held a programmed value since childhood that money doesn’t buy us happiness. If it did, we reason, we wouldn’t see rich people with substance abuse issues, struggling with their weight, or defending themselves in court against character or behavior accusations.

Ironically, I find that people also answer True to statements #2 and #3. Despite believing that money cannot buy happiness, they believe that money can buy things that make us happy and that the more we have, the better off we are. But that isn’t logical. If money doesn’t buy you happiness, how can having more money buy you happiness?

Research supports the notion that money and happiness are related, but not in the way you might think. If it were true that money buys the things that make us happy and that the more we have the happier we are, then we would expect happiness scales to increase when per capita wealth increases. But that isn’t the case in the United States or any other country in the world. Pursuing and achieving material wealth may increase short-term mood, but it does not increase one’s sustainable happiness.* Both statements #2 and #3 are False.

Not only does money not buy happiness or the things that make you happy, but the more that materialistic values are at the center of your life, the more the quality of your life is diminished. This lower quality of life is reflected in a variety of measures including low energy, anxiety, substance abuse, negative emotion, depression, and likelihood to engage in high-risk behaviors. 

The Problem with More

Interestingly, when individuals are asked what level of wealth they need to be happy, both the poor and the rich respond with relative amounts of “more.” No matter how much you have, you always want more—more money, belongings, toys, status, power, or image. But here’s the thing: No amount of riches will buy security, safety, trust, friendship, loyalty, a longer life, or peace of mind. Moreover, thinking you can buy these things destroys any real chance of experiencing them.

Therein lies the problem. We’ve been programmed to believe that our well-being depends on the quantity of what we have. There is a current TV commercial where a little girl tries to explain why more is always better—which is the message the advertiser is trying to convey because that’s what they are offering you—more. The irony is that the little girl simply cannot explain why more is better. It really is funny. But it disproves the very point the advertiser is hoping to make. More is not always better—it is simply a belief that most of us have yet to challenge. 

Quality Over Quantity

What if we were to turn the table and focus on quality over quantity? Consider your answer to statement #4. Did you answer it True? One of our most basic and crucial human needs is for relatedness with others. This longing for connectedness is obvious in the explosion of social media and online dating services. The lack of relatedness is detrimental to everything including the quality of our physical and mental health. Research indicates that relatedness is thwarted by the pursuit of materialism.* Yet we rarely link materialistic values and goals to the undermining of interpersonal relationships that influence the quality of our life.

Statement #5 is also True. If you follow any of the popular culture regarding the effects of extrinsic motivation, or what we call suboptimal Motivational Outlooks, you understand the negative impact that feeling pressure or control has on creativity, discretionary effort, and sustained high productivity and performance. And yet, organizations are hesitant to generate alternatives to pay-for-performance schemes and incentivizing behavior, despite the proof that those systems based on materialistic values generate the pressure and control that undermine the quality of our work experience—and our results. 

Our Values Shape Us

And here is a great sadness. When you operate from materialistic values, it not only undermines your well-being, it also negatively affects the health and well-being of others. When our focus is on material pursuits, we become less compassionate and empathetic. Our values shape the way we work, play, live, and make decisions. And those decisions impact the world around us.*

Each of us has an amazing opportunity with the understanding gained through recent research and the evolution of human spirit. We can shift our focus from the value of materialism to the more empowering values of acceptance, compassion, emotional intimacy, caring for the welfare of others, and contributing to the world around us. Not only will this shift in focus improve the quality of our own lives, it will also create a ripple effect that ultimately will improve the quality of life for others. For the reality is that the most important things in life cannot be bought. Indeed, they are priceless.

* For supporting research and more information on this topic, I highly recommend the following resources:

• The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser
• The Handbook of Self-Determination Theory Research by Deci and Ryan
• The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz
• Website:  www.selfdeterminationtheory.org

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.

Here’s the reality.  If you need super-vision, you are not leading, you are babysitting.

How to really lead remote employees?  Start by shifting your mindset.

• Know your role. You are not an Olympic judge holding up signs to rate a performance. Your job is to help employees contribute to your organization’s success today and develop them to contribute more tomorrow.
• Recognize that over monitoring leads to malicious compliance, not enthusiasm and extra effort.

Second, look for ways to improve the measurement and tracking of contributions.

• Make sure you are monitoring outcomes and results instead of activities.
• Consider setting targeted, shorter goals.  Explore work planning concepts like Agile Strategy. Use two to four week goal sprints to provide prompt recognition and spur innovation to increase productivity and results.
• Seek out data sources where employees can monitor their own results.   Try to model the automated school zone boards that report your speed as 34 in a 25 mph zone. Build in systems so both you and your employees receive automatic feedback for recognition and improvement. Don’t make them wait for their quarterly review to get feedback.
• Develop your measures collaboratively.  Even if you previously performed an employee’s job, some aspects of the role have probably changed.  Work together to identify what real success looks like.  It builds commitment and increases the accuracy of performance measures.

Work—particularly virtual work—requires us to re-think our notion of leadership and re-imagine our performance management systems. None of the recommendations provided here are easy to implement.  The alternative, though, is for our leaders to struggle and our employees to be hampered by that struggling.  In the long run, relying on super-vision gets us nowhere.

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

The program explains the link between three basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence and what we call Motivational Outlooks—the actual motivational experience someone develops around a particular task, goal, or situation. And it teaches people how to shift from suboptimal motivation to optimal motivation anytime they want.

And that’s what I need right now.

As I write this, it is the end of a very long Sunday—a day, some say, for rest. But I worked fifteen hours today after working six yesterday. It is now 12:53 a.m. on Monday morning. I have hardly eaten. I missed phone calls from my dad and from my friends Emily, Alison, and Anthony. I have a meeting 90 miles from home tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., which means being up at 5:30. I am exhausted.

Low Quality Motivation

The aggravation I feel is akin to one of the six Motivational Outlooks—the Imposed Motivational Outlook. It is a feeling of resentment that the deadline is so tight, that I feel as if we are in a fire drill, and that it is seen as unreasonable to ask for a weekend free of work and have that reasonable request honored. The Imposed Motivational Outlook tonight comes with a sound track. It plays Noooobody knoooows the troubles I’ve seen…

High Quality Motivation

But, I also feel exhilaration knowing this program is onto something big and important. We are not only tapping a vein—we are shaping the conversation about how motivation in the workplace could be experienced and how the conversation among leaders in HR and business ought to operationalize motivation in everyday programs, systems, and conversations. This is the Integrated Motivational Outlook because all of this vast work is linked to my deepest values and sense that we are making a real difference.

I’m thinking about how my sense of relatedness has been both undermined and supported today. I have felt pressured to get this work done, but I also have felt free to do it using my personal flair and creativity. My sense of competence is soaring because something that used to seem daunting now just seems like any other big project that takes a lot of time, focus, and skill—a project that pretty much anyone could master given the right skill, mindset—or Motivational Outlook—and environment.

Now at nearly 1:00 a.m., writing, expressing, and sharing requires a great deal of self-regulation—to remain focused, to remain sanguine, and to remain awake!

Shift if You Want To

Through it all, I have an incredible tool to help me monitor and manage my Motivational Outlook—and shift it if I want to. Which experience will win this very late night? With what perspective will I color this very long day? Will it be aggravation and exhaustion, or exhilaration from the knowledge that I, as well as the program, have taken strides today toward a higher level of performance and contribution? Will I choose Imposed or Integrated around the time requirements, values, and purpose of this work?

With the last flickers of my synapses, with the final shallow breaths of my groggy self, with the last blinks of my bloodshot and bleary eyes, on the roller coaster of well-being, I choose Integrated and I think to myself, “Physician—heal thyself!”

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

The quick answer is:  It’s about both you and your team. There are two ways to look at your new role.

First, it’s about you. It’s about you in terms of your ability to show the way, provide hope, stay optimistic, and be a positive role model. It’s about your willingness to listen well to your people and hear their concerns and new ideas. It’s about you having the courage to say what needs to be said—to your people, your peers or your boss—on behalf of your team.  It’s about you using your corporate machete to create career paths for your people through your company’s jungle. It’s about teaching and explaining (again) and supporting and encouraging (always).  It’s about noticing the true condition of your most valuable corporate resource—the people under your care.

Second, it’s about them. Are your people’s roles and goals clear?  Do they have a voice and a forum with you to express themselves? Your direct reports are ambitious. They want to know they can trust you with their careers and that you have their best interests at heart. They want to know their time with you is well spent. They want to know the vision and the plan. They want to learn and grow. It’s about them and whether they stay—stay working for your company, stay with you in your department, stay loyal, stay engaged, stay positive, stay current, and stay successful.

No one says becoming a good manager is easy. But it’s not so tricky if you believe at your core that your job is to help others succeed and that, by so doing, you too will succeed. Ken Blanchard asks this question to those who aspire to leadership: “Are you here to serve or to be served?”  Your response to Ken’s question will set the tone for your new management career.

For new managers, there are many ways to leave a positive mark.  Look at what your people need from you and look inside yourself for ways to meet their needs. Ironically, meeting their needs will, in turn, meet your needs as a new manager.

About the author:

Cathy Huett is Director, Professional Services at The Ken Blanchard Companies.  This is the second in a series of posts specifically geared toward new and emerging leaders.

One of the main themes of her story is that businesses are asking employees to work harder without providing the kinds of rewards—financial and psychological—that were once routine. As Semuels explains, “Employers figure that if some people quit, there are plenty of others looking for jobs.”

Paul Osterman, co-director of the MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research, who was quoted in the story, agrees. He says, “Wages are stagnant, jobs are less secure, work is more intense — it’s a much tougher world.”

For example, Semuels quotes Matt Taibi of Providence, Rhode Island, who routinely works twelve-hour days as a driver for UPS. “There’s more and more push toward doing more with less workers,” says Taibi. “There are more stops, more packages, more pickups. What’s happening is that we’re stretched to our limits and beyond.”

All workers are being impacted

Semuels reports that salaried workers are also experiencing the harsher work environment. While an over-forty-hour work week has routinely been a part of salaried positions, workers often enjoyed a measure of autonomy in their schedules.

That’s increasingly rare, says David Tayar, who spent a decade on salary as an associate attorney at a Manhattan law firm. He says that the demands of his job grew so much in that time, he eventually felt that he could never take a break.

When he started, Tayar says, “I checked my voice mail every few hours. Today, lawyers must check their BlackBerrys every few minutes — and be prepared to cancel a dinner, a weekend trip, or a vacation at a moment’s notice.” Tayar says he took just one day of vacation in a five-year stretch.

“You could never totally relax — you could be called at any time, unless you were officially on vacation,” Tayar says. “And even if you were, there were times when you would be called in to work.”

In defense of the common tactic of reducing headcount, cutting costs, and driving higher levels of productivity, Tim Meyer, an executive with private equity firm Gores Group of Los Angeles, explains, “Sometimes you have to make dramatic changes to save the jobs that you can.”

But it’s come at a cost, says HR Specialist Donna Prewoznik . “The relationship between employers and employees has changed,” she says. “Employees haven’t had raises. They’re tired. Their hours are reduced. They feel a little bit betrayed.”

What’s your experience doing more with less in today’s work environment?  Share your comments below—or check out the hundreds that have been posted online in response to Semuels’ article.  You can read more by checking out The Tougher Workplace series here.

In the workplace as well as other areas of our lives, we sometimes encounter people who apparently are stuck in the mode of complaining and unwilling to move toward resolution.  I have discovered a simple process to help complainers move from whining to action.

1. Hear them out. First, hear them out one more time. When they complain again—and you know they will—take the time to listen to them, giving them your full attention and energy. It is best to do this in a private setting where neither of you will be distracted.

2. Summarize their issue. Next, when you are sure that you understand the problem at hand and the other person feels heard, interrupt them if necessary and gently say, “Let me make sure I fully understand.” Restate the situation and their frustration as you see it. For example, if they have been complaining about being micromanaged, you might say, “What I’m hearing is that you are frustrated because your boss is micromanaging you.” Get their agreement to your summary—but do not let them continue with their rant.

3. Help them consider their options. Now ask this magic question: “Understanding that this is the situation, what are your options?” In a best-case scenario, they will have some ideas and you can help them come up with an action plan. Chances are, however, that they are too stuck to think of any options. If so, lead with some ideas of your own and solicit their feedback. Either way, help them consider their options and decide on their next steps.

4. Make them accountable for next steps. To add an element of accountability, at the end of the conversation summarize the agreed-upon action plan. Ask the person when they plan to take the first step and set up a date and time to check in with them

What do you do if, despite all your efforts, the other person refuses to move on and seems as if they want to stay stuck?

At this point, I suggest a few options:

• Try to help them understand the effect being stuck is having on them and on those around them. Hopefully, you can stir them to action.
• Refer them to someone else for counseling. Perhaps the HR department has some options for them.
• Remember to take care of yourself. It may be time to ask yourself: Is this relationship worth the emotional drain I experience each time we are together?

I hope these thoughts help you to move others to action. Let me know any other ideas you have to help others get unstuck.

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in performance and self-leadership.  You can read John’s posts on the second Thursday of each month.

For those of us who work at home or remotely, or even in an office, it’s a great time to refocus on what we do—consciously or subconsciously—that looks like work but often isn’t.

Here are three ways that people pretend to work.

Attend meetings

Our egos tell us that it is critical to stay fully informed on any project that has the potential to even slightly impact us. Even though meetings are largely ineffective, attending lots of them keeps you very busy. When you attend lots of meetings your calendar stays full—and yet you accomplish very little. This is perhaps the best way to pretend to work without really working.

Be hyper-responsive on emails and phone calls

Don’t read or think too much about each email, just respond quickly. In fact, responding to emails while passively attending a meeting can ensure that neither activity is truly productive. When you keep your email up all day and respond immediately, you can feel a great sense of “pretend” accomplishment. Since sending emails results in receiving more emails, you can honestly say, “I got 150+ emails today. I am exhausted!” This is probably very true.

Focus on speed and quantity, not quality, of communication

The accepted best practice around emails is this: If the third email hasn’t clarified the issue—pick up the phone. Ignoring this rule means you can have long strings of emails that show activity without really accomplishing work. Make sure you have an email trail that recaps every action taken. This ensures that you can always justify your lack of productivity by pointing to a flaw in someone else’s email.

Have you been caught by any of these strategies? Although I don’t know anyone who deliberately uses these strategies to avoid work, I suspect we have all had extremely busy days when we questioned our productivity and accomplishments.

Just in case you want to be very productive (which you do), here are some tips:

• Carefully choose which meetings, and how much of each meeting, you will attend.
• Focus on the quality of your communication, including reflecting or researching before you respond.
• Let others know your priority to set aside times for focused concentration, professional development, process improvement, and idea generation. Let people know when you will and won’t be available to respond quickly.

Using these strategies will require less energy, less activity, and fewer emails, and therefore will result in higher productivity.

Well, okay … you can still pretend to be tired, even if you‘re not!

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

The Power of Autonomy

In complementary terms used in the Optimal Motivation program, when we experience high quality autonomy at work (as well as relatedness and competence), we are more likely to be more creative, more positively energetic (as opposed to relying on stress energy) and more easily focused on accomplishing any task or goal, no matter how short-term, tactical, and mundane—or long-term, strategic, and magnificent.  While leaders repeatedly report they want such creativity and focus from employees, employees repeatedly report how difficult leaders often make it for employees to feel those things.

For example, during a recent keynote presentation, several frustrated participants offered detailed examples of policies, procedures, and both overt and tacit cultural rules that make it difficult for them to feel free, creative, and positively energetic as persistently as the work demands.  Nonetheless, a traditional leader response to such frustration is to tell the employees to stop complaining and adjust in some way so they feel less frustrated.  Of course, by all means let’s all learn how to source our own sense of autonomy no matter what we are faced with.  As if on cue in that conversation, one participant made precisely that a point by citing Viktor Frankl’s experience in a concentration camp as evidence of the kind of transcendence that is possible even in the most extreme environments.  It’s a story to live by, to be sure.

Leaders Stepping Up

But, I think we also should be talking about the extent to which managers and executives actively step up to the challenges of changing policies and procedures—and organizational systems—that foment such frustration.  Too many executives take a “deal with it” stance, rather than a stance of “let’s look into how we can modify or change this so you don’t have to spend so much mental and emotional energy coping with it like that anymore.”

Willing executives could see such a response as adding moral substance to their leadership, since it would shift from focusing only on what the executives want from employees (to just deal with it and get on with the work) to focusing more on what they want for their employees (a work environment that makes it easy for employees to autonomously commit themselves to meaningful, high quality, and high volume work.)

Leader, Would You Like to Shift?

Blanchard research shows that employees generally respond positively to this leadership upgrade with greater intentions to work at above average levels, to endorse the organization, and to stay with the organization longer.  So, with such employee and organizational advantages, managers and executives, what have you got to lose?

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler 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.

Can you determine at least three important take-aways in this story from a plant manager in India who recently learned the skill of conducting Motivational Outlook Conversations?

On his first day back after his training, the plant manager noticed a Technical Service Executive in the lab having a discussion with an external contractor. While she was wearing safety glasses, the contractor was not. The manager has a no tolerance policy as far as safety is concerned and his normal response would be to call the technician to his office and in his words, “read her the riot act.”

According to the manager’s self-assessment: “I am known to blow a fuse (or two) when safety rules are flouted, however, I managed to keep my cool and decided to test my training.”

He asked the technician to his office and could see that she was worried about his reaction. But instead of leading with his dismay and disappointment, he started by explaining that he had just received some training on motivation. He shared key concepts with her. He then asked her if she thought that the rule to wear safety glasses, even when there was no experiment on, was “stupid” as there is no danger to the eyes. Did she feel imposed upon to wear safety glasses as she had no choice?

Since the technician was invited to have a discussion rather than “dressing down,” she was open and candid. She explained that she had a two-year old child and she was extremely concerned about lab safety as she wanted to reach home safe every evening. To the manager’s great surprise, she also shared that in certain areas, she would prefer even more, not less, stringent safety measures. For example, she suggested that safety shoes should be required for lab experiments that are conducted at elevated temperatures.

But when it came to wearing safety glasses when no experiments were being conducted, she just could not understand the rationale and did, indeed, resent the imposed rule. As a result, she didn’t feel compelled to enforce it, especially with an external contractor. The manager said he understood her feelings and went on to provide the rationale that the intention was that wearing glasses would become a force of habit, just like wearing a safety belt in the car.

The manager said he saw the light dawn in her eyes.

When it comes to your leadership and the motivation of those you lead, consider:

1. Self-regulation is a requirement if you want to lead differently—and better. Challenging your natural tendencies and patterns of behavior provides you with more options on how to lead. The new choices you make can be rewarding and productive for you, but especially for those you lead. As the plant manager reported: “I am sure if I had just followed my normal instincts and given her a piece of my mind, I would have been met with a hangdog look, profuse apologies, and a promise not to ever do this again. And it probably would have happened again. She would have gone away from my office with feelings of resentment and being imposed upon and I would also have had a disturbed day due to all the negative energy.”

2. Admit when you are trying something new. Be honest about expanding your leadership skills. People will appreciate your sincere and authentic efforts. Says the plant manager: “Suffice it to say that in my view, my little experiment was a success. I have since shared what I learned with many of my team members and plan to have more Motivational Outlook Conversations with them in the coming weeks.”

3. Remember that as a manager you cannot motivate anyone. What you can do is create an environment where an individual is more likely to be optimally motivated. Ask (and genuinely care about) how a person is feeling, help them recognize their own sense of well-being regarding a particular issue, and provide them with rationale without trying to “sell” it.

Other take-aways? Please share!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

One thing is certain – trust is at the heart of a successful work from home policy. If your work from home policy isn’t based on the premise that your employees are trustworthy, and if the boundaries of the policy don’t nurture and protect trust, you’ll find that allowing employees to work from home will be an ongoing source of suspicion, resentment, and irritation.

Working from home can provide tremendous benefits to both the employer and the employee. Studies have shown that working from home can increase motivation, productivity, efficiency, and allow for better work/life balance. I know that when I work from home I often work longer, harder, and accomplish more than when I’m in the office.

Based on my experience in managing a large team composed of a mixture of office-based and home-based associates, here are some tips I’d pass along:

1. Have a written policy. The policy should include who is eligible to work from home, technology requirements, communication norms, etc.

2. Be clear on performance expectations. It’s easy for people to fly under the radar when working from home. Make sure goals are clear, regular one-on-one meetings are scheduled to stay in touch, and performance evaluation standards are clear.

3. Deal with performance issues. Don’t let poor performance slide. It’s easy to adopt the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy with remote workers but you should treat them the same as you do associates in the office. If you noticed an employee arriving to work 40 minutes late every day you’d have a discussion with him/her, right? Do the same with your telecommuters.

4. Evaluate people on results. It’s critical to have some sort of performance metrics in place to gauge an employee’s effectiveness. Whether you adopt a Results Oriented Work Environment philosophy, have employees keep time sheets, or audit work samples, it’s important that you have a method of evaluating a remote worker’s productivity and effectiveness.

5. Be transparent and fair. Publish your policy. Talk about it with your team. Let everyone know exactly where they stand when it comes to working from home. Vague or inconsistent telecommuting policies breed suspicion and resentment in teams.

6. Set people up to succeed. Make sure your remote workers have all the tools they need to succeed such as the right training, technology, and equipment. Remote workers need to be high performers in their role and be technologically savvy in order to operate independently.

Working from home isn’t for everyone. Not every employee has the home work environment, personality type, or work ethic to be a successful telecommuter. Working from home can provide just as many distractions as those found in the office so it’s important to have clear boundaries in place and be consistent in how you apply the policy within your team or organization.

What is your experience in working from home or managing those who do? Feel free to share your expertise by posting a comment.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Beyond absolutely loving that visual, the question really caught me. How often to do you hear someone ask you why you do what you do?

My “whys” are straightforward.

First, I think all employees, from today’s new hires to the most seasoned top execs, long for a more fulfilling work experience than they have.  Most can’t, or won’t, say it like that—not in such blatant terms.  But their words, body language, mental and physical exhaustion, dry business approach, and chronic complaints about other people (seldom about themselves, of course) offer some evidence of this assertion.

Second, the need is widespread. I have never had less than one individual from a consulting, coaching, or training program in any organization come up and tell me during or afterwards, “You need to get my boss to learn this stuff.”  They explain that the motivational culture they currently work in consists mostly of pressure and demands for ever greater accountability.

My third reason is the most potent of them all.  It helps make the entire world a better place.  In essence, this is optimal motivation as moral agent.  Huh?  Moral agent?  Well, I believe people long to do good work.  They long to be part of organizational cultures that are psychologically healthy, intellectually vibrant, and purposefully productive. Motivation research shows we thrive with such vitality and well-being.  And don’t you think employees also have a right to it, too?

In the end, my biggest why is that enriching the work environment by teaching others how to leverage the most up-to-date science of motivation in practical ways is the morally right thing to do.  It’s one small action that offers the fresh possibility of making life more fulfilling for everyone.

When asked how well the traditional mantras of, “Results, results, results!” and, “People need to be held accountable,” helps them thrive at work, most employees report, “They don’t—not really.”  We have enough old approaches like that. Instead, what we need now is actionable individual, interpersonal, and systems-focused tools that help all employees—individual contributors and management alike—to rejuvenate their stale and pressure-filled work environments.  We need psychologically healthy ways to bring employees alive, and to make work—and our entire lives—better.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler 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.

The first common characteristic focuses on relationships and support. People say that their best boss cared about them, gave them opportunities, and created a great working environment.  They made work fun and they were supportive.

Second, there is the performance and expectations aspect. People will share that their work was demanding, meaningful, and that their boss expected a lot from them.  They also share that their best boss saw qualities in them that they didn’t necessarily see in themselves.

In an article for Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter, I share some examples from Gallup, Southwest Airlines, and  WD-40 Company to make the case for adopting a high support—high expectations workplace. You can read the complete article at this link, but in the meantime, here are some takeaways for creating this dual focus environment.

1. Set challenging goals. Expect the best from people by setting goals that stretch their abilities. Look beyond what people can currently do and set a stake in the ground at the next level of achievement. Hard goals encourage growth, demonstrate trust, and develop competence. Be sure to set these goals as a partnership—it conveys respect and garners buy-in.
2. Meet regularly. Conduct brief, focused meetings on a weekly basis to discuss progress against goals, identify roadblocks, and brainstorm solutions. Demonstrate your commitment to an employee’s success by sharing one of your most precious resources—your time and attention.
3. Provide feedback. Celebrate and recognize achievements. Provide redirection when necessary. Feedback shows that you are paying attention as a leader, consider the work important, and are invested in the employee’s development.

Leaders become “best bosses” by expecting a lot from their people AND also providing high levels of support along the way.  Look back at your own experience and you’ll probably discover that your best boss brought out the best in you because he or she expected a lot and also supported your growth and development. That’s the one-two punch that creates high levels of engagement and performance!

Their conclusion?

“Cutting yourself off, or choosing not to focus on the people side of the equation, can—and will—be a problem that will impact your development as a leader.”

Have you inadvertently cut yourself off from your people?  Many leaders have.  It’s usually because of time pressures, or a single-minded focus on results—but sometimes it’s also a conscious choice to create “professional distance” that allows you the emotional room to make tough choices.

That’s a mistake say the Blanchards. “The best working relationships are partnerships. For leaders, this means maintaining a focus on results along with high levels of demonstrated caring.”

They go on to caution that, “The relationship foundation has to be in place first. It’s only when leaders and managers take the time to build the foundation that they earn the permission to be aggressive in asking people to produce results. The best managers combine high support with high levels of focus, urgency, and criticality. As a result, they get more things done, more quickly, than managers who do not have this double skill base.”

Don’t limit yourself—or others

Don’t limit yourself, or others, by focusing on just one half of the leadership equation.  You don’t have to choose.  In this case you can have it all.  Create strong relationships focused on jointly achieving results. To read the complete article—including some tips on getting started—be sure to check out Getting Your Team Emotionally Engaged Is Half The Leadership Battle. Here’s How To Do It

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In a special presentation on Performance Planning: 5 ways to set your people up for success, Hester will be exploring how leaders can improve performance by identifying potential gaps that trip up even the best of leaders.

Participants will learn:

• How to set clear goals
• The lazy leadership habits to avoid
• The 3 keys to “connecting the dots” and diagnosing development level

The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 500 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, John will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  John will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

The total program included modules around personality, values, organization vision and alignment, leadership style, high performing teams, change management, and motivation—the gamut.

This final module consisted of five one-hour-long group presentations about various aspects of their learning journey and its impact on people, process, and results. We asked about personal insights, how they applied their learning to real work, and what the human and economic impacts were of such application. And finally, in terms of their development, we asked them what they wanted to do next.

In terms of roles, the “what’s next” question revealed an array of ambitions. One wants to be CEO within 10 years. Another wants to lead the expansion of engineering capabilities in the African subsidiaries. And a third sees a future in corporate strategy with the aim of improving how global change initiatives are conceived and executed.

What was most beautiful was not the ambitions themselves, although I often feel their gravitational pull compelling me to double-check my own goals and velocity toward them. Instead, the most heartening aspect of their ambitions was how they promised to approach them.

Reduce Pressure to Go Fast

Whereas in the past, on their way to greater roles and responsibilities, these executives would have passed the pressure they received from their bosses to others in direct proportion—or even amplify it—now they realize that pressure often does more harm than good. The motivation research shows that pressure is easily internalized as a form of control, which then undermines a person’s eagerness to perform an act voluntarily and with an optimistic sense of purpose. In other words, pressure creates a negative Motivational Outlook, which slows the pace and quality of work in the moment and in the long run.

These executives also described how they helped even very senior employees build additional competence faster than before, and how those employees then displayed increased confidence that they could handle even more-complex projects. It was nice to hear, too, how the quality of their relationships improved as a result.

Executives take a lot of heat—much of it deserved—for leading as if people do not matter much. So, I decided to share this with you because I wonder what you think when you read about executives who have dedicated themselves to leading in challenging times with boldness, grace, warmth, ever-increasing skill, and maturity. How does it inspire you or catalyze new thinking about how you lead?

It was a privilege to watch these leaders commit to a truly human—and humane—approach to leading others, and to see that by actually doing it things are already improving for them and everyone around them. Sometimes it is nice to take a break and simply enjoy watching people flower and shine right in front of our very eyes. I thought you might enjoy that, too.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together  with Susan Fowler 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.

Wondering if you might be making some of these common mistakes in your own goal setting with employees?  Here’s what Hester warns against.

• Goals are not realistic. Stretch goals are great, but if they are out of reach they become demotivating and can even cause some employees to engage in unethical behavior to achieve them. In addition to making sure a goal is attainable, goals should be monitored and adjusted as needed during the year.
• Setting too many goals. When employees have too many goals they can easily lose track of what is important and spend time on the ones they “want” to do or that are easier to accomplish whether or not they are the highest priority.
• Setting goals and then walking away. Goal setting is the beginning of the process, not an end in itself. Once goals are set, managers need to meet regularly to provide support and direction to help employees achieve their goals.
• Setting a “how” goal instead of a “what” goal. Goals should indicate “what” is to be accomplished—the end in mind—not “how” it should be accomplished.

3 Ways to Improve Goal Setting

For managers looking to make their goal setting and performance planning more effective, Hester recommends focusing on three key areas.

Approach goal-setting as a partnership. Recognize that performance planning is not something that you should do alone. This is something to be done in partnership with your team member. It’s a collaborative process. So the manager needs to know what the employee’s key areas of responsibility are, what is expected in the role, and what they want to see in terms of performance. The key is to have that discussion with the employee.

Make sure the goal is SMART (or SMMART). Anytime you set a goal, objective, or an assignment, you need to make sure that it meets the simple SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). Hester also believes that there should be a second “M” in the SMART acronym to account for employee Motivation. This means the manager needs to additionally ask, “What is it about this goal that is motivating? What difference does it make in the organization, or to the team, or to the individual employee?”

Diagnose competence and commitment levels. Finally, managers need to consider an employee’s individual competence and commitment level for a task. It’s a common mistake to assume that because a person is a veteran employee, they will be experienced at any new task that might be set before them. This is often incorrect. It’s important that a manager find out about experience with a specific task and then partner with the employee to determine what they need in terms of direction and support to be successful with this particular assignment.

To learn more about Hester’s advice for improved goal setting and performance with your people, be sure to check out the article Goal Setting Needs to Be a Partnership.  Also be sure to check out Hester’s January 23 webinar on Performance Planning: 5 ways to set your people up for success—it’s free courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

For the past several weeks (and several weeks ahead for procrastinators) managers around the world have been meeting with their direct reports to review last year’s goals, measure performance, and determine pay increases.

If you are in the middle of performance reviews with your people, here are two radical ideas inspired by a recent article Scott and Ken Blanchard wrote for Fast Company, The Best Gift Managers Can Give Their Employees This Season.

In the article, Scott and Ken identified that two of the most important ingredients missing in today’s manager-direct report conversations are growth and considering the employee’s agenda.

In some ways, that’s not surprising considering the cautious way most companies have been operating during our slow, tepid economic recovery.  “Just lucky to have a job,” has become institutionalized after four years of a weak employment picture and little or no growth in many industries.

But 2013 feels different.  There’s a small, but flickering sense of optimism in the air.  (Maybe it’s because that Mayan calendar scare is over—it is, isn’t it?)

Are you ready to move forward?  Here are three new ways of thinking.  How could you add these components into your next performance management or goal setting conversation either as a manager or direct report?

1. Think growth.  Yes, GROWTH!  It’s time.  People can only tread water for so long.  Eventually, you have to start swimming somewhere.  Developing new skills in your present job—and seeing the next step on your career path are both important factors that lead to happiness, well-being and better performance at work.  What can you add to your list of skills during the coming year?  What move can you make (even a small one) that will get you one step closer to your next career objectives?
2. Think connection. Who can help you along the way?  There is only so much that you can do on your own and left to your own devices.  We all need some help.
3. Think helping others. The late Zig Ziglar (who passed away earlier this year) was famous for identifying that, “You can get just about anything you want out of life as long as you are willing to help others get what they want.” But it has to begin with you.  Who can you reach out to this week or next?  Who can you help take the next step toward their career plans?

In their article for Fast Company Scott and Ken Blanchard share an important paradox for anyone in business to remember.  The more you give, the more that comes back to you.

Add a little bit of giving into your work conversations in 2013.  Talk about growth issues with your direct reports.  Find out how you can help.  You’ll be surprised at how much comes back to you during the course of the year.

A best-selling business book (and one that I had never heard of until earlier this month) addresses a key piece of the accountability issue.  Leadership and Self-Deception was first published in 2000 and then re-issued as a second edition in 2010.  The book has sold over 1,000,000 copies since it was published and sales have grown every year since it was first “discovered” by HR, OD, and change practitioners.

What makes the book so different (and hard to describe) is that it looks at work behavior as fundamentally an inside-out proposition.  We basically act out externally what we are feeling inside.  Bad behavior externally—doing just enough to get by, compliance instead of commitment, and putting self-interest ahead of team or department goals—are justified because of the way that that colleagues, managers, and senior leaders are acting in return.

The folks at The Arbinger Institute, the corporate authors of the book, call this “in the box thinking” and they believe it is the root cause of many of the problems being experienced at work today.

Is your organization stuck “in the box?”

Wondering if negative attitudes inside might be causing poor accountability on the outside in your organization? Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself.

• Where are the trouble spots in your organization?  Where are people getting the job done but it seems to always be at minimum level of performance—and with a low sense of enthusiasm and morale?
• What are the possible attitudes and beliefs among members of that team or department that make them feel justified in their behaviors?  Why do they feel it is okay to narrow the scope of their job, focus on their own agenda, and do only what’s required to stay out of trouble—but not much more?
• What can you do to break the cycle of negative thinking that keeps people “in the box?”

Climbing out of the box

Surprisingly, the answer to breaking out of the box starts with expecting more of yourself and others. People climb into the box when they decide to do less than their best.  The folks at Arbinger describe this as “self-betrayal” and it sets in motion all sorts of coping strategies that end up with self-focused behaviors.  Don’t let that happen in your organization.  Here are two ways that you can help people see beyond their self interests.

1. Constantly remind people of the bigger picture and their role in it.  Set high standards and hold people accountable to them.
2. Second, and just as important, provide high levels of support and encouragement for people to do the right thing.  Make it easy for people to put the needs of the team, department, and organization ahead of their own.  Look at reward, recognition, and compensation strategies.  Look at growth and career planning.  What can you do to free people up to focus on the needs of others instead of themselves?

Change behavior by changing beliefs

Accountability is a tough issue to address because most people feel justified in their actions and opinions.  Don’t let your people self-justify their way into lower performance.  It’s not good for them and it’s not good for your organization.  Lead people to higher levels of performance.  Help people find the best in themselves.

“Shocking,” he exclaimed again before I could put up the second part of the slide. I asked the obvious question, “Why is this so shocking?” His reply: “My whole career I have been told my job was to motivate my people, now you tell me I can’t. No wonder I’ve been so frustrated.”

I revealed the second part of the slide: What managers can do is create an environment where people are more likely to experience optimal motivation at work.

Now this may not seem so shocking if you accept that motivation is truly an inside-out job–only an individual can determine how they are motivated. And it may be obvious that a manager’s role is to create a workplace where people can experience positive motivation. But the manager’s initial shock led to an exploration of the latest science of motivation that you might also find useful.

Over the years it has become evident that most managers do not understand how to create that motivating environment. Throwing their arms up in despair, they assumed motivating people depended on things mostly outside their managerial control such as good wages, promotions, and job security. Managers defaulted to HR to come up with better compensation schemes, more creative reward and recognition systems, and elite high potential programs.

But now we know better. If you hope to motivate–or create that motivational environment–for your staff through raises, bonuses, annual awards, or promotions, you are pinning your hopes on false promises. I can hear HR managers breathing a collective sigh of relief at the same time as they are thinking: But what do managers do differently?

Here are three things to stop doing that undermine optimal motivation and how to use the new science of motivation to make a positive difference:

1. Stop depending on your authority and hierarchical power and find ways to give your people a greater sense of autonomy. Start giving people a sense of choice by helping them generate alternative actions and solutions, discussing implications for various approaches to problems, and providing freedom within boundaries whenever possible.
2. Stop thinking business isn’t personal. Turn the old axiom around: If it is business, it must be personal. Learn how to have effective challenging conversations, take note of personal issues that may be influencing a person’s performance on any given day, and be willing to share personal stories that are relevant to work and goals.
3. Stop focusing on what was achieved today and ask instead: What did people learn today? One of the greatest joys of being a manager is also being a great teacher. If your people go home each day having learned one new thing, they will not be the only ones feeling rewarded that day–you will also find a greater sense of accomplishment and purpose in your work.

The good news is that through the latest science of motivation, we have a good, solid, research-based understanding of what motivates people in the workplace. The other good news is that managers can use that understanding to help their people enjoy a higher quality motivational work experience. And that’s the maybe not-so-shocking truth about motivation.

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.

In a special presentation on Motivation as a skill: Strategies for managers and employees, Facer will be sharing some of the research underlying Blanchard’s new Optimal Motivation program and workshops.  Participants will explore real-world examples and learn pragmatic strategies that can help managers and individual employees make progress in important areas such as engagement, innovation, and employee well-being. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 1,000 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, David will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  David will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

Managers met with their direct reports every two-weeks to discuss issues that the direct report wanted to discuss.  At the end of six months, surveys were conducted to see if the more frequent meetings impacted perceptions.

They did, but the results were mixed.

The leaders in charge of the managers who were being studied noticed a positive change in the performance of the managers and the people who reported to them.   From the senior leader’s perspective, more frequent conversations were having a positive impact on performance and morale.

The managers who were being observed had the opposite reaction.  They scored themselves lower than they had before the experiment.  The managers felt ill-prepared and somewhat ineffective in trying to solve many of the difficult issues that employee’s were facing.

The direct reports were the last group surveyed. Their reaction?  Overwhelmingly positive.  How could this be when the managers saw themselves as performing so poorly?  Hand-written comments added by the employees provided a clue, “My manager might not have all the answers, but they listen and they try.  I’ve never felt so well-supported.”

Getting started with One-on-Ones

So why don’t more managers conduct regular one-on-ones?  The top three reasons cited most often are time, lack of perceived skills, and a lack of training.  Don’t let that hold you back from spending more time with your direct reports.  Here are three ways to get started.

1. Maintain a regular schedule.  Start off meeting at least every two weeks. The meetings do not have to be long—30 minutes is a good way to begin.
2. Remember that this is the direct report’s meeting.  Your job as a manager is to listen, support, and see how you can help.
3. Be easy on yourself.  People know that you have limitations.  You don’t have to have all of the answers to be effective.  Work together with your people to identify options, access necessary resources, and plan a course of action.

Partner with your people to provide the direction and support they need to succeed.  Working together to solve issues is a great way to build relationships and improve performance at the same time. Even if you feel that you are not very good at solving all of their issues, you’ll still be having a positive impact. Don’t wait. Begin today!

Funny thing is, senior executives make the same mistake when trying to identify what motivates their direct reports.  In separate research, Facer points to studies at George Mason University where executives emphasize external factors such as compensation, job security, and promotions while employees point to inherent factors such as interesting work, being appreciated for making meaningful contributions, and a feeling of being involved in decisions.

The assumed focus on purely external motivators keeps executives and employees looking in the wrong places when trying to identify cures to the lingering lack of engagement in today’s workplaces.  While disengagement continues to hover near 70% according to recent Gallup studies (a number relatively unchanged over the past 10 years) managers and employees continue to assume that there is little that can be done to improve motivation at work.  It seems that it is completely dependent on the economy.  In other words, when times are tough and money is scarce there is very little you can do to motivate people.

This is a false assumption explains Facer and the reality is that many people remain highly motivated—even during lean times, and even in organizations struggling to make ends meet.  It is all dependent on your motivational outlook and your perceptions of the environment you are working in.

What motivates you?

Here’s an interesting exercise to try for yourself that will allow you to replicate some of the findings cited in the research.

• Identify some of the key tasks you are working on as you finish up the year.  Be sure to write down tasks that you are looking forward to getting done as well as the ones that you’ve been procrastinating on. Don’t make the list too long.  About 5-7 items will help you see the pattern.
• What’s your motivation for finishing each task by the end of the year?  While there are actually six motivational outlooks, let’s look at two broad categories—Sub-optimal motivators (tasks you have to do because of negative consequences or promised rewards) and Optimal motivators (tasks you want to do because they are meaningful and part of a bigger picture you see for yourself and your organization).
• How many of your tasks fall into each category?  What’s your engagement level with each task as a result?

If you are like most people, you’ll find that your engagement level (and subsequent performance and well-being levels) are highest on the tasks where you see the work aligned with personal and organizational goals.  You’ll find that the tasks being done merely to avoid punishment or gain rewards are at a lesser level.

As leaders, it’s important to connect our individual work—and the work of others—to something bigger and more meaningful than just avoiding punishment and gaining rewards.  Don’t let misconceptions about what motivates you—and others—keep you and your team from performing at their best.

To learn more about Facer’s approach to motivation, be sure to read, Motivation Misunderstanding and Rethinking Motivation: It’s time for a change.  Also check out Facer’s complimentary November 28 webinar, Motivation as a skill: Strategies for managers and employees.  The event is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

One day I noticed that Sue left at 1:30 in the afternoon without saying a word. The next day, she left at 2:00. The next, 1:30 again. I started to get a little annoyed and, despite all previous evidence to the contrary, I began to wonder if Sue was slacking off. Unfortunately, I let this go on a few more days until another employee came to me to report that Sue was leaving early each day. Now I needed to handle the situation.

I called Sue into my office and said, “I noticed you have been going home between 1:30 and 2:00 every day for the last week. Help me understand.”

Notice the language. I did not say, “I noticed you have been leaving early.” That is a judgment. I simply said what I had observed. Note that a neutral tone is critical in this type of conversation.

Sue’s response: “I’m so sorry, John. I forgot to tell you that I have been coming in at 5:00 a.m. each day for the past two weeks to let our trainers into the building and get them set up. I let Julie (our admin) know, but I forgot to tell you.”

Can you imagine how that conversation would have gone if I had assumed the bad—that Sue was slacking off and leaving early? What impact would that have had on our relationship and the trust we felt toward each other? Instead, I assumed the good— that there had to be a reasonable explanation for her behavior.

The next time you encounter behavior that does not fit what you expect—an unfriendly grocery clerk, a colleague who doesn’t return your call, a senior manager who passes you in the hall and doesn’t say “hi”—assume the best. There’s a good chance that the clerk is having a difficult day, the colleague has been so swamped they have not listened to their voice messages, and the senior manager was distracted and didn’t see you.

Give people the benefit of the doubt as you would have them do to you—a good relationship may hang in the balance.

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.  You can read John’s posts on the second Thursday of every month.

“CEOs whose personalities and dispositions were more competitive had a direct influence on the degree of competitiveness and fear experienced by members of their senior leadership teams. This resulted in a greater degree of siloed behavior within the organization and less cooperation among sub-units. The net results were less integration across the business, less efficiency, poorer service, and ultimately lower economic performance.

“A woman recently told us her CEO believed that a little bit of fear was good and that moderate to high levels of competition between people and business units were beneficial and kept the company sharp. This attitude of friendly competition inside the company permeated the culture, flowing out from the boardroom and cascading throughout the organization.

“This approach had worked for this technology company in the past, but began to become a liability as customers asked for more cross-platform compatibility. Because customers were asking for everything to work well together, these internal divisions needed to cooperate more effectively. This required the different business units to think beyond self-interest to the whole customer experience. It proved difficult to change the mindset of this historically competitive culture.”

Drive out fear

What type of culture is operating in your organization?  Is there a spirit of support, encouragement, and cooperation?  Or is a culture of fear, protectionism, and competition more present?  Today’s more sophisticated and integrated work requires a collaborative mindset.  Make sure that you are not inadvertently creating a competitive, fear-based mindset that gets in the way of people working together effectively.

As W. Edwards Deming famously reminded us, “Drive out fear.”  Fear is counter-productive in the long term, because it prevents workers from acting in the organization’s best interests.

To read more of Scott and Ken Blanchard’s thinking on creating a more engaging work environment and what top leaders can—and cannot—control check out Why Trying To Manipulate Employee Motivation Always Backfires.

The way NFL leadership has handled the referee lockout and the use of replacement referees offers several interesting lessons for leaders in any industry or organization.

Talent trumps – The NFL underestimated the gap in skill levels between their regular referees and the replacement referees, most of whom have only worked low-level college games or even just high school games. The replacement referees have had excellent attitudes and a willingness to work hard, learn, and improve. Those are critical traits for any successful employee. However, the simple fact is that they are literally out of their league when it comes to having the skills and knowledge to work in the NFL.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins emphasizes the importance of “getting the right people on the bus” and then leveraging their strengths to “drive the bus” (your organization) to its destination. Because of the way the NFL managed the lockout, the most qualified college referees were already locked into their conference schedules, so the NFL had to utilize people who weren’t qualified for the job, and as a result, their performance has been sub par. The number one rule for a leader is to hire the right people for the job and the NFL clearly deserves a penalty flag for this violation.

Training is necessary, but it shouldn’t be used to “fix” people – The NFL invested a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money in training the replacement refs on how to work in the NFL. They conducted rules clinics, refereed pre-season games, and have had weekly conference calls to evaluate their performance and work on improving their weaknesses. People can learn new skills and sharpen their existing abilities, but the purpose of training isn’t to “fix” people. Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller share a wonderful saying in their book The Secret – What Great Leaders Know and Do: “No matter how long the runway, that pig ain’t gonna fly.” Many leaders invest an incredible amount of time and resources into giving flying lessons to people who are never going to fly. Leaders have to be willing to accept the fact that there are some things that certain individuals will never learn to do well.

Your people are your brand – NFL leadership prides itself on managing its brand image. They are fond of talking about their efforts to “protect the shield” (the NFL logo) through efforts such as controlling illegal drug usage, player health and safety, and encouraging upstanding player conduct off the field. Yet they’ve willingly compromised their brand integrity by using under-qualified referees which has put player safety at risk and resulted in a sub-par product on the field. The individuals that operate your organizations and interact with your customers are the living embodiment of your company’s brand image. The focus must always be on serving the customer and delivering on your brand promise.

When people don’t perform, leaders need to look in the mirror – Whenever you have an employee who is failing in their job, you need to examine what you did or didn’t do to contribute to the situation. Referencing back to the previous points, did you hire the right person? Have you provided the correct amount and type of training? Have you clearly established the goals and performance standards and provided the specific direction and support needed? Too often we rely on our ability to make the right hiring choice and then just turn the person loose to do the job. People may have very relevant transferable skills, but there are always new things to learn or new ways of doing familiar tasks that have to be mastered. NFL leadership has no one to blame but themselves for the performance of the replacement referees.

The Monday night debacle ended up being the tipping point that drove the NFL and referees to reach a tentative agreement late last night that will end the lockout. The NFL may have succeeded in exerting their power and proving to the referee’s union who is really in charge, but in the process the league fumbled this leadership opportunity and damaged their brand integrity.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

In Fowler’s experience, you have to understand your own reasons for performing at a high level before you can help others do the same. Without that understanding, most managers attempting to “motivate” others will resort to imposed or extrinsic techniques that may only make the matter worse—for example, a “carrot” approach which dangles incentives in front of people in exchange for desired behaviors—or a “stick” approach which applies sanctions and negative consequences for undesired behaviors.

A new understanding on what motivates people

Fowler maintains that the reason for our dependence on external rewards to motivate people, especially in the workplace, is not just because they were easy and the “fast food” of motivation, but because we didn’t have alternatives—we didn’t know what truly motivates people.

That’s been changing rapidly the past couple of years as research about intrinsic motivators have begun to make their way into the work environment.

Building on the pioneering work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, researchers and practitioners have begun exploring the powerful impact that intrinsic motivators such as Autonomy (being in control of one’s own life), Relatedness (to interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others) and Competence (experience mastery) can have.

For example, researchers at The Ken Blanchard Companies have established that employee perceptions of increased Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence are positively correlated to intentions to stay with an organization, endorse the organization as a good place to work, and apply discretionary effort in service of the organization’s goals.

As Fowler explains, “The latest science of motivation gives us an entire spectrum of options beyond the carrot and stick. People want or need money and rewards, but when they believe that is what motivates them, they are missing out on much more effective and satisfying motivational experiences.”

How are you motivated?

Wondering how you can apply this latest research into your own work life?  Here are three area to explore:

1. What’s your motivation? What’s driving your performance on key work goals and tasks—is it in pursuit of rewards, avoidance of punishment, or something more meaningful and personal to you?
2. How are your needs for Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence currently being met?  Are you growing and developing skills?  Do you get a chance to work together in community with others toward a shared goal?
3. What can you do to create a more satisfying work environment for yourself and others? What small step can you take this week to start moving things in the right direction?

Work can—and should be—a motivating experience.  Sometimes we forget, or become resigned to, a transactional relationship.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Re-examine your beliefs, reframe your experience and rediscover your passion. Break out of carrot and stick thinking.  Consider the impact that increased Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competency can have on your life.

PS: You can learn more about Susan Fowler’s approach to motivation in the article Motivation As a Skill.  Also be sure to check out a free webinar that Susan is conducting on October 3, A Closer Look at the New Science of Motivation.  It’s a free event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Some organizations see mistakes as opportunities to learn.  These are the organizations that create innovative environments where people grow, develop, and improve.

Other organizations respond to mistakes by finding fault and assigning blame. As the Blanchard’s explain, “It’s a negative approach that assumes neglect or malfeasance that requires punishment. This type of attitude produces a risk-averse organization where people play it safe instead of stepping out and trying new ideas.

“Now your organization takes on a culture similar to the classic arcade game, Whac-A-Mole, where most employees keep their head down except for the unsuspecting novice who pops his head up only to have the oversized mallet pound him or her back down if their initiative fails. Once an organization develops that type of culture, it is very difficult for innovation to take hold.”

What type of culture do you have?

For organizations looking to improve, the Blanchard’s recommend a three-step process:

1. Examine your current attitude toward mistakes. As a company, what’s your typical reaction to mistakes and failures? Are they seen as an opportunity to learn or to assign blame?

2. Consider your impact as a leader. What you are personally doing to encourage people to take risks and try something truly innovative? Keeping new ideas alive is hard work. Are you recognizing the efforts of people who take risks in spite of the threat of failure?

3. Find ways to engage in positive practices as a discipline. It’s so easy for things to turn negative—both internally, inside your own head—and externally as a corporate culture. As a leader, it’s important to shift from a backwards looking attitude of fault and blame to a more forward-focused approach of identifying cause and responsibility.

Give your people the benefit of the doubt.  Assume the best intentions.  Instead of assigning blame, look to assign responsibility for moving the organization forward given what was just learned. Leaders who take this more constructive approach can begin eliminating the fear and negative inertia that plagues many organizations. With practice, you’ll see the difference you can make in the creation and adoption of new ideas.

To read the complete article, check out To Encourage Innovation, Eradicate Blame at Fast Company

Here are the top reasons Fournies heard most often and which he described in his book, Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed To and What You Can Do About It.  As you review the list, consider what you believe might be some of the root causes and solutions for each road block.

In Fournies’ experience, the root cause and solution in each case rests with the individual manager and employee.  Fournies believes that managers can minimize the negative impact of each of these potential roadblocks by:

1. Getting agreement that a problem exists
2. Mutually discussing alternative solutions
3. Mutually agreeing on action to be taken to solve the problem
4. Following-up to ensure that agreed-upon action has been taken
5. Reinforcing any achievement

Are your people doing what they are supposed to be doing?

What’s the level of purpose, alignment, and performance in your organization?  Do people have a clear sense of where the organization is going and where their work fits in?  Are they committed and passionate about the work?  Are they performing at a high level?  Take a look at the conversations and relationships happening at the manager-direct report level.  If performance is not where it should be, chances are that one of these roadblocks in getting in the way.

PS: You can learn more about Ferdinand Fournies and his two books, Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed To and What You Can Do About It, and Coaching for Improved Work Performance here at Amazon.  Both books are highly recommended for your business bookshelf.

When asked for an example of what he meant by this, he said, “Well … we are asked to acknowledge the customer, get details about the situation, listen, ensure relationship building occurs, and exceed the customer’s expectations. But when I call my manager with a question, he just gives me an answer.  For example, I needed to know if we could redo one of our customer policies given some new circumstances. My manager didn’t clarify, listen, or anything. He just said, ‘Follow the policy.’”

Chad’s observation intrigued me, as it made me realize that we forget sometimes how closely our people are watching us.  I love the question: “What are people saying about YOU at the dinner table?” As service champions, to properly support our frontline service providers we must model the service we expect others to do—we must CRAFT a vision of collegiality.

C – Connect:  Our role is to build relationships of care with the people who will be serving our customers.  One of the kindest ways to bring people together is to acknowledge the importance of their position and note that they have the power to change problems they discover. “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. We want to ensure our policies and procedures serve the customers at the highest level. Let’s follow the policy today, but let’s bring this up at our weekly meeting to see if others have similar issues. Maybe we’ll come up with a great idea to solve the problem.”

R – Recognize: We need to recognize the good others are doing. Praise individuals to the whole team—send an email specifying what someone did, how it made you feel, and its importance to the organization.  For example, let’s say the manager addresses the aforementioned issue at the weekly staff meeting. She could say, “I would like to take a minute to thank Chad for bringing up an issue that was driving a customer away and for providing his insights. It helped us to clarify our policy and exceed this customer’s expectations while creating a new policy to serve future customers at the highest level.”

A – Analyze: Consistently analyze information regarding customer issues so that you can see and share trends while proactively problem solving.  At weekly meetings, be a catalyst for innovative change by having people share their issues, examine the causes and impact of those situations, and then brainstorm best possible solutions. Creating communities of practice increases motivation to act and serve.

F – Follow up: Check back in to be sure customer situations were resolved properly, and to draw out ideas that could be utilized in the future to build organizational intelligence. A few days after resolving the situation above regarding the flawed policy, the manager might call Chad and say, “I want to thank you again for bringing up that issue regarding the policy change. Did it feel to you like our solution was a success? Do you have any other thoughts?”

T – Talk: Ask open-ended questions, listen, and acknowledge emotion while connecting to the heart of the situation. In the example above when Chad called his manager, the manager might have asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to share so I am sure I understand the situation correctly?”

By collaborating with your service providers and unleashing their best thoughts, you are modeling the service you would like them to provide for their customers. As leader and service champion, you need to CRAFT, then showcase, the behaviors that will create the devoted customers who will become your #1 sales force.

About the author:

Vicki Halsey is one of the principal authors—together with Kathy Cuff—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Legendary Service training program.  Their other-focused posts appear on the first and third Thursday of each month.

“It is always my choice: to change what I cannot tolerate, or tolerate what I cannot—or will not—change.”                     

“If only…”—you fill in the blank. It is a frequent comment I hear from clients as they are engaged in our Situational Self Leadership workshops:

• If only my manager would take this training (or would apply it) …
• If only my organization supported this …
• If only I had more time …
• If only …

The first time I hear any sort of “if only” remark in a workshop, I stop and introduce the concept of choice. We all have choices, no matter what our circumstances. The challenge is acting on those choices.

For example, imagine you are feeling oppressed by a micro-manager. (Maybe you don’t need to imagine too hard.) What are your options? I believe Self Leaders—people who proactively take responsibility for getting what they need to succeed at work—look at three options that are always available:

1. Influence. What can you do to influence your manager to provide a leadership style that matches your development level on your goals and tasks? First, communicate your status on a regular basis so your manager doesn’t feel the need to micro-manage. If that does not work, have a direct, respectful conversation where you ask for the leadership style you need.

Remember—in the end, managers have the choice to be influenced or not. That leads to our second option.

2. Accept. Acceptance means we give up the right to moan, groan, or complain to others. Acceptance means “I am willing to let this go – for now.” It does not need to be a permanent choice, but for now, you are willing to accept being micromanaged because you love your work, the people you work with, your paycheck, etc.

A warning: Acceptance of a less-than-tolerable work situation is difficult to sustain, especially for a long period of time. At some point you may try to influence again. If that doesn’t work, you may have to resort to the third option.

3. Remove. No, you cannot remove your manager—all you can remove is yourself. This means you make a choice to leave the team or the organization.

Don’t choose to be stuck

When we refuse to choose from these options, we are actually making another choice: to be stuck. Many people don’t recognize that being stuck is a choice we make, not a circumstance we are put in. It means we are unwilling to pay the price to either influence, accept, or remove. What happens when we are stuck? Not only are we miserable, but we bring everyone around us down with us—our team, our friends, our family.

The foundation of Self Leadership is to take responsibility for our lives and our choices. I encourage each of you to get unstuck and choose your response to your circumstances.

About the author:

This is the first in a series of posts by John Hester, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.  You can read John’s posts on the first Monday of every month.

The best managers learn how to tailor their management style to the needs of their employees.  For example, if an employee is new to a task, a successful manager will use a highly directive style—clearly setting goals and deadlines.  If an employee is struggling with a task, the manager will use equal measures of direction and support.  If the employee is an expert at a task, a manager will use a delegating style on the current assignment and focus instead on coming up with new challenges and future growth projects.

Are your managers able to flex their style?

Research by The Ken Blanchard Companies shows that leadership flexibility is a rare skill. In looking at the percentage of managers who can successfully use a Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating style as needed, Blanchard has found that 54 percent of leaders typically use only one leadership style, 25 percent use two leadership styles, 20 percent use three leadership styles, and only 1 percent use all four leadership styles.

Recommendations for managers

For managers looking to add some flexibility into the way they lead, here are four ways to get started:

1. Create a written list of goals, and tasks for each direct report.
2. Schedule a one-on-one meeting to identify current development levels for each task.  What is the employee’s current level of competence and commitment?
3. Come to agreement on the leadership style required of the manager.  Does the direct report need direction, support, or a combination of the two?
4. Check back at least every 90 days to see how things are going and if any changes are needed.

Don’t be a “one size fits all” manager

Leading people effectively requires adjusting your style to meet the needs of the situation.  Learning to be flexible can be a challenge at first—especially if you have become accustomed to using a “one size fits all” approach.   However, with a little training and some practice, you can learn how to accurately diagnose and flex your style to meet the needs of the people who report to you.   And the best news is, even while you are learning, your people will notice the difference.  Get started today!

Other recent articles you may be interested in:

Most employees performing significantly below their potential—but does anyone care?

How important is good management? This McKinsey research might surprise you!

Figure 1: Output increases associated with improved management practices. From Management Practice & Productivity—Exhibit 4.

The results are detailed in the white paper, Management Practice & Productivity: Why they matter.  The research team scored companies on 18 topics in three broad areas: performance management; talent management, and shop floor operations.

Surprising disconnect in most companies

The researchers were surprised to find that even though good management practices are well known and the correlation is clear, the reality is that many firms are still poorly managed.

To examine possible causes of this disconnect, respondents were asked to assess the overall management performance of their firm on a scale of one to five.  The researchers found that part of the problem was an inflated opinion of current management practices. In most cases, respondents over-estimated how they scored on the objective management measures.  This situation applied in all regions and across all firms.

The researchers found this lack of self-awareness striking. It suggested that, “…the majority of firms are making no attempt to compare their own management behaviour with accepted practices or even with that of other firms in their sector. As a consequence, many organizations are probably missing out on an opportunity for significant improvement because they simply do not recognize that their own management practices are so poor.”

How would you score the management practices in your company?

Here are three well-known manager behaviors essential to good performance.  Consider the degree to which these practices are used in your own company. Remember that the key is not knowing about these practices, but actually using them.  How would you score your organization when it comes to actually implementing these performance management basics?

1. Performance Planning: Employees have written goals that clearly identify their key responsibilities, goals, and tasks.
2. Performance Coaching: Employees meet with their supervisors on at least a twice per month basis to discuss progress, identify roadblocks, and get the direction and support they need to succeed.
3. Performance Evaluation: There are no surprises when it comes to annual reviews. Managers and direct reports are “in-synch” because performance against goals is being measured on a regular basis instead of once a year.

Don’t let an indifferent attitude toward implementing good management practices keep you and your organization from performing at a high level.  Take action today.  Good management matters!

To read the entire report, check out Management Practice & Productivity: Why they matter

That’s what Scott Blanchard, principal and EVP with The Ken Blanchard Companies, found out the hard way when his company lost a critical long-term account. An ongoing contract was terminated overnight when a new senior leader removed the entire learning and development department.

In a new article for Ignite! on Making the Business Case for Developing Your People Blanchard shares how that experience drove him to explore why some organizations see and believe the tangible value of investments in training while others don’t. He also shares how it provided the impetus to build a business case that would satisfy even the most hard-nosed of executives.

Understanding employee development

Blanchard discusses how the key was showing the correlation between leadership practices and employee development. He combines research that shows how strategic and operational leadership impacts organizational vitality together with some personal experience he’s had in making presentations to senior executives. In those presentations, Blanchard asks senior leaders to consider a typical employee in their organization and the key goals or critical tasks they are asked to perform as a part of their jobs.

In most healthy growing organizations, people are highly accomplished at some aspects of their job, decent in others, disillusioned with a few aspects, and just getting started with the new tasks.

Blanchard asks the group of leaders to self assess where their own people are at with the various tasks they are responsible for.  Once that’s completed, Blanchard puts together a group composite. The senior executives are surprised to see that the distribution is generally stacked up at the Disillusioned Learner or Capable, But Cautious, Performer levels. (See Figure One: Typical Task Development Levels.)

Typical Task Development Levels (Blanchard Ignite! Newsletter June 2012)

Blanchard goes on to explain that, “If you operate with 75% of your people at a Disillusioned Learner or only a Capable, But Cautious, Performer level, you are going to have very anemic financial performance and low levels of passion and engagement.

“This is exactly what we are seeing in today’s work environment. The result is an organization operating at 65 to 70% of potential. In our research into The High Cost of Doing Nothing, the impact of this untapped potential is costing the average organization over $1 million per year.”

Leverage development levels effectively

For senior leaders looking to develop their people more effectively, Blanchard has some recommendations.

•  “When people start off as Enthusiastic Beginners it’s important that you grab a hold of their momentum and enthusiasm and prepare them for the inevitable Disillusioned Learner stage. It will come, so it’s important to acknowledge it, make it OK, and help people push through it.”
• “When you get to the Capable, but Cautious, Performer stage remember that you can’t stop there—that will only get you lackluster financial performance. Instead, push through to a place where employees become Self-Reliant Achievers.”

What’s the development level of the people in your organization? 

The best companies invest in their employees, supervisors, and managers. They know that people are the key to bringing plans to life and creating a sustainable advantage for your organization. Take time to develop your people. It’s one of the best investments you can make!

To learn more, check out Making the Business Case for Developing Your People

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Sometimes it’s just the opposite.  The long term looks so confusing and unclear you decide that maybe it’s best to just focus on something you know and can control.

Both of these approaches are damaging long term for individuals and the organizations they work in.  When people become so task-oriented that they lose sight of the bigger picture the result is misaligned work, the creation of individual and departmental silos, and poor teamwork and collaboration.

This is especially true with long-time employees.  Business authors Scott and Ken Blanchard highlight this in their most recent leadership post for Fast Company.  As they explain, “Leaders and organizations generally do a good job of clarifying goals as they are getting new people up to speed. With long-time employees, however, leaders often assume that the employee instinctively knows what’s important. As a result, leaders generally don’t spend the same amount of time and energy communicating clear objectives to seasoned employees that they do with new hires.”

The result?  A high level of misalignment in most organizations.

“We did a study a number of years ago with a large petroleum company in North America that shows how rarely this clarity occurs. We asked more than 2,000 employees and their managers to share their goal expectations with us. To begin, we asked the employees to rank the top five things they felt they were responsible for. Then we asked the managers to list and prioritize the five things they were actually holding each of their direct reports accountable for. We saw only a 19% agreement across the population of 2,000 people!”

Is misalignment holding you back?  Here are three strategies for creating more alignment in your organization:

1. Make sure clear agreements are in place. All good performance starts with clear goals.  It’s a process of creating clarity about why we’re here, what we’re doing, and how we’re going to work together.
2. Make sure everyone’s eyes stay on the ball. This includes regular one-on-one conversations with direct reports that include feedback and evaluation of how each person is doing against established targets.
3. Catch people doing things right. Help people notice and experience the incremental successes they are having. It’s easy to slip back into old habits.  Provide clarity and encouragement on a regular basis.

Don’t let a short term focus keep you—or your organization—from long-term success.  Take a minute this week to lift your head, look around and check for clarity and alignment.  Also, to learn more about the impact that misalignment can have on performance, be sure to check out Scott and Ken Blanchard’s post at Fast Company, If Your Employees Are Squabbling, Your Company’s Probably Standing Still.

In a special presentation on Leading from Any Chair in the Organization, Bob will be sharing three actionable steps on creating a culture where everyone feels a sense of ownership, empowerment, and ability to make a difference.  The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 500 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Bob will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Bob will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

He shares that fact and some of the causes as a contributing author in Performance Management: Putting Research into Action. Using the results of a Metrus Group survey he identifies six gaps that get in the way of organizational alignment. While each factor on its own isn’t enough of a problem to explain the overall poor alignment figure, Schiemann believes that it is the cumulative effect of each gap that explains the overall misalignment.

How would you score?

Take a look at some of the key alignment factors that Schiemann identifies below.  As you look at the numbers from other companies, ask yourself, “How many of these alignment factors could I cumulatively answer “yes” to on behalf of my company?”

From Performance Management: Putting Research into Action (2009) page 53, Figure 2.2 “Why Strategies and Behavior Disconnect: Percentage of Rater Agreement.” The percentages represent the cumulative agreement of raters for each element and for the ones above that element.

Strategies for closing the gap

For leaders looking to close the alignment gap in their organizations, Schiemann recommends seven key steps:

1. Develop a clear, agreed-on vision and strategy.
2. Translate the vision and strategy into clear, understandable goals and measures.
3. Include and build passion for the vision, strategy, goals among those who are implementing them.
4. Provide clarity regarding individual roles and requirements and link them across the organization.
5. Make sure that people have the talent, information, and resources to reach the goals.
6. Give clear, timely feedback on goal attainment.
7. Provide meaningful incentives to encourage employees to develop or deploy sufficient capabilities to achieve the goals.

All good performance begins with clear goals

No organization can perform at its best with only 14% of its people rowing in the same direction.  Take some time this week to check in with your people.  Are their key goals and work objectives in line with the overall strategy of your organization?  Do they see how their work fits in and do they have the tools, resources, and authority to get the job done?

Take the time to set (or reset) a clear direction today.  It can save a lot of time, work,  and wasted effort down the road.

Ask most bosses what their management style is at work and you’ll hear them talk of a supportive style that features active listening, coaching, and problem solving.  From their point of view, they feel that they are very active in providing high levels of direction and support to their people on a regular ongoing basis.

However, ask most employees what type of management style they are experiencing and they will tell you it’s more like concentrated periods of attention at the beginning and end of a cycle (think goal setting and performance review) with long stretches of time in between where they are basically left on their own.

This isn’t a problem if the employee is a self-directed, self-reliant high achiever on a task.  For employees with this level of competence, clear goal setting and an occasional check in to evaluate progress may be all they need.  But what about employees who are new to a task, developing new skills, or pushing to stretch themselves?  For these employees, goal setting and evaluation isn’t enough.  They also need direction and support along the way.  It doesn’t have to be a lot, but it does have to be present in some degree if you want them to make progress toward goals and feel cared for along the way.  Otherwise they can feel alone, abandoned, and on their own.

How are you doing with meeting the needs of your employees?  Here are a couple of things you can do this week to open up lines of communication and provide people with the direction and support they need to succeed.

1. Talk to them.  Set up time this week for a quick one-on-one to discuss where your people are at with their goals and tasks.  Even though the context of the conversation is being framed by what they are currently working on and how it is going, be sure to provide some room for them to share obstacles they may be facing and how you can help.  Watch for non-verbal signs—especially if you get an “everything’s fine” initial response from them.
2. Evaluate their development level with each task.  As they discuss each of the tasks they are working on, consider if this is something that is routine for them or a bit of a stretch.  If it’s routine, listening and support are all that is necessary.  If it’s a stretch, listen even more closely and consider how you can provide additional resources that can speed their progress.
3. Repeat on a weekly basis. Close out the meeting by setting up some time to meet again the following week to do it again.  Better yet, make it a recurring appointment on your calendar.  It doesn’t have to be a lot of time.  15-20 minutes will usually get the job done.

Time matters

Very few employees will tell you that they meet too much with their supervisor to discuss their issues.  (Micromanaging to discuss the needs of the manager is another story.)  But many will tell you that they haven’t had a discussion with their boss in weeks or months.  Sure, time is precious, but it is also the way that we signal interest, importance, and value in what people are working on.  Don’t let your relationships at work atrophy.  Set up some time to talk with your direct reports today.

But most leaders don’t know how to create that environment, explains Bob Glaser, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. “Many leaders would prefer to deal with what they know instead of taking a risk with what they don’t know. As a result, leaders don’t think outside the box to look at other options. They know things are not where they need to be, but they are not able or willing to deal with it, or move in a new direction.”

The result is sub-optimized performance, says Glaser. “If you don’t have engaged employees, then they are not really going to take care of customers….they just do what they need to do, day to day, and not much more.”

“It’s normal behavior during economic downturns,” shares Glaser. “But it causes people to focus more on protecting their turf as opposed to looking for innovative new ways to contribute to the organization. It’s a self-serving, ‘circle the wagons’ type of attitude that is counterproductive to the organization.”

Breaking the cycle

While you may not be able to influence the organization as a whole at first, most managers have a sphere of influence where they can make decisions and where they can impact results and outcomes. Inside of this team, group, or department, managers can change the environment that will allow employees to be more engaged. For leaders up to that challenge, Glaser recommends a three-step approach.

1. Create a micro-vision. Leaders need to have a vision of what they want their team, their department, or their group to look like when they are performing at a high level of excellence. Focus on both results and the behaviors that will drive the results.

2. Get everyone involved. Next, involve people in shaping that vision for the department, group, or team. When it’s done right, it’s not just the leader’s vision, but it is the collective vision of where the group wants to go. Work together to create solutions where everyone feels that they can contribute, that they can make a difference, and that they are owners of at least that part of the organization.

3. Reward and recognize desired behaviors. Everyone is operating under a huge scarcity mentality. That takes its toll. People are stressed, working hard, and they’re trying to do the right thing, but their efforts just seem to maintain the status quo. Without explicit rewards and recognition to move in a new direction, it’s not going to happen. Be sure that you explicitly define expected behaviors and then measure alignment with the expectations.

Are your people growing—or just trying to survive and get by?

Ready to start growing again?  Begin by putting fear on the back burner and focus instead on moving in a positive direction encourages Glaser.  “Rally people around an organizational vision and show them how they contribute to the vital work the company is involved in.

“When everyone understands how they contribute and how their work makes the organization better, when leaders can put their own self-interest aside and focus on the needs of others, it can have great impact on morale, engagement, and results.”

You can read more of Glaser’s thoughts in this month’s main article of The Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter.  Also check out a free webinar that Glaser is conducting on May 23, Leading from Any Chair in the Organization, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies

The same thing can happen when it comes to matching your leadership style to the needs of the people you’re leading. In this case, leaders often overdress by over-supervising (providing too much direction and support) or under-dress by delegating (providing too little direction and support) when their help is most needed.

How do you make sure that you’re always in style in both instances? Here are a few tips:

Make sure that you understand the situation. Being in style starts with information. What can you find out about the event that would give you clues to what would be most appropriate? When it comes to clothing choices, ask yourself: Who is going to be there? What is the situation? Where is it being held?

When it comes to leadership style, the same questions, slightly altered, can help in a management situation.

In this case, ask yourself: Who am I meeting with today? What are their specific needs in this situation? Where are they at in terms of competence and commitment for the goal or task? Find out as much as you can about the situation so you can match your style to the needs of the person you are working with.

Develop some flexibility—give yourself some options. Knowing that you need a certain style doesn’t help you if you don’t have that available in your wardrobe. The same is true when it comes to your leadership style. You need a variety of options that you are comfortable wearing. Most leaders play only one note—in essence, they wear the same style regardless of the situation. As a result, they are only in style a portion of the time.

This means that they might be on track when it comes to delivering a high direction style to someone new to a task, but completely off-track when they try using that same style with a highly-experienced, long time employee.

The best leaders have a full wardrobe at their disposal and are comfortable suiting up in a variety of styles to match the occasion.

Double-check that you’re on track. Once you’ve identified what you think is the perfect choice for the situation, be sure to double-check. Ask others, “Here is what I’m thinking would be appropriate in this situation, how does that sound to you?” Watch for a positive response. It might be subtle, so watch carefully. Some visible signs such as a release of tension, return of a confident look, or even a smile will tell you that you are moving in the right direction. If you don’t see that, return to step one—maybe you need some additional information to understand the situation more completely.

Creating a comfortable, natural leadership style takes work. But if you focus on the situation, develop your skills, and work together with people to make the right choices, you’ll find that you can develop an authentic, lasting style that will serve you well in any situation.

Chris will be exploring three actionable steps leaders can take to self-diagnose, assess, and change unwanted behaviors in a special presentation on The Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make and How to Avoid Them. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 600 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Chris will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Chris will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

Chris Edmonds, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, believes employers may start seeing a talent drain as early as the latter part of this year as staff begin seeking out positions with employers who will value them more highly. In the meantime, and perhaps even more damaging, these same workers are content to “quit and stay,” emotionally checking out on their current employers and just doing enough to remain below the radar and maintain their jobs.

Allowed to remain unchecked, this attitude can spread and soon an organization finds itself battling a general malaise and heaviness. Performance is sluggish, but improvement is hard to pinpoint. The organization is surviving, but it isn’t thriving. Worse yet, attitude and morale issues begin to surface as employees question the “fairness” of it all. This is often experienced as an entitlement mentality, something that many organizations are experiencing.

Breaking the negative cycle

A damaging negative cycle can ensue as managers bemoan the entitlement mentality of employees while employees point to a perceived injustice in the way work is assigned, managed, and rewarded. Once this cycle starts, it can be difficult to reverse. Organizations can hope that employees will rise above the situation, but a more likely scenario is that leaders will have to take the first step.

Looking to reverse a negative cycle in your organization?  Edmonds has three suggestions for leaders:

1. Refocus on strategy. Identify key organizational objectives and connect department, team, and individual goals to overall strategy.
2. Engage staff and leverage skills. Take a positive approach. Trade in a defensive posture seeking to “avoid mistakes” and instead move in a positive direction that explores strengths and possibilities.
3. Support and serve. See your role as “chief obstacle remover” instead of “inspector general.” Make it easier for staff to work the plan without interference.

This is especially true with instances where managers are leading staff who have specialized skills, or who may be much more experienced, smarter, and skilled in their function than the leader is. As Edmonds explains, “A leader who manages with an assumption that they must control decisions in this environment will create a disaster. The leader needs to coach from the sideline, get the strategy clear, and then let the talent drive the appropriate activity. The leader needs to be kept informed so they can coach and refine the plan ‘in the moment’, but for the most part, enable the subject matter experts to act upon their knowledge.”

Leaders who set a strong vision, develop an aligned strategy, and engage talented staff in pursuit of that vision by encouraging, removing hurdles, and marshalling resources will always outperform those who remain reactive and only hope for the best.

Leading is about going somewhere. Where are you going? Are you moving forward—or are you standing still?  Take positive action today!

Scott Blanchard referred to this book and the importance of making sure everyone in your organization understands its prime objective as I interviewed him for an article that will be appearing in a leading business publication later this summer.  Scott is an Executive Vice President with The Ken Blanchard Companies and the co-founder of Blanchard Certified, a cloud-based leadership development program.

During the interview I asked Scott about accountability and a leaders role in it.  It’s an issue that comes up often, especially for new leaders.  They find it difficult to hold people accountable for results and to call them on it.

Blanchard caught me by surprise when he suggested that accountability is often a by-product of an alignment issue.  In his experience, accountability issues usually stem from an employee not truly understanding  the role that they play in helping the organization achieve its prime objective. He explained that the best leaders are the ones that make an organization’s prime objective crystal clear and then make sure that everyone knows how their individual roles tie-in.

One of the tools that Blanchard likes to use is an impact map that creates a very powerful line-of-sight where people can understand the results they are being held accountable for, the behaviors that achieve those results, and how those results contribute to the success of the organization.

Accountability

In Blanchard’s experience, accountability rears its head when people don’t have line-of-sight alignment and aren’t bought into the bigger picture.

As Blanchard explains, “We’ve been exploring extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation and what we’ve found is that holding people accountable pales in comparison to creating conditions in an organization where people are intrinsically motivated. You cannot crack the whip enough, or hold someone accountable enough, to achieve the kind of results you can if people understand the vision, care about it desperately, and see themselves as a part of it.

“Create that kind of alignment and you won’t have to worry about accountability.  Instead, employees will start holding you accountable as a leader to clear the way and help them get things done.”

Accountability issues?  Check alignment first

Cries for accountability are usually a clear indicator that things are out of alignment within an organization. Is accountability an issue in your organization?  If so, double-check for alignment first.

When people understand where their organization is going—including the role they play in it—they step up, work less selfishly and they tend to make better business decisions on behalf of the company. That’s because they can see the impact of every decision and how it impacts overall results.

Alignment helps people attain a sense of accomplishment. That’s a foundational concept and a key aspect of a satisfying job and a satisfying life.

What’s your approach to accountability?  In the organizations Blanchard works with that are outperforming competitors, they are not talking about accountability.  In these organizations accountability comes naturally from inside each of their employee’s hearts and heads.  You can do the same. Get the alignment right and you’ll get the accountability right.  Start today!  It’s good for the company and good for the individual.