Right Attitudes » Ideas for Impact
» by Nagesh Belludi

As the current crises at Toyota and BP highlight, how you respond to a problem or crisis is the ultimate test of your leadership character. Knowing how to step up your communications efforts to the right levels during disorder can be a powerful tool in managing a crisis. Here are seven key lessons for communicating during crises.

• Be visible. Communicate and lead from the front. In a crisis, your key constituencies (your board, management, team, government, or the public) insist on hearing from the leader. Stay engaged and maintain consistency of purpose and action. Keep all the lines of communication open.
• Communicate in real-time and explain your position. If you do not communicate frequently with your key constituents, somebody else will. In the absence of information, people will develop their own perceptions of the problem and its implications. Keeping your constituencies well informed diffuses many suspicions and uncertainties.
• Be transparent and forthright right from the beginning. Face the realities of the problem and its potential consequences. Acknowledge what you know about the problem or crisis and go into detail about what steps you are taking in response. Proactive communication is reassuring and prevents perceptions of negligence and evasion from becoming realities.
• Research thoroughly the challenges you face and your options for remedial actions. Be prepared to describe everything that matters at each moment. Carefully administer your communication plan with due consideration to possible litigations and penalties.
• Be objective and calm. Avoid engaging in finger pointing and playing pass-the-parcel. Avoid criticizing and discrediting the victims or critics. Continuously verbalize empathy and responsibility, and announce plans for early resolutions and restitution.
• Remember that your attitude sets the tone for the rest of your organization. If you take a defensive position, play victim or engage in finger pointing, the rest of your organization will react the same way. Through your communications, set a positive tone to build confidence within your organization and promote constructive responses.
• As soon as the crisis dissolves, research and communicate opportunities to make fundamental changes to improve your organization. Reiterate your core values and missions. Revamp internal practices as necessary and follow through on all initiatives to rebuild your credibility. Consider organizational changes and new processes for managing future crises.

Recommended Reading

• Develop a mature sense of respect for your competition
• Blaming the competition without cause constitutes poor taste

***See other articles related to Crisis management, leadership communications, problem solving, corporate communication, public relations

The commencement season is upon us. On these momentous occasions, as students celebrate their academic achievements and prepare to transit from one pivotal life experience to another, they hear reflections from personal stories of the great and timeless advice. In true RightAttitudes style, I have chosen three commencement speeches by distinguished personalities. Below, I present the most motivating sections of their speeches.

I have coached many students graduating this year and I have recognized that, despite a gloomy job market and other challenges ahead, this year’s graduating classes seem to be more optimistic than previous classes with which I have interacted. My very best to them.

Steve Jobs: “Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life”

Steve Jobs cofounded Apple Computer Inc. at age 21 in 1976, got fired in 1985, and returned in 1997 to lead one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in business history. The product and marketing visions he has since executed have elevated him to the status of a business and media superstar. Steve Jobs had a cancerous pancreatic tumor removed in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant in 2009.

In his 2005 commencement address (transcript, video) at Stanford University, Steve Jobs urged graduates to pursue their dreams and fulfill the opportunities in life’s setbacks:

• Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. … Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
• Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Bill Gates: “Address the world’s deepest inequities”

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and Corbis, is currently the world’s most influential philanthropist. His Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated billions of dollars to world health causes, particularly toward the eradication of infectious diseases.

In his 2007 commencement address (transcript, video) at Harvard University, Bill Gates urged graduates to discover and help solve the health and social inequalities that the world faces:

• I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world — the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair. … Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries — but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity — reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.
• If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. … I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

J.K. Rowling: “The benefits of failure”

J.K. Rowling, the celebrated author of the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels, is a classic “rags to riches” life success story. At the age of 28, as a depressed, unemployed single mother who lived on welfare, J.K. Rowling started writing the first Harry Potter book at a café. Within five years, thanks to the success of Harry Potter, she rose from obscurity to literary prominence and became a billionaire.

In her 2008 commencement address (transcript, video) at Harvard University, J.K. Rowling urges graduates to persist through failures and despondency:

• Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. … Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
• Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
• The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.

***See other articles related to commencement speeches, inspirational speeches, Steve Jobs, pursuit of dreams, Bill Gates, philanthropy, J.K. Rowling, failure.

Last week, Time Magazine discussed research that suggests that using curse words can help cope with physical pain. This reminds me of a 2007 research that implies that regular swearing helps employees better express their feelings in stressful circumstances and boosts team morale.

Such research is misleading in that the findings may be perceived as approving of profanity at work. As work environments have become more laid-back over the years, swearing is more commonplace than in the past, especially in blue-collar environments and certain other workplace cultures.

Harry S. Dennis III of The Executive Committee (TEC) in Wisconsin and Michigan explores two bases for the tolerance of profanity in workplaces.

• The laid-back we-are-all-in-this-together culture is almost like a fraternity environment. The use of profanity somehow communicates a symbolic unity. Employees believe that their degree of comfort with one another means it’s OK to let down their guard. It becomes a casual exchange and falsely suggests a degree of communication intimacy.
• In the hard-driving aggressive environment, employees use profanity to communicate urgency, a need for action. Most swear words are one syllable, so they carry a bullet-like impact and light a fire under the butt of the person on the receiving end so they get the job done. It is, in fact, a terrible negative motivator.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at Microsoft, Bob Nardelli at Home Depot, Carol Betz at Yahoo! and other executives are reported to have cussed at work. When leaders and managers swear without restraint to express annoyance at an employee, colleague, competitor, customer or circumstance, the message they convey to their organizations is that profanity is acceptable. This is akin to potty-mouthed parents hinting that it is probably OK for their watchful kids to use curse words.

Swearing and poor language is not acceptable in any professional setting. Swearing is dysfunctional to the cohesiveness of teams. Many employees find use of expletives as discourteous and quickly lose respect for those using profane language. Managers’ abusive management style can quickly intimidate employees who may hesitate to speak out.

Bad language is unacceptable behavior. Organizations should require that employees exercise common sense and avoid using colorful language. HR must deal with issues of swearing in the workplace as they occur and institute disciplinary procedures to prevent charges of workplace bullying, abuse or discrimination. Leaders and managers should curb their own language and comply privately and publicly. Employees, even high-performing ones, who repeatedly disregard such requirements and undermine the trust and morale of workplace environments must go openly.

Recommended Reading

• What happens when a manager badmouths an employee
• Jack Welch’s four types of managers
• Forced ranking in performance management systems
• Four keys to an excellent relationship with your boss

***See other articles related to communication, work environments, managing people, human resources, workplace cultures

“The eyes are the mirror of the soul.”
- A Yiddish Proverb

Our eyes play a major role in our interpersonal communication. The eyes express our moods and reactions more overtly than does other body language. By and large, observant people can attempt to understand our attitudes through the nature of our eye contact, our facial expressions and body language.

When we meet other people, we usually observe their eyes first. When we speak, we tend to look other’s eyes. And, in return, we expect our audience to look at our eyes and pay their undivided attention. Hence, making and keeping good eye contact with others is an important habit.

Trick used by President John F. Kennedy

The Reader’s Digest guide ‘How to Write and Speak Better’ notes a technique used by President John F Kennedy.

When people look and listen they tend to focus on one eye rather than both. Kennedy, however, would look from eye to eye when he listened, softening the expression in his own eyes at the same time, and so giving the impression that he cared greatly about the speaker’s feelings.

Trick: Make a Mental Note of Their Eye Color

The ‘Success Begins Today‘ blog cites a technique from Nicholas Boothman’s book, ‘How to Connect in Business in 90 Seconds or Less.’

Eye contact and smile … it’s a simple courtesy and leads to a relaxed conversation. If you tend to be a shy person, this may be somewhat difficult for you. You may tend to look down or away when greeting someone. This can break the conversation right away.

When you meet or greet someone for the first time, just make a mental note of their eye color. This simple technique is amazingly effective. If you are looking for their eye color you’ll automatically make eye contact for a second or two.

Keeping Eye Contact in Conversations

When people maintain eye contact during a conversation, others usually interpret the eye contact as a sign of interest, confidence, honesty, compassion and sympathy depending on the nature of the conversation. Failure to maintain eye contact may be interpreted as signs of suppression of emotions or truth, distraction, disagreement, confusion, reticence or lack of interest. Further, when people react to blame or accusation or are provoked into defensiveness or aggressiveness, their eye contact increase considerably—often, their pupils dilate.

Individual Differences

Many people, due to innate shyness or cultural background, tend to evade or curtail eye contact. They do not realize that, even if they are sincere and confident, their lack of eye contact could inadvertently communicate insincerity and lack of self-assurance.

Cultural Differences

The amount of eye contact varies dramatically in different cultures. In Asian cultures, for instance, where formal social structures (age, experience, social status, etc.) exist, eye contact with somebody superior can be offending. In some parts of India, men and women do not keep eye contact with their in-laws, out of respect. In most cultures, a longer eye contact while interacting with the other gender may be read as a sign of intimacy and expression of interest.

Gender Differences

• Between men, prolonged eye contact may signal aggression or intent to dominate–especially so during acquaintance or if the men are not completely familiar with each other’s expectations. Although more contact is tolerable as a relationship grows, eye contact needs to be broken often.
• Women tend to maintain better eye contact in conversations with other women–more so with friends and family than with strangers. Generally, women interpret eye contact as a sign of trust and compassion.
• Prolonged eye contact, an intent-look in particular, between men and women may quickly be interpreted as a sign of intimate interest. In the absence of romantic interest, concentrated eye contact must be avoided.

Avoid Staring and Gazing into Somebody’s Eyes

Staring or gazing at other individuals is typically awkward, sometimes intimidating. Never overdo an eye contact. Break eye contact often.

Call for Action: Keep Eye Contact

People who keep good eye contact are usually seen as personable, self-assured and confident. In the context of cultural backgrounds of the people around you, consider what messages your eye contact and body language may be unconsciously communicating about you. A firm handshake and a smile at the onset of a meeting, and eye contact throughout your conversations can establish a good impression of you.

Recommended Reading

• Personal Spaces for Social Interaction: Intimate space, casual space, social space and public space

***See other articles related to Body language, etiquette, personality development, cross-cultural interaction, interaction, interpersonal skills, people skills

A number of résumés list two or three professional references. Others may contain a variation of the phrase “References available upon request.”

Neither is necessary. Here are four reasons.

1. References are pertinent only during the later part of the job-search process: after a potential employer has interviewed you and desires to check others’ impressions of you prior to extending you a job-offer.
2. As a candidate, you would want to be the first person to describe yourself to the potential employer. You would not like the employer to contact your references beforehand and form an opinion of you ahead of your interview.
3. If you post your résumé online (on your college’s career website or at a job-search site such as monster.com,) you would not want to make public your references’ contact information.
4. Employers understand that you will give them a list of references when asked for.

Best Practice on Résumé References

Listing references is not the best use of space on a one-page résumé. Eliminate the list of references or the “available upon request” phrase from your résumé.

Instead, on a separate sheet of paper, prepare a list of two or three professional references. For each reference, include name, contact information and a phrase about the nature of your relationship with the reference. Bring this sheet to your interview and present it when the potential employer asks for references.

Use the valuable space to enhance your résumé either by adding further details of your accomplishments or by increasing white space around various sections of your résumé to make it more visually appealing.

***See other articles related to resume, resume tips, job search, career, interviewing

Recently, I observed the following instance of a manager’s poor attitude towards an employee.

Here is the case of Sandy, a manager, and Clark, her employee.

Clark had joined Sandy’s team four months previously. She did not get to interview and select him into her team.

Clark was not one of Sandy’s favorite employees. They had little in common and had difficulty getting-along. A communication break-down ensued.

Sandy paid little attention to Clark and did not train him well. Nor did she elaborate her expectations of his performance. Over time, Clark’s sub-standard work resulted in serious consequences for the organization.

Every time customers approached Sandy and complained of problems stemming from Clark’s carelessness, Sandy underscored those complaints. She portrayed him in a negative light: a troublemaker, a nonconformist, and obstinate to feedback. In due course, she exclaimed she was helpless and recommended laying-off Clark.

Eventually, Sandy’s badmouthing Clark did not go unnoticed. The leader of the organization reprimanded Sandy for her poor attitudes toward Clark and demanded correction of her behavior. When Clark learned of Sandy’s recurring badmouthing, he was upset and lost confidence in her. He requested a transfer to another organization.

Badmouthing is Disrespectful

In venting her grievances about Clark to the organization’s customers and peers, Sandy was perhaps trying to draw sympathy towards her helplessness—for not being able to change Clark’s behavior. On balance, she did not have a say in interviewing or selecting him.

Sandy did not realize, however, that by openly criticizing Clark, she was drawing unnecessary attention to her own shortcomings in two important aspects of her role as a manager. Firstly, with the communication break-down, she did not anticipate problems with Clark’s projects and take timely measures to mitigate potential negative consequences. Secondly, she failed to coach Clark, provide corrective feedback, and help him to change his behavior.

Take-Away Lessons for Managers

• Do not openly criticize or air grievances about your employee in public. In addition to creating employee frustration, you draw unnecessary attention to your own managerial failure.
• When people approach you with problems they face with your employees, acknowledge the problem, pledge to study further and correct the problem immediately. Show support for your employee. Ask what steps you could take to avoid such problems in the future. Promptly follow-up with your employee and help him/her overcome the problem.
• Recognize that trust is the foundation of a good working relationship between a manager and an employee. An employee looks to a manager for support, feedback and opportunities for improvement. Not supporting—and worse, badmouthing—your employee can be detrimental to this manager-employee relationship. As we have discussed in previous blog articles here and here, an employee’s relationship with the boss is a key determinant of the employee’s satisfaction with his/her job.

Handling criticisms of employees is a routine part of a manager’s job. By acknowledging an employee’s shortcomings, being supportive of the employee and encouraging corrective actions, a manager can earn respect from all quarters of the organization—employees, peers and superiors.

***See other articles related to badmouthing, managing relationships, job satisfaction, appreciation, recognition, motivating people, people skills, teamwork

We regard the physical space around our bodies as personal territories. Subconsciously, we consider ourselves the center of a series of invisible bubbles—each bubble representing a comfort zone. American anthropologist Edward Hall defined four personal spaces in his classic book ‘The Hidden Dimension‘ (1966.)

1. Intimate space for interacting with significant people and for hand-shaking, whispering, etc. with friends and acquaintances—touch to 1.5 feet away
2. Casual space for interacting with close friends—1.5 feet to 4 feet away
3. Social space for interacting with acquaintances—4 feet to 12 feet away
4. Public space for interacting with relatively anonymous people—further than 12 feet away

Personal Spaces Represent Comfort Zones

The distances associated with the comfort zones above depend on one’s cultural upbringing. During an interaction, the nature of the interpersonal relationships and/or the context of interaction may affect comfort zones too. Consequently,

• Personal spaces are larger for two strangers in a conversation.
• Women tend to have smaller personal spaces when interacting with other women.
• Westerners tend to require larger personal spaces. People from India, China and other Asian cultures are used to crowded cities, packed public busses, and such—hence, they are more comfortable standing close to other people.
• Two individuals in an argument expect each other to be as far as possible. If one of them moves closer, the other person may interpret this move as a sign of aggression.

Significance of Personal Spaces

The significance of this concept of personal space is obvious: we feel uncomfortable if a person enters a space that we do not desire him/her to be in.

• During hand-shaking, do not get too close to the other person. Being within the other person’s arm-length ensures you are within his/her personal zone, and out of the intimate zone.
• Stay within the friendly zone if you want a casual conversation with a celebrity.
• When talking to or walking with somebody else, if the other person backs away a little, it is likely that you are encroaching his/her comfort zone. Be mindful of the other person’s requirements—do not try to close the gap.

***See other articles related to Cross-cultural interaction, interaction, interpersonal skills, people skills

Lisa Haneberg wrote about RadioShack [RSE] laying off 400 workers and informing them of the decision via email. Lisa’s Management Craft blog article records her thoughts on this choice.

Human resources… People are not just resources like computer systems and Post It notes. Our employees, all of them, even the underperforming ones who ought to be let go, are our partners. They are our business family. Even when it is the right thing to do to let someone go, we need to remember that they are important partners. How we leave a relationship is just as important as how we enter into it.

‘101 Ways to Save Money’

This reminds me of another instance of careless mistakes at Northwest Airlines. The company, currently operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, is considering additional layoffs and pay cuts for employees.

A few weeks ago, a booklet distributed to likely-to-be-laid-off ground workers is reported to have advised them on saving money: “don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash” and “take a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods” along with more sensible tips like “brown bag your lunch” and “refinance your mortgage.” See the full list of ‘101 Ways to Save Money’ here.

Irrespective of the organizational and financial state of the company, including tips such as the above in employee communication is careless, insensitive and insulting to the dignity of the workers, especially when they are candidates for potential layoffs. An appropriate supervisory review of this publication prior to release could have easily avoided the bad publicity and ill will that this incident generated.

As alluded to every year in Fortune magazine’s ranking of the ‘best companies to work for’ in America, employees’ attitudes towards their organizations have a profound effect on the performance of companies. Further, better performance leads to higher morale among the employees; this results in a virtuous cycle of company performance and employee morale. The primary means of achieving high employee morale is by co-creating a corporate culture that instills a sense of ownership through empowerment, trust and fair treatment, by instilling pride for personal and organizational achievements and by providing adequate opportunities for personal and career growth.

*Keyword(s): Respect, employee morale, corporate culture, fair treatment