Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Feedback

Fear of Feedback: Won’t Give, Don’t Ask

By Leave a Comment

Most bosses are uncomfortable about evaluating their subordinates. The prospect of delivering bad news makes them uneasy. They fear that employees will react to even the mildest criticism with anger, stalling, or tears. They don’t know what to say. As a result, they often do everything they can to avoid saying anything at all.

Most employees, for their sake, are fearful of uncovering what their bosses really think of them. They don’t want to know how they’re doing because they are afraid they aren’t doing very well. So they don’t ask. They wait to be told.

Idea for Impact: Giving and getting feedback may be difficult, but it won’t get any easier if you wait.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Giving Feedback and Depersonalizing It: Summary of Kim Scott’s ‘Radical Candor’
  2. Never Criticize Little, Trivial Faults
  3. Invite Employees to Contribute Their Wildest Ideas
  4. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around
  5. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees

Each Temperament Has Its Own Language

By Leave a Comment

From Dr. Irmgard Schlögl’s The Wisdom of the Zen Masters (1976) (she was later Ven. Myokyo-ni, Rinzai Zen Buddhist nun at the Zen Centre in London):

An elder Zen monk on his pilgrimage put up in a monastery. He came across another monk who was also on the pilgrimage. The two discovered that they had much in common, and decided next morning to continue together.

They came to a river where the ferryboat had just left. The elder took a seat to wait for its return. His new friend continued however, walking over the water.

Halfway across, he turned around and beckoned the elder to follow, “You can do it, too. Just have confidence and tread on.” The elder shook his head and stayed put.

“If you are scared, I’ll help you across. You see I can do it without much trouble.” Yet again, the elder shook his head.

The other reached the other bank of the river. He waited there until the ferry had brought the elder over. “Why did you hang back like that?” he asked.

“And what have you gained by rushing like that?” replied the elder.

“Had I known what you were like, I would not have taken up company with you.”

Wishing him farewell, the elder resumed his pilgrimage on his own.

Temperament clashes exist to some extent in almost all relationships. The language of camaraderie that two people share so effortlessly at some moments can unravel at others.

Sometimes each person believes they are deliberately communicating their needs and values, when indeed little gets through because each is working from different core assumptions and expectations—conveying and interpreting language, gestures, and intent differently, or seeking a different set of signals.

Idea for Impact: Each temperament has its own language.

Each of us has our own expectations of relating in an interpersonal relationship. When there are problems, don’t always attempt to “fix” them or back off and distance yourself. Simply give the other more space to be who they are. Seek to understand.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. People Give Others What They Themselves Want // Summary of Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages
  2. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding
  3. Entitlement and Anger Go Together
  4. Avoid the Trap of Desperate Talk
  5. Think of a Customer’s Complaint as a Gift

Avoid Blame Language

By Leave a Comment

Refrain from using the terms “always” and “never” when you’re in a disagreement.

Making statements like “You never think about anyone but yourself” or “You always ignore how I feel!” provokes defensiveness because of the apparent exaggeration.

The actual conversation gets abstracted because the other person understandably resists the all-or-nothing argument.

Making negative judgments or proclamations about the other in extreme, absolute terms gives no wiggle room because making global attacks on their entire personality.

Idea for Impact: Try to voice your concerns in a way that focuses on your own feelings and how the other’s behavior affects you. Try “I” statements, such as “I feel neglected when you make plans without me.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day
  2. The Sensitivity of Politics in Today’s Contentious Climate
  3. How to … Deal with Less Intelligent People
  4. How to … Communicate Better with Defensive People
  5. How to Speak Up in Meetings and Disagree Tactfully

Don’t Underestimate Others’ Willingness to Help

By Leave a Comment

The biggest barrier to generosity may not be getting people to give but people’s reluctance to ask for what they need.

Mostly, people enjoy helping (but not so much that they can get burned out by their own goodness.) They want to give and be recognized for their giving.

People can’t give when they don’t know what others need

According to the University of Michigan’s Wayne Baker, a solution to the awkwardness of asking for help is the notion of reciprocity rings (or reciprocity bulletin boards.) Boeing, Citigroup, Estee Lauder, General Motors, Google, IBM, Novartis, UPS, and others have implemented informal networking groups to facilitate asking—and giving.

In All You Have to Do Is Ask (2020,) Baker explains that these onetime or recurring networking meetings have individuals explain one by one the specific issues they’re facing. The rest of the group taps their knowledge, resources, wisdom, or networks to help the requestor. In a sense, a reciprocity ring is an expanded version of the “daily stand-up,” “daily huddle,” or “scrum meeting” that many teams use to talk over what they’re each working on and where they need help.

Wharton School’s Adam Grant popularized the concept of reciprocity rings in his book Give and Take (2014.) He argues that reciprocity rings normalize asking and giving. They build trust and relationships by creating new and fast connections where they may not exist otherwise.

A charitable mood sets in—reciprocity rings engender altruism.

Helping others without the expectation to have that help reciprocated is the foundation of altruism. A reciprocity ring cultivates an environment of giving. According to All You Have to Do Is Ask, a reciprocity ring helps people overcome their hesitations and fears about asking for help because everyone’s making a request. Baker cites research that the takers in the groups tend to give three times more than they get. Over time, people tend to make more significant requests.

Idea for Impact: Assemble an informal network and facilitate opportunities to ask for and help one another. It’s an easy and effective way to build connections and strengthen the spirit of the community.

Take a cue from Bay Area career coach Marty Nemko, who organizes his own informal reciprocity ring. Nemko’s “board of advisors” meets for an hour every month, and each person talks about a thorny personal—or professional—problem they’re facing and requests input from others.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. An Underappreciated Way to Improve Team Dynamic
  2. You Need a Personal Cheerleader
  3. What’s the Best Way to Reconnect with a Mentor?
  4. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around
  5. The Curse of Teamwork: Groupthink

The Difference between Directive and Non-Directive Coaching

By Leave a Comment

When coaching, many managers’first impulse is to jump into solution mode and fix problems by recommending solutions. The advice is often framed as, “I’ve seen this condition before, and you should do X. That’s what worked for me when I was working at company Y.”

The Directive Coaching Style is suitable when your employee doesn’t have the time, skills, temperament, or patience to resolve her problem.

The Non-Directive Coaching Style, in contrast, encourages the employee to think through her problem and develop her own solution. This coaching style takes more time but is usually more effective, especially if the situation is complicated.

Suppose the problem presents a skill or competence that the employee can learn. In that case, a good coach nurtures the employee by challenging her to mull over the situation objectively. Merely supplying the right solution is wasted if she doesn’t understand it or internalize it well enough.

The most effective coaches I know tend to dwell less on the “what’s to be done” and more on instilling the “how to think about.”

Idea for Impact: When offering advice, steer the thought process. Don’t dictate the outcome. Employees are more likely to be invested in the solutions they come up with.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Manage with Fear
  2. To Micromanage or Not?
  3. What Knowledge Workers Want Most: Management-by-Exception
  4. Avoid Control Talk
  5. 20 Reasons People Don’t Change

People Give Others What They Themselves Want // Summary of Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages

By Leave a Comment

The amount of practice on an instrument is the most significant contributor to musical performance success. However, an obsessive orientation toward practice can burn you out and make you stiff.

Rather than carving out more time in the day for practice, celebrated musicians (not unlike specialist athletes and chess masters) tend to excel by making modest levels of practice more productive.

Like all great teachers, virtuoso violinist Itzhak Perlman preaches not too much practice:

When kids ask me for an autograph, I always sign my name and then write, ‘Practise slowly!’ That’s my message to them. If you practise slowly, you forget slowly. If you practise very quickly, maybe it will work for a day or two and then it will go away, because it has not been absorbed by your brain. It’s like putting a sponge in the water. If you let it stay there it retains a lot of water.

There are a lot of people who believe that the more you practise the greater the improvement, but I don’t believe that. Again I cite the sponge example. When you put a sponge in the water, after a while it reaches saturation point. Keeping it in there for any longer won’t help, as it’s absorbed as much as it can.

Choosing to focus on quality over quantity of practice helps musicians free up time for score study, concentrated listening, and other learning activities away from their instruments. All these ultimately make practice more effective.

Idea for Impact: Mindless repetition is ineffective. To reach the highest levels of expertise, focus on the quality of practice. Skill formation relies on consistency and deliberate practice. Under a mentor’s guidance, a consistent and intentional practice can bring about clarity and make you observe yourself and open for feedback.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding
  2. Each Temperament Has Its Own Language
  3. If You Want to Be Loved, Love
  4. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day
  5. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be

How to Manage Overqualified Employees

By Leave a Comment

Some employees are overeducated and overqualified—or think they are—for the jobs they are doing.

Such employees will find their roles not demanding enough to keep them occupied. They may not feel fully engaged in those tasks and responsibilities that they judge “beneath” them.

Toffee-nosed employees can create team tension. They can develop negative attitudes, such as a sense of entitlement about their skills (remember the FedEx “Even an MBA Can Do It” advert?) or resentment through boredom. That frustration and disillusion can ripple out and bring everyone else in the team down.

Here are two guidelines for managing overqualified employees:

  1. To keep overqualified employees engaged, allow more autonomy, and assign them more creative assignments. Delegate longer-term projects or have them collaborate with other teams within the company. Though, be mindful that this may create even more resentment in the team towards the perceived overqualified employees. Discuss with the team why some people have been chosen for those special assignments.
  2. Work together with the human resources staff and help the overqualified employees chart out individualized paths for climbing the corporate ladder and reach their potential. Find ways to help them acquire new skills and get exposure to other parts of the organization. Coach them to apply for roles that possibly do not yet warrant their experience and expertise. Expand their leadership capacity by assigning training and mentoring responsibilities.

Idea for Impact: Nurturing and keeping overqualified employees can create a strong foundation for tomorrow’s management team.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees
  2. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  3. Bringing out the Best in People through Positive Reinforcement
  4. Why Hiring Self-Leaders is the Best Strategy
  5. Fostering Growth & Development: Embrace Coachable Moments

Lessons from Drucker: Manage People, Not Things

By Leave a Comment

One of Peter Drucker’s big ideas was the notion of management as a “liberal art.” In The New Realities (1950,) Drucker argued that effective managers need a wide-ranging knowledge on subjects as varied as psychology, science—even religion.

Management is a liberal art—“liberal” because it deals with the fundamentals of knowledge, self-knowledge, wisdom, and leadership; “art” because it deals with practice and application.

Lessons from Drucker: Management is a Liberal Art Management deals with people, their values, their growth and development—and this makes it a humanity. So does its concern with, and impact on, social structure and the community. Indeed… management is deeply involved in spiritual concerns—the nature of man, good and evil.

Managers draw on all the knowledge and insights of the humanities and the social sciences—on psychology and philosophy, on economics and on history, on the physical sciences and on ethics.

Idea for Impact: Management has become more about numbers and processes than about people

Manage people, not things.

A wise manager is a well-rounded one—somebody who understands and can leverage, in Drucker’s words, “the nature of man.”

Understand your employees. Understand how they think and act. Know what makes them tick—what drives them, what motivates them, what their aspirations are. Acquaint yourself to different approaches to management based on different sets of values. Individualize your management approach.

Use this understanding to create a productive work environment—that’s your foremost responsibility as a manager.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  2. Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee
  3. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around
  4. Leaders Need to Be Strong and Avoid Instilling Fear
  5. Don’t Push Employees to Change

Leaders Need to Be Strong and Avoid Instilling Fear

By Leave a Comment

Fear is many a leader’s dirty little secret. He can use it when he’s either unwilling or unable to persuade his team to work together to achieve a specific goal.

Sure, fear gets results. However, it does so at a great cost.

Fear can be enormously helpful for spurring change, particularly during periods of acute threat. But fear can backfire under certain circumstances, especially when creativity is necessary. Using fear and intimidation as a motivator only shuts down people’s brains.

People don’t always think and act rationally when they’re afraid. Fear and anxiety make it more difficult to have their energy and enthusiasm to keep going.

A leader needs to be strong without instilling fear. Often all a leader can do to motivate people is to foster a workplace wherein people feel safe bringing themselves to work.

People can contribute, be creative, and be motivated internally. There’s no need to watch them like a hawk, micromanage excessively, track every move they make, question every decision, or enact rules that make people feel constrained and under surveillance.

Idea for Impact: Steer clear of a tyrannical management style. Use feedback and coaching to be considerate and encouraging whenever you can be, and tough when you must be.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  2. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  3. Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee
  4. Direction + Autonomy = Engagement
  5. Never Criticize Little, Trivial Faults

Why Your Employees Don’t Trust You—and What to Do About it

By Leave a Comment

If you have trouble getting employees to trust you, perhaps one—or more—of the following reasons are to blame:

  • You don’t model what you say.
  • You make promises you can’t keep.
  • You guard and selectively disclose information.
  • You don’t allow your employees to exercise their judgment.
  • You ask for input from your employees and ignore them.
  • You seek to monitor everything—including time spent on social media.
  • You tend to shift the blame.
  • You avoid giving credit where credit is due.
  • You ignore workplace concerns and problems until they become more significant problems.
  • You have double standards (employees tend to be especially very alert to this.)

Management scholars have suggested that trustworthiness entails three attributes: competence to perform tasks reliably (your ability,) having benign intentions (your benevolence,) and acting consistently with sound ethical principles such as fairmindedness, sincerity, and honesty (your integrity.) If you can exhibit these three attributes credibly and dependably, all will trust you. Get any of these three attributes wrong, and your standing will suffer.

Here are a few actions you can take to rebuild trust within your organization:

  • Communicate openly. Listen. Value everyone’s opinions equally. Involve employees in decision-making. Be as transparent as possible.
  • Empower employees. Encourage them to use their best judgment to identify and solve problems. Don’t be unnecessarily rigid with enforcing rules.
  • Make everyone accountable. Take responsibility. Invite and listen to feedback. Communicate expectations. Invest in commitments.

Idea for Impact: Trust is reshaped—strengthened or undermined—in every encounter

If your employees don’t trust you, then they won’t do what you need them to, and they won’t stick around long.

Trust is a consequence of your actions, not merely an intention or message. Trust is truly behavioral; it is complicated and fragile. Trust must be hard-fought, hard-earned, and hard-won every day, through actions, not words.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t One-up Others’ Ideas
  2. Don’t Manage with Fear
  3. The Jerk Dilemma: The Double-Edged Sword of a ‘No Jerks Here’ Policy
  4. 20 Reasons People Don’t Change
  5. Don’t Lead a Dysfunctional Team