Instant People Skills: Coach Yourself & Others

Beliefs or Just Prejudice?

Workforce Management collects the most intriguing human resource challenges imaginable. A California software company announces it will hire only Vegetarians (the owner is one, so we must assume he imagines there is some moral issue involved unless he means higher cholesterol will cause greater health cost as we're seeing with tobacco). On one hand one can applaud someone with the gumption to put their money at risk to promote what they believe in. He will certainly forego many great employees and others will lie, which will inevitably damage cohesiveness and teamwork. On the other hand do we find it OK to impose one's will because one can?

Of course this goes on nearly everywhere in one form or another. It's just that hiring managers mostly don't mention their pet beliefs in their job ads. When I talk to groups of executives in job search I use my own case of being screened out of some jobs because I never played football or hockey well. I was terrible at basketball. I can't run due to asthma. Scrawny as a kid, I went on to squash and swimming and grew to appreciate the team sports I missed sometimes taught great leadership lessons... though they also sometimes taught a sort of elitism that excludes a wide range of people as in the vegetarian example. No specific experience or lack by itself dictates later job results. It's what people do job-wise that counts.

Today, for the moment, employers generally can't be quite so prejudicial though many still subconsciously apply their beliefs for far less moral reasons. They really should look instead at the work an applicant can deliver and their motivation to do the work. Unless it's for a job playing football or working for a company that makes it's living selling vegetarian, then why are these relevant? In the grand scheme it doesn't matter. Unless the number of vegan owners far exceeds their percentage in the workforce there will always be jobs for meat eaters.

Still, raising this low impact question highlights a raft of related issues managers should ponder when making decisions.

Did I Hear That Right? No Kidding?

Googling "people skills" dredges up some mighty strange stuff. Their sixth highest listing is a blog or column in a publication called AskMen.com, Canadian Edition. I haven't looked at the American version because this one is so… well… astounding. However, I'm easily won over. If it's true that 5 million read this stuff, it has to have some value and impact.

If this is what it takes to get men, presumably mostly young men trying to find their way up in organizations, to read some of the 40,000 articles claimed on the site, it can't be all bad. But you have to read to believe. The article in question on "people skills" is a said to be a re-post. Apparently this is a popular topic. It supposedly responds to a guy who asks how he can stop swearing so much at work. Would anyone really ask that? No matter, it supports developing effective social skills - much to be applauded.

The author suggests in the first couple of paragraphs under the tip "Speak Clearly" that men should wake up and become "eloquent" as a way of getting ahead. Sounds like a fairly big jump. To quote: "He can beautify, amplify and impress his colleagues with his million dollar words and witty comments." Say what, "beautify… his colleagues?" Even allowing for cultural differences in approach and language, that's an unusual suggestion.

I was also mightily intrigued by the words linked to other articles. "Listen" shows up as a blue link to an article about the need to listen to your significant other - excellent advice, but some of the examples might be called questionable. The same with the article linked for "Emotions." Again, a laudable topic with undoubtedly good intent, but definitely backed up by what you'd say at the very least are 'unusual' examples. I'll leave it to readers to check these out since reporting the contents would not really fit here.

The bottom line? Everyone is and should be concerned about their people skills at some point. If it takes rather odd examples to get through to a certain segment of potential leaders, so be it. It won't be my market, but I'm glad someone's making the effort. I just hope they graduate to something a little more focused at some stage.

Dangerous Questions?

Do you get much out of webinars?  I hear people say if they got one thing it was worthwhile.  Is it any wonder Gen Xers prefer faster media like texting and short You Tube videos?  Often the best ideas come from very short comments. But you may not even notice them without context.

A webinar today on the subject of effective coaching from Bluepoint by the authors of their new book, Unleashed, suggested we can often benefit from the following question in lots of situations and expect many people to jump to answer this: "who knows a dangerous conversation we need to have?"

In context this is a brilliant observation.  If you're coaching someone it could be the dangerous conversation they need to have is with themselves or with some significant other - as spouse, a boss, a coworker or any of a dozen other possibilities.

Perhaps even more importantly, this would almost always seem helpful in team meetings.  Maybe change the wording slightly to "dangerous questions we need to ask?"  How many times have you been at a meeting, knowing people are sitting with concerns, but feeling unable to ask for speak up?

Another option: "Who knows a challenging question we should ask?"  The possibilities and the opportunities are endless.  Are there situations where you can apply this today?  Is there a dangerous question you can ask yourself?

Isn't There Something Tough About Leading?

Yes. Learning to tolerate uncertainty. Once you have, you're home free.

We're finally beginning to understand complexity and it turns out to be simpler than expected. In virtually all complex situations a small set of principles makes you most successful... with one caveat: you can't predict the exact outcome or when it will occur. In all complex situations there are no guarantees. Some solutions will fail and some will succeed beyond anything imaginable when you begin.

The good news is that when working with people, we know the small set of principles and we know that successful outcomes outnumber failures by a vast margin - in the order of 99 to 1... if you stick to the principles that work most often. I've covered those before on my web site... here. http://www.crispstrategies.com/index.php?src=news&category=Articles+about+the+Five+Skills

The challenge is that you need to apply the five skills consistently for as long as it takes to succeed. You can't know for sure how long that is. You can't be absolutely certain it will work (although 99% of the time it will. This is astronomically better than the odds you get when gambling which are usually far more than 99% tilted toward losing. But the results of gambling are usually instant, which makes it the most appealing behavior on Earth, the most addictive and difficult to walk away from. This is the opposite. It can be very challenging for anyone to stick with a long, slow, uncertain process.

If nothing else, you may just feel stupid hanging in. That's a really bad feeling. I recall how difficult it was doing my first major search for a new job at age 33. I wanted to make a change from being a rank-and-file teacher/guidance counselor with no obvious management experience to a business-managerial role in some totally different industry where I had no experience. I had to sit at lunch ever day for a year with a bunch of other teachers who thought I was attempting something insane and impossible. Though few commented, I could feel the weight of their skepticism adding to my own every day. But I plodded along. As a result I ended up in a dream job that led to a dream career with results so far beyond what I could have achieved in my old role that it's hard to compare them in the same breath. Talk about tripling your results... and then some.

The neat thing is that you don't have to let yourself feel stupid. No one really knows or cares how you feel. It helps to use the five skills constantly in all sorts of situations. That way you soon see them working in one way or another. Confidence develops and you realize you can succeed at virtually anything more than 99% of the time if you just keep at these daily. After a while they become second nature and you do them without any conscious effort. They become habits you always apply automatically, not stressful, not time-consuming, easy to fit in with whatever else you want to do - in a word: EASY!

Leadership Isn't Tough

Gregg Thompson writes, in the newsletter for Tom Peters' spin-off "Blue Point Development" that we shouldn't believe all those articles we see promising leadership "secrets." He's right to point out there aren't really any secrets. We know what there is to know, but he goes on to explain why so we see so many of these articles by saying we know all about leadership, but, "It's just tough, and we'd like to find an easier way to do it." 

I beg to differ. I rarely found leadership tough at all. In fact, I often felt I had one of the easiest jobs in the world. What's tough is to struggle under bosses who don't let you do anything, who constantly dish out orders and keep you from leading or doing anything your way. I was lucky that most of my bosses over the years didn't exert that sort of strangling control. And I worked steadily on ways to get out from under that sort of supervision.

The key to leadership is that you have to have a clear point of view of your own, not someone else's. You need to pursue it steadily, not change directions constantly as many managers and companies do. Not everyone will buy in initially, so you have to persuade, convince people with small results demonstrating reliability along the way. And along with persistence, you have to listen and adjust to incorporate what others need to see along the way while still moving in your chosen direction.

The balance between stubbornly persisting along your own route and incorporating others' opinions is the big challenge. Fortunately you don't have to be perfect. There will be times when you annoy people by sticking to your way and other times when you accuse yourself of being wishy-washy because you gave in to easily on some key point. If you constantly pay attention and remember that you are stretching the envelope, you'll notice these and adjust continuously without ever giving up on your overall objective.

That probably sounds tough. It really isn't. It just takes focus - paying attention consistently and not forgetting where you're trying to get to. It becomes habit, pushing slowly, but steadily toward your goal while doing your best to take others along with you. At times progress will seem slow or non-existent. At others you'll be startled by major leaps forward. Either way, you mustn't give up your efforts to move forward step by step (I'd use the word "slogging," but that makes it sound hard and it isn't). Just persist steadily at a pace and pressure level you can comfortably sustain. Make sure you get distractions and relaxation in there to recharge your batteries. The end result belongs to those who keep going, not those putting in the greatest one-time effort. Enjoy the journey. You only pass this way once.

Amazing New Items... or Stuff?

Today we're constantly bombarded with useful information, so much so we don't have time to go read much of it and if we do there's a danger of all of it becoming uselessly entangled due to overload. I'm not sure what the solution (though speed reading seems to be needed). Blogs are supposed to be all about gathering links to stuff their readers would find interesting as a way of helping people find just what they want or need. I'm not sure. Here's an example.

Here's a piece on managing barriers to thinking and creativity and what blocks us from seeing things in new ways - a theme that seems to fit with my approach: The Seeing Believing Gap. To make it short, I liked the opening story (a good article feature I haven't yet learned to do well myself) and I like the paragraph headings (which save us from reading most sections for detail). From the headings I liked two paragraphs: See Past Isolated Concepts, which emphasizes a key point I make - that seeing connections helps - and I liked the last one: See past your usual circle because it mentions another source, a book that might be interesting, and again, a broader view.

Then I glance to the bottom of the page, a Blog World conference link catches my eye and I wonder 'what's that; maybe I need it' and I'm off again on a hunt for more interesting stuff that might be useful. I realize there's lots I don't know. I don't even know if this page I'm reading on Fast Company is really a blog or just how the two relate. It's all interesting, but not "transparent" or self-explanatory - it's just stuff at some level.

Human beings are great at processing "stuff." The actual work we accomplish today takes up less and less time. Yet we're busy with "stuff" - ideas, possibilities and continuous learning. That seems to be working for us although it often leaves us feeling overloaded and perhaps not having accomplished as much as we'd like.

I don't have the answers for this. If anyone does, I'm always looking for "stuff" to read (and pass on) that might help. Help. Some days I almost want to be back in corporate where constant interruptions demanded that I actually do stuff. But no, I'm happier overall working on my own and deciding when to goof off with "stuff" without feeling like I'm cheating anyone, but me.

When People Go Wrong

Working with a couple of clients today reminded me that a big part of what I do is encourage people to hang in, to cope with things that go wrong in the people arena and do what they can to find small steps toward a long term solution.

People often ask "am I crazy; do other people face these problems; why doesn't my company do something about this?" Often, when bad employees are involved, Human Resources gets a big share of the blame, many times deservedly so, though it's rarely them alone. They can almost always do more. But what if a senior boss is protecting someone or is afraid of a law suit if an offender is terminated. Perhaps "their numbers are good" and the company "can't live without them" so no matter how obnoxious they are they get to stay.

Eventually the end does come for jerks who make people's lives miserable. Often it seems to be by accident, but it rarely is. Accumulated frustration by enough people usually fuels some sort of solution, though often a hit or miss - quitting occurs more often than firing. I find myself saying over and over, "hang in, it won't last forever."

We know companies can't and shouldn't just fire someone out of hand. It wouldn't be morally right even if they could do it without getting sued. But why don't they at least begin taking action. There are hundreds of rationalizations. If you dig it mostly ends up as "it would take too long." That translates to "I might be gone by then. Why start something I can't finish." The next sentence ("In fact, I hope I'll be gone before I have to deal with this.") is usually not far beneath the surface.

These challenges can be tough, but there are workable ways to start making the situation better. Most people know that if you want to lose weight or exercise more you need to start slowly. Making a big dash usually results in early failure and giving up, back to square one. Things just don't happen over night. Following the same logic, we need to work out a slowly building plan for getting rid of someone. In every office most people know who these offenders are. There are small steps that any boss can take that set the stage slowly, but surely for the inevitable end. Even if that boss moves on in a few months and the job isn't finished, the next boss can step right in. It isn't and shouldn't be a personal vendetta, but it needs to be a solid business approach.

Getting rid of poor performers is an essential task every manager will always face. But very few learn to work logically toward this and few get any real training.

Surprisingly the best answer lies in taking a coaching approach to the offender. Perhaps they literally don't know they're causing problems. Many do, but because no one has ever spelled it out they blissfully think they'll continue getting away with bad behavior forever. When a manager begins coaching them there's usually some denial, but it evaporates fairly quickly because they know they've been caught. As coaching progresses and they see they need to change or go, they're that much closer to quitting to get away from the inevitable.

Coaching should always aim at the positive, but the longer coaching goes on unsuccessfully, the more clearly they will see they won't have a case when the time comes. Some actually do shape up, but the really stubborn, bad ones most often see the steady push and run away, quit, "get sick" or try to transfer. Steady steps walk them steadily to the door and at that point it's an easy, obvious step out.

Coaching Communicates Across Our Differences

Sometimes a break from the routine is what's needed to clear one's thinking and gain perspective.

During a longer than usual summer layoff I spent tons of time reading and watching people. I looked at situations I usually don't have time to ponder. In stores, restaurants, service businesses and, yes, even occasionally in offices I happened to visit I constantly noticed how different we are... and yet how strangely similar. What we often have in common seems to be our lack of listening.

My reading was largely about coaching. I concluded the simple solution to the world's problems, especially business problems, is to build a culture in which everyone coaches. I wanted to survey what's out there on coaching yourself as well as coaching others. And I looked to see if I could see coaching-style leadership happening around us. Mostly I couldn't, though it certainly goes on. It's just lower key than the usual wrangling and grumping we see and hear everywhere from both bosses and staff. A great feature of coaching as a leadership style - it goes almost unnoticed when done as a matter of routine. There's virtually no resistance to it.

We learn at least as much ourselves while we're trying to coach others. A coaching point of view encourages us to think in terms of learning, changing and improving at the same time we urge it on others. That in itself encourages others to take it seriously because they see the coaches true interest includes learning for themselves as well as changing the coachee.

What's clear is that no one truly likes "advice." Coaching takes a different approach in which the coach encourages the individual to figure things out for themselves. The back and forth discussion actually allows both to air their concerns, their hesitations and begin to build new ideas for action... for themselves. Ultimately everyone's interests are served. The truth gets out on the table and it's dealt with in a highly constructive way without orders, fault-finding or threats. 

I loved the Henry Ford quote cited by Jim Clemmer in his newsletter: "No one is apathetic except those in pursuit of someone else's objectives." Coaching offers a chance for everyone to develop and begin the path to one's own objectives for oneself - a far more appealing road than orders or advice.

Being Honest Isn't Just Not Stealing

Studies routinely find that more than 99% of executives have integrity and don't cheat, at least no more than the minor sorts of ways an average person might sometimes. Why should they be different from everyone else? With the rates of criminal behavior causing jails to fill it should be no surprise that a few flagrant cases occur even though organizations do a lot to hire honest people and maintain systems to keep them that way. Most executives are at least as honorable as average people, are happy to comply and don't want to risk their jobs.

You could well argue executives should meet a higher standard because of the responsibilities they're given. You'd be right, and many strive to do just that when it comes to theft, fraud and cheating. But there's an even higher standard meant by the word "honest." One of my former bosses used to call it "intellectual honesty." He meant being honest with yourself about facts and judgments... and seeking feedback.

The most common flaw in CEOs comes from the power they wield. Not so much that they'll wield it badly, but that people will fear to tell them the truth and the CEO won't actively seek it. Hiding or even just omitting awkward facts, actually burying bad news or shading the truth about what's happening hampers CEOs enormously. No one can make reasonable judgments or effective strategic decisions based on inaccurate understanding of what's going on.

Facts are actually difficult to get. In most situations managers have to judge based on incomplete evidence. That means even a shred of truth missed can produce far-reaching damage. As a result we see obviously dumb ideas being pushed into action by organizations all the time. In retail, for just one example, Saks just announced they were dropping the idea of selling to a younger customer. Why would they announce their intention in the first place only to reverse themselves later? There's pressure to talk to stock analysts about new ideas to boost sales (and share prices), but common sense should tell CEOs to test, to see if current customers will swing toward a new product line before you dive in. If Saks did, clearly it wasn't sufficiently in depth for an idea that on the surface looks unlikely to work easily.

Why don't more people tell CEOs what could go wrong? Often it's because the CEO doesn't encourage the right kind of honesty. That in itself is dishonest - believing that somehow you don't need the help.