Instant People Skills: Coach Yourself & Others

Answers To The Outsourcing Rant

A reader was kind enough to undertake to set me straight as follows: "On the outsourcing point of view the key question for me is what is the return on the asset and people unfortunately are assets in a company. If I'm in banking my assets are money and financial minds tat create retrurns. If my business is commercial real estate then my assets are property, buildings and people who know a good deal from a bad one. If I'm an HR outsourcer then my assets are HR savvy people who others are willing to buy expertise from. If I'm a multinational pharma company or software company then I'm afraid I don't see much return from an HR person.

It's all about following the money."

I started to write a return comment and realized it needed to be longer and more people might want to see it…. Thanks for the comment Darren. I think you've succinctly captured one point of view. Where can I start to explain more clearly. You can always outsource "hard" HR basics - the transactional systems, record-keeping and benefits. But people absolutely are assets in every company - like the financial minds you mention. Those minds can get balled up in worrying about minor stuff on benefits or they can worry about when their next promotion is coming. While they're worrying, they aren't creating as good returns as they could. Often those worries don't fit in boxes like, "what does the dental plan pay for this?" The real key is continual coaching approach from their direct leader, but who helps the leaders who aren't naturally good at this?

People are unique in being assets you don't own or control. Leaders can use them up by hiring for great potential, using them for a while till they feel they're being used and toss them out as some bosses regularly do or you can have someone who helps develop and coaches bosses who in turn listen and respond to concerns. In a small business (as most are) if you hand pick business leaders and they have good listening skills, see the need and the CEO listen as well, you can get by without a designated HR person for a long time. But as you grow, merge, acquire others and have to expand your ranks, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure enough people who give the continual time to listening that is needed as part of their job, as part of getting the work flowing smoothly and to give the thinking time to make good decisions about every person. And coordinating all this takes time.

In every company someone tends to fall into the role of listener and thinker for resolving HR "soft" issues. That person becomes the de facto HR person, the go to individual when someone has a problem or a manager has a problem with an employee. They may do other things, too, as I did even in a very large corporation, but they need some latitude to help set the tone for how people are treated and to counsel those who behave outside the program, to be a second set of ears and eyes for the CEO to marshal people on track continually to get the best return on those assets. As Colin Powell says in his first book, "every division needs it's 'chaplain' [his description for someone who listens and helps resolve]." You can leave the role informal, but that tends to hide a very important lever in getting things moving and keeping them moving smoothly.

Quite often this person doesn't carry the title HR and isn't hired for that alone, but they are in a real sense running the HR program of the organization and it takes a real and usually substantial portion of their time. If you lose that person, your return on human assets tanks fairly quickly. Research shows great HR multiplies financial results by four or more times over the average company. I probably don't need to say that anything that runs "great" like "great HR" is great because it is run by an effective leader. Who is leading HR in any company is a key question. It's a daily culture-building influence that you cannot thrive without. Someone organizes that and it almost never can be the entrepreneurial leader who drives the business attack - the roles and the things you have to do and dedicate the majority of your time to are simply incompatible. So do you give the HR role to someone formally (full or part time) or just let it happen by itself, haphazardly? Contractors can't do this for you unless they're on site virtually full time and have the ear of the senior leadership continually.

It's Not Really Multitasking, Is It?

Often when you've had a chance to sleep on it, some remark you've made the day before seems incorrect (that's the polite word) or maybe just dumb.

Yesterday I suggested that "multitasking" would be OK if you're working to help people become better while also working toward an objective was an exception to the rule against trying to do two things at once. That's not what I intended, I see in retrospect.

In fact, it's better to say you should look for ways to achieve two ends at the same time with the same, single action. By helping others improve, you get work done - through them, with them and even on your own as you model for them how they could approach things. It's a way of working and thinking about work that ultimately produces better results in every situation.

It really isn't a "multitask" because you're not stopping to help them and then stopping that to go back to work, you are doing both together, sometimes working alongside them on a problem, sometimes on your own, but with the objective that your work will help them move forward in some way.

Of course, we can't avoid distractions. They happen all day long inevitably. But we can avoid distracting ourselves by attempting multiple tasks at the same time. Everyone gets caught up in the sense of urgency and the layering on of one new demand on top of the last.

We have to catch our breath sometimes and say stop the roller coaster, let me sort out what to work on first, second and third and then do those in that order… without trying to do every task simultaneously. If the goals of every task include how this improves things for people as well as achieves results, we're on the right track. If we can't see how, we need to rethink our approach to it until we find a better strategy for it.

Henry Mintzberg's New Idea for Leadership Development

The volunteer leadership think tank I work a lot for, Strategic Capability Network, had the pleasure and good luck to host Dr. Mintzberg in January on the subject of a new project he's developing. It's goal:  simplifying leadership development to a program companies can do themselves in-house that will compete with the International and Advanced Management programs he's run for years - the new one at a cost of a few hundred dollars versus the $45,000 to $100,000 tuition per person for the International and Advanced programs.

The long-time management guru (not at all too strong a word for a professor, author of 140 articles and13 books like Managers Not MBAs) has always worked toward taking the mystery and myths out of effective leadership… and now out of leadership development.

The new venture, CoachingOurselves, is fascinating if not entirely unheard of previously, but its great to see an acknowledged master show how simply we can develop leadership skills.

In this approach groups of managers, usually four to seven, meet together with the role of chair rotating among them, on topics of their choosing. They follow a guide in the form of an agenda and a few PowerPoint slides, created by Henry or his co-authors and learn on their own from their own discussions about their own experience.

He suggests the primary model is that the group meet once a month for about an hour and a quarter for as long as they feel they're benefiting. So far there are intended to be a couple of hundred topics to choose from with about 20 or so currently available and more in development that can be tailored, costing in the range of under $200 each - that's $200 for all five or six people, not per person… and no travel cost or time.

Obviously the major advanced and travel programs can expose managers to experiences, people and diversity that no in-house program could duplicate. Nevertheless Mintzberg insists the core feature of the expensive programs carries over - managers sharing their own experiences and learning from open discussion with each other. So it's "go big or go home" literally, with the option to learn at home now being a valid one.

It isn't a program that creates learning, it's individuals' willingness to learn and to share their thoughts, knowledge and experience with each other that makes for more effective leadership. And we know from personal experience that doing it consistently beats a one-time shot in the arm every time.

More On ADKAR And Easier Change

My objective with my five principles is a simple model for what you or organizations actually need to do to be effective in all sorts of situations. ADKAR (previous post) looks helpful for organizations.  Stephen Covey's seven habits work well with individuals.  Both could be stretched to the opposite situation (organizations or individuals), but most systems are designed primarily for certain types of challenges and from a single point of view.

ADKAR's elements - Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement - effectively describe end results needed for organizational change. As a memory aid they don't point toward HOW to achieve these, which is where I find most managers ask the most urgent questions.  The strategy is good; how can it be executed?

Take "desire" for example.  Desire or motivation often seems to managers the most difficult thing to develop in yourself or others if it isn't there to begin with.  ADKAR accurately suggests that once you become aware of the need for change you need to create a state of wanting to or desiring change.  But how?

My corresponding principle is "positive."  I describe the five principles as habits you need to build toward in yourself, others or both. With this in mind, I think managers have a relatively easier time concluding what they need to do - talk and behave in ways that get people into habits of feeling positive about aspects of work in general. Most can think of ways to be more positive, more of the time.

You can't usually get a group of people fired up, motivated or filled with desire to change on the spur of the moment.  There are exceptions.  When the theater you're in is burning or some other inescapable crisis makes it absolutely clear that you should all be motivated, pretty well any leader who stands up and points to the door is seen as charismatic. 

Highly charismatic individuals seem to have the ability to motivate groups purely through words.  Unfortunately lots of CEOs attempt this by putting speeches on video and sending them out to the troops.  Needless to say, lots fail.

But if you work with a group of people over time and have always been honest and positive with them, encouraged them to take initiative, and they've seen the results that occur when they jump into action as you suggest, they are very likely to do so again when you point out that change is needed. They build on already positive beliefs that taking action makes sense. They are positive about acting and positive they can succeed. That's how "desire" bubbles up when needed - a lot of small positive elements adding together.

Am I splitting hairs? Maybe. But my focus is decidedly in favor of describing what's needed in terms people can most easily see how to put into action. Consistently positive people make both organizational and personal change far easier.

Charisma!?

I just gave someone blogging advice that applies to anyone wanting to get attention and more business - offer tips.

Case in point: one of the many email newsletters I keep finding myself on the list for is from Lynda Goldman (http://www.impressforsuccess.com/). The first I've seen arrived recently with a tip for being more charismatic.

The tip: Stand and walk tall. There's a lot of truth in this. You'll project confidence, speak more strongly, seem a bit larger than life and generally send the message that you know what you want, what you're doing and that you can't be dissuaded. Confidence is attractive and, to some degree, catching, so people feel better aournd you.

Is this really charisma? Well, probably if you practice it enough to make it your usual style of presenting yourself, it could be. It won't be if you do it only occasionally or drop the manner suddenly in the middle of something. Then it will appear false, as a facade, a feeble attempt to be something you're not. Whether you "are" or "aren't" really depends more on whether this becomes habit. If it does, you've raised your charisma level permanently.

Only you can decide if this is something you want. There are trade-offs. Particularly if you begin to believe your own press (very appropriate word here since Goldman is a communications expert) you may become insufferable. But you don't have to. You can find a balance. You can develop skills to use in appropriate situations and not in others. It takes time either way. Adding a new capability always gives you more options.

Can it ever become "as good as the best natural" charismatics? That depends on how much you puruse the initial stage you reach. You can always go further, add other behaviors that typify charismatic people. Over time you can pretty much go as far as you want. Can you ever catch up with someone who started in their early teens or get ahead of them. That, too, depends - on how hard, how often and how insightfully you practice.

So the tip makes sense. Whether you choose to pursue it depends on your sense of whether you need it, whether it adds something you want to your skill set and how much time you are willing to devote to it in lieu of devoting time to other things. It rarely takes as long as you might think.

Given that we have such choices, the next challenge becomes sorting out which to pursue. It makes little sense to waste a lot of time on something you're not going to follow up fully.

Now all I need to figure out is why I can't accept a perfectly good tip without analyzing it to death. The short anwswer is that it doesn't make as much sense to me if I don't.

The Ultimate Skill?

It's easy to miss the most obvious ideas when you're too close to a topic. While working on revising how I present people skills it occurred to me that the "ultimate" people skill can be described very simply as "helping and being helped" by others. When you're hired, essentially "helping" is the job description. Whether your primary role is to help customers, help co-workers, help your boss or suppliers, it's likely all of these come into play. You're hired to help.

The challenge is that adults don't actually like to be helped. They want to be in charge. In fact I often recommend that the best method for disciplinary situations is to tell the person you intend to help them - as in "I am going to help you improve your attendance. I think you need help." You can see that wouldn't be welcome news to most people. In fact, most will say they don't need help of that sort and can do it themselves, which is, of course, exactly what you hope in that situation.

So, how you help and how you offer it is clearly going to be an issue. Lot's of employees see ways they believe they can help their team, their boss or their company, but no one seems interested. This turns off so many people it should be almost a crime for managers to brush off suggestions. The other side is that the idea needs to be "on strategy" which implies that the company needs to have a strategy so it's obvious what's on or off base.

A key job of any manager should be to work with employees and their suggestions to get as many of them as possible "on strategy" and implemented in one form or another. It may well be that the idea has been thought of before and perhaps even tried, but chances are there is some way, some variation that would make it workable and see it adding value. If an employee really wants to help, has ideas and energy to work on them over and above their usual "boring" routine work, it's imperative to help them find ways to take things further. Managers who ignore these ideas will lose the best employees they have, the ones with ideas who want to grow. The best will try variations to get their manager interested, but will eventually pick up and go elsewhere to find some place more willing. The greatest reward is to see our ideas implemented and successful.

So, while helping is the core work skill, finding ways to make use of help is perhaps even more important.

Great Leaders Do Nothing... Obvious

A phrase that rumbles through my thinking often is "the best leaders do nothing" or at least "nothing very obvious." It's a bit of a joke... because we're all busy, but the message is don't do things for other people that are properly their tasks. Most importantly, don't do their thinking for them. This is the core of a coaching approach to leadership.

Bosses feel tremendous pressure to have all the answers and there are lots of times when staff truly want specific decisions, but even more when they don't. When staff think they might have the answer and what they want is approval, it can still be perceived by the boss as an opportunity for direction. What they really want is to be told do what they think best - encouragement or validation or permission.

It may be tempting to jump in and "adjust" the plan, but if you do, it becomes your plan, not theirs. Since you will now get credit or blame, they feel far less motivated and less conscientious about following through. These subtle differences make for happy employees and successful results... or not.

So the message is... do nothing... when employees ask for help. Ask them what they want to do, what they feel is best. It boosts their egos a bit. It gets them thinking in greater depth. It stimulates their creativity.

If the plan seems weak, ask for more ideas, don't just addle out a bunch of your own. You can subtly guide by asking, "have you thought about this," but make "this" into a sort of question, too, not a veiled, but direct suggestion. The better approach is, "have you thought about how that would affect....[often some person or group]." That way the individual is encouraged to think more, to take more issues into account, whereas if you simply say, "have you though about contacting so-and-so to ask for X and lay out your plan so they can comment..." now you're taking over the planning for them. Keep to questions.

Every time you successfully navigate this, you boost the skills and awareness of your staff. You make them stronger for next time. The level of issues they bring you goes up. You'll know when you need to make a real decision for them, when they truly need your answer. In the mean time, you gain because they grow in ability to do more and leave you closer to having... nothing to do.

Seek To Change Yourself First

My old executive coach has remained a friend over many years now. We don't see each other a lot, but I'm always moved to call when I'm struggling with something. The odd thing about coaching is that it never "ends." As I speak with him, the sense of being listened to comes back. With so many people you talk, but they're really listening to their inner voices analysing what you're saying and preparing a response. The essense of coaching is listening for real, just listening.

Knowing that you're going to be listened to changes what you say. You're more aware that you should try to make sense as opposed to making small talk. So by the time you get the person into conversation you've most likely done more clear thinking about your problem than you realize.

The "coach"/friend doesn't solve your problems. It's generally best if they don't even attempt advice. But even a couple of relatively obvious questions will usually draw out ideas you've been formulating, but haven't yet clarified for yourself. That's the power of coaching. Ideally in a balanced friendship, you coach each other simply by really listenting to what the other person has to say.

In other words, the power of a coach is the change you make in yourself as a result of wanting to present something that makes sense when you meet.

Interesting sidelights come out of such conversations. We talked a bit about coaching approaches. My friend mentioned a coach he particularly admired who began with sports coaching and wrote a book from later experiences coaching in large companies using the same principles. Those principles sounded not only interesting, but unusual so I looked for the book and got it from the local library - Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Work. 

I knew I'd hit something I'd like when I ran into this passage about company leaders: "People in a position to make changes tend to absolve themselves from the need to make the changes in themselves first. Change is something "we" do to "them." Learning is something "they" need to do."

Amen. When coaching someone else, you must be open to change, too. In fact that's one of the great benefits. Great book.

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.