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.

Rant: Outsourcing Core Business Factors Is Dubious

Sure you can outsource human resources… some would argue completely. But why? Line managers, no matter how well we train, will never have time to gain experience with the vast range of complex situations needed to get an overall handle on things that may, and inevitably do, pop up unexpectedly.

Some will face human rights, some unions, some leave and temporary replacement and many, many more highly specific issues. We want line managers concentrating on business and day-to-day management of people, with some sensitivity to complicated HR items, but not to try to be expert in all of them. We don't even want them tied up for long worrying about where to find the right sort of expert for the challenge they're suddenly facing. For them to be able to turn to someone with more overall knowledge about what's possible and who knows the internal culture seems totally logical.

The more we can automate and outsource details and "transactional" stuff (HR systems, payroll, benefits, even parts of recruiting and substantial parts of training) the better, but to suggest we outsource all of HR is just plain dopey in virtually every case.

In fact, a big beef with in-house HR professionals is that even they don't have complete experience and expertise with the vast range of challenges that can arise. But at least they know where to look fo what's available, what pitfalls to avoid until expertise is engaged and, if they're any good, how that expertise needs to adapt to fit the in-house culture.

Hardly a week goes by without another "expert" threatening the possibility that Human Resources in organizations will become totally irrelevant and be totally outsourced. Stop already! The latest article is by a former Toronto senior human resource executive (who shall remain nameless) who helped outsource a major chunk of his company's HR operations and is now himself providing outsourced services to others. Frequently it is outsourcers who write this stuff.

Here's a question - how do these outsourcing companies (some of which are now huge) do their own HR for their own people? Do they outsource it? If their in-house people can do it effectively (is it by calling on subject experts in-house on each piece of HR?) what makes other companies' in-house HR people so unable to achieve the same skill?

No one would argue that every in-house HR person is fully knowledgeable or even knowledgeable enough on all that is available today. But that's the nature of virtually every profession - constant learning. My beef is with HR people who think they know it all, not with the concept that HR contributes value when done well and when decisions about what resources are needed, internal or external, are made with good, logical judgment. Today, many of the know-it-all HR types are not those inside organizations.

Handling people effectively is at least as core a business function as handling money effectively. Regardless of what portion is farmed out, doesn't it make sense to have an expert or two in-house to coordinate issues that arise every single day in virtually every organization? Is that best done by line managers who already have busy workloads and over-worked brains?

We Need To Change The Way We Multitask

By now you've read that multitasking isn't what people imagine and largely distracts us from effective work (Slashdot link, for instance). It's really switching quickly back and forth between two or more tasks and each switch wastes time as we struggle to re-orient to the next item. That's been well researched.

The problem is we all do it. And actually, if you think about it, a certain type of multitasking is necessary and worthwhile, though much isn't. We need to understand the difference.

What helps is if we pay attention to the one key multitasking that helps us to be most effective, a facet we often overlook. While doing anything, the key question is what its effect will be on other people - will they be more motivated and more capable of helping get things done as a result of what we do?

Everything we do connects with others - customers, co-workers, family members, even other drivers on the road. If we plough through task after task to get "things" done as quickly as we can, it's inevitable that we start ignoring people - the loud cell conversations in crowded places, the calls taken during meetings and dinners, the brush-offs of co-workers when we "absolutely" have to make something else a priority. No one learns from us, except that in future they'd rather have less to do with us.

The real multitasking requirement we all face is how our work can get done and at the same time people can be helped along the way so they, too, can be optimally productive, learn new skills, improve, grow and thrive. What else are we in business and in life for? And, by the way, some of that greater productivity and improvement will come back to help us get more things done faster ourselves. If we model helping, we will be helped in return. Reciprocity is our human link.

Best "Better Management" Blog

John Hollon, Editor-in-Chief, of Workforce Management writes one of the best blogs you can find on management. (Free registration is required, but it's not intrusive at all.) He comments with insight and dedication, identifying and suggesting alternatives for problem management styles. His job is watching employment news so he can always find items that make your hair stand on end.

John's logic and common sense make you wonder how these managers get to where they are. Recent comments about Bob Nardelli, echoing others a year before his outrageous severance package, make it obvious why that outcome was inevitable - and make you wonder why Chrysler thinks he might work out there. It's only a matter of time for guys like this. The bigger question is whether they will take down the entire company - a real possibility in this case. But, still, how do they get there to begin with? This one has to make you question the legacy of Jack Welch, Nardelli's former CEO and a GE Board that would even let him get to the level of consideration.

One problem is the immense power we accord the role of "boss" in any organization. Thousands of bosses at every level lament they can't fire anyone because of union rules, legal protection and other impediments to free-wheeling lashing out. They go through life frustrated, yet it's often with these bosses specifically that somehow everyone feels punished... and not just the weak or bad ones, but almost everyone working for them.

Bad bosses create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most of their best employees leave because they can and they hate where they are. The boss may not be able to fire the bad ones, but finds plenty of ways to force the good to leave. The remainder tend to be exactly those the boss deserves, complains about and feels justified in persecuting and ordering about. It becomes a reinforcing downward spiral into misery, minimal effort and poor results.

Only when a company builds a culture that develops good and refuses to tolerate bad behavior will we see this change. Developing positive habits in how people are treated isn't difficult, but everyone has to make it a priority. Then the bad employees, including the bad managers, leave because they are passed over, can't get a foothold and don't want to be faced daily with the fact they don't fit.

How To Get Past Frustration

People at every level of work often ask how to cope with frustrations they feel sometimes to the point of despair. Some days it seems there isn't a sane boss or co-worker anywhere. If it helps to know you aren't alone, I can certainly reassure you. Not only do I have my own moments of despair (and I'm the only boss I have to blame for that), but being in the leadership coaching business, I hear this constantly from every direction. Unfortunately it's part of humans working together.

People need to vent. It helps to have someone just listen. Often this can't be a spouse because it causes them too much worry and they usually just want to convince you things aren't so bad. Co-workers may cause problems, too, by gossiping about your venting. With splintered families and social relationships there are fewer listeners. A non-work friend or coach is definitely a better choice, but they in turn need to learn coping skills to handle the deluge that usually arrives.

Venting is healthy - to a point. When it goes over the same ground too many times and becomes circular, it's just more worry. You need to break off the conversation and come back later. Once the person is stuck in the rut, they can't and won't let go. They just want your commiseration at that stage.

When you pick things up later, a technique called reframing helps. First, see the challenge differently - it's a learning opportunity. You're going to encounter many others like the person now causing grief. If you can learn to handle this one, you'll be far less likely to reach this awful level of despair next time… so can we move from that to get focused on strategies for coping and improving the situation?

Examples might help.

Recently a friend told me how he'd actually jeopardized his career because he was so frustrated with his boss. He's in charge of quality improvement and needed the boss' support to insist other managers follow the process he'd designed. The boss kept advising to cool things off, but my friend is evaluated on results and there weren't going to be any unless people cooperate. In a risky outburst he basically told the boss she wasn't doing her job and should get off the pot and do it. This resulted in a counter-speech about "catching more flies with honey than vinegar."

Ouch! Listen when you get that comment. The boss is telling you to cool it and they mean it. Further outbursts are definitely likely to be career limiting. A far better solution is to draw the boss in by asking for coaching. Ask how you should approach people, how important it is to get results, what should you do if there aren't any by year end? This way the boss can solve problems with and for you and can see what you see… that results, which she, too, is ultimately responsible for won't be easy to get without a better strategy.

Another recent case: a co-worker of a friend was asked to present to a team meeting on my friend's project (and take credit for work my friend has laboriously achieved in improving relations and results with a difficult client). This capped some obvious prior efforts by the co-worker to get my friend to give her all the information about the project. Was the boss suddenly favoring the co-worker and ignoring my friend and her effort? Well, it didn't sound like it to me. My friend had opened our conversation by telling me she'd just been given a terrific performance appraisal rating her in the top 10% of all employees… by the same boss.

Once the venting was over (or at least waning), I suggested the boss might see my friend as so superior she was becoming a "fixer" - opening new client relationships, getting them up to speed and then being able to turn them over to a weaker co-worker and take on yet another challenging situation. If that's true, that's not only a great compliment, but a major step toward ensuring promotion to more money and responsibility.

Before venting to the boss or complaining, it's important to seek feedback that could help determine if the better interpretation is or could be in play. Perhaps the boss hasn't been fully aware that's what they were doing and how my friend might react. If asked, "is this what you want me to do, train my co-worker," he might leap at saying yes… or at least begin thinking, "that's not a bad idea," to my friend's great benefit. Venting could hurt.

Often these useful twists only come to mind after the initial conversation. Both parties have to get out of the rut they set for themselves when they approach the situation with highly emotion. Emotions don't let go within that first conversation. You need time out. The next day or so is usually soon enough to step back and ask more strategic questions, look at other possible interpretations and where they could take you. You can even go get several opinions (again, ideally from non-work, non-spouse parties). If you ask, "why else might someone have done [whatever it was]," you may be surprised.

Next - what if there isn't a really good alternative interpretation? Settle on the most positive one you can even it seems far-fetched… and then check it out… doing so may actually help it come about. No single guess may be the best view. It often takes trial and error to work toward something positive, but just the step of coming up with one new idea to try takes a lot of the sting out of the situation and gets you back to driving toward a solution instead of just sympathy.

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.

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.

Can Managers Learn to Manage Flexibly?

Flexible and remote work has grown rapidly. 73% of managers said it is common in their organizations, 37% already manage fully or predominantly remote teams, though 33% of managers definitely feel it's not right for everyone.

A sizable number of managers remain skeptical and they lack skills and training to trust the new arrangements. So says a new study by UK-based City & Guilds and The Institute of Leadership and Management. They also note 71% believe they're competent enough to manage people well, but from other sources we know that at least 42% are dead wrong.

The bad news: 29% of managers still say they need to monitor their employees’ progress closely, suggesting they do not trust them to manage themselves even though 90% claim to believe employees can. Almost half the professionals studied did not feel MANAGERS in general are prepared to handle flex work arrangements properly (though we say we think better of employees). The study also says, "72% of managers claimed to manage by results and 80% claim to reward people for getting the job done, but when asked to rate the statement “Loyal employees work long hours”, a majority agreed, which would seem to undermine a results-measurement approach."

Clearly many managers remain conflicted about this, although equally clearly there's a growing body of leaders who not only have solved the problem, but are actively experiencing higher productivity among teams they've set up this way. In fact the study's panel of experts insist that in a great many cases flex and remote arrangements are at least as productive and often more so (74% for flex and 45% for remote insisting it adds, with only 2% and 8% respectively believing there are negative effects). Most agree it reduces stress.

Interestingly, though 71% feel competent at managing people,  only 24% have any training for these new arrangements. Those who have managed such teams, however, dispel common myths. Most say they're easy to keep up with, that most people work hard and effective teamwork can be expected. The full, clearly-written, 34-page report is available online at: www.cityandguilds.com/tomorrowsleaders.

I hate "reality" game shows

Above all two things make today's "reality shows" despicable for me: they create far more losers than winners and they enforce the belief that a slim majority of by-standers' votes means everything - as if life were no more than a rigged lottery or popularity contest. Thankfully life isn't like that.

As a debater, I can list a dozen more points pro and con. I don't even fault those who enjoy the spectacle, the guilty pleasures of seeing people lose and be brought down and the momentary vicarious joy they share with a winner. These at least reinforce the idea that someone can win at least some of the time. Unfortunately, though, they show winning as mostly luck among relatively equal players. We need every type of person who contributes, every set of skills no matter how few those skills may serve. In my view, every contestant is about equally justifiable as a winner, a person who is putting themselves out there to achieve, to contribute and offer their effort.

Game shows, which is what these are, have always been with us and always will be, right from gladiatorial times and their earlier versions. At least the many losers today get to go home. They provide a pleasant distraction for many people some of the time. Daily news provides worse "entertainment." We learn from defeat. Can we not learn even more from success?

Who is singing the praises of cooperative success, of the societies we can build on working together to see that everyone wins? Fortunately there's some emphasis today on such things as successful business ventures, home renovations and other constructive projects and what makes them so - people working together for good ends. We even get a bit of information now and again about the tremendous success in less developed areas of micro-investing, where extremely small loans enable creative local people to build thriving businesses, repay the loans and get their footing firmly established to advance their families and communities.

Of course competition is healthy. It motivates us more than some like to admit and for good reason. Being the best, however, does not mean everyone else must experience defeat. My beef with a steady diet of winners versus losers is that there's more important stuff in life. An exaggerated emphasis on winning over others, on who's kicked off the show, rather than on how they helped each other along the way to different levels of success makes it seem as if in our daily lives we should concentrate on destroying others chances to ensure our own. It's fine that some people win bigger than others. It's a fact of human psychology that an element of chance stimulates human interest more than any single addictive force we know. My concern is with the culture of losing as the only alternative that seems to be emphasized to an appalling degree. In the end, for me, there's just too much of it by far.

Kindness Pays or Does It?

This question headlined a recent article at http://www.workforce.com/section/09/feature/24/98/96/index.html where you may need free registration to read it. They quote a Bain & Co. expert as saying that for nine out of ten executives, "Companies are realizing that culture is as important as strategy...." But later on Bob Eichinger warns "you can have engaged companies without kindness" and "too much kindness can result in satisfied employees who aren't engaged."

Did someone say "fat and happy?" Aaarghhh! They go on to quote skeptics who say "it could be argued that companies get highly engaged employees because they are high performing" and "it's not a given that companies with engaged workforces perform better [financially] than those that don't." We should all be sick of these dopey comments by now.

The research is quite clear - you can't run a successful company on engagement alone - duh!? Of course! You also need decent systems, good customer relationships, solid financing and financial management and a good strategy along with engaged employees - the four elements of the Balanced Scorecard. Suggesting that kindly workplaces are a good thing isn't the same as saying they're the only thing.

As for high performance generating engagement and not the other way around, studies have repeatedly shown it works the other way. Yes, good results reinforce happiness in employees, but to get the good results you first need a committed and engaged workforce... along with other obvious requirements. It happens to have been shown that engagement contributes more than 60% to results, making it not just nice to have, but the most important ingredient.

It has also been shown that engagement requires more than just kindness (but that, too). It also takes challenge, support and training, fairness in proportional compensation for performance and other rewards and, not least, ethics.

When are we all going to hear and see every commentator recognizing that it takes a number of factors working together to get results. Leave out some and you have a formula for failure. The great thing today is that we have the research to prove what the factors are and therefore the opportunity to scientifically ensure our organizations have the ingredients they need to excel... and create more happiness for all of us.