Lisa Haneberg
Are you REALLY coaching? Or is it advice in disguise?
As coaches, our coaching is not supposed to be about us. But often, what we call coaching is really advice or counseling. All three conversations have a use and a place, but it is important to know what you are doing and what your intent is. Why? For coaching to be effective, the performer needs to own the conversation and subsequent actions.
Please, managers, do not start a conversation with, “Bob, can I give you some advice?” Bob will probably be polite, but he is surely thinking that he wants your advice about as much as a root canal with no numbing shot. Honestly, unless we are highly fascinating thought leaders (and even then), most people don’t want to hear our advice. They want help.
Confessions from a Natural-Born Starter About Follow-Through
I am one of those folks who has lots of energy and focus when starting things but who tends to quickly lose interest. I am a world class starter – but not a natural finisher. I bet many of you share this trait, too. I can count many accomplishments that I have brought to fruition, but MANY more projects that were abandoned mid-stream. Some of these efforts deserved better from me.
Is Your Performance Mgt System Enabling or Inhibiting Agility?
I advocate a systemic approach to improving organizational agility. One system that is often created and implemented with little or no regard to how it impacts agility is performance management. How we establish goals, reinforce and evaluate performance, and define excellence is usually born from a combination of corporate goals and job descriptions.
But will that reinforce agility? Where does agility show up in your organizational systems?
Organizational Agility – Is Yours?
Last week, I sent out my quarterly newsletter called Lead Well. The focus was organizational agility (you can see the whole newsletter here). I am not going to repeat the content on the blog, but wanted to pass along a quick (means ACT NOW) opportunity.
I have created an assessment that defines the systemic elements of agility. If you click on over to HERE, take five minutes to complete the assessment, you will get a summary of everyone’s results by email (you will not be added to any lists, the email is just for the report). I am only going to leave the survey open another day or two, so please act now. When you get the report, you will see the many systemic practices that I think contribute to organizational agility.
I Don’t Buy it That All Employees Are Engaged
I have heard a few people assert that employees are not disengaged, they might just not be engaged in what we want. Under this scenario, the job for managers is to redirect the employee’s engagement. And I think this is true for some employees and managers need to learn how to tap into their employees’ engagement.
AND I also think that some employees are not engaged – not engaged in what we want, not engaged in work, not engaged in their families, not engaged in their community, not engaged in their health, not engaged period. This is a tougher management challenge because the root cause likely has nothing to do with you.
A few years back, I might have been in the “everyone is engaged” camp, but I have seen and met several folks who are not engaged in any aspect of their lives, and honestly, I have suffered a few temporary bouts of disengagement myself. It feels quite aweful.
How Managers Can Amp Up Workplace Voltage
I was driving on the freeway today behind a van that had the word “voltage” in bold red letters across the back doors. I started thinking about voltage and decided it was a great term to describe energy in the workplace.
According to Wikipedia, voltage is:
The voltage between two points is a short name for the electrical force that would drive an electric current between those points. Specifically, voltage is equal to energy per unit charge. In the case of static electric fields, the voltage between two points is equal to the change in electrical potential difference between those points.
So the voltage in your workplace could be described as the amount of energy available to move between people. Cool. I am digging this concept of energy transfer. What’s energy if it can’t travel through the work, through people, and through the organization? Like a drag racing car at the starting line, burning rubber, but not going anywhere. I’ll stop mixing metaphors, now.
Best of Inspiration from Exec Women in Govt Conference
I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at the Executive Women in Government conference yesterday. There were about eight speakers – all powerful and inspiring leaders – and their messages seem to come together in a wonderful call to action. The post I did on Relevancy, Vibrancy, and Legacy shared the main points of my contribution. Here are a few of the more memorable bits of wisdom from the other speakers:
- We live in a new era of complexity and we need to face what we have to do. Our movements must change, too (referring to previous movements that catalyzed change).
- The importance of doing what you love. That we can all engage in unlocking the mysteries of the universe (or our communities, families, organizations).
- “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” Eleanor Roosevelt
- We must all fight to reduce tunnel vision, fragmentation, and silo-ization in our organizations as this is what causes big problems and serious collapses.
Do you talk beyond the point of contribution?
I was facilitating a training class this week and asked participants one thing they loved and hated about meetings. Meetings are SOOOO expensive and it is important that every meeting should help move things forward with top velocity. One participant said she hates it when people talk beyond the point of contribution. What a great way to phrase a common problem!!! I told her it would make a great blog post title and here it is.
Twitter is just 140 characters. The best blog posts are often short and saturated quickly get to the point. Should the same logic apply to meeting conversations?
Well, sort of. Yes, with a caveat. I am a proponent of great and deep conversation. That said, there is usually someone almost every most meetings has at least one over participator - someone who does not know how to make a clear and concise point at every meeting.
We have the “little book” from Strunk and White to help us learn how to write concisely. Where do we go to learn how to speak concisely? How does one best learn how to make a point and then STOP TALKING? It’s not The Dale Carnegie Course or Toastmasters, these teach presentation more than conversation skills.
High Impact Middle Management – Again!
I got an email from my publisher that the new edition of my book about high impact middle management is available (they just did an email blast you can see it here). The new version has a slightly tweaked title: The High Impact Middle Manager. I am
thrilled to have this book (a slightly revised version of my first
book, High Impact Middle Management) back in publication and available.
If you are a middle manager, know and love a middle manager, or want to someday be a great middle manager, check it out. Amazon has it as available for preorder, but it should start shipping soon.
A bit of behind the scenes information: The Foreword is the same one
as was included in the 2004 version of the book and was written by Ralph Stayer, CEO of
Johnsonville Foods. Here’s the thing – in the Foreword, Ralph compares
me to TIGER WOODS! Ouch! My initiation reaction was, “Oh no!” But now I can chuckle about it and I think that people
will figure out that he is referring to Tiger’s positive attributes.
Putting Perspective into the Challenge of Focus
I have not posted recently because I have been preoccupied by business travel problems – I have never had so many cancellations, reroutes, and travel delays. Sleep deprivation, bad food and missed meals, hours away from my computer, hotel rooms next to the landing strip. Nagging illnesses inflamed by my stress related lower immunity and exposure to thousands and fellow travelers. Mother Nature, please stop snowing!
I was eating breakfast at my hotel this morning while mentally going down my to-do list. I am behind on several things and like many of you, I can work myself into a victim conversation (see above for a great example of a victim conversation). When I whine about how much I need to get done, my husband is quick to suggest I read a book about how to focus. This is a friendly dig and reminder, because I wrote the book he is referring to (Focus Like a Laser Beam).
Yes, I need to follow my own advice. We all do, right? How many times have you caught yourself struggling with a topic about which you routinely give advice? Do as I say……
Undercover Boss – Reinforcing Bad, Fake, Management?
The new show, Undercover Boss, debuted after the Super Bowl. I did not watch it because I am almost NEVER interested, intrigued, or impressed by so-called reality TV shows. But two bloggers who I respect offered their thoughts.
Check out Wally Bock’s sharp-as-a-butcher-knife assessment in his post called, Undercover Boss: A Repellant Piece of Trash (come on, Wally, tell us what you really think).
And check out what the HR Capitalist has to say in his post called, Undercover Boss: You Wish That’s All It Took to Change Your Business...
What drives me crazy about these programs is how they reinforce that management can be fake, contrived, and self-serving. The TV show’s producers would likely respond that this is meant to be entertainment. Sure, that’s fine, but it is entertainment that reinforces that our leaders are idiots and that employees are too stupid to figure that out. Wrong and wrong.
So what does this mean for us? We need to work harder to show our employees our real sides, our caring sides, our smarter sides. There is a lot of value to spending time learning what’s going on in our organizations, but do it in ways that reinforce and improve relationships, trust, commitment, and connection.
Are they extraordinary? Do you see beauty at work?
OK, so the word “beauty” is not often paired with the words “your employees” unless you are having a difficult harassment-related conversation with your HR manager…. but that is not the type of beauty I am talking about.
And before I get into the main point of this post, let me throw out a few other words: love, fan, admiration, extraordinary.
I was training in Wash DC this week (got out just in time to avoid getting stuck!) and I noticed that whenever I talked about believing in employees, my training participants looked and acted differently.
(beauty in our back yard in Cincinnati)
We want to believe that our employees have the capacity to do amazing work. We want to see the beauty that lies within them – beauty that defines their desire to make a difference and to do great work. We want to feel a connection with our peers and employees that is deep (get your mind out of the gutter) and special.
But many managers don’t seem to believe, don’t seem to see, don’t seem to feel, don’t seem to connect. What has happened?
White Paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming by Wayne Turmel
Ten years ago – heck, five years ago – few people worked on teams with geographically dispersed members. Today, this is very common. Every manager needs or will need to learn how to manage and inspire team members they regularly see “live.”
Pal and witty guy Wayne Turmel (a.k.a. The Crank Middle Manager) has written this helpful white paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming. You can down load it for free by clicking on the link. A couple interesting quotes from the paper:
- “70% of managers above 1st-level supervisor now have at least one team member who is not co-located with them.”
- “Technology and online tools are great but they are effective only if they are used to create context and human connections. Mere data transfer will result in short-term time savings and long term communication problems of the project.”
- “A good project requires a mix of synchronous (people can talk at the same time) and asynchronous (people use them at different times) tools to be truly effective.”
Invite a Challenge and Zoom Forward
I am a big fan of welcoming naysayers and devil’s advocates into the conversation. I reminded myself of this last week and enjoyed the outcome, so I thought I would share the concept with you. Not only is inviting a challenge a great way to unearth diverse ideas, it helps enroll people into the process and improve their acceptance of my work. Naysayers make great evangelists!
Inviting a challenge means asking others to critique our work – really critique it. If you are coachable – highly coachable – you might be ready to invite a challenge. Give it a try yourself and then you will have a story you can share with other peers and employees. Say, “bring it on!” Take on this mantra for a month and see how this impacts your focus and results. I like to designate a devil’s advocate at team meetings to encourage diverse ideas and spice up the conversation. Rotate the responsibility to give everyone practice. Here’s an example of how to invite a challenge for a new idea you are thinking of proposing:
Management Fatique = Employee Disengagement
Are your employees disengaged or off their games? Are you? I was working with a group of supervisors and as our discussions unfolded, the situation became clearer.
They said: Our team members are disengaged, they don’t seem to care, they just do the job.
They said: Our team used to be highly performing – a few years ago. Lots of things have changed in terms of the work environment, practices, the amount of challenging work, relationships, expectations, cuts in hours, etc.
They said: For the most part, today’s disengaged employees are the same folks who were highly performing before.
I asked: And what about you?
They said: We try to start each day engaged and up, but it is hard and we often get frustrated, tired, drained by having to be like a parent to well qualified professionals.
