Take a calculated pause like this manager does...

I am supporting a manager in a company currently who was on the rocks with his team.  He was even on the track to be fired until I was called in to facilitate a transformation in his leadership.  Now before I make it all about me, I tell you it takes two to make a transformation happen:  my support and his willingness.  Both were clearly there 100% out of the gate.  The shock of the initial feedback about his performance and attitude quickly gave way to an appetite for growth.  Over a couple months things began to turn around.  

When meeting with him last week he said something truly profound, that he takes a 'calculated pause' now.  I was blown away.  This pause is so subtle yet so powerful.  Before I came into the picture he would react to his frustrations and anxieties by being negative.  He was part of the problem, which he didn't see.  As we went through some of the feedback he received from a 360 degree report, as well as the feedback I was able to ascertain working with his team without him, he began to take a critical look at how his strong negative emotions were wreaking havoc in his team.  It goes without saying that this manager has done some pretty intense and amazing work in a short time to effect an almost complete turnaround.  Mastery takes time and I told him last week that I believe he is at the point where he won't regress back to old behaviors because he is onto himself and he values being a supportive and engaged leader.

But back to the calculated pause.  If you don't know you are in emotional hot water, then actions will flow to try to deal with those, most often being reactive, blaming in nature.  This doesn't solve the original problem you were frustrated about and causes another problem: negativity in those around you.  To be an effective leader you need to be able to understand your feeling tones and when they change and then to take pause, to calm down enough to think about the action you want to purvey in your relationships.  Not all negative behaviors are aggressive though, some are passive aggressive like sarcasm and some are passive like avoiding others.  In the case of working with his anxiety he said he tends to over-explain things to others so they 'get it'.  But what tends to happen is the verbosity tunes other people out, is a trigger for them.  So, he gets the very thing he doesn't want:  disengagement.  

If you are a manager you can try this on for yourself, as well as help others take pause under duress.  This is an important management function that goes under the radar oftentimes.  By knowing your trigger points and helping others understand theirs, awareness flows and people can take a calculated pause in order to be as mindful and constructive with their actions.

Bringing the Love to Business

It is a well-kept secret for some reason that love and business can be synonymous.  Before you judge me as woo-woo or too touchy feely you need to know the facts:  30% of workers in the US are engaged in their jobs for many reasons.  One of those reasons is that they don't feel appreciated by their immediate supervisor.  I have written about appreciation before and to me love is a form of appreciation.  By appreciating people more often, this increases engagement metrics like absenteeism, morale, and productivity to name a few.  

So I was stunned the other day that a middle manager in a local manufacturer told me that he had an epiphany recently:  that he wants to bring more love to his staff.  This grown man actually used these words and I was lock, stock and barrel with him, on the edge of my seat.  Since I don't often hear things like this, but believe it myself, I was ready to unpack what he meant by it.  He realized that he is in the position to help steward his supervisees to feel more connected to each other, to their jobs, and to themselves. He realized that he can take strategic actions to boost the support and care that he exhibits on a daily or weekly basis.  

I applaud this manager for his vulnerability, for his commitment to well-being of the whole, and his risk taking.  He told me too that he appreciates immensely his immediate boss, the CEO.  I told him to go to the CEO and 'give him the love'.  Supervisors need attention too, and it can be lonely at the top.  This manager indeed did go into the CEO's office right after our meeting and gave the love.  It had a ripple effect.  The CEO then emailed me and told me that he loves me and the manager, which then I in turn gave it back!  It was a complete love-fest.  

Don't underestimate this power.  We all have it.  We all need it.  We all can give it.  Release the blockages that you have and let it flow freely.  When a whole department or company can do this, the culture shifts and it feels more affiliative, more harmonious.  And the proof is in the data.  Companies that love up on their employees not only perform better but are the best places to work.  I want to thank this manager for amping up the love and being brave enough to let it shine in one of the most unlikely places.  My mind is effectively blown.

The Performance/Attitude Matrix

In my work I have discovered that there are two general areas for celebration and improvement with each employee.  I call these two key areas performance and attitude and I have created a matrix of four possibilities that may be helpful to managers and leaders when thinking through the current reality of their individual employees.  Here is the matrix:

1. Great performance and great attitude, 2. great performance and bad attitude, 3. bad performance and great attitude and 4. bad performance and bad attitude.

I think we can all agree that we have seen employees in all of these categories of the matrix.  Of course there are grey areas, but for this purpose let's keep it black and white.  Performance refers to meeting the criteria and objectives of their technical role, that is what they do for the organization.  Attitude refers to intangible things like respect for coworkers, stepping up and taking initiative, being a team player, feeling connected and engaged, being appreciative, etc.  So in short another way to state performance and attitude is tangible and intangible outcomes. 

We all love the first group.  They are engaged and get the work done.  They look for ways to help others, take on more than asked, and seek to resolve challenges by collaborating.  As managers we want to recognize in various ways these A players.

The second group is a tough bunch.  They do good quality work but they aren't engaged and worse even toxic.   As managers we need to coach these folks about the expectations of respectful behavior and seek to understand why they are curmudgeon.  When coaching fails sometimes ultimatums will work.  Managers sometimes fear that if they fire a great performer that the business unit/team will fall down.  I have never seen this happen and is an unfounded assumption/fear. 

The third group are well intentioned folks that may lack technical skill, experience, cognitive aptitudes, etc.  Again here coaching is required as well as an assessment how they learn best.  Some people need visuals to learn best.  Some people need to be taken by the hand.  Some people need autonomy, still others consistent check-ins.  Of course clear objectives need to be in place to measure the needed performance improvements.

Lastly, the fourth group.  Get rid of these people, they are time suckers and the return on their incremental development will be dismal.  Don't keep a dying horse.  I have learned that even though I may not like it, not everyone is a good fit for the culture.  By being always optimistic and wanting a win/win this can drag a situation on for too long.  By having to develop performance and attitude, this may require more resources, time and energy than it's worth.

Use this matrix to contemplate the state of your workforce and to come up with strategies to get people to the next level.  Most people don't wake up looking to do a bad job, or cast a negative attitude.  Get in there and coach people to understand what their hindrances to performance and/or attitude are.  What you find just may help you change up a situation for the better.

The State of the American Workplace

I just read (twice) a 200-page article entitled 'The State of the American Workplace' and it was fascinating.  It talks about the metrics associated with engaging workers and that it is largely the direct supervisor's responsibility to engender engagement in the organization.  A dismal 33% of employees are engaged, meaning they feel connected to the mission, feel that they are working in their strengths zone, that they are appreciated and that they are going somewhere in the organization.  This leaves 67% of workers disengaged, looking for other jobs while working and creating toxicity inside and outside the walls of the business.

Yet obviously people remain the core component of a successful or failing enterprise.  Or do they?  There are many successful companies by financial measures that are toxic in their culture.  It just feels crappy to work there.  People will stay at a job for the paycheck, but check out little by little year after year.  The question to me is, how much more successful could a company be if collaboration and culture were a top priority?  The numbers speak for themselves.  Astonishingly enough engaged employees create much more revenue and growth for a business.  The figures this article throws around is that disengagement costs an organization upwards to $600 billion nationwide.  But this aside, it is just the right thing to do to treat people with respect and care.

The article goes on to identify the 12 components that measure employee engagement, what they call Q12 or the 12 questions.  Questions that assess appreciation, development, connection to the mission, using strengths, etc.  All of these questions aim at understanding where a workforce needs to ratchet up their efforts to engage people.  I recently did two of these Q12 surveys with a manufacturer and a non-profit human services agency.  It was enlightening for the leader to see the state of the union and where some developmental points for the future would be.  Both of these organizations have a good culture already, and identifying challenge areas will make it all the better in the future with consistent and strategic effort.

Lastly, in a related article, since the manager is the linchpin in the organization to create engagement, there are 4 accountabilities associated with them.  1.  understanding worker motivations and needs, 2. giving people develop opportunities, 3. identifying workers' talents/strengths, and 4. giving clear performance objectives with ongoing feedback.  These 4 can serve as a meeting agenda, formal meeting, or informal check in.  The understanding is that to hit on all of these points over time consistently ignites people feeling valued, trusted, which in turn engenders buy-in to the team and the organization.

My Book Zero Stress Leadership Event in Keene, NH March 11 2-3pm.

Hi everyone.  I will be promoting my new book Zero Stress Leadership at the Toadstool Bookstore in Keene, NH on March 11, 2017 from 2-3pm.  I will present some of the content of the book for 30 or so minutes and then take questions and do some on the spot coaching!  I'm truly excited to get my book out there and have people put its principles to work for them in their relationships at work and at home.  My book will be for sale and I will personally sign each copy.  If you can't attend, the book is for sale at the Toadstool as well as on my website www.zerostressleadership.com  Here's the link to the event:  http://www.toadbooks.com/event/keene-jeff-saari-presents-zero-stress-leadership

The Five Signs of Emotional Intelligence

I was reading an article lately entitled "The Five Signs of Emotional Intelligence", and it was really good.  Of course EI is a vast topic and there are many more signs of EI, but this primer was a good read.  The five signs according to this article are: being able to handle feedback well (without excuses, denial, stress, etc.), being open-minded, being a good listener, being able to give feedback well, and apologizing when you make a mistake.  

I love all of these points and teach and coach these topics in my work with leaders and teams so that over time they are showing the signs.  I also seek to live this way myself.  All of these points are very difficult though.  I tell people that emotional growth is very hard to do because we are who we are for many reasons:  our culture, our religious views, our upbringing, our values, etc.  The trick in my work is to have people with diverse perspectives come together and collaborate for the sake of the whole and business (or non-profit).  Very tricky indeed because people tend to be set in their ways.  But over time, we can change, and the more we practice the above points, we become more emotionally intelligent.  

I have workshops around most of the five points.  I do workshops on conflict, emotional triggers, listening, feedback, and meeting facilitation.  I just did a listening workshop in a business last week, and it went amazingly.  People want to be better listeners, but most people never really learned how to do it.  It's not rocket science, but it is a skill.  Especially if you are in a field that deals with customers, great listening has great import.  

I guess if I had to pick the one that is the hardest for most folks that I meet, it is the telling the truth one.  The article said that good leaders don't sugarcoat the truth.  Easier said than done.  Giving feedback is especially challenging because we don't want to upset others, we feel emotionally unstable because we don't know the outcome, or we feel apathy in that maybe we have tried before and it didn't go so well.  Whatever the motivation is, we lose the ability to practice this precious skill, much to the detriment to our relationships and businesses.  Are you holding onto a truth that you haven't spoken?  If so why?  What are you afraid of?  Or have you tried and failed before?  As you inspect your own motivation for NOT doing it, maybe you can find something.  I think though we all can agree that feedback is valuable.  

Take these five signs to heart, reflect on them and see if you can practice them.  They are so subtle sometimes so we need to be highly self-aware of their presence and practice when the opportunity arises.  Practicing an open-mind may sound funny for instance, but you can actually do it.  You can think strategically about it and coach yourself to have an open mind when for instance someone comes to you with an idea that you would normally discard.  I would love to hear your successes and challenges with these.  Please do share.