Management reSOLUTIONS for 2012

Managers - Have you set your reSOLUTIONS for 2012 yet? It's not too late. Here are 15 suggestions for a more productive workplace and higher employee engagement!

1. Be a More Effective Listener and a Better Story Teller
2. Provide Feedback in a Timely Manner
3. Get to Know Your People as More Than Employees
4. Learn to Delegate and Begin to Cross Train
5. Focus on Diversity and Inclusion for Productivity
6. Be More Goal-Oriented
7. Tie Your Corporate Business Strategy in with People's Values
8. Be Consistent with Your Performance Management Process
9. Realize Your Primary Role is to Develop People
10. Prioritize Your Roles and Responsibilities Daily
11. Manage Your Email and Turn Off Message Alerts
12. Be Positive - Learn to have a "Positude"
13. Find Opportunities to "Stretch" Your Skill Set
14. Schedule Time with Yourself, Don't Multi-Task
15. Establish Trust as the Foundation for All You Do!
    

Talk Tough to a Poor Performer

Delivering negative feedback is one of the toughest jobs managers face. So they avoid the issue, hoping that performance problems will evaporate on their own. They won't. Here are some tips that will make delivering feedback a bit easier:

• Stay away from ancient history - Some managers allow a subordinate to mess up a few times without saying anything. Then, they explode with a list of offenses a mile long. It's better to address each incident as it happens or let it go. Read "Good Boss Bad Boss" by Robert Sutton
  
• Be clear, but not combative - Don't dance around the problem. When you discipline a subordinate, both of you should walk away with a clear understanding of the issue and an action plan for a solution.
  
• Don't act overly optimistic - or the employee will come away with the feeling that everything is ok. You need to convey the seriousness of the feedback you're delivering and the ramifications if the person doesn't improve.

Adapted from "Delivering Bad News with Grace and Effectiveness" Emory Mulling - Atlanta Business Chronicle

Every great athlete has a coach, so should every top business performer. Coaching can help get you to a higher level of performance or it can help you achieve your goal in a more timely fashion. Contact Innovative Leadership for Business Coaching for CEO's, Management, and Teams. More info

How To Track Performance for Growth

Every goal – organizational or personal – needs a deadline or target date. Without a deadline, there is no pressure to perform at top capacity. Deadlines provide a motivational “push.” Once people discover what they can do, that new level of productivity becomes a constant challenge for achievement giving your business a much needed edge.

A good tracking system is one of the most useful tools for helping individuals meet goals and grow. Progress can be demonstrated only by comparing the past and the present and tracking is the best method of evaluating both the quantity and the quality of performance for individuals, for a department or work group, or for the overall organization.

How to choose a tracking system that meets your needs:
• Appropriate measurement. Make sure the tracking tool measures each important aspect of the activity. If your goal is to reduce the number of days between the receipt and shipping of orders, you won’t be happy to discover that the time interval was cut from three days to one if you also learn that the error rate rose from one percent to eight percent. In this case, a tracking plan should include both speed and accuracy.

• Easy to use. The measurement tool should not add significantly to the workload. If every worker must spend an hour a day just filling in the report, you lose a good deal of valuable time that could have been used in more productive efforts.

• Easy to interpret. Tracking tools should present the facts visibly in a form that quickly reveals the pertinent facts. Charts, graphs, and summary reports with side-by-side comparisons to the last reporting period are easy to read and interpret. What you learn from the reports helps you decide what to do next. Make sure tracking information is used to advance the goals program.

How To Understand Behaviors at Work

Understanding the reasoning behind certain actions – why people act as they do – can help you deal effectively with people when they seem completely irrational to you. All behavior is designed to satisfy some need, and even unproductive behavior in the workplace usually arises from some unmet, internal personal need.

The satisfaction of psychological needs is just as important as physical needs but frequently more difficult. People usually first try to satisfy needs by direct action. They work hard to appear successful, exercise to look stronger and more confident, or read books to increase knowledge. For most, the direct approach works. Some individuals, however, grew up with or have life experiences that expand many unsatisfied needs that they now feel generally inferior, guilty, or unworthy. A direct approach is usually only temporary and insufficient. As a result, people with low self-esteem build defenses.

As a manager, CEO, or supervisor learning to recognize defenses will help you refer people for help to find alternative ways to satisfy their needs. As you direct employees to resources for addressing their problems, you not only help them improve their quality of life, but you also prevent defensive behavior in the workplace.

Some of the most common defenses are easy to recognize. Recognizing these defensive behaviors helps you know how to best respond:

Aggression - An aggressive person strikes out in an attempt – often subconscious – to destroy the source of frustration. Aggression is a sign of inner fear – not bravery. Because in our society an actual physical release of hostility is generally unacceptable behavior, people may resort instead to gossip, slander, or ridicule as a means of venting hostility in a more socially acceptable fashion. Regard any new surge in aggressive behavior or attitudes as a warning of underlying problems. Use the “tell me about it” method; confront the behavior or negative attitudes.

Daydreaming - In spite of adequate training and above average ability, some people persist in escaping from the drab world of reality into a dream world where life is a bed of roses. Team members who persistently daydream rather than work are exhibiting behavior more characteristic of adolescence than of adulthood. You can often cure daydreaming by helping individuals learn to set short-term goals and gradually establish a pattern of success.

Repression - This protects the self-image by rejecting thoughts that are unpleasant or would cause guilt or shame. Some repression may be positive, but an overdose results in intense fears and debilitating feelings of inferiority. Some repressed experiences produce feelings of guilt expressed through self-criticism – or even an apparent desire to provoke punishment. Help team members exhibiting excess guilt, inferiority, or negativism to begin believing in themselves more. Give praise for specific successes whenever possible.

Rationalization – This is someone who explains failure by making excuses. Why is production down? The raw materials were bad. Why they were not promoted? It was strictly favoritism! Rationalization is an attempt to boost the self-image by “lying to oneself.” People who rationalize must learn to admit their faults and overcome them. A good system of feedback – both positive and corrective – helps to establish a climate in which team members feel secure enough to acknowledge weaknesses and to develop a plan for growth.

Compartmentalization – This is a way of controlling anxiety and guilt feelings by separating contradictory ideas in the conscious mind. Employees who firmly believe it is wrong to steal might use compartmentalization to justify carrying off company property to make up for salaries they believe are too low. Reasoning with people who compartmentalize is a waste of time and energy. But appealing to their emotions will bolster their egos and more likely nurture a commitment to desired behavior.

Understanding and identifying these behaviors will help you become sensitive to defensiveness and turn it into cooperation in the workplace.

Remember, the best predictor of future performance is present in the ways and means that they addressed a similar situation in their work environment in the past. Understanding your own behavior and the behavioral style of your employees will allow you to not only recognize some of these defensive actions earlier, but maybe just prevent the incident before it even occurs.

For more information on our courses and workshops that allow you to use behavioral styles to your advantage as a manager or employee, please call us at 609.390.2830.

Innovative Leadership of the Delaware Valley, LLC offers the Everything DiSC® Management Workshop designed to help managers realize the impact of their personal behavioral style on the people you work with. This Workshop teaches participants about their behavioral strengths and challenges as managers and how to adapt to meet the needs of the people they manage – making everyone more productive and effective.

Also, Check out our Making of an Effective Manager Course!

Coaching For Results

In a most recent survey, thousands of employees were asked “what they planned to do differently in 2009?” and here are the results:

• Most will be focusing on themselves and trying to “get fitter” (53%)
• Most will be scheduling more time with family and friends (24%)
• Many will be looking for new employment opportunities (13%)
• Some will try to work harder (6%)
• And the minority will do nothing differently in 2008 (4%)

I can visualize that every executive, manager, supervisor or employee will be getting up earlier and rushing to the gym to knock of the weight and trying to tone up for the “bikini” season, then rushing off to work to give everyone the appearance that they are working harder than they did last year even though some of that energy will be spent looking for new employment opportunities, and then scurrying home to have dinner with the family and bathe the children, then hop in bed by 9 to get ready for the next day. WOW!

It really sounds and feels stressful to me. How can someone do all that and not get stressed out.

Hiring a Coach will help you formulate a “game plan” together that will enable you to reach your goals in a shorter period of time without as much stress.

Innovative Leadership Coaches for Results!

The Battle Cry for Employee Engagement

I had read an article written by Chris and Mel Wildermuth, titled the 10 M’s of Employee Engagement (Training and Development, January 2008). The subtitle noted that Workplace Learning and Performance Professionals need to be engagement champions. The article demonstrated 10 M’s of engagement to help create engagement-friendly organizations. It appears that consultants and the management experts have turned this engagement crisis into a movement and should be uttering a battle cry much like “Remember the Alamo”. It seems we are losing the battle of employee engagement and have the American worker is now totally apathetic in their jobs. Also, it appears that we are fighting for our lives to keep engagement strongly entrenched as a core value of any company or organization. It is now our responsibility to make sure that our employees, leaders, and customers are engaged. But wait, hasn’t that been our responsibility for decades?

Whose responsibility is it to do that? Is it the Human Relations or Resources Manager responsibility? OR is it the CEO and the senior executive team that should do that? Like the article noted in the previous paragraph, it starts with an “M” or “MM”, which of course stands for manager or middle manager. The most critical ingredient for employee engagement is the front-line manager. It has been reported that a 5% increase in employee engagement results in a 2.5% increase in growth. In this era of “do more with less”, the employee who freely gives that extra effort if most valued by their manager.

It’s time for HR Professionals to march directly into the C-Suite and state that they need to train and develop their front-line managers and tell them that these people are the most important component of our plan for sustained growth. We must get our managers to connect the dots between strategy, culture, performance, and motivation. These front-line managers are the future leaders of the company and they will make the difference in the future of the company.

We have to allow our front line managers to:

• Be responsible for employee development and talent management


• Be able to challenge the employee’s abilities and teach them the skills to expand their strengths


• Be able to communicate openly providing clarification for the employee


• Be goal-oriented and provide focus on their contribution to the overall success of the organization by coupling the outcome to the strategy

The skills and competencies of the front-line manager will provide the sustained growth and innovation need in this highly competitive marketplace. Communication, forward thinking, prioritization, and other skills must be learned and applied in the workplace by managers if we can expect to improve employee engagement. Employees need a manager who is willing to provide an “open” communication platform that includes feedback in a timely fashion, candid discussion on performance and appropriate behavior, a willingness to clarify expectations and use metrics to measure results, and to include the employee in the awareness and planning stages for the company’s vision.

We have to get away from telling the employee what they have to do, but why the company’s success is so dependent on them performing at the highest level of commitment. Train and motivate the manager, and the employee will be part of the team.

Join us May 19 12-1pm for a Lunch N Learn on Employee Motivation. Registration is free and we provide lunch. More Info.

Gloom in the Workplace

Generational diversity is a not subject in the HR community and we all realize that in not the too distant future, we will have five generations in the workplace. Leadership IQ, a Washington DC based training company polled over 11,000 employees in the United States and found that all generations expressed some dissatisfaction. Furthermore, they note that the rate of disconnect was almost directly related to age. The older worker was the most satisfied and the younger generations expressed the lowest satisfaction rate.

The survey asked a variety of questions relative to the workplace and the management style being presented today. The title of the article was “Workplace Gloom is Universal” and appeared in the February issues of Training and Development by staff writer, Michael Laff.

We have focused our training and development course, programs, and processes on mid-level management and we also believe that many managers are not learning the intangible skills necessary to manage a staff. Most employees want feedback in a timely fashion and they want to know exactly where they stand if relation to their peers in terms of performance and productivity. Keeping the workforce content is not a priority in most organizations today. Competition, economic conditions, cost of materials and supplies, healthcare benefits and more are keeping us all very “short-sighted” with our employees. It appears that the younger generation craves praise and become frustrated easily. Don’t we all?

People skills have been lost in history. They obviously haven’t been passed down through the generations. It must be because the older generation has accommodated to the “lack of praise” in the workplace and is no longer offering that commodity. When will we realize that we must continue to motivate our employees and keep them engaged in the strategy and development of our company? If we don’t, they will continue to move on until another company does just that. How many jobs do we expect them to have by the time they are thirty five?

We need to start training our managers or that figure will be in double digits.