Guess the Procedure, Win a Prize

A job site requested some crucial items from head office but wasn't getting a timely response. Repeated phone and email inquiries got no action, and work at the site ground to a halt waiting for these items. It turned out that the coordinator at head office was waiting for her superior to tell her it was OK before releasing the items to the site. She "couldn't send that without authorization, the site manager should know that."

Digging further, there was no procedure at this company for how the site was supposed to request this kind of item from head office. A previous supervisor had yelled at the coordinator when she had sent items to site that he hadn't approved of. So, to protect herself, the coordinator had, within her own mind, made up a procedure that required her direct supervisor to tell her, in person, to go ahead with such shipments.

Creating a spontaneous procedure is a great initiative, it helps get the job done more easily the next time. But people have to know about a procedure in order to follow it. And, since fear had made the coordinator more concerned with protecting herself than with serving her (internal) customer, she never bothered to tell the site what she was waiting for.

So, lot's of learning points:

1. People will make up procedures, where the company has none. They have to in order to survive. We need to tap into this initiative and have some way to capture, document, and spread the use of these procedures.
2. Procedures need to be known to all parties invovled.
3. People should work for their customers, not for their boss. The coordinator was focused on how to stay on the boss's good side, rather than on how to help the site move the job forward. This is management's responsibility to drive fear out of the workplace.
4. Communication helps, lack of communication hurts. The coordinator didn't tell the site what the next step in "her procedure" was, she just put things on hold until she heard from her boss.

Procedures can be beautiful. But they have to be documented, understood by all involved, and focused on adding value to the customer.

Three Blind Managers

A restaurant had three owner/managers that shared duties on different nights. They all had different management styles, and didn't make any attempt to coordinate their approach to employees.

One waitress received consistently positive feedback from Manager One. Manager Two was often critical, taking her to task for some of the same things that Manager One praised her for. After a few months on the job, she asked Manager One for a raise. He said that she'd see an increase on her next cheque, but that didn't happen. When she asked Manager Two about it, he told her that none of her work justified a raise.

It's always difficult to report to more than one Manager. It's especially difficult when Manager One and Manager Two don't communicate with each other or even try to get on the same page. Managers often don't see how this stuff drives employees crazy.

Too Soon, Too Eager, Too Pushy

A few incidents observed at a networking event this week demonstrated some frequent communication mistakes:

Too Soon

A sales guy was introduced to an executive from a key potential client, a new contact with whom he had no previous relationship. Very early in the conversation, the sales guy asked directly for a meeting to talk about becoming a supplier. The executive visibly winced and his body language completely changed. Within a few seconds, the executive cut short the conversation and moved on to talk to someone else.

Too Eager
The owner of an industrial supplier was introduced to a possible client, who asked a simple question about what the supplier does. Grasping the opportunity, the owner started listing off all of his company's capabilities in considerable detail. The client's eyes soon glazed over, and then started to search the room for someone else to talk to.


Too Pushy
Another business owner started grilling an executive with aggressive qualifying questions designed to lead the executive down a sales path. The executive tried repeatedly, with decreasing civility, to deflect the conversation to more general conversation, but the owner doesn't hear or see any of the signals, and continued to push his agenda.

Don't Just Say No

"Just Say No" is good advice when asked to do drugs or to vote for Sarah Palin. But when you're responding to suggestions from employees, from your direct reports, from students, or from anyone over whom you have authority, resist the temptation to "Just Say No."

A couple of incidents this week revealed two common responses to a boss figure who just said "no":

• In one organization, a very enthusiastic, top-performing employee brought a suggestion to management and was shocked that it was abruptly dismissed, with comments like "that would be totally inappropriate", "that's unacceptable" and "this stops here." The employee felt completely shut down and disrespected, and it was pretty obvious that the boss wasn't receptive to further discussion on the issue. Despite this, the employee was convinced that the idea would be very good for the organization. So, with a positive yet rebellious spirit, the employee went underground and worked to implement the idea anyway. The boss soon found out, and came down hard with disciplinary action. Things got ugly. Relationships got damaged. Motivation plummeted.
• In a second organization, employees had gotten quite used to their suggestions being dismissed, with some variation of "we tried that before" or "that wouldn't work here". Over time, the employees completely stopped voicing their suggestions. When management then ran into a problem that they couldn't solve and asked employees for help, nobody would volunteer solutions. Subsequent third-party interviews with staff revealed that they had many ideas that might have been helpful, but were resentful and hurt enough to "let management figure it out for themselves, since they're so smart." 

In both cases, the boss said no. In some cases, there was attempt at explanation, as in "we tried that before." But, in neither case did the boss invest any time in dialogue with the employee to gain common understanding.

In the first case, dialogue with the enthusiastic employee might have allowed the boss to see the value in the suggestion, or allowed the employee to see why it validly needed to be modified to be effective in the organization. If they could have gained common understanding of each others' point of view, they would have been able to come up with a modified suggestion that would have been truly fantastic. Even if the boss had been able to leave a door open for the employee to present a modified suggestion, the toxic ugliness could have been avoided.

In the second case, dialogue with the employees could have helped them see why their suggestions actually wouldn't work, or it could have helped management see how the ideas might work now where they wouldn't have before. Without dialogue, the employees felt ignored and rejected, and stopped volunteering any of their creative energy, even when asked.

So, when subordinates bring ideas to you, invest some time in dialogue, and make it clear that you value their suggestions. If you have to say "No", work to gain common understanding, and draw out and validate the employee's reactions and emotions, leaving the door open for future suggestions and creative input.

When it comes to employee suggestions, just say no to Just Saying No.

Convincing More Convincingly

A food-processing company was preparing a communication plan to help with the rollout of some new processing equipment. As part of this effort, management considered all of the methods for getting the word out to the employees; the comprehensive plan included monthly newsletters, informative emails, personal conversations and staff meetings, and management felt confident that the plan would effectively tell employees what was happening. The wording chosen for all of these messages was positive and upbeat, emphasizing the benefits of the new system, with carefully selected quotes to show how good everything would be.

This is typical of many communication plans:

1. Figure out the message you want to convey, to executives, to middle managers, to staff, to customers.
2. Spin the message so it's unfailingly positive and enthusiatic
3. Choose media for delivering that message.

This is also typical of why many communication plans, and many change efforts, don't work all that well.

Whenever things are changed in your organization, it affects people. So, in good faith, we try to prevent resistance by improving communication, by keeping people informed. We increase the quantity of information that we send out. We focus on the positive aspects of the change. We try to convince people that the change will be good. We do more and more talking, in whatever form, to try to be more and more convincing.

To uncover and address resistance to change, we need to acknowledge that change truly does impact people. Very few changes are all butterflies and rainbows. The people doing the jobs are the experts at their jobs, and will have valid suggestions, valid fears, and valid concerns. Communication plans should focus as much on making sure people are heard as on keeping people informed.

As managers, we need to learn to listen to our people, to uncover and validate their concerns. Consider H.B. Karp's Positive Approach to Resistance, which is founded on two well-supported assumptions:

1. Resistance is real. People will always resist, knowingly or not, those things that they perceive as not in their best self-interest.
2. Resistance needs to be honored. It must be dealt with in a respectful manner or it will resurface.

As part of your communication plans, consider learning and implementing Karp's positive approach to resistance. This includes four separate steps, each of which should be completed before moving on to the next:

1. Surface the issues. Make it safe to voice concerns, and use active listening and interviewing techniques to draw out all the concerns.
2. Honor the resistance. Make it clear that it is OK to resist, it is natural to resist, and that surfaced concerns are legitimate.
3. Explore the issues. Strive to fully understand what the concerns are, rather than discounting them or explaining them away. Try to truly see what it looks like from the others' point of view. Then ask for help to figure out how to move forward in a way that would be least distressing, and most positive.
4. Recheck. Close the loop and re-examine the feelings and concerns about the issues, and about the path forward. Often, the resistance issues are no longer important, because they have been heard and understood. If not, rechecking sets a new starting point for followup sessions, in which you can continue to explore and resolve the resistance positively.

If all this mumbo-jumbo is Greek to you, consider the words of Epictetus (Stoic Greek Philosopher) - “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Your communication plans should include more listening than talking, surfacing the issues rather than pretending that they don't exist.

What We've Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

Why do our organizations get off track? Why do our projects go off the rails? Are the reasons technical - problems with the actual mechanics of doing the work - or is something else going on?

Looking at projects with themes as diverse as software implementation, change management, time management, business development, strategic planning, efficiency, and retention, a little digging reveals that "what we've got here is a failure to communicate" - Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Five examples:

1. Management of a 200-person service organization regularly issued a newsletter to employees, and considered this adequate notification of important strategy and policy changes. The reality was that less than 30% of staff actually read the lengthy newsletter, and the writing style was long-winded and hard-to-understand. Uptake of key messages was only running around 10% of personnel, so very few staff knew what was going on and morale was very low. Still, management ranked themselves "very good" at communicating with their staff.
2. The new CEO of a non-profit hired a consultant to help with strategic planning, and invited the board of directors to the facilitated sessions. The chair of the board aggressively disrupted the first session saying "Why are you wasting our time? We already have a strategic plan!". The CEO was shocked - he had been trying to find the organization's plan continually since being hired a few months earlier, without success.
3. Very high turnover in a 30-person technology company was concerning management, and they decided to review their wage policy since competitors were "obviously poaching [their] best employees." Retroactive exit interviews revealed that several people had left because they were convinced that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Rumours had circulated months earlier about some significant financial troubles. The rumours had actually been true, but the company had since restructured their debt and essentially eliminated their cash flow problem. There was no open communication with employees about "shareholder issues". With no communication, the rumours escalated, and contributed to several key people leaving.
4. Leaders of a transportation company held focus groups to gather employee input on an upcoming technology change. When the change was actually implemented, none of the employee suggestions had been incorporated. Morale plummeted and, despite management's well-intentioned attempt, the consensus among employees was that "They never listen to us. They ask us for our suggestions, but then they just shove [their original #%$^&* plan] down our throats."
5. The relationship between a sales agent and the manufacturer she represented went septic, and accusations flew wildly back and forth. The manufacturer accused the sales agent of not adequately representing them, and decided to withhold commissions on numerous accounts. The sales agent felt cheated by this apparent breach of contract by the manufacturer, and ended up starting legal action against the manufacturer after discussions failed. One key factor that emerged was that the sales agent did not do any reporting of her considerable business activity to the manufacturer, so the manufacturer had no idea how much work she was actually doing. Another factor was a product weakness that had affected most of the reference accounts to whom the company routinely referred new prospects. The company and the agent were both unaware of these problems. So, the reference accounts were giving poor reviews, weakening the agent's ability to sell.

More and more, I'm seeing problems resulting from failures in communication, rather than failures of a technical nature. And, many of the technical failures seem to have communication failures as their root causes as well.

I'm not saying that technical problems don't happen, but I'm clearly seeing the value of investing considerable time and effort in thorough, relentless, two-way communication and clarification.

Why We Need More Coffee Breaks

A manager in a municipal government was lamenting the policy change that drastically limited the time allowed for coffee breaks. Not because he really loved coffee, or didn't want to get back to his job, but because he noticed that communication within the organization had gotten worse since the change.

In the good old days, people from different departments would get together casually over coffee, in groups, in pairs, and just chat. Inevitable, there would be a lot of talk about the Riders, but there was also be a lot of talk about what's going on in the office. "What's happening with you?" and "How's your project coming along?" were explored in a casual, relaxed setting and a lot of information was exchanged.

Now, that process is outlawed. Instead of a thirty minute coffee break with 15 minutes on football and 15 minutes about what's going on at work, they now have 15 minutes on football, followed by a 90 minute meeting to discuss what's going on at work.

When it was suggested that you could have a meeting and just make sure there was coffee, he wisely pointed out that it's not the same. A meeting with coffee is structured, formal and often unproductive. Coffee with some shop talk is unstructured, relaxed and often very productive.

Could more coffee breaks actually make your people more productive?

Is Avoiding Failure the Same as Success?

Looking through a Request for Proposal for help with a technology implementation, I'm struck by the fact that less than half a page, out of twenty, is dedicated to the scope, to describing what it is they hope to accomplish. That's less than 3% of the document dedicated to defining success, to defining what the desired outcome is for the project.

The other nineteen and a half pages are filled with "Thou shalt do this!" and "Thou shalt not do this!" commandments; the impression I'm left with is that this organization has probably had a lot of problems in the past and they're trying to prevent those same problems from occuring again. Now, that's fair enough; learning from past problems is a key part of improving a process.

The problem is, in the half page that deals with the scope of work, it's not really clear what it is they are trying to achieve. More than 97% of the document is trying to prevent failure, but the document never really manages to define success. Even if none of their anticipated problems happens, the odds are pretty good that the project won't really meet their goals, since little effort has been made to communicate what their goals really are.

When you're trying to get somewhere, sure it's important to avoid accidents and mechanical trouble. But it's even more important to have a clear vision of where you're trying to get. How much of your RFP process should deal with scope, and goals, and vision? I don't know, but probably a lot more than three percent.

A Specialist, But Not at Communication

An elderly patient was referred to a specialist for a medical consultation. The specialist was obviously knowledgeable about his profession, but was sadly lacking when it came to communication. His use of medical jargon made it essentially impossible for the patient to understand what he was trying to say.

Precise medical terms like "residual thrombus burden", "recanalization" and "inferior vena cava" mean specific things to doctors, but mean nothing to the general public. If he'd talked about a hardened blood clot, about re-opening bloodflow through a vein, about a large vein that carries blood back to the heart, the patient might have had a chance.

Communication is not about using impressive, precise, technical words. Communication is not about presenting an idea the way you think it should be presented. Communication is about helping someone else hear the message, about presenting the idea in a way that they can understand it. This means using simple language, appropriate to the audience, and asking open-ended questions to make sure they understand it.

Become a specialist at communication, and you will become far more effective at whatever else it is you happen to do.

Do Some Homework Before You Make the Call

A salesman called the busy CEO of a midsize technology company to say "I'm going to be in your city and would like to come and see you." The salesman wouldn't say what his company did, and didn't know anything about what the technology company did.

So, the CEO clarified, "You won't tell me what you do, and you don't know anything about us, but you want to meet with me when you're in town? You should have done some homework - don't call me again" and hung up.

If this is your cold calling approach, you'd better get used to a whole lot of rejection.

The people you're calling on are busy. Do your homework, present your value proposition, and don't waste their time.

You've Got to Listen

A small SK software company has a truly great product that could save large industrial companies millions of dollars. The company has made great efforts to convince some large customers that their product is truly great. They've sent out information about their product, they've done presentations, and they've itemized the benefits of their software. But the company has not made any significant sales.

The company has truly failed to communicate. They've "spoken" lots, but they've truly failed to listen. That's four truly's so far (five now), and I truly mean every one of the them (six!).

This company, as personified by its founder and owner, actually seems incapable of listening to others. Have you dealt with people like this?

• Suggestions from salespeople on how to improve the sales model are brushed off as whining;
• Suggestions from customers on how they'd like to test the product before buying are brushed off as cheap;
• Suggestions from colleagues on how the company might better present the solution are brushed off as unnecessary.

In the owner's mind, the product speaks for itself, and is perfectly suitable, as is. The sales people should just get out there and sell it, and any customer that doesn't buy it ain't too smart.

There is still a chance that this company will succeed. But there's a greater chance that this company, and this great product, will become obsolete without ever making the impact that it should.

No matter how smart you are, make sure you learn to listen.

It is truly the most important part of communication, and the most important part of running a business.

Truly (eight!)

Tired of Email Newsletters?

It seems like everybody and their duck is sending out an email newsletter these days. It's cheap, it's easy, and it's getting annoying. Yes, you can track the click throughs, and see who opens it, and yes that's all valuable. The same applies to Facebook, and Twitter, and all the other super-efficient electronic ways to get your message to your target audience.

But when people get eight, or eighty, of these things a day, it gets a little tiring. And, it gets to be that your constant contacts, on top of everybody else's constant contacts can become constant irritants. Do you really want to be part of what irritates your clients and customers?

The success of most organizations is still built on personal relationships. If you really want to be noticed, and really want to connect with people, I'll suggest three radical new technologies - picking up the phone, mailing an actual letter, and going for lunch.

Not to say that technology isn't useful. But when everybody's doing the same things, with the same technologies, you can stand out by using less technology to build more personal connections.

Does Your Communication Fail Safe?

We often need to communicate important information to other people in business. As we try to prevent problems and improve reliability of our processes, it's interesting to look at what happens if our communication fails. Does it fail in a safe way? Here's an example from the medical profession...

Patients at risk of blood clots often end up being prescribed Warfarin, an anti-coagulant, commonly but inaccurately called a "blood thinner". When a patient is taking Warfarin, they need regular blood tests (called INR tests) to make sure the dosage is right, with an INR value between 2 and 3. If the INR is too low, say 0.5, there's a high risk of dangerous blood clots. If the INR is too high, say 5, there is a high risk of dangerous bleeding. So, the patient needs feedback from their doctor based on the results of these regular tests. Usually this amounts to "stay on the same dose", "reduce the dose by X mg/day", or "increase the dose by Y mg/day". And, here's the process, at least in parts of Saskatchewan...

1. The doctor recommends a schedule for regular INR blood tests, say about once a week.
2. The patient goes to a lab when it's convenient, and gets an INR blood test done.
3. The lab sends the results to the doctor.
4. When the doctor receives an INR test result, they check the INR number. If it's too low or too high, the doctor phones the patient to adjust the dosage.

Simple enough, right? If there's a problem with the test result, the doctor makes an adjustment. When there's a problem, we deal with it. When there's not a problem, we do nothing.

One patient had a blood test done (and it turned out the INR value was 4.8 putting them at a high risk of dangerous bleeding). But, the lab either failed to send the results to the doctor, or the doctor's office lost or misfiled the test results. Whatever the reason, the doctor didn't get a test result, so the doctor didn't check the results, so the doctor didn't inform the patient.

Since the patient was only expecting a call if there was a problem, the patient thought everything was OK.

Since the doctor only responded to lab tests actually received, the doctor thought everything was OK.

Since the lab thought they'd sent the results to the doctor, the lab thought everything was OK.

As designed, this communication process did not fail safely. There was no guarantee that a problem result would get attention. There wasn't ever a confirming message sent to say "the test result were received and are OK."

To fail safely, one possible strengthening of the process would be to ALWAYS notify the patient with results within 1 day of the test, (dosage OK, increase dosage by X, or decrease dosage by Y). So, if the patient had not heard back within one day, they would not assume that the dosage is OK, they would assume that something went wrong with the communication process. Many other remedies could also help this process,

The point is, we can apply this thinking to many types of reporting and communication. If we only get a "signal" when there is a problem, we never know for sure if everything is actually OK. Someone might just have failed to communicate the signal. And that's not safe.

How Do You Get Customers?

The owner of a small startup company was looking for advice on how to get customers. She had bid a few jobs and dropped off business cards at a few offices but hadn't yet gotten any clients. Her basic questions were "How do I get customers? Why won't they give me business?"

She had been on staff at a commercial cleaning company, had imagined all the money that the owner was making, and had taken a leap to make her own fortune with a commercial cleaning company of her own. Her answers to some basic exploratory questions showed a real lack of preparation:

• What services do you provide? - "We can do anything."
• Who needs these services? - "Every business needs us."
• What do you charge? - "Fifteen hundred dollars a month."

• Why should someone hire you? - "They need to hire somebody."

While desperately hoping that someone would give her business, she was making it very difficult for anyone to buy her services. She couldn't tell me, or a client, what services she offered. She didn't know how big or how small a client she could handle, or what kind of companies and buildings she'd be able to satisfy. She quoted a price, but without defining what services she would provide. And she couldn't give any reason why a client should hire them as opposed to someone else.

On the surface, this seems naive and ridiculous. How could a business owner be so unprepared?!

But, working with larger established companies, this type of answer is remarkably common:

• What services do you provide? An industrial machine shop claimed that they could do any kind of fabrication and repair for customers in any industry. No job was too big or too small! Really? You do jewelry repair AND build steam generators for nuclear reactors AND stamp out automotive body panels AND make surgical implants AND erect structural steel for commercial buildings? Define what services you do, define what services you want to do, and communicate that clearly to your customers.
• Who needs your services? A book keeping service was confident that every business could use them. The reality was that many of the companies they were talking to were either too small to afford them, or too large to need external help. The company advertised widely on the web, yet were really only familiar with the tax structures and regulations in their home province. Some companies are your potential clients, and some are not, whether based on size, geography, industry, or even philosophy. Figure out what kind of companies you want to work for, and go after them, don't waste your time with everybody else.
• What do you charge? Do you sell products, services, or productized services? Are your rates fixed or negotiable? Do you give discounts? Do you charge based on results, or based on hours worked, or based on a fixed fee? Is it clear to your customers what you will do for the price you'll be charging? Are your prices comparable to other service providers? Are you trying to be cheaper than everyone else, the same as everyone else, or do you price your services at a premium? If you don't know your prices, how do you expect your customers to understand them? How do you expect your customers to buy from you?
• Why should someone hire you? People don't generally give you business. You need to convince them that you can provide them with something more valuable than the money they will be paying you. They need to trust you, to believe that you can do what you say you will. The small cleaning startup had not prepared any references, marketing literature, price sheets or list of services. There couldn't provide anything that showed why they were different, why they were better, or why someone should hire them. So, no one was hiring them!

You can certainly try to be all things to all people. You can choose to keep your pricing vague and unpredictable. You can hope people will give you business. But you'll probably be better off if you figure out what it is you do, who it is you do it for, how much you charge for it, and why you're better at it than anybody else.

You Shouldn't Always Get What You Ask For

A 12 person non-profit asked to do a Strategic Planning retreat. Before taking on the work, we interviewed the management team individually and discovered that the entire team was very closely aligned on vision, direction, and the method to be used for getting there. They already had a strategic plan, but didn't realize it. It turns out that what they really needed was coordinated marketing, customer relationship management software, and dramatic improvements in their work processes. So, they asked for a Strategic Planning retreat, and didn't get it, and that was a good thing.

Leadership Not Loudership

A military commander with thirty years under his belt described the huge changes in how the Canadian military manages its people.

"When I joined up in the 1980's, it was all about Loudership, with officers yelling at you, spit flying, veins popping. Terrifying really. And that's how I learned to manage, that's how they taught us to lead."

"That's not OK anymore. Now, it's all about leadership, about talking, and listening. There was NO listening before - it was hard to listen when you were screaming at someone. It's way better now, but it was a hard change."

"Discipline is different, it's less now, and that's a little harder, but performance is way up, retention is way up. It's better."

Nothing to do With Technology

A TV news production company has an online presence, a 24-hour news channel with text, photos, and videos; glitzy and content-rich, but basically, a website. The technology and tools they use are identical to the tools you can use to do this at home, with the same kind of software running on the same kind of computers. Sure, they have fancier cameras, and professional staff, but there's nothing in the technology they're using that differentiates them from us, from the masses. So what does differentiate them? What gives them a competitive advantage?

Touring their facility, you see computers, cameras, computers, microphones, and more computers. There is a physical desk and background set where the news is produced, but most of what you see throughout the building is technology. Indeed, a news production company is a technology company, an IT company. But that's not what they feel is responsible for their success.

The people in this organization are remarkable, the relationships are remarkable. The production engineer talks more about how well the different groups work together than about how the technology works. The person who creates the headlines and graphics enthuses about how good the internal technical support group is. The technicians are so grateful for how well the five branch offices work together, with a frequent and free flow of problems, solutions and support. The union leader is proud of how well management and labour get along - "we just talk things out; it seems like everyone's just trying to help people do good work and enjoy their work. We do really cool things. People love coming to work here."

Over and over, throughout the company, people would willingly demonstrate the technology they used. But, more noticably, people would enthusiastically rave about how good the people were, how positive the environment was, how strong the relationships had become and how much of a joy it was to work there. These were people who were doing an unplanned technical demonstration for an unplanned technical guest, but their enthusiasm and their presentations had little to do with technology.

Indeed, the success of their technology company has little to do with technology. The continuing success of their company is firmly rooted in the human side of things. Isn't yours?

Twelve Leadership Tips That Really Work

Are your people taking too much initiative? Do they solve problems spontaneously, and apply their creativity to problems that arise? Are they functioning effectively as a team, with great communication and conflict resolution skills?

If so, there is no time to lose. Here are twelve proven techniques that are guaranteed to reduce motivation, and inhibit those pesky spontaneous problem-solving activities that sometimes arise amongst your staff.

1. Give Orders - When someone presents you with a situation, make sure to tell then what to do and what not to do. Direct them and give them commands to make sure they know who is supposed to do the thinking.
2. Warn and Threaten - A little fear goes a long way. In no uncertain terms, lay down the law. Something like "If you don't shape up, then ... blah, blah, blah ... dumpster diving and food stamps ... blah, blah, blah ... cattle prod."
3. Preach the Gospel - Where fear falls short, guilt can save the day. Talk about responsibility, and duty, and should's. Make it a moral issue. If necessary, beg, and appeal to their conscience.
4. Advise and Solve - Suggest a different approach; tell them what would be best. Whatever you do, don't let them come up with ideas on their own. That's just asking for further creativity in the future.
5. Persuade and Argue - Especially when there's conflict, make sure to present facts and arguments explaining why they're in the wrong. If they stubbornly try to have their issues heard, try speaking louder or covering your ears.
6. Criticize - Point out how they are being foolish, or overly sensitive. Identify how their thinking is skewed, how they're wrong, and why what they're saying is, at best, wrong, and at worst, stupid.
7. Praise Them - Butter them up with compliments, and try to put a positive spin on their complaints. Let them know how intelligent they are, how they've always managed to succeed in the past. Just make sure you don't let them talk about how this challenge might be different.
8. Ridicule and Shame - Call them a whiner, or a sloppy worker. Or dismiss what they're saying because they're a typical engineer, or accountant, or a woman, or Ukrainian, or whatever. Labelling is an effective tool, because it quickly addresses their delusion of being an individual by lumping them into some arbitrary group.
9. Interpret and Analyze - Let them know that you completely understand them (even though you really don't have a clue and honestly don't care - you just want them to do their job). Imply that you fully understand their inner motivations - they're just jealous, or have a problem with authority, or they're angry. Just make something up - it still works.
10. Reassure and Console - Especially with interpersonal problems, a kindly "you'll feel different tomorrow" goes a long way towards dismissing the importance of the issue. Platitudes like "every cloud has a silver lining" are also useful for avoiding their snivelling.
11. Interrogate - Challenge everything they've told you with lots of questions. Why did you do that? Why didn't you come to me earlier? How long has this been going on? What have you tried? Anything to imply that they were wrong and should change their behavoiur. If you have a bright light you can shine in their eyes, all the better.
12. Distract and Divert - Tell a funny story, or, better yet, tell them about your own problems. Sometimes a cup of coffee or a shiny trinket can take their mind off the situation, and save you from having to hear about it. Whatever you do, don't let them focus obsessively on the problem at hand - that's unhealthy.

All of these techniques contain the powerful message that they need to change; they need to think, feel or act differently; they are not OK. All of these techniques are wonderful for showing people that we don't accept them as they are. And, as we all know, feeling unaccepted is the perfect environment for poor psychological health, personal stagnation, and poor communication.

Of course, if you're a bit of a wingnut, and actually want to encourage creative problem solving, team work, and good communication, you might want to avoid these behaviours. These are the Roadblocks to Communication outlined by Dr. Thomas Gordon in Leader Effectiveness Training. Surprisingly, he actually recommends NOT using these techniques, in favour of other, more effective leadership techniques. Go figure!

Have You Built a Tower of Babel?

To mess up the ambitious plans for construction of the Tower of Babel, God "confounded the language of all the Earth."(Genesis 11:5-8). In a bit of a mischevious intervention, God divided the people by getting them to speak different languages, where before they had spoken one. Without the ability to communicate, they were unable to coordinate their efforts. There was no possibility of getting the job done at all, let alone getting it done on time or under budget.

In the 1967 sci-fi short story "Babel II", available in War Games, Harry Crosby (aka Christopher Anvil) describes a world where the technology has gotten so complicated, where the degree of professional specialization has become so extensive, that none of the professionals can understand each other, and no-one understands completely how the technology works. Their attempts to build an Esmer-drive starship are doomed!

In your company, it's very likely that the people in purchasing have no idea what any of the stuff they're buying is used for, or how to tell a good flux capacitor from a bad one. Your people in operations probably have no idea what finance means when they talk about "Net changes in non-cash working capital items related to operations". As we divide our companies into departments, into specialists that speak different languages, we build a Tower of Babel where people are truly unable to understand each other.

As you examine the sequential steps that your organization takes to satisfy your customers, you'll see many handoffs from one department to another, from one language group to another. More often than not, the handoff is not well understood by either group. A complete order, for the sales department, means they got a deposit or purchase order from the customer. A complete order for the shop means all the line items are correct and all required materials are in stock. A complete order for shipping has no back orders and clear delivery instructions and address.

When we try to improve, it's common to work within a department, trying to make our work as efficient as possible. We aim to meet our departmental targets in the belief that this will achieve the company targets. We work to improve our individual departments in the belief that this will improve the organization. Paraphrasing a little more of "Babel II": All the departmental curves showed progress. It was natural to assume this meant company progress. But what about the connections between the departments, between their managers and between people generally. It would be possible to carry this specialization so far that nobody understands anyone in any other line of work, and then what will we have?

What we'll have is the typical modern company, where departments speak their own languages and work to improve within themselves, but the real flow of work and value never gets much better.

Who's In Control? Four Ways to Help Someone

There are four main types of leadership that a manager can provide; the same four types of intervention that you can seek from a consultant. All can be helpful in different situations, but it is useful to clarify what you're looking for. The four types vary in the degree of control exercised by both the leader/consultant and the employee/client.

Command

"Do something, or stop doing something. I am in control."  

This is the domain of the expert, the guru who fixes your problem for you. At Superior Millwork, we would fly in equipment specialists from Italy to recalibrate the computer-controlled drilling machines or set up a new production saw. We did what they said, because this was their area of expertise. Outside of specific technical services, or emergency situations, this is rarely the most effective approach.


Consult

"Here's some information. I'll lead, but you can take or leave what I present." 

Here's where a facilitator or consultant is brought in to teach principles, lead a group improvement effort, or redesign processes. They know less than you do about your business, but they know more about process and ways to get better results. Their is a definite element of persuasion and influence, but with respect for your knowledge of your daily work.


Collaborate

"Let's explore ideas together as equals." 

True partnerships of equals aiming to create a mutually satisfying solution. Although the process often requires a facilitator, it primarily involves different stakeholders with complementary or conflicting interests. A good example is the Business Ready Investment Development Gateway (BRIDG), which aims to bring First Nations together with viable business opportunities. The First Nations have capital and labour, but often lack management skills and experience. The businesses often have management skills and experience, but lack enough capital and labour. The opportunities for collaboration are exciting.


Coach

"I will help you on your journey. Where do you want to go? You are in control." 

Unlike the cliche drill-sargent coach who makes you run 'til you puke, an executive coach helps you get where you want to go. With open-ended questions, reflective listening, and group facilitation skills, the coach draws out your priorities, and helps you decide between your options. Working as a coach to another consultant, I help him review his activities for the week, compare them to his objectives, hold him accountable for deviations, and help him find workarounds when barriers prevent him from achieving his goals. He decides where he wants to go, I help him get there. He is in control.


Next time you intervene in the daily problems in your business, consider whether Command, Consultation, Collaboration or Coaching would be most effective at resolving the situation. And, next time you look for outside help, ask about what kind of help they'll be providing.

Thanks to Andrew Bergen of Bergen Coaching for the inspiration for this posting. Andrew speaks about four types of conversation, with a continuum of control ranging from Calibration, Consulting, and Collaboration to Coaching.