Unique Training and Development » Coaching

Leadership whack-a-mole?

Greg Schinkel — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:05:04 +0000

When we head to the amusement park, a favorite game is Whack-a-mole where the little critters stick their heads up and you try to whack them with a mallet. The person with the highest score wins a prize. Management and supervision can be like playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole except there usually is no prize – just more moles to whack.

In the same way, a supervisor can fill his day with reacting to the problems-du-jour of which there will be plenty. Their employees can bring them a never ending string of problems to solve and questions to answer. Trying to be helpful, the supervisor or manager shoulders the biggest burden and can end up feeling burnt out.

While there will always be problems to solve and issues to deal with, the proactive supervisor and manager reflects on how to shift the burden to the level closest to the action. That means getting the front line employees to use their considerable judgement and experience to take care of issues without needing their boss’ involvement. That way the supervisor or manager can focus her limited resources on the problems that justify her attention.

Putting Ideas into Action

Spend a few minutes with each employee proactively each day so they don’t bring questions and problems just to get your attention.
Ask employees who bring you questions they know the answers to, “What do you think?”
When they bring you a problem to solve, “What solutions do you recommend?”

By pushing decisions and answers to the lowest possible level you will be challenging employees and creating greater accountability.

Employee Performance: Terminate or Rehabilitate?

Greg Schinkel — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:45:36 +0000

Today we look at the one or two bottom performing employees you might have on your team or in your company. It could be job performance related or it could be negativity or behavior problems. Can they be ‘fixed’ or should you let them go and move forward with hiring a replacement?

An HR Manager shared with me they as she looked back on all the people they had put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) most ended up being terminated either in the short term or the long term. Does that mean we should just go ahead and pull the plug on poor performers? Can any be salvaged?

Another manager who was frustrated with an employee who had gone completely sour lamented that he had no doubt the person could be fixed but the amount of time, energy and therapy (his words) was too much for the company to invest.

In the Front Line Leadership course I ask supervisors and team leaders to reflect on whether they have ever seen an employee who struggled to perform under one boss subsequently improve after being transferred to another department. Virtually everyone in the class had to acknowledge that they have indeed seen this happen.

Prison of Performance

While the reasons an employee’s performance can slip below expectations are many, the leader has to be careful not to trap the employee in a performance prison from which he or she cannot escape. Once the boss labels the employee as a poor performer in the boss’ mind the leader may not be able to see the employee do anything right. Therefore the boss continues to see only the negatives and provides only negative feedback.

Escaping the Prison of Performance

Using a progressive disciplinary process can send a signal to the employee that there will be consequences for unacceptable behavior. The leader however needs to quickly acknowledge any improvement in behavior and provide positive feedback. In this way, the employee will see that the leader is willing to acknowledge strengths, giving the employee hope for success.

Putting Ideas into Action

Confront employees about performance and behavior that you find unacceptable. Provide consequences.
When you see them doing something right, acknowledge it and build on positives.
Reflect on the fact that you as the leader may be causing the continuation of the very behavior you are trying to fix. Change yourself first and then see the employee change.
If the employee does not improve after being given every opportunity do them a favor and terminate them so they can find a position that will be a better fit.

Leaders should allow employees an opportunity to rehabilitate, and only after a number of chances, terminate employment and start over with a new employee.

Faults of a few create punishment for all

Greg Schinkel — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:35:55 +0000

Have you ever thought about how many of your policies and procedures exist because a few people broke the rules? In a similar way we all have to endure travel headaches because of the actions of a few individuals. Some policies, procedures and regulations are helpful in establishing expectations. Sometimes we go too far and instead of confronting and correcting the behaviors of a few, we look towards group meetings and more restrictive policies.

Occasionally I receive a phone call or email asking if I can come in and conduct a training workshop for employees on a subject like harassment and respectful communication. With a little probing it turns out that many of these group training sessions are in response to the actions of a few misbehaving individuals.

Instead of (or in addition to) dealing with these individuals directly, the whole group has to endure training on a subject they already comply with.

Recently I was re-reading an excellent book, The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey. In the book Covey illustrates a number of examples where we pay a trust ‘tax’ – essentially extra cost and reduced speed because of a lack of trust. Many policies, procedures, regulations and compliance training add to this trust tax – slowing down the organization and adding to its cost.

This is very evident to my HR clients who often see big chunks of their training budgets allocated to compliance training with precious little left over to develop the organization in a more proactive way (think leadership training and customer service skills training).

One example that stands out in my mind was in a health care setting where staff had to endure multiple in-services (health care term for training) on patient documentation because a few staff failed to maintain complete and accurate documentation. Instead of taking those few people aside, everyone had to endure needless retraining. It took up valuable time and money in an already cash-strapped environment. The manager was avoiding the confrontation and because of her fear, everyone paid the price.

Putting Ideas into Action

Instead of creating a ‘rules based’ organization, consider focusing on your values and attributes. This clarifies the expectations of behavior and defines your culture.
Train your leaders on coaching, confronting and correcting skills so that they will talk to employees whose behavior differs from expectations.
Think twice after an incident before deploying additional policies and procedures. Assess severity and probability before adding this extra burden to your organization.
Consider reviewing your existing policies and procedures and eliminating those that cause the greatest amount of aggravation for employees and supervisors.

The vast majority of your employees want to behave consistently with your expectations. Avoid allowing the behaviors of a few to slow down your organization from focusing on the real prize – the customer.

Employees who feel entitled

Greg Schinkel — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 03:59:12 +0000

What do you do with an employee who thinks she deserves a raise or a promotion but there is one thing holding her back – her attitude? Frequently the entitled employee is in a state of denial. Any attempt to confront and correct the attitude is met with contempt. In her own mind, she thinks she is untouchable.

An attitude of entitlement can form when employees become conditioned to think that they will receive positive reinforcements without having to earn it through their performance. If their current manager or a series of previous managers have been reluctant to confront the problem, the employee may feel entitled or justified in their behavior.

From the Employee’s Perspective

The entitled employee in his own mind often sees the world from a different perspective. He may think everyone around him (including his manager) as less competent than he is. He thinks that if it wasn’t for him, the whole place would fall apart. And he feels that it is his duty to point out the flaws of others.

An attitude of superiority may have been with them since the individual entered the workforce or it may have been cultivated from working for a manager who reinforced that behavior. The employee may have felt overlooked when they didn’t get a promotion or job opening that was posted.

A victim mentality only serves to perpetuate the employee’s perception that the world is against her. A low sense of self-esteem is an underlying cause and makes the employee fragile when confronted. It isn’t unusual for this employee to break down emotionally when confronted by their manager which causes many managers to avoid the subject.

The good news is that there is hope. This mindset can be turned around. It requires action from the manager.

Attitude is a Performance Problem

Managers are sometimes reluctant to confront an attitude problem with the same vigor as other performance issues. One employee’s negativity can poison the productivity of the workgroup.

Because the manager doesn’t necessarily have to be around the negative employee it can be easy to avoid the person. Unfortunately co-workers do not have the same opportunity to retreat. Therefore unabated, the culture of the workgroup becomes poisoned.

Putting the Ideas into Action

Prevent an attitude of entitlement to establish itself by reinforcing desired results AND behavior.
Provide coaching as soon as possible when an attitude issue becomes apparent.
If coaching fails to improve the situation consider using progressive discipline to apply negative consequences.
If attitude improves, provide positive feedback and encouragement.
If attitude tends to relapse after a few weeks or months, then deal with that pattern in a coaching or correcting conversation.

Avoid bias as a new boss

Greg Schinkel — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:02:40 +0000

Typically a newly transferred manager takes time to review the personnel files of his staff. This manager however did not want to become biased by reading the existing files. We’ll explore more on that below.

Should a new manager read the personnel files of her team before sizing up the team for herself? My coaching client says no. He didn’t want to become biased towards his team members. Why? Because he knew that previous managers could have been contributing factors to some of the personnel problems.

A colleague of mine had a similar experience when he joined a company as a supervisor. When getting a tour of the facility he was told not to bother talking to one particular employee. The person giving the tour said that the employee in question was quite negative and generally unhelpful.

Ignoring that advice, my colleague made it a point to connect with the individual regularly and ended up being the only supervisor to effectively engage that difficult employee.

Reflection Questions

Have you bought into the negative back story of an employee?
Have you written off an employee in your mind and allowed it to influence your behavior as a leader?
How can you open your mind to give employees a chance to succeed?
By giving employees every opportunity to perform you might be able to succeed where other bosses have failed.

What is your leadership legacy?

Greg Schinkel — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:27:23 +0000

After a number of years of being a manager, supervisor or team leader it can feel as though you have ‘been there and done that.’ With fewer opportunities for promotion, how can you re-energize your enthusiasm for your leadership role?

Perhaps it is time to wake up to your higher purpose of being a developer of people.

You will be long remembered for your role in developing others once the memory of your great management skills fades away.

As you think back to the managers and supervisors you have worked for, you likely have one or two who made the most significant impact on you. Isn’t it a shame that there are so few inspiring bosses?

As a leader yourself, what kind of legacy are you leaving? Will you be known as the type of manager or supervisor who made a difference to a large number of employees or will you be just another boss, forgotten soon after you retire or leave your current position?

If doing your management job has become a little stale, why not shift your focus to building the capabilities of the people who work for you? Not only will they appreciate your interest in their success, they will want to help you succeed in your leadership role.

Tips for Building a Leadership Legacy

Think about the talents and potential of the people who work for you.
Have conversations with them about their ambitions.
Provide challenging job assignments.
Delegate greater responsibility to them.
Recommend worthy candidates for promotion.
Give tough love to those who need to adjust their thinking.
Encourage and push employees to stretch themselves beyond their current beliefs about what is possible.

Poor listener? Listen up

Greg Schinkel — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:55:59 +0000

As you might imagine, as a paid expert on communication and leadership, I get some well earned ribbing at home from my wife Robin because of my poor listening skills as a husband and father. Once I made the comment that she just didn’t pay me as well as my client’s did for me to be a good listener. After a few days in the dog house I understood that payment can be in many different forms.

How can I be a very good listener in selling and coaching situations and so poor at it at home?

In the same way, my teenage children can be remarkably poor listeners at times and yet hear the faintest whispers of a private conversation I’m having with my wife.

Perhaps you suffer from the same affliction – selective listening. Chances are when your boss or a customer is communicating you pay more attention and you may even lean in to hear a juicy bit of gossip. And yet when a coworker or employee approaches you, your listening skills plummet.

It turns out our selective listening isn’t just dependent on our interest in the information. It also has to do with who is delivering the information.

Supervisors and managers have to be particularly conscious of this because they tend to have certain employees they listen to well and others who they don’t listen to as effectively.

Much of this has to do with the judgments you make about people in determining whether they are worth listening to or not. In a manager – subordinate situation I may have already discounted the information the person is going to give me before they start speaking. It could be based on prejudice or past experience with the individual.

The effect is that I will miss out on some potentially useful information and send the message that I really don’t value the person as an individual. As my employee the person will then be less interested in helping me achieve the departmental objectives.

Tips to Improve Your Listening Skills

See the other person as having something useful to say even if it means deprogramming some of your past interactions or your own insecurity.
Avoid distractions and focus on the person – yes that means not looking at your computer screen or checking your Blackberry or iPhone for a few minutes.
Challenge yourself to summarize what the person said to you before adding in your own commentary.

Along with you, I will be applying these tips at home to see the impact it has on a personal level.

Employee Retention: Give them a reason to stay

Greg Schinkel — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:23:49 +0000

It was an exciting week last week – our book Employees Not Doing What You Expect rose to number two on the Globe and Mail Business Bestseller List. Irwin Schinkel and I are putting the finishing touches on our next book Fusion or Fizzle: How Leaders Leverage Training to Ignite Results.
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Now that we seem to be on the tail end of recession and the beginning of recovery, it is time to confront a reality – nearly one third of employees are thinking about changing jobs if the right opportunity presents itself. Look at the person on your left and then the one on your right – one of you is secretly or not so secretly looking at changing jobs. More on that below.
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Dr. Peter DeShane and I are scheduling another workshop: The Psychology of Persuasion and Influence on June 9th in London, Ontario.

Now is the time of year when companies plan leadership retreats - see how we can make these meetings more positive and productive.

A Reason to Stay

Nearly one out of three employees really would like to be working someplace else. During a recession, employees are thankful to have a job and generally put aside thoughts of moving to a different position or starting their own business. This false sense of loyalty can lull managers into thinking that employees are satisfied and motivated when they really are not.

As the economy improves, these unhappy employees go looking for other opportunities they think will bring them greater fulfillment and satisfaction.

Low turnover can mask a hidden problem. In workplaces with good compensation, generous benefits and a solid pension plan (think public sector or large employers), ambitious employees may lose their motivation and yet not leave. These trapped employees allow their personal productivity to decline and simply “put in time” until their retirement date comes.

Whether employees feel trapped or are looking at other possibilities, the challenge to managers is clear – continue to create a work environment that is motivating.

Four areas to pay attention to:

Challenge – Even high-potential employees will leave an organization if they are bored so managers need to provide a steady diet of new challenges, projects and assignments to create growth.
Recognition and acknowledgement – Let employees know that their contribution makes a difference. Say thank-you and let employees know that you see the impact they are having on the team, the customers and the organization as a whole.
Inclusion – While you might have favorites, it is crucial to reinforce teamwork through fair and consistent treatment.
Likeability and respect for the boss – A major reason employees look for opportunities is because they really don’t like the person they report to. This isn’t simply a popularity contest – they want a manager who is consistent, positive, knowledgeable, supportive and ambitious.

Reflection Questions

How many of the four motivational elements above exist in your organization?
Are you the kind of boss employees enjoy working for or do you need to make changes?
What needs to change in order to have an engaging and motivating workplace?

Action Items

Assess your personal satisfaction level, identify what is missing and what it will take to fill the void.
Evaluate your workplace on the four motivational elements and commit yourself to making it better.
Make adjustments and see the impact on both productivity and job satisfaction.

How Ego Blocks Engagement

Greg Schinkel — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:16:56 +0000

Having just wrapped up two more Front Line Leadership programs, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of potential in the leaders taking the course. One of the requirements of graduation is for each participant to document how they have applied elements of the course and the impact it has on their department.

In today’s LeaderFeeder I will share an example of how one brand new supervisor was able to get his team to think more independently and be more accountable just by making a small change to his leadership approach.

A majority of front line leaders (team leaders, lead hands and supervisors) are promoted from within. They get promoted based on having strong technical skills, a good work ethic and a positive outlook. They are usually good problem solvers and want to be helpful. This helpfulness can create an ego where they think that they must solve every problem in the work group.

As these new leaders transition from being workers to being leaders, they face an interesting challenge.

If they continue to answer every question and solve every problem brought to them, the workgroup will become dependent and the sense of fulfillment they receive from their leadership role will diminish.

One new supervisor put this challenge to the test. Only having supervised for a couple of months, he found that his employees would be constantly bringing him questions and issues. And he would cheerfully give them answers. Then, as suggested in the course, he reflected on the fact that for 80% of the questions, the employees had the experience and knowledge to solve the problems on their own.

So he made a simple change. Whenever an employee brought him a question or problem he thought they could solve, he simply asked, “What do you think would work?”

Initially the employees were surprised that he would trust them enough to solve the problem. After a couple of days he found that the number of questions and problems brought to him diminished to only those that needed his involvement.

The employees didn’t realize they were “allowed” to decide certain things. The level of positive attitude and motivation increased because the employees felt that the supervisor trusted them.

It is amazing that such a small change in approach can have such a significant impact on the morale, attitude and productivity of a department while at the same time making the supervisor’s job easier.

Reflection Questions

If you are in a leadership role, are there questions you answer and problems you solve that you know could be handled by your team?
If you are constantly giving answers, how does it impact your job satisfaction and the morale of your workgroup?
How would your leadership role be more rewarding if you could get the team to solve most of the problems they encounter?

Action Items

Size up your work group – do they have the capability to think more for themselves without coming to you for every little question and problem?
Begin asking, “What do you think would work?” when you are presented with a question or problem.
Give coaching to help the employee make better decisions and develop good judgement.
Give positive feedback when the employee takes initiative to solve problems on their own.
Enjoy having some extra time to focus on bigger issues and problems that need your attention.

Raise or Praise?

Greg Schinkel — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:30:08 +0000

I was reflecting back on some pre-training interviews with different organizations in the past two weeks. One theme was common – lack of positive feedback.

Of all the leadership tools at the manager’s disposal, positive feedback is one of the least expensive and highest payback actions. Instead of focusing so much attention on what is going wrong, make an effort to build on successes. Once employees see that you notice what they do right, they will be more likely to do more of what you expect.

The belief that the paycheck is thanks enough for the work done still sadly exists in some companies. A paycheck is not a thank you, but rather the other half of a contract completed. We know that pay is number 5 on the list of what motivates employees, so if it comes down to money, then chances are your company must not be creating many other positive reasons to work there.

Consider a low cost alternative: Praising a job well done.

Human nature works against praise and thanks in the work place. We tend to take the good for granted and complain about the bad. Managers create more work for themselves when they only focus on what’s going wrong. By building on successes it makes the leader’s job easier.

Often managers themselves hear praise far too rarely. Praising people for doing something right starts at the top of the management team. And, if you want to positively influence your manager, tell him or her what they are doing right.

Some managers may think that offering praise will make people soft and perform at a lower level when in fact it helps the team elevate its performance.

Reflection Questions

Do you give enough positive feedback to others on what is going well? What impact do you see when you offer positive feedback?

Action Items

Play a game. For every one complaint or fault you discover, force yourself to find three positive things.
Build a desire for human connectedness in your life and this will manifest as a caring persona your employees will recognize as a caring human being. They’ll work harder for you.
Comment on positive things, not sparingly, but excessively.
Praise your boss when he gets something right. If you don’t like the boss waffling when making decisions, compliment him when he does make a decision quickly. This will encourage him to do more of the same so he can hear more compliments.
Encourage your team to praise the people they supervise.
Remember to praise and thank in a genuine manner. One sarcastic comment can poison the entire process.