The other day I attended a webinar led by Al Switzler, co-author of the books Crucial Conversations and Influencer. During the webinar Al made this point about interacting with colleagues:

If your response to frustrating conversations is to increase the frequency of your key point or the volume of your delivery, but you don’t change the content of your message, then you will remain stuck in your current situation. 

This is especially true in a leader-follower dynamic. Think about someone you lead who you don’t see eye-to-eye with. Do you seem to be having the same tired old conversation again and again? Do you think that if you could just somehow make your point in a way that’s more appealing, then surely this person will see your point of view?

That’s not how it works.

In fact, I’d bet that each time you repeat this conversation, each of you gets more entrenched in your original position. It’s like being stuck in the mud— trying harder to release yourself from the muck only sinks you in deeper. It’s human nature. We hold on to our convictions—long past the time they are reasonable and even when factual information bears out our misguided thinking.

You can’t wear somebody down with the same argument that they’ve been consistently resisting over time. You need to try a different conversational approach.

When you find yourself mired in the same conversational pattern, try these questions to help get the conversation unstuck:

1. What has to happen in order for you to feel comfortable considering what I’m asking for?
2. What is it about my suggestion that seems unreasonable to you? How can we modify it to make it more palatable to you?
3. In what areas of this discussion do we agree?
4. What is your main concern about [topic being discussed]? If we could successfully address that concern, how likely would you be to move forward with this?
5. Here is where I see our commonalities [list them]. Here is where I see our differences on this topic [list them]. What can we do to bridge these differences?
6. Let’s list the pros and cons of our respective viewpoints and see if we can draw out the commonalities.
7. I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Would you please say that in a different way?

You’ll notice that all of these phrases are very open-ended. They invite conversation. Keep in mind that the goal of asking these questions is to understand the other person’s viewpoint, not to “sell” them on your viewpoint. If you return to persuading, then you’ve tossed yourself right back in the mud.

Getting a follower on board with your idea (or company policy, department paperwork, etc.) can be a lengthy process. Any response on your part that smacks of “because I said so” will only set you further back on the path. The next time you find yourself in a conversation that sounds oh-so-familiar, break out of the pattern and try a different conversational approach. You may just find yourself unstuck in no time.

Discussion question: what are some of your favorite phrases for getting people conversationally “unstuck”?

 photo credit: istockphoto.com © Daniel Kurz

For nearly two decades, management gurus have been heralding the death of the “command and control” mentality in Corporate America. Personally, I think it’s very much alive. Over a year ago, I wrote that the so-called “death” of command and control management is nothing but an urban legend.

Now, a recent article on the Forbes.com site breathes yet more life into this supposedly dying management philosophy.  The article’s main point was to question the relevance of “vanity” titles like Chief Diversity Officer in corporations.  As part of building the story’s premise, a marketing consultant is quoted as saying, “the only ‘C’s’ with ‘real’ power are the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and, occasionally, Chief Operating Officer.”

I strongly disagree with that statement and decided to post a response on the character-based leadership site The Lead Change Group.  See my thoughts on leading from who you are, not with your title in Do CEO’s Really Have All the Power?

My friend Sally works for a company that holds monthly small-group “open forum” type meetings for cross-sections of various company departments. The purpose of these meetings is to promote cross-departmental communication.  Each month, leaders from different functions in the company moderate the discussion. In general, Sally enjoys the meetings, except for one aspect: they are too long. They often go on for what seems like days three hours.  

She says that if she could give the meeting leaders one piece of advice to improve the process it would be this:

“After the conversation hogs have all repeated themselves three times and even the meekest member of the group has spoken up, it’s time to WRAP. IT. UP.”

Good advice for any meeting, I’d say.

I give the leadership at Sally’s company credit. Their intent to improve communication across functions is laudable. Unfortunately, they’ve ascribed to the thinking that if one hour of cross-functional conversation is good, then surely two hours must be better and hey, three hours is best of all.

This is definitely a case where “more” does not equal “better”. When people begin to repeat themselves, it’s a sure sign that a meeting has run its course.

If you’re in charge of leading meetings, you’d do well to use Sally’s rule of thumb. Don’t wait for the fat lady to sing; listen carefully and close it down long before then.

There’s a new game making the rounds these days called Phone Stack. Have you played it? The basic gist is this—when you dine out with friends, everyone puts their phones in the middle of the table and then embarks on a huge game of chicken— who  can resist the siren call of their phone for the longest time? The stakes are fairly high: the first person to take a call agrees to pick up the tab for the whole group.

Reporting on this game, the blog GetKempt says, “It’s a buzzing, flashing reminder of every phone-etiquette rule the world seems to have forgotten.”

I like it. A lot. In fact, I think we should kick it up a notch and play Phone Stack at our next company meeting. It’ll be like an intervention to see who’s the most addicted to their mobile device.

If I were to suggest this process (we’re in business, we don’t do “games”, right?) at a meeting, the outcry would be fierce:

“I’m expecting an important call.”

“I just need to sign off on this P.O. Accounting is emailing it to me any minute now.”

“My customers expect me to be available”.

“Who do you think you are?!”

There is truly very little that can’t wait. Most of the “emergencies” in our business lives are urgent because we allow them to be. When people are constantly checking their phones, it feeds the urgency, creating a vicious cycle. Every time a phone buzzes or someone glances down at their lap (do you think we can’t see that?!) it disrupts the flow of the meeting. It sends the message “What’s happening outside this meeting is more important than the topic of the meeting I’m in.”

“But wait!” you say, “What’s going on outside this meeting room IS more important.”

Well, you’re not alone in that opinion. According an infographic published by SocialCast, 71% of employees in the U.S. feel that most meetings are a waste of time.

Feeling vindicated? Hold on a minute. . .

Consider this: When you attend a meeting and fake your attention, you’re contributing to that statistic. Your attendance at a meeting doesn’t mean you’ve met the mark. It’s your participation that counts.

As I see it, if you think that meeting will be a huge waste of time, you have two choices:

A)    Put on your Big Kid Pants and accept that you need to be at this meeting, and you will give your 100% full attention.

B)    Prior to the meeting, find a way to speak up and suggest to the meeting planner in a professional manner that perhaps there’s a better way than conducting a face-to-face meeting.

Anything less is just contributing to the problem.

Now, if only I could figure out a way to have the offender “pick up the tab” at the meeting, we’d be all set . . .

 Photo credit: istockphoto.com © sndr

Earlier this week I presented a session on Influencing Across Organizational Boundaries to the Western Michigan chapter of the Project Management Institute. The session was so well-received that many people asked for copies of the Power Point presentation. Well, you know how that goes—a Power Point without the corresponding speaker commentary is a bit flat.

So, I created a modified version that excerpts a few key concepts. You can view it via SlideShare by clicking here.

Also, here’s a plug for the WMPMI group. They have a lot of really great things going on, including a brand-new event called THE Project 2012, which is a collegiate project management competition. I love it when our future business leaders help grow the talents of those coming along.

Here are a few photos from the event:

Participants at the pre-session networking event

It was standing room only! That's me waaay up front.

And look at this great book they gave me, Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage. It’s authored by a couple of directors from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, so it should be a good read. Look for a book review down the road.

Many thanks to the kind folks at WMPMI for your great hospitality and the wonderful things you are doing to promote professionalism in your discipline.

Dan McCarthy from the blog Great Leadership has pulled together a year-end review of leadership blog posts from 2011. He asked contributors to the leadership development carnival to submit their favorite post of 2011. You can see the summary here, along with each blogger’s commentary on why it made the list.

Good leadership reading to start the year off right!

If your company conducts its performance appraisals on an annual calendar basis then the past month has likely had you knee-deep in the process. There’s an equally likely chance you are supposed to do a self-appraisal for your performance view as well. As a leader, do you dread this task because you’re so consumed with the process of getting your team’s reviews/IDP’s* done?

Here are six reasons people put off writing their self-appraisal and ideas for how to get “get the dread out” and get it done.

I don’t have time.

You’ve got the same 24 hours in a day that everybody else does. Rather than focusing on your lack of time, focus on why you’re putting off the task. Likely, the true explanation lies in one of the factors below. Check them out then form a game plan for getting some writing time on the calendar. It won’t get done until you make time to do it.

Our performance appraisal process is a joke.

There are those who say the current performance appraisal process is broken. There’s merit to that argument. As an organizational leader you have two choices: 1) Become a change agent and take up the gauntlet to help affect a positive, real improvement in the appraisal process in your company  2) Put on your big-kid pants and deal with it. Complaining about it is wasted breath.

My boss never gives me a performance review.

Yes, it’s frustrating when your boss isn’t setting a good example. Do you really want to follow suit? This is especially important if you are a leader of leaders. Decide you’ll be there for your team, even if you’re not getting the same courtesy from your boss.

Why bother? There’s a wage freeze.

C’mon, now, really? Look past the fact that there will be no money forthcoming during the appraisal process. Consider the reflection that you do during the self-appraisal as an investment in you— it’s your chance to get better at some aspect of your role. You can’t put a price tag on that.

I’ve been doing the same job for many years. It’s the same stuff, year after year.

This is a legitimate concern—to a point. Long-term, high-performing contributors do have to search harder to find something new to put on their IDP. But it can be done.  Eleanor Roosevelt said “Do one thing every day that scares you.” This is a great place to start on your quest for more interesting development plans. What one thing has been conveniently dropping off your professional-do list because it’s uncomfortable? Make this the year that it gets declared as a goal. Think of your sense of accomplishment when you complete that goal!

It’s been a rough year. I don’t really want to rehash it on paper.

Even top contributors have an off year. If you view it as a way to get it onto paper and into the history books, it may take some of the sting out of it. Even big project fiascos can teach us something, if we can just get past the downward pull of disappointment.

What other reasons are out there for a lack of interest in writing one’s self-appraisal? I’d love to hear them!

*Individual Development Plan. See Dan McCarthy’s fantastic primer on how to write an IDP at his blog Great Leadership.

photo courtesy istockphoto.com

5 Posts That Were Tops with Readers

This week, I’m jumping on the “Best Of” bandwagon. As 2011 draws to a close, I looked at my stats to see which blog posts seemed to resonate most with The People Equation readers. I’m not much for fancy data analysis, so the following list was compiled with a simple formula: I looked at the posts that garnered the most views and cross-referenced them with those that also had the most interesting commentary.

What follows are the posts about workplace interactions and human dynamics that drew the most attention, whether it was direct traffic to my site, or via Google:

Top Five

1.   Thank You. 4 Ways to Make Those Two Words Count – this was a quick post I dashed off after receiving a heart-felt “thank you” from my son’s Little League coach.

2.  Teamwork. How Hard Can It Be? – my days as a relay team member on the track team provided a nice discussion point for how we judge others during the critical “hand off” phase of projects.

3.  The Snowball Effect: When Small Workplace Offenses Grow Out of Control- the metaphor of a snowball rolling downhill sets the stage for my thoughts on keeping workplace outbursts to a minimum.

4.  The Golden Rule of Listening: How to Speak Loud and Clear without Opening Your Mouth – I love that this one made the list—it’s a guest post by Tim Eyre. This piece was also picked up by Today’s Financial Women magazine.

5.  Making the Most of Leadership Assessments – this post takes on the issue of whether or not leadership assessments should be administered by internal leadership development staff or by external consultants.

Honorable Mention

These posts had higher page views than those listed above, but they had lots of help from Google and aggregators that picked up the articles for distribution on their site.

Sitting Kills. What Your HR Department Can Do About It.- the research cited in this post haunts me. What if it’s true that the simple act of sitting is the single biggest predictor of one’s longevity?

Professionals Don’t Offer Excuses – this is one of my personal favorites because the topic is near to my heart and because The Conference Board Review reprinted it as Nobody Cares Why You Messed Up.  

What’s your favorite People Equation post?

What topics would you like me to address in 2012?

One of my favorite multi-contributor sites is the Women of HR site, a collaborative effort of (you guessed it!) women in the human resources community who blog to share career advice with their readers.

My colleagues at the Women of HR site occasionally write blog posts centered around a theme. The stories are then published as a series. The first WofHR series was Hindsight 20/20- where the contributors shared lessons learned with the benefit of hindsight. In this series you’ll find life lessons on focus, renewal, persistence and more.

This week, a new series debuted. It’s called 6 Rules to Break in which the Women of HR share their thoughts and reactions to a manifesto called Six Rules Women Must Break In Order to Succeed. Head on over to the site to hear thoughts on Let Others Take Responsibility for Their Own Mistakes, Be The Captain of Your Own Ship, Real Success Requires Honesty and Hard Work Alone Will Not Get You Noticed, to name a few.

I’ll be right up front on this book review: I know the author.

Art Petty and I are professionally acquainted; we’re fellow leadership bloggers and our paths sometime cross on consulting projects. I’m a huge fan of Art’s writing about leadership—he’s extremely pragmatic, yet self-effacing. You won’t find bombastic pontificating on his blog. What you will see are in-the-trenches observations that are written with a sly wink and a smile. So when I found out he was publishing a second* book, I asked for a review copy.

Art has years of experience in corporate senior leadership, where he tried out the suggestions he offers in his book. The new book, Leadership Caffeine, is a collection of more than 80 essays from Art’s blog Management Excellence.  

You might be thinking, “Why buy the book when I can read Art’s blog?”  Here’s why: it’s packaged differently than a blog and therefore allows you to tap into some inspiration and information at a moment’s notice. Art has arranged his vast wealth of knowledge into bite-sized nuggets that can be easily enjoyed as your time allows. Think of this book as a form of caffeine for your leadership development: infusing a little jolt when you’re feeling a lag in leadership energy.

The book is organized into 10 sections:

• Developing Yourself
• Politics, Bosses and Other Realities of Organizational Life
• The Leader and Decisions
• Problems? Trying Looking in the Mirror
• The Nimble Leader
• Surviving the Tough Days
• Building High Performance Teams
• Timeless and Priceless Leadership Advice
• In Pursuit of Greatness
• The Lighter Side of Leadership Caffeine

As you can see, this isn’t your typical leadership business book. Art’s writing style is conversational and infused with humor so that you hardly even know you’re learning something as you read. (Sneaky, huh?)

The book doesn’t need to be read start-to-finish. In fact, it’s more like a magazine in that you can flip through the table of contents, see what appeals to you and go directly to that essay. Each written piece finishes with Art’s trademark “The Bottom Line for Now” summary. For example, in the essay Your Leadership Character is Forged in Defeat the Bottom Line is,

“Laugh today and keep moving forward. There are lessons to be learned from stumbling while on the road to victory.”

Now that’s what I call a good cup of leadership joe.

*His first was as co-author of Practical Lessons in Leadership.