Prelude Consulting blogs

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

Bill McAneny — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:18:57 +0000

Of course you can, but the old dog has to want to learn them!

But then isn’t personality set? Well roughly yes, and from a pretty early age; personality is the result of the interaction between genetic conditions and environmental conditions and can be represented in this way: P = (GxE). This means that from an early age our personalities are set and basically don’t change. Sure I can provide lots of clinical data to back up this assertion but hey just go to a school reunion! Sure they may be balder or fatter but they are just the same, aren’t they?

Behaviour on the other hand is a result of the interaction between personality and situation and can be represented in this way: B = (PxS). Therefore change the situation and we are all capable of modifying our behaviour, to a greater or lesser extent. And this makes it difficult to hide behind the genetics argument because if we choose we can change our behaviour. This also means there are no such things as personality clashes, or any reason why we can’t choose a different path.

In his book ‘Life at the bottom’ Theodore Dalrymple confronts a drugs user who claims: “It’s not my fault I am easily led.” Theodore replies: “Then how come you haven’t been easily led to conjugating Latin verbs, or to study higher Maths?” You see we like the determinism argument (ie that every event is the inevitable consequence of previous conditions) when it suits us.

I think the deeper issue is to find a reason why someone would want to change; and that is far more difficult. I have no problem with the person who says: ‘I’m happy how I am, I understand the negative consequences of not changing and I accept them.’ But I rarely hear that. What I hear are the rationalising arguments: ‘it’s not my fault,’ ‘that’s just how I am made,’ ‘I can’t change now, it’s too late,’ ‘my personality is set!’

So how do you get someone to change? Back to our old dogs, they need to want to change. As Confucius said ‘change is a door that can only be opened from the inside,’ (mind you he also said ‘experience is a comb given to a bald man.’) So it is usually up to us to find the reasons - and there are so many (as many as there are people). A few examples:

‘Altruism,’ (ie it is the right thing to do)
‘Improve your stock,’ (ie if you improve it will be better for your people and you’ll be better thought of as a leader within the organization)
‘These are career-limiting behaviours’ (ie we’ll sack you if you don’t improve)
‘Odd one out’ (ie everyone else in the team is showing progression and you’re not)
‘Look at him’ (ie point to the tangible benefits in someone else)
‘Cementing’ (ie keep on doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep on getting what you’re getting, you’ll become known for the behaviours and so will keep getting the same old projects/tasks)
‘It will make life easier’ (appeal to laziness)

Often the most difficult issue is convincing folks development isn’t about changing what is intrinsically you, it isn’t about taking things away but adding to your armoury, and it will give you a greater array of choices, options and dimensions. The Latin root of the word ‘education’ is ‘e-ducato,’ which means ‘leading out.’ So it is not about trying to be like someone or something else (not possible nor desirable) or cramming your head full of the latest consultant’s nonsense; it is about bringing out the best in you, ie becoming a better version of you.

Does attitude determine behaviour, or does behaviour determine attitude - or both?

Bill McAneny — Sat, 08 May 2010 16:16:27 +0000

General George Patton was asked, in 1944 how he ‘wins hearts and minds.’ His answer is legendary and witty, but also incredibly profound. Patton said: ‘Grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow.’ Now sure this may sound a little crude and crass but what he is saying is that behaviour will determine attitude, and that is a wise and insightful viewpoint.

We were asked by the world’s largest manufacturer of architectural ironmongery to create a customer-centric culture. Previously they’d tried all the ‘attitudinal changing,’ trite methods of pictures of happy customers, and statements like ‘customers pay our wages,’ and ‘awe-inspiring’ posters of tired-inspired people who had just climbed a mountain for the first time, covered in snow and glory. So no problem with square inches of inspiration on walls but ‘winning the hearts and minds,’ especially of the senior team, was a far more difficult task.

The senior team knew all the arguments: happy customers mean repeat business, happy customers act as advocates by telling other people how good your company is and building a relationship means that doing business is less transactional and price-sensitive; indeed they could make those convincing arguments to others. But the difference was, they couldn’t actually ‘feel’ it because they had no direct experience.

Attitudes have three main components: cognitive, (which is about our beliefs) affective, (which is about our feelings) and behavioural (how we act towards the attitude object). Getting attitude to change behaviour is really difficult because we intellectualise, post-rationalise, make excuses - anything rather than accept the logic. However by effecting changes in behaviour we often find that attitude follows suit. So why is that? We call it ‘cognitive dissonance,’ which argues that people prefer their beliefs and feelings to be consistent with each other and with their behaviour so when inconsistencies occur people become uncomfortable and have to adapt; but how do they adapt? Think about someone whose cognition is ‘I smoke’, who is bombarded with messages ‘smoking kills.’ The obvious corollary to this is that they give up smoking; but they don’t do they? They either discount the evidence or adopt the irrational belief that smoking won’t harm them personally or promise themselves that they will give up on Monday - or the end of the month, or after the summer holidays; anything rather than give up.

So back to our architectural ironmongery organisation; what did we do? Well what we did was initiate a policy, (not a policy, oh yeah a ‘policy.’) Every single senior manager, including all board members, had to personally (personally mind) handle four customer complaints a month, including personal follow-up with the customer. Thus the CEO had to show up at a DIY store in Glasgow and get a ‘severe telling off,’ (as they say in Glasgow) from the store owner; that is truly the sharp end of ‘customer experience.’ And do you know, all of a sudden, customer service really did become important to the organisation and the senior team suddenly became its strongest advocates. Why? Because, like Patton said (perhaps a little more coarsely), having had a direct experience, their behaviour determined their attitude.

Why 'hard-nosed negotiation' does not work

Bill McAneny — Thu, 06 May 2010 10:20:06 +0000

For all the books and supposed ‘styles’ of negotiating I think the advice from ‘Getting to Yes,’ by Fisher and Ury still holds true: ‘don’t bargain over position, bargain only over issues.’ By bargaining over position you can cement yourself into a bad place and it also clearly pinpoints your true position to the other person; here is a perfect example.

By 1963 the Beatles were the biggest band on the planet, outselling everyone else, selling out concert halls worldwide and becoming a merchandising phenomenon. Their manager, Brian Epstein was over the moon when United Artists decided they wanted to make a ‘Beatles’ movie and asked him to meet with them to discuss the contract. Epstein was triumphant, and so walked in to the meeting with a swagger and banged the table announcing ‘my boys won’t accept less than 7.5%, take it or leave it.’

Of course in those days 7.5% was a large amount but by cementing himself into the position Epstein did not realise that United Artists were looking at 25% as a starting point for the negotiations. As Denis O’Dell said in his book, ’At the Apple’s Core,’ “Brian, in a meeting with the producer of A Hard Day's Night, stated that he wouldn't accept less than 7.5% of the income from the movie. United Artists had the figure of 25% as a starting point for the deal negotiations.”

And so what is the moral of this tale? Wait, listen, ask questions and never, ever bargain over position, only over issues. Perhaps Lady Ga-Ga would have done a better job:

“Can't read my,
Can't read my,
No he can't read my poker face”

Did psychology begin with Wundt, James, Freud and Jung?

Bill McAneny — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:55:53 +0000

1879 is often cited as ‘the birthday of psychology’ the year when Wilhelm Wundt created the very first psychological research laboratory at Leipzig University and this has led to Wundt being hailed as ‘the father of psychology.’ Yet of course this is like saying that before 5 July 1687, when Newton ‘discovered’ gravity, that we were all floating around in space; we need to differentiate between formalised academic study and the realities of what has been going in peoples’ lives, and minds, for centuries.

I was re-reading Wordsworth recently and if we drill deep into what he was really saying we can see that he ‘knew’ free association long before the term had been coined and he drew on past strengths to shore him up during times of present angst.

“And think ye not with radiance more sublime
For these remembrances, and for the power
They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid
Of feeling, and diversity of strength
Attends us, if but once we have been strong”

William Wordsworth, ‘The Prelude, Book Twelfth,’ 1799

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration”

William Wordsworth, ‘Above Tintern Abbey,’ 1789

“While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years”

William Wordsworth, ‘Above Tintern Abbey,’ 1789

The brain states are the sub-conscious, (sometimes called the unconscious), and the conscious mind. Every event from birth, and even pre-birth, gets stored in the sub-conscious, without us realising it. The process through which events ‘leak’ out, (or are brought out), from the sub-conscious to the conscious, waking mind is called ‘free association.’ In the 1960s Penfield conducted some experiments around free association and found that all events were recorded and stored. He found that:

• Memory is evoked in a single recollection in detail, rather than generalisations.
• The feelings which were associated with the event are also recorded, therefore we ‘relive’ rather than ‘recall.’
• Memory continues intact - even after the mind’s ability to recall it has disappeared.
• The brain ‘tape-records’ every experience from birth (possibly even before birth) and all this is recorded in the temporal cortex section of the brain.
• The key therefore is that we not only remember the event and remember the feeling, but can feel the same way now.

So we can see that Wordsworth ‘used’ his memories, his experiences of the past, to help him through the present. He would go to places where he had wandered as a young man and he not only remembered, he not only remembered how he felt but he could feel the same way again; and for Wordsworth this was how he drew on his previous strengths to ensure he remained strong during ...”hours of weariness.” Wordsworth was by all accounts a solitary figure and his writing gives us a wonderful insight into how he coped with ‘modern life.’ Predating ‘Psychology’ by almost a century Wordsworth shows us that there is a huge difference between ‘Psychology’ and ‘psychology,’ ie between formalised academic study and the realities of what is going on in peoples’ lives.

AV Magazine for the Broadcast Industry

Dan Murfitt — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:48:10 +0000

Bill was interviewed about the future of recruitment in the Dubai-based Broadcast magazine AV. The link is at: http://tinyurl.com/yghyuek

21st Century Leadership: An Evolutionary Profile

Dan Murfitt — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:16:42 +0000

This is a pared down version of Bill on US Radio which runs at about 25 minutes and covers all the main leadership topics.

Download the MP3 version.

Bill on live radio

Bill McAneny — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:57:00 +0000

Bill has been asked to do a two and a half hour, live radio phone-in on 'Leadership in the 21st century." The details are at: http://tinyurl.com/nbowyb

I guess one of the problems is that people will be looking for 'the answer,' the silver bullet, the one thing that will make them great leaders and, unfortunately, that misses the point; it is about lots of little things. There are no perfect leaders, (as there are no perfect friends, or husbands, or wives I guess), and so it is about being the best leader that YOU can, with all your foibles and specific traits. The Latin root of the word 'education,' is 'e-ducato,' which means 'leading out.' So rather than try to cram our heads with all the latest theories, or attempt to be like that leader over there, (not possible or even desirable) it's better to bring out the best in us as individuals. Hamel says it's all about innovation, Bossidy says it's all about execution, Collins says it's all about humility; who's right? Well none of them and all of them! I tried to be an innovative, servile, execution focused leader and it's like trying to be short and tall.

I will be interested to see what the questions are from the listeners but I hope they aren't looking for 'the one thing,' as they may be over simplifying things. Maybe see you on there?

Learning to listen

Bill McAneny — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:33:00 +0000

There is nothing soft or woolly about coaching, listening or giving feedback. Another perspective might simply be that they are guidelines for listening to, understanding and getting the information you want from the people you lead. Many managers find it useful to have some support in this area, particularly those who have progressed from a more technical environment and then find themselves managing people. The main difference between machinery and people is predictability. People are hard to understand, (they rarely conform to laws of physics), and management should be all about understanding your people and getting the best from them. Indeed management is after all a people game - and a contact sport!

Learning to listen

Listening is not an obvious ability. Think about how many people you know whom you would describe as a good listener, and you probably won’t know many. (I bet you can think of some good talkers though!) Yet the managers’ job is all about listening, and then managing what you hear, the information.

It’s often hard to listen because we are so caught up in our own worlds that we don’t really hear what’s being said. We might have an opinion on the issue, or be formulating our response to what is being said, and so we miss out on valuable information.

The first rule of listening is to listen to try to understand the other person’s perspective. If you try to understand, you will begin to build on what the speaker has said in order to get a fuller picture. Once you have a better understanding, you are better placed to respond, - as opposed to react. This distinction is very important as if we learn to respond then we are demonstrating that we have fully understood all the issues and have CHOSEN to respond in a certain way.

To react is to demonstrate that we have simply let the information hit us, have not given it any thought and gone with our first answer and thus we are not in control of the situation. To respond is to manage the situation - and demonstrate that we are managing the situation. Sometimes a response can be terse, or monosyllabic or even hard-hitting; but the key is that it is a response, ie it has been chosen among a range of options rather than simply fired back.

When people are asked what they find helpful in coaching interviews, “being understood” gets top ratings - every time.

So firstly, keep in your mind some of these points when you are listening;

What are the main messages?
What point of view is being expressed?
What does s/he need me to understand?
What are the main ideas or thoughts?
What is their perspective?
Why does s/he think the way she does?
What is most important to him/her?

Use open questioning techniques to get this information before you volunteer information yourself. This will help you not to jump in too quickly before knowing the facts. What you hear from the person might also influence the way you deal with him or her.

As the old adage goes, ‘you have two ears and one mouth - use them in proportion!’

Non-verbal attending

Sounds a bit jargonistic but ‘non verbal attending’ is simply a term used in counselling to describe what you might do to actually look like you’re listening! It’s important to listen, but just as important to demonstrate that you’ll be taking a real interest in them.

Actually looking like you’re listening can encourage the other person to talk, shows an interest, and actually puts you in a position to listen. How many times have you heard someone say ‘You’re not listening to me!’ When the accused person answers, almost predictably ‘I am listening to you. I can repeat everything you’ve said,’ the accuser is not comforted. Listening, real listening, carries with it a great deal of responsibility.

When we drive along we glance quickly in the rear-view mirror. But when we are on our driving test we arch our backs, we make a great show of the fact that we really (genuinely) are looking in the mirror to convince the examiner. In the same way when listening we need to make sure the other person KNOWS that we are listening.

Get your body language in the right mode. Folded arms can be a subconscious communication of defensiveness or an unwillingness to talk, even if you don’t mean it. When you interview someone next, look to see if the person has clasped their hands together. This demonstrates a ‘closed posture’, someone who isn’t relaxed enough to be open. Your job then becomes all about relaxing the person enough to allow them to really open up. The information you get then is likely to be more honest and open.

Avoid and prepare for distractions before meeting with someone. Deflect calls and shut the office door if necessary
Get your body language right - open your posture
Practise mirroring body language
Allow for silence, it’s OK - really! Practise holding silences, which can be a powerful tool. So many people are afraid of silences and feel they have to fill every void with words. Yet holding the silence puts the responsibility on the other person to fully understand the impact of what has just been said, and respond to it.
Maintain good eye contact (without staring!), as this again shows you are listening. The main facial area to focus on is the triangle between the chin and left and right eyebrow.

Mehrabian wanted to know what cues people use to judge whether a person likes them or not. He and his associates discovered that the person’s actual words contributed only 7% to the impression of being liked or disliked, whereas voice cues contributed to 38% and facial cues 55% .They also discovered that when facial expressions were inconsistent with spoken words, facial expressions were believed more than words. This demonstrates the importance of using your body when you listen.

Listen Without Interrupting

Catch how many times in one day you interrupt a person when they are speaking to you. It is easy and destructive. It means you are not taking time to consider the other person and their response.

Encourage the person to talk by using open questions. Open questions are the only way you will be able to open someone up and find out what’s going on.

“The quality of information we get from someone will be determined by the quality of the questions we ask…”

Practice open questions

Take responsibility for the information you get. For example, you may complain about one of your team, ‘He’s so quiet. He never says anything.’ Take responsibility for asking him using open questions.

Closed questions lead to limited information. Most people know about open questioning techniques and yet never bother to use them, probably not realising their value.

Closed questions begin with ‘Do you’ ‘Can you’ ‘Have you’ ‘Is it’ ‘Don’t you think’. They generally lead nowhere.

An open question…

Will never get a Yes or No answer
Allows the other person the freedom to talk.
Stimulates conversation
Conveys a desire to understand
Is non judgmental
Digs deeper - helps to identify problems and the factors causing them
Leads you to a better understanding
Gets to the facts - gains useful information

Use words like…

Using the question ‘why’ can come across as aggressive and so its best to ‘soften’ it by adding more words. For example, ‘Why do you think that is?’

You know the question is open when the other person can’t answer with YES or NO.

Look at this scenario:

John arrives looking miserable; this is unusual so you say, ‘Are you OK, John?’

‘Yep’ says John, and skulks off; a direct result of a closed question.

Now look at this:

John arrives looking miserable; this is unusual so you say, ‘What’s up, John?’ He says, ‘Nothing’ so you dig deeper.

‘What sort of day are you having?’ ‘A bad one’ he says. ‘Why John, what’s been happening?’…

More examples:

Closed question: Were you angry when that happened?

Open question: How did you feel when that happened?

Closed question: Did you start the argument?

Open question: How did the argument start?

Closed question: Do you still enjoy the job?

Open question: How do you feel about the job now?

To recap, the purpose of a question is:

To clarify - gain specific information
To help identify problems and the factors causing them
To gain useful information
To help you get a better understanding of the individual
To check reality
To explore underlying thoughts and feelings
To encourage further insight

A golden rule is to use your eyes and ears more than your mouth!

Reflecting skills

Advancing from open question techniques, you can also use ‘paraphrasing’ and summary statements to keep the conversation flowing and interactive. The purpose is:

The person can hear back what they are saying
You can check your own understanding with the individual
Certain points can be clarified
Communication flows between the two parties
Information becomes more manageable

Paraphrasing is a rephrasing of information given by the other person. It states the essence of the content in the listener’s words. Someone might talk for five minutes, and when you paraphrase you try and sum up everything that they’ve said in a few sentences. It can give a slightly different perspective on the material, lets the person know you are following what has been said and conveys that you understand.

Example:

a) The person says: ‘I am having a really hard time managing my workload. Every time I seem to get on top of it then someone else comes along and gives me more to do, so that the pile of files on my desk seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I feel so powerless in this situation and its even affecting me at night because I can sleep…’

b) Summary response: ‘So you are struggling with your workload and feel that the pressure is mounting, even to the extent that you can’t sleep at night…’

Applying these skills

Listen carefully and listen more than you speak
Don’t be defensive or accusatory - suspend judgement
Use observation to assess how comfortable or uncomfortable the other person is
Use open questions to open out what the person is trying to convey and to expand your understanding
Paraphrase when appropriate to check your understanding

You get what you reward!

Bill McAneny — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:19:00 +0000

You remember the old story about a fisherman walking along the river bank and he comes across a snake with a frog? He feels sorry for the frog as it’s about to be eaten and so he moves it out of the way. Then he feels sorry for the hungry snake and so he takes out his hip-flask and gives it a shot of whisky.

Next day he’s walking by the river and the snake is waiting for him - with two frogs!

And so what is the moral of this tale? Easy - you get what you reward! And it’s the same in organisations - you get what you reward. How you measure the performance of your people will determine how they behave and you will get what you reward. So there’s little point in rewarding adherence to rules and blind obedience - because that’s exactly what you will get. But you can’t reward adherence to rules and blind obedience and expect initiative and creativity. Incidentally if you do reward creativity and initiative then you may also get the odd spectacular failure!

So what does your organisation reward? And what do you reward?

Have we have created a 'stress industry?'

Bill McAneny — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:46:00 +0000

Stress has become ‘the next big thing.’ If we type the word ‘stress’ into the Google search engine there are 18,000,000 pages, each with 178,000,000 articles and websites offering advice, stress tests, statistics and potentially ‘the answer.’ There are stress counsellors, self-help books, DVDs, etc - it is almost as though ‘stress’ has become an industry in itself.

Stress is now a self-diagnosing condition

Stress has also become a self-diagnosing condition where we find individuals visiting their GPs and saying ‘I have stress,’ (rather than ‘these are my symptoms, what do you think it might be doctor?’) We have created a stress culture and so most of us can recite the usual symptoms and suddenly everyone is a stress expert.

Stress has become the new ‘bad back!’

So familiar are these symptoms, (hyper-alertness, dry mouth, sweating, difficulty sleeping or calming down, etc), that the mystique about the illness is therefore now not in the diagnosis but in the provability! It turns modern medicine on its head where individuals can say ‘I have stress and the onus is on the medial profession, or employers to try to disprove it.' In that sense stress has become the new ‘bad back;’ prevalent, (we all know someone suffering from stress), crippling for industry (and for some individuals), but very difficult to ‘prove’ or ‘disprove!’

We have created a label called ‘stress’ which can be applied to a multitude of conditions

This is not to suggest that some individuals do not suffer from the effects of stress, for example death of a spouse, death of a child, etc - these are major issues in an individual’s life and can cause terrible trauma. However we have now created a label called ‘stress,’ that we can place on any non-descript feelings, any situation and any person - a common parlance, a currency of language has been created.

Why does the stress audit always find stress?

If we go looking for stress why is it we always find it? Is it because there is so much more stress around or is it that if we go looking for something we’re kind of bound to find it? Conducting a stress audit not only means asking folks about stress - it means highlighting the word ‘stress’ and of course this could well mean encouraging people to think about stress. Yet the stress label can be used to cover a multitude of issues and it is almost like the old ‘personality clash,’ in that as soon as we hear it we back off and accept the situation as it appears too complex to confront.

Indeed in some organisations the stress card is used as a ‘break point’ for some people who can say ‘if it gets too much I can always take some time off with stress.’ We have developed an attitude to stress which is akin to a car alarm going off in the middle of the night - no-one believes for a minute the car is being stolen the cry is always ‘turn that alarm off!’

In that sense we accept that many, many people are signed off with stress but make the assumption that they may not really be ill in the first place but as we cannot prove it they have in a sense ‘got away with it,’ as people did in the 1960s and 1970s with the familiar ‘bad back.’ This must be very difficult for those who do indeed suffer from real stress or other sorts of illnesses and my fear is that it is those who genuinely are suffering who may be treated with scepticism as the question becomes not ‘is this person suffering from stress?’ but ‘who is the most stressed?’

Customer-led Management

Bill McAneny — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:33:00 +0000

Imagine if your employees were customers and you were a provider of management services. Now imagine that, if they weren’t happy with the service they were getting they could switch suppliers. That would make all of us as managers sit up and think about the OUTPUTS of our management, ie what we do to and for the people we manage, how we support them and generally what sort of ‘management service’ are we providing? We are constantly told that we should listen to our customers and orientate our services around this. So let’s take a look at what our customers say, (what employees really want from a manager), and it may just change the way we work.

Many managers are technical experts promoted for practical achievements, not for their excellent interpersonal relationships. Managing people is not easy - they don’t conform to laws of physics and they can be unpredictable; so why do we do it? And at the end of the day we very rarely know what our employees want from us.

The following statistics come from a survey by Lore International Institute; they surveyed 500 employees from a wide range of industries and sectors to ask the simple question: what do you really want from management? The results may not be what we expect.

What do employees want?

‘Loyalty’ is a difficult concept to define; to many people it probably means doing the best job you can whilst you are there. It therefore doesn’t mean staying for life. A study by Walker Loyalty Reports suggests that even the most ‘loyal’ are only committed to managers and companies for about two years.

Understanding what people really want from a manager, can boost our chances of keeping them longer. Here are the results of the survey:

Honesty

91.5% want honesty and integrity from their manager

Fairness

89.2% want their manager to be fair and to hold everyone accountable to the same standards

Dependability

81.2% want to be able to depend on their manager

Collaboration

77.4% want to be a part of their manager's team and be asked to contribute ideas and solutions

Appreciation

74.4% want their manager to appreciate them for who they are and what they do

Responsiveness

73.9% want their manager to listen, understand, and respond

What employees don't want

It is important to understand what employees want but it is also helpful to know what they don’t want and this section brought out some really interesting results too:

Friendship

Less than 35 (just 2.9% to be precise) want their manager to be a friend or companion

Conversation

Less than 15% (14.2%) want to have interesting conversations with their manager

Emotional Support

Only 25.4% said they want emotional support from their manager

Cheerfulness

Less than 30% (28.8%) want a cheerful or happy manager

Humour

Only 29% want their manager to be fun-loving or good-humoured

Why managers should care

The way you treat employees largely determines whether they stay with you or choose to leave. A recent Harvard Business Review report notes that most employees would rather work for a 'lovable fool' than a 'competent jerk.' Yet anyone can become more of a people person if they choose to modify their behaviour.

So how do we give employees what they want?

Understanding what people want is essential to being a successful manager, but you must also know how to provide this ‘service’ and that takes time, patience, skill and determination. Try a few of the following tips:

People are human beings - not human resources

Remember - they are people first and employees second. So make sure you call everyone by their name, celebrate (or at least acknowledge) birthdays and also learn a few details about employees' lives-even if you have to jot them down to remember them.

Encourage ideas

Bring the best out in them; ask people what they think, what they’d change, what would make it better - both one-on-one and in team meetings. Determine the best ideas, act on them, and give credit where credit is due.

Trust them with difficult assignments

Trust people with some of the more difficult or 'stretch' projects even when the outcome is uncertain. It'll give them a chance to shine-or to fall short and grow. Employees prefer meaningful, purpose-driven work that really challenges them. Help them find ways to do their jobs better, faster, or cheaper, provide training and development opportunities, and ask regularly for ideas on how to make better use of their talents and skills.

Look after them

The workplace isn't black and white. Rules are made and broken. Projects start off strong and can end up failing. Show people you've got their backs covered and help them regroup and recover when the going gets tough.

Be there for them

An open-door policy means nothing if you're never in! Do your best to really be there for people, even if it means setting aside a regular time when all you do is connect with employees.

Engage

Multi-tasking can be a great attribute - but not if it means your people aren’t getting your full attention. Turn off the phone, leave your e-mail, and meet people face-to-face with no distractions. When you don't, you send the message you're preoccupied or indifferent even if you keep up your end of the conversation, or worse still they will feel that they’re just not important to you.

Respect confidentiality

Have respect for what people share with you in confidence. Unless a secret crosses a legal or ethical line, keep it to yourself - even if the information powerful. Nothing damages a relationship faster than a manager who betrays an employee's trust.

Show you’re human too

Admit your shortcomings. Own up to your mistakes. Laugh at yourself; reminding people that you, too, are only human shows self-confidence and builds trust.

Really care

Take time to really care about people, really care; people can smell insincerity a mile off! Ask them what's up when they seem low, and create a safe place to laugh, cry, or let off steam without fear of judgment.

"We only employ technical people..."

Bill McAneny — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:43:00 +0000

I heard a strange throw-away comment on a visit to a hi-tech company in Cambridge, UK. We were all discussing the attributes necessary to succeed in such companies and one of the managers said this:

"We only employ technical people so issues such as personality and behaviour are irrelevant in our recruitment processes."

So what is a ‘technical person’ - is it a person at all? I guess ‘technical people’ conform to the basic laws of physics and so require no motivation, leadership, stimulation or understanding?

Perhaps they are all bloodless zombies, (working only nightshift, of course), devoid of feeling, pleasure, pain or complaints and with no aspiration other than servitude and the odd drop of blood to keep them going?

And so what sort of recruitment process would we choose to recruit ‘technical people?’ A quick sift through the CVs: qualifications, (check), experience, (check), background, (check), and then, …hmm….maybe use some sort of test, perhaps hold a mirror up to their mouths to see if there is life, and if it steams up, well they must be right for the job - they are ‘technically qualified.’

And it's great that they have no families, friends, social life, no interests outside work and certainly no humour. Anyway it's only the technical bit in which we're interested!

Henry Ford said, ‘Why is it I get a whole person when all I want is a pair of hands?"

That is the issue. When we recruit we get the whole person, with all their little foibles, idiosyncrasies and quirkiness - the things that make them human. That’s why recruiting and managing people, all kinds of people, is so difficult, there is no universal law, or test-book answer. It is a ‘human’ process.

And the strange thing is, even in so called ‘hi-tech companies,' recruitment mismatches are rarely due to lack of experience, expertise, qualifications or background - but down to plain old personality and behaviour. Scary, isn't it? We get real people, passionate, blood pumping through their veins and they interact with other real people. And they need to be managed. Yet we seek to de-humanise a very human process by reducing people to what is on the CV, (not the most accurate nor truthful document if we are to be honest), and ignoring what makes them the person they are and, more importantly, the person they are capable of becoming.

And what happens when we promote ‘technical people’ into management? I guess they become ‘technical managers!’ We take the most highly talented engineers and transform them into poor managers and in one fell swoop we lose a great engineer and gain a poor manager. This is because at school they applied a certain set of principles to succeed, applied that same set of principles harder at University and, once they start work apply with fervour exactly that same set of principles which has carried them thus far. Then, they get promoted, to manage that most complex of systems - people, and they try and apply the same set of principles but apply them to death. The key is, of course, to apply a different set of principles!

People don’t conform to universal laws and even psychologists, (and I am a psychologist), are better ‘after the event’ explaining why something happened rather than trying to predict that it will happen! Past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour and it is through behaviour that we will be ‘known.’ So when recruiting we shouldn’t ignore the human element, the person ‘behind’ the CV. And when someone applies for a job and writes, ‘I am an MBA,’ try to visualise a person who looks like a one-dimensional, flat, cold sheet of paper - because that’s probably what you’ll get!

People don't mind change - they mind being 'changed.'

Bill McAneny — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:33:00 +0000

You know how when we go into Comet and we just love buying things, but when the salesperson comes over to speak to us we go rigid and walk out? That’s because we love buying but we can’t stand being sold to. This principle is the same with change, we love it if it’s something we do but hate it when it is done to us.

I had the senior team from a Swedish-based organisation gathered to look at the future shape of the business. They weren’t too pleased. Their collective view was that they were masters of change, they lived out change every day and they needed no-one to help them ‘manage change’. So it was difficult. I couldn’t get them to even admit that they themselves might have to change, so I gave each of them an envelope with their name on it. They were really suspicious and opened them carefully and inside were their redundancy notices.

Well that livened the party up! They got really irate, and then a few of the more astute ones noticed that it was dated December 2005, two years’ hence. So, I said to go away and look back on that session with the psychologist in January 2003 and tell me why you were made redundant, what didn’t you do which you should’ve, what did you do which you shouldn’t have, etc. This is easy stuff, creating a safe environment for individuals and teams to determine what they should be doing differently.

Whilst they were out of the room, I re-arranged the tables, which were in a half circle, to be more ‘cabaret’ style, just because that’s how I prefer it, no ulterior motive. Well when the team came back they were totally disoriented. Of the 17 executives form one of the world’s biggest companies, none knew where to sit, there was total confusion, and they all looked to me for the lead.

And the moral of this tale? We like change when it is something we do, but not when it is something which is done to us. As an aside the team thought I was very clever, ‘orchestrating’ this activity, but of course I hadn’t, I simply moved a few chairs around. But it brought the message home to them!

This is why I worry over ‘change management’ programmes, which now constitute the largest bank of ‘management training’ courses. It is not possible to ‘manage’ change. All too often events happen over which we have no control. The key is to learn to manage our responses to change, and the responses of those we lead.

Building flexible, nimble organisations, ballet dancers rather than rugby players, will help. Too often the very structure of our organisations mitigate against change. Whenever we speak with executives about restructuring their organisations they reach at once for the laptop and PowerPoint, ready to create more boxes.

Benchmarking - establishing world class standards...or nicking someone else's tired, boring old ideas?

Bill McAneny — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:49:00 +0000

You remember the old conundrum. A frog sits on the edge of a pond, thirty feet in diameter. He jumps exactly half way, and then half that distance, and then half that distance. And so on. How long does it take him to get there? The answer, as we all know, is ‘never.’

I often find continuous improvement a bit like this. As we seek constant incremental improvement we may negate that single, creative, explosive quantum leap which freshens up the whole organisation, or function and takes us a massive step forward. As organisations seek ever-evolving improvement, so the evolutionary process slows down, a bit like our frog on the pond. Often, a creative, revolutionary leap has to be built into the system or processes to prevent stasis, the stagnant pond of miniscule improvement.

The same problem can occur if we benchmark, especially if we benchmark too early. In 1945 Nissan had intended to benchmark against General Motors, (the undisputed world leaders). Had they done so, their standards would have been considerably lower. Instead they admired general Motors from a respectful distance, and decided to create their own standards.

So they got their creative heads together and said, let’s have a ‘zero based approach.’ We know what we want to be. So with no systems, standards, procedures, rules or benchmark to tie us down, how can we create a world class motor car manufacturer. Then, and only then, did they look at general Motors. The rest, as they say, is history. Nissan’s meteoric rise to world prominence was almost as dramatic as General Motor’s decline.

And the moral of this tale? Benchmarking, especially too early, may mean binding your organisation or function up with the tired old practices, ideas and standards of another organisation, and prevent you from releasing your organisation’s true potential. So how do we prevent ourselves from the lazy approach of simply adopting Mediocre Inc’s standards because they worked for them?

Organisations, like people, are like some other organisations, all other organisations and no other organisations. So the key is to establish your own values, what is important to you. Not a wish list mission statement which could feasibly be hung on the walls of an engineering company, a doctor’s surgery and the local supermarket. I mean spending half a day asking the question: what do we REALLY want to be as an organisation.

Then, rather than tie ourselves down with Mission, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, (the old MOST principle), we simply determine our ‘magnetic north’ as an organisation. One common factor which unites great organisations is the creation of a shared vision. So often, the vision is either woolly or ethereal, or a set of impenetrable figures. To create a shared vision, for an organisation or for a function, we need to make it sensory, ie appeal to all five senses. History was shared through the ages by story telling. The ‘magnetic north’ should also be like a story which creates meaning in peoples’ lives.

“By the year 2012 we will be doing this, we will have changed this, our organisation/function will be shaped like this, which means the sorts of people we employ will need to be like this, etc, etc.”

Then, we align our processes and behaviours behind this point. The values are essential in my view, because they determine how our people should act, and this must be in a way which is absolutely consistent with our values.

And the way to achieve this? Measure ourselves against our values. How you measure the performance of your people will determine how they behave. So, if our values really are values, then we will be happy to let our performance management, appraisal scheme, or however we measure performance, reflect this.

Then you can benchmark! You might well be surprised, (shocked even), at how far ahead you are. A quantum leap, rather than slow, ponderous, incremental improvement will take our frog, not just to the other side of the stagnant pond, but beyond the pond, into fresher waters. The alternative is to dip your toes in the potentially stagnant water of ‘how others are doing things.’ Remember, the ‘perfect organisations’ are always not yours! It is always ‘the one over there.’ And when we visit them we find it is actually ‘the one down the road.’ And when we visit them …

Get your creative forces together, establish a zero based approach, (but don’t take eons over it!), and don’t be a copy-cat. At least not yet. You may find by doing that you have lowered your standards, and negated a great deal of potential, Alternatively, sit on the edge of the pond and cogitate.