Category: General

I’ve just come back from a government Service Design Summit in Sydney. 

The topic of this conference was all about creating new service strategies.  The people attending were top leaders from Federal, State and Local government agencies, and they were sharing case study after case study on how they have, and how they plan to, build better and more contemporary service provision for their customers. 

It was fascinating and wonderful to witness that, in my opinion, we have some awesome forward thinking people in our government agencies who realise that the world is changing and that the service provision of the past 5 decades is no longer good enough. 

There were several common threads in all of the 20 or so presentations. 

The one that stuck out for me more than any other was the issue of culture.   These leaders all agreed that the culture inside the organisation was the most important factor for success in the implementation of new service design.  If the people were not on board – and living the values and maintaining a positive and productive culture, then the work would likely be for naught.

In all of the presentations, the leaders spoke about how leaders needed to show up for their people.   This reflected the content of my first session on “Being”.   In that session I introduced the Be/Do/Have model – and we addressed some of the ways of being that are critical for success in any organisation.

While we also agreed that there is a shared responsibility for all people to “be” in certain ways – it is also true that people will emulate the leader and others around them.

This triggered a memory about a very poignant learning that I had some years ago.

I learned about the concept of “Already Always.”   Already always is a perception that we have about ourselves – and it stems from our beliefs, our values, our upbringing, our past, our habits and our current situations.  For example, if I have a belief about myself that “I AM a Good Listener” – then I may show up in a state of “already always listening.” 

The problem with already always listening – is that the only thing or person that I am already always listening to is myself.  When I’m in a conversation with someone – my inner voice is likely to begin responding well before the other person is done speaking.  This negates true listening.   One possible result of this inner voice is that I may interrupt the other person.  That is a sign of already always listening.

If I am absolutely honest with myself – I would make statements like: 

I value the skill of great listening.

Great listening involves allowing the other person to truly speak, and be heard, and my role is to “be” there fully and not need to respond, not need to attend to my own thoughts, not need to have my voice heard quickly and loudly in response to the other person, not need to judge what is being said.

The truth of the matter is:  Sometimes I do great listening, and sometimes I really don’t!

Yesterday was a classic example of this.  I was on the phone to one of my team – and she patiently listened while I shared my experiences of the past several days.  I then asked her about her week – and about 30 seconds in, she said something that brought an interesting thought into my head.  Instead of holding that, and truly allowing her to share her experiences with me – I completely interrupted her.  She paused, and let me finish – then attempted to continue on again.  I interrupted her AGAIN!

This time I became aware of who I was being.  I became conscious of the behaviour and the damaging effect that I could be having on this wonderful person who is working so hard to build the business.

I was, in fact, already always listening.  My perception was not my reality!

This is one of the things that, as a leader, I am constantly working on.  How I am being will impact what I am doing.   What I do – will in turn – impact the results that I get.  How I show up will regularly influence how my team member show up.

Let me give you one more example of Already Always. . .

I value “working” in general.  My work is my passion – and I truly love what I do.  I would prefer to be working than just about any other activity.  As a result of this – I often work very early in the morning, very late at night – and on weekends.

One of my team members once said to me – Fran, because you are often sending emails at 1:00am – and on the weekends, I feel that you are expecting that we are always working, and that you expect us to put in all of the extra hours that you do.

It dawned on me that my connection to:  Be accountable, be productive, be available, Be prompt, and Be a Role Model – was showing up for my team in some negative ways.  Even though my intention was more about honouring my own passion and my own working style, my team members were taking this as an unrealistic expectation.  I now needed to Be a Better Open Communicator.   I realised that I was in a state of Already Always Communicating Well.  The remedy – have some regular conversations around expectations – and working styles.

I’m hoping that you had a look at the Be/Do/Have Questionnaire that was offered previously – and I’d like to invite you go back to that document.  There is a space for comments.  This is an opportunity for you to challenge you states of Already Always.  Challenge your perceptions versus reality.

Let’s take #11 for example.  Be Positive. 

What are the signs that you may be Already Always Positive?   Could it be that the reality is that sometimes I am positive and sometimes and I am negative and sometimes I am neutral?  When am I positive, When am I negative – and what are the causes of each of these states?  When does my team really need for me to be positive?  Are there times when a healthy dose of pessimism or scepticism is a good thing?  Do I ever show up as a “dream stealer” for any of my team members?  If so, what causes this?

Needless to say – the process that I am suggesting here is one of deep thought and introspection. 

The more I know myself – the more I am able to choose who I am being.  The more I choose who I need to be – the more control I will have over my behaviours from moment to moment.

Dear Beth,

I have to coach my staff as part of my role as a manager and I have been doing this for just over a year now. 

I am really tired of telling my staff what to do all the time.  I repeatedly have to remind them to follow our established procedures, and this is with my seasoned staff members! 

They know they are supposed to follow the rules and adhere to our workplace policies, but they continually take shortcuts and I have to keep telling them to follow each step of our procedures. 

I read your reply to Frustrated Felicity and I am trying to do as you suggested to her – I am trying to consider what other factors are contributing to their behaviour and there is no reason for them not to do what they have been told to do.  I am trying not to blame them and to stay ‘above the line’ with this, but I don’t know what to do.  What would you recommend?

Befuddled Barbara

Hi Barbara

Thank you for email and your question.  Firstly, I would like to congratulate you on staying above the line and seeking a positive solution to what you are experiencing.  Playing the blame game is a lose-lose approach, and will always result in a negative outcome.

Have you asked your staff why they are not following the established procedures?  You mention that you cannot see any reason, and I wonder if can they?  Even if they reply that the policy or procedure is nonsensical or irrational, there is a reason they are not adhering to what is being asked of them.  What comes to mind here is one of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits – seek to understand before being understood.  This is a good starting point – if your staff are not following the procedures because they are forgetting all the steps, then providing them with coaching to increase their ability to recall all the steps will demonstrate your support in helping them succeed with workplace requirements.  If it is a matter of insubordination, however, then we have a different conversation on our hands.

As you mentioned you need to remind ‘even your seasoned staff members’ – I am imagining it is not a matter of disobedience.  It is important to choose the most useful mindset– and I recommend adopting the perspective of honesty with integrity and compassion.  This is one of our guiding principles at Alive & Kicking.  Honesty means we speak to the matter at hand truthfully and fairly.  We seek out all the facts pertaining to a situation [not just the ones that support our point of view] and use our integrity to decide which to focus on.  Just because something is the truth doesn’t mean we need to focus on it, or even speak it. When we have compassion in our dealings with others, we consider them, their feelings, the impact on others, and we do so from a heartfelt space.  We feel concern for others and we demonstrate genuine understanding.

Here is an example of this principle in practice: “Today I would like to have a look at your performance with you.  There are some issues for us to discuss.  My role is to help you with our procedures, no matter where the starting point is – and work with you to follow every step.”  And depending on your coaching model, if applying a one-on-one approach this conversation is done on an individual basis in the appropriate coach setting.  If you are using a team coaching approach then ensure the area of focus applies to all who are being coached.  Avoid including those that do adhere to your workplace’s procedures in this discussion. 

The end result is a change in performance – following procedures.  Involve those being coached in brainstorming to decide where the starting point will be, as well as the best path forward to achieve the adherence of the established workplace procedures and policies.  This approach is recommended as it explains the role of the coach, and it does not use accusatory language.  It clearly sets expectations that improvement is necessary.  And when we come from a compassionate place we position ourselves as willing to help, and that the staff have a role to play in receiving that assistance.

It may be that the procedure conflicts with another procedure or workplace demand (such as time to complete a task – perhaps not enough time has been allocated).  It may be that your staff have found a way to improve the procedure and they have decided to change it ad hoc. Your approach to gathering information should reveal this, and the conversation will empower your staff to share their findings and suggestions, as well as enable you to reinforce the need to follow established procedures.  If you believe that your staff are doing the best they can given the information, skills and knowledge they have, you can begin to explore possible contributing factors from a useful point of view. Even if the information you gather leads to a change in the procedure, your people will need to understand the need to follow the established procedure until changes are implemented.

You mention that you coach as part of your role, and I am curious….. is there a formal approach or coaching model you are using? That is something I strongly recommend, so that staff have the assurance the coaching aspect of their work performance is based on sound principles and has a recognisable and repeatable process applied in a consistent manner to all your staff.  Without this, coaching may have blurred boundaries, and your staff will be confused as to which ‘hat’ you are wearing when being coached by you.  When you are wearing the ‘coach hat’ and not the ‘disciplinarian hat’, your people will respond to your questions about their behaviour with greater levels of trust and confidence.  You may need to ‘weave your coach hat’ and create your coach identity more clearly.

Your approach may need to be tweaked to suit your situation.  I hope this has provided you with some tasty ‘food for thought’ and that you can go back to your staff and find a workable solution suitable for all!

Authentically

Beth

All advice given in here is general only and does not take into consideration individual workplace situations, contributing factors, or specific workplace policies and procedures.  We always recommend that you consult your organisations workplace coaching model and adhere to the guidelines particular to your business or organisation.

If you have a workplace coaching situation that you would like Beth to address (in this column or in private), write to beth@aliveandkicking.com.au

 

Dear Beth – I am working with this team member and I just cannot get her to realise that it is her behaviour that is causing conflict with her colleagues. How can I make her realise this?

Frustrated Felicity

Dear Felicity

Thank you for your email and your question.  This is a situation that we encounter often in the workplace, and as I do not know the specifics of your workplace situation, I can respond to your question in general terms only.

When we are working with an individual who doesn’t recognise something about themselves, one of two things will be true, and it is our first step to discern which is the case –

 a. the person really cannot see.  This is called scotoma – a blind spot.

 b. the person does recognize this at a deep level and their ego is getting in the way.  It is highly likely that fear is at cause.

If ‘A’ is the case – all that will be needed is evidence.  And you must gather the evidence that illustrates the behaviour you wrote about.  Without evidence, this is only your opinion; it may also be the opinion of others, you are the one having the conversation with this staff member.  It is fine to have anecdotal evidence as long as you have a way to present it well.

Once you have the evidence you simply present the evidence in your coaching session, ensuring confidentiality is maintained and the environment is one of trust and support, applying an ‘Ask’ approach.  To maintain the relationship, avoid the ‘Tell’ approach.

If ‘B’ is the case, you still will need the evidence, but you may find that just addressing it with them in a coach setting may be what is needed to make the desired changes.

1. How do you know what you know?

First thing to do is to determine what is true – ensure you are not making an assumption.   What evidence do you have that supports the assertion that this staff member’s behaviour is causing conflict? In answering this question, you will begin the process of gathering factual, objective information.  Even when it comes to anecdotal information, ensure the facts are well represented.

When you are gathering evidence, you will need multiple samples.  One bit of evidence is generally not a convincing argument – it is still likely to be taken as opinion.  You must gather as many samples as possible.  You may need to present multiple examples for the person to see that he/she is not getting the results that are intended.

2. Observe from a neutral perspective

Next, it is important to ensure you have the most appropriate mindset when working with any of your staff members, particularly with those we label as ‘difficult’ or ‘problematic’.  If we think of them in negative terms, our brain is wired to look for proof of our beliefs and we can distort what we see and hear to suit what we think is correct.  If you can observe this staff member from a neutral perspective, you are ready for the next step.

3. Identify contributing factors

What factors are contributing to this situation?  Before we can isolate a single individual as the sole source of conflict in a Team, look at the culture, the demands of the workplace, the tools and resources available to staff.  Approaching the situation from an objective point of view will assist you to look at the whole picture.  What may be making it difficult for the person to ‘see’ what others notice?  Has this behaviour gone on unaddressed for some time?  If so, it is perfectly reasonable for the person to believe there is nothing wrong with how they behave.

4. Look for the good

Once you are certain you have analysed contributing factors to this situation, and have decided to focus on this person’s behaviour, identify all the good qualities of this staff member.  If you are looking at this person from neutral perspective, this should be a relatively easy and straightforward task.  If, however, your first reaction to this second step was something along the lines of, ‘What good qualities?? This person has NONE!’, then this is very telling. 

Everybody on your Team has good qualities, and even the star performers have areas that aren’t star quality.  To be effective in our workplace coaching efforts we need to be able to objectively identify the skills and knowledge of each individual member of the Team.

5. Identify the areas of improvement

Now comes the step you have been waiting for – identifying their areas of improvement.  It is important you remain objective in this process, and identify quantifiable skills, knowledge and areas of expertise/ experience.  In this list is bound to be the matter you wrote to me about – the lack of awareness that they are contributing to conflict in the workplace.

In order for a person to take action to change a behaviour, they need to have awareness of this behaviour. This may be the place to begin with your Team member – having a conversation about their level of awareness the impact their behaviour is having.

6. create a clear plan of action

Lastly, if you are able to have a conversation with this Team member such that they are able to acknowledge how their behaviour affects other Team members, they will need a clear plan of action to correct this behaviour.   This will require time and effort, and your support during this process if a vital component of achieving the desired change.  Avoid making the common mistake of raising the Team member’s awareness of ‘what they are doing wrong’, and then leaving it to them to make the necessary corrections!

In addition to knowing what they need to change, they also need to know how to make the necessary adjustments.  This will require your support (in terms of developing their ability to demonstrate the specific skill identified as lacking).  An effective workplace coach has a well-developed tool kit of activities to unleash the hidden talent that lays within this Team member.

If this person is unable to see their behaviour in the same way as the evidence demonstrates and they engage in blaming others, denying the accuracy of the evidence, making excuses, and so on, stay your ground.  Maintain your chosen mindset and continue to present the evidence, honestly with integrity and compassion. This may lead to the option of formal performance management.

With the right plan and the right mindset, you will be supporting this person to raise their level of awareness necessary to make the changes you seek, or to take the necessary steps the situation requires.  Either way, your efforts are focused on treating the person with integrity and compassion.

Authentically,

Beth

All advice given in here is general only and does not take into consideration individual workplace situations, contributing factors, or specific workplace policies and procedures.  We always recommend that you consult your organisations workplace coaching model and adhere to the guidelines particular to your business or organisation.

If you have a workplace coaching situation that you would like Beth to address (in this column or in private), write to beth@aliveandkicking.com.au

What do you do when you and your boss arrive 30 minutes early for a meeting?   We decided on a Carpool Interview!

You can download the audio here or read the transcript below:

Interviewer: Good afternoon, Fran. Thank you for joining me for the carpool interview today.

Fran: My pleasure.

Fran, you design your training programs to incorporate a foundation of emotional intelligence training. Why do you believe emotional intelligence is so essential for people in the workplace today?

Fran: Great question. I think emotional intelligence plays such a large role in every human life whether we’re talking about an individual relationship, a love relationship, or a corporate relationship. The lower the emotional intelligence, the more conflict there is. And, conflict tends to spiral and become habit.

I’ll just tell you a really quick story on that.

In a marital relationship that I had many years ago, our way of communicating became full of friction and conflict. A nickname that we were given by my mother was the Bickersons, because all we did was bicker. There was very little awareness that we were doing that. Both of us had low emotional intelligence. There was also seemingly no way out of the pattern for us. And the more into the pattern we got, the more stuck it felt.

So now, let’s take that example into a corporate environment to say you and I are co-workers and for whatever reason conflict shows up. If we have lower emotional intelligence, the only resource that we have is to look at the other person as being a nasty person or unpleasant to deal with or whatever, not having the emotional tools to manage oneself, and emotional tools to help another individual either. So once that spiral begins, it’s seemingly endless. And suddenly, we have not only two people in conflict, we have departments in conflict, teams in conflict, organisational structure in conflict.

So at a very base level, emotional intelligence competence to me is the life force for everything that we do. It’s always in the framework in some way. I can give you operational tools for developing rapport, but without the emotional intelligence to be able to manage yourself, you will look at those tools and say, “Oh, they don’t work.”

Interviewer: So as an expert now in emotional intelligence, are you able to have a conversation with somebody and quickly assess what their level of emotional intelligence is?

Fran: No, no. I wish! That would be great. Can I conversationally pick up a person’s level of emotional intelligence? Yes, over time, but not just in a quick meeting. Especially when you tell people you are a psychologist, “Oh, you’re psycho-analysing me. Okay, great.” After 30 seconds of conversation, “Who am I? Tell me who I am.” No, that’s impossible, it doesn’t work that way. And, it would be filled with a lot of erroneous suppositions and judgement, so absolutely not.

If you’re an employee and I watch your behaviour over time, yes, absolutely, I’ll be able to judge a certain level. It’s only seeing people respond in lots of different situations repeatedly that you start to determine what those levels are. Even then, it’s still a dodgy assessment in the fact that if I have an employee who’s aware and they’re working on themselves, their levels of emotional intelligence will rise. So, it’ll mean that they will respond differently to a similar situation.

Interviewer: [laughs] So you talked about behaviour change, can you talk us through the process that you use in your training to help people change their behaviour?

Fran: Sure. The first level of everything is awareness and it’s where we must start. Usually this is a very confronting process for people even in the most benign of course topics. For example, with communication skills and we’re teaching a person to use a bank of more positive language rather than negative language. But that first level is getting them to recognise what words they are using. Once you expose them to that and they go, “Uh. Oh my gosh, we were just talking for 10 minutes and you just asked me to repeat the last sentence I said and I couldn’t do it.” Which means  speaking from a state of not being aware.

We have that same issue with our physical bodies. “Am I aware?” You would get this if you were looking at teaching people to change their behaviour and presentation skills. First of all, I have to get you aware of what you are doing with your physical body. “Did you know that your hand is twitching like this? Did you know you’re playing with your hair or your jewellery?” Those are very subconscious habit processes that are driven so far beyond our awareness. So step one, bring awareness back in the fullest sense possible. Then gently help a person cope with whatever they see, because it’s not always comfortable.

Interviewer: Yes, that was going to be my next question actually. It must be quite shocking and confronting sometimes to see yourself.

Fran: It absolutely can be. Then there’s the exploration. So the next level, step one is awareness. The next level up is defining what is the state change that the person wants. So, where am I now? We get aware and then we have to define where you want to be because that’s not always the same. There are no absolutes to any of that, what level of growth do you want? What type of change are we talking about? And then, we look for very specific tools that will apply or processes that will apply.

Now, on top of that, there is an issue of making certain that I go beyond cognitive level with an individual always. Behaviour change means that whatever tool I implement with you has to be sampling that behaviour. As an example of that, if I want you to get to change your language, we have to do speaking exercises regularly. It has to have loads of repetition and then we are in a constant review. So awareness, action, repetition and review are really the four levels of behavioural change.

Interviewer: One of the things I noticed on your website is that you state you help individuals and organizations achieve success through better human connection. What do you mean by human connection? And isn’t that just a fancy way of saying communication?

Fran: Interesting way of thinking of it. And, my initial reaction to that is no. [laughter] So communication– Gosh, are we talking verbal communication, non-verbal communication, emails and so on? That’s just tactical. Human connection is really that sense of unknowingness of another individual and having an immediate understanding, “Are you and I connecting on a meaningful level?”

Interviewer: Right.

Fran: I would throw a question back to you to say, “Have you ever had a conversation with somebody that’s just you walk away and you go, ‘Well, that was the most plastic, almost useless conversation like, we did it because we felt we had to do it and we weren’t connecting. We were surviving?”‘ [laughs]

Interviewer: Yes, yes. So we were using communication tools. We were speaking. We were exchanging words.

Fran: Sure. And we were being very pleasant.

Interviewer: But was there any connection? Yes, beautiful. Okay.

Fran: Absolutely. I can connect with you without even speaking.

Interviewer: Yes, yes. So when we’re talking about communication, and a lot of the work that you do is aimed at improving communication within the workplace, what do you say are the essential skills of a good communicator?

Fran: Well, that’s tough because I’d like to list 20. So the ones that I’m going to give you are probably not listed in your classic communication skills. The first one is forgiveness.

Interviewer: Wow, okay.

Fran: Yes. That’s probably a surprise.

Interviewer: Yes, that was totally a surprise!

Fran: Completely. That’s off center from the usual, “Ability to develop rapport and good listening skills are bla, bla, bla.”

Interviewer: Yes, yes.

Fran: Yes, those are technical listening skills.  In order for two people to maintain a relationship, first of all, we have to come to it from an understanding that humans will transgress against one another regularly. I’m going to say something that is going to upset you at some point. Do we have the skill set? Do we have the ability? Do we have the emotional intelligence? We come back to that. To have forgiveness that allows an opening such that people can carry on forward or is there a lack of forgiveness that causes a blockage and a stopping? And it doesn’t matter what skills we apply after that, if there is an impasse and a lack of ability to move forward.

The second one is the ability to behave with another individual in a non-judgmental way. Can I listen without judging? How tolerant am I of all behaviour, regardless of what that behaviour is and do I judge it? Now, to some point, we would say that’s an impossibility and I would agree. But, do I exhibit the judgmental process and can I access the judgement and say, “Wow, isn’t that an interesting judgement I just have and I wonder why that was there?” As opposed to my judgement informing my next communication process.

You and I just meet each other and you don’t know me very well and maybe you tell a joke and the joke somehow insults me, do I instantly block any further possibility of a relationship forward just because I take an insult? I have chosen to be insulted. So, A, I’m not in a forgiving state and, B, I’m judging and deciding to block the relationship. It’s not a very useful space. Especially if you and I are in an organisation and we’re co-workers, we have to work together. This is going to cause chaos and challenge.

Interviewer: Wow, I certainly wasn’t expecting those to be the two that you pulled up there, that’s fantastic. Another one that I hope isn’t too tricky, but what core skills or ability do you think managers and team leaders need to help a group of people become high-performing team?

Fran: Well, let’s cycle right back to what we just talked about kind of. [laughs] That’s the answer. But I think– if I had to name one that’s an absolute, it’s a person who understands, and I don’t know if this is going to be clear or not, but understands the fullness of what leadership is and loves leading, loves developing people, wants to see that in the end game, those people have exceeded.

It means you have to go find your next journey, because I’ve run out of an ability to give to you anymore because you’ve exceeded me. That to me is the pinnacle of leadership and it informs the choices that I make. It informs the ways of being and part of that is just a leadership choice as well. Who do I want to be as a leader? But I think the greatest of leaders love leading, instead of a person who gets positional power. “You were a great technician. We’re going to move you up into this level of management or leadership. We know you have no training in it but, golly, good luck.”

Interviewer: Thank you. Could you suggest how your approach to training is perhaps different to how an HR team would approach training?

Fran:  I think there are probably some similarities but I would say the majority of what we do is very different because of the unique skill sets that we bring. We are consultants and we have a level of business acumen that looks at the business holistically. And so, somebody might bring us in and say, “Gosh, we’re having this problem with this team and they’re not communicating well together.” We’re going to look way outside the team to figure out what are all the operating pieces.

We look at everything that could impact from the outside, everything that’s impacting from the inside. We also have a unique position in the fact that quite often, when we get brought in for situations that are like that, it’s not the team, it’s the leader or it’s the executives or it’s the structures of the systems. Because we’re an outside source or an outsourced operation, we can quite fearlessly tell the truth. That makes us unique.

We also, because of the design of the work that we do, must stay at the forefront of development that’s out there. The forefront of development in neurosciences, the forefront of development in organisational theory, developmental theory, everything that is across all of the psychology. And today, we’re even getting more vested into the medical side of things because we’re seeing health issues showing up for individuals, so we must stay abreast of all of that.

Interviewer: Thank you, Fran. That’s the end of questions for our Carpool interview today.

Fran:  Thank you. It’s my pleasure.