Results or Relationships: What's the Balance in Your Office?

What is the balance in your office between profit and people? Getting results and building good relationships?

We all get hired to get something done. We have projects and tasks that we are responsible for. Shouldn’t just getting them done effectively and in a timely manner be enough?

Actually, no. How we get them done should be as important as getting them done on time and well.

Unfortunately, often the how is not measured or rewarded. As a manager, you probably are responsible for quantifiable results. Your pay and bonuses are dependent on getting those results. The bottom line is in dollars, after all.

Because the how has not traditionally been measured or rewarded, we have polluted our environment with toxic by-products of manufacturing. We have alienated employees and customers by not taking into account how our actions impact them. We have damaged entire communities by not anticipating how shortcuts may affect them in the long term. Think oil spills, home foreclosures, and poisoned foods. Those are examples of global results of emphasizing the what over the how, the results over the relationships.

Now let’s take it back down to your office and the local level. What can you do to create more of a balance between results and relationships? Are you linking tangible rewards to these intangibles? Let’s look at the people first.

• Are you rewarding managers for developing their direct reports?

Managers’ performance reviews should have a section for developing others that measures promotions, employee development, team satisfaction, and team building.

• Are you rewarding your employees for developing trust and respect among their team members?

The performance review form should have a section for communications and teamwork.

Now let’s take a look at your organization’s relationship with the community and the planet.

• Are you rewarding employees for resource efficiencies?
• Do you tie bonuses or other rewards to reducing waste?

Alerting employees to keep an eye out for processes that are potentially damaging to the community and the environment should be tied directly to some type of reward. In the long term, minimizing harm results in positive customer and community relations, and increased morale as employees understand that what they are doing is tied to a greater cause. These “intangibles” are easier to quantify. The bottom line will be affected, and employees should be rewarded.

• Does your organization have an ongoing dialogue and supportive relationship with it's community?
• How does your organization improve the community?

A once a year charitable drive does little to reinforce the long term benefits to an organization if they don’t visibly commit to ongoing practices that encourage good stewardship and good relationships. A balanced commitment to results and relationships becomes a part of the corporate culture - even your brand - and makes your office a more desirable place to work.

Where does the weight lie in your office? With people and relationships? Or with tasks and processes? A good balance between the two is an excellent indication of long term success. Performance reviews are often conducted in the first two months of the year. As you prepare for those, think about what you want to reward in your organization. It’s a great time to set the stage for total success – for you, your organization, your employees, your community and even your planet – by starting with what you emphasize in your own office.

My Go-To List of Business Classics

In a previous job I was in charge of the management library for the company. As an avid reader, I was excited to be able to buy books and make them available for check-out to the employees. I focused on buying books on CD, because I thought that people would be more inclined to read business books if they were part of their commute. Every month I would send out a company-wide email listing the new purchases and reminding staff of the library.

Much to my chagrin, however, there were only about 4 or 5 core people in the company of several hundred who consistently borrowed books. This made it easy to track who had never returned a book, but I felt at the time that people were missing out. Business books can be expensive, and I thought this was a great resource and service.

Now, years later, I have come to appreciate the valuable impact that a few good books, referenced and read again and again, can have over reading a lot of books and forgetting most of what I’ve read. Although I still read lots, I have some books I refer to as my “classics” that I have incorporated into my life and my business practices.

Therefore I have composed a list of my old favorites with links directly to Amazon should you wish to purchase one. These are books I recommend to my clients and cover leadership, team-building, influence, behavior styles and communications.

I would love to hear what books have positively influenced your life– especially in the leadership and business realm. I hesitate to ask, because of the deathly silence in my comments section, but I know there are some readers out there…so please share. Happy reading!

The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner

Kouzes and Posner have created a classic for those who are committed to being great people leaders. With lots of examples and practical to-do’s, it serves as an enlightened “how-to” reference. Based on over two decades of research, the work revolves around the “five practices of exemplary leaders” : “Model the Way”, “Inspire a Shared Vision”, “Challenge the Process”, “Enable Others to Act”, and “Encourage the Heart.” This work has inspired a two-day workshop, which I have participated in, and a 360 assessment, the Leadership Practices Inventory.

People Styles at Work and Beyond by Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton

Understanding behavior styles is, in my opinion, the most effective tool in anyone’s interpersonal skills toolbox. If they haven’t taken a workshop on it, I usually take one of my coaching sessions to teach my clients a quick shortcut version of how to recognize behavior patterns in order to communicate effectively and build positive relationships. This book is the next best thing to a workshop or a one-to-one coaching/training session.

First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

I recommend this book to all new managers and supervisors, and if you aren’t a new manager but have never read this book, you should own it. Based on The Gallup Organization’s research studies of millions of employees and managers, it is foolhardy to ignore their findings on what makes a great manager. Many organizations now use the employee survey that was developed from Gallup’s findings.

Resolving Conflicts At Work by Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith

Just what the title says, this tome offers eight strategies “to move from impasse to transformation”. This is a handy reference for anyone, but it is especially applicable to organizational leaders who can influence the culture of a workplace. The authors emphasize how conflict can be used creatively rather than toxically.

The ABC’s of Building a Business Team That Wins by Blair Singer

Everyone seems to like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team but I prefer this practical book on how to develop a cohesive, productive team. The emphasis is on creating a “Code of Honor” for the team which instills loyalty and team pride while reinforcing good communications and teamwork. There are lots of actionable to-do’s that any team can put into place.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Having taught the workshop many times, I have had the opportunity to instill the seven habits into my life until they are, yes, habits. Or almost. I truly believe if we work to incorporate these habits our lives will be more peaceful and more productive. It’s happened to me. A true classic, which everyone should take to heart.

The Power of TED by David Emerald

This is a transformational little book that shows us how to pull ourselves and others out of a “Victim” mode into a solution-oriented “Creator “ mode. We all have felt like victims, rescuers or persecutors sometimes, and we recognize others who fall into this too. This little volume packs an impact by showing us ourselves and how we can become a coach, creator or challenger. A great book for anyone, and having taken the TED workshop, I often teach my clients how to coach their employees from Victim to Creator, and how to stay away from the Rescuer role.

Leading Change by John Kotter

One of the two books on change I highly recommend for any leader. All the organizations I work with are implementing changes, and yours probably is too. How to implement change effectively is often overlooked by leaders. This book has a step-by-step approach that leaders should seriously take into account when attempting any type of change.

Managing Transitions by William Bridges

The other change book I highly recommend for leaders. This book takes us through the psychological journey of change and offers practical checklists to ensure you are doing what it takes to help your staff and yourself integrate change and manage the transitions as quickly and as successfully as possible.

Bruce Lee's Leadership Lessons

In honor of what would have been Bruce Lee’s 70th birthday last Saturday (11/27), I wanted to write an article about his leadership lessons. I googled "leadership lessons of Bruce Lee" and found this extremely comprehensive article about Bruce’s overall life lessons. It’s already been done, I thought, and really well too.

But the urge to honor the leadership legacy of Bruce Lee, who is best known for his martial arts skill as shown in such movies as Enter the Dragon, persisted. Bruce was incredibly strong and fast, and invented his own version of martial arts called Jeet Kune Do. Although I am extremely violence-averse, I am awed by what he was capable of and what he accomplished in his 32 years.

I have taken the liberty of condensing Bruce Lee’s leadership wisdom into just five lessons. Lee's quotations are in italics.

1. Set big goals and act on them.
A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.

2. Success takes intense focus, dedication and hard work.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
Endurance is lost rapidly if one ceases to work at their maximum.

3. Remain flexible and adaptable to situations.
Flow in the living moment. — We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.

4. Adhere to high personal standards.
Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

5. Mentor others.
I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.

This last quotation is an excellent credo for every manager and coach.

Bruce chooses hard work over partying at the University of Washington.

How to Restore Personal Peacefulness

In a People Skills class, a participant asked, “How can you work with someone if your values don’t match theirs?”

This is a situation that can engender a lot of conflict, whether it is out in the open or not. You may have internal stress and tension when trying to reconcile the fact that your values differ yet you need to work together. (Or, spend the holidays together.)

It’s helpful to step back, take a breath, and consider: Is it in fact your values that are different or how your values are played out? Or do you hold the same value but prioritize it differently? Then search for where you have common ground. Find that common ground, appreciate that there is any, and remark upon it out loud - to yourself, to others, to the other party involved.

This is where change happens: when you give up resisting what you perceive to be against you and your values, and focus instead on where there is agreement, where there is no tension, and where there are commonalities. Start from there, and as you focus in on the common ground, build on it. Spend as much time thinking about those commonalities as you did the differences that irritated you. Then spend more time on it.

The amount of common ground will expand, and if you acknowledge it, will start to include positive differences – differences that you can appreciate. You will find ways to communicate with that person from a new perspective, rather than from the perspective that causes you tension. Resistance only gives birth to continued resistance. If you focus only on the parts of someone that you dislike, even more examples and reasons to dislike the person will occur to you. There is no peace, no resolution from this perspective.

In People Skills we teach that if you push on someone’s behavior, they will naturally push back. If, however, you focus on changing perceptions and beliefs, behavior will change naturally. If your perceptions and beliefs about a person or situation are causing you stress and conflict, start with yourself. A change in your own perception or belief can dissolve or at the least, reduce, the resistance you feel about someone else. It will allow you to approach the person with a positive attitude, which will prevent the other party from getting defensive. And once you put someone on the defensive, all communication breaks down.

The next time you are faced with a dilemma or conflict over values, move toward common ground with that individual and your working relationship will become less work and more peaceful.

Wishing you peace during this holiday season!

How To Master the Office Dragon

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."
~ J. R. R. Tolkein (1892-1973), British author and philologist, The Hobbit

If you have to get things done in your office, (and why are you there if you don’t?) you have to take into account how to get what you need from those who may not want to give you the time of day. There may be those who don’t like you and/or your project, who are jealous of you, who don’t understand the importance of what you are doing, who are insecure, or who are just too busy to accommodate you. Your request for information or participation seems to be an opportunity for them to block your progress.

Like a dragon, they may choose to hoard valuable information and spend much of their time guarding precious resources and making sure others - like you - don’t get their hands on it.

Whatever the reason for their obstructionist behavior, it causes you stress, frustration and anger. How can you get what you want without going down that dark path?

It may be that you can’t avoid it altogether, but you can try. You can plan ahead. Know who is supportive and who isn’t, for whatever reason. The reason may not matter in the short run. What matters is getting your results in a timely and successful manner.

Time was when the only real performance expectation was “gets the results expected without generating a hostile environment.” That still is the bottom line. Here are some tactics that you can use to accomplish this when you have a dragon in your way:

1. Go around the dragon. Whenever possible, get what you need from friendly sources. Avoid rousing the dragon by cultivating alliances in other areas. However, if you choose to go over the dragon’s head, you may incite the ire of the dragon. Going around is good, going over is dangerous. Be very, very careful if you choose that route.

2. Feed and flatter the dragon. They may be feeling a little insecure about their work. Or, they could be one of those narcissistic dragons who only respond when it is all about them. Let them know what they do is noticed: “John is really taking a good look at the project you are doing…it’s possible that a bigger opportunity could result from your work.” Support their efforts and appreciate their ideas in public and they may start taking a second look at you and what you want. Because if you weren’t around, maybe they wouldn’t be getting any strokes or tidbits at all.

3. Offer the dragon a trade. Is there something the dragon wants from you? Maybe there is something you have that would benefit the dragon and they don’t even realize it. A morsel of information? A computer tip that helps them organize their files more efficiently? An introduction to another influential colleague? A good deal on a smart phone? Find out what they could use by asking or observing and offer a trade.

4. Distract the dragon. Perhaps the dragon can be tricked into giving you what you need with a little bit of distraction. Chat up the dragon about something of interest to him. How about those Rams? Love your car. Those shoes are fabulous. Where’d you find them? Once you’ve got the dragon in a good mood, ask for what you need. They will be in a more responsive frame of mind and more inclined to be accommodating. Just be sure you pick the right time to chat them up – don’t interrupt them when they are in the middle of their work flow.

Fighting, banishing, or slaying the dragon are only for extreme circumstances. We all wish the dragon would just disappear. But there will always be another dragon. Learn how to live with your dragon, work with your dragon, train your dragon. Become a dragon master and you will be the hero in your office.

Here are some dragon-training tips you may be able to adapt to your office dragon.

What Can You Do About Your Blind Spots?

We all have blind spots, those areas about ourselves that we don’t realize are hindering our progress – perhaps obstructing our ability to influence, to communicate clearly, or to form trusting relationships. Sometimes our blind spots are just our strengths overused to such an extent that they cross over, as I like to say, to the dark side.

A client who was a senior manager in a technical role told me that he was good with people. He knew when to empathize, and when to give “tough love”. He communicated well to his employees, colleagues and customers and everyone appreciated his affable yet strong leadership style. He was fair, honest, and looked out for his employees. In his 360 assessment, this was all confirmed. What was also confirmed was that he had a problem with his boss. When we discussed this, it came out that he resented his new boss for inserting himself into his operation, however minimally. It was his operation, and he knew it inside and out. His new boss didn’t know or understand his customers’ temperaments and concerns.

This client’s blind spot was his need for control. For the most part, he knew how to wield it fairly and lightly with his own team – he had been doing so for years, and his leadership style had worked well. But when it came to sharing his turf with his new boss – who was not overstepping or micromanaging by my client’s own admission – he balked. His attitude was souring his relationship with his new manager. He really wanted to ignore the fact that he had a boss at all.

Exploring this need for control revealed that because he had worked with the same group of people for a decade or more, he trusted them implicitly. He could ease up on his natural tendency to be in control, and had learned over the years that being transparent, sharing information, and delegating was a more productive and easier way to lead than the alternative. However when there were new customers, new projects, or in this case, a new boss, his need to be in control would reassert itself and he would tighten up his oversight at least for a while. This tendency didn’t work well to establish a trusting relationship with his new boss.

In a Wall Street Journal article last week entitled Bosses Overestimate Their Managing Skills, survey results from Development Dimensions International (DDI) revealed that managers didn’t equate their weak skills – which they identified as coaching, delegating, and gaining commitment - as areas of development. "It doesn't matter what industry you're in. People have blind spots about where they're weak," says Scott Erker, a senior vice president at DDI.

By definition, we are not cognizant of our own blind spots. Even if, through coaching, feedback, or a 360 degree assessment, we are aware of our blind spots, we will still often unknowingly repeat that undesirable behavior.

Last week’s post was about how to gracefully ask for and accept feedback. That’s an essential skill for any leader. But in order to successfully act on that feedback you may need an ally: someone who can give you a signal, a code word, or just a blatant reminder when you revert back to your old behavior.

Anyone who has attempted to change their own or others’ behavior knows that it takes time and effort. We have built up these behaviors and ways of thinking over time and burnt them deep into our neural pathways. In a sense we really are in a rut that requires motivated, consistent behavior changes over a period of time to forge new habits. That’s why trusted allies can be valuable help. Being humble enough to count on your own employees to be those allies goes a long way toward showing the type of leader you are.

We all have blind spots. Understanding ourselves deeply is essential to being an extraordinary leader. Knowing that our personality type, experiences, philosophies, and values can drive our behavior, and understanding how they drive it, awakens us to our own strengths, opportunities for development, and potential pitfalls. Knowing yourself as well as you can – taking off blinders, realizing your impact and how you are reflected in others’ eyes – allows you to realistically assess how to leverage your strengths, and adjust for your weaknesses.

Model How to Ask For and Receive Feedback Gracefully

When I became a parent, I suddenly became very conscious of my table manners. I religiously buckled my seat belt. I watched my mouth. Being a parent is a lot like being a leader: you are under constant observation. You are a role model and your behavior is the best illustration of how you want others to behave. You aren’t perfect, so acknowledging that by asking and acting on feedback goes a very long way toward building trust and respect on your team.

Observing leaders welcome and act on feedback is inspiring to those around them. One of the skills you can model to your employees is how to ask for and receive feedback. Three simple questions should be the standard for your discussions with your employees, both one-to-one and in team meetings:

1. What I can do differently that will help you (us) succeed?
2. What can I stop doing that will increase your (our) chances of success?
3. What can I start doing that I haven’t been doing that will make you (us) more successful?

Ask these questions during their performance reviews, before starting projects, when debriefing projects, and at least twice a year to each employee.

When you get their feedback, model how to receive it. Simply say, “Thank you. I appreciate your honesty and thoughtfulness.” You don’t have to make promises that you will change. You don’t have to say you will think about what they have said. The best way to respond is by your actions. Do make sure you understand the feedback and ask for clarity or examples if you don’t. Then next time you sit down with them let them know what you have been doing differently in response to their feedback. That lets them know that you listen well, take what they have to say seriously, and are committed to personal and professional development. And as a result they will be more likely to be honest in their feedback to you.

By showing that you welcome constructive feedback, modeling how to receive it in a non-defensive manner, and then acting on it, your team members will be more open to it too. They will learn how to ask for and expect feedback from their colleagues as well as you. And that makes for a more productive team.