The FrontLine Guide to Communicating With Employees

The Front Line Guide to

COMMUNICATING WITH EMPLOYEES

Woodrow H. Sears

HRD Press, Inc. • Amherst • Massachusetts

Copyright © 2007, HRD Press, Inc.

Published by: HRD Press, Inc. 22 Amherst Road Amherst, MA 01002 800-822-2801 (U.S. and Canada) 413-253-3488 413-253-3490 (fax) www.hrdpress.com

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this material may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 0-87425-940-1

Production services by Jean Miller Editorial services by Suzanne Bay and Sally Farnham Cover design by Eileen Klockars

To Victoria Loufakis, an exceptional teacher and one of my most valuable mentors

Table of Contents Preface .............................................................................. vii Introduction .....................................................................

ix

Part One: Communicating Is a Life-Support Skill ......

1

Chapter 1: The Fundamental Interpersonal Skill........ 3 Style Matters............................................................... 4 Primary and Back-up Styles ....................................... 5 Communication Problems .......................................... 8 Actions Speak Louder Than Words............................ 10 Chapter 2: Communicating to Get Results................... Communicate Your Commitment .............................. Communicate Authority and Leadership.................... Communicate Confidence .......................................... Communicate with Each Other...................................

13 14 16 17 20

Chapter 3: The Communication Culture...................... Negative Attitudes ...................................................... Use Your Imagination................................................. Communication Contract............................................ Wrapping Up Part One ...............................................

23 28 32 34 35

Part Two: Communication Competencies .................... 37 Chapter 4: Listen ’til It Hurts ........................................ The Gift Only You Can Give ..................................... The Major Listening Challenge.................................. Look Closely...............................................................

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39 40 42 46

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Chapter 5: Giving Clear Information .......................... A Focus on Outcomes................................................. Be Clear About Your Messages ................................. Make Notes.................................................................

51 53 57 60

Chapter 6: Everyone Has a Point of View .................... The Big Lie ................................................................. Impediments to Getting Clear Information ................ Above All, You Must Not Be Defensive.................... Critical Reading and Listening ................................... A Strategy for Problem Identification ........................ Find a Workable Middle Ground................................

63 64 66 68 69 71 79

Chapter 7: Communicating: Improving Your Performance.................................................................. Tools and Techniques ................................................. Won’t I lose my power? ............................................. Communicate to Motivate ..........................................

83 85 90 92

Appendices ....................................................................... Appendix 1: Corporation Questionnaire..................... Appendix 2: A Quick Employee Survey .................... Appendix 3: A Confidential Questionnaire for Human Resources Staff Members ..............................

95 97 109 111

Recommended Reading .................................................. 117 About the Author............................................................. 121

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Preface This guide is full of success-building advice for new managers. Believe it or not, the major path to success lies in the way you communicate with your employees, co-workers, and bosses. The identifiable, observable, and replicable set of skills and competencies that constitute effective communication is absolutely essential, particularly for managers. The really good news is that if you want to become a good communicator, you can do it. Good two-way communication is the key to helping people perform more effectively, regardless of the task. It enables and releases their potential. In the pages that follow, we will put the subject of communication in a larger perspective than is usual for books of this type. I’m not taking a simplified approach, and I won’t be presenting set after set of 1, 2, 3 steps. You will be prompted to consider small developmental tasks that, collectively, will help you improve the way you communicate throughout the full range of your professional and personal activities. I will share some powerful theories about working with people that you need to know about, and add a few personal anecdotes. You will be prompted to track down information about some research-based competencies associated with effective communicating at work, such as researcher Scott Parry’s conclusions from a study of nearly 100,000 managers representing some of America’s leading corporations and government organizations. The abilities, skills, and practices commonly associated with highly effective leaders identified by this study, as communicative competencies, are the “backbone” of this guide. vii

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Reading this guide is a statement of commitment on your part to strengthen your ability to communicate. Don’t pass up opportunities to participate in communication workshops and courses on, say, how to write memos or make formal presentations or speeches. Perhaps you will be involved in a managerial assessment and improvement program in which your personal ability to communicate effectively will be evaluated for development. Your learning and professional advancement will always depend in part on how willing you are to engage in self-assessment exercises (a few are included in this book) and investigate and apply the suggestions you see here. If you eventually participate in management training or communication programs provided by your company or accessed on your own, your experience will be richer because of what you’ve learned here. Your ability to communicate (and mine, for that matter) can always be improved. The best thing about strengthening this set of skills, especially if you are a frontline manager, is that the payoff is usually immediate and obvious. There are few instances in life from which you can get feedback so quickly.

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Introduction I entered graduate school as a 30 year old without a precise vision of what I wanted to do, but I knew it would be something in the broad arena of adult education. I ordered a copy of Behind the Executive Mask from an ad in The New York Times, and after reading Alfred Marrow’s book, I decided to become a human resource consultant. My immediate problem was that I had never met one! Luckily, a colleague suggested that I go see Dr. Edward A. (Tim) Murray at his office just off the campus. I did, and it was a galvanizing experience. Dr. Murray laughed when I told him I was in his office to meet a consultant because I wanted to become one. We chatted for about an hour, and as I was leaving, Tim handed me a small book and said, “When you’ve read this, come back and we’ll talk some more.” I was enchanted by Tim Murray. I had never met anyone who was so calm, so easy to laugh, so “together.” Had he given me a text in Sanskrit, I would have found a translator. But he gave me something that was equally surprising: Irving J. Lee’s 1941 classic, Language Habits in Human Affairs. As I read the book, essentially an introductory text on general semantics, I began to make the connection between semantics and Alfred Marrow’s premise that executives limit their effectiveness by hiding behind “masks” that obscure their authentic selves. My excitement was at an all-time high. Could I really break out from behind my mask and help others to do that too? And if I could escape my mask, would I like the person I found? Could I become a more-effective individual? If I did, would it change my relationships with people near and dear and help me become a good leader? ix

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The answer to all those questions was yes, and that meeting with Tim Murray literally changed my life. What I discovered is that life is all about communicating: talking with others, sharing information and experiences, and building groups in which integrity and honesty are paramount values and where it is safe to be our “authentic” self. That was heady stuff back then, and it still is. Personal-discovery groups were but few and far between. They still are. You can form your own, but there are some things you need to know first. Much of that information is in this guide or can be found in the list of recommended readings in the back. If you become a moreeffective communicator, there is no way of telling where it will eventually lead. It will be a grand adventure. Now, about the title The Front Line Guide to Communicating with Employees: Your employees and staff members are the means through which you will demonstrate your competence as a manager and advance your career. You might be the most gifted engineer in your company, but if you cannot be effective with the people who work with you—up close and personal—you will fail. Engineers are easy to find, but effective managers are not. And they are worth paying to keep! A manager’s primary job might be to hit the numbers, but the best way to do that is by being effective in communicating with employees. Sadly, too many managers never seem to even make the effort. For them, giving orders is easier than communicating. Communication is a subject that excites me, but anytime you run into someone who’s excited about his bag of tricks or a new religion or a way to revolutionize management, remember that caveat emptor still means “buyer beware.” We’re not always aware that we’re buying or even that x

Introduction

something’s being sold to us, so my caution to you is to pay attention. Throughout this guide, you will be reminded of that most basic of all communicative skills: pay attention. Pay attention to your people so that you are aware of what’s coming into your head (and theirs) through a myriad of channels and you can methodically sift through that input. That’s a big, never-ending task, but the payoff will be worth the effort. I know the concepts presented here will work for you, and I have enjoyed presenting them in this small book. I hope you will find them as exciting and useful as I have.

Woody Sears Vilnius, Lithuania

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e are being bombarded with information every waking hour of the day. These verbal and nonverbal “messages” affect our mood, our thinking, and our behavioral responses, whether or not we realize that we are receiving them. Think how often you have been struck by the relative silence of the woods or the ocean as you pull away from the relentless noise of urban life, and you will understand the challenge we all face in screening out all that useless information. It takes an enormous amount of energy away from what we are supposed to be attending to. The filtering process is critical. Communicating effectively is essential for managerial success. If you want your employees to be more productive and to feel that they are valued for their contributions to the organization, you must master the art of communicating. There are some rules, of course, as well as a few skills that must be mastered along the way. The information in the first three chapters of this book will get you started.

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Chapter 1 The Fundamental Interpersonal Skill

O

ne of the most memorable experiences in life is being around a child at the very moment when he or she says that first magic word, Mama (or perhaps it’s Dada). The infant’s struggle to communicate begins to get a little easier with name-to-person recognition ability. “Dog,” “cat,” “book,” and other single-syllable words follow, and then on to simple sentences, more-complex sentences, and multisyllabic words. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear young children emphasize personal pronouns in their early efforts to be understood: I, me, mine. When they can’t communicate what they are feeling, their frustration comes out in rage. That’s when adults pay attention, sort out the failed message, and deliver the goods. Along with language comes development of that leastunderstood part of ourselves—the ego. Eventually, the young child develops a personality that is self-effacing or assertive, shy or outgoing, submissive or demanding, gentle or aggressive, or perhaps some complex mixture of some or all of these characteristics. But whatever personality has evolved, it is reflected in the ways we communicate with others to get our needs met or to establish ourselves in the hierarchy of our group. Communicating is not by any means a simple process. In this guide, we will focus on three aspects of communication that determine effectiveness and interpersonal competence as a manager: listening; giving clear information; and getting clear and unbiased information. 3

Communicating with Employees

No matter what we are trying to say, we are always making statements about who we are and how we want to be perceived. Pay attention to these three critical areas, because they can make or break you as a manager.

Style Matters You know what people say about first impressions: that we have just 30 seconds to put our best foot forward, to project ourselves as a person of interest and value, and to establish ourselves as the new best friend of the person we’re meeting. It’s the ultimate win-lose game, because if we do a poor job of it and fail, we might not get a second opportunity. In the contemporary culture of the singles bar, one can see an amazing array of tactics being employed to win the firstimpression contest. So many exotic birds flashing their plumage! Some people work the scene with great success. Consider this true story: A handsome and well-spoken young man was getting rave reviews by all the people who interviewed him for a job. The company’s HR manager, an ASTD colleague with whom I was working on a project, confided that there was something unsettling about this particular job applicant. Degree from a good school, not too many job changes, and incredible interpersonal skills, but there was still something nagging and irritating going on. So my friend asked the applicant if he would object to taking a battery of aptitude tests. The applicant agreed. Among the tests was an assessment of intelligence, and it turned out that the young man had a test IQ of 89. It seems that he had made it through a “good” university on the strength of his personal charm and interpersonal skills. The job changes resulted when the guy was put into roles he didn’t have the cognitive competence to 4

The Fundamental Interpersonal Skill

handle. My friend recommended counseling to help him align his career ambitions with his limitations. It was the HR director’s intuition (which made him pay particular attention to small cues and clues) and his willingness to act on his intuition that saved his company from a hiring embarrassment and prevented it from wasting a lot of money. Intuition is indeed a mode of communication. I tell this true story to make the point about the power of interpersonal skills and effective communication. In this instance, the interpersonal skills had been developed to compensate for limited cognitive capacities. It was never clear how this young man got the coaching so evident in his performance, but consider this: With your intellectual horsepower, how much more effective could you become if you committed yourself to mastering a few more communication skills? After working with so many managers for so many years, I can safely say that the return on your investment—if you use the suggestions that follow—will be far greater than you think.

Primary and Back-up Styles When you want something from other people, what “face” do you put on? Probably a smile. Maybe you say “Excuse me” or otherwise communicate that you want to join them or ask something of them. Whether or not you are in a position of authority, being nice is a good way to begin (you really do catch more flies with honey). But if you have already asked and haven’t received the response you want, maybe you should take a more assertive approach, such as “Fred, what happened to that report?” If Fred still doesn’t deliver, maybe you should assume an aggressive stance, such as, “Fred, no 5

Communicating with Employees

more excuses. I want that report tomorrow morning, without fail!” If the smiling, nice-guy approach is your primary style, how long does it last? How soon will you go to a back-up style—to demand rather than ask, or to threaten rather than to make a request? Some management professionals recommend the use of an intimidating style based on combat analogies, but common sense and the experiences most of us share tell us that reaching out to include people is more powerful than trying to dominate them. (Besides, people who feel threatened often find ways to retaliate against a manager whose style is disagreeable.) What does this have to do with communication? Just about everything! The loudest, strongest message you communicate is you: who you are, what you believe, how you like to work with others, and how much you want to win. Marshall McLuhan wrote about this in his popular 1967 book The Medium is the Massage, in which he called our attention to the power of books, newspapers, and television (McLuhan called them “media,” thus introducing us to the term). McLuhan believed that the media assume an authority of their own and can be more powerful than the news or narrative content they present. (Think back to all the times you’ve heard people say something like, “I saw it on TV, so it’s gotta be true!”) Manager, when you speak to your company’s employees, you—the medium through which information is passed along—become the company and its message! You are your most powerful message.

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The Fundamental Interpersonal Skill

When you explain an executive order at a staff meeting, your own credibility will be more important than the content of the message you’re passing along. In fact, in the eyes and minds of the people who report to you, you are the company. Therefore, everything you do or say carries a message that is louder than what you intend. This is both a plus and a minus. It’s a minus because it means you are “on” all the time— on camera, on stage, in the spotlight. You’ll have to sharply limit your freedom to make jokes and condescending remarks, because no matter what you intend, someone will hear it as “the word from the boss.” You can’t afford to express anger or fear or resentment, because those feelings can and will be misconstrued. Your being the “message” is also a plus. Your people want you to succeed and want you to lead them to individual and team success, and want a fair chance of achieving job security and maybe more income. They know that if you don’t succeed, they aren’t likely to succeed either. So your success is something they need. Respond in ways that meet their needs, and their respect for you will increase and acquire the overtones of affection, and that’s about as good as it gets. What’s the message you need to project? You are devoted to duty and responsibility. You are committed to the success and survival of your people. You as a person are worthy of respect. You are a role model. That’s all heavy stuff, but well worth remembering. Keep it in mind every time you open your mouth to speak. You are the message! Don’t confuse people by projecting conflicting signals. You cannot be a corporate role model in one instance and the class clown in another. Be consistent and congruent, and project the confidence you want to see in your people. 7

Communicating with Employees

Communication Problems There are a lot of training programs that purport to show you how to avoid communication problems, but I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a communication “problem.” Many managers blame all kinds of performance and productivity problems on a failure to communicate, but there is always a deeper cause. Successful communication is based on two things: intent and understanding. I learned this years ago in the United States, but after a decade of living as an expatriate in places with “impossible” languages, it’s been reinforced again and again. Here’s what you have to do if you want to communicate something: 1. Think it through first. Sometimes, it requires some advance thinking and planning. When I needed eggs and didn’t know the local language, I started taking an empty egg carton to the market. It works every time. 2. Take charge. If you want to succeed, you have to remember that it’s up to you. I once forgot the Slovak word for chicken, so I stood at the counter in a small shop and said “cock-a-doodle-doo” as I flapped my arms. Someone in the line behind me said something like, “I think the poor bastard wants a chicken.” The shopkeeper’s face lit up with comprehension as he laughed at my antics, and in a moment, he produced two frozen chickens. I took both of them.

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The Fundamental Interpersonal Skill

3. Don’t quit. If you fail to get what you want from others, it’s to your disadvantage, not theirs. It comes down to this: you quit, you lose. Some small experiences assisting people with severe learning disabilities sharpened my own communication skills considerably; I learned more fully the power of gentle persistence and humor. 4. Be creative. If you want to communicate and be understood, you can make it happen. It might take a lot of pointing or other hand gestures and sometimes drawing pictures, but if you’re willing to persist, the other person will eventually get it. (Sometimes a bystander will intervene on your behalf.) 5. Be vulnerable. Laugh at yourself and admit your ignorance or incompetence. Who has time for frustrated, angry people? Communication always requires patience, willingness to persist, and good humor. Self-effacing honesty, expressed with laughter, can be quite endearing. It also breaks the tension. 6. Try to make friends. The second time is always easier. People will remember you if you fumble through your request and then express appreciation for their help. Go into every encounter with the intention of making friends who will welcome you at the next meeting. Maybe you think these are far-fetched examples. Don’t kid yourself! A lot of time and money are wasted because bosses and workers misunderstand one another, probably even where you work. Further, if you ignore some of these 9

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cautions, you might end up in the ranks of managers who are ridiculed and disliked by their workers. A “miscommunication” is not always accidental; employees have been known to grease the skids for a manager’s fall from grace.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words Try your best to avoid being abrupt, abusive, or overly-casual when you communicate with your workers, despite the trend toward more participative management. You’re always the boss; you can do a lot of damage if you forget the role you play and make unfortunate statements in public or embarrass yourself at a semi-official function. What happens to the respect you’ve worked so hard to build when, for example, employees hear that their district manager, incoherently drunk late into an office party, locked himself in a toilet stall and passed out for the night? How do you clean up your image after something like that? What kind of message is sent about the company when leaders attending a regional meeting turn into unruly children and launch a food fight in the not-quite-private room of an upscale restaurant? Or when male and female employees of a high-tech firm arrive at the suite of a senior corporate officer for drinks after dinner and notice that a porno movie is playing on the oversized TV in the living room? Pay attention to the messages you and others send, and use your common sense. Like oil and water, there are some things that don’t mix well—business and monkey business, for example. If you need some sort of screening device to differentiate between okay and not-okay behaviors, think about what would be communicated if your mother or your major investors and their spouses showed up. If what they encounter 10

The Fundamental Interpersonal Skill

will build trust and confidence in the enterprise, then rock and roll. If not, ask yourself why the sensitivities and intelligence of your employees are less important than those of influential others. You are the medium and the message. Think about what you want to communicate and what you want the people important to you to remember. Communication is a learned behavior. You can get as good at it as you want to be. The tips in this guide will help.

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Chapter 2 Communicating to Get Results

I

f “I am!” is the shortest sentence, “I want” might be the most powerful, for these two words energize all human endeavors. They are the source of motives and motivation, of striving and scheming, and of creativity and invention. When you think about it, almost everything we say— every message we convey with a wink, a raised eyebrow, a nod, a smile, or a shrug—is about wanting or not wanting something that is being offered. Communicating is a lot more than word choice: it is about using an almost infinite range of nonverbal gestures as subtle as a raised finger in response to an auctioneer’s offer or as blunt as a raised fist in response to action on a playing field or the statements of a speaker. But any gesture is ambiguous if the individual is not sensitive to context or to the “inside” language of the group. The “uniforms” we wear communicate something, either intentional or perceived. On construction sites, supervisors wear white helmets so that they can be identified. On battlefields, commanders wear the same helmets as the lowliest private so that they can’t be identified and targeted by enemy marksmen. In a variety of studies, students rate lectures by men in suits and ties as more credible than similar content delivered by guys dressed more informally (and closer to the attire of the students). These nonverbal signals can influence our effectiveness—our ability to get the results we want. If you want to optimize the possibilities, pay attention to verbal and nonverbal signals and learn to use them. 13

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Start with the clues you send out. Here are some things to ask yourself: •

What do my people think when they look at me?

•

Which other managers do they admire, and why?

•

What gestures or words do I use that offend them?

•

What do I want from them that’s different from what I get?

•

What do I really want to do for them that they don’t know about?

•

How will they respond if I try to talk about these things?

•

Do I trust them, as individuals and as a group?

•

Do they trust me and my motives (as they suspect them to be)?

•

What must I do to make my motives clear?

If you want those who report to you to meet your expectations, maybe the first thing you need to do is shape your behavior (language, dress, management style, and so on) to meet their expectations. We’ll look at ways to do that in this chapter.

Communicate Your Commitment Managing effectively starts with the will to manage—the personal commitment to assume a leading/helping/coaching role and to impose your will on others. Of course, you don’t want to present yourself as a willful, manipulative individual. That will create waves of revulsion among those you work with 14

Communicating to Get Results

and make them resistant to your efforts. Communicate your commitment to succeed with them in terms they can accept. The words you use and the music (your other behaviors) must fit well together, however. Collective pronouns such as us, we, and our are good words to use to show your commitment, but they won’t be believed if your other behaviors do not invite and permit involvement. The word willful seems negative (“He’s such a willful and insolent child”), but when I read Viktor Frankl’s amazing account of survival in two Nazi concentration camps in Man’s Search for Meaning and The Will to Meaning, I began to see willfulness in a different way. We seem to prefer determined, dedicated, disciplined, or intense, but if you spend time with cancer survivors or people who have overcome dreadful injuries and have to learn to walk or speak again, you see that their will, will power, and willfulness are very much a part of their success. When I’m around such people, it’s impossible for me not to pick up that certain confidence and willingness to share their success experiences. Managers can learn much from people who have triumphed over enormous odds; all you have to do is look for ways to incorporate such positive, can-do attitudes into your own management style. One of the things I most appreciate about Frankl’s writing and the therapeutic approach he developed is that he emphasized being proactive and asking “What does life ask of me now?” instead of “Why is this happening to me?” Wallowing in self-pity takes us in the opposite direction of perspective, vision, goals, purpose, and will. Willfulness—that is, determination, dedication, and discipline—is important in management. Reluctant managers are a hazard to operations and a calamity for subordinates. Maybe 15

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the manager is in a temporary assignment or was pressured to take the role, but if for any reason he or she chooses not to invest personal energy in the role, he spreads a virus that kills energy and enthusiasm, like the manager who is fearful of making mistakes and hence avoids making decisions. Results come faster when managers communicate their expectations of success in words and in the totality of their behavior (willfulness). They must communicate confidence and instill it in others.

Communicate Authority and Leadership Management always involves imposition of will: The manager wants a specific employee or group of employees to perform specific tasks effectively, and expresses this desire in the form of verbal or written requests or orders. Marine platoons are led by a lieutenant who is primarily a manager, extending his or her influence through three or more squad sergeants. But in a training or live-combat situation, that lieutenant must become a leader, communicating confidence and spirit among all members of the platoon. Should something happen to the lieutenant, one of the sergeants will take over the field leadership role. In office settings, there is not likely to be such a seamless shift or assumption of responsibility if the designated manager falls ill—unless, that is, the informal leaders present in all groups have been encouraged to use their skills and have been openly acknowledged for using them. Then they’ll be prepared to step in. One of the most important things that managers must communicate to employees is permission to do obvious things in the interest of discipline and order. That removes the stigma that one is being presumptuous in assuming a role. 16

Communicating to Get Results

It’s been said that leaders point out the right things to do, and managers do things right. Give opportunities to “ordinary” workers to take the lead—to see opportunities to contribute, and to act on them (if only to call the attention of their manager to the opportunity). Give people this freedom to contribute, and communicate it. Build it into a staff’s ethos or way of operating, and your success is practically assured. As manager, empower a cadre of informal leaders, and don’t worry about the distinctions between leaders and managers. Leading is more than posturing. It means providing structures and strategies so that your people can succeed, which will communicate powerfully that you want collective success to come out of your collaborative efforts. Further—and this is a key point—it’s one thing to help people succeed at doing something you want them to do, and something very different to empower them to be full partners in accomplishing something they believe in and want to do. Management is about defining tasks, and leading is about infusing people with the will to achieve. Clearly, it looks like defining and inspiring are both needed.

Communicate Confidence A manager’s effectiveness is directly connected to his or her ability to instill confidence in others. What does confidence look like? The appreciative smile of someone who’s just been told by the boss “Nice job!” for the second or third time, and a positive and enthusiastic attitude. We communicate confidence by using our communication skills, providing feedback on performance, and engaging in relationship building. Praise is a big part of the confidence equation. The basic rule of positive reinforcement is to look for things to praise, 17

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and then to structure work in sufficiently short increments so that success is practically unavoidable. (This doesn’t mean work simplification, which is often intended to reduce work to mind-numbing routines.) And then praise, praise, praise. You can’t fool people into thinking they’re doing a good job when they’re not, but when they are and you recognize them for their competence and diligence, they tend to get better and to maintain their high levels of output. Then, the high-energy producers who are certain of recognition for their performance are more likely to assist or to nudge those whose performance is marginal. Further, the more members of the group whose performance is praiseworthy, the more likely the group will be self-energizing and perhaps even capable of self-governing. This is a circumstance that truly supports a collegial relationship between managers and workers. Communicating to get the results you want (and consistently) is a full-time job. Every manager should be spending time every day praising, coaching, counseling, and building rapport with and among group members. Giving orders only works in emergency situations. Bosses have to give orders, make requests, and ask for support, but it’s easier for direct reports to respond promptly and even enthusiastically if they know that they are noticed and supported by their manager and that their efforts will be appreciated. How can you build such a system of positive communication? Here are seven steps:

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Communicating to Get Results

How to Communicate So That You Get Results 1.

Identify blocks of work or tasks that you believe can be performed more effectively, better, faster, and cheaper.

2.

Present the idea to two or three of your best and brightest performers to see if they can catch your vision of better ways to get work done.

3.

If your test panel agrees with you, then present the idea to the entire staff, using the best and brightest (who probably are already opinion leaders) to legitimize the scheme. (“I have tested this idea with Fred, Lois, and Emma, and they think it has possibilities. The four of us agreed we should see what the rest of you think.”)

4.

As everyone participates in the discussion, several themes or approaches will emerge. Divide the group so that each of the three opinion leaders can form sub-groups to work on a specific theme, with the charter to produce arguments for and against their theme.

5.

Get flipchart reports from each of the sub-groups so that everyone can see all the options and counter-arguments. Leave the reports taped to the wall, and ask everyone to study the input. Schedule another meeting a day or a week later to make a decision.

6.

Be clear about how the action decision will be made. Make a joint decision or ask them to make the decision, which you will support. (You send a bad message if you put them through such an exercise and then veto what they suggest. They will see themselves as having been manipulated, and the exercise will destroy good will and trust.)

7.

Propose that changed procedures be used for a trial period, after which time you’ll either reassess for further refinement or return to the original system.

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Communicating with Employees

Remember, the important thing is to get work done in the most cost-effective manner, not to throw grease into the existing grooves. Often there are improvements that are possible through shifts in processes that one or some of your people have already initiated. Sometimes, people who do the work drop hints or clues, but their managers aren’t paying attention, as was the case during a large effort to improve productivity at a major company with a household name. The brand manager was handsome and popular (great interpersonal skills), but workers hinted that he was the problem. They were ignored. I presented interview data from more than 100 employees that indicated that Mr. Popularity was indeed the problem, but the women in the HR department (who were the client representatives) verbally attacked me for this. The guy had everyone bamboozled, because people in charge had been seduced or blinded by his charm. The company and many, many employees suffered because the higher-ups weren’t listening to the workers.

Communicate with Each Other As you can imagine, feedback interviews with employees and other kinds of information-gathering spark real communication and dialogue among workers who might really be discussing the work they do for the first time. Most of us go into situations in which work routines are already established, so we just do what we are told or are shown. What’s to think about? But when we are given permission to think about and actually change routines, something fundamental shifts in our relationship with the work and our co-workers. The message being communicated to us is this: We are valued! When that

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Communicating to Get Results

happens, there’s a powerful pull to be more cooperative, attentive to details, and more productive. If you can’t listen to your people and really attend to what they’re saying, don’t ask them to give you information. Perhaps you’ve never had the experience of being ignored when you’re trying to be helpful or not believed when you’re telling the truth. Let me assure you, it’s disheartening and discouraging. You start to look at your managers with contempt, and you start to believe that participation is a bad joke (at least where you’re working). Put together a chain of positive, supportive communications between managers and employees, and trust that higherups asking for your input will pay attention when you give them information, share what you are learning about work and processes, and offer to contribute to the common good. However, before you share your insights with your managers, understand that what you’ve learned in the current situation is more important to others than what you’ve learned through experience gained elsewhere. It will probably be appreciated if it comes out of the immediate work setting, but it is likely to be resented if it comes from another job. Your manager might not want input from you if you’re seeing the situation from a higher mountain than he or she has climbed: younger managers tend to be threatened by workers who seem to know more than they do, so keep this in mind. Also, here’s another tip: Don’t share everything you know! Take it from me: fragile egos resent this. If you don’t pay attention to such subtleties, others will start to think that you just want to take over, rather than be helpful. Being isolated from colleagues and being kept out of the loop puts you at a terrible disadvantage—surely not the result you want. 21

Communicating with Employees

Managers who communicate clearly day in and day out will increase productivity and help the organization achieve its corporate goals. Pay attention to the message you communicate, both verbally and nonverbally, if you want results.

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Chapter 3 The Communication Culture

M

ore is not necessarily better. Everywhere you look, someone is talking into a cell phone or listening to an iPod or working on their Blackberry or surfing the Web via the latest pocket device. Instant communication, information, and entertainment create a wired population that’s increasingly accustomed to instant gratification. But is it better informed? Probably not. So many young people come to work straight out of high school or college without any real work experience that it makes a different kind of communication important: your presence on the scene. For those who are addicted to entertainment and other input, your presence, some encouraging words, and inquiries into how things are going for them is more important than you can imagine. It’s a personal bias, but I suspect the current rage for team building is a response to a new problem: people don’t really know how to communicate with each other and interact in constructive, performance-enhancing ways. One executive who’s a personal friend says that the inability or unwillingness of employees to share information, and truly collaborate, is a major restraint on profitable operations. She said, “I never thought it would be necessary to teach adults such basic, human skills.” Maybe a boss on the scene, who sits with employees over coffee to discuss the work they’re doing is really providing some crucial instruction in how to communicate to solve problems. 23

Communicating with Employees

The challenge is to be able to sift through millions of sources to find information that is legitimate and factual and trustworthy. In the absence of such reliable information, people tend to turn to the rumor mill, because it can churn out stuff that makes sense to workers, feeding their anxieties and biases. It is usually distorted information, however, rarely supporting the company, its policies, its programs, and its goals. The only antidote to rumors is regular and daily infusions of factual information that meets the employees’ need for information head-on. Individual managers can hold weekly staff meetings to confront and dispel rumors and handle other more-usual agenda items. At the corporate or regional office level, you can subtly correct disinformation by putting out a weekly e-mail update or use a “rumor mill hotline” where employees send e-mails straight to the office of the senior manager. Most people aren’t going to walk into the boss’s office to voice a complaint, but they might send an e-mail; that’s something most of us do in our private lives, anyway.

A Small Quiz Please put a checkmark next to the best answer. Think about the last time you… Had a one-on-one conversation with your boss about a work issue.

q q q q

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently (continued)

24

The Communication Culture

A Small Quiz (concluded) Your group was handed a problem and told “Solve it!”

q q q q

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently

You had the answer to a problem, but didn’t feel safe speaking up.

q q q q

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently

You heard lies told at a staff meeting, but said nothing.

q q q q

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently

You were part of a team, but the boss ended up calling all the shots.

q q q q

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently

Credit for your work was given to someone else.

q q q q

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently

You had conversations misbehavior.

q q q q

with

co-workers about your boss’s

Never More than a year ago Months ago Fairly recently

25

Communicating with Employees

If any of these experiences has affected your work life, you know that your abilities are not being used fully. If people working for you feel that way, pay attention, because these feelings produce negative, counter-productive energy. Anything that negatively affects individual or group performance is a problem, and it’s the manager’s responsibility to check it out. But remember your limits; provide support, but be able to identify those occasions where fixing the problem is someone else’s responsibility. One of the amazing things about communicating in work settings is that people will talk in the most honest and straightforward terms if you create a situation in which they feel it is safe and legitimate to do so. People want to communicate. They want to share their fears, their resentments, their anger, their excitement. All they need is a clear signal that it’s safe and that their manager will not take unfair advantage of their candor. That requires a strong commitment to community within the group and everyone’s agreement to respect confidences. I once escorted a group of battle-hardened Seabees (U.S. Navy construction battalion personnel) on a special project up to Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. The U.S. Embassy’s medical director in La Paz warned me that at 12,500 feet, we get only about half the oxygen than we do at sea level, and that this irritates the brain. An irritated brain can cause us to lose sleep and can induce terrible nightmares, which both produce physical and emotional stress. I shared this information with the officer in charge, and suggested that we try an after-work “dream report” session as a stress- and pressure-relief strategy (accompanied by large bottles of potent Bolivian beer). It was a gamble that paid off. I recorded the dreams the guys 26

The Communication Culture

reported and reported my own, and was able to identify several individuals who had significant emotional problems but were receiving needed support from their buddies. We had some good laughs, and a potentially serious problem was bypassed. The dream journal was left with the officer in charge, and I have no copies of the recorded material. What I do recall, with amazement still, is how candid even really tough guys can be if they trust the integrity of the situation. I’m telling you this to point out that even with no clinical credentials, I managed to get a group of tough Seabees to help me reduce a potentially serious problem to manageable dimensions just by explaining the situation that involved all of us and asking them to help solve it. The next time a rumor circulates about layoffs or plant closure, try this strategy. Nothing is ever so frightening as threatening information that cannot be discussed; talk about it openly, and even the most dreadful situation gets better. Be mindful when you do this that highly charged open discussions often generate emotion and anger. Remind yourself that you are not the target and you are not being threatened. Don’t respond defensively; be cool, and allow others in the group to manage their colleagues if they have to. There is risk in communicating, but it is usually a risk worth taking for the benefits you and your staff will receive. We want to communicate! It’s what makes us human, and it only makes sense to turn all that energy into constructive channels. The challenge is to create the constructive channels and convince the managers that they must be supportive and allow the channels to be used.

27

Communicating with Employees

Negative Attitudes Everyone talks, but not everyone communicates. Think about the communication that is needed to fulfill the following managerial tasks and duties: recruiting, interviewing, leading, coordinating workflow, conducting meetings, meeting with senior executives, preparing and presenting reports, coaching subordinates, building teams, solving problems in groups, developing individuals, improving processes, and engaging in participative planning. Each of these activities calls for subtle changes in one’s communication style and some role playing on your part. Success is largely dependent on the manager’s ability to communicate in a task-appropriate manner. An employee in a firm I was consulting for made this point crystal clear, saying this about his boss: “We all like him well enough, but the son of a bitch can’t stop giving orders. We’re not in the army!” When I told the boss that his employees resented being ordered around, he appeared stunned and said he couldn’t imagine how to do it any other way. “If you want someone to do something, the simplest way is to tell them what you want,” he told me. It never crossed his mind to ask by using conditional phrases such as “Would it be okay…” or “How about trying…?” or “Have you thought about…?” Another offending manager said, “I’m not going to waste time saying ‘thank you’ every time one of these clowns does his job. When someone does something outstanding, I want the praise I give to mean something.” These kinds of negative attitudes toward employees can’t be hidden—such managers might as well wear day-glo vests announcing their contempt for their subordinates. (Note: Not all managers who think like this are old.) 28

The Communication Culture

I can usually pick up on negative management/worker relationships within minutes of entering a company’s lobby— it’s in the atmosphere. Sometimes it’s a harsh emotional environment; other times, it’s very relaxed. One visit to the headquarters of an international firm made me think I was entering a posh resort hotel; I could see the lovely dining hall and its glass wall, beyond which was a landscaped atrium with people strolling and relaxing. But when I was escorted into the dining room, I was even more surprised to see dozens of women watching a soap opera on television. That was part of their employee benefits: They could even choose the show they wanted to watch! Obviously, this is an example of “treating people well” run amok. The amenities didn’t make people think better or more, nor were they asked to do so. In fact, participative management didn’t seem to exist there, but the employees were happy. But that was in fat times, when the company could afford to pay thirteen million dollars for the imported tile on the building’s roof. The company is in the communications business still, but on a much smaller scale. Let’s hope the TV lounge has been converted for more productive use by now. Consultants look for signs that people are involved and busy, such as employee posture and body language. A person’s focus on tasks can’t be faked if the observers are skilled. Sometimes, workers don’t even pretend to be focused on their work, because they want to send a signal to the observers and consultants. Maybe that’s a cry for help from people who aren’t otherwise free to communicate their distress. People usually know that their jobs are in jeopardy when they’re not being helped to be more effective.

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Communicating with Employees

One thoughtful manager in a refinery once told me this: “You’re probably the fifth or sixth consultant who’s talked to me this year. All of you guys collectively aren’t going to recommend anything that the managers and most of the employees don’t already know. Our bosses could save a lot of time and money if they’d just ask us, but they don’t. It’s like someone has drawn a thick line between the so-called intelligent people and those of us who do the work.” Reliance on consultants seems to have become part of the executive culture in some companies. Maybe there’s a quest for the “holy grail” or the magic bullet that will minimize labor problems and increase productivity and profitability. Of course, that’s not going to be found. There are consultants you’ve never heard of who offer something close to the magic bullet, however. Before I decided to move to Europe, I responded to an ad in the Los Angeles Times that fit me so well it should have had my name on it. I sent a résumé and a cover letter to the post office box, and got a call several days later to meet at an address in a residential neighborhood where there are no offices. I asked the name of the organization, but then couldn’t find any such organization in several phone books, nor on the Internet. It turned out to be a word-of-mouth business. I drove north of Los Angeles on Highway 1 and turned onto an unnamed road with broken pavement. After about a quarter of a mile, I arrived at a lovely home behind a serious fence and a locked gate. A woman came out to open the gate so that I could drive into the ample courtyard in front of a three-car garage, and then escorted me into the living room/office. It was simply but expensively furnished, with a priceless view of the Pacific. Really impressive. I was told that their consultants 30

The Communication Culture

met there and often spent the night rather than have to go to a hotel. Then my interviewer arrived, and here’s what I learned: It’s a small consultancy that breaks union-organizing efforts. My interviewer said that their clients are corporations about to be organized and that he had “won” 48 of the 49 campaigns he had been paid to conduct. “We are pretty anonymous, because the people who need us know where to find us,” he explained. It was an interesting conversation between guys with similar educational backgrounds, military experiences, and professional interests. I learned that one of their strategies is to hire retired bankers (or men who have that look) “just to stand around in suits and look as though they’re assessing what they see.” Before the interview ended, I asked how soon I could take a more active role than just standing around, since that seemed a poor use of what I had to offer. After several days of reflection, my interviewer decided that it just didn’t “feel right” for me to join that secret society. No doubt they wanted someone willing to just stand around. A brilliant communication strategy! The “suits” who don’t talk to employees, who speak only to each other and look somewhat menacing, are really like scarecrows standing in a cornfield. Their daily presence for several weeks or months is intimidating to employees who, without any other information, have to create the story about who the scarecrows are and what kind of menace they represent. They give rise to all kinds of fears and literally frighten employees into submission. Of course, other manipulations were going on in the executive offices, but nothing communicates intimidation and menace quite like silence. I have also worked for unions, and often thought when working with some client companies how easy it would be to organize one. When you see contempt as a communication 31

Communicating with Employees

style, you wonder why people tolerate the “strut and swagger” school of management. Of course, as often as not, those are places where people don’t work too hard—managers are too busy looking important to see the productive potential right under their noses.

Use Your Imagination The most positive ways of communicating are probably those that appeal to the imagination of the audience. It’s the vision thing. A political campaign without a vision cannot capture the imagination of the electorate and consequently won’t be able to communicate the need for people to get out the vote. Think of your own communication efforts as a kind of campaign, and be creative. Consider the definition of leadership: “The creation of structures and processes that permit participation in the achievement of worthwhile goals.” It’s all about communicating. Look at the words: • • • • •

Worthwhile goals (things we all believe in) Permit participation (you’re lucky to be a part of it) Structures (teams and larger organizations) Processes (things people can do together) Creation (using imagination and vision as empowering tools)

These are the things that John F. Kennedy did so well, as did Martin Luther King, Jr. (and frankly, too few people in public life since). Maybe there are a great deal of people doing these things, but most can’t get the air time to be heard. However it happened, there’s a “vision vacuum” creating 32

The Communication Culture

fertile ground for demagogues, religious and otherwise, who represent a threat of some significance to the United States as a vibrant, economically powerful collection of effective individuals and institutions. Manager, what are you doing to strengthen your institution? What attitudes and values are you communicating to the people over whom you have influence? And how are you doing that? This is an important question, because chances are you work for one of the small- or mid-size enterprises that create most of the country’s jobs and most of the tax revenue. As corporate citizens, they are vital. As a manager within one of them, you’re important, too, because of your potential as a source of influence, imagination, and shared vision. If as you read this and you’re thinking “That’s not my job,” you’re probably not alone. But that attitude isn’t going to help the company and probably won’t help you either—at least not in the long run. Pay attention to who people expect you to be. All this talk about communicating is about being effective in your role as a manager—about galvanizing the support of your direct reports and others you can influence toward accomplishing corporate goals. The first and loudest message is your appearance and its impact on the audience. Assuming that this first impression is positive, what else are you communicating? Consider putting your intended messages in the form of an informal agreement that you share with your employees. Remember: Both parties have to give. Here’s an example of what I mean:

33

Communicating with Employees

Communication Contract •

Think of me as a facilitator whose role is to help you succeed.

•

I will provide direction as I receive it from my boss, but your input is welcome.

•

I know a lot, or I wouldn’t have been promoted. But I don’t know more than all of you. I want us to think, plan, and work together.

•

If you don’t understand something I do or say, please give me an opportunity to explain.

•

If you have a work problem, let me help you resolve it.

•

I want to succeed in this role, and I can do that only with your help.

•

If you do more than is expected for someone in your role, I will acknowledge your contribution and express appreciation in some tangible way.

Communicate these things by your behavior, above all, and by the way you respond to your staff as they speak, act, and perform. Say please and thank you, and use expressions like That’s great! or You guys are terrific! On a hot afternoon, bring in cold bottles of juice or soda. On a cold morning, bring in hot coffee and doughnuts—not every day, mind you, but once in a while to demonstrate your appreciation and affection. Affection? Yes. Those who support you and make you look good should like you. As you all grow together as a “family” united in a common effort, it would be unnatural if bonds of friendship don’t form, however affected they may be 34

The Communication Culture

by the constraints of hierarchy and roles. Why not dignify and celebrate this unity? And why not invite senior managers in to meet your colleagues and co-workers? In making such gestures, a manager is really saying, “If I am a good performer, it’s because of these people.” That message will not be wasted; all of us are hungry for appreciation and recognition, and sometimes we are almost desperate for inclusion—to belong to some social entity. No one is sure what percentage of people find in their jobs the primary social connection in their lives, but the number could be larger than we imagine. Again, if this is so, build on it. Start by paying attention to the messages you are sending.

Wrapping Up Part One We receive thousands of messages every day in every form (many we’re not even aware of). The messages are broadcast by a variety of media in an indiscriminate fashion, and we absorb or reject them with pretty indiscriminate screens. They just provide clutter on the landscape of our attention, with the exception of specific messages (restrooms, cheap gas, fast food) or those that have special appeal (a sale at Neiman Marcus or Eddie Bauer, detour ahead, and so on). Your messages to direct reports and others can become part of that littered landscape of junk mail. To be heard and understood and to see action in response to your requests, you have to punch through the clutter: Speak directly to people. Use their names. Talk about specific tasks and deadlines. Talk about expectations and standards. Talk about their roles in the work flow of your business. Don’t assume they know, because my experience says most employees, even managers, are terribly vague about how they and their performance fit in 35

Communicating with Employees

to the corporate quest for goals. Counter rumors and information immediately with the facts. Keep the data flowing so that someone else doesn’t fill in the gaps. Part Two will focus on three communication priorities: listening, giving clear information, and getting clear and unbiased information. These are the areas that many managers say are challenging. They are also the source of many communication breakdowns and performance failures. Most of these screw-ups are preventable, however. Effective communication is the key, but effective does not mean being grammatically correct. Neither is it about practicing speeches or having handouts or overheads. What you want is PASSION! Passion. Excitement. Enthusiasm. Punching through the boredom of the same old stuff being said by the same old people. Reaching out to people when they have run out of gas. You want them to first care about themselves and then about each other and the work they do as a close second. Selfrespect is a precursor to any intelligent action and positive results. Want to know how to do these things? Keep reading!

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Part Two: Communication Competencies

E

very manager must develop solid communication skills in three important areas if he or she wants to be successful: listening, giving clear information, and getting clear and unbiased information. These three areas of competency were identified through interviews involving nearly 100,000 managers in many of America’s leading organizations by researcher Scott Parry, developer of the Managerial Assessment of Performance materials published by HRD Press. The executives noted in their extensive responses that most communication problems fell into one or more of these categories. Understanding and reaching agreement, so necessary for productivity, are integral to communicating with employees. These and other intricacies associated will be discussed in the chapters that follow. We’ll provide suggestions regarding how you can be a better listener and provider of information, as well as ways to make sure the information you are being given is reliable and useful for your specific needs. If you follow the suggestions, you will become a more effective communicator, no matter how well developed your current skills are. I say this because it happened that way for me. I’m guessing the same will happen for you. Pay attention!

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Chapter 4 Listen ’til It Hurts

I

asked the director of a university language department to name the communication skills that she had found most useful in her work. “You have to love the people who work with you, and you have to listen ’til it hurts,” she told me. Hurts? “Oh, yes,” she said. “Listening is an intense process. It requires a lot of discipline to make yourself pay attention to another person and not to be thinking ahead of their words to how you’ll respond mentally or judging them for taking too long to get to their point. Sometimes it hurts, but you owe it to the people you love.” Her answer to my question came with no hesitation, and I think it’s a splendid response. However, I can’t think of any man I know who would have spoken so freely about loving the people who work for you. The root of many corporate communication problems might lie in the fact that we live in a sea of information, yet fail to listen for the information that we really need. In my management lectures years ago when Douglas Macgregor’s Theory X and Theory Y were more frequently discussed, I suggested that the reason Theory Y (basically participative management) was so difficult for many men to accept is that if you weighted the theories as masculine or feminine, Theory Y would come out as feminine and Theory X, with its authoritarian overtones, would come out as masculine. So, if you’re a typical guy in a typical, mostly authoritarian organization and you’re given a choice to 39

Communicating with Employees

manage in ways that could be characterized as “feminine” rather than “masculine,” which method would you choose? I think many guys are too insecure to make the Theory Y choice. Pay attention to the people you work with and how they manage, and draw your own conclusions.

The Gift Only You Can Give Managers don’t usually want to hear about unhappy situations, because they think they will have an implicit responsibility to take action. It’s important for managers to understand the boundaries between self and others and presumed versus actual responsibility. My friend Peter Hansen spent 25 years as attorney Lee Baldwin on the enduring daytime soap General Hospital. He met actor Tom Selleck once and found it to be a powerful experience. “For about 30 seconds, I felt like I was the most important person in his life.” People have said the same thing about Bill Clinton. Both these men pay attention with all their senses—they really attend and stay in the moment. Not everyone can do that on their best day. When a friend or colleague wants to talk, possibly about a personal or work problem, think about whether or not you would be able to give the gift of undivided attention. Can you tune into someone else for five or ten minutes—suspend judgment, restrain yourself from giving advice, and stay in the moment? Carl Rogers, considered the father of non-directive or client-centered therapy, taught that most people can solve their own problems if they’re just given the opportunity to talk the problem through. Therapists who have adopted Carl Rogers’s logic and non-interventionist philosophy believe that it maintains the integrity of the relationship (the client is 40

Listen ’til It Hurts

a responsible adult who can make decisions), and it prevents the therapist from giving advice that might backfire and cause harm. Managers, if they’re guys, tend to think that knowing about a problem carries with it an implicit obligation to solve the problem. Given the hazards of advice giving, many would rather ignore a problem or invoke the great American mantra “That’s not my job!” How easy it would be, instead of worrying and withdrawing, to listen to people and, at appropriate points, ask, “What do you think you ought to do?” and, when the conversation is over, close by saying, “Let me know what you decide.” Let me know what you decide. Anything that affects an employee’s performance is a performance problem that has to be addressed by the manager. Back in the old authoritarian days, managers were given to say, “Don’t come to me with a problem unless you’re also bringing one or two solutions for me to consider.” The attitude was simply that people who can’t solve their own problems just needed discipline. Many problems were simply driven underground because employees were intimidated to even admit they had a problem. Managers must develop critical listening skills and use them to gather information they need to improve organizational performance. Listening carefully to employees helps a manager: •

Learn more about individual employees and their strengths and competencies.

•

Get an early warning of problems that are forming in the work group.

41

Communicating with Employees •

Discover when an individual is overloaded and overstressed, and hence is less productive or demoralized.

•

Present himself as available and accessible.

Learn how to listen to your people! Here are a few listening tips: 1. Choose the right time for a conversation. You each will have other concerns that should be honored, and sometimes the “mood” isn’t quite right. 2. Set the duration of the conversation (“I can give you 20 minutes at 5:00 p.m.). If circumstances merit and the conversation is going well, extend the time. 3. Refer the employee to a professional counselor available through the company’s Employee Assistance Program if it’s a personal or family problem, but be sure to reaffirm your concern and willingness to help (“Let me know what you decide.”). 4. If you feel really uncomfortable with the subject matter, suggest that the employee talk with someone else. 5. If you stay loose and focus on the employee’s need to be heard, everything will probably work out as it should.

The Major Listening Challenge Actively listening takes effort, particularly if we are impatient (Get to the point!) or bored (I don’t care about any of this) or distracted by something more pressing (I’ve got to call my boss). It’s really hard work to put aside those other agendas and pay attention to someone else, even your spouse or kid or 42

Listen ’til It Hurts

parent. They blather on, and your mind wanders. This is why passive listening often fails: We turn into willing targets for all those agitated energies or halting words. Active listening works because we work hard at paying attention. Active listening means interrupting the speaker if you have to make sure you’re understanding both the purpose and the content of his or her message. Managers often want to know, “What am I supposed to say when…?” Here are responses managers can use to be involved without getting sucked into an emotional quagmire. •

“Let me make sure I’m understanding you correctly. What you’re saying is…”

•

“You’re really upset that…”

•

“How did it make you feel when…?”

•

“What you’re asking of me is to…”

•

“Try to imagine letting go of your anger and seeing things differently.”

•

“How do you see this working out?”

•

“Can you see some ways to improve the situation?”

•

“How would you like to see this get resolved?”

•

“What steps do you see that need to be taken?”

•

“What are you willing to do or give up in order to get this resolved?”

•

“How will you know when things are okay?”

These are examples of types of comments you might make or questions you might ask to make sure you understand what’s been said and to keep the conversation focused. 43

Communicating with Employees

Agitated people sometimes bring in side issues and broaden the discussion so that it then becomes unmanageable. Don’t try to manage the conversation, but be mindful that you do not have to be the dumping ground for a lot of unfocused rage. You can always say something like, “Slow down. There’s too much information for me to handle.” You can also say, “Let’s take a break so that you can compose yourself, and then we can continue.” Most of us are uncomfortable with excess emotions. If there is emotion that makes you uncomfortable or gets in the way of your hearing the message, you can always say, “Your anger is getting in the way of my hearing you,” or “I hear your anger, but not its cause. Can you calm down so that I can attend to what you’re upset about?” These examples are somewhat unusual. Most conversations with people will not involve much emotion. However, people might carefully construct what they say and give you helpful information, but you will have to break the code to understand it. For example, you might hear something like, “You know, with all this talk about layoffs and maybe the plant’s having to close, it’s hard for us to pay attention to the numbers.” That’s an opportunity for you to use the first response, “Let me make sure I’m understanding you correctly. What you’re saying is…” The words might come out like this: “What you’re telling me is that we’re going to miss our numbers this week?” If the employee responds with “Something like that,” you can then say, “I appreciate your giving me the heads-up. Is there something you think I should do?” Let’s say your worker says, “Nobody’s interests are going to be served if we give them an excuse for laying us off.” You can follow with, “You think it would be helpful if I can come 44

Listen ’til It Hurts

up with some sort of pep talk to get everyone refocused?” The reply might be, “Something like that.” People want to be helpful, but most will be careful not to tell their manager what to do. A manager who isn’t listening carefully might miss the hint in a conversation like the one above. We live in a sea of information, but most of it has no immediate value to us, so we keep our internal spam filters set on “fine.” This makes sense, except that it causes us to miss important messages or information from our employees and even our supervisors. Our own managers tend to pass information along in “code” that we might not figure out unless we’re paying attention. But in “yeah, yeah” mode, we only half hear what they’re saying. For example, suppose your boss knows that the senior executive is going to make a surprise visit, but he is sworn to secrecy. In your interest, he decides to fudge a bit, saying something like, “…and make sure everything’s ship-shape in your office this afternoon.” Missing that clue (Hmmm. Why is this afternoon important?) because you are so absorbed in your own thoughts is a lot like missing the blinking headlights of oncoming cars that warn of a speed trap ahead. Not paying attention gets you a stiff fine for speeding and points on your driving record. Pay attention! I once had a conversation with a woman whose story makes my point precisely. The woman, a divorcee, told me that she had been dating a man for several years who liked being married and wanted to marry her. She kept shrugging him off, saying that she was happy with things just the way they were. It seems that several weeks before we talked, she was with her friend on his 52-foot yacht out on Chesapeake Bay. She turned to him and asked, “What are we 45

Communicating with Employees

doing next weekend?” And he responded, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting married.” Relationships end and jobs end after a long trail of cautions and warnings that someone else chose to ignore or failed to address. A physician friend, a specialist in industrial medicine, told me that people just don’t drop dead in the elevator: There’s always a chain of behavior or physical clues, small and large, that no one paid much attention to that preceded the death. In the same way, many industrial accidents occur when managers fail to notice and address safety violations. Pay attention when people bring you information. Some of it will be of no particular value, but if you give such individuals your full attention, they’ll eventually come to you with a job-saving insight. In one such situation, the manager was tipped off by an employee whose conscience bothered him that technicians were double-billing their expenses. The boss listened, investigated, put a stop to the practices, developed new procedures, re-educated the technicians, reduced costs to clients, and used the problem to teach workers a valuable lesson in business ethics. Again and again, if you’re paying attention and you pick up on the clues, you’ll discover that the people you work with are a great reservoir of information. (By the way, you might want to look more closely at those expense reports.)

Look Closely Every organization needs fresh perspectives and occasionally re-tooling, but it is the employees themselves who are the best sources for ideas about new products and better ways to do more with less. A climate of trust is absolutely necessary if this idea generation is to happen, and that trust must be com46

Listen ’til It Hurts

municated top-down. When managers open the “trust channels,” a world of discovery is possible. In my work as a consultant, I have never “discovered” anything in a client organization that someone there didn’t already know. I usually pick up clues on my own, but as often as not, an employee with a conscience (or an agenda of their own) drops one of those “by the way” comments into an innocent conversation—just in case I’m paying attention. And I am! Paying attention can turn large problems into quick resolutions. Pay attention to people. Listen closely when they are speaking. Make them feel worthy of your undivided attention, and you will soon find yourself the beneficiary of a wellspring of information that can help you avoid a lawsuit or similar disaster. Instead of blowing the whistle when something unseemly is going on, they are more likely to go to you with the problem first. There are all kinds of reasons for paying attention, and some are not about honoring employees or relationships. But for a manager to succeed with his or her people, the attention paid must be directed toward the success of employees and the work they do. That kind of focused attention is the basis for integrity in those relationships.

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How do you signal integrity when you are listening to and attending to people? Here are some ways: Listening and Attending Tips • • • • • •

Make direct eye contact with the speaker. Nod if you understand what they are saying. Ignore distractions. Ask short clarifying questions. Thank them for their information. Never look at your watch.

If you do all these things, you won’t have to ask employees to bring you more information (which, in a way, would be like asking them to become a snitch). They will come back when circumstances compel them to do so if you respond to them and to the information they bring in a positive and respectful manner. What is your threshold of attention? Is it set so high that you miss clues? Are you able to stop what you’re doing, lower your barrier, and pay attention when people are speaking to you? You might not do this as well as you could or as often as you should—most of us don’t. If you’re a guy, no doubt one or more women in your life has said, “You aren’t listening to me!” (and she was probably right). Differences in the way men and women communicate are not normal topics in management books, but the true story I’m about to tell you is so close to the point that it would be silly to exclude it.

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A 40-year-old Swede and a 62-year-old Canadian each told me what they learned about communicating with women. Strangely enough, they didn’t know each other, but told me essentially the same thing: You have to listen to women. Pay attention to them. You have to listen intently and maintain eye contact, and lean forward into the conversation like it’s the most important thing you’ve heard all day. If you’re interrupted, you have to restart the conversation by prompting them with the last three words they said. Keep them talking and ask leading questions. Make supportive comments like Wow! or That’s wonderful! or That’s amazing! And always ask, “And then what happened?” You know what? Women find all this irresistible, because most guys don’t really pay attention to them as people with interesting stories to tell. And they appreciate it. I suspect women have always understood this, because when they want to get a man’s attention, they know that nothing feeds his ego like rapt attention. Real listening is a powerful communicative process, whether you’re in a work setting or a social setting. Pay attention.

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Chapter 5 Giving Clear Information

T

he primary purpose for communicating clearly and providing information to subordinates is to obtain compliance, performance, and results. Strong interpersonal bonds between bosses and workers provide opportunities to turn every assignment into a learning opportunity. This is the surest way to get increasingly precise performance. Business is all about the numbers. We know how many sales calls are required to make each sale, what percentage of new sales can be turned into repeat business, and what has to be done to make that happen. That kind of information, multiplied hundreds of times, tells us what needs to be done, by whom, and how often. As a manager down in the ranks, you probably don’t get the entire picture all at once—it might get doled out to you a week or a month at a time. Your job is to convey that information in a credible way and to make sure your people comply. If they don’t, there’s going to be a shortfall in projections, and you might just lose your job. Without frills and flourishes, and without too much exaggeration, that’s what giving clear information is all about. Years ago, when we were still teaching people how to understand the pyramidal organization structure, we talked about linking pins: every manager was linked to senior managers above and to subordinate managers or supervisors below. What made the linkages work? Effective communication—a kind of each-one-tell-one cascade down the hierarchical chain. That sort of worked in the days when fax machines 51

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were cutting-edge technology, but today, old control structures have to yield to the booming knowledge culture. We are hired and paid to think as well as to perform a narrow range of tasks, and communicating clearly is part of the picture. Managing the communication that has to happen with knowledge workers will call for a lot more than just giving orders. The order-giving culture is mostly gone. It’s being edged out by a more complex organizational culture based on knowledge and on two resulting realities: 1. People are increasingly being hired for their knowledge more than their skill in manipulating tools. 2. In an environment full of knowledgeable people, heavy-handed management cannot co-exist with the imperative to turn that collective knowledge into cost-competitive products. More and more, communication is a tool for gaining collaboration, not just compliance, and for inviting talented individuals into peer/colleague relationships. In his book Managing the Knowledge Culture, Philip Harris explains that the real challenge for managers today is to help their organizations make the necessary transformation into learning organizations. When that happens, solutions to problems are incorporated into existing procedures and processes, thus making the organization increasingly effective as it “learns” to refine its standard operating procedures. Such progressions in performance must be supported by equivalent advances in the effectiveness of communication throughout the organization, but most particularly among managers and their knowledge workers.

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A Focus on Outcomes The manager’s role is to communicate desired outcomes and figure out the best way to achieve them. That discovery process means assessing what we learned the last time we did this kind of work, how the process or technology has changed, and what may have changed in the customer’s expectations. Managers begin this discovery process by asking the question that energizes knowledge workers: “How do you think we ought to proceed?” In the old days, everyone assumed that only the manager knew everything. But in the new knowledge culture, everyone knows everything, down to costs and expected revenues. Instead of telling workers only what the leadership wants them to know, the manager must lead a discovery and decision-making process. All the old rules about how to get a message from your head into the head of each worker are now obsolete. Back then, effective communicators were expected to wait for feedback that confirmed this understanding. That led to a most disagreeable communication style used by IBM and others in which about every minute or every two sentences, the speaker would pause and look at his audience and say, “Okay?” As often as not, this came across as condescending and was a turn-off for listeners. Many of today’s workers are exceptionally gifted. And none of them are dull! They want to participate. They want to contribute. They want to help shape the decisions that affect them. Your challenge is to deal them in and keep the game moving. Maybe you begin by saying something like:

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“Here’s the word from our VP. We need to have 313 units on the shipping dock, ready to load into the client’s truck, two weeks from Friday at 5:00 p.m. That’s 17 days from now. The last large order we filled was for 275 units, and that took us 15 working days. We can work overtime and weekends if we have to, but that’s going to cut into the margin and make the expected 13 percent profit hard to achieve. What’s the best way to tackle this beast?” How’s that for communicating clearly? Everyone knows everything except how to make it happen, and that’s going to be negotiated in a hot and fast brainstorming session. If alternative plans to tackle the beast evolve, the manager can let two teams develop plans and present them. Then everyone can get together and decide which one (or a combination of the two) they will implement. Participative management is based on the belief that the people who do the work always know how to get the work done at least as well as the manager, and that the work will get done better, faster, and cheaper if the people involved implement a plan they developed, instead of one that’s imposed on them. This idea has been around for nearly fifty years, and maybe it’s finally time for its promise to be realized. Focus and energize the resources at your disposal. The powerful model presented below requires high levels of participation and a sharp turn away from the idea of “need to know” as a basis for limiting access to information.

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Participative Management: A 13-Step Model 1. Start at the end and work back. 2. Set the vision (“313 units on the loading dock at 5:00 p.m., 17 days from now”). 3. Present necessary comparative data (“275 units in 15 working days”). 4. State other constraints (“13 percent profit”). 5. Ask for questions. 6. Create an action plan together.

If this communication model seems sparse, it is intentionally so. Most people (including managers) talk too much. They seem to love being on stage, having their time in the limelight. They mix small talk and smart remarks with the main message, as though they’re apologizing for giving you a tough assignment. Worse, maybe, they tell old jokes, bad jokes, or reminiscences that begin, “This reminds me of the time…” So, we offer a few other guidelines:

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Participative Management: A 13-Step Model (continued) 7. Stay on message. Don’t talk about anything else until you have achieved resolution (a go-ahead plan, in this case). 8. Cut off anyone who starts to take the group’s focus away from the task (“Not now, Shorty. We can talk about that later.”). 9. Write on a flipchart or chalkboard what has been agreed to so that everyone can see and confirm that what is on the board is what has been decided. 10. Declare a start time (you might have to identify which ongoing tasks will be suspended). 11. Provide some checkpoints or milestones when progress will be assessed. Add it to the flipchart. 12. If specific individuals will be in key roles different from their usual assignments, add their names to the flipchart. 13. Copy the information from the flipchart and distribute it to all involved.

Even in a paperless office, there are some things that should be distributed on hard copy. And though it’s not on the “to do” list for communicating clearly, it’s always a good practice to let people know that there will be an appreciation event if the task is completed as planned.

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In all things and in all ways, if you make it easy for your people to know what the right thing to do is, they will probably do the right things. Anytime cooperation is evident, comment on it with appreciation. (Reward the behavior you want!) My bias is to err on the side of giving too much information rather than too little. People might not be told about expected profit where you work, but why shouldn’t they know? What is it that you must keep secret? Secrets create suspicions that cloud every attempt to communicate clearly. If workers don’t know about profit margins, what else don’t they know? What would they like to know? Do you know? Have “they” told you? Have you asked them? Sharing information only on a “need to know” basis is divisive. It communicates as clearly to workers as anything else I know that You ain’t nobody. If that message is playing on the corporate grapevine, it will be louder than anything you can say.

Be Clear About Your Messages The key to being an effective communicator is to have integrity in all your employee relationships and show that you are an honest and forthcoming individual who is invested in their success. The two questions an effective communicator must ask are: 1. What do I want my people to know and do? 2. How do I want them to feel? Your demeanor influences both outcomes.

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No matter what corporate policy you’re working under, you still have an opportunity to get a “good guy” rating from your people, who will probably give you the benefit of the doubt. Remember, you’re communicating with them on two levels: as an individual and a colleague, and as their manager. As an individual, you want a relationship that has integrity, don’t you? If so, tell them the truth. In return, they should respect the limits that are imposed on you regarding information coming from your manager. Your people have their own channels of information and will probably know when you’re withholding information. That’s okay—just say something like, “Cut me some slack, guys. I’ve told you what I can.” By all means, you must level with them if you want to win their trust and respect. You must also be able to communicate clearly as their manager—you are, after all, one of the important links in the chain. Communicate corporate information and current assignments clearly, providing as much background information as possible. Name the clients who use your group’s products or services, the amount of work in backlog, and any news of “adjustments” in other parts of the organization that might affect their jobs. If you provide people with legitimate and timely information, you keep the rumor mill from grinding. If rumors have more potency than the facts you’ve provided, you’ll have a communications problem for sure. But suppose you’re in the happy position of working for an organization that’s still hiring and still growing, and job security is not an immediate issue? Figure out what you want people to know and how you want them to feel. It’s the words and music thing again: Do the words you’re using sound right and feel right? Remember, your attitude and behavior is more important than the words. If you want optimism, you have to 58

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project optimism. If you want excitement, you have to project excitement. If you want thoughtful consideration of a situation that needs to be resolved, your tone and manner must project seriousness (no jokes or happy faces). You have to do what an actor does to “get into” the character and the situation. I was scheduled to be the first guest on a television show some years back, and the host and I were talking informally several minutes before airtime. When we got the ten-second signal before the cameras went live, the host suddenly began hyperventilating and moving his facial muscles in a way that made me think he was having a stroke. But as the countdown ended, the host smiled into the camera and said, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen” in a voice that was entirely different from the one he had been using to chat with me. His face was transformed, and he was radiating energy. Honestly, I was so surprised that I almost muffed my only scripted line, “Good evening to you, Frank.” I’ve seen that immediate shift into character many times since then and have used it myself on occasion because it works. You do have to be an actor to be an effective communicator, and you are one whether or not you acknowledge it. You’re playing a role called manager, and if you can’t get into the role and play it convincingly, there’s an understudy in the wings waiting to take it away from you. I know I’m presenting what looks to be conflicting information. One of the things we look for in the people we grow to trust is consistency and congruence; we want the person at 10:00 a.m. with coffee in hand to be the same person at 10:00 p.m. with a mug of beer: the same values, and the same courtesy and respect. (After-hours get-togethers allow you to see consistency or inconsistency.) Prove yourself consistent; 59

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make sure your behavior is congruent in different situations, and people will have a better sense of who you are. This will give your communications carrying power and clarity. Remember that you’re always on duty as a model of the attitudes and behaviors you want from your employees. There should not be any vulgarity in your words or behavior, or any other red flags that your values are not what you say they are.

Make Notes A final chapter note about communicating with employees: Don’t count on remembering everything you need to say! Few things are more awkward and embarrassing than adjourning a meeting and remembering that you left out the most important thing. The participants walking out the door aren’t going to be very impressed with your organizational skills. Take some time beforehand to make sure you cover everything: 1. Make notes about what you want people to hear or read. 2. Check reports or letters against your notes. 3. If you’re chairing a meeting, convert those notes into an agenda that you can circulate in advance. Post it on a flipchart taped to the wall behind you. 4. If you’re speaking informally, there’s nothing wrong with having key points, in descending order of importance, typed onto a small card you can hold in your hand.

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5. Keep it short and simple. Everyone appreciates brevity, and it’s less likely that you will be misunderstood if you stick to the main points. Pay attention to how you will come across. Prepare, do some careful “packaging” of the medium (you), and be considerate of the people you’re trying to reach. This sounds like common sense and courtesy, and it is—but if these things are so common, why is there a need for books like this? To be effective in any leadership role, focus on your presentation of yourself and your message. That might call for a bit of acting. Actors follow scripts and managers follow carefully constructed notes. Don’t be careless. Study your lines, and deliver them with the intent to see something happen as a result of your efforts. The other half of effective communication is getting clear, unbiased information. That is the subject of the next chapter.

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Chapter 6 Everyone Has a Point of View

I

magine that you’re wearing a heavily padded motorcycle helmet with a face plate that protects and hides your face so you look like something menacing from another planet. All sight and sound get distorted inbound, as does everything you say to others. Actually, you’re already wearing something that distorts all incoming messages and distorts what you are trying to communicate as well. I call it your “point of view”—others think of it as a frame of reference or a perspective. You do have a point of view, you know—perhaps several, all closely linked. Are you a Republican? A Democrat? A feminist? A right-to-lifer? A Baptist? A Catholic? A Fundamentalist? An agnostic? A Christian Scientist? A parent? A manager? Each of these philosophical or political affiliations implies a point of view or set of filters that converts inbound messages to okay or not okay, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, my thoughts exactly, or lies and distortions. And more to the point, every message you convey to others is colored by your convictions and “truth.” Every message you receive—personal, professional, or commercial—carries or advocates a point of view. Your “truth” in all of this is shaped by your point of view. Who makes the best pickup truck, Ford or Chevy? Are Japanese cars more reliable than German cars? Some of them? What’s your evidence—the base from which you’ve 63

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drawn your data? (There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians.) Tell me what you want to find that fits your point of view and I can guarantee that we can conjure up a scheme to provide the evidence or argument you want. All of us have points of view about issues that are important to us. We need to realize that no information comes to us without some degree of bias. (That’s one of the values of numeric data—it’s harder to manipulate to reflect a specific point of view.) When the medical evidence against smoking became too overwhelming to refute, the tobacco industry in the United States moved away from trying to debate so many world-class experts and began to argue that intelligent people in a democracy ought to have a choice about whether or not they smoked. They didn’t refute the clinical data, but simply shifted their perspective in favor of personal freedom and individual choice, which are a lot harder to attack than statistics. It’s a challenge getting the unbiased truth you think you want from an organization so that you can make decisions. We will not discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin in this chapter, but I hope to show how corporate presentations that are supposedly based on “facts” are not always so.

The Big Lie Much of what we do is done to perpetuate the norms within our groups and preserve the image of how things are—even if the image is false and everyone knows it. One of the most difficult challenges for managers is to see “the big lie” and operate effectively around it. 64

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I attended public schools in North Carolina and earned degrees from three reputable universities. Along the way, I became convinced that the United States truly is the land of the free and the home of the brave, where truth and justice prevail. Yet as life “happened” to me, I began to see and hear things that didn’t fit into that “motherhood and apple pie” picture: I found out that there were individuals who spent years in prison, wrongly convicted of crimes, until someone went after DNA evidence that proved their innocence. Police officers started talking about the “drop guns” they carry in case they shoot an unarmed person. The famous bread that supposedly contained healthy fiber turned out to contain wood cellulose. And so on. You see and hear the same things, and maybe you, too, say “Isn’t that awful!” But do you think it’s really any different in your community or in your corporation? Some years ago, a colleague and I did some training in the Marine Corps’ correctional system. An interesting statistic emerged: Most of the young marines who ended up in the brig had been recruited in the last three days of the month. Coincidence? Think about the possibility that the recruiters knew they weren’t going to meet their monthly quota unless they ignored the standards and basically rounded up warm bodies to meet the quota. Is that practice bad? Or is it just human to subvert standards to avoid failure? The kids in the brig prove the validity of the standards that were ignored. What do people in your business do when they know they’re about to miss their quotas? How are overruns on projects covered? How are “bad numbers” explained, and how is blame assessed? These are important questions. The answers determine, in large measure, the reliability of the information in the database that you use to make decisions, along with 65

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information from the people who contaminate the database (some of whom will be quite senior). Sometimes such irregularities are known, but go unreported because the individuals responsible have political clout within the organization. A manager with whom I did not often work once warned me to be careful because I was getting a “reputation.” “Being right is not the most important thing around here,” he told me. “The stuff you’re uncovering could cost you your job.” Sometimes distorted points of view prevail.

Impediments to Getting Clear Information Once managers understand that points of view distort the information we get, they must learn how to ask for information that responds to those realities. That means being specific about what you want to know and knowing the system well enough to know where the data can be found. Still, telling the truth isn’t always the best strategy—a sad political reality. When you are trying to get clear and accurate information, be sure that the people with whom you’re speaking understand what you are saying or asking for. Use words that have a common meaning, and let them ask questions. Then make it possible for people to answer in quite specific terms. Here’s what I mean: Alfred Fleishman, one of the masters of general semantics and co-founder of a public relations firm, told about a young black soldier in Vietnam who was asked, “How are you being treated over here?” The soldier thought for a moment before responding with questions of his own. “Are you talking about treatment by generals? By sergeants? By other black soldiers? By white soldiers? By the Vietnamese? How can I answer such a question?” 66

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Fleishman’s point was that the answer made more sense than the question. I include this story because the question about how the soldier was being treated is like so many questions asked in corporate settings and by television interviewers: they’re looking for feel-good talk without any substance. Of course, the interviewee is often aware of the point of view he/she must present as a corporate-type, and the TV interviewer will probably play to the station’s point of view to get approval and more time on camera. It’s like so many interviews with athletes: “Yes, the season’s off to a good start. I’m glad to be here to support these other fine players, and the fans have been just outstanding.” No one wants to hear a jock make critical comments about coaches or other players, nor any negative comments about fans or their behavior. But in business, you have to hear those critical comments. Too much is at stake. Let’s say you’re looking into cost overruns. You decide to assign someone to gather the information, saying something like this: “Three projects (name them) were late being completed, but no cost overruns were reported. I want you to find the actual costs, where the additional money came from, and how the funds transfer or cover-up was managed.” If the amount of re-work on the night shift is greater than it is on the day shift, you should be able to get some numbers and some reasons, as well as means by which the performance problem can be clarified or corrected. Essentially, that means asking questions about the precise types of re-work and their causes, the competence level of each of the workers, and any other differentials that have been acceptable in the past. One savvy manager of a three-shift production plant improved performance dramatically and reduced the threat of unionization by getting all employees, including managers 67

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and staff, to work rotating shifts. That way, no one could attribute the problem to competence differentials or other performance variables that were a function of shifts. If you want clear information (and you had better want this), you will have to ask questions that force people to give specifics, rather than generalities that are contrived to appeal to a particular bias. What does the plant manager want? Good news! What are workers going to say when asked how things are going? What does the boss want to hear? Everything’s fine. Well, that’s the message the boss will get, unless he or she has made it crystal clear that managers want the bad news so that they can solve problems before they become expensive.

Above All, You Must Not Be Defensive The more strongly you hold a point of view, the more likely you are to be defensive if it is challenged. How well do you hear another person whose point of view is contrary to your own or contrary to the corporate storyline or deeply held beliefs? Why is it so hard for us to accept criticism regarding an idea or suggestion? It’s not criticism of us, as diligent, responsible individuals. Irving J. Lee, author of the book How to Talk with People, believes that we have not been taught that we are not our ideas and our ideas are not who we are. When we get an idea, however, we tend to embellish it with further thinking and put it into words. That idea becomes an extension of ourselves, and when our brainstorm or belief is challenged, we sometimes respond as if it’s an attack on one of our children or on our deepest self. Understandably, that provokes a defensive, hostile response. 68

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Understand that defensiveness is really a performance problem that affects everyone. If you want to create an effective work group, you have to first break down the mistrust of individuals and their motives, and clear the air of any punitive overtones. But understanding the causes of defensiveness does not make it any easier to walk into a wall of flack in order to pass along important information to a higher-up. At some point, smart people decide that being a contributor is not worth the punishment that’s liable to ensue. How do you receive disconfirming news? Do people regret or feel punished after telling you things you don’t want to hear? Are you too protective of your proposals and ideas? Can you put forward ideas for consideration without “owning” them in a discussion-limiting way? Do you feel tinges of resentment or anger when your proposals are shot down? If your answer to any of these questions is yes or sometimes, there’s a good chance that you’re putting up your own barriers to getting clear, undistorted, and helpful information. Further, you’re creating distance between yourself and your staff, which makes effective teamwork practically impossible. One way to become less defensive is to ask your most responsible staff members to observe your behavior in meetings and give you honest feedback. Ask your spouse, friends, and siblings if they think you are defensive. Check it out. What you do at work is not likely to be that different from what your nearest and dearest see.

Critical Reading and Listening Do not buy into any packaged information until you look at it with a healthy dose of skepticism.

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Be skeptical! Ask… 1. Who originated the data? Who authorized its collection? Who benefits from recommended actions? Who will be disadvantaged if the data or recommendations are acted on? 2. Where did the data come from (sources, individuals, organizational representatives who are the spokespersons, etc.)? What is their bias or perspective? (Note: Any information from trade or professional organizations is liable to be biased in favor of what will benefit members, as are commercial promotions for products.) 3. How was the data collection done? What issue is being served? Who made the original complaint or proposal that something else be done? 4. What does it mean? Statistics, numbers, and data have no meaning outside a specific context. Births and deaths per 100,000 persons are just numbers, until they are put in the context of a specific story. Cost overruns may not be significant in themselves; the real issue might be incompetent estimating, or estimates based on flawed data.

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The what might be less important than the how and the why. If you emphasize the what, you will put a lot of time and money into controls that will not matter. The adage “penny wise and pound foolish” makes that point. (Time cards that must be punched by a time-and-date stamp machine as employees enter and leave the workplace suggest that measuring time is considered the most important cost control. How naïve authoritarians sometimes are!) Bring in someone objective. No strategy is infallible. If you think you have a persistent problem that you can’t get a handle on and you know that it matters enough to justify spending the money to get it resolved, consider hiring a consultant. What kind, what company, what processes will be employed, and what costs are other considerations.

A Strategy for Problem Identification One problem-identification strategy has always worked for me. It consists of only four steps, which we will explain in this section. The strategy is a proven means of getting unbiased information, even in adverse circumstances. Communication among managers and their staffs cannot be constructive until factual information is the subject (not personalities) and the information itself is accurate and trusted. It is a safe way for non-supervisory personnel to speak up—to give managers problem-solving information from the dark corners of the organization. Here are the steps: Step 1: Conduct interviews. One of my favorite consulting strategies (because it never fails to produce results) is to collect data through interviews with employees. I give a set of questions derived from preliminary interviews with the client 71

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to a random sample of people from the population to be interviewed. The client’s goals are not always focused. Sometimes their concerns are as vague as employee morale, and sometimes they are as specific as failing repeatedly to meet deadlines everyone knows about. When the client has taken his/her best shot at defining the information they are willing to pay to get, take that information and begin asking questions of people the client has selected (usually people who reflect the client’s concerns and point of view). The goal is to get enough semantic handles on the issue in the lingo of the work and the company to craft a questionnaire that elicits useful responses (that is, so it communicates). Those initial interviews often give you clues as to how to shape the final questionnaire (providing you’re really paying attention). I prefer to ask direct questions in those initial interviews, and I ask everyone the same things. Sample Questions for Data-Collection Interviews 1. Your boss is unhappy with results. Why does he/she keep getting disappointed? 2. Why do you think he/she can’t get desired results? 3. If you were the consultant, what would you tell the boss? 4. I’m probably going to interview 40 or 50 people. What do you think I will find? 5. In this kind of circumstance or situation, there’s usually someone or some group at fault. Who would you nominate?

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Each time I use this methodology, I am more convinced that the 20/80 rule works: 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. There’s usually about one person in five who knows where the gold is buried and has enough of a conscience to drop a clue or two, so conduct these preliminary interviews with great care. If you think you hear a clue, respond with a follow-up question such as: “Let me make sure I got this correctly. You said you would start in the alignment shop?” Don’t be surprised or persistent if you hear “something like that” or you pick up a physical signal that the individual isn’t going to give you a real answer. Few people want to be too explicit. With this bit of oral history under your belt, it’s time to do a walkabout to put names and places together, meet some people, and see how you’re being received. Then you can retire to a quiet place and formulate your real questions. I can’t tell you how to do that, but you will find three actual questionnaires appended at the back of this guide to give you ideas. The point is to get opinions and perceptions; avoid any question that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Step 2: Collect information. It is now time to develop your questionnaire. Start with a broad, almost generic question, and let each subsequent question move closer to the core question, which might be “Why do you think so many of your colleagues say there’s a morale problem in this division? And why do so many people say they are profoundly unhappy in their jobs?” The next-to-last question might then be, “What would you recommend that the director do? That is, what steps should she take to turn this situation around?” And the last request might be, “Please describe your level of optimism 73

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about the possibility that this organization can turn itself around, and why you feel that way.” This is tough work, but some questions will come easier than others. In your preliminary interviews, you might ask only two or three questions; at this point, aim for a dozen or more. Ask enough questions to cover the subject, but not so many that the content of the responses gets watered down and your interviewees get bored. When an interviewee adds some extra information that you didn’t expect, do express appreciation. Say something like, “Thanks! That’s really useful information.” Like any other communicative process, the quality of the content is enhanced by your energy and by affirming your respect for the person you’re interviewing. You want interviewees to feel good about their participation in the process and to say good things about it to those who are yet to be interviewed. So more than being polite, be pleasant with each interviewee. You’re both part of a process leading to progress! And a last word on that: When you start interviewing, no one sees the data until you turn it over to your client with copies for each participant (or, in the case of a really large product, with sufficient copies to be circulated among participants so everyone gets to see the result of their contribution). Be sure to test the questionnaire to make sure the questions produce substantive information. Test them on employees not involved in your original interviews and who are in comparable roles as those in the interview population. When you’ve proved the reliability of the questionnaire, think about how you record responses. I have used three different modes of capturing data that might prove to be effective for you as well. Tape entire interviews and transcribe later; paraphrase the interviewee’s 74

Everyone Has a Point of View

statement into the tape recorder and ask interviewees if you captured their response correctly; or type condensed and paraphrased answers and read them back to interviewees for their concurrence. Modes two and three are preferred, because they give interviewees control over their input into the data-collection process. Also, the editing that occurs in the paraphrasing provides some consistency in the tone and length of the responses, making for easier reading when your report is published. Step 3: Conduct the interview. When the interviewee arrives, I stand to greet him or her as you would do for a job interview. I ask the individual to be seated in the chair opposite to mine (with no desk or other barrier between us). Then I state my name and briefly outline what the interview is about (though most will already know). Then I hand the individual a copy of the interview questions and ask them to review the questions, assuring them that the questions are the same ones to be asked of all interviewees. When the interviewee has looked over the questions, I ask the first question. I keep a notepad on an adjacent table for notes, but I mostly maintain eye contact with the interviewee. For speed and convenience, I then dictate into the tape recorder a condensed version of what I heard. I stop the tape and ask the interviewee if he or she accepts my edited version. If he or she disagrees, I rewind the tape and repeat the edited version with their corrections included. When they concur, I thank them for their cooperation, stand and shake hands again, and end the interview. I prefer to type the response and read it back to them because I hate spending hours transcribing interviews, and I don’t like to farm out the transcribing because I am responsible for its accuracy. 75

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I record the group’s responses in the order in which I hear them: the responses of the first person I interview will be the first presented for question #1 and for each subsequent question (though sometimes it’s necessary to change the order in which I meet interviewees to ensure their anonymity). When each interviewee reads their personal copy of the final report and they find their answer to question #1 in the 13th place, all their other responses will be in the 13th place. When interviewees see that their input has been recorded accurately, they will have no reason to doubt that all the other responses have been honestly reported. This is so important—the integrity of the process is your first responsibility, and if everyone involved respects the processes and your work, it makes it easier for them to accept the report and the recommendations it presents. Is an external consultant required? Not necessarily. Just use someone with appropriate skills from another division (or perhaps a graduate student from a local university) for the data collection—someone who has no opinion and no bias concerning the issue being investigated. If you have a perspective or bias that makes it difficult to keep your opinions out of the interview process, you will contaminate the process. Also, if you as manager conduct the interviews, people might fear retribution and thus shape their answers to avoid being accused of too much candor or being the bearer of bad news. Step 4: Interpret the information. If your questions worked and you paid attention to the nonverbal as well as the verbal responses, you should see some definite patterns emerging by the time you’ve completed one-third of the interviews. See which questions people try to avoid and which ones they 76

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answer most easily. I think it’s appropriate to provide prompts for difficult questions when interviewees are struggling to find the right words (as long as the prompts do not drive the individual to say what you want to hear). In all ways and at all times, maintain the integrity of the process: You develop the questions, you record their answers, and you make sense out of what they said (but always coming from their input, not your perspective or bias). Writing at this level of abstraction, I find it somewhat difficult to describe how to arrive at some conclusions and recommendations. I’m not moved by statistics beyond those that are easily understood, such as “75 percent of participants agreed” or “Only 21 percent were willing to respond in detail to question #9.” All those comments and hours of interviews tell a story. The artistry in this process is in unraveling the threads and presenting your client with clear information that points to the solution of a problem. Actually, you might not even be the best person to frame the situation or present your findings. The people who write many corporate proposals nowadays are the ones who can understand the technical work and translate it for a general audience. Smart managers match abilities and competence with the situational need. And speaking of solutions, don’t exceed your charter. Many times, there will be several possible solutions that can only be properly assessed by the leaders. I was asked to help a large technical-consulting firm that was self-destructing. My interview data clearly showed that two of the principals were locked in a pattern of continuing and escalating conflict. There seemed to be at least five almost-obvious choices: (1) Force an agreement between the antagonists and continue to build the company. (2) Fire one of the antagonists and take 77

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the company into a safe-but-reduced market. (3) Fire the other antagonist, who would likely take talented staff with him to form a competitive enterprise. (4) Fire both of them, sustain some personnel losses, hire new managers, and try to recover. (5) Close the company. Those were political and economic decisions that had to be made by the company’s owners, long-term clients, and key staff, so I concluded my report by pointing out those options and advocating none of them. In fact, I don’t recall ever hearing which option they chose, if any, but the client was satisfied that I had clarified the issue and reduced the internal pressure that had been building up. It is important to the integrity of the process and the person driving it for the data collector to stay within a narrow charter “to discover and report,” and to avoid suggesting remedial actions (unless explicitly directed to do so). When the data collector also makes the remedial recommendations, he or she might be accused of being biased. And now a word about competing points of view within a corporate structure that affect people across the organization or that have to do, say, with the organization’s direction: They can become opposing positions in a conflict. If that is the case, it’s necessary to deal with the specific issues, rather than with the individuals holding the points of view. When we invest ourselves and our ego into what we think is right or good, we make a mental commitment to that position, and it is extremely difficult to break through the glue that holds together our identity and firm beliefs. In one company I am familiar with, the people who were doing or advocating for new and bold things had the most political power. Opponents held that the risks to acting on these new ideas were greater than the rewards. When the 78

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problem was framed in terms of how to protect the existing business and the customer base from aggressive competition, it was no longer a matter of personal ego—it was about corporate direction. Points of view that are the same or similar can be the basis for coalitions, but that unity can be broken if a point of view is introduced that serves the interests of others. That is the important thing to remember about points of view: They can be changed!

Find a Workable Middle Ground Being able to find a middle ground between two or more strong points of view is one of the most important communication skills, and it is only possible if you listen with acute attention to the words and feelings of both parties so that you can identify the points of common interest that are always there. Those common points will be acknowledged as valid by both parties only when each person is convinced that you have heard them accurately and can restate their key concerns. Then it makes sense to find agenda items on which all can agree and put competing groups to work on common objectives, rather than probing too deeply into causes. You can sometimes create situations in which people who are antagonists have to work together. Eventually they’ll conclude that they might have been wrong in their antagonism. Take a more-direct approach: Call such people together and confront them about how they’re affecting the organization with the signals they send out and the “spin” they put on things. In one work situation, I learned that someone who should have been a colleague actually disliked me. I arranged for her to attend a conference with me (to which she would not normally have 79

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been invited). After sitting thigh-to-thigh on cross-country round-trip flights and working together at the conference, we established a rapport and a friendship of sorts. I never knew what caused her to dislike me initially (though I suspected it was a reflection of her manager’s point of view), but once she got to see things for herself, it really didn’t matter. We hold on to points of view by choice because they support a larger world view or perspective on life, race, sex, politics, etc. We as humans withhold information from others or avoid interacting with them for a myriad of reasons (usually biased ones): This person is… • • • • • •

Too beautiful, too fat, too well dressed; A feminist, a male chauvinist pig, or gay; Religious, agnostic, or irreverent; Better educated than me, or stupid; A friend of someone I hate, or in a hateful relationship with someone I like; Too old to be relevant or too young to be considered responsible; and so on.

Negative or antagonistic relationships interfere with our ability to sift out the useless information from the clear and unbiased information. From time to time, all of us are guilty of such professional indiscretion, but eventually we learn to detect the signs of imminent pettiness, and override the impulse.

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Everyone has a perspective or bias or point of view. Sometimes it defines us, but it always influences our behavior. Sometimes we forget that we have biases and are convinced that what we’re seeing and saying is the truth. The results are often funny, but sometimes a bias has tragic consequences. Pay attention. Don’t let your own bias drive you off your career path.

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Chapter 7 Communicating: Improving Your Performance

S

o far in this guide we’ve covered basic points about listening, giving clear information, and getting clear information. But there’s so much more to communicating than we can ever cover in a single volume. Still, I would like to use this closing chapter to present some ideas about how you can be more effective as a manager and as an individual. Suppose you attend a work-related seminar and the presenter uses humor to communicate helpful information in bite-sized increments and distributes a handout to help you remember. Does it seem like a spontaneous presentation? Or do you think that it is the result of hundreds of hours of preparation? What’s behind the sales pitch delivered by a wellgroomed man or woman concerning a new bit of technology that’s supposed to help you and your colleagues be more competitive? Or the slick presentations created by professional copywriters for food supplements or exercise machines that have been “tested with focus groups”? Even the enthusiasm and friendliness of the “chef” at a county fair who demonstrates inexpensive kitchen implements that chop, slice, and shred is scripted. So much of the unsolicited communication that inundates us is slick and seductive. It’s peppered with carefully chosen key words and phrases to snag our attention out of the clutter of competing messages. Like it or not, “slick” has become commonplace; even your employees judge your performance 83

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and your words against the de facto standard of television presenters and personalities. Communicating with your employees is without a doubt the most important part of your job. It can make or break careers, so do what you have to do to improve your skills in this critical competency area. There are three areas on which to focus: 1. Learn how to speak extemporaneously (but intelligently). Eliminate annoying speech habits (i.e., the “uhhs” and “you see what I’m saying”) and the other fillers you’ve learned to use when you’re not sure what to say next. 2. Brief yourself daily on the status of all work and projects for which you are responsible. Then, if you are asked in a formal or informal setting how things are going, you can respond immediately and provide verifiable information. That’s impressive! 3. Acquire basic presentation skills. Work on posture, hand gestures, ways to use handouts and projected images, and speech modulation (so people in the back of the room can hear you), and learn how to use microphones and other presentation devices. Stage fright is common, but it’s never attractive, and fumbling with equipment suggests lack of preparation or inexperience. Both of these things leave negative impressions that will limit your credibility. Being credible is perhaps the most important attribute a communicator can have.

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Tools and Techniques Your ability to communicate effectively with employees can’t be developed on company time. It’s your responsibility, and you will have to work at it constantly. How will you begin to respond? Here are my suggestions: 1. Search out training programs in communication on the Web, regardless of your professional or technical discipline. You might not be able to participate in expensive programs held in distant cities, but at least you can see that support is available for people just like you. 2. Once you’ve sorted out what kinds of training experiences you want or need, search out opportunities in your community or nearby cities. Community agencies, community colleges, religious organizations, the YMCA (the first organizations focusing on adult education), the Red Cross, and other volunteer organizations offer programs and experiences at nominal cost, as do service organizations (sales, marketing, civic groups, etc.). Any kind of training will help you in some way, even if the sponsoring group isn’t an exact match for your needs. 3. There are personal coaches and tutors who can conduct private sessions to address your specific problem, sometimes quite reasonably. To reduce costs, get colleagues to sign up, too. This kind of personalized experience might be the quickest path to skill acquisition.

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4. Check out current books, videotapes, audiotapes, and DVDs on the subject of communication and other management topics. However, they are likely to be more useful if you can discuss the material with colleagues. In fact, learning to communicate more effectively is best accomplished with others. It’s not really a solo activity, because effective communication is always based on a relationship (check out the concept of relationship selling). Now let’s look at the way you presently communicate with your employees. It’s important for you to clearly understand what your role is. Are you reporting, or are you advising? Are you a dispassionate observer, or an advocate? Many new managers trip themselves up over this kind of role confusion. Senior managers expect a new manager to observe and listen, rather than exceed their charter by offering unsolicited advice. When you are discussing an operational problem with your own staff, what is your perception of the relationships in the room? Are you the boss or the authority? Are you there as a consultant or facilitator, trying to get information from those who are closest to the work? Are you experimenting with participation, perhaps trying to convince your people that they are free to contribute? These distinctions matter, because they will necessarily shape the way you interact with others. When we unexpectedly slip out of our role (which we all do), the person with whom we’re talking is caught off guard. It’s as though we changed the subject on them in mid-sentence. When we change our behavior all of a sudden, there is bound to be some confusion. Indeed, what we look for in others is 86

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congruence in behavior. This is a basis for trust and loyalty. We should be the same person at 10:00 a.m. with coffee in hand as we are at 10:00 p.m. with beer in hand, projecting and respecting the same values. Until we know for sure that the other person is 100 percent authentic 100 percent of the time, it’s only normal to hold back. Accordingly, anything you can learn about yourself and about how to use yourself as a goal-directed instrument of effective communication will be a plus. The behaviors you will use probably need to be practiced within an environment (place and people) in which there are no consequences for misspeaking or otherwise behaving inappropriately. The feedback you get will be priceless! A final suggestion: Use a video recorder when you practice presentations. Try to practice with a peer who feels comfortable critiquing your performance. The camera will reveal your strengths and weaknesses the same way your audience will see them. This is powerful information, because the camera is willing to take another look as you try on behaviors to correct weak points and play on your strengths. All of these suggestions will help you communicate better. Just be sure you remember that the main message you send is not in the words—it’s in who you are: your values, your honest concerns, your respect or lack of respect for those with whom you speak, and your integrity (or lack of it). You ask others to help you improve your performance, so it follows that you should do the same for them. Sometimes, that means going well outside the established boundaries of “what’s okay” and what’s usual. I once worked with a graduate student in her late thirties who was a physician and manager for a major pharmaceutical firm. We were discussing her thesis and my few criticisms of it, and I became distracted by 87

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how irritating her voice was. It was thin and nasal and it hit my ears like fingernails on a blackboard. I knew it would put other people off and possibly get in the way of professional advancement. I decided to speak directly about her voice with her. “Maybe no one else has told you, but you have one of the most irritating voices I’ve ever heard. You have so many accomplishments and credentials behind you, but somewhere ahead of you is an opportunity that you won’t get because of your voice. I’m telling you this not to be unkind, but because you can do something about it if you want to.” She looked at me as though I’d just put something disgusting on the table in front of her. It was clear to me that we were plowing new ground. As the conversation continued, I explained what speech coaches do and told her that surely one or several could be found in the university’s theatre department. The problem was a career impediment, I said, but one that could be overcome. I told her about managers I’d known who engaged in such personal and professional development. I haven’t seen her for several years, so I don’t know if she accepted my suggestion or simply blew it off. Then why did I do it? Because as an instructor involved with her career development, it was the right thing to do, and I had no motive other than to improve her chances in a competitive corporate environment. And the opportunity presented itself. Would you have risked being helpful in that way? Do you care enough about the people with whom you’re working to challenge them to be the best they can be, despite the personal consequences to you? If your answer is yes, then continue improving the way you communicate so that you have more and better tools in your toolbox.

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Every workplace has its ranks and castes, managers and workers, top cats and worker bees, and plenty of communication problems. At least that’s what problems are usually blamed on: “communication.” Managers say, “Doesn’t anyone around here understand anything?” Supervisors say, “Those workers never understand anything the first time you tell them!” The workers say, “Nobody ever tells us anything!” There are three things to remember about the workplace: 1. Generally, everyone knows exactly what they want to know. 2. People listen, read, and remember selectively. 3. When there is a lot of social distance between managers and workers, there tends to be less demonstrated understanding. This is because the problem is not understanding (really, everyone understands everything except agreement). Some variant of this dance goes on in every organization that is based on hierarchy and authoritarian management. Consultants pick up on this as soon as they walk in the door. Fifty years ago, several managers and professors of management in the United States began to look closely at the negative impact of authoritarian management. Alfred Marrow inherited a pajama factory in South Carolina that employed primarily black women, most of whom were high school dropouts. The factory was old and the sewing machines were obsolete. The professor-owner decided to replace the machines. He made history when he took a step perhaps never taken before: He actually asked his workers to help him select the machines they would use! Some of those semi-literate women 89

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sat in on product demonstrations. They tested all the machines being offered, and he bought the machines they recommended. The result? Those women achieved full production in only two weeks! Those extra weeks of unexpected productivity not only greatly reduced the cost of the new machines, but when the story got around town, hundreds of job applicants appeared at the door. (This story is told in full in Alfred Marrow’s 1964 book Behind the Executive Mask, which shaped my decision to become a consultant.) Participation pays huge dividends, and clear communication is the vehicle that carries it.

Won’t I lose my power? If a manager is concerned with rank and hierarchy, it’s almost impossible for him or her to deal with workers as equals. I remember talking with a very bright and accomplished managing director several years ago about participative management and the philosophy of sharing information about goals, profits, productivity, and where the organization is headed. “If I give them that kind of information,” he asked me, “won’t I lose my power?” Power is not well understood. One of the most powerful individuals in a modern corporation is the person who answers incoming calls. Think about it: he or she sets the tone for every subsequent transaction! When USAID was involved with helping Eastern European companies make the transition from Soviet to free-market economies, it was spending millions of dollars. Yet it had trouble getting English-speaking telephone receptionists. How can foreign companies sell their products to the West if potential clients can’t understand the 90

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person they’re on the phone with and aren’t being routed to the person who has the relevant information? Some people think courtesy is just a nice extra, but try being cold and brusque when you speak to a potential customer on the phone. See how they react. When it comes to productivity, workers have more power than their managers. Workers have bosses, but they also have informal leaders who dictate the amount of work to be done and the pace that will be maintained. Too often, managers are not aware that there are informal leaders within the company, but when they are, they generally refuse to include them in decision making. What has all this to do with communication? Research in real workplaces has proved repeatedly that the closer workers and managers move toward widely inclusive participation and workplace equality, the better they understand one another. Communicating messages is important, but communicating values such as respect and fairness is equally important. How does your company relate to its customers and clients? How do we treat each other within the workplace and in the office? Assigned parking spaces and other managerial benefits send the message that bosses are more important than workers. We need to interact in ways that build self-esteem and stronger work groups, rather than bring to work the street culture that causes many people to conclude that America is an uncivil society. I said earlier that the manager is the main message—that his or her personal integrity and respect for the employees are more important than words. If there is little mutual respect to smooth the way for clear and effective communication, it matters little what the words say. Except, of course, for those messages that come from the top, carrying all the weight of 91

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hierarchy and privilege, that tell workers “When we want your opinion, we’ll ask for it. In the meantime, just do your work and keep your mouth shut.”

Communicate to Motivate The way you communicate can either turn people on, or turn them off. Do people hear and respond the way you hoped they would? If the response is not what you want, consider using a different messenger, because people need the messenger as well as the message (but it is important that they do not dislike the messenger). If the messenger is the manager and the manager is liked and respected, people will be more productive. Why? Because we all want to please people we like and repay them for their courtesies by performing fully and pushing ourselves a little harder. It works both ways, however. During the Vietnam war, more than 2,000 U.S. officers were killed by their own men. A fragmentation grenade would be rolled into the tent or foxhole of an officer who was not respected by those who reported to him. It was a harsh and sad commentary on leadership style, and a most dramatic message. This fragging, as it was called, ended the dialogue once and for all. Agreement isn’t necessary for communication to be effective. There just has to be an ongoing discovery process underway (dialogue) in which both sides try to understand one another. Understanding begins with agreement (perhaps unstated) on jointly-held values and words everyone understands. Choosing terms carefully and avoiding references to unhappy episodes are necessary preconditions to gaining agreement and getting past anger and divisiveness.

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Smart managers choose their words carefully when they want to avoid being misunderstood. One of the fundamental competencies developed by the 3M Corporation is something called intellectual capacity, demonstrated by “communicating clearly, concisely, and with appropriate simplicity.” That gem is presented in a new book, International Human Resource Management by Tony Edwards and Chris Rees. I’ll leave it to you to interpret “appropriate simplicity” and whether or not that means using a mix of small, middle-sized, and big words. Poet David Whyte, quoted in Sharon Daloz Parks’s 2005 book Leadership Can Be Taught, makes an interesting observation. “The inherited language of the workplace is far too small for us now. We have only to look at the most important word in the lexicon of the present workplace—manager—to understand its inherent weakness.” The word manager, it seems, is derived from words in other languages that refer to handling wild beasts, untamed energy, and unwilling people. Not quite right for the knowledge economy that’s evolving around us! Maybe another description of what you are and what you do is evolving, too. In the meantime, Whyte’s observation is uncomfortably close to recent literature about coercive practices and manipulations contrived to motivate people at work. I’m referring to texts based on the teachings of war lords and on combat analogies. The titles are catchy, but they do communicate unfortunate messages about superiority and social distance in the workplace. If we are to manage in the knowledge-based economy, what is needed is authentic concern for people and productivity, not more schemes to outwit workers. So, if traditional motivation’s not getting the performance you want, try treating your employees as partners, and listen ’til it hurts. Who knows? It might work. 93

Appendices

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n the following pages, you will find three questionnaires that I have used in the past to gather information. The first of them is longer than I usually prefer, but it conformed to the client’s needs. The second is shorter than usual, yet turned out to be powerful. The third questionnaire provides an opportunity for respondents to volunteer information not solicited by the questionnaire designer. Those hand-written comments often contain useful insights. As I said in Chapter 6, crafting questions that produce useful information is an art. Sometimes questions you think are killers will be duds, and sometimes questions that you think are duds turn out to be the most important. Practice, practice, practice writing questions! Test them to see if they work. The more you practice and test, the more confident you will be when you set out to collect clear and unbiased information. Good luck!

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Appendix 1 Corporation Questionnaire These questions will give you an opportunity to tell the company’s managers what you think! Except for an organizational code that indicates the area in which you work, your responses will be completely anonymous. We do not care who you are—we want to know what you and your colleagues think about working here, and how we can make your job more satisfying. We want you to be honest. We need to know what you think and what you want so that we know how to respond. Each question gives you five ways to answer. Please pick the answer that most closely fits your experience or opinion. Put a checkmark in the box next to your selection. Thank you for your cooperation.

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Employee Questionnaire 1. I feel that XYZ management disregards the importance of keeping employees informed about how our plant is doing relative to other XYZ plants and other similar plants in the area. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

2. There is little in our relationships with XYZ management that tells people like me that we are important—or even necessary. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

3. My supervisor often expresses his/her appreciation for the work we do for XYZ. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree (continued)

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4. My co-workers and I would like to know more about the direction XYZ management is taking our plant in, and what that means for our job security. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

5. So far, XYZ has not persuaded me or my co-workers that they are different from YYY or ZZZ in their regard for us as employees. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

6. As they talk about teamwork, it seems like XYZ wants employees to compensate for ineffective planning by management. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

(continued)

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7. My co-workers and I understand teamwork. What we do not understand is why XYZ teamwork means that we get no more visibility or rewards than before. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

8. My co-workers and I could be more effective employees and create more products, but no one to date has wanted to hear our ideas about how it could be done. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

9. Teamwork means winning. So, what is the prize if my team “wins”? Most of us do not think our extra efforts will be recognized or rewarded. q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

(continued)

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10. This is not like football, where you can believe in a team and its management. My co-workers and I are not certain what our managers want from us, or what we should do differently.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

Note: The next three questions get down to specifics. Revise to fit the organization. 11. Most of the quality problems we have can be solved by getting clean sand and ingots that are not full of impurities.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

12. Of course we know we should not polish or pack drums that will not pass inspection, but that is better than being abused by a supervisor while waiting for conforming drums.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

(continued)

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13. It is hard to be proud of a batch of brake drums, but we could be proud of what our teams accomplish if there were benefits to doing more than the minimum necessary to keep our bosses off our backs.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

14. It is possible that some “quality” problems really are messages to management.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

15. Quality is a matter of communication as much as technique. If we are treated like partners, you’ll be surprised at what we can make happen.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

(continued)

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16. My co-workers and I are impressed by the efforts XYZ is making to include us in their corporate culture.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

17. Working conditions here are better now than under ______ or ______.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

18. For most of us employees, “corporate culture” is not as important as having a reasonable supervisor.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

(continued)

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19. What management needs to ask is, “What do we do every day that will make these people think that working at an XYZ plant is important or different?”

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

20. So far, XYZ has not made the improvements in working conditions or management attitudes that we had hoped for.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

21. I hate it when our managers try to “motivate” us. I wish they would tell us instead what we need to do more of, and why. I think they would be more successful if they did.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree (continued)

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Appendix 1

22. None of us wants to lose our jobs or see bad things happen to the plant. We do not know what to do to make the plant more successful. If we knew, we would probably do it.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

23. We think managers and bosses make too much money and we make too little. If they could automate our jobs, they would. So, why should we do more?

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

24. If it is worth doing, my co-workers and I could develop a list of a dozen free or low-cost ways to get more product out in the same amount of time.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree (continued)

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25. Some days, I cannot make myself choose to go to work instead of going to my garden or going fishing with my friends and family or doing any other favorite pastime.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

26. I am important to my family and my friends. I do not feel important at XYZ.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

27. One of the good things about the way the company was run before was (reason) .

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

(continued)

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Appendix 1

28. Would those machines break down if they were mine? Never!

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

29. We do not get frustrated by unscheduled equipment breakdowns. We are going to be there all day anyway, so we get to visit with our friends while they fix it.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

30. When you see our product, no one would think we are lazy or unmotivated. Maybe when they want us to work more or harder and we do not, it is because they never asked us the right questions or never really listened to our answers.

q q q q q

Strongly disagree Somewhat disagree Not sure Agree Absolutely agree

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Appendix 2 A Quick Employee Survey The boss would like to continue developing position descriptions and address some of the other things that make us less effective. That is why we are asking you to fill out this questionnaire. Please respond quickly: First reactions generally are the most accurate. Put a checkmark in the box next to the response that best reflects your opinion, fold the sheet in thirds, and return it to (name) . I will summarize the results, so no names are required. Thanks for participating! (Signature)

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Employee Survey 1. I am recognized when I do good work. q q q q q

Almost never Not usually Sometimes Frequently Always

2. My manager makes time for me when I need to talk. q q q q q

Almost never Not usually Sometimes Frequently Always

3. I feel appreciated for the work I do and the contributions I make. q q q q q

Almost never Not usually Sometimes Frequently Always

4. I feel that I am a valuable member of the XXX staff. q q q q q

Almost never Not usually Sometimes Frequently Always 110

Appendix 3 A Confidential Questionnaire for Human Resources Staff Members This questionnaire was designed specifically for HR professionals in the XYZ group of companies. Its purpose is to get your input for a corporate-level retreat to consider the role and function of HR within XYZ. After you respond to the questions, please mail this questionnaire using the attached stamped, addressed envelope. The envelope will be discarded, and no effort will be made to identify respondents! Thank you for your support and cooperation.

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Confidential Questionnaire for HR Staff Members 1. I am consulted by our executives about HR plans (other than specific hiring requests). q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

2. Managers in our company ask for my help in coaching or counseling employees who are having performance problems. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

3. My job allows me to go home at night feeling that I have done useful work. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

(continued)

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Appendix 3

4. I would like my children and/or grandchildren to work for this company. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

5. When other employees talk about our company, they say positive things. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

6. I tell friends that mine is a better job than I hoped to have at my age and with my experience. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

7. Our employees are treated fairly—even better than they would be treated by another company. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

(continued)

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8. Managers ask me for help in rewarding employees who perform very well. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

9. I feel that I am a part of the management team and that my manager thinks my opinions and ideas are important. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

10. My values—what I think is the right thing to do—are the same as those reflected in how our company does business and how it treats its employees. q q q q

Always Frequently Rarely Never

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Appendix 3

Please write in your responses to the following questions: 11. If they would let me, I would like to have more influence in deciding these things: ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ 12. I wish I could tell my manager what I hear from employees—specifically: ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________

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Recommended Reading DeVito, J. A. (2003). The interpersonal communication book. New York: Allyn & Bacon. If you want a more detailed look at interpersonal communication, check out this venerable text, now in its 10th edition. Edwards, T. & Rees, C. (2006). International human resource management. Harlow, England: FT Prentice Hall. British, but the perspective is global, with emphasis on multinational corporations. If you’re in HR, get this truly comprehensive text. Fabun, D. (1968). Communications: The transfer of meaning. Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press. This may be the single best and simplest introduction to general semantics available. Two other books by this insightful author are The Dynamics of Change (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967) and Dimensions of Change (Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press, 1971). Available. Fleishman, A. (1971). Sense and nonsense: A study in human communications. San Francisco, CA: International Society of General Semantics. Fleishman, A. (1973). Troubled talk! San Francisco, CA: International Society of General Semantics. The contents were tested in training programs at AnheuserBusch, Inc., by Fleishman, a public relations executive. Both are still available.

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Frankl, V. (1988). Plume/Penguin.

The

will

to

meaning.

New

York:

Frankl, V. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Boston: Beacon Press. Frankl survived two Nazi concentration camps and launched a powerful field of psychotherapy. These are among the most important and memorable books I’ve ever read. Greene, R. (2006). The 48 rules of power. New York: Viking Adult. A good look at power. The author describes the principles developed by an ancient Chinese ruler and puts them into a contemporary context. Harris, P. R. (2005). Managing the knowledge culture. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. This is a rich resource for HR professionals and managers, especially those working in multinational organizations. Lee, I. J. (1941). Language habits in human affairs. New York: Harper & Row. Lee, I. J. (1952). How to talk with people. New York: Harper & Row. Both of these amazing books are out of print, but are available from used-book sellers. MacKay, H. (2005). Swim with the sharks without being eaten alive. Collins Reprint edition. A master communicator. If you’re in sales or sales training, the 66-question customer profile and the competitor profile presented here are pure gold. Familiarity with these criteria for customer and competitor knowledge can define who’s ready for relationship selling (and who’s not). 118

Recommended Reading

Marrow, A. J. (1964). Behind the executive mask. New York: American Management Association. A keystone in the evolution of management theory. Track it down; it’s worth the effort. McKay, M. (1995). The communication skills book, 2nd ed. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. This text represents an extensive and comprehensive view of communication and is a rich resource. McLuhan, M. (1964). The medium is the massage. Corte Madera, CA: Ginko Press, Inc. Track it down, new or used. Worth the effort! Parks, S. D. (2005). Leadership can be taught. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. This exciting book describes how leaders can learn to be more effective, and presents powerful lessons in nonverbal communication. Prather, C. W. & Gundry, L. K. (1995). Blueprints for innovation. New York: American Management Association. Chuck Prather led a team at DuPont to bring creative thinking and innovation to new-product-development processes. This small book chronicles achievements and presents models. Really valuable.

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About the Author Woodrow H. Sears earned one of the early doctorates in human resource development, studying at George Washington University under Leonard Nadler, the man who coined the term and created the professional and academic discipline known as HRD. Before beginning his career in management, Woody was a photographer; a newspaper reporter; a Marine officer; and later an editor with the Cooperative Extension Service at North Carolina University, where he earned a master’s degree in adult education. He worked at Leadership Resources, Inc., one of the country’s first behaviorally-oriented consulting firms, and served as HR manager and later the director of training for an environmental company. He has provided consulting services for a broad range of industries and technologies, U.S. federal agencies, and Canadian crown corporations and provincial governments. After extensive Civil Rights, EEO, and police training, Woody Sears shifted his focus to project management, developing projectmanagement systems for domestic and international clients and lecturing at universities. The author of Back in Working Order: How American Enterprises Can Win the Productivity Battle (Scott Foresman, 1984) and co-author with Audrone Tamulionnyte-Lentz of Succeeding in Business in Central and Eastern Europe: A Guide to Cultures, Markets, and Practices (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001), Woody was in Slovakia as a volunteer with the International Executive Service Corps in 1998 when he was asked to go to Lithuania for a one-month assignment. He is still there. Contact Woodrow Sears by e-mail at: woodysears@ yahoo.com.

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