Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Are you giving thanks in your head?

Some managers have a policy of shaking hands and saying thanks when they hand out checks to their employees. It’s humbling to be on the receiving end of this. I worked for a company where all managers were required to do this. I knew this, but still felt genuinely thanked by most managers.

There was one manager who quite obviously felt corny saying 'thank you' when distributing checks, perhaps knowing that I knew he was required to do this, thus not feeling genuine.

Frankly, his cynical nature was off-putting. I felt less than thanked. It was worse than had nothing been said at all.

In the world and in your workplace, we are a community filled with a mixed bag of nuts. We’re all different people in how we think, perceive, and make decisions. Sometimes it’s hard to get over differences especially when someone who is so different from you seems to make your life difficult.

How could you make that better?

How could you communicate what you need to help this other person work with you better? (and visa versa by the way!)

Since this is the week of Thanksgiving, I’d like to share with you an exercise. Starting with your work colleagues and possibly including the extended family you’ll be rubbing shoulders with Thursday (and perhaps the extended family you’re avoiding Thursday!), then finishing with your immediate family, think about each person individually and consider three characteristics about them that you are grateful for.

Do they seem as bad as before?

This can only make seeing them next more bearable.. and perhaps take your relationships to whole new efficiencies.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

In defense of negativity

There’s good reason to not feel so positive these days.

Events, attitudes, and circumstances can throw us for a loop. We react based on fear, experience, upbringing, our values, understanding, and openness to change. We can react negatively in spite of our age and all the self help books we’ve read.

"We have good reason. Negativity is akin to grieving."

Why not be a sourpuss? You can share with the world your anger by wearing a frown on your face, ignoring people you work with, being snappy with answers to questions, being incredibly aloof, only giving out small tidbits of information but not all the information your coworkers need to do their jobs well…

What else can you think of?

Perhaps you could also rally resentment against a manger by quietly questioning their whereabouts when absent from the office. This is especially effective when you know the manager is at a legitimate meeting, but no one else does. You could undermine the manager’s leadership when they have delegated something by going to that person and asking any series of questions such as: “why doesn’t he do it?” or, “Does he even know how this is supposed to work?” or better, “that’s not appropriate.”

One could make a new employee whom they resent perhaps for not being a part of their hiring decision, feel incredibly unwelcome through several vibrant ways:
  • the silent treatment,
  • withholding information, and
  • pointing out faults superficial, made-up, or exaggerated to fellow colleagues.

"Negativity Tip: This last is best executed in small huddled groups where upon the new person coming across you in the hallway or break-room, you immediately stop talking and remain silent until the person passes."

Denying critical elements a new person needs to do their work is also an excellent negativity tool to wield. Examples of this could be falsifying customer deadlines, conveniently forgetting each week to make an extra copy of the office key for the new employee, or forgetting to convey important messages.

This type of anger transfer is especially useful in spreading negativity as the new person has nothing to do with why you are angry, hurt, or unappreciated. The effectiveness of this negativity is wonderful because the poor sap never sees it coming and will be completely blindsided by the treatment.

But why go to all that bother?

Wouldn’t all this bad behavior only drain energy from you? What good could come of it? If you find that you’re not able to accept new direction or effect change in your workplace positively through collaborative healthy means, perhaps a job change is better for everyone, especially you.

The difficulty in negative behavior is that it rubs off. Like it or not, we tend to learn and mirror patterns we witness in others. Negativity is best tackled quickly.

Luckily, good leaders know this too. Good leaders know how to ignore petty negative passive outbursts and when to step in. They understand that learning the root of the anger will help bring resolution quicker moving everyone forward. Establishing trust and creating an environment where a negative employee can open up and start to describe what is wrong in a one on one environment can lead to mutual understanding and positive change in how you work together. Long term everyone benefits, even if this employee chooses to leave the company.

How have you tamed a bad seed?

What tools do you use to help your teammates shine?

Originally posted by me on the L2L blog, November 6th, 2009.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Easier to edit

It’s always easier to critique an idea than to actually come up with the idea itself.

Oh sure, the idea itself seems easy enough once thought up. Once thought up.

Take for example the written word. There’s a blog I follow on leadership that I really enjoy. Each post is thoughtfully written, humorous, and has a great familiar tone that’s easy to read. This blog has an editor.

How do I know this you might ask?

How would I know that it really isn’t a happenstance of similarly extraordinary gifted contributing author’s? Basically, it’s because I am one of those gifted (ahem) contributing authors. This editor takes great content and turns it into very personal advice. I love his voice and return day after day to read.

Depending on your personality, it can be difficult being edited.

Think of one of your latest meetings. Was there any idea that was floated out to the group?

Was it shot down?

Was it changed?

Did someone alter the original thought and make it better?

I’ve been in some meetings where most everyone was afraid to speak up. Perhaps we were intimidated by the leader. Perhaps the corporate environment was not open to new ideas.

Perhaps we each were afraid of being edited.

What I love most about working in collaborative teams is the amazing results that are achieved. We each offer up various solutions and together we ‘edit’ those ideas to create something remarkable.

Original thought is hard. Editing is easy, but such an important step to achieving excellence.

Go forth.. get edited.

Photograph from The Independent on a feature discussing Joseph Hallinan’s interesting book, Why We Make Mistakes

Friday, November 6, 2009

Lions, tigers, and bears..

Actually, more like: lions, beavers, and golden retrievers.

At my previous company I would periodically take those little self-evaluation tests to figure out my general personally type. This was typically done during a team off-site and the results would be anticipated.

Of course Larry is a “Retriever”.

Sure enough, the test results showed that Mary is a strong driver but with a tall yellow bar too.

For myself, I was always a driver but like reading horoscopes, I saw a little of myself in each description of the lion, otter, golden retriever, and beaver.

Sometimes we’d have to wear these little personality name tags in the office and when we’d tire of this display; we’d hang them in our office for people to see. Supposedly this would help others work with us better.

How exactly am I supposed to give a Retriever information?

How do I more effectively ask a Beaver to do something?

Wouldn’t it be easier if I just knew what to get from others to do my work more effectively?

We all go to work wanting to do a good job. Everyone there, like everyone you might notice in your neighborhood, at church, or in the grocery store, is a mixed bag of nuts. We’re all different. We all have our own idiosyncrasies. We all have our own perceptions based on our upbringing. Some even have their own agendas.

How can we work together better?

While understanding your colleagues and knowing them personally always benefits, one doesn’t always have the opportunity to understand how someone works.

  • You could be new on a team.
  • Your team could be located at several locations.
  • Understanding someone else’s personality type might not be your gift.

There are many reasons why knowing yourself better is the key to getting information presented to you as you need to do your job more effectively verses leaving it to someone else's interpretation. Things like:

  • What questions should you ask to fill in the gaps in your mind?
  • How should you lay out your work for your brain to process quicker?
  • When should you slow down to let others catch up?

Just as in personal relationships, understanding your very own unique way of processing information, will make you more effective in all you do.