Putting the Central Office on Alert

I subscribe to More Magazine because a) I'm a woman b) of the right age and demographic, c) whose son's middle school does an annual magazine drive.  Plus, I usually find something of interest.  

In their September issue, buried within an article about women in the workplace, I found a comment about an important element of virtual team dynamics. 

"More difficult is the culture shift that requires workers not to unconsciously punish colleagues for being out of the room."

Behaviors and attitudes by those in a central office need to be inclusive of those located in other locations.  Most slights are unintentional, but they can still be damaging to overall team morale, productivity, and cohesiveness.  

See if you can spot 4 missteps in the following short example. 

Scene:  Central NYC Office, majority of team members in the conference room with handful of virtual team members from across the US on the conference speaker phone.

• Mary (NYC) Meeting Facilitator:  "Good Afternoon everyone.  Glad you could join us for our monthly lunch meeting.  Help yourself to sandwiches on the side table.  John, you're first up in the agenda.  You mentioned you had some handouts you wanted to share?"
• John (NYC):  "Yes, I'll pass them around now."
• Peter (Seattle):  "Do you have those in electronic form that someone could email out now?"
• John (NYC):  "Oh, right, sorry about that Peter, I just finished it before the meeting and meant to email it out before I went to the copier.  Let me just step out to ask Ellen to send that around.  Be right back."
• Mary (NYC):  "Let's skip ahead to the next item on the agenda and come back to John in a minute.  Brrr, you can really feel that air conditioning when it kicks in, can't you?  Okay, I'm looking for ideas for our next employee engagement survey.  Anyone have anything?"
• Susan (Phoenix):  "I have an ..."
• Mike (NYC):  "Here's something we did last year..."  (proceeds to share)
• Mary (NYC):  "I like it.  Anyone else?"
• Susan (Phoenix): "Well, in our office..."
• Lauren (NYC):  "I heard they had some success over in IT with..." (proceeds to share)  This continues with sharing from members in the room, and Susan gives up and disengages.
• Mary (NYC):  "Okay, let's go back to our first agenda item and John's handouts."  Meeting continues.

#1  Forgetting to email handouts to those not in the room is a common yet unintentional slight.  It take discipline to change your schedule such that items are completed well enough in advance for email distribution.

#2  Very subtle, yet still common, is a greeting of "Good Afternoon" when it's morning for those on the phone.  It denotes the bias toward those in the same room rather than being welcoming to all. 

#3  The company catered lunch is only being served to those in the room, which is logical and practical, but it's the kind of injustice virtual team members can come to resent if it happens frequently.

#4  Technological challenges are at fault for the last one.  No one is intentionally talking over Susan.  When the air conditioning kicked in, the ambient noise was enough that the speaker phone stayed with the room, never letting up to allow the NYC team members to hear Susan.  In this case, the onus is on Susan to let the group know what happened or else it will occur again and again.  

If you're leading at the executive level, these examples are not your issues.  You have competent assistants to take care of meeting materials and you use senior staff conference rooms with up to date equipment.      

But this is what's happening with the teams that report to you if they have virtual team members, and that makes it your issue, too. 

The good news is that these kind of slights are low-hanging fruit on the larger Virtual Team Challenges tree.  With a little training to bring awareness, the team can turn this around and prevent future "punishments" to those not located in the central office. 

Sara and Sony - A Story about Constructive Feedback

Here's a short story about constructive feedback.  Some of it I know to be true, and some of it I'm guessing at.  I'll let you know where the facts end and my opinions begin...

Sara Bareilles' biggest hit on her Little Voice album was "Love Song".  As she tells it, the record company said she needed an up-beat love song on her album to be marketable.  She didn't agree, she wasn't happy with the feedback, but she wrote a song anyway and it was the album's first release.    

If you're familiar with "Love Song", you know it's actually an anti-love song whose lyrics are cleverly written to sound like a message to a significant other.  But they're not.  She wrote it for the record label...literally. 

"I'm not gonna write you a love song, 'cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one, you see.  I'm not gonna write you a love song 'cause you tell me it's make or breakin' this.  If you're on your way, I'm not gonna write you to stay. "  It's up-beat, catchy, and it was a huge hit.



I just saw Sara on the Today Show yesterday, and apparently the first release from her new album, "King of Anything", resulted from yet another unsettling discussion with her record label. "I guess we have issues", she said.  Based on the lyrics, it sounds like they were giving her feedback again. 

"Who cares if you disagree, you are not me, who made you King of Anything.  So you dare tell me who to be, who died and made you King of Anything."  It's already ruling the airwaves.

Here's where the facts end and my thoughts and speculations begin. 

Sara and Sony Records seem to me to be a perfect example of a successful outcome to the constructive feedback process. 

Let's reset this for the corporate environment (not really a stretch, though is it, to call a major record company "corporate").  First, you have a smart, talented "employee" in Sara.  She has a unique sound, her lyrics are intelligent and relevant, and she's got personality.  Second, you have Sony's management who understand the customer base and market demand.  Management sees the potential in Sara, likes her work, but sees the need for a revision in order to best position her as a new artist.  

Enter the constructive feedback.  Management tells Sara that their strategy is to led off the album's release with a catchy pop love song to ensure air play and gain momentum.  Here's the rub - she hasn't written a catchy love song for this album.  Sara wants to release her album as is and does not welcome this message.  How does writing a song that's just like everything else on the airwaves show off her talents as a distinctively new artist?     

And then the magic happens.  Sara listens to the feedback, and writes a "love song" while still maintaining her voice and demonstrating the talent that sets her apart.  The song has witty lyrics with tongue-in-cheek humor, and the sound is uniquely her own.  And even more amazing, after listening to the song, lyrics and all, management goes with it.   

Think about that for just a minute.  If you asked an employee for a deliverable, and what you got back was a result that was right on the money, delivered with a smile, but accompanied by a message that everyone would hear about how they were forced into doing the project against their will, would you still stamp it with your approval? 

I say kudos to Sara for being open to the feedback (at least twice at this point), and finding a way to deliver while still maintaining her voice.  And, kudos to Sony Records for recognizing a good thing when they hear it, and having the humility to roll with the punches.  

Seems to me they've got a good thing going here.  Keep up the constructive feedback!

Connect the Dots

Did you do Dot-to-Dot puzzles when you were a child?  Many were like this where some of the picture is provided and you finished it yourself by connecting the dots.  If you were experienced, you might have even guessed what the picture was before you finished the puzzle.

Leaders, especially senior leaders, are often frustrated that they have to "connect the dots" for their teams.  They've provided the outline and believe that, like the picture above, it's enough of a head start such that their employees can take it from there. 

In reality, what they get looks like the result of a dot-to-dot that wasn't numbered.  Either a completely different result (picture) than what was expected, or no result at all because people didn't know where to start.  

Take for example a strategic plan.  If you deliver the plan to your teams with no further direction, you've basically sent them a dot-to-dot with no numbers.  They need to know how to connect that plan to their functions, roles, and responsibilities.  When you number the dots, you provide the direction such that they can see what you expect, they know where to start, and they know when they're done. 

One of the best ways to connect the dots to a strategic plan is to set individual and team goals in performance plans with wording that specifically ties to the plan. 

And it's not just strategic plans, it's internal communications, directives, policies, etc.  How does that information relate to your team?  What, if anything, do they need to do differently?  WIIFM (What's In It For Me) says the team, and the leader responds by drawing the dots and numbering them.

What's obvious to senior management is not obvious to junior management is not obvious to individual contributors.  Invest the time to connect the dots up front and then sit back and watch your organization reap the rewards.

Blah, Blah, Blah

One of the many reasons why a coach is hired in regard to communications, is that they are are asked to work with an individual who is perceived as "long-winded".  It may show up in presentations, during meetings, or even in one-on-one conversations.

The most typical explanation for the behavior of the long-winded is that they crave the spotlight.  And indeed there are those who pontificate because they love nothing better than the sound of their own voice. 

However, I think most people who struggle with succinct verbal communications fall into less boorish categories.  See if you can recognize your favorite long-winded speaker (or maybe even yourself) in one of these:

• They are detail oriented.  They value data and they assume that you do, too.  Their communications are prefaced by facts, dates, figures, definitions, and names that justify their final conclusion.   
• They have a strong need to be understood.  These folks are best recognized by the fact that they say the same thing several different ways.  This means that it may take them 3 or 4 times longer to communicate their ideas while they use a variety of descriptions and examples to ensure that you comprehend what they are saying.
• They don't see/hear/recognize social cues.  This is actually a mixed group.  Some who fall into this group simply don't have the skills to pick up on social cues such as body language, facial expression, or verbal cues that indicate that it's time to stop talking.  Others in this group may possess the ability, but they also require it.  For example, if you maintain a neutral expression as you listen, they will continue until you either nod, or smile, or provide some indication that they have been heard. 
• They are isolated.  We all need connection and a media in which to express ourselves.  When individuals who work in an isolated area or group finally find an audience, their cup runneth over.
• They are verbal thinkers.  Some individuals create as they communicate, their ideas just now coming together as they talk with you.  They often possess self-awareness of this and may even say "I'm thinking out loud as I say this...". 

Having an understanding of the source may help you in your work relations with the long-winded for those situations where you have influence.  It may help you to have patience in those situations where you don't. 

The reality about human communications, though, is that we need clarity in order to reach comprehension.  And in most cases, the more precise the message, the better your chances of being understood.   

'nuf said.

Ask If It Matters

One of my first involvements with survey work was on the backend, responding to the results.  The organization had conducted an employee survey to measure engagement, and the leaders were given the survey results along with the instruction to develop action plans addressing areas of dissatisfaction.

After reading my reports, I realized that we needed more data. All we had was a score against a blanket statement. For example, “I have the tools I need to do my job.” Tools? That could be anything from paperclips to computer software, an ergonomic keyboard to server connectivity, a Blackberry to training and development programs.

This was the motivation for our subsequent employee meetings – to get to the data behind the question. By the end of those meetings, however, I had also learned an important lesson.

Some areas of dissatisfaction weren’t worth addressing.

Why?

Because the issue didn’t matter to them.

The survey asked employees to register their level of satisfaction per each issue, but it didn’t give them a method to voice whether the issue was Important to them or not.

For maximum improvement, we would need to address the areas where dissatisfaction was present AND it mattered.

My teams told me that having the right tools was important and that we'd improve productivity as well as employee engagement by creating action plans to address deficiencies.  However, they weren't feeling any urgency to address another area related to training and development, so we tabled it.

Some surveys measure both satisfaction and importance at the same time, and the resulting data allows for a more accurate picture of where to invest energies.  However, if all you have is the satisfaction data, you can improve engagement simply by engaging employees in dialogue about what matters to them, and then encorporating that into your action plans.

A Good Application for the Reorg

Organizations go through restructuring exercises for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which I would propose is to assure corporate boards and stockholders that "action is being taken" and "sweeping changes are underfoot".  The reality, though, is that the majority of reorgs do not improve business performance.

However, having just read reports from two unrelated studies, I'm seeing a connection between a large challenge and a good application for a reorg.

One of the key findings in the 2010 IBM Global CEO Study is that there's a new primary challenge facing these executives:  Complexity.  "Increasingly interconnected economies, enterprises, societies and governments have given rise to vast new opportunities.  But a surprising number of CEOs have told us they feel ill-prepared for today's more complex environment.  Increased connectivity has also created strong - and too often unknown - interdependencies.  For this reason, the ultimate consequence of any decision has often been poorly understood.  Still, decisions must be made."

In the June 2010 edition of The Harvard Business Review, there is an article by Blenko, Mankins, & Rogers titled The Decision-Driven Organization.  These authors propose that "reorganizations are popular with chief executives, who believe that making big structural changes will lead to better performance...In reality, a company's structure results in better performance only if it improves the organization's ability to make and execute key decisions better and faster than competitors." 

The complexities of today's business climate make decisions even more challenging and more impactful than ever before.  Yet the speed and nimbleness with which these decisions need to be made is staggering.  A review of how an organization's structure does/does not support decisions in today's complex conditions sounds like good advice to me.

An Uninvited Guest

We just returned from a visit to Old Forge, NY where my sister and her husband have a cabin that sits on a small lake.  In the village, you can find plenty of souvenirs to remind you of your adventure into the woods, all of which come with a picture of a moose, or a loon, or a bear, etc.  The symbols of the Adirondack wilderness can found on almost any piece of clothing imaginable.    

Turns out, we would not be the only visitors to the camp this weekend. 

Round about lunchtime, a black bear showed up to check out the good smells from the prior night's cookout on the grill.  Luckily, we were all safely inside and the camera's battery was still fresh.   

Now, there's been evidence of bears at their cabin before.  Sounds in the middle of the night, the lid pulled off the bear box (Adirondack trash bins) the next morning and trash spewed out into the road.  But an extended visit in the middle of the day?  While we're all inside the cabin?  Getting on its hind legs to look inside the windows and doors at us?  This was something new.  

A while after it had sauntered on down the road, my husband and brother-in-law could be heard outside with new motivation to repair the bear box so the garbage could be stored away from the cabin.  And that night, bird food/feeders were brought inside.  Discussion is underway about how to better better secure the deck/grill.

I was struck by how motivated we get to take action once things get up close and personal. 

Want a motivated work force to deliver on their goals?  Need to motivate your manufacturing team to follow the safety procedures in the plant?  Looking to motivate your leadership team to bring your company out of the industrial age and into the information age?

Motivation is and always will be a personal matter.  Find a way to bring the issue to their doorstep, and you'll see action.