Management Craft

How do you prefer to be coached? Feedback, please.

I am working on a project that will help people give and receive coaching and I would like your feedback. I have created a brief survey and request your participation. Participants will recevie a summary of the results by email. I will also share the results here on the blog.

Your feedback will help us all give and receive coaching more effectively with folks who are younger, older and the same age as we are. I think it is important to learn about coaching from the perspective of the learners - and I look forward to seeing your feedback.

I am looking for feedback from people of all ages, so please encourage those with whom you work to complete the survey.

Click Here to take survey

Thank you!

Reducing Workplace Drama

I have not been posting a lot in August and September because I have been training nonstop for various clients. A good problem to have, I guess.

I have noticed that whenever I mention the word "drama" in relation to workplace dysfunction, a lot of my training attendees sigh and ask what they can do about negative drama. It seems to be a big problem!

There are several angles from which to attack this topic - how to coach drama kings/queens, how to reduce drama within the team, the affects of drama, how to channel drama, the root causes of workplace drama, how to recognize whether you are a drama king/queen, how to reconcile emoitonal intelligence and drama, yada, yada, yada. There's so much drama to discuss!

I have decided to dedicate the October edition of Lead Well (my e-newsletter) to the topic of workplace drama, including several helpful articles and a downloadable tool for managers. This will come out early in October. If you are not yet on the list to receive Lead Well, you can sign up here (select OD after inputting your email).

What do you think? Is negative drama draining the soul of your organization? Let's help each other recognize drama. Complete the following sentence in the comments.

You might be a drama king or queen if you _____________________. Keep it PG13, please. :-)

Is it procrastination or just-in-time?

A few days ago, I asked the following question on Twitter: What's the difference between procrastination and just-in-time? Here are a couple of the responses I got:

@ronhubbard About a day.

@txglennross RT @LisaHaneberg: What's the difference between procrastination and just-in-time? | I think my brain just exploded. LOL

@sylviataylor - things not getting done and things getting done!

@margaretmotamed Good question! When it's planned?

@Brainmaker Well, just-in-time could mean "in flow" or superb planning. Procrastination holds neither.

What do you think? This question is important because one practice might be considered a problem and one a good time management regimen. But do we know when we have our acts together and when we are barely treading water? Might the difference be how we define things?

What if our schedule works for us but not others? How would you train individuals and teams to be more effective given that one person's proacrastination might be another person's just-in-time?

It is all about agreements. And I recommend that you include this consideration the next time you need to start a team project or interdependent process to avoid issues with unmet expectations. And may sure that you understand how your manager would define these terms (and as a manager, make sure your employees are clear about how you define the difference between procrastination and just-in-time).

Dan Pink on Ted - Motivation - Check out this video!

I don't know how I missed this, but they finally put Dan Pink's TED talk up on the TED website. Check it out! I love it. I hope you allow it to change your business approach. Love the ROWE notion (results only work environment).

Live in Jacksonville? Join me next Tuesday Evening

I will be speaking at the Northeast Florida ASQ meeting in Jacksonville this coming Tuesday, Sept 22 from 5:30 to 8:30pm. It is a dinner meeting titled, "Staying Relevant in Today's Market Place." The talk will be fun and informative.

If you are in the area, please join in! You can see the details here.

How Managers Add Value

Solve problems
Enable people
Remove barriers
Make connections
Represent the enterprise
Add to the "collective"
Generate opportunity/partners

What's on your To-Do list today? And what's that "other" stuff?

20 Great Coaching Questions that can Catalyze Breakthroughs

Try them out on YOUR goal this week. And then share them with your team when the opportunity presents itself. Create your own list of 20 killer questions.

What will things look like in a year if everything goes as planned?
What are the consequences of not changing?
Why is this change important?
What do you already know about this approach?
How does this change affect the other aspects of the organization?
What other assumptions could also be valid?
What generalizations have you made?
Why is this situation occurring?
What are the pros and cons of your approach?
How is this similar to or different from the way you have approached this in the past?
Are you seeing the goal as would your peers, employees, customers and managers?
What would you do if time was not an issue?
What if you cleared your calendar today?
What if you are talking to the wrong people?
What if you partnered with someone? Who would he or she be?
What if you need to create a support structure, how might you do this?
What if you asked for exactly what you want?
What if you are barking up the wrong tree?
What if the answer is right in front of you?
What can you do to expand your thinking?

Bonus: What would your alter-ego do if she had no fears or apprehensions?

Great coaching is more about questions than answers (that would be advice).

How Hard Do You Make it for People to Do Business With You?

This quick post is inspired by a line from an email from a friend. She was saying that she wants to meet more people and develop more friendships. I suggested she volunteer for an organization whose mission really speaks to her. Here was her response:

"Anyway, the volunteering has been just as much of a challenge.  After hounding three non-profits here to help, and filling out their forms and calling and emailing, I gave up on them."

I have heard this from others and it begs the question,  How difficult do we make things for potential volunteers, customers and employees? Is the hassle-factor too high? Will even the most engaged employees and customers give up on you?

Five signs that you might be making it too hard for employees to do a great job for you:

• Your office door is closed a lot or you frequently cancel one-on-ones.
• It has been more than a week since you simply said, "sounds like a great idea, run with it!" And I don't mean after two hours of "yes, but.."
• There is a form for everything and there is a lot of red tape involved in improving daily processes.
• Team/department meetings are routine - same agenda every time, and there is no easy way for employees to add a suggested discussion item.
• It has been more than a week since one of your team members came to you with a new idea that was a bit, "out there."

How did you do?

You can apply similar logic to customers and potential volunteers. I worked with one non-profit that had a process that took months to get through for potential volunteers. There's got to be a better way. I know that training and background checks are needed, but volunteers are the lifeblood of most non-profits.

defiant! Practical Tips to Thrive in Tough Times - Free ebook

Pal Raj Setty is offering this cool ebook called defiant! Practical Tips to Thrive in Tough Times. It's free and offers real, actionable ideas for reinvention and pearls of inspiration/wisdom/ideas from 51 people. I was honored to be one of the folks contributing a short to this project. Download it, read, it and you will be fueled to meet any challenge.

If you are in a rut, in transition, in limbo, in borebom, or in hot water - defiant! is for you. Raj has offered all of us a very cool gift that can help us jump start or restart momentum for our major goals.

Download it here. defiant! is a great read - Raj is one of my favorite contemporary sages, I just love the way he thinks. Here are a couple short snippets:

"That’s why I’m so concerned when I see people gather in coffee shops and talk with each other about the economy and layoffs. I’ve seen it happen all across Silicon Valley the past few months. There’s so much talk, and little action. Talking won’t help you find a job. It might create a moment of “shared pain,” but it’s not going to help you. The opposite of learned helplessness is defiance."

AND

"If you want to climb the hill behind your home, you can do that on your own. If your goal is to climb Mount Everest, you need a team. If you want to go around the block on a cycle, you can do that on your own. If you want to complete in Tour De France, you need a team. Think about it – your life is a big enough project and serious enough that you need to assemble a team. It goes the other way too. Lives of people who are around you are big enough projects for them and you need to be part of their team as they dream and go after building their dreams. Trying to do everything on your own is a futile exercise –especially trying to do things that are not in your areas of strengths."

AND

"All else being equal, the person who tells better stories will always win."

AND 

"If you want to create a REAL opportunity, you need to create a compelling offer for your prospective employer."

Building Nimbleness - Fred Astaire, Gumby and You

I have been talking about it.

And tweeting about it.

And writing about it - from the periphery.

But I have not really posted about it. What is it? Nimbleness. Specifically, how does a managers become more nimble and build team nimbleness. First, a definition. By nimbleness, I mean:

• Agility
• Gracefullness
• Smartness
• Finesse
• Readiness
• Quickness

Surprised to see the word "gracefullness" used to describe nimbleness? In my mind, nimble managers show grace - they work in elegantly flexible ways, almost like Fred Astaire in the rain. Yes, this is what it looks like, a floating amongst the work in ways that help it flow (versus a boulder in the middle of the work, making it slow/stop). The spoiler of nimbleness is rigidity.

Signs of rigidity (you might be demonstrating rigidity if/when):

• You fight a change
• You question things (especially if this is a common behavior)
• You judge things, situations, and people
• You label things, situations, and people
• You get flustered when your scheduled gets mucked up
• You demonstrate control freak tendencies

Nimbleness is a joy once you understand it. As a recovering control freak, I fought being nimble (although I never called it that) for years and I still have my moments of relapse. It feels safe to control and define and label and judge. It is clear and unambiguous when you call the shots and keep changes and new approaches at bay. Or that's the fantasy we tell ourselves, isn't it? In reality, being rigid is much harder and less fruitful.

Flow, my fellow managers, flow. Manage with grace and agility while helping your teams and leaders make the best decisions for the organization. It can all coexist and it does. The question for each of us is whether we are enabling the flow or blocking it.

Flow! Be nimble like Gumby. Tell me what your workplace managerial nimbleness looks like in the comments, OK? More to come on this topic.