Management Craft

Invite a Challenge and Zoom Forward

I am a big fan of welcoming naysayers and devil's advocates into the conversation. I reminded myself of this last week and enjoyed the outcome, so I thought I would share the concept with you. Not only is inviting a challenge a great way to unearth diverse ideas, it helps enroll people into the process and improve their acceptance of my work. Naysayers make great evangelists!

Inviting a challenge means asking others to critique our work – really critique it. If you are coachable – highly coachable – you might be ready to invite a challenge. Give it a try yourself and then you will have a story you can share with other peers and employees. Say, “bring it on!” Take on this mantra for a month and see how this impacts your focus and results. I like to designate a devil's advocate at team meetings to encourage diverse ideas and spice up the conversation. Rotate the responsibility to give everyone practice. Here’s an example of how to invite a challenge for a new idea you are thinking of proposing:

• Create a rough draft of your proposal. Offer the rationale, describe the idea, and give as much context as possible.
• Select a small group of pre-early adopters. These should be people who you think can – and will – give you interesting feedback. Include people who are the most logical detractors.
• Create a list of questions you would like your pre-early adopters to answer. Include questions like, “what are all the reasons that you think this idea will not work?” and “what about this idea do you find least appealing?”
• Invite the pre-early adopters to review the plan and provide feedback. If possible, invite them to a 15-minute meeting where you hand out the rough plan and questions and ask for their feedback within XX days. If a meeting is not possible or practical, give each person a quick call asking them to participate and letting them know they will soon get and email with the plan and questions attached. Let your pre-early adopters know that you do not want them to sugar coat the feedback and that you believe that all feedback is a gift – even when it is tough to hear.
• Once you get the feedback, thank everyone sincerely and warmly, regardless of how critical they were of your ideas. Then use their feedback to improve your plan.

You will find that when you invite a challenge, you create many more fans than detractors. Even those who do not like the idea will become more accepting of the revised plan implementation. It’s magic! In addition, when we establish an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their concerns and ideas, we will be more likely to hear about and catch mistakes and head off problems as they emerge. You want to know what’s happening as soon as possible; otherwise your options for dealing with barriers will quickly diminish.

Inviting a challenge can be a wonderful and enjoyable experience  - it will help you keep your ego from getting in the way of your best work (that never happens, right? :-). As a manager, model the way and share your successes with the practice of inviting a challenge and you may just help others reach a higher level of success and peer acceptance.

Another Comment on the Daniels-Pink Debate Post - More on Motivation #management

Bret is a reader of Management Craft. He tried to leave a comment (on this post about the Aubrey Daniels slam on Dan Pink's book Drive) but was unable due to length (again!). I looked at my Typepad settings and could not find anything I could check or uncheck to change the allowable length of comments, sorry! I don't quite know why this is happening. Here is Bret's comments, my thoughts at the end:

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Hi Lisa:

Great series you have going over there! I hate to be negative, but your blog platform is not facilitating conversation. It is VERY hard to leave anything but a short comment at your blog. 

Here is a comment I tried to post but failed (ugh). 

Once again, Lisa, a GREAT post you have going here. Let me again preface my comments by saying I have yet to read either of the books these guys have written, and let me remind you that I AM a behavioral scientist. I personally would never even consider trying to do a scientific study on motivation - it is just too difficult. I always try to *explain* some aspect of behavior in every study I do, but I never try to package  that in a motivation theory framework.  And even if a study can show a *correlation* between some personality trait, individual attitude, or organizational level variable and some behavior (e.g. performance), VERY, VERY few have ever been able to show causality. We just can't design field studies (those where real people do real work) to control all the variance (possible alternative explanation) to establish that any variable caused any behavior. 

I actually do like broad concepts (theory) because that helps managers understand why people might do the things they do. Remember, most of the "hows" have not been supported by rigorous research. 

Great stuff! thanks, Bret

--
Bret Simmons

www.bretlsimmons.com 

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Thanks, Bret. I appreciate your comment and that you took extra energy to get it to me by email.

I like giving managers both the concepts and some specifics and here is why. I think it is helpful to facilitate a deeper understanding with examples and "what this might look like in practice." Take something seemingly simple like:

• Showing we care
• Removing obstacles
• Collaboration
• Partnership
• Catalytic coaching
• Clarifying expectations

I have worked with managers who thought they knew what these practices looked like and would have said they are using them. But when we talk about some specifics - what it looks like on a daily and weekly basis, what it looks like in action at a staff meeting, what it looks like in a morning huddle, etc... they find that they did not understand the practice and that they are not currently doing this much at all. The specifics are not the ONLY ways - they are examples of ways for doing _____.

Organizations spend a lot of time defining desired practices, expectations, core competencies, values, and such but not nearly enough time training managers on what this looks like at their level and what this looks like on an every day basis.

I recently designed a four-hour class, for example, that does only one thing - it takes two concepts (accountability and ownership) and progressively drills down on what they are, how they are different, and the daily and weekly actions supervisors do that affect both.

A response from Aubrey Daniels to my post about his Dan Pink Slam Post

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post called: http://www.managementcraft.com/2010/01/aubrey-daniels-versus-dan-pink-bam-management.html

Aubrey Daniels tried to leave a comment on that post, but the system did not let him because of its length. He emailed his comment to me and I said I would share it here.

See Aubrey Daniels' post about Dan Pink's book Drive here.

Find Dan Pink here.

See my original post here.

Now here is the comment from Aubrey Daniels. Thanks, Aubrey, for taking the time to share this!

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Lisa,

Thanks for the comments about my blog post about Pink. I would love to have a long discussion about this whole topic with you and Pink as well but lacking that I will make a few comments about your post.

The issue about intrinsic motivation is not its importance at work or in the rest of our lives, but how to create it.  How is it that people come to love their work?  Were they born loving a particular job?  Can you decrease intrinsic motivation?  Can you increase it?  If the answer is yes, then it follows that the environment is responsible.  Some environments increase intrinsic motivation and some decrease them.  The science of behavior analysis seeks to understand just how that happens. 

I have been working in the private sector for about 40 years and I can tell you that we have seen many examples where managers have "tapped into that inner fire" and turned a dreadful workplace into one where discretionary effort is the norm.

You say we need to "build our organizations around the idea of how can we work so that everyone can and will be driven to do their best work."  I certainly agree, hence my book, Bringing Out the Best in People.  You also say we should train managers differently.  I also agree but quite frankly I don't know how to do that without some pretty specific guidance, even to the point of using templates and routines.  When you have a manager who for decades has never told one employee that he liked, valued or appreciated her work, how do you get him to the point of showing "admiration, gratitude, and care.?"  It is not easy but we think it is worth the effort.

My bottom line is that everybody has opinions about motivation but until the subject is researched scientifically, we will never know which opinions are correct.  In the meantime, if we are wrong we can not only decrease intrinsic motivation but severely limit employee's ability to express themselves fully in all aspects of their lives.

In the last hundred years, behavior analysis, the science of behavior, has discovered a lot about why we behave as we do.  Unfortunately, most people (including Dan Pink) don't know it. Until they do we will continue to waste time, our most precious resource, being influenced by persuasive opinions even when they are "wrong headed."

Aubrey C. Daniels

 

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I believe in good, healthy, debate about things of importance like these, and I thank Aubrey Daniels for taking the time to share his thoughts on Management Craft. In his comment, he asked:

When you have a manager who for decades has never told one employee that he liked, valued or appreciated her work, how do you get him to the point of showing "admiration, gratitude, and care?"

This is a common problem, for sure. I would first ask, what is the root cause of the problem? On what basis is this manager deciding what to do, what to communicate, and how to manage? Often what I see is that the only training this manager has received has reinforced the wrong things (paternal practices, a focus on extrinsics, and that people are essentially machines - although it is usually phrased less directly) and that what needs to happen so that the manager can improve is a shift in his or her thinking about how to best manage people. Well intended structure with forms and check sheets will only reinforce the old and inadequate beliefs that underlie a detached management style.

Aubrey also asserts that he thinks we need to give managers pretty specific guidance. I wonder if he is suggesting that I think managers ought to be taught abstract and broad concepts and not trained on the specifics of what great management looks like. Actually, Aubrey, you and I agree that specifics are important. I think that the specifics we each recommend would be quite different, however (as related to motivation).

Also, I think that we know more about motivation - scientifically - than Daniels seems to believe.

What's your take? Read all the posts and information and weigh in. This is fun!

Where in the World is Lisa - Upcoming Travels, Let's Work Together

 

I always find a way to like where I am at, how about you? Great hotel chains like Marriott and Kimpton help a lot (as do iPods, Whole Foods, and a love of meeting friendly locals).

I have a TON of travel coming up and I thought I would take a few moments to share the cities I will be visiting. Here they are:

• Washington DC (several trips)
• Miami, FL
• Tupelo, MS
• Cleveland, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Chicago, IL (two trips)
• Seattle, WA
• Roanoke, VA (And points between Cincy and VA, I am driving my motorcycle)
• Tampa, FL
• Singapore

Included in that are a few conferences: ASTD ICE, SOBCON2010, VASHRM Regional, ASHHRA, and EWG. Also, I will be doing two two-day workshops for Agile Avant in Singapore.

In addition to traveling a lot, I am doing many presentations and classes. Here are some of the topics I will be presenting:

• The Agile Leader
• The Change Ready Organization
• High Impact Middle Management
• Talent Development: Power ties, iPhones, unconferences, virtualization and the coming together of decades of differences
• Hip and Sage: Leaving a Legacy
• How to Meet
• Accountability and Ownership

Do you work near any of these cities? Would you like me to come to your organization to speak or train while I am in town? Send me an email (the link to email me is up top and to the left) and let's get something going!

Aubrey Daniels (@AubreyDaniels) versus Dan Pink (@danielpink) - Bam! #management

There is a wonderful wee battle going on between the viewpoints of Dan Pink (author of Drive) and Aubrey Daniels (Author of Oops!). You can check out the post where Aubrey Daniels says what Dan Pink is writing about motivation "drives him crazy" here.

I think this is a great debate to be having because it might help change how people think. Pink challenges us with the notion that rewards and extrinsic reinforcement often does not improve performance and often (for tasks that require thinking/creativity) hurts performance. Daniels refutes this by saying that his experience proves that reinforcement and rewards work to impove performance. Daniels also takes aim at Pink's assertion that the "carrot and stick" approach no longer works and says that it never worked (and distiguishes reinforcement as something that is not a carrot and stick approach).

I have been reading the works of both Pink and Daniels for many years. I can remember the Daniels book, Bringing out the Best in People, which is now many years old (and which I gave out to people until I figured out this was not the right approach, then I stopped recommending the book).

So what's my take on this? I gotta go with Pink on this one. Why?

Yes, I have seen and experienced that reinforcement focuses performance and makes it more consistent - improving compliance of the fundamentals. And I think we all need to make sure that employees know what we appreciate their work and in what ways we think they add the greatest contributions. Showing care and being interested in employees - genuinely - is powerful and I advocate for that in a BIG way.

And I think we need to be clear about our expectations and give employees the respect they deserve by being candid about how their performance is, or is not, meeting expectations. Neither approach precludes us from doing this.

But here is the bottom line for me. When I think about the greatest managers I have worked with, seen, and been (I have had a few great days, too :-), what makes great managers stand out is NOT that they use reinforcement and rewards more fully and well.

AND I have seen many managers try to use reinforcement because they have been told they should and they come off as mechanistic and fake. Employees know when you are praising them because you think you should.

The word "praise," in fact, makes my skin crawl because imbedded in the meaning of this word is an assumption of a power structure. Bosses praise employees. Parents praise kids. The same goes for the word "empowerment," by the way (and yes, even "management" to some degree).

Most work environments are not ready for a radical makeover where structure, rules, and control are wiped out - and Pink knows this and says this in his book.

Here's what I know at the core of my being because I have seen it for 25 years, done it, trained it, and wrote about it. Tapping into that inner fire - the amazing contributor - that is inside people is the most important work of management and it cannot be a mechanized practice. This is what great managers do. It is not that they learned how to give reinforcement more effectively, it is that they spend theri time with their employees in a totally different conversation and with different purposes.

Daniels will argue that reinforcement must be genuine, and I agree with this, and I know his intent is NOT that managers hand out praise that feels fake. But here is the thing - what are we teaching managers? Are we teaching them that there is a system to performance and to make the system work, do these things and then are we giving them simple little ideas for ways to remember to give postiive reinforcement? Often this IS what is being taught and this is well-intended mechanism. It is not too far from a human form of the Pavlovian response.

If we, on the other hand, build our orgnaizations around idea of how can we work so that everyone can and will be driven to do their best work, we would train our managers differently. Not giving them templates, check sheets and routines, but teaching them how to build talent, be a catalytic coach, create opportunites for challenge and contribution, and actively partner to remove obstables. This manager will tapp into what makes people amazing and will show admiration, gratitude, and care.

Don't ignore the information from either Pink or Daniels or this debate - it is important. Give both sides your attention, give their ideas a try. Notive how you feel and how your employees feel and behave under each approach. Think about which approach would best help you do your best work. Then assess how you want to manage and which beliefs and approaches can help you be a driver - a catalyst - for greater results and engagement.

Check out Dan Pink's TED talk here. And the links to Pink and Daniels are above. Weigh in here and tell me what you think! 

#Management Fatique = Employee Disengagement

Are your employees disengaged or off their games? Are you? I was working with a group of supervisors and as our discussions unfolded, the situation became clearer.

They said: Our team members are disengaged, they don't seem to care, they just do the job.

They said: Our team used to be highly performing - a few years ago. Lots of things have changed in terms of the work environment, practices, the amount of challenging work, relationships, expectations, cuts in hours, etc.

They said: For the most part, today's disengaged employees are the same folks who were highly performing before.

I asked: And what about you?

They said: We try to start each day engaged and up, but it is hard and we often get frustrated, tired, drained by having to be like a parent to well qualified professionals.

Several also said: And to some degree, our jobs feel less challenging and motivating.

There are many reasons that this team has gone from highly engaged and performing to disengaged and doing the minimum. Some reasons have nothing to do with this dedicated and hardworking team of supervisors. That said, it has always been my belief that:

You cannot expect your employees to be more engaged, interested, or committed than you are.

And another thing I feel confident of - the supervisors may not have caused many of the changes that have rocked this team, (and more changes are inevitable) but they are key to helping the team reignite and reengage.How? In this case, they need to focus on a few areas:

Find ways to add back more challenge into the work. Team members are missing this and their jobs feel less substantive.

Increase connection through relationship building. This team used to work together more than they do now. Their structure has separated the "we are all in this together," dynamic.

Hold people accountable for basic performance and don't let your fatigue and frustration (or the hassle) get in the way of ensuring everyone contributes.

At the same time, find ways - everyday - to show employees you care and believe they are amazing. Both employees and supervisors are acting a bit like victims and the supervisors are key to reversing this vicious cycle.

The supervisors also need to do whatever it takes to get reengaged. Are you in a similar situation? Partner with your manager to bring back some of the challenge in your job and practice techniques that allow you to start, endure, and end each shift on a high.

I recommended three books that I think could help them reinvent their approaches to their work (they are already talented, committed, and hard working):

The Art of Possibility

The Power of Full Engagement

My book, Two Weeks to a Breakthrough

White Paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming by Wayne Turmel

Ten years ago - heck, five years ago - few people worked on teams with geographically dispersed members. Today, this is very common. Every manager needs or will need to learn how to manage and inspire team members they regularly see "live."

Pal and witty guy Wayne Turmel (a.k.a. The Crank Middle Manager) has written this helpful white paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming. You can down load it for free by clicking on the link. A couple interesting quotes from the paper:

• "70% of managers above 1st-level supervisor now have at least one team member who is not co-located with them."
• "Technology and online tools are great but they are effective only if they are used to create context and human connections. Mere data transfer will result in short-term time savings and long term communication problems of the project."
• "A good project requires a mix of synchronous (people can talk at the same time) and asynchronous (people use them at different times) tools to be truly effective."

Kevin Plank, Under Armour CEO, says no to 'loser talk' from Washington Post

I like this video from the Washington Post series called On Leadership. This one is of Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour. I recently became acquainted with Under Armour when I was training for the Bhutan trip. UA makes great stuff - high quality wear for athletic endeavors.

I like the way he suggests "no loser talk." Totall agree.

Wonderful Ted Talk from Benjamin Zander - Leaders Create Shining Eyes

I shared this video clip with a group this week and they loved it. I bet you will too. This a Benjamin Zander talk from Ted.com.

But I Don’t Think Like That – Don't Project Your Style Onto My Communication!

I’d like to share a story that has helped many of my training participants get past their natural judgments about the seemingly strange/mean/frustrating things other people do at work. I was an HR director at the time and was working in my office, when a peer walked in and asked if I had a few moments. I will call her Sally. Sally closed the door and vented for a good ten minutes about how cold and mean our boss – the CEO – was to her. I listened, allowed her to vent, and then asked her for specifics. How did the conversation begin? What was the CEO’s response? How did she respond back? As Sally recapped the conversation, she shared how the CEO made her feel unvalued and small. Part of the conversation took place over email and I asked her to show me those emails so that I could get a better feel for what she was describing.

Was Sally’s pain real? Yes. Was it appropriate? Who can say. What is necessary? Not at all.

Here is what happened. Sally poured her heart into pitching an idea to the CEO. Her email laid out the reasons why she proposed an expansion of programs in her department. Her passion and commitment oozed from her words. She worked hard on her pitch and she was hoping for a strong and positive response topped off with a warm "atta-girl." But because Sally has always felt intimidated by the CEO, she pitched her idea by email - a long email. The CEO sent a three-line response  - he would not consider a program expansion without a full financial analysis on the program’s potential revenues and costs. Analysis was not Sally’s strong suit and she took the request for more detail as a personal affront and that the CEO did not trust her judgment.

Sally projected her communication style and decision-making preferences onto the CEO and interpreted the CEO’s staccato informational response and need for analysis as an indication that he did not care. I see this type of meaning-making all the time and it is not helpful. Could the CEO have been more sensitive to Sally’s need for reinforcement? Sure. But Sally made assumptions about the CEO’s response that was neither accurate nor helpful. We all have a filter through which we make sense of the world. Our filter is not the correct one, or only one, it is just ours.

To be optimally successful, we need to see other people's filters and communicate with this knowledge in mind.

Sally took a risk by sending her idea by email - a risk that did not pay off. Her fear of in-person criticism lead to a disappointment of another kind. Having worked for this CEO for three years, Sally should have also known that he would need a full analysis (most bosses would want this).

What at first looked like an insensitive response from the CEO was actually an insensitive response from Sally. She was insensitive - and even irresponsible - because she did not communicate in a way that would move her idea forward and she blamed the CEO for not thinking like her.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on Sally?

As an aside - the CEO drove me a bit bonkers, too. WE ALL DRIVE EACH OTHER BONKERS. As managers, our success depends on us separating the daily drama that comes from our clashing communication styles and preferences from the need to convey our ideas in ways that others can effectively hear them.