Vicki Anderson

Many people who are trying to make lifestyle changes get coaches. There are coaches for weight loss, smoking cessation, alcohol and drug addiction, and all kinds of skill training. It is a proven fact that if you have someone to support you with positive reinforcement or to help you stay motivated, you are more likely to make the changes long lasting.

This concept is also true for leadership skills. Many people have started using coaches to help them discuss their approaches to leading and help them learn through their immediate situations. However, I don’t think there is enough emphasis on support for changing behavior.

I was talking to a client the other day and suggested that she state in front of her staff that she is trying to be a better manager. She should say that she realizes that the way she has behaved in the past has been sometimes inappropriate and she plans to change that. She should ask for their help and support while she learns to be a better manager. People could gently let her know if she was falling off the wagon or they could give her kudos when she seems to be doing it right.

The benefit of doing this is not only support for the manager, but it makes the staff look at the manager differently and perhaps judge with different criteria. Many times people try to change, but others still view them with the same eyes, so they never get the benefit of others seeing the change. Trust is built on the behaviors we see, not the behaviors we say we will do. Therefore, if you want someone to believe you are trying to be better, you have to do things they will see. However, if they aren’t looking for it, they still might not see it.

What do you think? Does this make a person seem strong or weak to do this? To me, it is no different from the alcoholic who stands up and and says “I’m an alcoholic and I need your help.” It is owning the problem and showing that you are earnest about fixing it.

I have been consulting on performance evaluation systems for a long time and one of my pet peeves is the feeling by some managers that you can’t rate people at the top of the scale because there is always room for improvement. My answer to that is, “Then take that rating off the form because it is unachievable.”

I believe in coaching to the test. In other words, be very clear with employees about what you consider good solid performance and what they have to do above or below that to get better or worse ratings. For those people who are high achievers, they now have something to shoot for and if you see it consistently, why can’t you give them that rating?

There is no perfect in human behavior. There is always room for improvement. That doesn’t stop us from wanting a reward when we achieve a certain level. No matter how many Tour de France races Lance Armstrong has won, there is room for improvement. That’s why he keeps trying. They don’t withhold the trophy because of it.

The problem is that most managers haven’t really thought about what they think excellent performance looks like, so they feel uncomfortable rewarding it. If they do give high ratings they are afraid of being unfair to someone else so they want to give high ratings to everyone. And, of course, they are under pressure by their bosses to give few high ratings because then everyone will want a big raise.

I have a philosophical question for you. If it didn’t matter what raise you were going to get because there is not much budget, would you rather your manager give you the higher rating you had worked to earn or would you rather they soft peddle it and give you an average score so it is in line with the money? What does that do to your motivation? At least it would be on the record that you are a high performer when promotions or raises are available again.

I just read an article this morning that the New York state assembly is considering a law against workplace bullying. What makes me mad is that we need one!

In my years of work in human resources and consulting with management, it never fails to amaze me that workplace bullies get away with it. They are often people who have some special knowledge that the boss doesn’t think he can do without, so he doesn’t want to take any risk of losing him. Or, the bully has a protector in a power position. Therefore, there are no repercussions for the bad management. Instead, they lose good employees who refuse to put up with their shenanigans. Unfortunately, today many people are stuck because there aren’t many other job options for them to jump to.

The employers don’t want to have this law because they think it will keep them from holding employees accountable. However, I think there is a definite difference between being clear to employees about what standard of performance you want and bullying. There are, of course, employees who will abuse the system and put forth trivial suits that will cost money on both sides, but if you are doing your management right, this should be minimized.

Just as unions came about because people needed to be protected against bad management practices, now someone feels we need another law to protect people against bad management. It is just another example of lack of job ownership. Managers often talk about the need for employees to own their job and take initiative. I think it’s time that managers take ownership of their jobs and start training, coaching, and reinforcing good management skills. It is just dumb business to let good employees work under bullying bosses.

What happens after a mistake differentiates the people developers from the people limiters. I have always learned that after an accident, a mistake, or a failure of any kind, you ask three questions: 1) What happened? 2) Why did it happen? and 3) How can we keep it from happening again?

There is no “Who did it?” in those three questions. Of course, “who did it” is part of the “what happened” but the focus is on the situation, issue, or behavior, not the person. The assumption is that people don’t make mistakes on purpose. They more likely make mistakes because they were distracted, in a hurry, didn’t think a certain step in a process was necessary, or because they have always done it that way and no mistake ever happened before.

As humans, we all make mistakes, but the higher the cost of the mistake, the more we have a tendency to blame. However, as leaders we have the capability to help people learn from them so they don’t repeat those mistakes. The more that you talk about the three questions above, the less likely people are going to hide mistakes and the more likely you will get to the root cause of the problem to solve it.

Make sure that blame doesn’t come through in your voice tone even though you may be measuring your words. Your body language and voice tone convey much more than the words you use. If you tend to be one who gets emotional easily, perhaps you can learn to do a “slow blink” as a former colleague used to say. Stop and think before you react to the information just presented. It might keep you from having to go back and apologize later for overreacting.

If you are going to lead, you must learn to really solve problems because blaming is only surface problem solving. It does not keep it from happening again. It only tends to make the person hide problems until caught, which exacerbates the issue. If you are going to be a people developer you must make it safe for people to report problems so they can be fixed. Involve them in the process and help them learn for themselves.

I’m sure the CEO of BP has thoroughly regretted his offhand frustrated comment about how he’d like his life back. When you are in a leadership position and especially in the media, it is unfortunate, but you really have to watch what you say. When you are in management, what you say gets attributed to the company. You no longer have the luxury of being able to say something offhandly candid, off color, or snide. You really should watch it wherever you are because you never know who is listening.

A good rule of thumb is to think about whether you would want your words on the front page of the New York Times (because they could be), the lead story on CNN, or would you say them in front of your minister, your children, or your mother. Reticence is the better part of valor when it comes to tense situations.

Unfortunately, we are also human and when someone presses you constantly as the media tends to do, you say things under duress that given a chance to think about it, you wouldn’t say. I once did a training session for senior managers of a delivery company and we set up a situation where a truck containing hazardous materials had turned over and some media people just happened to be in the area and got to the scene quickly. It was very interesting to see how the managers in charge handled the simulated pressure. If you haven’t ever had any kind of disaster drill at your work, it would be good to set up one. What would you say if xxx happened there? Being a good leader means thinking ahead. BP has learned this the hard way. Don’t make the same mistake.