Leadership Caffeine-7 Suggestions to Strengthen Your Group’s Performance

May 7, 2012 By 5 Comments

image of a coffee cupPerformance counts. Efforts are nice, but ultimately, you are evaluated on the results of your team, not the amount of work you put into achieving your results.

The pursuit of performance is something that is too easily lost in some of the kinder, gentler content that is found in the leadership literature today. My advice: don’t forget for a second that you’ll only be successful if the team you are leading is successful.

In contemplating the “set context and communicate expectations to promote performance” theme for this post, I drew a portion of the content below from my book with Rich Petro, Practical Lessons in Leadership. Our focus in the original section was on building the operationally excellent team. While you may use different labels, the concepts will support your efforts to promote high performance.

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Operational excellence starts with you setting the expectation that your team will perform at a level necessary to achieve or exceed objectives.  In seeking to establish standards of performance and behavior, your very public and very frequent statements of expectations are some of the most powerful tools at your disposal. Your ability to grasp your true priorities in support of your firm’s goals, provides the ability for you to articulate these priorities and objectives to your team and begin setting the expectation for success.

Everyone on the operationally excellent team must understand their responsibility for execution around key objectives, and be aware that their performance and progress are both important and are being watched.  The operationally excellent team always knows the objectives, where they stand in relation to achieving them, and what they are going to do to get there. 

7 Suggestions to Promote High Performance on Your Team:

 1. Communicate expectations for achievement of operating objectives from day one of your leadership role.  There should be no ambiguity about your intentions and your expectations for performance, progress reporting and ultimately, achievement.  Remember to link yourself as ultimately responsible for the outcomes of the team and to let them understand your role to both coach and support the team and individual efforts.

2. Kick-off all operations oriented meetings with a review of the key business objectives and progress towards those objectives.  Conclude every session with a reminder of the objectives—especially near term deliverables.  This is equally important for individual review sessions as it is for group situations.

 3. Praise, celebrate and reward milestone achievement and positive progress frequently and liberally.

 4. Acknowledge roadblocks, misfires and general problems quickly and calmly.  Your appropriate reaction to these occurrences will contribute to building an effective working environment where people can honestly and openly deal with the negative as well as the positive.

 5. Foster a culture that treats problems as opportunity for creativity and innovation. More than lip-service is required here. Let teams experiment and implement new ideas to fix or improve and challenge them to keep improving.

6. Seek out and deal with poor performers promptly and fairly.  As the saying goes, one bad apple can ruin the whole bushel, and the same is true with teams. Your handling of poor performers (professionally and timely of course) sends a powerful message to your team.  You build accountability into the culture by reinforcing that a mistake is a learning experience, repeated mistakes are a developmental or training opportunities and chronic poor performance is a reason for reassignment or dismissal.

 7. Set and share expectations for your own performance and be open about your progress and your own misfires.  The team needs to see that you practice what you preach.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Great performance is a function of many factors. While the formula may vary a bit from team to team, alignment on goals, a culture of accountability, clear expectations and constant assessment of performance versus expectations are core to the recipe for success everywhere.

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Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here.

Art Petty is a Chicago-based management consultant focusing on strategy and leadership development. Art regularly speaks on innovation in management and leadership, and his work is reflected in two books, including the recent, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. (download a free excerpt at Art’s facebook page.)

Art publishes regularly at The Management Excellence blog at http://artpetty.com/blog/

Prior to his solo career, Art spent 20+ years leading marketing sales and business units in systems and software organizations around the globe. You can follow Art on twitter: @artpetty and he can be reached via e-mail at art.petty@artpetty.com

Filed Under: Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Performance Tagged With: , , ,

Leadership Caffeine: Listen with Intent

April 24, 2012 By 6 Comments

image of a coffee cupYesterday, a valued colleague described a fascinating professional interaction and used the phrase, “listening with intent.” While I imagine this is something on the level of “seek first to understand,” the phrasing works for me. It connotes a significant and deep personal investment in focusing on another human…something lacking from most of our interchanges in life and in the workplace.

A quick search on the topic uncovered a number of resources…mostly linking the phrase to the process of “active listening.” Listening with intent goes beyond the acts of repeating words and asking clarifying questions, techniques commonly associated with active listening.

Listening with intent isn’t a technique, it’s a personal value backed by behaviors that cause us to shift from the movie about ourselves running in our own minds to focusing on the movie or picture being created by another.

Stephen Covey describes this concept very eloquently and effectively in 7 Habits…and it is summarized wonderfully in this piece at Fast Company: “Using Empathic Listening to Collaborate.”

Instead of our usual listening “with intent to reply to control, to manipulate,” it (Empathic Listening) means getting “inside of another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.” 

Rhetorical question: How many of us listen that hard to our colleagues? Our customers? Our loved ones? 

Frankly, the act of listening with intent…or employing Covey’s empathic listening, sounds exhausting and painstaking. I suspect that’s why we spend so much time not doing this.  Nonetheless, there are some good reasons to invest the mental sweat required to listen with intent.

  • Great negotiators understand and apply empathic listening masterfully. They strive to understand issues, goals and aspirations, which are often hiding out of sight behind positions.
  • The best salespeople I’ve been privileged to work with are masters. The worst sell on features and functions, the great ones sell by sitting down in our theaters and seeing the world and challenges and needs from our frame of reference.
  • Great strategists listen to customers and markets with intent. They look for emerging patterns and strive to make sense of those patterns and then they adapt their firms and products and services to fit the patterns and frames of groups of customers.
  • The best medical professionals employ Empathic Listening with their patients, which makes a remarkable difference in how we cope with difficult diagnoses.
  • And yes, the best leaders strive to tune-in to their employees, particularly as it relates to professional development.

Covey  ties this concept off beautifully with: “When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving. This need for psychological air impacts communication in every area of life.”

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Help your family members, colleagues, employees, customers and even negotiating opponents breathe a little easier. Listen with intent. Listen with empathy (not sympathy) and provide a bit of psychological air. Most of us…myself included, don’t this very well or very often. It’s time to start.

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Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here.

Art Petty is a Chicago-based management consultant focusing on strategy and leadership development. Art regularly speaks on innovation in management and leadership, and his work is reflected in two books, including the recent, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. (download a free excerpt at Art’s facebook page.)

Art publishes regularly at The Management Excellence blog at http://artpetty.com/blog/

Prior to his solo career, Art spent 20+ years leading marketing sales and business units in systems and software organizations around the globe. You can follow Art on twitter: @artpetty and he can be reached via e-mail at art.petty@artpetty.com

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Professional Growth, Values Tagged With: , , ,

Leadership Caffeine-For a Change, Do Something Unconventionally Unorthodox

April 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

image of a coffee cupWe tend to love our life and work routines. They are comfortable and comforting.

In the workplace, “creating routines” almost seems to be the goal for some managers. It’s an attempt to bring order to our little corner of the organization. Managers do management things by imposing routines. Weekly staff meetings, regular status updates, quarterly reviews, semi-annual budgeting and annual strategic planning.

And while there’s a certain amount of routine that’s inherent in successfully running any organization, the best leaders seek and create opportunities to break away from the mind-numbing, sense-dulling pursuit of routine.

Effective managers understand the power of the “shower effect.” They know that our best ideas often occur when we are out of our environment and away from our routines (e.g. in the shower), and they strive to create settings and opportunities for people to break from routines. The goals: stimulate creativity, allow the work-brain a little down-time, increase a team’s sense of professional adventure and generally open up some new neuro-synaptic channels with divergent thinking practice.

5 Easy and Inexpensive Ideas to Help Your Team Break-Away from the Routine:

1. Kill most status meetings…they ‘re a waste of time and truly mind numbing.  (See my popularly unpopular post on this one.) Use some of the time for the ideas below, and don’t feel compelled to fill all of the found time.

2. Take the team to a movie. Preferably, find a movie that showcases a group of people attempting to solve a problem. From robbing casinos to stealing the Declaration of Independence to surviving a disaster, the examples will stimulate ideas Run a post-movie discussion on how the examples might apply in the workplace or for a specific project.

3. Go shopping at a competitor, a customer or your own location. Step-back and observe everything…the environment, interactions between customers and staff…between staff and managers. Ask for help and then strike up a conversation to learn more about the environment. Facilitate a debrief on the observations. What ideas/problems/solutions do the observations uncover?

4. Take a field-trip to the museum. One manager took a page from the eighth grade field trip and created an information and idea scavenger hunt and split the group into teams. The competition had teams sprinting through the museum in a kind of indoor, orienteering race. The information gathered (pictures, facts about people, places and things) all were collected and shared in a debrief session.

5. Get out of your workplace and benchmark yourself against something and some organization completely different. When Southwest Airlines wanted to look at ideas for improving the turn-around time for their planes, they visited Racing Pit Crews for ideas, not other airlines. What are your goals and what environment outside of your industry might serve as a model for comparison and learning?

The Bottom-Line for Now:

There are good reasons and a nearly infinite number of ideas for you to occasionally and creatively interrupt the routines of your team members. If the nature of your work doesn’t afford half or whole-day breaks, mix things up or plan something during lunch or outside of normal hours. There will always be complications…get over them and keep moving. At the end of the day, successfully, randomly and periodically breaking the routine will re-energize, reward and inspire.

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Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here.

Art Petty is a Chicago-based management consultant focusing on strategy and leadership development. Art regularly speaks on innovation in management and leadership, and his work is reflected in two books, including the recent, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. (download a free excerpt at Art’s facebook page.)

Art publishes regularly at The Management Excellence blog at http://artpetty.com/blog/

Prior to his solo career, Art spent 20+ years leading marketing sales and business units in systems and software organizations around the globe. You can follow Art on twitter: @artpetty and he can be reached via e-mail at art.petty@artpetty.com

Filed Under: Leadership Caffeine Tagged With: , , ,

Leadership Caffeine-Why You Might Want to Pause Before Voicing that Decision

April 2, 2012 By 2 Comments

image of a coffee cupThe next time an employee or a group is looking to you to make a tough decision, you might want to screw up your courage, boldly look at them and…say nothing.

Teaching others to employ effective decision-making processes is one of the most important and often ignored responsibilities of those in leadership roles. Unfortunately, training your team to look to you for the calls on how to fix problems and move forward is much easier than teaching your team members to stand on their own for most issues.

You are fighting inertia when you pause and look to someone else or to a group to process on a decision. More than likely, you’re in a leadership role specifically because those above you developed trust in your decision-making abilities. It’s part of what got you this far, and now, you’re being asked to pause and to teach. Not voicing your decision is likely much harder than making it.

Too many managers incorrectly wield their decision-making authority, either because they are particularly comfortable in this role, or, because they view it as a symbol of strength or even power. Some use decision-making authority to control others.

Almost counter-intuitively, it takes more strength to not make a decision for someone else, especially when the answer is clear. And as for power, the old adage of you have to give it to get it is particularly relevant here.

7 Reasons Why You Should Back Off and Let Others Make Decisions:

1. Placing the responsibility for decisions on others is a sign of confidence and respect.

2. Showing others you are comfortable delegating decision-making enhances your leadership credibility.

3. Nobody learns anything when you make the decision.

4. You’re not always the smartest one in the room, even if you’re in charge.

5. The point in time when someone asks you what to do is one of those powerful teaching and developmental moments. Don’t squander it.

6.  You are able to assess where people and teams are at based on how they approach and make decisions.

7. Your skillful use of questions in lieu of immediate answers, helps people understand what’s important and how decisions potentially impact goal achievement.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

While I suggest pausing (in non-emergency situations) instead of offering up your quick solution, you still own the responsibility for the decisions of your team and team members. There’s no shirking responsibility for outcomes, particularly for the tough calls. However, you are also on the hook for developing others, stimulating innovation and promoting high performance and all of these are better supported and more often realized when you teach others how to make decisions. We know that you know the answer. Your real test is whether you can teach others to reach an answer as good as or better than yours.

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Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here.

Art Petty is a Chicago-based management consultant focusing on strategy and leadership development. Art regularly speaks on innovation in management and leadership, and his work is reflected in two books, including the recent, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.  Art publishes regularly at The Management Excellence blog at http://artpetty.com

Prior to his solo career, Art spent 20+ years leading marketing sales and business units in systems and software organizations around the globe. You can follow Art on twitter: @artpetty and he can be reached via e-mail at art.petty@artpetty.com

 

 

 

Filed Under: Decision-Making, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Performance, Professional Growth Tagged With: , ,

Leadership Caffeine-6 Reasons Why You Should Pass on the Happy Hour Invite

March 26, 2012 By 32 Comments

image of a coffee cupJust say “No” to the post-work invite from the team to join them for a beer. While you’ll feel torn because you enjoy social time as much as the next person, pay attention to that little voice in your mind trying to get your attention with, “You shouldn’t, you’re the boss.”

No moralizing here. I’ve simply known too many who shut this voice out and paid with their credibility and on a few occasions, their jobs.

I understand  that this philosophy is likely to result in my winning “Curmudgeon of the Year,” in the leadership blogger category, however, I’ll wear that label with honor if it helps keep a few more of you from showing your team what you’re really like when you let your hair down.

Six Reasons Why You Should Skip the Post-Work Happy Hour:

1. No one really wants you there. Harsh, I know, but the truth hurts. Some dumb a@@ do-gooder suck up employee thought it would be OK to invite you, against the entire team’s better judgment. They want downtime and your presence changes the situation.

2. People get stupid when they drink. You don’t need to see and hear that. The images WILL impact your perception of people and that’s not fair to you or your employees.

3. You’re not one of the gang anymore. Yeah, you were one of the gang a few months ago, but that relationship changed when you took the promotion. There’s no going back.

4. You’ll pay if you cross the wrong line. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen a manager cross the line of “one too many” and proceed to cross some line that offended one or more.  Do that just once in front of the troops and your talk of accountability and values will fall on deaf ears forever.

5. Your legacy requires that no one see you drunk. Get drunk in front of the team just once and the primary image the team will retain is one that involves you spilling drinks all over yourself while slurring your words and hitting on one of your employees. Whether you make CEO (unlikely if you frequent too many Happy Hours), or go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, there’s no flossing this view of you out of their minds.

6. You’re always on the clock. In spite of the common sentiment that what you do on your own time is your business, if you’re doing it around direct reports, you’re never off the clock.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Bonding with your team is critical. The best way to do this is by fighting ferociously every day to help them succeed as individuals and as a group.  Create workplace social opportunities…bring in lunch, sponsor some creative field trips and do everything you can to be accessible and approachable. However, when it comes to the spontaneous post-work gatherings at a local watering hole, thank them for the invite and make certain you have something else to do.

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Don’t miss the next Leadership Caffeine-Newsletter! Register here.

Art Petty is a Chicago-based management consultant focusing on strategy and leadership development. Art regularly speaks on innovation in management and leadership, and his work is reflected in two books, including the recent, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.  Art publishes regularly at The Management Excellence blog at http://artpetty.com

Prior to his solo career, Art spent 20+ years leading marketing sales and business units in systems and software organizations around the globe. You can follow Art on twitter: @artpetty and he can be reached via e-mail at art.petty@artpetty.com

 

Filed Under: Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , ,
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