Category Archives: Management & Leadership

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HOW THE EXPECTATION GAP CAN MAKE OR BREAK A RELATIONSHIP

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My Gym went out of business on Friday. I know, I know, too bad for me right? Well, I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m trying to explain something important about expectations. The owners put a notice up early Friday morning explaining that they would be closing the doors for good at 5 pm. It didn’t really bother me all that much, because it didn’t really surprise me. I knew that they were having financial difficulties and that the deal they had in place to sell the facility to a prospective buyer had fallen through. So I was kind of expecting it to happen. No harm, no foul. I joined another gym the next day. Sunday morning I woke up at 730 am ready to try out the new facility. It turns out they don’t open on Sunday until 11 am. WAIT! WHAT? HOLD ON! THAT’S RIDICULOUS! I was an unhappy camper! I had some pretty choice words to say about the new Gym to my wife. And that was despite the fact that it was my own fault. I never bothered to look at the Sunday hours before I joined.

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Turbocharge Your Communication

3 Steps To Increase The Persuasive Power Of Your Language

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The story goes that when Steve Jobs was trying to entice John Sculley to leave Pepsi-Cola and join Apple he used a powerful communication tool. He asked Sculley, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?” Given that comparison, Sculley of course, moved to Apple. Steve Jobs was a Master Communicator. He was adept at going beyond the facts to inspire, engage and influence.

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THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR FOR EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

WHAT MANAGERS REALLY NEED TO FOCUS ON

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If you are a manager, or someone who has to get things done through and with others – the motivation of the people you work with probably matters to you. I work with managers every week, in seminars and in coaching relationships, and employee motivation seems to be a source of pain for many of them. They talk about having to work with team members who:

  • Come late / Leave early
  • Do as little as possible
  • Miss deadlines
  • Spend time complaining or gossiping
  • Show a lack of ownership or initiative
  • Show a lack of accountability
  • Spend their time surfing social media

Those types of problems are what I call Type 1 Motivational Challenges: The employee actively demonstrates a lack of motivation

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HOW THE WORDS YOU USE AFFECT YOUR PERSONAL BRAND AND INFLUENCE

6 Actions You Can Take

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I’m trying to change the language that I use. It’s been an uphill process. All right, maybe you need a little of the backstory. A few months ago a colleague and I had a difference of opinion (notice I didn’t say disagreement?) about a business project. Somehow during that conversation she shared with me that I sounded disgruntled. It was like a slap in the face and my immediate reaction (internally) was denial. I’m not feeling disgruntled. Why would she say that? This is more about her than about me. When the sting started to fade I was able to consider the comment a little more constructively. What did I do that might cause her to see me that way? I came to a realization that the language (words) I often use and the focus of my casual conversation (problems, challenges and personal disasters) might be contributing.

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7 SIMPLE RULES FOR GIVING CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

And 5 Key Words To Remember

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Last week I put together a proposal for a perspective client and had a colleague look at it before sending it out. After reading it, she pointed out some of the ways that I could improve the proposal, and did it in a way that left me feeling good about the whole exchange. I immediately made the changes that she recommended. It got me thinking about the skillful way that she made her suggestions and the art of giving effective feedback.

It’s such an integral part of building and maintaining strong relationships. We all need to be able to do it, but so often  we have trouble with it. We stress about it, put it off and when it finally reaches a tipping point it often comes out in a way that ends up being seen as a personal attack or as unfair, or as just plain WRONG. It pushes the emotional buttons of the other person to the point where they become defensive and stop listening to the feedback. Feedback like that does no one any good. The good news is that there are a few simple rules to follow to make the feedback you give easier for others to hear and accept.

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WHY MANAGERS FAIL TO MOTIVATE

3 Keys To A Bad Climate - And What You Can Do About It

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I was leading a New Manager’s workshop for one of my clients and Matt brought up an issue: “I don’t understand why some of my team just seem to be going through the motions. They don’t take initiative, they don’t seem invested in what they’re doing, they don’t seem to want to be here. How do I motivate them?” That opened up the floodgates, with the majority of new managers in the room talking about the sad state of affairs of the motivation of the people that they managed. So I asked a question: “Can A Manager Motivate A Direct Report?” As they talked it through, it soon became apparent that it’s not a simple question. Motivation comes from within the individual. It’s an intrinsic force that energizes, directs and sustains our efforts. There’s no button you can push, as a manager, to turbocharge the motivation of your staff. Bummer!

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IS THIS YOUR BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO GAINING MORE ORGANIZATIONAL INFLUENCE?

How You May Limit Yourself - And What You Can Do About It

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Pretty much everything you do with other people requires influence. Nobody HAS to do what you want them to do. Even if you are the CEO of the whole organization, your ability to persuade others to embrace and follow your vision will make the difference between success and failure. Positional power only gets you so far – right up to about compliance. Reaching commitment and ownership requires influence, even at the top. And most of us aren’t the CEO. Which means that we have even less power and authority to get people to do what we need them to do.

Influence isn’t some Jedi mind control trick. It’s about getting your idea or proposal a fair hearing; it’s about being a trusted advisor; it’s about having credibility. Influence is the ability to positively  affect the beliefs, attitudes or behavior of the person with whom you’re working. Some people are able to influence naturally. They seem to have an innate ability to build relationships and gain commitment. Others of us have to work at it. But it is a skill – like playing pool, skiing, or even dancing. You can learn how to improve your influence.

But beyond the actual skill set of influencing, there is a self-generated roadblock that prevents many of us from acquiring the influence that we’d like: Our Mindset about influencing.

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HOW YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS CAN GET YOU FIRED

4 Actions You Can Take To Prevent It

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Susan had worked hard to become Principal at Walden Elementary School. She had paid her dues as a teacher for 10 years while she completed a Doctorate in Education. She took over as Principal three years earlier and she hit the ground running. She had friends on the staff and she cared passionately about the children. She wanted what was best for each one of them. Now here she was today, in front of all of her students, their parents and their teachers having to say goodbye. She had lost her job. Her last words to them in the goodbye assembly were “My intentions were always to do what was best for the children”.

There were probably a number of contributing factors that led to this moment. It’s very seldom just a single issue. But one of the factors contributing to Susan’s abrupt end may go back to a gap between her intentions and how her team saw those intentions.

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THE MANAGEMENT EFFECTIVENESS FORMULA

4 Keys to Management Success

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If you are a manager, you’ve probably learned that it is one of those things that looks pretty easy from the outside, but can turn out to be difficult to do well when you actually try it. Managers have to perform a number of different functions and play a variety of roles. It’s an active – proactive – process that requires a number of different qualities, skills and abilities.

Take a moment and think about it. Based on your experiences – whether as a manager or having seen managers in action – What does it take to be effective? Write your ideas down on a piece of paper before you read any farther.

If you are like most of my clients you probably wrote qualities like: effective communicator, organized, good delegator. They are all great answers! But let me give you another way of thinking about this – a formula for management effectiveness. I want to give you an equation.

Now before you flashback to ninth grade algebra and start getting anxious, let me acknowledge that this is more of a metaphor for management effectiveness than a strict algebraic equation. It gives us a framework within which we can talk about the key variables and their relationships to one another. Ok, enough disclaimers. Here’s the formula: