Having Effective Conversations to Build or Restore Trust in Any Relationship

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There are some people with whom we easily build trusting, productive relationships — people with whom we connect and take our relationships to the next level without much trouble or controversy. But there are other relationships — personal and professional — that require more work, either because past dealings or misunderstandings have created mistrust or animosity, or because different personalities make it harder sometimes to find common ground. Sometimes there is a problem in the relationship that we need to address or react to. But at other times, even if the relationship is functioning sufficiently, we want to take it to a higher, better level.

Communication: The Key to Transforming Relationships

Trust, relationships, partnerships: These are just different ways of talking about the same thing — a level of intimacy and trust necessary in order to connect, interact and collaborate well with others. This intimacy lives in communication and is shaped by communication. It gets built through communication, and it can be destroyed by communication, or a lack thereof.

Over the next few weeks, I will share my thoughts about how to take any challenging relationship and transform it into a genuine partnership based on trust, respect and understanding. I will also cover how to take relationships that are functional to the next level. The principles for both scenarios are the same. The application has to be personalized to each person, relationship and circumstance.

The Four Steps for Transforming Any Relationship

There are four steps that if you follow will enable you to significantly transform or improve any dysfunctional or functional relationship no matter what the starting point. The more you understand these steps as principles or spaces to navigate the conversation through, the more confident and effective you will be at applying them to any circumstance:

  1. Step One: Align both parties on the need for improvement in the relationship and the level of trust, the desire to achieve these improvements, and the commitment to invest the time to achieve them.
  2. Step Two: Complete the history of the relationship by fully getting each other’s reality and experiences.
  3. Step Three: Create rich and exciting new possibilities for the future of the relationship.
  4. Step Four: Turn the new possibilities into clear actions, practices and results that take the relationship to the next level.

Get on the Same Page

The first step for generating a new level of trust in the relationship is that both parties genuinely want to transform the relationship and are willing to commit the time, energy and emotion to the conversations that can make this happen. You can’t force people to do this. It’s got to be authentic. This doesn’t mean that people know how to achieve the desired outcome. It means they want it.

Create a Common Interest

It’s always easier if both sides want this and there is no need for anyone to convince anyone else. But, as we all know very well, that is often not the case. So, in order to get people on the same page, there sometime needs to be an explicit dialogue about “Why do it?” “What for?” “Why now?” and/or “What’s in it for me?”

Consider a contrarian view: There is a benefit and cost associated with having a prolonged dysfunctional or dissatisfying relationship. The benefit is typically status quo, avoidance of conflict and uncomfortable conversations. When operating in the benefit mode, people tend to blame others rather than take responsibility for the situation. This is often accompanied with some self-righteousness, which could sound like, “Why should I take the first step?” “It’s all because of them;” “I’ve tried to address this before but they didn’t cooperate;” etc.

On the other side, the cost typically includes stress and loss of joy and satisfaction. And overall it drains energy to stay upset, incomplete and/or dissatisfied in a relationship for a long time. Sometimes people become cynical or numb in the relationship or about relationships in general. I had a single woman friend who every time I asked her how her love life was going, she would tell me the same story about how “all men are selfish and only care about one thing…” Self-righteousness is costly in itself.

So, when discussing the need or opportunity for change in the relationship, you can look for the areas of cost. These will give you opportunities for areas of common interest.

We all know the saying: “It takes two to tango.” However, I believe that when it comes to relationships and trust, “It takes one to take two to tango.” So, if you are the one initiating the transformation in the relationship, don’t get distracted, discouraged or fall into blame — take responsibility for enrolling the other person in the breakthrough. Listen to their concerns. Swallow your pride. Acknowledge them as valid, even if they are not factually true. And respond to them from your commitment, not reaction.

Sometimes people don’t want to move on because they don’t trust the other person’s sincerity. So, declare your sincerity, even if you have done it before. Sometimes they feel they’ve tried to address issues before and the other person wasn’t sincere, didn’t listen, wasn’t open to what they had to say, didn’t take ownership or responsibility for past transgressions, etc. So, stay open, own their experience of your past attempts as valid, apologize if needed and express your sincere commitment to making it work this time.

This first step is the ticket into the game. Without a shared desire to elevate the relationship, the next steps are irrelevant. While it takes courage to take a relationship to the next level, especially if the starting point is dysfunctional, isn’t it “better to fail giving it your all, rather than give up without trying at all?”

Stay tuned for more next week.

The Untapped Goldmine Of Gratitude

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The research is in, and when it comes to employee engagement, recognition is a key factor. During strong economies or when companies are experiencing great success, most leaders feel that they have the wherewithal, resources and ability to invest in recognizing and rewarding the work their people do. This includes pay increases, bonuses and other merit-based incentives. It also includes indirect compensation – such as training programs, events, offsite meetings, and career development.

When times are tough, however, companies tend to cut back in all these areas, and employees become frustrated because they (and their work) are not being recognized.

However, in both tough and successful times, there is a goldmine of appreciation that most companies leave untapped. It’s the practice of deliberately and explicitly recognizing, appreciating and thanking the people around you. This doesn’t cost a penny, and it creates a very nurturing, productive and exciting environment for our teams.

Gratitude is a particularly powerful tool when used by managers, as well as between peers. But it’s of no use when you keep your appreciation to yourself. Instead, we must acknowledge our appreciation and have a conversation that highlights the other person’s greatness, values and achievements.

Acknowledgement requires courage and generosity on the part of the person providing it. Unfortunately, most work environments are rife with politics, silos and people trying to survive – which typically creates a challenging “us-or-them” environment. People fear that highlighting other people’s greatness will somehow take away from their own achievements. I have seen this play out again and again – especially in high-achieving, competitive environments.

However, if leaders create an organizational culture where the paradigm is “We’re in this together; we have each other’s backs and stand as one,” then the logic changes. People understand that the more giants they have around them, the bigger they are, and the more powerful their teams can be.

You can always find reasons to appreciate and acknowledge the people around you. Don’t assume they already know how you feel. There’s no reason to be stingy or lazy with your praise. You can acknowledge people for:

  • Their spirit, heart, attitude or energy.
  • Their actions or efforts towards going beyond the call of duty.
  • What they have done or created (i.e., their accomplishments and achievements).

To make gratitude viral in your organization, start practicing it yourself on a daily basis. Simply make it a point to acknowledge one or two people around you every day. You could also open team meetings by saying: “Hey, we’ve all been working so hard the last 30 days. Who would like to acknowledge someone on the team for his or her contribution?” Then spend 10 minutes or so letting your team praise each other. With enough repetition, gratitude will become a part of your culture.

Should You Axe Your Meeting Agenda?

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If you ask the smartest and most experienced leaders what’s one thing that makes their meetings successful — most will tell you it’s having a clear agenda. But contrary to this popular point of view, we regularly see off-sites, strategy sessions and team meetings being held hostage by an agenda — rather than liberated by it. Here’s why.

When a meeting is oriented around an agenda, the focus becomes making sure that all the topics listed are talked about in the time they have been allotted.

This means that if item X is scheduled to be discussed for 15 minutes, from 10:15 to 10:30, that’s what happens. But what if item X turns out to need an hour of conversation? What if the dialogue around item X is so engaging, compelling and important that people want to keep chatting about it beyond the allotted time frame?

In most cases, the discussion, regardless of how important or meaningful, will be tabled to a later date to make way for the other scheduled items on the agenda.

The opposite is also true. If item X is slated for a 15-minute discussion, but really only requires five minutes, rarely will the agenda be adjusted. In most cases, the team members will simply fill up the time talking about the less important aspects of the item until the designated time is up.

So instead of having your meetings be oriented around a set agenda, with topics and the time allotted to them, we suggest orienting your meetings around the outcomes and results you want to accomplish.

The difference looks like this:

In an agenda-driven meeting, you have 30 minutes allocated to discussing the budget.

In an outcome-oriented meeting, you declare the objective of having everyone agree on how to reduce the budget by 15%.

So the next time you want to have a powerful meeting oriented around results, ask yourself:

  1. What are the specific outcomes I want this meeting to achieve?
  2. What results do I want to come out of this meeting?
  3. What are the most important results I want to walk away having accomplished?

How have agendas impacted your meetings? I would love to hear your comments.

Balancing The Budget And Employee Morale

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When times get tough, most executives move to cut costs, reduce resources and shore up company savings. And while focusing on financial issues in the short term is important, this is often done at the expense of the long-term health of the organization.

In a weak economy, it’s of critical importance that leaders practice “giving back” to the company culture, even as things are being taken away.

In our experience, it’s deflating and demoralizing to a workforce when things are only being taken away and nothing is being put back in. Leaders often underestimate the level of upset brewing among staff and even misread the fact that people are not complaining to mean that they are not bothered by the current state of the company.

Worse still, some leaders take the position that since the job market is tight, people cannot leave so there is no need to take care of them.

These conclusions ultimately lead to a situation where, when the market does come back and opportunities open up, employees — who are resentful of how things were handled during the difficult times — leave.

Even in the face of reducing expenses, you need to infuse conversations with energy, confidence, hope and a sense of the future.

One important thing you can do to maintain employee morale and balance things out as the budget gets rightsized is to rally everyone around the new strategy. Start by telling employees the truth about how things are — even if the news is bad, they can handle it. Involve them in the process of fixing and improving things, developing new products and finding new customers. By having the courage to be sincere and transparent, you cut rumors and speculation off at the pass and engage employees’ commitment to both deal with today’s reality and plan for tomorrow’s recovery.

What are you doing to strike a balance between budget constraints and employee morale? We would love to hear your comments.

 

Micro-management Is The Enemy of Strategic Thinking

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In last week’s blog post, we discussed the way that leaders’ actions impact the cultivation of strategic thinking within their companies. This week, we continue the theme by examining the role that micromanaging plays in the process.

Heed the warning. Leaders who micromanage create an environment of compliance where people won’t think strategically and don’t act as partners.

Micromanaging suffocates strategic thinking because it forces people to interact at a tactical level only. It requires people to protect their world, and a huge amount of their energy just goes into how to survive and keep their boss off their back.

One research study on micromanagement by Dr. Robert Hurley PhD at Fordham University found that 30 to 35% of executives succeed as managers but faltered as leaders when they found themselves in higher-level positions. “For this sizable group of under-performing executives, the underlying root cause is compulsive micromanagement caused by perfectionist tendencies. By micromanagement we mean an over-controlling style that inappropriately inhibits the people the executive needs to mobilize,” says Dr. Hurley.

To counteract this, we suggest that executives and managers ask their staff to think about what they would do if they were put in charge of a particular situation, department or organization. Ask your staff what they would start, stop or continue, then discuss the responses as a group so people can learn to think strategically at a level or two above their current job.

Just remember that you will never get any company strategy perfect, rational or right enough to work without having engagement and commitment at all levels. Encouraging your staff to participate in strategic planning and practice strategic thinking is key to creating a strategy that does not just get talked, but walked.

Cheat Sheet of Strategic Thinking Dos and Don’ts

Do:

  • Actively ask for input from all departments and levels.
  • Promote and incorporate others’ ideas.
  • Ask your staff what they would start, stop or continue in your position.
  • Routinely balance out your meetings by discussing both strategic and tactical issues.

Don’t:

  • Make strategic development an exclusive club limited to the higher-ups.
  • Stifle strategic thinking by not being open to and acting on others’ feedback.
  • Try and maintain control by micromanaging.
  • Solely focus on and encourage tactical thinking in meetings.

How has strategic thinking been hindered in your organization? I would love to hear your comments.

4 Ways You May be Undermining Employee Engagement

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This looks at the four most common ways leaders undermine employee engagement.

1. Not saying thank you: Managers who only criticize and find fault with their employees’ performance run the risk of creating an unhappy – and less productive – workforce. Rarely saying something as simple as “good work” or “thank you” creates an environment where staff feel unappreciated and taken advantage of.

2. Recognizing the same people all the time: Some leaders single out the same staff over and over again for recognition and praise. No matter how deserving these employees may be, repeatedly acknowledging one small group of individuals can create an environment of exclusion, which leads to a negative backlash within the team.

3. Participating in background conversations about others: Managers may think they can confidentially talk about one employee to another, but what they say always leaks out. Leaders who grouse, gossip and gripe about their co-workers, employees and bosses — especially behind their backs — create an environment of distrust and disharmony.

4. Not letting your staff shine: Many managers miss the opportunity to have their staff be recognized for their contributions, both by their immediate team members and by senior management. Failing to give people an opportunity to make an important presentation to their peers or higher-ups, not acknowledging the significant contribution of an employee to other members of the team, and actively taking credit for an employee’s work all lead to decreased trust and reduced confidence among staff.

What all these behaviors have in common is an active narcissism, a blind insensitivity or a management immaturity that makes the manager look like a jerk and their staff feel uncared for.

One 2009 study was conducted to examine the narcissistic tendencies of bosses in American organizations. Wayne Hochwarter, the Jim Moran Professor of Management in the Florida State University College of Business, asked more than 1,200 employees to provide opinions regarding the narcissistic tendencies of their immediate supervisor. Their responses:

  • 31 percent reported that their boss is prone to exaggerate his or her accomplishments to look good in front of others.
  • 27 percent reported that their boss brags to others to get praise.
  • 25 percent reported that their boss had an inflated view of himself or herself.
  • 24 percent reported that their boss was self-centered.
  • 20 percent reported that their boss will do a favor only if guaranteed one in return.

“Having a narcissistic boss creates a toxic environment for virtually everyone who must come in contact with this individual,” Hochwarter said. “The team perspective ceases to exist, and the work environment becomes increasingly stressful. Productivity typically plummets as well.”

When it comes to employee engagement, all signs seem to point in the same direction. You are either building motivation or destroying it. You are either moving forward by appreciation or acknowledgment or going backward with lack of attention. The choice is one every manager makes daily.


Appreciation and Employee Engagement

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Managers often think that the source of employee engagement is providing staff with material rewards and privileges such as more money, bonuses, stock incentives, promotions, titles, etc… While these things are important, their impact tends to be overestimated.

A huge dimension in employee engagement is the quality of relationship that exists between management and staff. Employees feeling they are known, accepted, appreciated, valued and trusted goes a long way toward getting employees on board with a company’s vision and strategy.

Many of the leaders we encounter seem either blind to this point — or worse —simply don’t care. By not listening to and recognizing employees which is a critical part of their job, managers are missing out on the opportunity to create a highly motivated, loyal and engaged team.

According to the Employee Engagement Report 2011 from BlessingWhite, engaged employees plan to stay where they are currently working for what they give; the disengaged stay for what they get.

The same report found that employees worldwide view opportunities to apply their talents, career development and training as top drivers of job satisfaction.

An even more telling find of the study was that when engagement surveys were conducted in companies, without visible follow-up action, engagement could actually be decreased. As the report states, “Organizations should think twice before flipping the switch on measurement without 100% commitment for action planning based on the results.”

All of this points to what we see every day in our consulting work. When managers are willing to go the extra mile with staff, loyalty goes sky high. Managers who acknowledge team members and show they care end up with employees who not only work smarter but harder and happier.

What have you done lately to show appreciation for your staff? I would love to hear your comments.

What Can Executives Do To Drive Employee Engagement?

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In the last three posts on the topic of organizational commitment we looked at evaluating your companies level of commitment, the way two different CEO’s handle commitment and examined the warning signs for lack of employee engagement and commitment.

In this final post of the series we asked a few other authors to give us their take on the topic: WHAT CAN EXECUTIVES DO TO DRIVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT? Here’s what they had to say.

“Manage your inner control freak.  You can’t — and won’t — inspire employee engagement and commitment unless you loosen the reins and let go of control.  As a leader, you are there to champion the vision and keep people focused on the big picture.  Beyond that, you need to sit back and allow others to drive the process.  Fact is, your organization’s success is a story that everyone must create and own.” Jill J. Morin, author of Better Make It Real: Creating Authenticity in an Increasingly Fake World.

“Managers who are perceived by their employees as strong listeners have been shown to create work environments with higher levels of employee motivation, better relationships among coworkers and increased levels of productivity — all drivers of employee engagement. When managers listen to employees they begin to understand their passions, strengths and ambitions, and the possible ways these may be integrated with work. Listening helps employees feel understood and valued by their manager and demonstrates that managers are open to new ideas and collaboration (additional drivers of engagement). Listening is the core capability to enable managers to connect, engage and create higher levels of employee performance.” Erik Van Slyke, author of Listening To Conflict.

“If executives really want their employees to be committed, they must clearly communicate the mission statement of the company and ensure that everyone in the organization understands how his or her role contributes to that mission. Understanding that provides meaning for the employees in what it is they do. Too often, there is an environment of them versus us rather than a ‘we’re all in this together’ mindset. That is the mindset that leads to engagement and commitment. Kellie Auld, contributing author for Creative On boarding Programs.

Six Warning Signs You Lack Employee Engagement and Commitment

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In the past two blog posts regarding this topic I explored the problem of lack of commitment and looked at two case studies. In this post I examine what to do if you want to tackle your commitment problem. Where do you begin? What are the most effective ways to assess if and where there are commitment problems? Here’s a list of some observable indicators:

1. People don’t speak up even when they know things aren’t being dealt with honestly and directly. This is relatively easy to spot, especially in meetings. Everyone knows important issues are not being addressed. Yet they fail to speak up because of fear or cynicism.

2. Missed commitments met with excuses, explanations, rationalizations and finger-pointing rather than a rigorous and energetic desire to get to the source of the problems, get back on track and take ownership for what went wrong.

3. Problems discussed and debated endlessly, with little lasting improvement from repeated attempts at resolution.

4. Initiatives to improve organizational performance progressing slowly or stalling altogether, despite sizable investments in resources and technology.

5. “Hallway” conversations are also a good indicator and can be easily detected. For example, when people spend their time talking about how things are not their fault or how another department or organizational level is to blame for sub-optimal results, commitment is lacking.

6. When people complain about how busy they are rather than doing what needs to be done, or complain about the unreasonableness of leaders’ expectations, this too can be a good indicator that people are avoiding rather than taking responsibility.

These are the informal ways of discerning commitment problems. We suggest that CEOs who feel they may have such issues go beyond sensing to asking employees directly – the members of their executive team and workers up and down the organization. In diagnosing the state of commitment in dozens of organizations, we have found questions such as these to be revealing. To what degree do employees:

  • Effectively address and resolve difficult issues around here?
  • Take ownership for solving problems rather than make excuses or point fingers when things go wrong?
  • Take risks and challenge the status quo?
  • Have confidence in the leaders of this organization?
  • Feel they can be honest with their leaders, including about negative or contentious issues?
  • Feel connected with, and empowered by, their leaders?
  • Communicate honestly and directly, without fear of retribution?
  • Trust each other and work together effectively across departments?
  • Come to work every day feeling that they make a critical difference to the future of the business?
  • Feel enthusiastic about their work experience?

There are also proven assessment tools and surveys available to help gauge commitment and engagement, the Gallup Q12 being a particularly noteworthy one where a 0.2 improvement along a 5-point scale has been statistically proven to correlate with an improvement in employee productivity.

One word of caution: If trust is low and fear is present, employees will not be truthful about the poor state of commitment. They must feel safe to tell it like it is. They must believe executives are genuinely interested in hearing unvarnished views, and they must feel encouraged to speak up about the real state of things, and praised when they do. Otherwise they will pay lip service to the process and say only the things they believe are safe. Unfortunately, this kind of lip service is more the norm than the exception.

To significantly improve commitment, the CEO and his team must be completely honest about, fully aware of, and own the current reality, especially the aspects that are dysfunctional. Once they understand the size of the commitment problem and no longer take it personally, they can begin to transform the cynicism, resignation, apathy and complacency into an environment of passion, ownership and total support.

A Tale of Two CEOs and Employee Commitment

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In a previous blog post on this topic, I outlined the problem of CEOs mistaking compliance for commitment. In this next post, I show the profound difference that owning the commitment problem makes, by comparing two CEOs of $1+ billion-plus organizations, leaders in their respective industries, one a manufacturer and the other a services firm.

Both had significant commitment issues to deal with – weak trust and alignment between levels and functions that were undermining ambitious growth plans. The CEO of the services firm, who rose to his position after having been one of its best salespeople, was a proud but arrogant leader.

Despite repeated attempts by senior managers, including his direct reports, to convey to him the high levels of politics, distrust, and lack of commitment throughout the organization, he wasn’t moved, insisting that employees were “just whining and not doing their jobs.”

As a result, his aggressive cost reduction and productivity improvement initiative gained little, if any, passion and ownership among his leaders, achieved far less than he had hoped, and was an uphill struggle with many excuses and explanations along the way.

The CEO of the manufacturing company was also a proud and tough leader. He rose to his position by having turned around two other divisions in his company. However, when his management team criticized him around the lack of trust and collaboration across departments, he listened – not immediately but over several weeks. He decided the commitment problem was serious enough to launch a process to resolve it.

Admitting the depth of his company’s commitment problems was not easy for him, given his command-and-control style. The results of his growth initiative, however, were spectacular, both in terms of meeting the performance objectives as well as creating a strong platform for cross-functional collaboration and partnership.

Two CEOs. Two commitment problems. Two approaches to solving them – one discounted it, the other admitted it and fixed it. Most important, two very different outcomes in terms of both business performance and organizational morale.

Are you paying attention to indications of commitment problems, or blaming “whiners?” These problems don’t go away by ignoring them.

Can’t Get No Satisfaction

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Last week, the Conference Board research group released its latest report on job satisfaction. The results are pretty grim; only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their work, the lowest level ever recorded in more than 22 years of studying the issue. Experts say the drop in workers’ happiness can be partly blamed on the worst recession since the 1930s, which made it difficult for some people to find challenging and suitable jobs. But worker dissatisfaction has been on the rise for more than two decades.

Quoting Linda Barrington, managing director of human capital at the Conference Board, who helped write the report, “It says something troubling about work in America. It is not about the business cycle or one grumpy generation,” she says.

The report cites several reasons for the decline, including:

  • Fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting.
  • Incomes have not kept up with inflation.
  • The soaring cost of health insurance has eaten into workers’ take-home pay.

Of note to us, however, are comments from the one employee the Associated Press interviewed about the report. Nate Carrasco, 26, of Odesa, Texas, says he’s been pretty unhappy in most of his jobs, including his current one at an auto parts store. “There is no sense of teamwork in most places any more,” Carrasco gripes.

He continues: Carrasco said he wishes his bosses would take time to listen to workers’ ideas – and their difficulties on the job. “Most of the time they only listen to what their bosses are saying,” he says. “Bosses need to come down to the employee level more and see what actually goes on, versus what their paperwork tells them is happening in the stores.”

There are a couple of key lessons here. First, you may not have the flexibility to change what people are being paid, especially when times are tough. Second, you may not be able to give everyone the “interesting” jobs.

But improving collaboration, getting people engaged in what they are doing, creating opportunities for people to find ways to improve the products or processes they use and are making every day, are all within your control. Stop blaming the economy, or the markets, or the climate, or any other outside-your-control factor for the levels of satisfaction and engagement within your organization. It’s not your job to make people happy, but it is your job to get them engaged and involved. Do that, and you’ll soon find them more satisfied and more productive.