David Dye's Blog, page 46

How to Lead a Negative Team Member

When you have a negative team member, strive to understand what’s happening.

Leading a negative team member can be frustrating. You have a vision, and you’re energized about your new solution, but they’re skeptical, critical, and keep bringing up problems.

Or, you have to translate new strategic objectives to your team and one person just can’t seem to go there. They shake their head, sigh, and say things like, “Who comes up with these ideas? That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Perhaps you ask for their ideas and they cross their arms, purse their lips and say nothing. When you ask what’s going on, they smirk and say, “Right, like you really want our ideas.”

Why You Have a Negative Team Member

When you see a consistent pattern of negativity from someone on your team, it can be tempting to jump in and try to coach them out of it. But until you understand where their negativity comes from, that’s a mistake. You might miss a big chance to improve your leadership, fix a problem, or truly help the person be more effective.

There are four areas that can create the behaviors we interpret as negative—and only one of them is a situation where coaching would be most appropriate.

1. Your Leadership

One common cause of employee negativity is poor leadership. Before addressing a negative team member’s behavior, do a self-audit of these common frustrations and make sure you’re not inadvertently causing the negativity.

Toxic Courage Crushers

If you use shame, blame, intimidation, and fear to get results, you can expect negativity and fear in return. You can use these negative emotions to get people moving, but they come with a high price. Your team won’t trust you, they won’t want to give more than their minimum effort, and you certainly won’t get any creativity or problem-solving.

Solution

Eliminate these toxic behaviors from your leadership before doing anything else. Otherwise, you are modeling and asking for the very behaviors that frustrate you.

Lack of appreciation

No one enjoys feeling taken for granted. Do you consistently encourage and recognize people? If not, that lack of appreciation and recognition for who they are and what they do can lead to resentment.

Solution:

Build a habit of regular encouragement. Make it specific, meaningful to the individual, and relevant to their results and how they achieved them.

Lack of Accountability or Follow-Through

No one wants to waste their time or effort. When you don’t practice consistent accountability, you send a message that you don’t value the time and work of your team members who get it done. When you start new initiatives and don’t follow through with them, people lose trust and you can easily find yourself with a negative team member.

Solution:

Commit to consistent accountability and follow-through. Invite the team on the journey with you. Accountability is a team game and if you sincerely invite them to hold you accountable too, you’ll see a rapid change. Start with a clear shared understanding of what success looks like, check for understanding with one another, schedule the finish, and check on progress along the way.

Treating People Like Machines

If you frequently think (or worse, say): “Just do what I tell you,” then you’ve stopped treating people like people and have reduced them to a mechanical job function. Of course, there is a role for training and learning how to do a job. But once a team member is through training, they will have their own experience, ideas, and solutions to contribute. When you discount their thoughts or always have the best answer, it demotivates people and creates a negative “why bother” attitude.

Solution:

Cultivate your curiosity and ask people for their perspectives, ideas, and solutions. Encourage people to bring their empathy, fun, and humanity to their work.

2. Organizational Circumstances

You can be a human-centered leader who shows up with confidence and humility, focuses on results and relationships, but still have negative team members. Sometimes, it’s the organizational circumstances that lead to negativity. A heart-to-heart conversation with team members can help uncover these issues and give you an opportunity to support your team.

Rapidly changing priorities

People like to feel a sense of achievement. When priorities constantly change and people can’t finish what they started, it’s frustrating. It’s natural for people to feel like “Why bother doing this new thing when it’s just going to change again?”

Solution:

You might not be able to stop priorities from shifting, but you can create a positive environment that creates a sense of completion, honor the team’s work, and celebrates achievement and learning. Also, just acknowledging the emotional toll and reality can help build connection and lessen negativity.

Reorganizations, layoffs, and organizational instability

In larger organizations, these massive changes cause fear and negativity as people lose their bearing, wonder if they are next, and, as with rapidly changing priorities, feel resigned and wonder “why bother?”

Solution:

First, regularly advocate for your team and give decision-makers the information they need to make the best decisions. Next, as you lead your team through uncertainty, work to lessen the stress. Be transparent—don’t make up what you don’t know. Focus on what is known, on what hasn’t changed, and on the small wins that the team can make with one another. Communicate your appreciation for your people and the value of the work they do.

Unhealthy matrix organization or obstructionist bureaucracy

In unhealthy matrix organizations and bureaucratic cultures, it can feel like no one will decide or take responsibility for anything. The consequences are the familiar negative cocktail of resignation, hopelessness, and the feeling that you can’t get anything done.

Solution:

If you’re a senior leader, invest in making your culture and structure work. The design might make sense on paper and the shared resources make the numbers work, but you’ll need culture, leadership training, and values work to support the structure and make it effective.

If you’re not a senior leader, you can still support your team by helping them learn how to navigate the structure and build the cross-functional relationships that will help them succeed. Also, you can build relationships yourself with other key leaders to create pockets of effectiveness inside a dysfunctional structure.

3. Their Personality or Approach

For some people, their negativity isn’t about difficult circumstances or your leadership. It’s part of their personality or approach to life. If you told this person they were being negative, they would honestly respond, “No I’m not—I’m trying to prevent a problem, avoid needless frustrations, or keep us on track.”

Often, these team members are analytic and focus on tasks before people. They are valuable team members. They can help you turn great ideas into reality while avoiding needless time-sinks and headaches with a little more planning.

And, they can come across as negative, even when they don’t see themselves that way. Their way of addressing ideas can feel caustic and make other team members (or you) stop sharing ideas because you don’t want to face the inevitable list of problems and negativity.

Solution:

This is a negative team member where coaching can be very helpful. You can use the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. Method to have a conversation about what you’ve noticed and the impact on the team. Reinforce the value of their thinking and then get into some ways for them to bring the full benefit of their analysis to the team.

You might share this article with them: How to Be Less Negative and Still Be Yourself. It will give them the tools to affirm the ideas they hear, frame their concerns as support, and recognize when they are most prone to destructive negativity.

4. Mental Health

The final reason you might experience a negative team member includes challenges with mental health. These can range from temporary issues to long-term conditions. Through the pandemic, many leaders have become more familiar with mental health struggles and the need to support their people through these challenges.

As you navigate these issues, begin by talking with your human resource partners and get familiar with how your organization can support people when they need it. Here are a few of the most common mental health challenges that can show up in a negative team member.

Exhaustion

If your team has had a tough work environment for a long time, it’s normal for people to burn out.

Solution

World-class athletes and their coaches build intentional rest and recovery into the training schedule. Your team needs that too. If the burnout hasn’t happened yet, how can you build intentional rest and recovery into your team’s schedule? Talk about it as a team. Rotating time off, lighter assignment weeks, and intentional fun are ways to begin.

Difficult life circumstances

All of us have these times. Losing a loved one. A child’s struggles. A major illness. An accident.

Solution

Start with empathy, acknowledge the situation, and that you want to help. Would time off help? Or a temporary shift in responsibilities? Don’t assume you have the right answer for them—have the conversation. Staying engaged in their work may help your team member navigate the challenge.

Depression or other conditions

In the United States, over 7% of the population experience at least one depressive episode, and nearly one in five live with a mental illness of some kind. Lead long enough and you or a team member will experience it.

Solution:

There are many ways to support a team member who is living with depression or mental health challenges. Don’t diagnose or offer medical advice. Rather, show up with support and without judgment. If the person is working through a depressive episode, research suggests that simplifying their work scope, offering more encouragement, and acknowledging wins, along with a flexible work schedule that includes interacting with people can help.

When to Help a Negative Team Member Move On

Not every person is a good fit for every team. There will be times when the best you can do for a negative team member is to help them move on. Maybe there is a better fit for them elsewhere or maybe the forced move will help them re-evaluate how they move through the world. Either way, the negative person and your team will be better for the change.

Work through the four areas above and, as you talk with the negative team member, coach, and have necessary I.N.S.P.I.R.E. performance conversations, evaluate the impact of their behavior on the team’s morale and performance.

If the person drags down morale and performance over time and doesn’t make an effort to show up differently, it’s probably time for a change. Don’t let yourself get stuck with a “brilliant jerk.”

Finally, there is a range of human behavior and if their negativity isn’t adversely affecting the team or performance, it’s okay to let them be.

Your Turn

Negative team members give you an opportunity to improve your leadership, organizational health, and help the person be more effective. How you help them depends on the cause of their negativity. When you take the time to engage, learn, and respond appropriately your team, organization, and leadership will benefit.

We’d love to hear from you: How do you support your negative team members? Has a leader ever helped you navigate your negativity? Leave us a comment and let us know!

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An Age of Miracles

We live in an age of miracles. In this episode, we continue with the theme in Season 11 focusing on more humanity aspects of human-centered leadership. Your life is the product of millions of decisions made by millions of people. Without interdependence, nothing could exist. And I don’t think that has ever been more true than now.

An Age of Miracles

There is no decency or sense in honoring one thing or a few things and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the plat river, and ourselves, are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.

Hey, it’s David and you’re listening to leadership without losing your soul, your source for practical leadership, inspiration tools, and strategies you can use to achieve transformational results without sacrificing your humanity or your mind in the process.

We are each other’s destiny. That opening quote is from Mary Oliver in her book, upstream and wanna talk today about miracles. This is one of those Tomorrow Together episodes, continuing with the theme in season 11 of focusing on more humanity aspects of human-centered leadership and talking about miracles. We live in an age of miracles.

One day I was having breakfast in a restaurant in a suburb of Denver and I had the most wonderful meal. It was this shredded beef short rib. It was seasoned, perfectly served under an egg, and covered with this excellent green chili. There was music playing overhead, it was a soulful bluesy piece by BB king. And while I savored the meal, I read a novel that I’d downloaded to my phone. I paused to arrange a holiday purchase for my mom, talked with my daughter in Guatemala, my sisters all over the country, and Karin who’s in Maryland. After breakfast, I popped into a drugstore, got an immunization to prevent the flu, and replenished my travel kit with a toothbrush and razor before taking a beautiful blustery walk in one of my favorite parks in Denver. Then I drove to the airport, got on a plane, and headed up to Minnesota and North Dakota, where I shared my expertise with people who needed it. And then I visited a friend from my childhood.

Miracles, every single part of my experiences on that day. That’s just one day where they excluded at one point, the exclusive experience of royalty, or would’ve even been viewed as devilish wizardry, not so long ago. A meal assembled from spices from around the world, world-class music played by one of the best, near-instant communication with loved ones, a quick shot to prevent an illness that killed millions before we learned the power of vaccinations, something that still seems even more miraculous these days. Two hours of travel for a trip that would’ve taken a week or two, weather permitting.

And it’s not just that all of these things exist. It’s the people who make them happen. How many people were involved in creating that one day? It has to be in the hundreds of thousands. There are the people who grew the food that I ate, who cooked it, who built the restaurant, who engineered and built the electrical and natural gas systems that powered the restaurant, who worked with BB king and recorded and distributed the music. Those who researched the immunizations and made the dose I received and brought it to that drugstore. Those who built the roads, the airplanes, and the airport. Who assembled my phone, who built and maintained the network that transmits my text, and who got the oil out of the ground that became my toothbrush and razor. Who manufactured them, who built and run the system that allowed me to insert a bank card and transfer value from my account to theirs? And it goes on and on.

Who is the web of people responsible for one single day? It’s just about unfathomable. That was one of my days. And you’ve got all your days and even more amazing is that nearly every one of those people responsible for that day had a choice. They didn’t have to do what they did. They could have chosen to do something else or nothing at all. No one had to invent the thousands of inventions that made that day or your day today.

Your life is the product of millions of decisions made by millions of people. Without interdependence, nothing could exist. And I don’t think that has ever been more true than now. Your future is our future. We’ll build it together, imperfectly, in fits and starts threatened always by our fears, our insecurities, and the question of whether we can truly grasp our universal condition. We’re all in the same boat, a boat called Earth.

And that is today’s quick thought from Tomorrow Together – essays of hope, healing, and humanity. Miracles are all around us. I hope you’re able to pick up a copy and leave a review. And as always, as you’re thinking about your leadership and your management, I would love to answer your questions. Feel free to send them to me at david.dye@letsgrowleaders.com or head over to Leadership Without Losing Your Soul. Find the big orange button, click record, and you can leave me a message.

Until next time, be the leader you’d want your boss to be.

 

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How Do I Ensure My Leadership Program is Successful? [VIDEO]

“Karin, we’re thinking about starting a leadership program for our team and we want to be sure we get it right. What should we be thinking about?” #AskingForaFriend.

Important Questions to Ask to Ensure a Successful Leadership Program

Every leadership program, whether virtual or in-person, will be more effective when you’re able to answer these questions.

1. What should change as a result of this program?

Don’t start your leadership program until you have a strong vision of what will be different as a result.

What behaviors do you want to shift?

How will that affect your MIT (Most Important Thing—strategic goals)?

Don’t stop at “We need better team leaders.” What does that mean? What will they do differently? Get specific.

Work with a training partner who understands your business and who will build a program to get you exactly what you need.

2. How will we include the participant’s leaders?

Leadership programs don’t happen in a vacuum.

You’ll need real buy-in from your participants’ managers or you’ll get a minimal return on your investment.

Conceptual support isn’t enough. Managers need insights and specifics about what their people are learning and how they can best support it.

This is even more important when the participant’s managers are not sitting nearby.

Ask for an executive briefing session before the program begins, so leaders understand the ROI, prepare strategic questions for their participants, and have a clear path to support their teams’ learning and application.

Be sure you have the commitment from participants’ managers to give them the time they need to participate fully in the program.

Learn more about how we include participants’ managers through challenger groups to create sustained culture change.

3. How will participants apply what they’ve learned with their teams?

No one wants to feel like an experiment as their manager comes back from a leadership program and tries four new ideas without any explanation.

You’ve probably lived through a manager who tried a new idea, did it for a week, then forgot about it.

That frustrates the team, and the manager’s credibility suffers.

Does this program include a process for re-entry?

Will your managers get tools to communicate what they’ve learned and to transfer their knowledge?

Our Team Accelerator Program is a great way to help managers work with their teams to integrate the tools and techniques with their teams.

4. How will we sustain learning over time?

A single half-day workshop doesn’t produce game-changing leaders.

Even if you have a limited budget, find creative ways to build live-online programs that combine learning with practice, reflection, and feedback.

How will this leadership program provide daily and weekly reinforcement of key behaviors?

How will we know what’s working and where managers are struggling?

5. How will this program provoke new ideas and critical thinking to improve our business?

The best leadership training will fire up your managers with new ideas.

Will the program leave them empowered and excited to execute? Or, frustrated about great ideas that “will never happen.”

Work with a leadership development partner who understands your culture and how things get done. The best leadership programs don’t just teach skills. They create chances to apply what they’ve learned to improve the business.

Read more about latest research and approach to psychological safety and problem-solving.

These next five questions are specific
to your live virtual leadership development program.6. Does the program feature real-time interaction with facilitators and other participants?

There’s no need to settle for a passive, webinar-style training program. It’s too easy for people’s attention to drift as they multi-task.

The best virtual leadership development features live engagement with your facilitators and real-time participant discussions.

7. Does our training partner have experience with live online leadership development?

Online facilitation is different than working in person. It requires different preparation, different ways of engaging participants, and the confidence to work through problems that technology inevitably presents.

Participants know when they’re working with a rookie and will quickly lose interest and engagement. Make sure your leadership development partner has ample experience in training and leading remotely.

See Also: Authority Magazine, 5 Things You Need to Know to Successfully Run a Live-Virtual Event

8. Can our people take part via video?

Video isn’t the same as being face-to-face, but for virtual leadership training, you’ll want your participants to see one another and the facilitators.

When everyone can see one another, they pay attention and resist the urge to multitask. Plus, it gives facilitators and participants the opportunity to respond to confusion, enthusiasm, and questions.

Make sure your participants can appear on camera and be heard well. For more tech recommendations, check out How to Take Charge of Your Remote Meetings.

9. Will our online leadership program leverage technology beyond traditional classrooms?

One of the common mistakes with online meeting technology is to replicate a traditional classroom training environment.

For instance, in a traditional face-to-face program, only one person can speak at a time.

But when you leverage virtual meeting tools, you can have small groups meeting simultaneously and sharing their findings and questions. You can also integrate feedback in real-time via chat and whiteboards, in ways that would lead to chaos in an in-person situation.

Virtual learning also gives you the opportunity to break up your day-long training programs into smaller 60-90 minute sessions over several days or weeks. This gives more time to apply learning in between sessions.

Spaced learning over time with guided application between sessions is ideal for changing behavior. Leverage technology to help your leaders make the most of their training.

10. How will we create the head-space for people to focus on their live online leadership development?

When your manager physically goes to another location for training, it’s obvious that they’re gone.

But with online leadership development, those boundaries can blur. Does their Slack messenger still show them as available? What are the expectations for answering phone calls, emails, and instant messages?

To give your leaders the best experience, work with your partner to create best practices in how participants notify their peers, colleagues, team (and remind their boss) that they’re attending the training.

You can create a consistent set of guideline reminders for every session that will help people to focus (eg: turn off your email, social media, office messenger – everything but the one way someone would contact you in an emergency).

Virtual Leadership Training is a great way to bring together managers from different geographies to learn, share best practices, and collaborate on new ideas.

Your turn. What would you add? What important questions do you ask before launching a leadership program?

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Email Best Practices: How to Send a Better, More Effective Email

Do This, Not That For Better Team Email Communication

When you’re working in a remote or hybrid team, having a common agreement on your email best practices will save you gobs of time and frustration. Start with subject lines that tell the reader exactly what you need from them and when. Talk about who it makes sense to cc, and when. Create team norms for when to ditch the email and send a text for a quicker response. And, of course, ensure everyone knows when to pick up the phone or schedule a meeting for deeper conversation and decision-making.

In this article, I share some of the biggest challenges that derail email communication and best practices to prevent them.

5 Email Best Practice Tips For TeamsCreate a subject line protocol that tells your reader exactly what you need them to doWhen it comes to email less is more: Summarize, synthesize, and use bulletsIf the topic is complex, contentious, or emotional pick up the phone or schedule a callCC to share information, not for escalationSlow down and read what you’ve writtenAnd Avoid These Mistakes

I’m going to assume you’re way past email blunder basics: replying to all with snarky remarks, sending the note intended for your partner to your boss, or emailing when you’re angry, or after that second glass of wine.

Here are a few common email mistakes to avoid.

Mistake #1: Cryptic Subject Lines

The biggest frustration I hear from nearly every team I work with is cryptic subject lines.

“I shouldn’t have to read three-quarters of the way down an email to figure out what it’s about!”“I just wish the subject line would tell me what I need to do by when!”“Sooo….I woke up this morning to fifteen emails that all just had the subject line that read ‘update.’ I have no idea what kinds of updates, so I have to read them all to figure out what they are about. I’m so busy today and I have no easy way to prioritize my attention.”

Email best practices tips for teams #1: Create a subject line protocol that tells your reader exactly what you need them to do

Mistake #2: The Barrage Effect

Early in my Verizon days, I was preparing a very senior leader for an impromptu meeting with the CEO on an important subject she knew little about, and the situation was evolving rapidly. I wanted her to be as prepared as possible, so I went through my inbox and forwarded the relevant information one email at a time.

One email had data, the other trends, the other some commentary that would give her a sense of the political landscape. I carefully commented on each one to explain the context and forwarded it to her.

The phone rang. “Karin, I’m searching my inbox for your name and deleting everything that’s come from you. Now I want you to send me one email with concise bullets I can share at this meeting, nothing else. It would take me hours to dig through all of this and figure out what is going on.

Email best practices tips for teams #2: When it comes to email, less is more. Summarize, synthesize, and use bullets.

Mistake #3: Your Email Should Be A Phone Call

Has this ever happened to you?

My peer sent me an email. I wasn’t quite sure what he was saying, but it was REALLY ticking me off.

I filled in the blanks of my confusion with assumptions. He returned the favor. We went back and forth three times before we got to the root of the matter. We could have easily spared one another the frustration and misunderstandings if one of us had picked up the phone.

Email can feel easy and less disruptive than a phone call, but often wastes time and drains energy.

Email best practices tips for teams #3: If the topic is complex, contentious, or emotional pick up the phone or schedule a call.

Mistake #4: Too Many CCs

I could feel my direct report’s anger burn through the phone. “Why did he cc you on this email? I’ve got this! I’m not cc-ing HIS boss!” To the manager working hard to resolve this situation, this felt like an unneeded escalation.

Be sensitive to who you’re copying on a note and why. If you wouldn’t draw them into a meeting or phone conversation on the topic, you may want to think twice. Even better, establish norms of who will be copied on project emails.

Email best practices tips for teams #4: CC to share information, not for escalation

Mistake #5: Sloppy spelling and grammar

My phone rang. It was the head of HR “Karin, how could you recommend this guy for a senior role? I know you say he’s good, but let me forward the email he sent along with his resume.” I was shocked at the grammatical problems: “there” instead of “their” “to” instead of “too.” This guy’s a great leader and knows grammar, but he was moving too fast. His excited response cost him the job and embarrassed me for recommending him.

Email best practices for teams #5: Slow down and read what you’ve written

The most important email best practice is to talk about it as a team. One good “how we could do things around here” conversation can save hours of lost time.

See Also: Stop Emailing When You Should Have a Meeting 

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Leading Gen Z with Josh Packard, Ph.D.

Gen Z is entering the workforce right now and their perspective, needs, talents, and abilities will transform the workplace. In this episode, Gen-Z expert Josh Packard, Ph.D. shares his latest research on how you can attract, retain, and lead this generation and why doing this well will improve your team’s performance, relevance, and credibility.

Leading Gen Z

05:09
Start with defining terms here when we’re talking about this generation that’s emerging and the research. Who are we talking about?

06:40
Gen Z is more diverse, ethnically and racially and on track to be better educated than any previous generation. And they’re not gonna stay in one career. They’re likely to change jobs, even industries, nearly a dozen times in their working life.

11:24
Why it goes further to position yourself as a leader and not as somebody who necessarily has all the answers, but as somebody who’s willing to walk alongside and help them figure it out.

17:21
The benefits and necessity of turning employees into advocates of your organization.

18:21
Mentorship, meaning, and growth for the entry-level Gen Zs in the workforce.

22:12
The problem that presents itself right now is how do you recruit, attract and retain a talented workforce?

27:27
How to repair the erosion of trust we’re seeing in Gen Z and what the implications are.

40:47
Learn to create commonality, take responsibility, own things when they go wrong, and learn the lesson.

 

Connect with Josh

Twitter

Website

Get the Book

 

 

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How Do I Ask Better Questions: Asking For a Friend with Chad Littlefield [VIDEO]

Want to Ask Better Questions? Stop Asking Why. Here’s Why…

In this week’s Asking for a Friend, I talk with Chad Littlefield, Co-Author of Ask Better Questions.

Chad and I met at an industry conference where we were both speaking and discovered many shared interests including creating psychological safety and encouraging deeper, more meaningful conversations and swimming. In fact, I think he’s the only “Asking for a Friend guest so far (besides David) who has seen me in a swimsuit and goggles;-)

Chad’s Approach to Asking Better Questions

From “Why” to “What and How”

To build deeper trust and connection, ask better questions. Chad recommends asking  “What” and “How” instead of “Why.”

We’re hard-wired to ask “why” questions. After all, we’ve been practicing them since we were two years old. Starting with “what” and “why” can help you be more focused and deliberate as you seek to create an authentic conversation.

Asking “why” can put people on the defensive as they work to justify their actions or behavior. Asking “what” and “how” make it easier to show genuine curiosity.

For example, consider what responses you might get to these two questions:

“WHY did you finish the project so fast?”
to
“HOW were you able to finish the project so fast?”

Your “how question” comes across as genuinely curious, looking for best practices.

OR

WHY did you do it that way?
to
WHAT was your approach?

Again, when you start your question with “what,” it feels feels curious and supportive.

And today, I leave you with two important WHAT and HOW questions to continue the conversation.

1. WHAT are you most curious about right now?
2. HOW do you use open-ended questions to create deeper trust and connection?

 

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How to Be Less Negative – and Still Be Yourself

Learning How to Be Less Negative Will Make You More Effective

When your team or supervisor thinks of you as a negative person, you’re less likely to be invited to conversations where you would have valuable contributions to make. You’re less likely to receive recognition for your work and your odds of promotion go down. If you often hear that you’re too negative, learning how to be less negative is a critical skill to master—and fast.

That might not feel fair—after all, Eeyore was still invited to all the goings on in the Hundred Acre Woods and appreciated for his loyalty. But unless Winnie the Pooh and Tigger are on your team, shifting that perception of negativity will help you have more influence and contribute your expertise.

The good news is that there are easy shifts you can make that don’t require you to change your personality – It’s not about changing who you are. And these shifts will help you bring your best qualities to every team and conversation.

Why It’s Hard to Hear

“Don’t be so negative” can be incredibly frustrating feedback when you don’t think of yourself as negative.

I know because I’ve heard this feedback many times in my career and relationships. What made it so frustrating is that in almost every one of those circumstances, I would not have told you I was being negative.

Most of the time, from my perspective, I was engaging with an idea, answering questions I thought I’d been asked, or trying to prevent problems.

But the reality, as Marshall Goldsmith says, is that “In leadership, it doesn’t matter what we said. All that matters is what they think they heard.”

Why They Think You’re Negative

One of the most common reasons people get a ‘negative’ label is because of how they respond to ideas. See if this sounds familiar:

During a leadership meeting, your boss proposes an idea that has a shiny, attractive quality. Let’s say they want to hire a contractor because it looks like it will save money, save time, and solve a problem.

You hear the idea and immediately see three critical problems:

The person they want to bring in to help doesn’t have the experience with a critical functionWhile the initial cost is lower, managing the contractor and bringing them up to speed will cost more time and money, plus any extension of the contract would cost more money than the current situationThe function is mission-critical, and the contractor has no redundancy. If they get sick, the team’s out of luck or will have to work harder to make up the difference.

What do you do?

Well, if you’re often labeled as negative, you probably say something like, “I see a couple of challenges here…” and then list them.

Are you wrong?

You Might Be Right, But…

Let’s assume you are one hundred percent correct in your analysis. And you care about the outcomes, the team’s welfare, and saving the business time and money. You’re justifiably concerned about the future of the team, the business, and your customers.

You care. You’re correct. And yet, you’re called negative. Why?

The problem is that for many personality types, jumping straight to problems and challenges isn’t effective. For the “get things done” crowd, the roadblocks are frustrating—they want to see action. For the idea people, they want to explore and build on ideas, not have their creativity and energy crushed before their ideas can breathe. And for relationship people, jumping straight to problems feels harsh and disrespectful.

Roadblocks…crushed…harsh…disrespectful. What do all these words have in common?

They are negative.

And that’s how your supervisor or colleagues perceive your attempt to head off problems.

And that’s assuming you’re always correct in your analysis. Which of course, you’re not. There are often opportunities to build on ideas and explore possibilities you can miss.

How to Be Less Negative in Three Easy Shifts

The problem isn’t your analysis. The team needs you to help think through ideas and ensure the solutions you implement together are as sound as they can be.

Here are three shifts you can make in how you respond to ideas that will help you have more influence:

1. First, Affirm

This step will help your idea people feel heard and relationship people feel connected. Find something interesting, fun, or positive about the idea and say that first. For example, you might say,

“That’s a creative way of looking at this.”“A third party could bring a fresh perspective.”“Wow, that’s interesting, I hadn’t looked at it that way.”“I appreciate you thinking about how we can save money here.”

(We once worked with a very literal-minded engineer who had a reputation as a caustic teammate. As he worked to “First, Affirm” his starting effort was, “Oh, that’s an idea.” It was as much of an affirmation as he could muster when confronted with what he saw as wrong-headed thinking—but his team still appreciated the effort.)

2. Present Problems as Solutions

This step is critical. You will still share your challenges or concerns. But instead of stating them as problems, package them as solutions or opportunities.

For example, “That’s a great idea, here are three things we can do to make sure it succeeds. First, let’s ensure the contractor has experience in this technology. Then, if we can find someone at this price point without an extension penalty and who has a team to back them up, this could really work.”

Presenting your analysis as “ways to make this work” is magical. First, people’s perception totally shifts. Your concerns don’t come across as obstacles. You’re contributing to the idea’s success.

Second, when people hear what it will take to “make their idea work,” they will form their own conclusions about viability or solutions. They may propose follow-up solutions. Or, you’ll hear them say, “That’s a good point, I don’t think this is the best idea, let’s keep looking.” You didn’t negate their idea, you supported it in a way that they could do the analysis.

3. Take Your Temperature

This final shift is about managing yourself.

When I am tired, frustrated, or have lots of problems vying for attention and someone presents an idea, I am most likely to forget steps 1 and 2. Or, I may do them, but my tone is tired, whiny, or negative.

When you find yourself in a conversation about ideas or where you would typically be told you are negative, pause and “take your temperature.” How do you feel? If you’re tired, frustrated, or tied in knots with other problems, can you pause and not respond right away?

For example, “I appreciate you bringing this up—and, I am exhausted and trying to solve three things at once right now. I want to make sure I give your idea the positive attention it warrants. Can we talk tomorrow morning?”

Most people will appreciate that you cared enough to be honest and valued their suggestion enough to give it a proper hearing. Sometimes, they’ll even say, “Oh, it’s okay, I was just brainstorming and it can wait.”

Taking responsibility for your state of mind and tone when you respond will help avoid the times you’re most likely to come across as negative.

You’re not changing who you are – you’re choosing to be your most effective self with others.

A Final Note About Mental Health

These suggestions about how to be less negative are written to help if you are otherwise feeling healthy and constructive. They are not intended to address depression or other mental health challenges.

If you find yourself in a state of negative thinking where everything seems dark, gloomy, or hopeless for many weeks, I invite you to be kind to yourself and talk with a counselor or mental health professional (just as you would talk to your dentist for a persistent toothache).

Your Turn

When you care about success and want the best for your team, but that passion comes across as negative, these three shifts can help. They’ve helped me and many leaders we work with to have more influence and build better ideas with teammates.

I’d love to hear from you. If you (or someone you know) has wrestled with a reputation for negativity, what solutions did they find as they learned how to be less negative?

The post How to Be Less Negative – and Still Be Yourself appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

How Leaders Can Find the Win in No-Win Scenarios

How do you lead through situations when it feels like everything is a no-win scenario? No-win scenarios are tough, sure, but they’re also a chance to distinguish yourself, learn people’s trust, and for innovation.

In today’s episode, get seven steps you can use to approach these circumstances that will help you build your credibility and sleep well at night.

How Leaders Can Find the Win in No-Win Scenarios

What do you do when you’re faced with a couple of outcomes you intensely dislike, a no-win scenario? Hey, it’s David and you’re listening to leadership without losing your soul, your source for practical leadership, inspiration tools, and strategies you can use to achieve transformational results without sacrificing your humanity or your mind in the process.

Welcome to the show today. We’re talking about no-win scenarios. How do you lead through those situations? When it feels like everything is just, it’s a no-win. I don’t like any of these outcomes. They all stink. Well, before we dive in, I hope you had a chance to listen to the last week’s episode where we were talking about Tomorrow Together. That’s my new book that’s out now and I encourage you to take a listen. We’ll be sharing some more of those essays and concepts going forward this season. And you can find tomorrow together just about anywhere books are sold, Amazon, your E-readers, Kindle, all those good things.

So today talking about no-win scenarios, no-win scenarios are tough. Sure. But they’re also a chance to distinguish yourself, learn people’s trust, and for innovation. And there are seven different ways that you can approach these circumstances that will help you build your credibility and sleep well at night.

This question about no-win scenarios actually came from one of our global leadership development participants. This participant was facing a challenging product request that he believed would either overtax his team or disappoint the client. And he concluded his question by asking about no-win scenarios specifically by asking what is your Kobiashi Maru? Well, that phrase might not make sense to you unless you’re a fan of Star Trek. It’s a classic Star Trek reference to no-win scenarios. It’s a no-win scenario that everyone in star fleet academy would face. So, if you’re a student in star fleet, they give you the scenario in the simulator where you receive a distress call from a damaged ship. A ship that’s stranded in enemy space. If you choose to ignore it, everybody on that ship dies. If you choose to attempt the rescue, you’re going to risk your ship and crew. And in the actual test, if you attempt the rescue it’s met with an overwhelming enemy force and captain Kirk is the only one to have beaten the scenario.

If you haven’t seen that part of the series, spoiler warning, on his third attempt at that scenario he reprogrammed the simulation and that’s how he beat it with a famous line, “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.” So let’s talk about no-win scenarios in business. Now you might not have to rescue a damaged ship, but if you leave long enough and you are certainly going to face situations where you don’t like the alternatives, the circumstances can feel like no-win scenarios. And you know, we’ve had many in our careers, just a few examples. I remember a time I was facing a choice of decreasing insurance benefits or eliminating positions, taking a promotion with the explicit task of closing job sites and laying off people, overworking staff to keep someone else’s misguided promises, or being told to fire someone who’s been loyal to the company and worked hard to qualify for their next role. Relying on a brilliant jerk who gets results and has protective relationships with senior leaders, but makes life hell for their team. Those are just a few examples, I’m sure you could add to the list.

The critical factor is that you face outcomes that feel equally miserable, unfair, or wrong. And sometimes it’s not just that they feel that way they might objectively be unfair or wrong. So how do you lead through no-win scenarios? It begins by understanding that these moments can switch us into a victim mode and to lead well you have to re-empower yourself and your team to get out of that victim mentality. Captain Kirk rejected the no-win scenario. Reprogramed the scenario of the simulation. How do you do that yourself?

There are a number of different ways that you can also find a win for you your team and for your customers. The first number one, reframe the problem. Reframing is a powerful mental technique that allows you to see a situation differently. There’s a natural tendency that we have as human beings to drop into either-or thinking. So it often looks like either this horrible outcome or that miserable one and reframing can help expand your thinking to avoid getting stuck that way. One of the easiest ways to visualize what reframing is all about is if you look at a picture in one frame, let’s say it’s a pure white frame. Take that same picture and put it in a different frame. Maybe something that’s deep blue and your perception of the picture will change. The blue frame will bring out the blues in the picture and might even give it a calmer feel whereas the white frame can give it more contrast and an energetic feel.

That’s literally what reframing can look like. To reframe a problem, you choose to look at it differently. And there are a number of different ways you can do this. You can ask questions, like, is there a better problem to solve than the one that you first perceived? Are you looking at the real problem or is there a root cause? And this is a common one. So often we’re trying to solve a problem by getting people to work harder or, you know, bang their head against a piece of software or a process that’s not working when the real solution, the reframe here is what can we fix to make this better and eliminate having to solve this problem in the first place? Another question, what does success really look like? Clarify the outcomes that would feel good. They’re not always the outcomes that we first assume.

Is there an alternative path to achieve success once you’ve taken a different look at what outcomes are available, what are the different paths that might be available to get there? Sometimes just the act of looking at a challenging situation, through a different frame, can re-energize you and start to reveal solutions. So that’s reframing.

The second suggestion is a way of reframing, but also it’s a way to uncover alternative paths and opportunities. And this is our Own the UGLY technique. So, when yo face no-win scenarios, to reexamine, use U.G.L.Y. as an acronym. If you’ve listened to the show for a while, you will have heard this in a previous episode. This is really powerful to do with your team or you can do this by yourself. It’s even more powerful to have a discussion with a group of people.

U. What are we underestimating? That is what resources have we not considered? What headwinds are we not considering? Maybe what’s changed in our environment.

G. What’s gotta go. What are we doing that no longer makes sense? What is it? That’s more habit than value. What’s wasting time. Can we remove needless outcome processes or criteria that can help us to be remarkable?

L. where are we losing? Are we genuinely underperforming? And if so, where, if not, what’s causing the perception, are we losing ground somewhere? How and why? Where are we missing?

The Y stands for Yes. What are the opportunities hiding in plain sight? Are there different paths to success that we haven’t tried or considered? What new opportunities exist that we didn’t have before? A team discussion of those four questions can quickly help you and your team find a new way forward.

Number three, collaborate when you’re facing what feels like a no-win situation. It can often be the case that a problem for your group might be an opportunity for someone else. One of the most overlooked ways to lead through these kinds of situations is collaboration. Is there someone with a complimentary problem to yours? Do you have a solution they can use? For example, if you have a short-term loss in demand, rather than lay people off, is there a short-term labor need elsewhere in your organization, or maybe even in another business that you can collaborate with?

Number four, win with values. There are times when the choice you face is truly unjust and there is no easy answer in these situations. What are your values? What matters most and how can you live out those values? Sometimes that’s the best win in a no-win scenario. One of my favorite examples of choosing values is from the movie Glory, about the set during the civil war and Matthew Broderick plays the role of Colonel Shaw, who is asked to lead one of the first regiments of African American soldiers for the union. And it follows his journey and the soldier’s journeys. He ultimately is leading his men with dignity, and he genuinely cares for his troops, but there is at one point in the story this time where he receives orders to have his men set fire to a town. And that’s an unlawful order. Well, the commanding officer who gave him that order is not a good guy. He mistreats his soldiers, disrespects them, he even shoots one of his own men.

Shaw protests and says, no, I’m not going to follow that order. It’s unlawful. I’m not going to have my men burn the town. Well, his commanding officer says, all right, listen, you can either follow through with the order or you can protest it through normal channels. If you protest it, you’ll be relieved to duty while it’s processing through and your men will be transferred to me and I’ll happily take them well. And what’s implied is that they would certainly face mistreatment. Needless cruelty. Now Shaw is facing what really is a no-win scenario. He can follow this unlawful order, or he is going to turn his men over to this creep. Well, he finally chooses to care for his men and he orders them to burn the town and they do it with as much order and dignity as they can no extra damage to any of the civilians. But that is a hard choice and it’s an example of finding a win within your values. When you face a decision where there truly are limited outcomes and they all stink, what are your most important values for Shaw? It was the dignity and care of his men. It was a hard choice and it did real damage to the town and the people who lost their homes. That was the choice he could live with.

Number five is choosing a different timeframe. One way to find the win in a no-win scenario is to focus on the bigger picture. What’s the longer term, because in the short term the options that you’re looking at may be distasteful, but is there a path that helps you and your team achieve your longer-term goals? Sometimes this can play out in interpersonal relationships where the long-term relationship matters more than fighting for a win in the short term, at the expense of the other person’s dignity or their relational capital. And in other scenarios, looking at the bigger picture can give you a foundation for re-negotiating terms. You can go back to the other person or people and emphasize what matters most to them, to your supervisor, your customer, and your partners, as you’re working through potential solutions. So focusing on the long term instead of the immediate that’s right in front of you is another way to find a win.

Number six, take action. Once you’ve reflected, you’ve reframed, you’ve centered yourself in your values. It’s time to act, and understand your information’s never going to be perfect. The scenarios are never going to play out perfectly, but informed action builds momentum and that commitment to action also energizes and empowers you and your team. You’re not sitting there as a hapless victim of circumstance.

As I’ve been thinking about this topic of no-win scenarios and the choice between evils, uh, there’s the May West actress, May West said when choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before. That’s tongue and cheek, and it’s funny, but the point is to take action, to try and that act of taking a step forward empowers, and we’re going to learn something from it in the process.

Finally, number seven, sometimes you need to leave. There are times when no-win scenarios you face are immoral illegal or unethical to such an extent that you really are better off finding another place to work. And while that’s not all the time, it is a possibility and it’s something to be aware of.

And so that question about no-win scenarios came from one of our global leadership development program participants, and he asked it through the program and I would love to answer one of your leadership or management-related questions. You can send those to me at david.dye@letsgrowleaders.com.

Or you can go to leadership without losing your soul.com and there’s a big orange button you can click and record your question. Love to answer those for you. And as always, if you’re enjoying the show, I love to get your reviews, have you share it with other managers and leaders in your life who could use practical human-centered leadership tools and strategies. All right. So those no-win scenarios, yes, they can demotivate you, they can upset morale if you let them, or you can get creative to tap into your values and empower your team for a strategic future until next time be the leader, you’d want your boss to be.

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“I’ve Got This” How to Help Resistant Leaders Embrace New Learning

“Karin, Do you know what’s really interesting? The managers on my team who need leadership training the most, are often the ones who are most resistant to learning. They say, “oh you, know what? I’ve got it handled. I don’t have time for that, and I don’t need it.  What should I do? #AskingforaFriend

What a tricky and important question. Because for your leadership training to be successful, it’s SO IMPORTANT that your leaders want to be there, with open minds, ready to learn, and most importantly APPLY what they’re learning with their teams.

How to Help Leaders Get Past Their Resistance to Learning

In today’s Asking for a Friend, I share a few of my thoughts including how to avoid SASRNT syndrome (So and So Really Needs This) and involving your leaders as teachers.

What is SASRNT Syndrome?

When you hear a concept, tool, or new idea, it’s tempting to say. Ahhhh, you know who really needs this? My boss. My wife. Or, my teenage son.

In this case, you might not be actually resistant to learning, BUT, you could miss it.

Of course, we would like nothing better than for you to share our books and resources with everyone you know. But the tricky part here is, that when you do that you run the risk of missing the learning for yourself.

So when you hear an interesting leadership concept or tool, I recommend you apply it to your own team first. Then, you will have much more credibility when you share it. “Oh, I’ve seen you do that! It does work. Maybe I SHOULD try it too.

Leaders as Teachers

And if a manager is resistant to learning, another way to help them engage is to involve them as a leader-teacher, teaching what they’ve learned to others. We share a lot more detail on that here.

What would you add?

How do YOU encourage managers who really need leadership training to engage learn and grow?

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Curiosity at Work: 5 Opportunities to Show Up a Bit More Curious

I am a HUGE proponent of showing up with genuine curiosity at work.

Need to have a performance feedback conversation with an under-performing employee?  There’s no better place to start than with curiosity. Need a solution to a seemingly no-win scenario with a customer? Again, a bit of curiosity goes a long way.

And yet, I know I’m guilty of this. I’m curious if you are too?

The more experienced I am with something or someone, the harder it is to show up curious.

I think “oh, I’ve seen this movie before, I know why he’s acting that way…AGAIN.” And I lose the natural curiosity which could lead to deeper trust and connection. Not to mention actually learning what’s REALLY going on.

Or I hear about a team in distress and their concerns sound so familiar. My mind rushes to the dozens (or more) times I’ve worked with teams facing similar challenges. But of course, their issues might smell familiar, but they are each unique in their own way.

And sometimes, I’m working so hard that I forget one of the most important things to be curious about. How I’m feeling about the work I’m doing and the contribution I’m making.

Experience without curiosity can be dangerous.

Five Opportunities to Show Up with a Bit More Curiosity at Work

So I’ve put together this starter list of opportunities for deeper curiosity at work. I’m hoping you’ll share your number 6.

1.  How you are REALLY feeling…

I was recently catching up with a client (turned into a friend) whom we had worked with several years ago, right after our first book came out. Let’s call him Fred.

Fred was absolutely beaming about all the progress his team had made. Everything he had worked to put into place was humming along. His team was empowered, he was able to spend his time on critical strategic priorities, trust was high, and performance was strong.

Fred was proud of the human-centered workplace culture he had worked tirelessly to create.

Of course, I was impressed and we took a moment to celebrate.

And then, Fred stopped and looked at me through the Zoom window with an intensity so deep, I held my breath as I waited for what he would say next which went something like this…

“It IS all so good. And I am PROUD of all the team has accomplished. But sometimes I just put so much pressure on myself to keep stretching to the next thing, that I get riddled with anxiety. It takes away the fun. It seems I’m never quite satisfied with my own performance. I just wish I could feel more at peace in the striving.

I smiled because he had articulated the words I’m feeling so acutely right now. HIS WORDS could have been MY WORDS and I told him so.

That moment was so powerful and led to a much deeper conversation.

One of the most important opportunities to have more curiosity at work is to pause and consider how you’re really feeling.

Not how you should be feeling.

Not how other people are feeling (you can do that in number two).

How you are feeling and why.

2. How they (your team, your peers, your boss) are ACTUALLY feeling…

You and I both know that “how are you?” is not even remotely the best way to know how someone is actually feeling. Asking deeper questions can make all the difference (for a good start see, compassionate conversation starters). 

This opportunity for curiosity at work can feel daunting, but I’ve found it surprising how meaningful and effective a simple inquiry can be.

“I know there’s a lot going on. I’m curious, how are you doing with all this?”“Thanks for the updates. Before we close, how’s Jon?” (assuming you’re talking with Jon)“Before we start our one-on-one today, I know ________ (insert news event here), is weighing on many of our hearts and minds right now. I care about you and the rest of the team. Would it be helpful to pause first and talk about anything you are feeling?3. What’s working and why

Another, often overlooked opportunity for curiosity at work is looking at the good stuff. It’s human nature to take what’s working for granted and to concentrate your time and energy on fixing what’s broken.

A few conversation starters:

This project exceeded our customer’s expectations. What do you think you did specifically that led to this success?Sales are significantly up in your market month over month. What is your team doing now that could have caused this success?Or you could host a post-project celebration. 4. What’s really causing that performance issue (or bad decision)

One of the most tempting times to skip past curious is when you’re furious. It’s tempting to start with all the “why” questions that immediately put the person on the defensive.

And yet, this is one of the most vital opportunities for curiosity at work.

Participants in our leadership development programs tell us our I.N.S.P.I.R.E. method for performance feedback and accountability conversations really helps them to start from a position of curiosity.  The magic of this model comes from the P- Probe and the I- Invite, where you start with an open mind to understand what’s really happening and draw the other person into dialogue.

5. What’s the most important thing you can accomplish this month

With all the uncertainty and change in the world, it’s easy for your team to get overwhelmed with all there is to do, and whether it’s still the right thing.

If you’ve been following us for a while, you know we’re all about focusing on the MIT (the most important thing). In fact, it’s one of our 6 leadership competencies you can’t lead without. 

One of our clients, Martin Price, Chairman, and CEO of HealthTrackRX, asks every senior leader on his team to report on ONE THING they will do in the coming month to support their biggest company MIT. It has to be measurable. And it has to tie directly to that one MIT.

I asked Martin to share a bit more about the “why” behind his approach.

I would describe the why as this:  As much as we try to narrow to the MITS, there are always competing priorities and it’s hard to stay disciplined to projects whose completion date is months away.   But the success of any project are the incremental steps taken along the way and I thought that by really narrowing it to one measurable thing for each leader in the next 30 days we could build a sense of momentum on longer term projects and also challenge the team to accelerate the finish on items that could be done within the month so we could celebrate wins.

And how it’s going so far…

As for how it’s going.   A mixed bag, in most cases traceable to how much effort each leader put into identifying the MIT and their part in achieving it.

It’s easier for the project leaders; more challenging for those without direct responsibility to an MIT.   That’s where we’ll look to fine tune in the coming months.  Pushing more ownership and accountability at the individual level to supporting the MITs.

I love this for several reasons.

First, by asking the question, he creates real clarity about the company MIT (at a time when there are many competing priorities). And then, he’s encouraging his team to get really curious about the ONE most important action that will have the biggest impact. And, he’s creating shared accountability and conversation so the team can support one another.

Of course, there are opportunities to show up a bit more curious at work all day long. It can be a helpful exercise as you’re interacting with people and projects to stop and reflect on what you are most curious about in this situation. And to invite others on your team to do the same.

6. What would you add?

I would love to hear from you. One’s one important opportunity to show up with more curiosity at work? Do you have a best practice on how you do that?

 

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