Susan Scott's Blog, page 49

Fierce Tip of the Week: Invite Negative Emotions

It is common to feel discomfort when dealing with other people’s emotions in the workplace. The old saying – leave your emotions at the door – can be a real invitation. I’m sure you know someone that you wish would take this advice more often.

The problem with that statement is that many leaders want some emotions…and don’t want others. Most leaders welcome a lot of laughing, smiling, cheering, and all the happy emotions. And yet, they would want to modify that statement to: Leave your negative emotions at the door. It is not always fun to deal with disappointment, anger, frustration, what would be considered negative emotions.

However, recent research has shown that negative thoughts and emotions play a critical role in helping us to understand our experiences. And hence, they fuel decision-making.

In today’s workplace, leaders who are not comfortable with negative emotions are typically less able to create movement and drive change. According to a piece last week from Fast Company, Why Emotionally Intelligent People Are More Successful, the Carnegie Institute of Technology carried out research that showed that 85% of our financial success was due to skills in “human engineering”, personality, and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. They found that only 15% was due to technical ability.

This week’s tip is to include emotions in your conversations – both positive and negative. When someone comes to you with a problem, ask them how they feel about it. The goal is to have a person own their feelings. Ask questions about them.

And if there are no emotions around the issue, that might signal bad news. Or at least the knowledge that there may not be significant movement made on the issue. 

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Friday Resource: How to Quit Your Procrastination Habit Once and for All

This week’s Friday Resource was originally published by Fastcompany.com and explains why people tend to procrastinate, and some solutions to this common issue. 

Leo Babauta of Fast Company asserts that most people know the solutions to procrastination – they are simply unaware that they are procrastinating in the first place.

“Clarify what task is most important, clear away everything but this more important task, clarify my motivations for this task, break it down into something smaller and easier if I feel difficulty. Awareness is everything with procrastination. The problem isn’t finding solutions to procrastination—it’s being aware of what’s going on in the first place.”

If you are subconsciously procrastinating, it is hard to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and attack procrastination at its root. You have to continually be mindful of your procrastination and aware that it exists in order to control it.

A few tips from Babauta to help sustain awareness are:

Recognition – That this mindset and habit of yours is harmful to your wellbeing – causing you to come up short of achieving big goals or causing anxiety and stress on your body. Listen to your body, and notice the red flags as they occur.Commitment – Being aware and continuing to remember your goal to eliminate your procrastination. Try writing it on a sticky note, have a reoccurring calendar appointment or post on your social media.

You have the tools to stop procrastination, now it’s up to you to change. 

Read the article

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Leaders, You Must Scan Your Own Integrity

Many organizations and leaders have integrity as a core value. It is important in order to build trust. In many ways, having integrity feels really touchy, feely.

From an organizational standpoint, having a culture with high levels of integrity means that employees feel leadership is trustworthy and ethical.  The Trust Index Employee Survey (TIES) conducted annually by the Great Place to Work Institute measures a company’s level of integrity by asking questions about management.

With this data, the TIES found that the higher measure of integrity, the better performance of the company. Leaders, that does mean that the performance of the indication lies on your shoulders – and ethics.

So I ask: Do you feel your behaviors are in alignment with your personal values and your organization’s? Even if your overarching answer is yes, there most likely are areas that could be improved upon.  We recommend leaders to go through this personal integrity scan a few times a year.

It includes answering:

Integrity outage in my workplace: What must I do to clean it up? When am I going to do this?

Integrity outage in a personal relationship: What must I do to clean it up? When am I going to do this?

Integrity outage in my life: What must I do to clean it up? When am I going to do this?

You must take care of yourself, so you can lead to your best possible capacity. The work of Dr. Brad Shuck, a researcher of engagement, has shown higher levels of engagement from employees who work for a compassionate leader, a leader who is accountable and leads with integrity. His research shows that close to 75% of employees who work for those types of leaders say they are unlikely to leave their current organization in the next five years. That’s huge in this age of constant experience and job seeking.

It can often be hard to find the time to self-assess, however, the cost of not reflecting can be much grimmer.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Don’t Procrastinate with Your Conversations

What conversations are you currently stalling? At work? At home?  

No one likes to admit it, yet we do often put off tasks and responsibilities. Many studies report that extreme procrastination affects over 20% of the population. Even if you aren’t in this group, the lure of waiting until tomorrow affects us all at times.

An online survey by The Procrastination Research Group posed the question, “To what extent is procrastination having a negative impact on your happiness?” Of the 2,700 responses, 46% said “quite a bit” or “very much”, and 18% claimed “extreme negative effect.” And yet, there are real reasons we put off doing things that are important.

When it comes to conversations, we often put off the vital ones we need to have for reasons like:

It will take too long. The other person can’t handle it. It’s not the right time.

Those are real feelings, and conversely, so are these:

It will take longer to stall the conversation and not stay current, so I need to find time. I will not make compromises of what people can handle around me. They deserve to hear my thoughts and concerns. It will never feel like the right time, so I need to make it a priority.

It is a choice. This week’s fierce tip is to not procrastinate with the conversations you need to have this week. Make it a priority to have the conversations. They may not always go as perfectly as you would like, and yet, they are worth the time.  

In times where stalling may seem like the better route, remind yourself that the quality of your relationships, at work and at home, will degrade or improve one conversation at a time. And it is your choice to skillfully invite and engage others in the conversations important to you and the others around you.

Or suffer the consequence. You’re the one in the driver’s seat.

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Friday Resource: Why Working Smarter Means Conserving Your Energy

This week’s Friday Resource was originally published by BBC.com and offers insights into how employees can avoid burnout and work exhaustion by conserving their energy.

A common workplace phrase we hear is “work smarter, not harder,” but how is this really done? Surely everyone would be working smarter with higher energy levels if this was easily attainable. According to Dizik, “Working smarter is not really about being focused on details to assure productivity, but rather being focused on the energy we harness while we’re working and relaxing.”

When operating at a frantic pace, it is extremely difficult to measure energy levels and gauge if you need to take a break or have the capacity to keep pushing. Tracking how you feel at any given hour throughout the day allows you to set your schedule to do your best work during your “high energy times.” This could be first thing in the morning, at the end of the night or anywhere in-between.

Once you have defined these high energy windows, you can shift your energy use throughout the day to create sustained energy. During these “down times” it is important to recharge. This can be accomplished with a ten-minute meditation session, or quiet time away from the computer screen.

How will you conserve your energy and work smarter?

Read the article

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3 Easy Steps as a Leader to Challenge the Status Quo

When you hear the word, status quo, what do you think? In this environment, many leaders know that status quo will not get their organizations where they need to go. Innovation needs to happen, and it needs to happen fast.

To determine the biggest roadblocks for innovation, consulting firm Imaginatik conducted a study of 200 professionals in its “State of Global Innovation” report. They stated that given the low proportion of companies reporting aggressive investments in any major spending category, it appears that innovation is being systematically under-funded in most of today’s companies.

Our clients often have questions like: How will we compete for the best talent? How do we prepare for a disruption to our industry we can’t predict? What if our customers change overnight? What if we become irrelevant in the marketplace?

Those are big questions. We often say at Fierce that the progress of the organization depends on the progress of you, the individual leader…today. So it must start with you. You can start to engage with your teams.

Here are three easy steps to start challenging the current state of affairs.

Get Curious.

Pay attention to what you do when someone tells you that something isn’t working well. That reaction, in a few seconds, is insightful with how you react to challenging the status quo. Instead of viewing push back as an opportunity to build your case, see it as an opportunity to learn. An opportunity to make things better.

I have worked with many leaders who, when confronted with push back, do not pause or stop to ask questions. As a leader, you need to take specific action to get feedback and make it clear cut. Ask each of your team members in your next one-on-one: What is one thing that is working fantastically well? What are two things that aren’t? Then ask questions – don’t go into deflection or proposal mode.

Hold People Able.

This is about empowering the people in your company. Remember, your organization invested a lot of time, effort, and money to hire/ramp up your team members. They joined because they brought a new way of looking at issues with valuable past experiences.

When you hold someone able, you choose to recognize the capacity each person has to bring new ideas and action to fruition. Believing in someone is a bias towards action. When someone brings an idea to the table, ask them: What do you think is the best next potent step? And let them take that step (within reason…). Oftentimes, we as leaders will give the rundown of what didn’t work in the past, what does work now, and by the time it is all done, the initial innovation or questioning is squashed.

Once you bless a next step, ask the person how you can support. And then trust them.

Roll Up Your Sleeves.

You can’t pretend that you want to change a policy or training. It must be true for you. If it’s not, you need to communicate what the issues are – time, money, resources, excitement, etc.

This about walking your talk. Once you commit, you need to be ready to authentically help change or shift something. Enlist your team members to help guide you along the way. No excuses.

You can’t want innovation, and simultaneously exhibit behaviors that endorse doing things the same way you always have.

So I must ask: As a leader, do you think it’s your responsibility to challenge the status quo?

Last updated August 10, 2016

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Restore Your Energy

I recently heard Tony Schwartz, President & CEO of The Energy Project, speak at an employee engagement conference. His company focuses on helping organizations fuel sustainable high performance by better meeting the core needs of their employees.

Schwartz’s recent book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, makes the case that we’re neglecting the four key needs that energize great performance: physical (renewal), emotional (value), mental (boundaries), and spiritual (purpose). His background in working with athletes is quite analogous to employees. We need to feel healthy and strong to perform at our best. And yet, we often do not focus on our physical needs. Even worse, for many leaders, their health and energy (how they actually feel) is something that they “deal with” as opposed to focusing on and improving.  

So my plea to you: Pay attention to how you act during the week when demand is high. Do you work long hours? Do you take breaks? Do you get less sleep and exercise? Do you eat more or less healthy food? Do you skip lunch? This week’s tip is to find ways to restore your energy. Try new strategies to put your health and energy first.

Your results, in all aspects of your life, are directly dependent on your ability to have the energy to achieve them. Period.

So when things get crazy, check-in with yourself and readjust if needed.

There’s only one of you, and we need you in the workplace…with as much energy as possible.  

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Friday Resource: Great Managers Can Fix Broken Performance Management Systems

This week’s Friday Resource was originally published by Gallup.com and discusses how high performing managers can fix broken performance management systems.

A Gallup study on The State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders revealed that companies hiring managers based on their talents and fit for the role see “a 48% increase in profitability, a 22% increase in productivity, a 30% increase in employee engagement scores, a 17% increase in customer engagement scores and a 19% decrease in turnover.”

So what are these high performing managers getting right?

They focus on building engagement and employee growth through developing their strengths – not correcting weaknesses. When an employee’s strengths are leveraged, they are more engaged because they are contributing at a higher level. This leads to higher retention rates and happier employees.

Additionally, great managers understand the human element, and how to motivate by building genuine relationships with their direct reports. By understanding their teams’ unique individual talents, they are able to produce the highest results and create the strongest working relationships.

“The experience and skills managers have accumulated are important, but their innate talents — the naturally recurring patterns in the way they think, feel and behave — more accurately predict performance.”

Read the article. 

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The Power of Context in Performance Management

Our beliefs, attitudes, and biases create a filter in which we view the world. At Fierce, we call this context. While it is unconscious, context affects everything we experience daily. What we believe determines how we interpret the world around us, and yes, it has a direct impact on the results we are – or are not – getting in our lives.

Context shouldn’t be ignored during a performance management discussion. Before you begin the conversation, examine your context around the individual and the situation. Is it negative or positive?

Ask yourself these questions:

What are my beliefs (context) about this individual? Are there beliefs that I am holding skewing the way I am preparing to approach this conversation? What context does this person hold about me? This conversation? This company?

What you believe to be true about people determines how you interact with them and how you lead or follow them. Often your context might be about what you think of that person or their capabilities. If you take your beliefs at surface value, it may cause premature judgement – in the positive or negative light.

If your goal is to change behavior to get different results, and you hold a negative context about the likely outcome of the conversation, then you will be right about that. If you don’t believe someone can do something, that very well can become a reality. The question to ask yourself in that scenario is: Have you set things up well for that individual? Negative context can cloud the discussion and not set the stage.

Conversely, having a positive context regardless of the type of performance conversation you are having, opens you and the individuals involved to explore new possibilities by asking questions, exchanging ideas, and tackling any challenges that may be presented in a manner that allows space for learning and growth. A positive context is about finding solutions, generating new ideas, and committing to action that can drive the desired results.

To explore different perspectives, invite your direct reports into the conversation and get curious. Hold them ‘able’ to have the discussion and allow them to share with you their tangible commitments of what they will do to shift their performance. Form an agreement on deliverables, timeframes, and ownership of these commitments.

When a performance discussion turns into the idea of “if ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, were different, I’d be fine,” take this opportunity to reframe the conversation from a positive context lens by suggesting these type of phrases:

Given where you are in your performance, what DNA do you have on your situation that has gotten you to this point today?Your context appears to be very strong on this situation. Have you considered adapting approaches of others in this organization who are achieving the results you want to have?A. Looking at everything we’ve discussed at this point, is it more important to be right, or to get it right for yourself? Your team? The company?

As you have these performance management conversations, there is value in testing your own assumptions and beliefs. Be cautious of your auto-pilot mode, it can cause you to avoid questioning your own and others’ thinking.

Interested in more information about performance management? Download our eBook.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: It’s Not About Being Right

How many of you know someone who would rather “be right” than happy? Rather “be right” than loved? Rather “be right” than successful?

Leaders often struggle with the idea that their job isn’t always to be right. It is to get it right – for everyone – the company and the results they produce.

Early in my career I worked at a commercial real estate company, and one of the brokers often went into meetings and would argue his opinion until his face was blue. People knew that he would defend his position no matter what, so they stopped sharing theirs. Do you know anyone like this?

As leaders, everything we say matters and holds weight. And going deeper, our intention in the conversation matters. Check-in with yourself about your intention when you present or share your ideas.

This week’s tip is to be aware when you go into a situation with the goal of being right about something. Then ask yourself: What am I gaining by having this approach? What could I gain if I engaged with new thoughts and ideas? Am I willing to let go of mine? These are important questions to answer to make sure you have a healthy mindset and are getting it right.

Although being right feels really good at times, in the end, it won’t always get you the results you want.

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