Susan Scott's Blog, page 72

Effective Leaders are Consistent

When discussing how to be an effective leader, it’s not uncommon to use buzz words like trust and authenticity. Yet, what does it truly mean to be a leader who, day in and day out, cultivates relationships that are actually trusting and authentic?

When I reflect on the leaders who I have worked with, where the relationship is genuine and has a strong foundation built on trust, the common denominator is that the leader is consistent in their behavior and in turn, so am I.

These leaders set themselves apart because they acknowledge that being a leader is hard. They handle the pressure of leadership by being consistently thoughtful, agile, and quick on their feet, while having an awareness of their emotional wake. In strenuous situations their employees don’t “walk on egg shells” or wonder what outburst might happen next.

They also make time for their employees. Schedules are busy, we know! However, there is tremendous value in being consistent in how often you communicate with those that report to you. In our coaching module, we explore the idea of meeting regularly with those you lead. This is a time for your employee to talk, start the meeting by asking them: What is the most important thing we should be discussing today?

Being aware of your emotional wake, asking questions, checking in often – these are all areas, as a leader you can be consistent, and in turn build stronger relationships.

As a leader, where are you consistent?

This blog was originally published on the Fierce Blog and was written by Jaime Navarro.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Stop With Your Advice

It feels good to give advice. When someone needs something, you can swoop in as the hero and save the day by sharing a brilliant strategy.

It can go like this:

Person A: I am having so many issues with the marketing department.

Person B: Been there done that. Here is what will work.

Try this….

Or this….

They’ve worked for me in the past.

Person A: Thank you – you are a lifesaver!

Does this sound familiar? Do you know people who have lines of people out their door waiting to get advice? Is that you? 

So what problems come with giving advice? There are many.

A major one is that it creates dependence. If the advice works, people will continue to want to get it. And the lines out doors keep getting longer.

In our coaching program, we focus on asking questions rather than giving advice.

This week’s tip is to look for opportunities to not give advice, and rather, ask questions.

I know it can be hard…I am a recovering advice giver.

 

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Fierce Resource: Weekly Wrap: Nobody Wins When Developing Employees Isn’t a Priority

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on TLNT.com and was written by John Hollon.

Weekly Wrap: Nobody Wins When Developing Employees Isn’t a Priority talks about what happens when you stop investing in your employees, specifically around leadership development and education. As people, we all have a desire to feel valued for the work we do and one of the best ways for organizations to acknowledge workers is to development and further educate their people. Retain and grow or let them go.

What results have you seen in your organization? Whether you’ve enhanced your training or decreased it, what is the impact?

“Instead, a majority of organizations indicate that they have no prevailing policy on recruitment, saying that shifting business needs determine whether to fill a position externally or internally. In addition, 11 percent of those surveyed acknowledge that they make little effort whatsoever to retain workers and instead have decided to recruit aggressively.”

Read the full article.

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3 Easy Steps as a Leader to Challenge the Status Quo

As a leader, give yourself permission to question the status quo of your organization and invite your team to join in.

Organizations develop a status quo for many reasons. Those reasons range from leaders feeling pressured for time and the need to prioritize, all the way to a culture that has a “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality.

The problem is that companies and their cultures are living and breathing entities that change with the people that inhabit them. Policies that worked for one generation might fall on deaf ears to the next. Training that was successful for the employees of a mid-size company, might no longer be relevant once the organization grows to the size of a large corporation.

It’s leadership’s responsibility to have a forward thinking mindset – a mindset that doesn’t settle for a bare minimum attitude. And instead looks to who their current teams are now and sets out to support them with values, policies and ideas that are relevant to them.

A leader can’t create these things for their employees in a vacuum. By asking the perspectives of your team, you not only build emotional capital with your employees, you help build a more productive workforce.

Below are three easy steps to start having these conversations with your team organically.

1. Invite all Differing Perspectives

As a leader, you may think that certain training or policies are working because no one is saying differently. Have you ever really asked though? Change that now! Invite differing perspectives from within your organization to examine issues, and be thoughtful about whose perspective can really lend a fresh new point-of-view. The goal should be to get the  people who are affected by specific policies and training in the room. At Fierce, we use the Team Model to help companies have these types of conversations. You might be surprised by what you learn.

2. Ask More Questions

When an employee comes to you and has an issue with the current status quo, take this opportunity to get curious with them and ask questions about why it’s not working, and what they would do to fix it. Maybe a major overhaul isn’t even in order, and it’s a simple adjustment that can make everyone more engaged. These one-on-one opportunities with your team are great ways to, little by little, shift away from the current state of affairs towards something more meaningful.

3. Be Ready to Help the Change

If you don’t want to change a policy or training because it’s working or perhaps to change it is just unrealistic at this time, communicate this to your team. Don’t waste everyone’s energy getting feedback if you’re not going to do anything with the information. There is no quicker way to lower your emotional capital as a leader than to ask for new ideas and then ignore the input. Not only are you setting a false expectation, it might send the message that their ideas aren’t good enough. Both are outcomes that are much worse than sticking with whatever current policy you have now.

As a leader, do you think it’s your responsibility to challenge the status quo?

This blog was originally published on April 23, 2012 on the Fierce blog.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Ask What Else

In our coaching model, we instruct you to ask “what else” at least 3 times in different parts of the conversation. Each time you ask, you are going deeper into the question. You are exploring – unlocking new territory.

The need to ask “what else” is everywhere.

For example, think about when someone asks you: How’s it going?

How do you usually respond?

When I ask people this, the initial answer is usually very surface. Examples: Work is busy but good. Family is good. Vacation was good.

This conversation is always different when I ask “what else” after they give me the first, ceremonial answer. Only after the “what else” does something juicier come out. It is almost like “what else” translates to “no, really, I want to know.”

This week’s tip is to concentrate on where you can ask “what else.” What relationships in your life deserve the extra attention?

It is only two words after all…

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Fierce Resources: HR Isn’t Meeting Global Business Demands

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Gallup.com and was written by Chris Groscurth and Bryant Ott.

Maybe you’ve heard something like this in the halls of your organization, HR Isn’t Meeting Global Business Demands and perhaps you haven’t. This article explores what it will take to revolutionize human resource departments and the traditional responsibilities for hr personnel that may need to be a thing of the past. In today’s ever-evolving workplace change is taking place in every shape and form so what does that look like for HR?

Think about: What are your business initiatives? What changes can you initiate to restructure your HR team to be a strategic business partner? What is your desired outcome?

“Leaders and executives tasked with solving complex business problems require development, not training. Rethinking training will require HR to educate managers and leaders on how to foster learning and development through key experiences and real-time coaching, teaching and performance management. HR should ensure that all managers in the business have the talent to coach, and then HR’s role is to teach the teachers and coach the coaches. This is the value that a true leadership center of expertise provides for a company.”

Read the full article.

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Why Won’t the Yankees Dump A-Rod?

Tampa, Fla.

When Alex Rodriguez arrived at his workplace here on Monday, his bosses weren’t happy.

As usual, the communication between Rodriguez, the employee, and the New York Yankees, his employer, was nonexistent. Rodriguez hadn’t told his superiors that he was reporting to work two days early, and it led to yet another awkward situation for his company.

If this sort of tension existed in almost any other line of work, such an employee might well have been jettisoned long ago. Coming off a season-long suspension for performance-enhancing drug use, which he initially fought, Rodriguez has by his own admission been “a headache.” He isn’t even a high-performing asset anymore, having posted a pedestrian .771 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 2013.

So why won’t the Yankees just dump him?

The short answer is that Rodriguez is owed at least $61 million over the next three years, whether he is on the Yankees’ roster or not. The Yankees might as well see if they can get something for their money. They also could recoup a significant portion of it through insurance if the 39-year-old Rodriguez physically breaks down—a further motivation for taking no action just yet.

On Thursday, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman proclaimed the slugger’s roster spot to be safe. “He’s on the team,” Cashman said. “He’s got a three-year contract.”

But experts in workplace issues say that in any industry, there comes a point where the damage that a toxic situation does to the firm outweighs the financial hit it would take by cutting the employee loose.

That is the calculus the Yankees are engaged in this spring: watching each at-bat and batting-practice session, trying to determine Rodriguez’s on-field value—making this spring training something of an object lesson in employee worth.

“You’re dealing in a situation where the Yankees seem powerless,” said David Lewis, president and chief executive of OperationsInc, a Connecticut human-relations outsourcing and consulting firm. “And with the kind of money you’re talking about here, and with the public aspect of this—most employers don’t have to deal with that.”

Rodriguez is in the eighth year of a 10-year, $275 million contract. It began with him hitting for a .965 OPS in 2008, but injuries, declining play and performance-enhancing drug revelations have bedeviled him since.

In 2009, Rodriguez admitted to steroid use earlier in his career. In 2013, he sued baseball in an attempt to overturn his drug suspension, as well as the Yankees’ team doctor for allegedly misdiagnosing a hip injury. He later dropped the suits. Last week, Rodriguez apologized to Major League Baseball, the Yankees and others in a handwritten letter.

Rodriguez also stands to make roughly $30 million in marketing-related bonuses for reaching home-run milestones, beginning with Willie Mays’s career total of 660, only six home runs away. But a person with knowledge of the situation said the Yankees believe they can successfully contest that, given that the bonuses are tied to the team’s ability to market Rodriguez, and the organization believes his drug issues have made that moot.

Asked if he thought the Yankees were really want him to succeed, Rodriguez didn’t exactly trumpet the support he feels from his employer.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’ve got to ask them. But I’ve created a big headache for a lot of people.”

In many instances of difficult employer-employee relationships, the company wields most of the power, experts say. Employers usually have somewhat subjective standards they can apply—“conduct detrimental to the company,” for instance—that allow them to begin negotiations on a potential buyout from a position of strength. Or they can simply act first, terminating employment and putting the onus on the employee to contest it—with the company relying on its superior resources in a legal battle.

Not so here. Baseball contracts are extraordinarily difficult to void, and it takes some desire from both sides to negotiate an exit. Rodriguez, hoping to rehabilitate his image through baseball, has little reason to compromise.

“What is A-Rod, or any key employee’s, motivation for taking anything less than their full contract value? Probably none,” Lewis said. “If you don’t want me around, and find me to be not enough of a contributor to have me here, then send me home—but keep the checks coming. I don’t think it’s any different in corporate America.”

Yet even if Rodriguez can prove he has some on-field value, cutting him and eating that $61 million may still be the best route for the Yankees as an organization, said Halley Bock, president and CEO of Fierce, Inc., a Seattle-based company that addresses workplace conflict. The productivity lost when such employees control the conversation in some companies is massive, Bock said.

“I guarantee you it’s costing you a lot more than you think,” he said. “Because it’s costing everyone else on your team a great amount of energy as well, to put up with the stress of the situation. There are tangible and intangible costs that are paid by keeping a toxic employee. I would spend a lot of time trying to correct it; if the employee is unwilling or unable to respond, I would go with the old adage of hire slowly, fire quickly.”

Stress and distraction are hardly measurable values, but Yankee players have already had crowds of reporters around their lockers asking about Rodriguez, none more so than Chase Headley, who is projected to start at third base ahead of A-Rod.

“Part of our job is dealing with media and dealing with the circumstances that come up,” Headley said. “For me, I’m going to do my part about that, but really, he’s another teammate. That’s what’s important.”

Winning is the goal, surely, but baseball is also entertainment, and if the Yankees aren’t winning this season, perhaps Rodriguez has value in other ways—which is one argument for keeping him around regardless of how well he hits. For a Yankee team that lost beloved icons Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter to retirement in successive seasons, a little hubbub around Rodriguez could help drive ticket sales.

In any case, the Yankees continue to move forward with A-Rod. Although his spot on the team seems safe, manager Joe Girardi said has said he would have to prove himself, having not played since 2013.

Rodriguez, who participated in the team’s first full workout Thursday, has embraced that challenge. “I hope I get one spot out of the 25,” he said. “That’s all I’m focused on right now.”

Fierce, Inc. President & CEO, Halley Bock was quoted in The Wall Street Journal article written by Daniel Barbarisi.

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Go Deeper

How many times a week do you have a conversation that just stays at the surface? With your colleagues? With your family? With your friends?

It happens often. Even when we are in conversation, we can breeze past each other altogether.

The thing is: We are craving depth each day. We are craving real. We want people to care. 

Joseph Pine said, “The experience of being understood, versus interpreted, is so compelling you can charge admission.”

This week’s tip is to seek to understand and go deeper in your conversations. 

Where do you tend to have the most superficial conversations? Focus there. Ask more questions.

Really listen. That’s where the understanding happens.

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Fierce Resources: When to Delegate? Try the 70 Percent Rule

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Inc.com and was written by Jim Schleckser.

Do you find yourself wishing someone would take work off your plate? When to Delegate? Try the 70 Percent Rule identifies a constant challenge in every single organization that exists. Picture this: a bag of 100 rocks in a backpack, each weighing 1 pound and oh yeah, you carry it everywhere you go. Imagine being able to take 30 percent of that away, immediately the load feels lighter and you too feel lighter. You now have mental and physical capacity to tackle a challenge or two that you’ve had to overlook several times. Doesn’t that sound relieving?

Think about what is currently on your plate that you can delegate. Who in your organization or on your team is interested in developing? 

“Trust is one of the most important factors when it comes to delegation, and it goes both ways. You need to trust that your team members will complete the work they are responsible for, and your team members need to trust that you are giving them all the information they need to do the work. You will be available to back them up when necessary. Effective delegation can be the answer for the time-challenged small-business owner who is struggling to find the time to build his or her business.”

Read the full article.

Interested in learning more about Fierce Delegation, read this blog.

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Difficult Coworker? One Quick Way To Turn The Relationship Around

Do you fight at work? Fist fights are rare but toe-to-toe yelling matches, stonewalling, passive resistance and backbiting are all too common in the workplace. Do you think that if so-and-so weren’t so stubborn or political, your job would be much easier?

If so, you aren’t alone. Nearly one-third of executives and employees argue with a co-worker at least once a month, according to a survey of 1,000 workers by Fierce Inc., a Seattle leadership development and training company specializing in workplace communication. Work warfare, even in the form of passive resistance, wastes energy, lowers morale and reduces productivity. You can be a high performer individually but adversarial relationships with your co-workers can cause loss of trust up and down the management chain, and damage your products and customer relationships.

As an executive coach, I’m privy to many of my clients’ struggles with their colleagues. My inbox contains “evidence” of why their COO is impossible to work with. I see them bicker with colleagues in meetings. I’ve discovered that one of the most effective ways to move beyond these battles is both simple and disarming: Ask your adversary for help.

Several years ago Dennis and Tim (not their real names) were locked in an adversarial relationship neither seemed able to break. The two managers head up engineering teams that need to collaborate to produce software. Dennis’s team develops the software program that Tim and his team then test before it’s ready for release to customers. Dennis has to complete his work in order for Tim to start his. And until Tim provides his stamp of approval, the software keeps going back to Dennis to fix the defects. Both Dennis and Tim are strong performers with deep technical knowledge. Two years ago, conflicts between the two seriously threatened an important software release. They wasted hours of meeting time on turf battles. Their teams were confused about priorities. Their manager’s manager eventually needed to intervene, and the software release was delayed by three months — causing it to go over budget.

At the end of the project, Tim received a below-average performance review. He directed his anger and frustration at Dennis, blaming Dennis’s ego and stubbornness.

Tim’s manager wanted to invest in his development and help him work more effectively with his colleagues. Tim was motivated to improve his performance. The company hired me as Tim’s coach.

During our work together, I posed a challenge to Tim: Find a way to ask Dennis for help.

This challenge touches on research by Wharton management professor Adam Grant on workplace altruism. Grant believes the greatest untapped human motivation is a sense of service to others — that giving, in effect, is the secret to getting ahead. In my work with Tim, I reversed Grant’s concept, considering the value, not of giving aid, but of requesting aid. What would happen if we asked others to help us? If giving motivates human beings, then how will a request to give affect an adversarial relationship?

In other words, if giving is the secret to getting ahead, then asking is the secret to getting along.

Click here to read the full article here.

Fierce, Inc. was sited in this Forbes article written by contributor, Sabrina Nawaz. 

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