|
All of these principles apply equally
to Families as well as in Business.
Forewarned
is Forearmed
A "User's Manual to Your
Manager" can cut out office dysfunction. By letting your staff know how
you operate, you can teach them how to deal with you and avoid
conflict. Below is a sample manual to use as a template.
| HOW
I WORK |
Knowing
what makes me tick will help both of us avoid a major meltdown |
| MY STYLE |
When I'm under
pressure, I get serious. Be ready to answer "why" five
times. |
| WHEN TO APPROACH ME |
Please don't bring
important issues to my attention if you run into me in the break
room. |
| VALUES |
I value loyalty to our
company's values. The CEO gets the same treatment as the janitor. |
| COMMUNICATING WITH ME |
Have conviction for
your point of view. I respect people who push back. Be prepared. |
| WHAT I WILL NOT TOLERATE |
I am very unforgiving
of people who don't admit to or cover up mistakes. |
| FEEDBACK |
I don't give much
feedback. Assume I'm satisfied with you unless I tell you otherwise. |
| HOW TO HELP ME |
I have a tendency to
do things myself. Please suggest things you can take off my plate. |
- 2008 August 25 BUSINESS
WEEK
LEADERSHIP LADDER: COMMUNICATING: THE
PERSONAL TOUCH
In your face - far more effective
On a recent flight from Vancouver to Toronto, I occupied one of Air
Canada's new business-class flatbed pod seats - they look like workstations
with a TV screen and outlet for personal electronics, and are arranged in a
way that you can hardly see any other passenger. When I craned my neck, I
noticed half the people in my section watching a movie and using their
laptops at the same time. No one was talking to anyone.
It's the perfect image of the new world of work: We are all so near, and
yet so far.
Leaders and employees are surrounded by communications technology, from
e-mail to voicemail to text messaging, that we can check anywhere, any time,
possibly even at 30,000 feet.
Sadly lost in this virtual world is an appreciation for the art of the
personal touch - of getting out and actually talking to someone, of sending
a handwritten note, of networking with people within and outside the
company, of recognizing that the best professionals still know the value of
human connection.
I know I run the risk of being branded a dinosaur,
an aging baby boomer who wants to go back to the good old days of paper
memos.
On the contrary, I own a cellphone and laptop and
make good use of them - appropriately.
I also know the value of a handshake, eye contact
and real-time spoken-word conversations.
The downside to our reliance on electronic
communicating is akin to the old adage that, if the only tool you have is a
hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. Today, it seems the whole world
looks like a giant inbox.
E-mail is incredibly valuable, but it's only one
communications tool among many. The best leaders and most valued colleagues
will take time to connect with people in more personal ways - and at the
same time position themselves to win new business and friends along the way.
FACE IT, WE NEED FACE TIME
Human beings have been talking face to face for
tens of thousands of years, it's in our genes. E-mail, voicemail and text
messaging are not a replacement for actually saying hello to someone.
Indeed, so widespread and ingrained has
e-communicating become that taking time to connect with someone personally
can help differentiate ourselves from others.
A few years ago, there was a manager at Telus
whose staff turnover rates were among the lowest in the company. When I
asked his employees what they liked best about him, the first thing they
told me was that every morning he walked around and said hello to everyone
to start the day. He also lingered with at least one employee to find out
what was happening in his or her life.
It seems like such a small thing, but taking time
to go out and connect with people face to face can make a big difference,
whether with clients or colleagues. This leader was well liked by both his
employees and peers, in part because he was perceived as taking time to
connect.
HAPPY PAPER TRAILS
When was the last time you received a handwritten
or typewritten letter in the mail? Chances are you remember when - and who
it was from.
At a time when people are swamped with 50 to
100-plus (often forgettable) e-mails a day, you can have a much bigger
impact by thanking people or acknowledging events in more personal ways.
On my desk, I have three recent letters, and what
makes them special is that, somehow, it feels like the people who sent them
took the time to make it personal, and that they meant what they wrote.
Although I often get e-mails with praise, somehow those handwritten notes
stand out.
Recently, I met Howard Behar the former president
of Starbucks International, who told me about how the coffee chain started a
tradition early on in which employees were sent cards marking a birthday or
anniversary of hire. The tradition continued to the point where he was
signing thousands of these cards, but he didn't mind because people kept
telling him how much it meant to them.
This same principle can be applied in a variety of
ways: Call your clients once in a while just to say hello (and don't have an
agenda); stop by someone's desk to congratulate them instead of sending an
e-mail; send a handwritten note instead of an electronic one; or choose to
be the only one who does not check your BlackBerry during meetings
but who stays fully present.
E-mail still has its place, for routine
communication and the day's marching orders, say. Even words of appreciation
delivered by e-mail are fine, to a point. But if you want to make an impact,
make it personal.
THESE DAYS, TALK IS PRICELESS
Good things can happen on an airplane if you take
the time to talk to someone: You can cultivate business contacts and maybe
even learn something.
In the past four months, through the simple art of
conversation, I have turned three fellow passengers into clients, and met
some amazing people from whom I learned all kinds of things that are useful
and interesting.
On a recent trip, I met the former auditor-general
of the United States who was on his way to Vancouver to speak about the
future of the U.S. economy if deficit spending isn't stopped. He has
produced a documentary on the subject, and he showed me a DVD copy of it on
my laptop. Our conversation was fascinating: I learned a great deal and got
to talk to him about my work in the process.
Looking around the cabin, hardly anyone else was
talking. The same thing frequently happens at work-related activities: It
used to be that at training sessions, colleagues spoke to one another during
breaks - now half of them are checking e-mails. It's a great way to remind
people that the virtual people in the room are more important to you than
the real ones.
After every talk I give to clients, I call the
person who planned the meeting to thank them for inviting me to their event
and to ask for feedback. He or she always seems genuinely pleased (and
somewhat surprised) that I took the time to call with no other agenda.
On the occasions when I am super busy, I admit I
sometimes resort to e-mail for this follow-up. What I have noticed over the
past few years is that I seem to get a great deal more referrals and repeat
business from those whom I call. Think about how this might apply in your
business.
OMG, WE R CHANGING
As the father of three children aged 14 to 21, I
am amazed at how little time my youngest daughter spends on the phone. Even
in the seven years between my oldest and youngest, text messaging has
eclipsed spoken-word conversations.
One recent Saturday, she was at home and when I
asked if she was lonely, she replied: "No, I have been talking to
friends all day." Indeed, she'd been instant-messaging with eight or so
friends at a time.
In fact, it may be that this generation gap is an
important thing for leaders and professionals to keep in mind.
There have been a number of recent stories about a
growing gap between the communication style of new graduates and their
prospective employers.
The grads' style of casual text message lingo and
using electronic devices as their primary method of communicating is running
up against older generations (boomers as well as Xers) who prefer more
formal and personal communication.
It may be that when the younger generation begins
to dominate the work force, an instant-messaged thank you, replete with
acronyms and emoticons, will be as valued as a personal note or five minutes
at the desk in the morning.
But for now, the personal touch still counts big
time and those who use it generously will reap the rewards.
Talk times
- What's the best way to communicate? Consider
these scenarios:
- When to use e-mail
- Routine communication
- Giving information
- Asking for information
- The personal touch
- Saying thank you
- Celebrating anniversaries or special occasions
- Saying good morning at work
- Touching base with clients or people in your
network
- 2008 August 15 GLOBE
& MAIL
John Izzo, PhD, is a consultant, speaker and
author in Vancouver. His latest book is The Five Secrets You Must Discover
Before You Die.
 
Getting candid with
lack of candour
Here are steps for
addressing the lack of candour:
Setting the stage
Help your team
establish ground rules for how you'll work together in meetings to focus
on the issues at hand. These would include ways to draw out less vocal
members, not cut each other off, indulge in sniping, potshots or
putdowns, and avoid judgmental statements or sweeping generalizations.
Get everyone's
opinion
When major decisions
need to be made, or to build a consensus, go around the table and get
everyone's point of view.
Why, oh why
When presented with a
problem or issue, keep asking why and digging down to the root or
systemic causes. For example: "We're not communicating effectively.
Why?"
Bite your tongue
If you're leading a
discussion, hold back on your own opinion until you've heard from most
members or until all sides of the issue have been aired.
Stop meeting like
this
Practice effective
meeting management. If you're the meeting leader, ensure you have an
agenda outlining the purpose and desired outcome (information, decision
making, problem solving, etc.) of each discussion, expected time frames,
who needs to be involved and the like.
What's going on?
If team members
aren't sticking with the plan everyone agreed to, privately ask them
why. But be mindful of how you approach this: An accusing tone or an
attitude that suggests you're on a witch hunt will shut down real
conversation.
Encourage debate
You might want to
foment contrarian thinking just to get the juices flowing. For example,
you could ask: "Who's feeling a little uncomfortable with this
direction and might like to challenge our thinking on this one?"
Comfort in anonymity
Use surveys, focus
groups, intranet postings and other ways that allow team members to give
their views without fear of rebuke or reprisal.
Behind the scenes
You may be more
successful quietly finding others in your organizations who will work
with you to raise the issues in private conversations or influence
opinions through informal networking activities.
- 2008 April 11 GLOBE &
MAIL
Finally, a happy married Jane
From films to books, Jane Seymour
exudes a breezy celebrity cool. But nothing has come easy for her -
certainly not love
'I lost a marriage that I believed in so much that
I wrote a book about how wonderful it was. I lost all my money. I lost all my
faith in being somebody who could ever be
loved," recalls Jane Seymour, dressed in a clingy sleeveless blue dress.
Yes, this is that Jane Seymour: former Bond babe,
recent star of Wedding Crashers, she of the delicate and dewy English Rose beauty
and the trademark long tresses.
But she is a reminder that life and all its
challenges happen to everyone.
The award-winning actress, who earned the
sobriquet "queen of the miniseries" for her work in East of Eden and
War and Remembrance, is quick to correct any assumption that her
success and beauty spare her from a loss of self-esteem or other troubles.
"He had 14 other women that I didn't know
about," she says matter-of-factly about husband No. 3, Canadian-born David Flynn, who
inspired her 1986 advice book Jane Seymour's Guide
to Romantic Living.
Ms. Seymour, who played the lead role in the 1990s
television drama Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, appears to embody the glossy celebrity life. The 56-year-old mother of four is
slim and beautiful, perfectly groomed. She has two houses, Coral Canyon on the
beach in Malibu, Calif., and St Catherine's, a
14th-Century manor house outside Bath in England. Both are sublime examples of
living well.
Her Malibu house is featured in her latest book,
Making Yourself At Home, and St Catherine's occasionally gets rented out for
£4,000 a night (more than $8,500). The bands
Radiohead and the Cure have recorded songs there.
Plus, her name is a brand: She has a successful
line of upscale home decor accessories available on her website,
JaneSeymourHome.com. She has written eight
non-fiction books as well as several for children. She paints. Her work is featured in a
show almost every year. She is involved with a
variety of charities such as the American Red Cross and Unicef.
And to top it all off, her twin boys, now 11, from
her fourth (and successful) marriage to director and actor James Keach are named
after other celebrities. John is for Johnny Cash,
a great friend who encouraged her husband to play the role of a warden in Walk
the Line, the movie about the singer's life with
June Carter Cash. And Chris is for Christopher Reeve, who was also a family intimate.
But that image of perfection and ease belies the
bumpy truth about her life. "Everything and anything I have is
because I worked hard for it, and it was never about the result. It
was all about the process," she says.
Ms. Seymour was born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina
Frankenberg, the eldest of three girls, to an obstetrician father of Eastern
European descent and a mother of Dutch ancestry.
As a young girl, she took up ballet and was just
13 when she made her professional debut with the London Festival Ballet. "When
I was 15, I was earning money to pay for ballet
shoes," she says.
She learned to sew, knit and embroider. "That
was the year that everybody was burning their bras. Cacharel came out with see-through blouses, and from bras to suddenly
showing nipples was a little more than I could handle, so I embroidered the British
birds - the Blue Tit and the Great Tit - in the
appropriate places," she explains with a playful smile. "And somehow I ended up in
the newspapers and I was asked to embroider things
on blouses."
At 17, she danced with the Kirov Ballet at
London's prestigious Covent Garden. But an injury later caused her to switch to acting.
"That's when I changed my name because mine
was too long, too foreign and too difficult to spell," she says. "In those days,
everybody who did ballet or acted changed their
names. There were no Renée Zellwegers."
At that time, the expectation was for women to
marry young, she says. She met her first husband, Michael Attenborough, when she was
15. At 20, she married Mr. Attenborough, who was
by then a theatre director. The union lasted two years.
Four years later she married Geoffrey Planer, but
they stayed together for only a year. "Those men are very good friends of
mine now," she says.
She was married to Mr. Flynn, with whom she has
two grown children, for nine years. The year following her divorce she wed Mr.
Keach, whom she met on the set of the TV movie
Sunstroke.
"We were both producing it, and I starred in
it, and by the time we finished the film we realized we loved to be together."
Since then, they have collaborated on many film
projects. They also co-wrote the series of children's books This One 'n That One,
inspired by their twin sons. Her second ex, Mr.
Planer, who became an illustrator, did the drawings for it.
She's also on friendly terms with Mr. Flynn, she
says.
"He is the father of my kids. I don't go out
of my way to seek his company, but my home is open to him and his wife.
"I think the most important thing in the
world is the word 'forgive.' And I have tried. I'm flawed. But I think that if there's a
mantra it is to forgive myself for mistakes I have
made, and to forgive others."
That lesson didn't come in front of the cameras or
in the hurly-burly of her romantic life. It came from a frightening near-death
experience. In 1988, while shooting a TV movie,
Onassis: The Richest Man in the World, in Madrid, she came down with bronchitis.
A doctor came to her hotel and administered an
antibiotic injection that sent her into anaphylactic shock.
"I left my body. I saw the nurses try to
resuscitate me. I saw people screaming and calling for an ambulance," she says in a
measured tone of voice.
"What you realize, when that happens, is that
you take nothing with you. All you take with you is how you feel about the relationships you have with other people, the love
you have shared and what you may have left in terms of an impact on someone else's life."
The slim, 5-foot-4 actress had two more near-death
experiences in the 1990s. She had pre-eclampsia, a rapid onset of high blood
pressure, during her pregnancy with twins when she
was almost 45 (the result of in vitro fertilization), and had to undergo an emergency cesarean section.
In 1998, she almost died, she says, from a
water-borne disease while on a tropical island shooting The New Swiss Family Robinson.
"Time is very short," Ms. Seymour says.
"And you have to live in the moment, celebrate the moment. I love things that are
beautiful. I love water; nature. And that's what
I'm trying to bring into the essence of this book," she says, flipping through the
pages of Making Yourself at Home. "You have
to do things that give you joy."
-
2007 May 28 GLOBE
& MAIL
A primer on interpersonal relationships
SECRETS OF FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION
BOOK REVIEW by
Mike Kennedy, Financial Post
Those of us who are over the age of 40 have witnessed
some remarkable changes. Some of the most dramatic have taken place in the
way people communicate in the workplace. When I graduated from business
school 15 years ago, personal computers were starting to appear in
offices, and hardly anybody had heard of cellphones or fax machines.
Since then, technology has advanced in a series of
quantum leaps, and there has been a virtual explosion in the use of tools
such as videoconferencing and e-mail. But there are still many situations
in business where there is no real substitute for bona fide face time;
trouble is, lots of people find these interactions a lot more difficult
and stressful than they really need to be. In Secrets of Face-to-Face
Communication, Peter Urs Bender and Robert Tracz offer a primer on
interpersonal relations that can be helpful to managers at every level of
the organization chart.
Many readers will have seen elsewhere much of what is in
this book. But Secrets of Face-to-Face Communication is set apart by the
two authors' skill in bringing together a multitude of ideas and packaging
them into an A to Z primer that's entertaining and easy to read. It offers
lots of useful tips for handling the difficult and often sensitive people
problems we all run up against in the course of trying to earn a living.
Two of the book's most important themes are that knowing
how to ask the right kinds of questions and being able to listen
effectively to what others are saying are major factors in effective
interpersonal communication.
Particularly useful are open-ended questions that allow
you to probe for other people's opinions and feelings; the authors
maintain these are often just as important as the hard facts that many
business people have been conditioned by habit to focus on.
Listening is a skill that most people need to work hard
to develop. The keys to being a good listener are patience,
open-mindedness and willingness to genuinely understand the other person's
point of view.
Another component of this book many readers will find
useful is the advice it dispenses on how to deal with difficult people.
Several variations of this species rear their heads in Secrets of
Face-to-Face Communication: the condescending, insufferably arrogant
Know-It-All; the Bulldozer, for whom it's always either his way or the
highway; the Procrastinator, whose indecisiveness can paralyze everyone
around him; the Sharpshooter, a malicious bully whose main weapons are
sarcasm, gossip and twisted humour; and the Volcano, whose unpredictable
and explosive temper can be thoroughly intimidating.
Recognize any of these people? It's a fact of life in
today's world that every organization has its share of jerks. Often, just
having to put up with them can have a devastating effect on other
employees' productivity and morale. The essential methods of dealing with
difficult or negative colleagues are staying calm, understanding the real
motivations that lie beneath their offensive behaviour and communicating
with them in such a way as to keep everyone focused on accomplishing the
job that needs to get done.
I've heard it said more than once that business is
ultimately all about relationships between people. If that is true, then
the success of any organization or individual depends to a great extent on
the way these relationships are managed. (More often than not, they are
mismanaged.) On these points, Secrets of Face-to-Face Communication has
something useful to offer to just about anyone who cares to pick up the
book. It may not contain the latest Harvard Business School theories about
how to make it to the top, but it does provide a treasure trove of
practical, commonsense advice that may save some readers a great deal of
unnecessary heartache. -
2002 NATIONAL
POST
LEADERSHIP
| COMMUNICATIONS
Moose crossing
Does your
organization silently suffer from lack of candour? Answer true or false
to these questions:
The real discussions
happen privately after our meetings.
People often appear
to agree to a group plan of action and then go off and do their own
thing.
Personal
accountability and commitments are often avoided and project deadlines
are routinely missed.
A few vocal people
dominate conversations and cut off dissenting opinions before they've
been fully expressed.
Once the team leader
gives his or her opinion, everyone else agrees or remains silent.
Finding someone to
blame for a problem or spending time explaining why it occurred is more
common than trying to understand the underlying root cause.
Surprises regularly
happen as simmering problems erupt into major issues.
People feel
overwhelmed by too many priorities and conflicting messages about what's
important.
We keep adding to our
to-do lists and rarely spend time agreeing on what to stop doing.
There's a fair bit of
turf protecting, simmering conflict, and people taking potshots at other
departments or groups.
A lot of time is
wasted discussing unimportant details while bigger priorities and key
decisions don't get enough attention.
We rarely debate all
sides of important issues and avoid touchy or politically sensitive
topics.
Scoring:
If all 12 are untrue:
No bull. Congratulations - you don't seem to have a moose problem. Now
survey other members of your team to see if they agree with you.
1-3 true: Moose
crossing ahead?
There may be a sickly
moose lingering in the halls.
4-7 true: Watch your
step.
Moose are starting to
pop up all over the place. If you don't keep an eye on where you're
going, you may find yourself ankle deep in moose droppings.
8-10 true: Time for
action.
Your organization is
becoming a perfect habitat for moose. If you don't start hunting them
soon, you may find the place overrun.
11 or 12 true: Face
the bull.
You have moose on the
table: It's courageous conversation time.
LEADERSHIP:
COMMUNICATION
When silence isn't golden
It's the moose on the table:
Everyone knows there's a communication problem, but nobody admits it.
How to deal with lack of candour
How many times have
you sat through a meeting and bit your tongue when a serious workplace
issue was raised - only to engage in a much franker discussion about it
with colleagues outside the room?
It isn't always the
issue at hand that can make people clam up. More often, it is the human
dynamics that are present at the table or an organization's culture that
lay the groundwork for this lack of candour at work.
Communication
breakdown is a huge problem in the workplace. Call it the "moose on
the table": Everyone knows this problem of lack of candour is
there, but they don't want to deal with it, preferring to ignore it or
pretend it doesn't exist.
The metaphor is based
on the idea that the issues or problems that many teams face are like a
moose standing on the meeting room table - the Canadian equivalent of
the more familiar elephant in the room.
Lack of candour is an
extremely complex issue, with both cause and effect tightly intertwined.
But its effect can go well beyond everyday frustrations among the people
who have to deal with it.
Indeed, the fallout
can be deadly: One of the findings of the investigation into why space
shuttle Columbia fell from the sky over Texas five years ago was NASA's
organizational culture that kept safety staff and some engineers largely
silent "during the events leading up to the loss of Columbia,"
according to the investigative board's report on the disaster.
Harvard University
professors Leslie Perlow and Stephanie Williams wrote a whole book about
how lack of candour can affect workplace functioning and morale.
"Many times,
often with the best of intentions, people at work decide it's more
productive to remain silent about their differences than to air them.
There's no time, they think, or no point in going against what the boss
says," according to an abstract of their 2003 book Is Silence
Killing Your Company.
"But ...
silencing doesn't smooth things over or make people more productive. It
merely pushes differences beneath the surface and can set in motion
powerfully destructive forces."
Lack of candour often
stems from people not having the skills to address tough issues with
each other. And so they do it poorly and raise defensiveness in others,
or stir up conflict that often gets personal.
Frequently, people
are afraid to speak up because they have seen others who disagreed with
the boss or the team either get ostracized, moved off the promotion
track or punished with the worst assignments.
Technology is also a
factor: People confuse communicating with what becomes information
overload, such as increased e-mail volume or too many PowerPoint slides.
So, they have no time for thoughtful and difficult conversations.
As if that weren't
enough, when an organization's structure is badly designed and the
methods for dealing with information, work flow, products or customers
are flawed, all kinds of errors, rework, waste and frustration build up.
People will
frequently look at the mess that results and say: "We need better
communications around here."
But in these cases,
communication problems are the end result of deeper problems with
processes, systems or organizational structure.
Many managers have
developed a multitude of ways to shut down debate and real conversation.
These include branding people as "not being on board" or
"not being a team player" for disagreeing with what managers
believe or want.
Or, a manager might
just ignore the people who disagree in favour of those who kiss up to
him or her.
Managers faced with
survey data or feedback that people are unhappy will often deny it by
saying something like: "That's just their perception, that's not
reality."
Addressing the
problem requires a two-pronged strategy. First, the barriers to team or
organizational effectiveness must be broken down. Second, at a personal
level, managers must help their staff overcome any fears they may have,
and develop the courage to step up to tough issues and speak out about
them.
One key to breaking
the "conspiracy of silence" is to create safe environments
that encourage everyone involved to risk "courageous
conversation" - either by initiating the difficult discussion or by
seeking candid opinions. -
2008 April 11 GLOBE
& MAIL
|
