No Bull Business Blog

6 communication work skills to live by

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Communication Skills for Managers

Practice these six communication skills in your work each day and, you’ll be much more effective.

1. Listen more than you talk: Possibly the most important communication skill of all is the ability to listen. Avoid letting your thoughts wander: Focus on what the other person is saying. Not sure what they mean? Say, “Let me make sure I have this right. Are you saying ...?”

2. Keep your promises: If you’ve been pushing your staff to raise their level of customer service, don’t contradict yourself by being rude to an employee. It’s the old “walk the walk, and talk the talk.” Lead by example and be sure to keep your promises. A golden mantra: Follow through.

3. Say it like it is: We’re not saying you have to get down and dirty, but too much sugar-coating often obscures the truth. Be honest and tell your employees when there are some kinks that need to be worked out in the organization. If you made a mistake, admit it. If the company made a wrong turn, be honest and discuss how you’re planning to get back on track.

4. Don’t react ... respond: Everyone has buttons that, when pushed, evoke a knee-jerk reaction. But reacting isn’t responding. Be mindful of situations and give them thought before taking action. Know your buttons and train yourself to respond rather than react when they’re pushed.

5. Make it personal: When was the last time you had a one-on-one conversation with some of your staff members? Create time in your schedule each week to meet individually with some employees – and not just key staffers. Your involvement and interest in each employee will boost workplace morale.

6. Give specifics: Managers give feedback throughout the day, often without even realizing it. But how specific are you being? The more you can fine-tune the feedback, the clearer the picture for the employee. Think about it: Is it more helpful if someone tells you, “You need to give better customer service” or if he or she says, “Make a point of smiling and making eye contact with our customers, instead of typing on your computer while talking to them”? If your feedback contains specific action steps, your employees will understand exactly what you want them to do.

DIGGER DEEPER
Most problems in the workplace are caused by poor communication. Even the most talented staff will falter if it doesn’t communicate well. How do  you improve it? Read the Executive Report: Communication Skills for Managers

Coaching: Leading them to the right choices

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors

One of the better coaching techniques is to let people make their own choices, rather than dictating choices to them.

Still, even if you encourage people to make choices, there are ways to lead them to make the right choices.

One approach is known as "Simplicity sells."

It's based on research from Stanford University indicating that the more choices you give people, the less likely it is they'll make good choices.

When faced with a wide range of choices, people tend to shut down and make no choice at all, or just say, "Oh, anything's fine."

The fix: Limit the choices to a low number - that is, emphasize quality over quantity.

Then, let people choose from that manageable number. It's sure to get better results.

DIGGING DEEPER
Coaching employees to be more effective, productive and motivated is challenging for even the most experienced managers, but it can be done. For help, read the Executive Report: Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors

Coaching employees: Why e-mail doesn't work

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors  

Researchers at Vanderbilt and Rice Universities set up identical tense coaching scenarios in which one pair communicated over the phone and face-to-face, while the other pair used only e-mail.

Results of the experiment:

• The phone/face-to-face pair managed to resolve their differences, but
• The e-mail-only pair more often ended up with insults, anger and breakdowns in communication.
  

Besides the obvious differences in communication methods, researchers noted one factor that's the main contributor to breakdowns when subjects use e-mail. It's something called a "lack of cotemporality."

Simply put, that means neither side heard (or read) the communication at the moment it was produced. Turns out, that's important in coaching - and it's often lacking in e-mail communication, since people read e-mails some time after they're written.

The lesson: Face-to-face, when possible, is usually the better approach. 

DIGGING DEEPER
Coaching employees to be more effective, productive and motivated is challenging for even the most experienced managers, but it can be done. For help, read the Executive Report: Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors

Dealing with a 'bad attitude'

Excerpted from the Executive Report: The Supervisors Guide to Managing and Motivating Difficult Employees. 

 

Identifying and correcting behavior often can be more difficult than dealing with performance.

 

Difficult employees are often characterized as having a "bad attitude." Identifying employees that way is a bad starting point for implementing change. What's a "bad attitude"? How is it measured? What standards will you use to determine if it has changed?

 

In short, "attitude" shouldn't be in your supervisor's vocabulary, but "behavior" should. Here's why: You can make behavior a part of performance - with the same types of standards you use for performance.

 

Suppose an employee refuses to cooperate with others or won't follow instructions or argues with customers, or all of the above.

 

That type of employee commonly fends off criticism by saying, "But I do my job."

 

Your answer: "Behavior is a crucial part of your job. So if you can't cooperate, in fact you're not doing your job."

 

To complete the loop, you can make cooperation (with you, other employees, customers, etc) a crucial component of the employee's job description.  Here's a typical statement used in a job description or as a standard laid out during a performance evaluation:

 

Maintain a positive work atmosphere by acting and communicating in a manner so that you get along with customers, co-workers and managers.

 

The greater the importance behavior is to the job, the greater the percentage this standard will apply to the job - whether it's 10%, 25% or 50%. You make the call on it and make sure the employee understands the percentage and the standard.

 

What you'll have done is take the vague "attitude" problem and turn it into something defined and measured. And it gives you a rebuttal to the person who says, "But I do my job."

 

Usually, the person who says that is doing the job at some minimum standard - while driving everyone else crazy. The answer: Raise the standard, to include behavior. Then your response is: "No, you're not doing your job."

 

DIGGING DEEPER

It doesn't require the greatest skills to manage good employees. They have initiative, jump in where needed and don't need someone looking over their shoulder. The people who are a drain on the workplace are the difficult employees. To get help with them, read the Executive Report: The Supervisors Guide to Managing and Motivating Difficult Employees.

No one ever changed the oil in a rented car

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Leadership Skills: the 7 Essential Steps to Delegating

You don't always have the power, authority or means to reward people the way you'd like or give them the growth they desire. Now what?

Realize that there's almost always something you can do to provide an incentive. It may not be a pay raise, but it might be:

• a small bonus
• more time off to spend with the family
• training and learning opportunities, or
• an incentive tied to the company's financial performance.

And you can modify and adjust incentives based on your knowledge of the employee involved.

Just as some people like opera while others like baseball, so can incentives be adjusted to target an employee's likes.

So, while your authority to award incentives is limited, your imagination is not.

Another incentive for successful delegation is to give the subordinate a sense of ownership of the task - a reason to be invested in its success. As the adage goes, "No one ever changed the oil in a rented car."

If you don't own a project, why would you care?

The sense of ownership ties in with other incentives - a bonus, a chance to move up, more independence. There's a difference, however:

While you might offer an incentive for taking on the delegated task, you might also offer an incentive for any successes that result from the person's taking it on.

Again, what you offer may be limited by your budget and authority. Still, almost all of us can come up with a reward for success.

DIGGING DEEPER
The ability to delegate is what turns good managers into great managers. Learn how to do it the right way by reading the Executive Report: Leadership Skills: the 7 Essential Steps to Delegating

Deciding when and what to delegate

Excerpted from read  Executive Report: The 7 Essential Steps to Delegating Successfully

Delegating can provide a manager with many advantages. That doesn't mean it's wise to delegate just anything anytime. When done randomly and without thinking it through, delegation can be a disaster.

So, first, be sure to determine when delegation is the best course of action. To do that, start by asking five key questions:

1. Is there someone else who I believe has what it takes - background, expertise, information, etc. - to do the job? Absent that, is there someone I can get up to speed quickly to take over the job?
2. Does the task provide an opportunity to grow and develop another person's skills, or am I just foisting off an unpleasant task on someone else?
3. Is this a task that that's likely to come up again, so that if I invest time in someone, I'll get multiple payoffs?
4. Do I have enough time to delegate the job effectively? If there's no time for training, feedback and, yes, an occasional redo, I may be asking for trouble.
5. Is this a task that I should delegate? Let your instincts decide which responsibilities must stay under your control.

Other factors to take into consideration:

• How crucial are deadlines? What are the consequences of not completing the job on time?
• Is "good" good enough? In other words, could you get by with slightly lower quality for the sake of delegation? If not, you'll have to have full confidence in the person to deliver at the highest level.
• What are the consequences of failure? Handing over the job could increase that possibility. No one accepts failure, but you have to accept the possibility and be prepared to deal with it.

DIGGING DEEPER

Delegating is key to becoming a great manager. To get more help, read the Executive Report: The 7 Essential Steps to Delegating Successfully

Are you stressing out your employees?

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Why Good People Burn Out – and How You Can Stop It

As much as you and your employees don't want to suffer from stress and burnout, you could be the "cause" of the stress. Here are some things to watch out for:

• Setting unrealistic goals. Imposing highly ambitious goals on employees will daunt and discourage, rather than motivate, them. If you have tough goals they must achieve, break them into smaller parts before presenting them.
• Looking at the dark side. If you always look at the downside or harp on what's wrong - and allow others to do it - you can bet employees will become de-motivated and stressed. Instead, mention the bright side of every tough circumstance you and your people face. Encourage employees to suggest changes for things they don't like.
• Us vs. them talk. Managers often don't want employees angry at them, so they unintentionally remove themselves from potential guilt. (For instance, "I fought for your pay raise, but you know HR makes the final decision.") Leaders need to stand behind decisions they've made or have been made regarding their employees.
• Allowing some people to slide. Managers who let poor performers get by or allow bad behavior to continue will derail good employees. Confront those issues until they're fixed or gone.
• Talking more than you listen. Whether you deliver bad news or offer an opposing opinion, your employees will want to vent about it. Let them, because that may be all they need to get over it.
• Jumping to conclusions. One person rarely knows how another person feels, so avoid telling employees how they should react or feel in any situation. Let them react and then talk about solutions.
• Poor listening. Nothing is more irritating than not being heard. Paraphrase, take notes or do anything to show employees you care.
• Reacting to anger or anxiety. This only adds fuel to the fire. Instead, keep an even tone and deal with similar situations uniformly.
• Bad habits. Ask a trusted colleague (or loved one), what habits you have that can get on people's nerves.

DIGGING DEEPER

So, are your employees stressed out? Find out what you can do by reading the Executive Report: Why Good People Burn Out – and How You Can Stop It.

Rookie managers' biggest mistake

Excerpted from the Executive Report: 9 Mistakes New Managers Make Most Often

New managers persist in doing their old jobs rather than the new one. It's the No. 1 classic mistake almost every manager makes upon first being promoted. The good ones recognize it pretty quickly and make the needed change.

But many continue to make this same mistake over and over, even though they know they shouldn't.

It's tempting for a new manager to fall into the trap of wanting to be productive and doing the job he or she performed so well - the job that got them promoted in the first place.

One main reason managers continue to do their old jobs is they haven't yet learned how to delegate the work effectively.

They hang onto every little task themselves and eventually burn out. While this burnout is underway, the people who report to them fail to grow and eventually burn out and feel unmotivated, too.

DIGGING DEEPER
Rookie managers generally have talent, yet they’re missing one key ingredient to be successful – experience. But with guidance, they can avoid the mistakes that can derail them. Get the Executive Report: 9 Mistakes New Managers Make Most Often.

You can't treat every employee the same

Excerpted from the Executive Report: 6 Dumb Ways to Kill Morale - and What You Can Do to Fix It

It's human nature to look at other people through our own prism. When people are very different from us, we have a much more difficult time understanding where they're coming from. Two people facing identical problems or sets of circumstances often choose very different actions.

Does that mean one is smart and the other is dumb? As managers, we may see it that way, but the different actions most likely have very little to do with smarts or lack thereof. People do things more because of their own intrinsic nature than because of any real or perceived lack of expertise or intelligence.

Managers who play to people's strengths do a better job of making new hires work. The easy part is to identify skill sets. It's much harder to identify the behavioral nature that fits the job - that's where most mistakes in people management are made.

DIGGING DEEPER
Managing people is the hardest thing we do. Motivating them and keeping morale up is never ending. For help, read the Executive Report: 6 Dumb Ways to Kill Morale - and What You Can Do to Fix It

Is delegating a dirty word?

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Taking Control - 163 Ways to Save Time.

Delegating is a dirty word to many people.

Because doing it properly takes time and energy, they often think: "In the time it would take me to teach someone else to do this task, I could do it myself."

Or: "The only way I can be sure this task will be done right, is if I do it myself."

Here are two reasons to toss out both those ideas:

• Look at the big picture. While it may take more time than you'd like to explain how to do the task the first time around, it will save huge amounts of your time in the long run.
• Perfectionism is one of the biggest time-wasters. Are there some tasks that need to be perfect and require your expertise? Absolutely. But there are so many more tasks that don't need to be perfect, and where "good enough" is just fine. Productive people know how to tell the difference - and so can you.

DIGGING DEEPER

For most managers, working harder really isn't an option. But they try to do it anyway. But there are plenty of ways to streamline your job, eliminate distractions and get others involved. For help, read the Executive Report: Taking Control - 163 Ways to Save Time.

Recipe for conflict: Comparing one employee to another

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Dealing With and Eliminating Unacceptable Behavior

A rule of thumb when dealing with unacceptable performance is to avoid comparing the employee to co-workers. That just creates more problems.

Instead, focus just on the person in front of you, giving a straightforward assessment.

For instance, it should never be "You only do six of these a day, and Beth does 10."

Instead, it should be "You do six of these a day, and there is room to do more. I'd like to find a way to build you up to eight, or even 10. What do you think of that? What do you think we need to do to help you get to that number?"

DIGGING DEEPER

One of the biggest headaches that managers have is dealing with inappropriate behavior in the workplace. For additional help, see the Executive Report: Dealing With and Eliminating Unacceptable Behavior.

Get a grip – toss the paperwork

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Get More Done in Less Time

 

Even though a lot of communication comes via e-mail, we're still not a paperless society. And the paperwork that flows into our office can kill productivity if handled poorly.

 

Here's how to tame some of the paper:

• Sort and handle papers in the inbox only twice a day.

• Throw out rough drafts once the final is done.

• Highlight the important info on a document to avoid having to sift through it again.

• Toss memos immediately after you mark the date and info on a calendar.

• Request summaries and recommendations with lengthy reports. And create them when you write your own reports.

• Keep these folders to file what you receive and don't toss

• • To do (for things that must be acted on by the end of the day
  • Reading (for long reports and industry publications)Personal (for the good-to-know stuff
  • Training (for useful info on personal and professional development)
  • Upcoming events (details you need that aren't written on the calendar)
  • Projects (one for each that is current)

• If you put something aside more than three times, ask "How likely will I ever need it?" If the answer is "Not likely," toss it.

DIGGING DEEPER

Getting leaner means being more efficient. Good managers can’t afford to waste time. For help, check out the Executive Report: Get More Done in Less Time.

5 ways to salvage a difficult employee

Excerpted from the Executive Report: The Supervisors Guide to Managing and Motivating Difficult Employees

 

Firing a difficult employee is always an option, but it's not always the best option. Salvaging the person and turning him or her into a productive and reasonably cooperative employee is often better for the company.

 

But to do that, you must shift the responsibility from you, the supervisor, to the employee. The employee has to become responsible for changing.

 

After all, it's the difficult employee who has to change, not you.

 

There are five key steps for shifting the responsibility for changing:

1. Clarifying expectations. Tell the employee exactly what you want, in the way of performance or behavior, or both. And make sure the standards can be observed and measured. That's why you don't want to say, "Fix your attitude." There's no standard of measurement for that.

2. Provide training. You can't push someone out to sea alone in a boat and expect good results. Arrange training, and work with the employee to decide what training is appropriate and reasonable.

3. Specify consequences. Let the employee know the consequences - the bad ones for failing to change and the good ones for implementing change. That gives them a goal to shoot for.

4. Provide feedback. You can't expect the road to change to simply have a start and a finish. There's a whole area in between where you have to let people know if they're making progress and how much or how little.

5. Remove obstacles. Ask the employee what's preventing change. If you can control and remove the obstacle, do so. If it's up to the employee to remove the obstacle, make that clear, too.

DIGGING DEEPER

Getting difficult employees to turn over a new leaf isn't easy. To get help, check out the Executive Report: The Supervisors Guide to Managing and Motivating Difficult Employees

When you absolutely need to touch it more than once

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Get More Done in Less Time

 

We've all heard it. The most efficient folks only touch a piece of paper once.

 

Truth is, that's often not possible.

 

Most paperwork that comes across a busy executive's desk needs more than a minute's attention.

 

So it'll likely need to be touched more than once.

 

But the real key is that you take some action every time you have to touch it. Some possibilities:

• post a date on a calendar when real action needs to take place

• file it

• trash it

• make a call to followup or initiate action, or

• delegate someone to read or act on it.

 

DIGGING DEEPER:

Execs who get the most done and are the most effective are the one's who don't waste time on low priority issues. Get help by reading the Executive Report: Get More Done in Less Time.

5 ways to turn negative employees positive

Excerpted from the executive report Handling Difficult Conversations with Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know.

Conversations – especially those dealing with emotional issues – rarely follow a logical pattern or system. Every conversation is a little different.

You can’t shoe-horn a conversation into a pattern or system. What you can do, however, is develop a method for getting the other person’s feedback and moving toward a desired result. This five-part conversation method and system has worked for many managers when they’re seeking a change in behavior or performance. A step-by-step example of dealing with someone who’s always negative and critical of others’ ideas:

1. ‘When you ... I feel ...” You can use this to set up the problem: “When you say, ‘That’s a dumb idea,’ I feel as if you’re being disrespectful to the person who offered the idea, and you discourage others from speaking up.”

2. Wait for their input. This is one of those points when your silence can be golden and when you can put into practice one of the “don’ts” we described earlier – “Don’t feel as if you have to fill every silence.”

Let your “When you” sentence hang and wait for a response. And here’s where it gets a little tricky, because you can’t be certain of the response.

The person may deny it, in which case you’ll have to give examples: “I can describe at least three times in the last week ...” Or the person may say, sincerely, “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

Sometimes, too, the person will offer an excuse – valid or invalid. For instance, the response may be, “I’ve been losing a lot of sleep because of migraine headaches, so that may account for some of it.”

If you believe the excuse is valid, take steps to help or accommodate the employee. That’s what supervisors are supposed to do. Even if you do that, you still can move on to the next step.

3. “I would like ...” Here’s where you describe, specifically, the change in behavior you’d like to see: “I would like you to come to the next meeting with at least three ideas of your own on how we can improve.”

That sets the standard and results in positive terms: “This is what I want you to do.” Instead of “This is what I want you to stop doing.”

Consider how that works in any number of conversations involving performance or behavior. For instance, the person who’s always
coming in late.

Negative: “I would like you to stop coming in late.”

Positive: “I would like you to be on time every day.”

4. “Because ...” In almost any situation, you have to provide a reason for requesting change (other than “because I said so”).

Again, try to stay positive: “Because I know you have a lot of good ideas, and I think we’d all benefit from hearing them.”

That beats the negative attack mode: “Because we’re tired of hearing your criticisms.”

5. “What do you think?” You’re asking straight-out for feedback here, and you’re doing so with more than one purpose:

• You don’t want the person to walk away with the feeling that he or she has been given some iron-fisted orders.
• You can move toward a commitment from the person to change.
• You’ll get a real feel about whether the conversation worked and you’re headed toward a desired goal.

Try this system the next time you’re in a difficult conversation, and see how it helps to get you where you want to go.

DIGGING DEEPER
Every manager has at least one negative personality on the staff. Who do you deal with those folks? For help, check out the executive report: Handling Difficult Conversations with Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know.