However, behavioural change – and business success – has a much likelier chance of occurring if we heed new evidence about change. Breakthroughs in cognitive science about how our brains function contain pointers worth taking serious note of.

People are predisposed to resist some forms of leadership and accept others. David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz in an article The Neuroscience of Leadership (Strategy + Business, Summer Issue 43, 2006) reported several conclusions that could make the art and craft of leadership more effective:

Change is pain
Organisational change provides sensations of discomfort to your working memory, which is a short-term, fairly overtaxed “holding area”.  When people encounter something new this memory is frequently engaged. Change obliges your working memory to actively compare and consider benefits.

Another part of our brains is the habit-centre. It has neural circuits of long-standing habits developed because of extensive experience and training. This part functions exceedingly well without conscious thought in any routine activity thus freeing up the processing resources of your working memory.

You learn to drive a car really well “without thinking”. If in another country you try to drive on the opposite side of the road, the act of driving becomes difficult.

In a company a situation of strategic or organisational change, any change of a hardwired habit takes a lot of effort and attention. Change leads to a feeling of discomfort which leads to avoidance (or flight).

Leaders tend to underestimate the challenges inherent in implementation.

Certain ways and means of inducing change are less successful than others.

Behaviourism doesn’t work
Take note that change efforts based on a carrot and stick approach, that is, on typical incentives and threats, rarely succeed in the long run.

Humanism is overrated
A person-centered approach (inspired by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow) is usually not sophisticated enough. This school of thought assumes that self-esteem, emotional needs, and values could provide leverage for changing behaviour. Help people to reach self-actualisation. The carrot and stick approach was abandoned and the focus was on empathy.

This approach might produce an effective solution – provided enough time is assigned to the process. However, do not use elements of persuasion. Many managers (and consultants) believe that they should convince people of the value of change. Instead, managers should recognise that brains are pattern-making organs with an innate desire to create their own novel connections.

When people solve problems themselves the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline. Rather than lecturing and providing solutions, effective managers ask pertinent questions and support people in working out solutions of their own. But even a Socratic approach can backfire when wielded by a leader who is trying to convince others of a particular solution or answer. Do not try to cloak an effort to persuade as authentic enquiry. The brain picks up the difference and resists.

Even if it is their own interest to change, a behaviourism approach is usually not sophisticated enough to induce people to change.

Focus is power
The …“mental act of focusing attention stabilizes the associated brain circuits. Concentrating attention on your mental experience, whether in thought, an insight, a picture in your mind’s eye, or a fear, maintains the brain in a state arising in association with that experience.”

We now know that the brain changes as a result of where the individual puts his or her attention. The power is in the focus.

People who practice a specialty every day literally think differently, through different sets of connections, than people who don’t practice a specialty.

Deliberate practice plays a huge role in achieving success.

Expectations shape reality
People’s mental maps, their theories, expectations, beliefs and attitudes play a more central role in human perception than was previously understood. (Tell someone a pain-reducing pill is being administered and they will experience a reduction in pain, despite the fact have received a placebo, a sugar pill.)

People experience what they expect to experience.

This has important implications for business. Put the right people in positions that are extensions of their personal maps. For instance, two individuals work in a call centre. The one views customers as troubled children, and sees complaints as needing to be allayed. The other views callers as busy but intelligent professionals and hears valuable suggestions of improving a product or service.

How would you facilitate change?
One way of facilitating change is by cultivating moments of insight. A large-scale change in behaviour requires a large-scale change in mental maps. This requires an event or emotional experience that allows people to change their attitudes and expectation more quickly and dramatically that they normally would.

During moments of insights a complex set of new connections is being created which has the potential of overcoming the brain’s resistance to change. But this requires a deliberate effort to hardwire an insight by paying it repeated attention.

“Leaders wanting to change the way people think or behave should learn to recognize, encourage and deepen their team’s insights.”

People need to own any kind of change initiative for it to be successful.

Attention density shapes identity
For insights to be useful, they need to be generated from within, not given to individuals as conclusions. People will experience the excitement of insight only if they go through the process of making a connection themselves. The moment of insight is a positive and energizing experience which helps fight against the internal and external forces trying to keep change from occurring, including the fear response.

The term attention density is used define the amount of attention paid to a particular mental experience over a specific time. The greater the concentration on a specific idea or mental experience, the higher the density. With enough density, the individual thoughts and acts of the mind can become an intrinsic part of an individual’s identity.

You’ve probably had the experience of going to a training programme and getting exited about new ideas, only to realize later that you can’t remember what the new ways of thinking were. Specific research has shown that a training programme alone increased productivity 28%, but the addition of follow-up coaching increased productivity 88%.

Small bites instead of large blocks
Given the small capacity of the working memory, many small bites of learning, digested over time, may be more effective than large blocks of time spent in workshops. The key is getting people to pay sufficient attention to new ideas.

Perhaps any behaviour change brought about by leaders, managers and coaches is primarily a function of their ability to induce others to focus their attention on specific ideas, closely enough, often enough, and for a long time enough.

How can leaders, managers, consultants and coaches effectively change their own or other people’s behaviours?
Start by leaving problem behaviours in the past. Focus on identifying and creating new behaviours. In due course, these may shape the dominant pathways in the brain. Use a solution-focused questioning approach that facilitates self-insight, rather than through advice-giving.

If Rob does not reach an objective, do not focus on his non-performance, as this might lead to forming cognitive connections (also know as reasons or excuses) as to why the objective was not reached. Although they might be true, they do little to foster any change.

Rather focus Rob’s attention on the new circuits he needs to create to achieve his objectives in the future. Ask: “What do you need to do to resolve challenges like this?” This might lead to an insight. If the manager regularly asked Rob about progress, it would remind Rob to give this new thought more attention.

Remind people of their positive insights and do so one idea at a time. Behaviourists call it “positive feedback”, which is a deliberate effort to reinforce behaviour that already worked. If conducted skillfully, this is one aspect of behaviourism that has a beneficial cognitive effect.

How to change a culture?
A leader might wish to change the way that an entire company thinks. A common approach is to conduct a cultural survey. The aim might be to identify the source of problems.

A better alternative would be to paint a broad picture of being more entrepreneurial without specifying the changes that individuals need to make. Ask them to picture the new behaviours in their own minds and in the process develop energizing new mental maps. These might have the potential to become hardwired circuitry.  The team would focus on their own insights and the manager would regularly provide “gentle reminders” so that these entrepreneurial maps become the dominant pathways. He also needs to catch the team when they get sidetracked and gently bring them back.

The power truly is in the focus, and in the attention that is paid.

The answer to all challenges to change
In a nutshell: Focus people on future solutions instead of on past problems, let them come to their own answers, and keep them focused on their insights.

Apparently that’s what the brain wants.

Focus on incremental progress against measures, and develop a fine-grain awareness of processes and how to improve them. In daily and weekly meetings participants could systematically talk about the means for making things better, and in doing so, train their own brains to make new connections.

The discomfort of managers
Few managers are comfortable putting these principles into practice. Our management models are based on knowledge. We follow a “transmission” approach to transferring information – exemplified by lectures and textbooks where knowledge is transmitted to a passive receiver. This is the prevailing teaching method used in universities and business schools. Managers tend to use models that they have endured. For many managers, “leading others in such a new way may be a bigger change, and therefore challenge, than driving the other side of the road”.

Change is all about learning
Peter Drucker said: “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”

The authors of the article, on which this post is based, observe: “In the knowledge economy, where people are paid to think, and with constant change, there is more pressure than ever to improve how we learn”.

As a consultant, I have to make some serious changes.

Albert
PS. You will find the article under reference at www.strategy-business.com/rss .

Most of us know that our listening retention ability is between 7% and 9%.

It follows that attending a coaching session does not make much of a difference in altering behaviour. It has been established that only 10% to 15% of attendees enjoy a straightforward “talking-head lecture” which many coaching presentations are. What’s more, only 10% to 15% of the attendees take some aspects of what they learned home and put it into practice.

Could we not all agree that these troubling facts are realistic, judging from our own memories and our own paucity of action after a “lecture”? The figures might even seem a bit high.

Highly interactive coaching sessions (some with lots of bells and whistles) do succeed in pushing the enjoyment factor from 10-15% up to 95%. The bad news is that this improvement does not change the low 10-15% number of people who apply what they have learned.

These application percentages are dismal, but there is a way out of this dilemma. How to ensure that your company’s return on investment (ROI) in coaching is higher? How to improve the implementation factor to somewhere approaching 95%?

Firstly ensure that for any coaching you have a well-prepared, very brief coaching module and supporting diagrammes or a professional PowerPoint presentation.

Then follow these 5 steps:

If you are a participant:

1.    Preview the learning material which should be made available to you at least a week prior to the coaching session. Study it. And also learn to do mind mapping. It will boost your initial understanding tremendously if you were to take a pencil and prepare a mind map of the main concepts on an A4 sheet. Or use free mind mapping software.

2.    Participate in the coaching workshop. In a talking-head session (such as a university or college lecture) where most attendees do not participate, their enjoyment and learning is low in both, if they simply sit and listen. If you actively participate in a highly-interactive workshop (where the coach afterwards receives rave ratings of 9 or 10) your enjoyment could be as high as 95%, but regretfully your retention will still fall miserably short (10-15%). Do you and you manager seriously want it to improve? Carry on with the next three steps.

3.    Process the information and enrich your initial mind map in a manner which is meaningful to you. Expand you map and add new concepts. Also copy in free-hand style diagrammes, if these were supplied.  You will retain much more. This is especially the case if you relate the information to your own work situation; if you visualise how you will use it. How and where could you apply your learning when you get back to your office?

4.    Practice on your own – with personal assistance. The key to achieving a 95% rate of application is follow-up one-to-one coaching. Coaches are to follow up their group coaching sessions with a series of one-to-one coaching sessions. New neural highways have to be formed in your brain. Supplement this essential additional coaching through the formal use of Action Learning, where the members of a group assist each other. Here each would highlight an important application problem and the members would ask insightful questions which assist the presenter to find a meaningful solution. Try it.

5.    Produce proof to yourself and to others that you are taking action. Apply your new understanding and learning and get new or improved results. If you cannot apply knowledge, you do not know it. If you are stuck in any way, again go though this 5-step process. Ask your Action Learning members to assist you. (After an Action Learning meeting, the presenter of the problem would go away with new insights, apply these insights and report back until the learning has been integrated and results have been obtained.)

Preview, participate, process, practice and produce over and over again until you become a recognised expert at what you are doing.

Our aim in coaching should be 95% for both enjoyment and application. This will take real determination, commitment and effort.

MDs should actively support the learning process. Insist that managers hold participants accountable. Are they, after a coaching session, applying some of their new knowledge? Do their managers and encourage and assist them to do so?  Admittedly, it will take time and real effort to reach new heights.

Celebrate new learning and application.

A dramatic improvement in learning and in obtaining results is possible.

Albert

PS I am indebted to Bruce Elkin, www.bruceelkin.com, a professional coach, for the statistics about learning rates, to Toni Krasnic, www.conciselearning.com, for his excellent learning model and to the late Prof Reg Revans, the father of Action Learning, which is being used in Nokia, Samsung, Boeing, GE, Motorola, Marriott, General Motors, Deutsche Bank, and British Airways and in hundreds of other companies.  (For more information visit: http://www.actionlearningassociates.co.uk/regrevans.html .) For excellent free software visit www.xmind.net .

“What motivates people on a day-to-day basis is the sense that they are making progress.”

These findings are the result of research by Teresa M. Amabile of the Harvard Business School and Steven J. Kramer, a researcher/consultant, which stretched over 15 years, as reported in an article in the Harvard Business Review, May 2011. Simply the title of their forthcoming book The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work creates a need to know more.

What do you rank first when asked what you think drives motivation? Most managers put recognition of good work, incentives, interpersonal support, and clear goals first. Very few (5%) rank progress first.

Inner work life
Take note that people are more creative and productive when their inner work lives are positive – when they feel happy, and are intrinsically motivated by the work itself, and have positive perceptions of the colleagues and their organisation.

Inner life can fluctuate from one day to the next and affect performance with it that day and even the next day. Have we not all experienced this personally?

Progress (“best days”) and setbacks (“worst days”)
In researching 26 project teams in seven companies, covering 238 individuals who supplied nearly 12 000 daily diary entries, the researchers found that the most common event triggering a “best day” was any progress in the work by the individual or the team. The most common event triggering a “worst day” was a setback.

Catalysts & nourishers vs. inhibitors & toxins
Two other types of inner work life also occur frequently on best days: Catalysts, actions that directly support work, including help from a person or group, setting clear goals, allowing autonomy, providing sufficient resources and time helping with the work, openly learning from problems and processes, and allowing a free exchange of ideas.

Nourishers are acts of interpersonal support and events such as shows of respect and words of encouragement and emotional comfort.

Each has an opposite: Inhibitors, actions that fail to support or actively hinder work, and toxins, discouraging or undermining events such as disregard for emotions, and interpersonal conflict. Inhibitors and toxins affect inner work life directly and immediately.

As manager the best thing you can do for your people is to purposefully provide the catalysts and nourishers that allow projects to move forward while removing the obstacles and toxins that result in setbacks.

Meaningful work - to the person doing it
When we think of progress we tend to think of achieving a long-term goal or a breakthrough. Such wins are relatively rare. The researchers point out that even small wins can boost inner work life tremendously. Take note, that the key to motivating performance is supporting progress in meaningful work. ”Making headway boosts your inner work life, but only if work matters for you.” Simply working hard and achieving a task is not enough.

The work has to be meaningful to the person doing it.

Implications for managers
All of this has implications for each and every manager. If you loose your cool every now and then, you may negate the good work that has been done.

Developing long-term strategies and goals can often be seen as more important than ensuring that subordinates have what they need to make steady progress and feel supported as human beings.

Take note that even the best strategy will fail if managers ignore the people who try to execute it.

What should managers do?
•    Establish a positive climate and focus on one event at a time. When things go wrong focus on problems. With the inputs of your team, identify the problems and their causes and develop a coordinated action plan.

•    Stay attuned to your team’s everyday activities. Be non-judgemental and your team will willingly update you on setbacks, progress and plans.

•    Target your support according to recent events. Each day, anticipate what type of intervention – a catalyst or the removal of an inhibitor; a nourisher or some antidote to a toxin would have the most impact on team members’ inner work lives and progress.

•    Become a resource for your team rather than a micromanager. Check in on employees and do not check up on them.

Micromanagers do four things regularly:
•   They fail to allow autonomy in carrying out work.

•   They frequently ask subordinates about their work without providing any real help.

•   They are quick to affix personal blame when problems arise, leading subordinates to hide problems rather than to honestly discuss how to surmount them.

•  They tend to hoard information to use as a secret weapon. When subordinates perceive that a manager is withholding useful information, they feel infantilized, their motivation wanes, and their work is handicapped.

The Progress Loop
Inner work life drives performance; in turn, good performance, which depends on consistent progress, enhances inner work life.

Managers need not be able to read the inner psyche of their workers to ensure that they are motivated and happy. Just show basic respect and consideration and focus on supporting work itself.

Facilitate the steady progress of your employees in meaningful work, make that progress applicable to them, treat them well, and they will experience the emotions, motivations and perceptions necessary for great performance.

The researchers conclude: “Their superior work will contribute to organisational success. And here’s the beauty of it: They will love their jobs”.

Albert

PS. The publication will be released in August 2011. Also consider buying a copy of the article The Power of Small Wins from HBR at www.hbr.com. It contains a very useful daily progress checklist in table format. If any one of my current SA clients wants to join me in ordering the book, please contact me.

While holding a crucial conversation can be sophisticated, mastering even a few principles can lead to immediate results.  Understanding these principles opens new opportunities and removes the inclination to rather be silent than risking a conversation which could turn out to become very uncomfortable and which might even derail.

Each person develops a pool of meaning. Kerry Patterson and his co-authors use this beautiful metaphor. They observe that people together develop and fill pools of shared meaning. “Dialogue” is the free flow of meaning between two or more people. Dialogue is not debate, or argument or trying to win. Nor is it the silent treatment or running away.

Crucial conversations do not always happen suddenly.  We often have the opportunity of preparing mentally for them and if we follow old patterns, our preparations might be faulty.

Research showed that when matters go crucial, a negative outcome develops in record time. We see or hear something. We tell ourselves a story about what happened. This leads to an emotion, often one of dissatisfaction or anger – which leads to over-the-top action, often verbal or written.

If time is on your side, step back and think. What do you want for yourself, for the other person, for the organisation?  Focus on what you really want. Refuse the wrong or easy choice. Refuse the “Sucker’s Choice”.

Take note that a person’s action (which prompted our emotional reaction) could be rooted in six areas of possibility. To name a few: It could lie in the person’s motivation or mindset or in that person’s ability. It could lie in the peer pressure exercised by that person’s group. It could lie in things, in the organisation, for instance, in a breakdown of equipment, or in the reward system which rewards different actions.

The point is six different areas could influence a person to react, offering your six and more reasons for being wrong. Sobering is it not? Stand back and take an in-depth look. Don’t act on your first reading of the situation especially if you are upset.

In thinking things through, commit your thoughts in writing – not in an email but in a personal note. This writing exercise is a very important action, as it will assist you in sticking to the facts. What have you actually heard or what did you see?  Are you casting the other as the villain  and yourself as the victim? Is it possible that you played a role in creating the problem? In reviewing matters, it helps to think of the other as a person along these lines: “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do this?” This question has the effect of driving emotion out of the door.

In confronting the other person, know that a request for a conversation in itself could create tension. The other may dread meeting with you.

In starting a conversation, make it safe.  State that you value the other as a team member, as a co-worker. Develop a mutual purpose, for instance, a successful result to a project. Then turn to the problem which is the point of the discussion. Use tentative phrases. Apologise, if necessary, for first reactions. Do no use judgemental phrases. Stick to the facts.

During the conversation, actively explore the other’s point of view. Listen and reflect the other’s thinking – without necessarily agreeing. Paraphrase. Agree where you can.

Come to a conclusion which is fair, which summarises the situation and which builds relations.

So often in conversations, this is where the dialogue stops. This is a big mistake. Wind things up neatly. What actions need to follow? Agree on what needs to be done, by whom and by when. Be precise and suggest that both make notes. Strive for clarity. Send out a summary by email.

Lastly, follow up by an agreed date. Check whether the matter has been resolved. If you have handled the situation well, the problem is solved, relations have improved and because of neat winding-up actions, the matter might well have turned into an important learning experience benefitting all concerned.

Following a disagreement or a disappointment a crucial conversation or confrontation has three phases: Before, during and after. We often only deal with the middle phase. By thoughtfully adding the other two, such conversations can be turned into positive outcomes.

Albert
PS For examples of problems that require crucial conversations or confrontations, visit the newsletter of the authors who, in turn each week, provide possible solutions to the problems which readers submit to them…http://tinyurl.com/3vgtogn

Sometimes we handle crucial conversations well, but mostly we don’t. When we need to handle a conversation that matters most we are often at our absolute worst.

Purely by chance, three very important publications came to my attention. While browsing through the shelves in my favourite bookshop a cover caught my eye: Influencer.  The back cover advertised two publications: Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations. I purchased the one and ordered the other two – all by Kerry Patterson and three co-authors.

On reading them my first reaction was if only these publications had been available at the start of my career and of my married life. On many occasions, I have been woefully inadequate in handling crucial conversations and especially confrontations. My focus as a consultant falls on assisting MDs who have a serious wish to take their companies to a higher level, to do so.  The authors, who are consultants, confirmed what I encountered in practice: Installing systems and processes alone do not improve performance. A crucial element is an intangible factor namely internal communications within an organisation. Not  normal conversations, as we can all handle such conversations.

Success is often dependant on how people handle crucial conversations. During any process of stress or change a normal conversation easily becomes a crucial conversation, as people simply become unsettled or anxious about new demands. Change disrupts routines and is often seen as an additional burden. Emotions easily run high.

What to do? First, accept that with rare exceptions, we are all to a lesser or larger extent inadequately prepared to handle crucial conversations or confrontations. However, do not make this an excuse. Second, work with the fact that nature has not designed us to handle crucial conversations or confrontations. When emotions run high, we tend to fight or take flight and not to handle high emotions “with intelligent persuasion and gentle attentiveness”.  Again, we should not use this as excuse. It is possible to acquire new understanding and skills.

The culture of the company has a large influence on the speed with which a team is able to adopt new processes and systems. Very often a few additional factors complicate life. In my experience, most MDs and managers are not as democratic as they would wish to believe. In fact, most are fairly autocratic. And very few communicate their ideas fully. Many are not good listeners especially if what others say does not support their points of view. And employees often withdraw into silence instead of speaking up.

Worst, good and best companies: The authors point out that “Within high-performing companies, when employees fail to deliver on their promises, colleagues willingly and effectively step in to discuss the problem. In worst companies, poor performers are first ignored and then transferred. In good companies, bosses eventually deal with problems. In the best companies, everyone holds everyone else accountable – regardless of level or position. The path to high productivity passes not through a static system, but through face-to-face conversations at all levels.”  Productive, respectful conversations.

The best companies develop the skills for dealing effectively with conversations concerning, for instance, productivity, diversity, quality and every other topic.

The authors point out that “companies that make impressive improvements in key performance areas are generally no different from others in their efforts to improve. They differ in what happens when someone does something wrong. Rather than waiting for a policy to kick in, or a leader to take charge, people step up, speak up, and thrive. Equally, if it’s the leader who seems to be out of line, employees willingly speak up, the problem is solved, and the company moves on.” Take note, if such conversations are handled skilfully.

How to define a crucial conversation? “It’s a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary and emotions run strong”.  It concerns disagreements.

What is a crucial confrontation? Confrontations are about disappointments. “They are made up of failed promises, missed expectations, and all other bad behaviour. Confrontations comprise the very foundation of accountability. They start with the question: “Why didn’t you do what you were supposed to do?” They only end when a solution is reached and both parties are motivated and able to comply.” Well handled, problems are resolved and relationships benefit.

If you are experiencing recurring problems with conversations or confrontations, act.  Buy the two “crucial” publications. In my opinion, they merit a “must read” status. Develop an understanding of their content, master and apply the principles.  Both books will enhance anyone’s work and private lives.

In my next two posts I will provide a glimpse of some of the principles concerned.

Albert

PS. Visit http://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucialconversations_book.aspx and http://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucialconfrontations_book.aspx and check out the authors’ resources for more information. VitalSmarts has an excellent newsletter. Subscribe and determine whether you agree.

It struck all of us: If you are serious about getting something done, spend some uninterrupted time on whatever you do. The key to achieving something remarkable is the uninterrupted stretch of time that you devote to whatever topic.

Psychologists talk about the concept of going into a state of “flow”, becoming so immersed in what you are doing that you loose track of time. Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi in the publication that placed him on the map, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, outlined his theory that people are most happy when they are in a state of flow – a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing.

Csíkszentmihályi described flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” (Interview in September 1996 with Wired magazine, as covered in Wikipedia.)

To quote him further:  “Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments of our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times … The best moments of our lives usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to the limits in a voluntary moment to achieve something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something we make happen … For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.” (Csíkszentmihályi’s name comes from “Saint Michael from the province of Csik,” Csik being originally a Hungarian province.)

A marketing specialist advises that one should spend one day per week on marketing, that is, 20% of a work week. This is excellent advice not only because of a day devoted to marketing, but because of the results one gets if one concentrates without interruptions.

I instituted a weekly “Flow Day” in February and to date managed to keep to it a number of Mondays in a row with surprising results. I addressed issues over which I procrastinated in the past – as each required a hefty number of hours to overcome. “Too busy”, was my lame excuse.

How to go into flow?

Firstly, get the environment right. Mondays are perfect as many business people prefer not receiving visitors on a Monday. (Most of my clients certainly do not want to see me on a Monday.) Adopt a no-interruption mindset. Ensure that interruptions are simply not possible. Put everything on hold.  Accept no telephone calls. Nobody has access. Inform the odd person who wishes to make an appointment on a Monday that your calendar is fully booked – which it is. Enter an all-day appointment in your diary or calendar. Do not open your inbox and do not listen to voice mails until 15h00 – nothing could really go wrong over a seven-hour period.

Secondly, select one topic or a major project that will require five or more hours. Gather all the information you need the previous (working) day.  It helps if you are interested in the topic and have some knowledge about it. Get a head start. Start early.

Thirdly, focus fully on the task at hand and do not interrupt yourself until it’s completed. Reward yourself when you’re finished.  (I make a great cup of coffee – Cardinal Sins – pure indulgence, or better still, visit a favourite coffee bistro and take along a favourite book.) Enjoy the sense of accomplishment.

What to do with the other four days of the week? These few tips might assist you to go into mini-flows:

• Red appointments: Make one red appointment in Outlook per day. Set aside one or two hours for either preparing to meet a client or for doing some follow up for a client or for preparing or adapting a new product or service for a client. And do it first thing before checking your inbox.

• Blue appointments: Make one really important appointment with a person per day. Define “important”. To me these appointments hopefully will make a difference to the person whom I will be meeting. It is not about the importance of the person, but the importance of the possible difference. This is easier said than done, but just experience how it provides meaning to your day.

• Do not overcrowd your calendar: Leave breathing space between appointments. Some people believe a crowded calendar is a sign of being in demand or of getting a lot  done. Really? Normally an overcrowded calendar tells me you are dead tired.

• Be outcomes-oriented: Know how to schedule your days around important people and important objectives or topics – and then evaluate the value of each day and week in terms of outcomes. Ask: “What have I achieved?” “Being extremely busy” is not a worthwhile measure.  Have you made a difference?

The “flow” concept was brought to my attention by a brilliant MA student 6 years ago. At that time I thought her thesis was a bit esoteric and I only understood the depth of her insight much later. She was the first South African who wrote a thesis on the importance of “flow” in a business environment. Cum laude. Well done, Celeste!

Develop a flow best practice e.g. institutionalise a no-interruptions two-hour quiet period each day within your work team. Purposefully create a situation which will enable you and your team to go into flow – every day. Your business will benefit and you and your team will feel great!

Albert
PS See a related post Level Four “Time Management”.

While it is so easy to praise, just ask around: When last did you get proper recognition for a job well done? I ask this question in group meetings with each of my clients and only a few hands will go up. When I ask: “Did the praising consist of something more than a brief “thanks, well done” and was a meaningful reason supplied?” even fewer hands go up.

Then the reverse question: “Did you in the past week provide praise plus an explanation to a colleague or someone outside your team? Please raise your hands.” More often than not, there’s a no show.

We all have experienced that thoughtful praise is nice – and at crucial stages in our lives, even extremely important. And for this reason I would like to quote the findings of two sets of respected sources on this topic:

The Gallup Organisation ranks praise 4th among 12 conditions which employees would wish to see in place: “In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?” The 12 conditions are based squarely on what employees value. Traditionally, organisations undervalue how employees feel about their work, workplace and customers – in fact, just about everything that affects the work that they do.  (Instead, productivity, cutting costs, profitability and growth are the issues that get the most attention.)

The consultants at VitalSmarts, Provo, Utah, devoted seven pages to this topic in their important book Crucial Confrontations. They observed that those who are best at holding crucial confrontations (holding a person accountable in such a manner that the problem is resolved and the relationship benefits) make good use of praise between confrontations. People around them assume that they have their best interests in mind as the leaders consistently provide recognition when things are going well. “When given sincerely and often, praise provides a reserve of respect one can draw from when it’s time to talk about a failed promise”.

VitalSmarts advises to praise more than you think you should and then double it. You will of course, worry about going overboard. “We don’t want to cheapen our praise by doling it out so liberally that it no longer means anything. So we hold our praise for special occasions such as Olympic medal ceremonies, retirement parties, and funerals. After all, there can be too much of a good thing.”

The VS authors point out that often we do not see the positive. “When your direct reports are plugging along all day in and all day out and aren’t causing problems, who could notice that?  In fact, Sherlock Holmes once solved a crime because he alone observed that the dog wasn’t barking.”

The VS authors observed that praise statistics never get any better and that “this embarrassing consistency is a function of the fact that our society suffers from obscured vision – we can only see the bad”. People “are so blinded by problems that they don’t notice things gone right.”

It is easy to notice huge achievements, but honouring the exceptional is expected. “It feels like getting your due”. “Mark Twain once suggested he could live for two months on a good compliment.” He was a hero. How much more do code writers, design assistants, copy writers, frontline staff, secretaries and others long for a simple, thoughtful, reasoned word of thanks?

“And what will it take to be able to first see and then celebrate achievements other than record-breaking performances?” What if our employees felt that we always noticed their hard efforts and good works? What if our companies are known as places where good deeds were noticed and rewarded?

How to turn things around?

Commit to instituting a regular process. “Until we buy into the notion that expressing honest appreciation as a leader, friend and parent is one of our most important jobs, we’re not likely to do much to overcome the mental mechanisms and years of habit that keep us focused on problems”. The former chairman of the largest companies in the world started his day with writing short, sincere positive messages to people he worked with – to boost the people he worked with. (You might prefer starting your day with a 10-minute strategic/operational review of what the outcomes of the day should be and during this meeting and later during the day be on the lookout for opportunities to build others whenever you meet with them or when you write to them.)

Commit to also recognising modest accomplishments. The chairman also thanked people for not only hitting home runs but for cheering from the bench or quietly offering support.  “Our current standards for recognition contain two enormous barriers. First, the feat must be monumental. Second, the reward must match. Break the habit. Look for and praise small things. Most of us are already celebrating big things”.

Schedule time to do nothing but focus on things gone right. Walk around and look around for elements that you could praise. Then write a thoughtful email or note. Tell people what they did and why it’s worth noting and end with a simple “Thank You.” Keep it short and sincere.

With time and practice you’ll start noticing things gone right more naturally. And if you are already doing it right, quietly give yourself a pat on the back.

Albert
PS Go to www.vitalsmarts.com for details about three remarkable books – which I unreservedly recommend reading.

This morning, while walking my two schnauzers in a park, I listened to a very inspiring recorded discussion with Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks, who wrote It’s Not About The Coffee – Leadership Lessons from a Life at Starbucks. Behar grew Starbucks from 28 stores to more than 400 stores by the time he was named president. Under his leadership, Starbucks opened its first location in Tokyo in 1996 and over the next three years he introduced the Starbucks brand across Asia and the United Kingdom. He retired in January 2003 and is now a much sought-after speaker on leadership.

I quote the 10 principles as formulated by this most interesting, experienced leader. Read these principles carefully and with some introspection, visit http://www.howardbehar.com/home.shtml and buy the book at your local bookshop or via the Internet:

1. Know Who You Are: Wear One Hat
Our success is directly related to our clarity and honesty about who we are, who we’re not, where we want to go, and how we’re going to get there. When organizations are clear about their values, purpose, and goals, they find the energy and passion to do great things.

2. Know Why You’re Here: Do It Because It’s Right, Not Because It’s Right for Your Resume
The path to success comes from doing things for the right reasons. You can’t succeed if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish and without everyone being aligned with the goal. Look for purpose and passion in yourself and the people you lead. If they’re not there, do something.

3. Think Independently: The Person Who Sweeps the Floor Should Choose the Broom
People are not “assets,” they are human beings who have the capacity to achieve results beyond what is thought possible. We need to get rid of rules–real and imagined–and encourage independent thinking in others and ourselves.

4. Build Trust: Care, like You Really Mean It
Caring is not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of strength, and it can’t be faked—within an organization, with the people we serve, or in the local or global community. Without trust and caring we’ll never know what could have been possible. Without freedom from fear, we can’t dream and we can’t reach our potential.

5. Listen for the Truth: The Walls Talk
Put the time into listening, even to what’s not said, and amazing results will follow. You’ll know what your customers want, you’ll know why the passion is missing from your organization, you’ll learn solutions to problems that have been sitting there waiting to be picked.

6. Be Accountable: Only the Truth Sounds like the Truth
No secrets, no lies of omission, no hedging and dodging. Take responsibility and say what needs to be said, with care and respect.

7. Take Action: Think like a Person of Action, and Act like a Person of Thought
Find the sweet spot of passion, purpose, and persistence. “It’s all about the people” isn’t an idea, it’s an action. Feel, think, do. Find the balance, but act.

8. Face Challenge: We Are Human Beings First
Use all the principles to guide you during the hardest times. If the challenge is too big, if you’re stuck, take smaller bites. But remember to put people first, and you’ll find the guidance you need.

9. Practice Leadership: The Big Noise and the Still, Small Voice
Leading can be the noisy, “I’m here!” kind of thing. But don’t ever forget that leaders are just ordinary human beings. Don’t let big noises crowd out the truth. Listen to your still, small voice. Let quiet be your guide.

10. Dare to Dream: Say “Yes,” the Most Powerful Word in the World
Big dreams mean big goals, big hopes, big joys. Say “yes” and enjoy all that you are doing, and help others to do the same.

I will be posting more on the topic of how astute MDs and managers assist people to rise to new heights and take their companies upwards with them.

Albert

“How to take control of your email” was the topic of a recent post by an American consultant and author, Joel Comm.

Do you have a simple system that works? Many of my clients suffer from not having a simple system for controlling the content of their inboxes.

Perhaps you could do with three tips on how to cope?

Here they are based on my own practice as prompted by Gerrit, and bolstered by Joel.

Three tips:
•    Open two types of folders.
•    Delete as much as possible and stash the rest into these folders. I only show you my basic range of folders. Of course, I have a few more folders, as would you.
•    Use your system, go into flow and dip into your system when you are ready for a next task.

On opening my inbox I do the following:
1.    Delete: I delete whatever I can immediately. No hesitation. If it looks like a time waster, that’s good enough for me. It’s gone.

2.    @Action: I immediately put client emails and any emails requiring action into a @Action folder. I keep every item there until I have taken action. After having dealt with an item, I move the incoming email and my sent email to their specific folder.

3.    @Waiting For: I created a @Waiting For folder and whenever I dispatch an email requiring action from the recipient, I park my sent email in this folder – till I get a reply. Very handy for quickly checking who owes me a reply. Sub-tip: Where I need action, I end my email with a specific request for action so that I also know why it is in my @Waiting For folder.

4.    @Prospects: I put all emails concerning possible prospects into a @Prospect action folder.

You will note that there are only three @folders, each denoting action, concerning people. What can I do for them?

All folders 5 to 10 do not require action concerning people although the content of these folders might need some activity on my part such as reading or deleting.

5.    Newsletters: I immediately put all really interesting newsletters into this folder. I do not read them on opening my inbox. I glance at them and if I do not delete them I stash them for reading when my work for the day is done or whenever. If this folder gets too full, I delete issues from the bottom of each newsletter folder.  I limit my newsletters to 10 subscriptions. If I discover a new one to which I subscribe, I read a number of issues to ensure they are indeed interesting, and then unsubscribe an old newsletter.

6.    Clients ABC: I have a series of active client folders. My client folders in my C-drive mirror my Outlook Client folders. There is no point in using and trying to cope with two systems. I have one system in two places. If you should still use paper folders, follow the same system for paper. Note: All client folders are just for storage. Not a single item requires action. Do not file an action item as you will only create a self-induced stress situation.

7.    Associates: I have a number of associates and store correspondence with each in separate sub-folders. Note incoming mail from them or any email that requires action goes directly into my @Action folder.

8.    Family: I keep my family correspondence where I can find it and opened folders for each relative or family.

9.    Friends: Ditto

10.  Office: I put all my correspondence concerning subscriptions, software, supplies, taxes, etc., into a series of sub-folders of this folder.

Two e-mail accounts: Joel has two email accounts: One for his corporate account and the other for his personal account. Neat.

Saved e-mails: Joel does not like to delete old saved e-mails. Nor do I.  He never knows when he may need to refer back to them some point in the future. I agree, but I place all my old stuff on an external back-up drive.

Reminder e-mails: Joel keeps current e-mails in his inbox as a reminder. This, I found, is the start of building another inbox of a 1000 or more e-mails. I move current e-mails to @Action and take action – or delete from there.

Gerrit coaches other very useful practices. If you really want to do it right, and if you are in South Africa, attend one of his full-day workshops. That’s what I did. Do it before you get much older. You can gain one hour per day. And you will be less stressed. (Gerrit has an arrangement with David Allen of Getting Things Done-fame and some of you might recognise some of David’s thinking in this post.)

One last tip: If you install this system or something like it, make a huge committed effort to fully use it. Do not confuse your brain by partially trusting your spotty memory and partly trusting your new system.  Get to know your system thoroughly until you are on auto-pilot, and stash everything where it should be. Focus on the task at hand and dip into the three action folders whenever you surface.

Relax, its all there – if you placed it all there.

Albert
PS You’ll find Gerrit Gerrit at www.productivitypitstop.co.za and Joel Comm at http://joelcomm.com/how-to-control-your-email.html#comments

Others struggle. Why?

Planning is the easy part. Execution is the difficult part – and when it comes to execution few leaders lead well, even if they are brilliant. Why do they experience difficulties?

Leaders fall into mental traps. What are they? Robert H Schaffer in an article Four Mistakes Leaders Make in the Harvard Business Review (September 2010) provides valuable insights on this topic. 

Schaffer states that four behaviours deeply rooted in the management psyche block organisational change. He observes that these “traps are extremely difficult to recognize because they are almost always mechanisms for avoiding anxiety. They serve to protect egos and prevent discomfort.” Here they are:

1.    “Failing to set proper expectations”.

Leaders announce major directional changes without spelling out specifics and without saying who’s accountable.  My examples of not being specific:
•    We are going to focus on upgrading our services and improve the customer’s experience.
•    We are going to solve this quality problem.

MDs get upset by mistakes which are repeatedly made.  They reprimand the GM and the staff – without setting specific goals or explicit action plans for fixing the problem.

Another common mistake is to describe what must be done and then signal “if you possibly can do it” – thus offering an excuse.

Why do managers act in this manner? Schaffer observes: “…being clear requires considerable thought and it is much more difficult to be clear”.

2.    “Excusing subordinates from the pursuit of overall goals”.

MDs and managers allow employees to focus narrowly on their work in their silos, and so the responsibility for company-wide performance is, in fact, “delegated” upwards.

MDs hear how managers and others counter calls to action from the top by stating that they need to focus on the critical problems or work loads; that they are unable to deal with demands for executing on company-wide strategy. Often the MD is the only person who has an overview and who feels personally accountable for overall results.  Every division focuses on own performance. A joint focus is lacking. Why does the MD accept this? “Having to play nursemaid to so many activities saps executives’ time and energy. Yet very few seem willing to assign a subordinate full responsibility for achieving results that will require substantial inputs from peers”.

3.    “Inadvertently colluding with staff experts and with consultants”.

Managers permit in-house and external experts to propose solutions without assuming responsibility for outcomes. MDs and managers (and consultants) should pinpoint very specifically what is expected, by whom and when – and they should include themselves.

MDs should hold the staff experts accountable for outcomes of their work.  Why do MDs fail to do so? Well, specifying sharp, measurable objectives and gains for a project puts their own reputations on the line.

MDs have to play a much more active role in a project’s design and implementation. However, it’s safer psychologically to place the initiative in a staff expert’s or consultant’s hands and hope for the best.

4.    “Waiting while associates prepare, prepare, prepare”.

Endless preparation gives the illusion of progress, but nothing really happens. Management often believes in the notion that the first step in improving performance is finding a new programme to produce needed gains.

MDs and managers seldom try to find improvement within existing systems and structures – possibly as managers want to believe they are already doing the best they can with available resources. “To safeguard their egos, they conclude they can’t achieve better results without adding something new.”

How to overcome these behaviour traps? MDs and managers should institute small specific experiments that minimise risk and offer early results.

Leaders, start with yourself. First identify recent events where you as MD or manager encountered any of the behaviours. Then start pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, experiment with more effective methods and enjoy the results. Small, personal experiences tend to be the most liberating.

Tackle small experiments or projects that meet three criteria: They rapidly produce tangible results, incur very little risk of failure, and demonstrate a clear link between experimental behaviour and the outcome.

The seven deadly sins of setting demands, as formulated by Schaffer:
1.    Establishing too many goals.
2.    Not requiring a plan for how and when goals will be achieved.
3.    Failing to push for significant improvement for fear that people are already overwhelmed.
4.    Not assigning clear one-person accountability for each key goal.
5.    Signalling an unspoken ‘if you possibly can’ at the end of a statement of expectation.
6.    Accepting reverse assignments. (My comment: You subordinate asks for your input before finalizing the task – and then waits. You’re snookered.)
7.    Stating goals in ways that may not be definable or measurable.

On reading this, did you recognise your mental traps and deadly sins? If you address them, you will accelerate the process of achieving results.

Albert
PS I trust that this brief summary will inspire you to obtain a copy of the article. Please visit http://www.rhsa.com/ and read RHSA’s recently launched first newsletter which starts with the article. Download it via their website. You could also download an RHSA assessment based on the four traps or mistakes – which you and your colleagues could complete.