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The word leader used to mean strong, directive, and sometimes unfeeling. That picture has shifted to less directive and more in touch with employees’ needs.


Yet where is the balance between results-focused and people-focused? In tough moments …

Are you too nice to lead?

Image by: SeanbJack via Creative Commons License


There are team members who want, welcome, and will only work for a nice leader — until they see that the nice leader won’t address poor performance and cannot negotiate tough issues with other teams and management.

They feel unprotected and at the mercy of slacking team members and other teams. So much for being nice!


Too Nice to Lead

Leaders, could this be you? How or when is this most likely to happen?

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1. With Fear of Conflict. If you tend to avoid conflict and want people to just work things out for themselves, you may be seen as too nice to lead.
   Alternative: Get a coach to help you develop your conflict resolution skills. Great leaders move past their fear. They know when to step in and even teach others how to work together.




2. In Times of Great Change. In everyday work, your teams think of you as a very effective leader. Then the organization announces a major change and you must lead your teams through it. The tension rises and your teams resist. In this moment of truth, do you lead them forward? If you cave in to their objections and resistance, your boss may see you as too nice to lead.
   Alternative: Have the courage to draw on the good will you have with your team. Show them you believe in them and in the change. If you don’t believe it, why should they?




3. When You Require Emotional Support. Being humble and less directive can be good for your team because the void taps their talent and commitment. Being less confident and needing constant emotional support can scare the bejeebers out of them and earn you the label of too nice or weak to lead.
   Alternative: Learn and understand the interplay between being confident and being humble. Confidence is strength for your team. Humbleness opens the door to growth. Both are valuable leadership traits. Lack of confidence isn’t.




4. If You Must Be Liked. Needing to be liked can steer you to many poor leadership behaviors. It can drive you to sacrifice results for the virtual hug. This can earn you the label of too nice to lead.
   Alternative: Develop relationships outside of work that can fulfill this deep need. At work, focus on the balance of interpersonal connection and end results.




5. When You Get Promoted. Picture yourself leading your former peers and maybe even being a peer of your former boss. Guilt or feelings of unworthiness can make you seem timid or too solicitous. This can earn you the label of too nice to lead.
   Alternative: Your boss or another leader put their faith in you. You were promoted for a reason. The team you lead needs your courage and talent. Even if some team members grouse in jealousy, the team’s success depends on your willingness to do the job. Embrace the responsibility you were given; don’t trigger the decision maker’s doubt and regret. Believe in yourself, the purpose, and the team. Lead.




6. If You Own Their Behavior. When you mistakenly believe that you are responsible for a team member’s behavior, you are at risk of giving an errant employee too many chances. You may take their behavior as your failure. If you are coaching one of your team members and they are not making progress, would you be able to tell them they are no longer on the team? If not, you may earn the label of too nice to lead.
   Alternative: Afford your team members the adult responsibility of owning their own behavior. Coach, teach, guide — yes. Own their behavior? No.




7. When Your Career is Paramount. When you care about your career growth more than the current position, you may automatically say yes to other teams or management requests instead of using appropriate assessment and thought. You are busy pleasing everyone else and your current team’s success may suffer. If you are lucky, this may earn you the label of too nice to lead. If you are not lucky, it may earn you a different label that isn’t fit for print. Either way, it’s not what a great leader does.
   Alternative: Let current successes, appropriate interactions, and great negotiation pave your career path.

As the definition of leadership has shifted from rough directive behavior to engaging employees, some leaders have veered off course and focused only on happiness.

Rediscover the balance and you foster success for all!

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Leadership is not about telling or asking; it’s knowing when to do each.

Leadership is not about people or results; it’s about people achieving results.

Leadership is not one consistent approach; it’s using the best approach for the situation.

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You can be liked and fail as a leader; you can be disliked and fail as a leader.

You succeed when you balance purpose and people, encouraging and deciding, listening and speaking up.


I wish you courage and strength and the insight to know how to use it.

From professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Related Post: Leaders, Are Your Direct Reports a Wart on the Arm of Progress

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, customer service, customer experience, and teamwork. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Leaders have leaders reporting to them. If you are a top leader, do you know if your direct reports are fueling growth, change, and success?

Or are your direct reports a wart on the arm of progress — blocking change despite what they are telling you?

5 signs that your leaders are a wart on progress:

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1. They demoralize teams by speaking about the past instead of the future. Example: Why didn’t you or we should have. No matter how this is spoken, it doesn’t fuel commitment to change. It fuels resentment, fear, and guarded behavior. Progress flourishes with learning and confident exploration.




2. They say they will lead change while claiming there is not yet enough data, time, or resources to make a decision. Their wart may be the fear of failure or inability to see ahead from the current picture. Effective leaders know that progress materializes from incremental steps not a complete roadmap.
   
   

3. They seem like star performers yet can’t rally others to star performance. Their wart may be an unwillingness to stand back for others to shine. They are so headstrong, they listen to nobody and block team input. Teams need to have a voice else they sense progress is outside their grasp. Related Post: Is Our Knowedge Too Noisy to Listen?




4. They crush others with the demand for perfection. Their wart is perfectionism. The quest for excellence breeds progress; perfectionism kills it like the disease it is.




5. They are a lid that fits any pot. Their wart is lack of identity. Teams rarely trust them for they feel clueless. Flexible leaders inspire contribution and progress; nondescript leaders leave teams bewildered without a vision. Without vision, progress falters.

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If your organization is not progressing toward the vision, look at the leaders reporting to you.

Are they inspiring teams, communicating, and breeding excellence? Or do they suffer from any of the 5 warts noted above?


Your mentoring or guidance from a professional coach can remove the warts and get the organization, once again, on the road to progress.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

Behind the labels of personality types lie the secrets to more profitable leadership and teamwork.

Workplace leaders often assess team member personality types — amiable, expressive, analytic, driver — and then get busy and do little with it. As I work with them and their teams, I highlight the profitable secrets they can tap.

Personality type impacts understanding and outcomes of leaders and teams. It guides you on how best to engage employees. It can make or break employee ability to thrive in organizational change.


Secrets of Personality Types:

Employee Engagement

1. Amiable personality types come alive through personal connection. If you want to tap the profit they can bring to the business, build interpersonal bonds with them. A just the facts approach makes them feel lonely and demoralized. You do not have to be their best friend yet if you skip the bonding you skip the profit. In today’s world of remote technology, remember to connect with amiable types face to face or on the phone. Video conference with remote amiable type employees for a winning solution!




2. Expressive personality types shine in and through communication. Two-way communication, a critical skill of any good leader, brings these people to full contribution. If you are fast paced, results-oriented and minimize communication, these expressive types feel shunned. You are leaving the profit by the wayside.




3. Analytic personality types function in an ordered thought process. They have much to contribute if you always allow for some ordered discussion. If you are brainstorming, take a small pause to capture the analytic’s ideas. If you are a highly creative leader, summarize your thoughts in an ordered manner after your creativity. Skip the order and you leave analytic types frustrated and the value they provide, suppressed.




4. Driver personality types crave end results and achievement. Give them the big picture, highlight critical milestones and risk factors, and then let them deliver. If you micro-manage them or ask them to have lengthy discussions on non-critical factors, they feel trapped and repressed. Although many other types dislike micro-management, driver types resent it for you are keeping them from the brass ring! They may look for a new position that gives them a real shot.

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During Times of Great Organizational Change

1. Double driver leaders intent on pushing through massive change often overwhelm the other personality types because they focus only on the results. They issue announcements instead of holding all hands meetings. They tell themselves it’s all for organizational results. Yet the methods they use are self-serving and fulfill their driver personality type needs. Ironically, they are leaving the profit of personality types untapped and results suffer.




2. Likewise, amiable type leaders can get caught up in feelings and bonding sacrificing the organizational change goal. It doesn’t have to be that way. I have seen amiable leaders use their incredible bonding skills to rally support for the change and tap everyone’s talent to make it happen.




3. Analytic type leaders may falter in organizational change if they demand too much information before making decisions. In this case, analytics do well to trust the other personality types on the team and profit from their decision skills.




4. Expressive type leaders often shine in organizational change because they are natural communicators. They must remember to engage in two-way communcation. Profit from the analytic, amiable, and driver types’ ideas by remembering to let them express!

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To engage employees and lead them in tough times of change, tap the profit in their personality types.

If instead you revel in the comfort of your own personality type, you leave the profit for the (next) adaptable leader.


Related post: GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

Leaders, do you appoint someone the workplace pit bull believing it will make everyone more responsible and accountable? Let’s consider what workplace pit bulls do to accountability.

Image by:Vectorportal.com

The Story.
In a meeting with a brand new customer, one of my clients introduced herself to me as the one who pit bulls everyone. The boss had given her that responsibility believing it would make everyone more accountable.

I finished the engagement and for the first time turned down follow on business when they asserted the pit bull approach would remain. Her actions had few positive outcomes and many negative.


The Claim. Driving and pressuring people to the maximum creates accountability.


The Truth. Driving and pressuring people to the maximum creates a flurry of activity and fear of blame. It might create short term productivity but not accountability.


What Do Workplace Pit Bulls Do to Accountability?

1. Make team members very risk averse. They take the safe approach to avoid the pit bull’s bite. This has little to do with producing the quality outcome and is hardly accountable to the organization’s goals.




2. Breed a not my fault culture to avoid blame and punishment. This is the exact opposite of responsibility and accountability.




3. Stress people right out … of their knowledge. Have you ever been so stressed that you can’t even think? How can you be accountable to the organization’s goals if you can’t apply your knowledge, creativity, and critical thinking on a daily basis?




4. Reduce trust and respect. When a blame culture takes root, people begin to mistrust not only the pit bull but everyone around. Everyone covers their tracks instead of investing in true collaboration and teamwork to reach the organization’s goals. This is not accountability.




5. Demoralize team members. Workplace pit bulls may produce obedience yet it’s at the cost of morale, spirit, and the desire to be accountable.

Workplace pit bulls (or those who appoint them) are filled with fear of organizational failure and instill fear to prevent it. Ironic, isn’t it, that they can end up producing the very thing they wish to avoid — organizational failure!

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Accountability does not foster this culture of fear and blame. It thrives in learning organizations that empower people within appropriate boundaries.

It rises out of honoring individual accomplishments as well as team successes. It both requires and engenders high levels of achievement by inspiring new possibilities and tapping the team’s current knowledge and ideas.

If you are a leader and aren’t seeing the performance and results you need from the teams, don’t seal your fate by confusing accountability and blame.

Blame won’t change their behavior; a change in your behavior will. Honestly assess your leadership style and make changes to produce change.

Inspire accountability in your teams. Don’t pit bull them into obedience.

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What is the greatest approach you have ever used or witnessed that produced accountability? What resources will you recommend in the comments section below?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Resource for Entrepreneurial Leaders: Something Needs to Change Around Here by Liz Weber, CMC.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change to corporate teams. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

When has fear kept you stuck in a rut? At a fork in the road in your career? When your business stagnates in a bad economy? In a dead end situation that others tell you to leave?

As a coach, I hear clients describe their ruts. Fear has them stuck like gum on a shoe. Meanwhile one single step can remove the gum and get them moving.

When you want success, know you must change yet feel stuck, don’t let fear be the gum on your shoe.

Break free by finding people who have been through something similar — who no longer have gum on their shoes of course — who will share the steps that got the gum off their shoes!

It sounds obvious and here’s the logic.

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1. Fear of taking a step is lessened by learning from those who have survived the step.
2. Fear of the unknown is countered by those who now know the unknown.
3. Fear of acting oddly during the change turns to knowing smiles when you hear how they felt and behaved.
4. Fear of being wrong crumbles under the evidence of their experience.
5. Fear of being alone on the journey is eliminated when you travel it through their success.

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Well established support groups and their members thrive on these principles. Still many people have issues not defined by any established support group.

Fear not. Online chatters, social media friends, bloggers, authors, and professional coaches all have life experiences to share.

My graphics designer, Kimb Tiboni, has chronicled her Illogical Success with personal insight and real life experiences. I have overcome business hurdles and gained inspiration through friends, coaches, and Twitter chats.


Take one step now and leave your story in the comments section below:

One rut you broke out of and how you did it and/or

One rut you want to break out of and two answers you seek.

You want success? Don’t let fear be the gum on your shoe! Reach out and step forward in your life, career, and business.


What stops people from reaching out — when it’s so obvious that it is key to success?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Leaders, managers, and staff — you walk in the door every Monday and with you all comes a simple no cost team building opportunity.

Do you have a new hire? Is there a contractor joining the project today? Has there been a reorganization resulting in a new team mix? Think back to the first day you joined an existing team. How did you feel?

Image Courtesy of:Renaissance Chambara

How do you welcome them?

Most human resource departments do on-boarding of new hires. Many departments have online training modules to get everyone’s knowledge quickly up to speed.

Not so common is a true welcome for those joining and the powerful no cost team building that results!

The Team Building in a Welcome
Change breaks bonds. Change can also build strong new bonds when you welcome those joining on the very first day. The welcome is not fluff. It ignites team productivity.

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1. Introduce beyond the name. A great introduction warms the moment. We introduce keynote speakers, live performers, and guests at a party. We don’t expect them to show up and just start talking, performing, or networking. That would seem odd. Make time for introductions and you will see teamwork sooner than later.




2. Reach out willingly. When you travel and locals offer tips, how do you feel? Lifted up? Inspired to go back? Motivated to help in return? If you want maximum contribution and low turnover, welcome from the start.




3. Build respect and trust. The basis of all teamwork is simple respect that leads to trust. When you skip the welcome and leave it up to chance, the first interaction may be during tough moments, problems solving, or a struggle. Risky for building trust.

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On the other hand, if you initiate basic respect through a no cost team building gesture — like a great welcome — it quickly lays the foundation for communication, interaction, problem solving, and teamwork.

Some argue that these are adults — not children or teenagers — and shouldn’t need this hand holding. A welcome isn’t hand holding anymore than team building is.

The issue is how quickly the team gels for maximum succcess. The sooner people know each other and sense how to best interact, the sooner the productive results from the teamwork.

Whether in person or a video connection, welcome all those who will work together. Go beyond the names and use the welcome moments to establish a culture of respect, cooperation, and collaboration. Morale matters.

Who will you welcome today? How will you welcome them and lay the path for teamwork — at no cost?

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, team building, DVDs, and keynotes for oustanding customer service and teamwork. For 20 years, she has been turning interaction obstacles into your business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

And 6 Tips To Quiet Noisy Knowledge!

Most leaders and teams hope their knowledge and experience will serve them well. We listen to it for guidance during uncertainty. Yet in times of change, is our knowledge too noisy to listen to new ideas?

How can knowledge serve us and our teams well if it screams inside when new ideas don’t fit it? Consider that:

Knowledge and experience are on a list of common listening barriers.


Interesting recent study results from the University of Pennsylvania suggest people are biased against creative (new) ideas.

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So what does it matter?


Key Concerns About Noisy Knowledge

Is timely innovation in the workplace possible with bias against creative ideas that challenge existing knowledge?

When knowledge and experience are a buoy during times of change, will people ease their grip on that buoy — early on — to listen and consider creative, innovative ideas?

What are the risks of allowing noisy knowledge to slow or stop innovation? It happens and often in the shadows.

Quiet Noisy Knowledge With Awareness

1. Bring the issue into the light with your teams. Start using the phrase “noisy knowledge” as a cue with yourself and anyone in the room who is not listening to new ideas.




2. Position new ideas as new knowledge. If knowledge is the buoy, you can add more to the buoy instead of letting go of it. New knowledge is the buoy of security for continued success.




3. Note aloud the emotional reactions to the new ideas. Then put aside the emotion to consider the substance of the ideas. By separating the emotion from the thinking, new ideas have a chance! “My emotional reaction is …, now let me consider the idea.”




4. Ask yourself and others, how is my/your noisy knowledge impacting others, the business, and success? We are each responsible for the energy we bring to or drain from a workplace, a meeting, or a moment.




5. Leaders, consider having everyone take a social styles indicator (Amiable, Expressive, Analytic, Driver) so that everyone can own their type and understand how others communicate. Communication styles affect listening!




6. In advance of any major change initiative, help yourself and team members identify everyone’s change reactions. The KAI (Kirton Adaptive Innovation Inventory) is a great instrument to help each person see how open s/he is to change. Once known, then owned and managed!

The need for comfort and security is understandable. The need for timely change, inevitable. The pathway for both, around the noisy knowledge, is awareness, ownership, and communication.

What else would you add to overcome the barriers to listening to new ideas? What’s your #7 for this list?


With belief in everyone’s change-ability,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results. Lead change with vision, courage, and communication.

Leaders, are you conflicted when your best performer is change resistant? As I highlight a change resistor to leaders who engage my consulting and training, many have said to me “but this person is our best performer!”


Behind that short reply from leaders is great risk to the success that lies ahead. Because of this, I ask leaders, can a change resistor get you to Oz? No and neither can denial.

Leading to Oz

1. Leaders, your shock and disappointment are normal. Your denial, deadly. Any employee can be a change resistor. Occupational performance does not guarantee change-ability.




2. Be ready for a show down in the evil forest. Some top performers believe they are indispensable and can resist the change. Before initiating significant change, know what internal and external resources you have to keep everything moving ahead. It also helps the resistors see they are not indispensable.




3. Replace your fear of performance loss with courage and belief in your vision. Most team members will buy into and even contribute to organizational change if they see that it is not debatable and understand what the vision means for them.




4. Redefine performance to include change-ability. Long term success means adapting to change. Discuss this with your team members and let them know that their skill is valuable if they apply it to a changing vision.




5. Top performers and high achievers sometimes want an extremely clear picture of the change before they buy into it because they want to be seen as a high achiever throughout the process. That is not always available. Other high achievers trust in their ability to succeed even in ambiguity.

   Let everyone know that you trust in their ability and know their will be ups and downs throughout the change. Commitment and focus is the key — not perfection.

What other factors contribute to a top performer resisting change instead of helping to lead change?

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results. Lead change with vision, courage, and communication.

Leaders, who lead change well during tough times, filter out needless noise. Their experience is the filter. It enables leadership without the bullshit.

New leaders, many in middle management, face an ironic challenge. They are building experience — the filter — while trying to filter!

I feel for new leaders and consult on the great challenges they face to give their experience a boost. They deserve a just-in-time filter for needless noise when leading change.

So here it is — a guide to leadership without the bullshit. Help new leaders. Add your experience in the comments section below to strengthen this filter even further.

Image by: Leo Reynolds


10 Point Leadership Experience Booster

Leading change in tough times …

1. The status quo doesn’t really exist. Things are always changing. Don’t debate if change should occur. It is occurring. Communicate, listen, and engage the team to create success together.




2. Convert why questions to what questions to filter the noise. Questions that start with the word what generate tangible dialogue and understanding.
   Rephrase why is this happening to …

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   What conditions have changed and are feeding the need for more change?
   What are we facing in the future and how do we prepare?
   What roads can we take to get there?




3. Acknowledge the struggle don’t encourage it. Acknowledging the struggle that people have with change is helpful if you also ask them how they will get through it. Else they think it is your job to eliminate their struggle and you enable their resistance.




4. Encourage success by moving forward. Don’t confuse endless talk about the struggle with being an empathetic leader. If you want to be a caring leader make the unknown, known, by moving everyone forward sooner than later.




5. Negativity and positivity are both contagious. It’s pretty clear which one will create success. Admittedly people don’t have to be singing and smiling all the time. If they are very engaged in the change and venting some along the way, it’s natural.
   Yet constant complaining will retard progress and ignoring it is a classic mistake. The power of negativity is there even if you deny it. Call it out and note the impact of it. Identify what is needed instead.




6. Morale matters. Celebrate talents applied to the common purpose. You will see untapped potential materialize into unexpected wins. Even if your boss is a results-only person, always remember that morale impacts results. It is needed. It’s not a waste of time.




7. Perfectionism kills momentum. If you or team members suffer from the blight of perfectionism, override it with the motto make it work. It is rare that you will have all the information, optimal conditions, maximum resources, or complete understanding. When team members raise these points as reasons not to proceed, involve them in risk assessment and problem solving.




8. Personality type differences change from obstacles to advantages with simple training. To ensure that your diverse team members mesh even in tough times, hold a personality assessment workshop before the stress hits. Focus on how to adapt to behaviors and avoid using the results as labels. Make it fun and it boosts morale.




9. Hedging on difficult or necessary conversations confuses people; it doesn’t console them. Give employees the gift of being clear. Honest focused dialogue shows respect for them as adults and builds respect for you as a leader.




10. Redirect extremes into critical thinking focused on results. Tough times provoke stress and emotion that yield rigid outlooks and absolute opinions. Facilitate discussions that reawaken a realistic mindset and empower a can-do approach.

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What have you learned from needless bs at work that leaders can use to filter out future noise?

What will you add to this experience booster? What is your #11?

Thanks in advance for adding your insight here.


From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results. Fill the gaps of change and diversity with business wins!

On more than one occasion as an organizational consultant, I have detected hidden workplace change resistance long before the leaders and managers. They asked me later, how did you know?

It got me thinking about how I spot change resistance lurking in the cubicles.

I detect clues much like Sam Spade.
I spot …

1. Words that are contradicted by actions or inaction.
2. Words or actions that seem forward focused while anchoring everyone in the status quo.
3. Questions that are actually saying no. These are resistance statements in disguise.
4. What doesn’t fit or make sense given incentives, choices, and conditions.

How can you become the Sam Spade of change resistance?

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Give yourself permission. It’s both OK and essential that you see the reality. Sharpening your sight doesn’t make you a tyrant or a cynic.

Be ever present and conversational. Your conversations, formal and informal, will produce more clues. Presentations where you ask for questions are only a small piece of the picture. To see a more detailed picture, get a closer view.

Trust your ability to handle change resistance else you might overlook a clue that’s right in front of you.

Overcome any fear of conflict otherwise you may block from your mind what you find undesirable. As leaders, your inner strength will guide you through discomfort and give your teams a beam of support during the change.

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Your detective skills help all involved in the change. They unearth obstacles, concerns, and energy drains that everyone can address once out in the open.

Contrarily, overlooking resistance, avoiding conflict, being distant during the angst and stress, tells your teams you don’t believe in the change. If you don’t believe in it, why should they?

Lead change with vision far and near. Like a detective you will unearth both obstacles and success — with and for your teams.

From my experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach


How have you detected hidden change resistance? What specific clues got your attention and how did you handle them?

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into organizational success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to fill the gaps of diversity with action and teamwork. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

Long before employee engagement became a management trend, one very effective leader (who prefers to remain anonymous) was asking employees and teams a bold question to understand and engage them.

What’s in it for you?

By admitting a human truth, this question:

1. Grabs attention.
2. Provokes thought.
3. Unearths motivation.
4. Discovers the potential and uncovers the warts.

When used by a great leader, this question, starts the necessary discussion of balancing “I” and “we” and keeps this delicate balance on everyone’s radar.

This bold question sends a bleep every day asking employees to find something that motivates and engages themselves to contribute at their highest potential.

When used without connection to this delicate balance of “I” and “we”, it can spiral into a horrible case of entitlement and “me-itis — what will you, the leader, do to motivate me?”

The key difference:

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Do you inspire employees to engage themselves?
or
Do you think employee engagement is primarily your job as the leader?

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Leaders, who inspire employees to engage themselves deliver something very valuable to the organization –  unlimited possibilities from sustainable talent.

Even during critical changes in direction, these employees will still be thinking:

1. Here’s what I bring to this new initiative and what I will get out of it to keep me going.
2. How can I improve to contribute to the whole?
3. How can I manage my extremes and best fit my strengths to the new order?

Employee engagement that creates an entitled workforce is a disaster you can avoid. Ask a bold question to inspire employees to engage themselves and keep the balance. The results are startling.

What type of responses do you think you will get to this bold question?

What would you learn about potential hires, current team members, and potential leaders from asking it? Please add your voice in the comments section below.

From our shared experience to mutual success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish, please email, info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that inspire change, action, and success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to inspire teamwork for business wins. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

Corporate and business labels come in all forms — job titles, organizational units, processes, functions, acronyms, and so forth. Labels clarify, organize, and communicate. Labels can also limit development, possibilities, and empowerment. The leadership challenge is leading beyond the labels.

Labels can speed communication and understanding. Can you imagine the frustration of having to repeatedly describe in detail something that could be said with one label that everyone quickly grasps? Ironically, that same label can shut down listening, questioning, discussing, and innovating — if you let it.

Leading Beyond the Labels

1. Ask yourself: Are you and/or your teams using labels to limit or to explore? Listen carefully for instances of building boundaries out of labels. Spotting this trend early and correcting can reduce engrained change resistance.
2. Check for “should” and “only” in your mind and in your words. One of the easiest ways to spot labeling to limit is to ask yourselves are you thinking/saying limiting thoughts as you use a label. This team member is only a _________ (job title/label). This step should be done by _________ (department/label).
3. What’s the risk of not limiting vs. limiting? Leadership requires assessing risks. If the risks of not limiting are great, you will likely go with labeling to limit to minimize risk. Else, avoid it.
4. Labeling people, even positively, builds more limits than talents. Counteract this effect with cross-teamwork, developmental assignments, and team building activities that explore beyond the labels.

Labels are alluring to many. They make things clear, tangible, — and comfortable. Hence the true danger. Don’t accept this comfort. Question it. Challenge it. Counteract it. Succeed by leading beyond the labels.


What would you add to this list to limit the limiting effects of labels? I welcome your thoughts in the comments field below. Add your voice!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, turns interaction obstacles into business success. Now in 23rd year of business, Kate delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, customer service, customer experience, and teamwork. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

A great definition of teamwork includes a call to action to build and exercise change-ability skills for optimal teamwork in any situation.

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Picture your organization using this new definition of teamwork:

Growth and change within team members to achieve a common success.

It’s applicable to changing environments, is very clear, and defines teamwork as adapting to reach the common goal instead of working to reach the common goal. 

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This definition of teamwork creates startling results when you use it with these four precious gems.

RUBY. Passion for learning. When you create a learning (not training) culture, the team exercises its change-ability muscles. Learning is change and one that most people welcome since it enhances their careers and no one can fail. 
The startling result is a stream of new contributions because all are involved in continuous improvement.

Creativity increases and critical thinking improves. Athletic teams regularly exercise for improved performance and theater troupes explore new ideas for this same reason. Unfortunately teams focused on production often get locked in daily routines. Create startling new results with a learning culture.

Action Item: Pick one topic related to business, teamwork, service, sales, or technology. Have each team member Google/Bing on the topic and collate those results online.  At a virtual team meeting, take 15 minutes for team members to identify aloud what info they can use and how.  Make this a weekly event and watch the teams create, collaborate, and flex to changing needs.

 

 

EMERALD. Leader with a confident ego. If you have a learning culture, the leader must feel confident even with constructive dissenters and creative strategic thinkers on the team. This confident leader is the emerald gem of teamwork — reminding us all of The Wizard of Oz. Toward the end of the movie the curtain is drawn back to reveal there is no all-powerful wizard. He is instead a wise caring person.  His insights flow from there.

 

 

 

SAPPHIRE. Human bonding on diverse and distributed teams.  The evil of isolation due to distance or differences undermines the full potential of teams. Picture world-wide technology rollout teams who have never met, come from different cultures, and rotate team members. If no bonding is addressed, the teams will fall short of full success. Use video-based virtual meetings to introduce team members. Build understanding on topics of personality type, generational differences, cultural norms, learning style, and pet peeves!

 

 

 

DIAMOND. The I’s in Team. There are several I’s in teamwork – individual initiative and identity committed to the team. Respect and acknowledge individual talents contributed to the whole. It inspires greater contributions and willingness to share and teach. Some organizations call this the essential piece culture where each person knows how s/he contributes to the whole success.

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers team building workshops and innovative solutions for startling team results. See this site for more info and 21 years of testimonials.

Can you think of someone who would not want to be called the best? Most business leaders and professionals would beam at this honor. Being the best means you have an extreme strength. It emerges from a natural talent or intense study, practice and development.

Yet there is a weakness to every extreme strength. That weakness is the undeveloped counter-strength you might need today or in the next step of your career.

For self-development, traditional wisdom says:
#1 Be aware of your weakness
#2 Know how to change
#3 Have the desire to change


Why does the weakness often persist?

1. The organization taps you for your strength. More of your time is spent using a strength than developing a counter-strength.
2. Using the strength feels better than the struggle of developing a weakness. We yield to the positive feelings.
3. Being called the best can create overconfidence and block growth. Consider, when are you too confident to learn?
4. Believing that the counter-strength is inconsistent with the extreme strength. Picture a strong analytic who relies heavily on data and looks down on those who don’t. How likely is this analytic to develop and use big picture thinking necessary in a leadership position?
5. Fearing that it will weaken the extreme strength. For example, strong driver personalities who push for the end results are afraid that learning participative leadership will undermine success.

Overcoming the grip of extreme strength:

1. If the organization is the block, ask for a short project where you can learn a counter-strength.
2. If the positive feelings are holding you back, picture the negative feelings of being unprepared for the next skill set needed.
3. If overconfidence is trapping you, find a trusted friend or mentor to snap you out of it with honest feedback.
4. If are stuck in one belief, search for examples to test the accuracy of it. Is it a feeling or a fact? If it is a feeling, you can stretch past it and develop a counter-strength.
5. If fear of failure is stopping you, find people who have your strength and the counter-strength you need. Their balanced success can move you past your fear.

How have you developed counter-strengths to balance your greatest strengths? What success have you had that will help others? Please share your story below.


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, turns change obstacles into your professional success with inspiration to action. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote features, footage to view, and customer testimonials.

Recent studies show that loyal customers are the ones that find your service easy.  For hotels and the hospitality and travel industry, this has morphed into frequent guest profiles on room type, or rental car preference, or aisle/window choice on an airplane.

They have created a standard process on certain service items to earn customer loyalty. It’s just a beginning.

Hotels must go far beyond that and rewards programs to earn the customer loyalty especially of frequent business travelers. They must:

Make it easy for customers to get exceptions to the standard process and sustain those exceptions throughout each stay.

Most hotels don’t sustain customers’ exceptions. The hotels are driven by standard processes and handle each exception as a transaction. You can make a special request and hopefully they deliver on that exception. Yet if it’s something you want every day during the stay or for every stay, you must request it each time.

A recent example: Sheraton hotel provided two bath towels, two hand towels, and two wash cloths in the room. I asked for two additional bath towels. They delivered. The next day housekeeping gave me — you guessed it — just two bath towels, two hand towels etc… Each day I had to request the same exception to their standard process.

Delivering great customer service when requested may get you high customer satisfaction scores. Delivering pro-active customer service may win you great acclaim.

But to earn customer loyalty, deliver easy exceptions and sustain those exceptions. Why? In this example, it’s just one easy phone call each day for some towels right? Easy maybe. Loyalty building it isn’t.

Customer loyalty is earned from easy exceptions that you remember to deliver each time. When you sustain the customers’ exceptions, you are telling them you remember their needs. Being remembered and cared for creates psychological comfort. That earns you the customers’ trust and thus their loyalty.

Picture yourself as a customer. Think about the diner waitress who remembers exactly how you want your eggs. The dry cleaner who knows your name and remembers your preferences. The consultant who already knows your hot buttons and key concerns. The dentist who knows your pain tolerance and how to ease it. The florist who remembers what flowers you send your mother even when you don’t!

This type of customer service becomes more than service. To the customer, you become an essential part of their easy life. If a hotel makes my life easy, I don’t even consider a different hotel for my next trip. You prevent the question mark from forming in my mind. Your hotel becomes my sanctuary when you sustain my exceptions to your standard processes.

This is a challenge for large scale operations yet it is feasible with modern technology. How about easy online portals for all customers to send in their exception requests in advance — without having to call? Or even when they are on site? How about special request kiosks on each floor? Perhaps hand held devices on housekeeping carts that give the staff just in time info on what each customer wants?

Capitalize on the fact that most people don’t like change. They like comfortable easy situations that they can rely on especially when far from home. Following your standard process is a change. You earn their loyalty by making exceptions easy to get and remembering to deliver them each time.


Will it be your brand? If yes, let me know and I will be a regular at your hotel!


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers actionable customer service insights through workshops, keynotes, consultations, and DVDs. Now in her 21st year in business, her stellar results are well known in the customer service industry. See this site for more information.