Workplace

Introverted Leaders: Revelations on Communication

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Today leadership communication has moved well beyond telling people what to do. Great leaders process diverse opinions and engage all to understand the vision and hit the target.

Regardless of the leader, each must address three components and remember:

Vision sets the target.

Strategy maps the route.

Communication gets everyone there.

Introverted leaders, who struggle with the need for so much communication, succeed when they understand the underlying need and the benefits.

Leadership Communication: Revelations for Introvert Leaders Image by:kenfagerdotcom

Revelations for Introverted Leaders

Think of those you lead as the feet that bear the full weight of the body during the journey. Without communication, they get lost, take unnecessary detours, walk further than necessary, and possibly miss the destination altogether.

It’s not a matter of introversion or extroversion. It’s not a competition of personality types and definitely not an exercise in being accepted for who you are.

For all leaders, it’s about stepping outside of your own view to engage your teams and lighten their load.

Communication is an essential nutrient needed for daily performance especially for those who are not making the decisions. How else will they understand the strategy, implement it through all the obstacles, and hit the target?

Communication delivers energy that fuels their journey. Your silence fuels your thinking yet it leaves those you lead stranded in neutral. Neutral isn’t painless. When the struggle mounts, neutral can inject more pain to the struggle.

Communication clarifies details, corrects the course, and prevents problems. Your silence gives you clarity of thought yet it allows confusion to swirl for all others. Relieve the stress of confusion — communicate.

Communication settles and calms the struggle. Your silence is calming to you; it is unsettling to those who need the leader’s insight. Being in the dark is demotivating. A tomb is a very calm settled place but hardly productive or happy.

Communication engages and inspires maximum contribution. Your silence inspires you; it doesn’t inspire your teams. It leaves them wondering. It disconnects them from you and disengages their spirit of contribution. Why should they give their all if they see you staying in your comfort zone?

Communication shows them you care about them. Your silence can unintentionally come across as detached and uncaring. Even driver leaders who aren’t introverts run this risk as they focus purely on end results.
Take time to tell the teams how much you respect them, value their commitment and contributions, and care about their well being. Acknowledgement and recognition repeatedly show up in the top results of employee satisfaction surveys.

The one word mantra I recommend to introverted leaders is “sooner”. (For extroverted leaders, it’s “later”.) If you need time to think things through before making a decision, at least tell your teams that right away before retreating to think and decide. It keeps them engaged while you ponder strategy.

Your competence in setting vision and developing strategy builds their confidence in you; your rapport and care build their trust.

As introvert Ron Edmondson professes in this post, 5 Ways to Step Up & Communicate, you build their trust when they see that you care more about them and their success than you do your own comfort zone.

So I ask all leaders regardless of personality type and preferences, how much do you care about your teams? Enough to communicate outside of your comfort zone in ways that inspire, engage, and light the way?

The choice is yours. The rewards are many.

I am here to help. Please offer your questions and perspectives in the comments field below.

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

Update: I found Dan Oestreich’s comment so pertinent to this post, I feature it here for all to read. Thank you Dan. It’s a great addition.
["Instead of making this an issue of "not changing" ... the other way is to see how we all (introvert or extrovert) are naturally moving over the course of a career and a lifetime toward greater and greater versatility and personal fulfillment. In that, all styles and temperaments are incomplete; our job engages their transcendence."]

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

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Leaders, Are You Confusing Change Fatigue & Change Resistance?

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, Thriving in Change

Most leaders trigger change. Some are constantly pulling the trigger and often with disastrous results. If you are a leader who craves change, ask yourself:

Do you see change fatigue?

Think it’s all change resistance?

Leaders, Are You Confusing Change Fatigue & Change Resistance? Image by:Cayusa

I see a great deal of change resistance as I consult to organizations. Most leaders and consultants focus on this for it is the big challenge of moving an organization forward.

I also see some leaders whose leadership philosophy breeds change fatigue. They are either very high drivers or high idea generators and often quite unaware that they are pulling the trigger far too often.

They see change fatigue as just more change resistance and continue on unchanged (ironically enough) with the same leadership behaviors.

They also convince themselves that because their goal is success, the difference between change fatigue and change resistance is irrelevant. Quite the opposite is true.

Change resistance occurs when people are still committed to the organization albeit the current picture.

Change fatigue can sever their ability to be committed to the organization and redirect it to individual survival.

Moreover, change fatigue can neutralize your strongest proponents of change — those that aren’t resisting. Even they feel lost, disconnected, and incapable of achievement. Once this engine of change is shot, you and your organization can achieve very little.

Change fatigue will most likely occur when your leadership vision is driven by the treasure hunt syndrome or when your vision constantly changes.

The leaders and teams that report to you barely start to work on one initiative or direction when you reset and redirect. Although some of this happens in every organization, as a leadership style it can leave all exasperated, fatigued and disconnected.

The biggest risk of change fatigue is that organizational performance suffers. As a leader you are focusing on future success while the floor you are standing on is sagging beneath you. The new one you are trying to lay has poor supports as well.

Your direct reports begin to delegate some of their responsibilities to their teams whether they are skilled or experienced enough to handle it or not. The outcomes are substandard.
Collaboration and teamwork erode because the current path becomes a grapevine of misunderstandings.
Their exasperation undermines their respect and trust for you and your leadership.

Change Loving Leaders — Prevent Change Fatigue!

Build the culture that goes with your vision. If you as a leader crave high innovation and change, then inspire a fun, creative, learn-from-mistakes type culture.
Do you encourage all the employees to noodle new ideas? Participating in creativity breeds a more positive feeling about change.

Or are you mistakenly reserving that privilege for yourself or a select few and holding all others responsible for the implementation and delivery? High driver leaders are prone to this misstep.

Ensure you understand what it takes to implement. Employees who shine at implementation and operation must see that your vision sees the reality of effort needed. You need these employees that can actually plan, build, or coordinate the building of those new processes, products or services. Do they see that you value and respect their talent for staying the course to the end to make these changes happen?

Procure extra resources to implement all your new ideas or make clear what can truly be pushed aside. If the myriad of ideas and changes you envision are to happen, then back fill the operations with additional contractors to truly allow the full time staff to work on the exciting new changes.

Communicate with the employees not to the employees. That does not mean they can set any vision they wish. Yet, the dialogue helps you to see a clearer picture of what’s needed for innovation and gives them a better understanding of what is possible going forward.

Knowing the difference between change resistance and change fatigue strengthens your success quotient.

- Fatigue is something you cause which can even crush the spirit of your change proponents.

- Resistance occurs within employees. You can ease and eliminate it with great communication, clear vision, and active employee engagement.

Address change resistance — prevent change fatigue. Fatigue is a pricey diversion with long lasting effects.

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

5 Keys to Succeeding with Leaders Who Crave Change

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5 Keys to Succeeding With Leaders Who Crave Change

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Thriving in Change

Time after time we read how people hate change. Yet there is a small percentage who love change to the point of craving it. Have you ever met one? What is it like being around them?

If you work for leaders who are natural change agents and you are not one, you are probably very aware of how it makes you feel. Some compare it to being on a runaway roller coaster or constantly playing musical chairs. But do you know what feelings drive these natural change agents?

Succeeding with leaders who crave change is easier when you can see inside their mind.

5 Keys to Succeeding w/Leaders Who Crave Change. Image by:dougww

The Feelings of Leaders Who Crave Change

The Better Unknown. While contentment comforts you in the status quo, discontent churns inside someone who craves change. They have an inner sense that the present could be better so why keep it the same?

Status Quo Doesn’t Really Exist. Natural change agents keenly see everything changing around them and believe that there is no such phenomenon as standing still. They feel they are awake and living in the natural order of change and see your inaction as risky.

Change Is Exciting. Change lovers believe that everything is exciting in the beginning and then the glow of energy fades. They don’t understand why anyone would stand in the fading shadows when they could use their energy to find the light in future excitement.

Find The Treasure. Many who crave change wonder what gems are hidden in the future rather than what trouble lies ahead. They are conceptual treasure hunters who don’t see the present as a present — the way that others do.

Dig Out of the Rut. Change agents see the status quo as a breeding ground for apathy. What feels like comfort to you seems like malaise to them. They want to dig out of the rut and feel frustrated with others who don’t. One leader said about his organization, “I feel like I am pushing a truck out of a rut without a motor.”

When emotions of change leaders are opposite to those they lead, the stress of change emerges from the gap. Communicating about the opposing emotions brings everyone to a tangible plan on how to manage the pace of change.

It won’t stop the changes (as you may be hoping) but it will allow you and the leaders to discuss a balance of needs without sacrificing the success of the organization.

In my next post on thriving in change, I will cover this topic in more detail. In the meantime …

What is change to you?
An exciting treasure hunt?
A valuable nuisance?
The beginning of the end?

The diverse answers to this question paint a canvas of the struggles of organizational change.

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

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Leaders, Are We Accomplices to Passive Aggressive Team Members?

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership

Leaders, unchecked passive aggressive behavior in the workplace impacts the dynamics and potential success of teams. Those affected feel used, manipulated, and disrespected.

Passive aggressive is less direct not less aggressive.

It is just as hostile as straight out aggression and can obstruct both morale and results. It erodes a key component of teamwork and engagement — trust.

It can disengage employees from each other IF we allow it. How do we become accomplices to passive aggressive team members?

Leaders, Are You an Accomplice To Passive Aggressive Team Members Image by:korafotomorgana

The Pattern

Spot the pattern of passive aggressive behavior in order to eliminate its ruinous effect on your team’s success.

Passive aggressive team members will:

Interrupt another team member who is speaking to us with a quick “sorry” yet no real acknowledgment of the other person’s presence. Or they will smile and say to the other person “You don’t mind do you?” They cover lack of manners with fake manners.
Restate exactly what another team member just said as if it’s their own idea.
Use subtle sarcasm against another team member and call it humor.
Intellectualize instead of apologize. When faced with evidence of their bad behavior, they are known to say “I wonder why I did that?” instead of “I am terribly sorry.” Or they repeat their bad behavior even with apologies.
Use neutral statements instead of true empathy. Effective team members support each other. Passive aggressive team members appear to support others. Facing a distraught team member, a passive aggressive would say something like “Yes, it is difficult, isn’t it?” A supportive team member would more likely say, “How can I help? Let’s look at it and find a solution.”
Hold others to a very high standard of behavior and call them on it publicly. “Well you wouldn’t want to be known as the one who didn’t help out, would you?”
Use apparently logical reasons to undermine others’ success — and then ask them if they mind. Example: As requested, a team member prepared a presentation for the next team meeting on a technology they were developing for all to use. The passive aggressive team member monopolized the meeting with discussion and at the end of the meeting said: Oh we won’t have time for your presentation today. Does it bother you?”

The Impact

Mistrust, anger, resentment, and disengagement are the most damaging impacts of passive aggressive behavior on the organization and its results. If we as leaders do nothing to prevent it or cure it, team members begin to mistrust us as well.

Strong driver type leaders become an accomplice to this behavior with their sole focus on results. They dismiss outcries of passive aggressive behavior with: “Just focus on the work.”

High amiable type leaders, who love harmony in relationships, often dismiss passive aggressive “Oh they didn’t mean anything by it.” They are now accomplice to this damaging behavior.

Strong analytic leaders may overlook the passive aggressive behavior claiming they don’t have enough data to prove it’s happening. They become accomplices through the misnomer that if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist. A ridiculous tenet.

High expressive leaders are so connected into the exchange of information they become accomplices by not seeing the manner of expression.

The Solution

Check our own behavior. Ensure that you are not passive aggressive. Team members model the leader.
Ask yourself, am I afraid of conflict? That doesn’t mean that you are passive aggressive yet you are at a high risk of not addressing it. Get coaching on overcoming your fear of conflict and you become a far better leader!
Have the entire team develop a list of high performance team member behaviors. Clear expectations of behavior are one way to develop a culture of positive interaction and give everyone a mechanism for discussing negative behaviors.
Provide training on how to disagree without being disagreeable. A team’s diverse opinions are its strength. The way they communicate is its lifeblood.
Illustrate the difference between diplomacy and passive aggressive. Passive aggressives often mislabel their subtle behavior as tact when in truth it’s venom.
Be willing to spot and address the behavior even in a top performer. Singular results only contribute a portion of success. Behavior impacts morale with accounts for much of success.
Teach and use engaging meeting management techniques. Stop bad behavior in it’s tracks so all will fully engage as they feel valued and respected.
Watch for and dismantle cliques. Not all cliques are passive aggressive. Yet many of them are and in any case are harmful to a positive team culture.

As leaders we have an organizational responsibility to engage team members for positive morale and highest quality results.

We also have an ethical responsibility to create a non-hostile environment where all receive basic respect and an opportunity to fully contribute.

Passive aggressive behavior is a virus that can infect the team and kill results. Let’s prevent it or at least be the cure.

Question: What other passive aggressive behaviors have you spotted and how have you handled them?

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

©2012 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.

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

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Leaders, 6 Positive Replies to Transform Complaints into Action

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills

Many leaders and managers get annoyed with employees’ complaints. Leaders tell me they expect employees to contribute their views and actions to make things better — not complain about what is.

In frustration, some unsuccessfully tell employees to stop whining. Some leaders even hang a no whining sign!

This does not get employees to contribute a positive can-do attitude, their innovative solutions, and full talents and commitment.

What will engage employees to move from complaints to action?

Leaders, 6 Positive Replies to Turn Employees Complaints to Actions

Image by: saschaaa via Creative Commons License.

6 positive replies to transform employee complaints into action:

I hear your frustration. I am ready now to hear your ideas/solutions. Validate the feeling. If you don’t, it will continue to crave attention. Once you do, transform the power of the emotion into ideas. You are coaching your employees at this moment so don’t let them slip back into speaking only the frustration. If they can’t break out of it at that point, let them know you will be happy to discuss solutions when they are ready. Then move on with your day!

You have talents for solving this. Would you like to brainstorm ideas? This direct approach shows confidence and belief in them and offers them a great opportunity. The reply shows the essence of any organization — a belief in people to contribute to the end result. You as leader/manager guide all on this mission to stay focused on the road to success.

Power to move ahead comes from negative and positive poles. You’ve highlighted the negative very well. What’s the positive suggestion to overcoming this problem? Leaders and managers who are either driven for results or hate negativity, often overlook the value of the negative jolt. You can remind yourself and teach your employees this negative/positive balance. It reshapes outlooks and practice.

Your feelings and view of the problem are important. Your ideas for solving it — critical. What do you propose?
If the next couple of statements from them are still complaints: We move forward with solutions. Here are three statements to get you started:
- We could ________________________________________________.
- I can contribute ___________________________________________.
- I am willing to _____________________________________________.
Take time to think about it and then let’s get started!

Let’s take your understandable emotion on this issue and turn it into a power source for solving it. I’d love to hear your ideas. Many employees feel like followers not contributors. Daily reminders that they have power to lead from within their talents help shape the organization and its success.

Optimism and skepticism are healthy; endless pessimism is poison to a team. With chronic complainers who offer no solutions or actions, let them know that their endless pessimism can stop success much the same way that blinded optimism can put everyone at risk. As the leader, I will forge ahead on this balanced mission. I want your talent with us. Please bring your balance to this team’s challenges.

These positive replies will work if you are engaging employees on a daily basis for their ideas and solutions. If you are a directive leader and use these replies when employees complain, they will have little effect.

Complaints without suggestions are an indicator that the employees feel powerless. If you lead daily through employee engagement, you connect with them emotionally by tapping their ideas. This in turn validates their worth and helps tremendously when you all must endure things that cannot change.

Employee engagement generates their sense of power and desire to contribute solutions; it doesn’t give away your power. It actually generates a powerful success for the organization you lead. The exact result you seek!

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

Related posts:
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Leaders, Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Performance & Talent

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on leadership, employee engagement, teamwork, and customer experience. She turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines, action footage, and customer results.

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Leaders, Engage Employees Through Entrepreneurial Spirit

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership

Over the past 20 years, many people have asked me how I could have walked away from a well paying high perks career at a major pharmaceutical company to start my own business. Why would anyone want to leave?

The question always brings me back to one word — more. I wanted to do more, think more, learn more, share more, engage more, produce more, and have more of a values based work life.

Sounds like employee engagement doesn’t it? In the hierarchical corporate culture of twenty years ago, that didn’t exist.

Today, there are many employees who do not want the risk of self-employment yet are ready to be more engaged at work. Leaders you can take the organization to new heights of success when you engage employees through their entrepreneurial spirit.

Leaders, Engage Employees More Through the Inner Entrepreneur Image by:sentxd

Engage Employees Through Their Entrepreneurial Spirit

Engage for Results.

Engage with the funnel up.
20 years ago the funnel was inverted.

Don't bury the entrepreneurial spirit.

When you engage these entrepreneurial desires, you funnel talents into results.

Desire to learn. Entrepreneurs are always learning and they work beyond the normal level to make this happen. Picture the benefits to the organization of engaging this desire! Let this image replace the misguided focus and worry of people leaving after gaining experience.
There is no shortage of entrepreneurial talent who want the security of a paycheck with the opportunity to learn and contribute.

Desire to contribute all their talents. Entrepreneurs love the freedom to use any/all of their talents wherever needed and helpful.
Engage this spirit to build cross teamwork, bridge the gaps between departments, and help bring down the organizational silos.

This spirit is contagious and contributes to cohesive results.

Desire to be acknowledged. Yes, entrepreneurs value the recognition of their exhaustive commitment and work. So do employees. Acknowledgement of talents and contributions refreshes the spirit and commitment to your organization.
Acknowledgement of individual contributions to the whole, strengthens (not weakens) organizational results. It isn’t favoritism. It is a celebration of talents that inspires and engages more contribution and commitment.

More on this: 12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement

Desire to conquer obstacles. Employees who have seen tough times may have the same stamina and persistence to overcome hardship as entrepreneurs generally do. When you spot this trait, engage it with opportunity and acknowledgement.
Their gung ho spirit can be off putting to others in everyday work conditions yet it is invaluable for producing results and reaching organizational success.

Desire to use lessons learned. So many organizations are passing over people who are unemployed due to the economic crisis.
They also pass over people age 50+ claiming they are overqualified for positions. Others believe they will be resistant to change and innovation. What a huge employee engagement mistake!

If they are talented and interested in contributing their wealth of lessons learned, seize the day. They aren’t overqualified. They are exceedingly qualified. And innovative ability and maturity often coexist. They aren’t polar opposites.

Desire for responsibility. The entrepreneurial spirit is filled with the desire to make things happen. It is a deep reliability that is difficult to teach or coach. When you find it in your employees, tap it. It takes engagement to the ultimate goal — results.
This entrepreneurial drive for results is not a desire to replace you as leader. It is a thirst to fulfill their purpose for working.

Engage this desire with more responsibility without limiting it to leadership positions. Don’t mistake it as a challenge to your authority. Your organization will experience the full potential and unforeseen benefits of employee engagement.

Who in your organization has exhibited these strong entrepreneurial traits?

Engage these talents without structure. Remove barriers to using it. Tap the spirit without rewriting job descriptions. Spark a new culture of contribution that converts potential opportunities into transformational results for the organization.

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

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Leaders, Pain Free Journey to Engage Employee Accountability

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership

Leaders and managers ask the same persistent question: How do you engage employee accountability?

Many are excited to engage employees to be more creative and innovative.
They picture building accountability as hard fought battles of weight, responsibility, and blame.

Leaders, Take This Pain Free Journey To Engage Employee Accountability

Repaint your picture leaders and take this pain free journey to engaging employee accountability.

Define accountability as a celebration of honor, ownership, and learning. Far too many see accountability as carrying the blame for mistakes. Why would employees jump up and engage that negative idea?
Honor employees contributions and they will honor their responsibilities.

Support this definition of accountability with your behavior and communication in positive and negative situations. Finding fault stops progress; finding solutions ignites success.

Abandon the no news is good news approach to leadership. Applaud incremental growth and smaller accomplishments. It builds interest and the confidence to be accountable. Practical Examples: Leaders, 12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement
When leaders speak only with criticism, employees will forever define accountability as blame.

Illustrate accountability in pain free moments. Use the phrase “I take responsibility for not being clear or “I own that delay”.
What leaders say and live becomes the culture of the organization.

Employees engage when they can see what’s in it for them. So, what does accountability do for the employees? Discuss it. Listen to their views on it. Open up to what holds them back from it and their ideas to fix it. A pain free step to accountability!

Honestly address mismatches in job fits. If people are truly wrong for the positions they hold, their continued misses frustrate the team to the brink of finger pointing.
Prevent this pain with honest reassessment of the best job fit.

End each day or week with: “What did we learn that improved our ability going forward?” With this practice, employees skip the fear of blame and the disease of perfectionism and become accountable for excellence.

Accountability doesn’t have to leave scars. It doesn’t have to come from a demanding leader constantly nagging employees to do what’s needed.

Create the opportunity and culture for excellence and watch employees engage and embrace accountability. It’s welcome and pain free!

I look forward to launching this journey with you. I will take you from inspiration to action!

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

10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

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

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New Leaders, 10 Gritty Questions to Define Teamwork

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Teamwork

Leaders, what behavior do you expect among team members? This is not a trivial question especially if you are new to leadership.

How you define teamwork shapes how you will inspire, lead, and facilitate or solve team difficulties.

Beyond the expectation that all work together to produce success is often the unstated hidden set of expectations that can silently unsettle or even destroy teamwork.

If you are a new leader, it’s valuable to sit back and admit to yourself your definition of teamwork. With clarity of your basic beliefs, you and the teams can have a better discussion to define teamwork.

New Leaders: 10 Gritty Questions to Define Teamwork

10 Gritty Questions to Better Define Teamwork

Does teamwork mean blunt frankness, diplomatic honesty, or ultimate polite respect? Team members have diverse styles. One blunt team member can offend others. One ultra polite team member can confuse others and fall short. What do you value and expect of them?

Does teamwork require caring for each other personally? If yes, to what extent? What if a team member has a serious illness in their family and amasses debt? Does teamwork mean that all show empathy and donate money to help out? Can a person be a good team member and not do that?
What if people don’t like each other personally but pull together to achieve success? Does that meet your definition of teamwork?

If one team member has a critical specialized skill or achieves more, does that entitle them to extra respect, special treatment, or more recognition from you? It happens and your view of it impacts teamwork.
Do you expect the team to work out their own interpersonal difficulties? There is much debate about this today. Some say yes and others see the leader as a valuable team facilitator.

What do you expect of existing team members when new members join? Would you expect them to actively welcome team members for quick integration? What if they are a bit skeptical and hold back to see what team members have to offer? Is that teamwork to you?

How will your teams work with other teams? Great teamwork within a team can sometimes stifle cross teamwork. What is your view and how would you address this issue?

Tight team member relationships produce one of the toughest teamwork issues – whistle blowing. What would you want a team member to do if aware of unethical behavior, bullying, or major mistakes by another team member? Is whistle blowing a duty or disloyalty to the team?

Disagreements occur. What place and purpose do they have in teamwork? Do you expect high levels of harmony or do you see value in discord?

How will you assess teamwork? By the interaction and end results or just end results? If you view only the end results, the team may think your expectations of their interaction as inconsistent and illogical.

When a leader asks me to improve team function, I ask the leader to paint their view for me and I speak separately with the team members. The comparison unearths the gaps and sketches a road map to high performance and success.

What is teamwork to you? I look forward to understanding your definition and working with you and your teams!

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

Insights on Handling a Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Team Whistle Blowing: Duty or Disloyalty?

12 Comments »

Leaders, Leave Meetings. Get to a Meeting of the Minds!

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Humorous Insights, Leadership

Musings on Effective Meetings from The People-Skills Coach™

In the workplace, leaders and teams still search for ways to hold tremendously effective meetings. Despite years of pundits’ advice, side trips into tangent land, chatty corner conversations, habitually late arrivals, vibrating smart phones and tablets, tunnel vision, resistance, and lack of focus keep everyone from the bulls-eye.

They also leave most people dreading the next meeting.

So I wonder, will we find the Holy Grail if we leave meetings in the dust and instead hold a meeting of the minds?

Leave Meetings! Got a Meeting of the Minds?

Words do matter and the word meeting has always been too vague for me. It has confused workplace teams for decades. A meeting and its 21st century cousin, a meet-up, suggest a free form event to which people can arrive fashionably late.

Whereas the phrase, a meeting of the minds, is packed with clear requirements.

A meeting of the minds,

Sounds the knell of knowledge exchange that calls everyone to be there on time — else there’s no exchange.

Suggests there is a specific topic and purpose. You wonder a meeting of the minds “on what”? It breeds interest and focus.

Prepares the mind to be ready to meet. Most would feel embarrassed to attend a meeting of the minds and say only I don’t know or I’m not prepared!

Inherently requires listening, discussing, and participation of all minds. Unless everyone is telepathic, all must engage else the views stay hidden in the minds.

Engenders all to speak in terms that others understand else the minds don’t meet.

Brings the endless talker up for air to hear what other minds think.

Bends the obstinate else why are they at a meeting of the minds?

Coaxes all to agreement and decision. After all, isn’t that the meaning of we came to a meeting of the minds?

In the workplace today we have multicultural teams, virtual technology, global reach, and still that pesky problem of ineffective meetings.

I say we’ve got nothing to lose by giving meetings a new moniker and seeing if it gets us to the Holy Grail.

Maybe we should even hold a contest to see what the new moniker should be if a meeting of the minds doesn’t hold everyone’s attention!

What say you?

From my professional experience (with a wry twist) 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.

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.

11 Comments »

Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, IT

Delivering a super customer service experience is all about the choices. Simply great choices can create it! Poor choices can destroy it.

Frustration with the customer is often at the heart of those poor choices. In fact, frustration with customer behavior can make poor choices very tempting.

The best in customer service find something else even more tempting — the strength and skill to resist temptation and choose greatness!

Deliver Super Customer Experience With Simple Choices Image by:Shannonnnnnnn

Frustration, Temptation & Simply Great Choices

The strength to choose service greatness rests within your professional identity.

How do you want to be known? What do you picture as greatness? If service is not in that picture, your attitude and behavior will yield to frustration.

If you want to create super customer experience, here are 7 common frustrations, temptations and the simply great choices!

Your Frustration: The customer wants to speak before you or more than you.
Temptation: Seize control of the conversation and talk over the customer. Poor choice.
Great Choice: Let them talk! Your response will be far more accurate the more you understand.

Your Frustration: The customer wants something non-standard. This takes time, thought, effort, and takes you out of your normal pace.
Temptation: Show your exasperation and label the customer as difficult. Poor choice.
Great Choice: Show your interest — even excitement — in doing and learning something different. This is the chance to WOW ‘em.

Your Frustration: You want the customer to completely populate your contact database before you help them and they want some information without being locked in your detailed procedure.
Temptation: Ignore their preference and continue on with your questions. Poor choice.
Great Choice: Get basic identifying information like name, account # and then focus on what they need! Once you have the solution underway, validate or get other personal information for your database. Focusing on the customer delivers a super customer experience. Focusing on your database doesn’t.

Your Frustration: The customer is upset and venting their anger.
Temptation: Lecture to them (i.e. There is no reason to raise your voice, I am trying to help you). Poor choice.
Great Choice: Let them vent. When they are done, empathize and take action. Fix the situation, not the customer! If you don’t, your competitor will.

Your Frustration: The customer waits until the last minute for help and has an urgent need.
Temptation: Tell the customer they should have called you sooner. Poor choice. Criticizing them for poor planning leaves an emotional scar on them that will burden you next time — if they come back.
Great Choice: Determine whether or not you can meet this urgent need. If yes, do it. Being the customer’s hero is a super customer experience! If you truly can’t, let them know that and refer to other resources that might be able to help them. Expressions of good will and effort build future trust.

Your Frustration: Customer doesn’t follow an important procedure and it causes the customer, and you, repeated problems.
Temptation: Patronize the customer with an insipid rhetorical question like do you remember I said to enter your account id not your phone number? Poor choice. Patronizing the customer is professionally immature and disrespectful.
Great Choice: Simply give the customer the answer again. Courteous honest answers help and don’t hurt. After you have helped them, ask if there is anything you can do to make it easier for them next time. You might also review any written instructions or online design to see how to make it clearer.

Your Frustration: The customer wants to ask questions along the way and you want to go through your whole presentation or explanation first.
Temptation: Tell the customer to wait until you are done. Poor choice. You are telling the customer that you are more important than they are.
Great Choice: Dialogue with the customer; put their needs first. You will meet your needs through theirs and deliver a super customer experience.

The feeling of relief from venting your frustration on the customer is very short lived. It ruins your company brand and your personal and professional reputation.

When you choose great listening, adaptability, patience, reasonableness, competence, and agility for sudden needs, you deliver truly memorable and super customer experiences.

Question
What other frustrations do you have with customers? Add them in the comments section below and I will help you deliver a super customer experience. I deliver the antidotes to your frustration!

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

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

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People-Skills: Be & Perform Like a Ferrari

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, inspiration, People-Skills

In this day of fast paced connections, it’s smart to fine tune our people-skills to perform like a Ferrari.

We must be quickly aware of and adapt to conditions, select the right speed of interaction, and pick the right words to communicate — all with style. Quite a challenge!

So let’s fast track it with quality components (knowledge) and then road test (practice) and maintain it with continued learning.

People-Skills: Be & Perform Like a Ferrari

Image by:Crystal666 via Creative Commons License

Fast Track Knowledge for People-skills Performance

Make brevity effective not rude. Skip the emotionally inflaming phrases and speak with simple honesty.

Be confident in your knowledge and deliver it humbly. It’s easier to appreciate the knowledge and respect the person when arrogance is not fogging the view.

Influence don’t manipulate. Abandon questions like don’t you think and replace them with open-ended questions that produce true understanding.

Listen don’t label. Labels build barriers; listening builds collaborative success.

Deliver results without running over people. What you ponder, you create. If you think of positive ways to succeed, your communication and people-skills will follow suit.

Express opinions as opinion, not as decrees. There is a time and place for certainty and a time and place to consider other possibilities. You earn great respect for being able to do both.

Opposing views can lead to new discoveries. Opposing each other leads nowhere. Where do you want to go?

Optimism and skepticism are healthy; pessimism is poison. An optimistic outlook and some protective skepticism lift all to tangible success. Pessimism drains the life out of everyone you touch. How do you want to touch others? Choose wisely.

See you on the highway to success as we handle the curves with ease and style!

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

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, action footage, and customer results.

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Leaders’ Dilemma: Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, Teamwork

Six months ago, a leader described this dilemma to me:

A team member who produced results with the other team members had fallen very ill. Let’s call this team member “Reach”.

When the leader approached the team members for a show of empathy, cards, flowers, and other help for “Reach”, many team members quietly avoided the subject and some clearly declined the outreach. The leader was shocked to learn that the team members saw Reach as a self-serving opportunist.

Leaders Dilemma: Self-Serving High Performing Team Member Image by: ErickGonzalez50

The concerned leader asked me to speak with the team members to learn more about the situation, what he had missed, and how to lead better in the future.

I agreed and asked the leader to think about his definition of teamwork in the interim.

Inside the Team Members’ Perspective

Reach was well-known for saying things like: “Always associate with people better than you to achieve success.” The team members wondered who Reach was referring to? Meanwhile, they perceived Reach overlooking them while always (metaphorically) looking up.

Reach helped himself grow — he didn’t help others to grow. He was also well-known for saying, “people give and help because they want to. They shouldn’t expect anything in return.”

Did they ever speak to the leader about Reach’s attitude? Two team members reported they had separately spoken to the leader who refocused the discussion on Reach’s work contribution and results. As they compared notes of the leader’s outlook — which they shared with the rest of the team — they felt is was futile to mention it again.

How had they been able to produce results with Reach while having these negative feelings? Interestingly, they had completely shut out personal feelings for Reach and focused purely on work results.

When the leader approached them for empathy, cards, flowers and other help for Reach, they were shocked. They had accepted the leader’s results only focus and said they felt both confused and betrayed by his call for personal help for Reach — when neither Reach nor the leader had cared about them. They asked me: What is the leader’s definition of teamwork? Getting the job done or caring for and helping each other to get the job done?

I reported my findings to the leader (without identifying who said what). He was stunned. I asked him for his definition of teamwork?

He told me he always believed that teamwork included caring and helping each other to grow.

When I asked him about his results focus with Reach, he confessed he didn’t know what else to do when the team members came to him about Reach’s attitude.

He didn’t see himself as a psychologist and quickly fell back on a traditional results only focus.

People-Skills & Leadership Lessons Learned?

The risk is blindness to plummeting morale that can affect future work results.

Fear can mesmerize and stop a leader from growing.

Awareness and listening are critical leadership skills.

well-known

It isn’t enough for a leader to let the team define teamwork.

The leader’s expectations of teamwork are critical in difficult times.

If you truly believe in a results only focus, be clear and consistent about it.

What Do You Think?

-What other lessons do you glean from this dilemma filled story?

-What does it leave you wondering? What other leadership questions does it raise?

-Are you concerned that you will lose high performing team members if you include more than just results in the definition of teamwork?

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

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Leaders: 10 Essential Thoughts to Proficient People Skills

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Leaders, people-skills are critical to success. Yet in a demanding business pace, people-skills are often last on the learning list.

Luckily leaders and teams can build proficient people-skills while attending to critical business. The proficiency starts with attitude and flows into people-skills’ behavior!

Leaders, 12 New Thoughts to Proficient People-Skills Image by:Sean MacEntee

Hold and Use These 10 Thoughts

An open mind creates phenomenal results.

Most people feel respected, honored, and uplifted by an open mind. Both in output and in morale, it produces positive results. There are some exceptions yet overall it is a winning thought. Build proficient people-skills from an open mind.

Teams strengthen a leader’s reality.

When we remember that our vision, understanding, and experience gains momentum with a team’s perspective, we are more likely to respect their input and collaboration. Build proficient people-skills from this awareness.

Understanding people leads to influence.

Most leadership is actually influence in action. To effectively influence others — team members, customers, and even your boss — understand what they care about. Knowledge of others builds proficient people-skills.

Know when your people-skills naturally shine.

Complete this sentence: I am best at people-skills when ____________________________. Identify when you usually interact well with others. Is it when you are happy? Confident? Relieved? Celebrating? Respected? In need? In difficulty? When is it? Capture what you do during these times and apply it across the board. Your natural pattern can build proficient people-skills.

People-skills deliver in tough times.

Contrary to popular belief, people-skills are not a sign of weakness. In tough times you can draw on the good will you have built through people-skills to deliver otherwise unachievable results. “Because of our long standing relationship, I’ll do it for you.” That’s an homage to your great people-skills!

People-skills are not just for extroverts.

If you are more introverted than extroverted, repaint the image you have about people-skills. It is not about gregarious, outspoken, high energy behavior. People-skills is stepping outside of your own perspective to understand and interact effectively with others. High extroverts have just as much adaptation to make as introverts. Both can succeed if they seek to understand.

Bonds are not bondage.

Many leaders having a driver personality crave end results not relationships. In fact, many believe that bonds with others are a detour to success and a trap that stops them just short of the finish line. Yet unless these leaders truly do everything themselves to reach success, bonds with others are the road to the finish line. Knowing the difference between bonds and bondage builds proficient people-skills.

Finding fault stops progress; finding solutions ignites success.

One of the riskiest people-skills moments for leaders is during a crisis or failure. That trigger voice that says: “Who’s at fault?” can bury future collaboration forever. Great people-skills can guide the organization back to success and to a culture of accountability. A focus on success, not blame, can build proficient people-skills.

If you overlook team problems, success overlooks your teams.

Morale matters. It impacts results. Team member people-skills affect morale of the team and the results of the organization. “They are not children. Let them work it out themselves.” These beliefs cost the organization money and sacrifice success. Accept the truth about morale and you build proficient people-skills.

Get over being comfortable; get versatile.

Global business success requires constant growth which means the discomfort of change. Focus on the versatility that people-skills bring to your success and you will build proficient people-skills!

Thoughts drive behavior and create a chain of reactions. Hold these thoughts about people-skills and build valuable bonds that strengthen results.

Which of these thoughts rings loudest to you? Or would you add to or delete something from this list?

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

Related Post: Leaders, 10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

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Are You Too Nice to Lead?

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills, Thriving in Change

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?

Are You Too Nice to Lead, Effectively?

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

19 Comments »

Leaders: Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

Posted in Hiring Talent, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Leaders, you and your direct reports have great impact on attracting and keeping top talent. Though you might think it’s only about the money, it isn’t.

There are many behaviors that drive talent away. Talent includes full time employees, contractors, consultants, and even suppliers.

You as leaders and your directors and managers can attract and retain top talent by replacing behaviors that secretly repel them.

Leaders, Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

Image by: Dee_Gee via Creative Commons License

Behaviors repel talent for any of three reasons:

QL: They seriously reduce quality of life or
BS: They make it unnecessarily difficult to succeed or
$$: They indirectly cost the talent money.

Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

Highly disorganized or uncertain. Top talent blossoms when leaders set a clear vision. Wandering through a disorganized morass when deadlines loom, leaves talent wondering if success is possible. They envision more attractive opportunities and yearn for success. Replace disorganization and uncertainty with valuable vision.

Negativity. Top talent wants to hear what is possible. They feed off of a reality of belief, ideas, and action. Negativity drains their spirit for they see it as unnecessary difficulty. Replace this drain with energy and a call to action.

Perfectionism. Top talent see this as a triple whammy. It always comes across as unnecessary stress, it reduces the quality of their work life, and it costs them money. How? By reducing the time they can spend learning or accomplishing other valuable tasks or opportunities. Replace the scourge of perfectionism with the goal of excellence. What a difference!

Fear of failure. It produces behaviors that demoralize others. Even if you as leaders aren’t afraid, those that report to you may be. If you love to delegate, do it wisely. Replace delegation based on occupational skill with delegation based on inspirational leadership ability. Otherwise, top talent will move on to work with project managers and directors who aren’t stuck in fear.

Me-itis. Top talent tend to love a confident humble leader. Non-confident self-absorbed leaders drive top talent from the organization like a fire alarm. Replace the engineered comfort of me-itis with a belief in what the top talent can produce for the organization and thus for you.

Attracting top talent today is quite different than years ago. There was a time when casting doubt about a talent’s skill would make them work harder to prove you wrong and win out over other talent you are considering.

Though there is still some talent who respond that way, there is top talent who will walk away from you and toward positive inspirational leaders that embrace their talent.

Replace competition with collaboration and doubt with a coalition for success!

What other behaviors would you add to this list? What other leadership traits attract top talent?

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

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