Go Ahead - Try It!

I like to learn. No, maybe that's not entirely true.  I like to have knowledge but I'm not always amenable to the process of leaning.  I tend to want the knowledge to somehow download into my brain like Neo learning kung fu (yes, that was a complete nerdy Matrix reference I am proud to say). What I also know, though, is that the best way for me to learn is to process the knowledge in smaller pieces. This way I reduce my chances for frustration and increase the chances that I will retain what I have learned as it is easier to apply a bit of knowledge at a time rather than large volumes of data.  It's just how most of our brains work. 

Reducing the learning process to a shorter period of time is also a great way to introduce yourself to something new.  Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google, would agree.  In this short TED talk he mentions the various 30-day "experiments" he completed where he committed to trying new things for 30 days.  It is surprising how little time you need to practice something before it becomes ingrained as habit.

Check out the talk below and go out there and try it!

How Not to Conduct Team-Building

I'm green and gold. I learned that I am green and gold through a team building exercise that was intended to bring insight to "an individual's pathway to self-confidence and esteem".  The pathway is part of the "True Colors" system of identifying character. The exercise was meant to be both fun and practical and it was, at least, interesting. The majority of the staff participated in the exercise fully, curious as to what their color/s would be. There were, however, some of the staff who sat in the room, arms crossed and head shaking in sarcastic disregard, who were less than fascinated by the whole attempt. While I wouldn't label the exercise a disaster, it was not altogether successful in building team togetherness and structure. Based on the MSN Careers article, The worst team-building experience you've ever had, others have had much more disastrous team-building experiences.

This comment,  regarding a ropes course that rubbed everyone the wrong way (yes, pun intended), from Rebecca Staton-Reinstetin, president of Advantage Leadership Inc sums up the main reason why a team should be well-developed prior to such an exercise: "It was an extreme example of how team-building events are mistaken for the long, hard work of actually building a team with shared goals and responsibilities". Put another way, any team-building exercise must start with a team - and a group of people who happen to work together does not make a team. Where to begin? Start by ensuring team members understand the "big picture" and the reason why their collective work is important to the organization and to each other. Susan M. Heathfield, human resource contributing writer for About.com puts it this way "You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team-building objectives. This is why so many team-building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants".

One of the best team-building experiences I have had was with a group I undoubtedly consider a team. We had been through forming, storming and norming and were comfortable and efficiently in our performing stage - the goal of any team. The goal of the exercise was to pass a ball between all the participants' hands within a few seconds time. We had sincere fun trying to come up with creative ways we could accomplish this goal. We first tried simply passing the ball to each other - not quick enough. We then tried lining up with our arms outstretched and having someone from the team run past us all while running the ball across the top of our hands - still not quick enough. We then, in a wonderfully symbolic show of a group of people working together, stood huddled in a circle while placing our hands clasped and in a circle and stacked on top of each other. All it took was one team member to drop the ball from the top and - tada - mission accomplished... 

Grooming Your Unicorn

I am going to begin this post by restating something I have said in the past: happy employees = more productive employees = increased sales, etc.. Shawn Achor, Harvard-trained psychologist and happiness researcher, understands this.  Archor says that we should be looking to design programs around the outliers, the star performers (sometimes so rare they are akin to mythical beings) instead of utilizing "one size fits all" programs implemented with the average employee in mind. Think about that. Most programs are developed using the mean rather than those "odd" employees who offer unique and innovative solutions, who continuously take initiative, and who may not fit the prototypical employee in your organization. As you will see in Archor's TED presentation below, that employee is more apt to turn stresses into challenges that beg for solutions they are happy to work toward.

So go out there and benchmark your stars rather than the average and "groom your unicorns".

Human Resource Gardening

I have a single rose bush in my front yard. It had a twin that, due to my water 'em and forget 'em style of gardening, did not fare well. The rose bush that is left is doing wonderfully and greets me with a bounty of beautiful white roses. What did I do that enabled the remaining rose bush to grow and produce? Well, I read that rose bushes must be "dead-headed" (not my choice of term but that was the term used). This means that you should cut the area where a rose has blossomed and died - in this way the rose bush will produce even more blossoms in an effort to be a successful progenitor. Sounds harsh but it worked. What does this have to do with human resources? 

Well, to get to my point I want you to do a quick mental exercise. Think of all the members of your staff and assign a ranking to each staff member where 1 defines the lowest level of performance and 10 the best. I'm guessing you may have a small number of people below a five who you may be in the process of documenting. I believe I'd also be right in assuming you have a few star performers near or at the ten mark. Now, how many people did you assign a middle-of-the-road number to? If your organization is like many, that particular number may be more than you realized. In fact, it may even comprise the majority of your staff. 

Now, I want you to ask yourself what you do to push these middle performers up? What do you do, after you've worked through coaching and counseling, find that it just did not work with a particular person, to "weed" them out?

Check out The Dirty Little Secret of Successful Companies from Jay Goltz, a writer for the New York Times small business blog. Although the piece is written by a small company owner, Goltz, its message applies to companies of all sizes. This point, for example, provides a compelling case for working with your middle ranking staff:

"How can you spot the sixes? You know who they are. You might even like them. They can seem capable, but they can also be unreliable. They make too many mistakes, they aren’t good with people, they are sloppy, they have trouble separating their personal time from work time, they aren’t honest, they don’t accept responsibility, they waste time and they can be disrespectful of co-workers. Here’s the real test: What would your visceral response be if they quit? Relief? I think that says it all."

Hey Coach I Need Your Counsel

I've never played on a sports team and have never coached one but I have been a coach. I am not a psychologist (and have never played one on tv) but I have counseled employees. The coaching and counseling I am referring to is part of providing ongoing feedback as a human resource professional or as a manager. I was thinking about this topic today after recalling a particularly challenging employee I once supervised.

Several years ago one of the employees I supervised was one who staffed a key area of our department. The employee was responsible for greeting customers, determining what assistance they needed, ensuring the customer received the assistance needed, providing forms where requested, and answering phone calls and general email inquiries. The employee was hired because of their past experience in working with customers, fluency in several languages, and the fact that at the interview the employee gave a strong indication they understood how their role would influence how others saw our department on first contact.Unfortunately, not long after the employee was hired we began to receive complaints from customers stating the employee was rude and seemed unwilling to help them. In addition to observing these things myself, I also noticed that the employee became flustered when several customers were waiting for assistance at the same time. When I had a coaching session with the employee to point out specific things the employee had said to customers and actions the employee had taken that gave the perception of rudeness, the employee did not understand. To the employee, they were merely offering quick service to our customers. I learned, after speaking further with the employee that the behaviors may have stemmed from learned cultural differences in expectations and assumptions. I outlined the expectations our customers had and provided specific examples. Only after the desirable behaviors were modeled by working with the employee did the employee begin to understand.

When coaching employees it can be difficult to remember that the focus must remain on the behaviors being exhibited and not the (real or perceived) attitudes of the employee. It is integral to remember that point as the employee's receptiveness to coaching will depend on providing specific examples of behaviors and not general statements regarding their attitudes. For example, state "Stieg (as in Larsson, yes I read the trilogy), you have been late five days within the past two weeks and your reports have contained multiple mistakes" and not "Stieg, you seem to not care about your work as of late".

What amazingly positive and/or incredibly unbelievable stories might you have about being a coach or being on the receiving end of a coaching session? Did you learn some "what to do" and "what not to do"?