Leadership

New Beginnings

12 May
by Bridget DiCello

I guess it’s only natural to start thinking about new beginnings in business when one has a baby!  Typically, I see business owners and managers fall somewhere in between constant newness and staleness in their business.

Are you the type of owner or manager who needs newness just for the sake of newness?  Are you trying new ideas, strategies and processes because they are exciting but don’t check if they are needed?  If you are, you might spend unnecessary dollars, experience limited return on your investment and use a lot of employee energy for limited success.

Or are you the type of owner or manager who believes that if it isn’t broke, we should not spend our time trying to fix it? If you are, your processes, systems and strategies may get a bit stale and work, but fall short of their potential.

Is there a happy medium? I think there is and it is found in the answers to these two questions:

1.       What is it that we are trying to achieve?  What does our vision of a successful company look like?  What do we want to be known for?  How do we want to do business (our values)?

2.      What do our metrics tell us about how well we are achieving our desired vision, results and values with how we currently do things?

Any exciting new idea should be tested with, “What do we hope to achieve with this change?” and “What is the probability that the benefits will occur?” and “What resources will be needed to test and implement this new idea?”  In other words, what are the good reasons to implement this change, and how do they weigh against the costs and probability of success?

Every process, especially when there is a problem or issue, should be met with, “Do we need to revisit this process overall?” and “What do our metrics tell us about how well we are doing?” and “When’s the last time we looked critically at how we run this process?”  If the issue is an anomaly, there is no reason to spend time analyzing the whole process, but if the issue is in fact a warning sign of a larger problem, it is time to revisit the process before it crashes.

What is something new and exciting that you decided to implement?  How did you make the decision to put energy in that area?  Do you have a process that needs to be revamped that you are avoiding?

 

Top 5 Mistakes Leaders Make when Promoting from Within

04 May
by Bridget DiCello

He was a great employee.  He was the perfect choice for the management opening.  His talents and skills, his focus on results, his expertise with customers and systems – all made him a great choice for the promotion.  Why then is he doing such a terrible job as a manager?  Did you make the wrong choice?

Too often, leaders forget that a promotion to management requires a major transition.  From being great at what they do to taking on a whole new set of tasks, to measuring their own success in completely different ways, to losing their peers who they knew and liked and gaining employees from whom they need to keep a distance, it is a traumatic experience.  Are you there to help them through it?

Here are the Top 5 Mistakes that you might have made in the transition:

1. Assumed their tactical expertise would directly translate into management expertise. Many leaders have their own story of how they were thrown into a management role and had to figure it out the hard way.  Some survive that way and some don’t.  Internal promotions also assume that the person has more knowledge about the bigger picture or that the expectations from above are clearer than they are.

Create a training outline. Every new role, whether it be for a new employee or a promoted employee, should be prefaced with a training outline – the list of things that they need to know in order to be successful in the new position, when they will be taught or expected to know/master each area, and what mastery looks like.  If there are things that they already know, they can be quickly checked off.

2. Failed to teach them the management skills necessary to thrive. Managing people requires they understand how to create and communicate expectations, connect with their direct reports, inspire them to do well, and engage them in productive accountability discussions.  These are not natural skills to most individuals and must be learned and then coached by their supervisor.

Do an honest inventory of these skills, and plan to help them to learn more in the areas which they are weak. Provide them books and resources, the opportunity for a mentor and key leadership relationships, classes or a leadership coach, and teach them yourself the areas in which you excel.  Don’t ignore a lack of skills that you have noticed from their time as an employee!  Use that information.

3. Did not set your expectations clearly. There is an incredibly long distance from what is in your head to what comes out of your mouth.  Your new manager cannot read your mind. There are many things you may expect that you have never clearly outlined or discussed, even if you have worked with them for some time. “Improve morale” may mean one thing to you and something quite different to the promoted manager.

Clarify your expectations. Ask yourself:

§what the most important tasks are that they will do

§what results you hope they will achieve

§how you’d like them to do the job – detailing only necessary details to keep them focused but giving them room to do it their way

§what other managers have done that you do not like and wish the new manager not to do and

§what deadlines you would put on each of these expectations and how you will measure whether or not they have been a success.

4. Offered no accountability. Even the best employee who takes initiative and tries their hardest will not thrive without some degree of feedback.  This step is critical and is often seen as unimportant – especially if you already know this person to be a start employee.  In order to meet your expectations and company goals, they must receive input as to what they are achieving and where they are falling short.  If delivered along the way, they have time to tweak their performance, not just to fail or survive in the end.  If you don’t provide feedback, yet let them continue to under-perform, shame on you!  If you don’t provide feedback in the areas they are doing well – don’t expect that behavior to continue!

Provide routine, expected, conversational feedback. Set a routine conversation, with a set agenda (of focus areas, new skills to learn, tasks to perfect, action items, successes, challenges, etc.).  The conversation is scheduled, the appointment is kept and the new employee is expected to be the one to prepare for and report on the agenda you have set.

5. You never asked them to think. Transition to management can be a traumatic one.  Suddenly, they are in charge and powerful, yet they’ve lost their peers and their comfort zone.  They are no longer rewarded for doing the tasks they are good at, but expected to think strategically and develop other people as well.  There are very few right answers and very few set processes in management.  Management and leadership are about getting to the results, using processes in place, improving them as necessary, solving problems and developing people. If they are not thinking – you’re in trouble.

Get them to think. Getting them to think requires that you set the direction, ask questions and get them talking about how they see the situation, possible solutions and approaches and why they will choose the avenue they choose.  Too often managers of managers still want to be the one to solve the problems even though they have a manager to lead their team to solve a problem.  Thinking through a situation can be facilitated greatly by a manager who asks the right questions instead of giving the solution.  You want your new manager to be independent, so ask them the questions and get them to think!

What mistakes have you made when promoting someone to management?  What have you done right?

Top 5 Mistakes Leaders Make when Promoting from Within

03 May
by Bridget DiCello

He was a great employee.  He was the perfect choice for the management opening.  His talents and skills, his focus on results, his expertise with customers and systems – all made him a great choice for the promotion.  Why then is he doing such a terrible job as a manager?  Did you make the wrong choice?

Too often, leaders forget that a promotion to management requires a major transition.  From being great at what they do to taking on a whole new set of tasks, to measuring their own success in completely different ways, to losing their peers who they knew and liked and gaining employees from whom they need to keep a distance, it is a traumatic experience.  Are you there to help them through it?

Here are the Top 5 Mistakes that you might have made in the transition:

 

1. Assumed their tactical expertise would directly translate into management expertise. Many leaders have their own story of how they were thrown into a management role and had to figure it out the hard way.  Some survive that way and some don’t.  Internal promotions also assume that the person has more knowledge about the bigger picture or that the expectations from above are clearer than they are.

 

Create a training outline. Every new role, whether it be for a new employee or a promoted employee, should be prefaced with a training outline – the list of things that they need to know in order to be successful in the new position, when they will be taught or expected to know/master each area, and what mastery looks like.  If there are things that they already know, they can be quickly checked off.

 

2. Failed to teach them the management skills necessary to thrive. Managing people requires they understand how to create and communicate expectations, connect with their direct reports, inspire them to do well, and engage them in productive accountability discussions.  These are not natural skills to most individuals and must be learned and then coached by their supervisor.

 

Do an honest inventory of these skills, and plan to help them to learn more in the areas which they are weak. Provide them books and resources, the opportunity for a mentor and key leadership relationships, classes or a leadership coach, and teach them yourself the areas in which you excel.  Don’t ignore a lack of skills that you have noticed from their time as an employee!  Use that information.

 

3. Did not set your expectations clearly. There is an incredibly long distance from what is in your head to what comes out of your mouth.  Your new manager cannot read your mind. There are many things you may expect that you have never clearly outlined or discussed, even if you have worked with them for some time. “Improve morale” may mean one thing to you and something quite different to the promoted manager.

Clarify your expectations. Ask yourself:

§what the most important tasks are that they will do

§what results you hope they will achieve

§how you’d like them to do the job – detailing only necessary details to keep them focused but giving them room to do it their way

§what other managers have done that you do not like and wish the new manager not to do and

§what deadlines you would put on each of these expectations and how you will measure whether or not they have been a success.

 

4. Offered no accountability. Even the best employee who takes initiative and tries their hardest will not thrive without some degree of feedback.  This step is critical and is often seen as unimportant – especially if you already know this person to be a start employee.  In order to meet your expectations and company goals, they must receive input as to what they are achieving and where they are falling short.  If delivered along the way, they have time to tweak their performance, not just to fail or survive in the end.  If you don’t provide feedback, yet let them continue to under-perform, shame on you!  If you don’t provide feedback in the areas they are doing well – don’t expect that behavior to continue!

Provide routine, expected, conversational feedback. Set a routine conversation, with a set agenda (of focus areas, new skills to learn, tasks to perfect, action items, successes, challenges, etc.).  The conversation is scheduled, the appointment is kept and the new employee is expected to be the one to prepare for and report on the agenda you have set.

5. You never asked them to think. Transition to management can be a traumatic one.  Suddenly, they are in charge and powerful, yet they’ve lost their peers and their comfort zone.  They are no longer rewarded for doing the tasks they are good at, but expected to think strategically and develop other people as well.  There are very few right answers and very few set processes in management.  Management and leadership are about getting to the results, using processes in place, improving them as necessary, solving problems and developing people. If they are not thinking – you’re in trouble.

Get them to think. Getting them to think requires that you set the direction, ask questions and get them talking about how they see the situation, possible solutions and approaches and why they will choose the avenue they choose.  Too often managers of managers still want to be the one to solve the problems even though they have a manager to lead their team to solve a problem.  Thinking through a situation can be facilitated greatly by a manager who asks the right questions instead of giving the solution.  You want your new manager to be independent, so ask them the questions and get them to think!

What mistakes have you made when promoting someone to management?  What have you done right?

Playing Nice in the Sandbox

27 Apr
by Bridget DiCello

“I can teach people skills. I can’t teach them how to play in the sandbox.”

–Caryl M. Stern, president and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, as quoted by The New York Times

Yes you can! This mindset that is voiced by Ms. Stern is a common way of thinking for many managers and leaders.  However, I am living proof that you can learn these skills as a valedictorian in high school and college who thought the world revolved around book knowledge.  Needless to say you would not have described me as one who knew how to play in the sandbox when I entered the workforce.  Without the mentoring of several important figures in my life, I would have continued to reach a certain level of success because of my competence, but would have been limited in the area of bringing out the best in myself and in others.

The fact is that playing well in the sandbox requires a set of skills just like any other job task.  However, they tend to be a set of skills that many managers and leaders do not have themselves, so they find it very difficult to teach others.

Here are just a few of the skills that are essential to “play nice in the sandbox” that are not inherent in everyone’s personality, but can be taught:

§ Building self awareness – Most individuals do not have a high degree of awareness of why they act and react the way they do, especially to the point where they can change their reaction as necessary.

§ Identifying common goals – Focusing more on daily tasks, many people never take the time to identify goals, much less what goals are universal to their team or organization, and how each person’s contribution is essential.

§ Earning trust – There are a variety of ways people describe trustworthy behaviors.  One of the most common is that people Do What They Say They will Do.  Try this:  in a group of 10 people, ask them for a definition of that phrase, you will get a huge variety of responses.

§    Communicating effectively – Talking to one another is something that seems like it should be really simple, but based on the enormous volume of resources available on the topic, skills such as listening are on the forefront of what people need to learn more about how to do well.

§    Engaging in productive conflict – Rarely more than 5% of the room ever responds that they enjoy conflict when I ask the question.  Yet so much productive conversation, innovative thinking and utilization of creative and unique approaches are never seized without a productive discussion that may stem from or be full of conflict.

§ Interacting with those very different from you – Not only do many individuals not have a firm grasp on their own style and how they come across, but seeing the strengths and benefits of others’ approach is challenging to do without some good tools in your toolbelt.

§    Increasing confidence by improving one’s own performance – There is only so much that we can improve without continually asking and challenging ourselves with what we will do differently.  Consistently doing a great job often feels like enough to us, since our lives are so busy or stressful, and is considered enough by our supervisors who may not wish to challenge us or rock the boat if we are doing a good job already.  Without incremental and continuous success and improvements the confidence of any member of the team can erode, which may result in increased defensiveness.

Share your insights!  Agree or Disagree.  What other skills have you learned that make you a better sandbox member than you were years ago?  What skills have you taught your team that make them easier to get along with – resulting in better business results?

What Not To Do

24 Mar
by Bridget DiCello

Are there things that you would like your employees to stop doing?  Do you tell them to stop doing those things?  Do they hear you?  Do they change their behavior?

It is critically important to pinpoint specific behaviors that you wish would stop.  “You better change your bad attitude!” is a personal attack and not specific enough.  Instead, “When you are in the staff meeting, I see you roll your eyes, exude an audible sigh and cross your arms at an idea you do not like.  This is not an acceptable response from any member of the team.”  The employee must be confronted about behaviors you see an unacceptable.

However, it cannot stop there.  As critical as it is to pinpoint what the unacceptable behavior specifically looks like, you must do more than that!

You must tell them what you wish for them to do instead.

Can’t they figure that out on their own?

·         Maybe, but if they knew what to do or how to act more professionally, they might be doing it already.  “Really, boss, when Sam brings up such an outrageous idea, I just react that way naturally.  What do you expect me to do when he is saying dumb stuff?”

They know what to do. They are just being difficult and not doing it.

·         If this is the case, then when you given them specific behaviors you wish to see instead, you can hold them accountable to these firm expected behaviors.  Otherwise, instead of them not doing annoying behavior #1 (eye rolls, sigh, crossed arms), which you asked them to stop, they do annoying behavior #2 (laugh and start texting).

I don’t have the time to explain every little thing they need to do!

·         Then teach them to think.  Ask them a question or two, get them thinking and next time, you can expect them to think a bit more about what they are doing.  “How do you think it affects the rest of the team when you roll your eyes, sigh and cross your arms?”  “What could you do to control your reaction and your outward appearance?”

There are times when a small situation may simply require that you communicate to the employee that a specific behavior was unacceptable and they should not do it again.  But chances are that there are more chronic behaviors employees exhibit that you do not like, and those will never be corrected without a conversation about what they are to do instead.

“If you think an idea is not credible, take a second to think before you respond, stop and take note of what you are doing with your eyes, voice and arms.  Keep your arms open and on the table, your voice silent and your eyes on your notepad.  It may also help to jot down in your notes why you think the idea is crazy and address those situations with me (your supervisor) later or with the individual themselves.”

What do your employees do that you wish they would stop?  Do they know what to do instead?  Have you held them accountable to specific alternative behaviors?

AGHHHH! Meetings!

09 Mar
by Bridget DiCello

“A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.”                                           – Gourd’s Axiom

Ever been to an unproductive meeting? Ever been to a meeting that went too long? Does the word “Meeting” make your skin crawl?

Here’s how to make your meetings more productive:

  1. Create an agenda. Communicate clearly what you hope to accomplish and what will happen at the meeting – make sure you know this before you call the meeting.  If you don’t have clarity, you probably don’t need to meet at this point.  Many meetings are called to address huge problems, but you have to climb that mountain one step at a time.  If your agenda will take six hours, decide on the first step or milestone and cover that in the first meeting.
  2. Consider who to invite. There may be reasons why you need to include certain people due to office politics, but the less the better.  People with a reason and a role make the best participants.
  3. Circulate the agenda. Indicate who is expected to participate and where. Expect preparation on the part of the attendees. Instead of having an agenda item like “Sales Performance”, consider having each person prepare to present their relevant numbers, new initiatives, progress, one challenge, etc. Have them come prepared to report – indicate their participation requirements on the agenda.  If you don’t have the authority to require their participation, have someone with the authority to ‘reply all’ voicing their agreement with the expectation that everyone come prepared.
  4. Start on time. End on time. Prohibit interruptions. Tell them you will start and end on time and stay true to your word.  Communicate that everyone will be expected to stay during the meeting – leaving even for a 3 minute phone call may require you cover material again when they return.  People will appreciate this stringency because their time will be well spent.
  5. Stay on agenda. Set time limits for each item if you need to.
  6. Get the results you said you would. If your plan was to come up with new strategies to address slumping sales, then make sure before everyone leaves strategies have been generated, responsibilities and deadlines have been assigned, accountability measures have been put into action and follow up timeframes have been clearly identified.  Have someone record and email these items.
  7. Address the elephants in the room. If someone is taking the meeting off track, obviously negative or thwarting progress with their participation, address it – everyone will appreciate you for it.  “Mark, I’m hearing that you have some serious concerns about our ability to increase sales.  We are addressing today how we will do that, not if we will.  It’s important we get all our ideas out on the table before we decide that they will not work.  Their viability could be covered in a future meeting.  I’d be happy to get with you after this meeting to address your concerns before that future conversation.  Does that work for you?”

Meetings do not run themselves and getting a group of great people in a room never guarantees that anything will get done, especially what you want to get done. Take charge-only call a meeting if you need one and can adhere to the above guidelines.

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