Register for My One Day Communications Workshop

I am happy to report that I will be giving a full-day workshop (seminar) at this year's Project Management Institute Conference on May 16 here in San Diego. The workshop is titled "Leading Teams to High Performance" and you can read a little more about it here. 
(http://pmi-sd.org/index.php/conference/menu-conf-seminars). 

Learn more about the this year's conference here.
(http://pmi-sd.org/index.php/conference/menu-conf-welcome)

Learn more about the OUTSTANDING PMI Organization in San Diego here.
(http://pmi-sd.org/)

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Creating a Productive Communication Environment

Defensiveness is not productive. May seem obvious once it is said like that, but making something explicit isn’t such a bad thing – especially if something is not obvious to the person you are speaking to. Defensiveness is the normal and correct action when someone is feeling attacked.

Notice I didn’t say being attacked – I said FEELING attacked.

I have found many times that, in my distant past, I was capable of feeling attacked when, in reality, I was not. I have certainly had people tell me (again in the past) that they felt I was attacking them when I wasn’t. When I felt attacked, I would demonstrate all sorts of clever behaviors to distance myself from the perceived danger – but whatever behavior I chose, the lack of safety I felt would KILL my willingness to continue honestly and openly continuing with the discussion. My goal was to get out alive.

So – communication stops being productive when either party feels a lack of trust or safety in the environment.

There are other elements of a productive communication environment than the risk of attack, of course. What if the other person isn’t attacking us at all – but we don’t believe that they care about what we’re saying? Or that they do care, but they aren’t open to try anything other than their current idea? That doesn’t feel very productive, and we may act out when we sense this happening (acting out unspoken feelings is the whole basis of the study of body language, by the way – we all do it). Sometimes we act out verbally, too, and if the other person feels attacked by this, things spiral the wrong way.

A productive communication environment is one in which:

·         It is safe to tell the truth

·         We intend to arrive at the conclusion that satisfies our most important objectives

·         We intend to arrive at the conclusion that is not objectionable to any stakeholder

One of the ways we can make the communication environment productive is be explicit about these things and mean them. To ENSURE that everyone in the conversation knows EXPLICITLY (by saying it) that it is safe to tell the truth hear – we need to be free to share exactly what we think. I know how scary that sounds (and I know why you picture the conversation immediately turning into a fight) when you think of saying it, but sometimes it’s best to make it obvious, and this is one of those times.

Once you and the people you are speaking with believe the three bullets I wrote above, then you (not they) need to know how to facilitate that conversation. I say “you” because it only takes ONE competent communicator in the room to handle most any situation, and I have picked YOU to be the competent communicator.

Next time, we’ll talk about the THREE things you need to know to perform your new role.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Not tools so much as an environment...

I spent a big percentage of the last few years teaching others what I have learned about making communication at work productive. I was asked a while ago by one of my clients “What are the tools used and the responsibilities of each person engaged in a productive conversation?”

It seems that this is the way we like to imagine these conversations being held – each of us having an equal part in the conversation and the outcome. I believe that particular expectation is an obstacle to productive communication, and that by changing that expectation of “equal participation” one can begin to make things productive.

Most of us recognize that there will naturally be differences between people in our work place. That is, in almost any pairing of two people one person is a better listener, or more articulate, or more withdrawn, or more distracted…… the list of differences is quite long.

When we walk away from a conversation thinking that the other party doesn’t listen, doesn’t speak up, is scary to talk to …. THAT is when we recognize the differences and have bad feelings. The bad feelings are because our needs weren’t met – we NEEDED them to be effective and they weren’t which leaves us unsatisfied with the conversation. Further, it seems that this THEIR fault and is not fixable unless they change.

But it IS – we just have to change the “equal participation” expectation. And understanding that makes it easier to describe the use of the “tools”.

There is a kind of “ideal” environment for conducting conversations. That environment is not very necessary when we are discussing the “easy” things – non-controversial, obvious, simple, low-impact topics – and vital when we are discussing the hard things – poor performance or failures, bad news, high-impact things. In other words, maintaining the environment to conduct difficult conversations becomes most important at the very same time that the topics demand the most focus. If we don’t appreciate maintaining the right environment, or if we don’t know how, it is easy to think that TOPIC or the PEOPLE involved are what made the conversation implode. But usually, it is that we didn’t maintain a good environment.

 Communication tools and techniques are used to promote the optimum environment. Next week, we’ll talk about what that environment looks like exactly, and then discuss the tools used to create it.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Speaking in San Diego on July 9th

I'll be talking about how to combine some of the things I've been writing about for the last few months...should be fun. I can't wait to see you again.
For more info, including location and sign-up - go here (ASQ San Diego)

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Controlling How We Are Perceived

We develop an impression of others pretty quickly, and we are wired to be flexible with the first impression IF we see evidence that we are wrong (“when I first met her, she seemed a little ditzy, but I could see after just one real conversation that she was better versed than I on a lot of subjects”). If evidence indicates we are right (and sometimes, if we just NEED to be right) our impression will develop into something stronger (like an opinion) and we may even “upgrade” its status to a “fact”. My point is that how people perceive us can be controlled.

It is easiest to influence their perceptions at the beginning of a relationship because we are wired to be flexible at first and become more rigid as we find evidence. We even refer to the process as “forming” an opinion. If someone is forming an opinion about us, WE are the source of the evidence. And even if they know something about us from a different source, we provide the evidence that they can use to modify that opinion of us, until their judgment of us is aligned with the evidence they have.

This sounds like an opportunity to “pretend to be someone that you aren’t”, but it isn’t. It is an opportunity to determine behaviors that may be holding you back (or coloring people’s perception of you in an unflattering way) and tailoring them to portray your true feelings and thoughts in a way that they can easily understand them. That is, to be more transparent and accessible, less cryptic.

In short we can present ourselves in a way that promotes productive and beneficial working relationships without being false or fake in any way – just by have the a full understanding of how we actually feel, and how to communicate that to the world. I will make some suggestions as to how excellent communicators and leaders typically feel about relationships and common ways those feelings manifest themselves. You MUST tailor these to suit who you are – you should seldom use someone else’s words to express your own feelings. NOTE - beware self-help advice that offers you “scripts” – if your words don’t align with your feelings and actions, the people you are trying to communicate with will identify you as a fake. Think of the people you have known whose words didn’t align with their actions. How did you feel about them?

My suggestions (from the last newsletter) were as follows:

·         Giving the benefit of the doubt as far as our counterpart’s motives

·         Using inquiry like a journalist would and listening to answers

·         Working actively to prevent defensiveness

·         Being honest and explicit

 I will expand a little on those and give you an overview of a model I named THE SCORE to help you remember the elements.

The objective is to be a person that does not promote defensiveness in others. Defensiveness is the primary reason that people are not open and honest at work – they think what they say will somehow cause them trouble, so they “defend” against that trouble in a MYRIAD of ways. My method (THE SCORE) is a method that requires only three things:

1)      You know what makes for good communication

2)      Adjust YOUR way of communicating to conform with those rules (in YOUR unique way),  and

3)      Facilitate other people in communicating in that same way (usually, without them knowing it).

I will teach you these things, so don’t worry that you don’t know them now – you will over the next few weeks. As you begin to practice them, others will just see you as the kind of person they can talk to about anything and it will seem natural to do so. They will feel that way because you will SHOW them that you are that kind of person.

Some of the ways we promote defensiveness in others are listed in the table below. Ways to PROMOTE DEFENSIVENESS (detract from good communication) are in the first two columns). Ways to INHIBIT DEFENSIVENESS (encourage good communication) are in the last two columns.

Example Behaviors that Promotes Defensiveness	Common Names for Bad Behavior	Behavior to Inhibit Defensiveness	Common Names for Good Behavior
Acting as if your ideas are fully formed, vetted, and can’t be improved upon.  Input or critique is not welcomed	Arrogance, Closed-mindedness	Explicitly stating that our ideas have some room for improvement. Use other’s involvement in the formulation of ideas to create buy-in	Tentativeness; Humility
Ignoring or arguing with the feelings or opinions of others such that you indicate that they don’t matter (or don’t exist)	Self-centered; Isolated; “Steamroller”; Disconnected	Explicitly demonstrating an understanding of the feelings and opinions of others, considering them,  and expressing that they are important; Speaking kindly, giving the benefit of the doubt	Empathetic; Fair-minded
Using vocabulary or terms that is not familiar to the person with whom we are trying to communicate; or using vocabulary that is aimed below their level of capability	Snobbish; Show-off; Talking Down; Confusing	Using vocabulary chosen specifically for the people with whom we are communicating (defining unfamiliar acronyms, using two syllable words, explicitly asking for understanding, watching non-verbal cues for confusion)	Simple; Clear; Meaningful
Using prepared “boilerplate” information that doesn’t take the specific audience into account; Using words to manipulate; offering weak excuses	Insincere; Manipulative; Dishonest; Condescending	Speak from the heart, being kind and honest ; being fair and firm	Sincere
Telling rather than asking; listening	Closed minded; Disconnected; Rude	Asking questions, including follow-up questions to answers	Curious
Acting as if your ideas are fully formed, vetted, and can’t be improved upon.  Input or critique is not welcomed; Cutting others off	Closed minded; Arrogant; Rude;	Sharing the weak points of your own position; asking for suggestions; listening summarizing to assure understanding; weighing trade-offs; changing your mind when warranted	Open
Cutting others off; insulting; dismissing their ideas without reasoning	Disrespectful; Rude	Listening; fully considering proposed ideas; giving reasons for disagreement	Respectful
Holding multiple discussions at a time; not focusing one someone speaking to you; multitasking (phone, email) while someone is discussing something important with you	Disrespectful; Disengaged; Disingenuous	Focusing your attention on your counterpart; rescheduling discussions based on their priority in order to give attention	Engaged

I suggest you look through the first two columns to identify the things that POOR COMMUNICATORS IN YOUR LIFE currently do that detract from good communication. It is usually easiest to see these things in others, especially those that already bother us. Then look at what GOOD BEHAVIORS they would have to implement to improve the situation. Wouldn’t things be better if they would do them?

Then look through the first two columns looking for things that YOU might do. I found it useful in my life to ask people if they thought any of the names in the second column applied to me. I wouldn’t ask them to explain, and I wouldn’t try to tell them they were wrong, or give excuses….. I would just thank them. Then I would practice the behaviors in the last two columns that were prescribed. It is difficult for people to tell us our short comings (unless they trust us). If you find that your circle of co-workers find you perfect, you need to search yourself. Are they just afraid to tell you the truth? If you are truly perfect, then I need you as a mentor.

THE SCORE is a model that I created that stands for:

Tentative

Humility

Empathy

Simplicity (and Sincerity)

Curiosity

Open

Respectful

Engaged

The right hand column in the table above corresponds with the model elements. We will go into detail on these elements next time.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Productive Relationships

This is a big moment. In the last two newsletters, we've talked about WHO to talk to and WHAT to talk to them about in order to make changes in the way company works. This week, we are going to start talking about HOW to accomplish what we want.

The reason I call it a big moment is that we are going to talk about YOU, and why you need to change the way you talk to people to get the results you want.

Some people believe that one is either born with communication talent or not, and it can’t be learned.

I am telling you it can.

Many people don’t believe that a change in their perspective will cause a change in their communication results.

 I am here to tell you it will.

Some people feel that it is unfair that they should have to learn these skills when it makes the communication better for EVERYONE when they practice it. It’s like they are carrying the load for everyone.

I am saying “So what?”…. If you want to have great results, you have to put in some extra work. What’s unfair about that?

If you are still with me, and are willing to do the work, I’ll show you HOW to approach others such that they want very much to work with you because they know you value them and lead them into better results than they can get elsewhere.

I speak to professional organizations, university classes, and companies routinely about the things that cause them issues at work and the people I meet almost always tell the same story.

 “Our people are all good at what they do. I mean, the engineers are all good engineers, the project managers now what they are doing, the production personnel are capable of doing great work… but they don’t TALK to each other until something goes wrong, then they work hard to RE-DO what they could have done in the FIRST PLACE if they just would have talked about it. They blame EACH OTHER for the communication problems, and say that management doesn’t hold people accountable (meaning ‘they don’t fire the people that I think they should’). It’s this way everywhere, and I don’t think there is a good solution”.

This should give you a good idea of how important being a good communicator is; it is a widespread problem, it is the root cause for many of our routine problems (if we communicated well, a great MANY problems go away), and it is about LISTENING, TALKING, and THINKING in certain ways that tend to get better results. This means it is the key to great results AND  involves changing the way we do our most common activities, so we have lots of opportunities to practice and can get better quickly.

We need first to consider just ourselves. We know about the things that make us uncomfortable in communication and instead of thinking about our counterpart making us uncomfortable, we are going to concentrate on doing what WE can do to make them comfortable. If we do this, we are much more likely to put them in a frame of mind in which they will be cooperative and THAT is when we will begin achieving what we want to achieve. This is 70% of good communications –keeping the right frame of mind. THIS IS THE HARD PART. Once you are through it, you will get better results than most of the people you know. Until you practice it about 25 times, it will feel very wrong (if you are doing it right). Then, you will never want to go back to the way you used to communicate.

The principles we will use are:

• Giving the benefit of the doubt as far as our counterpart’s motives
• Using inquiry like a journalist would and listening to answers
• Working actively to prevent defensiveness
• Being honest and explicit

Many of us know that these contribute to good communication, but have trouble doing them. The reason for our current trouble (after training lots of people that have had that trouble) is that they never thought about a way to do them all together. For instance, we have all seen someone say something that resulted in defensiveness in someone else, while the speaker thought they were just being “honest and explicit”. Experiences like that give us very strong mental examples that tell us “you just can’t GET any better”,  say things like “the truth hurts”, and blame the communication issue on the other person.

You may be doing these things already, or you may think you are and actually aren’t; either way, I will outline how I want you to approach it.

Giving the benefit of the doubt is pretty easy – just recognize that it is not necessary to understand your counterpart’s reasons for having their opinions .Unless you are sure that they are purposely lying to you in order to cause you to think something that isn’t true, then that is good enough for now. What you DO need is a full understanding of their opinions – that will tell you what you need to know about their reasoning. Later, we will learn to examine their story with them and find the answers to any important questions (like – are they being honest).

Using inquiry is something we will talk about a lot going forward because it is the first new skill that you will need. Not that it is new to everyone, but if it IS, you will find it a little different than what you are used to and difficult because of that. Inquiry is a method to collaboratively compare multiple points of view to find the best “parts” and build the best ideas out of those parts. I have written a couple of articles on MY model of Inquiry (the SPIRAL model) and you can refer to them here and here.

“Working actively to prevent defensiveness” and “Being honest and explicit” are accomplished using the other model I developed called “The Score”. I have written a lot about it over the last few years and you can find past newsletters on the subject here and a paper written on the subject at my website here. The paper has a flyer attached to a 3 day class I was offering when I wrote it. Please ignore it.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

What to Demonstrate to Your Company's Key Staff (And a Rare Public Class Announcement)

Last time we talked about who you want to talk to in order to affect the culture and introduce your ideas into consideration. There will be lots more on that later, because finding the right people is pretty critical in getting your ideas adopted. This time we want to talk about WHAT you say to them, and maybe a little on HOW you say it.

There are a few things you want to accomplish in your conversations that are not intuitive and how you are viewed has a big impact on your success with accomplishing them. Let’s talk about how you would like to be perceived in order be considered as a key employee by a typical employer.

You are serious about contributing the company’s success and are capable of doing so.

• This means you are recognized as credible by those employees that matter (those outside of your regular circle that shape company culture and, of course, your peers and immediate superiors). They know that you are appropriately educated and trained, that you get good results, and that you make extra effort when needed. You don’t talk about doing work in order to “keep so-and-so off my back”, but instead talk about your reason for doing the work as achieving an objective or meeting a goal that is important to the company. Become aware of the goals and objectives that your tasks support. If you were a manager, and you needed help on something important, you would want someone that has demonstrated their ability to recognize important tasks and place their effort on them.
• In order to make it clear that you are this person, you may want to talk SPARINGLY about your education, your training, and your experience in past jobs but remember this (important note here – EXPERTS are considered more credible if their education, training, and experience enable them to EXPLAIN what is right or wrong about a specific action. Experts that refer to their education, training, and experience in order to AVOID giving explanations are likely to be perceived as blowhards.)
• It is also important that you share your track record of success, both at your current employer and prior, and that you do it sparingly. You must not be seen as a braggart because braggarts are generally suspected of exaggerating and exaggerating is a form of dishonesty that undermines your credibility. A good way to encourage others to help spread word of your successes independently is to ALWAYS give credit publicly for the accomplishments of others. If you do this, people will want to reciprocate by talking of yours. Do not, however, engage in false modesty or give credit where it is not due.

You are serious about work, and you also have a life outside doing things that are interesting and aligned with the values of the key employees at your company.

• This means that you prioritize work highly in the way you live your life, and the things you do outside of work are like the things that the key people at your work do. This one worries some people in that they think that I am recommending that they change “who they are”. I would not recommend that you change anything about your character for anyone but yourself. Change is good if it is needed, and you are the judge of that. What I AM pointing out is that part of creating a connection with the key people in your organization is to demonstrate how you are LIKE them.
• I’ll give you an example – many of the people with whom I work are charitable givers. That is, they give money or time to the community. I was not giving to any charities, so I found a couple that aligned with who I am and began to be involved. I found it enriching, made me feel good, and when I would bring it up at work (usually in a regular old “what did you do last weekend” talk) people saw me as the kind of person that they can respect – someone like them. Not because I faked it, but because I found a way to do it that was true to who I am.
• As we get deeper into the study of persuasion and influence, we will talk about the work of Robert Cialdini. In his research, he found that people are persuaded more easily by people that the feel are like themselves. Find a few ways in which you are truly like those with whom you work, and demonstrate it. DON’T try to be someone you aren't – be who you are and show those parts of your character that are like theirs.

You can intake information, analyze it, and create and articulate courses of action that are organized, actionable, and likely to be effective.

• This is a skill which we will cover off and on through this series of articles. Being able to get data (that is, research issues and ask questions) is really rare and knowing how to do it will set you apart. Being able to ask someone questions about a sensitive topic, getting the truth, and improving the relationship with them is the hallmark of an expert and we will walk through many techniques to do this. After you get the information, you need to be able to weigh it out and find a course of action.
• This is a largely collaborative process and, again, being able to guide such discussions is very rare but we will learn how to do it and build teams and commitment at the same time. It is critical that we can collaborate with others without much ego and help them focus their individual expertise on effective collaborative outcomes.

You can operate with some ambiguity in your work.

• Many times one has to work through trade-offs (when changing things means that some things improve and other things get worse) or solutions that improve the short term at the sake of the long term, or vice versa. Learning to recognize these instances and talk through the relative benefits and penalties is an important skill to elite team members.
• For an example, many times in order to reduce rework that results from a poorly run process, I have found that we need to add a little planning work. The addition of planning in many cases reduces the OVERALL costs or time of the process but the PLANNING time is increased. The folks responsible for the planning think I am crazy – that I am just making things take longer and they are right from THEIR perspective. Overall, though, we reduce cost which is what we need to do from an OVERALL perspective. After we are sure that we have reduced overall cost by doing a little more planning, THEN we try to find ways to do the planning more efficiently so we can reduce the time it takes to do that.
• By being able to recognize, articulate, and work through the ambiguities with all team members, you become increasingly valuable.

The topics above are four critical ways you can strive to be perceived if you want to start working on the culture of your organization. Study them to find ways you can begin living them at your work. Remember to always be yourself – don’t abandon the principles that are important to you in order to fit in. Emphasize and demonstrate the parts of you fit in with your organization’s elite team.

As for any skills that you may need to develop or refresh to assist, I am anticipating conducting a class this spring / summer again. The cost will be $199 total and will take 3 days. If you are interested, let me know. If there is enough interest, I will select dates that work around my existing private classes so that we can have a group class for any that are interested. As many of you long time readers know, I have been booked with private classes for the last two years so this “open to the public” class is a rare opportunity to be guided through these high-performance communication principles. Write to Gregg@PFComm.com

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Productive Working Relationships

When I talk about creating productive relationships, keep in mind that I am talking about working relationships in which you and others set objectives, exchanging ideas, execute tasks, and achieve results in a work setting and that you want to personally participate in making those objectives meaningful, the exchanges productive and useful, the execution crisp, and the results powerful and sustainable. That is what I am shooting for. It is a pleasant side effect of this teaching that it will also help you with any relationship in your life.

If a relationship at work is to be productive, then it means that both parties must be able to produce value, meaning they must both contribute to accomplishing objectives. When we spoke about credibility last time, we spoke about how you can measure your own and other people’s for that very reason. I find it useful to find the people that the organization already finds credible and come to know them and understand their strengths and weaknesses in order to find a way to be valuable to them.

This is NOT brown-nosing or kissing up to powerful people. This is looking at the people that company depends on, assessing them, finding a way for your strengths to support them in getting results AND determining new strengths you should develop to increase your value. This is a time-tested way to become a “go to” person. The first step is to identify the right people.

I have found that all companies have times of crisis when they pull their best and brightest together to get them through a rough patch. They even give them names sometimes like “Tiger Team” or “SWAT Team”. They are the ones that are called on when things get tough. Keep your eyes open and you will see them when called into action. Those are the people with whom you want to start your networking. It may seem intimidating to start at the top, but these are the people you want to get to know. As long as you have a good method (which we will be developing over the next few newsletters) they will be excited to get the help.

These week was about WHO to talk to. We will go into specifics about HOW to get to know them and WHAT to talk about next time.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Asessing and Improving Credibility

To matter in a conversation, your thoughts must be perceived as helpful. This is a MAJOR hurdle for many people and, until they adjust their priorities so that being perceived as credible is number one, almost no amount of training will help their communication effectiveness.  Your PERCEIVED CREDIBILITY determines if others will:

·         Actively exclude you from discussions

·         Politely dismiss what you say

·         Listen carefully when you speak

·         Seek you out for your input

Your perceived credibility is reflected in the actions of others as I listed above. Whether you are being ignored or shunned, or sought out by others for your input, it is their perception of you that is at the root. So it is NOT up to them to find a way to see you in a different light; it is up to YOU determine if you are credible, improve it as necessary, and demonstrate it so they can see it. This article is about changing that perception by demonstrating your credibility, taking steps to become more credible, and revising behaviors that undermine your credibility.

Whether we are analyzing our own credibility or someone else’s, we need to understand what it is made of and what evidence we will accept. Credibility has three components, and each has some evidence that should be considered when analyzing your own, or someone else’s:

1)      Competence

Þ     Background, like education and training, conveys competence. The usual examples are diplomas and certificates.

Þ     Track record or history of good results. Reputation, testimonials, or examples of high-quality work produced is used as evidence.

Þ     Currency of subject matter knowledge. Demonstrating up-to-date knowledge of the topic demonstrates passion.

2)      Trustworthiness

Þ     Truthfulness is evidence of trustworthiness, especially if truthfulness runs contrary to self-interest.

Þ     Demonstrated reluctance to distort facts (exaggerate or downplay)

Þ     Demonstrated reluctance to overplay emotions for dramatic effect (Drama Queens and Kings)

Þ     Ability to recognize your own bias and temper its impact

3)      Dynamism

Þ     Optimistic

Þ     Eager to succeed (but not manic)

Þ     Engaged with team members

Pretending to be credible when you aren't is a short-term approach to solving a credibility issue. I recommend a long-term solution. If you are not being treated as credible, it is important that you do some self-evaluation (using the above as a checklist). Find the areas where YOU feel you are lacking, and determine what you are willing to do about them. If you are weak in one area, you can compensate for it by getting MUCH stronger in another. I have known many people that were prone to exaggerate, but were still considered credible because they had a long track record of good results.

The best approach is to write a few ideas about where you rank yourself on each of them. If you feel a little pain surrounding one, you might be one to something. Determine which you think are holding you back, regardless of how you feel about fixing it and prioritize those as to which you think you can do something about.

Examples - 

If you feel that you are dismissed by your coworkers because you are considered to be “not serious”, then realize from their point of view you may not be eager to succeed or engaged enough to take seriously. You should concentrate on demonstrating your commitment to tasks and coworkers.

If you feel that you are dismissed by your coworkers because you are considered to be “under skilled”, then realize from their point of view you may not be skilled to take seriously. You should concentrate on relating your track record, or adding to your examples of high-quality work. Just a note – degrees and certificates are almost bare minimum requirements these days .  If these are all you have, you need to produce and be able to share examples of high-quality work product that is meaningful to the topic in order to increase your credibility.

The most obvious (and for some, the most difficult) thing to do is to stop distorting facts with exaggeration or downplaying. Oh – and be nice, but work hard.

Frankly, most people I run into have the skills they need. The problems are in two areas:

• They are either trying to consult on things for which they don't have the credibility needed. That is, they mean well, but the company has people that know more about the issues under discussion.
• They are credible, but have weak relationships or bad relationships with key people. We will begin addressing relationship next time.

If you need more help on these, give me a call.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Culture Busting

When we talk about company culture, the conversation often goes right off the rails. The conversation is generally about practices that are ridiculous, unwritten rules, and people that are frequently characterized and “crazy” or “idiotic”.

I remember when I viewed the people I worked with the same way. I described myself as “astonished” or “amazed” at what some “idiot” had done. “Any child would know better!” I would say. But I wouldn’t talk to them about it. It wouldn’t do any good PLUS they were friends with the bosses and I would get fired.

I didn’t spend a LOT of my career thinking that way, because I was a single father and HAD to keep a job continuously – I couldn’t “job hop”. With the economy the way it is now, I am sure there are lots of you that feel the same pressure.

I decided I had to talk to someone – my boss – about some of these things. He wasn’t very much help. He kind of patted me on the head and asked me to figure out how to work with it because it wasn’t changing any time soon.

I waited until I once again was the recipient of some work that was all screwed up in a way that was INDEFENSIBLE. “NOW I have them!”, I thought.  “Certainly I can get them to change this!” I confronted the guilty party and we argued bitterly, me telling them that what they did was stupid and them telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about… that everything was fine and exactly as it should be and if I knew ANYTHING I would know that. Which of course is impossible – I know EXACTLY what’s right. Don’t I? So in this guy’s version of the story, I am the idiot.

 I immediately got busy coming to understand what was happening with this instance. I found he was doing things just as he was instructed, the instructions that were given to me were new, and the person that gave me the instruction hadn’t considered all of the factors.

What I realized YEARS later was that the reason I called the one guy an idiot, AND the reason I imagined there was some “unseen hand” guiding all this, and that talking to them wouldn’t do any good was because I was afraid. I was afraid that the confrontation would go bad, I was angry that I had to do it in the first place (why not my boss), I was afraid I would be embarrassed, and I had imagined all kinds of things from a fist fight to long term hurt feelings.  All of the things wrong were things going on in my head because of what I was not paying attention to the FACTS and being manipulated by my fear of what MIGHT happen.

This obviously had less to do with “the company culture” and what I THOUGHT the company culture was. I set about to prove this by learning to act differently. I began saying “I am going to assume that everyone here just wants us to do well. I am going to say that THAT is the company culture, and act accordingly”. Things got a lot better, but I also found out that my assumption wasn’t necessarily true, that there were lots of people that were not very concerned about the company at all. So after learning that the company wouldn’t just get rid of them, I needed to find a way to get the most out of them to move the company forward. More than that, the process had to build the people in the process, and make them feel more engaged and more able. Even though I can’t make everyone feel the way I feel , I can help many of them see that working in a successful company, and being a big part of a company’s success, is better than the alternative.

There are 11 steps to doing better. The first five are:

1. 1.       Establish credibility
2. 2.       Develop productive relationships
3. 3.       Begin optimizing your communication style
4. 4.       Learn to coach
5. 5.       Learn to manage and lead

I will start working through each of them next time, and you will learn quickly and easily how to get more satisfaction and cooperation than you ever have. Until then, look at the things that make it hard for you to get excited about your job. Notice how your coworkers are apparently fully competent in their jobs, but they are hard to work with. Consider the possibility that they don’t have to change for it to become easier.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Decisions - Impact and Consequence

In making a decision, it is certainly important to know what we are changing from, what we are changing to, and why. The impact and consequences gives us information about the “why”. First, let’s define our terms because lots of people confuse “impact” and “consequence”, or fail to see a difference. In this discussion, we need to be able to distinguish them.

“Impact” will be the term we use to describe the direct effect of a problem. The direct effect of a bad design, for instance, could be a safety problem. A different direct effect could be reduced sales. Same cause, two different impacts. “Consequence” will be the term we use to describe the result of the Impact. The consequence of a safety issue could be a law suit OR a loss of reputation OR guilt from causing injury – OR all three. The consequence of reduced sales could be cash flow problems OR distributor defections OR unattractiveness to investors. So we have a cause (bad design) that impacts us in two ways and those impacts have a variety of consequences. We want to avoid some or all of the consequences, so we need to mitigate the impacts that bring those consequences about.

Determining the impact and potential consequences arising from a current situation helps us estimate the importance (or “size”) of the issue that we face. This estimate will guide us to a better understanding of the resources we are willing to commit to correcting it. By the same token, estimating the impact and consequences associated with any proposed solutions or changes to the current situation will help us determine the value of the proposal relative to the “size” of the current situation.

It is important to discuss the impact and consequences upfront. As we all know, crises seem to come in waves at times, and if we must keep the critical issues visible until they are contained, else we will find ourselves “swamped” with issues that all “Top Priority”!

One would like to be able to estimate and express the amount of impact and likely consequence and benefit from a problem scenario (“current state”) and a solution scenario (“proposed state” or “future state”) in order to assign the correct priority and resources.  A perfect decision making process would completely and correctly predict all possible consequences from all possible outcomes of a decision. This is seldom possible, so we try to get as close as is practical.

The first thing to do is to understand the universe of CONSEQUENCES that we face. If they are trivial, we may choose not to expend any resources at all in mitigating the impacts. If they are significant, then we will determine the impacts for them.

The next things I talk about are the impacts that carry the consequences we just discussed and NOT the potential solutions. I do this for several reasons, and here are two: first, it gives us an idea of the kind of work it will take to repair it. If we have the kinds of resources required already in-house, we can control when to begin working on a solution. Secondly, it makes the issue far more real to have a realistic discussion of how it harms us. Before anyone decides we aren’t going to do anything about it at this time, I like to remind them that we all said it carried a certain impact. Are we willing to live with it? Usually, if we have discussed it openly and fully (and I try to make sure we really explore impact), we look at things very carefully before moving on. Impact of not being sufficiently profitable, for instance, is that we don’t have money for training or internal research and development, or other important things.

I then move to a discussion about the “Ostrich Consequence”. This is the impact to us if we don’t do anything. For instance, if we don’t do anything about our profitability, and don’t train our people or do sufficient research and development, we will certainly become less competitive and will likely go out of business. I cover this so that everyone that is working on the problem has an explicit understanding of what we think will happen if we do nothing.

I like to let everyone that can do something about the problem participate in the “Impact and Consequences” discussion so that things can be very real. This has a strong emotional charge to it.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Decisions - Emotions and Logic

So far, I have suggested that getting good results from our decisions is strongly correlated to employing an improved decision making process based on three things. I would like to start describing such a process right now. First let’s recap the three things that must be considered in our decision making process

·         Perspective

o   One would like to include all important perspectives in their consideration. A perfect decision making process would consider the points of view from anyone impacted or involved in the decision. This is seldom possible, so we try to get as close as practical.

·         Impact

o   One would like to be able to estimate and express the amount of impact and likely consequence and benefit from a problem scenario (“current state”) and a solution scenario (“proposed state” or “future state”) in order to assign the correct priority and resources.  A perfect decision making process would completely and correctly predict all possible consequences from all possible outcomes of a decision. This is seldom possible, so we try to get as close as is practical.

·         Basis for Decision

o   One must understand the strength and coherence of the facts being used to portray the problem and solution scenarios. A perfect decision making process would use only information that had been vetted and confirmed to be accurate, and we would have ALL of the information necessary to present a complete picture. This is seldom possible, so we try to get as close as is practical.

 

A good process evaluates all three of these elements constantly and “spirals into” a decision, meaning that the first iteration takes us from zero information on all three elements to our initial understanding. If there are gaps in our initial understanding, we iterate through again, and again.

If we imagine the theoretical PERFECT process I eluded to before, we would require just one iteration and it would be instantaneous. Your current process is probably near perfect for simple decisions (e.g. only one perspective matters and it is yours, the decision doesn’t carry very great consequences, and you don’t have to deal with a great deal of data or strong conflicting emotions). This is the kind of decision we often face when ordering lunch. For decisions in which there is more complexity in these elements (i.e. risk), our process needs to be more robust.

The first thing we concentrate on are the stakeholders, their identity, their input (and its basis), and the impact of the direction that their input implies. Note that we haven’t discussed who is going to make the final decision, whether it is a group decision or an individual decision; we are just gathering data.

Since the last 150 or so articles I have written have been about how to have these kinds of conversations with people, I am going to summarize that towards the end of the Decision Making series. For now, I am talking about the middle step –basis for decisions.

We have touched on the idea that there are emotional decisions and logical decisions, and that we would prefer to eliminate emotions from our decisions because they tend to distort reasoning. The fact is, almost all (greater than 95%) of decisions have an emotional content and, as long as it doesn’t distort reasoning there is no reason to exclude an option because it is emotionally based (“Logically, I know I need to wear a tie to dinner. Emotionally, I am going to pick the red tie because I like it more”). If, however, you know that the person you are trying to impress tends to distrust people with red ties, then you shouldn’t allow your emotion (liking it) distort your reason (my purpose is to impress this person).

Since we are talking about business decisions, the following emotional components are likely NOT useful and should be scrutinized carefully if they are the primary reason you are making a business decision:

·         Indifference (Whatever – I don’t care – it’s not MY company)

·         Addiction (We should hire more people because I WANT a bigger department)

·         Faith (We are too big to fail; I just know that customer would never drop us)

·         Emotion (We should acquire that little company that makes cellphone applications because EVERYONE is buying cellphone app companies these days and I don’t want to look out of touch)

·         Intuition (I have a feeling that that this is going to be a great quarter…I can feel it in my bones)

I am not saying that you can’t think or feel these things, or that if you do something is going to go wrong. I am saying that if your process recognizes these as adequate support for business decisions, then your process is going to disappoint you more often than if you DON’T rely on them.

In fact, emotion adds certain aspects to decision making that are valuable:

·         Improve Speed (fear increases speed of decisions)

·         Provide Information (a potential course of action that may bring regret or disappointment will promote greater discussion and reflection about alternatives)

·         Assessing relevance (we consider the likelihood of getting a result that will make us feel regret or disappointment and assess the associated factors relevant and worthy of consideration)  

Here are some bases that tend to produce better results than the above. These bases are viewed as “reasoned” or “logical” and are arranged in order from lowest to highest likelihood of success:

·         Pressure (The boss says we should do it this way. He wouldn’t be in his position if he didn’t know something about this)

·         Policy (The law directs a particular way in which we deal with customer issues. Or, could be our policy or regulatory requirements)

·         Experts (the reasoned conclusion of someone with experience in the issue at hand)

·         Facts (use of decision analysis tools such as criteria ranking, prioritization and weighting, or compliance tables. The Kepner Tregoe decision making model is such a tool)

·         Probability (requires modeling to determine certainty and uncertainty and to determine specific values of various outcomes)

It is important to note that I am NOT saying that unless you have a probability based process, your decisions will be wrong. Can experts be wrong? Sure. Can intuition be right? Yes. I am saying that if your process recognizes that decisions that are decided solely on emotion are more risky than decisions that include logical elements, then you are likely to arrive at better results that if it doesn’t.

Also, I am saying that your process must recognize that almost all decisions contain some emotional content and it doesn’t hurt so long as that content isn’t the entire basis for the entire decision AND it doesn’t distort the reasoning that is present in the decision.

Next time we will talk a little more on this, and then move on to Assessing Impact and Consequences.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Decisions, Decisions #2 - How do you make them now?

Last time we learned that judging the soundness of our decisions based on the PROCESS we use to make them is a better strategy than basing that judgment on the RESULTS we achieve. This approach is rests on three ideas:

1)      By developing a decision-making process that rigorously considers a standard set of attributes and criteria, we can arrive at better results IF the parameters and criteria we use are USUALLY important factors.

2)      By revisiting our decision making process after achieving our results, we can adjust our attributes and criteria based on lessons learned and improve the probability of making a good decision next time.

3)      If we accept that the result of the decision is the only way to judge its soundness, it inhibits our addressing the process of making a decision.

Clearly, these attributes and criteria must be important. Fortunately, people have been developing them for thousands of years, continually refining them.  To begin with, I will put them in 3 different categories for general discussion and then go through them in detail:

Category 1 – Perspective

There is generally more than one (meaning more than just YOUR perspective). This means you need to understand the various other perspectives and account for them in the decision.

Category 2 – Impact

Decisions that can result in serious and / or permanent results deserve different scrutiny than those that make little difference. One of my early mentors put it this way “The size of a problem can be measured by the difficulty to recover from it.” I think that is pretty sound advice.

Category 3 –Basis for Decision

We have all heard decisions characterized as “an emotional decision” or “a fact-based decision”.  However, few of us are trained such that we really know what these terms mean, or if there are other bases for decisions (which of course there are), and how to IMPROVE our basis. If you understand the basis for a decision and you understand the differences between the various bases, you can improve your likelihood of making a good decision. Would you rather make a decision based on intuition, or on the results of an expert study? Which do you think would have the greater likelihood of being correct?

The above are the things in which we will develop expertise over the next few articles. For now, I want you to consider the following questions. Feel free to write me (gregg@PFComm.com) or post your thoughts here on the blog. I want you to think about how you CURRENTLY do these things – define your current process……

Perspective Questions –

·         How do I assure that I know which viewpoints are important in a decision?

·         How do I make sure I understand what decision should be made in the eyes of the people that hold those viewpoints?

·         How do I make sure that competing viewpoints are resolved such that the people involved can be depended on to carry out the decision and work towards achieving the desired result?

 

 Impact Questions -

·         How do I determine best, worst, and likely-case results for my decisions?

·         How do I define critical vs. non-critical with respect to outcomes? By the way the outcome affects me personally? My boss? My customers? Other stakeholders?

·         How do I determine the consequences of the outcomes?

·         What if it the likely outcome is good for some and bad for others?

 

Basis Questions –

·         Everyone says that using emotion as the basis for decisions is a bad idea, but I seem to do it a lot (I bought my car cause it looks hot, I picked my favorite basketball team because all my friends liked them and were mean to people that didn’t like the same team, I chose to get a dog “just because”). What would be a better way?

·         How do I make decisions when I know that my boss disagrees? My spouse? My supplier?

·         How do I make decisions when I am short on time? Short on data? I don’t really care about the outcome?

 

Think about how you use these three areas to make decisions now, and we will talk about how I recommend you view them over the next few articles. I look forward to hearing from you.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication