3 "People" in the conversation

Yesterday, I was providing some coaching advice specific to how to best communicate with a team member who is not doing what the boss wants. I was explaining that it's very important for the person being coached not to think he or she is being attacked.

The key is to look at such a coaching situation like there are 3 people in the conversation:

• Boss
• Team member
• Action (offense)

During the session, the boss must ensure he or she addresses the "offense" separate from the "offender". Therefore, Suzie is not bad. Instead, what Suzie did or failed to do was bad. When the boss and team member are able to focus on the offense, hopefully, the team member will be able to interact more objectively and progress can be made.

For more information on both situational and ongoing coaching, follow this link to my 5-part series.

A Man of Success

Albert Einstein once said, "Try not to become a man of success but a man of value."

When you are a professional, whether it be in business, in the government, or part of another organization, you are often pushed to be successful at just about any cost. You've seen it. You've seen people so focused on success that it's all they can do, all they can think about.

How do you measure success? Many of us measure from a perspective of:

• Fame
• Fortune
• Power
• Influence

So many times, these measurements are focused almost solely on ourselves. They can be very selfish and self-serving. I think Einstein is saying that the focus of our lives can't be primarily or even mostly about ourselves. It's just that a life focused totally inward seems kind of an empty existence.

I've mentioned it before: most all the motivational speakers out on the circuit today (people like Zig Ziglar) will say you can't be a true success until you've helped people around you be successful. For the majority of people, possessions don't really make them happy, not long-term, anyway. It's the people around us, people we care about, who do that. It's about relationships and being valuable to others.

"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value." In the end, that's where true success lies.

Questions

Voltaire wrote, "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers."

People like to hear themselves talk. People like to be thought of as witty and wise. Some people project the idea that they know everything or most everything...and want to share what they know with you.

What I think about when I read Voltaire's quote is that we all have 2 ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we speak.

I also think about what I was taught when I was a young man: when you encounter someone who has all the answers, walk away. Adding to it, I learned that the time I think I have all the answers, I need to realize I know nothing.

Perhaps Voltaire was talking about being a thoughtful person. Thoughtful people ask great questions, not just a lot of them. The questions they ask show they're thinking and can often make you stop and question your own thought processes or your own views of a problem. Great, thoughtful questions can cut through all the clutter and get to the meat of an issue. They add to the dialog instead of turning attention away from it like poor questions can do.

Do you ask many questions? What kind of questions do you ask? Do they add to the discussion at hand?

Criticism...Embrace it.

I'm on to another post based on a quote that I read and found thought-provoking. Here is today's quote: “To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” ~Elbert Hubbard

None of us likes being criticized. We want people to like us or, at least, to respect us. We often identify our ideas and our work with our self-worth. Therefore, when they are being criticized, it can sometimes make us feel like we're being personally attacked.

What do so many of us do when we're being attacked? We either seek to deflect the attacks or we fight back. Mr. Hubbard's quote seems to be focusing more on the "avoidance" or deflection reaction to criticism.

Criticism, even if it isn't positive, can still be such a positive event for us because it can be a catalyst of change or at least a catalyst of evaluation and circumspection. How can we ever improve if we get no feedback -- positive or otherwise -- about how we're doing? Plus, as Nietzsche said, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Criticism, and the growth that can come from it, certainly can make us stronger.

I would much rather be known for looking at my criticisms mostly objectively (even if I do take some of them a little personally) and growing from them, than someone who is so afraid of what others might think that I am either paralyzed into total nothingness, being just a lump of a person, or that I become Yes Man, constantly working to agree with everyone. The result is the same: a lost identity. No, thanks.

What do you think about criticism, even when it is negative? Can it still be useful if it's not as nice as we'd like?

Don't borrow trouble

"The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work." ~ Robert Frost

Companies and other organizations are all rumor mills, aren't they? Some places are better or worse than others. Gossip and rumors are bad, in general, when they hurt others and diminish productivity.

With a bad economy and so many companies and shops struggling to survive, the rumors, gossip, and fear can get really out of hand. How can bosses overcome such negativity as it tries to creep into their teams?

• Don't join in the rumor mongering. Everybody likes to talk. If a manager needs to talk about things on his or her mind, he should speak to a colleague or mentor (bosses don't want to hear it).
• Focus the troops on the affirmative nature of the team or department. Regardless of what's happening on the outside, there ought to be something positive going on with the group.
• Keep the people anchored in the reality of the moment. Don't let them go down the "what if" path. The worst thing to do is "borrow trouble". They don't know what's going to happen in the future and it's a waste of time to trying to figure it out.
• Remind the team that they can't control what's going on around them. What they can control is themselves and how they perform their duties. I tell my team members the same thing I tell myself: "put your head down and work". That's what each of us can control.

What other ways are there to keep team members focused on positive attitudes and productivity, regardless of the situation?

Glass 1/2 Full

Recently, I wrote about how bosses are responsible for the mood of the teams they lead (see post here). Then, the quote that showed up on my blog yesterday (9/19), from Norman Vincent Peale, said: Change your thoughts and you change your world. That quote, from the king of positive thinking, also reminds me of my post "if you wanna be somebody else, change your mind."

It's great to have positive thoughts, read positive ideas, and work to exude a positive attitude. You know what is absolutely priceless? It's having other people on your team who understand and live the "positive" perspective of life.

I was very blessed to work with a person on my last team who was all about the positive. It's not that she was all "Pollyanna" and looked at the world in an unrealistic manner. She just chose to react to both her and the team's situations with a positive outlook most of the time.

Her mantra was "glass 1/2 full, glass 1/2 full" when anyone else on the team responded to situations in a less than positive manner. In fact, my colleague's words and attitude were such a good example, that I've even gotten into the habit of saying "glass 1/2 full" when I encounter negativity.

A positive attitude doesn't fix all the ills of the world or of the situations around us, but it sure can help us cope with them better.

Team Members or Customers...who comes first?

Conventional wisdom in business is that customers come first. Let's face it; if you didn't have customers, you wouldn't have a business, right? Therefore, we make statements like "the customer is always right." I've even told team members that the only "unforgivable" sin, as far as I was concerned...the action that would get them fired immediately, was being rude to a customer.

Lately, I've read that a few organizations out in the business world put their employees ahead of their customers. Now, I have heard about instances in just about any business where really horrible customers were encouraged or invited to find a new store or business to visit. This "putting the employees first" idea is more proactive than letting a customer move on. It sounds like a strategy or basic tenet of that organization.

The justification is that, if you hire properly and have the right culture, along with training, encouraging, challenging, and rewarding your team members, an almost automatic by-product will be an unparalleled customer experience. If companies ensure they have the best teams in the world, then customers will stand in line to do business with them.

That's an interesting thought. I guess I can see that. It's kind of a tangent off what I've always said, "if you take care of your people, then the projects, tasks, and mission take care of themselves."

What do you think? Who comes first: customers or employees?