It's not what you say – but how you say it – that counts

Effective communication isn’t just what you say.  How you say it is equally important. Consider the case of Pam, Jennifer and Greg.  Pam and Jennifer were valued employees about to be discarded because of a simple communication style difference.

To read the rest of this article from the Business Journal of Jacksonville, see: It’s not what you say – but how you say it – that counts,

http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2005/03/28/smallb3.html

After Jennifer researched possible solutions to a problem, she’d tell her boss, Pam, the conclusions before presenting how she’d arrived at them.  Pam felt manipulated and insulted and considering firing Jennifer.

At the same time, Pam was getting great results but sensed that her boss, Greg, was upset with her.  He looked bored and impatient in their meetings.  She’d overheard him saying she was a fuzzy thinker who didn’t have the incisive mind necessary for promotion.

She’d tried to please him by giving him more extensive reports of potential projects, especially the process by which she’d gathered the information.  She wanted to make sure he had all the details so he could make up his own mind before she presented her suggestions.

Jennifer and Greg are “bottom liners.”  They present options or conclusions first so people can analyze their reasoning to see if they’d arrive at the same ones.  Greg wants a conclusion up front so he can decide rapidly whether he likes it or whether he needs to hear more details.  Once he reaches a decision, he doesn’t want to waste his time on extraneous information.

Pam is a “processor.”  She reviews how she arrived at a conclusion before giving her favored option.  That way, people can make up their own minds, without manipulation, to see if they arrive at the same one.

Miscommunication resulting from different communication styles causes escalating hostility, extra work, diminished productivity and lost profits.

Each style has benefits, but each also creates problems.  How do you discover what they are? Ask someone who favors one style about its advantages and about the problems with the other style.

Take responsibility for matching preferred work styles and communication.  Although it’s easy to become righteous in defending your favored style of communication, results are more important than style.

People are not their titles or functions, they’re individuals and most are trying to do their best in ways that have worked for them before - despite what you may think about them because you favor your style and can justify why it’s best.

In our time, diversity makes the problem worse.

Learn to detect other people’s preferred styles and how to communicate effectively in that style.  That’s not too much for you to learn. You’re a human being, designed to learn these styles rapidly.  That’s how all babies learn to please and manipulate their parents.

Whenever possible, communicate face-to-face when something might be sensitive or at the first sign of a misunderstanding or adverse emotional response.  Don’t text or use e-mail.  Get away from your desk and share coffee or food.  Create a human interaction with two people trying to understand how to talk to each other to get the best results, not an interaction to see who is right or can beat the other person down.

I typically focus on preferred styles in about 30 different situations.  A few other examples of important communication style differences are: saying things bluntly vs. talking around a subject; preferring written vs. verbal communication; brainstorming by talking vs. talking only after making a decision; focusing on the exact dictionary definition of words vs. expecting people to read between the lines; communicating in thoughtful monotones vs. passionate variations.

Are your messages going unheard or are you misunderstanding individuals and groups with different communication styles?

Often, individuals need coaching and organizations need consulting to help them design and implement a plan that fits the situation.  To get the help you need, call Ben at 1-877-828-5543.

Fixing Your Business? Keep the Best, Churn the Rest

What if you showed up for work to find a new sign posted by the owners: “Keep the best, churn the rest”—and you knew the best, and the rest meant you and your colleagues at all levels? Chances are, it’d get your attention.  And that’s exactly what business owners Dick and Harry (made up names for a true illustration) had in mind when they posted that sign at their medium-sized company.

To read the rest of this article from the Houston Business Journal, see: Fixing your business? Start at the top with managers http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2007/10/29/smallb5.html

Dick and Harry had allowed their company to drift into unprofitability.  Though they brought in more business, profits never increased.  And the more jobs they took on, the crazier their lives became.  They were so exhausted trying to stay afloat, they didn’t have time to plan how to get out of the mess—until a stress-induced fight finally forced them to stop and think.  It was change or lose the business.

They realized they had a lackadaisical staff, lackadaisically managed, producing minimally.  The big problem was their poor leadership.  Dick and Harry had let their standards slide.  They’d stopped being leaders and had become conflict-avoidant fixers.

They complained whenever something was done wrong, but they fixed it themselves.  They worked harder and dumber.  No one was re-trained or fired.  They never stopped bullies. The result?  The more business that came in, the worse their quality and the more profit gushed out of their pipeline.

The more frantic they had become, the less they enforced behavioral standards.  Over time, narcissism, cranky complaining, criticism, whining, demanding, bullying, emotional drama, back-stabbing, sabotage, negativity, hostility, cliques, cyberbullying, personal vendettas, turf fights, entitlement, claims of unhappiness and poor morale, control-freaks, toxic nastiness, gossip, disruptive actions and lying increased.  These behaviors are the typical signs of problems.

When standards slid, the best people left because they got tired of being forced to work with jerks who prevented success.  And they hated being paid the same as jerks.

Dick and Harry started demanding excellence from themselves.  Before they could fix problem employees, they had to fix themselves.

To let their staff know that there would be a new culture of high performance and accountability, they started an internal campaign: “Keep the best, churn the rest.”  To show that wasn’t a punitive exercise or mass downsizing, the slogan meant four things:

• They began at the top.  If they didn’t perform, they’d leave because they weren’t worthy of leading the company.
• Fixing managerial problems was urgent because problems at the top cost more.  One problem manager caused more damage than one problem employee.
• “Keep” meant increasing rewards because each quality worker is worth more than two jerks.
• “The best” meant competent, productive employees, not just shooting stars.

Although Dick and Harry needed to reward good performers, they also needed to demand high quality and accountability at all levels. That meant honest evaluations, with rewards and consequences.  They knew they had to stop bullying.

Dick and Harry didn’t expect a quick fix.  And there wasn’t one.  During the next 18 months, they turned over about 35 percent of their staff, including managers.  But they stuck to their plan. They walked the walk and talked the talk.

The company turned around.  The more they kept the best, the easier it became to churn the rest.  At all levels, unmotivated or incompetent people were gone.

High standards protect everyone from unprofessional behavior.  Learn what you can do to eliminate the high cost of low attitudes, behavior and performance.

All tactics are situational.  Expert coaching and consulting can help you create and implement a plan that fits you and your organization.

Don't let bullies create a hostile workplace

Work bullies can ruin a culture, destroy productivity and make your life – and the lives of everyone else they target – miserable. And it’s not just bullying bosses who are the problem.  Co-workers and employees also use bullying behavior that creates a hostile workplace.

Excluding lethal weapons, here are the top dozen techniques bullies use to ruin a workplace.

To read the rest of this article from the Dallas Business Journal, see: Don’t let bullies create a hostile workplace http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/06/09/smallb3.html

Most bullies use combinations of these methods.  The relentless application of these harassing, abusive techniques reinforces humiliation, pain and fear.  Cliques and mobs rapidly form. Bullying can make the targets feel helpless and situations seem hopeless.

These methods cause increased hostility, tension, selfishness, turf wars, sick leave, stress-related disabilities, turn over and legal actions.  People become isolated, do busy work with no important results and waste huge chunks of time talking about the latest episodes of bullying.

Effort is diffused instead of aligned.  Teamwork, productivity, responsibility, efficiency, creativity and taking reasonable risks are decreased.  Promotions are based on sucking up to the most difficult and nasty people, not on merit.  The best people leave as soon as they can.

Your operational system may look wonderful on paper, but the wrong people in the wrong culture can always find ways to thwart it.  Your pipeline leaks money and profits plummet.

A common mistake in dealing with repeated bullying is to spend much too much time and effort trying to educate, explain, understand, accept, forgive, beg, bribe, ignore, reason with or appease them.  These approaches won’t convert dedicated bullies into reasonable, civil and professional people. These approaches only stop people who aren’t really bullies, but have behaved badly one time.

During the time well-meaning or conflict-avoidant supervisors, human resource and civil rights professionals are trying these techniques to educate or rehabilitate bullies, they’re actually victimizing everyone else in the organization.  The monetary and emotional cost of tolerating or enabling bullies can be astronomical.

Determined bullies don’t take your understanding and acquiescing as kindness. They take your giving in as weakness and an invitation to abuse you more.  Bullies bully repeatedly and without real remorse.  They might appear to apologize sincerely, but you should accept only behavioral change, not good acting.

The best way to stop a bully is to stand up to them.  Expose and isolate them.  Or catch them doing something outrageous or illegal in front of witnesses.  Stopping them and having serious consequences for repetitions are also the greatest stimuli for change.

Learn what you can do to eliminate the high cost of hostile attitudes, behavior and performance.

All tactics are situational.  Expert coaching and consulting can help you create and implement a plan that fits you and your organization.

Avoid litigation that will keep you awake at night

In her column in the East Bay Business Times, “Legal Report: Avoid litigation that will keep you awake at night,” Barbara Grady used my expertise in the section on handling bullies in the workplace. To read this section of the article, click here Legal report: Avoid litigation that will keep you awake at night

East Bay Business Times, Friday, October 10, 2008 - by Barbara Grady

There are more than a few things that can keep employers awake at night these days. But with a bit of advice from East Bay legal experts, you can take steps to avoid some of these problems, whether it is bullies in the workplace, mistakenly hiring a felon or dealing with employees who spread trade secrets. The five areas covered in this Legal Report focusing on avoiding litigation can be legal quagmires for employers, because laws governing them are ever-changing or have not been well established.

Handling bullies in the workplace Too bad not every child learns that bullying is unacceptable. Instead, some grow up to be bullies. In fact, adults bullying co-workers and subordinates in the workplace “is a tremendous problem,” occurring in at least half of all employment places, says Ben Leichtling of the consulting firm Leichtling and Associates, LLC in Denver and author of “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up” and other books on the workplace.

In times of economic stress – like now – belligerent behavior can surface in seemingly even-keeled individuals. So companies need to watch for tensions among employees and incidents of bullying as the nation rides through the current economic rough patch.

If they don’t, warns attorney Darci Burrell of the Oakland law firm Boxer Gerson LLP, they could be liable for workers’ compensation claims or harassment claims from victims who endured the bullying. Moreover, employers stand to lose in productivity, workplace morale and eventually profits, Leichtling said.

“It might not be illegal for employers to ignore bullying, but it is not smart,” Burrell said.

Indeed, U.S. Department of Labor studies have quantified productivity loss from bullying, while the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety found in a survey that one-quarter of public and private workplaces have experienced bullying in the workplace.

There are no federal or state statutes forbidding bullying in the workplace, however, so how do you deal with it?

In the absence of codified law forbidding bullying, Leichtling and Burrell both recommend that employers establish in-house rules that state what behavior is acceptable and what is not acceptable – and then training people in those policies.

“Generally having policies in place, a good comprehensive policy in place that tells employees what kind of conduct is prohibited and tells people what to do if that policy is violated is what works. The problem is lots of companies have policies, but they don’t train their people in those policies,” Burrell said.

Leichtling in his consulting work with companies always recommends that they specify in writing what behaviors are expected and what are not accepted, and then set up a process for documenting behaviors that are in violation.

“They have to be specific, like no throwing things, so they can be observed and documented. And they have to be behaviors, not attitudes, because you can’t document attitudes. You can document James yelling and screaming on such and such a date,” Leichtling said.

“Documentation must be practiced across the board, as part of performance evaluations, so one person does not feel singled out or the target of discrimination,” Leichtling said.

Bullying can include speaking in degrading terms to a co-worker or subordinate, threatening, and even less-overt behavior like repeated gossiping about one person, Leichtling said. Once documentation occurs and builds – as it usually does because bullies repeat their behavior – the offending bully usually chooses to leave, Leichtling said, because he or she can’t stand the negative limelight. Problem solved.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Top ten ways to create a hostile workplace

Bullies at work can ruin a culture, destroy productivity and make your life miserable.  Many people focus only on bullying bosses, but I’ve seen just as many coworkers and employees use these bullying methods as I have managers and supervisors.  Before you read the top ten I’ve seen, please think for a moment.  What bullying methods used by whom, have you seen most? Have you seen these techniques ruining your workplace?

1. Yelling, physical threats (overt or subtle) and personal attacks.
2. Verbal abuse, emotional intimidation, personal insults and attacks (in private and in public).  Put-downs and humiliating, demeaning, rude, cruel, insulting, mocking and embarrassing comments.  False accusations (especially outrageous), character assassination.
3. Harassing based on race, religion, gender and physical attributes.  Sexual contact, lewd suggestions, name-calling, teasing and personal jokes (sometimes overtly nasty, or threatening or sometimes given with laughter as in, “I was just kidding” in order to make it hard for you to fight back.
4. Backstabbing, spreading rumors and gossip, manipulating, lying, distorting, evading, hypocrisy and exposing your problems and mistakes.
5. Taking the credit; spreading the blame.  Withholding information and then cutting you down for not knowing or for failing.
6. Anonymous attacks and cyber-bullying – flaming e-mails and porn.  Invading your personal space and privacy – rummaging through your desk, listening to phone calls, asking extremely personal questions, eating your food.
7. Hypersensitive, over-reactions, throwing tantrums (drama queens) – so you walk on egg shells, back off in order to avoid a scene, or beg forgiveness as if you really did something wrong.
8. Dishonest evaluations – praising and promoting favorites, giving slackers good evaluations and destroying careers of people the bully doesn’t like.
9. Demeaning at meetings – interrupting, ignoring, laughing, non-verbal comments behind your back (rude noises, body language, facial gestures, answering phone, working on computer).
10. Forming cliques and ganging up.  Turf wars about budgets, hiring, copiers and coffee machines.

Most bullies use combinations of these methods.

We’ve all seen the effects of bullies and the hostile workplace they create.  There’s increased hostility, tension, selfishness, turf wars, sick leave, stress related disabilities, turn over and legal actions.  People become isolated, do busy work with no important results and waste huge chunks of time talking about the latest episodes.  Effort is diffused instead of aligned.  Promotions are based on sucking up to the most difficult and nasty people, not on merit.

Teamwork, productivity, responsibility, efficiency, creativity and taking reasonable risks are decreased.  The best people leave as soon as they can.

The wrong people or the wrong culture can always find ways to destroy the best operational systems. Your pipeline will leak money and your profits will plummet.

I’ll go into solutions in future posts, but I want to mention one frequently used tactic that does not work to stop dedicated bullies.  It’s based on the false assumption that if we – educate, explain, understand, reason, show the consequences, accept, forgive or make enough attempts to satisfy bullies – then they will become reasonable, civil, professional, friendly and good to work with.  That approach only stops people who are not really bullies, but have forgotten themselves one time and behaved badly.

Determined bullies don’t take your acquiescence as kindness.  They take your giving in as weakness and an invitation to grab for more.  Bullies bully repeatedly and without real remorse.  You won’t get a sincere apology from them.  A sincere apology doesn’t mean anything about how they look.  It means that they change and stop bullying.

I’d like to hear your horror or success stories.