Why smart teams fail to perform (and how to lead them to success)

Usain Bolt is the current 100m world record holder. A nine-time gold medal holder, Bolt broke the world record in 2009, running the 100m race in 9.58 seconds with a top speed of 27.8 miles per hour. It’s no mystery why he’s referred to by many as the “fastest man alive”. In 2017 however, in what was known to be Bolt’s final race, he was unable to even finish same 100m distance. Approximately halfway through his leg of a 4 x 100m relay, Bolt fell to the track, visibly in pain, due to an injury he later attributed to a torn hamstring.

For most of us, this is not a surprise. Recognizing hamstrings important to sprinting, it seems natural that performance would be compromised by a tear, even for an elite athlete such as Usain Bolt. So, why are we surprised when an employee’s work is compromised when he is in a bad mental or emotional state? Okay – I can actually hear some of you rolling your eyes but I assure you, it’s the same. Let’s talk brain function.

Jobs today depend mostly on a person’s cognitive capabilities and/or emotional intelligence. Sales professionals, customer service reps, teachers, technicians, accounting, administrative work….success is contingent on a person’s ability to reason, apply logic, interact with others, and innovate. And our ability to perform these functions is controlled by our mind. As a rather small person with a historically weak immune system, this is great for me as physically (I’m not exactly winning any strongman competitions or powerlifting championships). While my strength and endurance may be limited by my genetics and stature, learning new skills and managing my emotions to boost mindset is much more my speed. Unfortunately though, threats to mindset are less recognizable than physical threats as they originate in our own beliefs and perceptions. Unlike Bolt, I won’t fall to the ground, writhing in pain when I’m feeling a down. Since 1999, Harvard Business Professor, Dr. Amy Edmonson, has researched psychological safety’s impact on teams. Psychological safety, a shared belief within a team that no one will be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes, is popular with high-performing teams. Google, in their 2015 Project Aristotle study, confirmed psychological safety’s importance on work – finding it to be the #1 driver of high-performing teams. So, if a belief, a mindset is conducive to good work, how can mindset hinder work?

A Threat to Mindset is a Threat to Business

In the story of mindset, there is only one bad guy. That bad guy is stress. Stress impairs cognitive function and changes us on a biochemical level. According to the Mayo Clinic, chronic stress impacts us physically, emotionally, and behaviorally (Fig 1).

Fig 1: Mayo Clinic Signs of Chronic Stress — Fig 1: Common effects of stress by the Mayo Clinic staff article, “Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior”

Whether stress is due to personal reasons or work-related, when we’re in a stressful state, it’s bad, for us individually and our businesses. We make mistakes and errors that we typically wouldn’t. Due to cognitive biases, interactions with colleagues and managers can easily be filtered through a lens of negativity. Comments that would normally seem harmless appear aggressive and actions seem calculated. We can’t focus and struggle to stay motivated. We feel overwhelmed and isolate ourselves, withdrawing from our teammates, friends, and even families, unaware we’re going further into the perception that is dragging down our mindset. In a poor mindset, we suffer and so does our work. It should not be assumed, but expected that any work done with compromised mindset will surely pale in comparison to work performed by the same team or individual in an optimal mindset.

Optimizing Mindset

The goal, for any leader, is to maximize mindset. While potential will always vary person-to-person, optimizing mindset helps leaders from wondering, is it them or is it me? Because leaders should be hiring smart, competent people, understanding how to cultivate mindset will be what separates the managers from leaders in the future of work. Creating a climate in which employees work collaboratively and perform their best comes down to 4 key points:

Prioritize team mindset. Improving or maintaining a positive team mindset should come first. Before starting a project or work for the day, assess current and collective team mind set against mindset necessary for work to be valuable.
Inspire employees to beware and accountable for their own mindset. Get employees out of a reactive state of mind by encouraging them and giving pause for self-reflection. How are they feeling today? What needs to change for them to be in a better mindset, conducive to great work?
Use transparency to encourage trust & collaboration. Transparency empowers a team with to solve problems, creatively. Through collaborating on solving a problem, people feel they belong, a valuable component of team psychological safety.
Speak with purpose. What happens when the team doesn’t show up in a good mindset? When people fail to be aware of their state of mind and work in autopilot? Individually we disconnect, teams underperform, companies lose money, and customers churn. Speaking with purpose prevents the team from confusing activity with results.

Richard Weisman, a Professor with Hertfordshire University in 1993 began to investigate the concept of luck. Over a 10-year study of hundreds of exceptionally lucky and unlucky people, he determined “lucky” people actually generate their own good fortune via four basic principles: 1) they are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, 2) they listen to their intuition, 3) they have positive expectations, and 4) using resilience they transform bad luck into good. In short, luck is neither a gift or a curse, but a mindset. Positive mindset teams search for opportunities to improve and succeed. Negative mindset teams dwell on mistakes and anticipate losses. Which employee mindset is working for you?

Does your team have high-performing potential? Take the free psychological safety assessment here.

December 17, 2019December 18, 2019

Employee Experience Basics Every Leader Should Know

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

What experiences have made you who you are today? Whether good or bad, experiences can change us. An event may change the way we see a person, or the world entirely. Being part of or witnessing an incident can trigger intense chemical responses within us of pleasure or pain. Our perception and response to an occurrence transforms a neutral event to a life-altering experience. In recent years we’ve applied this understanding to our workplaces, resulting in the term employee experience, often referred to as EX.

What is the definition of employee experience?

Employee experience is an all-encompassing term used to describe an employee’s perception and observations regarding the collective events, interactions, and benefits he/she undergoes as part of the journey in working for a company. Unlike many definitions that define the experience as simply a person’s journey working for an organization, the word experience implies the personal and emotional response to potentially neutral events. While workplace events and communications take place in an office or around an employee, it’s an employee’s perception and/or interpretation of these events that make for his/her unique experience.

How is employee experience different from employee engagement?

The term employee engagement has been around for several years. Engaged employees are defined as physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and indicate alignment with the purpose of the company (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003). By this definition, employee engagement is a positive state of mind or mindset held by employees. Research suggests companies with high employee engagement are more profitable, more productive, have higher sales, are safer, have lower turnover, and have lower employee absenteeism. Whereas the term employee engagement is used to describe how connected an employee feels to his/her work and company, the term employee experience is used to describe an employee’s perception of a collection of events and exchanges related to his/her working for the company. How much a person feels connected to or disconnected from their work may be a result of a positive or negative employee experience. So, while a high level of engagement may be the goal, it is achieved by strategically improving different aspects of the employee experience. Many metrics may be used to assess how positive or negative a company’s employee experience is. Employee engagement is just one of these metrics used.

How is a company’s employee experience measured?

The ultimate goal of a positive employee experience is a healthy business. So, when a company fails to perform successfully, it is often a sign of a misaligned or even poor employee experience. Because of this, metrics used to assess a company’s operational and financial performance such as revenue, shrinkage, customer retention, and productivity also serve as valuable methods of measuring a company’s employee experience.

A company’s workforce data such as employee turnover, retention, absenteeism, and overtime per employee rates are also indicators of an effective or ineffective employee experience as these datapoints are reflective of employee behaviors driven by their experience. The two most popular methods for evaluating a company’s employee experience are employee engagement, as explained previously, and the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). The eNPS system was born out of the customer loyalty metric, Net Promoter Score (NPS), first recognized by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company in 2003. Through research, Reichheld and the Bain team found customers responding positively to the question, “what is the likelihood you would refer Company X to a friend or colleague”, were very likely to demonstrate positive buying behaviors (rebuying, referring new customers, and spend more). It was later as the concept of the internal customer (employees) grew that industry and leaders began applying the model internally giving way to the eNPS, asking employees the question, “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend the Company as a (good) place to work?”. Higher eNPS ratings reflect more employee loyalty, higher employee satisfaction, and suggest a more engaged workforce. While generally this is a metric intended for internal use only, not designed for benchmarking, scores can range from -100 to +100 and generally scores in the 10-30 range are considered good, and 50+ considered excellent.

What can a company do to improve its employee experience?

To improve a company’s employee experience is to improve an employee’s perception of how the company rewards, recognizes, motivates, drives, communicates with, hires, terminates, values, supports, and develops its employees. While an eNPS score can provide an overview of how an employee feels about and perceives the company, an eNPS rating does not identify why. To improve the employee experience it is then important to understand both the employee’s overview of the company AND the what led to this perception. For this reason, it is best to ask employees to rate not only their overall perception of the company (eNPS) but also ask their outlook as it relates to attributes of the employee experience (recognition, communication, safety, brand, management engagement, employee engagement, culture, compensation & benefits, and business viability). With this data, companies can decipher what employees like and dislike about their interactions with the company as well as how heavily the different aspects of the employee experience impact their unique company culture. For example, a media company had poor employee ratings around compensation and benefits. Upon further examination however, compensation & benefit ratings had very little impact on whether an employee felt positively or negatively about the company’s employee experience (no correlation between comp & benefit ratings and eNPS ratings). Instead, recognition (how employees feel rewarded for outstanding performance) and brand pride (whether employees are proud to work for the company and of the company’s impact to the industry/community) were the most influential attributes to a positive employee experience. With this realization, the company chose to strategically invest allotted time and budget to people initiatives around recognition and employee-brand alignment, appreciating the value employees place on these aspects of their relationship with the company. These insights allowed the company to create a much more thoughtful and unique experience for employees that resonates with its culture and helps deliver better business results.

Just as today we each are a culmination of our past individual experiences, our current workplace cultures are a reflection of our collective employee experiences. Experiences are not based on logic. We often don’t even realize what historical work-related events led to the perceptions we hold so firmly today. By asking concise, reflective questions in a strategic way, we shift the employee experience from habitual to intentional. Every workplace has an employee experience leading somewhere. Where is your current employee experience leading you?

Learn more about surveys to capture your eNPS score and identify the critical attributes to your employee experience.

December 9, 2019December 18, 2019

Bringing Value to Employee Reviews

Are you gearing up for annual employee reviews? And are you dreading it? If you’ve answered “yes” to these questions, know you are not alone. A 2018 WorldatWork survey shows 94% of companies conduct formal employee reviews annually – and a separate study suggests we hate them. 95% of managers surveyed are dissatisfied are with the process and nearly 90% of HR executives feel results are inaccurate. A Gallup survey shows only 14% of employees feel performance reviews inspire them to improve. So, if it’s so awful, should we just chuck the review process all together? No. Although there is frustration on all sides of the current traditional process, employees who have had a review in the past year are more engaged in their work than employees who haven’t. Surprisingly, 82% of employees say they value receiving feedback (positive and negative) with 65% of employees wanting more feedback. So rather than abandoning performance reviews entirely, here are the three ways to elevate your culture and your business by simply fixing what’s broken with our current approach to employee reviews.

1. Increase the frequency.

Seems counterintuitive right? Managers, HR professionals, and employees dread them, so do them MORE? Much of what seems to be broken is that we are only talking about performance once per year. A Gallup poll shows only 15% of employees working for a manager who does not meet with them regularly are engaged. Consider this, what if you set an intention on January 1^st to lose 15 pounds by December 31^st? Then, come the morning of December 31^st you weigh yourself – for the first time since setting the intention nearly a year earlier and you instead gained five pounds. How would you feel? How would it have been different had you known in September that you were further away from your goal that in January? You could’ve chosen to do something about it – but now that you waited the entire year, you’ve really painted yourself into a corner of disappointment. Waiting to talk about employee performance is the same. No one works their butts off only to have it all come crashing down when it’s too late. Frequent, less formal reviews, often referred to as check-ins, allow employees some time for course correction and leaders the opportunity to evaluate employee goals and performance as needs of the business change. Check-ins also allow for more trust to be established between employees and managers. Social psychology identifies two types of trust, cognitive – trust based on what you know about someone, and affective – trust based on emotional connection and closeness. It’s through frequent interaction with another that we develop affective trust in another – so long as both parties act in a trustworthy way of course.

2. Care

Recently there has been a lot of talk, and some significant research on what makes a good boss. Top traits include being a good coach, helping employees achieve their professional goals, and caring about employee success & well-being. A Harvard study of 3,200 employees found employees describing their culture as caring, had higher levels of satisfaction and teamwork, less absenteeism, and better company performance. What this means from an employee appraisal or check-in standpoint is – performance discussions should serve as a time to either support or recognize an employee depending on how that employee is doing. Performance reviews – whether formal or informal – are not simply a time to report back performance data. If an employee isn’t performing, work with the employee to identify why he/she is struggling – and how to fix it! If an employee is performing above expectations, recognize the employee for a job well done. Get to know about what is important to employees – what they love and dislike about their work. Caring about employee success will not only make for more valuable reviews and check-ins but also make for a more open and honest relationship. What managers did you have that cared about your happiness and success? How did you choose to show up for them each day? Our employees are no different. Start each employee check-in by asking how they are doing. Did they recently go on vacation? Is his son graduating high school? Did she get a new car? Did she have a big sale? Is it his busy time of year? Start each check-in building rapport, reinforcing you care. “I know you are wanting to spend every minute with your son before he heads off to college, so let’s talk about what you have on your plate and make sure we’re streamlining everything as much as possible to get you out early on Fridays.” Empathizing with the employee and offering support to get work done in a way that benefits you both is highly effective.

3. Collaborate on goals

The happiest and most valuable employees are the employees that understand how their work translates to company success. They get it. Without this understanding, an employee’s manager is no longer a manager but a babysitter or a person that barks orders. But leaders are responsible for exposing employees to this mindset, by explaining company initiatives and describing how the employee’s work aligns to those initiatives. For this reason, effective employee reviews happen when employees and managers collaborate on employee goals. With a basic understanding of what the company aims to achieve for the month, quarter, year, or whatever timeframe, encourage employees to create their own goals for the period. Aside from helping employees get more engaged in the business, there are also some psychological benefits. Research shows that when we create our own goals, the emotional and strategic parts of the brain work together to plan for and envision the goal, turning our attention away from less productive thoughts and events that aren’t aligned to our goals. When an employee then creates his or her own goal that a leader then reviews and/or tweaks, the employee is more emotionally and mentally committed to the goal that if we as leaders were to just prescribe them goals. When we encourage employees to create specific challenging goals, studies show these difficult goals will actually lead to higher performance than easy goals (such as “do your best), or no goals at all. Because mindset is critical to achieving any goal – regardless of it being personal or professional, this step is key to making a valuable performance discussion.

Like any interaction with employees, it’s more valuable to both parties when it’s an exchange, not one-way feedback. Historically, performance appraisals were one-way discussions in which a manager advises each employee of how well or poorly he/she performed over the year. Is it any wonder we all dread this process? By implementing these three simple strategies in your performance management process, you solve for a healthier and more effective feedback loop in which leaders work with employees to achieve success. More successful companies start with more successful people and feedback paves the way.

Does your performance management process need a boost? Learn more about our tools from a Culture Engineer.

December 4, 2019

Reducing Turnover with Employee Exit Interview Data

I am a self-admitted feedback enthusiast, mainly because I put a high value on exerted energy. Without feedback, I believe energy is instead spent frivolously in a manner that resembles “guessing”. Feedback is such a huge part of my foundation and every fiber of my being that when my business coach advised me to develop a marketing strategy around imagined behaviors of my target audience, I stopped working with said coach that day. So, it goes without saying that employee feedback and analytics are at the foundation of every Culture Engineered strategy. Although workforce analytics are somewhat new in the world of HR, exit interviews are perhaps the most popular and widely used employee feedback tools used in business. And it’s with a heavy heart that I say, exit interview data sucks.

Not all data is valuable.

In a Payscale study of over 38,000 people, 25% of participants indicated higher pay as their primary reason they sought out new employment, making it the #1 reason people quit. When the same participants were asked however why they were attracted to their new role with the new company, only 16% indicated “better pay”, making it the #3 reason to accept a new position. The #1 reason was “the opportunity to do more meaningful work” at 27%. How is it then possible that a person would, in a single move, choose to leave a job for one reason only to then accept a new job for an entirely separate and unrelated reason? There is an answer – but you’re not going to like it. It doesn’t make sense because how we make decisions is complex, depending much more on our emotions than on logic. Logically, if 25% of people quit due to low pay, 25% of people would then seek out a job for better pay. We at Culture Engineered also conduct exit interviews and find more than 90% of those surveyed initially indicate low pay as their primary reason for resigning. Through exit interview analysis however, we find the actual percentage of resignations due to pay dissatisfaction to be closer to 10%, most of which are shortly following an annual appraisal or assuming additional responsibilities. It’s usually a combination of reasons an employee chooses to quit. We refer to these internal factors as push factors. Similarly, it’s often a combination of reasons we are attracted to a new opportunity, external factors we refer to as pull factors. The key to collecting valuable data from an exit interview is to ask valuable questions. Ask about attributes of the employee experiences specifically to understand the person’s feelings about pay & benefits, recognition, etc. Most importantly though – find out what event triggered the person’s decision to leave the company. This is critical. Like any relationship, we accept and tolerate certain flaws or frustrations. But then one day the straw breaks the proverbial camel’s back and we’re done. Our relationships with work are no different. Employees are often unaware of what causes them to look for start looking for jobs, or respond to a call from a recruiter. And even if a person is aware of the event that prompted their job search, he/she will often avoid sharing the details of the event in an exit interview because it is a painful or sometimes humiliating moment. Getting exiting individuals to open up about this point of no return event is critical and takes practice and rapport. But it’s worth it. By learning about this moment your employee shifts from an “us” to a “them” mindset, deciding to separate from the company they once celebrated joining will give you the insights you need to repair and preserve your company culture’s foundation.

Getting clear on purpose

In a study of 210 companies in 33 industries, 157 had a practice of conducting exit interviews; however only 50 were able to provide even one example of how exit interview data was being used in their business. Although unclear why data was collected but not used, it begs the question what is the purpose of exit interview data? Data alone solves nothing. Exit interviews like so many employer practices have become habitual, making it a harmful practice. Each time we as leaders ask for employee feedback, we are asking employees to collaborate with us. This holds true for performance discussions and surveys. Have you ever had someone ask your opinion only to do the complete opposite of what you recommend or suggest? Like me, the thought, “then why even ask me!” likely crept into your mind. Now imagine that person is asking your opinion on something that actually impacts your life, like your job and workplace. If I do this enough, asking for your opinion on parts of your life that I control only to then do what I feel is best without considering your suggestions, wouldn’t you just stop sharing your thoughts with me? Would you feel like I valued your opinions or your time? Is it possible you may even be more hurt than if I hadn’t asked at all? If you’re being honest here, the answer is yes. It feels terrible when someone invites you into a conversation and exercise only to then actively reject you. This is the same feeling employees develop when we ask for feedback and discard it without ever really giving it consideration. So, before conducting one more exit interview, or using any feedback tool, consider what it is you intend to do with the information. Are you asking to identify any legal risks associated with difficult employees exiting your organization? Is your company interested in identifying training needs for frontline managers using exit interview data related to management engagement? Or are you using exit interviews as an early warning detection of culture issues lurking below the surface? There is no wrong answer, so long as you have an answer. Collecting it because it’s what you’ve always done is not an answer. Attrition is expensive and one of the best ways to identify issues driving attrition in your workplace is analyzing exit interview data. Simply collecting this data alone though solves nothing and may actually be making matters worse.

The estimated cost of employee turnover ranges from 16% annual salary for lower paying jobs, all the way to 213% annual salary for highly paid executives, making exit interview data very appealing. But, it’s only when we take the time to ensure we’re gathering quality data that helps to solve an identified problem that data serves as a feedback tool. Why are people quitting your company? The answer to this question isn’t the end. The answer is where the work begins. Do you have the energy to solve for the problems your data reveals?

Want actionable insights to keep your best employees? Click here.

November 25, 2019

Giving Thanks: The Power of Employee Recognition

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. —Voltaire

Have you ever gotten a really good thank you note? The kind that is so good, you feel you need to send a thank you note for the thank you note? How likely you are to help that person again? I am HUGE on thank yous, particularly after I’ve worked hard for someone. Employee recognition is one of the 10 attributes I expect a lot of those that report to me and have always put a substantial amount of effort in understanding what makes them feel valued and recognizing them in the way they feel appreciated. Sometimes it’s through professional development, sometimes through public praise, and others monetary recognition. So, when I learned about half of leaders participating in a recent survey answered they avoid giving positive feedback (ie saying thank you or good job), I considered why this might be. I came down to two reasons: 1) leaders are failing to see the value and ROI of employee recognition, or 2) leaders aren’t recognizing employees in a way that resonates. Fortunately there is a significant amount of research on both topics. Here we speak to the importance of employee recognition and how to do it.

Benefits of employee recognition and appreciation

Acknowledgment

How do you work when you feel recognized and appreciated versus not? Chances are, your answer reflects what research has found on this topic. In a SHRM survey, 48% of participating employees reported that management’s recognition of employee job performance was very important to their job satisfaction. It’s no surprise then that separate research shows employees who do not feel adequately recognized are twice as likely to say they’ll quit in the next year. Because recognition is one of Culture Engineered’s ten attributes of the employee experience, we too show a significant correlation in most industries and roles between recognition and a positive employee experience. Part of the reason, I believe, is due to our need as humans to been seen. We have a desire to belong and part of that belonging is validated when we are acknowledged. A study out of MIT randomly assigned students into three groups – acknowledged, ignored, shredded. All students were given the mundane task of reviewing sheets of paper with random sequences of letters, circling pairs of duplicate letters appearing on each page. Upon completing each page, they would then turn it into a person facilitating the study who, as the name suggests, either acknowledged, ignored, or shredded the page. Students were paid 50 cents for their first submitted page and asked if they would then complete another page for five cents less, each following page worth 5 cents less than the previously submitted page, until payment was reduced to zero (ie 45 cents, then 40 cents, then 35 cents….5 cents, zero). Participants were able to quit at any point of their choosing, OR continue until payment for each page was reduced to $0.00. Which group do you think completed more pages? The acknowledged group! Contradictory to predictions made by researchers who anticipated the ignored and shredded groups would outperform the acknowledged group on account of there being such a low risk of cheating in these groups in particular, the acknowledged group outperformed the ignored and shredded groups by nearly 1.5 times. The only difference? Acknowledgment by the facilitator as the subject handed in his/her work. No “thank you”, “good job”, nor did the facilitator even review the page. Brief eye contact in this case produced a significant result where people were willing to work for the most basic reward – human connection.

Social worth

How do you get an employee engaged in their role? One of the most frustrating things I hear from leaders is around people “going through the motions” of a job. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology conducted by researchers Adam Grant and Francesca Gino suggests gratitude may be the key to keeping employees engaged in even the jobs most prone to burnout – fundraising. In the study fundraisers were randomly assigned to one of two groups. All conditions were the same except the director of annual giving visited the test “gratitude” group, to thank the fundraisers for their work whereas the control group was not met with or “thanked”. Over the course of a week, the gratitude group, having been thanked by the director, made 50% more calls than the control group having worked without thanks. Consider those employees you feel have checked out of their jobs and those who approach their day’s work with the desire to succeed. It’s only fair to assume you express more gratitude with employee working hard to drive your business and company forward. But which came first – their drive or your words of gratitude? Could a simple thanks be all the other employee needs to turn it around?

Employee recognition that resonates

Whose thanks matters most?

Historically, the higher rank the person praising you, the higher the perceived value the praise. As our workplaces and society shift from placing a high value on authority to placing a high value on authenticity however, organizational hierarchy’s importance is not as important as it once was when it comes to employee recognition. Data shows 24% of employees feel recognition is most memorable when it comes from the CEO, while 28% of employees feels it’s most memorable coming from the employee’s direct manager. 9% indicated peer-recognition is most notable. If you wish to recognize an employee’s performance, the person recognizing the employee should understand the value of the employee’s contributions, capable of convincingly explaining the importance of the employee’s work. If it’s recognizing an employee’s tenure or dedication to values, the person recognizing the employee should be a person that works closely with the employee, familiar with his/her journey and character. Employee recognition is not transactional. Even a “thank you” will mean more from a person that is sincere. Have you ever received a certificate with your name misspelled? Have you had an executive leader congratulate you on a sale you didn’t make? Being recognized for the wrong thing can sometimes feel worse than not being recognized at all. So, to avoid this from happening, make sure appreciation and recognition is coming from someone “in the know”. All leaders should be looking to catch employees doing something right as often as possible.

How often?

How often leaders recognize employees will often depend on how the leader defines recognition. Do you consider saying “thank you”, recognition? What about one-on-ones with employees? Or performance reviews? According to Gallup’s Chief Scientist, we should praise employees frequently – weekly or even daily. Similar to my feelings on the superficiality of romantic gestures on Valentine’s Day, recognition seems to resonate less with employees in the traditional and formal annual review where feedback is obligatory. Instead, making appreciation and praise a part of your commitment to ongoing feedback and harnessing relationships proves to be a more sustainable and effective approach to employee recognition. If you are not in the habit of regularly recognizing employee performance, create the habit by scheduling time each week to recognize your employees. If you oversee leaders, make it a part of their weekly reporting that they meet with employees to recognize their work. You do not need to schedule it in the employee’s work calendar (ie, “Kelly’s employee recognition time”). Instead schedule the time for yourself, as a leader, to reflect on the good work each of your employees have done in the past week. Then communicate your appreciate for that good work to that employee. You will be amazed in just a few weeks how you will grow to be a more grateful leader and your employees will transform into more appreciative contributors.

What to say

Think back to that great “thank you” note you received. What made it great? Have you ever received a thank you note that said, thanks for your generous gift. I have, and I immediately wished I had been less generous! The best thank yous are specific and timely. The thank you note you thought of likely thanked you specifically for the gift you gave the person and shared what that gift meant to them. If you gifted them money – they may have even told you what they used it for. If you gave them tickets to an event, they may have even included a picture of them at the event having the greatest time ever! When you choose to say thank you or recognize someone for their great work, generosity, amazing character, it’s important to articulate two things: the behavior or action you appreciate (specific), and what that behavior or action means to you (value) as an individual or to the department, organization, etc. Remember the acknowledgment example we talked about earlier? It’s not enough to say, you do great work or I appreciate your stellar attendance. Here are some recognition and appreciation examples using the specific and value criteria:

Congratulations on exceeding your goal this month! Because you hit your goal, we were able to meet our team goal – despite some other team members falling short of their targets. Thank you for your willingness to give it your all, day in and day out. You are an inspiration to me as well as the team and we are grateful for the energy and positivity you bring each day.

Thank you for being such a reliable part of our team. I know life is demanding of your time and energy; however, your stellar attendance and amazing consistent focus while at work have such a great impact on me and all those around you. When you commit to something, I never doubt for a minute that you will achieve it. Thank you for being such a great example of determination and integrity to me an all those around you.

How would you work differently if you were given this feedback? We all want to be seen and acknowledged. We all want to be of value. It’s when we aren’t acknowledged and valued that we stop trying and sometimes apply our energy toward destructive behaviors. Research shows us the historical practices of micromanaging and manipulating employees does not work. Employees will not change until we as leaders change. Will you rise to the challenge?

November 21, 2019May 18, 2020

A punch to the face taught me to fight. Why a culture unafraid of failure always wins.

I was 16 and it was my first real sparring match. Although I started karate when I was 13, I had braces. For safety reasons, we weren’t allowed to spar with braces, so my training in sparring was delayed, significantly. I was three years behind everyone else my age and I was TERRIFIED of being punched in the face. Thinking back now, I’m not sure if I was more afraid of the pain or crying in front of everyone like a baby. To make things worse – I’d always been afraid of ending up with a nose like my dad and knew having it broken in a fight would not help my situation. This was the day I learned how to fight…not because of any tip, trick, move, or skill. On this day, I was punched square in the nose, hard. A loss I still reflect on often, this is the day, the pivotal moment, that led me to go onto become the #2 ranked female collegiate fighter in the nation just three years later.

Master Shojiro Koyama, was very traditional. He disagreed with the decision to let women compete years before I walked into his dojo and was known to pair up young, petite female students with much larger and stronger male students in sparring exercises. We were encouraged to challenge one another physically, it was practice after all. But, we were discouraged from striking with full physical strength. I was competing by the time I started training with M. Koyama but only in kata. In class he would coach me in sparring exercises, frustrated by my over-thinking and apparent lack of instinct. “No thinking!” he shouted at me repeatedly one day, his way of trying to get me out of my own head. Over and over he would tell me not to flinch and to counter immediately after blocking an attack. But, all I could do was freeze and close my eyes. I was scared. I had never been hit in the face before and was paralyzed by fear at even the thought of it! So, the day I had my braces off I was filled with emotion. I had braces for FOUR YEARS, so thoughts of eating corn on the cob or biting into the candy apples at the state fair later that year were really exciting. Realizing I would now need to spar with others who appeared unafraid of a broken nose was terrifying. I continued to struggle in practice but the true horror set in the day of my first competitive fight. Her name was Samantha – and she was good. I knew her from previous competitions and she was a much better and more confident fighter. I was toast. I remember the punch coming at my face and I closed my eyes, as I sadly had done EVERY time in practice. Those I trained with were shouting from the sidelines as Master Koyama had shouted at me in practice, but I didn’t hear them. All I could do was brace myself for the inevitable punch that was now too far along to block. Boom! I knew she hit me because when I opened my eyes, they were watering. Oddly enough, all that I could think of was not to let the ref see my eyes watering or she, my opponent, would get a point! Not sure why I thought the blatant strike went unseen by the ref who was just two or three feet away from us. I refused to blink in an effort to prevent the tears from streaming down my face. But they weren’t tears from crying. If you’ve ever hit your nose or been hit in the nose, you know what I’m talking about here. Tears naturally well up in your eyes following such a hit, but there’s no sobbing or lip quivering like the tears that accompany emotional or physical pain. The ring judge saw the hit and my opponent was awarded the point. Naturally I lost the fight. My biggest fear had come true and it wasn’t the life altering event I’d expected! Although my teacher tried breaking my habit of flinching and freezing for years, my fear of pain and embarrassment was stronger. And suddenly the fear was gone. I’ve never flinched or frozen since.

Is this really such a unique story though? Parents, teachers, co-workers, our friends, family, bosses – we get lots of advice from those around us. But, how much of it do we take or even listen to? I didn’t believe my mom about drinking….until I drank too much. That friend that everyone cautioned me not to trust – I refused to believe it, until she betrayed me. So many painful lessons that could’ve been prevented had I just listened to the advice I was given. And I don’t think I’m the only one who has these stories. So, why is advice only right in hindsight? There is no better teacher than failure. Athletes recall every shot they miss, poker players remember the turn that led to losing a hand. And if you’re gritty, you walk away from that failure assessing and sometimes obsessing over what you need to do to prevent that mistake from happening ever again. Isn’t this what innovation and improvement is all about? How much would we achieve if we made failure acceptable? What would you try today if you didn’t fear the shame of defeat? According to Harvard Business School Professor of Leadership and Management, Dr. Amy Edmonson, a lot. Dr. Edmonson has spent decades studying what makes some teams effective and high-performing and others, not. Ultimately, she discovered better teams actually are more accepting of mistakes. In 1999 she coined the term psychological safety – the belief that you won’t be punished or judged for making a mistake. Without this fear of shame, embarrassment, or judgment, people are more comfortable asking questions, open to learning, speaking up, taking risks, and as result, perform better.

It’s counter intuitive and scary, but failure and success are not mutually exclusive. Part of learning to walk is falling. We learn the value of money when we are without it. For individuals and teams, failure can make or break us. In 1999 I attended a national competition in Denver, Colorado. I was competing for first place against a woman I’d competed against before. She grew up training in karate as her father was a well-respected instructor. She fractured my nose and I quickly countered with a punch to her ribs. She won the point, taking first place. I walked away for the second and final time with a loss and a bloody nose. These are the two fights I still think of more than 20 years later despite sparring hundreds of times in practice and competition. They’re not memories of regret, they’re not memories of sadness…..I remember them as lessons in the journey of my success.

November 11, 2019August 11, 2020

Are You a Good Boss? Two Studies Identify Traits of Top Managers

Two separate studies were conducted by Google and the Royal Bank of Canada to determine what traits make for a good boss versus average or even bad boss. Here is what they discovered….

How many great bosses have you had in your career? For me, two stand out. One was with a job I hated, the other was with a job I loved. One was male, the other female. One was a lot like me, the other not like me at all….except maybe for our sense of humor. One was stubborn and feared by some in the organization. The other was the friendliest person you’ve ever met, quick to put others at ease. So, how is it that I would find these two VERY DIFFERENT people equally great? Had I changed over time? There were about ten years between these two bosses after all. I’ve worked with many great people but what made these two bosses great? There is no shortage of research on leadership; however two of my favorite studies were performed by Google (2008, then updated in 2018) and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC, 2011-2013) in separate attempts to determine what makes manager good?

What does a good boss look like?

Do you know a good manager when you see one? Based on the findings of both RBC and Google, not at first glance. Both studies report good manager traits having little to do with what the manager does, but how and why they do it. Micro-managing determined highly ineffective by both groups, suggesting a good manager’s day revolves more around strategy and developing or coaching employees; however nearly all other findings relate to how a good manager engages with employees. Being genuine and showing an interest in both personal and professional well-being for employees rate high on both lists suggesting empathy for others and authenticity are essential in making employees feel valuable. Today this should be no surprise. In 2017, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote about the impact loneliness is having on the workplace. A person with a poor network of friends and family, lacking support needed to push through this epidemic of loneliness in most cases will still need to work, making work perhaps their only opportunity to feel connected. If true, doesn’t it only make sense employees respond positively to managers that seem invested in the employee’s personal journey? Look over the list provided here. How many listed traits do your top managers possess? More importantly, do you feel your under-performing managers can learn the traits and behaviors necessary to be more effective? Can a manager learn to be empathetic and genuine?

Google & RBC findings side-by-side — * Trait was either updated or revised in 2018

Why it matters

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, employs more than 107,000 people worldwide. The company owns more than 88% of search engine market share and is in the race to join the highly exclusive $1 trillion dollar list. RBC employs 80,000 people, and with 1.28 trillion dollars in assets is the biggest bank in Canada and the 11^th biggest bank in the world. They look for ways to excel, commit to a solution, and go ALL IN. Google and RBC’s choice to independently research their own management practices that were proving to be effective versus ineffective and build their teams and leaders on these principles is no accident. This research, although beneficial to many, was not done for humanitarian reasons. Good managers drive success. In a study, employees working for a manager identified as average when changed to a manager identified as highly effective, increased productivity by 50%! Good bosses also have lower employee turnover and themselves also stay with companies longer than bad managers. It’s important to note, the 2008 Google study was only after Google surveyed their own engineers to determine whether managers were at all necessary within their organization. It was perhaps this initial project that led them to realize that a good boss is highly valuable whereas a bad boss is actually worse than no boss at all.

I stay in touch with each of my former managers. I trust that I can call either of them today and they will still take time out of their busy schedules to help me. I don’t know what their relationships were like with my peers or other leaders within our former organizations although I suspect those relationships were positive. It was perhaps a year ago that one of them reached out to me in need of a favor. I stopped everything I was doing and immediately jumped at the chance to help my former boss and friend. It was no different when I worked for these individuals. I cared as much about their success as I did my own. That’s the thing about a great boss – their fingerprints from pushing you forward, catching you when you fall….are EVERYWHERE in your life! A great boss changes your life, But because it’s authentic and they genuinely care and love their jobs, it happens so naturally and organically. Only in hindsight do you look back and wonder….were they working for me or was I working for them?

November 7, 2019November 6, 2019

The Power of Internal Marketing

What do you rely on most in your world? Water? Your smartphone? Coffee? Okay, clearly these are my go-tos but whatever you find critical to your day-to-day routine, one thing holds true, all of those things are marketed, heavily. TV and radio commercials, ads in our online publications and Google searches….our favorite celebrities and influencers posting and blogging about them….ALL methods of marketing the importance of products that we already hold valuable. And although life without these things may seem unimaginable today, it’s likely you decided this to be the case only after they were first marketed to you. Marketing strategies identify, articulate, and some may argue create, consumer needs aligning those needs to specific products and services. Now consider this, how important is employee buy-in to your workplace? Enter the case for internal marketing.

Have you ever introduced a benefit plan that everyone hates? Or perhaps you’ve rolled out a new commission plan to a sales reps who feel commission payouts are unattainable? If you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of leading a company change where employees were not bought in, you’ve learned the hard way that without buy-in, successful implementation is a mere pipedream. As consumers and employees make decisions and choices not on logic but on emotions and psychology. Just as a good product or service is not enough to ensure high market share, a great workplace is not enough to attract and retain valuable employees. Without marketing highlighting why our products, services, and workplaces are great – people fail to remember, and the magic is lost. Here are some internal marketing ideas to enhance your company culture that generate a return on your investment (in people).

1. Why you?

What drives customers to choose you over competitors? Why do employees choose your company over any other? If you’re having difficulty answering the second question with as much confidence as you answered the first, don’t feel bad as this is the case with most leaders I meet with. Many have responses like “we offer a great benefits package” or “we pay top dollar”. When challenged however, reasons just don’t hold up. So, give pause to the question of why employees choose your company because the answer is important. The answer should serve as the foundation to every employee initiative – recruiting, onboarding, retention, and so on. Why people choose you as their employer reflects what your employees value most. How well you deliver on this value ultimately determines how happy, engaged, satisfied, and successful your employees are. You meet with employees individually to discuss why they choose you. Because it can be a complex answer, one-on-one discussions can provide great insights. Because anonymity can lead to more honest answers however, you may instead prefer to use an employee survey to solicit a variety of responses. Regardless of the method you choose, asking is critical.

2. Your vibe attracts your tribe.

Knowing why your most valued employees choose you is the most important piece of information a leader can have. A close second is how to communicate this message. When recruiting for an open position for example – it’s important to know what speaks to your tribe. Where do they look for jobs? Are they even looking? What about the job and your company’s culture is of interest to the “right” employees (“right” meaning having shared values with others in the company as well as the skills and experience necessary to perform the duties of the position). This year for the first time since recorded, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported more open jobs than unemployed workers to fill them. This means employers must actively attract candidates to fill their open positions – no more relying solely on unemployed workers actively looking for jobs. When competition is high – marketing will often determine the winner. Like never before, it’s important for employers to market their employer brand. This is different than marketing your brand to end users and consumers. An employer brand comes back to why you (as an employer)? Passive candidates, because they are by definition not actively looking for jobs, require more from recruiting than just posting openings to a job board. They are not looking for you. Like marketers find consumers, employers must instead target and source candidates the candidates they want to hire. And because educated candidates, like educated consumers, tend to be more valuable – get your online (employer) brand together. What are current and former employees saying about working for you on review boards such as Glassdoor and Indeed? How does your website’s careers page reflect your culture and employee experience? The goal is not to have the most robust or most beautiful online representation. Your goal is to have the most accurate online employer brand representation – because that is the one that will attract your tribe.

3. Fake begets fake.

Speaking of accuracy….have you ever hired someone with the perfect resume followed by the perfect interview only to realize that it was all BS?! That guy was never the top sales rep with his previous company! Just days into the job it was evident he never sold anything in his life (oh – except he sold you on giving him the job – ouch!). Take a look at your hiring process. Is it genuine? If you’re attracting candidates who seem too good to be true only to later disappointed when they prove to be, assess how authenticity is tested in your recruiting and hiring process. Why employees choose you is just as important and why those who don’t belong in your company don’t choose you. You cannot successfully be all things to all people. So, own who your company is….and isn’t. If you don’t believe in employees to work remotely, make it known early in your recruiting process. If you choose to offer only one medical plan because it affords you lower premiums and makes it more affordable for all employees to cover at least themselves (rather than more coverage to less employees), say so! An authentic message is not appealing to everyone. With authentic messaging we appeal to desired candidates and simultaneously repel those who would not be successful with our company. Open jobs can be costly to a business, but the wrong hire, catastrophic. Take time on the front end to articulate who your company is, what the culture is really like, what your employee experience has to offer. When it comes to recruiting, quality trumps quantity ever time.

4. Consistency counts

A friend of mine works for Charles Schwab. One day she was telling me how she was butting heads with another leader of an internal team on a project. Then as if by magic, her frustration seemed to vanish and she said, “but we resolved it once we stepped back to consider what was best through the clients’ eyes”. What the heck was she talking about? I asked her to explain – and she did. She told me this phrase is what most Schwab employees use to settle disagreements and make decisions. I couldn’t believe it. Charles Schwab employs nearly 20,000 people and this one simple phrase allows team members to solve problems, for the most part, consistently. Consistent messaging sticks. We as humans, appreciate knowing what to expect because it allows us to and predict benefits and consequences and ultimately make what we consider to be better choices. Marketing has long time realized this concept with what they refer to as “the rule of seven”. The rule of seven suggests people need to be exposed to a message at least seven times before they remember it. While unsure there is any true science showing seven to be a magic number, I can say that many companies I meet with struggle to communicate with enough frequency and consistency to resonate with employees. One of the attributes of the employee experience we at Culture Engineered test on is communication. Of the ten attributes we test on, the communication attribute shows challenging to most companies, regardless of industry, size, or structure (flat versus hierarchical). What we often find is that communication itself is not bad. It’s just not done consistently or frequently enough. One of the best ways we’ve found to resolve the communication issues in the workplace is to start all corresponding communications with the phrase, “because you asked for more effective communication, we’d like to announce (insert initiative)”. This phrasing helps align a changed way of communicating in response to employee feedback and also helps make messaging sound more consistent. Leaders are usually resistant at first, fearing employees will feel they’re repeating themselves. In three nearly three years we’ve been using this approach to resolve communication issues, we’ve not received even one employee response suggesting we’re over communicating.

5. Engage your superfans

What product or service are you in love with? For me, it’s our vet Dr. Mangone. We foster dogs, specifically senior dogs. I’ve had dogs all of my adult life and am known to take in strays fairly frequently. Most need some sort of medical attention. Until just two years ago, I had with me my Dingo mix dog, Caleb, a rescue I took in when I was in college. He lived to be 17 years old and our vet cried with us when Caleb took his last breath. If our vet treated people, I’d be a lot better about going to him as my doctor. I sing his praises to others constantly and have referred fellow animal lovers to him. I am a superfan when it comes to our vet – promoting him more confidently and convincingly than perhaps any ad or paid advertisement ever could. Who are your superfans that work within your company? A few weeks ago I visited a well-known tech company here in the valley. While they’re recognized as a tech success story here in the Phoenix-metro community, they’re also notoriously known for laying off employees annually during the holidays, despite healthy financials. The tech community in Phoenix is a close community – so when companies with healthy profits routinely and systematically layoff the employees who helped the company to be a success, word travels quickly. During my visit however the woman showing me around their campus beamed. Telling me stories of the team coming together to earn bigger bonus payouts and giggling proudly as she divulged the company has a $15K per month allowance for sugary employee snacks, she seemed oblivious to how insensitive this seemed to the outside world. To me, an outsider, it was nauseating. Don’t get me wrong, layoffs happen and unfortunately I’ve been on both sides of that unpleasant situation – but to scale only to later layoff employees recklessly and in the same breath preach company culture and loyalty is disgusting. Remembering the countless conversations with developers I’d had over the years who once dreamed of working for this company only to later be tossed aside without reason, her admiration for the company made me feel like I was in an alternate universe. But then I realized, she’s a superfan. I of course do not condone the reckless practices of this company nor am I encouraging the use of manipulation to mask unethical practices. I do however have a question for the leaders running ethical and honest businesses out there, what would happen if you nurtured your superfan employee relationships? Are you inviting them to collaborate on employee/culture initiatives with you? At Culture Engineered, we’ve found the key to articulating and driving a company’s employee experience is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). While our survey is anonymous, we are able to deconstruct the employee experience with this metric and determine what of the ten attributes of the employee experience are driving that employee experience to be positive. High eNPS scores are the marks of your superfans. Because of the high correlation with high eNPS scores, employee satisfaction, and performance, it’s important to understand what about your employee experience resonates and inspires your superfans. These are your advocates….your key employees….drivers…stars….whatever term you prefer, they are as passionate about your company’s success as they are about their own success. Today, identify them if you haven’t already done so. Learn what makes them so dang into your business and invest in those aspects of your employee experience. Not only will you make them even bigger advocates than they were even before, but you will attract more by focusing on creating the experience that the “right” employees value most.

We need to realize that internal marketing is only manipulative when we fail to be honest, ethical, or authentic. It isn’t enough to invest in making our workplaces great – we also need to ask what our employees appreciate and commit to making what employees value a priority. Great leaders and companies invest a lot of time, money, and energy into making the employee experience satisfying and rewarding. But if we’re not sharing with employees our intention to make them feel more valued, and instead allow them to assume our great culture happened by chance, we’re missing the opportunity to show them how important they are to us. We as leaders will fail. We will mess up. Sometimes we will be forced to make difficult decisions that employees don’t fully understand. Be transparent and open with your intentions when you can. This in itself has a huge impact on employee perceptions and feelings about their work – arguably more so than most bonus plans or costly perks. Today – start incorporating these basic marketing principles into your employee interactions and initiatives and be amazed at how quickly and positively employees will respond.

July 19, 2019July 19, 2019

Managing difficult employees – Can good employees have bad attitudes?

There are two reasons an employee fails to meet reasonable employer expectations – either they can’t or they won’t. Falling short of expectations is often assessed through the lens of skill or will. When the employee is trying but lacks the knowledge or experience needed to succeed in his/her role (skill issue), the solution is most commonly solved with training, coaching, better systems or access to resources, or sometimes mentoring. Managing difficult employees, employees that are not trying however (will issue), is a much bigger challenge.

Behavioral issues are often misdiagnosed as skill/performance issues and therefore often go unresolved. This is especially unfortunate as these behavioral issues can be incredibly damaging to a company’s culture and success. Some of the most common workplace behavioral issues are:

Excessive absenteeism or tardiness (when not as part of an accommodation)
Insubordination
Gossip
Disruptive to others
Poor quality of work
Harassing behavior
Theft
Failure to meet KPIs
Emotional outbursts

There are two reasons behavioral issues are more difficult, 1) inexperienced leaders, and 2) employee actor-observer bias.

Experience Matters

Perhaps the hardest lesson learned in managing and leading people is that we all perceive, think about, and value things differently. It’s easy to say, but when leading a team of conflicting personalities and priorities to achieve a common goal – the leadership can seem overwhelming. Diagnosing why a person with the desire to succeed isn’t, is a tactical diagnosis. An employee wants to get more sales, has a great attitude, works hard, and asks for help – it doesn’t take a lot of experience to recognize he needs training. He’s putting the work in but needs help turning activity into sales. What about the salesperson that isn’t “working hard”? She previously hit her quota every month – but her sales have declined steadily over the last few months. Is she calling out sick all the time? Is she showing up late? Leaving early? When at work – is she working effectively or talking with co-workers and tending more to her social media accounts than customers. Is she selling to fewer people, closing smaller deals, or both? She has shown she can do the job, but somewhere along the line stopped. Why? This is a harder problem to solve because it requires insight, empathy, and a genuine desire to understand. Generally, these are leadership qualities developed with experience. It’s by managing and leading people that you develop the confidence and self-awareness needed to step outside of your own head willing to look at a situation from the perspective of another. Good people make bad choices all of the time. Many inexperienced managers assume the person “doesn’t care” or simply “has a bad attitude”. A leader I worked with in the past would respond to managers complaints about an employee by asking the manager, “was the employee bad when you hired him or did you make him bad?”. If you want employees to understand the “why” behind your company’s purpose, you need to understand their why as well. Why do they choose to work hard? Why do they sometimes choose not to? You can discipline them, you can warn them, you can suspend them, but nothing serves as a solution to a behavioral problem unless you first understand the why behind it. Why did they stop caring? That’s the first step on the path to a solution. Most employees can regain their love and passion to succeed in their role. First though – we as leaders NEED to ask what caused it to be lost in the first place.

The actor-observer bias at work

The actor-observer bias is one of several attribution biases, concepts used in social psychology to describe irrational patterns in how we view our own behaviors and interpret behaviors of others. The term refers to our tendency to attribute our own behaviors to situational factors while attributing behaviors of others to internal factors. Put simply, we see our behaviors as a reflection of a situation but perceive others behave a certain way because that’s who they are. This bias causes behavioral problems to surface in two ways, 1) biased employees see their decisions and behaviors as the only option, rather than a choice, and 2) biased employees subscribe to the idea that only bad people do bad things. Because someone doesn’t see himself as bad a person, he is incapable of doing bad things and as such, his behaviors are justified. Think of an employee who is frequently late or absent. Does she always have a reason? Does she seem to feel you too should excuse her absence –as though she had no choice but to be late or miss the day? A person harassing others, although clearly a more serious offense, often does not recognize himself as a harasser. Because the person doing the harassing believes the person he is harassing either wants or deserves the unwanted attention, he typically feels his behavior is justified. Ironically, the harasser is often the most offended by harassing behavior demonstrated by others, seeing other harassers as bad people rather than people engaging in harassing behavior (2 Reasons Your Harassment Training is Failing). Research suggests this bias occurs less often with people we know well – most likely due to exposure. We see ourselves, behaviors, and decisions as a reflection of situations and the more familiar we are with situations faced by others, the more we recognize that most of us are neither all good nor all bad. Self-awareness allows us to see ourselves objectively, recognizing the impact our decisions have on others – and that every decision is a choice. So, next time you’re forced to address an employee’s excessive absences or tardiness, ask him, “do you feel that everyone else that makes it in on time for work has it easy? Do you feel they do not have extenuating circumstances that they must manage in order to get to work?” This question can be a game changer in addressing similar behavioral issues. With more serious behaviors like harassing others or insubordination, it’s important to focus on how the employee’s behavior impacts others – and how the behavior is not in line with the company’s values or culture. When behavior issues are deliberate such as theft, fraud, or harassing behavior that’s hostile, manipulative, or calculated, it is very unlikely the leopard will change his spots. There is always a chance that a person engaging in scheming and cunning behavior will change for the better; however, this is a decision she will make on her own. No punishment, threat, or training will change the behavior and in many situations the person will only use warnings to behave poorly in a more conspicuous way. It is up to each company and leader to find the right balance of forgiveness and accountability. People will make mistakes and poor choices – to what extent you, as a leader, are willing to accept the harm those mistakes and poor choices brings to you, your company, and employees, is a choice you must make.

It would be great if we all just got it. If we all saw our behaviors and decisions as choices and possessed the self-awareness to see how we impact others. The reality is, we are flawed. There is no such thing as a perfect person and therefore cannot be a perfect employee, or leader. A successful workplace culture isn’t about perfection. A successful culture is about a group of unique individuals coming together to achieve a common purpose. So the key is establishing a common set of values and then communicating, upholding, and delivering on those values relentlessly – addressing when actions or behaviors deviate from what benefits the group, as a whole, or their collective purpose. Strong and healthy workplaces have behavioral issues. They only differ from toxic workplaces in how leaders respond to those issues. Address the behaviors harming your company’s culture today because it’s the only way you will ever achieve your purpose.

Watch our tutorial on how to address employee behavioral issues here.

Need help with getting employees engaged? Contact a Culture Engineer!

July 10, 2019September 8, 2020

How To Talk with Employees About Performance Issues

What is the one thing worse than having an employee fail to meet your expectations? Talking with that employee about it – that is worse. It’s uncomfortable. Today one of the most common issues plaguing workplaces is our unwillingness, or in some cases unfamiliarity, of having difficult discussions. These discussions, when done well however, elevate a business. When talking about performance issues with employees, there are seven key components that make it an effective conversation.

7 Tips to Navigating Employee Performance Discussions

A Gallup study shows employees are largely dissatisfied with both the amount and accuracy of the feedback they receive from their manager. While historically performance discussions were limited to annual reviews, recent trends lean toward more frequent conversations such as biweekly or monthly. Whether annually or biweekly, there are steps every leader should take to ensure it’s a quality conversation.

Determine whether it’s a trend, indicating a performance issue or an isolated incident.

Particularly if you subscribe to less frequent performance discussions, it’s important to address trends differently than isolated incidents. While isolated incidents can be damaging to companies and frustrating to managers, they do happen, to all of us. When talking with an employee about an isolated incident focus the discussion on how to avoid the situation from reoccurring. When discussing trends, work with the employee to identify what skill or knowledge gap is causing the ongoing issue.

Meet privately.

While there may be times you choose to have a third-party present, meetings should take place in a quiet, private setting so as to respect the dignity for the employee. Performance conversations are humbling. The two worst things to bring into a performance discussion are a big ego and a chip on your shoulder – and they tend to accompany public shaming. Leave the praising to public settings.

Express concern.

Sometimes an employee may not recognize the impact her performance issues have on the business. It’s therefore important to express your observations from a place of concern rather than frustration. If you really believe a person is intentionally coming to work each day to do a bad job, you have a “will” issue, not a skill issue.

Ask, don’t tell.

You may be an expert on the operational process or role but we as self-aware individuals are the experts of our own thoughts and behaviors. So even if you believe you know what the employee is struggling with, it’s better to ask the employee why he is struggling rather than diagnose. If Joe is not meeting sales goals, ask him why. But keep him honest. If Joe says he’s just having a tough month and he’s actually having his sixth consecutive tough month, respectfully remind him. Hold him accountable to his own behavior and self-awareness.

Collaborate on a solution.

Both you as the leader, and the employee should want the same thing – success. When the employee is successful, you’re one-step closer to a successful company. Performance discussions often become combative, which makes no sense whatsoever. A leader doesn’t ask an underperforming employee why she is struggling to corner her. A leader asks for the employee’s insight to empower her, a critical first step on the path of improvement. You, as the leader, should push back on phony, surface-level reasons given by the employee such as “just having a bad month”. This is not to be confrontational, but because you are genuinely interested in helping the employee develop professionally, and overcome challenges contributing to her poor performance.

Get buy-in by asking about concerns.

We all love to have people agree with us – but in situations like performance discussions, it’s a bad sign. Bad habits and skill gaps do not happen accidentally. Gaps worsen over time because we dislike or undervalue the importance of overcoming them. So, because conquering performance issues often requires hard work on the part of the employee (training, practicing, stepping out of his/her comfort zone, etc), it’s only natural that the employee will have some anxiety about the process. Yes, natural. A person telling you what you want to hear, a “yes man”, doesn’t bother to consider concerns. A yes man is simply looking to appease you, putting an end to the conversation. If the employee doesn’t express concerns, do it for him. Ask him, in a variety of ways about how he will handle potential setbacks. If you and the employee decide training will resolve the performance issue, ask what concerns the employee has about adding training to his already heavy workload. “Do you feel 2-3 hours of training each week is doable given your upcoming projects and deadlines?” Failing to plan is planning to fail, so work with the employee to resolve conflicts proactively. This too is an important part of earning an employee’s trust that you, as their leader, care about their success.

Follow up.

So, you have a great discussion, identify what is needed to resolve the issue and the issue seems to resolve itself! Wrong. Its the employee who worked to resolve the issue. I guarantee, no matter who the employee is, she is waiting for you, their leader, to acknowledge it. The same can be said for when the issue continues although the waiting is coupled with anxiety. Set a reminder in your phone, calendar, or schedule a meeting to revisit with the employee. Recognize the employee’s efforts when the issue is resolved. If the performance issue persists, assess why the solution you and the employee developed failed to resolve the problem. Without the follow up, regardless of the outcome, the performance discussion you had with the employee is a failure. She may be a better performer, but without the follow-up, the perception is, you only care about the business, not the individuals within it. It’s a fair-weather relationship, at best when a leader fails to recognize the collective “employees” as individuals.

Yes, it’s work. Yes, it would be great if employees just knew how to improve without these awkward interactions. But, we as people are complex. Think of someone that took the time to help you to become better. Was he genuinely concerned about your well-being or were his motives self-serving? Was she there to celebrate with you when you succeeded? Relationships take work and, like anything, it’s the things we work on that hold value. Have the difficult performance discussion today and start holding your people accountable to their greater self. A good performance discussion reminds us of what we’re capable of becoming.

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