This month we spoke at a conference on one of our favourite subjects – getting relationships right. Better than right – getting them excellent. Whether you’re aware of it or not, when you show up in a communication, whether it is at a meeting, within a group, in a one to one conversation, even on an email – you bring a vibe to that communication. Think of it as an energy. Being conscious of that energy and where you may need to adapt it, is key to developing effective relationships. We use the Insights Discovery behavioural model to help people understand themselves better. The four “energies” within the model are in all of us. They are just there in different amounts.
When your energy is in Fiery Red, you bring assertion, boldness and speed to the table. You like to speak your mind, get things done and be in charge. Overuse of the energy can make you seem controlling, overbearing and intolerant – even if you don’t mean to be like that, so they are ones to watch. When your energy is in Sunshine Yellow, you bring positivity, ideas and sociability to situations. You have great communication skills and you like to influence. You need to watch that it doesn’t spill over in to an over-the-top, distracting, hard to pin down style or people won’t see you at your best.
With the Earth Green energy comes wisdom about people, a desire to collaborate and a “roll the sleeves up”, practical approach. You want to invest in activities that with make things better in the team, for your organisation and for the benefit of others. Used at the wrong time or with the wrong people it can seem a bit stubborn, plodding and change resistant. Finally when your energy is in Cool Blue, you bring an analytical and detailed approach, one that leaves no stone unturned and strives for high standards. You ask searching questions, don’t take things at face value and believe if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Too much Cool Blue and you might be seen as pedantic, indecisive and socially remote.
The key to success is to be aware of your colour mix and then be conscious of others and what they respond to. Just because you respond to an emotional argument, doesn’t mean they will and you may need to adapt to a more objective, factual style if you want to win them over. Just because you don’t do small talk and believe there is a time and a place for social interactions, won’t necessarily work with people who want to connect with you on a personal level before they knuckle down to work. So you may need to invest in some social time first if you want to work well with them later.
So - good relationships are formed when we can be both authentic and adaptable. Nobody wants to experience a “false” you. They just want to know you’ve made room for them and what they need. And if you do that for them, there’s a very strong chance they’ll make room for you and that’s where excellent relationships happen.
We should be so good at doing feedback nowadays. Most companies hope to create an environment where two-way, constructive feedback can sit comfortably. It doesn’t always happen. We start with the best intentions – to give regular feedback and be open to receiving it too – yet when the pressure is on, we forget to make it a priority and fall back on a familiar work culture of speedily pointing out the flaws and staying quiet when people do a good job. We also worry that we have don’t have the right to give feedback – to team members, colleagues and bosses. Not only is it our right to give it, it is their right to expect it and to give us feedback in return. It just needs to be done with a modicum of skill, compassion and common sense.
The first thing to get you started on the right road is to examine your motive. What is compelling you to want to give the feedback in the first place? A genuine desire to help someone grow and develop, the need to stop someone who is behaving in a way that is holding them back and a wish to tell someone something you feel they do really well and the positive impact it has - these are all honourable motives and are likely to result in constructively delivered feedback. A compulsion to get something off your chest or to take someone down a peg or two are less honourable (though understandably tempting at times) and are more likely to lead to destructive feedback - and in the short term certainly, will do more harm than good.
Some motives could go either way for example, the need to pass on the benefit of your experience through some feedback. If that is your motive then find a way to do it so it doesn't sound patronising: "Let me the great sage of many years’ experience, pass down to you the fledgling, the great honour of a particle of my considerable brain." We have all had that done to us at one time or other and rather than listen to the content of the feedback, it makes you want to deck the person. The benefit of your experience should be offered not imposed, and put into context - this worked for you once but it may not work for them - for it to be a constructive experience. Finally, beware the motive of cheering someone up where they're having a bad time, by giving praise. If you tell them things or they are better than they really are, and they are savvy enough to know they're not, they may distrust your feedback in the future. Better to talk to them about what is going wrong and give them some perspective on the situation, than try to stick a smiley plaster on a gaping wound.
A lot has been written about techniques and structures for feedback. Take them with a pinch of salt. In some places of work, it would be a start just to get people doing feedback at all, let alone trying to weave it around a fancy process. Keep your feedback open, honest and respectful. Open and honest is not enough. One person’s idea of open and honest could be another person’s idea of brutality. The third part, respectful keeps any major offloading in check.
While we're on the subject of technique, beware the unsubtle ones like the Praise Sandwich (sometimes referred to with a different, altogether less savoury sandwich filling). The idea behind it is to sandwich some negative feedback between two bits of positive feedback thereby softening the blow. Guess what? We all know when it's being done to us and it gets used mainly when you have only wafer thin positive bread to act as bookends for a massive wedge of negative filling. "Thank you for turning up to work promptly every day - just about everything you do in your job is rubbish - but I really like your earrings." Okay, an exaggeration but you know how it goes. Better to say what needs to be said, check how they feel about it and what their view is and then look ahead. Any feedback that is constructive should be followed by some sort of action plan. If they're good at something, it's a case of discussing how they can be even better and/or spread that success. If the feedback is about something you want them to improve, it's a case of looking at how that might be done. The essence of constructive feedback really, is that life goes on after it. There is a future, a way to improve, a path to move on to.
Finally, there is a big element of getting your own house in order when it comes to feedback. You may be skilled at giving it, but how elegant are you at receiving it? Before you unleash yourself on unsuspecting staff and colleagues, with your own special brand of feedback, do a quick check that you too can receive feedback with grace. And remember – all feedback is a gift, even if it comes in a badly wrapped package.
At Sharpstone Skinner we have spent years coaching teams to attain and maintain high performance. We have developed a process to take teams through so they give of their best and achieve great results.
Some teams get there quickly, some get distracted. There are many reasons why this happens. One of them is a set of bad habits that can turn teams toxic.
Do you recognise any of the following four people in the team you’re in, the team you lead or a team you once worked in?
Ali is one of the best performers in the team. He consistently meets and sometimes exceeds his targets. Having said that, he also regularly comes in late, often disappears early, rarely does the necessary admin and almost never replies to anyone’s emails.
Ali illustrates Nasty Habit number one. He thinks partial high performance gives him the right to underperform in the rest of the job. He’s so used to people saying of him that he “brings in the money” that he feels his failings are legitimate. The rest of the team look on and seethe.
Laura has been one of the team for 3 years. She is a satisfactory performer, not a star but a solid and consistent worker – and there’s a lot to be said for that. At times though she is difficult to deal with. She can be bad tempered, overly negative at meetings and has lots of bad day where other team members tend to give her a wide berth.
Laura has fallen foul to Nasty Habit number two. She demonstrates a capability to do the job. She’s a safe pair of hands. But her conduct falls below par. She gets away with it because it’s so much more awkward to call time on bad behaviour than it is bad performance. So the team have learned to work around her bad days.
Sophia is the longest serving team member. She doesn’t always engage with the Organisation’s vision and often thinks she knows how things could function better. She is quite vocal about this and makes it clear that she does things her own way. She likes to think of herself as a bit of a rebel.
Sophia’s bad habit can hide behind the mask of Maverick but actually she is a bit of a pain and a bit of a drain. Bad Habit number three takes argument and debate to the point of obstruction. It takes all sorts to make a team and that is a good thing. But for teams to work, you have to, at the very least, all sign up to the same vision. If one team member wants to follow their own vision, then that’s fine. They just have to do it somewhere else. But Sophia is still here.
Stefan isn’t your best performer, but he is absolute sweetie. He’s kind, helpful, always offers to take on tasks and support other team members. Everyone likes him - what’s not to like? The trouble is, he doesn’t seem to achieve very much. He always seems so busy though, helping out.
It’s hard to see Stefan as having bad habits because he’s nice, he’s team focussed and he’s helpful. All admirable qualities, but they need to be present in addition to doing your job, not instead of it. So Simon demonstrates Bad Habit Number Four – working hard at everything except your own job.
So did you recognise any in your team? Dare we say it, did you recognise any of those traits in yourself? You may know of more bad habits but these are the ones we see often enough to make them worth a mention.
The good news is, they are habits and habits can be broken. It takes time and a bit of effort but it can be done and the effort gets you a more energetic, more effective team, whether it’s a team you lead or one you are part of.
A new year is nearly upon us. Time for a detox?
I’m going to a networking event – who’s coming with me? Don’t all shout at once. Mention networking and we all agree it’s a vital part of our role. Suggest actually going to a networking event and you start to sniff the fear. We’ve all got stories to tell of networking from Planet Nasty and may just find we have some very important email housekeeping to do on the days when a networking opportunity comes a knocking. But it doesn’t have to be that bad.
It helps if you understand what networking really is. Check out the dictionary definition. It says that networking is “a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest”. That puts things in a whole different light. The idea of networking is to develop links where you can share knowledge, contacts and good practice.
Before any networking activity, you need to do some research. As a teenager during the 80’s with the most appalling taste in films, a favourite was and still is Working Girl where a secretary impersonates her boss to help her climb the corporate ladder. We’re not advocating this as a career strategy; however, her lack of preparation before attending a networking event where she wants to meet one particular man she’s keen to do business with, gets her into hot water. She (Melanie Griffith) meets him (Harrison Ford) but he doesn’t disclose who he is and she knows no different. Admittedly back in 1988 she couldn’t Google him but still, she could have done some prep before she went. Nowadays it is much easier to do some on-line research on people and groups before you go, so there is no sensible reason to walk into an event to a room full of strangers. You will feel so much better if you have an idea about who will be there and whom you would like to meet and also – what you would like to talk about with them.
There has to be a real commitment to being both interesting to be with and interested in what others have to say. This kind of reciprocity means no one fleeces or feels fleeced by others as part of the networking experience. It also means you gain the real long term benefits of networking – raising awareness for your organisation, receiving targeted leads and referrals, sharing ideas and solving problems with other practitioners in your field and becoming more influential in your sector.
And if all this still fills you with horror, remember that nowadays, networking doesn’t always happen face to face. You can start conversations in all sorts of useful ways through social media and online business networks. That way you can network professionally without ever leaving your bed. Sorry, I meant without ever leaving your fully kitted out home office.
As a leader you’re only too aware of the need to balance your time between ensuring organisational goals are achieved and developing the individuals who work for you. Many of your team are good, solid, reliable workers but are they high performers?
A high performer is not just someone who does their job well – they go beyond that. High performers consistently exceed performance expectations, they go beyond good enough to strive for excellence in standards and results. They do this by doing their jobs well but also in the way they conduct themselves. Think of your colleagues whom you would classify as top performers – it’s not just what they do but what they are like to be around. They are positive and forward looking, discerning and constructive in their criticism and tend to take an approach that says, “how can we make this work”, rather than “let me tell you 50 reasons why it won’t”. You don’t have to pick your times with them, nag or cajole them into getting things done, nor do you need to constantly hold their hand and mop their feverish brow. In short, they are radiators, not drains.
Playing to your strengths is key if you wish to be successful. However, there’s an element of the “have a go hero” to the high performer. They know their strengths and their limitations, but they are prepared to dip their toe into the unknown if it means they and their organisation will gain as a result. So they are the ones who don’t have their eyes down for a full house when you come looking for volunteers. They put their hand up to lead a new project, take part in a pilot and work across teams to achieve a better result.
By now you may be thinking (with your head in your hands) that you haven’t got any of them and you’d jolly well like at least one high performer in the team. Don’t despair. You may well have one or more in the making and we have worked extensively with people suffering from untapped potential. They just need the right leadership, development and coaching to help them unlock their talents.
And even if you’re overflowing with brilliant people, brilliance is only maintained with refining, updating and regular care - and that is where we come in.
Work with us and your good people will get even better.