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Preface: Martin Prouix, President of Pyxis and an organizational coach, posted this article on his blog, Analytical-Mind.com, this past fall. For years, I have asked students, people I coach, and sometimes even myself whether they would rather be right or effective. Martin poses essentially the same question by asking, “is it better to be right or to be helpful.” His example on what can go wrong when trying to build effective relationships is worth sharing.
Jean
Preface: Workplace Undercover is a recurring segment of this blog, featuring a workplace scenario and a response by a guest consultant. In the previous post, “How to Deal with Stress at Work When People Let You Down,”Vicki screams at Saul for not getting a draft document to her at the time he had promised.
She collapses nearly in tears, wondering whether she was the only one in the company who cares. Saul apologized and then secretly fumed, “Why didn’t someone do something about Vicky?” The case is discussed by Dr. Jo Bowens Lewis, a certified teaching and supervising transactional analyst, and a Leading Consciously practitioner.
We continue with Jo’s case analysis.
Read the rest of this entry
Preface: Workplace Undercover is a recurring segment of this blog, featuring a workplace scenario and a response by a guest consultant. The scenario below was written by Eillen Bui, our research associate. Jo Bowens Lewis, a licensed psychologist, organizational consultant, and Leading Consciously practitioner will respond.
Preface: This continues the previous post, How to Reduce Stress at Work through Conscious Use of Self: Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Hudson, and the Blizzard, Part 1, in which I described how Oprah Winfrey coped with an nerve-wracking incident at work. Superstar Jennifer Hudson was unexpectedly late for a scheduled taping of the Oprah Winfrey show, throwing off the entire day’s schedule. The unfolding events were shown in “Episode 116” of Season 25, the highly acclaimed reality show.
In Oprah Winfrey’s 25th and final season of her award-winning show, superstar Jennifer Hudson was scheduled to appear to discuss her amazing weight loss. Unfortunately for all of them, the taping was scheduled a day after the largest blizzard that Chicago had seen in 25 years, resulting in a textbook-like study of stress at work.
A behind-the-scenes look at what transpired that morning was shown on “Episode 116”of Season 25, the highly acclaimed reality show showing the makings of The Oprah Show’s 25th season.
What happens when someone hasn’t developed good listening skills? Here are some typical conversations that create stress at work and home:
Example 1: Manuel sits down with Chris, one of his direct reports, to describe a new assignment. As he explains, the nature of the job requires that Chris weighs the quality of the project against the ultimate goal of meeting costs and timelines. When he finishes the explanation, he asks Chris if he is prepared to take on the assignment.
Example 2: Daud and Malika have been discussing a two-day car trip they are planning to visit Daud’s relatives. Malika has explained why she is looking forward to visiting a historical site that is about half way to their final destination. Daud sits and listens, puzzled and not a little annoyed. To him, going out of the way to visit the site would put them in town very late, but he does want Malika to enjoy the trip as well.
In both conversations, someone ends up sighing in frustration and confusion. What could the listeners do instead to find out the information they were seeking?
The secret of going into inquiry
The skill they each could use here is inquiry –active investigation of the other person’s thought processes from a position of curiosity. Simply asking someone to explain the same thing over and over again is unlikely to yield useful information.
Inquiry is one of the four building blocks for effective relationships that we describe in Reframing Change. The other three are powerful listening, openness, and feedback.
Inquiry is a powerful tool. It is also harder to learn than you might think. As a skill, it appears deceptively simple: when you are unclear about what someone is saying, you ask questions to discern their underlying meaning, preferences, and fears. The problem is, sometimes people think they have been crystal clear in their explanations to you when in fact they have not.
The secret, then, to go into inquiry by asking for detail and contrast so that the explanation can be placed in some kind of context.
Asking someone to explain again and again is about as useful as giving someone directions by telling them to go over the hill and around the corner to get where they are going. Directions work if you give people detail and guideposts to contrast where they are with what they should look for:
At the top of the hill you will see a railroad crossing. After you get there, take your first right. At the corner is Elmo’s Old Fashioned Townhouse Store. Then drive about half a mile and look to the right and you will be there.
Similarly, when someone is saying something that you don’t understand, you go into inquiry by asking the person to give you contrast and detail so that you may have points of comparison. It’s important that your tone of voice conveys genuine curiosity.
Here are examples:
Chris: When you mentioned “weighing the quality against the costs and the timelines,” could you explain this part further? For example, could you describe a situation in which someone did or did not properly weigh the quality against the costs and timeline?
Daud: The part I’m puzzled about is why arriving late doesn’t seem to be that big a deal to you. Would you please explain your thinking about this?
Chris: When we worked on the Wiseguy account, you told me that high quality was the prime consideration. Now you seem to be saying that more emphasis should be placed on costs and timelines. Would you please explain how this situation is different from the Wiseguy account?
Daud: I’m not clear as to what are the advantages to visiting the site on the way there rather than on the way back. As you compared the two options, what were the factors you considered?
Chris: It seems to me that your basic concern is meeting the client’s timeline and that as long as the work is satisfactory, we won’t worry about whether it’s super high quality. Is this what you mean?
Daud: I’m wondering if you are afraid that if we don’t visit the site on the way there, something will happen so we won’t have time to stop there on our way back home. Is this what’s underneath what you are saying?
Why don’t people go into inquiry more?
There are several reasons people don’t go into inquiry more often:
The name of the game is improving the dynamics of your interpersonal relationships. It’s very difficult to have an effective relationship in which the other person carries all the vulnerability. Inquiry shows your active engagement and caring.
Here’s another way of thinking about it. As a technical communications expert once explained to me: A big receiver and a small transmitter work much better than a big transmitter and a small receiver.
Questions:
Reference: Reframing Change, Chapter 4
Preface: Martin Prouix, President of Pyxis and an organizational coach, posted this article on his blog, Analytical-Mind.com, this past fall. I thought Martin’s thoughts on team performance were worth sharing.
Jean
Many people are confused about what term is appropriate to use when referring to different others. I provided examples of this in Part 1 of this series on bridging cultural differences. This topic is a hornet’s nest because a term that is appropriate in one context may be inappropriate in another. Choosing the right word can be a daunting task for who wish to avoid offending others and are horrified at thought of being judged.
This recently happened to Oprah Winfrey. For her 25th and last season on network television, Oprah arranged for behind the scenes taping of how each show was produced the entire season. The tapes are now part of a new series, appropriately called Season 25, on her recently launched network, OWN — or the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Episode 103 of Season 25 provided a behind the scenes look of an incident that happened during the taping of an interview with Terry McMillan, author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Jonathan Plummer, her ex-husband who had announced that he was gay after 6 years of marriage to McMillan.
During the taping, Oprah made this comment to Plummer:
“What’s interesting if I may say this and I mean this only in the best way and obviously I have a lot of gay friends and don’t mean any offense — you seem gayer than you were [during a previous interview].”
After the taping, Lisa Halliday, Oprah’s head of public relations called Oprah to tell her that she thought that the comment would offend gay people. The discussion afterward provided a vivid illustration of what can happen when someone with the best of intentions is accused of making an offensive comment.
Clipping Path copyright PaltoUsed under license from Shutterstock.com
As might be expected, Oprah at first was incredulous that her motives would have been mistaken:
“Everybody knows I am very gay-friendly…. My intention was not to be inappropriate. My intention was to say you have obviously come out and come out in a very big way and now you are feeling your ability to be your authentic self.”
Halliday persisted, “I just say that it’s a very naïve statement, that’s all.”
Clearly still stunned, Oprah then asked her producer to find some gay staffers to solicit their opinion.
Three gay people came into her office, one after another. To each, Oprah asked a variation of the same question: “Was the comment offensive and should it be struck from the tape?” In explaining her rationale for asking them, she commented, “I have my own opinions about things, but when other people weigh in strongly, I’m willing to listen and do a gut check on it.”
What was striking about the ensuing discussion was that most of the staffers appeared to feel free to express their opinion even though Oprah was their boss. Although their nonverbal behavior toward her was deferential, two of the three gay staffers stood firm in their position that her comment indeed had been offensive. I was also struck with how light and friendly the conversation remained, even though it was obviously quite serious. They laughed and joked throughout the discussion, a sign that they had had similar conversations before. One staff member even humorously demonstrated how he had done a double-take when he heard the comment.
When Oprah asked him to explain why her statement had been offensive, he responded:
“It implies that gay is an action and not who you are as a human being. You’re born black, you’re born gay. To allude that our action determines your sexuality is offensive. For someone who is battling his sexuality, I can see it would affect him and some of your viewers who are in his same position.”
As most people would do in her shoes, Oprah repeatedly defended herself by explaining that she had the best of intentions with her remark. The staff responded by reassuring her that they knew this:
“I know that you didn’t mean anything offensive about it.”
“People know your heart and spirit and your intention is not to offend them.”
Once Oprah accepted that her statement had been offensive to some no matter her intentions, the next question was whether the comment should be deleted from the tape. After more back and forth, she thanked the staff and the discussion ended.
In explaining her final decision about whether to keep or omit that comment from the viewing, Oprah said:
“I ended up allowing myself to be censured on that comment because I am not gay and I don’t understand fully what it means to be in that position. So I think, well, gay people will know better than I. And the gay people in the building said ‘you’re wrong, so I was wrong.”
Multicolored plasticine hands on a white background copyright MaleWitchUsed under license from Shutterstock.com
The clip has now been posted on her website. Viewer comments about her decision illustrate how challenging are such situations:
“I say we all need to lighten up a bit. It was funny. Stop being hyper sensitive.”
“I thought that word “gayer” when she said it, was funny. People shouldn’t be offended by it, just because of the way she said it. It was obvious she meant no harm there…..geeeeez!!!”
“The comment was offensive because it reduces being gay to one specific expression of “gayness” (an effeminate man) as if gayness could be reduced to its stereotypes.”
“That was a good call… because Great moments often catch us unaware—beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one. People may not remember exactly what you did or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”
Here is what was so remarkable about the outcome:
If you want to know more about testing assumptions, see Reframing Change, Chapter 2. For more about distinguishing intent from impact, see Chapter 5, “Bridging Differences,” pages 131-132.
Preface: Workplace Undercover will be a recurring segment of this blog, featuring a workplace scenario and a response by a guest consultant. The scenario below was written by Eillen Bui, our research associate. Mary Harlan of Harlan Consulting is guest consultant for this scenario.
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The scenario: Carina was recently promoted from Operator Technician to Engineer after working at TLC Co. for 15 years. To Carina, this promotion was bittersweet. She knew that she deserved this position, but felt it should have happened long ago. She was already doing everything the Engineer’s job description entailed years ago and was very experienced. The only thing was that she never earned a degree in engineering; everything she knew, she learned from working at the company.
Tom, the engineer she worked under, would assign Carina his tasks and then would take credit for her work. He even received a raise because of all the work that he was supposedly putting out. Carina would work in the background, believing she never received the credit she deserved.
Carina had many reasons for not wanting to bring up the situation to the partners of the company. She felt that as a female, she would never be considered for the position since only males held that title in her company. She also feared that she would be perceived as a weak, emotional female that would complain whenever she felt a “perceived injustice”.
As a first generation Filipino American, Carina was not as fluent in the American language as she wanted to be. She felt that if she brought up the subject, she would not be able to communicate her point to the partners effectively and that Tom would take that opportunity and discount her.
Carina would fume in the background, thinking that the partners surely knew she was the one who was doing all the work and was just turning a blind eye since Tom had seniority and was a white male, just like them!
The day after receiving her promotion, Carina began wondering whether she could now tell the partners how she had suffered in silence all these years, now she had had more of a voice in the company. She suspected what had happened to her was happening to another woman in the company and she thought the partners should know what was going on in their own company. Also, she just couldn’t bear to stay silent any longer.
But would she hurt her career by speaking up? And if she did tell them how she felt, what should she say and how should she say it?
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Today’s Response by Mary Harlan:
Carina, first of all, congratulations on a well deserved promotion! Yours is a difficult and complicated situation. It’s difficult because you must weigh the immediate emotional release you expect to get by speaking up against the longer term potential for backlash if do you speak up. Both options, particularly the potential for backlash are somewhat laden with assumptions. Consider the possibility that you could find a way to share your experience and your perspective in a way that provides insight rather than accuses.
Your situation is complicated because part of it is emotional (the accumulated years of hurt, betrayal, and resentment) and part of it relates to what you experience as fair or just in your work setting.
I would encourage you to work through your emotional charge on this before you do anything. A first step you might take is clearing your emotions to the point that you can sincerely appreciate where people are in the organization and how they have possibly and unconsciously acted out of their cultural conditioning – the way things have always been done in their organization . This could release you from having an emotionally driven agenda with your decision.
Once you have cleared your emotions, if you decide to say nothing, you will be okay your decision. If you decide to speak up, you will be able to do so with clarity of purpose. This clarity will increase the likelihood that your speaking up provides insight and has a positive outcome for others…and decrease the odds that you are perceived as a “weak, emotional female that would complain whenever you felt a perceived injustice”.
When (and if) you share your experience, two points are important to keep in mind:
Both of these points can be positive for the other person to hear. Hearing that you don’t think they intend to be hurtful can mitigate the reaction that they could have of feeling falsely accused.
Hearing that you’re aware of your perspective can support their openness to understand much more personally and poignantly how their behaviors impact people in the organization and ultimately performance.
Can you imagine sharing with them your experience in such a way that they thank you and ask you to further share with them your experience and perception? This is the possibility available with cultural understanding, accountability (not blame) for our own history, and forgiveness (both for yourself and others).
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Mary Harlan, President of Harlan Consulting, is a consultant and coach, specializing in change management, cultural competence, diversity, leadership, and teams. For more information, see www.harlanconsulting.com. Mary is also a practitioner with Leading Consciously.
The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Neither of my parents really cares about what I do or think. I’m not even sure they love me. Maybe they didn’t even want me. It hurts me in my stomach to think about it.”
The conversation above is nearly true. (I changed a few details to protect my friend’s privacy.)
Not feeling cared for or recognized in the way we expect can hurt for sure. I know. For a good part of my childhood and young adulthood, I was convinced my parents didn’t love me.
The proof for me was that they never gave me a birthday present. I was born on Christmas Day. Every Christmas morning, my sisters and I would awaken and rush into the living room to see what presents Santa and our parents had given us. Everything we wanted and more were always there — except for one thing: a birthday present for me.
On my ninth birthday, the only birthday card I received was from an older woman down the street. That was proof enough for me — no one really cared about me. Never mind all the Christmas presents, the clothes that I received throughout the year, all the driving to take me places. In my mind, they did those things out of obligation. If I didn’t get a birthday present, that must mean they didn’t love me.
“Love Currencies”
Fast forward a couple of decades. I became friends with Jo Bowens Lewis, who was then studying to become a transactional analysis therapist. She explained to me how people with different “love currencies” can fail to recognize love offerings from one another. If you are in a French restaurant and try to pay in Brazilian currency (reais), chances are the restaurant won’t accept it because reais are not seen as money. So you keep offering something valuable to you and they think you are offering them junk.
Love, praise, and recognition work that way. One person offers help and another offers gifts. Still another offers hugs and lots of “love you’s,” and a fourth offers it by working quietly behind the scenes. I was expecting my parents to demonstrate love at Christmas through a birthday gift. They were offering it through Christmas gifts.
Supportive feedback in the Workplace
Fast forward another couple of decades and I’m talking to an up-and-coming star in his organization whom I’ll call Don about Eliza, his new manager. “She never recognizes me,” he explains. “I just completed a major project — I pulled a miracle in finishing it on time and in budget considering all the headaches we had with the subcontractors. All she did was sit me down and explain the next project she was assigning me. Not a word of thanks or praise or anything.”
“Did she know how challenging an assignment it was?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, she knew. When she gave it to me, she told me that she didn’t know if I would be able to pull it off. I was insulted even then because of the way she gave it to me.”
Was Don seeking supportive feedback in the same currency as Eliza was accustomed to giving? Possibly not. I suggested that he test his assumptions about her by asking, “What if?” (Reframing Change, Chapter 2). “What if Eliza thought by assigning you a new more challenging project, she was giving you the highest praise possible?” His eyes grew wide with surprise at that.
“Oh, no, really?” he said, clearly bemused by the very thought. “How would I find out?”
“How would you?”
The logjam was broken and he was now considering the possibility that the praise currency he was seeking was different from the one she might be using.
“What is the praise currency that is used most frequently in your organization?” I asked.
He paused to reflect on this. “Sometimes before or after a meeting, someone will start talking about how he had accomplished this or that. And then others will chime in with their successes.”
“Do you ever join in?” I asked.
“Of course, not,” he responded instantly. “It reminds me of little boys standing by a building trying to see who can pee the furthest. I never wanted to join the game.”
I stayed silent, knowing he would figure this one out without any prompting.
“Okay,” he finally said. “If this is the praise currency that they use, I suppose I should also.”
“Either that,” I responded, “Or decide you will go on a campaign to get them to recognize and use your currency.”
“In other words,” he teased, “I shouldn’t wait 20 years for someone to finally give me a birthday card?”
“You got it.”
After I finally told my mother that I had missed getting a birthday gift during my childhood, she responded that if she had known it was that important to me, she would have wrapped any one or two or three of those Christmas presents with a big bow and given them to me as a birthday present. She hadn’t done it because I never told her.
What to do if we’re not getting the recognition we are seeking?
When we are looking for recognition or attaboys and not getting it, we do have options. The major option is to not just accept that this is the way it has to be, especially if there is the possibility that others don’t know we are missing it. Here’s what we can do:
There may be other ways as well.
References:
1. See Reframing Change, Chapter 2, for how to test assumptions
2. Gene Chapman’s Five Love Languages proposes a concept similar to “Love Currencies”.
Preface: Workplace Undercover is a recurring segment of this blog, featuring a workplace scenario and a response by a guest consultant. This scenario was written by Carole Marmell. Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts responds. This is the third of a three-part segment.
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Part III – Support for Bank’s Feedback System
In Part I of this Workplace UnderCover scenario, Molly, a bank employee, received harsh criticism instead of the supportive feedback she had expected during her yearly performance appraisal. In Part II, Jennifer Joyce, a leadership development coach and consultant, described three steps that Molly might take. In this segment, Jennifer discusses the bank’s role in supporting Molly and her supervisor in giving and receiving more effective feedback.
Jennifer Joyce continues:
As noted at the very beginning of the case study, there is room for Molly’s supervisor and the bank administration to do a better job of providing quality feedback. There are two steps I would recommend they take:
1) Ensure regular and timely feedback
2) Provide training on effective feedback
Ensure Regular and Timely Feedback
The bank’s policy of providing formal performance appraisals after every project as well as yearly appraisals is a great start. When an organization waits until the end of the year to provide evaluation information, they run the risk of losing out on better performance for the entire year. What’s more, the employees stay in the dark for long periods of time without really knowing how they are doing.
The policy of including more people in the appraisal of any one person is also positive in that it promotes more objective opinions than one person can provide.
However, there appears to be an effectiveness gap in the feedback that Molly received from her previous and her current supervisor. That is evidenced by the shock Molly experienced when she received critical feedback from her new supervisor. It’s also curious that Molly feels that the new supervisor is a better communicator than her previous supervisor.
If I were consulting for the bank, I would want to explore what is behind those two concerns. Was the previous supervisor holding the formal appraisal sessions as policy states? How do they know? Is it documented?
Effective Feedback
If the appraisals were regularly held, the next area to explore is the quality of the feedback. The issues listed in the first paragraph suggest that the bank managers and staff don’t have the necessary skill to do a good job in providing meaningful feedback.
If the skill gap proves to be fairly universal for the staff, I would recommend training on how to provide effective feedback in performance evaluations and how to receive feedback for the most positive results.
There are many good points from Chapter 4 in Reframing Change that would be part of that workshop. They include providing feedback that:
Summary
Having the skill to provide truly useful feedback that builds relationships and inspires positive change takes focus and practice. In my experience, it is the most powerful tool an organization has. Frequent quality feedback ensures a culture that recognizes and fixes problems quickly, keeps employees free from the tension of repressed feelings, and keeps communication flowing.
In my work as a leadership consultant, I often think to myself, “If I can just get these folks to talk to each other, my work here is done.”
References: Reframing Change, Building Effective Relationships, Chapter 4
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Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts.com, is a leadership development consultant and coach. She specializes in diversity, continuous quality Improvement, team effectiveness, change leadership, strategic planning, meeting design and facilitation, leadership development and executive coaching. For more information, see www.leadershipsmarts.com
Carole Marmell, LMSW-IPR, C-SWHC, is a hospice social worker.
Preface: Workplace Undercover is a recurring segment of this blog, featuring a workplace scenario and a response by a guest consultant. This scenario was written by Carole Marmell. Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts, responds. This is the second of a three-part segment.
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In the previous post, Molly, a young bank employee, had expected supportive feedback from her manager during her yearly performance appraisal. Instead her manager strongly criticized her and accused her of acting arrogant and believing she is smarter than everyone else. What can Molly do?
Jennifer Joyce responds:
In this scenario, it may be easy to find problems with how Molly’s supervisor and the appraisal committee are providing feedback. The feedback doesn’t appear to have a strengths-based approach or include positive feedback. It is entirely negative. The information is not specific and is full of judgment (“arrogant”) and assumptions (Molly thinks she’s smarter than us). And it sounds as though there may be issues around Molly receiving the direction and guidance she needs to do a good job on unfamiliar tasks. Finally, Molly is blind-sided by the information as she is expecting a glowing evaluation.
Nonetheless, making a case for “poor Molly” would take Molly down the path to powerlessness. Handled well, the situation could prove to be a gold mine for developing interpersonal skills, building more trusting relationships, and gaining new self-awareness about blind spots that have been undermining her success at work. To turn this situation into a positive career win, Molly should focus on three things: engage in self-management, “be in the question,” and “uncollapse” the issues of personal effectiveness from quality of work.
Any of us could easily be knocked off our center when receiving critical feedback, especially when we’re not expecting it. Molly doesn’t appear to be too emotionally triggered, so she has a good chance of managing herself well during the interaction. Nonetheless, she is struggling with how to explain her side of things without sounding defensive and questioning her own sense of reality and belief in herself.
During the discussion, Molly needs to have two main goals: to stay calm and to stay curious. That could be difficult if, like most of us, her natural inclination is to defend herself.
Molly needs to buy a little time to center herself and access her self-management skills. To release her stress, she might want to take a few deep breaths, relax back in her chair, and review the points that her supervisor brought up.
It’s always a good idea to take notes in a feedback discussion, as this will help catch the most important points for review later. In addition, reviewing her notes in the meeting would help Molly buy a little time to think through how best to respond.
Like many of us, Molly may feel pulled to “be in the answer,” which means she will stick with her own assessment of the situation that makes Molly right and others wrong.
But if Molly uses that strategy she loses on many counts. First, she will damage her relationships and her reputation as people will not only see her as arrogant, but also as unwilling to take feedback and make necessary changes. More importantly, she will miss the gift that feedback could provide: the chance to see things about herself that others see and she doesn’t. Without that outside-in view, she could continue to go through life not getting the results she wants and never understanding why.
The way through this dilemma is for Molly to “be in the question,” which means setting aside assumptions in order to become curious about everything that is happening. “What is it that causes people to see me as arrogant?” “What behaviors could they describe to give me a clue about how they experience me?” “Could they give me an example of a negative appraisal I made that seems out of line?” These questions would help her supervisor provide more specific quality feedback.
Molly could act as her own personal anthropologist trying to understand the world through other’s eyes. If she can stay “in the question,” she will jump start new levels of self-awareness that could lead to tremendous personal growth. She may be able to begin changing assumptions and behaviors that are undermining her effectiveness and begin an upward spiral in her professional development.
Molly’s biggest concern is that that her team might consider her work substandard. That would be awful for Molly as she takes great pride in producing high-quality work. It’s an important value of hers.
However, if Molly reviewed her notes, she would realize that her supervisor said nothing about the quality of her work. Rather, the feedback is about the quality of her interpersonal effectiveness. She needs to address the two issues separately: first the interpersonal effectiveness issue, and then the work quality issue.
If she was able to be “in the question” when she received that feedback, she is well on her way to addressing the first issue of interpersonal effectiveness.
But that still leaves Molly worried about perceptions about her work performance. Now that she understands the interpersonal issues, she can ask her supervisor to give her feedback on the quality of her work.
Again, she must stay in the question so she can truly hear what her supervisor has to say. She can use the same skills and ask for specific examples to help her understand the feedback, which may be quite good. She can help her supervisor uncollapse the issues by asking “Now that I understand the concerns regarding my interpersonal effectiveness, could we spend a few minutes reviewing the quality of my work?”
Summary. Here are three steps Molly might take:
But what about the bank’s role? How might the bank as an organization support Molly and her supervisor in giving and receiving more effective feedback? This will be discussed in the next post.
References: Reframing Change, Building Effective Relationships, Chapter 4
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Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts.com, is a leadership development consultant and coach. She specializes in diversity, continuous quality Improvement, team effectiveness, change leadership, strategic planning, meeting design and facilitation, leadership development and executive coaching. For more information, see www.leadershipsmarts.com
Carole Marmell, LMSW-IPR, C-SWHC, is a hospice social worker.
Preface: Workplace Undercover is a recurring segment of this blog, featuring a workplace scenario and a response by a guest consultant. The scenario below was written by Carole Marmell. Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts responds. This is the first of a three-part segment.
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Molly is a 30-year-old bank employee. The bank has a very structured environment, with formal performance appraisals after every project as well as every year. The appraisals go both ways, for supervisors as well as line staff. All appraisals are done by committees consisting of supervisors and line staff. In addition, the supervisors have procedures for providing coaching and feedback to all line staff to help them advance step by step.
In practice, Molly feels she does not receive appropriate coaching and feedback from her immediate supervisor and project manager. She feels that they assume she knows more than she really does, simply because she is so good at figuring things out for herself.
Molly is fairly confident of her approaching yearly appraisal. When her supervisor decides to provide an advance heads-up, Molly believes she will receive supportive feedback for her hard work. Instead it is barely mentioned. She feels her supervisor is telling her she is not conforming to expectations that she didn’t know existed.
“The perception around here,” says the supervisor, “is that you are a bit arrogant and feel you are smarter than everyone else. Your appraisals of others are more negative than we expect, and we worry this is an indication that you are not able to work well with others.”
Molly is not upset with her supervisor; she is actually relieved to hear this feedback before going in front of the whole committee. For that matter, she feels that this supervisor, who is new, is much better at communicating than the previous one. However, she now worries whether her work is considered substandard, rather than high-quality as she assumed. She has totally lost confidence in her own judgment.
What can Molly do now?
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Jennifer Joyce responds:
In this scenario, it may be easy to find problems with how Molly’s supervisor and the appraisal committee are providing feedback. The feedback doesn’t appear to have a strengths-based approach or include positive feedback. It is entirely negative. The information is not specific and full of judgment (arrogance) and assumptions (Molly thinks she’s smarter than us). And it sounds like there may be issues around Molly receiving the direction and guidance she needs to do a good job on tasks with which she is not familiar. Finally, Molly is blind-sided by the information as she is expecting a glowing evaluation.
Nonetheless, making a case for “poor Molly” would take Molly down the path to powerlessness. Handled well, the situation could prove to be a gold mine for developing interpersonal skills, building more trusting relationships, and gaining new self-awareness about blind spots that have been undermining her success at work. In order to turn this situation into a positive career win, Molly should focus on three things: Self-management, “be in the question,” and “uncollapse” the issues of personal effectiveness from quality of work.
[to be continued in the next post]
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Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts.com, is a leadership development consultant and coach. She specializes in diversity, continuous quality Improvement, team effectiveness, change leadership, strategic planning, meeting design and facilitation, leadership development and executive coaching. For more information, see www.leadershipsmarts.com
Carole Marmell, LMSW-IPR, C-SWHC, is a hospice social worker.
Jennifer Joyce, co-founder of LeadershipSmarts, is this week’s guest blogger.
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Coaching is often a pivotal step in a person’s career. It represents a large investment of time, money, and personal work. So how does one get the most out of such an important venture?
During my 15 years as a coach, I have found three keys to creating a successful engagement:
A clearly articulated over-arching coaching goal is often referred to as “the big A agenda.” It is usually a longer term goal such as learning how to improve business results or improving one’s ability to manage a team or creating a successful relationship with the boss. Once we know our goal we can define what success will look like. Knowing our goal and our success measures will keep the coaching sessions on a steady track.
For example, my client Susan is a smart young project manager in the high-tech industry. She has a natural ability to see the interlocking pieces of a complex project.
Nonetheless, she felt that her colleagues did not listen to her when she pointed out barriers to the success of projects they worked on. As a result, critical project issues did not get addressed until much later. The delay caused financial hardship to the company and its clients. They ended up with unnecessary project setbacks and increased budgets.
Susan established her “big A agenda” as “gaining the confidence to effectively stand her ground and make sure she is heard when bringing up important project issues.” She set up two success measures:
As you can imagine, her coaching goal would not be achieved overnight.
Once the long-term coaching goal is established, the direction for coaching is set. Now we can work with our coach to figure out the particulars of what has kept us from that goal in the first place. If we discuss the goal in a general fashion, we won’t get traction on figuring out why the same problem keeps popping up.
Susan can’t lament only about how others don’t listen to her. She must figure out what happens that causes others not to hear her. Only by exploring specific examples of when our particular problem manifests will we gain understanding about how that dynamic works.
These specific examples are called “little a agendas.” They give us a picture of all the microcosms of our lives that add up to keep us from our “big A agenda.” By exploring the “little a agendas” we begin to identify the patterns of behavior that are getting us what we don’t want. More importantly, they give us the opportunity to explore the patterns of thinking and assumptions that drive our behaviors.
The issues we bring to our coaching sessions are historically intractable so there is something deeper to uncover than just a change of behavior. After all, if it were an easy thing to change, we would have already changed it. We can’t see the origin of the issue because the assumptions that drive our behaviors are so automatic we can’t see them. Yet those assumptions are directing our lives.
The bottom line is not to change only our behaviors. The real work is to uncover and challenge those automatic assumptions that are driving our behaviors.
Let’s go back to Susan’s issue – not being heard on important matters. What was it about Susan’s behavior that continually led to the problem with her colleagues not listening to her concerns? As we explored one specific example (little a agenda) when Susan did not get her point across, we recognized that she expressed her concerns in a general and deflected manner.
We worked to uncover the thoughts she had just before speaking up, which Susan identified as a fear of speaking her mind. She had an automatic assumption that said if she spoke up, people would get angry and yell at her. She knew how important expressing her opinion was but when she did, her point was so watered down that nobody got it.
By role-playing the scenario, Susan was able to test her assumption that speaking up would cause problems in her organization. She began taking baby steps to more clearly state her concerns with her colleagues and achieved good results. In that way she began to shift her internal assumption about the danger of speaking her truth. As her ability to clearly state her opinion improved, so did her project results.
This article focuses only on the work of the client, not on the people or the situation surrounding the client, because coaching is always about helping us find our power to create the results we want in life. If we think that power lies outside ourselves, with other people or situations, then there is nothing we can do.
As we learn in Matt’s story in Chapter 1 of Reframing Change, once we learn to “consciously use ourselves to bring about change,” we no longer “feel powerless to make a difference.” By exploring our internal thought process that leads to our behaviors that lead to our results, we find the root of our power to change our circumstances.
Susan came to coaching ready and willing to look at what was happening within her. She was willing to explore the possibility that it was her behavior that led to the results she didn’t want. As she surfaced and challenged the assumptions she was making about speaking up, she calmed the fear that kept her communication ineffective. She is now listed as an important high-potential employee whom her colleagues value.
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Jennifer Joyce, cofounder of LeadershipSmarts.com, is a leadership development consultant and coach. She specializes in diversity, continuous quality improvement, team effectiveness, change leadership, strategic planning, meeting design and facilitation, leadership development, and executive coaching. For more information, see www.leadershipsmarts.com
In the previous post, we met Tracy who is having a hard time getting along with Sasha. As Tracy complained to her partner, “how am I supposed to work on a charity event with someone who has nothing to say and has such a superior attitude?”
The response today is by Sandra Lopez, a licensed clinical social worker and consultant.
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Tracy’s scenario is just so typical of what any one of us might encounter. Clearly as she shares her feelings with her partner, we can see that Tracy has become frustrated, stressed, and is even experiencing some sense of helplessness in knowing how to make the situation better. Like many of us in these kinds of predicaments, she has formed negative assumptions about her co-worker. Given the current status of her relationship with Sasha, she raises a good question in wondering how she will survive the stress of working on this charity event.
How do we work through these challenging interpersonal conflicts when they happen? Tracy can relieve a great deal of her stress in this working relationship by consciously using herself to more effectively manage the situation.
I want Tracy to know that there is hope for improving her relationship with Sasha. I want to first invite her to sit, talk, and share what she’s feeling without any judgment. It can be helpful to simply talk things out with someone you trust and who will listen attentively. Perhaps in Tracy’s exploration of thoughts and feelings, she might hit upon something that gives her insight into these circumstances. Once Tracy has had this opportunity, I want to suggest she turn up the volume on her self-awareness — she obviously is having a pretty serious reaction to Sasha.
Why is this Tracy? She has allowed Sasha’s behavior to influence how she acts and this can potentially undermine Tracy being herself.
She could benefit from identifying her emotions and understanding how her actions and words are being influenced by her reactions to Sasha. In our conversation with Tracy we can help her to see where things went wrong and even support her in getting the emotional attachments out of the way. It might be helpful for Tracy to talk about when did this first start and when did she first notice that she was having a reaction to Sasha. This step is all about helping Tracy to stop and to take stock in what is happening in these interactions with Sasha. Having had similar experiences myself, I know that once we go into a place of being triggered by these emotions, it is so easy to lose sight of the real issues.
I want Tracy to see that she is making assumptions about Sasha that may be inaccurate. She thinks Sasha has a superior attitude and that she believes she is better because she is on the executive team. Do we know this to be true? Or, is this more about Tracy’s perception of Sasha?
Tracy also is beginning to participate in a detrimental behavior by aligning with another employee in making disparaging remarks about Sasha. Comments about Sasha having 9 cats and no husband are demeaning and can hurt the relationship building process.
I want Tracy to put herself into Sasha’s shoes. What is it like to be the VP’s Top assistant at the corporation? What about Sasha’s part in the charity event? She seems invested in the event as she volunteered to help. Could there be other reasons why she is not engaging with Tracy? Could she be shy or introverted? Could she be intimidated by Tracy’s outgoing personality? Does she feel pressure to project a serious demeanor at work because she fears she might lose her job?
We really don’t know, do we? If we make an effort to understand the other person, it can prevent us from making those inaccurate assumptions, and ultimately free us from some of the frustration and stress.
Two last points I want Tracy to consider. First, it is far more productive for her to focus on identifying her part in the poor interactions with Sasha as opposed to blaming Sasha for everything and viewing herself (Tracy) as the victim. It takes sincere reflections to realize that when we react we often aren’t thinking clearly in that moment—we are all about “feeling” and “reacting”.
Although many of us have been raised in having the good guy bad-guy mentality, we don’t have to view it this way. It takes courage to be willing to look at one’s contributions into a nasty situation. If we can remind ourselves that it takes two to “dance” in a relationship, we can move towards some beginning sense of understanding of the other person.
So when we put ourselves into Sasha’s shoes, we might wonder what is it like for her to be the VP’s top assistant at XYZ Corporation. How does she perceive her role in the planning of the charity event? Is her office behavior more about being shy and introverted? Does she have difficulty in creating work friendships?
All of these questions at least invite Tracy to consider that Sasha may have certain reasons for her behavior. It is obvious that Sasha must have strengths as she is the top assistant. Hopefully such an exploration will allow Tracy to let go of some of her reactions towards Sasha and to begin to see other possibilities.
Through self-awareness, thoughtful exploration, stretching to understand Sasha’s perspective and exploring her contributions, Tracy will have a good jump start for the road back to rebuilding the relationship with Sasha. With a commitment to this process, I am hopeful that Tracy will be able to effectively work with Sasha on the upcoming charity event — and who knows? — these two may even develop a far better working relationship.
Bio: Sandra A. Lopez is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a clinical and consulting practice in the Houston area. She also serves as Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.
Reference: “Conscious Use of Self”, Reframing Change, Chapter 6.
Tracy’s scenario is just so typical of what any one of us might encounter. Clearly as she shares her feelings with her partner, we can see that Tracy has become frustrated, stressed, and is even experiencing some sense of helplessness in knowing how to make the situation better. Like many of us in these kinds of predicaments, she has formed negative assumptions about her co-worker. Given the current status of her relationship with Sasha, she raises a good question in wondering how she will survive the stress of working on this charity event.
How do we work through these challenging interpersonal conflicts when they happen? Tracy can relieve a great deal of her stress in this working relationship by consciously using herself to more effectively manage the situation.
I want Tracy to know that there is hope for improving her relationship with Sasha. I want to first invite her to sit, talk, and share what she’s feeling without any judgment. It can be helpful to simply talk things out with someone you trust and who will listen attentively. Perhaps in Tracy’s exploration of thoughts and feelings, she might hit upon something that gives her insight into these circumstances. Once Tracy has had this opportunity, I want to suggest she turn up the volume on her self-awareness — she obviously is having a pretty serious reaction to Sasha.
Why is this Tracy? She has allowed Sasha’s behavior to influence how she acts and this can potentially undermine Tracy being herself.
She could benefit from identifying her emotions and understanding how her actions and words are being influenced by her reactions to Sasha. In our conversation with Tracy we can help her to see where things went wrong and even support her in getting the emotional attachments out of the way. It might be helpful for Tracy to talk about when did this first start and when did she first notice that she was having a reaction to Sasha. This step is all about helping Tracy to stop and to take stock in what is happening in these interactions with Sasha. Having had similar experiences myself, I know that once we go into a place of being triggered by these emotions, it is so easy to lose sight of the real issues.
I want Tracy to see that she is making assumptions about Sasha that may be inaccurate. She thinks Sasha has a superior attitude and that she believes she is better because she is on the executive team. Do we know this to be true? Or, is this more about Tracy’s perception of Sasha?
Tracy also is beginning to participate in a detrimental behavior by aligning with another employee in making disparaging remarks about Sasha. Comments about Sasha having 9 cats and no husband are demeaning and can hurt the relationship building process.
I want Tracy to put herself into Sasha’s shoes. What is it like to be the VP’s Top assistant at XYZ Corporation? What about Sasha’s part in the charity event? She seems invested in the event as she volunteered to help. Could there be other reasons why she is not engaging with Tracy? Could she be shy or introverted? Could she be intimidated by Tracy’s outgoing personality? Does she feel pressure to project a serious demeanor at work because she fears she might lose her job? We really don’t know, do we? If we make an effort to understand the other person, it can prevent us from making those inaccurate assumptions, and ultimately free us from some of the frustration and stress.
Two last points I want Tracy to consider. First, it is far more productive for her to focus on identifying her part in the poor interactions with Sasha as opposed to blaming Sasha for everything and viewing herself (Tracy) as the victim. It takes sincere reflections to realize that when we react we often aren’t thinking clearly in that moment—we are all about “feeling” and “reacting”.
Although many of us have been raised in having the good guy bad-guy mentality, we don’t have to view it this way. It takes courage to be willing to look at one’s contributions into a nasty situation. If we can remind ourselves that it takes two to “dance” in a relationship, we can move towards some beginning sense of understanding of the other person.
So when we put ourselves into Sasha’s shoes, we might wonder what is it like for her to be the VP’s top assistant at XYZ Corporation. How does she perceive her role in the planning of the charity event? Is her office behavior more about being shy and introverted? Does she have difficulty in creating work friendships?
All of these questions at least invite Tracy to consider that Sasha may have certain reasons for her behavior. It is obvious that Sasha must have strengths as she is the top assistant. Hopefully such an exploration will allow Tracy to let go of some of her reactions towards Sasha and to begin to see other possibilities.
Through self-awareness, thoughtful exploration, stretching to understand Sasha’s perspective and exploring her contributions, Tracy will have a good jump start for the road back to rebuilding the relationship with Sasha. With a commitment to this process, I am hopeful that Tracy will be able to effectively work with Sasha on the upcoming charity event — and who knows? — these two may even develop a far better working relationship.
Bio: Sandra A. Lopez is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a clinical and consulting practice in the Houston area. She also serves as Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.
