Mind Your Language!
I’m not talking about
words here, but behaviour. I have a
client whose offices allow for most staff to have their own office. In my opinion, this is great as it means
people have the privacy to concentrate in peace and are therefore more
productive.
What’s more interesting is the way that people act in their
“caves”. Most of them (even the MD) leave
the door open, but there’s one I’ve noticed who goes onto his office, closes
the blinds and the door. I know he’s busy and needs to concentrate,
but it’s not the case that there’s a constant queue of people to see him.
What he’s saying is, “Stay away...”
I know he’s more of an introvert, but it’s interesting that,
previously, he left his door open until he moved offices. People now feel they’re intruding if they
need to see him and have to knock on his door.
He could, of course, be saying that he’s busy and can't be
disturbed (what a closed door usually means).
However, when the door’s closed all the time, that sends a message.
Another person I know always keeps his door closed, but that’s
the way he’s always been and he was a senior military officer before who was
clearly used to “that system”. Everyone
just “knows” they can knock and go in to see him.
We’re not always aware of what we might be signalling to others
by our actions, or that our behaviour can be interpreted in different ways by
others depending on the situation, the mood they're in, their upbringing and
any other number of factors. What might
seem “normal” to one person could be deeply offensive to another.
Awareness is the key.
I don't advocate tiptoeing around other people – we are who we are, but
an understanding and awareness of how behaviour impacts on others as well as
how their actions impact us is one of the most interesting studies one can do!
I have spent more than half my life
delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to
“emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial
services around the world running
different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide
solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses,
charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An
international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of
services. For strategic questions that
you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Social, Teamwork
Appraisals: "Surplus" or "Deficit"?
The “Annual Review”
(or Appraisal or Performance Review) is something that many (both appraisers
and appraisees) dread. I have met few
organisations where people feel that the appraisal system really works for the benefit
of individuals, teams and the business.
This is usually because it’s poorly managed, administered,
understood and (at times) not fit for purpose.
I worked for one organisation that changed their appraisal method 3
times during my time there. Clearly
people felt it wasn’t doing what it should.
One refreshing development is that people are now beginning
to realise that everyone has both strengths
as well as weaknesses (or “areas for development/improvement”,
to give them their politically correct description). They’re also realising that different
cultures view the appraisal process in different ways. As a simple example, whilst the West may see
them as a critical part of development, others view “criticism” (which, let’s
face it, is what they are) as a bad thing that shouldn't be done to an
individual’s face, even in private, let alone in writing. Thus, a crudely managed, Western-biased
system, may not go down well in certain countries.
That said, we all (presumably) want to get the best out of
our employees and to develop them as much as we can. Good employees will also want to know how
they can do better. The question is
really one of how we get them to realise, accept and take responsibility for
what they need to do.
Many appraisal systems I’ve seen operate on the “deficit
model”, that is, they point up negative areas of the appraisee. When receiving criticism, our basic instinct
is to go into “fight or flight” mode (even if we know what’s going on). Humans
don't respond well to criticism, and all this stuff about “Tell them something
nice, then the improvement, then something nice again” (or the “sandwich
method” as I call it) doesn't work well with today’s well-educated
workers.
The answer? Ask
people what they think went well and
what could have gone better. Explore with them what could have gone
better and develop action plans around it.
If they’re reluctant to talk about what could go better, lead them there
with a discussion about overall performance and individual elements. Never
present things in black and white terms (however “difficult” the appraisee may
be) and, if necessary, call a break to regroup.
It’s unlikely that we’ll get many “difficult” cases (and that we can probably
even forecast who they’ll be).
The other thing to remember is not to wait until the annual
review to do it. These days, people (especially
younger ones) prefer feedback as soon as possible. How do they prefer it? Praise generally goes
down well if given in pubic and if it’s specific (i.e. “I like the way you
handled that customer. You showed
patience, respect, etc…”). Not only does
it encourage the right behaviour in the individual, but also in those near
enough to listen.
Another tip I’ve learnt the hard way is to catch people
doing right as much as (if not more than) doing wrong. We tend to react better to praise and if
that’s what we mainly get, we’ll be more inclined to accept well-intentioned
“corrections” (especially given in private) when they come. Equally, we tend to remember criticism more
than praise (even if we receive more praise than criticism). Again, the knack is to be specific and
describe the behaviour, rather than
making it a part of the individual.
It all takes practice – something I’m still learning!
I have spent more than half my life
delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to
“emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial
services around the world running different
operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide
solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses,
charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An
international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of
services. For strategic questions that
you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.Labels: Career, Leadership, Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork
Different Strokes Suit Different Folks
I’ve been in
communication with Apple over an issue I have with what they call “Two-Factor Authentication”. The issue itself isn’t important here, what
interests me more is how Apple choose to communicate with customers.
In this case, Apple communicate by phone (the idea
presumably being that they solve your issue for you immediately). This is great – provided that (a) there’s a
phone number for your region (and (b) that you’re happy to spend a long time on
the phone…
Not all of us are like that or actually need our issue
sorted right away. We’re happy to send
an email describing the problem and waiting for the recipient to sort it
out. I think it’s great that Apple want
to sort us out personally, and I’m sure that in at least 95% of cases, they
can. In my case, there wasn’t a simple
fix, and I was asked to stay on the line whilst they referred to a supervisor. I had already been on the phone for 24
minutes at this stage and asked if they could just email me a response once
they had spoken to the supervisor but was told that they couldn’t escalate if I
wasn’t on the phone…
I had already spent 24 minutes of my time on the phone and now
needed to stay on? They had all the
information they needed, so why was it necessary to keep me “hanging on the
telephone”? If they’d offered to call me
back, that would have been fine, but I saw no reason to wait. My view was that I’d done my duty by
reporting the problem, it was up to Apple to fix it and I wasn’t in a tearing
hurry, so they could take their time to work out a quality solution. Surely this is the stuff dreams are made
of? A cooperative customer saying, “take
your (not my) time to find a solution and get back to me when you have”?
We have a choice of communication method when dealing with
problems. In order of speed, I’d rank
them as:
- Face to face meeting
- Phone call
- Email/company website feedback form
- Letter sent through post
The last two (email and letter) are for where time isn’t
critical (especially letter) and are what are known as “asynchronous
communication” (i.e. when you write the email/letter, it isn't read at the same
time by the recipient). Face to face
meetings are fine if the person can meet straight away and you're in their
office/store or work place, but most of us will use a phone call for highly
urgent matters and email/company website feedback form for the rest.
The advantage of having at least one “time sensitive” and
one not-so time sensitive method of communication is that it helps to
prioritise. If we get a phone call, it
would be fair to assume the matter’s urgent (to the other party, at
least). This doesn’t mean that we ignore an email or
letter – both are important and should be handled professionally, but a phone
calls’ “here and now”.
In short, if I want to report a problem and have it looked
at over time and am not too worried about how quickly the other side gets back
to me, I’ll use email. If it’s urgent, I
use the phone.
It’s great to see businesses insist on only using the phone
but why not give your customers the
choice? It could save time and money.
I have spent more than half my life
delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to
“emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial
services around the world running different
operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide
solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses,
charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An
international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of
services. For strategic questions that
you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Teamwork
