Friday morning meaning-making

Developing as a leader,

In the aftermath of World War II, Viktor E. Frankl, psychologist, wrote of his experiences in the concentration camps.  His little book was published in Austria under the title Ein Psycholog Erlebt Das Konzentrationslager (“A psychologist experiences the concentration camp”) and subsequently, in English as Man’s Search for Meaning.  If you haven’t read it yet, you’re not too late.  It’s still readily available.

I was reminded of it recently when my friend Kenny Tranquille sent me a link to a six-minute clip of Dan Ariely, author of The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home.  In the clip, entitled The Meaning of Labor, Ariely describes the disappointment of a young man who has worked for three weeks to prepare documentation for a merger, only to be told, simply, that the merger is off.

Ariely goes on to describe an intriguing experiment which explores people’s motivation and productivity at work.  As Ariely himself highlights, the tasks allocated are not deeply imbued with meaning – the subjects are using Lego to build small figures.  Even so, small changes in the conditions of the experiment which reduce meaning for participants, have a big impact on both motivation and behaviour.

Ariely points to two conclusions.  Firstly, he says, we need to think about how to create more meaning at work.  Like Frankl, Ariely recognises that people are naturally inclined to make meaning.  Secondly, he suggests we need to take care not to choke this tendency by our activities as leaders.  He finishes his brief talk with some suggestions for the manager of his young friend.

It’s an intriguing clip – no doubt an invitation to buy his book.  Just six minutes long, it’s worth watching and reflecting on before getting down to the business of the day.  Perhaps a question to reflect on after watching is this:  to what extent, as a line manager, are you invested in helping your staff to find meaning in their work?

Coaching for increased engagement and higher performance

Developing as a leader

I have been sharing an article recently with colleagues and clients.  It’s one I co-authored with Gill How of Buonacorsi Consulting and was published in Training Journal in December, 2012.

It had an interesting genesis.  I don’t quite remember when, but a while back (two years?  …three?  …four?) I heard Gill talk about some work she’d done with Southern Railway and found myself sitting in the audience feeling …well, frankly, jealous.  This was definitely a project to die for in my world.  Gill, and her clients at Southern Railway, had worked together with the aim of developing a coaching style of leadership across the organisation.

This would naturally capture my interest – I am very familiar with the research that underpins Goleman’s article Leadership That Gets Results and his book The New Leaders (which I’ve mentioned before on this blog).  This research tends to demonstrate that leaders are most effective when they (a) adapt their style to meet the needs of situations as they arise and (b) use styles which build motivation and engagement – what you might call a positive climate at work.  A visionary style is one of these (setting out a clear vision for the future and translating it into clear goals for individuals in your team).  A coaching style is another (fostering the learning and development of members of your team).  A participative (or democratic) style is the third (used judiciously – engaging staff in key decisions which affect the team).

Gill’s work with Southern Railway represented – to me – a wonderful opportunity to test the impact of a coaching style of leadership on organisational climate and on business results.  Oh, boy!  The results were compelling.  Gill and her clients provided such a long list of measures for our article that we had to pick out some choice examples.  A key moment was in 2009, for example, when after three years of working with Buonacorsi Consulting to develop a coaching style of leadership in its organisation, a survey by Gallup showed a statistical link between levels of employee engagement and participation in the company’s coaching programme. In other words, those managers who had developed their coaching style were having a strong and positive impact on the climate experienced by their team members and this impact outweighed that of managers who had not participated in the programme.  Other results included increases in participation in employee surveys, reductions in grievances and employee tribunals, the odd award… the list goes on.

Sitting here writing, I wonder how this lands with you.  Perhaps you’re celebrating your own use of a coaching style of leadership and everything that it brings to you.  Maybe you’re struggling to make time for the meetings, paperwork and blah, blah, blah that beset you constantly in your organisation.  How on earth do you begin to take time out to coach members of your team?  In case you’re interested, I came across another case study earlier this week, courtesy of The Harvard Business Review’s wonderful Morning Advantage.  Even without following the link they provide, I think Sarah Green’s commentary speaks for itself:

The purist in me loves this piece from Business Strategy Review out of London Business School. Julian Birkinshaw and Simon Caulkin report on an experiment they did with a sales team at the Stockholm offices of a major insurance company, in which they asked the team’s manager to free up two additional hours a day to, well, manage. She handed off some admin work, excused herself from less-important meetings, and spent the extra time giving more guidance to her team, both as a group and one-on-one (read the full piece for the details). After three weeks, sales were up 5% over the previous three-week period, low performers had greatly improved, and no one — not the manager or her direct reports — wanted to go back to the old ways of working.

But wait! you cry, Surely it can’t be that simple. Indeed, Birkinshaw and Caulkin caution that this way of managing may not be for everyone, and many managers “might be happier dealing with numbers behind a desk.” But, they say, for those who can handle the intensity of “full-on management,” the result can be a much more satisfying job and a much more motivated team. I’d hardly be so charitable; why are you a manager if you don’t want to really manage? 

Christmas is over… or is it?

Emotional Intelligence


This article was written for Discuss HR and first posted at the beginning of this week.

It’s two weeks now since many people started to come back to work following a break for the Christmas holidays.  It was a break – but not necessarily a rest.  Last week the popular press was full of stories reflecting the fact that petitions for a divorce are highest in January:  no doubt 2013 will be the same as any other year.  Just as businesses have negotiated their way through holiday rotas and are starting to get back on track, who knows what little wobbles are taking place as men and women in the workplace are distracted by the aftermath of Christmas in their personal lives.

Reflecting on the joys and challenges of Christmas, I found myself pondering the enduring significance of our families of origin in the workplace.  In the mid 1990s, I first encountered the world of behavioural competencies and my expertise in this area still makes a significant contribution to my income.  One colleague, though, used to say that you could find out everything you need to know about how someone will perform at work by asking them about their family of origin.  Are they a single child or one of several?  And where in the pecking order do they sit?

Wikipedia reports that Alfred Adler (1870–1937), an Austrian psychiatrist, and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, was one of the first theorists to suggest that birth order influences personality. He argued that birth order can leave an indelible impression on an individual’s style of life, which is one’s habitual way of dealing with the tasks of friendship, love, and work, though it also reports that such theories are controversial in psychology.  But how do our experiences in our family of origin manifest in the workplace?

Take, for example, the relationship between a manager and those people he or she manages.  I wonder how much early family patterns are manifest in the relationship between an individual and his or her boss.  It takes maturity, for example, to realise that just because an individual has the role of manager, it doesn’t mean that he or she has the skills – the full ‘kitbag’, if you like – to execute the role effectively.  I see a parallel here with life in the family:  how easy it is to continue to struggle with the gap between one’s ideal parents and the parents we actually have.  Moreover, if we struggle to make requests in the family or even imagine that it’s for our parents to know what we need and provide it, this behaviour is likely to show up at work where we may unconsciously see our boss as one more parent figure.

In my own life, I have found that work and family go hand in hand.  Taking part in 1999, for example, in a large research project into what makes for an outstanding teacher, I was well prepared by a wise colleague for the experience of walking into a school for the first time in years.  And it’s not just walking into a school that evokes our inner child – one coaching client of mine was at a loss to understand why he struggled to speak when meeting his CEO until he made a connection with his early memories of his father.  Another client could not say “no” in the workplace until he had first found a way to say “no” to his parents’ most difficult requests.

One of the implications, it seems to me, is that work is a place in which, over time, we mature and “grow up” or, equally, fail to mature and grow up.  Through my work and personal experience, I know how much coaching can contribute to this process, bringing huge benefits both to clients of coaching and to their place of work.  As I complete this article, though, I find myself wondering, how important is it for HR and their “sister” professionals to be aware of the shadow cast over our work by our families of origin?  And, insofar as we have insight, what do we do next?

The concert you didn’t get to hear

About Dorothy

Simon Halsey in rehearsal –
a gesture we have quickly come
to understand

It’s months since tickets for our concert on Sunday evening sold out so that I didn’t send the usual alert to friends.  I’m not sure whether it was the lure of the programme – Elgar’s Cello Concerto followed by Mozart’s Requiem – or the prospect of having Sir Colin Davis as our conductor, or Tim Hugh as soloist, that made the programme so attractive.  Last week I checked and found a lone ticket (a ‘return’) – just one – available.

As a chorus, we have been rehearsing assiduously for a performance from memory.  This is something we rarely do so that the question “how do I learn a piece from memory?” is as important as the intricate detail of the piece itself.  Some members of the soprano section were taking steps well before Christmas, using our travelling time (to Luxembourg and Paris in December) to go through the score again and again.  I have been less assiduous, though I did take advantage of a recent day trip to Edinburgh to go through the score in some detail.  Mainly, though, my strategy has been to sing without a score in rehearsals and to notice what I can sing with confidence and what details I need to revise.

Who’s idea was it to put us through this challenge?  It was Simon’s – that’s Simon Halsey, newly recruited to the posts of Chorus Director of the London Symphony Chorus and Choral Director of the London Symphony Orchestra.  Simon clearly has a strategy – or perhaps one should say any number of strategies.  He has brought a kind of musical OCD to our preparation, diving into all sorts of details, letting us know where we need to improve and how.  He has also planned a generous number of rehearsals.  In the run up to the concert we have rehearsed on Tuesday and Wednesday before meeting our conductor on Thursday and rehearsing again with the full ensemble on Friday evening and Saturday and Sunday mornings.  By the time we sing on  Sunday evening I feel confident that I know the piece well and that my neighbour on the podium knows it even better.  I am also grateful for Simon’s advice to save our voices for the concert.

Some time ahead of the concert, we learn that Sir Colin will not be our conductor.  This is not entirely a surprise (we know he has been ill) and is met with a mixed response – much beloved of chorus members, we are both disappointed not to be singing with him and pleased that he is taking care of his health.  In his place, we have Yutaka Sado, who worked for a number of years as assistant to Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa and with whom we are working for the first time.  Sado’s sweeping gestures in full flow remind me of Bernstein’s grand style of conducting and, at the same time, I am grateful to him for his assiduous support of the chorus, bringing us in throughout the piece.  The orchestra violins seem to be taking more notes than I have ever seen before, conferring with each other throughout our rehearsals.  Perhaps they want to do a good job (and indeed they do).  Somehow, though, the description of a class of school children testing their supply teacher rings more true.

And what of the concert itself?  The programme is magnificent.  Tim Hugh plays the Elgar with great assurance and I find myself bathing in Elgar’s rich soundscape.  In the Mozart, I find Daniela Lehner’s mezzo-soprano rendition rather forced but otherwise enjoy the ensemble of soloists.  Andrew Foster-Williams’ breath control in the Tuba Mirum is, well, simply boasting – anyone for a pint of bass?  Elizabeth Watts and Maximillian Schmitt both bring a fine tone.  Singing in the chorus I feel confident and assured and enjoy the richness of the piece, including the contrasts within it.  I am pleased to have saved my voice so that I am able to bring power and emotion to the Dies Irae and lightness of touch to some quiet corners in the Rex tremendae and the Confutatis maledictis.

Waking up on Monday morning I have a particular reason to savour this performance.  The news reaches me, not unexpectedly, that my uncle has died.  In my heart, I dedicate this performance to him and hope that he may, indeed, rest in peace.   

Building your senior leadership team? You, too, are a member

Developing as a leader

Are you taking measures to build your senior leadership team?  If you are, you need to remember that you, too, are a member of the team.

Over the years, I have worked with a number of senior leadership teams to address various aspects of SLT effectiveness.  I’ve also had many more conversations with leaders who would like to see change in their team.  If you’re leading a senior leadership team, perhaps you can identify with some of the issues that come up, which include:

  • Members of the team work in silos and rarely collaborate.  When we have to discuss a decision, very few of them can think beyond the needs of their area to explore what’s best for the business;
  • One or more of the members of the team is in some way less than fully competent.  Perhaps s/he has strong technical skills but lacks the skills to lead or influence effectively.  Perhaps s/he is a whizz in his or her areas of expertise, but lacks insight into the business more generally.  At times, it can be hard to recruit members to the team who have the level of capability needed to be effective;
  • There is conflict in the team and unhelpful politics which reflects personal agendas.  One or more members of the team are trying to undermine other members of the team – maybe even the leader.  Managing the politics of the team takes valuable time and energy away from the job of working together to run the organisation;
  • Communication amongst team members is poor in some way.  Perhaps there is a lack of the kind of deep thinking amongst team members that is necessary as the basis for effective communication.  Perhaps team members are unwilling to share all the information they have as the basis for effective communication and decision-making. 
As I sit here, I find myself reflecting on the experiences I have had over the years of working with senior teams and on my own learning in this area.  One conclusion I have reached is that, without exception, a dysfunctional senior leadership team is led by someone who has something to learn.  Here are a few examples – with amendments made to protect confidentiality:
  • One CEO complained that members of his team never came up with any good ideas.  Members of his team reported that they’d stopped putting ideas forward because it was always the CEO’s ideas that prevailed.  They also described him as someone who dismissed other people’s ideas without taking any steps to understand them.  This CEO was consciously espousing a desire for his team’s ideas but his behaviours were contrary to his aspirations;
  • One leader was deeply frustrated with his team and asked for help to develop team members.  Yet the same team leader had taken a diagnostic that showed he needed to adapt his leadership style and include more use of the coaching style.  A second diagnostic, 18 months later, showed no change in his behaviour;
  • One CEO commissioned an audit of the leadership capability of team members.  The results for one team member raised concerns – his leadership capability was poor.  It was also apparent that, over time, the CEO had gradually removed any substantive responsibilities from this team member and replaced them with projects which could do no damage to the business.  This had been done without ever holding any conversations with the individual about the fact that his performance wasn’t up to par;
  • One Managing Director was deeply unhappy with his leadership team and seemed to be lurching from crisis to crisis.  Each crisis was deeply distressing for the team as a whole and still, as soon as the crisis was over, the MD went back to business as usual.  He found it terrifying to look at the fundamental causes of these ‘mini-crises’ and even more terrifying to consider that the cause of each crisis – or at least the responsibility for creating the conditions in which further crises would be averted – was his responsibility.
As I write, I notice how much I enjoy working with teams at this level and how much I appreciate the opportunities I have to sit around the table with senior leaders.  Right now, I have a space opening up for a new project of this kind.  At the same time, as I respond to invitations to discuss work with potential clients I am very clear about one thing:  any leader who is not yet ready to be Chief Learner in his or her team is going to struggle to achieve his or her aspirations to develop a high-performing, high-functioning Senior Leadership Team.  

Stepping into the New Year

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
One of the most beautifully disturbing questions we can ask,
is whether a given story we tell about our lives is actually true,
and whether the opinions we go over every day have any foundation
or are things we repeat to ourselves simply so that we will continue to play the game.
It can be quite disorienting to find that a story we have relied on – is not only not true
– it actually never was true. Not now not ever.
There is another form of obsolescence that can fray at the cocoon we have spun about ourselves,
that is, the story was true at one time, and for an extended period;
the story was even true and good to us,
but now it is no longer true and no longer of any benefit,
in fact our continued retelling of it simply imprisons us.
We are used to the prison however,
we have indeed fitted cushions and armchairs
and made it comfortable
and we have locked the door from the inside.


David Whyte

Christmas is over and we are fast moving towards a new year.  Perhaps, like me, you are enjoying a break.  Perhaps, too, this is a time for reflection for you as one year draws to a close and the next, like a blank page waiting to be populated, sits before us.

One man who knows what it is to step boldly forward is David Whyte, who has carved an extraordinary place for himself in the world, bringing poetry to corporate America, where he lives with his wife and family.  I particularly enjoy his recorded talk on leadership, Life at the frontier:  leadership through courageous conversations.

Being a poet, even David’s marketing materials are a joy to read, like the one from which I have taken the extract above.  More than many people, David is willing to penetrate the surface of life to engage deeply with what lies underneath, as he did in the letter to his followers, from which this excerpt is taken.

The passage above was particularly striking because it speaks to something which can both imprison and release us – the stories we tell about ourselves.  Working as I do in coaching partnership with men and women in leadership roles I find that it is these stories, more than anything else, that create the greatest challenges we face.  These stories of the self are particularly challenging precisely because they pass under the radar, unnoticed and unquestioned.  How would we think to do something differently when we think that the actions we take spring from an immutable, unchangeable self?

Often, our stories of ourself spring from our relationship with the world and with past events which have, we believe, shaped and moulded us.  They include a large measure of familial and societal – even workplace – programming, of which we are largely unaware.  We may look to those we lead to embrace change and feel frustrated by others’ lack of flexibility even whilst being unaware of those areas in which we, too, are unwilling to flex.  And yet it is our job to flex and it is our willingness to flex – even our willingness to flex the stories we tell ourselves about who we really are – that lies at the heart of our effectiveness in the role of leader and the ease with which we fulfil our role.

So, as you reflect on the year just gone and look forward to the year ahead, I invite you to consider the questions David raises in the passage at the top of this posting and to ask yourself what one story you tell about yourself – if you were simply to change your story and live life as if something else were true – would most transform your life?

In his letter David tells readers about a change he made in his own story and how it panned out for him.  I look forward to sharing how it panned out for me and also hearing how it panned out for you, too.

Sending you season’s greetings for Christmas, 2012

About Dorothy,

Christmas Day is just four days away and today I shall be sitting down to write Christmas greetings.  The last few weeks have been busy and I feel as though I am running to catch up.  I take a moment to – well, breathe –  and find myself looking back over the year which is rapidly drawing to a close and forward to the year ahead.

It’s been a mixed year.  Please don’t tell my Mum but in March, I was actually quite pleased at the thought of a sun-drenched drought and connected with pleasant memories of 1976 – and then it started to rain, and rain, and rain… My tomatoes were a wash-out, though many other vegetables did well despite the slugs.  Any suffering is nothing compared to what many people are enduring who have had to leave their homes in recent weeks due to flooding – it seems quite out of order to complain.

In London, people did complain about every aspect of the Olympics ahead of time – until the opening ceremony blew our socks off and we all (yes, I think it was very nearly “all”) got caught up in the spirit of the games.  After Chad le Clos unexpectedly beat Michael Phelps in the swimming I bumped into his father on the underground and enjoyed a moment of celebration for him and his son as our eyes met on the stairs.  It was a sweet moment.

It seemed to be a year of holidays for me as I took in a few days to soak up the Olympic spirit, a meditation retreat with my dear friend Andy, a week in Scotland (around Scotland by train – the photo is from this trip) with my mother and, just last weekend, Luxembourg and Paris on tour with the London Symphony Chorus.  In the choir, Simon Halsey has taken us by storm since he joined us in the autumn.

Work has been steady, with coaching and assessment at its core.  I have particularly enjoyed the quality of relationship both with coaching clients and with colleagues (you know who you are).  I had some articles published.  Some things have taken longer than I intended – my new website is still a work in progress and yet to be unveiled.  At the same time, the process of working on my marketing and website has helped me connect to my yearning for one or two big projects in 2013 – working with an organisation to develop an effective senior leadership team, for example, or to develop a coaching style and culture throughout the organisation. I bless these yearnings and send them out into the world.

In my private life, there were entrances and exits amongst family and friends – my mother recently attended four funerals in a fortnight.  Some were timely but one was untimely – or so it seems to me at this time – and I hold his family in my heart.  In public life, one scandal followed another.  Barack Obama got elected for a second term.

I started the year in the midst of building works as my new kitchen was in progress – now much loved and enjoyed.  It ends with some work to the hall and stairs in progress – the sander, and Radio 4, are the background today to my writing this posting and sending Christmas greetings to you.

I would say “to you all” – but I catch myself just in time, taking time to connect with you – yes, you – individually even as I write.  I take a moment to notice what I wish for you as Christmas approaches and as 2012 gives way to 2013.  I notice I want the ultimate for you – not riches and prosperity in these challenging times so much as faith, deep faith, that your needs matter and that you will be supported on your journey no matter what life brings.  This matters not so much because (in the words of the song) there may be trouble ahead.  No, it matters because, when we have faith, as well as facing the challenges with equanimity, we can enjoy the good times without worrying for the future.

With that, and whatever road you are travelling, I wish you a merry Christmas 2012, and many good things in 2013.

On tour with the London Symphony Chorus

All articles

It’s been a mad weekend.  In truth, if there’s one thing I didn’t really want to do in the midst of pre-Christmas preparations, it was to travel to Luxembourg on Friday and from Luxembourg to Paris on Saturday and back to London just in time to miss the Archers on Sunday.  Except that, well, I did…

This trip was part of my alternative career – my unpaid career – as a member of the London Symphony Chorus.  It has some similarities with my professional life.  On Friday, I was up at 6 a.m. and out of the house by seven in order to catch the Eurostar to Brussels – just as tomorrow, I shall be getting up well before dawn to travel to Edinburgh to conduct a leadership assessment for a client.  This tour also included very little down-time to explore our host cities, which is also true of many business trips.  Beyond this, the similarities give way to many differences.  Let me tell you about our trip.

On Friday morning, we caught the 8.50 a.m. train from London St. Pancras to Brussels – about 120 singers, variously bleary-eyed and excited and more or less prepared.  From Brussels we travelled by coach to Luxembourg, leaving behind us a certain amount of cold for, well, more cold.  The closer we got to our destination, the more snow we saw on the ground, giving way to the rain and bleak, grey skies.  Perhaps it’s a sign of my age and experience that, on arrival, I opted for a cup of tea and a 30-minute sleep before preparing to go over to the concert hall for our pre-concert rehearsal.

Luxembourg’s Philharmonie Luxembourg Concert Hall is a very fine building indeed.  From the exterior, it is characterised by its surrounding of pillars which are striking even when you have your head down in an attempt to ward off the rain and cold.  Inside, it is all sloping floors and overhead walkways for the public and, behind the scenes, spacious accommodation for orchestra and chorus.  Unless you’ve travelled the artists quarters of the world’s concert halls, you could easily overlook just how welcome such spacious accommodation is.

At 5.15 p.m. heure locale the choir warmed up with our new Music Director, Simon Halsey, before we were joined by members of the London Symphony Orchestra and our conductor, Maestro Valerie Gergiev. Famous for conducting using a toothpick and with hand gestures so wobbly they are terrifying to follow, I was struck by a shift in his approach – at least in the rehearsal – towards giving clearer direction to both orchestra and chorus.  After the rehearsal, we had time to change and – because we were not on the platform in the first half of the concert – to take in refreshments and a walk around the public areas before singing Szymanowski’s 3rd Symphony, Song of the Night.

Chorus tours, even such short ones as this, are always good for their opportunity to socialise so that, after the concert, we wandered back to our hotel and made good use of the spacious bar area.  I found myself surrounded by about 10 or 12 people, some of whom I knew well and others less so.  We took time to chat, drink, laugh and drink some more.  It helped that our Saturday morning departure was at 11.15 a.m.

On Saturday, we were driven by coach to Luxembourg’s railway station and arrived with time to spare, though not quite enough time to find a cup of coffee – just enough time to sing a few carols in the spacious entrance hall before bording our train to Paris, Gare de l’Est.  I suspect that this, alone, was worth the travel and discomfort and will be one of the stories we still tell ten, twenty years down the line.

In Paris, together with my room mate, I took time to rest – again, for half an hour – before walking up to the Salle Pleyel.  Here, the accommodation is, frankly, awful.  Not only is our space small, laden with piles of chairs and without mirrors, but this time, we are sharing it with James Mallinson, recording producer and asked to be silent.  Even if we remember not to talk, it’s impossible to change in the total silence required for James to do his job.

It’s time to be flexible or to go mad with frustration and anger.  After our warm-up and with just an hour until we are required to join the orchestra, I go with friends to a nearby cafe and share a drink and escargots.  Returning to the concert hall, we are kept waiting until the very end of the rehearsal where we are on the platform for only a few minutes, singing two or three pages to set the balance and then, once more, having time but no proper space.  Together with the same friends, I return to the same cafe for our plat principal – in my case, confit de canard with haricots verts.  We return in time for the second half of the concert, listening to Brahm’s Variations on a Theme By Haydn before singing the Szymanowski again.  Afterwards, it seems only fitting to complete our meal, this time in a small restaurant near our hotel.  I enjoy poire belle Helene for dessert and then sleep for less than six hours before getting up for the return journey.

And what of the singing?  Ask members of the chorus and you’ll find as many responses as there are members – our view of how things went is always a reflection of our personal performance and experience.  For my part, I am delighted to have four performances of this piece in quick succession (in London, Luxembourg, Paris and again in London).  As I sing it with increasing confidence, I also come increasingly to love this piece. 

Are you shying away from addressing under-performance in your team?

Developing as a leader

A funny thing has been happening in my office in recent days.  It’s taken me a few days to work out what’s going on.

It all started when I caught the faintest whiff of something, well… a little unpleasant.  It made me check my clothes to make sure I wasn’t wearing something which should have gone into the laundry (and feel rather foolish when I realised that everything was freshly laundered).  Could it have been a lingering gift from the BT engineer who sorted out my broadband connection recently?  No, surely not!  But it did smell, well, a little sweaty.

After a few days, I put two and two together and remembered the mouse I saw running across my lounge when I had my kitchen done last winter.  In truth, I know that some of the little fellas have been hanging out at my place:  recently I had Gary (who did the kitchen for me) block their points of entry.  But I hadn’t gone that extra step and set traps.  I realised that this faint and persistent odour is a sign that one of them has died. As I sit and write I am aware that, unless I set traps or lay poison (which I am rather loath to do) this may happen again.

When your staff aren’t performing

Now, it may be a little bit of a mental leap and still, the mouse in my study reminded me of an experience I had some years ago, when I was part of an assessment team conducting an audit of leadership capability for a client organisation.  One member of the team was markedly less able than his colleagues and – guess what! – it was me who got to conduct his assessment and to give him feedback.  I remember outlining the key findings from his assessment and he agreed with them all.  Still, there was a moment when he realised that, taken all together, the picture wasn’t good.

What was most striking to me was that the commissioning client had been re-shaping this person’s job over some time, taking away an area of responsibility here and replacing it with the odd project.  Gradually business-critical responsibilities had been stripped away until my candidate had a portfolio of do-no-harm projects that couldn’t possibly damage the business.  All this had happened without any conversation taking place between my candidate and his boss about the fact that this man wasn’t performing.

What’s the connection?  For me, it’s the pervading odour of a task which has not yet been done – noticing and addressing the performance failings of a member of the team because, let’s be clear, the approach of this manager leaves behind it a trail of clues which is increasingly obvious to anyone who cares to look.  It’s not just that tasks have been visibly reallocated amongst different members of the team leaving someone with a non-portfolio of not very important projects.  It’s also that the boss is seen to have ducked an important issue.  It’s also that other members of the team start to invest their energies into (at best) working out how to maintain the fantasy that this is a useful member of the team or (at worst) plotting for the individual’s downfall, or that of their boss, or… or… or…

The truth is, if you don’t address the issue of under-performance, it doesn’t go away.

You need to address under-performance

Over the years, I’ve found that whilst leaders may say they don’t know how to address under-performance, it’s often something else that keeps them from taking action.  They find it hard to square a head-on disciplinary approach with their aspirations for compassion or they fear a loss of popularity.  Even at the most senior levels, people have been known to say “no, I won’t let it happen – it will ruin his (or her) career”.  At a moment like this, it’s important to understand why it matters to the individual who is not performing as much as it does for the team and the organisation.

The truth is, when we don’t address under-performance, we open the road to increasingly difficult circumstances for the employee concerned.  At first, with a little flattery as we allocate new projects, we may be able to persuade the individual that we’re giving them an opportunity worth having – at least for a while.  More likely, though, is the creeping self-doubt that comes with their growing awareness that they’re struggling to do their jobs.  This is compounded by their concern that perhaps they’re not capable of doing any job.  And it could get worse and worse as colleagues increasingly express their growing resentment as they have to work a little bit harder to compensate for the weaknesses of the under-performer, or listen to more unworkable suggestions or “no, I haven’t done that yet” updates in meetings.  The under-performer loses dignity, self respect, confidence and esteem, and the respect of his or her colleagues.

Equally, when we don’t address under-performance in our team, we fail to open up avenues to a happier and more productive life for the individuals concerned.  Of course, some people may initially be shocked to hear that they are not performing well (though most people know this already).  Either way, we need to give support as part of addressing the issues involved.  Handled successfully, addressing under-performance helps people to connect more fully with what they do want and where their skills lie.  Perhaps we’ll be able to support them bridging a key skills gap.  Perhaps we’ll help them to find a role in our organisation in which they really thrive.  Perhaps we’ll able to help them with some half-forgotten dream.  If you have any doubts about this, listen to the stories of people who have found deep levels of satisfaction in their lives and careers.  Many of them, at some point in their career, have experienced the challenges of doing a role to which they have not been well-suited.

Look for the gifts your staff do have, as well as the ones they don’t

Observing leaders who handle under-performance effectively (as I have done over the years – by interviewing leaders for research purposes, assessing them for more senior roles and working one-to-one in coaching partnership) one thing I notice is this:  that they do not confuse the person with his or her behaviour.  The under-performer is under-performing but s/he’s not “useless”, “lacking in potential” or any other negative description you might care to shape around the individual.  S/he’s simply someone who hasn’t yet learnt skills he or she has the potential to acquire or someone who is in a role to which s/he’s not well-suited.  The task is to find out which and to support the individual in bridging the skills gap or in finding a more suitable role.

So, I want to ask you, are you shying away from addressing the under-performance of a member of your team?  And if you are, or even if you’re reflecting on the way you’ve handled such issues in the past, what do you take from reading this article?

The trouble with (audience) participation

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Autumn is here with its traditional themes.  I have been enjoying bursts of deep reds, yellows and oranges as well as indulging my fascination for various kinds of fungi – I find so much beauty in this season, even as it takes us towards long nights and increasingly low temperatures.

I confess, the autumn is also a season for cosying up in front of the television – maybe even a little more often than I care to admit.  My nephew and I have been enjoying Young Apprentice and Dragon’s Den, usually exchanging observations if we haven’t watched it together.  You’ll also find it hard to get me out on a Saturday evening at this time of year – at least, you would have done until now.

On Sunday, I was shocked and disappointed when Ella Henderson and James Arthur, surely favourites to win this year’s X Factor, were pitted against each other in the ‘sing off’ following the audience vote.  That’s the trouble with audience participation:  give people a vote and just look what they do with it!  (And for any X Factor fans – who is voting for Christopher Maloney?!)

I have to say that, in the Young Apprentice, I see a different problem arising, with project managers failing conspicuously to draw on the input of their team.  Patrick McDowell struggled valiantly last week to convey the point that the team’s planning needed to take into account where they were starting from and needed to get back to at the end of the day.  I wondered what other ideas might have helped the teams to succeed if only the project managers had been listening.  Didn’t it make sense, for example, to make it a priority to phone round and get some prices for what looked like the largest purchase – a German car, taxed and ready to drive away?  And wouldn’t it have helped to engage in a conversation about how best to organise the task before getting stuck in?

I wonder if, as a leader, you struggle with both sides of this coin.  After all, the theory says that engaging people’s ideas through a participative style of management increases engagement and motivation.  Daniel Goleman and his colleagues, in The New Leaders:  Transforming the Art of Leadership into the Science of Results, describe how using what they call the democratic style helps to build buy-in or consensus, or to get valuable input from employees.  But this style does have its limitations.  Sunday’s X Factor results show one of them – you don’t always get the outcome you want from inviting ideas from your staff.

This style also has its limitations in the eyes of staff.  There’s nothing worse than being asked for ideas and then told that, actually, it’s the bosses ideas that are going to be taken forward, especially if it’s always the bosses ideas that are taken forward (or you think it is).  This can undermine the confidence of your staff or their respect for you.

So are there any things you can do if you want to use this style effectively?  Here are a few ideas:

  • Don’t invite input from staff when you already know what you’re going to do:  It may seem obvious, but if you set about appearing to use this style but are not sincere, staff will soon sniff you out.  NEVER use this style to give the impression that staff have been consulted when you know full well you have already made your decision;
  • Separate out consulting staff from the decision-making process.  There may be times when it’s appropriate to make a decision democratically but there are also times when it’s appropriate for you to make a decision yourself.  Be clear in your own mind which is which – and be rigorously honest with your staff about the likely decision-making process.  This way, team members know from the beginning how their ideas may or may not be used;
  • Be honest with yourself about the current level of capability of your staff and use this to inform your decisions about consulting your staff.  Invite their input in areas where you know they have something to offer so that they can add real value by their contributions and you can show how you have taken their ideas on board;
  • Combine your use of this participative style with other leadership styles.  Goleman and his colleagues point in particular to the need to provide clarity of expectations and to coach members of your team.  Helping your team to understand your overall vision and how they can contribute to it and providing coaching to develop their skills both play a role in increasing the likely quality of their contributions and ideas in team discussions;
  • Invite team member’s ideas at their growing edge.  With effective coaching support from you, the quality of team members’ contributions will constantly improve.  Keep inviting ideas at team members’ growing edge to stretch them and so that you both know how much progress they’re making;
  • Respond constructively.  The minute you dismiss an idea as stupid or worthless you send a powerful message to the whole team which makes it less likely that they will want to contribute in future.  Quite quickly, you’ll be saying that your team members have no ideas to offer.  Say thank you for all the ideas team members contribute no matter what you think of them.  If you can’t see how an idea will work in practice, test it with your team and ask them to test it with others if appropriate.  You may find a hidden gem and if you don’t, you may still all have learned something;
  • Be prepared to be surprised.  Engaging your staff in team discussions may be a stretch for you as much as for your staff.  Be ready to examine ideas that you might initially find strange and to find the ones that really might work.  Be prepared to try some knowing that they might work and they might fail as part of expanding your own thinking and showing your support for your team.

I’d love to know how you get on.