Curtailing conflict can kill creativity

I know lots of people in corporations holding responsibility who just want to be liked… who would much prefer to be known as a nice manager who ‘gets along with everyone’, is a ‘real team player’, and is just ‘great to work with’. I suppose it would be fair to say most of us to some degree would like to be known in these ways…

However curtailing the potential for conflict at all costs has proven to come at the greater cost of creativity. My experience has been that the best way for getting things done often comes from constructive conflict. Most ambitious people I come across are all too quick to challenge assumptions, raise controversial ideas, and press different points of view. With these types of employees and leaders within organisations, it’s only reasonable to assume you will not get along with everyone all the time….

Finding the right balance between the need to deal with conflict, and confront it constructively, and the instinct to avoid it, is one of the toughest challenges that most managers face. Unrestrained conflict can only be toxic and lead to low morale and turnover, but not enough conflict can heighten politics, amplify apathy, and cost opportunity.

Being too nice can cost opportunity.  Curtailing conflict can kill creativity!

Here are a couple of ideas that may help strike the right balance of constructive conflict.

1. Allocate meeting time to specifically challenge the status quo… Making this clear up front will allow everyone concerned to mentally prepare constructively before the meeting begins. How many times have you been caught off guard and ended up saying something you later regretted… something that wasn’t at all creative, just outright confrontational!
2. Start the conversation with, “This isn’t personal, this is a conversation about what the business needs”. What you are trying to say is, we can disagree about ideas and strategies, and maintain respect for each other. Let’s agree to question assumptions and challenge what has previously been accepted.
3. Reinforce and commend constructive conversations. Taking moments to thank someone for their constructive comment and willingness to challenge ideas or address difficult conversations is a powerful way to build a culture around constructive conflict.
4. Set ground rules. Where possible, asking the team to start with a positive, and then raise a criticism, helps manage and balance perspectives. Perhaps even agreeing at the end of each meeting to discuss what worked successfully, and what needs to be changed for next time also fosters constructive criticism that ultimately will help the team or organisation become more creative, considered and constructive.

It is always easier to avoid conflict, especially when it involves individuals. It’s much easier for some to just be the nice guy who is willing to get along with everyone. But more often, being a little less nice might be the greatest need your team and organisation have.

Building and Breaking Trust

Over the past several years I have interviewed in excess of one thousand engineers and technical professionals. In the course of the interviews I always like to ask what characteristics or values do you look for in a manager or organisation? The responses frequently include a deep need for “trust”.

Understandably so many ask ‘how do we build greater trust in the workplace’ and ‘how do we avoid losing trust’. Let’s look at some trust builders and trust breakers:

How leaders build trust:

1. Do what is right, regardless of personal risk. When you do what is right over what is consensus or pragmatic or efficient, your will always create respect from those around you. From respect will come trust.
2. Communication, at all levels and at regular intervals through multiple channels. When you communicate vision, priorities, background behind decisions, you take the ‘guess work’ and uncertainty and insecurity out of your organisation. Telling someone ‘There is no update yet’ is still an important update for them. Consistent communication builds trust.
3. Treat people fairly, regardless of how much revenue they generate, or how often they attend your corporate or personal events, or how comfortable or uncomfortable they make you feel. Part time, high or low paid, foreign or national employees are all part of the team. They all have names, and all have ideas that can build your business. Treating them fairly builds trust.
4. Focus on shared, rather than personal goals. When everyone is pulling together towards a shared vision that clearly has shared benefits, trust results. This is the essence of teamwork.

Here are ways leaders can lose trust:

1. Tell half-truths. It is better to say nothing at all then to say something half true. Nothing breaks trust quicker than feeling like people are holding out on you or only sharing part of the story.
2. Be closed minded. When you don’t seek to understand and consider other opinions or points of view, you not only limit your own potential but also any hope of a culture of trust. Being known to be unapproachable, quick to dismiss, or head strong have significant detrimental effects of the cultivation of a trusting environment.
3. Withhold information. When communication slows, or shuts down, misinformation is believed to be real. Some people seek control by withholding information, only to find people around them frustrated, guessing, and tentatively committed to tasks. Not including people on emails can break trust…. How much more your shallow restrained conversation.
4. Seek personal gain rather than shared gain. Self seeking agendas are quickly spotted and quickly eat away at any foundation of trust. Great teams are brought undone with ego driven personal agendas.

Since so many of my interviewees have expressed a deep desire for a trusting working environment, I hope these eight workplace suggestions will help you on your way towards a great culture.

Great people leave bad bosses

I have always considered retention an important measurement for business performance as well as a lagging indicator of existing leadership strength. Hiring the right people, and retaining them, goes to the heart of building an enduring successful business.

It has been said many times, and still rings true today, that more often people leave bosses than they do companies. After reading many commentaries on the topic, I thought I could share a couple of highlights on how bad bosses get fired by their employees:

A boss is unlikely to keep talent if they:

Shortcut the induction: New hires are extremely impressionable during the first months of a new job. Their senses are heightened as they pick up and read into every utterance and body gesture. Your time and attention to the induction process will either reinforce or reduce your new employee’s commitment to joining your organisation. Outsourcing this isn’t the solution, as direct supervisors play the key role in establishing future behaviour. Reinforcing why they were chosen, how they fit into the business, and the significance of their role are all critical conversations that too few people make the time to have with their new hires.

Over manage: Bosses that love control are often tempted to tell a new starter ‘what’ they want done and ‘how’ they want it done, ignoring the fundamental conversations ‘why’ something needs to be done and ‘why’ it is important. A sure way for a quick departure is to tell employees ‘what’, and never discuss ‘why’.

Don’t communicate: Email is a tool, not the universally accepted means of effective communication. Group meetings or a one on ones are other methods of communication, however communication is never effective until your audience understands what you are trying to say. Don’t assume just because you ‘said’ it or ‘sent’ it, that it is understood. You’ve got to communicate not only the good, but also the bad and the ugly. If you don’t tell them, someone else with their interpretation will.

Accept average: No one pays for average, and no one good hangs around with average. High performers don’t have to or want to work where average is tolerated. Again a sure way to get yourself fired by your best employees!

Treat everyone equally: This may seem right, and because of company rules, may even be policy – but your employees are not equal. Some are worth more because they deliver more, and salary is only one of the many possible differentiators. Flexibility, training or technology are also important considerations for high performers. The aim is not equal treatment, but fair treatment.

Don’t recognize outstanding performance and contributions: Again a quick way for a boss to get the sack is to undervalue the recognition of their employees. Studies suggest employees are seeking praise and recognition every seven days! It is unlikely you got that level of recognition, but the fact is – behaviour you want repeated should be rewarded immediately!

Don’t have any fun at work: Do you look forward to going to work each day? If you aren’t excited, your employees probably aren’t either. Find ways to make the work place more relaxed and fun, and you might find a new level of enjoyment in the process.

Don’t maintain employee retention plans: As mentioned, employee retention is an important measurement within your business, but more importantly is what you are doing to retain your key employees. Create a list of the key people you don’t want to lose and, next to each name, write down what you are doing or will do to ensure that person stays engaged and within your organisation.

Don’t do employee retention interviews: Exit interviews are too late! Better you understand what you can do differently than what you could have done differently. Avoid being fired by conducting stay interviews. Taking the time will add great value to your engagement and retention of key employees.

Effectively Communicating Constantly

For leaders everything we say and do communicates. Leaders are closely watched and their words and actions are amplified. Leaders are always communicating whether they intend to or not! Leaders are always sending a message.

It is therefore important as leaders to reflect on the way we communicate. To ask ‘Am I fully aware of the meaning of my words and the way I am delivering them?’ Unless our words, tone of voice, body language and more broadly our actions are in alignment, our message will create ambiguity and confusion.

Research has found the following three elements that contribute to effective face-to-face communication:

Just over 50% of meaning from communication comes from facial expressions.

Around 40% of meaning from communication comes from the tone in which words are spoken.

Only 10% of meaning from communication comes from the actual words that are spoken.

These findings are confronting and should challenge us to review intensely how we communicate!

As leaders who by nature are constantly communicating, it is plainly clear that we cannot rely on words alone to ensure our message is conveyed. Our words only play a small part, and are reinforced or rejected by our tone of voice, body language and indeed our behaviours. When our words, tone of voice and body language don’t align, it’s unlikely that our message will be effective and able to influence and persuade. We need to live our message for people to be impacted and influenced by it.

To finalise the loop, leaders are aware of another important element of communication – feedback.

Leaders are constantly inviting feedback as to the interpretation of their message. They listen to ensure that what they have said has been received, understood, and acted upon. A lack of action could very well mean that the message was misinterpreted or miscommunicated. Leaders are always listening to ensure their message is understood. Despite the extra effort, they constantly seek feedback and do not leave interpretation of the message to chance.

‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’ —George Bernard Shaw

Leaders know they are always sending messages, irrespective of their intentions. Leaders take responsibility for their communication and always seek feedback to confirm that the message sent is the message received. They live their message, listen and seek feedback, and finally make adjustments where necessary. Effective communication requires nothing less.

Productivity – Achieving more through less….

Whatever our position within a business, we are all counted upon to contribute towards organisational success. While some employees clearly have greater influence and impact than others, we can all work towards greater productivity within the sphere of influence we do have. Although activity is important, too many of us seem to place it above effectiveness… completed to-do lists, responses to emails, long hours, and packed diaries aren’t necessarily hallmarks of highly productive people.

Increase your productivity by focusing on the following:

Start each day in your direction. Beginning your morning by checking your email is the easiest way to lose control of your direction, and be led by someone else’s. Starting with emails ensures others dictate what you accomplish. Start each day in the direction you want to go by ignoring your emails and taking those morning moments to focus on yourself. Eat a good breakfast, reflect, or read the news.

Follow the 80/20 rule. It is the few things in each day done well that account for the vast majority of our results. 20% of your overall activities will produce 80% of your results. That suggests there is a lot of ‘filler’ in each day that needs to be delegated or deferred. To have the greatest effect, concentrate on the few key activities that will produce the highest overall productivity.

Harder activities earlier. Tackle the most challenging work in the morning, when your brain is clear and refreshed. Save your busy, less complex work for later in the day. Brian Tracey wrote a great book ‘Eat that frog’ in which he shares great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time. Let’s not forget, procrastination, by doing lots of meaningless things, is the greatest killer of real productivity.

Isolate distractions. If there are certain things that pepper your daily productivity with distractions, endeavour to isolate them to better manage them. For example, if you are pulled into too many meetings, or find yourself checking emails throughout the day, take action to isolate activities. Plan to use morning, afternoon, and evening time slots for managing such activities. Even consider closing your email until those timeslots. Minimising your distractions in this way will allow you to accomplish more important goals throughout the day.

Take breaks. Ultradian rhythms refer to 1.5 – 2 hour cycles during which our bodies slowly move from a high–energy state into a physiological trough. Towards the end of each cycle, the body begins to crave a period of recovery. The signs can include restlessness, yawning, hunger and difficult in concentrating – but how often do you ignore them, and in the name of ‘productivity’? Take a walk, eat something, exercise, or meditate – give your brain some resting time. You’ll come back recharged and ready to achieve greater productivity.

Enjoy the satisfaction of achieving more through less and developing greater levels of productivity.

Ready, Fire, Aim!

Too often amongst the clutter of activity to get things done, effectiveness suffers in the pursuit of efficiency. How often do you see lots of doing and too little thinking? Managers who would much rather reaction than a moment of reflection?

In such cases where leaders lack clarity and the ability to create focus, teams are left aimless and disunified. In these environments teams can only resort to ‘getting things done’ rather than ‘getting things right’. All because of too much doing and not enough thinking.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest path to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” – Sun Tzu

How long has it been since you or your team dedicated time to think about how and why you’re doing what you’re doing? Taking the time to stop and reflect is a critical leadership practice.

• Unless we pause and think, we can forget why we’re here and what we stand for;
• Unless we pause and think, we can lose perspective of life and work;
• Unless we pause and think, we can overlook what matters;
• Unless we pause and think, we can fail to learn from our mistakes;
• Unless we pause and think, we remain reactive, and unable to overcome the unexpected.

Leadership requires deep thinking. Our behaviour, action and results are the products of our thinking. If we are not happy with the results we are getting we need to stop and think about what needs to change.

As we take time to pause and think about what is important, we develop clarity. When we have clarity about where we need to go, and can pause to adjust our decisions and actions accordingly, we create effectiveness. To ask “What needs to be done right now? This week? This month? This year?” can bring focus back to our work. It can help free us from our need for ‘action’.

The reality is that we cannot be successful unless our actions are focused on that which matters most.

Are you clear as to what’s the most important thing right now?

Getting things done isn’t the same as getting results

Many of us start each day ready to hit the ‘to-do’ list, or clear out the in-box or complete a lingering project. All this activity certainly can make you feel important, and can even look impressive, however does it really make a difference to the results?

Peter Drucker, in his book ‘The effective executive’, advises that effective people focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, ‘What results are expected of me?’

Do you start each day asking, ‘What results are expected of me?’ Effective people focus on results, not activities and effort. How often do we find ourselves bogged down with the daily flurry of activities that we forgot why we are doing what we’re doing? Effective people ask what their contribution and results should be. Effective people have clarity and focus concerning their contribution and the results they intend to achieve.

When you are clear on what is expected of you, you can focus on those few things that produce the greatest results. You don’t need to react to the mountain of work in front of you, you don’t allow the flow of events to determine your agenda, instead you set priorities and do first things first and second things not at all. Effective people focus on what’s really important, that is their contribution and they will have their results.

To be effective is to use time, not be used by it.

To be effective is to get the things done that really matter. Effectiveness is about prioritising so that you accomplish those things that are most important.

Do you manage your day or does someone else? Peter Drucker in his book, the effective executive explains that leaders know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.

To become effective, we must first know how we spend our time. How we value and manage our time will determine our level of effectiveness. Time is our most valuable resource, not money, people, intellectual property, but time. We can choose to spend our time in a manner that gets results or we can waste it away.

“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.“ – Peter Drucker

Effective leaders understand their time allocation, and therefore don’t commit to anything without first clarifying and appreciating how their time will be spent. Understanding how we spend time helps us to know where to reduce the amount of unproductive activities. This frees us up to create blocks of discretionary time for focused work on the most important matters.

For me this really came home the day I prepared a paper diary and listed each and every activity I completed throughout the day for two entire working weeks.  This included lunches, meetings, emails, walks, teas, discussions at the printer, phone calls, the internet etc. What was concerning was not the number of activities I could complete in a day, but how a large proportion of them that were insignificant towards reaching my long term goals.

Effective leaders carefully and continuously analyse and manage how they use their time.

To become more effective, consider the following four steps:

1. Record how you actually spend your time. In whichever way you decide to do this, the important issue is in understanding how and where your time is being invested. Nobody really knows where their time goes until they write it down. So, what is it that consumes your time without producing results? Time can often be wasted in the following ways:

a)      Poor planning

b)      Excessive meetings and unnecessary discussions

c)       Limited information or information in the wrong format

d)      Poor systems that deal with reoccurring issues

2. Remove the activities that are not driving results, those things that do not need to be done and are merely wasting time.

3. Delegate the activities that can be done better by someone else, or that create a better return on investment if done by someone else.

4. Optimise time by creating blocks of uninterrupted time to work on important matters that cannot be done by anyone else.

Effective leaders know where there time is spent, and intentionally work to ensure their time is used in alignment with their highest priorities.

Effective leaders work with time, not for it!

Great Leadership without the excuses

In my working experience, I have had some great bosses, and also some terrible ones.

Over the years, I have become attuned to common lines that alert me to the probability of another bad boss.

‘I’m so busy and under all this pressure’

It’s hard to call yourself a leader and not feel like you are in this position regularly. Every boss has employees to lead, customers to satisfy, stakeholders to accommodate and a boss or board of their own to impress. If work pulls you left and right, away from your team and being a better boss, get your employees more involved in what you do. Share your work, appoint high performers to incorporate some of your load, and in the process see how delegation can develop you and your own future leaders.

‘I am not paid enough to have to deal with this’

You may well be right. Great leaders are too often under remunerated, and underappreciated. But great leaders get significant satisfaction from more than just money. They are rewarded by the development and mentoring of others, the achievement and relationships of their teams. That is their total remuneration package.

‘My people work best when I leave them alone’

If that is really the case, you are the problem. Great employees don’t need to be told what to do, but they do need to hear they did a great job… often. They need to be informed of purpose and direction… often, and they need to be updated on their progress… often.

‘There is too much politics and/or poor processes’

Politics and processes exist in even the smallest operations. As a boss, it’s your job to realise when they aren’t right and fix them. If politics is keeping your people for doing their best work, fix it. Sorting out a process issue that helps your employees perform their best is your job. Do ignore these opportunities to be a better boss.

‘Well, that is how I learned’

Just because you were given no formal training, and thrown in into the role doesn’t mean your team should be. Your bad experiences should be the catalyst for why you want to do it better, lead better, and train better.

‘I need to manage my employees’ ego’

If you worry that praising or developing your employees might see them one day outshine you, ask yourself who’s ego needs to be managed. Praising your people is not only courteous, but highly likely to reinforce positive behaviours and see them occur more often. Praising your people and developing their talent is not only your job, but also a great way to become a successful inspiring leader yourself.