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Author: The Mindful Manager

Don’t Ask if You Really Don’t Want to Know

Don’t Ask if You Really Don’t Want to Know

“I really want feedback on my performance. I especially like to hear where I can improve,” a new direct report told me eagerly. Steve looked sincere. He acted sincere. So I thought he was sincere. I then proceeded to tell him that he needed to be more careful about the type of information he was sharing with people as it was causing people to think that features were changing in the product. His opinion was affecting the progress of the project as people didn’t want to work on features if they were going to change. Steve then became really upset with me asking who said that about him and stating loudly that people shouldn’t be so sensitive. He ranted. He raved. I was taken aback and surprised.

Was it my delivery? Or did he really not want to know of any areas of improvement?

I try to be very careful how I discuss areas of improvements with employees. It can be a constructive conversation but also has the potential to blow up in your face. To make it a constructive conversation, I use something recent to demonstrate where I think someone can improve. I put it in writing, if needed.

For example, say I have an employee that is having difficulty with communicating with those that don’t agree with him. Let’s call him Bob. It is a constant issue, not a one-time occurrence. In a meeting with a group of Bob’s peers, I watched while he became frustrated with trying to explain his viewpoint to someone. He ended the conversation with, “I just don’t know what more to say to you,” sighed, threw his hands up in the air and sullenly looked down at the table. The person on the receiving end visibly bristled and said, “Well then, I guess we are done here,” and left the room.

I took that situation and asked him, “Was that the outcome you wanted?” Of course it wasn’t and he said so. Then I asked, “How could it have ended differently?” This opened up a conversation between the two of us to explore how he could have handled things better. I made sure to say that this is an area of improvement for him and asked him to suggest how we monitor it to see how he improved.

But sometimes, even with using specific situations as examples such as the ones with Bob, it doesn’t matter because the person really doesn’t want to get the feedback. They really, really don’t. Like Steve. I did try to work with him and provide him with specific situations in which his behavior affected people but he always became upset and wanted to confront the person or persons, as he knew they were wrong. I realized that he really didn’t want to hear anything but positive feedback.

If you don’t want feedback, don’t ask for it. Everyone likes positive feedback, and I’m happy to give them that but I believe in balanced feedback. None of us are perfect. We are all works in process. I always benefit when my manager reminds me I am impatient and she points it out to me after a meeting. I know I lose support from people with my impatience. I work on it, but every now then, it seeps through. Reminding me helps me to remember this is something that didn’t magically go away. It takes constant mindfulness on my part to avoid expressing impatience.

If you really want constructive feedback, ask for it. But if you really just want to hear how great you are, don’t ask.

Communicating Mission, Goals, Strategy

Communicating Mission, Goals, Strategy

I was managing a five-person startup. We had put our mission, company values, goals, and strategy in place about 6 months ago. We had spent several days together in a small, windowless conference room nailing down these things. No distractions. Just focused on making sure the mission, values, goals, and strategy were all well defined.

Since there were just five of us, I figured that communicating those things again wasn’t necessary. Then about 6 months later, we were talking about current projects and future projects when suddenly, Kevin said in a frustrated tone, “I don’t know where we are going. How can we determine what projects to do next if we don’t know where we are going?”

I was stunned. We had all agreed on our mission. It hadn’t changed. That mission certainly defined our end game, what we wanted to achieve over time and we had defined goals to get us to that end game.

I suggested we take a break. When we got back into the room, I said I wanted to review our mission, values, goals, and strategies just to make sure nothing had changed. We went through them and didn’t even tweak one. I then asked what new projects we should consider and we had a productive conversation.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I would need to repeat our mission, values, and goals periodically. We were only five people – how could we not all be on the same page? But I found it doesn’t matter if you are managing five, fifty or five hundred people. As a manager, I have to constantly review these things with my organization. Communication takes effort and I have to invest my time in it constantly.

I need to remind myself that as a manager these things are important for me to know and track. But employees are focusing on other aspects of the company and projects and it’s not their job to keep these things up front and visible.

So now I always review the mission and goals with my teams and tie it to what they are working on right now. Most people like knowing they are contributing to the company mission and goals. You can also review progress toward goals. I’d rather have people say they are bored with hearing the mission statement and goals than them saying they don’t know where the business is going or what we are trying to accomplish.

Constantly communicating the mission, value, goals, and strategies helps keep people focused and on target. And helps them to see how they are contributing.

Staff Meetings

Staff Meetings

There is nothing more frustrating than going to a weekly staff meeting that is content free. Or worse, ends up as a weekly status meeting. Please! If it is a project status meeting, call it that. If it is a staff meeting, please, please, please, make it about something other than project status updates.

Maybe for some managers, staff meetings are equivalent to project status meetings. It’s their chance to get an update on the current project. So call it that and come up with an agenda so everyone comes prepared with the information you want.

For me, a staff meeting is more than project updates. It’s my opportunity to review what’s going on in other areas of the company, get updates from HR, talk about upcoming events such as conferences, meetups, or company parties. And if I don’t have enough content for a weekly staff meeting, I don’t have one. I don’t have a meeting just to have a meeting.

Create an agenda for your staff meetings and make them productive. Be clear about what you want the people in the meeting to contribute. And when you don’t have agenda items, give yourself permission to just cancel the meeting. It shows you are respectful of your staff’s time and that you aren’t meeting just to meet.

Here’s a sample staff meeting agenda that I have used:

  1. Update from HR on Hiring
  2. Passdown (from what I have learned from my manager)
  3. Guest speaker on xyz topic
  4. Roundtable: what each person would like the rest of the team to know about his/her team. Limit to 3 minutes or less per person. Focus on interesting tidbits/problems/successes rather then status updates. For example, if I am managing the user experience team and they are working on a new style guide, I would share: The user experience team completed the color selection for icons used in all apps. If people are interested, I can set up a meeting to go over this in more detail.
Getting Personal

Getting Personal

This story begins when I was having lunch with someone who reported to me several years ago. We were reminiscing about those days and I shared that my mother was ill during those years and died during that time.

My friend sat back in his chair obviously surprised and said, “I had no clue. You never said a word to any of us. You never shared anything about yourself with us. It would have been nice if you had, especially something like that which is so difficult to go through.”

His comments made me sit back in my chair. It had never occurred to me the people on my team would want to hear anything about me. So after thinking through my surprise, I started to investigate. I found some people liked to hear more personal things from me as it was their way to connect with me. Others were happy to keep it to work topics.

 

Balance sharing personal information at work.

 

This all, of course, boils down to the fact that different personality styles want different things from their managers. We all should know this, but sometimes we forget. For myself, I am heavily on the let’s keep it to just work side of the spectrum. However, I found that others who didn’t share my style thought I was aloof and distant. This was a problem. When someone thinks you are aloof and distant, they are not going to be comfortable sharing with you. And that means communication is not open and you, as a manager, need to take the responsibility to adjust your communication style to effectively communicate with those with styles different from yours.

So, I began sharing more about me. At first, I found it strange to share personal things with folks. But I found that those folks who build work relationships on more than work really appreciated it. And, one of the huge benefits I didn’t expect, I got to know people more deeply than before. My relationships with my employees were richer as a result.

Now I try to adjust how I communicate with people based on what they need, not just what I want or expect. It’s still a challenge. But it’s definitely had a positive impact not only on my relationships with peers and direct reports, but it’s also had a positive impact on me as well.

Communicating Clearly with Culturally Diverse Teams

Communicating Clearly with Culturally Diverse Teams

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Clearly communicating is challenging. It’s challenging with everyone in the same room. Adding people who grew up in different geographical areas – each bringing a different cultural worldview, different ways of communicating that they take for granted, and you have a much higher potential for confusion and misunderstandings. Then add in geographically remote team members who may only be included via audio and not video and consequently seem even more distant. Opportunities for miscommunication double and triple.

How can such a team effectively communicate to avoid misunderstandings?

Never assume that they will correctly interpret colloquialisms. Once, after talking with someone from Russia, I said, “Great talking with you. Talk to you later.” He looked confused and said, “Are we talking later too?” I was lucky he asked for clarification. How many other colloquialisms have I used and no one asked for clarification? Avoid colloquialisms.

Talk slowly. If the person is not a native English speaker, they might be translating from English to their native language as you are talking to them. If you speak rapidly, they might miss something. And they might feel uncomfortable with asking you to repeat what you said. So speak slowly. Pause where appropriate. Ask if they need clarification.

Remember YOU have an accent. You may notice others have an accent and how it can make it harder for you to understand them at times. The reality is that you have one too. When we get excited, our accents are magnified. Talking slowly and clearly enunciating your words helps. If someone looks confused about the words you are using, try explaining with different words instead of simply repeating yourself.

Write it down. After a meeting, write up the important points. Especially what you expect from that person. This gives them a chance to review things at their own pace instead of while you are talking. Ask for feedback on your write up. Ask if you missed anything or if they have anything to add.

When possible, have remote team members on video as well as audio. Nothing can replace face-to-face conversations but video can help people connect better. Instead of just a disembodied voice on the other end, you see a living person with facial expressions. It’s more personal and making it personal allows communication to work better.

Have a quarterly or yearly face-to-face meeting with everyone. I had a team of managers from four countries. We had a yearly offsite meeting to review our mission, goals, and progress. Instead of having the meeting in the US where I am located, I had it in India. There were several benefits. One was that for once, the US based managers had to travel for the offsite. They were the ones that didn’t go home at night. This might seem trivial, but it’s not. Another benefit was the local team had a chance to meet the managers that they’d heard about but never seen. It also demonstrated that I didn’t think the US was the only important site.

What tips do you have for ensuring clear communication among people from different countries?