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Company Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Company Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If you’ve ever worked at a small startup or have been part of a management team, you’ve probably worked on defining the company values and goals. Many employees are often cynical about the company values. They think it’s a futile exercise because it often seems that once the values are identified and listed on a company webpage, they are promptly forgotten.

Some values frequently selected include:

  • Integrity
  • Respect
  • Diversity

These are all good words. But how are those words implemented in the organization? Or are there implicit values that are actually implemented?

For example, many companies say they value diversity and integrity. However, actions always speak louder than words. If diversity is valued but the management team is composed entirely of white males, that makes me go “hmmmm.” Do they really value diversity? Or, say the company gets called out for not treating employees fairly. Is integrity really a value?

Why do disconnects occur between the values written down and the values demonstrated by the leaders and employees in a company? It’s simple: it’s the leadership team. The leaders allow certain behaviors to exist and flourish in an organization even if these behaviors directly contradict the stated values.

Employees take cues from the leadership team. If at an all-hands meeting, a leader jokes about “bro” culture, she or he is sending a signal that the “bro” culture is ok. Sure, it’s a joke. But why make such a joke? If a leader only considers hiring white males, how much does that leader value diversity? The managers in the company will take notice and follow that lead.

At one company for which I worked, one of my employees was having issues with someone in another group. The person’s behavior toward my employee was threatening. When I went to my peer to discuss the situation with him, he brushed off my concern by saying that was just the way this person was. Regardless, the behavior was inappropriate. I asked my employee to keep a record of what this person said to him. He did.

I took this evidence to our Human Resources department and they followed up on it. Found out this inappropriate behavior was happening with other employees as well and that it had been going on for awhile. People were afraid of the guy and avoided him. Hostile working environment anyone? The person was fired.

The reason this had gone on as long as it had was because the leader of the organization, by ignoring the inappropriate behavior, was supporting it. It didn’t matter one of the company values was respect. He was encouraging disrespectful behavior. His reasons for not addressing the issues were: “That’s just the way he is” and “but he’s a valuable member of the team.” These are never justifications for not reprimanding or even firing someone for inappropriate behavior.

Defining values for a company or organization is important. But what’s even more important is having the leaders of a company understand they are the ones defining values every day through their words and actions. Living the values is more important than just listing the values on a company webpage.

Communicating Clearly and Concisely

Communicating Clearly and Concisely

Leaning forward across the table, I explained how I was writing a blog about management and leadership. The man sitting across from me had an impatient look on his face as he shook his head and said, “So you’re writing blogging software?” I said no, I wasn’t writing software to create blogs, I was writing a blog about management and leadership. He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss this notion and said, “That is not a business. You need to have a clear idea.” I attempted to share that I realized it wasn’t a business, however I wanted to write a blog about management and leadership. But he wasn’t listening. Looking into his eyes, I could see he was already thinking about what he wanted to say next. He only wanted to talk about his ideas.

There are two things that stood out in this conversation for me. One was that I don’t clearly explain what I’m doing which is something I can work on. Second, this person wasn’t listening to me.

The more I thought about this experience, the more I realized if I am going to communicate an idea or project or anything to another person, I need to have an absolutely clear, concise, and compelling way of doing so. Because no matter what I am doing or where I am working, I need to communicate about what I am working on whether it’s a product or a service. If I can’t do that in 1 to 2 sentences and it doesn’t sound very interesting, I’ll lose a large chunk of the listening population. Why? Because they will only listen long enough to determine if they are interested in what I am saying. Once they determine they are not interested, they aren’t going to listen to anything else I say after that.

In the last year, I joined a small business networking group to see how this type of networking works. Every week, each person has 30 seconds to introduce themselves and their companies. This was a tremendous learning experience. I learned to narrow down my focus and hit at the heart of what I am doing. I needed the practice. Listening to others pitch their companies gave me lots of examples and helped me to understand how to be more clear and concise.

In reflecting on previous attempts to explain an idea or a proposal through the years, I realized I failed to be clear and concise. I needed a 1 to 2 minute pitch even when I was working at an established company. If I had a 1 to 2 minute pitch then presented the details, I would have been more successful in selling my proposals. Looking back, I’ve created many Powerpoint presentations to explain projects but I bet I just bored the heck out of my audience because I didn’t have my pitch refined and in place.

That conversation about my blog was a good kick in the butt experience for me and joining the small business networking group was just the place to learn what I needed to learn.

So why I am I blogging about managing people? I blog because I want to share what I’ve learned about managing people and the most important skill a manager cultivates, at least in my opinion, is self-awareness.

Communicating more clearly and concisely about my work is something to always be aware of and a skill I need to constantly cultivate. Communication begins with me.

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.

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?