I have huge compassion for really good managers who take over the leadership of a team from a “manager from hell”. You know the person I mean – he is aggressive and rude; he gets off on humiliating people; he uses threats to get what he wants; he uses gaslighting to manipulate people; and he has left behind him a team that is anxious and has gotten into the habit of making fear-based decisions. So now this chapter is behind them – thank goodness! And a new manager, with great people skills, has been brought in to rebuild the team and turn things around.

It is enormously frustrating when you are a leader who has a genuine open door policy, who genuinely wants people to make decisions, and who genuinely wants people to take the initiative, to receive feedback that his or her people are not doing these things because they still fear the consequences.

Fear is an insidious thing. It is easy to instil and difficult to dispel. It is just not enough for a leader to be an all-round good person. It is just not enough for a leader to know that he or she did not create the fear. The challenge to the new leader is to deliberately create an environment in which fear becomes a thing of the past, everyone has gotten over it and people are taking decisions and risks that are appropriate to their level of responsibility and authority.

I had a client who was battling with the residue of fear that was created more than four years ago – and people were still behaving as though the cause of the fear were present! It was as though fear had been woven into the very fabric of the business. The challenge to the current leadership was to create something different, and this cannot be done through good intentions alone.

So what would it take?
​
1. The entire team needs to be on board. Let’s assume that you lead the management team of a business – they all need to be committed to creating a high-performance, empowering, fear-free environment. The best way to do this is to workshop the following:
a. What is the current truth about the climate in this team/business? Get into detail. Drag all the dirty laundry out into the open. Name the elephants in the living room. Also identify what is good about the current truth because you don’t want to lose that.
b. How do we want things to be? Describe the climate, the relationships, how people will work, how people will make decisions, how people will innovate and initiate change.
c. What is creating the gap between the current truth and how we want things to be?
d. What do we (as leaders) need to change or do differently in order to realise our desired situation?
e. How (and how often) will we review our progress? 

If you are the manager of a team of non-managers, the same process applies – the team is reaching agreement on how we will do things around here, and you are receiving input on how your team would like to be managed in order to bring out their best.

2. Ensure that your plan of action (d above) addresses the following:

1. How will we clarify the parameters within which people at each level should be making decisions? What decisions should be made at what levels?
2. How will we develop the decision-making skills of team members? Will we provide training? Coaching? Some combination of the two?
3. How will we handle it if a team member takes the initiative or takes a decision and it is a mistake? How will we resolve the mistake? How will we support the team member? How will we make it safe for the team member to make decisions/take the initiative in future even though a mistake has been made on this occasion?
4. How will we create the habit of having learning conversations in which we review our performance? The After Action Review (AAR) is a useful format:
   1. What did we set out to do/achieve?
   2. What actually happened?
   3. What worked well?
   4. What didn’t work well?
   5. What have we learned?
   6. What will we do/change going forward/in future?
      
      ​It is helpful if you make one of your own gaffs the subject of the first AAR as it demonstrates to the team that you are fallible and that you are not afraid to hold your own actions up to scrutiny. This will show the team that if you are not afraid there is no reason for them to be afraid.
5. When team members bring a decision to a manager, how will that manager coach the team member so that, ultimately, the team member makes the decision and learns in the process?
6. How will we give recognition to people when they take the initiative or decisions that they were previously reluctant to take? Will we acknowledge this publicly? Will we send an email acknowledging it? Will we make a point of going to their desk to acknowledge them?
7. How will we handle it when a manager is taking decisions that should be taken at the level below him/her? Will we remind him to push the decision back down? Will we hold her accountable for empowering her team members?
8. Take every opportunity to demonstrate that you are as good as your word:
   1. Ensure that your responses are controlled and supportive when people mess up – and they will.
   2. Don’t be afraid to hold your own mistakes up to scrutiny – it makes it safer for everyone else to do so.
   3. Defend your team from outside criticism.
   4. Share praise with your team and celebrate success.
9. Make your workplace a fun place to be. Make laughter a feature of your environment. People think better when they laugh. They enjoy themselves when they laugh. People work harder when they are having fun and are more inclined to put in extra effort. People who are having fun are not paralysed by fear – they are energised.

In recent months, one of my clients invited their employees to complete an online and confidential survey that captured how they think and feel about working for the company. First off, conducting such a survey is brave for any organisation. After all, they are setting themselves up to be told things they might not want to hear. It is also a very scary prospect for managers in the organisation because whatever employees say is going to reflect on them. Furthermore, it is scary for the respondents. What if it turns out that their responses are not so confidential after all? What if their managers don’t like what they say? Any anyway, is there any point? Will what they say have any impact whatsoever?
It has been my experience that the first time an organisation conducts such a survey it has been catalysed by a sense (at senior levels in the business) that the organisational climate or leadership culture is not what they want it to be. Embarking on such a survey then has the objective of setting the baseline – the starting point that will form the basis of whatever work will be done to get the climate or culture aligned with their vision for the organisation. From my perspective, this is exciting – but then I am not inside the organisation, and the survey makes no comments about my own leadership style!
For many, in fact MOST, managers in such an organisation, the delivery of the results of such a survey is very stressful and threatening – especially if the results are critical of the climate or leadership culture. It is particularly stressful and threatening if there is a strong theme of fear and blame within the organisation. Do you remember the THREAT – ANXIETY – DEFENSE response I have described in previous articles? The results of the survey create a THREAT of appearing incompetent (as a leader); this provokes immense ANXIETY and the resulting response is likely to be DEFENSIVE.
This DEFENSIVE behaviour could take the form of:

• Dismissing the feedback and criticising the instrument as being poorly worded or misleading;
• Dismissing the feedback and criticising the respondents or blaming the timing;
• Trying to figure out who said what and going after them.

All of these responses are going to destroy whatever fragile trust there was that made so many employees respond to the survey in the first place. Their reaction is likely to be something like: “Well you asked for the feedback. You said you really wanted it. You said it would be safe to be honest. Now look what you do. I will never fall for this again.” And they all go back beneath the parapet and seethe with resentment – the exact opposite of what the survey was intended to achieve.
I’d like to offer another perspective. What if we accept that there is nothing to be gained by debating the merits of the feedback? There is nothing to be gained by hunting down whoever said what. Whatever flaws the instrument may have, the feedback is the feedback. It is telling us how people think and feel about working here. We wanted to know, and now we know. We may not like it – but at least we know.
The next questions are:

• How do we want people to think and feel about working here?
• What do we leaders need to change or do differently to make sure that happens?
• What is our action plan?
• When will we run the instrument again to see how we are doing?

Imagine how your teams would respond if they saw you responding in this way. I would anticipate the following:

• Huge relief that there is not going to be a backlash;
• Increased trust;
• Admiration and respect for the leader who is able to take it on the chin non-defensively;
• A willingness to work together to create a climate that is in alignment with the vision;
• Greater transparency and openness;
• A real improvement in organisational climate and leadership culture.

If you do not believe your organisation will do something constructive with the results of an employee survey, it may be better not to do it at all. Handling the results badly will obviously do damage, but don't underestimate the damage that ensues when NOTHING useful is done with the information. Doing nothing is the best way to get employees to disengage - it indicates that management just doesn't care. It is a real gesture of contempt towards employees.
John Gottman, the world-renowned expert on relationships, calls contempt one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (along with defensiveness, flooding and stonewalling) - it absolutely ALWAYS results in relationship breakdowns - whether it is in personal relationships or working relationships.
Employee surveys should really be seen as integral to the organisation's approach to organisational and leadership development, with the intention being to grow and develop the organisation and its people towards ever greater alignment with the vision and values. In this sense it can be a really growthful experience for everyone.
So what is to be done if you are about to embark on an employee survey, and you are concerned about ensuring that managers ALL handle the feedback well and respond to it appropriately? I have found coaching to be a profoundly valuable resource to managers in the following senses:
1. It helps managers to process and make sense of feedback that they might be disappointed, upset or confused about;
2. It is a forum in which they can think through and decide how to discuss the results of the feedback with their teams;
3. It is a developmental environment in which they can attend to their own growth areas so that they can become the leaders they need to become - if the feedback was not what they would have wished;
4. It is a place where they can decide how to regularly check in with their teams on how they are progressing.

So if this resonates with you and you'd like to consider how to rollout your next employee survey, drop me a mail on belinda@leadershipsolutions.co.za and let's talk about it.

Do skilled people really underperform because they lack commitment? I don't believe this is true at all. All human beings have some innate drives:

1. We all want our lives and our work to matter and mean something;
2. We all want to belong to a family, tribe or team;
3. We all want the respect that comes from being effective and competent;
4. We all want the self-respect that comes from performing well and the mastery of a skill or discipline.

This is not some esoteric fantasy about people. These are facts based on research that has been replicated over and over again (see Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”). Furthermore it simply defies logic to assume that entire population groups don’t care about their work (they’re just here for the pay-cheque); have no interest in what is good for the team; and don’t care if they are competent or not. What arrogance to assume that we are special in this regard and that we are surrounded by low-lifes who just don’t care!
Skilled people underperform because they have become disengaged. Why do they disengage?
Primarily people become disengaged when:

1. They are not working at something that interests them, are good at and which makes a difference in the organisation, and they are not having the experience of achieving mastery in their field.
2. They feel irrelevant and unimportant – their work doesn’t matter to their manager, the team or the organisation;
3. They receive no or minimal recognition when they do well or improve;
4. They experience constant obstacles and getting the work done is an endless uphill battle;
5. There is no sense of team – the team doesn’t meet, talk, pull together, problem solve together. In fact, people probably work against each other in the competition for their own survival;

Most disengaged people did not start out that way. How many new employees have you come across who made no effort in the beginning? They become disengaged over time. So what does a manager need to do to get people engaged again?

1. Make sure they are doing work that interests them, in which they can gain some mastery and which matters to the business.
2. Give them regular feedback about what they are doing well, how they are improving and the positive impact that is having on the business.
3. Take responsibility for removing obstacles that are above their pay grade. There are some things that only you can do - and you must do them.
4. Pull the team together. Make sure the team meets regularly to talk about: 

• What are we trying to achieve?
• What have we actually achieved?
• What are we doing well?
• What are we not doing so well?
• What have we learned?
• What do we still need to do / do differently?

    5. Give team members challenging work that requires them to learn constantly in order to achieve mastery. Provide
        learning opportunities. Know their strengths and make sure that a meaningful proportion of their work plays to
        their strengths.
This keeps the team focused on its deliverables, keeps individuals focused on their own contribution, and ensures that the team is constantly learning.
After 5 years of research The Gallup Organisation were able to offer twelve key questions that you should ask your team members to ascertain how engaged or disengaged they are and why:

1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
10. Do you have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

What is fantastic about these questions is that the solutions are in the questions. These are all factors that enhance the likelihood of people being engaged.
When you’ve gathered the information, summarise the conclusions and decide what changes you need to make or catalyze in order to address the issues that you have uncovered.

If these circumstances resonate with you and you would like to influence change in your team by developing as a leader, go here to find out more about how I work and what you will achieve from working with me.