Effective working relationships have a great deal to do with mutual understanding - life is so much easier when we understand what makes our boss or our colleagues tick. If you are in a leadership role, it is easy to underestimate the amount of headspace you occupy on the part of your team members. They seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to approach you interpreting what your behaviour might mean - and all of these machinations are based on assumptions.

Some years ago I came across the notion of compiling a personal user manual as a way of making everyone's life  whole lot easier. It is a great self-reflection exercise too, as you think about how to complete each aspect of the manual. Here is what might go into your User Manual:

1. My Style: here you can talk about the kind of person you are; your personality style; your leadership style; how formal or informal you like things.
2. What I Value: you can talk about your values; what you appreciate in others; your views on the work/life balance question.
3. What I Don't Have Patience For: these might be things that irritate or annoy you; it could be about behaviour you regard as childish; taboos that apply in your life.
4. How to Communicate with Me: What do you like people to lead with; do you want detail or just the headlines; do you want a heads-up before a discussion; do you like conversation or do you prefer to read something; do you want background or should people get to the point. It may also include your approach to decision-making: what do you expect from your team members; when do you want to be involved; how you make decisions yourself. If you are aware of not being a great listener, you can also tell team members how to bring to your attention that you need to LISTEN.
5. How You Can Help Me: this might include what team members can do to make your life easier; your own weaknesses and how team members can complement you on these; what team members can do to make their own lives easier in terms of working with you.
6. What People Misunderstand About Me: these are the quirks and foibles that people think mean one thing but actually mean another.

You can mess around with these headings and come up with something that is more you - they offer you a starting point.

It can be a really fun exercise to encourage your team members to prepare their own User Manuals, and then for the team to have a series of conversations that makes each of you a whole lot more knowable. You could use a process like this:

1. Tell your team that you want to have a session where you can each get to know and understand one another better, and agree on a date and time. This will take a couple of hours, so maybe arrange an afternoon where you can all be relaxed and take your time.
2. Share the template (see below) with them and discuss what might go under each heading. Modify the headings if it seems appropriate to do so.
3. As the team leader, you go first. You could present your user manual as a document or as a video, or you could simply speak to each heading and then share your document afterwards.
4. Invite team members to ask any questions that may not have been addressed in your user manual. Answer them and then perhaps add some FAQs to your user manual, which you can then share.
5. Give each team member the opportunity to present their own user manuals, and answer any questions including questions from you.
6. End with each person having the opportunity to offer their personal reflection on any important insights they have gained and the benefits of the conversation. (I'm a big fan of end-of-meeting reflections.)

I facilitated such a discussion with a team that really wasn't clicking - and the misconceptions and inaccurate assumptions that were set straight was unbelievable. It is a great way to start off your time with a new team. It is also a great way to integrate new team members. It is also a useful tool to use when you are some way along your journey with your team and, perhaps you have a sense that you do not understand each other as well as you need to.
Have fun with it. Laugh at yourself and invite others to do so too. Notice when your colleagues deal with you in the way you have outlined. Be aware of doing the same for them. A couple of weeks later, have another reflection with your team - what is working, what has improved, what still needs to change?
​

​Here is a template that you are welcome to use.

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.

​There has been some interest in the notion that fear is a notorious performance inhibitor, and I have had some interesting questions about how one can bring about improvements to the performance of underperforming managers without invoking fear.
Let’s look at some background. If you are noticing that a manager is underperforming, chances are this is because you have noticed that she is not delivering on a performance expectation that is perfectly clear in your mind – in other words, what she is delivering falls short of your expectations.
It has been my experience that managers have the greatest difficulty handling such issues with the managers who report to them. I think there may be some ego issues – it is difficult to acknowledge that you may have put the wrong person into the job. They may have difficulty defining what it is a manager should be doing in order to deliver on expectations. I think they may also have difficulty having these difficult conversations. They are stressful and they make you anxious. But consider this: will yelling and losing your temper change anything? No – in fact, it will probably make things worse. Will leaving well enough alone and hoping for the best work? No – and you will have the further impact of disillusioning the rest of the team with your failure to take action.
The ability to correct underperformance without using threat or fear depends on the following:

1. The performance expectation must be clear in your own mind. You need to be able to describe it in clear, specific, measurable or observable terms.
2. The performance expectation must be as clear in your team member’s mind as it is in yours. You must have articulated your expectations in a series of discussions with your team member, and your team member must be able to describe the following accurately:
   1. What must be done / what must be delivered?
   2. How it must be done?
   3. When, how often and by when it must be done?
   4. What must be done when it goes wrong?
   5. How is performance measured?
   6. What is the impact of falling short of expectations, and what will be expected if this happens?

If you have not heard these expectations from your team member’s own lips you do not know if she has the same picture of the expectations in her mind as you do in yours.

1. The performance expectation must be monitored regularly and the team member must be given regular feedback on her performance in comparison with the expectation.
   1. She needs to know where she is meeting expectations and where she is falling short.
   2. She needs to have the opportunity to think through and discuss the possible reasons why she is falling short.
   3. She needs to have the opportunity to think through and discuss what she needs/needs to do in order to bring performance back up to expectations.
   4. She needs to know what may happen if she continues to fall short of expectations.
   5. She needs to be encouraged to keep trying and be reminded that she has your support.
2. You need to be sure that you have done all that can reasonably be expected in order to enable her to reach the required levels of performance:
   1. Have you ensured that she has the necessary skill? Have you provided training/coaching in the event that there is a skills problem?
   2. Have you made sure that performance to the standard is recognised and acknowledged (or is it ignored or even punished in some way)?
   3. Have you ensured that there are no obstacles to performance – everything that is required to do the job is in place and works (equipment and technology works and is suitable for the job, the information required is available timeously, the necessary people and other resources are available to do the work, etc.)?
   4. Have you given regular feedback on progress – including noticing when progress is made and saying something when there is insufficient progress?

If you have done all of the above and are still not happy with the performance of your team member it is appropriate to have a conversation that clarifies that meeting the performance expectation is not negotiable.
There are some steps to follow:

1. Get your mind right – do not have this conversation if you are angry and uptight. Do your preparation.
2. Articulate the performance that is expected and describe how it continues to fall short.
3. Remind the team member of the things you have done in order to give her the best chance to succeed.
4. Ask if she thinks there is anything else you should be doing in order to enable her to succeed. Discuss this and agree if this is reasonable or not. If it is a reasonable request, agree to the action. If it is not a reasonable request, say so and give a reason.
5. Clearly state that meeting the required standard of performance is non-negotiable, and the deadline by which such performance must have been achieved. Also describe what you will have to do in the event that the team member continues to fall short of expectations. This may include taking disciplinary action. Indicate your reluctance to go this route and that you hope it will not be necessary.
6. Make yourself available in the event that the team member requires any further support from you.

In your dealings with the team member, make sure that you remain calm and that you never threaten. Advising someone of the consequences of continued underperformance is not a threat – and there should be no threat in your tone. It is a statement of fact – that no manager can be expected to tolerate prolonged underperformance from any team member. Be sure that you are prepared to follow through.
In all of this, it is so important to remember that we are dealing with people, and compassion is key. We are living in tough times, and people are struggling with all sorts of things that we know nothing about. Discussions relating to the possibility that someone may lose their job are not to be taken lightly. While it is never a good idea to allow underperformance to run too long, it is important that you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you have done everything you can, and more, to help this person perform as required.
A word to the wise – it is preferable to have the first of these conversations as early as possible. The longer underperformance is allowed to persist, the greater the difficulty in correcting it – after all, your silence and inaction implies that the performance is okay.

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.

Does this sound like you? There is a leadership paradox which says that leaders need to manage the tension between trusting their team members and keeping an eye on things. Many leaders step way over the line on this one. Instead of collaborating with their team members and checking in with them regularly, they spend much of their time checking up on their people, and the balance of the time holding themselves aloof from the team. There is a distinct difference between checking in and checking on.
Managers who check on their team members make four kinds of mistakes:

• The first is that they fail to allow team members autonomy in carrying out their work. Micromanagers dictate chapter and verse of what must be done and how it must be done.
  The more empowering version of checking in would involve giving the team a clear strategic goal, and respecting their ideas on how to meet that goal.
• The second mistake that micromanagers make is to frequently ask team members about how the work is progressing, but fail to provide any real help when problems arise.
• Their third mistake is to look for someone to blame when mistakes happen or things go wrong.
  They would be far more empowering if they guided team members through an open exploration of causes and possible solutions. The consequence of this is that team members end up trying to look good (or at least not look bad) rather than honestly discussing problems and how to overcome them. They live in a permanent Threat (of appearing incompetent) → Anxiety → Defensiveness pattern, and team members’ perceptions of their manager settle into a permanent low place.
• The fourth mistake of micromanagers is that they rarely share information about their own work with their team members. This often includes withholding information that would help them in their work – and this feels remarkably like an over-controlling parent, which causes team members to feel infantilized, and their motivation and effectiveness plummets.

When you micromanage your people, it poisons their perceptions of you and the organisation, causes them to feel resentful and frustrated, and saps them of their energy and motivation. Furthermore, it stifles creativity and productivity – the consequence is a team whose output is lacklustre and whose ideas are nothing better than ordinary. This naturally causes managers to panic, with the consequence that they breathe down their team members’ necks even more obtrusively and criticise them even more harshly. The result of this is that team members hide problems from their managers, causing problems to become crises.
 
So what is the solution? The following guidelines will help:

1. Give the team/team member clear strategic goals that clearly describe the outputs required, any specific standards that the output must meet and any deadlines that must be met.
2. Check in regularly to establish how the team (or team member) is progressing and to ask what support they need in order to continue to make progress. Then provide that support.
3. Use your systems and management processes to monitor output. When it appears that there are problems with output, check in with the team/team member with a view to understanding what is getting in the way. Establish where your support is needed (information; clearing systemic blockages; skill; tangible assistance) and provide it.
4. When problems arise, explore what may have caused them (not who) and possible solutions. Use a problem solving process such as GROW in a disciplined way (see http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GROW_model ).
5. Share information generously – all information that will help with the work, as well as information about your own work. The less people know about their work, their manager’s work and the company, the lower their perceptions of their manager and their company.

 
Given that we are now working in a world where teams will increasingly be working remotely from each other and from their manager, this is the perfect time for micromanagers to learn to let go of the need to constantly know what is going on (which is all about you and your insecurities) and focus on two really important things:

1. Care for your people - they are all having a VERY stressful time (this article being written during the time of Covid-19) in both their personal AND their professional lives. They need to know you are in their corner and that you genuinely care.
2. Satisfactory output and NOT perfect input - are they getting the work out well enough? This is not a time for constantly insisting on excellence - as honourable as that may be. This is a time for people to ask themselves "when is good enough good enough?"

If this article speaks to you and you’d like to make some personal changes in order to better lead your team and your business, look at this great offer: http://www.leadershipsolutions.co.za/coaching-offer.html​

Of course, many new managers make the mistake of micro-managing their new teams in their zeal to demonstrate that they have it all under control. If you have a newly appointed manager in your team, check out this great online self-study programme that will help them to set things up right with their new teams: https://bit.ly/2NE1AqH 

This article is based on the ideas of Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer as contained in their book “The Progress Principle”, published in 2011, Harvard Business Review Press).

I've called this a myth because if you think you can get away with this you are in for a nasty surprise. If this is you, I am pretty sure you are experiencing immense frustration with some or all of the following:

1. The performance of the team (or individuals in the team) is inconsistent and not where you would like it to be.
2. People are not making decisions and not solving problems effectively;
3. People are pulling in opposite directions, not supporting one another or even getting in each other’s way;
4. There is gossip, dissatisfaction and grumbling;
5. People are disengaged and appear uncommitted.

 
We simply cannot get work done effectively through our teams if we never meet with them. I wonder if we never meet with them because our meetings have seemed so pointless in the past. Meetings must be purposeful and effective if they are to have the desired effect. The purpose of regular meetings includes the following:

1. To set direction and ensure the team is clear on what it is trying to achieve – in other words to discuss and reach agreement on where we are going and how we are going to get there.
2. To review progress – to reflect on what we are trying to achieve and what we are actually achieving;
3. To learn – what are we doing well; what are we not doing so well; what can we learn from this;
4. To correct course – what do we need to do differently or pay attention to going forward;
5. To collaborate in finding solutions to problems affecting the team and making decisions that require the engagement and commitment of the team.

 
So how can you make sure your meetings are effective? Here are some ideas:

1. Have a clear agenda with items phrased as questions to be answered or decisions to be made (e.g. How is our actual performance tracking against our targets?) Invite input from the team for the agenda. Assign a specific amount of time to each agenda item. Circulate the agenda with any documents team members must read in preparation for the meeting.
2. Have a clear starting and finishing time. Start on time. End on time. Manage the amount of time spent on each agenda item. If you don’t finish your agenda by the end of the allotted time, schedule another meeting. Do not run over time. It is inconsideration. Team members have other commitments and plans for their time.
3. Get the team to agree on some meeting ground rules, such as:
   • Stay on track. If we go off track we all share the responsibility to bring things back on track – even if the boss is the one who has taken it off track.
   • Everybody must speak once before anyone may speak twice. (It is a good idea to go around the table from person to person giving each person an opportunity and a responsibility to give input on the agenda item. This ensures that everyone contributes and makes sure your meetings don’t turn into a talking competition. This will make the discussions shorter as well.)
   • Don’t indulge stories – once we get the picture move on.
   • Keep your contributions relevant to the agenda item.
   • Agree on what you will do with topics that need discussion even though they are not on the agenda. Will you set another meeting or have time for “Other business”?
4. Make sure the agenda item is dealt with – the question must be answered or the decision made. Ask the questions:
   1. Who will do what?
   2. How?
   3. By when?
   4. What could get in the way?
   5. What will you do about that?
   6. How and when will we get feedback on progress/completion?
5. Make it possible and necessary for everyone to participate. If they have no contribution to make, why are they there?
6. Make sure the team finds the meeting effective. End meetings by asking the team:
   1. What did we do well in this meeting?
   2. What did we not do well in this meeting?
   3. What must we do differently next time?

If this is a challenge you experience and would like to consider working with me as your coach, email me: belinda@leadershipsolutions.co.za. We will set up a time to talk about your challenges. If the chemistry works, we can get started within a week!

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.

Science is showing us over and over again that the single greatest inhibitor to performance is fear. As a method of extracting peak performance from people in any sphere of activity – work, sport, relationships – it fails every time. Why is this so? It is about survival – and in the corporate jungle only the fittest survive.
In the workplace, only those people who can defend themselves against threats to their survival and demonstrate their fitness (competence) will last and increase their chances of advancement. Defensive behaviour is the same in everyone (and in all animals). When a person perceives a threat to her survival (appearing incompetent or losing his job) it creates anxiety (fear). This causes a hormonal response that shuts down the pre-frontal cortex (the thinking part of the brain). The person then defends against the threat using a fight, flee, freeze or appease response. This is called the threat – anxiety – defence response. 

The manager who is always telling people that they are stupid or useless, or telling them that they don’t know their jobs or are going to lose their jobs is going to make his people fearful or anxious. As a consequence, their thinking brains will shut down and they will fight (get aggressive, defend themselves or blame other people), flee (withdraw and try to fly under the radar), freeze (become paralysed and unable to take decisions or act) or appease (apologise, try to make nice, anxiously try to please). 

The threat – anxiety – defence response sets up a vicious cycle. Here is an example:
Your boss is in a meeting with an angry customer. The customer asks her a question to which she does not have an answer. Your boss feels this as an attack on her competence (threat) and this provokes an emotional response in her (anxiety). She angrily promises the customer that heads will roll and heads back to the office. At the office, she calls you in and hauls you over the coals for not doing your job properly (threat of appearing incompetent), you feel anxious and angry (a double hormone whammy) and angrily remind her that you had been waiting for her to make a decision and come back to you. The only reason you had given her no feedback is that you were awaiting her decision so you could take action. So actually it is not your fault at all (defence). This does not go down well with your boss, who experiences the second attack on her competence in one day and … etc. etc. You get the picture.
​
People who are afraid will never perform well or take the initiative:

1. Their brains cannot think because the pre-frontal cortex shuts down.
2. They do not have the confidence to act because, if they get it wrong, their survival will come under threat – again.

If you want people to perform, managers must do the following:

1. Admit that team members may be fearful and take responsibility for putting that right.
2. Make it safe for people to report errors or mistakes, and treat them as opportunities for the whole team to learn. If you don’t, people will continue to hide their mistakes (can you blame them?) Better still, acknowledge people for having the courage to report errors or mistakes.
3. Resist the temptation to yell, accuse people of being incompetent and threaten them with the loss of their jobs. That is the thing they fear most and it will cause their brains to shut down. It will also cause them to disengage from their work.
4. Make the effort to connect with your people. Talk to them. Thank them. Show an interest in them, their work and their lives.
5. Do not pass on any unhelpful stuff you experience with your own boss to your people – have the strength of character to act as a buffer. 

I don’t care if they are happy. They’re here to work!

I’ve always struggled with this idea. It has always seemed perfectly obvious to me that happy people do better work than unhappy people – so it should matter to us that our people are happy. It was a source of tremendous frustration to me in the 1990s when managers disputed this on the basis that there was no research to prove my assertions! I mean do you really need proof of something that is just logical? Apparently you do. Happily there is now masses of research that backs up this idea.

One of the most compelling for its accessibility and readability is a book by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer called “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work”. Their work involved analysing 12 000 daily email diaries from 238 volunteers (there was nothing in it for them). Most of the questions were numerical ratings about their perceptions, emotions and motivation during the day (which they call the “inner work life”) but the most important question was an open-ended one: “Briefly describe one event from today that stands out in your mind.” This was the gold mine. From these 12 000 reports, they were able to show what many managers are not able to see:

• Inner work life has many aspects to it and is complex;
• Inner work life profoundly influences creativity, productivity, work commitment and collegiality (the vibe in the team, and the extent to which colleagues help and support each other);
• Inner work life is of profound importance to companies because, no matter how brilliant the strategy, it still has to be executed by people – and its execution usually depends on great performance that requires real stretch;
• Our inner work life is profoundly affected by events occurring every day at work – and negative events have a far more powerful effect than positive events;
• Inner work life matters very much to employees.

 
Their research also revealed 3 types of positive events:

1. Progress in meaningful work (work that matters to the employee);
2. Catalysts – which are events that help to move a project forward; and
3. Nourishers – interpersonal exchanges that uplift people during the course of their work.

Of these three, progress in meaningful work stands out as the most powerful.
 
They also found three negative influences that undermine inner work life:

1. Setbacks  in the work;
2. Inhibitors -  events that create obstacles to getting the work done; and
3. Toxins – interpersonal exchanges that undermine people doing the work.

 
So what does this mean to us? People are most engaged in their work when they can see that they are making steady progress – whether this means that they are achieving their productivity targets, customer service targets, or meeting project milestones. This is why visual management systems are so very powerful – they give people a visual that shows that they are making progress. This is tremendously satisfying – and a sense of satisfaction is just one of the many facets of inner work life. In fact, engagement is happiness in action – it is the joy of being able to see that your efforts make an impact, and that you are moving closer to the achievement of an important goals because of your efforts.

Secondly, a central role of leadership is to get the obstacles out of the way so that people can get on with the job and make progress. Leaders have to take this job very seriously. It means solving problems and giving answers quickly. If your people struggle to get a response from you, or sit with unsolved problems that are yours to address, don’t be surprised if they give up and disengage. If, on the other hand, they see you responding and taking action quickly, they will be encouraged and energised to continue digging deep in order to continue making progress.

Thirdly, make sure that your every interaction with a team member is uplifting and encouraging. Publicly praise and encourage. Any feedback for improvement must be in private and delivered with absolute consideration for its impact on the inner work life of the team member for the rest of the day. Do you want the team member to spend the rest of the day engaged in making progress, or do you want him ruminating on how you treated him? Furthermore, you need to have the leadership courage to insist that everyone in your organisation is spoken of and spoken to with respect. Disrespect and disregard is toxic.

Finally, I repeat – negative events have a far more powerful effect than positive events on the inner work lives of people. Toxic interpersonal exchanges, constant obstacles that prevent one from getting the work done, or the sense that we just can’t get it right are like acid eroding our organisations.
 
Questions to Consider

• What needs to happen for it to be possible for your people to be able visibly track their progress on projects and track the impact of their efforts on their objectives?
• What can you do to make this happen?
• What visible management systems could you use?

To book a free 30 minute Zoom meeting with me to discuss 3 ways in which you might positively impact on the inner work life of your team members email me: belinda@leadershipsolutions.co.za 

​I have really struggled through the last 2 weeks. The first 3 weeks of lockdown were not too bad. I discovered that I really like this way of working – going up to my office, being able to write, seeing my clients online, and all while looking out at my lovely garden and my beautiful view. I was excited at the opportunities that this time of Covid-19 might bring, despite the inevitable hardship. The idea of no longer having to get up at 3.45am in order to catch a 6.00am plane to get to clients in another city was replaced with the anticipation of being able to work with clients anywhere in the world, because they would have had personal experience of how a virtual coaching session can be completely satisfactory. I understood that I would have to adapt to the online world in terms of my marketing, and that I would need to work out how to build relationships with prospective clients despite not being able to actually be in the same room with them.
Then last week I just felt sad. My son is stuck in Vietnam unable to work and unable to come home. I can’t do anything to help him except send money (some things don’t change). My mother lives alone in a retirement facility and has been confined to her flat. Furthermore, she has always resisted technology, so she does not even have the benefit of video calls and family chats – and I can’t do anything to help her except call her every day. Dear friends of mine are losing their businesses. Under any other circumstances, I would be providing them with coaching in order to find ways to survive and thrive – but the current circumstances provide almost no wriggle room.
I was kind to myself last week – I allowed myself to be sad. I recognised that I was dealing with a kind of grief – the loss of all that was familiar; the loss of my familiar ways of connecting with clients and prospects; the loss of the ease that had characterised my working life. I reminded myself that it is ok to have a meltdown; I don’t have to be strong every single day; I don’t always have to put a positive spin on things. Sometimes things just suck and it’s ok to feel sad about that.
Then this week came around and I really struggled to find the energy to do what I know I must do. It felt like I was having to dig really deep every single minute of every day – and I really couldn’t find the energy to do so all the time. I took this to my regular session with my Coach Supervisor, Graham. I asked him to just coach me through what was happening to me. I came out of that session with some really powerful insights that might be useful to you.
Graham immediately connected my malaise with my enneagram. I am an 8 – a dominant driver. I make the world manageable and safe by taking charge and being in control. I have broad shoulders and a pretty thick skin; the capacity for a heavy workload and a high work rate; I am adept at figuring out how to respond effectively in almost every situation; I am most comfortable when I am in charge; being in control and having things under control is my happy place. On the flipside, powerlessness makes me feel extremely vulnerable – and 8’s do not like vulnerability at all. It threatens their sense of being capable and effective people. The most frightening place for me is where I cannot figure out an effective way to respond to a difficult situation. I realised from my discussion with Graham that this really is the first time in my life where I have felt utterly powerless. On every other previous occasion where things have been difficult either in business or in life, I have been able to figure out how to take charge and work things out – but I was feeling the vulnerability of simply not having an answer. And in feeling so utterly powerless, I was allowing myself to catastrophise. I remember using some really dramatic language around “this government having its boot very firmly on the neck of the people”, and “if they wanted a Venezuala, then this is just the perfect storm!” This is not like me at all. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Generally I am an optimist. One of my axioms is “Everything works out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out yet, you haven’t reached the end.”
Having had the insight that my malaise is about powerlessness, the balance of my coaching session was about reframing my current circumstances, and figuring out how to take back some power.
But something else happened in that conversation - I shifted my attention to my clients, who are generally executives and senior managers in large companies. Many of my clients are also enneagram 8’s and I am sure that many of them are having their own struggles with powerlessness. That sense of powerlessness will manifest in different 8s in different ways. Because I work alone and don’t have a team that I need to manage and inspire to get things done, I went into my malaise (and not a little grumpiness). But leaders of teams will often do the complete opposite. They will move into intense activity and “pushiness” in order to salvage the situation and save the day. I have clients who, through lockdown when sales activities had all but come to a halt, were in virtual meetings from 8.00am until 6.00pm. What were they talking about? And with such intensity? The 8s were hustling to wrestle back some control - whether it was control over a team that is working remotely, or control over the inevitable financial crisis that their business faces. Typical behaviours when 8s feel under threat are to dominate, confront, be forceful, impose their will and vision, be brave and forge ahead, no matter what. (But that doesn’t work very well when you work alone!) What gets lost is the open-heartedness and caring that is true of 8s when they are at their best.
I think there are 2 topics here. Firstly, if being in control is your familiar place, what do you need to do to regain a calm sense of personal effectiveness despite the fact that there is so much going on that is outside of your control? Secondly, how should you lead your team so that you create a sense of calm and give them the sense that there are things they can do to exercise at least some influence or power despite the impact of outside circumstances over which they have no control at all.
The starting point is to recognise the vulnerability that you experience because of powerlessness, as well as the negative impact this has on your thoughts and your behaviour. Consider using these questions to help you:

• What am I feeling that is so intensely uncomfortable right now?
• What are the thoughts that have given rise to these feelings?
• How am I showing up / behaving that is directly related to my feelings and thoughts?
• How is this further impacting on my thoughts and feelings?
• How is this impacting on my team members?

Then you can tackle some of your thoughts and test whether they represent some form of truth or if they are unhelpful assumptions and catastrophising. Graham asked me to reframe or challenge some of my thoughts, and one of them was the “boot on the neck of the populace” thought. Is that really what the government is doing? Is that really what Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma are doing? Then my compassionate capacity kicked in and I was able to wonder if people who had such a negative agenda would look so utterly exhausted all the time. Surely not.
Maybe these questions will help:

• Which of your thoughts are true? Which are untrue? And which do you not know ithe truth of?
• In the case of the thoughts that are untrue, what truth is more likely?
• Where you simply don’t know, what alternative assumption would be more helpful?

Finally, you can identify areas in which you can take back some power. For me it was about the fact that I know there are certain things that I must do every single day in order to build relationships with new prospects in a world where I cannot go and meet them. I must phone at least 2 clients every day, just to connect and see how they are doing. I must post an engaging article, quote or video clip every single day in order to be in front of my prospective market. I must respond in an generous and engaging way to posts by people either in or connected to my market. I think of these as my 20 Mile March.

• What do you need to do every single day in order to “impose order amidst disorder, discipline amidst chaos, and consistency amidst uncertainty” (Jim Collins)?

The second area to think about is your team. How can you help them to also “impose order amidst disorder, discipline amidst chaos, and consistency amidst uncertainty”? When under intense pressure, 8s forget that they are dealing with team members who are also struggling. 8s come into their own when they are able to “use their strength to improve others' lives, becoming heroic, magnanimous, and inspiring”. Consider these questions:

• What does each of your team members need from you right now? Don’t guess! If you don’t know because they haven’t told you or because you don’t know them really well, then ask!
• How can you help your team members to impose their own order, discipline and consistency? This is probably a coaching or mentoring opportunity?
• How can you inspire your team to be courageous during these times?

During the course of May I will add to these thoughts. If you are interested, please connect with and follow me on LinkedIn or follow my Leadership Solutions Facebook page.
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