How can sales trainers and managers use BA to boost sales?
Observing and assessing what people to say and do in given sales situations is not new. It can have a powerful impact on sales effectiveness when done well. From sales ranging from inside to field sales, from direct to indirect, from simple to complex it is not so much which is the best system but which is most appropriate for the job you need to do. What follows is an overview of the case for BA in improving sales performance.
Why measure what people say or do?
Many of us are unaware of how skilled we are and, more importantly for development purposes, we are very often unaware of exactly how we produced such skilled purposes. We could, of course, ask skilled performers how they have reached their level of ability. Unfortunately, many of their highly skilled performances are by now unconscious with apparently little effort or planning. In fact various research studies of expert performance skills – music, sport, selling has shown such analysis can be really misleading. The prize though is worth it. If we can analyse top performers and are able to develop those skills in others the pay-offs are often double digit sales revenue increases. For example, in my own sales productivity projects, with a range of clients, have produced sales increase ranging from 25% to 100% using a BA based approach.
Clearly, if we want to illuminate why some people are more skilled than others we need to measure what is going on. A crucial factor is to make sure there is a balance between sales outcomes (Lagging Indicators) and the sales behaviors/process used to achieve such results (Leading Indicators). This balance shifts as the complexity and length of the sales increases. It becomes crucial to know how more skilled sales people achieve sales progress, such as:
Get invited to bid
Gain customer’s agreement to visit a reference site
Help the customer develop their RFP
If you are interested in having Nick speak to your organizationfill out this form.
At school and district levels, managing scarce resources to sustain or improve results has never been more challenging. Striving for consistency and efficiency builds tensions between those who care most about equipping children for an uncertain future.
Increasingly critical eyes on the education system advocate blunt instruments like “stronger management”, more top-down management, tighter controls, and simple incentives. This is surprising since such methods are failing the private sector by dispiriting and limiting people’s contribution. So, why should we expect anything different in education?
This is aggravated by the economy. We simply don’t know what jobs will be there in twenty years. Today, apart from a few core skills we cannot know what knowledge or skills will be needed in the future.
The consequences are that teachers complain that their jobs, while rewarding, are getting harder because of too few resources, too much paperwork, crowded classrooms, students with emotional problems, low pay and high-stakes standardized tests.
Isn’t time to realign administrators, unions, teachers, parents and students? The realignment is from teaching a curriculum more efficiently, to one of inspiring lifelong learning to thrive in a rapidly shifting economy.
Getting people focused and committed on implementing a strategy has never been more difficult as von Moltke said:
Strategic plans do not survive first contact with the enemy, and hence must be always open to revision.
In today’s competitive environment every action has many reactions that aren’t easily anticipated. This is probably a major factor why 60% of change initiatives fail in North America and why something is going wrong with strategic planning.
One area that many executives either ignore or only pay lip service to are the cynicisms that previous initiatives strategic planning have accumulated in the organizations psyche. Here are some that you ignore at your peril
Crucial to understanding your people, as Peter Senge describes, is identifying where people are on the apathy-commitment continuum. He identifies two areas of personal need that they want satisfied in their working lives:
personal benefit which comes from compensation, benefits, position, recognition, or other non-tangible benefits
personal sense of fulfillment of their life’s purpose, vision, or calling.
Leaders need to grasp how well each person’s attitude and their contribution is met directly by company goals or objectives. Then they can assess where people sit on the apathy/commitment continuum. Any misalignment between personal needs and your strategy will generate unproductive or counterproductive behavior, if not actively managed
A key finding of our research in a large mortgage loan client (Nick Anderson and Linda Marsh) was that 40-50% of mortgage loan customers surveyed had concerns about their house buying process. Unfortunately, Mortgage Loan Officers recognized only half of these people had such concerns. Also, Mortgage Loan Officers thought that half the people who didn’t have concerns did.
So, one key factor on offering help and advice is correctly identifying people
who have concerns they need help with.
People problems are very varied; they can also be complex. There is no all-embracing theory for
understanding them and no magical formulas guaranteed to solve them. The problem-solver, where people problems are concerned, must be an experimenter. There are, however, a few guidelines which, if observed, will help to save the problem-solver from wasting time and effort on ultimately unprofitable activities.
Unfortunately, between two minds there is often a breeding environment for misunderstanding and distortion. It’s where phraes like “I don’t think we are on the same page”
originates. Many factors influence such distortions. These include:
style and structure of the communication
social climate between the sender and recipient of a message,
integration of the message with other experience and learning
A frequent and often crucial situation in management today is one in which one person is seeking to persuade another to accept proposals for change. This situation commonly occurs when a subordinate presents a case to his or her boss.
Unfortunately, people usually spend a great deal more time and effort in collecting supporting facts and figures than in planning for the face-to-face interaction on which the success of the whole exercise usually depends. Careful consideration of interactive strategy at the planning stage can both assist in the selection of effective arguments and result in more persuasive interactions.
Feature Dumping
This discussion of the issues involved concentrates on persuasion in the boss-subordinate context; but the principles considered apply equally well to any situation in which one person is seeking to gain the co-operation or the consent of another.
By Contributing Blogger – Terry Merriman, PCO Associates
Implementing successful and sustainable change is tough, strategic change initiatives fail two-thirds of the time in North American business (Kotter, 1996, and McKinsey, 2009). How can your organization succeed? You can succeed by making change personal! Remember, performance is personal before it is organizational.
Isn’t this a truism, a matter of common business sense?
Since when was common sense common practice! It is common for many leaders to plan their change initiative, communicate it to their leadership team, tell the organization to watch for it, set some goals and measures, and incorporate the goals in their team and department objectives. Then, the change dies and the leadership team wonders why. The answer; the change was never translated into personal action!
If your people don’t embraced change and those in your value chain (including your customers and vendors) it will fail. Why? If your people do not understand the change initiative, buy into it, and integrate it into their daily activities, it will not work. Consequently, planned change and personal action don’t mesh as people are skeptical, don’t understand why, don’t see the need, and don’t know what’s in it for them.
So how do you make change personal?
Define, Communicate, Delegate and Track change related expectations. We usually get the organization’s side of change, define and communicate, pretty well. Where we fail is in putting the personal side of change, communicate, delegate, and track, into play.
Define the change in terms of broad categories of activity to which everyone in the organization can relate, and specific results that benefit the organization and its people.
Communicate the change initiative, and include the message that leadership will be expecting everyone to participate by defining specific expectations of each other necessary to carry out the change.
Communicate More, by focusing on individual working relationships by:
Get each leadership team member identify specific expectations of each other as to what they must do to successfully implement the change. Ensure the expectations are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time and budget bounded, Ethical and Recorded.
Have each leader discuss their expectations of the receiver expected to execute, and ensure each accepts accountability for each other’s expectation. This helps to create a productive relationship and integrate the change into the business at the leadership level.
Delegate by cascading the above process to each leader’s direct reports, peers, and business partners to those teams that are considered key players in the change initiative.
Ensure people delegate not only the responsibility and accountability but also the authority to execute each expectation. In this way people can develop ownership of those expectations other have of them. This step integrates the change throughout the organization as it becomes a part of each person’s work responsibilities and commitments.
Ensure each expectation’s originator is held responsible for assessing the receiver’s ability to meet their expectations and coach them to develop their competence.
Track each expectation’s results. This means each person holding accountable the person who agreed to meeting and reporting progress to an expectation’s completion. So, the Accountability Culture is born. The expectations approach challenges leaders and their direct reports to get personal first perspective and serves to foster improved communications between them.
The Expectations Approachmakes change personal by casacading accountability for implementing change throughout the organization in a way that helps people understand the reasons for and expected results from the change, and buy into it. We’ve found it one of the most effective ways of implementing successful and sustainable change in organizations. The side benefits of this approach are that it improves accountability throughout the organization, and encourages creation and development of productive relationships between people, leading to improved organizational performance.
Where has this approach been used succesfully?
This approach has been successfully employed in Fortune 500 companies and family owned businesses, from new selling strategies to management transitions (See Project Summaries) It has been shown to work in for-profit and non-profit organizations from large to small, and it also works in government organizations (it’s been used in the British Navy by its developer, John Machin).
“Change is Hard and Real Change is Real Hard!” If you want to be successful at change, you have to be prepared to tackle the hard part of change – making it personal.
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
This is the fourth in our series to help Leaders assess their behavioral skills. This series is based on research of common commercial interactions that has led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings and deal with those who are most difficult to persuade – Low Reactors. This week I am focusing on those behaviors Leaders use when controlling meetings. (Research conducted by Warr, Bird, Honey & Rackham ATTITB and Huthwaite Research Group).
The first Group of Behaviors is Clarifying Behaviors used for theexchange of information, facts and opinions and, of course clarification. For this Blog, we will consider, the four main behaviors which when used in meetings go to the heart of meeting effectiveness.
Testing Understandingseeks to establish whether or not an earlier contribution has been understood by the individual. It differs from seeking information in that it is an attempt to ensure agreement or consensus of some kind, and refers to a prior question or issue (i.e. “Can I take it that we all now agree on our tasks assignments for this week?”). This behavior is similar to Summarizing, but takes the form of a question.
Summarizingrestates the content of previous discussions or events in a compact form. This behavior can be useful to make sure that the entire group is up to date with events that have transpired (e.g. “So far we have agreed that John will finish module A, while Maria and I begin module B.”). This will ensure that you and the rest of the group have a clear understanding.
Seeking Information seeks facts, opinions, or clarification from another person pertaining to a proposal (e.g. “What sample size do you think will be needed for statistical reliability?” and “Which tests will you use?”).
Giving Informationmakes statements that offer facts, opinions or clarification to a proposal (e.g. “The new system is easier to operate.” and “I’m worried about missing the deadline.”).
Now, we will focus on the above behaviors Chair People (Chairs) use during meetings to attain successful outcomes. These findings help leaders diagnose their meetings and how too much, too little or the wrong balance of these four behaviors can waste time and often make meetings very frustrating and ineffective.
Does this apply to all meetings, like in Not for Profits?
Essentially, the commonality is problem solving and decision making, notjust exchanging information. As long as you have desired outcomes like:
Deciding how we are going to cope with rising demand and falling donations, OR
Problem solving why attendance is falling,
then you have a meeting.
Why do you say “not just exchanging information?
Good point! There are now so many better ways of reporting progress or a lack thereof, including email, SharePoint etc. that you should not encourage people to have weekly meetings where they have to wait their turn to report back. This“hub and spoke” type of meeting is boring, as participants have to wait for their colleagues report to the “boss” and hear them being questioned. Also, participants’ post meeting ratings change negatively when a meeting has a high level of Giving Information and is seen as Time Wasting. It happens when everyone in the meeting wants to add yet another reason, anecdote or opinion as to why an initiative should or should not be pursued; all of which tend to encumber the decision making process.
The Chairing vs. Managing Meeting Dilemma
In most situations the person running the meeting has two competing roles:
Chairing– The ideal Chair is an important role, concerned solely with the efficient and fair conduct of the meeting. The perfect Chair is not interested in the content, but in the meeting process.
Managing– In the real world though, the Chair is either the most senior manager present or the person who has called the meeting (a Leader). In either case he or she has considerable interest in the content and is rarely, if ever, neutral.
These two roles are not easily compatible. For example, many chairs have a continuous incentive to manipulate the process of the meeting in order to influence the content and therefore its outcome.
How often have you been in meetings with the feeling that you are not being really engaged for your input but merely your support for the Chair’s pet project?
So, are you saying that if we are chairing a meeting we should be neutral?
Well, in most situations the Chair’s preferences, views or pet projects are known beforehand. So, even if they strive for neutrality and focus on process, their attempts can be counter- productive by creating suspicion.
So, I am sure you have a research finding or two on how skilled chairs perform this balancing act?
Indeed…and an important distinction to draw at this stage is differentiating the wider skills of managing meetings from the narrower skills of chairing. As a starting point, the basic behaviors of chairing are worth focusing on.
Sample: 31 Chairs selected on the following criteria:
1. People rated their meetings as fair and efficient
2. They had at least five years experience of chairing
3. They were chosen from 47 who met the first two criteria.
The researchers found that skilled Chairs’ behavior differed significantly from participants; for example, the type of Proposing (putting forward new & actionable ideas, suggestions etc.).
Both Chairs and Participants had the same volume of Proposals but they were very different types:
Behavior
Chairs
Participants
Content Proposals
1.8%
11.1%
Procedural Proposals
9.6%
2.4%
Totals
11.5%
13.5%
Procedural Proposal Examples:
“I suggest we only spend 10 minutes on this item”
“I propose that we take item 6 next”
Content Proposal Examples:
“I think we should put the IT Cabinet next to Shaft 2”
“We need to ensure that employees are kept in the loop”
OK, so that’s Proposing– where to next?
There is an important distinction to make between the two initiating behaviors: Proposing and Building.
Proposing is a new suggestion, proposal, or course of action (e.g. “I suggest that we organize the project into five modules.” or “The File Menu should contain an option to print”).
Building on the other hand takes the form of a proposal, but actually extends or develops someone else’s proposal (e.g. “…and your design would be even better if we added a scroll bar at the edge of the window.” or “A pizza sounds great, and some sodas would be good too.”). Since the initial proposal is not the final solution, building is effective in producing an alternative or revised plan.
Chairs tend to use Building as a way of integrating different people’s ideas.
For Example:
“John has suggested we reduce the workload in Accounts. Bob says he has spare capacity. Are there some people who could be used at high work load times like month and year end?”
In contrast, Chairs used only about 1/3rd of Participants Supporting or Disagreeing Behavior i.e.:
Supporting makes a conscious and direct declaration of agreement with or support for another person, or his/her concepts and opinions (i.e. “Sounds okay to me” or “Fine”). Positive feedback is always good.
Disagreeing is the direct objection to another person’s opinions. Disagreeing is an issue-oriented behavior (e.g. “Your third point just isn’t true.” or “What you’re suggesting just won’t work.”). This behavior is normal in a discussion, but don’t let it evolve into a Defending or Attacking behavior.
It’s hardly surprising that Chairs support people, not issues. For example:
“Louise is right, to bring this up.”
Instead of directly disagreeing, Chairs will bring in other particpants who may disagree in the same way.
I would have thought skilled Chairs use a lot of Testing Understanding and Summarizing in meetings….is that right?
Another good point! The research showed that there was a correlation with the number of misunderstandings and misinterpretations after meetings with the amount of Testing Understanding and Summarizing occurring during meetings. In all 49 Meetings were so observed, and in those, 297 participants.
Those meetings that were low in Testing Understanding and Summarizing had significantly more errors and omissions in people’s accounts of the principle decisions agreed to. (Note: As meetings differed in length the researchers took Testing Understanding and Summarizing as a percentage total meeting behavior).
The findings were rather disturbing:
<2.5% – Testing Understanding and Summarizing Participants averaged 4.3 errors or omissions on what was decided.
>10% – Testing Understanding and Summarizing averaged only 1.2 errors or omissions
Good Chairs had Testing Understanding 15.2% vs. less effective Chairs 3.1% and similarly, Summarizing 11.5% vs. 0.7%
Seeking Information – 29.3% vs. 16.3%
Giving Information – 21.7% vs. 39.4%
So, how can people use this Chairperson Profile?
Training other leaders as well as for your own use…
How do Chairs betray their bias?
Using Content Proposals . Other ways they show bias? Using a lot of Disagreeing, Defend/Attack and Giving Information, all of which control content notprocess.
How do biased Chairs use directional control to influence a meeting’s direction?
Procedural Proposals combined with Shutting-out or Bringing-in by either excluding or involving participants including facilitating the exchange of ideas and asking people to share their opinions. It is interesting to note that Chairs who control participation and involvement are often seen as unbiased and fair whereas this can be a more subtle approach to controlling both the direction and decisions made.
So what questions would you ask yourself to be more effective when running meetings?
My questions to leaders would be:
What is the level of participants understanding and commitment to taking their part in following the issues outlined above?
How well are your expectations understood regarding what attendees need to prepare for your meetings? For example:
“Come prepared to analyze the missed delivery windows on second shift” or
“Ensure you come with three ideas about how we are going to overcome the conveyor problem on Line 3
How well do meeting participants know what behavior reduces meeting effectiveness? For example:
Giving long reports as to what happened versus focusing on conclusions that identify problems and offer options for their resolution
Offering many reasons to support a proposal versus giving just two strong reasons in support
How well do people understand your expectations when reviewing each meeting’s effectiveness. For example:
Delta reviews of pluses and minuses
How well did participants’ preparation help or hinder the meeting’s effectiveness
How well were ideas considered before deciding or passing judgment
How appropriate is it for you to chair every meeting, even when everyone knows that you have a vested interest in certain solutions?
Why not hand the Chair over to one of your people?
How well do you understand what are your participants’ expectations? For example:
Does everyone have to attend all meetings rather than just meetings about issues that concern them.
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
This is the third in my Leadership Skills series to help Leaders assess where they need to develop their people skills. In my last Post I introduced the research-based model that led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings. I covered the impact of Filter and Amplifier meetings which were the names the researchers coined to distinguish the different ways in which ideas or proposals were managed. This Post focuses on people who are difficult for many to handle or feel comfortable with, and you may be one of these people under certain circumstances.
Typically, you will work with one of these people who naturally behave this way and, in certain situations you may change the way you behave, often without realizing it.
How do you recognize you are dealing with one of these mysterious people?
Let’s look at one aspect of behavior – Reacting. It’s a group of behaviors you can choose to use; each of which when used repeatedly will have certain effects on the people you interact with, for better or worse. Let’s take the first of the Reacting Group – Supporting someone’s ideas or position – what’s your most likely response?
Supportive, likable…I guess
Yes that’s right. Secondly, there is Disagreeing with someone’s ideas or position. How are you likely to feel?
Well, I could see them as negative if they are aggressive or defensive…
That’s interesting….funnily enough people don’t see people who are high in disagreeing as necessarily negative, because they are rational, and seen as more objective…if they stick to a person’s proposals or ideas and do NOT focus on the person themselves. If they do get defensive or aggressive they are not disagreeing, they are Defending/Attacking. No surprise there about how such emotional people are viewed by colleagues and family members, for that matter.
OK, so who’s this mystery person… high “disagreer,” or defend/attacker?
Neither, this person is called the LOW REACTOR; they use lower levels of all three behaviors in both their verbal and non-verbal behavior, they show very little reaction to others
So, they are very quiet individuals..right?
Not necessarily. They may, for example, have high levels of Initiating and/or Clarifying behaviors. The only thing they avoid is Reacting.
Why is this Low Reactor a problem?
They give very little feedback about whether they approve of points you present. This tends to make people feel uneasy and people tend to handle them ineffectively. For example, even experienced sales people find it difficult to make their case convincingly when they are faced with somebody whose lack of response makes it hard to judge. One salesperson summed up the difference between high “disagreers” and low reactors.
“You know where you stand with someone who is prepared to disagree. What makes it hard with the Low Reactor is that he doesn’t’ even disagree!”
Some research to back up this comment was presented in the famous Xerox Research Project in the late 70’s (Neil Rackham, Simon Bailey & Linda Marsh, Huthwaite Research Group), one element of which looked at this very point. The researchers showed that while high “disagreers” are harder to sell to, the hardest to sell were the Low Reactors.
How much different were sales people’s success rates?
It was quite striking. The researchers looked at calls which advanced to the next stage or a deal was signed. For average reactors, salespeople were successful in about 11 out of 20 sales, where selling to high “disagreers” only 8 out of 20, and finally, Low Reactors only 3 out of 20 sales.
That’s a big difference…did they find out why selling to Low Reactors was so difficult?
It turns out that there are Five Common Traps people tend to fall into when trying to persuade a LOW REACTOR. Let’s see if you have experienced any of these…
Ok Go ahead… I am sure I have fallen into at least one and not realized it
That’s an excellent point…most people don’t know what’s happening to them … other than this person seems awkward to deal with.
Trap 1 – Losing Control Over Your Speaking Pace
Because people lose confidence in front of Low Reactors they do one of two things, either they talk faster to get to something that will spark interest or they run out of things to say due to the lack of reaction. For example, sellers’ normal speech rate was 119 words per minute (wpm) where it was 138 wpm when selling to Low Reactors and the number of pauses, or “umms” more than doubled. In fact, the number of redundant words significantly increased as well, like “Well, you see…what I meant to say…”
I bet this doesn’t apply just to sales situations?
Quite right, job interviews are another good example of finding Low Reactors – more situational – Interviewers know they are not supposed to support or disagree.
Fascinating, what’s the second trap?
Trap 2: Losing Sequence During Presentations
This was common in any situations where someone needs to make a verbal presentation. If either the decision maker or Leader is a LOW REACTOR or they are evaluating and making a big decision presenters will tend to jump around or lose sequence. In a study of 23 leaders, presenters “back tracking” occurred over 50% more often and “jumping the Gun” occurred 3 times as often.
What’s the Third Trap?
Trap 3: Over-Reacting. (Over-stating to get a reaction)
This is the most common and most dangerous trap to fall into. In a study of twenty-eight trade union officials and their management counterparts researchers actually observed real life labor negotiations and listened for emotionally charged statements. The differences were stark when the low reactor was on either side of the negotiation table – nearly 50% more emotionally charged statements were made.
In another study of salespeople, selling to LOW REACTORS led to a drop in factual statements and overstatements went up from 4% average to 13% with LOW REACTORS also untruths went to 3% from 1%.
Well it confirms that sellers do lie on occasions..doesn’t it?
Yes, BUT, so does the general population…some of the time.
OK… two more to go,…what’s number 4?
The Five Traps
Trap 4: Asking Fewer Questions Than Usual.
Asking more questions is usually a good thing to do with LOW REACTORS to find out where you are if nothing else! Especially; “How do you feel about this point?” Unfortunately 80% of people say they should ask more questions yet only 30% actually do. In one sample of 196 sellers questions fell by one-third to one half.
What’s the fifth trap?
Trap 5: Giving Too Much Information
For example, in selection interviews, law courts and other places where low reaction is normal, people often come away having given a great deal more information than they wanted to. In one study, sales people gave 50% more feature statements to LOW REACTORS.
Do we all fall into these traps?
No. Some people are more susceptible than others.
The 5 Traps: Your likelihood to fall into them
1 Pace 10-15%
2 Sequence 25-30%
3 Over Reacting/Stating 55-60%
4 Fewer Questions – 75%-80%
5 Blah,blah, blah (Talk too much) 75%-80%
What proportion of the population are LOW REACTORS?
That’s difficult to say considering factors like ethnicity and cultural differences – e.g. Scandinavians vs. Italians. What the researchers indicated is that the bigger the decision someone makes the more likely that their reaction levels will be lower. For example, in selling larger sized machines researchers found that LOW REACTOR levels rose from 18% to 46% and when people were making a decision for someone else Low Reacting goes from 16% to 47%.
How do you define Low Reactors?
Typically researchers found that Reacting Behaviors less than 10% of all behaviors identified a LOW REACTOR.But it’s clouded by reaction levels being higher in one-to-one situations, so for groups the number is 7%, and the other problem is with those people who just don’t say much at all.
What is the significance for Leaders?
Let’s look at how leaders could actually set up their people to fail (placing these traps in their way unintentionally). If you are not aware of how your reaction levels drop, and under what circumstances they drop, you can set up your people for progressive confidence loss. Are you a natural LOW REACTOR anyway? It is natural for many leaders, as they rise up the corporate ladder, to learn that reacting either in support or disagreement too quickly can create risks. So, many senior leaders exhibit the “keeping your cards close to your chest” behavior.
Your Low Reacting behavior can deplete your peoples’ confidence and create risk avoidance in their behavior. This can result in lower levels of informal communication, especially from junior staff members. The point is that Leaders may not want to lower their reactions with their people too often. For example:
Can you imagine leaders lowering their reaction levels during big presentations? Given the above traps, less experienced people might suffer a confidence loss and start to think you are disagreeing with them, when in fact you are thinking things through.
How are you going to set and manage team expectations to avoid – or at least manage – falling into one of the above traps?
Think about your expectations when people are preparing next year’s first round budget presentation. How apprehensive were they last time? How did this detract from an effective process and the team’s engagement?
How can you set expectations to improve this process?
For example, you might say:
“I expect that you will give me feedback on the impact of my behavior when making big decisions.” (How are you setting yourself up for unintended Low Reacting?)
“At the end of this meeting we will agree to expectations that I have of you and what you expect from me.”
“Before we start budget planning I expect people to come to a review meeting to assess how effectively the process and people’s preparation helped or hindered during that first round?”
Given that Low Reaction levels will occur, how can you help your people feel more comfortable?
Brief your people when you know your reaction levels are likely to fall. If several subordinates are presenting, it can be helpful to ensure certain reactions are planned. For example, say something like:
“I expect team members to give feedback directed at the expectations we set in the Review meeting…”
“I expect that all feedback will focus on the evidence presented and not how it was presented.”
“I expect that all proposals put forward during presentations are not rejected or accepted immediately.” (We owe it to the presenter to seek to understand and try to help their ideas come to fruition.”)
What Conclusion Can We Draw?
Low reacting levels are normal and often more situational, rather than an indicator of a person’s preferred behavioral style. As a leader, it is within your control to set expectations to avoid and/or manage the negative impact of such behavior.
Low reacting can be turned to advantage, forcing ideas to be fully explored before people react. It also facilitates a sense of team by encouraging Building rather than Reacting Behavior.
What can you do about this situation?
Madness can be defined as “doing what you have always done, yet expecting different results.” So, what expectations do you now have for yourself in terms of managing your reaction levels?
Doing different things is about “purposeful practice” and then getting feedback from others, What mechanisms or structures do you have in place to do this? How are you going to restructure major interactions with your staff to lower their chance of falling into traps?
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
This the second in my series to help leaders assess their interactive skills. In my last blog I introduced the research based model that led to many useful insights into what the more effective communicators do in different settings and focused on what happens when meetings become imbalanced by getting stuck in too much Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying.
In this blog I want to get readers thinking about getting more productive meetings i.e. generating more commercially viable ideas to compete and improve.
What type of research was involved to develop these models?
I want to focus on two key Initiating Behaviors and their relationship to meeting success, namely
Proposing – putting forward ideas, suggestions courses of action
Building – sounds like a proposal, which extends or develops another person’s proposal
The difference between them is the Proposing is an independent idea and Building must be dependent on another person’s idea.
What I want readers to think about is the proportion of these two behaviors in their meetings at work, church etc. and how it influences meeting outcome.
So, I am assuming that you would need to consider both the quantity and quality of ideas put forward?
That’s an excellent point. The research looked at the sort of Initiating going on and could it be more effective.
The research was based on 23 working teams to see if there was a connection between effective performance and Initiating Behavior. The teams were mostly research and project teams. We established their levels of effectiveness against three criteria:
The number of ideas brought to management’s attention
The number of ideas accepted for implementation
The estimated commercial payoff
The results clearly showed that these three criteria were significantly related to the ratio of proposing and building behavior. The more building, the better the performance
Sounds like “Building is a good thing!”
Unfortunately, like so many simple conclusions it is only partly true.Studies of other groups that were efficient and effective used no building at all.
Why should it prove to be a strong predictor in some situations and not others?
It puzzled us until we started to look at how a group deals with ideas. Groups seemed to take two very different approaches by either focusing on Proposing or Building.
We first looked at groups that were very much higher in Proposing Behavior and used little if any Building. Here’s a typical sequence
First person puts forward the first idea (P1)
Others don’t like it and it gets rejected (DS)
On the next agenda item another idea is put forward and then countered by another person.(P2/P3)
The second and third ideas are considered and the group likes the third idea.(P3 +SP)
A change of topic and another idea is not fully accepted e.g. buy five machines gets reduced to 3 machines.(P4> p4)
So, What’s happening to how this group handles ideas?
It sounds like ideas would not be fully considered before being either accepted or rejected?
That could be true if the ideas were complex and impactful. But your description is accurate, this group either filters or reduces the number of proposals – FILTER MEETING
Because of the low level of building, proposals are not develop by others. They are either accepted, rejected or reduced.
Too many people think that all meetings should focus on building on each others’ ideas. However, Filter meetings can be incredibly efficient and effective where management has too many ideas already and needs to pare down and get focus on doing something.
So, how do you judge when a filter meeting is not the right way to go in handling ideas?
Essentially it comes down to four negative impacts:
1. Ownership and the Win-Lose Problem
Defensive – clinging to own ideas and not listening
with politicking occurring before, during and after the meeting.
2. Lack of Integration
3. Lack of Commitment and Motivation
4. Problem of Self-Reinforcement – filtering gets ingrained into regular meetings.
In fact, in one case study a group was observed over six meetings. In meeting 1, there were 24 Proposals (PR’s) to 20 Building (BU’s) but by meeting 6, Proposals were up to 39 with no Building!
It illustrated for us why there are so many Filter meetings in commercial life and so few meetings with High Building Behaviors. Such meetings which are high on Building and low on Proposing deal with Initiating very differently. The Key is that several people contributed to the final idea by Building on one another’s proposal – so an idea was AMPLIFIED – Thus we use the term Amplifier Meeting
I think I would rather be in that sort of meeting, what did participants say differently from those in the Filter Meetings?
Well, the impact on participants is very different.
1. There’s a sense of excitement. In Filter meeting the range of possibilities is known before the meeting and the outcome if often predictable. Whereas in an Amplifier Meeting outcome are frequently unexpected and ideas are developed dynamically.
2. There is increased commitment to action. “It’s our idea!”
3. There is increased quality as ideas are more full bodied and thought through as they harness all the group’s resources.
How did they judge quality of ideas?
There was a panel of independent judge’s assessed the commercial viability of ideas. They found that in Amplifier Groups there were over twice as many high quality ideas as in the Filter Group.
Of course Amplifier meeting do take more time and a lack of structure
How do you get out of the Filter Rut and get an Amplifier Meeting going?
Well, what I do, which seems to work most of the time:
1. Choose an issue where nobody has fixed preconceptions
2. Give no advanced warning or agenda of the issue
3. Stop the Meeting after the first proposal
4. Encourage Building
5. Dealing with Criticism
6. Not moving on too soon
How do you know when you have a Filter vs. Amplifier Meeting?
It turns out that comes down to ratios of Proposing to Building Behaviors. When you find there are two proposals for each Build(2:1+ PR:BU) it identifies an Amplifier Meeting. Whereas when Proposals to Building Ratio is (4+:1 PR:BU) you have a Filter Meeting
In their research how frequently do the different meetings occur?
Out of 312 meetings observed:
78% Filter
4% Amplifier
18% Neither one or the other
Overall, we questioned the need for more Amplifier meetings. At a perceptual level, post meeting questionnaires revealed that:
Filter meetings were perceived as:
Efficient
Competitive
Organized
Amplifier Meetings were perceived as:
Creative
Exciting
Participative
Useful
Committed to meeting outcome
Better Quality of Decisions
So, How do you decide when to have a Filter or Amplifier Meeting?
Filter is on
A Filter Meeting is needed when you:
1. Need to reduce the many choices for action available
2. Have to work to tight time constraints
3. Do not need individual commitment for successful implementation
An Amplifier Meeting is needed when you:
1. Need to create solutions where no predetermined alternatives exist
2. Need individual Commitment for success
3. Need high quality solutions
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
During the last 6 months I have been coaching different professionals in how to reduce project costs and delays. This got me thinking about the last few blogs. The theme has been Aligning People for Change– coping with the economic turbulence we live in today. So, I got to thinking about practical tools that most leaders can use to “Talk Their Talk”. When there is a lot of uncertainty and turbulence leaders need to “up their game” by communicating better and more effectively.
This is the start of a series on developing leaders behavioral Skills. It is based on my 11 years with Huthwaite Research Group where we used research based models to develop groups and leaders effective communication skills including:
Developing effective solutions
Negotiating
Selling
Facilitating
In this Blog, I want to start with a core leadership skill – Developing Commercially Viable Ideas in Meetings
What type of research was involved to develop these models?
All these models and subsequent research projects are based on a large scale research project in the late 60’s
(Warr, P. B., Bird, M. and Rackham, N., The Evaluation of Management Training, Gower, 1970, Rackham, N. and Morgan, T., Behaviour Analysis in Training, McGraw-Hill, 1977. Rackham, N. et al., Developing Interactive Skills, Wellens, 1971.) to develop a truly descriptive and useful system for classifying
behavior. This long and tedious process considered many potential categories. The researchers finally concluded that a practical list of categories could be produced if the selected behaviors met 5 basics criteria. They were:
1. Measured accurately
2. Easy to understand
3. Distinct from other categories
4. Change how often it is used
5. Related to effective performance
What sort of things did they come up with?
Initiating
Initiating behaviors are proposals or suggestions to the group that call for action. After all, a discussion has got to start somewhere. New proposals and an addition to a proposal are both examples of initiating. There are two initiating behaviors: Proposing and Building.
Proposing brings forth a new suggestion, proposal, or course of action (e.g.“I suggest that we organize the project into five modules.”.
Buildingtakes the form of a proposal, but actually extends or further develops a proposal made by another person (e.g.“…and your plan would be even better if we added a scroll bar at the edge of the window.”)
Since initial proposals are often not the final solution, building is effective in producing an alternative or revised plan.
Reacting
The Blame Game
Reacting behaviors involve the affirmation of or objection to a person, his/her opinions, or an issue. There are three reacting behaviors: Supporting, Disagreeing, and Defending/Attacking.
Supporting is a behavior that makes a conscious and direct declaration of agreement with or supports for another person, or his/her concepts and opinions (e.g. “I like Sandra’s idea best “or “This sounds good”). Generally, this behavior builds cohesion and momentum.
Disagreeing is the direct objection to another person’s opinions or ideas. Disagreeing is an issue-oriented behavior (e.g. “Your third point is counter to regulation 10.3.3…”or “What you’re suggesting just won’t work as the impeller will overheat“). This behavior is normal in a discussion and needed to use the full resources of the group to get to an effective idea.
.Defending/Attackingentails attacking a person directly or by acting defensively. This behavior is people-oriented, and involves value judgments and emotional overtones (i.e. “That’s stupid!”or“Don’t blame me; it’s not my fault. It’s John’s responsibility.”). Defending and Attacking will only bring unhappiness and plenty of tension to the group. There are better ways of handling a discussion. If you are being verbally attacked, try not to play into the instigator’s hands by shouting back. Instead try to speak rationally and direct the discussion to the issue at hand rather than playing the “Blame Game”.
Clarifying
Clarifying behaviors attempt to clarify an individual’s or group’s understanding of the issues. Exchanging information and summarizing are involved in clarification. There are four behaviors;
Testing Understanding,
Summarizing,
Seeking Information,
Giving Information.
Testing Understanding seeks to establish whether or not an earlier contribution has been understood by the individual. It differs from seeking information in that it is an attempt to ensure agreement or consensus of some kind, and refers to a prior question or issue (i.e. “Can I take it that we all now agree on our tasks assignments for this week?”).This behavior is similar to Summarizing, but takes the form of a question.
Summarizing restates the content of previous discussions or events in a compact form. This behavior can be useful to ensure that the entire group is up to date with events that have transpired (e.g. “So far we have agreed that John will finish module A, while Maria and I begin module B.”).This will insure that you and the rest of the group have a clear understanding…
Seeking Informationseeks facts, opinions, or clarification from another person pertaining to a proposal (i.e. “Can anyone tell me which page this is on?”and “What test routine will you use?”). This behavior ensures that you are up to date with the topic of discussion. If you have questions, ask them as soon as possible (i.e. don’t leave questions until the night before the project is due).
Giving Information offers facts, opinions or clarification to a proposal (e.g. “The new system is easier to operate.” and “I’m worried about missing the deadline.”). Feedback is always appreciated even if it is not always positive.
Process Behaviors
Process behaviors entail the obstruction of or opening up of the discussion process to group members. Bringing Inand Shutting Outare the two behaviors that constitute Process Behaviors.
Bringing In invites views or opinions from a member of the group who is not actively participating in the discussion (i.e. “Lee, what is your opinion on the layout of the User’s Manual?”). This behavior may introduce some refreshing new ideas from a shy or reserved team member.
Shutting Out excludes another person or reduces their opportunity to contribute. Interruption is the most common form of shutting out (e.g. “David, what do you think?”Eric replies: “I think…”— Eric has interrupted David and shut him out of the conversation). This behavior may seem harmless, but if it occurs too much it can be felt as disrespectful and can deny others the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.
How was this research used to in finding better ways to run meetings?
It turns out effective meetings showed that all three main behavior groups were present in a balanced way. They found that once a group became locked into using one or two of these major classes the results they produced were impaired. Here are some Case Studies
Meeting Case Studies
Here are some groups and their meetings that were either high or low in Initiating, Reacting or Clarifying?
High on Initiating
Too many ideas and ideas to handle
Lack of attention to detail – “up in the clouds” feeling
Group Case – Research team in Chemical Industry
Problem– On surface seemed very creative, innumerable ideas. Management asked for reducing severe dust problems in one of their plants. First meeting came up with 14 viable methods. As this was urgent they reported – Production Director said “OK,which one?” After 5 subsequent meetings they had not reached a decision and generated 6 new ideas!!!
High on Reacting
Becomes emotional
Misunderstandings become more frequent
People take sides – entrenched
Group Case: Shop Stewards in Manufacturing
Problem – Coping with changes in the economic climate. Management started taking a more consultative approach by letting people in advance of potential change. Previously they reacted to Management proposals e.g. wages, benefits etc. They couldn’t get out their traditional mold. They left Initiating to management and were low in clarifying which led to more misunderstandings and became more emotional.
High on Clarifying
Very time consuming
Obsession with minor details
Feels like “swimming in syrup”
Group Case – British Civil Servants
Problem – They became bogged down in the meaning of the meaning. Consequently, 90% behavior was clarifying. Their Initiating Behaviors was
so low that they became stuck in minor detail. This was
Booged Down
compounded by low levels of reacting behavior so no one knew who supported or disagreed with other group members.
That’s the high side of the problem, what happens when you get groups that are low on these three areas?
Low on Initiating
Backward looking
Lack of enthusiasm
Undue attention to detailed analysis
Group Case: Production Control Committee in the Engineering Industry.
Problem: Representatives from Production, QC, Maintenance, Industrial Engineering and Production Planning had jobs which overlapped so that when problems came up there were disputes as to who was blame.
“We seem to be very good at dissecting situations and finding who is to blame. Perhaps we should be spending some time finding ways to prevent things occurring in the first place”
Low on Reacting
Tendency for Repetition
People withhold important information
Awkward and forced
Group Case: Systems Analysts presenting proposals to a group of staff members
Problem: The Systems Analysts came up with lots of proposals for change i.e. High Initiating. As a result Staff became nervous about these proposals and heightened by their use of technical jargon. So they were high in Clarifying and did not make any commitments. The Analysts Reacting already low levels dropped and gave more detail i.e. they were classic Low Reactors so the confusion continued. This is typical of specialists meeting decision makers and most know the discomfort of presenting to decision makers
Low Clarifying
Meeting becomes disorganized
Hasty decisions are made
People cannot agree afterwards on what has been decided
Group: New York Advertising Agency
Problem: This active & dynamic group responded to a client brief with everyone talking at once. There were loads of ideas, plenty of excitement and enthusiasm i.e. extremely high Initiating Behaviors. Also, they were high in Reacting Behaviors with a chorus of approval or disapproval and consequently very low Clarifying Behaviors. So confusion reigned. At the end they were asked to write what had been agreed. There were no two versions that were the same. Later further research showed people leaving a meeting could have an average of 5 misunderstandings per person.
What can we learn from these case studies in terms of where we are in this recession?
Leaders know that meetings are inherently expensive and today there isn’t time to tolerate the sort of problems illustrated. Leaders need to hold themselves accountable to managing meetings so that;
1. Initiating, Reacting and Clarifying Behaviors must be present and balanced if meetings are to be successful.
2. They are alert to the impact of High or Low Reacting seriously impairs productivity
3. They recognize that different meetings have very different needs, so what works for problem diagnosis will not work for evaluating a production plan
4. Some Meetings need to be high on one of the three – although you need to be cautious of High Clarifying. Leaders have to question if a meeting is the most productive use of meeting where there is High – Information Exchange
In the rest of the series we will cover specific skills that help leaders achieve these goals
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals
This changed our focus to ground other work by aligning people’s expectations first before designing learning, coaching etc. Over the last 10years, the PDS team developed their expertise and alignment practice with AlEx™ by serving companies in Canada and the US.
Over the years we have learnt that anticipating and managing misalignment goes to the root of building successful change whether it’s a family business transitioning between generations, construction projects with many different companies involved or implementing electronic patient records.
Today I want to cover the second in a three part series on Managing Alignment Challenges to improve the odds of bringing successful change to the listeners’ organizations.
Last month we covered, Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension. This month I will cover…
2. Managing Complexity and then next month
3. Improving Performance
I chose the second as the need for change can seem deceptively clear yet being comfortable with complexity is something people want to avoid. Somehow “complexity” has become associated with ineffectiveness, something to be avoided.
Why is this so important as we climb out of this recession?
It’s a good question. Over the last 15 years the odds of making a successful change in North America haven’t changed appreciably. Two thirds of change initiatives fail, including family businesses trying to pass on their company to the next generation. Just consider this, in a KPMG (2002) survey of 134 public companies.
56% per cent of Companies wrote off at least one IT project in the last year,
Average cost of US$12.5M, while the highest loss was placed at US$210 million.
US$1.7 billion for this group alone.
67% said their Program management was “in need of improvement or immature“
44% rated project performance against any established measures.
In other words unless we must become better students of not only what to changebut how to changethe climb out your referred to will be longer and more painful.
In an earlier program on to hire or rehire people as companies recover prompts me to ask: How are the employees affected by such failures?
Jaundiced….Post recession employees reveal they expect far more than the status quo, which could have significant implications on company bottom lines, employee morale and turnover. In Q3 2009 Glassdoor.com conducted their Employment Confidence Survey of 1,195 employees conducted by Harris Interactive®.
57% expect a raise, bonus and/or promotion
35% expect hiring freeze to be lifted and/or more employees to be hired in
their department
24% expect health benefits and perks that were previously reduced to be restored
19% expect to look for a new job
These factors don’t sound like change isn’t getting any simpler. How do you see it affecting leaders managing change and this increasing complexity?
Martha Maznevski and her colleagues at IMD put it like this.
“Complexity” is today often considered the latest business buzzword – it reflects a current common reality but not a lasting one. Executives say, “Yes, complexity is the real leadership challenge that I face. How can I focus on my area when everything else is connected? How can I be held accountable when everything is interdependent? How can I sort this out?
It’s overwhelming.” Good questions with few answers. We think “complexity” is much more than a buzzword, but a reality that is here to stay.”
How leaders react to this inevitability is curious. Many see their world as complex so their organization should be complex. But, the key is to focus on what to simplify. Central to this is your purpose and values; core processes and decentralization; early awareness systems; and leadership. Once these are clear and consistent, managers in different areas of the company can respond to complexity according to their own needs and realities. Here are some examples of complexity issues leaders face..
“Our management structure and style gets in the way when dealing with complex and changing business environments.”
This is often not so much one of structure but style. The key lies in effective delegation. Delegating task and responsibility, i.e. enabling others to do a job for you while ensuring that:
They know what you want
They have the authority to achieve it
They know how to do it.
By communicating clearly:
The nature of the task
The extent of their discretion
The sources of relevant information and knowledge.
Each task delegated should have enough complexity to stretch – but only a little by including:
Agreeing criteria and standards by which the outcome will be judged.
Agreeing first how often and when information is needed to monitor progress
Avoiding making decisions for the delegate when they are capable
Not making a decision unless provided with clear alternatives, their pros and cons, and the individual’s recommendation.
Not judging the outcome by what you would do, but rather by its fitness for purpose.
Delegating the task and its ownership so that it can be changed or upgraded, if needed.
So, you are managing complexity at the coal face rather trying to do everything back in the office on the surface.
How do you then get an organization’s purpose across to people?
Second point is Creating Momentum for change by leaders modeling what it means to be, say, theCustomer’s Choice. Including:
Defining what value you want to give customers
Challenging the status quo
Probing and testing teams’ understanding of the change in hand
Aligning people’s expectations and actions with corporate goals and “The Vision”
Persevering when “the going gets tough”
Making decisive, courageous and consistent decisions
Motivating others to reach higher goals
Encouraging others to effectively manage risk
Communicating verbally up, down and across the organization – not just e-mail or presentations
Most importantly soliciting feedback on actions taken
What other ways should leaders be mindful of in getting decisions taken earlier and at lower levels in their companies?
After delegation and momentum it has to be teamwork where the weight of complexity can be shared. Specifically, building and growing teams that delivers customer and stakeholder value by:
Identifying key stakeholders to lead partnering activities, e.g. suppliers, subcontractors, branch offices
Sharing common strategies and building solutions with customers and other functions within the spirit of “we are all in this together”
Focusing team effort on delivering value for both customers and other stakeholders
Making and delivering on commitments
Supporting and implementing team decisions
Resolving conflicting positions inside the team
Engaging others to improve solutions and decisions.
Developing external alliances to develop new and innovative solutions
It sounds like you are encouraging leaders to develop trust in their people to do the right thing, but to many that is going to seem risky especially if they have tried before and they have had to take back control
It’s an astute point. It’s down to leaders actively cultivating a climate to anticipate mistakes through praise for prompt action in dealing with the errors and avoiding risk. The last thing to do is to “reward the inactive and hang the innocents” – The Blame Game.
It’s crucial that Risk Managing and Planning are yoked together, back to an earlier program when I mentioned Clauswitz and Contingency Theory. This includes:
Scheduling, anticipating and alerting to avoid risk situations.
Reviewing plans from a risk perspective
Praising people for coming up with solutions
Ensuring every plan is reviewed from both the risks to subcontractors, suppliers (“respected friends”) as well as Customer’s perspective.
Developing options and contingencies with costed options at each project milestone
Engaging all appropriate stakeholders in a timely manner to get multiple perspectives on how the schedule is developed
Creating rapid feedback to alert when a task is delayed or accelerated
How would you sum up managing complexity?
Effective Delegation, Building Momentum, Developing Teams and linking Planning to Risk Management lie at the heart of navigating complex situations, but above all Leadership cannot be repetitive, but should be predictable. Permanent communication is therefore the leadership survival tool in complex organizations, but much more in terms of “storytelling”, interpreting context and meaning, and investing in relationships than in transferring dry facts or ultimatums.
Tip of the month
If you want to follow these three programs you will find an article “Eternal Triangle” in the resources section at pdsgrp.net/resources where you will see a summary of what I have covered today.
Here’s my tip.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T. S. Eliot
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
During many consulting engagements we identified that organizational misalignment as a major factor in organizations and individuals were not achieving goals
This changed our focus to ground other work by aligning people’s expectations first, before designing learning, coaching etc. Over the last 10years, the PDS team developed expertise and an alignment practice with AlEx™, by serving companies in Canada and the US.
Consequently this approach has helped clients add millions in sales, bring construction projects in on time, and successfully transition family-owned businesses.
This month, I want to build on last month’s theme. Regular readers will remember I was talking about how many change projects were planned in response to the economy yet almost half of the respondents indicate that a significant number of change projects failed to meet their stated goals.
We have learned that anticipating and managing misalignment goes to the root of building successful change. And so my theme this month Managing Alignment Challenges so that you can increase the odds that the change you’re planning will achieve its desired results.
Today, I want to focus on people alignment but recognize that alignment of resources with strategy, for example, are other important components of successful change. It’s a big subject. But one thing is for sure – Change has to be personal before it can be organizational…
In your experience what are the main points for listeners to consider in improving the odds of making a change work?
For this blog I will focus on one of three key areas:
Managing Conflict and Relationship Tension
Subsequent programs and blogs I will cover…..
2. Managing Complexity
3. Improving Performance
The first is essential to recognize that there will be conflict and you have to manage it. Too often it’s the 800lb Gorilla in the room.
I chose the second as the need for change can seem deceptively clear yet being comfortable with complexity is something people want to avoid
Thirdly, if you are not actively focused on improving performance…why are you changing?
The last point seems obvious…why else would people want to change…?
For Example, if you are in China many changes get caught up with ensuring the leaders don’t “lose face”. In Corporate America, newly appointed leaders want to put their “stamp” on their tenure….there’s a primal nature to new leaders that we often cloak in business school speak, like “we needed a change of direction to improve the businesses performance….blah, blah, blah” And, of course, then there are the two ugly sisters – Greed and Ego.
The point about improving performance is that leaders start out pontificating about this subject yet get caught up in the first two and lose sight of Change’s central purpose.
So, you have the Eternal Change Triangle. If you go into a change with these things in mind you have the strongest structure on which to base change. If you don’t see or manage these three you will be flying a jet without any sense of direction. It’s why we use the metaphor of “The Performance Flight Deck”
Why do you think people don’t recognize the first two’s importance?
In my experience, especially in this economy, too many leaders can get caught up in expediency – a compulsion “to do something” NOW!
Back to an earlier blog, this call to action that is so prevalent in our culture. Though, the strangest thing I am about to say seems to contradict myself:
Despite the ubiquity of business planning education in entrepreneurship, there is little evidence that planning leads to success (Honig)
(You are going to have to unpack that one for me…and the listeners…LOL)
On the one hand, Mark Hurst on his Blog quotes Calvin Coolidge,
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The trouble with the Coolidge’s take on success is, as Mark points out, that persistence is only effective if there’s a clear goal.Like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, a sort of feline Clausewitz. Alice asks which way she should go, and the Cheshire Cat answers:
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
For me that means, You have to stop and take time to find the direction. You can’t run while you’re reading the map. Too many leadersfocus on the end goal and not enough time on:
How are we going to get people to not only accept change but also be committed to changing?
How are we going to manage this change and keep making money?
How are we going to manage SNAFU’s (define)?
To summarize
“The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.” -Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Let’s turn to this month’s theme, what are some of the benefits in managing conflict?
Our work in aligning people on construction projects with Turner Construction, strongly suggests that there 8 benefits
Helps develop a healthy attitude to managing rather than hiding conflict.
Helps objectify disagreements and prevents things getting personal
Reduces the distracting and destructive products from poorly handled conflict situations.
Defend Attack Spirals have destructive long lasting effects that last year
Helps harness diverse views and experience in the project team for the good of the overall project and Owner.
The power of accepting the “Half Baked” is an inclusive stance not poorly thought out
Helps handle change as change progresses and manages the constant flow of information between key players…e.g. Owners, consultants and contractors.
Plays to an earlier program, Clauswitz on not being caught up in sequential thinking – Change is not start with A, then B, then C
Change is A learn and choose B or C or both knowing that B & C need to be accomplished
Too many leaders have a touching reliance that they have complete knowledge
Addresses the tensions in managing the change dynamics as during the change life cycle
If you’re leading such a change, what are the typical examples of change dynamics?
Very often leaders have a false sense of control, and if for example they commission consultants or create teams things take on a life of their own
Another dynamic is my sixth point…
6. Recognizes that as work precedes the relative bargaining strengths of the parties are constantly adjusting. Standard approaches to planned change do not take this into account.
In more formal changes, like in construction we find that we need to help teams
7. Overcome the inflexibility inherent in standard contracts. For example, one contract assumes that the design is complete at the time of bidding and that the contractor employs most of the resources that will be required for the project. The fact is, design is rarely 100 % complete at the time of bidding and contractors subcontract most of the work.
Most importantly, aligning people as we do…
8. Develops Project Teams while recognizing their different rules of engagement. AlEx™ recognizes and helps facilitate different project needs and rules of engagement, like:
Changing Owner demands
Rapid learning
Generating and maintaining effective interaction between team members so that they can exchange views and debate the consequences of their decisions in an open and honest forum.
Changing circumstances over the project’s lifecycle.
Shifting relationship tensions between the major members of the project team.
Building trust for when things do not go as planned.
How would you sum up managing conflict…?
Conflict in life is a natural as breathing. What we have lost sight of especially with the backdrop of what’s happening in Washington is how do you respect another party’s opposing stance and achieve successful change…I heard a item on the radio about the Life Raft Debate where the students vote which professor they would choose to take the last place on their life raft…they chose the devil’s advocate….because all the others tried to entertain rather then debate
Tip of the month
If you want to follow these three programs you will find an article “Eternal Triangle” in the resources section at pdsgrp.net/resources where you will see a summary of what I have covered today.
Here’s my tip.
If you are planning a change or are in the middle of one…..how many times last week did you not confront your demons and openly say:
“The Emperor has no clothes……”
It’s OK to confront the issues not the person if you don’t unaddressed conflict will fester like road kill.
Then, stand back and look at your own organization – and ask “What traps are we falling into?”
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
Last month I looked at why so many changes initiatives fail. One thing that struck me after the program was the inability to gain others commitment lies at the heart of so many failures. This is often due to the lack of interest paid by those leading change for those who have to make the change.
Previously, one stat sticks out from our work in aligning companies for change is that over 70% of leaders expectations are not known or realized by those affected by a change. Their people are not on the same page!!
Now, add to that apparently unrelated data…
An estimated 247 billion emails are sent each day
“The number of worldwide email users is projected to increase from over 1.4 billion in 2009 to almost 1.9 billion by 2013. In 2009, 74% of all email accounts will belong to consumers, and 24% to corporate users.
Worldwide email traffic will total 247 billion messages per day in 2009. By 2013, this figure will almost double to 507 billion messages per day.
In 2009, about 81% of all email traffic is spam Source: Press release from The Radicati Group, 6th May 2009 Quoted by Digital Stats.com
Stats vary but most people seem to say each person gets 5000 ads per day.
Now here’s my point in both your personal life and at work how much time do you have to spend listening to somebody drone on about:
The latest, greatest, best, more, more…Their solutions for you….
How often, in your personal and work lives, do you have to spend listening to somebody drone on about the latest, greatest, best, more, more…their solutions for you….
So, How do you typically react? Why should it matter to Change Management?
It reminds me of a cartoon of a family sitting at a meal table (rare enough of itself) with heads bowed and the son texts mom to pass the fries! This would be funny if I had not enforced a “no device” rule at our family meals – me included!! So, my reflections as to why we get resistant to change are these:.
Firstly, People overall forget what it’s like to be in somebody else’s head, like the research I referenced two months ago. “There’s not enough time…they cry”
Second, instantaneous communication reduces people’s patience from more deliberate consideration – we drift into the white noise, the buzz of attention deficit….but Are we challenged to really think?
Third, access to the internet has produced the most mature and knowledgeable change audience in history.
Why should this matter?
In terms of influencing people to even consider buying into your change process, be careful you are not:
Doing what you’ve always done… not getting what you want …
Whether you are influencing people in your own organization or trying to sell your service or product you will need to be more skilled at understanding where people are in their heads about change than ever before.
Change in West Michigan has come in many forms….change leaders ignore at them at their per. For example, Gilder’s vision of the future of“Cathedrals of bandwidth” will affect how people see work and how they see change. trends of exponential growth in technology and application will continue as far as we can see into the future.
The Technology Horse has looong bolted and the “Control Door” is hanging off its hinges……
So let’s stand back and see if we can start being practical. As the snow melts, I am reminded of when it snows. Each snowflake has a similar structure, yet is infinitely complex, and as each falls leads to complex behavior. If each person is a snowflake we must treat them as similar yet unique. (This is Fractal Theory..if you’re interested.
When managing change I find it’s helpful to look at how people change in a rigorous yet flexible way. It can be used to locate where individuals, groups and you are in terms of seeing the world, state similarly. This snowflake or fractal is based on a series of questions which follow a sequence – often shown as a ‘U”. The “U” is one of the most fundamental concepts in the psychology of learning and change. Readerers may remember in the last program that we consistently think we are better than we actually are – in psychology it’s called “self serving bias”. For Example: 94% of men rate themselves in the top half of male athletic ability
Change Management’s Foundation
So, I am going to make a claim that I have never done before:
If you use the following six questions in your life, it will change your perspective of others and most importantly yourself:
Now let’s use this “U” Map to can locate yourself and those you are trying to bring to your point of view and be committed to the change
1. What is the problem?
Do you have one and others don’t?
2. How is it a problem?
Do they see the same linkage as you? Structure, recurrence, competitively weak?
3. What are the consequences?
Can they see the ramifications that you do?
Now, let’s pause and ask: If you’re at 3. and those you want to influence can’t answer 1 – What is likely to happen?
If they are OK, but are they disturbed to the degree they are willing to consider changing? If yes, we are at the bottom of the U at the Change Pivot when momentum or change energy starts to be
Now, let’s look at how people are enabled?:
1. Why solve this problem?
a. Do they see this change as a priority
b. Or, Do they think we should do something differently?
2. How to solve the problem?
a. Are your technical people see a solution in the same frame from those in other functions
3. What will be solved?
a. Does cost of the present outweigh the cost of change?
So, Let’s say you are at 3. and I am at 6. Giving you an ROI ?….
What is your likely reaction?
Resistance; which I have created!
So, now you have the U – Ask yourself how many times has a sales person “Crossed the U” with you? Ask yourself, How many times have we as change agents “Crossed the U”? with the leadership team? Only to find we left the group “not getting it!” “not on the same page” Yet it was us that left them behind
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
This is the fourth in my series to help people assess how good their interactive skills are. This series is based on research of common commercial interactions that has led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings, deal with those who are most difficult to persuade – Low Reactors. This week I am focusing on those behaviors we all use most.
Clarifying Behaviors are those which exchange information, facts and opinions and, of course clarification. For Today we will consider, the four main behaviors which when used to observing meetings led to practical insights for anyone who is dreading attending yet another meeting this week J
Testing Understanding– checking to see if an earlier contribution has been understood
Summarizing – restating in a compact form previous discussions or events
Seeking Information – seeks facts opinions, feelings or clarification from others
Giving Information – offers facts , opinions or clarification to others
Over the years these four main categories have been developed into behavior groups especially Seeking the Behaviors which have led to some of the most important research on successful persuasion which I will cover in a later program.
But, for now I want to help the listeners diagnose their meetings and how too much, too little or the wrong balance can waste time and often make meetings very frustrating and ineffective
Which of these four behaviors do we tend to use most?
Usually the most common of all the behaviors we are discussing in this series will be Giving Information. In some cases this can be as high as 50%
What happens when you get over that level?
The first thing; participants’ ratings of the meeting change negatively is when a meeting has a high level of GI is Time Wasting. It happens when everyone in the meeting wants to add yet another reason, anecdote or opinion as to why an initiative should or should not be pursued. All of which tend not to help the decision making process
The second rating; that increases is that the meeting is Confusing and Divergent – This is especially true where Testing Understanding & Summasrizing are low. People often say things like it was like “swimming in syrup”. Points become disconnected, the meeting wanders and meeting participants become confused. You know when this happens because you will have another meeting to decide what was decided at the last meeting –
I have been in meetings where people drone on about themselves which feels like they are trying to puff themselves up.
Do you have any research to say what is going on when this happens?
Anyone who is a high information giver is frequently seen as less interested in others views than putting forward their own. This also often means they try to push their own proposals. When everyone is high on Giving Information it feels like there’s a whole set of mini meetings going on each not really connected with any other
What about Seeking Information – when a meeting is high in this behavior what tends to be the result?
Firstly, it would be rare for Seeking to exceed Giving Information. In fact, participants will perceive a meeting is high in Seeking if it exceeds half the amount of GI. When this happens though participant ratings change in three ways:
Fostering interest in others’ views– it’s like they see it as stimulating interest in others views
Convergent & Focused – When Seeking is high the connection between each successive point is likely to be clearer. This is because Seeking explores a point already made which then creates a connection to the previous contribution or asks for another pint. These meetings are also tending to be focused.
Time Saving –you would think that meetings with a lot of questions would take longer to resolve issues that those with fewer questions –this is not the case. There is a positive correlation between people’s perception of whether a meeting saved time and the volume of SI
Testing Understanding explores understanding of previous contributions. It ties down and clarifies points which may be unclear or ambiguous. As importantly it is used to check that people are seeing things the same way. When levels are high, people rate the meeting as:
Fair – a fair hearing
Clear – when combined with Summarizing
Rational – vs. levels of DA
Summarizing – Defined as a compact restatement – be careful- It’s not extended repetition or introducing new material under the umbrellas of “summarizing”
High Summarizing Meetings are rated as:
Structured
Clear
Controlled
These last two behaviors seem to perform similar functions in terms of clarifying and organizing what has been discussed.
So, What happens when both these are high?
Research was carried out to correlate the number of misunderstandings and misinterpretations that occurred after the meeting with the amount of Testing Understanding and Summarizing during meetings. In all, 49 Meetings were observed involving 297partiipants.
Those Meetings low in TU & SUM had significantly more errors and omissions in people’s accounts of the principle decisions agreed to in the meeting. As meetings differ in length the researchers took TU & SUM as a percentage total meeting behavior.
The findings are rather disturbing:
<2.5% – TU SUM Average 4.3 errors or omissions
>10%+ TU SUM – Average 1.2 errors or omissions
So, what recommendations would you make?
To get a clear understanding and consensus on what was decided approximately 1 in 10 behaviors needs to be TU or SUM
How can people get better control of their meetings in terms of clarifying behaviors?
If you look at the current condition of your meetings, ask yourself what you need to do differently, for example:
Not making enough of the brains round the table – So. you want to create more curiosity of what the lower contributors have to say. Then use Testing Understanding where such a person reacts non-verbally e.g.
“Joan, you seem to be shaking your head about Peter’s last point – Am I right?”
Another tactic is straight forward you bring in people by Seeking –
“Joan, in our experience what do you see as the pros and cons of Peter’s position?”
What if I am frustrated with going over what was covered in previous meetings?
Certainly Summarizing will help, but if you are not the Chairperson, you will need to make a Procedural Proposal.
“Bill (addressing the Chair), At the end of the meeting can we ensure we summarize what we agree to doing before the next meeting”
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog.
How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up.
Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching improve bottom line results.
If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
_________________________________________________________________________ For Help in Getting Your People on the Same Page
Nick Anderson, The Crispian Advantage
Since 1996 when Kotter’s research revealed that only 30% of change initiatives succeed. Even today, when McKinsey surveyed 3000 business executives this ratio of 1 in 3 still applied in 2009.
You see for people to be clear on their expectations of others they need to understand the change from their perspective. The problem is that managers use rational models which they think just makes a common sense and why things go wrong from the get go Why?
Because when they simply implement their prescription, they disregard or are not aware of certain, sometimes irrational- but predictable elements of human nature. Unfortunately, Yes. I say that because only 30% of change works and only 10% of such initiatives deliver everything intended by those planning the change.
Why has this lack of success been so difficult to improve upon?
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us”
“O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us”
Robert Burns
Another translation
The name of this radio program is “Walk the Talk” or translated “Do what I do” But what talk?
In times of change conventional wisdom suggests that the leaders of change should model the desired change to mobilize influential leaders to drive change deep into the organization yet….
So, you’re saying before leaders start walking their talk they need to be careful. What do you see as the pitfalls leaders should be aware of?
Two spring to mind.
First, Leaders think they have already made the change and we need to get everyone on side. Elaborate – behind closed doors – advisors, consultants etc.
Second, they think they are the panacea rather than mobilizing others to get things to happen.
Let’s take the first one.
Most senior executives generally buy into Gandhi’s astute observation:
“Be the change you want to see in the world”
Yet knowing something and committing oneself to change too often don’t lead to significant results
So, leaders change their behavior and yet nothing happens…I am confused…
You might as well talk to yourself!
And so are leaders…..when they make a change. Too often most leaders don’t count themselves among those who need to change.
Like if you pulled them to one side and whispered “Are you really customer focused?” they would say “No” (I don’t have time to be…have you seen the paperwork I have to get through or ….P & L)
The fact is we all consistently think we are better than we actually are – in psychology it’s called “self serving bias”
For Example, 94% of men rate themselves in the top half of male athletic ability
So, when it comes to change Walking your Own Talk it’s not so much as a desire to show people what to do BUT the real bottleneck is leaders knowing what to change at a personal level.
It sounds like many leaders don’t take a cool hard look at themselves before embarking on “Walking the talk” and prescribing what others should do?
Exactly, we often see this in our alignment work. Consistently, leaders have 70%+ more expectations than others realize and leaders are often oblivious of what their people expect of them.
What can leaders do to overcome this potential blind spot?
The Ring of Fire
There are several ways using surveys like 360 degrees feedback, or simply asking regularly what should I be doing differently? Or one large company has what they call the “Ring of Fire”
Direct feedback in answer to
1. “What makes you great?”
2. “What holds you back?”
Are people really going to reply honestly?
No, not if the climate has not been set.
Yes, if the Leaders don’t believe they are the cure all for their organizations problems.
Yet, it’s sound advice that they should mobilize others, who by experience, respect and ability can become influential it getting things to happen. Yet, too often the influential leader’s role has shifted from being that helpful element to a broad set of actions, to being a cure all.
It’s a mindset problem leaders have. They forget they need to create the framework for changes not persuade people to adopt their prescriptions for change.
That sounds like leaders should let people come up with their own solutions…
No & Yes.
Persuasion or selling the need for change and what the change needs to be get welded together in leaders’ minds.
Leaders need to create receptivity for change (Framework) and not stray into the debilitating arena of “I know what we need to do…..”
The dangers are that you are seen to be part of the problem, you risk cutting off the growing motivation to do something differently and focus people on being spectators of change rather than being players in the game.
In reality it is often unexpected people who feel compelled to step up to drive change e.g. Genzink Steel – work scheduler
That’s why keeping leaders focused on creating the framework of lasting change is vital.
Too often we see leaders vested in their narrow focus unwittingly excluding the very people the need to create this framework.
Ok. Got that. So, What does effective leadership look like?
If you turn to Robert Greenleaf’s philosophy it can help leaders create the frame and not try to build their house on their own.
“Greenleaf – The servant-leader is servant first… Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first… The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this:
Do those served grow as people?
Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”
Robert Greenleaf’s most important work, Servant Leadership (1977/2002), is subtitled A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness. Though his terms are secular ones, his definition of leadership is the clearest statement of this idea that the needs of followers are holy and that legitimate use of power arises from the consent of followers.
Like Christ washing the disciple’s feet – what did this do for their perception of his leadership?
Here’s a tip for now:
How often do you proactively ask for feedback?
Remember alignment is a two way street
What you expect of me
What I think you expect of me
What I expect of you
What you think I expect of you
Great, but how can this help me?
This is probably the first thing on your mind after reading this Blog. How about asking us? The first call is free! Just email me to set it up. Don’t wait, get The Crispian Advantage working for you!. If our conversation leaves you needing more, we offer at a reasonable fee telephone and video coaching on change, alignment, and personal and executive performance that improve the bottom line. If that still doesn’t do it, we’ll work with you on a solution.
If we can analyse top performers and are able to develop those skills in others the pay-offs are often double digit sales revenue increases. For example, in my own sales productivity projects, with a range of clients, have produced sales increase ranging from 25% to 100% using a BA based approach.
challenging. Striving for consistency and efficiency builds tensions between those who care most about equipping children for an uncertain future.
This is the fourth in our series to help Leaders assess their behavioral skills. This series is based on research of common commercial interactions that has led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings and deal with those who are most difficult to persuade – Low Reactors. This week I am focusing on those behaviors Leaders use when controlling meetings. (Research conducted by Warr, Bird, Honey & Rackham ATTITB and Huthwaite Research Group).
Good point! There are now so many better ways of reporting progress or a lack thereof, including email, SharePoint etc. that you should not encourage people to have weekly meetings where they have to wait their turn to report back. This
For Example:
ctional control to influence a meeting’s direction? 
This is the third in my Leadership Skills series to help Leaders assess where they need to develop their people skills. In my last Post I introduced the research-based model that led to many useful insights into how to create and manage effective meetings. I covered the impact of Filter and Amplifier meetings which were the names the researchers coined to distinguish the different ways in which ideas or proposals were managed. This Post focuses on people who are difficult for many to handle or feel comfortable with,
I bet this doesn’t apply just to sales situations?
havior. This long and tedious process considered many potential categories. The researchers finally concluded that a practical list of categories could be produced if the selected behaviors met 5 basics criteria. They were:
Process behaviors entail the obstruction of or opening up of the discussion process to group members. 
The Crispian Advantage 