Top 7 Phrases Every Leader Should Have in His / Her Vocabulary
One of the problems with being a manager is that no oneteaches you to be a manager. Mostfolks who become managers do so because they are technically competent at whatthey do, and they get promoted. Therefore most managers are learning by trial and error and committingsome atrocities along the way, while learning.
In a (small) effort to stem the carnage, here is a list of 7phrase every manager should use liberally in their everyday conversations withemployees – and why.
Thank you
For a long time when I was a newmanager, my thinking was that I should intervene only if someone neededguidance / correction - otherwise they “knew” that no news was good news.WRONG. Not only is thanking someone for doing their job well, polite, it alsogoes a long way towards employee satisfaction and loyalty. Would you ratherwork for a boss that acknowledges your good work, or ignores it? No brainer.But it took MY brain a long time to figure that one out.
May I give you some feedback?
I learned this from a consultingclient who is still in my Top 3 of favorite clients, although we haven’t workedtogether in a dozen years. I think he is a favorite because of this verytechnique (and he’s funny, whichalways scores points with me). At thestart of our relationship he said “At times I’ll want to give you feedback andI’ll always ask your permission first, OK?” Well sure, who’s going to say no to that? So throughout our 4 or 5 yearsof working together he often asked, “May I give you some feedback?” to which,again, I always said yes. What I thought was remarkable about the technique wasthat after a while, it went both ways. Because he had garnered so much respectfrom me by using this technique, I eventually returned the favor by offeringhim feedback when I felt he could benefit from it. And of course, by asking first“May I give you some feedback?”
Walk me through your thinking...
Part of being a leader / manageris helping your employees to grow in their capabilities. No one becomes morecapable if you simply issue commands at them and expect them to comply. Youneed to give employees some autonomy to make decisions and take the lead intheir work. But of course, making decisions can lead to making mistakes. Ratherthan berating or correcting, asking the employee to “walk me through yourthinking,” helps you to realize why they thought it was a good decision andthen allows you to correct that thinking so that they are better informed inthe future. (WHY did you do that?! issimilar, but more aggressive and less open-ended.)
What else?
This phrase is a good one to usein tandem with the one above. When conversing with employees, they may believethey are taking up your valuable time or abbreviating what they aretransmitting to you because they think, of course you know the preamble, theywill just get you to the “point.” Asking “what else” shows that you have thetime to hear them out and – more importantly – gets them to delve deeper in totheir thinking and rationale. In mymind, asking “what else” is a lot like a psychologist asking “and how did thatmake you feel?” – it makes the employee pause and go deeper in their thinking.
In my experience...
Sometimes managers areknow-it-alls – do it my way because I’ve been on this job for 15 years and knowwhat’s best. But of course, that doesn’t help your employees to understand the“why” behind the directive and also doesn’t endear them to you. A simple change in phrasing gets to the sameend-point but in a more collaborative and supportive way. Rather than issuing acommand, simply deliver the same information with the preamble, “In my experience…”
For example, rather than telling anew salesperson “Never interrupt the customer,” you’ll say, “In my experience,when the customer is interrupted, they either don’t care to share the rest oftheir story or they start the whole story all over again – neither of whichhelps us to move the sale along.”
How can I help?
As mentioned a few times now, as amanager it is your job to grow the capabilities of your employees. When yougive them autonomy and enable them to make decisions they oftentimes will fearthat asking for help means you were wrong about them – that they really aren’tready for the responsibilities you’ve given them. It’s important to proactivelyask “how can I help?” which opens the door for them to share where (or why)they are stalled. This is a much smarter behavior (on your part) than waitingfor the individual to fail and then asking “What went wrong?”
What’s working?
Much like phrase #1 – saying Thank You – asking “what’s working?” focuseson the positive and helps you to understand what your employee appreciates orenjoys about their job. Again, because employees are often afraid of violatingyour valuable time, they will only come to you in “dire” circumstances – whenthey need help or there is a problem; but you want to hear about the wholeperson and everything that is going well in their job. This helps you toidentify their strengths and interests which allows you to develop them inareas where they will be successful.
These7 tips will make your job as a manager somuch easier, by opening up the lines of communication and adding positivity tothe workplace. You will reap long-termrewards by being a manager who shows respect and is respected by theiremployees.
Missing Leadership Skill: Conflict Management
One of the things we DON'T teach our future leaders:
✔ Conflict Management
Conflict management is a skill that all up-and-coming leaders should learn. Some research suggests that 25% of a manager’s day is spent managing conflict.
Most people are intimidated by conflict, expecting that it always involves anger and a win-lose outcome. But conflict is an amazingly helpful and enlightening
There are 5 basic conflict management practices, but the
Conflict management skills involved many soft skills including questioning, listening, empathy, assertiveness, problem-solving, creativity, negotiation, and more.
The most succinct piece of conflict management advice is this: Don’t say no. Instead, say: Tell me more, or What can you share to help us understand that?
Remember: “we all want the best outcome.”
Is it Worthwhile to Learn a Useless Skill?
A few months ago I was facilitating a conversation with a group of CLOs (Chief Learning Officers) and two got in to an almost-heated discussion about the "worthiness" of learning to drive a stick-shift vehicle. The conversation started around the premise of the demise of thinking skills and one attendee postulated that society's ability to think for itself has been comprised by things that make life easier and allow us to be on "auto-pilot." The example he gave was of his son who was just learning to drive and refused to learn to drive a stick shift. The son's argument was that it was a useless skill. In fact, he argued that learning to drive at all might be a useless skill given the numerous alternatives (right now limited to on-demand car services, but soon to be enhanced by self-driving and autonomous vehicles).
When my children were in elementary school we lost power one day. My daughter looked at the microwave and stove and finally asked "what time is it?" I slowly and incredulously pointed to the clock on the wall, over my head, and she said "I don't know how to tell time on that." Did she think it was hanging there as decor, I wonder? There is one "level" of utility in knowing it is 2:10, but an entirely different level of utility in knowing where 2:10 occurs in the "space" of a 12-hour time-frame. (And also, how is it possible I didn't teach her to read a clock?!)
One of my own favorite articles is one I wrote a few years ago about the over-reliance (in my opinion) on GPS devises and how they not only can get you in to trouble (go ahead and Google "GPS Fail") but also how they are a great example of how people are developing an inability to think. Personally, I have a certain level of self-confidence because I can read a map but... do they make maps anymore? And if yes, why? Maps have gone the way of the Encyclopedia Britannica, have they not? By the time they are published they are obsolete, and they don't provide the "added value" of alerting you to a traffic-jam up ahead. So perhaps the key word here is obsolete.
"Useless" might be a matter of personal need but obsolete changes the need to learn. Recently I was talking with another consultant about this idea and he suggested that a skill is not useless if the learning is transferable. He offered up the example of learning Latin - even though no one speaks it - as helpful in understanding grammar and other languages. So perhaps learning to drive a stick-shift is important in understanding how an engine works, and reading a map is useful in understanding space and time and distance. But parallel parking will become obsolete soon (some vehicle manufacturers are already making cars that can do the job for you) as will thousands of other skills replaced by technology or artificial intelligence.
So I'm putting it out there for discussion: Is it worthwhile to learn a skill that is useless at face-value but may hold the key to deeper understanding in other areas?
FREE Developmental Assessments
Self Management is Key to Leadership Development
One of the hallmarks of a good leader is the ability to "manage" oneself. In other words - stay grounded, communicate well, use emotion in a positive way, etc. Unfortunately most folks learn self management skills through trial and error - sometimes through life changing and career ending moves, such as Carter Cast's. But it doesn't have to be that way. Developing self awareness can be achieved through various assessments to help one to identify their values, their tendencies and their strengths - in order to mitigate or improve upon them. Here are a few FREE assessments to get you started.
Managing Stress and Burnout
Gretchen Rubin researches what makes people tick, and is a prolific author of her findings. Her assessment The 4 Tendencies helps individuals to understand how they respond to expectations. It explains why we act and why we don't act; and is helpful in managing stress and burnout.
Capitalize on Your Strengths
The High5Test is part Clifton Strengths (formerly Strengths Finder) and part Values in Action. Both assessments, as well as the High5, seek to determine what one is good at and then lead individuals to capitalize on and develop what it is they do well, rather than struggle trying to improve in areas they are weak.
What are your Character Strengths?
Developed by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in 2004, the Values in Action assessment (VIA) seeks to identify one's character strengths. You'll see results in domains such as Wisdom, Tenacity, Courage, Temperance, and more.It is one of the most well-researched personality assessments holding validity over time, cultures and scientific peer review. The website offers two assessments - one personal, to develop self-knowledge and introspection, and one professional, to help you to bring out the best in others.
Core Values / How You View the World
The Core Values Index (CVI) from Taylor Protocols helps individuals to understand the unique perspective from which they view the world. From that they are able to extrapolate how they will respond to life's challenges. Directed inward, the CVI helps an individual to make choices that align with their core values - leading to a sense of mission, purpose, and self-confidence.
Case Study - Uber - 2017 Whiplash
Periodically, The Training Doctor releases case studies used in our Teaching Thinking Curriculum. Since we want everyone to improve their thinking skills - not just those who are enabled to do so through their employer-sponsored training - we offer these case studies for use in your personal development, corporate or higher-ed classrooms.
This case study examines a few short months in 2017 when Uber hit all-time highs and lows. The discussion questions at the end will help you to examine:
The importance of strong - and trustworthy - leadership at the top of an organization
The role media plays in a company's success
How social media can affect a company's strategy
Fast growth vs. manageable growth
and more....Download the case study here - free to use for training / educational purposes.
The Disconnect Between Training and Thinking
In the last few decades (since the 1990's) the timbre of training has taken a distinct turn away from thinking skills (such as Why? and What if?) and toward how-to skills. This has been precipitated by the rampant growth of e-Learning, which is essentially self study, and therefore doesn't encourage people to ask questions or be introspective about what they are learning.
E-Learning also has required instructional designers to parse content down to the very basic blocks of what and how. For instance: An e-Learning class on feedback skills might present a comparison of poorly worded feedback and well-worded feedback; a list of instances when you might want to give feedback; and the protocol for corrective action for the company if the feedback is of that nature. (More on this in a moment.)
Another phenomenon which has affected thinking skills is the contraction of time that is allowed for training. We recall a client years ago who requested management development training for a large group of managers scattered across Canada. The original request was for a series of four-hour classes and about nine months and two project managers later, the time allotted for training had been whittled down to 90 minutes. The final project manager asked, "Can you really teach management skills in 90 minutes?" To which we replied "Nope!" And the project was cancelled.
When faced with a limited amount of time for a training class there is no other option but to choose only the most essential, on-the-job, skills to transmit to the audience. Thinking skills, by comparison, require time and discussion and collaboration with others.
To continue our earlier feedback example: In order to teach the thinking skills needed to give appropriate feedback, learners might read profiles of a typical employee and then decide what type of feedback should be given, how it should be phrased, and then practice giving the feedback with another learner (role play).The "manager" who had just practiced would then be given an opportunity to reflect on (and vocalize) their choices:
How did you choose what to address?
What did you consider when determining how to phrase the feedback?
What were your expectations for response from the "employee?"
What have you learned from this experience?
Who, of your direct reports, could benefit from feedback at this time?
Write a synopsis (similar to the profile you just used, which tells the story of the situation) and then plan the feedback conversation.
True behavioral change is rooted in changing one's thinking: So give your learners the time and opportunity to think.
Interview with Author: Kassy LaBorie
book cover
Kassy Laborie, Director, Virtual Training Services, Dale Carnegie
What motivated you to write this book?
I have over 15 years of experience converting activities into the live online environment. I get new ideas all the time, every time I deliver an event. I didn't want to lose them or keep repeating them without the specific knowledge of how I'd done them before. I wanted to document the activities in order to archive them, grow them, and of course, share them with others!
If you could distill your message down to just one - what would it be?
So you want to engage your online attendees? Get them to interact. To ACT. DO. THINK. Engagement is not elusive if you simply permit people to be active participants to
their
event rather than passive "attendees" to
yours
How can trainers use this book to assist them in the work that they do?
Do you want to make your next online event memorable, exciting and effective? Interact and Engage! is a practical resource, full of over 50 off the shelf recipes for activities you can use right away to engage your participants like never before!
Do you have a personal motto that you live by?
Practice learning. Practice failing. Practice succeeding! Keep practicing.
$2500 in Scholarship Money available!
money
In honor of our 25th Anniversary, The Training Doctor is offering a $2500.00 scholarship to a working professional who is getting an advanced degree in workplace Training or OD.
Please see our Philanthropy page for the application and qualification requirements.
Deadline: July 1, 2016
Scholarship awarded: July 16, 2016
Workplace Loner? You're not alone!
- More than half of Americans (52%) prefer working individually.
- Despite the trend toward more collaborative work teams, only a third (33%) of those surveyed voluntarily want to work that way.
- One-tenth (9%) prefer to work one-on-one with a supervisor or boss.
- Younger Americans believe that they will spend no more than seven years working in their current industry and no more than six years with their current company
Source: "Finn Futures" research conducted online of 1,000 American adults nationwide, November 8 - 17, 2015
*
At the World-Changing Ideas summit in 2014, Google's vice president, Alfred Spector, pointed to research showing that even average students can reach the top 2 percent of their class if they have a personal tutor to adjust lessons to individual learning needs.
Source: Chief Learning Officer Magazine, May 2015, Your Brain on Learning
Adults Learn Best Through Experiential Techniques
One of Malcolm Knowles basic premises is that adults learn best through experiential techniques. In other words, hands-on, active engagement in the learning process produces better results.
Sometimes this is not an easy thing to achieve. Since so much of today's work is knowledge-based, how does one teach that in an experiential way? Here are some ideas from designs we have created for our clients:
Teaching a Multi-Faceted Process
This manufacturing client wanted its assembly-line workers to understand how the product was "created" long before it arrived on the factory floor to be assembled. From the inception of an idea in the R+D department, through creating a design + prototype via CAD/CAM, on to requisitioning, provisioning, ordering, acceptance of components, kitting and, finally, arrival at the assembly area. Since many of these steps were esoteric, the design of this content piece was quite challenging. In the end and entire process was re-created in a role play manner, using Legos as the component parts and teams at each stage in the process. We even added in a QC check for good measure.
Teaching Product Knowledge and Service Skills
A retail organization was introducing a new product line which required salespeople to be experts in knowing the particulars of the product. At the same time, the client wanted to beef up customer service and selling skills. The client did not want these taught as separate concepts (e.g. first product knowledge, then customer service skills). The resultant training was in the form of a game-board-grid, with product knowledge along the vertical axis and customer service / selling skills along the horizontal axis. Participants would chose a grid on the board and the trainer would explain how the two intersected or complemented one another and then the learners were challenged to demonstrate how the two might "sound" on-the-job.
Teaching Financial Analysis
A global insurance brokerage firm needed an elite group of salespeople to be able to understand financial documents in order to sell to the C-Suite. Rather than simply explaining the different types of financial reports (profit and loss, cash flow, 10K, etc.) and hoping the salespeople could translate that knowledge to their accounts, the participants were tasked with bringing the annual report for two of their clients. Then, as the instructor taught about each type of report and what to look for as "red flags," the participants looked to their own reports to interpret information that was pertinent to their clients / their work.
When tasked with designing training, always ask yourself, "How can I make this more experiential and participative? How can the learners really engage with this content?" This is not an easy task but is always worthwhile (nay, essential) for better adult learning outcomes.
Online Learning Conference Coming Up!
Have you checked out the Flipped Classroom concept that Training Magazine is promoting for their upcoming Online Learning Conference (Oct 6 - 8)? Check it out - it has some great resources that you can check out even without being a registered participant for the conference such as 8 recorded webinars on topics such as social media, video, eLearning and more.
If you are attending - be sure to visit the site and access the great handouts and videos being posted by the speakers. And if you are registered - we'll see you there!
Quotable: Marcus Buckingham
We've studied the best team leaders, and they don't write performance reviews, they don't give feedback. I don't want feedback. I want attention.
And the best team leaders seem to understand that what we really want is coaching attention. Don't give me feedback. Don't tell me where I stand. I want to know how to get better. Coach me right now. Help me get better next week.
As quoted in HR Magazine, June 2015. Business as Unusual.
Guest Blogger: Margie Meacham
The Neuroscience of vILT
The Society of Applied Learning Technology (SALT) reports that “the vast majority” of companies plan to expand their use of VILT in the near future. Yet only 20 percent of these same companies find this delivery medium to be very effective.
So why do they keep doing it?
The survey respondents say the primary reason is to save money. The next most-frequent response is reducing time away from the office, while the third reason is the ability to train large numbers of people quickly.
If you want to avoid investing time and money in training that is economical but ineffective, you might want to apply a little bit of science to your VILT programs. In this post, we’ll discuss the importance of design.
Design for engagement
Many VILTs follow a very predictable format. The first few minutes are spent getting organized and positioning participants online, followed by introducing the instructor and the topic. At the end of the class, there is usually a brief quiz or poll. The predictability of your programs may be causing your learners to tune out or multi-task instead of focusing.
This behavior occurs because the brain has developed pattern recognition as a survival mechanism. Our brain tends to relax in familiar surroundings and shifts into high alert in unfamiliar surroundings. Somewhere between feelings of boredom and anxiety is the highly productive level of attention. To help your VILT participants pay attention to you, design your VILTs for maximum engagement.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Jump into the content right away.
Have you ever walked into a class or meeting a few minutes late and felt yourself scrambling to catch up with the conversation? If you start with content right away, your participants will be forced to pay attention immediately. There’s also a secondary benefit: people will start logging in early to be sure they don’t miss anything. This approach, on many television programs, attempts to engage views immediately so that they aren’t tempted to switch channels while the predictable credits are showing. The credits eventually appear, several minutes into the program. You can do the same with your standard introductions.
Ask a challenging question in the chat window.
While polls have their place, you’ll get a lot more interaction from the use of the chat window. Pose a question that doesn’t have a clear right or wrong or answer; then sit back while participants share their opinions. This simple tool helps your VILTs become social learning events in which participants learn from one another, not from the “the sage upon the stage.”
Promote a participant to a presenter.
When we watch someone else solve a problem or learn a new skill, mirror neurons fire in our brain in the same way as the person we’re observing. We visualize ourselves in their place. A fascinating study demonstrated that students who watched others practice proper basketball free-throw techniques improved almost as much as those who were actually practicing. A very effective VILT technique is to have participants take turns trying a new skill. Let the rest of the class, rather than the instructor, provide help as needed to maximize the effect.
VILTs are here to stay. Designing them to be more engaging will help you get better results from your investment.
About Margie Meacham: Brain-aware Instructional design and performance improvement consultant Margie Meacham, “The Brain Lady,” is a scholar-practitioner in the field of education and learning and president of Learningtogo. She specializes in practical applications for neuroscience to enhance learning and performance. Margie’s clients include businesses, schools and universities. In addition to her Brain Matters Blog on learningtogo.info, she also writes a popular blog for the Association of Talent Development (ATD) and has published her first book, Brain Matters: How to help anyone learn anything using neuroscience. Her next book: The Genius Button: Using neuroscience to bring out your inner genius will appear in November, 2015.
Quotable: Alice Kim, Ph.D.
It's a misconception that trying to match knowledge delivery to someone's personal learning style or perceptual preference translates to better learning.
Dr. Alice Kim, Rotman Research Institute for the study of human brain function
How Do You Define "Competence" In A Job?
Very often when we design training we also want to design some type of test or certification which helps us to assure the organization that learning truly did take place. What most training departments struggle with, however, is how do you define competence? How can you ensure, through some type of test, that the trainee truly does understand what they've learned and can apply it on the job?
Very often when clients of ours ask us to create a Level 2 evaluation (a test) they ask of us: “So what should be the level of success?” In other words, what is a "passing grade?" Often, we fall back on the standards we learned in grade school - an 80 or better would be considered "passing" and better than average. But, in the reality of the workplace, do we really want someone who performs 20% less than they optimally could? It is not logical for us to churn out marginally capable individuals.
A solution to this dilemma is to secure a comparator. A comparator is essentially the standard of excellence or competency which we want a new trainee to be able to replicate. A comparator can be established through identifying those individuals, already on the job, whom the organization deems to be the best at their job. That might be the best salesperson, the machinist with the lowest quality defects, or the collections agent who has the best collections rate.
Don't look to just one individual because you have the potential to miss excellent practices which that individual might not employ. Judith Hale, of Hale Associates, even suggests NOT choosing your best performer but instead your B+ performers. Her philosophy is that the A+ performers don't even know what they do anymore; they are on autopilot and have forgotten what it is like to be new and still thinking through the process and applying rules.
Develop the comparator by conducting a time and task analysis of how your chosen performers do their job. This is a detailed observation of their day-to-day responsibilities: how they complete their responsibilities, how they organize themselves and what period of time it takes them to complete their job correctly and competently.
Once you have those comparators identified, you can then determine what the level 2 - or potentially level 3 - evaluation would seek to determine/establish. (Note: once you have the comparators, you can also establish your objectives.)
Rather than pulling a "level of excellence" out of thin air, instead, take the time analyze your best performers and establish a truly defensible expectation for competence and excellence on the job.
Quotable: Bob Pike
When performance is the question, training is the sixth answer.
When we have deep conversations with managers about performance and help them focus on all the possible barriers to performance first - systems, policies and procedures, recruitment, placement, and coaching - but using some or all of these still does not provide the performance and results we want, then it is time to look at training.
Bob Pike is founder of The Bob Pike Group
Quotable: Tom Gimbel
Our Training leaders don't provide the answers... they help people get to the answers themselves by posing thoughtful questions. They listen, observe, and think before reacting or responding.
Tom Gimbel, founder and CEO of LaSalle Network