I received emails from two CEOs this week demonstrating their ability to dispatch responses quickly and move on. No fluff, to the point – very executive! Problem is both emails were also totally unclear. Three rounds and three days later, with the necessary details finally sorted out, we accomplished what we could have finished the first time around! But the real problem is far more significant. I have no qualms about pushing back, asking more questions, and following up until I clear up any confusion. Do you think that is true of the average employee? People eager to appear knowledgeable, competent, determined,and willing to take on responsibility? How many times will they persist? Most employees are going to do their best with what they’ve been given. They may engage in one clarifying round, but not two or three! Few are willing to risk looking bad in the eyes of an executive. Very few are interested in exposing any lack of knowledge or skill. So what are the real consequences of those dashed off emails? Lots of guessing. Guessing what the CEO meant. Asking others to guess what the CEO meant. But, ultimately, guessing. The damage may range from a wasted morning to many months of wasted effort to poor decisions involving critical customers to unnecessary delays. In your rush to clear your inbox or your determination to increase your efficiency, don’t “act like a CEO.” Remember that the point of communication, the point of leadership, and the point of those emails, is to help your people succeed. And the best way to do that, efficiently and effectively, is probably to pick up phone instead of the mouse!
Five minutes and 15 questions could save you 50%! Why? Because clarity produces better results faster with greater confidence and commitment. Wondering how clear your organization is? Check Your Clarity Index now!
This month’s Clarity Award is a shared honor. Janice Mazzalo of PeoplesBank and Tom Moran of Financial Partners are the winners based on their clear messages involving two sides of a common problem. Both were part of a panel discuss on workplace culture and a question was raised about dealing with personnel problems. Janice pointed out that zero tolerance policies are an abdication of responsibility by those who ought to be able to use judgment and ensure any punishment fits the crime and employees get reasonable assistance to help them succeed. On the flip side, Tom made it clear that no one has a constitutional right to work in any company. Together, they framed a difficult problem. Employees deserve: Clear expectations regarding goals and behaviors, Regular feedback and support so they know where they stand and have a shot at success, and Compassion. They also deserve supervisors with the confidence and courage to tell them they aren’t fitting in and should look elsewhere. You benefit no one by keeping someone in a position where he or she isn’t succeeding. You also commit a grievous injustice to those tolerating or making up for the short-comings of the under-performer. When you think about it, a simple cost/benefit analysis applies nicely to difficult personnel decisions: Is the employee’s net contribution clearly positive or do you have reason to believe it will be very soon? In other words, does this person create significantly more benefit than cost? Cost includes hand-holding, training, undesirable precedents, patience, salary, distractions, anger, frustration, bad examples, damage control, and more. So, do not create rules to replace judgement and if an employee is more trouble than he is worth, let him go!
“How will we know when we are done?” When I meet prospective clients, this question immediately follows those focused on objectives. I want to know exactly what my clients hope to accomplish and then I need to be sure we are in complete agreement as to what we would see if we were making progress and how we would know we were finished. Since I don’t simply deliver prepackaged content and since I am totally outcome focused, I can’t operate any other way. What I don’t understand is why anyone would want to operate any other way. When you launch a big employee engagement program, how will you know when you are done? And don’t tell me you will survey all employees, scrutinize the results, and identify needed changes. Those are tasks and inputs, not outcomes. Will attrition decrease? Will employees volunteer for greater responsibility or encourage their friends to join the company? Will you be called in to fewer low level decisions? What would constitute real evidence that you have engaged your employees?
She was on top of the world. New job. Big raise. Exciting challenges. The kind of woman who lets nothing get in her way. Next thing she knew, she was doubting her capabilities. The staff was so lean, everyone worked endless hours. When she made a suggestion for improvements, she was given instant responsibility for making it happen. Resources were scarce and demands were huge. Progress was disappointing. She started to question whether her colleagues and boss were on her side. It just didn’t seem she could win. She blamed the culture. She blamed her boss. She felt inadequate. She started to duck her head. So what happened? Was the culture the problem? Was her boss undermining her confidence? Was she unprepared for the position?
Checking progress with a client, I was told there was none. The leader in charge had tossed the question to his staff, received little reaction, and so they all agreed to send an email to a wider audience. Guess what happened. Nothing. There was no response there either. The issue involved multiple complaints about unclear roles and responsibilities between two groups. The question was simple: Where is the confusion? When I asked why they hadn’t just taken ten minutes to generate a list of specific circumstances that result in confusion, the response was, “That’s not his style.” Not his style? Excuse me????? What has style got to do with it? Style is irrelevant. “Leadership style” is a worthless concept. Effectiveness is what counts. Nonetheless, what I heard next was more excuses masquerading as “style.”
This New York Post article made me shiver. As extreme as this seems, let’s see what lessons might apply to your business! For this school, the goal is clearly to graduate, not to learn. Do you have objectives that have morphed into “check-it-off” milestones that add no real value to the organization’s real priorities? Do you strive for 100% procedural compliance instead of results? Forms filled out properly? On time submissions? Signed forms? Perfect attendance? Meetings that end on time? Whatever you are measuring, are you sure it contributes to your most critical goals such as revenue, profits, and customer loyalty? Do you reward “seat time” by paying people for sticking around instead of producing? How is that any different from graduating students just because they watch enough videos? Does your performance management system rate most everyone as “above average,” if not “exceptional”? Sounds a lot like this student who earned an 85 in chemistry: the program “made it less challenging and more understandable. We watched a video, answer a few questions, and took an online quiz/test. It was simple, and reasonable.”
The air and light in my tropical hotel room this week reminded me of a morning long ago when I noticed a foot-wide, solid black stripe on the wall behind the bed that wasn’t there the night before. It was a stripe in horrifying motion. Like a rainbow, it traveled down the wall and into my little sister’s secret pot-o-gold on the nightstand – a three week supply of candy to protect her sweet tooth from anticipated deprivation while traveling with our ultra frugal and pragmatic parents in Mexico. I hurled the little leather purse into the bathtub and washed ten thousand ants down the drain, much to my sister’s distress over the candy and the purse. Sometimes that is exactly what you need to do in your organization. Too often, people lack the resolve to throw the purse into the bathtub despite swarming evidence a foot wide and ten thousand deep.
My recent business trip to the South Carolina coast featured many alligators and even more warning signs. With both in sight of my balcony, I also saw a ridiculous number of people feeding and attracting said alligators. What part of danger don’t they understand? And do the sign posters really expect compliance? People will behave as you desire only if they see the value in doing so. While WIIFM (what’s in it for me) may top the list, most people are also influenced by understanding the impact of their actions on family, friends, colleagues, the organization, the community, and beyond. This warning sign imparts none of that understanding. Those who posted it were dreaming in the fields of “if you write it, they’ll succumb.” Either that, or they think this is adequate protection from a lawsuit. Let’s listen in on the thinking of these tourists as they approach the alligators with insufficient knowledge and insufficient respect. “How dangerous are these guys? Floating lazily. Paying me no mind. Still no reaction, as I move closer. Just a bit closer and I’ll have a great photo!” Meanwhile, I am picturing eighty razor-sharp teeth leveraged by a foot of jawbone on 1,000 pounds of quick-twitch muscle. “Don’t push your luck, buddy!”
A friend of mine motivated to lose weight in the hopes of reducing back pain recently shared his dramatic results with others. The reactions professed predictable beliefs: He is missing out on important nutrients. He won’t keep the weight off. He should reward himself with occasional splurges. Let me point out that those quick to offer such comments: