No One Took You Wrong... You Said It Wrong!

You Are 100% Responsible For How People Take Your Communication

How many times have you said, or heard, "he took me the wrong way" or "they misunderstood what I was saying"?

When communicating your thoughts, you are completely responsible for making sure the other person understands the idea you intend to convey. 

Being a good communicator means more than simply stating our thoughts.

It means:

• Stating our thoughts clearly, and in terms that can be easily understood by our intended audience.
• Watching the facial expressions and body language of the people to whom we are communicating, to see that we are getting the reaction we expect.
• When we are unsure if the other person has understood us in the way in which we intended, we are responsible for making sure.
• We should ask the other person something like "What did you hear me say"?
• If they heard anything other than what we intended, it is our responsibility to restate our thoughts until they hear us as we intended.
• It is our responsibility to be aware if we have hurt their feelings, or insulted them.  If we catch it right away, we can often repair the damage pretty easily with an honest apology and restating our thoughts.

Yes but...  What about the arguments like...

"People will hear what they want to hear"?

It's up to us as Leaders to make sure everyone with whom we are communicating hears what we intend for them to hear.  Yes... everyone knows this one exception... the person who seems to choose not to understand, or who has already decided what we intend and cannot be swayed.  These are extreme cases, so please do not get caught up in them.  If this happens to you quite often, the problem may be your communication style.

How about... "I can't make anyone feel anything, we each choose how we feel"?

Theoretically it is true that we cannot make another person feel any particular way.  And in reality, most people are too caught up in their thoughts and emotions to be fully present.  The truth is that most of us are not emotionally intelligent enough, nor present enough to choose our emotions from minute to minute.  Unkind words, anger, projected emotions, or simply poor communication can, and often will, result in hurt feelings.  Once we are aware of hurt feelings, we are responsible for making an attempt to clear things up.

What about "I could not have said it any more clearly"?

There is no one correct communication style, and to think that your choice of words in any given moment can be universally understood by every person, no matter their emotional state, is a bit arrogant.  You are not responsible for the emotional state of the other person, and you are responsible for making sure your thoughts are understood as you intended, no matter the emotional state of the other person.  Its called empathy... understanding the emotions of another person.  If we understand how they are feeling, we can more easily state our thoughts in a way that they can understand.

Do you feel that the communicator is responsible for whether or not they are heard as they intended?

This post is a rewrite/update of a post originally found on www.leaderisticality.com

Building Our Leadership Team Part 5… How to Define Team Goals

So in rereading my posts about building your Leadership team, I think I glazed over the process of setting goals and coming up with values for your team.  We probably spent enough time on defining our reality, and the importance of coming to a consensus.  We all have to agree, at least by the end of the meeting, on what things are like right now.  At what level is our quality?  At what level is our customer service?  How different are standards from one day or shift to the next?  Do we actually back each other up, or do we really throw each other under the bus?  Do your apprentices feel that they can be honest with you?  If not… fix that before moving on, or everything you do with end up being a waste of time.

You will also want to read, or reread the post on setting an intention.  For this, and all future meetings about setting team goals, your intention is to allow things to happen as they will.  You have worked to build relationships with your apprentices, and you know about their personal goals.  You have worked to believe that they are trustworthy, and you have told them that you trust them, value them, appreciate their hard work, and are happy to have them on your team.  So… your intention is to remember that you trust them.  You trust the process, and you will allow it to happen.  This doesn’t mean you stop guiding the process… it just means that you will not impose your will on the group.  Allow them to be who they are, and in the long run you will be much better off for having done it this way.

This next meeting will focus of setting goals, both short and long term, as well as coming up with values for our team.  You will of course have goals that you must meet… sales goals, margin, comp goals, quality goals, and many others.  These are goals that for most teams will be non-negotiable.   We are accountable for minimally meeting these goals, and a number of you may be rewarded for exceeding certain goals.  So… we need to be transparent with the team about these ‘fixed’ goals, and how important they are.  When your apprentices understand that you, the team Leader, are accountable for achieving these goals, they will have a better understanding of why you have been acting the way you have, and saying the things you say.  You have been working on ‘being human’ and letting them know that you realize that you are far from perfect.

This is why we spent so much time and energy building relationships with our apprentices before we got to this meeting.  Today, they firmly believe that you care about them, that you are interested in helping them achieve their goals, and you will take great pride in their success.  Because they know these things, they will want to help you achieve your goals, and they will do what they can to help you excel in your job.  Since you made their goals important to you, they will make your goals important to them.  You did that right?  Because we’ve been talking about the importance of developing these relationships forever.  It’s the key to Leadership!  OK… I’ll assume you did, or that you are working on it now.

So we have our fixed goals, and we can move on to our team goals as well as our values.  Some of you are asking, “What do you mean ‘team goals’”?  “We have enough to do just meeting the minimum requirements here”.  “These people can barely can’t do anything on their own, and I certainly can’t trust them to come up with any worthwhile goals”.

If you are done…  Many of us have had teams that were, at least at one point, sub par let’s say.  As we talked about before, yes… you probably have a number of people who do not belong on your team, and you must start working to get them moved to a job where they will be successful… in other words, fire them.  You also have some great team members, even if it’s only one or two.  You might not recognize them because of how they have been treated in the past.  They will stand out as soon as you develop a relationship with them, and let them know you care about them, value them, and trust them (at first, you trust them to do their job and stop micromanaging them, then we can move on to more trust).  We’ve talked about this in several posts now… if you want this to work for you, I’d suggest you go back and read the whole blog from the beginning.  The point is for you to look to the future, and understand that the steps we are taking along the way here will bring out the qualities and skills already present in our team.  Those qualities are lying dormant since they have not been asked for, or even valued in the past.  The work we are doing, the groundwork we are laying will bring them to life.  Worry not.

Here we should also talk about how the size of your team will affect the group with which you develop your team goals and values.  If you have a very small team, say less than 12 (could be less than 20, or 30, it’s completely up to you), I would think about having the whole team involved, and not just the Leadership team (which on such a small team may be just you and one or two others).  Getting the whole team involved skips a step, and gets everyone on the team actively involved in deciding what’s best for the team.  If you have never experienced this process with everyone involved, it will blow your mind!  No… really.  Imagine having your whole team working towards the same goal… wanting to work towards that goal because they were there when the goals were developed.  Their input was heard and discussed… we might even be working on goals that one of them came up with.  You have never seen a team working so hard for and with each other as when they are all involved in goal setting.

I feel that when we get more than 15 or 20 people in a room it can be difficult to get them all involved in what is going on.  Plus, on a team that size that will you will have a couple of people who will not want to be involved, and they will make it difficult for everyone.  Even if you have 2 of those people in a 10 person group, the small size makes it intimate enough that they will probably not speak out and disrupt things.  I would advise you not to attempt to have the meeting with everyone but those couple of team members you want off the team.  Their teammates do not see them in the same light you do, and will resent having their peers left out.  Those left out will undoubtedly share their negative feelings with the rest of the team long after the meeting… right until you get them off the team.  So… get them off the team now.

If you have larger team you will have to have a whole team meeting, during which you and your apprentices will share the goals you came up with, set new expectations for the team, and let everyone know that there is a new sheriff in town!  No that’s not right… You will let them know that there are behaviors that were acceptable in the past that will no longer be acceptable.  We’ll have to talk about this over another post or two.

Back to the team goals and values…

We are talking about team specific goals that you and your apprentices will come up with together.  Having these kinds of goals will not only help bring your team together, but they will move your team along from wherever you are now, towards greatness.  You will also come up with values for your team.  Your values will describe what is important in how to act towards each other, and what behaviors you value as a group.  The values you come up with will define your new culture to your team.  As we talked about before, most teams have a culture that we allowed to develop while we weren’t paying attention.  We have to fix that, and redefine what is important, to purposefully recreate the culture we want on our team.  Both our values and our goals will reflect what is important to your Leadership group, and will assure that everyone on your Leadership team will be on board and working towards the same ends.

So… you have a white board, or some giant post it notes, or maybe you are just writing on the wall (although I wouldn’t suggest the wall, it’s your meeting).

Your team goals can run the whole gamut, from Leading the world in Widget production, to having the highest service scores in the region, to improving our sales to positive comps, to increasing profits by 12%, to getting 3 team members ready to be promoted, to getting everyone cross trained by years end… the list is endless.  What is important to you?  Where can you actually make a difference?  What is important to your apprentices?  Go around the room brainstorming ideas.  Remember, in brainstorming there are no bad ideas… write them all down.  Some people in the group may get goofy, since this will be a new experience for them.  Do yourself a favor and allow them to have some fun.  Keep things moving in the right direction, and it’s not Sunday school… You can enjoy the process, and have nothing to gain by being stern or playing the authority figure right now.

For coming up with your values, I think you can start by talking about what makes a good team member, what makes any group of people one that we want to be a part of, and how do people who respect each other act towards each other.  You can use the work you did on defining your reality and your brainstorming list to help define what your new culture will be like.  If someone wanted to change careers or industries, they might sit down and write out what they wanted their new job to look like.  For instance, I want to work Monday thru Friday; I want my boss to value me; I want to work with children; I want to work alone, or conversely I want to be part of a high functioning team; I want clear cut expectations, or I want to decide what I do and when I do it; you get the idea.  We are forming a kind of wish list here.  You and your apprentices will write down what you would like your team’s culture to be like, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.  Write down how people will treat each other, how they will collaborate, and this should lead you to the things you value.  You’ll find that many of the answers line up with the qualities of a leader… how about that!  Things like self responsible, committed, honesty, transparency, shared fate, trying new things, being accountable to each other, and leaving things better than you found them…

I cannot claim to be an expert on this coming up with team values, and an Internet search will give you a long list of research, opinions, and even articles to walk you through the process.  In my experience, values are easier to understand by the team members who will be making he decisions, and dealing with your customers.

No matter what values you come up with, they will not stick, and all of your work will prove to be a waste of time if you and your apprentices do not live up to them every minute of every day.  If one of your values is open and honest communication, it’s up to you to set the standard for that.  You must always show good listening skills, you must have empathy, and you must always tell the truth.  Always.  Your team members will be watching you… watching for you to say one thing and do another.  Their experience tells them that the boss is not to be trusted, and you are out for yourself, so your job is to prove them wrong with every word and every action.  You MUST live your stated values.  There is no other way.

For your team goals, you are the team Leader, and you certainly want to add things to the list.  Remember that your goals will likely be on a different level than your apprentice’s goals.  Don’t get tied up in what they want on the list.  It’s a list of goals that both our and your apprentice’s will get behind, which is probably more than you’ve ever had before, so be grateful for what you’ve got.  You cannot go into this thinking you will end up with your dream list.  You will go through the list several times during this process, and goals will be crossed off as well as added.  It will contain stretch goals, as well as easily reached goals.  This is important, as you need some early wins to celebrate to keep up your group’s morale and energy.

Take a break… eat something, walk around a bit.  You are moving from one way of thinking to another, so cleanse your palate so to speak.

Your list of goals is a working list, and it can change over time, so don’t allow anyone, including yourself, to start carving it in stone.  Go through your list out loud, reading the ideas to the group.  At this point your group should be in good spirits, with everyone getting along pretty well.  So… you can probably have a simple first round show of hands vote to ‘keep or lose’ goals from the list.  DO NOT try to force your hand here… it will only backfire, the group will shut down, and you will have to work very hard to get to this place again… if you ever do.  Just allow things to happen… I cannot stress this enough.  For many of you this will be the hardest part of the whole process.

You will see goals on the list that you think are way to easy, that don’t align with your own goals, that won’t help the team, or that you think are just stupid.  Let them be!  You will have a chance to talk about them later.  There will be goals on the list that might be OK, and they will need to be reworded or more clearly defined.  You can deal with that later.  There will also be goals on the list that, when achieved, will bring this group together as a Leadership team.  They need to have the chance to achieve some of the small things that are important to them in order to know that their goals are important to you and the rest of the group.  The list belongs to the group, and you need the group to become a team in order for you to achieve your goals, so just be part of the group.  Now, if there are one or two items on the list that you simply cannot have, maybe they break some rule, or impose on another group, or whatever (as long as it’s a very good reason that you are willing to fully explain to your team), you can talk to them about that one or two, and pull them off this list.  Be very careful about overriding the team… you will be on thin ice.  You need their buy in with the whole process if you are going to successfully get the rest of the team on board.

If you don’t think you can play the role of moderator and group member, have someone from outside the group moderate the meeting… that is perfectly acceptable.  It could be a mentor, peer, someone from another division… it’s only important that they have enough Leadership qualities so allow them to understand the process and help it along, without any negativity at all.

This is getting a little long… why not take it up next time?

Be there, or be a mediocre leader with a team that takes so much work it isn’t funny!
See… I made a joke right there…  Did you catch it?

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The Five Obsessions Common to Champions

Building Our Leadership Skills Part 3… Leadership Qualities and The Secret to Difficult Conversations

Man, I got so far off topic last time talking about setting an intention that I had to change the title of the post!  Let’s try this again.

In our example, we are helping a new supervisor get past the initial fear of talking to a team member about a behavior that needs to change.  Sometimes it’s something small, like getting back from lunch or break on time (maybe small now, and could turn ugly if allowed to go on for too long).  Other times we need to talk to a team member about a subject that could easily bring out some defensiveness.  I’ve had to talk to someone about personal hygiene.  I mean really… you could tell when this person was standing 10 feet behind you without turning around.  I’ve talked to a team member about calling out for funerals… after his 5th grandmother died.  He knew he was caught in a lie, and still got very irate…  Sometimes we have to address performance issues with people who think they are great workers, and they don’t want to hear the truth… it can be tough to get through their armor.  Other times, it’s any issue with someone with whom we’ve allowed ourselves to become friends.  Sometimes it’s just the person… there are lot’s of people out there who simply do not want to hear any feedback at all.  To them all feedback is a personal attack, and they can fight back as if defending their very existence.

So, how then do we approach these conversations; much less have them go well?  Crap!  Here I am again.  I’m about to start talking about a much larger subject, like developing relationships with our team members, and really just started talking about how to get our new supervisor started off right.  Oh well…

The only good way to have these conversations go well is to start having them long before we need to.  What the hell does that mean?  It means this…

If we spend the time and energy developing strong relationships with our team members, these conversations are not difficult at all.  Well… the vast majority of them.

Leadership is all about developing relationships.  Without these relationships you will be unable to achieve your goals.  With the right relationships however, your team will turn into a high functioning team.  Your team members respect you, as well as show you surprising loyalty.  You will never want for Leadership.  You will supply others will Leaders.  Your job will be a secure as you want it to be.  Your team will make you look like a god among men.  Well… anyway…

So whether you are a new Leader, new to Leading this team, or want to change the culture of your existing team, you still need to follow pretty much the same path.  You will need to develop a relationship with every person on your team.  What does that look like, and how do I do that?  It’s not as hard as it sounds.  It all begins with you, and your relationship with yourself.  Damn it Steve… now you’re just talking in circles!     Calm down… we’ll get through it.

There are many traits or qualities that a Leader needs.  John C Maxwell, one of the best-known people in leadership circles these days , and an author I would highly recommend, would list them in his “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader” as:

Character.  Charisma.  Commitment.  Communication.  Competence.  Courage.  Discernment.  Focus.  Generosity.  Initiative.  Listening.  Passion.  Positive Attitude.  Problem Solving.  Relationships.  Responsibility.  Security.  Self Discipline.  Servanthood.  Teachability.  Vision.

Since they are ‘indispensable’, we need all of them.  And… we are all unique and so each of us will be stronger in some than in others.  I have also come to believe that some are more important at different times for us as Leaders.  For our purposes here, we are going to talk about teachability, or humility, servanthood, security, listening skills, character, and communication skills.

We need to develop relationships, so what exactly does that mean?  Much of this is work that we will do, or have done, when hiring.  I would advise you to go back and read my series on hiring the best hourly team members starting here.  Until then, it means many things… getting to know the team member, about their home and family life.  It means finding out what kinds of goals they have for themselves, both long and short term.  What do they do for fun?  All of these are things we would want to find out if we cared about someone.  The point being… we have to actually care about our team members.  If you really don’t care about your team members at all… I would not waste my time reading any more… it will do you no good.

Servanthood comes into play here… we want to do for others.  It’s natural, for most of us anyway, to feel good about doing something for someone else.  There are multiple books written about servant Leadership… feel free to read them.  I feel that all we need to know is: that it feels good to do for others; doing for others makes them feel good about us; if we care about others’ goals they will be much more likely to care about our goals.  That last one is a little on the selfish side, and that’s OK as long as we don’t just focus on that part.  How do you feel about doing for others… caring for what others need and want?  Do you feel good when you do something for someone else, with nothing expected in return?  I hope so…

Humility is next, for no particular reason, and is listed as teachability.  For our purposes it means we are aware that we don’t know it all.  We are open to the ideas of others.  We can learn from anyone and everyone.  We are all unique, and all see the world through different eyes.  If you are humble and are open to ideas from others you know that the team can solve so many more problems than you can.  Are you humble?  Do you listen to ideas from your team?  Everyone on your team?  Are you open to learning from anyone?  If you think you know more than pretty much everyone around you… well… the word for you is arrogant.  You need a coach or mentor to help you with this if you want to be a good Leader.

Security is important so you don’t feel threatened by those around you.  If you feel secure in yourself you can listen to others, and allow them to be as good as they can be. If you regularly, or irregularly, feel threatened by those around you… please work on getting a mentor, coach, or therapist.  You may need some help here to achieve your goals.  You will have a tough time surrounding yourself with the best people if you are not secure with who you are.

Character is what you do… do you do the right thing, even when no one is looking?  People are always looking.  Perhaps called integrity… you will not be able to gain the respect of the team if you lack integrity.  They will see that you are out for yourself, that your actions do not align with your words, and they will not follow you.  I have failed, in the past, to act with integrity, and even though I wasn’t the best Leader at the time, that failure was the only thing the team rebelled at.  You must always do the right thing.

Listening skills and communication skills go hand in hand.  You cannot be a good communicator without being a good listener.  Good listening skills are not just sitting patiently while the other person speaks, preparing your rebuttal.  Listening skills include listening to understand what the other person means, how they feel about what they are saying, and putting yourself in their shoes.  If you are listening correctly, you will be able to argue the other side of any argument.  Please go back and read my post on listening, and what not to say.  Pay attention to what you are doing the next time someone is speaking to you.  You may be surprised to find yourself thinking about what you want for dinner, or how that dry skin on you ankle is itchy again… let those thoughts go, and return your attention to the person speaking, and your interest in really understanding them.

Communication is both listening and communicating what you want to get across.  Please go back and read my post on communicating…  Yes I have a lot of posts… I’ve been busy here.  It’s your responsibility as the person (in particular as a Leader) communicating a thought, to make sure the person listening hears what you are saying in the way in which you intend.  It is your responsibility to read the body language and facial expressions of the listener to ascertain whether or not they heard it as you meant it.  If they are not hearing it as you meant it, you have the responsibility of fixing it before they leave the conversation.  When in doubt, you can even ask… ‘What did you hear me say just then’?  When checking in I’ve found that many people feel attacked in some way if there is the slightest doubt about our intentions.  Make sure!

All of this was to explain the part above about your relationship to yourself.  How do you feel about the qualities listed above?  Please be honest with yourself… I hope you have a coach or mentor, and if so please ask them to give you some honest feedback about these qualities.  If you have a trusted, honest, and disinterested peer (disinterested means that they are interested only in the truth, not how you feel about it) you may ask them too.  These qualities are all necessary, and it’s OK to be working on them as we go along.  The most important thing is that you have an honest assessment of where you are with all of them.  That way you will be able to improve on them, and be transparent with your team.  These are the basis of your relationship with your team members.

Which, I guess, we will talk about next time…

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Revealing the Secret to Successful Leadership

Building Our Leadership Team Part 2… Getting Buy-In For Our Team Goals

Where were we…?  Oh yeah… the key.

So… I’ve been the Leader on many different teams, and in many meetings like these ones.  We’re coming up with goals, and I REALLY want several of my goals to end up on this list.  So, of course, I do my best to steer the conversation the way I’d like it to go.  In the fist few years I feel like I’m doing so so… not as well as I’d like, and not bad.  For the next so many years I feel that I’m getting better at making my point, and influencing the people who work for me.  Most importantly I’m getting my goals onto the list, thinking everyone is behind them.  It’s really only in the last 10 years that I realize that no… everyone has always been quite aware of what I’ve been doing, and quietly resenting me (and every other leader who does it) for doing it.  They are not really buying into my goals, since I’m pretty much forcing them onto the list.  Only when my goals happen to be goals that they would all agree should be OUR goals do they actually get behind them.

The point is… people are not as gullible as we like to think.  You will only do yourself a disservice, and chip away at any trust you have been working hard to build by forcing your ideas onto the group.  You have to trust the group.  It’s hard I know, and they will surprise you.

The key here… The best idea is not always the actual ‘best’ idea.  The best idea, the one you should implement, is the one that the most people will buy-into, and get behind.  That is the idea that will get done.  It might not move you as far as your grand idea would have (if everyone would have gotten behind it) and it will move you in the right direction, with everyone feeling good about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and where the team ends up.  Later, you can use the momentum of that success to get the group to come up with a bigger goal, a stretch goal, maybe even where you wanted to go in the first place.  You will also build a lot of trust this way.  Please don’t force it!

Now…  We have a list of goals that we came up with together.  Together, remember!?

OK… so what we actually have is a dream.  It will turn into a plan when we assign action steps.  So that’s the next thing we need to do… assign action steps.  How?  Well… there are a couple of schools of thought here.

One school would have us assign tasks to the people who are best at them, and who would enjoy doing them.  That’s fine and dandy, and might make more sense for our team right now, since we need to reboot.  We are going to be holding our team to higher standards all around, so allowing our apprentices to do what they’re best at is the best thing to do at this time.

The other school, which is more useful when we have a team that is functioning well, states that we should assign tasks to help people learn what they don’t know, things that will challenge them.  So… if you already know how to schedule well, however are not the best buyer, you will be buying until you are a great buyer. 

Once we get our team member base where we need them, we will be able to get both our team members and apprentices trained to be ready for their next job.  Our apprentices will be getting ready to be Leaders on their own teams, and our best team members will be our next round of apprentices.  Yes, we are raising our own leaders.  Do you know of anyone else who is developing leaders to fill your future needs?  I didn’t think so…  with these lessons, with the help of your coach/mentor/therapist, and the books you are reading, you will be changing your team into one that has a culture of developing strong, skilled Leaders, who are well prepared to be successful Leading their own teams.

Getting buy-in with the task assignment is important too, and I would suggest doing this part together at one of your meetings.  This is also your chance to really amp up your apprentice’s energy around getting your team where you want them.  If your current team is like most, you and your apprentices spend untold time and energy just getting the basics done, following up after team members constantly.  Call outs and mediocre job performance keep you putting out fires much of them time.  You have good ideas and plans that rarely come to fruition because of your poor performing team.  Now that you are all on board with what you have all agreed needs to happen, you should take advantage of the momentum and build all of the energy you can.  Moving forward, you as the team Leader, will take every opportunity to maintain that energy, staying positive and celebrating every small win.

Remember when we were indoctrinating our new hire?  Remember how we made sure they knew that we had faith in their success on the team, and that we were excited to have them on the team?  Sure you do (if you don’t go back and read the series on hiring)…  well you are going to do the same thing with your apprentices.  Just because they are part of your Leadership team doesn’t mean they don’t need to hear that you have faith in them.  We all need to hear that.  We all need to hear our Leader say:  I’m really happy to have you on the team; I’m so proud of your accomplishments so far; You have everything you need to be successful; I will do whatever I can to help you achieve your goals; you are an important part of the team, and a key to our success! 

You know how a Buddhist might say something like ‘stop striving after what you don’t have, and want what you have’?  Want what you have?  Yes… these apprentices are the ones you have.  Do you honestly feel the statements in the paragraph above are true?  Are you happy to have them as part of your Leadership team?  If not, you need to rethink this whole thing.  In order to really change the culture on a team you need the complete buy-in of everyone on your Leadership team.  You will not be able to fool any of your apprentices into believing what you do not believe.  So… want what you have.  It will take some work, and… they are probably capable of doing everything you need them to do.  They are probably not as: dumb, disinterested, slow, uncaring, ignorant, and anything else you can add, as you think.  Mostly, I’ve found that people need to be believed in.  They need to be appreciated, and trusted.  They need to be cared about, and feel that they are an important part of the team.  Feel that, and let them know you feel that, and you will be amazed at what they will do for you.  This you cannot fake… you must feel it.  Want what you have. 

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I think this great article kinda fits here… 

The Difference in Delegation

And this…

The Importance of Sacrifice For Leaders