Category Archives: Communication

It’s All About the Behaviors

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As an organizational behavior guy, it pleases me to see a shift towards the importance of defining critical behaviors within the organization that lead to successful results.

Earlier this week, I was reading the recent report from the SHRM Foundation on “Building A High-Performance Culture: A Fresh Look at Performance Management”. In the report, they stressed the importance of first defining the behaviors that are important to performance in your organization, and then designing the entire performance system around developing and communicating expectations concerning the behaviors and implementing reinforcing mechanisms for those behaviors.

Then yesterday, I was on a webconference presented by my friend Paul Hebert on designing effective incentive programs. The money quote from Paul:

A good incentive program involes particants achieving goals focused on many behaviors rewarded quickly in small amounts over time accompanied by genuine recognition and demonstratable progress toward the goal

Again, the emphasis is on behaviors. So why is this?

Research has shown that the best performance comes from defining, emphasizing, and reinforcing the behaviors that are important to the organization. Just as with training programs, which require constant reinforcement after the training in order to be successfully implemented and applied in the organization, the same goes for performance management.

Just as we should work with our children to demonstrate particular behaviors (be polite, listen to your teacher, be respectful to others, etc.), managers and leaders, including HR, need to ensure that your performance management system revolves around behaviors, not results. A focus on results could lead to not only poor performance, but also unethical behavior.

By switching the focus on the behaviors that lead to successful results, the performance management system can be designed to constantly emphasize and reinforce the desired behaviors, thus create a strong performance based culture. It is critical to take the time to really understand what behaviors are desirable and impact organizational results, and then constantly reinforce those behaviors through constant communication and feedback. Once employees understand the behaviors that are important to both the organization and the individual being successful, and how that leads to the desired result, a stronger culture of understanding and mutually beneficial goals will develop.

What approach has your organization taken towards performance management? Is it designed to reinforce and emphasize the end results, or is it designed to reinforce and emphasize critical behaviors?

 

Understanding the Game

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This fall, I volunteered to coach my son’s U5 soccer team here in my local town. Keep in mind, I have never played soccer on any level (except with friends) and I have never coached before. Add to it that all of the kids are 4 years old, and it should make for an interesting experience.

Three weeks in, and overall things have gone well. The kids love playing the game, they have fun doing some drills in practice, and enjoy playing with the other kids. The kids have also done a great job of listening and paying attention during the game, which can be a challenge for kids of any age.

There has been one exception: my son.

Granted, Andrew is not the easiest child to deal with. He likes attention and is very attached to me, ever since the day he was born. He has been throwing fits on the field, not being engaged when the game is going on, and has done a lot of whining and complaining during practice and the games.

The other week, as he was sitting on the sidelines with my wife, she asked him what was wrong. He said, “The other team won’t let me kick the ball. They keep trying to stop me and I keep getting tripped”. He has watched sports on TV with me, including soccer, so he has seen the game.

Then it hit me: I have done a poor job as a coach. I just assumed that all of the kids understood the game and the nature of competition, and that the other team was trying to score on us and also trying to stop us to score. It never occurred to me to explain these things to the kids. I assumed that they understood the game.

Once my wife explained to him that it was part of the game, and that part of the other teams job was to stop him, he started to play better and become more engaged.

In your organization, do your employees understand the game? Do they understand what the end goal is, how the game (i.e. competition) works, and what each party is trying to do?

It never occurred to me to explain this to my players. I am willing to bet that many leaders and managers have done the same with their employees. Don’t just assume they always understand the game. Leaders and managers need to take the time to explain the game and communicate with the entire organization so that everyone understands what need to be done, what the organization is trying to accomplish, and how they are going to accomplish the goal.

Don’t make the same mistake I made. Make sure everyone understands the game.

 

Water Cooler Talk

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Knowledge @ W.P. Carey has an article about the importance of water cooler talk:

It is an idea that Ashforth advances under the banner of “tribalism” in a chapter he authored for the forthcoming SAGE “Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization.”

After all, says Ashforth, a pack of paralegals or a covey of consultants drinking java or hanging about the proverbial water cooler is not so different from a tribe of Neolithic hunters sitting around a campfire. We as a species have come a long way since the days when the morning commute meant braving saber-tooth tigers but, at our core, people are still very much the same social animals we’ve always been. We want to feel like we belong and we value our closest connections beyond people we don’t know.

In a very real sense, organizations big and small would benefit by seeing themselves framed by a variation of Former U.S. House Speaker Thomas (Tip) O’Neill Jr.’s maxim, “All politics is local.” People care about the big issues, but place a very large importance on whether the potholes on their street are fixed and if there are jobs to be had in their town. So it is with organizational culture: The big issues matter but employees are most likely to judge an organization by their most local contacts — their boss and immediate coworkers.

Ashforth says an organization’s success is largely linked to its smallest social units, the tribes who congregate around the coffee maker.

Ashforth does make a worthwhile point about the connections made and the translation of higher-order communication to the lower level, he neglects to mention the downside of such talk: office gossip. Every office has it, and I rarely ever see it as a positive. Generally, the gossip is negative in nature and really doesn’t do anything to benefit the organization. I don’t really see the groups that gather around the office as tribes…I think they more resemble packs of hyenas looking for tidbits of news to prey on.

Leadership at all Levels

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I like to think that a person can be a leader at any level of the organization. Those at the bottom, the middle or the top or anywhere in between can be a leader for the organization and their groups. The difference is how you lead. When you are at the top, such as the CEO, you have more power to lead through verbal communication. You can make bold statements, outline a vision and rally the troops to follow along. When you are at the bottom, however, this most likely won’t work. You’re more likely to have a bunch of people looking at you in a funny way, saying something along the lines of “who died and made you king?”.

When you are at the lower levels of the organization, or not in a formal leadership or management position, the best way to lead is through your actions. People will take notice of how you act and what decisions you are making. If your manager is good, and you work for those who are observant, you will be notice and recognized. People will be more likely to follow along and act in the same manner if they see you getting ahead by doing the right thing. Especially if it comes to a change program, your actions can speak louder than words. If people see you being a champion through your actions, they will be more likely to jump on board as well.

Leadership is about communication – and the method used to communicate will vary by your level. You non-verbal actions will say a lot about you and what you believe.

Communication Gets Things Done

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When someone talks about being effective, in essence it is really about getting things done. If you aren’t getting anything done, then are you being effective? No.

Let’s look at what is really takes to get things done. The word execution might come to mind – you have to execute on your processes in order to accomplish anything. But look deeper – what is being that execution? How do people know what to execute on? How do people know what the processes are, and what the important goals of the organization are?

One word: communication. It all comes down to communication, and if your organization isn’t effective at communicating, and if your leaders are unable to communicate in an effective manner, nothing will get done….at least not properly. In an organization, no matter what area you are looking at, the most important thing is communication. If people don’t talk to each other, if they don’t understand each other, or what is important, or what the organization is trying to accomplish, or how their role fits into the big picture – if none of that happens, the organization will not be effective.

And what drives all of that? Communication. And not just communication – effective, clear, precise, understandable communication. If the message isn’t being understood, if messages aren’t being delivered and received properly, it really isn’t communication. Its noise. And if there is too much noise, there cannot be communication.

Communication – yes, it is that important.

Ineffectiveness in the Illinois Government

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As most of you have heard, the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested on fraud and corruption charges. While it is shocking in some ways, it isn’t necessarily unheard of in the state of Illinois. Four of their last six governors have been arrested for some crime or another.

While I completely disagree with what Blagojevich has done, there is something that I find more shocking. I was listening to “All Things Considered” on NPR last week and they had an interview with Pat Quinn, the lieutenant governor of Illinois. During that interview, he mentioned that the last time he had a meaningful conversation of more than a couple words was August 2, 2007. Yes, you heard that correctly. The governor and lieutenant governor haven’t spoken in nearly a year and a half. No wonder he is calling for his resignation or impeachment. I’d like to point out that I don’t think they’ve ever communicated or got along well – before the primaries in Illinois, the governor and lieutenant governor run separately, and then are put on the same ticket for the general election. Thus, you end up with the possibility of getting stuck with two people who don’t like or won’t talk to each other.

An organization cannot be effective unless there is free and open communication. How can an organization set expectations and goals, develop a culture, deliver on processes, and provide leadership if the guy at the top won’t talk to anyone? Blagojevich, through his isolation and ability to pretty much piss off everyone around, including the entire Illinois congress, has shown exactly how not to foster good communication in an organization.

Communication matters. Actually, it more than matters – it is critical to the success of an organization. Nothing will get done properly, efficiently, nor effectively if communication is lacking or non-existent. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t also state that the type of communication also matters. Bribery, extortion and political trade-offs don’t really count as effective communication. That lesson was apparently never learned by Blagojevich.