Blowing the Coaching Moment
| I was recently reminded how coaching is the universal immediate performance-improving technique. It is so good that it does not have to be executed perfectly to be effective. Yet there is one way you can blow it, no matter what your intentions.
Let’s say you are looking for an experienced individual to turn in an intermediate deliverable on time, but the individual has surprisingly failed to do this on more than one occasion recently. You are sick of getting burned because this deliverable is awaited by a number high-level leaders who – you are pretty sure of this – use it as a measure of your effectiveness. What’s your immediate reaction? It may be boiling in oil, but let’s go with you begin to manage the details of the task, closely controlling the individual’s work and reviewing in detail multiple drafts.
That would be blowing it. This approach is too tyrannical and lends itself to misinterpretation of your intentions. The experienced individual will not understand or accept the new low trust and low expectations in the relationship. To make matters worse, you miss a chance to help the worker to self-direct so that you can leave work early for once.
Think about a better way and in the next post, I’ll describe a better approach to a coaching solution. |
Posted on: February 17, 2008 09:46 PM
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Bring Out Your Moose to Eliminate Denial
| In previous posts, I have warned you about how denial is harmful, yet pervasive. Just recently I explained that fun is a proven, important factor to keeping your workforce productive. Now there appears an article with a fun way to deal with one of the harmful forms of denial. The planets have aligned for us!
Jim Clemmer says that is it easier to break the ice and get real issues on the table if you use less threatening language. For those huge/scary/long-existing issues that no one wants to bring up when they should, Clemmer brings out his moose.
At meetings, he will ask “Is there a moose on the table?” to prompt a team to volunteer information that will identify the real issues so that these can be dealt with. This tactic counters the tendency for the big issues to be left out of the discussion because people are too polite, or, more likely, they are in the collective denial that we have discussed before. He warns them that the moose will grow larger, bread and make a larger herd. There’s just something funny about the word “moose.”
Notice that using the moose metaphor, adds a little fun – just what is needed. It gives the team a better sense of control over a difficult problem. He mentions other metaphors used by others. I like the salmon. “Is there a salmon on the table? We better deal with it before it starts to stink!” That let’s everyone know that you, the leader, have less fear over the issue, and so they feel more confident.
What’s your salmon? A chronic organizational obstacle that is slowing a team’s progress? A particular powerful individual who is interfering with a decision? Deal with issues like these by adding in a little fun! |
Posted on: February 11, 2008 07:55 AM
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Four Easy Tactics for a Satisfying Project Culture
| A couple of the articles recently linked within my posts have mentioned factors than can help you get the most out of your teams. They will not take an act of congress nor even approval from your CIO. They will take a little effort on your part to gain a lot in return.
Excitement . . . Find ways to punch up the excitement level in your project. Remind everyone of the desirable benefits of the project for the company. For example, have an executive explain how the project outcome will enable success in the marketplace. Celebrate major milestones with festive gatherings.
Innovation . . . Help everyone to feel comfortable with being innovative. Promote creativity in solving problems and reaching objectives. Recognize good examples. Don’t ever punish mistakes harshly.
Urgency . . . Use communications to keep deadlines and high-quality at the top of mind of every worker. This should not be scary, but a more positively described expectation of excellence. “The first deliverable to show our internal customer is only eight weeks away!”
Fun . . . You don’t have to open a theme park for your workers, but they spend so much time at the workplace, a little added fun goes a long way to reducing stress. This fun should be in addition to festive milestone celebrations. Informal, casual outings, games, birthday parties and recognition are great, just make them full of positive energy – and fun. |
Posted on: February 06, 2008 10:42 PM
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Your Change Management Skill Gap
| Think how often you manage change. Consider all the causes of change: schedule revisions, requirements “adjustments,” design refinements, re-focus of corporate direction, and so on. This is not the change management (or change control) for a project – it is organizational change management.
Management of change from one way of thinking and working to another way of thinking and working takes a special set of skills. Besides the obvious people skills necessary, there are political skills and business skills involved. These skills can accelerate your move from a manager to a leader. So how much training have you had in organizational change management? How much understanding do you have of the affects of organizational change on workers and how to get them to maintain performance in a “new” organization or process? Probably not much. You may have been prepared for regular routine of cranking out project tasks using a particular process. That training may have been excellent and useful, actually, but it certainly does not present the full picture of what tools and techniques a project manager must have.
To be an advanced project manager, to reach another level higher, you will have to learn and use change management tools and techniques. I’m going to jump out on a limb and suggest that the current economy is going to force organizational changes, even if they are only to satisfy shareholders.
Start here. Search gantthead.com for change management tools and techniques and check out the 1500-plus items we have. That should get you started. |
Posted on: February 04, 2008 07:59 AM
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Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
| Your line supervisors have a critical role and must be prepared adequately to “grow” employee engagement, the critical combination of commitment and job satisfaction. According to this Accenture article referred to in my last post, adequate preparation must consist of certain elements get the job done. Basically, the curriculum must include how to determine:
How many supervisors get this kind of preparation? It certainly is a tall order. And I’m sure some of you are thinking there may be a bit of expense involved. Well, it could be rather expensive, but there are less expensive ways to get this in over time. The fact is that costs for ignoring line supervisors have been shown to be much higher. Your organization could be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to performance management. |
Posted on: January 30, 2008 11:34 PM
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