Empathy – the magical leadership ingredient?

Empathy can make a difference in every situation that we find ourselves in as leaders or managers

I recently read Geoff Crane‘s chapter 55 ‘Empathy in Project Management’ in the ‘Gower Handbook of People in Project Management‘. It’s a very large book, with a wealth of fascinating information, so I’m dipping into it a chapter at a time, and giving myself time to reflect on each one.

I really enjoyed Geoff’s chapter, and believe our ability to be empathetic can make a difference not only in Project Management, but in every leadership or people management role that we may have.

As Geoff explains in his chapter, empathy is different from sympathy in that the ‘listener’ not only acknowledges another person’s (the ‘speaker’s’) emotions but actually connects with them by ‘vicariously experiencing’ their feelings, seeing things through their eyes, or ‘getting into their shoes’.  Empathy requires active listening, picking up things that the other person may not even be saying.

Geoff shares a ‘behavioural change stairway model’ adapted from Vecchi et al.(1)  In it he shows that whilst active listening is a precursor of empathy, empathy in turn leads to rapport and so influence and the ability to effect behavioural change.

So, whilst empathy required us to emotionally connect with the other person, we still need to retain our own sense of self, and this is what enables us, as leaders, to then take some appropriate action to influence the ‘speaker’ to achieve a desired outcome.

This is what I have been reflecting about since I read Geoff’s chapter.

The role of empathy in project and line management

When we are responsible for a project, or for a team, should we be task or people focused?  The answer is both.  But whilst we can delegate aspects of the task management to members of our team, ultimately, the responsibility for the people within the team rests with the manager.  If we don’t recognise and respond to the needs of the individuals within the team, and to the dynamics between them, then we will never achieve a high performing team, or see each individual performing to their full potential.

Some people may think this is ‘too touchy feely’, and that we are all independent grown-ups without the need for ‘molly coddling’, but what is the reality of what happens in teams?  Aren’t the emotions visibly there (or thinly disguised) on a day-to-day basis? So as team leaders, wouldn’t we do better to acknowledge that and work with the emotions rather than ignore them?

(By the way the next chapter I read will probably be number 53, Deanne Earle’s on ‘Emotional Intelligence in Project Management’.  Geoff Crane has put up pictures of all us contributing authors and the themes of our chapters on his website – The Papercut Project Manager.  I also wrote a short blog referencing my chapter on Team Development.)

Empathy in change Management

Our APM Enabling Change SIG committee are currently working on a glossary of terms associated with Change Management.  We’re having a bit of a debate around the definition of ‘resistance’ in Change Management.  Is it a barrier to be overcome, as is commonly described by Change Management practitioners?  Or is it something that, in our role as leaders, we should be helping to surface and understand, so that we can respond to what we learn about the ‘speaker’ and use this not only to influence the ‘speaker’ but also to improve on our Change Management plans?  Isn’t that empathy truly at play?  I take the latter approach in my book ‘The Effective Team’s Change Management Workbook’.

A further thought: change agents recognise the importance of communicating the benefits of change, and of doing it in the context of WIIFM (What’s In It For Me).  There is surely an emotional context to that which requires change agents to empathise with – hence the value of asking such questions as: “If this change was successful for you, what would that look, feel or sound like?”

Empathy makes for better facilitation too!

A recent client very kindly said that he uses me as a facilitator because I understand his organisation and the people within it.  We know that the most effective facilitators disconnect from the content of workshops and discussions that we facilitate, and focus instead on providing the right tools and guiding the dynamics of what’s happening.  We need to tune into the emotions involved, and judge when and how to intervene to help the participants achieve their overall goals.

Empathy also helps us to be effective trainers, mentors and coaches

A friend of ours recently died from cancer.  For a short while he’d taught my daughter to improve her guitar playing.  At his funeral service another student talked about how special our friend had been in effectively being able to empathise with his students and help them to achieve whatever it was that they needed – and it wasn’t just about learning to play the instrument – it was about wider aspects of their lives.  I recognised what he was saying from how I’d seen and heard him work with my daughter.

Isn’t empathy what distinguishes a skillful trainer, mentor or coach from a mediocre one?  Which of your teachers do you remember best?  Was it empathy that distinguished them from the others?

(I wrote more broadly about the qualities of trainers, mentors and coaches, in my RiverRhee Newsletters on the ‘coaching continuum‘.)

With empathy we as leaders can give the people that we work with some of the most valuable gifts in life: the time, the space, and ultimately the skills, to achieve what will help them to be successful as ’empowered’ individuals and as members of our teams.  Doesn’t that make empathy a magical leadership ingredient?

Notes

1. Vecchi, G.M., Van Hasselt, V.B. and Romano, S.J. (2005).  ‘Crisis (hostage) negotiation: Current strategies and issues in high-risk conflict resolution’, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 10, 533-51.

Elisabeth Goodman is the owner and Principal Consultant of RiverRhee Consulting and a trainer,  facilitator, one-to-one coach, speaker and writer, with a passion for and a proven track record in improving team performance and leading business change projects on a local or global basis. 

Elisabeth is an expert in knowledge management, and is accredited in change management, Lean Six Sigma and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator).  She has a BSc in Biochemistry, an MSc in Information Science, is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Professionals (CILIP) and of the Association for Project Management (APM) and is also a Growth Coach with the GrowthAccelerator.

Elisabeth has 25+ years’ Pharma R&D experience as a line manager and internal trainer / consultant, most recently at GSK and its legacy companies, and is now enjoying working with a number of SMEs and larger organisations around the Cambridge cluster as well as further afield in the UK and in Europe.

Working in far flung teams – notes from an APM East of England #APMEoE event

APM East of England event, MedImmune, Cambridge, 12^th November 2013

Issues facing ‘far flung’ teams

Melanie Boyle, our host at MedImmune, welcomed us to the meeting and to a topic, which was very relevant to the geographically dispersed teams that she works with.

‘Far flung’ teams have a magnified version of the challenges faced by any project team.  How can such teams best juggle the people, content, and processes which, being dispersed, suffer from the difficulties of building relationships, addressing different cultures, pulling together disparate local processes, and ensuring that the content at the heart of the project is available and complete?

Whilst a clear goal can help, it can suffer from ‘chinese whispers’.  Likewise, a robust underpinning technology, is often not that robust.

So, what’s to be done?

The 3 speakers shared their experiences and ‘war stories from the diverse backgrounds of pharma / biotech, offshoring / finance / telecommuniations, engineering / biotech respectively.  We interspersed each session with rapid ‘huddle’ discussions between the delegates.

Janette Thomas, Accentbio Ltd

Janette’s ‘war story’ stressed the value of one-to-one discussions to clarify roles and negotiate timelines.  She used face-to-face meetings to build relationships and to help people recognise their interdependencies.  She also used visual representations of simplified project plans to aid understanding.

Huddle discussion

Points raised included:

• The importance of addressing the human factor early, preferably through a face-to-face, or using very good video conferencing technology.
• Consider the nature of the team for how you do this, and also how high risk the project is.
• Keep repeating the goals throughout the project to ensure alignment.
• Test assumptions and make sure you are using language that everyone understands.

Russel Jamieson

When working with India it is important to have recognisable e-mail addresses as they can be quite different from a person’s name. Create a directory of team members with photographs to help recognition.

Ask people to respect the ‘golden hours’ that are the optimum time for cross-team communication.

Have e-mail guidelines including what goes in the subject line to ensure necessary actions are clear and acted upon in a timely way.

There are lots of cultural issues to be aware of!

Offshore vs. onshore decisions need to be based on the right premises – otherwise there is a risk of false economies.

Russel finished with a lovely YouTube video “I’ll get the ice creams”

Huddle discussion

Points raised:

• It is challenging to know when everything is not alright as people will not necessarily tell you.
• Make your communications clear and unambiguous.
• Jokes can get in the way as the interpretation will be very cultural!

Keith Rodgers, Inspirex Ltd

Keith shared analogies with Voyager 1, a space probe that was launched in 1977 and which reached interstellar space in 2012.  This makes it a very long project, operating with ‘ancient’ technology, and raising all sorts of challenges about communication.

Huddle discussion

People were asked to consider alternative approaches for organising portfolio reviews for a small engineering project, and a mid-sized biotech – both operating with geographically dispersed stakeholders.

Points raised included:

• Setting meeting frequency and timing in a way that would share the ‘pain’ to reduce the inconvenience to stakeholders.
• Making the objectives clear so that people could prepare and ensure that the right people were present for the meetings.
• Using KPIs and reports to stakeholders as an additional source of information to supplement meetings

Closing panel discussion

We covered many points throughout this event.  Some of these points are reflected in this adapted version of a Harvard Business Review article.

Further discussion included:

• How best to delegate across different cultures?  Our speakers suggested bringing team members to the UK for training, although the people trained might then use that knowledge elsewhere; communicating in terms that people can understand, and building relationships; having clear contracts and summaries of agreed work.
• Is it easier for different cultures to say ‘no’ in written formats?  Our speakers did not think that would make a difference, but that building relationships might so that you can more easily pick up on how someone is responding (tone in their voice on the phone) that might indicate disagreement.  Also, ensuring that you are speaking the right person: if they are senior enough they may be more comfortable with saying ‘no’.

Notes

The original presentations from this APM East of England event along with an audio recording, and the full notes of the ‘huddle’ discussions are available to members on the Community web page for the APM East of England branch at http://www.apm.org.uk/news/working-far-flung-teams

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).  She is also a registered and approved Growth Coach for the GrowthAccelerator.

Team Development in Project Management

By Elisabeth Goodman

It’s been an honour, whilst also slightly intimidating, to have a chapter included in this latest project management publication edited by Dennis Lock and Lindsay Scott: the Gower Handbook of People in Project Management¹.

Project teams may want to get to “high performance” more rapidly than operational teams

As I say in the preamble, project teams will go through various stages of development, but they may want to get to high performance at a more accelerated rate than that usually achieved by longer-term operational teams.

In this chapter I take readers through an adapted version of Tuckman’s stages of team development²: I use forming, storming, norming, high performing and renewing in my work with teams.

I also explore how these difference stages, and the different personality types from Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and Belbin’s team roles, can be overlaid on the project lifecycle to give team leaders real insights on how they could help their teams reach high performance more rapidly and painlessly than might otherwise be the case.

Learning techniques taken from Knowledge Management also have a key role in team development

The final part of the chapter takes readers through various Knowledge Management techniques: peer assists, after action reviews, learning retrospects and communities of practice that project teams could usefully use at various stages of their lifecycle to foster high performing teams.

My colleague John Riddell and I are currently putting the finishing touches to our own Gower publication³ that will take readers in greater depth through these and other Knowledge Management techniques.

There is a whole raft of other tools available to help teams in their development

Lock and Scott’s impressive publication runs to 865 pages.  As the title of the book implies, it contains a vast range of reflections, insights and guidance on how to address the people aspect of project management.  A focus on people will inevitably enhance the quality of the team overall, and so advance it in its development.

It’s going to take me quite a while to read through this treasure of a book, but examples of the topics that caught my attention in the first 11 of 63 chapters were:

• Successes and failures of people in projects
• Project sponsors and stakeholders
• Use of contractors
• Managing in matrix, international and virtual project organisations

Somewhere in the later chapters I spotted further themes on NeuroLinguisticProgramming (NLP) and also spirituality.  So lots to explore!

Notes

1. Elisabeth Goodman.  Team Development, in Gower Handbook of People in Project Management. Ed Dennis Lock and Lindsay Scott.  Gower Publishing Ltd, 2013 Chapter 32, pp. 403-415
2. Tuckman, B. and Jensen, M. Stages of small group development revisited.  Group and Organisational Studies, 1977 pp 419-427
3. Elisabeth Goodman and John Riddell.  Knowledge Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry: enhancing Research, Development and Manufacturing performance.  In preparation.

Reflections of a team facilitator

By Elisabeth Goodman

HAVING FUN WITH PINTEREST

Summer is a wonderful time to reflect and play with new ideas.  I’ve been having a lovely time exploring Pinterest for new insights to inspire the teams I work with in workshops.

Pinterest has only been going since 2010 and although it already has more than 70 million users it is still not widely used by people in my community, so I was surprised at how much I have started to find in the way of pictures, annotated diagrams, mindmaps, and increasingly popular infographics to inspire and illustrate some of the ideas that I use for facilitation.

If you would like to follow me on my journey of exploration, please see my “Inspiring Learning” board.

But is Pinterest’s use of visuals for everyone?  One of the posts I found is a mindmap stating that we all think in pictures.  And yet the NLP (NeuroLinguisticProgramming) representational styles are all about our different ways of representing and communicating information, suggesting that some of us prefer auditory, and others kinaesthetic (touch or feel) or auditory digital (‘self-talk’) representations.

Pinterest does include YouTube videos and audio files such as on this “youtube tips and tricks” board, but will that be enough to appeal to those whose preferred representational style is other than visual?  Pinterest statistics suggest that female users outnumber men by 4 to 1.  Perhaps we could get a demographic study by NLP representational styles?

Facilitating teams to help them achieve high performance

My colleagues and I have been facilitating a lot of team workshops – in fact that is at the heart of RiverRhee Consulting’s work for enhancing team effectiveness.  The goals and approaches that we use have been evolving as our clients ask different things of us, and as we’ve been developing our own expertise in the options available for helping teams to achieve high performance.

Team members benefit from additional insights on their own and others’ personalities.

Whether the team is relatively new, or has been around for a while, there is no doubt that gaining additional insights on people’s strengths and preferred ways of behaving will enhance relationships and build a stronger team.

A 1-hour icebreaker around the NLP representational styles, or a more in-depth 2-hour exercise based on MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) can be powerful ways to kick off ½-day, 1 day or longer workshops.  The overall event might be focused on team building, managing change or overall team effectiveness.

People enjoy finding out new things about themselves and those they work with, and take away insights that they continue to reflect upon and add depth to as they apply them not only at work, but also in their everyday life.

The importance of articulating the strategic context: vision, purpose and goals

Certainty and control: these are the two key enabling factors that team members identify when asked what would help them move more positively through their personal journey of change.  Understanding the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ – the strategic context of their work – gives them certainty about what will happen and clarity about what they can control or at least be involved with going forward.

Encouraging senior and line and managers to articulate their strategic goals in terms of key messages grounds them in the practical reality of what they want to achieve.

Sharing these key messages face-to-face with team members also makes the managers more approachable and opens up opportunities for dialogue.

I’m excited by how working with managers on their strategy is becoming an increasing component of my role as a coach and team facilitator, both independently and with the government sponsored GrowthAccelerator initiative for SMEs.

Facilitating discussions for improving team working

Managers often wish that members would take more of an active role in improving how the team works.  The answer is to give them the opportunity to have their say, and to then shape the way forward.  A pre-workshop diagnostic on the different aspects of team working, as described in “Team development, pre-requisites for success and temperature checks” can be very powerful for surfacing what’s going well, and what could be improved, especially with an outside facilitator collating the results anonymously into key themes.

It then takes only a little encouragement in a constructive workshop environment for team members to identify the priorities to focus on, along with suggested next steps and the roles they can play to address them.

Finding ways to make more of your team’s time and resources

Leaders and managers often approach us because they are looking for new ideas to address the nitty-gritty of how the team goes about its day-to-day work.

Their impetus may be a realisation that they need to do things differently in order to take on all the new things that their strategic goals entail.

There’s been a recent flurry of discussion in the APM LinkedIn group about the value or otherwise of Six Sigma and its focus on processes.  We use principles and tools taken from Lean as well as Six Sigma in our work with teams.  The opportunities these give for an open, constructive and fact-based discussion on how the team goes about its business has proved invaluable.  Contrary to what some protagonists claim, there is lots of scope for creativity, not only in the form of incremental improvements, but also for breakthrough innovation.  And yes, these workshops do make use of visual tools too!

More reflections to come

I’ll be continuing my explorations of Pinterest to expand my facilitator’s tool-kit.  I’m also looking forward to becoming qualified in MBTI Step II during the summer, so that I can further enhance team members’ insights into their own and others’ strengths.  Meanwhile, if you missed RiverRhee Consulting’s summer newsletter, and would like more food for thought, why not take a look at “Summer and the 3 Cs” now.

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is the owner and Principal Consultant of RiverRhee Consulting and a trainer, facilitator, one-to-one coach, speaker and writer, with a passion for and a proven track record in improving team performance and leading business change projects on a local or global basis. 

Elisabeth is an expert in knowledge management, and is accredited in change management, Lean Six Sigma and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator).  She has a BSc in Biochemistry, an MSc in Information Science, is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Professionals (CILIP) and of the Association for Project Management (APM) and is also a Growth Coach with the GrowthAccelerator.

Elisabeth has 25+ years’ Pharma R&D experience as a line manager and internal trainer / consultant, most recently at GSK and its legacy companies, and is now enjoying working with a number of SMEs and larger organisations around the Cambridge cluster as well as further afield in the UK and in Europe.

Preparing new managers to be effective coaches

Guest blog by Sean Conrad, Halogen Software

Note from the Editor, Elisabeth Goodman

Every now and then, people approach me (or I approach them) with a suggestion for a guest blog.  Anything that can bring insights for helping teams, or team leaders to work more effectively is potentially of interest.  What I like about this blog is the recognition that managers have a role in coaching, as well as in directing the work of their teams.  It resonates with some of my earlier blogs on the different roles managers need to play as their teams go through the various stages of team development.  Team members particularly need the support of their managers when they are going through the ‘storming’ and ‘mourning’ or ‘renewing’ stages.  The role of the project manager as coach is also something that came up in one of my recent blogs.  Read the rest of this blog to find out what Sean Conrad, of Halogen Software, has to say.

Preparing new managers to be effective coaches

Like anything in life, doing something for the first time can be a little daunting. Becoming a line manager for the first time is no exception. While many organisations have some excellent programs in place to develop, groom, shape and mold individuals to become great people managers, sometimes a key aspect of training is overlooked. I’m referring to the need for organisations to provide their managers-to-be with the knowledge, skills and tools they need to become not only good managers but also great coaches to the members of their teams.

Why is coaching so important in the workplace?

When managers do receive the training they need to be great coaches, the benefits to the organisation can be many. In particular, developing effective coaches can lead to:

• Improved employee engagement and higher performance
• More meaningful annual performance reviews
• Better conflict resolution or resolving issues before they happen

If there are some new wet-behind-the-ears managers in your organisation looking for ways to improve their coaching skills, here are a few ideas.

Teach them to coach rather than clone

One of the most common mistakes managers can make is using themselves as the yardstick to measure their employees’ progress and performance. They look at their employees, their work, how they handle situations, and they think about how they (i.e., the manager) would have done it differently. Then the manager gives their employees feedback and coaching based on these reflections (e.g., “That’s not how I would’ve approached it.”)

What’s wrong with this scenario?

For starters, these well-intended managers end up trying to create clones of themselves rather than coaching employees to be their best and put their best skills and talents to use for the good of the organisation.

How can you help ensure your new managers are coaching rather than cloning? First, and foremost, it’s critical to recognise that everyone is different. That’s right, no two people think or process information in exactly the same way. Equally important to remember that the perspectives, motivations and responses of others aren’t any better or worse than ours, they’re simply different.  We need to value our different ways of thinking, perceiving, solving and acting. Often we can achieve the best results when we consider all perspectives, and use a combination of approaches to the situation.  Not surprisingly, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. This means that managers need to get to know their employees as individuals.

Building good manager-employee relationships

At the risk of stating the obvious — but sometimes forgotten — here are some ways your new managers can get to know their team members while also positioning themselves as trusted and effective coaches.

• Show interest in what motivates employees by asking them questions about a particular work situation and why they handled it a certain way (this can reveal a lot about an individual). Determine their aspirations, interests, preferences, strengths and passion (and encourage them to bring this passion to work each and every day).
• Give employees meaningful feedback on an ongoing basis by increasing the frequency of employee reviews and one-on-one meetings.  Ensure that you provide regular recognition/praise for achievements. Consider gathering input from others. Feedback from multiple sources is broader and more objective, and helps you and your employees get a more accurate view of their performance.
• Maintain an ongoing, two-way dialogue about employee performance where you share expectations, provide coaching, answer questions, support employee performance, and solicit feedback on your own performance. During these conversations, you should remember to be an active listener not an active talker (avoid the autobiographical overlay).
• Provide employees with ongoing development opportunities, both formal and informal. Everyone needs to know where they are and where they’re going (i.e., that they have a future with the company). Work with them to determine and plan training and development activities.

Regardless of approach, techniques or individual differences, a good manager will work with employees to listen, question and “coach” them to be the best they can be, leading to greater engagement, higher productivity and improved organisational performance.

Notes

1. A senior product analyst and Certified Human Capital Strategist at Halogen Software, Sean Conrad regularly writes about talent management trends and issues in industry publication and the Exploring Talent Management Blog.
2. Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale (and using coaching as well as training, mentoring and consulting). 

Feel the fear and do it anyway

By Elisabeth Goodman

Last night I heard Sheri Kershaw & Band at the Royston Folk Club – our favourite twice-monthly music venue.  She introduced her first song ‘Colours of Life‘ with the observation that we will all suffer at some time in our lives, and the suggestion that we embrace rather than resist this experience, as it is what adds colour to our lives.

One of the reasons that I write these blogs is the opportunity this gives me to share the insights that experiences like hearing someone like Sheri gives me.  Combine this with a Harvard Business review blog by Peter Bregman ‘The unexpected antidote to procrastination‘ that I spotted in my twitter feed earlier in the day, and some magic happened that I wanted to share!

Not being afraid to fall

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway

Bregman writes of his experience of watching surfers, who dare to ride the waves in search of that epic experience, with the full knowledge that they will always end by falling.  Some fall gracefully, others resist it for as long as they can.  But inevitably, they do fall.  He suggests that the reason we put off doing a lot of difficult things in work or in life, put off taking risks even if what we might achieve might be epic or wonderful, is the fear of what might happen, of failing, of falling, of being hurt.

However, if, like Bregman, like Sheri Kershaw, we accept that the intensity of what we might feel, of what we might suffer, is an integral part of life’s rich tapestry, and of what we can achieve and succeed at, then it’s going to be about feeling the pain, and doing it anyway.

The link to engagement, empowerment and change

This brings me to why I’m writing about music and surfing in a business blog, and why I do the work that I do!  I had the pleasure to experience a one-day course on coaching, organised by the Cambridge Network‘s Learning Collaboration, and led by Sue Blow from Management Learning & Coaching.

Listening to Sue and hearing about her approach as a coach reminded me that my work with teams is all about giving the individuals within the team the time, environment and skills to deal with the pain that they have been experiencing.  As a result, the members of the team can become more engaged with their organisation’s goals, and also feel more empowered to do something about the challenges that they are facing.

I was talking with David Bance and John Moore earlier in the week, in our nascent Melbourn Business Association Special Interest Group for Operational Excellence. We were comparing experiences of how empowered people had been to raise suggestions for improvement as a result of participating in Total Quality Management, or Lean and Six Sigma initiatives.  The best outcome was that it gave them the permission, the courage, the skills, the data and reasoning to dare to change situations where they had previously been feeling the pain.  Of course, a successful outcome is also dependent on the management and organisational support to make the resultant changes.

The fear and the pain can be large or small

I definitely do not wish to minimise or trivialise the fear, pain or suffering that people might experience in their working or home lives, and the courage and the risks that they take to overcome them.  I recognise that these can be very great and some of the situations that I come across can seem relatively small.

For example I also recently attended an excellent seminar by Janet Burton, of The Training Manager, where we explored how to develop, prepare for and deliver  presentations.  Even these kinds of situations can feel challenging and require effective mental preparation, a good stretch and taking a deep breath before beginning!

I’m also a trustee of the Red Balloon Learner Centre in Cambridge, and admire the courage of the students who come in to tackle their personal challenges of recovering from bullying and other traumas that they’ve experienced, so that they can come back to learning again.

The main thing is, as Sheri Kershaw and Peter Bregman suggest, to embrace these experiences and to also remember that there are people out there who will help you if we can.

Notes

1. Elisabeth Goodman is Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, enhancing team effectiveness through process improvement, knowledge management, change management and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator)
2. Follow the links to find out about other ways in which Elisabeth Goodmanand RiverRhee Consulting can help your team to work more effectively for greater productivity and improved team morale.

Creating and finding those inspirational managers for our teams – a Cambridge Network event

People leave their managers not their companies

“70% of people leave their managers or supervisors, not their company”.  These were some of the research findings shared with us this morning by Sue Gibson, Human Resources Consultant at DoubleG Assosiates LLP, in a Cambridge Network Breakfast meeting on retention and motivation of staff.  She also told us that mediocre managers can do a lot of damage ‘under the radar’ and can pass on stress and stifle employee engagement through inappropriate authoritarian attitudes.

As a trainer and consultant who focuses on ways to relieve the pain of people in teams, by working with inspirational managers who want to improve the way they support team members, as well as equipping the team with tools to improve their work, I was very interested to learn more about this topic!

So what makes for an inspirational manager?

We all shared our own experiences of those managers that we remember to this day or, as Sue described, ‘have a following’.  Those that have inspired us:

• Have vision
• Can relate and communicate with everyone in their team
• Empower individuals
• Speak from the heart, with passion about what they are doing
• Have integrity
• Are happy to recruit people better than themselves
• Focus on the career progression of the people in their teams

They are also, in the words of one of the delegates who is a school governor: “a critical friend”.  They will give honest, timely, constructive feedback, and are consistent in doing so.

technical competence is not a criterion for becoming a manager

We have all come across situations where people have been promoted to management roles as the only route to reward their technical competence, and that of course is not necessarily the right solution.

People forced into a management route will not necessarily have the passion or aptitude for it and may spend their time trying to find opportunities to still use their technical skills.

Enlightened organisations, and there were some in the room, have developed 2 branches for promotion, so that people can progress according to their preference and strength along a technical or a management route.

How to find and develop those inspirational managers

Sue described how one organisation she supports identifies their existing inspirational managers and asks them to act as talent scouts to spot potential new talent.  These people can then choose whether or not they would like to progress up a management or a technical chain and trains them accordingly for active succession planning.

Another delegate described how they use a buddy system for new managers to help them get up to speed more quickly and effectively.

There was a general consensus that some form of active management training is needed, rather than expecting managers to just learn on the job.

other key considerations for retention and motivation

The seminar was not just about inspirational managers, but about what can be done to retain staff.  Sue stressed that this is not about rules, processes or restrictions but about getting a number of things right.  Her list included:

• Culture
• Interesting work
• Development
• The mindset of leaders and managers (which brings us back to the earlier points on inspirational managers)
• Making sure that people know what is expected of them
• Having clear organisational goals
• Pay
• Benefits

We discussed examples of individuals writing their own objectives based on the organisational goals and relating to performance (things they need to do for the job) and also their own personal development.  In Sue’s experience people have also been asked to assess their own performance against their objectives.  I mentioned that this had hints of the situation at Morning Star described by Gary Hamel in the Harvard Business Review, which I wrote about in one of my other blogs: “Why is employee engagement such an important topic?”

We also discussed the importance of showing people that they are valued, and giving managers the scope and authority to show recognition.  Sue gave examples of giving someone a meal out with their partner, including making babysitting arrangements with a professional Nanny, or paying for a week-ends Italian lessons for someone who wanted to learn. As she pointed out, the cost of these kind of recognition packages are far less than the value delivered by an employee going beyond routine requirements, or indeed the cost of replacing someone and of the knowledge lost when they leave.

In the work that I do with teams, retention and motivation is also about creating an environment where people can thrive, where they have time to think and be creative as a result of being able to focus on the key priorities of their business.

managers need to be aware of generational differences in their staff

This is a fascinating area to explore.  I didn’t quite catch everything Sue was saying at this point, so some of the following notes are a bit improvised, but it was along the lines that those aged between 30 – 40 expect to be taught, are generally technology ‘savvy’, will be tolerant of their managers and are OK about change.

Those aged 30 years and under though are more likely to teach themselves, are technology ‘wise’, will work hard if they are interested, expect their managers to collaborate with them (because they are equal) and are likely to be more actively mobile.

So these considerations reinforce what we already know, that managers need to understand their staff and relate to them as individuals, in order to manage them well.

Concluding thoughts

We finished with some discussions in small groups.  Some of the thoughts that came out of these were:

• In small organisations, when people go on holiday, it gives those left in charge the opportunity to develop. (We’d touched earlier on the importance of giving people challenges outside their comfort zones for the same reason.)
• There seems to be an optimum ratio of 1 manager to 8-10 staff in order to be able to build rapport, engage with team members and generally manage them well
• Managers can be blockers!
• The importance of empowering staff to improve the way they work as they are the ones who will best understand the opportunities to do so.
• In start-ups, HR should be a foundation stone, not an add on: people can be the biggest asset, as well as the biggest cost!

Were you at this seminar?  If so, and you’d like to add any material that I’ve missed, do feel free to do so as a comment.  Also, if you think I’ve misinterpreted anything that was said, do please set me right!

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

The needs of globally dispersed, innovative, teams

In our August 2012 RiverRhee Consulting newsletter, my Associates and I wrote about our insights on working in virtual teams, so it was with some interest that I read about “10 rules for managing global innovation” in the October issue of Harvard Business Review (HBR)¹.

After all, that’s what most ‘virtual’, ‘dispersed’ or ‘far flung’ teams are aiming to do: work globally and innovate, be it to make incremental, or more large scale innovative improvements to their portfolio, whatever it might be.

In this blog I’ll discuss the needs of globally dispersed innovative teams in the context of the insights in the RiverRhee newsletter and the 10 rules of the HBR article.

A different kind of management to make up for the lack of informal, ‘ad hoc’ communication

In our newsletter we referred to the need for managers of virtual teams to have a “much broader skill set” than those managing co-located teams.  They need to be able to switch between their skill-sets to support dispersed team members in different ways depending on their local characteristics.  Local differences may be cultural, but it may also be a matter of the different personality mix and dynamics at each location.

It’s true that dispersed teams may find it harder to stay focused on goals, tackle problems in a timely way, and make everyday decisions that enable them to maintain their momentum, without some form of more active management involvement than might be needed in a co-located team.

The HBR article suggests that a senior manager should be assigned responsibility for overseeing the work of a globally dispersed team.  This assumes that the team does not already have an overall manager in place and instead consists of a looser form of collaboration between the different locations.

The authors also suggest that one site be appointed as the lead one.  They would assist the overall manager in ensuring that a consistent bigger picture is addressed, whereas other sites might be focusing more on the detail.  This site would also ensure effective decision-making and on-going progress.

A well-defined goal

The HBR article suggests that a geographically dispersed team will find it harder not to drift from their remit!  In our newsletter we suggested that that remit or vision should be centred on consistent communication with their customer.  A team focused on innovation should definitely have a vision for what they are aiming to deliver, and with the end-customer in mind.

So again, this is where a directive management approach is essential in ensuring that the team stays focused on their goal.

A strong team

In our newsletter, we suggested that this is where a combination of good interpersonal relationships and sound working practices will come to the fore – to address the greater diversity of a global team, and the challenges of working in a more dispersed way.

The HBR article suggests that a stable organizational context (to shield the team from additional distractions) and rigorous project management (with seasoned project leaders) are additional key factors for success.  The authors also suggest that starting with small cross-location projects or collaborations will also help the team to develop that strong start.

Globally dispersed teams may cross organizational boundaries, for instance if they are engaged in Open Innovation, something that I’ve been learning a lot about in my work with OI Pharma Partners.  Even without being engaged in the complexities of Open Innovation, globally dispersed teams are likely to have multiple partners, suppliers, sub-contractors etc.  The HBR article suggests that teams deliberately limit the number of these to reduce complexity, and to use those the team knows well and are more closely located.

Like us, the HBR article suggests that a team should not be over-reliant on technology for its communication, and that nothing beats initial and if possible regular face-to-face interaction to build rapport and connection within the global team.

Building the team’s expertise

The HBR article points out that one of the benefits of using a global team is the greater opportunity to draw on the necessary expertise and capabilities at the different locations.  It’s therefore important to do just that, and not get drawn in to involving people just because they are available if they are not a good fit for what the team requires.

The authors also suggest deliberately overlapping areas of expertise between locations to foster interdependencies in their work, collaboration and knowledge sharing between them.

Finally, we stressed the importance of all team members being engaged in sharing their expertise, strengths and insights for the benefit of the whole virtual team.  We also suggested that geographically dispersed team members can each play a leadership role to benefit the rest of the team by looking for opportunities to deliver the greatest value in the application of their individual areas of expertise and strength.

what have we missed?

The reflections from the RiverRhee August 2012 newsletter, combined with the 10 rules from the HBR article seem to be a strong recipe for success!  What do you think? Have we missed anything?

Notes

1. 10 Rules for Managing Global Innovation, by Keeley Wilson and Yves L. Doz.  Harvard Business Review, October 2012, pp 85-90

2. Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

Tackling procrastination – making “mañana” today

Why am I writing about procrastination?

This is a topic that lots of people will have written about, and it’s not quite in my usual line of work but…

On a fairly regular basis, I help someone close to me, who has asked not to be named, with her paperwork.  I will call her Sue.  It’s the bane of her life and piles up days and weeks at a time (we usually tackle it before a month is up!).  It’s a perpetual worry to her.  She knows she wants to get it sorted, but somehow can’t get around to doing it.

Sometimes Sue surprises both of us, and gets a lot of the paperwork done before I visit.  Other times we tackle it together and get through it in just 20-30 minutes and are then left saying “it wasn’t that bad after all”.

It’s not the only task that Sue finds hard to get on with, but she’s developed tactics for tackling some of them and I thought there might be some clues there to help her.  So I’ve decided to put my mind to the subject, hence my revisiting of a wonderful chapter entitled “Mañana” in the Mind Gym book “Give me Time”¹, and writing about it in this blog².

Procrastination is all about underlying beliefs

The essence of the Mind Gym’s approach is based on reprogramming our underlying beliefs – what it is that we are telling ourselves, often unconsciously, that is getting in the way of getting things done.  The chapter itemises the different types of beliefs, then helps us to ‘soften them’ and add a ‘get out clause’ so that they no longer stop us doing things.  But apparently this approach takes practice, so the authors also give us some quick fixes to be getting on with.

Here is a summary of the various misleading self-beliefs, using my own framework of ‘Can’t and won’t’.  I’ve added a third main category of ‘I don’t have time’, which although not in the “Mañana” chapter, is a theme of the book as a whole!

I haven’t discovered yet which of these beliefs is at the root of Sue’s procrastination with her paperwork but if she’s willing I’m looking forward to having an interesting conversation with her to find out.

Some quick fixes for procrastination

The authors very helpfully give us 10 short-term alternatives to use whilst we are practicing to adjust our self-beliefs.  I’ve used a number of these myself but also have a couple of others, which I’ve added to make 12.

1. Adjust the level of challenge -so it’s stimulating enough without being de-motivating.
2. Choose a reward to fit the challenge – a way to celebrate getting the wretched task done!
3. Commit to a penalty or forfeit – if you don’t get the task done then pay up to your favourite charity!
4. Double your estimate e.g. if it might take twice as long as you thought you had better get started!
5. Dive in – do the hard part first – after that it’ll be easy
6. Do something to change your mood or your view of things – stand-up, get a cup of tea or go for a walk around the garden (but don’t take too long about it!)
7. Tap into positive peer influence – mix with people who get things done and perhaps it will rub off
8. Tackle it in bite-size pieces – how do you eat an elephant (metaphorically speaking of course)?  A bite at a time.
9. Break it down into short stretches of time
10. Make a 5-minute start – and then see if that gives you the incentive to continue!
11. Make a public commitment – which is what I did about writing this blog.  I also use this approach at the end of my training courses / workshops when people tell each other what they will do, how, by when.
12. Ask a friend or work buddy to give you moral support – which is what I do with Sue, and she also helps other friends in this way

When is it OK to procrastinate?

I came across a variation of this question in my copy of a new book “ And the next question is…” personally autographed by one of the authors, Rachel Alexander^3.

I was wondering what this question was about when Sheila Thomas (@Speranda), from TWI, answered my tweet request for issues and solutions around procrastination.  Her example was: “we do postponed things in the first week following the monthly Weldasearch database update as getting enough in for that has priority.  [Procrastination is] planned in that we always do this, although [the] specific tasks put off [are] not always predictable.”

I realised then that we can and should apply this principle at work by regularly reviewing and reprioritising what we do, but in a planned way so that the reprioritised items, if they are important, still have an allocated time.

We should of course also give ourselves scope to do this at home, for example when a friend drops in unexpectedly, or to catch those last warm sunny days in our English Indian summer.  However it’s a grey day today, so I’m off to the gym just after I get this finished and posted!

Concluding thoughts

I hope you’ve found reading this as helpful as I’ve found writing it.  If I’ve missed your particular procrastination issues, causes or any solutions you’ve found to address them – don’t delay, post a comment against this blog so we can share these extra insights with others!

Notes

1. They Mind Gym.  Give me time.  Time Warner Books, 2006.  ISBN 0 316 72992 2

2.  I can have my own issues with procrastination.  Writing this blog has got me re-reading the chapter, and just to make doubly certain that I would both read the chapter and write the blog I put out a note via LinkedIn and Twitter saying that I would be writing the blog in September and inviting input – a public commitment which resulted in some humorous responses: “I’ll think about it…;o)” (thanks Richard!), but also an insightful work-related approach to procrastination from Sheila Thomas at TWI which I’ve shared at the end of the blog.

3. Rachel A. Alexander and Julia M.L. Russell. And the next question is… powerful questions for sticky moments. MX Publishing, 2012 ISBN 9781780922881.  The question is number 342 in there list of 364 questions: “When would be the best time to procrastinate about this?”

Failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) a personal case study culminating in an aborted transatlantic flight

I have just spent a very comfortable night in a Heathrow hotel, after a 5 hour round trip spent in the air somewhere between London and Boston.  Although eating airline food, watching a (not very good) movie, and having a doze mid-air might be one way to spend an afternoon in May, it would not be my first choice!
It was the culmination of a series of misadventures that, viewed positively, provide an interesting case study on ‘Failure Modes and Effect Analysis’ (FMEA), or indeed Risk Management.

Failure Modes Effect Analysis – origins and applications

Put simply, FMEA is a technique that enables a team to identify what might go wrong and develop appropriate mitigation plans based on the probability, severity and ease of detection of the various ‘failures’.  The 3 metrics are assigned numeric values which, when multiplied, produce a Risk Priority Number (RPN).  The mitigation plans are prioritised based on the RPN of each failure.

The technique originated in the US army, and spread from there into various industries, including manufacturers such as Toyota and is now part of the American Society for Quality’s tool-kit.

This blog is written from the perspective of Lean and Six Sigma practitioners who use FMEA to evaluate current processes, and also potential solutions to the issues needing improvement.

Project Management practitioners’ Risk Management approach is also a variant of FMEAs.

My FMEA case study

I was due to catch a 3:00 pm plane from Heathrow to take me to Boston for a business assignment.  The journey involved catching a 10 o’clock train to London from my home village in Cambridgeshire, the underground to Heathrow, and then the plane.  My train and plane tickets were booked and I allowed plenty of time.  What could go wrong?  How did I end up staying in a hotel in London instead?

1. Getting to the station.  I had to take my daughter into Cambridge, usually a 40 minute round trip which would get me home by a little after 9:00 am, so lots of time to walk to the train station.  However, there were some roadworks in Cambridge so that at 8:50 am we were still a long way from our destination.  Luckily I found an alternative route, dropped her off and was home by 9:30 am and so at the station in good time.
2. Getting to Heathrow.  The train was on time. I picked up an underground train going to Terminal 3 straightaway. Check –in was from just after 1:00 pm, by about 12:10 we had passed Hounslow.  I could relax.  Not so: a defective train at Hatton meant that we had to go back to Hounslow and catch a bus to the airport.  By 12:40 the number of passengers waiting for the bus, and the scarcity of the bus itself, made this look impossible.  Some fellow passengers and I caught a cab, reaching the Terminal by about 1:15 pm.  No problem.
3. Getting onto the plane.  The lady at the check-in desk patiently pointed out that I should have filled in an ‘ESTA’, the online equivalent to the ‘green form’ that I’d regularly filled in on previous flights to the US, but my last one had been about 4 years ago.  So, off to the internet lounge to fill one in.  Took me a little while due to my by then slightly agitated state, but got it done, and got checked in and to the boarding gate still in reasonable time.
4. Flying to Boston.  We didn’t make it!  2 ½ hours into our flight time, the captain announced that a mechanical fault had been detected, and we were going back to London.  Everyone kept calm, and so after 5 hours, we landed safely, queued for our luggage, queued for our passes to local hotels, and there I am now, waiting to go back to the airport for the replacement flight.

THE FMEA ANALYSIS AND POTENTIAL PREVENTATIVE MEASURES

1.  Getting to the station.  We do the journey into Cambridge on a daily basis, and although it can be slow, especially if it’s raining, we still manage to get home by a little after 9:00 am. However, there had been some roadworks the previous evening and if still there, they could have caused problems, which they did.  So probability high, severity medium but detection high had I thought about it!  I could have prevented the delay by listening to the radio before setting off or simply taking a different route from the start.
2. Getting to Heathrow.  Train problems are frequent!  So high probability, high severity, medium detection capability.  I checked the train live departure information on-line before setting off and everything was fine. Underground train performance is less predictable, however the information boards and announcements also indicated the Piccadilly line was running normally. I allowed an extra half-hour before the start of check-in, in effect 1 ½ hours before the close.
3. Getting onto the plane.  Not knowing about the ‘ESTA’ was pure negligence on my part.  Especially as my son had booked a trip to the US quite recently, and had said something about it which I’d not paid attention to.  A lesson in checking requirements before flying anywhere as a matter of course, even if I’ve flown there many times before.  Perhaps if I’d booked my own tickets I would have spotted this…
4. Flying to Boston.  I am sure there are statistics on the likelihood of something going wrong during a flight, though most of us probably would prefer not to know.  The severity will obviously vary depending on the nature of the problem.  Luckily the in-flight detection system worked.  The cost of this incident to the airline in accommodating us all in hotels and in arranging replacement flights is very high.  From a business point of view, and from their customers’ peace of mind, let us hope that they adopt a rigorous FMEA procedure of their own when preparing for each flight.

Closing thoughts

I hope you agree that this makes for an interesting FMEA case study.  I’ve certainly learnt some lessons from it.  I’ve gone on-line already to see if my ESTA is valied for today’s flight but can’t find it on the system – so will be going to the airline’s customer desk in good time to check on this and possibly re-do it.  Hopefully by this evening I will be in Boston.

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, enhancing team effectiveness through process improvement, knowledge and change management. Follow the links to find out about how Elisabeth Goodman and RiverRhee Consulting can help your team to work more effectively for greater productivity and improved team morale.

Read Elisabeth Goodman’s blog for more discussions on topics covered by this blog.