The manager as coach: helping employees reach their potential

By Elisabeth Goodman, 5th September 2019

Illustration from Boyatzis et al, “Coaching for Change – how to help employees reach their potential”, HBR Sept-Oct 2019, pp. 151-155

Why this blog?

The ability to coach is an invaluable, if sometimes daunting, management skill, as well as something that I and my colleagues at RiverRhee offer to support our clients.  So I am starting a new series of blogs, under the main heading of “The manager as coach”, the first of which appeared recently as a LinkedIn post …”when a direct report is grieving”.

The article by Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith and Ellen Van Oosten in the latest issue of Harvard Business Review (Sept-Oct 2019) caught my eye.  This was partly because of the topic, partly because Boyatzis is also a co-author of the Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence that I so enjoyed reading in 2018-19. (See my blogs on this theme culminating in Inspirational leadership through the lens of emotional intelligence.)

As the authors of this article point out, we often get caught up in the minute details of problems or situations that people are dealing with.  It may be however that these issues are symptomatic of some bigger personal change that the individual wants to address.

This article provides guidance on how to spot the opportunity for coaching in this context, and how to go about supporting what Boyatzis defines as “intentional change” (see definition in the notes to this blog).

spot the opportunity

As with all activities involving change, it’s a question of finding the opening for making it happen: when an individual will be at their most receptive and energised for this.

The authors of the HBR article reinforce something that I wrote about in Defining a positive vision for change: people change either because they are moving away from something that is painful or uncomfortable, or because there is something positive, attractive or desirable that they want to move towards.

As the HBR authors say, it’s about spotting when people are ready “to grow” – in terms of what they are saying, or not saying, and their body language when you are observing or interacting with them.

I continue to really like the clean language question: “What would you like to have happen” as a prompt for discovering, and helping the individual to discover, what that opportunity for change might be.  It seems to be a great way to provide clarity when people are otherwise getting bogged down and maybe even overwhelmed by the problems they are dealing with.

Help to put the groundwork in place

There are lots of great tips in the HBR article for ways to help an individual articulate what they want to achieve, how the current situation relates to that, and what their next steps might be to bridge the gap.  This process is a variation on the GROW model, and on Appreciative Inquiry, that I’ve written about elsewhere.

Boyatzis et al emphasise the importance of creating a positive environment for this discussion: people will be much more open, receptive and ready to reflect and learn in such a situation.

Picture Coaching Cards – from Barefoot Coaching

I’ve been experimenting with Barefoot Coaching‘s beautiful picture cards as one way to do this.  I’ve found that the colourful nature of the picture cards and the way that they help people to step a little outside the intensity of personal reflection are really conducive to this.  Some of the pictures even result in expressions of joy or laughter!

(By the way, a visit to a museum shop is also a great source of colourful and diverse cards for this kind of activity.  I have a collection from the Fitzwilliam Museum including drawings by Quentin Blake that people also enjoy.)

The authors also talk about the importance of compassion.  It is about communicating your sincere interest in the individual, your empathy for their situation, your desire to help. This involves really good listening skills on the part of the manager or coach: total focus on the individual, and un-biased / non-suggestive open questions. The authors suggest that you let the individual do “at least 805 of the talking”!

Another key component of setting the groundwork is helping the individual create a compelling vision of what they want to achieve: how they see themselves ‘at their best’.

Finally, I like the authors’ point that “the learning agenda is not a performance improvement plan designed to address shortcomings”.  It is all about leaving people “energised and empowered to improve”.

provide follow-through support

To close, we know that any form of change requires time, effort and practice – it can be really challenging.  So the manager or coach needs to be there, to check-in periodically, to encourage and provide support as needed.  What form this will take is something to agree with the individual, and to keep under review as appropriate.

I like the HBR article authors’ idea of the individual creating a peer support network, or “compassionate catalysts”.  As one of their case study leaders  (Karen Milley – R&D Head at a large consumer goods company) says: “I’m seeing that compassion with each other leads to compassion with customers, constituents, and all others, which creates performance.”

This is something that we try to create through “Action Learning Groups” in RiverRhee’s training for managers – where the delegates form groups to support each others with their learning and forward plans, both during and potential following the course.

RiverRhee delivers training, workshops and one-to-one coaching in range of management and team member skills

The authors’ final point: “If you’re a manager, your most important job is to help those around you reach their greatest potential.”  I agree.

Notes

To quote the article, “intentional change involves envisioning ..who you wish to be and what you want to do..; exploring [the current gaps and strengths that might help you to get there]; developing a learning agenda (a road map for turning aspirations into reality); and then experimenting and practicing (with new behaviors and roles).”

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We support our clients through courses, workshops and personal one-to-one coaching.)  Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  RiverRhee is a member-to-member training provider for One Nucleus. 

Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. She is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals) and of APM (Association for Project Management) in which she was a founding member of the Enabling Change SIG.

Aligning expectations will help to reduce misunderstandings and conflict

By Elisabeth Goodman, 16th July 2018

If we don’t know what is expected of us, it can be hard to deliver it!

No matter how informal the management practices may be in your organisation, there will come a point when someone will query what it is that you are there to do and whether you have delivered it.  That someone might be you, in a conversation with your line or project manager, or your line or project manager in a conversation with you!

We work with fast-growing Biotechs, and also with more Library and Information groups in more established organisations.  The formality of their management practices varies enormously in both, but discussions invariably arise which reflect some lack of clarity about expected roles.

Such lack of clarity might result in:

1. Expected tasks not being completed, or not being completed on time
2. Unnecessary work being done on tasks that are not required
3. Lack of recognition of work that exceeds what would otherwise be expected of someone
4. Stress for and conflict amongst any of the parties involved

There are a number of tools available to help manage expectations

Aligning expectations will help to reduce misunderstandings and conflict. Slides from RiverRhee’s courses for those who are new to management.

Job descriptions define baseline expectations for roles and responsibilities

Job descriptions used to be a standard tool in organisations to define the expectations of someone’s role at work.  They are still generally used as the basis for recruitment, but are not always maintained as a reference point for ongoing roles.  So it’s not unusual for delegates on our courses not to have a job description, or for it to be out-of-date or not specific to their role.

Those with an HR role in small Biotechs often struggle with having the time or expertise to document all the roles in an organisation – so we often suggest that individuals and/or their managers have a go at drafting their job descriptions.   Those without job descriptions in larger organisations could also consider doing this.

Even a draft job description can act as a starting point for agreeing expectations.

Objectives document and facilitate discussions about more transient responsibilities

Again, the organisations that we work with have variable practices around objective setting.  Done well, they can be used for managing shifting expectations during the course of a year.

Whereas job descriptions define broad areas of responsibility for an individual, objectives reflect new areas of activity, opportunities for improvement, and more transient responsibilities that may come and go.

So, for example, a scientist with responsibilities in a particular therapeutic area, or for particular types of assays, may have an objective to investigate the feasibility of moving into a new therapeutic area, to develop new or improved assays or to develop relationships with a new client

Similarly, an information scientist with responsibility for supporting a particular customer group may have an objective to identify good practices for extension to another customer group, or to develop a new type or product or service.

How objectives are defined will vary from one organisation to another, but some form of the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) acronym is commonly adopted.

Whilst setting objectives can be challenging, as they generally evolve over the year, not documenting them will create even more challenges in terms of meaningful discussions about expectations and what has been achieved.

Project charters ensure that individuals, their line managers and project managers are all aligned on expectations

This RiverRhee newsletter (A second look at Project Management), also referenced the use of project charters.  Such charters can take a variety of forms, but the key is to include unambiguous details of who is expected to do what, and by when.

Again, these details are likely to change over the course of the project, but they act as an agreed starting point to facilitate conversations amongst all those involved.

Notes

This is the second blog in a series that will be covering all the different modules of RiverRhee’s management courses, in the run down to our next courses in September 2018. (You can read the first blog – Management is about more than just getting the job done! here…)

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

Keep an eye on RiverRhee’s website for details of our upcoming courses for managers and teams.

About the author

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We support our clients through courses, workshops and personal one-to-one coaching.)  Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals). Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) in which she was a founding member of the Enabling Change SIG.

Management is about more than just getting the job done!

By Elisabeth Goodman, 28th June 2018

Management is about more than just getting the job done!  Opening slide from RiverRhee’s courses for those who are new to management.

A manager’s responsibilities involve balancing the individual, the team and the task

A manager’s responsibilities cover so much more than just getting the job done!  For scientists, information professionals and others who are new to management, this can be one of the most daunting aspects of making that transition.

As John Adair’s Action-Centred Leadership model so aptly demonstrates, a manager’s responsibilities involve giving the right attention, and finding the right balance between getting the job done, and the people aspects of their role.

I remember one of my own managers telling me that as much as 80% of what we managers need to do is about the people, and only 20% is about the task!  If we don’t look after the individuals in our teams, and the dynamics between them, then we will never be able to get the task done.

Delegates at the June 2016 RiverRhee Introduction to Management course

That can be very daunting for scientists, information professionals and others who have up till now focused on their technical expertise and on executing their tasks as proficiently as they can.   It is certainly something that I remember very well from my early days as a manager!

 

developing the individual

“People are messy” and there are no set ways for how we manage them.  As new managers, we will find ourselves focusing more on understanding the individuals for whom we are responsible:

• what motivates them
• how to provide constructive feedback
• working out what authority we actually have – especially if we are managing people who were recently our peers
• how to delegate
• how to generally help those who report to us be the best that they can be

Building the team

And, as new managers, we will be grappling with how to ensure that the members of our teams are working well together:

• making good use of their diverse strengths
• being productive, innovative, continuously improving the quality of their work
• and how to deal with the conflicts that will almost inevitably arise

resources for the new manager

Luckily there are lots of resources available to those making the transition to a new management role.  We can learn from books, online resources, talking to and observing others, and reflecting on our own experiences of managers we have known.  And there are courses available too…

This blog is the first of a series that will be covering all the different modules of RiverRhee’s management courses, in the run down to our next courses in September 2018.

 

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

Keep an eye on RiverRhee’s website for details of our upcoming courses for managers and teams.

NOTES

About the author. Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We support our clients through courses, workshops and personal one-to-one coaching.)  Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals). Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) in which she was a founding member of the Enabling Change SIG.

Conflict is “the lifeblood of high performing organisations”

By Elisabeth Goodman, 28th April 2018

I’ve just been reading booklet number 10: Conflict Management, in the “Building Blocks of Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman et al.

The authors have some powerful insights on the benefits of conflict and how to address or facilitate it constructively, both as an individual participant, and as a team leader.

The benefits of conflict

George Kolrieser is the originator of the quote in the title of this blog: conflict is the “lifeblood of high performing organisations”.

He and Amy Gallo give a great overview of the benefits that conflict can bring to groups as well as to individuals.  Their views are a confirmation of why “storming” is such a vital step in the stages of team development.

Stages of team development, adapted from Tuckman

Conflict is the result of the discussions and disagreements that arise from diverse points of view.

For a group, when conflict is handled effectively, people will have the courage to speak up, take risks and listen to and consider other’s perspectives.  In such a climate, conflict will generate energy, creativity, change, improved performance, innovation and a more strongly bonded team.

For individuals who accept conflict as something positive, it will give them:

• better results – because they are considering others’ viewpoints
• learning and development – through self-reflection on their reactions to conflict as well as understanding of others’
• improved relationships – through being open to conflict, and the strength they gain each time they respond positively to it
• job satisfaction – through not feeling worried or stressed about conflict at work

“Put the fish on the table”

This metaphor is also supplied by George Kolrieser.  It comes from Sicily, where fishermen will lay their catch out on a table and deal with all the messy preparation of it together. (The opposite metaphor would be to let the fish rot under the table.)

“Put the fish on the table” – photo from http://galenf.com/Sicily/catania160.jpg

In this situation, as George Kolrieser describes, the people involved are openly raising and discussing the issues involved.  They are seeking a win:win resolution, without aggression or hostility.

This approach to conflict resolution is founded on achieving a common goal, or, as Richard Boyatzis puts it, an “overarching objective”.

The people involved are able to feel and demonstrate respect for each other – although they don’t have to like each other!

How individuals can address conflict

The following approach is my take on those described in the booklet by Amy Gallo, George Pitagorsky and Matthew Lippincott.

1. Be self-aware.  This is about taking time to assess how you are feeling: your emotional response to the situation; stepping-back.
2. Adjust your mindset. Considering the conflict as an opportunity rather than a problem; one where you can help others as well as yourself.
3. Consider the other’s perspectives.  Show your interest in what they have to say; ask diplomatic questions; empathise; treat it as a learning opportunity.  Be aware that the organisational context may have some bearing on their perspective.
4. Prepare your response.  Think about what the common goal might be.  Choose an appropriate time and place to have the discussion.
5. Achieve closure.  Make sure that both parties reach agreement on a decision and on the resultant action, and that they follow-through.

Amy Gallo has some additional useful tips on how an individual can help themselves by unloading their emotions before having a discussion – perhaps with a ‘neutral’ third party.  They can also practise the discussion with a third party.  And of course it’s important to know when to take time out to deal with your emotions and calm down.

How leaders can facilitate conflict resolution

George Kolrieser’s “secure base leadership” concept is about providing individuals with both a safe and challenging environment to work within.  This applies to how they help their team members deal with conflict, as well as to day-to-day management.

RiverRhee includes modules on dealing with difficult people and situations, and on emotional intelligence in our training for leaders, managers and teams

Leaders can create a climate for positive conflict by:

1. Positively promoting the differences within the team
2. Helping people to get to know each other in a deeper way (which is why face-to-face team building activities are so valuable)
3. Encouraging and supporting people to speak up
4. Personally accepting conflict, risk-taking and failure as promoters of growth

They can facilitate discussions to deal with conflict by:

1. Recognising when conflict is happening, and acting on it early
2. Learning to put their own emotions aside (keeping their emotions “under wraps”)
3. Tuning in to what the individuals are experiencing emotionally, their ideas and perspectives
4. Facilitating the conversation – using all the strategies described for the individual in the section above

Conclusion

Dealing with conflict is not easy!  So much of it is learning to separate automatic emotional responses from the issues involved.  Those issues may be to do with the relationship of the ‘protagonists’ and/or with a particular topic.

However, like just about anything in life, the more we learn to deal with conflict, the more we will learn about ourselves and others, and the better we will get at reaping the associated benefits!

And sometimes… it may just be about choosing the battles we want to fight, as well as when and how to do so…

Notes

About the author. Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We support our clients through courses, workshops and personal one-to-one coaching.)  Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals). Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) in which she was a founding member of the Enabling Change SIG.

Telling stories at work

By Elisabeth Goodman, 4th October 2017

Why tell stories at work?

I first heard about the power of using stories at work, in the context of sharing knowledge and building learning and understanding, in the 1990s.

Stories are a powerful way to share knowledge and build learning and understanding.

David Snowden, who was then a Director at the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, was a chief exponent of the use of narrative to convey complex messages.  (Snowden’s work has since evolved, and there is an informative and somewhat entertaining account of David Snowden on David Gurteen’s website.  Gurteen is himself somewhat of a guru of Knowledge Management.)

what makes stories so powerful?

Paul McGee tells us why stories are so powerful in his article “The power of telling stories” for the April 2017 issue of the Training Journal.  He reminds us that we have been using stories since the cave paintings 20,000 years ago, and we continue to engage with stories through books, TV programmes, film and in our day-to-day conversations.

And the reason, he tells us, why good stories are so engaging, is that they activate every part of the brain.  Not only the language processing parts, but every other part of the brain.  The more sensory and action words we include: how things look, smell, feel, and the actions involved – the more we engage the parts of the brain that would be activated if the listener was actually experiencing the event themselves.  They don’t actually need to be experiencing it for this to happen..

The result of telling a good story in this way is that it engages the emotions as well as the intellect.  Emotions make a story more memorable, more inspiring, and so are more likely to lead to commitment and to action.

When and How to tell a good story?

1.  Choose your opportunity and your topic

Stories can be shared about just about anything – but they do need to have a point to be effective!

Here are some situations I can think of – and that I have experimented with in my work with RiverRhee:

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

In a one-to-one mentoring or coaching situation to give a verbal example of how to do something, or not to do something based on your own experience of doing so.

In a training course or workshop, to convey some key principles, a framework or a methodology.

During a presentation, to get people’s attention and/or to illustrate some key points that you want to get across

2.  Think of a main character or characters, an event, and an outcome

As McGee says, in the Training Journal article, artistic licence is fine.  The story does not have to be true, although you might find it easier to create it, and to be convincing, if it has some basis on reality.

Christopher Booker, in “The Seven Basic Plots” (Bloomsbury, 2014), argues that these different plots (including comedy, tragedy, quests, rags to riches, encounters with monsters, voyages, rebirths) actually resolve themselves into some basic common denominators.

So, as he says, a typical story unfolds as follows: “once upon a time there was such and such a person, living in such and such a place… then, one day, something happened”.  That happening leads the main character (hero or heroine) into some experience that changes their lives.  There is conflict and uncertainty.  Ultimately there is some form of resolution.

One of my most powerful stories of this type illustrates how people can react to changes that they initially perceive as positive.  The words used in the change curve below mirror, to some extent, those for Booker’s story plot above.

Positive change curve – from “The Effective Team’s Change Management Workbook”, RIverRhee Publishing, 2013

Although I can’t share the details of the change here, it was a family event that we had instigated, thinking that it was the right thing to do (uninformed certainty).  No sooner had we initiated it, than I literally felt like I had gone cold with shock (informed doubt!).  We persevered for a while, but eventually realised that the solution was not going to be as easy as we had thought, and that we had to start exploring other options (realistic concern).  Eventually we did find a way forward and are in a much better place (emotionally and intellectually!) now (informed certainty).

3.  Add some sensory detail – and try some metaphors

I learnt, in my NLP Practitioner training, about the wide range of words we can use when we talk to bring our own experiences alive, and to communicate more effectively with others.  We use some of these words automatically when we speak, and often neglect the wide array available to us.

So if we deliberately think about appealing to all of our senses, the results would be something like this:

1. For visual language use: see, look, picture, blue, yellow, light, bright, dark, transparent etc.
2. For auditory language use: hear, sound, loud, quiet, clank, click, tinkle, shrill etc.
3. For kinesthetic language use: touch, feel, damp, dry, wet, sharp, hot, cold etc.
4. For auditory digital (inner dialogue, or self-talk – this is more language based) use: understand, think, explain, process etc.

In fact, in our NLP course, we also used the power of metaphors as an aid to communication: telling a story that does not even have to directly mention the principle or method that you are trying to get across.  People draw their own inferences from the story – and the fact that they have to ‘work it out’ can make the final message even more powerful.

It can take a little courage to trust your audience to make the right inferences, and I generally err on the side of telling them – as with the ‘urban myth’ I use for explaining the importance of finding root causes to address sources of waste in Lean and Six Sigma and process improvement!

when and how will you try out stories at work?

As McGee suggests in his article, and as my own experiences show, it takes some courage to have a go with story-telling, to share perhaps personal stories, and to embellish the stories with sensory detail.

Choose a situation to begin: a one-to-one conversation, a course or workshop, a presentation.

Develop a story that you are comfortable with.

Write a list of prompts to remind you of the key points.

Test it out on a friendly audience.    Rehearse.

Remember the very long tried and tested history we have of the effectiveness of stories.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We support our clients through courses, workshops and personal one-to-one coaching.) Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  

RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals).

Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. 

She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) where she was a founding member of the Enabling Change SIG.

 

 

 

 

Motivation – a refresher..eight years on..

By Elisabeth Goodman, 28th July 2017

Motivation – a refresher

Eight years ago, in July 2009, Dan Pink gave an impassioned TED talk on “The puzzle of motivation”.  It was a rallying call to business to stop using a scientifically proven outmoded method for incentivising high performance – the “carrot and stick”, “if…then”, “extrinsic reward” model.  The concept is that: if you pay people more, they will perform better!  He argued that it does not work, and yet we are still using it!

Dan Pink – The puzzle of motivation. 2009 TED talk 

More recently, the June issue of The Training Journal, carried an article by Pierre Casse and Artem Konstandian on “The art of motivating”.  They state that “The ability to motivate is the beating heart of powerful, effective leadership.”

As motivation is one of the most popular topics in my management training courses with RiverRhee, this seemed like a perfect moment for a refresher on the topic.

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivators

Dan Pink used two different scenarios for the candle problem to illustrate how paying people more (an extrinsic motivator) does not necessarily lead to better performance.

In the first scenario, candidates are given a candle, matches, and a box filled with drawing pins.  As the solution to the problem is to use the box, solving it requires, quite literally, “out of the box” thinking: cognitive skills.

 

In the second scenario, the drawing pins have been taken out of the box, so using it is a lot more obvious.  The task is more mechanistic: a simple question of using the materials as they have been laid out to solve the problem.

Offering money as an extrinsic motivator for solving the problem more quickly proves more effective in the second, more mechanistic scenario, than in the first, more cognitive one.

Dan Pink reminds us that most of the work that we do, in science, in business, in service organisations, requires more cognitive skills.  Once people have been paid enough to take this issue ‘off the table’, then paying people more has been shown to lead to poorer performance!  It dulls thinking and blocks creativity. And yet we keep on using this ‘carrot and stick’ extrinsic reward model to incentivise people.

The intrinsic motivators that Dan Pink describes so graphically, here and elsewhere, are those of autonomy, mastery and purpose.  People are motivated to do things “because they matter”.  They can direct their own work, can get better at what they do, and are doing something for a reason that is greater than themselves.

To what extent can, and do organisations provide the environment for people to tap into these intrinsic motivators?

Which brings me to the second key message for this refresher on motivation…

“One does not motivate people, people motivate themselves”

Pierre Casse and Artem Konstandian’s article in The Training Journal emphasises the role of leaders in creating the environment in which people can motivate themselves.

They suggest that leaders can create this environment in a number of ways, for instance by:

• Making the reason why they require people to perform at a certain level: “what’s in it for me (or them)”
• Highlighting what level of performance is expected
• Providing the right amount and medium for recognition
• Showing that they genuinely care about and are sensitive to their team members’ personal lives.  (Empathy is a theme I’ve explored before..)

They also put a big emphasis on trust as a motivator.  Leaders build trust through their behaviour: humility rather than egocentricity, acknowledging their mistakes and turning them into opportunities, standing up for their team, creating a pride in belonging.

Although Casse and Konstandian do not mention Pink’s intrinsic motivators (autonomy, mastery, purpose) by name, they are certainly implied by their call to leaders to give employees the space and conditions to develop and be at their best.

What are you and your leaders doing to promote trust, and to create the space and conditions for people to motivate themselves?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We use training, facilitation, coaching, mentoring and consulting in our work with our clients.) Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  

RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals).

Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. 

She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) where she was a founding member of the Enabling Change SIG.

Oxytocin, trust, motivation and employee engagement

By Elisabeth Goodman, 9th March 2017

Introduction and a caveat

There seems to be a real wave of articles and seminars on the relationship between various hormones, mental health, and our performance at work.

I am definitely not an expert in this field, although I did complete a Biochemistry degree some years ago, and have kept generally in touch through my work in and with Life Science organisations.  I would certainly invite those who are more knowledge than me to clarify any aspects of the following article that might benefit from their greater expertise.

The Neuroscience of Trust. Jan-Feb 2017 HBR article by Paul Zak

That said, there is an impressive amount of research (see notes) behind Paul Zak’s article on “The Neuroscience of Trust” in the Jan-Feb 2017 issue of Harvard Business Review, pp. 84-90.  And the conclusions echo many points that we have come across and make in our training for managers and teams.

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

His conclusions echo many points that we have come across and make in our training for managers and teams.

oxytocin and trust or motivation?

Zak’s research has established that certain behaviours can increase the level of oxytocin, and that there is a clear link between this increase and trust.

He describes the following behaviours – some of which could arguably be ways to increase motivation rather than trust.  Although the end-result of increased productivity, collaboration, higher energy, happiness, loyalty and engagement could be the same (more on this below).

1. Recognition (of excellence).  We know that recognition for having done good work can be a strong motivator for people.  Zak claims that this will be most effective if it’s immediate, from peers, is unexpected, personal and public.  My experience is that some people would be very uncomfortable with this form of recognition and would prefer something more low-key.
2. Introducing a “challenge” stress. This is a stretch but achievable goal for a team.  Again, different people may respond to the perceived level of challenge in different ways.
3. Give people discretion in how they do things. This echoes the point made by Dan Pink in “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” about how motivating autonomy can be, resulting in important increases in innovation.  Micro-management is the flip side of this.
4. Enable “job crafting” – giving people a choice of what projects they work on.  This also sounds a bit like “holocracy”: organisations that self-organise, rather that using traditional hierarchical structures.  I read about how the Morning Star tomato company was successfully adopting this approach in a December 2011 HBR article.
5. Sharing information broadly. We  know that people can perform more effectively if they understand the purpose of what they are doing.  Open and frequent communication also help people when dealing with change. So the same goes for information about company goals, strategy, tactics.  Lack of information will certainly be counter-productive to creating trust.
6. Intentionally build relationships.  High performing teams are typically those where there is a good balance of attention to relationships as well as tasks.  And for some people, it is the social interaction at work that is a great motivator for them to be there.
7. Facilitate whole person growth.  Good managers will pay attention to the personal as well as the professional goals of their direct reports.  They will do that through coaching, mentoring and constructive feedback.
8. Show vulnerability as a leader.  This seems to me one of the most powerful ways to demonstrate and promote trust, albeit within certain boundaries.  Good leaders will have direct reports whose strengths complement theirs – be it in areas of expertise, or in softer management skills.  They can give people the space and the opportunity to demonstrate these strengths, by asking rather than telling them about aspects of their work.

The positive effect of trust on self-reported work performance

Zak concludes his article by citing that greater trust has been found to increase:

• energy
• engagement
• productivity
• loyalty
• recommendations of the company to family and friends
• alignment with company purpose
• closeness to colleagues
• empathy
• a sense of accomplishment

and to decrease burnout.

He also found that people working in companies with greater trust earn more – possibly because these companies are more productive and innovative…

So, however the neuroscience works, this certainly seems like a topic worth paying attention to!

Notes

1. Paul Zak is the founding director of the Centre for Neuroeconomic , Studies, Professor of economics, psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University.  He and his team measured the oxytocin levels of blood in volunteers before and after they completed a strategic decision task designed to demonstrate trust.  They also administered synthetic oxytocin or a placebo in a nasal spray to prove that oxytocin causes trust.  They carried out further studies over 10 years to identify promoters and inhibitors of oxytocin, and created and used a survey instrument in several thousands of companies to measure the constituent factors of trust.  In addition, they gathered evidence from a dozen companies that had taken action to increase trust, measured brain activity in two companies where trust varied by department, and referenced an independent firm’s survey of about one thousand working adults in the US.
2. Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting., a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We use training, facilitation, coaching, mentoring and consulting in our work with our clients.)Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  

   RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals).

   Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner.  

   She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) where she leads on Membership, Communications and Events for the Enabling Change SIG committee.

What to do when the difficult person is your boss

By Elisabeth Goodman, 19th December 2016

My Associates and I at RiverRhee have a module that we explore with managers on dealing with difficult situations.  It is also something that can crop up in our one-to-one coaching.  Our delegates often have examples of situations that they have encountered with colleagues that they would like help with how to address.  Those colleagues are often peers or direct reports, occasionally they are their own bosses.

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

So it was with interest that I read Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries’ article in December’s Harvard Business Review, “Do you hate your boss?” (pp.98-100).  The article is based on his work as a researcher, management coach and psychoanalyst, and includes some illustrative case studies.

People leave their boss rather than their job

Kets de Vries started by quoting some statistics that confirm the common maxim that people leave their boss rather than their job.  He stated that 77% of people in a Gallup survey said that they were engaged with their work and had positive interactions with their manager. Only 23% of those who were not engaged with their work had the same degree of positivity.

“Is it me”? Consider your own behaviour first

It was good to read Kets de Vries echo some of our guidelines: to consider whether it might be your own behaviour, rather than your boss’s, that is contributing to the difficult situation. He suggested that you reflect on the feedback that your boss has given you about your work to see if addressing that might make a difference.  Asking colleagues about and observing positive ways in which they interact with your boss, and asking them for feedback on your own behaviour could also help.  Asking your boss directly for ways that you could be even more effective in your work is an additional option.

Empathy is a great aid for achieving mutual understanding and rapport

I liked Ket de Vries’s suggestion that you should use empathy to put yourself in your boss’s shoes.  This could help you to understand what pressures your boss might be under, and how this in turn may be affecting their behaviour towards you.  After all we are all subject to stresses and strains, and we can’t always put them to one side.  An open question during an informal occasion: travelling together, over dinner, etc. may provide just the opportunity to show interest in what your boss is currently dealing with and so pave the way for a more positive relationship.

Of course you could seek a more direct way to open the discussion about how the two of you are or are not getting on, but the situation may have become too difficult to do so.

Waiting for an opportune moment to have a non-confrontational ‘debrief’

So, if neither of the above non-confrontational routes work, then Ket de Vries suggests waiting for an opportunity where you have worked with your boss on a project, or with a client, and perhaps things have not gone to plan, may lend itself to an ‘after action review’ style discussion.  You could suggest that the two of you take some time together to reflect on what happened, and on what you could both have done differently.  Again, this can be handled in a non-confrontational way.

Last resorts..

Ket de Vries’s final two options are to either organise a formal protest to HR, with the support of your colleagues.  Be careful to have facts and data to support you! Or you could start looking for your next job.  The author suggests that waiting for things to get better is only recommended if you give yourself a timeframe for that, rather than waiting indefinitely.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We use training, facilitation, coaching, mentoring and consulting in our work with our clients.)

Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  

RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals).

Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner.  

She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) where she leads on Membership, Communications and Events for the Enabling Change SIG committee.

Performance reviews – kill them or keep them?

By Elisabeth Goodman and Liz Mercer, 6th December 2016

The idea of starting our own ‘Journal Club’ cropped up recently during a demonstration of the GROW coaching model on one of RiverRhee’s Introduction to Management course.  Both of us are keen to keep up with our professional reading and so pick up and feed ideas more effectively into the training and coaching that we provide to our clients.

Goler, Gale and Grant’s Harvard Business Review (HBR) article “Let’s not kill performance evaluations yet” (November 2016 pp.91-94) seemed a fitting topic to start with as it’s one that we cover in our course, and has also been very much to the fore recently in our in-house training for clients.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that this HBR article is written from a US perspective and may not be reflective of the situation elsewhere.  It is also a case study of Facebook’s approach where Goler and Gale work.  Dale is a professor at Wharton and also a consultant to Facebook.  That said, there are some good, thought provoking ideas relevant to any organisation that employs people! And many organisations we’ve worked with have considered the same opportunities and challenges.

Performance evaluations, performance reviews, appraisals – what’s the difference?

The terms seem to be used somewhat interchangeably.  The article seems to focus on the use of performance ratings or scores as an integral part of performance evaluations.  We have mainly seen or heard the terms performance reviews and appraisals used interchangeably in the UK – and tend to use the former, as in the title for this blog.

Arguments for killing or keeping performance reviews

Goler et al have found that some organisations are stopping the formal performance reviews altogether, because the assignment of ratings is often biased, and the annual cycle means that employees don’t get feedback often or soon enough.

However, as the authors point out, ratings will still be assigned by management behind the scenes as a way of making decisions about pay and promotion. They suggest that the mechanism for assigning ratings should be transparent.

They also argue that something is better than nothing: people want to have feedback on their performance and discuss their development goals.  They quote Daniel Kahneman’s findings that even bad news about performance is better than no news – it gives people the certainty that they need to adjust their perspective and take action.

Some of the organisations that Goler et al have come across are switching to real-time feedback systems.  However, they suggest that an annual review is a useful way of formalising the process – allowing proper time for consideration and reflection.

Our experience of performance reviews in the UK

Click here for information on RiverRhee’s training, workshops and coaching for managers and teams

All the companies that we have come across are using some form of performance reviews.  Our experience is that some of them are:

• Taking the rating piece out of the performance review discussion, so as to allow a more open discussion – however that does mean there is less transparency about how pay and promotion decisions are made.
• Supplementing the formal annual review with quarterly or twice yearly reviews.  Something that is particularly important for many of the Life Science organisations that we work with, as the unexpectedness and uncertainty of science can make it important to review and adapt objectives on an on-going basis.
• Ensuring that direct reports have regular one-to-one discussions with their managers to discuss feedback in a timely way

How Facebook is taking performance evaluations a step further

Facebook has adopted some interesting approaches to their performance evaluations.

1. Peers write evaluations, share them with their managers, and, in most cases, one another.  This supports openness and transparency.
2. Managers then discuss their reports in a face-to-face meeting, championing and defending.  This reduces the risk of personal bias.
3. Managers then write the performance review documents – which are examined by a team of analysts to remove bias.
4. Ratings are translated into compensation using a pre-defined formula.

In addition:

1. They set stretch goals, with a 50:50 chance of success, as they believe it is more motivating for people to have something high to aim for.  They suggest that people want to find out and know what they can and can’t achieve.
2. Senior leaders share the feedback from their own performance evaluations, normalising the fact that they too can sometimes fall short of targets.
3. There is a general acceptance that people will not get the same performance ratings from one year to the next.

What we would like to see adopted more widely by organisations

We don’t have a solution yet on whether ratings should be shared as part of the performance review discussion.  We can see arguments either way.  However we do think that:

1. How ratings are determined should be transparent.
2. There is definitely value in senior managers having a face-to-face discussion about all the performance reviews of their managers’ direct reports, for the reasons described by Facebook.  We know one company in the UK that does this both before and after the performance review discussions.
3. More effort should be made to collect feedback from other managers or peers that individuals work with, especially in matrix organisations where they may report to both line and project managers.
4. Performance discussions should be a continuous process, throughout the year – a shared conversation and based on a growth mindset.

And we do believe that some form of annual review process should be retained, for all the reasons given above!

About the authors

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We use training, facilitation, coaching, mentoring and consulting in our work with our clients.)

Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  

RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals).

Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner.  

She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) where she leads on Membership, Communications and Events for the Enabling Change SIG committee.

Liz Mercer is an Associate with RiverRhee Consulting.  She is a Human Resources professional, with 30 years experience, mainly in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech and understands the challenges of leadership, management and team development.  Liz also runs her own business providing training, facilitation and coaching, for individuals and teams: with a particular interest in the challenges for virtual team leaders. She has a Masters in Organisational Behaviour, is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, is accredited in MBTI and has a certificate in Coaching.

 

Super Conscious Thinking: 5 Steps to Access Your Genius

A view of the winter garden at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire

Guest blog by Anne Scott, 24th October 2016

why this blog?

Editorial note by Elisabeth Goodman

I met Anne Scott through David Gurteen’s Knowledge Café and was attracted by her alternative approach to coaching individuals.  As readers of my blog will know, a lot of my work with RiverRhee focuses on introducing tools and ways of thinking to help managers and teams tackle the challenges that they encounter in their day-to-day work.  We do this in our training courses, workshops and one-to-one coaching.

Anne seems to have something quite original to bring to this mix, so I asked her to write a blog that would provide some insights on her approach.

an intuitive consciousness is available to all of us

It was Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind who said the “The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathisers, pattern recognisers, and meaning makers.”

The only thing we can be certain of is change. Whether we are living in a time of more or less change is immaterial what is important is that we can be comfortable with it, work with it and ultimately welcome it. When we do this we make connections that haven’t been made before and these connections facilitate us to bring something new into being. Then we become one of the ‘different kind’ of people who belong to the future because we have created it.

We are led to believe that genius belongs to an elite. That people like Steve Jobs (1) or Elon Musk (2) are one-offs: that what they do and how they do it is not repeatable but it was Jobs that said “I began to realise that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis.” (3)

Whether we believe it or not this kind of consciousness is available to all of us and whether we like it or not it does influence our lives. It is the quiet voice that we hear in meditation, when we choose to be mindful or perhaps unexpectedly when we spontaneously disengage from the cacophony of life. This is the voice of true intuition – what the mind apprehends before rationalising. A voice that we oft times ignore but in hindsight realise it’s truth.

Click here for more information on RiverRhee’s training and support for managers and teams

We can all become super conscious thinkers

We all have the faculty and capability to become super conscious thinkers. My invitation to you is to cultivate a super conscious connection to proactively access your own well of unique potential. To embody super conscious thinking cultivate a daily practise. Meditation is the process but the end result is wisdom. Start with 5-10 mins in the morning, somewhere quiet where you can be comfortable and preferably close your eyes. Here are some easy guidelines to follow:

1. Be curious: you don’t have to believe or know to check out what super conscious thinking is about. There is no condition that precludes you from being able to access your genius. Consider what if……what if you were a genius and a super conscious thinker what would life be like then?

2. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings: your thoughts and feelings do exist but they are not a reflection of true reality. They are a reflection of your past experience, your fears, your doubts, a reflection of the world as you learnt to see it. Remember the quiet voice I talked about earlier – well thoughts and feelings are what drown out the quiet voice. Acknowledging them turns down the sound.

3. Choose yourself: this time IS about you, about accessing your gifts, your talents and ultimately finding out what is important to you. It is NOT about planning your day, working out the logistics of your home life or solving the problems of the world.

4. Let go of the need to know: Nothing has to make sense or to be worked out. That is for later on in your day!

5. Connect with your genius: imagine a golden circle or if you are not visual just know it is there and choose to step into it. Remember the first thing that your mind apprehends is the gold nugget of the super conscious thinker. Be with that, you don’t need to know what it is or what it means. Ask yourself what it feels like to be here in your genius. Choose that emotion for the day.

What you will discover

You will discover that super conscious thinking doesn’t just put you in touch with your deepest self but – and this might seem a bit out there – like a sci-fi version of the internet it will connect you to all that is, in a place beyond the space time continuum. From here it is possible to create what really matters to you because you are guided by the engine room of your soul.

References

1. Steve Jobs best known for Apple and Pixar believed in selling dreams and was continually reinventing himself and his company until his death in October 2011

2. Elon Musk founder of SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity was initially ridiculed for his radical ideas for the space, car and solar energy industries. He continues to push the boundaries with his ideas for a Hyperloop transport system between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and for his ultimate dream of colonising Mars

3. In the authorised biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

About the author

Anne is an experienced innovation and technology professional with over 30 years experience. A hallmark of her experience is the early adoption of new technologies such as hand held computers for revenue collection, the first paperless office in the UK and workflow systems for offshore business process outsourcing. Involved in a number of global projects Anne had to lead virtual teams from a variety of vendors challenged by time zone, language and cultural differences. She was compelled to find tools to bring the best of diverse contributions and talents to together and she learnt about the subtle power of coaching to create synergy. Anne now refers to this as the ‘Technology of Superconscious Thinking’ and has evolved a way of bring all her experience together to create end results that can often appear to be impossible. She works with a number of private clients in the UK, US, Singapore and Australia making personal and career transitions and with companies who are willing to innovate and commit to the potential of people in their organisations.

For more information on how to create super consciously email your details to anne@crossingfrontiers.co.uk and Anne will get back to you for a 15 min consultation on how the technology of super consciousness can be applied for you personally or your business.

About the editor

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that specialises in “creating exceptional managers and teams”, with a focus on the Life Sciences. (We use training, facilitation, coaching, mentoring and consulting in our work with our clients.)

Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting in 2009, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  

RiverRhee is a support supplier for One Nucleus, a quality assured training provider with Cogent Skills and a CPD provider for CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals).

Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in Belbin Team Roles, MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner.  

She is a member of CILIP and of APM (Association for Project Management) where she leads on Membership, Communications and Events for the Enabling Change SIG committee.