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How do you handle things when someone refuses to compromise and they harden their stance?
Our reader poll today asks: How do you handle things when someone refuses to compromise and they harden their stance? I work around them. They’re not changing, and I need to get things done 36.87% I offer more concessions to see if I can get them to move 4.58% I get other people to pressure them to change their stance 5.30% I accept their position and go work on more fruitful work 10.36% I try to empathize and understand their concerns so I can soften their stance 42.89% Avoid or Empathize? When faced with someone who refuses to compromise, it seems respondents choose one of two options – avoid the other person or empathize and try to change their position. For those of you whose first instinct is to avoid the person and work around them, consider trying to understand their position and soften it. There’s a reason they’re dug in. It might be a risk or an issue that you’re not considering and should be taken into account. If, however, they are clearly just being unreasonable and obstructionist, it’s probably time to move on and work around them. For those of you who do have a bias toward empathizing and trying to bring someone along, do decide when you’ll change approach and move forward rather than continue to delay your work. Sometimes all they’re doing is stalling for time and deliberately slowing you down. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
Defining High-Performance Culture
The metrics you use to define ‘high performance’ will drive your team members’ behaviors. Make sure your definition leads to the behaviors you want. To build a high-performance culture, you have to define what high performance is. What does high performance mean? How are you going to measure it? How much of your definition hinges on hard business metrics like sales, profitability, and growth, versus on qualitative metrics like morale, engagement, and customer satisfaction? The way you define and measure performance will dictate the practices you put in place to achieve it. If you define performance by hard business metrics, you’ll get behaviors focused on driving those metrics. That won’t always get you the outcome you want in terms of building a high-performance culture. The focus ends up being on driving the number. And that can come at the expense of building a great culture. If it’s defined by behaviors and soft metrics like engagement, retention, morale, and customer satisfaction, then you get those behaviors. The hard metrics like sales and profits should follow. Let’s look at a couple of examples of defining high performance.
Strengthening Thinking as a Mechanism to Building Resilience
The ability to manage and strengthen your thinking goes a long way toward making you more resilient and better able to deal with the daily challenges you face. Today’s post is by thougthtLEADERS principal Maureen Metcalf. During a time when we are facing natural disasters and geopolitical uncertainty, many of us are trying to find a balanced path to respond to what is happening on the global stage, national stage, local stage, and in our own personal lives. Who we are at our core can really shine through during times of challenge when we take care of ourselves first. This blog is a bit counter to cultural beliefs. Most of us were cautioned against selfishness. We were taught to believe that it connotes self-centeredness, and that anything “selfish” is wrong. Yet, having a sense of self and knowing when and how to care for yourself is the antithesis of being selfish. If we don’t care for ourselves, there is no way that we can care for others. I think of the inflight announcements on planes: “In the event of an emergency, please put your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” As leaders, we need to attend to our own resilience foundation so we can respond to our environment on a consistent basis in a manner that is consistent with our values. Let’s do a small exercise, think about a time you pushed yourself to meet a deadline. It may have meant you didn’t get sufficient sleep. You may have been caffeine-powered, or maybe augmented by your favorite sugar source. Can you recall a time you did this and responded to someone more harshly than usual? Did you need to do damage control later? We all have these moments of stress-related responses. The challenge for all of us, especially in an […]
How do you react when people don’t follow written instructions?
Our reader poll today asks: How do you react when people don’t follow written instructions? No big deal, unless it causes a major issue or possible safety/security risk 9.18% It irks me — it’s written down. But I don’t get too upset 30.57% I get frustrated. Why did I bother to write it down for them in the first place? 45.63% It makes me go nuts. It’s in black and white. They’re just being lazy 14.62% Read the instructions! 60% of you get frustrated and beyond when people don’t follow written instructions (and another 31% of you are irked by it). It’s a big problem because of the errors, confusion, and inefficiency it causes when people don’t read instructions. So what can you do about it? First, make sure any instructions you provide are bare bones and as simple as possible. Second, explain the consequences of not following instructions (e.g., safety issues, financial losses, etc. that can be tied directly to that particular task). Third, send the instructions far enough in advance – if your directions arrive late, you might be causing people to rush and make mistakes. Fourth, try providing instructions in different formats to see what works best (e.g., email, presentation, pamphlets, videos, audio file, etc.). Finally, be sure you read instructions given to you carefully – you need to set the example. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
Assessing Your Current Culture
One of the first steps you can take to create a high-performing culture is to assess what is and isn’t working in your current culture. An assessment of your current culture gives you an understanding of the starting point for your journey toward building a high performance culture. This assessment includes evaluating what your current culture stands for, how people behave, and the incentives you have in place to drive behavior. Defining and explaining your culture can be difficult. It’s an intangible set of behaviors and a general feeling of what it’s like to be part of the organization. Identifying when people are or are not behaving in a manner consistent with your culture is an important element of assessing the culture you have. Let’s look at what goes into one of these cultural assessments. You need to ask yourself several questions.
Four Ways to Become a Complete Leader
Stop beating yourself up for what you don’t do well—be a complete leader. Great leaders build processes that leverage their teammates’ strengths. Today’s guest post is by Xavier Naville, author of The Lettuce Diaries: How a Frenchman Found Gold Growing Vegetables in China (CLICK HERE to get your copy). The caller ID stated “Mike.” The phone was on the fourth ring. I held it in front of me, watching the screen, mouth dry, sitting at my desk, thinking, “Here it goes again. He’s going to speak Chinese and I won’t understand.” Creative Food, the vegetable-processing company I had started in China the year before, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Every project I initiated had failed. All the foreign experts I had hired had left. My operations were in such bad shape that my own customers, who included big fast-food chains like KFC and Pizza Hut asked my new recruits why they had come aboard a ship that was sure to sink. On that day, once I finally answered the phone, I had to ask Mike to repeat himself several times.
How well connected do you stay with people from your school years (high school, university, advanced degree)?
Our reader poll today asks: How well connected do you stay with people from your school years (high school, university, advanced degree)? Very: We’re in touch all the time 7.01% Somewhat: We’ll get together occasionally, but it’s sporadic 22.32% Not very: I’ll see them at a 5-year scheduled reunion interval 19.05% Not at all: I am totally out of touch with them 51.62% Missed connections. The vast majority of you hardly stay in touch with people from your school days (if at all). Consider these missed opportunities on a few levels. First, they’ve advanced their careers just like you have. They may be your next great employee, business partner, employer, or customer. These school relationships can quickly turn into business relationships because you already have a shared set of experiences and are somewhat known quantities to one another. They can also be powerful forces of social support. We all need friends to talk to, get support from, and support in return. Those relationships reduce stress and can boost enjoyment in life. There’s no shortage of ways to stay in touch (LinkedIn, Facebook, email, etc.). Reach out sometime. You might be surprised at how fulfilling those old relationships can be. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
Creating the Virtuous Circle
Knowing the behaviors you want from your team and how they link to results is one of the keys to creating a strong culture. Leaders who create a strong culture of outstanding performance will find that performance strengthens their culture. By strengthening the culture, the likelihood of better results and performance increases. This is known as a virtuous circle. You need to be careful though—the dynamic works in the opposite direction as well. Bad behavior begets bad performance, which leads to more bad behavior, and ultimately a bad culture. I know one senior executive who always used to ask people, “How much money have you made me today?” That simple question flowed through all the behaviors in the organization. Everyone focused on financials, but it was at the expense of creating a great culture. Let me share an example of how to build a virtuous circle.