“Working with Eric was a pleasure. We developed a good rapport and established a level of honesty and trust. I valued his counsel and recommendations. I find Eric to be very competent in a variety of disciplines. He is able to correctly diagnose organizational problems and suggest solutions that are on point. I found Eric to be a professional with the highest levels of honesty, integrity, and ethical behavior. I would not hesitate to engage his services again in the future.”
Kathy Lueckert,
former Corporate Services Director,
Department of Planning and Development,
City of Seattle
(Kathy is now Director of Planning and Finance for Advocacy and Communications at World Vision.)
“I've worked closely with Eric on developing and presenting the Leadership Eastside community leadership program. He has that rare blend of extensive real-world experience along with a very strong background in theory and research. He moves easily between big picture strategy and the tactical details. Eric brings a superb ability to plan, execute and follow-through, both as a behind-the-scenes planner and as an upfront instructor and facilitator.”
Annalee Luhman,
founding board member,
Leadership Eastside
Conflict and change: The blog
3 June 2010
Working hard to stay in conflict
What’s the most surprising thing about working on resolving conflict? That was the question put to me by a graduate student interviewing me about my work. It was an easy question to answer: I am surprised at how hard people in conflict work to maintain it.
When relationships get tense and conflict flares, we stop talking with each other, which dramatically reduces the chance that a misunderstanding is resolved. We start fortifying our stories about how bad the other people are, how malignant their intentions are, and how unwilling they are to work together. These fortifications raise the barriers between us, making harder for even us to climb over our own constructions.
I mentioned this dynamic the other day to a client who is locked in conflict. He simply nodded in recognition. When people are stuck in conflict, there is always something they are actively doing to stay stuck. Owning up to your contribution to the problem is the first step toward resolving the conflict and moving on.
26 May 2010
The one question you'll get asked at the retreat
It’s 3 pm at a daylong off-site meeting. You are feeling great about the progress the group has made over the last six hours. A new direction has been set, expectations are clearer, and people are feeling good about their work, their colleagues, and the entire enterprise. You’re “firing on all cylinders.”
Mission accomplished? No, not yet.
I have planned and facilitated countless retreats, and I have seen the same question come up again and again as the day wanes. That question is “What happens next?”
This is not the time to deliver an impromptu, mealy-mouthed answer. Your people will be looking to you for a clear, unequivocal sign that you are ready to follow-up and take on leadership in light of the offsite.
If the retreat has been a success, chances are you’ve agreed to some changes—big or small. It’s your job as the boss to hold people accountable for the next steps to make the change happen. Tell them how that will happen when you’re all back at the office.
My advice to clients is to prepare before the retreat what you’ll say the next steps will be. Anticipate what those might be as part of your retreat planning process. Sure, you can modify those next steps depending on how the day goes, but you’d better have something to work from.
4 May 2010
The art of managing expectations
“Undersell and over-deliver” is a mantra for many effective managers and influence leaders. Get people to set their expectations low and then they’ll be pleasantly surprised by results that exceed their expectations.
I think this principle applies well in transactions, like selling a product or service. Or project or program. But it brings problems when you are trying to bring people together to make something new happen.
When you are bringing people together, you need to set higher expectations. Even intentionally unreasonable ones—which are sometimes called “stretch goals” or “BHAGs” (for Big Hairy Audacious Goals).
To achieve stretch goals, you need to imagine them first. And imagine yourself, your team and your project achieving those goals.
So, do you keep expectations modest or set up BHAGs? Here’s where the art of managing expectations comes into play:
- With external folks who will be judging your performance, avoid overselling and try to ensure that their expectations don’t run away with them.
- With folks on your team or in your circle of influence, set higher goals. Set goals that exceed what you’ve promised those external stakeholders.
If people believe in advance that some experience or event will be good, they will look for signs confirming that expectation. If they expect it to be bad, then they will see it as bad.
The pit to avoid is setting people up to expect poor outcomes and a bad experience. Ultimately, you need to try to regulate the expectations they have for your effort: not so high as to doom you to failure, and not so low that no one’s motivated.
22 February 2010
Ambiguity kills
When I suggest to leaders that they need to be clear with their people about their goals and wishes for the organization, I often hear back that these leaders want to hear from their people. You might interpret this as a noble gesture to involve people in the discussion, but I see it as an abdication of their duties as the leader.
How many times have you been in a meeting that was set up to “talk about X”? You get to the meeting on X and quickly find out that no one has any idea what the purpose of the meeting is, why X is important or what their supposed to do about X. I can almost guarantee that you and your colleagues will waste time and get frustrated. You’ll probably wander out of the meeting room mumbling something about what a waste of time the meeting was.
The leader’s job is to set the goal and sideboards for a group. This cannot be delegated. Sure, in many cases, you can ask for input, but the goals and sideboards have to be the right ones. And, if they’re really good, they will make team members a little uncomfortable, because they’ll be challenged by them.
A goal has to be specific, “easy to see” and yet intrinsically motivating. (They can see it in their mind and feel it in their gut!) Once you’ve stated the goal (and sideboards), you can let your group loose on developing ideas for getting there.
But don’t bother calling the meeting if you can’t tell them why X is important and what they’re supposed to do about it.
27 January 2010
Get into the weeds!
Yesterday, I was working with a group that was breaking into factions. Each faction was pushing a different idea of how to solve a problem. As you can imagine, they were quickly coming to loggerheads--a stalemate.
Just before a break, I suggested to them that we weren't going to get farther talking at the level we were on. We either had to get more global and remind ourselves of the larger purpose, goals and values we were seeking to address, or get into the weeds about (1) where these ideas came from (the thought process) and (2) how they would work when implemented.
We decided to get into the weeds. This was important because one of the things I saw was that people had very different understandings of each of the ideas. The folks who were pushing an idea had a more specific, fine-grained idea of what they were talking about. However, the other folks did not have that granular view. They didn't understand the idea well enough to feel comfortable with it.
The advocates for an idea needed to show the other people how they came up with their idea--what they started with, ideas they rejected, how the idea would address the problem. In other words, they needed to make their thinking apparent.
It's common for us to assume that everyone else shares our view of the world and knows what we know. In cognitive psychology, this is called the "false consensus effect." Yesterday, each of the groups was in the grip of false consensus. They each thought their idea was "self-evident."
By getting down into the weeds, we were able to avoid an impasse and move forward.
8 July 2009
The big problem of "bad actors"
In a 2006 paper, University of Washington business professors documented how a single negative group member can have a big negative impact on the performance of the group.
Specifically, they looked at people who didn't pull their weight ("withholders of effort"), people who express a negative mood or attitude ("affectively negative") and people who disregard the group norms for treating each other with respect ("interpersonal deviants").
The authors argue that negative team members have a stronger effect on the whole group than positive members. Withholders of effort produce feelings of inequality and reduce team performance because people don't want to look like a sucker in the face of a someone withholding. Affectively negative people's moods and attitudes turn out to be contagious. And, interpersonal deviants undermine trust by acting rudely, insulting, and making fun of others.
Each of these behaviors hurt team performance and reduce results, by undermining motivation, creativity and learning, and hoarding information. Addressing the problem is essential. This bad behavior won't just go away; it'll probably get worse.
Fixing problematic individual behavior is complicated, but any strategy would need to start with a one-on-one meeting with the individual and a specific description of the problematic behavior (not interpretations, actual observations). From there, you then describe your interpretation and ask them what's going on with them. Ultimately, you'll need to set clear behavioral expectations and be prepared to call the person out if they transgress again. If the pattern continues, you'll need to escalate your response accordingly.
Whatever you do, don't let the bad behavior continue unchecked. It is destroying your team and their results!
1 July 2009
Strategic conversations
I've helped many groups to discuss and decide what to do on strategic issues. I enjoy working with clients to frame the issues, figure out what information people need, and design an agenda to "get into it." It's gratifying work.
Except when we must produce a "strategic plan." When we focus on what will go into the plan, the life drains out of the process and out of me. Too much of the time goes into writing and editing the document—often at the expense of the actual strategic conversation.
A CEO client yesterday told me she doesn't like strategic plans either. She prefers short lists or graphics to capture the decisions and direction and does indeed keep the graphic from her most recent strategy process on her desk at all times. (Now that's "living the plan.")
I think of strategy conversations as a cloud. From that cloud comes decisions, actions and changes that are the concrete results of the strategic conversation.In the strategic conversation, you wrestle with the current situation, desired state, values, vision, mission and such—all as dictated by your situation and goals. Then, from that conversation comes the decisions, actions and changes you need to make to realize the new or modifying direction.
Of course we need to "memorialize" the conversation and keep track of what was discussed and decided, but you don't need a big plan to do that.
The most important thing is to have a good strategic conversation. That takes planning, reflection, effort and time. If you do that well, the decisions, actions and changes come a lot easier.
4 June 2009
There's no substitute for talking
(I posted this entry earlier today on my Influence Leader blog and realized that it applies as much to team rescue, coaching and facilitation as it does to influence. So here it is...)
In a meeting this morning, a client described a protracted conflict with some of his board members and how they would communicate with him in multiple-page e-mails (at least one was sent at 2 am on a Sunday morning!). These e-mails included attacks and criticisms that crossed the line, at least from my client's (and my own) perspective.
In this age of electronic communication—e-mail, text messaging, Twitter, etc.—I think that people are trying to do too much electronically—and too little face-to-face.
When it comes to clearing the air with someone, e-mail and memos simply don't cut it. You've got to talk face-to-face.
It's pretty common, though, that when the conversation gets tough, when there is conflict, people want to protect themselves. And, an easy way to do that is to send one-way messages rather than risk a two-way conversation.
Unfortunately, doing that only makes things worse, because those one-way communication tools have very limited bandwidth. You can't see their gestures, you can hear their tone of voice or even tell if they care. You can't show you understand, and neither can they.
To have a productive conversation and actually resolve a problem, you need a lot of bandwidth—and that only comes in a face-to-face meeting.
You'd need to do what one of my coaching clients did a few weeks back. He had a very unpleasant exchange with a colleague in the hallway. Talking with me, he took a step back, looked at the situation from a different angle, and made a plan to approach his colleague for a one-on-one chat. It went very well—even better than expected.
If you want to perpetuate a conflict, retreating to one-way communication works well. If you want to resolve the problem, there's no getting around talking face-to-face.
21 April 2009
What do they really want?
Suppose you are working with someone, negotiating with them to get something you want and they want. Perhaps you are trying to agree on how to set up a new, joint project. Or, you are simply trying to get their input on a decision you get to make.
And, yet, you’re coming up with nothing. Their concerns are all over the map, and when you try to drill down to understand, they get really general and vague.
It may be time to pull back from the substance of the process, the actual facts and details of the deal or decision.
And, consider the possibility that they have underlying needs that are not being met. They don’t want to reveal these needs because they might “lose face.” Or, they might not even understand their own needs in that moment.
But, how do you figure out their needs when they aren’t forthcoming? The answer: You guess. You try to figure out what they really want by making your best guess and seeing what happens. Essentially, trial and error.
OK, but where to start? Here is a list of a few very common needs people have. In most situations, you’ll find that one or more of these needs (or a version of them) is behind their confusing behavior.
1. Influence over others: Being able to have an impact on others
2. Involvement/belonging: Being a significant part of the group or project
3. Fairness/justice: Being treated fairly and seeing others treated that way
4. Safety: Feeling safe from attack and able to speak freely
5. Freedom/autonomy: Having control over what they do and getting to make their own decisions
6. Purpose/meaning: Being connected to a larger purpose, goal or vision, to see their actions as having greater significance
7. Recognition/respect: Being treated with respect by others and recognized for what they contribution
There are many ways you can address these needs in a given situation, but the first step is to understand some underlying need is not being met. Second, guess at what it is and try something to address it. Ask for an opinion. See if they are feeling “dissed.” Providing them with some choice or control.
Figure that out and then you’ll find that you and they can get back to the substance of the conversation.
14 April 2009
Slow down there, cowboy!
You’ve got do something! You’ve got to get the boss to change her mind, rally your team, convince a customer, prepare a “silver-bullet” presentation. There’s no time to waste!
Whoa, Hoss! Successful influence is less about doing stuff and more about doing the right stuff. And, the right stuff isn’t usually what comes to mind first.
One thing I’ve noticed about “influence” is that people don’t think much about using it until they hit a wall. They have a setback. As a friend of mine says, they get “spanked.” Now, they’re interested in learning about influence.
When you get spanked, it may due to rushing to action without pausing to reflect on just what the best action might be. If you haven’t weighed at least a few different ideas for how to proceed, chances are you haven’t found the best action yet. The odds are against you.
In US culture, we are biased toward action. Just do it! Get it done! Move, move, MOVE!
A big problem with this approach is that taking the wrong action can actually set you back. Take the wrong step, and you can annoy the person you want to influence or piss off an ally. Unthinking action can make achieving your objective even harder, not easier.
In this moment, when you feel you must act, it may be better to “go slow to go fast.” Pause, think, test ideas. Take the time you need to refine your thinking, define your choices and then pick the best one.
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