Insights For Success

Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

Motivation

Empower your people to perform

Management, Motivation, Strategy, Team buildingEdward Kiledjian

Over the last couple of month, I have written many articles extolling the benefits of empowering your employees. In case you have not read them, the Coles Notes version of the concept is that you are no longer a manager but a coach. Your job is to train and support your people. Your success is determined by their success.

So what should you do to ensure their success?

  1. Growth Most of your employees should be knowledge workers and they want a clear path for growth. For some, growth means going up the corporate ladder and for others it simply means developing new skills. Determine the skillset of each of your players then develop a plan to help them achieve it.

  2. Give Responsibility After coaching and working with your people, you will quickly determine who has the capacity for additional responsibility [after growth and development]. Who is ready to move to a higher level of performance? Find those people and give them the responsibility and accountability.

  3. Give Accountability Once you have given these select few more responsibility, you need to give them the accountability to deliver. Accountability means they have to find creative ways to “make things happen”. Make them accountable.

  4. Get out of their way Nothing kills creativity and spirit like a manager that second guesses everything an employee does. Unless they give you a reason to doubt your decision to give them the responsibility, butt out. Read my articles on delegation.

Keep it simple

Go to the bookstore and check out the management section. You will be overwhelmed by the hundreds of authors hawking their latest and greatest “management breakthrough”. After years of work as a management consultant, I came to the realization that often the most powerful tools are the simplest and time-tested ones.

Remember to treat your people like you would like to be treated. Recognize the good, and coach when things go bad. Nothing is more powerful than loyal employees willing to go out of their way to support you. Support your people and they will support you.

Remember to lead with honesty and integrity, two character traits that cannot be faked.



An end to multitasking?

Motivation, Organization, Time ManagementEdward Kiledjian
Image by John Ragai used under Creative Commons License

Image by John Ragai used under Creative Commons License

Many years ago, I got to the point where I felt overwhelmed by my jobs and all the tasks I had to perform. After a long search, I learned and implemented the concept of Getting Things Done promoted by David Allen. One of his beliefs is that a person cannot multi-task and he built his entire system around this one concept. He preaches undertaking tasks one at a time sequentially.

Working in the computer industry, I could not easily accept this. After all, my Operating System allowed me to run multiple applications simultaneously for a reason. Right? Well not really... Each computer core (think of a core as an individual brain) can only handle one thing at any given time. Manufacturers have implemented time division techniques to make it look like the computer is processing multiple items per core by slicing the time each process has to fractions of a second. This gives the allusion of multitasking.

The Steeve Jobs alarm

In 2010, during a presentation, Steve Jobs presented features the upcoming version of his Operating System called Lion (to be released mid 2011). The one feature that stuck out for me was full screen application support. In this case, full screen does not mean maximized (like in Windows), it means the apps takes up 100% of your screen real-estate. Whether you like or hate Apple, you have to agree that they spend an unholly amount of money conducting usability research. Why would they implement something that seems backwards? That would prevent you from multi-tasking?

The Research The truth is that when we attempt to multi-task, we become much less effective. Modern cognitive research clearly demonstrates that when people multi-task, they perform less work and miss information. Researchers discovered that re-orienting yourself to the task at hand, after a distraction, takes 10-15 minutes. Quantifiably, performance for multi-taskers can drop as much as 40% along with a marked degradation of memory and creativity.

Distractions There are 2 types of distractions :

  • Active disruptive: Distractions you cannot control like someone walking into your office.
  • Passive disruptive: Distractions you cannot control like n SMS, Email, Instant Message, telephone call, etc

This is the reason why many people are more efficient and effective at home. If re-orientation takes 10-15 minutes and you keep getting distracted by Active disruptive then you experience a severe loss in productivity. Working from home means Active disruptive intrusions completely disappear.

Passive disruptive can be controlled and allow you to decide when to engage with them. You can send calls to voicemail, ignore emails and Instant messages, etc. Ignoring these means you are completely dedicated to the task at hand. Go around and ask people where they go to get their most important and productive work done. I have very rarely seen people says the office.

As technology develops, we are seeing more and more companies add technology that is classified as Passively disruptive and this is a good thing.

Practical How To - Find a Time Management Framework that fits your needs and apply it to your everyday life. All of them will bring stability and control to your chaotic life which will in turn allow you to concentrate on one activity at a time.

  • Remember that most people can only concentrate an a specific task for 18-30 minutes before their mind starts to wander. Determine what your personal threshold is and plan accordingly. You may want to create intervals between your productive times by checking emails, picking up voicemails, etc. These are good times to engage with the disruptive activities (pick up voicemails, check emails, etc).

  • Use the closed door policy. Let people know that there are times when you should not be bothered. Close your office door or post a Do Not Distrub sign on your cubicle entrance. Send calls to voicemail and shutdown Instant Messaging and Email. There is a time for all of these but not when you want to be productive.

  • Learn more efficient note taking techniques like Mind Mapping. This means you will spend less time trying to write down notes and more time concentrating on the discussion at hand. Remember we can only do one thing at a time. When writing, you are not listening.

Now go get productive!

Build Rapport in 30 seconds or less

Motivation, Persuasion, Rapport, salesEdward Kiledjian

In my previous entry (What I Learned Selling Encyclopedias), I talked about overcoming objection. Quite a few of the readers of this blog wrote to me asking what techniques I use. The techniques of persuasion and overcoming objection cannot be explained in one entry and takes years to master. I have spent a lot of time and money learning various techniques and practicing them over and over to get them just right.

I will share with you some of those techniques in upcoming entries. This particular one will discuss how to create a rapport with anybody.

Rapport is actually the key building block of persuasion. You cannot persuade or convince anybody if you do not first establish rapport with that person.


WHAT IS RAPPORT
Have you ever met somebody that you liked immediately? Someone that you immediately got along with? Truth be told, you can establish rapport with anybody, even people you don't get along with immediately.

LET'S BEGIN
"People like People Who Are like Themselves." Please reread that sentence a couple times. Let it sink in! That my friends, is the secret of rapport.

Let's say you're a big fan of a particular hockey team, and you meet somebody who is also a huge fan of the same team. Chances are you'll quickly get along and start talking about the thing you love, hockey. The same thing can be said for culture, education, political or religious persuasion, etc.

So let's start talking about techniques.

MIRRORING
You've probably heard that the majority of communication is done non-verbally. Each of us have non-verbal cues, mannerisms and we are drawn to people who have similar body language. Similarly, we are repulsed by people who exhibit polar opposite non-verbal cues.

Knowing the above, you need to carefully mirror the other person. Mirroring is self-explanatory. If you're sitting across from somebody and they crossed her left leg then you cross your right leg. If the person is leaning forward in their chair, then you lean forward slightly.

When you meet somebody for the first time, wait 15 to 30 seconds before you start mirroring them. Start the process of mirroring gradually so that the other person doesn't consciously realize it.

When mirroring somebody, don't copy them exactly. This may give them the creeps. As an example, if somebody crosses their arms at chest level, you may want to cross your arms laying on your lap.


Now you don't have to keep mirroring the person during your entire conversation. Generally, you only need to mirror for a very short window until the other person starts to feel comfortable. At that point you can then start leading.

COMMUNICATION STYLE
There are three major categories of communication style: auditory, visual and kinesthetic. Although people are usually a combination of the three, one is more dominant.

Effective negotiators always take the time to study their opponents beforehand. One of the things that they're trying to determine is the opponent's communication style.

Auditory
As the word implies, auditory people tend to think in sounds. This type of person prefers verbal instructions to written ones. Generally, auditory people speak and even form with a rhythmic tempo and a little bit of a melody.

Visual
These are people who prefer seeing things. These people like diagrams, charts, pictures, written instructions, etc. Sometimes you can identify a visual person by their selection of words. It is not uncommon for visual people to use sentences like "let me explain it to you and I'm sure you'll see it my way", "I see what you mean", "I can see that", "It looks good", etc.

Kinesthetic
kinesthetic individuals are usually defined as touchy-feely. Most children are born kinesthetic and learn a great deal about the world around them by touching and moving things around. Kinesthetic people are usually in touch with their emotions so be on the lookout for emotional words such as "I feel like", "I feel where you're coming from", etc.

Generally, it is believed that by second or third grade, some students migrate from kinesthetic to visual. During late elementary, another group will migrate from visual to auditory. Statistically speaking, females are more likely to become auditory than males.

Matching the other person's communication style is also an extremely powerful tool. If the other person is auditory and you start communicating visually, you will break rapport and lose the other person's interest. This is a mistake I see people make very often. Adapt your presentation or communication style to the other person.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Let's put some of things we learned together and see how they could be used. The first step in the process would be matching.

MATCHING
It's important to try and find something in common with the other person. As we mentioned above, this can be cultural, ethnic, sports related, etc. know the other person and find something in common.


PACING
Pacing encompasses what we spoke about above: mirroring and communication style. Listen for the words the other person is using, the tone of their voice, their body language, their speech mannerisms, etc.

Without looking like a psycho stalker, use the above techniques to build trust and rapport.

LEADING
if you have successfully completed the above two steps, then you can now take the role of leader. When you are leading, after being in good rapport with the other person, you can actually change the pace of the interaction and the other person will follow your lead.


Generally, during a persuasion match, you will fluctuate between pacing and leading until you achieve your goal.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
This is of course only a partial discussion of persuasion. There are many other skills that you must learn to achieve maximum efficiency.

PEOPLE LOVE THEMSELVES
People absolutely love themselves. This is why the above techniques work. Another tool in your arsenal is to get the person to talk about themselves. No subject is more important to them than themselves. Ask them questions that encourage them to talk about themselves. Try to use open-ended questions when possible (questions that can't be answered with a simple yes or no). As you start learning about the person, their style and preferences, you can start narrowing down your questions.

Remember that you must be honest and lead with integrity. Honesty and integrity cannot be faked and if you try, the other person will know and you will immediately break rapport.

 

I would love to give more concrete examples but it is not practical to write a rapport building scenario since most of the work is non verbal.

Modern Science of Employee Motivation

MotivationEdward Kiledjian

As a manager, you are constantly adjusting your team for optimal performance. There are dozens of different factors that affect employee performance but one key element is motivation. Anecdotally you know that a motivated and enthused employee will outperform a sluggish indifferent one. 

There are plenty of so called experts selling their own blend of snake oil. Motivation can be as complicated or as simple as you make it. This entry will not be all encompassing and I will likely write future articles to complement this one. 

When I was first put into a management position, my old-school boss gave me lots of unsolicited advice. One of his favorite saying was “an employee does the minimum work to keep his job and an employer pays the minimum to keep the employee”. Now isn’t that a positive statement? 

So how does motivation impact on-the-job performance? 

In field research has clearly shown that an employees performance is a function of their ability times their motivation. 

Ability is fairly easy to ascertain and/or test. You can look at academic background, work accomplishments, administer standardized testing, etc. Motivation is a little more intangible. 

The foundation on which your motivational efforts will be based is what I call the motivational fairness doctrine. These are elements that do not directly motivate but the lack of them does prevent motivation. Elements that are part of the fairness doctrine include:

  • Clear and fair expectations communicated with the employee
  • Treating the employee with respect and with integrity
  • Satisfying the basic needs of the employee (job security, salary, benefits, etc) 

Interesting research 

There is no lack of research into motivation but here are some summaries I think are useful to mention here. 

The Minneapolis Gas Company conducted a 20 year employee survey (ended 1965) to determine what employees wanted from their jobs. The surveyed population included 31000 men and 13000 woman. Interestingly they discovered that what their employees wanted most (in order of importance) were:

  • Job Security
  • Carrier Advancement
  • Type of Work
  • Proud of the company 

Another study of industrial employees (conducted by Kovach in 1987) yielded:

  • Interesting work
  • Appreciation of work being done
  • Feeling of being in on things 

An unconventional view of motivation

 Reward or pain?

Most old-school managers believe that an employee’s motivation is simply determined by an appropriate reward for “good” behavior and appropriate pain for “undesirable” behavior. 

We know what this model simply does not work. Particularly the pain part. The negative end of this stick creates a hostile work environment not conducive to efficient work. 

So what works?

As a manager, your new role is that of a coach and enabler. I won’t go into too much detail into most of the requirements as they are simple and self explanatory. If you have questions, feel free to post them below. 

Operate with integrity and principle. The first thing you must do is earn the trust and respect of your employees. Just as you have high expectations from them, realize that they have high expectations for you. Take the time to think about what this can mean in your environment. Ask yourself how you can be more loyal to your employees? You will see that they will reciprocate. 

Instead of the reward of pain approach, why not recognize the high performers. Shower them with praise and recognition. Give the others something positive to work towards. Think about how you can implement some type of recognition system and how that recognition can be marketed to other teams or divisions. This should be an ongoing process and not a one off exception. It is important not to recognize someone just because you “have to”. If there is no one to recognize this month or quarter, that’s ok too. 

In your role as an enabler, you should identify any organizational irritants that may slowdown, negate or prevent peak performance. Your employees need to believe that you are an enabler and agent of change. Find processes, procedures or other red tape and find a way to fix it. 

Personal development is up next. As a manager, you should regularly meet each of your employees and must have a clear understanding of their goals and aspirations. Sometime this is more difficult than it sounds because the employee may not know. You may need to coach and work with them to help them identify their true goals. Once identified, it is important that the employee believe that you clearly understand and that you take steps to help them achieve it. Sometimes this can be helping them find a mentor in another domain that they are interested in and other times this may be widening their horizon thus allowing them to try new things. 

The power of persuasion

Remember that whatever the employee does must be their choice. As a coach, you must use the power of persuasion to help guide the employee in the right direction. 

I won’t cover persuasion techniques in this entry but I strongly recommend you read a couple of books about it.