Category: Human Resources

Bullying and Employee Engagement

Bullying and employee engagement don’t mix.  Bullying is one person intimidating or threatening another in a disrespectful, dominating, or cruel manner.   Bullies tend to put performance results ahead of all other considerations including respect and trust.  Bullies think about themselves and not about others.  Aggressiveness is action without regard to others.  It’s an “I win and you lose” strategy.   Assertiveness is action with a “win-win” strategy.  Employee engagement can only grow in a culture that discourages and prevents bullying while encouraging collaboration, respect, and effective relationships with win-win communications.

According to The Workplace Bullying Institute, 27% of American workers have suffered abusive conduct at work; another 21% witnessed bullying; and 72% are aware that workplace bullying happens.  It also tells us that less than 20% of employers act to stop bullying. (Gary Namie, 2014)

Bullying is a symptom.   Causes of bullying are a complex set of factors.  The first set of factors relate to the psychological needs and flaws of the bully.  According to author Susan Coloraso bullies tend to have specific attitudes and behaviors including blaming others for situations.  They lack the willingness to take responsibility for their actions or their miserable situations.  They lack emotional intelligence traits such as the ability to sincerely understand how others might feel and the ability to express empathy.  They tend to be narcissistic focusing all their concern about themselves and not about others.

Bullies also believe competition is an important strategy for success.  They have difficulty with collaboration because they feel superior and others are seen in an inferior position.  For them, aggression is the way to success.

Women and men can both be bullies, although men have a higher tendency toward physical abuse and women use more psychological abuse such as passive aggressive manipulations.

The second set of factors causing bullying is the lack of an effective response from the workplace system.  Dr. W. Edwards Deming said 94% of all results come from the system.  Bullies are mostly allowed to continue without feedback and/or consequences for their poor behaviors.  Although the root causes of bullying stems from the experiences, and probably the parenting, of the bully, it’s the responses (or lack of) of the system that keeps the behaviors alive.

Organizations that are unprepared and/or unwilling to create consequences for bullying behaviors will be victimized. Unfortunately some leaders give “lip service” to a set of organizational values that discourage bullying behaviors.  Instead of confronting the poor behaviors immediately and consistently, leaders can instead ignore (or downplay) the behaviors and place more value on the results bullies are able to achieve.  The results outweigh the desired motivation and willingness of the leaders to have a confrontation.

We teach what we allow.  Bullies learn their behaviors.  They are not born as bullies.  They were probably allowed by their parents, or even encouraged with subtle messages, to continue their tactics. The only way to change is to stop the subtle messages and confront the poor behaviors directly and respectfully with consequences important to the bully.

Besides respectful confrontation organizations should also evaluate the hiring process to ensure bullies are not allowed to slip through the “hiring cracks.”

A system of effective Fearless Feedback will go a long way toward reducing the probability of bullying.  This must start with the senior leadership. Senior leaders must make it clear that results with bullying are unacceptable even if the results are financially profitable.  Leaders must take a stand.  Financial results achieved with bullying tactics must be evaluated in the context of the cost to employee engagement.  The costs associated with low employee engagement levels are much more difficult (if not impossible) to measure than financial results.  The bullying will either stop or be significantly reduced if the system is set up to provide respectful and immediate feedback to bullies and if they are given the choice to either change their behaviors or move on.

Bullying and employee engagement don’t mix.  Senior leaders must decide if results from employee engagement are more valuable than short-term results with bullying.  If senior leaders pay lip service to respect and win-win solutions but then avoid respectful consequences for bullying, things won’t change and employee engagement will suffer.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

Fearless Feedback

The 5 Don’ts of Frequent Feedback

The transformation of the typical performance review process often includes the phrase, “make feedback more frequent”.  That sounds like a good idea. It is if certain conditions are in place.  There are five conditions which will either make or break the efficacy of frequent feedback.

I was out of town for a weekend and decided to play golf at a local course. Because I was alone the starter connected me with a threesome.  One of the men frequently spoke. He spoke during everyone’s shots. He was whispered when someone was about to hit their shot yet you could still hear him.

He would not, or could not, stop himself. His frequent babbling was annoying enough but he made it worse by talking only about himself.  He babbled about how he had played this and that hole.  He added unnecessary details about the unfair bounce that prevented a par etc. etc.  It was not helpful and it was annoying. The same annoyance and lack of value can occur with frequent feedback about work performance unless these five conditions are met.

The Five Don’ts

The first of the five conditions important for adding value during frequent feedback is to have a clear standard of behavior that everyone agrees will add value. In other words, don’t forget to create a clear standard of specific and observable behaviors.  With a clear standard, managers and employees can provide helpful feedback based on that standard.  They can avoid expressing opinions.

This leads us to the second condition. Don’t forget to use data during feedback and avoid unsolicited criticism.  When a clear standard exists, everyone and anyone can ask if the behavior matches the standard.  Criticism or opinions are unnecessary.  A manager expressing an opinion about the performance of an employee can create fear in that employee.

Often the feedback will lead to emotions.  This is especially true when there are challenging performance issues which have not been addressed in a timely manner.  When there is emotion empathy is needed.  Don’t forget to provide empathy.  Empathy is the sincere expression that you understand the emotions someone is experiencing.  Feedback without empathy is worthless.  Empathy allows the person receiving the feedback to absorb it and use it.  If there is an emotion and there is no empathy the feedback is rejected.  The entire interaction becomes a waste of time.

This next condition don’t will seem out of order. Don’t forget to ask permission.  Get the person’s consent.  Ask permission to provide feedback. Even better, ask everyone in your organization to ask permission before they provide feedback.   Make it a rule or part of the standard.  Allow the person who is to receive the feedback to say, “no, I am not ready”.  Give them the opportunity to wait for a better time.

Our Declaration of Independence states, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  Feedback is delivered between men and women with the consent of those receiving the feedback.  Give them the choice. Allow them to consent.

The most important condition is last.  This condition is also the biggest change in how the typical manager thinks about feedback.  Don’t make the feedback about the person.  Make the feedback about process or method.  Two of the earlier conditions were “don’t forget to use data during feedback (avoid unsolicited criticism)” and “don’t forget to create a clear standard.”  If these are handled then the only thing left to discuss is either the process within which the employee is working or the method the employee is using to perform.

Feedback doesn’t have to be about the person. Give them feedback about their methods and how those methods can change.  This will eliminate fear of change.

Frequent feedback is not enough to create optimum value and optimum improvement.  Be sure you create the right environment by implementing these conditions.  It will make the feedback easier and more effective.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

Fearless Feedback

How to Give White Flag® Feedback

Delivering effective feedback is enormously important and enormously challenging.  I have spoken about this in my last two blogs.  I identified the three reasons why the feedback is so challenging namely the confusion between feedback and criticism, the concern about making things worse, and a lack of knowledge about how to give feedback such that the other party accepts it, learns, and applies the learning.

I also explained how we needed a tool that could make it safe to deliver and safe to accept.  I explained the importance of the White Flag® as a neutral symbol to pave the way for giving and receiving feedback in a non-threatening way.  The White Flag® is the international sign of truce.  It provides a context that allows for a free flow of information without fear of reprisal.

But how do you use the White Flag®?  What are the key steps and techniques?  Can anyone do it? The purpose here is to answer these questions and a few others.

There are three key factors that optimize the use of the White Flag® tool.  These three factors can be summarized in three words, Think-Behave-Improve.

First, to use the White Flag® properly it is most useful to think about it in the most useful way.  The purpose of the White Flag® is not to assign blame on a person. The purpose is to partner to uncover the real root causes of mistakes.  The giver and the receiver can partner to search for root causes inside the process. Those root causes can nearly always be found in the process (94% of the time according to Dr. W. Edwards Deming) and not the person. Feedback therefore is not about making someone wrong. It is about making the process right.

In order to trigger the feedback there needs to be clear expectations.  These expectations can take the form of operationalized values behaviors.  There are three categories of values behaviors namely integrity, respect, and customer focus.

These behaviors must be operationalized meaning they are observable by anyone.  By making the expectations observable anyone can decide if the expectations are being met simply by observation. If they do not observe what is expected that becomes the trigger for feedback and therefore the use of the White Flag® tool.

Once we know feedback is needed we must deliver it in a manner that optimizes learning.  We are calm.  We wait if there is too much emotion (either with us or the other person).  We ask permission to give the feedback. We share the data (what we saw or heard) and avoid opinion or judgement.  We provide clarification if necessary.   We ask questions to find the real root cause of the problem. We ask “what process is not working?”  We ask questions to identify the first 15% of that process and then we identify how to improve that first 15%. We do this in partnership not in judgement.  We do it as a team and not in isolation.

All the while we are asking these questions. We are calm.  We are inquisitive. We ask questions to learn and not to blame. We ask these questions to uncover a new action step to address the process issues.  The White Flag® is a tool to decide how to fix a process as a team.

The White Flag® is a tool that makes feedback fearless and effective.  It is simple. It’s not easy and it’s doable and necessary for learning.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

5 Elements Improve Speed in Your Organization with Self-Management

Birds flock.  Why?  They are cooperating to find food, shelter, and avoid predators more quickly and easily.  How do they flock?  Hard-wired into their brains are the principles of flying at the same average speed, distance, and direction as their closest neighbors.  The hard-wired principles enable them to behave instinctively and accomplish the three goals more quickly and easily (shelter, food, and safety).  They are a self-organizing social system.  Their success depends on the cooperation of all the birds following all the hard-wired skills.

Can an organization operate as a self-organizing and/or self-management system, and should it?  Yes! Nature holds examples of self-organizing systems (birds, bees, ants etc.) and we can also find them in our economy.  WAZE, Lyft, Uber, Wikipedia and even the internet are all examples of self-organizing and self-management systems.  Can we apply these ideas in our organizations and teams?  Just as the success for the birds depends on cooperation to follow principles, success in organizations depends on cooperation of the people.

There is an important distinction between self- management and manager-dependency. Most organizations have a manager-dependent environment.  For example, in the typical organization managers are expected to know the answers and to solve the problems. They are expected to be omniscient and omnipotent.  They are expected to provide feedback to employees to create improved performance.  That is why they are often promoted to the manager.  They once did they job and so they have all the answers.

A manager-dependent environment encourages employees wait to receive ideas for improvement from their managers before making any significant changes in performance.  There is a hesitation to try new things for fear of being criticized or evaluated by the manager.    A manager-dependent environment creates fear and therefore less innovation.  Self-Management increases employee engagement and innovation.  Employees create their own feedback mechanisms and can act autonomously.  This accelerates the decisions and therefore accelerates the ability to adapt to changes.  It improves speed.

When my daughter Emily was 12, one morning she missed her school bus.  She was very upset and came downstairs to my office crying, “Dad, I missed the bus.  Can you take me to school?”  Of course I agreed but then asked her a question, “what do you need to do to catch the bus on your own from now on?’  She looked at me in a thoroughly confused manner.  At that moment I was not sure she could think of an idea.

When she arrived home that afternoon she said, “Dad, I thought about what you asked.   If you buy me a timer I will set it 5 minutes before the bus arrives and if it goes off I will know I only have 5 minutes left.  I can then easily catch the bus.”

I told her that sounded great.  I also asked her what else she could do to be prepared in the morning.  She said she would set her books out by the front door right before bed time.  For the next 2-1/2 years she used this method and always caught the bus on time.  She self-managed her ability to catch the bus by creating and following her own process.

How to increase speed.  To become more highly competitive organizations must ask employees to make more decisions on their own.  A recent book about the virtues of talent management has just been published.  It reinforces the Jack Welch management methods.  Welch insisted on providing frequent honest feedback with complete candor.  In my experience managers don’t have that kind of time to provide frequent feedback.  They lack the time and the skills to constantly be observing employees and providing feedback.   Managers should instead rely more on employee, trust them more, and facilitate them creating their own answers to their own problems just as my daughter was able to identify a way to catch her bus.

The 5 Elements

For employees to figure out ways to self-manage their own performance, a leader can clarify and communicate the key principles that will enable all employees to self-manage.  The five principles are Vision, Mission, Values, Strategy, and an effective Leadership Theory.  The leadership theory that provides the best opportunity for self-management is Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s Theory of Profound Knowledge.

A leader’s first responsibility is to create an environment that facilitates performance improvement. Those interested in accelerating results and performance need to be courageous and trust that employees can create their own solutions.  It requires a method to create an environment of trust and self-organization through the clarity of the 5 principles.

A manager-dependent environment is slow and talent management often includes a ranking of employees, rewarding the top performers and “yanking out” the poorer performers.  This policy and practice creates unnecessary competition minimizing the opportunity for innovation.  The “birds” will not naturally cooperate in this environment.

A leader can clarify the key principles which will allow the “bird” to self-manage.  Clarifying the strategic initiatives, the vision and mission enables employees to create their own objectives and methods for performance improvement.  With autonomy comes choice.  With choice comes engagement.  With engagement comes performance.   With self-management comes speed.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.