A Bad Boss Can Kill You

A 2009 Swedish study tracking 3,122 men for ten years found that those with bad bosses suffered 20 to 40 percent more heart attacks than those with good bosses.

Wow – glad I’m not Swedish.  I’m actually looking for the complementary study that shows how bad employees shorten a supervisor’s lifespan.  Maybe Hell really is other people.

So – is there any truth to the above study, or is it more silliness cranked out by academics looking to dabble in the real world by grabbing a headline?  I’m sure the research would speak for itself, but what is instructional about its findings?

No one would dispute that stress will kill you, but how does a bad boss equate to stress?  The obvious thing to do here is to list off all the poor qualities of a bad boss, and draw a parallel between their bad behaviour and their employees’ stress.  In reality, stress merely exists, and our reaction to it makes it unhealthy.

So I am willing to believe that a bad boss will kill me, but only if I give him/her enough control over me that I react poorly to the stress they are generating.  I can’t control their behaviour, but I most certainly can control my own behaviour, and my reaction to theirs.

Or I could move to Sweden.  I hear it’s nice.

Business is a Contact Sport — Wear a Cup

At the risk of coming across like The Cranky Middle-Manager, I have a couple of grievances to air on how people interact with each other in the workplace.  It seems that people claiming that they work in a “toxic environment” is all the rage as of late.  In a minimum of cases, this may be truth, but in far more circumstances, it seems as though anytime someone doesn’t smile at you at the water cooler, you’re entitled to claim a horrible work situation.

The truth is that anytime you are in a workplace of more than one person, there are going to be disagreements and compromises.  And contrary to much of the hype you read in the popular media, sometimes work will be a drag.  To quote Jed’s dad, “If it was supposed to be fun, they wouldn’t call it work.”

I believe the root cause of this problem, is most people’s incompetence in dealing with conflict.  Many people believe that conflict is bad, when in fact it is neither good nor bad, but merely exists.  People’s response to conflict can make the situation bad.

Some people respond to conflict by becoming aggressive and overbearing.  Others choose to avoid conflict like it was a toilet seat at the bus station.  Both responses are destructive and will not improve or resolve whatever situation has caused the conflict to emerge.

Interestingly, in my experience I see the most common response to conflict to be one of either avoiding or yielding.  Both are poor responses to conflict in almost all cases.  If you are inclined to respond to conflict in this way, it is time to grow a pair and act like an adult.  Issues need to be confronted and dealt with.

It doesn’t mean you are always going to get your way, but at the very least you will have some confidence that you have attempted to constructively resolve workplace conflict, rather than letting it get pushed underground to fester.

It’s a Jungle Out There

I found this clip on YouTube that is a hilarious/sad commentary on many workplaces.  Happy Viewing.

You’re Fired! How to Fire an Employee

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Before You Fire

  • Have you done everything reasonably possible to have the employee succeed?
  • Has the employee been warned that their poor behavior or performance will lead to termination if not corrected?  Are these warnings in writing?
  • Consult with your legal council and HR to determine whether the termination is ‘with just cause’ or ‘without just cause’
  • In cases of ‘with cause’ have you completed an investigation and got the employees side of the story?
  • With the help of Legal or HR prepare the letter or ‘separation agreement’

Be Respectful

  • Have the conversation as soon as possible after making the decision to terminate
  • Select neutral territory, preferably where you can be as discreet as possible
  • Plan to allow the employee to depart with as much dignity as possible
  • Provide appropriate transitional support

Doing the Deed

  • Have someone with you to witness the conversation, preferably HR or another manager
  • Keep the discussion quick and to the point
  • Don’t defend or debate the decision

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Is There Hope for Introverts?

Other than questioning someone’s parentage, is there a faster way to insult someone than calling him an introvert?  Isn’t introversion something that we need to cure people of by sending them to the Dale Carnegie Course?

Many organizations have invested in some form of psychometric instrument that indicates whether people have a preference for introverted or extroverted behaviour, but that hasn’t stopped the vast majority of people from throwing around these terms without actually having a clue as to what they mean.

People hear “extrovert”, and they think: outgoing, friendly, social, capable, productive, normal.

People hear “introvert”, and they think: shy, withdrawn, anti-social, illusive, dysfunctional, wall-flower.

The problem with these descriptions is that neither is particularly accurate, and it infers that people are capable of only one set of behaviours exclusively.  There is also a connotation that Extroverts will excel in business to a much higher degree than Introverts.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins reveals the qualities that his research has shown as effective in running great organizations.  Interestingly, many of the qualities of “Level Five Leadership”, are found more naturally in people with Introverted preferences.

You might also be surprised who may be a closet-introvert:  High-profile leaders, television personalities, sports stars, maybe even one of your friends, neighbours, or family are introverted.  They’re everywhere, so beware – you never know when they’ll want to slink into the back corner of a meeting room, and silently wish everyone would stop talking at once.  Or perhaps pray that someone will listen to them for 20 seconds before interrupting them.  Worse yet, they may think about something before responding to a question creating that awkward few seconds silence.

So you may be wondering where I fit on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Grid.

As someone who spends a lot of time talking to groups of people, and a person who worked in television (for a short and spectacularly unsuccessful period of time), I am rarely accused of being an Introvert.

I prefer to label myself as a Recovering-Extrovert.  We might need to create a new scale for measurement.

ABC’s of Performance Management

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People do what gets reinforced (this is both a good news and a bad news story)!  Here’s how you can use consequences to manage performance.

The ABC’s of Performance Management

For more information, take a look at ‘Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement’, by Aubrey C. Daniels

Activator (or antecedent)

  • Something that comes before a behaviour or activity which sets the occasion for that behaviour
  • Most often over-used by managers
  • Have only short-term effects
  • Cause a behaviour to happen a limited number of times
  • Must be paired with a consequence to be effective

Behavior

  • What a person does
  • Performance
  • Action
  • Event
  • Decision

Consequences

  • The result of a behavior
  • A response to an action
  • What is said or done about someone’s work or an activity
  • An event that occurs after a given behavior
  • What happens to the performer as a result of the given behavior

Leaders often overuse activators and underuse consequences.

Types of Consequences

There are four types of consequences:

  • Positive reinforcement – Makes me feel good about something I’ve done
  • Negative reinforcement – I do something because it will allow me to avoid something negative
  • Punishment – Makes me feel bad about something I’ve done
  • Extinction – Being ignored for something I’ve done

Positive and negative reinforcement are consequences that will increase behavior, while punishment and extinction are consequences that will decrease behavior.

Consequences That Drive Performance

Consequences can be:

  • Positive  OR Negative
  • Immediate  OR Future
  • Certain  OR Uncertain

The consequences that will drive performance are positive, immediate, and certain.

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High Impact Development

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The most significant development for managers and executives takes place ON THE JOB (i.e. not through training or coaching/mentoring).  However training is what is most commonly offered.

Why most training is useless:

  • 86% of people who attend training do nothing to apply what they have learned
  • Typically only 10% of non-customized course content is relevant to an organization

Don’t default to training activities for yourself or your directs when building development plans!  If you do use training, think about what you are going to do to ensure that what is taught is actually applied.

High impact development activities include:

  • Special project/Task force: Discrete project assignment aimed at a specific outcome.
  • Fix-it: Turn around, restructure and stabilize a failed operation, project, or organization, or customer relationships.
  • Start-up: Building something from nothing or almost nothing.
  • Small strategic assignment: Examples include doing a competitive analysis; writing a proposal for a new product, system, etc.; writing a speech for someone higher up; writing a policy statement or summarizing a new trend/technique and presenting it to others.
  • Deepening functional skills: Changing from a generalist type assignment to a more specialized job/role that requires/builds very deep functional expertise.
  • Stretch job beyond ‘hip pocket’ functional skills: Changing job/role/career to a functional discipline fundamentally different from previous work experiences; may include a cross-functional assignment.
  • Significant change leadership: Leading the efforts to design and implement major change to the company’s key business processes and core capabilities.
  • Mentoring: Receiving personal coaching, counsel and perspective from a valued/trusted and influential leader.  Being a mentor for someone else.
  • Build a team: Assembling & aligning a team of unique talent and skill sets to achieve a stated vision and strategy.  Maybe a project team.
  • Coaching assignments: Teach someone how to do something they are not expert in; design a training course.

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How to Conduct a Job Interview

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Three things to remember about how to conduct a job interview:

  1. Don’t underestimate the importance the importance of interviews, and the risk of doing it badly
  2. Don’t wing it.  Prepare in advance, and follow up afterwards
  3. Think of an interview as a way to establish a good match between an individual’s skills and the competencies required for a position

A good interview process greatly improves the chances of landing the best possible hire.  This is critical because turnover is expensive.

A bad interview is an inquisition that provides the illusion of power to the interviewer and a high level of anxiety to the candidate – “tell me about your strengths and weaknesses….”

A great interview is a mutually respectful conversation that determines the quality of the match between a candidate’s skills and the competencies required for a specific position.

Before the Interview

Know what you’re interviewing for:

  • Start with an up-to-date job description.  If one doesn’t exist, create one
  • Who do we want – What skills? What knowledge? What experience?
  • What corporate fit – What attitudes? What outlooks?
  • Do we have realistic expectations?
  • Don’t chase the ‘hit the ground running’ myth

Now that you’ve got a stack of resumes:

  • Score and rank all resumes and choose a limited number to telephone interview (no more than 10) – use the Wily Manager Resume and Interview Scoring Tool
  • Conduct a telephone ‘mini-interview’ to wean down the list further
  • Remember cultural fit and what makes people in your team successful
  • Look for clues: career ADD, cover letters, relevant experience

Prepare the candidate for the interview:

  • Let them know in advance who they are going to see
  • Let them know in advance what the process will be
  • Consider providing some or all of the questions to the candidate in advance

Prepare yourself for the interview:

  • Remember you and the company are being assessed in this process as well
  • Read the resume in advance
  • Come with a list of questions:
    • Create questions that are based on the key needs identified in the job description
    • Design questions that build understanding
    • Use both open-ended and closed-ended questions
    • Use situational questions – “What would you do if you were given a project timeline that you knew you could not meet?”; “What would you do if you had a direct conflict with another employee?”
    • Use behavioral questions – “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer.  How did you handle it and what was the outcome?”; “Describe a time when you had to sacrifice your own goals for the good of the team”
  • Answer the questions yourself.  What do you need the answers to be?  Write down what themes you would like to see in a candidate’s responses.
  • Book an appropriate location for the interview
  • Try to have at least one other person present in the interview

During the Interview

Attempt to keep the interview informal but professional.  Be respectful and professional.  Turn off your blackberry!

Interview format:

  • Introduction
  • Explain the process
  • Ask your questions
  • Describe the job
  • Let them ask questions
  • Indication of next steps and timeline
  • Close

Assessing a candidate’s responses:

  • Do you believe them?
  • Are they just saying what they think you want to hear?
  • Make sure you challenge the role they actually played and how much they were responsible as opposed to being part of a team’s success
  • Challenge if you are not convinced

Bring to a close:

  • Provide a realistic estimate of decision time and stick to it
  • If you are keen on them, ask them to let you know if their circumstances change in the interim
  • Don’t promise anything until you have seen all the candidates

After the Interview

Remember that your intuition is a powerful tool in the interviewing process but it is not the only one – you should score and rank each interview performance – use the Wily Manager Resume and Interview Scoring Tool.

Consider:

  • What skills are nice to have, and what can be taught?
  • Where are you comfortable to compromise?
  • What is not up for negotiation
Be sure to call all the candidates (even the unsuccessful ones) to let them know when a decision has been made.

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The ‘How to Conduct a Job Interview’ topic bundle includes:

  • ‘How to Conduct a Job Interview’ Cheat Sheet (pdf)
  • ‘How to Conduct a Job Interview’ Booklet (pdf) containing:
    • In-Depth Topic Overview
    • Examples of Bad Interview Questions (Questions NOT to ask)
    • Examples of Behavior Based Interview Questions
    • Examples of Situational Based Interview Questions
    • Common Interview Mishaps and How to Avoid them
    • Sample Interview Questions
    • How to Evaluate Resumes and Interviews
  • Resume and Interview Scoring Tool (Excel)
  • Instructions for using the Resume and Interview Scoring Tool (pdf)
  • ‘How to Conduct a Job Interview’ Podcast (mp3)
  • ‘How to Conduct a Job Interview’ Podcast Slides (Powerpoint)
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Chicken$hits Can’t Be Effective Leaders

Far smarter people than me have written about what is required for effective leadership, but this week I have been reflecting upon the most necessary ingredient:  courage.

I have had the pleasure of interacting with many leaders of varying quality over many years, and all of them have at least a few obvious strengths, but the common denominator in the truly outstanding leaders, are those who handle awkward, difficult or downright scary situations head-on.  They don’t always get it right the first time, but the outstanding leader does not back down because she fears reprisal from her boss, peers, direct reports or some other stakeholder.

It is amazing how many people have a strong need to liked by those who report through to them.  The relationship between a boss and his/her employees should always be respectful, but it does not need to be friendly.  Many leaders hate to deliver bad news, or say “no” to people.  Other leaders won’t deal with performance issues because it might involve a difficult conversation, or let an employee who should have been fired years ago get away with perpetual sub-par performance.

This is exquisite BS.

It is a form of dishonesty, and certainly demonstrates a lack of integrity when leaders fail to engage in difficult conversations.  Progressive organizations have figured this out, and gotten rid of managers who are afraid to get rid of people.

The right thing to do is rarely the easy thing to do, but it is the burden of leadership.  If you are too chicken$hit to do the right thing, then you should either grow a pair, or wait to be fired.  The choice is yours

Selecting Managers

Some kids grow up wanting to be a fire-fighter, a police officer, teacher or doctor.  I wanted to be Mr. Rogers.  No eight-year-old will tell you she wants to be a manager when she grows up (and if she does, get her into therapy top speed).  Yet there are more managers than there are fire-fighters, police officers, teachers and doctors combined by a factor of ten or more.

So how does this happen?

If management were a profession like others, someone would go to school to study the vocation of management, apprentice for some period of time, and then be deemed fully capable of executing as a manager.  MBA schools have failed to do this effectively, and the vast majority of companies develop their managers in a haphazard fashion.

Most people end up as managers by going into to some line of work for which they show some aptitude, and then are promoted to oversee others doing similar work.  Somewhere along the line, they might take a course or two, and some companies may even send their high potential new managers to business school.

Most organizations make the critical mistake of assuming that because someone is a proficient practitioner of a certain trade that she will be a good manager.  Organizations need to change their focus away from the technical aspects of a particular function (or group of functions), and instead focus on what skills a manager will need to be successful in that environment.

If more than half that list of competencies is focused on technical aspects of the industry or job, then it has been done wrong.

Don’t get me wrong:  I’m not a big fan of pulling people with no industry experience, and placing them in key management positions.  I don’t think this approach has worked very often.  If organizations are serious about having great management, then they need to select people for management positions with the core competencies required to manage in that environment, and then continually develop them.

Either that, or select tall guys with brown hair, who wear blue shirts.  That works too.

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