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Feel like you don’t know how to have difficult conversations with employees? You’re not alone. Interact, a communications consultancy, surveyed over 2,000 managers to find out which conversations made managers most uncomfortable. They asked managers if they found it more awkward to give negative feedback, show vulnerability, deliver the “company line”, or even just give clear directions to their team. The result? By a significant margin, managers were most uncomfortable with… communicating in general. Yup, that’s right. More than two-thirds of managers would prefer to simply not communicate with their teams at all. This is pretty worrying, frankly. The entire premise of performance management is based on constructive conversations between managers and their direct reports. Employees who receive frequent and meaningful feedback are four times more likely to be engaged at work, and 3.6 times more likely to feel motivated to do their best work. If the majority of managers dislike giving feedback—or even, apparently, just talking to their team—then it’s unsurprising that most employees want more feedback, and more than one in three feel unappreciated. So, if you’re a manager, new or otherwise, who wants to be able to handle difficult conversations and get the best from your team, this article’s for you. We’ll walk you through:
Why managers need to know how to have difficult conversations?There’s no question—giving tough feedback makes most of us uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the workplace offers no end of opportunities for challenging conversations, and avoiding them is likely to make matters worse. Managers need to learn how to have awkward conversations because: Employees benefit from negative feedback–and many prefer it to praiseAccording to research by leadership consultants Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, nearly three-quarters of people believe that their performance is improved by corrective feedback. In fact, the same study found that employees actually want negative feedback. Fully 92% of the respondents agreed that “Negative (redirecting) feedback, if delivered appropriately, is effective at improving performance.” ![]() Regular check-ins with your team can help their mental healthFrequent one-to-ones with your employees can reduce the risk of burnout, dramatically improve their engagement and job satisfaction, and make sure that they feel more understood and supported. Your employees’ behavior and performance affects others around themAs a manager, you have a responsibility to help your team succeed and thrive. An underperforming, difficult or disengaged employee will often make other team members’ lives harder, and can create a dysfunctional team environment. So, painful as they can be, having difficult conversations is part and parcel of being a good manager. Next let’s explore how you can approach them effectively. How to have difficult conversations with employeesCertain conversations are never going to be comfortable, and giving someone negative feedback is one of them. However, there are ways that you can make things easier for both parties. 1. Create a feedback cultureIf negative feedback comes out of the blue, then your team member may well be shocked and upset. However, if the work environment encourages ongoing feedback, both positive and negative, then you’re less likely to need to have a formal sit-down every time something goes wrong. As a rough rule of thumb, aim to give your direct reports 5 pieces of positive feedback for every piece of constructive criticism. Research suggests that this is the ideal ratio for high-performing teams. 2. Consider what outcome you wantBut let’s say that you do need to have a more serious performance discussion with an employee. Start by becoming extremely clear and honest with yourself about the outcome you want from the discussion. Do you want the employee to change their behavior? If so, how exactly? For instance, if the employee is constantly late, why is that an issue? Is it just something that bothers you on an emotional level, or is it causing inconvenience to you or the rest of the team? Do you need them to arrive on time every day, or just when there’s a morning meeting? The reason this is important is that you might discover that you’re having the conversation for the wrong reasons. Imagine, for example, that you hadn’t even noticed that they arrived 5 minutes late every day, but that it is bothering one of their co-workers. You’re far less likely to handle the conversation well if your only real desired outcome is for the conflict to go away! 3. Get to know your own triggersWhen you’re preparing for a hard conversation with an employee, you may focus on how they will react. Will they be upset? Will they argue with you? However, you’d be better off thinking about your own responses in similar situations. What are your main trigger points? How do you behave when under stress? How do you feel about conflict? Do you have bad memories about other stressful conversations that might impact how you deal with this one? You can’t control how your employee will react. But, by reflecting on your own reactions in advance, you’ll be better prepared to handle any emotions that come up during the conversation. 4. Acknowledge your own subjective reactionsOne of the biggest issues with standardized performance reviews is the idiosyncratic rater effect—the fact that more than half of our ratings of someone else reflect our own characteristics, not those of the person we’re rating. Studies show that this same skewing effect can happen when we try to give feedback to an employee in person. We can’t kid ourselves that we’re providing them with an objective insight into the truth of their poor performance. We’re simply telling them what we feel, perceive and think about their performance—from our own biased perspective. As a result, 1) they’re more than likely to disagree with our point of view and 2) there’s a very good chance that they’re right and we’re wrong! So, instead of leaping into a difficult conversation by informing the employee about what the issue is, it’s both more helpful and more accurate to share your fact-based observations with them, and then ask detailed questions. Instead of telling an employee they need to improve their sales pitch, for instance, you could say: “I’ve noticed that your sales numbers are lower than expected. What do you think is going on?” 5. Ask good questionsIf you want the employee to improve a performance issue, then simply telling them about the issue is not enough. You need them to find ways to solve the problem and motivate them to actually want to solve it. The only way to do this is to understand what’s causing the issue in the first place. But leaping in with the “Whys” (“Why did you do that?” “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”) is likely to put the employee on the defensive. Instead, you need to start by listening. Let’s say your team member has just told you that a critical project is running two months late. Instead of asking “Why has that happened?”, try asking them to narrate the issue so you can help to pinpoint the exact cause of the problem. For example: “OK, walk me through what happened. At what stage did the project start to become delayed? And then what happened next? What do you think the issue was?” That way, instead of criticizing the employee, you are in a position to help them do better next time. 6. Acknowledge your own responsibilityIt may be time to have an awkward conversation with yourself too. Team performance reflects manager characteristics to a surprising degree. Research by BetterUp found that managers with low strategic thinking had much less innovative teams, managers who lacked resilience dragged team performance down, and managers with low cognitive agility (the ability to shift perspectives) also had teams with lower agility. Unfortunately, the cause of the issue may be you! But there’s no need to panic. Simply take responsibility for your share of the issue before you get into a discussion. For example: “I notice that this project is extensively delayed. I’m concerned that I didn’t give you a realistic deadline, and I may have underestimated how complex the project was. Could you walk me through what happened?” This will make the employee feel far less defensive, and more likely to have an honest conversation with you. It shifts the power dynamic–instead of a superior scolding an employee, you become two people solving a shared problem so it’s not repeated. 7. Avoid emotional contagionIf you’re giving an employee bad news, they may well become emotional. This is entirely natural in this type of conversation—but as a manager you may find it stressful. For instance, Deborah Grayson Riegel, a leadership communication coach, notes that we tend to find it upsetting when an employee cries during a difficult conversation because we worry we may be the cause or instinctively want to fix it. There’s also the issue of emotional contagion. Emotions are contagious so, if the employee becomes angry or upset, we may well find ourselves copying their reactions. This is unhelpful, to say the least! It’s entirely appropriate for an employee to get upset if you tell them they’re underperforming—they may feel worried they’ll lose their job, embarrassed at their failure, or disappointed that they aren’t delivering the results they’d hoped for. However, as the manager, your role is to help them regulate those difficult emotions by remaining calm and supportive and not allowing your own emotions to mimic theirs. If you find yourself becoming emotional, return to the task at hand by concentrating on the outcomes you need from the conversation. If a team member becomes angry, tearful, or depressed during your conversation, Grayson Riegel advises the following:
How to give negative feedback (with examples)Here are a few phrases you might find helpful during a difficult conversation—and a few you might want to avoid!
It’s time to get comfortable with uncomfortable conversationsIf you want to be a great manager, there will be times when you have to have difficult conversations. Whether you’re giving a negative performance review, resolving a team conflict, or even letting someone go, it’s never going to be easy—but preparation, practice and perspective can help. As always, best of luck. Some further, resources to help you become a better manager:
The post How To Handle Awkward And Uncomfortable Conversations: What Every New Manager Should Know appeared first on People Managing People. via People Managing People https://ift.tt/qwSCrDJ
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94% of entrepreneurs agree that a great company culture is essential for business growth and the bottom line. But what is culture exactly, and what does a positive company culture actually look like? We’ve put together 7 company culture examples from successful companies to demonstrate how their positive culture has been key to their success. What is company culture and why is it important?Company culture describes the social order of an organization and its shared ideas, values, and behaviors. These characteristics shape what’s encouraged and accepted in an organization, such as communication style, dress, social dynamics, and work expectations. A healthy and functional organizational culture is one in which individuals are empowered to produce their best work and teams collaborate effectively to work toward organizational goals. Better yet, positive company culture can increase employee engagement. In contrast, a dysfunctional company culture can turn toxic, leading to low employee satisfaction, reduced employee retention and sinking morale—all of which hurt your company’s bottom line. There is also a difference between workplace experience and company culture. Office snacks or comfy break room couches can contribute to a positive workplace experience, but they won’t make an organizational culture stand out. Company culture is cultivated by an organization’s leadership and is closely coveted. We’ll now take a look at some examples. 7 Company Culture ExamplesCompanies with strong cultures are innovative, attractive to work for, and enduring. Let’s look at examples of successful companies and how their intentional approaches to nurturing culture has contributed to their success. 1. PatagoniaPatagonia is a popular outdoor and lifestyle brand founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, a keen mountain climber. Chouinard wanted to create an “un-company” that takes care of employees, customers and, most importantly, the planet. Its employee handbook, titled “Let My People Go Surfing,” (the title itself tells you a lot about how informal communication is) encourages employees to surf, ski, or get outside whenever conditions are good. Sounds pretty cool, right? This helps ensure employee wellbeing and also ensures that any team member, present and future, is committed to the outdoors. Patagonia employees are, by and large, core product users and nature lovers, keeping innovation close to the end user and their founding values. This meant that, when the company was trying to work through a problem with one of their products breaking their promise to protect nature, a social and environmental responsibility director, quality person, sourcing manager, and a sourcing director each had equal say on which suppliers Patagonia worked with. Eventually, a balance could be struck between price, quality, and environmental impact. Patagonia is widely recognized as one of the world’s most innovative companies and their employee turnover rate is a mere 4%. This is in no small part due to their culture feeding into product development and how they treat employees. 2. GoogleGoogle values employees that are creative, collaborative, and who show initiative. These values aren’t only sought after in employees, they’re also part of what drives the company as a whole. Google’s corporate values are more akin to a philosophy. Their page titled “Ten things we know to be true” lists each of the company’s core values. Key among them is the belief that work should be a fun challenge. As they write, the “atmosphere may be casual, but as new ideas emerge in a café line, at a team meeting or at the gym, they are traded, tested and put into practice with dizzying speed.” The speed with which new ideas emerge and are put to the test is obvious with a project like Google Stadia. Google announced its intent to dive into the lucrative video game industry in a novel way: by providing users with the ability to stream games from their Chrome browsers with no additional hardware requirements. Google announced Stadia in October 2018 and launched a beta test later that month. Beyond Google’s philosophy is also a willingness to take care of the people who work for the company. When data showed most of its turnover was associated with new mothers, for example, Google started offering 18 weeks of paid maternity leave. 3. PixarPixar wants to “make great films with great people.” The company’s desire to tell meaningful and beautiful stories is reflected in its workplace culture. It pushes for excellence but only on a foundation of community, collaboration, trust, and creativity, fostered by candid feedback and brainstorming sessions. In his book, Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Pixar co-founder Edward Catmull, wrote that “it is not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It is the manager’s job to make it safe to take them.” What does that mean exactly? It means that one of Pixar’s main goals is to foster a culture of open creativity, where egos and fear of failure do not get in the way of creating memorable stories. A testament to this positive work culture of innovation is the unprecedented success of Pixar’s movies since it launched with Toy Story in 1995 (feel old yet?) which totals 26 films and 210 awards. They produce everything in-house, never buying scripts, and hold 507 patents globally in film and animation technology. 4. REIBack in 2019, REI celebrated being ranked on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. That’s great by itself, but it was REI’s 22nd consecutive year on that list. So, how does a company make it on such a prestigious list 22 years in a row? REI aims to attract outdoor-oriented employees who are committed to the environment, community, and outdoor recreation. It also strives to put its employees at the center of company culture. And with employee engagement exceeding 85% and a retention rate that’s double the industry standard, it’s safe to say REI’s strategy works. To maintain employee engagement and brand alignment, employees participate in Challenge Grants, where they suggest unique outdoor challenges for the chance to win REI gear. 5. StarbucksAbove all else, Starbucks’ company values hinge on inclusion. In 1991, the company introduced Bean Stocks as a way for employees to share in the company’s financial success. In a nutshell, Bean Stocks convert to shares of Starbucks stock after two years of continued employment. To reflect the fact that employees now share the company’s success, Starbucks refers to them as partners. As Starbucks states, “we call our employees partners because we are all partners in shared success.” In doing so, Starbucks ensures that its employees are incentivized to provide outstanding customer service and focus on making the company thrive. In addition to investments in staff training and incentives such as stock options and health insurance, Starbucks celebrates its employee diversity and fosters an inclusive and accountable workplace through grants, nonprofits, and community partnership development. 6. ShopgateShopgate, a successful mobile commerce platform, has a simple goal to offer clients an excellent product built on the foundation of a confident and collaborative team culture. Shopgate leverages its employees’ creativity and expertise, two core values, by having a horizontal hierarchy. As such, all contributors are equally valued and celebrated, creating a positive culture of openness and shared vision. This helps them to work effectively across multiples timezones and nationalities with lots of cross-departmental collaboration. For example, a product manager feels comfortable spitballing ideas from someone in the accounting team to get a fresh perspective on a problem. 7. BufferCultivate positivity. Show gratitude. Improve consistently. These are just some of Buffer’s corporate values which highlight the company’s philosophy of inclusion and its focus on helping employees create courageously. With the firm belief that growth is only achievable through constructive and honest feedback, Buffer focuses on transparency and honesty. Whether dealing with clients or with employees, those values remain true. Key among Buffer’s values is transparency, which actually tops their list. It’s Buffer’s belief that transparency is a tool to help others. In practice, this means that Buffer shares pretty much everything, from annual income to individual employee salaries, and keeps employees informed on all company decisions. Culture mattersAs the above examples demonstrated, company culture-which translates to staying true to a shared vision and values-is key to organizational success. Think about your organization, do people live the values day to day? Are there elements you think need improvement? Some resources to help:
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Test SF11/2/2022
Department
Total:
1,191
485
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Test SF11/2/2022
Department
Total:
1,191
485
41%
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We’re passionate about the world of work, and how we can make it better. To help satisfy our curiosity, we’ve launched an interview series where we pick the brains of experienced leaders, business owners, managers, and individual contributors to get their thoughts on how we can collectively build better workplaces. Join us in our next installment below as Carla Miller, women’s leadership coach and author of Closing the Influence Gap, shares her insights with us. We’d love to get to know you a bit better, tell us a bit about your backstory.My background is in the charity sector where I led fundraising teams and then organisations and raised over £20 million for good causes. I became a Director at 29 and I was often underestimated as a young woman in a room full of older men and found it hard to get my voice heard. As a result I experienced a lot of self-doubt and imposter feelings despite the fantastic team culture I built and the results we achieved. Because when your input isn’t being valued and you’re constantly being interrupted you eventually start to believe that what you have to say isn’t valuable. At the time I felt very alone in those influencing challenges and those feelings of not being good enough. Of course, now I’ve worked with thousands of women as a leadership coach and trainer. I know that gender bias is real and rife and that many women assume that what they are experiencing is a sign that they are not good enough at their job and need to work harder. ![]() I was fortunate enough to work with a coach to build my confidence and I also developed my own ways of navigating internal politics and influencing upwards and sideways that meant I got my voice heard. That combination of self belief and influencing unlocked new opportunities for me and I soon had no issue getting my voice heard, quickly becoming a CEO of a charity then Managing Director of a recruitment consultancy and spending years facilitating strategy days in boardrooms with business leaders of global companies. I also qualified as a coach and I have been coaching managers and leaders for the past 14 years, helping others to avoid some of the pitfalls I faced. I now focus entirely on helping close the Influence Gap that women experience, through courses and programmes aimed at helping them navigate the workplace and also male allyship workshops because we need men’s engagement in gender equality programmes. I’m the host of the chart-topping podcast Influence & Impact for female leaders where we discuss anything and everything relevant to women in the workplace. My best-selling book ‘Closing the Influence Gap: A practical guide for women leaders who want to be heard’ was recently named by Management Today as one of the best books for leaders to read in 2022. If we were to ask a friend to describe your personality to us, what would they say?I think they’d say I’m a calm and supportive friend, that I work too hard because I love what I do and that my journey to solo parenthood and how I juggle that with running a business is inspiring. Of course they don’t see me collapsed on the sofa watching Netflix every night—I’m not very inspiring after 8 pm! Thinking back to your career journey, what’s an interesting story that stands out?I call it my Cloak of Authority moment. I was 29 when I took on my first Director role and as part of the interview process I met members of my team. After I’d been hired, I discovered that those team members had thought I was too young for the role and had not supported my appointment. I clearly didn’t have a lot of natural authority! The team was struggling after a difficult period and some of them were openly challenging my authority to lead and make changes. I was having challenging conversations that Carla the person did not want to have (I hate conflict and want to be liked as much as anyone else) but Carla the Director needed to have. I was also having to deliver bad news about income to a board of Trustees, prove to people that I deserved this Director role, and hold my own in conversations with CEOs and celebrities. I needed to have more authority to be able to do my job well. It took me a while to realize that my authority didn’t need to come from me, because my job title came with authority. And so does yours! At the time, the Harry Potter films were hitting the cinemas. In the first film Harry is given an Invisibility Cloak for Christmas and when he wears it he becomes invisible. So I decided to create some magical clothing of my own … The Cloak of Authority. Whenever I had to go into a challenging meeting I would imagine myself putting on my Cloak of Authority and claiming the authority that came with my job title. Studies tell us that tools like this, alongside affirmations and power posing add to our sense of self-efficacy and allow us to feel more in control. Putting on my Cloak of Authority made me feel empowered and helped me to stick to what I planned to say instead of wimping out for fear of judgment. My body language was different, my voice was lower, my speech was slower and I was able to sit with any uncomfortable silence. The Cloak of Authority is now one of my favorite simple coaching tools to share with my clients when they need to step into the authority that comes with their role. What’s the most impactful lesson you’ve learned over your career thus far?It’s something I call radical responsibility. When I was first leading teams I would get really frustrated by organizational issues or “difficult” colleagues who made my job and my team’s job harder. Then I realized that I had the ability to improve things rather than moan about them. I started to focus on creating solutions to the department’s issues with the finance team or the lack of organizational strategy. Sometimes it was about raising the right question. Sometimes it was offering to lead a meeting to solve the problem. Sometimes I did the legwork to get a project kick-started. That one approach shifted my career from average to very successful. It led to multiple promotions because my employers could see that I was committed to making things better. It is a mindset shift that has served me very well. Thanks for giving us some insight into who you are! Let’s jump into things. When you hear the phrase “build a better world of work”, what comes to mind?A world where everyone feels valued and can contribute their talents. Essentially one where psychological safety is a core part of the culture and embedded into leadership and organizational dynamics. For you, what’s the main blocker you see as standing in the way of building a better world of work?I spend my days talking to talented, experienced women who struggle to get their voices heard in the workplace. They are “manterrupted” (women are interrupted or spoken over 50% of the time in work meetings) or “hepeated” (when women make a point, get little response and then a man in the meeting makes the same point and receives all the credit). And when that happens to you constantly, you start to question your own value and doubt your judgment. It is no wonder so many talented women experience imposter feelings. Gender bias often goes unrecognized and it is costing both employers and women. What’s one thing within our control that we can practically do to build a better world of work today? And, how do you recommend going about it?Create workplaces where women can thrive. It’s going to involve approaching gender bias from a number of angles.
It is a huge challenge (and one that goes hand in hand with tackling many other forms of bias) but I believe it is one worth embarking upon. What steps can employers take to empower women so they recognise what is happening and believe in themselves again?We’ve found that bringing together groups of women in a facilitated safe space is a great start to this. A simple way to start might be a Women’s Network led by women within the organisation who gather monthly to talk openly and welcome guest speakers on topics the women have identified as relevant. You can also run a survey to see what women want support with although it can be hard to create the psychological safety that allows people to be honest in a survey. You could invest in 1:1 coaching for women. Or you can bring in an externally facilitated workshop or training course where women learn and also support and encourage each other. It is very reassuring when you hear someone else voice the very same thoughts, feelings and challenges you thought you were alone in. Our most popular course is the Be Bolder course for women at any level which covers tackling imposter feelings and self-doubt, courageous conversations and speaking up in meetings—topics identified by the thousands of women we asked about what they find hard in the workplace. We also run a women’s leadership programme, Influence & Impact, which tackles those topics and others tailored to senior women and includes training on how to get your voice heard by senior stakeholders, since we know women experience an influence gap even when they have a seat at the table. What does it look like to engage men as allies? What steps do you recommend?It starts with helping men to understand how gender bias plays out on a daily basis in the workplace so that they understand the challenges women face. This isn’t about making men feel bad—even women hold gender bias as society has trained us all to make assumptions about gender. Then, I like to share how men can support women as colleagues, leaders and outside of work with super practical actions such as passing the floor back to a woman who has been interrupted in a meeting, providing specific feedback that prepares women for leadership roles or checking that you’re doing your fair share of the life admin at home if you live with a woman. It’s fantastic if you can facilitate a discussion around this and provide those practical tips that actually create change. ![]() Can you share one thing you’ve experienced, seen, or read about that is leading us towards a better world of work?I’ve been really encouraged by the fact that men are increasingly becoming allies in the push towards gender equity. In my male allyship workshops, I’ve seen men be really open minded and curious about the additional barriers to progression and influencing that women face and eager to become advocates for their colleagues. I think there is a true desire for fairness that we all share and sometimes we just need to create space to have those important discussions. It’s also encouraging to see companies put male allyship on the agenda rather than thinking women’s leadership programmes are the only answer. They are a piece of the puzzle as women need to know how to undo some of the damage that gender bias has done to their confidence, and learn how to get their voices heard in what is still a man’s world but ultimately we need to be addressing the broken system and we need men to help do that. I’m curious, thinking about building a better world of work, is there a company and/or leader who stands out to you as someone we should follow? If so, what are they up to?I’ve been watching the Menopause Friendly Employers Accreditation really gather momentum. Menopausal women are the fastest growing workplace demographic and many are still suffering in silence or considering leaving their role. It has been fantastic to see some big name employers start to recognise this and take action and I hope that in the coming years that will become a core part of any organization’s approach to HR. How can our readers follow your work?You can find out more at www.carlamillertraining.com, connect with me on LinkedIn, listen to my podcast Influence & Impact for female leaders on any podcast platform or find my book Closing the Influence Gap in any bookstore. Thank you for adding your voice to People Managing People’s interview series on How to Build a Better World of Work!Add your voice to the conversationJoin our interview series and share your ideas for how we can build a better world of work! The post Tackling Gender Bias Will Help Build A Better World Of Work appeared first on People Managing People. via People Managing People https://ift.tt/3ZuDgJk |