Feedback is not always easy to give. Or receive. Take the story of the CEO who went in to give his head of sales his annual performance review and found the office cleaned out. Turns out the head of sales left a "note" in his drawer saying that he coudn't face the performance evalution he was expecting he would get. This is a bit extreme. Hopefully, your experiences have not been this dramatic.
But let's assume you have never given performance feedback, like about 60% of all bosses. If you need to create a performance evaluation from scratch, take the person’s job description and break it down into categories. Try not to list more than 12 or 15 areas at the outside. If you have no job description available, search the job title on the internet with the words “job description” included, e.g., “VP of Marketing job description”. Pull out the parts that apply to the role and break it down into categories. Be sure to include soft skills such as influence or conflict management if they apply. If you are reviewing a person in customer service, for example, friendliness and communication skills would be top priorities on the soft side.
Next, either have the person do a self-assessment or include as many people as realistic in evaluating the person in the time allotted. The people to include can be the manager, peers, direct reports or any other stakeholders who know the person well. A simple evaluation can include a rating scale and a box for comments. A more complicated one can include a rating scale and associated questions. A simple 360° process can be purchased at a reasonable price through a coach. (The cost can be as low as $100/person.) A 360° is so named because it takes evaluation information from 360° around the person. It is simply a specialized type of performance review most commonly used by executives and a favorite tool of many coaches.
If you are giving feedback to a high level executive, the most common areas of improvement for executives are listed in the following table by frequency. These percentages were gathered from the hundreds of executive 360°s we have performed over the last decade in our company and in partnership with other companies.
If a person had more negative comments than positive comments in an area, it is considered a “development area”. These development areas show common themes and they are listed in the table by frequency of appearance.
Most Common Development Areas
Onboarding 12% / 88%*
Results Focus 62%
Problem-Solving 58%
Interpersonal Skills 58%
Delegation 44%
Influence 32%
Communication 31%
Executive Presence 22%
*While Onboarding was only a development area in 12% total of the reports we performed, of those who had recently begun a new role, 88% needed onboarding help in their development plans.
If you need further ideas for competency areas, check out the FYI book by Korn/Ferry. Next, get ready to actually deliver the feedback, or at least talk about it after you have slipped the report surreptitiously onto your employee's desk.
Remember a few key points as you deliver the feedback:
1. Be specific. Include examples as you point out development areas.
2. Balance praise and criticism. When giving the criticism, include suggestions for improvement.
3. Expect some reactions. Allow the person receiving feedback to digest and then have a follow-on conversation after tempers or tears have cooled.
4. Don't forget a development plan. Pick one or two areas that are most important and give the person a little adivce or some tasks to handle those areas. You'd be surprised how far a little advice can go.
It's time to get going on giving some feedback and helping the 94% of your employees, so let's get started!
Executive Coaching + Leadership Development + Teambuilding + Sales Training + CEO Course + Influence Course
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Coach Me! Coach Me!
Whether you are an HR professional, a peer, a mentor or a coach, you need the basic tools to begin to assist another person. If you are an executive and just want to coach your direct reports or employees to improve their performance, the same rules apply. Use these tools to get any coaching or mentoring relationship off the starting block.
IMPROVEMENT
As irrational as it may sound, not every person who seeks coaching wants to improve his situation. Some are trying to get out of a role or company and just want to be coached as to how to do this. Others have a solemn belief that no improvement is possible, that “people are the way they are”. If you do not quickly understand this about your coachee, you may end up at odds because you intend improvement while he intends to leave or go through a fruitless exercise. Nothing is more important than setting up the relationship with aligned purposes.
To begin, ask your coachee his goals for coaching by finding out what end state he desires. Then, pull off any false veneer of “playing along” with coaching by asking the questions below:
Is there anything about your current role that you do not like? If so, what?
What area of your job causes you the most stress?
If you could leave to go do anything else, what would you do?
Is there anything about your role which makes you feel old or tired?
Are there any reasons why you would want to give up?
Do you believe people can change for the better? Have you ever seen someone improve in any area? What was it?
Get several answers for each of the above questions. These questions are food for a discussion, not just short ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. If the person mentions any fact or situation which is fascinating, confusing or worth discussing, ask further about it until it is perfectly clear. Take the role of detective in understanding the situation and goals of your coachee. When you are certain he would like improvement, not to leave or follow some other purpose, continue with the Help section below.
HELP
Clearly, a main role of the coach is to help the recipient, to be a sounding board, a stable source of guidance and a font of wisdom. But not everyone is open to accepting help from a coach. This is easy to understand for those who have been to a dentist or a doctor and had a painful experience. We go in to the doctor, relieved to get help for our illness or our toothache, and end up with a needle in our backside or our jaw, followed by a painful procedure or two, and some follow-up medication. As helpful the intervention is in solving the condition, it never sets us up to love the idea of help. Years later, we see people avoiding the doctor even when a condition has become serious. We often get the idea that help involves a little bit, or a great deal, of pain. This is the view on help that you might find your coachee (or even yourself) sitting in.
Thus, the job of a coach is to get the coachee ready and willing to receive the help of a coach. Poke around about his reactions to help. Ask the following questions to start discussion:
What types of help has he or she received before?
Was any of the help bad help? Any good help? What happened?
What does help consist of in his mind?
Has he ever been coached before? How did it go? Was the coach helpful?
Who has helped him most in life? Least?
Describe the ideal type of help.
This is a good time to check for experiences similar to coaching but not called “coaching”, such as having a mentor. Ask the following questions and get complete answers:
Has the person had a mentor? Used a consultant? Anything similar to a coach? If yes to any, find out whether this helped or not.
What types of experiences does he or she associate with coaching? Were those good experiences or bad experiences?
Does he believe coaching could work? Is it possible that it could help?
Give an example of how coaching might help someone. Give an example of when you have seen someone receive help.
Please note, this set of questions could take as long as several hours, but minimally will take about 30-45 minutes. After digging in deeply to find the answers to these questions, and if the person is ready and willing to receive some help, move into a discussion on control.
The next step in developing a coaching relationship is to come to an agreement about who is in control in the coaching relationship. Control is another dirty word in the workplace, second only to help. Sit any person down and tell him you are going to control him and he will likely leap from the chair and run from the room, possibly screaming. And yet, to have a successful coaching relationship, someone has to control the flow of the development plan, and the most likely candidate is the coach, not the coachee. So to have a successful relationship, a coach must help his coachee come to terms with the fact that the coach will control him and the process.
To get the subject of control under control, the coach can ask the coachee the following questions:
When you hear “control” what do you think of?
Have you had any bad experiences with control? What happened?
Have you had a good experience with control?
How do you like to be controlled?
How do you dislike being controlled?
Is control ever a good thing? Give an example.
Next, spend a few minutes asking the coachee to do various tasks, such as hand over his pen, get up from his chair, or bring you a glass of water. They should be simple tasks, but he should be willing to do them with no questions asked. This is a minimum threshold for control to start a coaching relationship.
The control exercises are similar to the ones on help. They should take a minimum of 30 - 45 minutes and could go as long as several hours. Dig deeply to find areas where the person was controlled badly or the control was harmful. These experiences are likely to get in the way of coaching unless you uncover them and bring them to light.
If you manage to dig in deep enough, you will get to a point where the coachee trusts you to control him, knowing that control can be a positive influence. After all, if you were operating your phone and didn’t control it, you wouldn’t make many calls, would you? You would likely end up with a broken phone. You can mention this to him to make a point about control.
If you have completed these three major steps, you now have a person ready to be coached. The next step is to write down goals and create a development plan. This will be covered in another article.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
It's Peeeeeeeople!
My Sunday School teacher was fond of mentioning that there were only two types of people in the world: good guys and bad guys. While this may have been true, it left me with no tools to sort out which was which. For instance, were my business competitors all “bad guys” or might some of them be good guys? I needed a practical and workable system for determining whether someone was on my side or not, whether I could trust them or not. I finally found that one method worked best to answer these questions about people.
First of all, I stopped listening to what people were saying. Some of the most underhanded people I ever worked with said wonderful, flattering words to my face and then proceeded to undermine me relentlessly. So words were not the test of whether a person could be trusted. I needed a better system. What I discovered was that I could look for business results and get a good estimation of the worth of the person. I started dividing people into two camps. Rather than “good” or “bad”, which had too many extraneous connotations, I started using “constructive” and “destructive”. Either a person was helping me and the business or he wasn’t. Either he was pushing for results for himself and others or he wasn’t. This made the picture much clearer. I also found that the minute I focused on results and those who were constructive in achieving them or destructive of them, I could easily sort out a few other “types” in each camp.
Below are the “types” I found most commonly, with genders chosen randomly for each type.
THE CONSTRUCTIVE TEAM: Gets results for self. Helps others get results.
Mr. Busy: Rather than being a busy-body, he is just plain busy. Phone calls, emails, meetings—he goes all day long. He is just busy, busy, busy getting things done! This is the top person to have on a team that wants to achieve results.
Superhero: He is the ultra-constructive hero of the office. He likes to pitch in, works hard and goes a tad nutty when others try to stop him. If he complains, it is about injustices or the barriers to success. On a normal day, he is busy and optimistic. He likes to talk and may even run late from getting too involved in some conversations. He loves having an exciting goal to pursue and likes other people.
Ms. Thoughtful: She is concerned about the results, thoroughly thinking through strategies and timelines. She ponders about data and furrows her brow at complex problems. Likes to review charts and spreadsheets. New ideas are a bit too risky because they might jeopardize the cause. She’s helpful and a good person to go to for a thorough analysis.
Mr. Blah: He’s bored at meetings and tends to doodle on his napkin. He occasionally gets interested in a project, but it takes some effort and has to involve him personally. He’s nice and wouldn’t hurt a flea. Don’t expect him to lead the team, but he will do what you ask him to do. Put him on a team with a strong leader.
The Fighter: Picks a fight with anyone for any reason. Loves debate and a good boxing round with others. You might wonder at times whether he’s on your side or not, and he certainly can be exhausting, but his heart is in the right place. The fights can be unnecessary at times, but they aren’t ill-intentioned. A good team player if you can keep him fighting against the competition instead of his teammates. Also needs a strong leader to channel his energies.
THE DESTRUCTIVE TEAM: Will slow or stop any constructive goal. Wastes time and energy.
Blow-Hard: He’s always irritated about something, but won’t always mention it. When things blow up, he’s in the middle of it, yelling and screaming, throwing staplers and verbally abusing others. The accusations are untrue and full of destructive talk. The difference between the Blow-Hard and the Fighter is that the Fighter is fighting for something important: results. The Blow-Hard is just interested in beating others up. He’s not trying to “motivate” them or prove his strategy is the best. He’s just angry and obnoxious.
The Snake: Also known as the gossip of the office, this ‘type’ is the mark of death for your office. Wanders from office to office, making seemingly harmless comments about others but secretly stirring up conflicts and problems. Casually “mentions” to the boss that Sheila was at lunch for 1.5 hours and smelled “a bit like alcohol” when she returned. Will profess to be doing every action for the good of others while casually inserting a knife into every back he or she can find. Will undermine every possible constructive goal. Will support and help destructive goals like layoffs or downsizing only. It’s nearly guaranteed that you have met one of this type, but you might have missed it. The best skill you can learn is to recognize it when you see it. The snake is intensely dangerous while appearing completely harmless or even “nice” at times, and can be quite good at hiding his treachery by apparently “sensible” arguments. Look for a person who can’t do an honest day’s work and would rather sit around “talking” about problems and excuses rather than just driving the results. Will cause confusion to all constructive types in a short period of time.
Fraidy-Cat: She’s worried. She can’t sleep. She needs another cup of coffee. The competition just sold the contract to the client! The sky is falling! The fraidy-cat is the constantly worried officemate who has you wondering if you will ever get ahead or how so much can go so wrong so quickly. She is the bearer of bad tidings, and no good for you either. The world is much more dangerous place after you finish a breakfast meeting with fraidy-cat.
Victim: He just got in an accident. Again. He lost the sales contracts just before the big meeting because someone stole his briefcase at Starbucks. People are always stopping him, beating him up, picking on him. He can’t win. Ever. You wonder how one person could have so much trouble and bad luck, and how he could miss so much work and still have a job. A popular type to start frivolous lawsuits. Stay away or you will be part of one of the lawsuits shortly. Don’t hire him or you will have more and more problems on your hands daily.
The Weeper: She cries at the drop of a hat. She’s a bit slow. She looks sad or blank most of the time. May be still stuck in a recent tragedy or just generally sad and depressed. Seems a little “out of it” at times. Hard to get moving toward goals. Points out what is wrong or bad about nearly everything. Not a good team player or even an individual contributor. Too slow and too many excuses to be useful.
Mr. Whatever: This guy usually barely speaks. When he does, it is about how much he doesn’t care, how it all is fruitless and a waste of time because failure is clearly right around the corner. Can’t ever be convinced that something will go the right way. Has few friends. Doesn’t move much or control much. His response to anything, either good or bad, could be summed up as “whatever”.
So perhaps you found your teammates in the types, and perhaps you even discovered that one person was not as constructive as you might have hoped. It’s time to get down to the most difficult question of the day: Are the few people you work with most often going to take YOU up with them? When they become successful, will you be successful too? Looking at these types should help you determine the answer to that question. The constructive types will, to a greater or lesser degree, help you, support you and be constructive toward the group goals. The destructive types won’t. It’s that simple. So take a good, long look at those around you and see what your group looks like.
Wondering what to do if you found too many destructive types on your team? Time to restructure your team. If you can’t do that, talk to a coach about handling the destructive types and finding more support for your constructive goals. And good luck!
First of all, I stopped listening to what people were saying. Some of the most underhanded people I ever worked with said wonderful, flattering words to my face and then proceeded to undermine me relentlessly. So words were not the test of whether a person could be trusted. I needed a better system. What I discovered was that I could look for business results and get a good estimation of the worth of the person. I started dividing people into two camps. Rather than “good” or “bad”, which had too many extraneous connotations, I started using “constructive” and “destructive”. Either a person was helping me and the business or he wasn’t. Either he was pushing for results for himself and others or he wasn’t. This made the picture much clearer. I also found that the minute I focused on results and those who were constructive in achieving them or destructive of them, I could easily sort out a few other “types” in each camp.
Below are the “types” I found most commonly, with genders chosen randomly for each type.
THE CONSTRUCTIVE TEAM: Gets results for self. Helps others get results.
Mr. Busy: Rather than being a busy-body, he is just plain busy. Phone calls, emails, meetings—he goes all day long. He is just busy, busy, busy getting things done! This is the top person to have on a team that wants to achieve results.
Superhero: He is the ultra-constructive hero of the office. He likes to pitch in, works hard and goes a tad nutty when others try to stop him. If he complains, it is about injustices or the barriers to success. On a normal day, he is busy and optimistic. He likes to talk and may even run late from getting too involved in some conversations. He loves having an exciting goal to pursue and likes other people.
Ms. Thoughtful: She is concerned about the results, thoroughly thinking through strategies and timelines. She ponders about data and furrows her brow at complex problems. Likes to review charts and spreadsheets. New ideas are a bit too risky because they might jeopardize the cause. She’s helpful and a good person to go to for a thorough analysis.
Mr. Blah: He’s bored at meetings and tends to doodle on his napkin. He occasionally gets interested in a project, but it takes some effort and has to involve him personally. He’s nice and wouldn’t hurt a flea. Don’t expect him to lead the team, but he will do what you ask him to do. Put him on a team with a strong leader.
The Fighter: Picks a fight with anyone for any reason. Loves debate and a good boxing round with others. You might wonder at times whether he’s on your side or not, and he certainly can be exhausting, but his heart is in the right place. The fights can be unnecessary at times, but they aren’t ill-intentioned. A good team player if you can keep him fighting against the competition instead of his teammates. Also needs a strong leader to channel his energies.
THE DESTRUCTIVE TEAM: Will slow or stop any constructive goal. Wastes time and energy.
Blow-Hard: He’s always irritated about something, but won’t always mention it. When things blow up, he’s in the middle of it, yelling and screaming, throwing staplers and verbally abusing others. The accusations are untrue and full of destructive talk. The difference between the Blow-Hard and the Fighter is that the Fighter is fighting for something important: results. The Blow-Hard is just interested in beating others up. He’s not trying to “motivate” them or prove his strategy is the best. He’s just angry and obnoxious.
The Snake: Also known as the gossip of the office, this ‘type’ is the mark of death for your office. Wanders from office to office, making seemingly harmless comments about others but secretly stirring up conflicts and problems. Casually “mentions” to the boss that Sheila was at lunch for 1.5 hours and smelled “a bit like alcohol” when she returned. Will profess to be doing every action for the good of others while casually inserting a knife into every back he or she can find. Will undermine every possible constructive goal. Will support and help destructive goals like layoffs or downsizing only. It’s nearly guaranteed that you have met one of this type, but you might have missed it. The best skill you can learn is to recognize it when you see it. The snake is intensely dangerous while appearing completely harmless or even “nice” at times, and can be quite good at hiding his treachery by apparently “sensible” arguments. Look for a person who can’t do an honest day’s work and would rather sit around “talking” about problems and excuses rather than just driving the results. Will cause confusion to all constructive types in a short period of time.
Fraidy-Cat: She’s worried. She can’t sleep. She needs another cup of coffee. The competition just sold the contract to the client! The sky is falling! The fraidy-cat is the constantly worried officemate who has you wondering if you will ever get ahead or how so much can go so wrong so quickly. She is the bearer of bad tidings, and no good for you either. The world is much more dangerous place after you finish a breakfast meeting with fraidy-cat.
Victim: He just got in an accident. Again. He lost the sales contracts just before the big meeting because someone stole his briefcase at Starbucks. People are always stopping him, beating him up, picking on him. He can’t win. Ever. You wonder how one person could have so much trouble and bad luck, and how he could miss so much work and still have a job. A popular type to start frivolous lawsuits. Stay away or you will be part of one of the lawsuits shortly. Don’t hire him or you will have more and more problems on your hands daily.
The Weeper: She cries at the drop of a hat. She’s a bit slow. She looks sad or blank most of the time. May be still stuck in a recent tragedy or just generally sad and depressed. Seems a little “out of it” at times. Hard to get moving toward goals. Points out what is wrong or bad about nearly everything. Not a good team player or even an individual contributor. Too slow and too many excuses to be useful.
Mr. Whatever: This guy usually barely speaks. When he does, it is about how much he doesn’t care, how it all is fruitless and a waste of time because failure is clearly right around the corner. Can’t ever be convinced that something will go the right way. Has few friends. Doesn’t move much or control much. His response to anything, either good or bad, could be summed up as “whatever”.
So perhaps you found your teammates in the types, and perhaps you even discovered that one person was not as constructive as you might have hoped. It’s time to get down to the most difficult question of the day: Are the few people you work with most often going to take YOU up with them? When they become successful, will you be successful too? Looking at these types should help you determine the answer to that question. The constructive types will, to a greater or lesser degree, help you, support you and be constructive toward the group goals. The destructive types won’t. It’s that simple. So take a good, long look at those around you and see what your group looks like.
Wondering what to do if you found too many destructive types on your team? Time to restructure your team. If you can’t do that, talk to a coach about handling the destructive types and finding more support for your constructive goals. And good luck!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Attention!
It was December 20 and the VP of Marketing of an e-commerce business was staring blankly at a recent post on Yelp. The post condemned the e-commerce company, claiming their customer service was “abysmal” and their products “far below par”. After several nearly sleepless nights and a tired phone call to the PR person to see what they could do about it, they resolved to carry on without doing anything about it. But the post still haunted her.
Was their decision correct? How hard should they have tried to have the post removed, or please the displeased customer?
Negative press is never easy to take. For any business owner, it can feel like a personal jab rather than a dispassionate discussion of your business. One CEO was so distraught over some negative press about her company that she spent six nights manning the phones in customer service personally. That’s heroic.
Let’s look at the other side of this coin, shall we? To do business, we must garner attention. Yes, that’s right, we have to get others to see us, to look at us, to talk to us, to exchange money and services or goods with us. Communication is the bottom line. And that takes getting the public’s attention. Without attention, our businesses wither and die.
So, if we get negative attention, is that so bad? It certainly FEELS bad. It dampens our spirits. It kills our restful nights. That is actually what it is supposed to do. Remember Robert Kennedy’s quote: "One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time." That’s right. One-fifth. Twenty percent. One out of five. Ok, you get it. It’s a large percentage. If you have five people in your office, at least one of them will never like what you are doing at any given time. It’s time to face the facts and grow up a bit. Not everyone will like us all the time!
Now let’s truly reverse this look and decide that criticism is a GOOD thing. Yes. A GOOD THING. Why? Because it means you are getting enough attention that someone is spending their valuable time to criticize you. It means you are impinging on your market. Truthfully, most of our businesses are never known at all, right? We spend our days WISHING for our articles to go viral, for our products to create massive demand. If you truly want that, start facing up to the hard truth that you will have to be ready to receive some criticism. As Grant Cardone (The Turnaround King) says, “When you start taking the right amount of action and therefore creating success, criticism is often not far behind. Receiving criticism is a surefire sign that you are well on your way.” Ask any major celebrity when he started receiving criticism in full force. It is quite likely right around the time he hit it big.
Back to our VP of Marketing. What if, instead of worrying about the criticism, she marketed so hard that she got 10 positive comments for every one negative one? What if she got so many customers that the one naysayer was drowned in a sea of excitement? What if you did the same?
To overcome criticism, don’t get stuck on it. Just expand above and beyond it. Go big. Speak more. Speak louder. Sell more! And when you get a public criticism, forward it to me so I can congratulate you for getting enough attention. Here's to criticism!
Was their decision correct? How hard should they have tried to have the post removed, or please the displeased customer?
Negative press is never easy to take. For any business owner, it can feel like a personal jab rather than a dispassionate discussion of your business. One CEO was so distraught over some negative press about her company that she spent six nights manning the phones in customer service personally. That’s heroic.
Let’s look at the other side of this coin, shall we? To do business, we must garner attention. Yes, that’s right, we have to get others to see us, to look at us, to talk to us, to exchange money and services or goods with us. Communication is the bottom line. And that takes getting the public’s attention. Without attention, our businesses wither and die.
So, if we get negative attention, is that so bad? It certainly FEELS bad. It dampens our spirits. It kills our restful nights. That is actually what it is supposed to do. Remember Robert Kennedy’s quote: "One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time." That’s right. One-fifth. Twenty percent. One out of five. Ok, you get it. It’s a large percentage. If you have five people in your office, at least one of them will never like what you are doing at any given time. It’s time to face the facts and grow up a bit. Not everyone will like us all the time!
Now let’s truly reverse this look and decide that criticism is a GOOD thing. Yes. A GOOD THING. Why? Because it means you are getting enough attention that someone is spending their valuable time to criticize you. It means you are impinging on your market. Truthfully, most of our businesses are never known at all, right? We spend our days WISHING for our articles to go viral, for our products to create massive demand. If you truly want that, start facing up to the hard truth that you will have to be ready to receive some criticism. As Grant Cardone (The Turnaround King) says, “When you start taking the right amount of action and therefore creating success, criticism is often not far behind. Receiving criticism is a surefire sign that you are well on your way.” Ask any major celebrity when he started receiving criticism in full force. It is quite likely right around the time he hit it big.
Back to our VP of Marketing. What if, instead of worrying about the criticism, she marketed so hard that she got 10 positive comments for every one negative one? What if she got so many customers that the one naysayer was drowned in a sea of excitement? What if you did the same?
To overcome criticism, don’t get stuck on it. Just expand above and beyond it. Go big. Speak more. Speak louder. Sell more! And when you get a public criticism, forward it to me so I can congratulate you for getting enough attention. Here's to criticism!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
360° Executive Reviews; faqs
1. What benefits do executive 360° reviews provide?
The biggest benefit to the CEO is more productive executives who work more collaboratively. When an executive exhibits difficult behavior, that behavior is often unknown to him or her because it is a problem in self-awareness. The main point of a 360° is to increase self-awareness.
Beyond that, creation and initiation of ongoing executive performance review is shown to have the most marked effect on company morale and productivity. It outranks any other kind of leadership or organizational development as it shows an atmosphere of employee accountability at the highest level and targets the leadership areas which most need improvement in the executives.
In the book Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan, a study of executives showed that those who created an atmosphere of accountability with regular performance review and leadership development programs were found to be more successful than their colleagues who sought business results to the exclusion of development. Conaty and Charan reason that these executives found it easier to attract and retain the most talented people by giving them opportunities to grow rather than just to work toward a number. Talented executives want to be challenged and stretched while they deliver excellent business results.
In fact, in a recent study performed by Korn Ferry International, it was discovered that an amazing 94% of executives want more feedback than they currently receive. Combine this with the Lominger study which proves that leaders who have low self-awareness are most likely to be fired, and you can see why executive 360s are now considered a large part of total benefits packages at some of the most cutting edge companies in the world, such as Cisco, Zappos and NetApp. These companies routinely top the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, in part due to their commitment to leadership development through executive review. The vast majority of executives want continuous learning opportunities that many companies simply do not provide. Without these learning opportunities, their careers can grow stagnant and they look elsewhere. Given the high cost of executive recruitment and retention, this is not a mistake businesses today can afford to make.
2. How does the 360° feedback process work?
When we perform your 360° reviews, the time expenditure for you is quite minimal. Our job is to make the process easy on you so you can continue to produce amazing business results while we develop the reports.
The following steps are the usual process:
a. Question development: First, we do a short research program to determine the correct competencies to address for each executive. We have an enormous database of information on roles, responsibilities, job descriptions and competencies for each unique role. We customize this to your culture and finalize the list of questions to be asked with the CEO and the HR executive.
b. Interviews: When we have your list of 360° contributors, we interview each person individually, including the executive himself, to obtain the most detailed and rich content on the competency, examples for each competency and suggestions for change, if applicable. We ensure confidentiality by cleaning each comment thoroughly for identifiable remarks. In the interviews we are looking for areas of strength as well as areas of development.
c. Customized reports: We then create a customized report for each executive. This report can be up to 40 pages long depending on the number of contributors. An average length is 15-20 pages. The report contains five major parts—the standard assessment results (if applicable), the summary, the graph, the verbatim comments and development materials. Samples of the summary, the graph and the verbatim comments are attached to this document. The executive receives the report in a three- or four-hour session where each part of the report is discussed thoroughly with the coach.
d. Development plans and coaching: After the report delivery phase, we immediately craft a development and coaching plan. If the executive is receiving coaching with the 360° review, we create a coaching plan with deliverables and timelines that match the development plan. At times, it is appropriate for the HR executive to take over the development plan at this point. This is customized for each person.
e. Ongoing review: The first 360° review is intended to be a baseline for the executive and should be updated every 12 to 18 months with a new 360° review.
3. Can our Human Resources department perform the reviews?
As the executives set the tone for the entire company, developing a continuous learning and feedback environment at the leadership team level is of the utmost importance. Having an external company perform this work gives an objective view of performance and allows for a larger measure of confidentiality for those contributing information via interview. It also allows for an unbiased review of the human resources executives in the same process as the rest of the team. Another benefit is that when tempers flare or emotions run high, as they inevitably do with reviews, the internal Human Resources function is shielded from these difficulties which are handled by our team. Our team is intimately familiar with executive problems and challenges and we easily and smoothly handle these issues for you.
Executive performance review must be distinct from other performance reviews in the company. Executive level expectations are higher and contain a long list of competencies, as many as 114 separate competencies. Executive responsibility is extremely high and must be treated as such. It is quite difficult for an HR professional who sits as a peer to another executive to deliver these types of performance reviews.
4. What do 360° reviews cost?
The cost for 360°reviews varies widely but the normal range is from $7,000 to $15,000 per executive. Most companies currently pay approximately $10,000 per executive, however, top executives like Bill Gates and Michael Dell pay upwards of $100,000 per report for their reviews which can run as long as 100 or more pages. Costs are determined by the size of the executive team, the list of competencies and numbers of reviewers. Coaching packages are an additional cost which can be cut down substantially by the quality of the 360° review itself. As an example, one CMO who recently received a review from our company was able to make the necessary changes within two months rather than the original six-month estimate on his development plan. He credited this to the ability to pin-point the correct issues. Our reports focus with laser-like precision on development areas and this precision can often make development steps obvious and rapid, saving the company money in coaching and education costs. A benefit of using our company is that we are so experienced with 360° reviews that we can save you time on the development plan as well as on the process itself.
5. Do executives enjoy receiving the reviews?
The overwhelming majority of participants enjoy receiving reviews. 94% of our clients have found the process challenging and intellectually stimulating. Less than 3% found it unsatisfying or too difficult. The level of satisfaction with the process correlates with the positivity of the report, however, we have universally discovered that executives do indeed desire more feedback. As mentioned above, 94% of executives want more feedback.
6. What do executives say about receiving the 360s and coaching?
Below are a few excerpts from the success stories of executives who have received their reviews from us:
“I took my relationship with my CTO to an entirely new level in two weeks after my review. I literally would never have believed this could happen so quickly.”
--C-level executive
“I was surprised how focused this review was. There was nothing in the report that was extraneous and we didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken. That was a relief.”
--SVP executive
“I had a prior 360° with another company and I could not decipher the results. This 360° was easy to understand and made creating the development plan a breeze. My development plan was completed in three months and I was ready for a new set of challenges. Our business went up 18% during my development plan.”
--C-level executive
“Applying the techniques I learned made me more organized and crisp. Most importantly, I learned how to quantify my unique value and stop making excuses. During the coaching, I was able to drive bottom-line results in less than 60 days.”
--SVP executive
7. What do 360° reports look like?
Below are sample excerpts of the 360° documents to show how the information is presented in the report.
a. The Executive Summary: The summary is intended to bring out the main strengths and development areas for the executive. The summary is also presented to the executive’s manager in a separate meeting and is used to create the slide show where the executive presents his 360° (if applicable). Below are partial sample excerpts. The summaries are usually one page for strengths and one for development areas.
b. The Chart:
The chart shows a visual summary of the verbatim feedback by color coding the comments into strengths and development areas. A person with very mixed review comments would have a chart similar to the one shown below. In the example below, the Openness to Learning and Technical Acumen categories are largely positive while the Managing Upward category is more negative.
c. The Verbatim Comments: This example shows a few comments from the Openness to Learning category. Each category contains a set of verbatim comments matching the chart and aligning with the summary.
8. Are there any best practices for 360° reviews?
Absolutely. The following are the summary guidelines for implementing a 360° review process.
a. Give 360° reviews to the whole team rather than a few team members. The process works best when the entire team gets used to giving and receiving feedback. This creates a cultural change which allows for more rapid adjustment of non-optimum performance and behavior. It also creates a sense of fairness and camaraderie on the team. If one executive is performing poorly, the other executives are usually contributing in some way to the behavior, even if only by tacit consent.
b. Respect the confidentiality of the process. The CEO and HR Executive should assist the team members to uphold the confidentiality of the reports. The CEO is a role model for receiving the report and summarizing the feedback to the group. Her attitude will be closely watched and imitated by other executives.
c. Grant the executives the importance of having separate and distinct reviews. Do not use the same type of feedback process at the executive level that is used at the lower levels of the organization. Executive responsibility and standards are much higher and should be treated as such. If you have a poor performer on the executive team, this situation must be remedied rapidly as the consequences hold much more importance to the company.
In short, the 360° process is a unique and time-tested approach for delivering a high quality learning and development experience for the executive team.
Years after receiving a review and three months of coaching, one executive left this message on our voice mail:
“ . . . I wanted to call and update you on my progress since our 360 process three years ago. I not only completely changed my approach to work, but I have been promoted twice and am now the Board’s choice for the new CEO of our company! I credit this entirely to the 360 process. I cannot thank you enough for the deep and lasting impact this process had on my career. I called my HR person to thank her as well for bringing this into the company. Of course, as the CEO, I will continue the process.”
The biggest benefit to the CEO is more productive executives who work more collaboratively. When an executive exhibits difficult behavior, that behavior is often unknown to him or her because it is a problem in self-awareness. The main point of a 360° is to increase self-awareness.
Beyond that, creation and initiation of ongoing executive performance review is shown to have the most marked effect on company morale and productivity. It outranks any other kind of leadership or organizational development as it shows an atmosphere of employee accountability at the highest level and targets the leadership areas which most need improvement in the executives.
In the book Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers by Bill Conaty and Ram Charan, a study of executives showed that those who created an atmosphere of accountability with regular performance review and leadership development programs were found to be more successful than their colleagues who sought business results to the exclusion of development. Conaty and Charan reason that these executives found it easier to attract and retain the most talented people by giving them opportunities to grow rather than just to work toward a number. Talented executives want to be challenged and stretched while they deliver excellent business results.
In fact, in a recent study performed by Korn Ferry International, it was discovered that an amazing 94% of executives want more feedback than they currently receive. Combine this with the Lominger study which proves that leaders who have low self-awareness are most likely to be fired, and you can see why executive 360s are now considered a large part of total benefits packages at some of the most cutting edge companies in the world, such as Cisco, Zappos and NetApp. These companies routinely top the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, in part due to their commitment to leadership development through executive review. The vast majority of executives want continuous learning opportunities that many companies simply do not provide. Without these learning opportunities, their careers can grow stagnant and they look elsewhere. Given the high cost of executive recruitment and retention, this is not a mistake businesses today can afford to make.
2. How does the 360° feedback process work?
When we perform your 360° reviews, the time expenditure for you is quite minimal. Our job is to make the process easy on you so you can continue to produce amazing business results while we develop the reports.
The following steps are the usual process:
a. Question development: First, we do a short research program to determine the correct competencies to address for each executive. We have an enormous database of information on roles, responsibilities, job descriptions and competencies for each unique role. We customize this to your culture and finalize the list of questions to be asked with the CEO and the HR executive.
b. Interviews: When we have your list of 360° contributors, we interview each person individually, including the executive himself, to obtain the most detailed and rich content on the competency, examples for each competency and suggestions for change, if applicable. We ensure confidentiality by cleaning each comment thoroughly for identifiable remarks. In the interviews we are looking for areas of strength as well as areas of development.
c. Customized reports: We then create a customized report for each executive. This report can be up to 40 pages long depending on the number of contributors. An average length is 15-20 pages. The report contains five major parts—the standard assessment results (if applicable), the summary, the graph, the verbatim comments and development materials. Samples of the summary, the graph and the verbatim comments are attached to this document. The executive receives the report in a three- or four-hour session where each part of the report is discussed thoroughly with the coach.
d. Development plans and coaching: After the report delivery phase, we immediately craft a development and coaching plan. If the executive is receiving coaching with the 360° review, we create a coaching plan with deliverables and timelines that match the development plan. At times, it is appropriate for the HR executive to take over the development plan at this point. This is customized for each person.
e. Ongoing review: The first 360° review is intended to be a baseline for the executive and should be updated every 12 to 18 months with a new 360° review.
3. Can our Human Resources department perform the reviews?
As the executives set the tone for the entire company, developing a continuous learning and feedback environment at the leadership team level is of the utmost importance. Having an external company perform this work gives an objective view of performance and allows for a larger measure of confidentiality for those contributing information via interview. It also allows for an unbiased review of the human resources executives in the same process as the rest of the team. Another benefit is that when tempers flare or emotions run high, as they inevitably do with reviews, the internal Human Resources function is shielded from these difficulties which are handled by our team. Our team is intimately familiar with executive problems and challenges and we easily and smoothly handle these issues for you.
Executive performance review must be distinct from other performance reviews in the company. Executive level expectations are higher and contain a long list of competencies, as many as 114 separate competencies. Executive responsibility is extremely high and must be treated as such. It is quite difficult for an HR professional who sits as a peer to another executive to deliver these types of performance reviews.
4. What do 360° reviews cost?
The cost for 360°reviews varies widely but the normal range is from $7,000 to $15,000 per executive. Most companies currently pay approximately $10,000 per executive, however, top executives like Bill Gates and Michael Dell pay upwards of $100,000 per report for their reviews which can run as long as 100 or more pages. Costs are determined by the size of the executive team, the list of competencies and numbers of reviewers. Coaching packages are an additional cost which can be cut down substantially by the quality of the 360° review itself. As an example, one CMO who recently received a review from our company was able to make the necessary changes within two months rather than the original six-month estimate on his development plan. He credited this to the ability to pin-point the correct issues. Our reports focus with laser-like precision on development areas and this precision can often make development steps obvious and rapid, saving the company money in coaching and education costs. A benefit of using our company is that we are so experienced with 360° reviews that we can save you time on the development plan as well as on the process itself.
5. Do executives enjoy receiving the reviews?
The overwhelming majority of participants enjoy receiving reviews. 94% of our clients have found the process challenging and intellectually stimulating. Less than 3% found it unsatisfying or too difficult. The level of satisfaction with the process correlates with the positivity of the report, however, we have universally discovered that executives do indeed desire more feedback. As mentioned above, 94% of executives want more feedback.
6. What do executives say about receiving the 360s and coaching?
Below are a few excerpts from the success stories of executives who have received their reviews from us:
“I took my relationship with my CTO to an entirely new level in two weeks after my review. I literally would never have believed this could happen so quickly.”
--C-level executive
“I was surprised how focused this review was. There was nothing in the report that was extraneous and we didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken. That was a relief.”
--SVP executive
“I had a prior 360° with another company and I could not decipher the results. This 360° was easy to understand and made creating the development plan a breeze. My development plan was completed in three months and I was ready for a new set of challenges. Our business went up 18% during my development plan.”
--C-level executive
“Applying the techniques I learned made me more organized and crisp. Most importantly, I learned how to quantify my unique value and stop making excuses. During the coaching, I was able to drive bottom-line results in less than 60 days.”
--SVP executive
7. What do 360° reports look like?
Below are sample excerpts of the 360° documents to show how the information is presented in the report.
a. The Executive Summary: The summary is intended to bring out the main strengths and development areas for the executive. The summary is also presented to the executive’s manager in a separate meeting and is used to create the slide show where the executive presents his 360° (if applicable). Below are partial sample excerpts. The summaries are usually one page for strengths and one for development areas.
b. The Chart:
The chart shows a visual summary of the verbatim feedback by color coding the comments into strengths and development areas. A person with very mixed review comments would have a chart similar to the one shown below. In the example below, the Openness to Learning and Technical Acumen categories are largely positive while the Managing Upward category is more negative.
c. The Verbatim Comments: This example shows a few comments from the Openness to Learning category. Each category contains a set of verbatim comments matching the chart and aligning with the summary.
8. Are there any best practices for 360° reviews?
Absolutely. The following are the summary guidelines for implementing a 360° review process.
a. Give 360° reviews to the whole team rather than a few team members. The process works best when the entire team gets used to giving and receiving feedback. This creates a cultural change which allows for more rapid adjustment of non-optimum performance and behavior. It also creates a sense of fairness and camaraderie on the team. If one executive is performing poorly, the other executives are usually contributing in some way to the behavior, even if only by tacit consent.
b. Respect the confidentiality of the process. The CEO and HR Executive should assist the team members to uphold the confidentiality of the reports. The CEO is a role model for receiving the report and summarizing the feedback to the group. Her attitude will be closely watched and imitated by other executives.
c. Grant the executives the importance of having separate and distinct reviews. Do not use the same type of feedback process at the executive level that is used at the lower levels of the organization. Executive responsibility and standards are much higher and should be treated as such. If you have a poor performer on the executive team, this situation must be remedied rapidly as the consequences hold much more importance to the company.
In short, the 360° process is a unique and time-tested approach for delivering a high quality learning and development experience for the executive team.
Years after receiving a review and three months of coaching, one executive left this message on our voice mail:
“ . . . I wanted to call and update you on my progress since our 360 process three years ago. I not only completely changed my approach to work, but I have been promoted twice and am now the Board’s choice for the new CEO of our company! I credit this entirely to the 360 process. I cannot thank you enough for the deep and lasting impact this process had on my career. I called my HR person to thank her as well for bringing this into the company. Of course, as the CEO, I will continue the process.”
Friday, September 30, 2011
Shoot the Messenger
Recently, I got a puzzling call from one of my favorite HR directors asking me what he should do with this group of engineers who just could not get along. The company’s product was behind because the engineers were arguing so much that they could not get any work done. One of the engineers worked from home because he refused to come in to the office. He was considering a “hostile workplace” claim. I dug into the situation and asked a lot of questions, but a particular question was incredibly revealing: “Who tells you about all the problems between the engineers?”
We all have to pass on bad news now and then. Most of us do not enjoy it. But a few people thrive on it. Call them drama queens or gossip-mongers, but no matter the name, they tend to follow the same pattern. The pattern, from your perspective, will look like this:
A person enters your office or cubicle and mentions some bad news. Possibly even asks you to check it out.
You go to investigate the scene or take it up with the other party.
You find the other party just as upset as you are and it certainly looks like something went wrong. You note that this is a dysfunctional person or group. You may even develop a slight headache.
What happened behind the scenes was your so-called “messenger” went to the other party first and told him something equally horrifying. Now you are all trying to figure out a situation sown with lies and exaggerations. Confusion, conflict and upset are the goals of the messenger.
It is possible you do not want to believe such "messengers of doom” exist. But they do. Here are a few ways to detect those who quietly stir the pot:
The “messengers of doom” show no remorse in telling you how bad people or situations are. The vast majority of people do not like to mention that something or someone is bad, but these messengers do not hesitate to pass on the bad news. The usual lines are that someone is (or you are) in trouble or in danger.
Such people also love gossip, critical remarks and any statement which reduces the reputation of others. “Mary said you were the worst bookkeeper she’s ever worked with. Can you believe she said that?” The criticisms often come in streams and can be about multiple people. The favorite tactic is to spread what others supposedly said about you. Note that it is very likely untrue.
These messengers often stir up conflict between two people intentionally. If you see two people fighting relentlessly, ask each person who else has told them bad things about the other. You might find both people have heard from the messenger.
Usually, the "messengers of doom" go about their business quietly. They do not shout from the rooftops; they slink casually into offices, close the door and gossip. Or they slide up to you while you type and say, “Did you hear that . . .”
"Messengers of doom" can be intelligent or dull, in high or low places. When in executive roles, they will often gravitate toward the most productive or creative areas and try to create conflict there.
Why do the "messengers of doom" behave this way? Basically, there are two impulses in any person. One impulse is to do well and succeed. The other impulse is to give up or give in or destroy things. The “messengers of doom” have stronger negative impulses than they do positive ones. While this is a subject of great curiosity, the more important point is to recognize it when you see it. The easiest way to start your investigation for "messengers of doom" in your office is to ask yourself who brings you the most bad news and criticism. Then, before you do anything else, watch for a time and look for other patterns of gossip and criticism from that person. Just pay attention, ask questions and observe. The next step is to go to HR or someone who can help with the situation.
Back to our engineers. As it happens, the "messenger of doom" was one of the engineers who was planting gossip about the other engineers all over the group. He was so busy at it that his own work was suffering. Once he was detected and watched, it became quite obvious that he was creating conflicts between the other engineers. He was fired a week later and now the group harmoniously codes away. The engineer who worked from home comes in four days a week.
If your office has too much conflict or you get stressed or tired from dealing with others in your group, start to look for an "MD". Maybe you need to shoot the messenger*.
*Warning: “shoot” is a figurative term!
We all have to pass on bad news now and then. Most of us do not enjoy it. But a few people thrive on it. Call them drama queens or gossip-mongers, but no matter the name, they tend to follow the same pattern. The pattern, from your perspective, will look like this:
A person enters your office or cubicle and mentions some bad news. Possibly even asks you to check it out.
You go to investigate the scene or take it up with the other party.
You find the other party just as upset as you are and it certainly looks like something went wrong. You note that this is a dysfunctional person or group. You may even develop a slight headache.
What happened behind the scenes was your so-called “messenger” went to the other party first and told him something equally horrifying. Now you are all trying to figure out a situation sown with lies and exaggerations. Confusion, conflict and upset are the goals of the messenger.
It is possible you do not want to believe such "messengers of doom” exist. But they do. Here are a few ways to detect those who quietly stir the pot:
The “messengers of doom” show no remorse in telling you how bad people or situations are. The vast majority of people do not like to mention that something or someone is bad, but these messengers do not hesitate to pass on the bad news. The usual lines are that someone is (or you are) in trouble or in danger.
Such people also love gossip, critical remarks and any statement which reduces the reputation of others. “Mary said you were the worst bookkeeper she’s ever worked with. Can you believe she said that?” The criticisms often come in streams and can be about multiple people. The favorite tactic is to spread what others supposedly said about you. Note that it is very likely untrue.
These messengers often stir up conflict between two people intentionally. If you see two people fighting relentlessly, ask each person who else has told them bad things about the other. You might find both people have heard from the messenger.
Usually, the "messengers of doom" go about their business quietly. They do not shout from the rooftops; they slink casually into offices, close the door and gossip. Or they slide up to you while you type and say, “Did you hear that . . .”
"Messengers of doom" can be intelligent or dull, in high or low places. When in executive roles, they will often gravitate toward the most productive or creative areas and try to create conflict there.
Why do the "messengers of doom" behave this way? Basically, there are two impulses in any person. One impulse is to do well and succeed. The other impulse is to give up or give in or destroy things. The “messengers of doom” have stronger negative impulses than they do positive ones. While this is a subject of great curiosity, the more important point is to recognize it when you see it. The easiest way to start your investigation for "messengers of doom" in your office is to ask yourself who brings you the most bad news and criticism. Then, before you do anything else, watch for a time and look for other patterns of gossip and criticism from that person. Just pay attention, ask questions and observe. The next step is to go to HR or someone who can help with the situation.
Back to our engineers. As it happens, the "messenger of doom" was one of the engineers who was planting gossip about the other engineers all over the group. He was so busy at it that his own work was suffering. Once he was detected and watched, it became quite obvious that he was creating conflicts between the other engineers. He was fired a week later and now the group harmoniously codes away. The engineer who worked from home comes in four days a week.
If your office has too much conflict or you get stressed or tired from dealing with others in your group, start to look for an "MD". Maybe you need to shoot the messenger*.
*Warning: “shoot” is a figurative term!
Toughness
It all began in a blustery autumn about 8 years ago. I was coaching attorneys, doctors and other executives, and I was interested in understanding the traits of leadership. I had some natural leaders in the bunch and I was watching them and their behavior to see how they ran their offices and lives. I watched them give feedback, make project plans, and push for results. I did not use the scientific method, admittedly, but I started to shape some ideas about what made certain leaders stand out.
I formulated a hypothesis that good leaders were tough, meaning they were tenacious, hard-edged, persistent, and definitely on the unsympathetic side. Natural leaders who could get work done were hard on their people.
There was a leadership study released about the same time which showed that a “drive for results” was the most important determining factor in executive success. Drive is the operative word, right? I was getting somewhere. These are the “doers” in life, and if they have to take a few people out along the way, so be it. These natural leaders knew how to rant, stomp their feet, jump up and down, and GET RESULTS! Some of them were underhanded, sly, even a bit vicious, but I could never argue with those results.
I kept this viewpoint for a long time, coaching many people to be tough, to give difficult feedback with pitiless precision, to attack weak points in the organization with ardor. It worked to a great degree. Tough executives made names for themselves and sent their companies’ results into the stratosphere.
In the spring of 2009, after the economy was in full collapse, I noticed something that shook my stable data about executive competencies. These drivers, these “tough” executives were uniformly looking for work. Nearly all of them had been let go in the downturn. Interestingly, some others who had not taken the “toughness” route and had worked on other competencies were still around. I realized it might be time to reinvent my coaching style.
I started to take a different look at executives at that time. I dug into an objective look at the executives who survived the downturn, and I want to announce a new hypothesis. Executives who are tough with results but kind with people succeed longer and more often. Yes, I said it. Kindness matters.
A recent example gives us window into this. A CEO of a mid-sized company was down-sizing through all of 2009 and 2010, and he started to lose his hair rather rapidly. I asked him one day what was stressing him out so badly and he commented that firing people took an enormous toll. He never did stop thinking about how it affected the families and lives of those who had left. He was having trouble sleeping, and had seen his doctor for several stress tests. There was nothing physically wrong with him, but he looked and felt old and tired.
I decided to do an experiment with him and asked him to take several kind actions per week as his work allowed. I had him make a list of small kindnesses he could do that would have an impact on his workplace morale. One of his items was to institute a bagel breakfast for the administrative staff every other Friday. He paid for the bagels personally to keep the company budget stable. Then he made a point of complimenting the good work of his assistant on a more frequent basis. He listed 15 separate kind actions he could take over the coming months. Curiously, his hair stopped falling out. Even more curiously, his company started doing better too. A statistician could argue that the correlation is meaningless. That is fine by me. This is not a mathematical argument so much as a statement from the heart. Our experiment in kindness made a difference for everyone involved. Even me.
Perhaps you know an executive who is suffering personally for his own lack of kindness. He is not only hurting himself, but he is hurting his company. Being too “tough”, not having enough kindness, is no sign of strength. It is just a contributor to stress. The times we suffer most are the times we could have been just a bit nicer and we forever wonder why were weren’t.
After all, the last few years were not easy on anyone. We all had it rough. Consider this the next time you have a choice to make: what is the kind thing to do? The kind choice might just bring a smile to your face as well as the face of the person on the other end. After all, what are we doing here in this world anyway? Are we here to make it a miserable experience for others? Must we be hectic, texting-and-driving maniacs who only care about the next dollar? Are 10 more pallets delivered more important than the life and dignity of our fellow colleagues? It is about time we got our priorities straight in this country. Get results, certainly. Push hard for them. Hold high standards for your people. But hold them with kindness too. You might find it gets you further than you think.
I formulated a hypothesis that good leaders were tough, meaning they were tenacious, hard-edged, persistent, and definitely on the unsympathetic side. Natural leaders who could get work done were hard on their people.
There was a leadership study released about the same time which showed that a “drive for results” was the most important determining factor in executive success. Drive is the operative word, right? I was getting somewhere. These are the “doers” in life, and if they have to take a few people out along the way, so be it. These natural leaders knew how to rant, stomp their feet, jump up and down, and GET RESULTS! Some of them were underhanded, sly, even a bit vicious, but I could never argue with those results.
I kept this viewpoint for a long time, coaching many people to be tough, to give difficult feedback with pitiless precision, to attack weak points in the organization with ardor. It worked to a great degree. Tough executives made names for themselves and sent their companies’ results into the stratosphere.
In the spring of 2009, after the economy was in full collapse, I noticed something that shook my stable data about executive competencies. These drivers, these “tough” executives were uniformly looking for work. Nearly all of them had been let go in the downturn. Interestingly, some others who had not taken the “toughness” route and had worked on other competencies were still around. I realized it might be time to reinvent my coaching style.
I started to take a different look at executives at that time. I dug into an objective look at the executives who survived the downturn, and I want to announce a new hypothesis. Executives who are tough with results but kind with people succeed longer and more often. Yes, I said it. Kindness matters.
A recent example gives us window into this. A CEO of a mid-sized company was down-sizing through all of 2009 and 2010, and he started to lose his hair rather rapidly. I asked him one day what was stressing him out so badly and he commented that firing people took an enormous toll. He never did stop thinking about how it affected the families and lives of those who had left. He was having trouble sleeping, and had seen his doctor for several stress tests. There was nothing physically wrong with him, but he looked and felt old and tired.
I decided to do an experiment with him and asked him to take several kind actions per week as his work allowed. I had him make a list of small kindnesses he could do that would have an impact on his workplace morale. One of his items was to institute a bagel breakfast for the administrative staff every other Friday. He paid for the bagels personally to keep the company budget stable. Then he made a point of complimenting the good work of his assistant on a more frequent basis. He listed 15 separate kind actions he could take over the coming months. Curiously, his hair stopped falling out. Even more curiously, his company started doing better too. A statistician could argue that the correlation is meaningless. That is fine by me. This is not a mathematical argument so much as a statement from the heart. Our experiment in kindness made a difference for everyone involved. Even me.
Perhaps you know an executive who is suffering personally for his own lack of kindness. He is not only hurting himself, but he is hurting his company. Being too “tough”, not having enough kindness, is no sign of strength. It is just a contributor to stress. The times we suffer most are the times we could have been just a bit nicer and we forever wonder why were weren’t.
After all, the last few years were not easy on anyone. We all had it rough. Consider this the next time you have a choice to make: what is the kind thing to do? The kind choice might just bring a smile to your face as well as the face of the person on the other end. After all, what are we doing here in this world anyway? Are we here to make it a miserable experience for others? Must we be hectic, texting-and-driving maniacs who only care about the next dollar? Are 10 more pallets delivered more important than the life and dignity of our fellow colleagues? It is about time we got our priorities straight in this country. Get results, certainly. Push hard for them. Hold high standards for your people. But hold them with kindness too. You might find it gets you further than you think.
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