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Processes Involved in Coaching: Communication

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Coaching involves three main processes: communicating, influencing, and helping. When communicating, the manager listens (receives messages), initiates and responds (gives messages), and gives feedback. When influencing, the manager persuades the subordinate to move in a particular direction by positively reinforcing desirable behavior; encourages the subordinate to exercise more autonomy; and fosters the subordinate’s identification with the manager as someone whose experience, skill, and influence are greater than the subordinate’s own. When helping, the manager expresses concern and empathy for the subordinate, establishes the mutuality of the relationship, and assists the subordinate in identifying his or her developmental needs. During the helping phase of a coaching session, both parties respond to the needs of the other.

Communicating

The climate of a coaching session should be friendly to increase the chances that the subordinate will be receptive. It is important for the manager to remember that communication is influenced by how the problems and issues to be discussed are perceived by both parties. Communication can become distorted if the manager and subordinate do not establish empathy for each other and try to understand each other’s point of view, In addition, nonverbal communication is as important as verbal communication; gestures, posture, and tone are critical.

Initiating: During a coaching session the manager typically asks a number of questions for various purposes: obtaining information, establishing rapport, clarifying, and stimulating thinking. The questions that are asked and the manner of asking them can either facilitate or hinder the process of communicating. Some questions can make a subordinate either shut down or respond in a way that indicates dependence on the manager, whereas others can build openness and autonomy.

Responding: A manager’s responses to a subordinate’s comments can be either useful or alienating. Responses that are empathic, supportive, and exploratory are useful, whereas those that alienate criticize, or deliver orders are likely to be counter-productive.

Giving Feedback: Giving feedback is important in terms of increasing the subordinate’s self-awareness, particularly with regard to strengths and weaknesses. If properly given, feedback results in greater rapport between the supervisor and the subordinate.

Feedback is effective when the manager ensures that it:

  • Is descriptive rather than evaluative;
  • Is focused on the subordinate’s behavior rather than the subordinate as a person;
  • Concerns behavior that is modifiable;
  • Is specific and based on data rather than general and based on impressions;
  • Provides data from the manager’s own experience;
  • Reinforces positive new behavior and what the subordinate has done well;
  • Suggests rather than prescribes avenues for improvement;
  • Is continual rather than sporadic;
  • Is based on need and is elicited by the subordinate;
  • Is intended to help;
  • Satisfies the needs of both the manager and the subordinate;
  • Is checked with other sources for verification;
  • Is well timed; and
  • Contributes to the rapport between the manager and the subordinate and enhances their relationship.

 

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Strategies For Dealing With Difficult Meeting Participants (Part 2)

February 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Type

Behavior

Suggestion

Hostile
  • “It’ll never work.”
  • “That’s a typical engineering viewpoint.”
  • “How do others feel about this?”
  • “You may be right, but let’s review the facts and the evidence.

Know-It-All
  • “I have worked on this project more than anyone in this room…”
  • “I have done this kind of work for years…”
  • Let’s review the facts.”  (Avoid theory speculation)
  • “Another person with noteworthy experience in this has advised us…”

Loudmouth
  • Constantly blurts out ideas or questions.
  • Tries to dominate the meeting.
  • Interrupt: “Can you summarize your main point/question for us?”
  • “I appreciate your comments, but we should also hear from others.”

Interrupter
  • Starts talking before others are finished.
  • “Wait a minute, Jim, let’s let Jan finish what she was saying.”

Interpreter
  • “What John is really trying to say is…”
  • “John would respond to that question by saying…”
  • “Let’s let John speak for himself.  Go ahead, John, finish what you were saying.”
  • “John, how would you respond.”
  • “John, do you think Jim correctly understood what you said?”

Gossiper
  • “Isn’t there a regulation that you can’t…”
  • “I thought I heard the VP Finance say…”
  • “Can anyone here verify this?”        ( assuming no response)
  • “Let’s not take the time of the group until we can verify the accuracy of this information.

Whisperer
  • Irritating side conversation going on between two people.
  • Walk up close to the guilty parties and make eye contact.
  • Stop talking and establish dead silence.
  • Politely ask the whisperers to wait until the meeting is over to finish their conversation
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Strategies For Dealing With Difficult Meeting Participants (Part 1)

February 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Type

Behavior

Suggestion

Silent Distracter

  • Reads newspapers, rolls eyes, shakes their head, or fidgets.
  • Ask them questions to determine their level of interest, support, and expertise.
  • Try to build an alliance by drawing them into the discussion.
  • If all of the above doesn’t work, discuss your concerns with them during a break.

 Busy-Busy
  • Ducks in and out of the meeting repeatedly, taking messages, dealing with crisis.
  • Schedule the meeting away from the office.
  • Check with common offenders before the meeting to ask if the planned time is okay for minimum interruptions.

 Latecomer
  • Comes late and interrupts the meeting.
  • Announce an odd time (8:46) for the meeting to emphasize the necessity for promptness.
  • Make it inconvenient for latecomers to find a seat.
  • Stop talking until the latecomer finds a seat.
  • Establish a “latecomer’s kitty” for refreshments.
  • Continue with the meeting and bring the latecomer up to speed after the meeting.

Early Leaver
  • Announces, with regrets that they must leave for another important activity.
  •  Before starting, announce the ending time and ask if anyone has a scheduling conflict.
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Stay Out of the Thinking Trap: Seven Keys to Thinking Clearly

January 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

1. ) Explore the Situation

  • If you don’t you are apt to become trapped into a particular view just because you are comfortable with it.
  • Get out of your comfort zone.

2.) Do Not Confuse Verbal Fluency for Thinking

  • Think before you speak.
  • Use your sense of hearing to really listen to others.

3.) Do Not Feel You Always Need to Be Right, Clever, and/or Orthodox

  • Pay attention and check your ego at the door if necessary.
  • Listen to your internal voice.

4.) Use Your Intelligence Constructively

  • Do not set out to prove others wrong.
  • Analyze all ideas without prejudgment.

5.) Think Expansively and Speculatively

  • Do not be a reactive thinker.
  • Go beyond traditional boundaries.

6.) Do Not Jump to Conclusions

  • Resist the urge to solve problems too quickly.

7.) Don’t Confuse Cleverness for Wisdom

  • Cleverness is not dependent upon experience.
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The Role of Human Resources in Organizational Business Strategy

August 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The business strategy of a firm is the way in which the firm has chosen to deploy its’ resources to compete in the market. Strategies exist at several l

evels in any organization – ranging from the overall business, to the departments, through the individuals working within the firm. Strategy is determined to be successful when it provides the firm with a competitive advantage over rivals that is inimitable, cannot be substituted, and is exploitable. Figure 1 shows the VRINE model which is used to determine if a resource or capability delivers competitive advantage to the company.

Figure 1: VRINE Model

There are two categories of resources tangible and intangible. Tangible resources are the buildings, software, capital, equipment, etc. all easily quantifiable. Intangible resources are the knowledge of the employees, the culture of the organization, patents, location, reputation, etc. Intangible resources are the source of a sustainable competitive advantage as they are inimitable and cannot be substituted in other organizations. It is not enough for a firm to possess the intangible resources they must be able to exploit these resources in a way that is beneficial to the company. This is where Human Resources fits into the business strategy.

Human Resource Management in the only discipline that focuses on managing the Human Capital, which is the foundation of an organization.

There are several functions that HR can use to affect the performance of employees, attract talent, and promote talent to meet the business initiatives. Figure 2 shows the HR value chain.

Figure 2: HR Value Chain

 

For an organization to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, each function area needs to support the business strategy and be in-line with the organization’s goals, mission and vision. Human Resources can provide this key element in the long-term viability and competitiveness of any organization.

 

 

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Clear & Concise Team Communication

April 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A good discussion amongst team members depend on how well information is conveyed.

Ideally, team members should…

  • Speak with clarity and directness
  • Be concise; avoid long, detailed stories and examples
  • Listen proactively; explore each person’s ideas with questions rather than contradictory statements
  • Refrain from interrupting or carrying on side conversations

…And should not

  • Express opinions as facts, or phrases as questions
  • Use bullying statements like “What you need to know is….”
  • Refrain from saying what the really think or feel in an open and sharing way
  • Use poor speaking skills like rambling, talking too soft or too loud, or mumbling
  • Not saying what you mean or mean what you say, i.e. people feel there is more going on than meet the eye; people’s words do not match their tone of voice, manner or body language
  • Use discounting statements to change the focus of the discussion, “Oh yeah, well let me tell you what happened to me…”
  • Ignore ideas or suggestions made by team members or shoot ideas down with comments like “We’ve already tried that…” “That’s not very well thought out….”

Work on developing your communication skills. Lean to recognize your own pitfalls and problems by being “other focused” when you speak. Be just as aware and focused on the body language, facial expressions, etc., of the people you are speaking to as you are with your own thoughts. Listen to their questions and comments, get out of your own head long enough to hear where they are and what they need from you to understand your message. And conversely, show others you are a good communicator by being a good listener, be other focused, watch the speaker’s body language, facial expressions, etc., while they are sharing information with you. You will have plenty of time to formulate your response when they have completed sharing their thoughts or ideas with you. Good communication is a balance between listening well and speaking well.*

*Scholtes, Peter; Joiner, Brian; Streibel, Barbara; The Team Handbook.

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Beneficial Behavior in Team Communication

March 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Ideally work teams should encourage all workers to use skills and practices that make discussions and work more productive. Respecting peoples different communication styles and their unique perspective that they bring to the team will help encourage the synergies of team problem solving.

To increase or improve communication, team members can:

  • Initiate discussions about issues or problems
  • Seek out information and opinions from other team members
  • Make suggestions for procedures or processes to help reach team goals
  • Help others by clarifying or elaborating on their ideas
  • Summarize comments or discussions
  • Look for agreements instead of lack of agreement in group discussion
  • Act as gatekeeper during discussions; direct conversations back to the topic, avoid side conversations, manage your own participation and consciously include others into the discussion
  • Be creative when it comes to problem solving
  • Help ease tension in a group discussion and work through tough topics
  • Openly express your interpretation of the group’s feelings and ask others to check your perceptions
  • Refer to facts and figures when too many opinions and [perceptions are being stated
  • Encourage and correct other members with equal fairness; accept encouragement and praise yourself

Things that could easily get in the way of productive discussions unless kept in check:

  • Failure to use good discussion skills
  • Reliance on one person to manage the discussion or come up with all the answers
  • Members repeating points over and over again, unsure if anyone heard them
  • No one on the team consciously helps to move a “stuck” discussion forward; spinning wheels, or the inability to let a topic go and move on to the next one
  • Participating in parking lot talk; after a group discussion, the real issues are discussed after the meeting in the parking lot or hallway
  • Lack of trust between team members
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Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Success

January 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What moves the world?  Oil?  Money?  Technology?  These are certainly some of the levers that sometimes cause conditions in our world to change very significantly, but in fact they are only tools.  What engages these tools to affect our life conditions — for better or for worse — are the decisions of individual human beings.  Here is the big news: Some of the most critical steps in making good decisions are emotional!

How many times have you heard: “This is a critical decision everyone, let’s make sure it’s emotional!”  More likely than not, you’ve actually heard the reverse.  But in a world that only grows more complex daily, we need to be accessing the full range of our decision-making skills more consciously, and that takes emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is based on the set of behavioral skills that enables us to consistently engage, influence and motivate ourselves and one another. Leaders and teams with high emotional intelligence are more successful and more resilient than those who are only technically qualified. EI is based on such competencies as respecting yourself, persistently working to achieve your full potential, valuing and motivating others, and engaging creatively when conflict happens.  Best of all, because emotional behavior is learned, we can learn new, more effective skills, eliminate ones that just aren’t working, and learn to do the things we already do well even better!

Emotional Intelligence is responsible for, at least half, of workplace success. Some studies have attributed it to as much as an 85% indicator of workplace success. One of the strengths of working with emotional intelligence is that the return on investment can be measured.

The five competencies for healthy Emotional Intelligence have been identified as:

  1. Self-Awareness
  2. Self-Regulation
  3. Self-Motivation
  4. Empathy
  5. Effective Relationships

Emotional Intelligence is worth the investment and can easily be learned via coaching.

***Adapted from: Collaborative Growth by Marcia Hughes and James Terrell and Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

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A Framework for Continuous Improvement

December 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The model at right serves as the framework for an effective Quality Improvement process implementation. The key is that the functions of each component must be integrated into the quality process and culture of the organization.

At the core of the process are Quality-Improvement Activities.

Quality-Improvement Activities

  • Develop a Steering Committee and involve key organizational personnel to institute appropriate quality-improvement activities.
  • An effective system would minimally include:
  • A process for identifying the important quality indicators for a unit or department and developing a system to measure and monitor them.
  • A problem-solving and improvement process with each unit or department.
  • A problem-solving and improvement mechanism to deal with cross-functional issues, with organization-supplier issues, and with complex problems not easily handled by a regular work group.

Surrounding the quality-improvement activities and supporting the entire process are the following seven components:

1.) Leadership

  • It is essential that the process be led by the organization’s key executives.
  • The role of senior management is to exhibit leadership, involvement, and visibility in the process.
  • Form a Steering Committee to act as the “driver” of the process.

2.) Structure

  • Developing a process that will sustain itself without interfering with normal business operations is essential to blending the improvement process into the everyday organizational culture.

The structure must have the following:

  • Closely resemble the current organizational structure so that it can be coordinated easily with its everyday activities.
  • Not be complex, be easy to operate, and not generate a bureaucracy of its own.
  • Eventually be merged into the “normal” culture and activates of the organization.

3.) Quality Planning

  • Quality planning is the process of setting quality-related objectives and desired outcomes as well as deciding on the appropriate courses of action to be taken for accomplishing the objectives and desired outcomes.
  • The Steering Committee and key personnel should be involved in setting objectives and outcomes.

4.) Training

  • The objective of the training would be to provide all personnel, and sometimes suppliers and customers, with the skills to effectively perform quality process activities and to become a “continuous learning” organization.
  • Training would be “just-in-time” in its approach.

5.) Rewards and Recognition

  • Develop an effective rewards and recognition program drawing from W. Edwards Deming, Phil Crosby, and other quality improvement “gurus”.

6.) Quality Measurement

  • The goal of quality measurement is to collect information on quality-related processes and results, to convert the data to useable formats, and to distribute the data to the appropriate personnel in a timely manner.
  • Data would be used to improve the quality of the organization’s products and processes.
  • Data collected usually falls into one of four general categories:
  1. External-Output: Data on customer satisfaction with products and services, compliant handling, product inquiries, conformance to specifications, etc.
  2. External-Input: Data on quality, timeliness, etc., of suppliers’ and vendors’ products and services.
  3. Internal-Company-wide: Data on safety, employee turnover, error rates, number of on-time shipments, employee satisfaction, etc.
  4. Internal-Within Divisions or Units:Data on products or processes specific to divisions or units, e.g., statistical process control within a unit, frequency of machine breakdown, cycle time, etc.
  • The Steering Committee and key organization personnel should identify and design quality measurement tools.
  • Tools would be incorporated into the training program.

7.) Communication

As Quality Improvement is implemented in an organization, there is an increasing need to establish channels of communication in order to keep people informed about progress.

  • Personnel must be continually reminded of the purpose, goals, and activities of the process or they will lose interest.
  • Systems must be established to communicate improvements made by teams throughout the organization.

For more information regarding developing a Continuous Improvement program contact Mardac Consultants. We would be happy to discuss your project with you.  

The above model is adapted from an article by Homer H. Johnson, The Pfeiffer Library Volume 20, 3rd Edition. 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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The Magic of Trust

December 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

By Marge Cieri

Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that the foundation for true success is the ability to build trust with others. This applies whether at home, work, or where ever you are interacting with people. Just like the foundation on a building will have a huge impact on its ability to withstand horrible storms, a solid foundation of trust will help organizations and individuals weather the storms of changing times. It will also allow individuals to thrive in the tsunamis of conflict.

How does one go about building a trusting environment? It starts with you, the individual! In a Developing Trust Inventory published in The Pfeiffer Library Volume 4, 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pages 389-398, the primary factors that contribute to a trusting environment are sharing, vulnerability, loyalty, accepting of others, involving others, valuing, awareness, communication, openness, and honesty. How do these behaviors build trust? Well, let’s take a look.

• Sharing. If we want people to tell us what is going on with them, we need to let them know about our experiences, trials, and tribulations. This is not about creating an open book about our life, it’s about picking and choosing what we are comfortable sharing. I remember one client who was new to management. She didn’t think it was important to share anything about her personal life with the people she managed. This worked for her on a personal level because she was a highly analytical and focused on work while at work. However, she was managing a group of folks who we high supporters and it was important for them to know their boss as a person, not just as the leader of the department. After some coaching, the manager started sharing a little about what she did over the weekend, how her children were doing on their sports teams, challenges she faced at various times during her career development, and what some of her goals were. Over time, the group started to” warm up” to their new boss. They could relate to her, and were able to work together as a team.

• Vulnerability. Again, we pick and choose what to tell others. How about a time when you felt insecure or unsure of yourself or about a situation? How did you handle it? How did you overcome it? Or did you overcome it? Let them know being vulnerable is part of the “human condition.”

• Loyalty. What are you loyal to? Is it a value, a company, a cause, or a person? Let people know they can count on you. They can “trust” that you will be there to watch their backs, coach them through the rough times, and celebrate their successes.

• Accepting of others. Our trust is measured by actions more than words. Listen to other’s ideas, let them challenge your thinking, learn with your folks.

• Involving Others. Ask people their opinions. Let them make decisions that affect them. You must, however, establish the ground rules for decision making. Let them know the parameters and boundaries. Give them all the information they need to make an informed decision.

• Valuing. I am a firm believer that every person I meet is a teacher for me in some way. Sometimes it is how not to be! More often, however, it is what to do or how best to approach a situation. Our company motto is; “Quality Doesn’t Just Happen…It Begins With People.” Value each person!

• Awareness. The first concept of Emotional Intelligence is Self-Awareness. Know yourself. Know your strengths and areas of improvement. Do, what I call, environmental scans several times a day. Look around you, pay attention to the non-verbal messages folks are projecting.

• Communication. I believe Listening is the key to effective communication. Most of us talk far too much and don’t take the time to listen to others. If you want to be an effective communicator, learn to listen.

• Openness and honesty. I’m all in favor of being open and honest but I also feel they come with an accountability factor. Being open and honest does not give any of us an excuse to attack another person. We have a responsibility to convey our openness and honesty in a way that the other person maintains his or her self-confidence or self-esteem.

Trust implies reliability, accountability, and predictability and is best never taken for granted! Practice the above and watch the magic happen!

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