Category: Gleaner Jamaica

What can you, as a manager, do to rehabilitate the performance of a direct report when all else has failed? Do you issue a written warning to scare up some motivation, or is there a more reliable path to restore results?

It’s a familiar scenario – a person who used to perform well has been faltering for several months. As their manager, you have given all the advice you can but nothing has changed. Now, a trend of poor results is infecting the organisation and you must act decisively. What should you do to turn things around?

One technique I have picked up from others is “Controlled Management.” It’s not an everyday mode. But it’s one which becomes necessary when a slump must be reversed. See it as a last gasp effort to reinstate an employee to a former level of acceptable performance, by following these steps.

Step 1 – Advise the Employee He’s Now in Rehab

Let the employee know that he is entering a special period of Controlled Management intended to restore his performance. As you share the steps, let him know that none of it is personal, even if he doesn’t believe it at first. His feelings of failure or guilt may be very real to him, but explain that this period is not in response to his personality – it’s intended to quickly reestablish a result the organization needs to function.

Also, let him know that it’s not permanent. While it will call for a change in behavior, it’s a unique opportunity for him to focus on his weaknesses and re-tool. Then, explain the following steps which usually take one to three months each.

Step 2 – Close-Monitor His Role

The underlying fact is, you have lost faith in his ability to turn things around alone. It requires a significant investment of time and energy on your part. Now, you need to transform his daily activity, using two heads to plan rather than one.

After you have clarified and separated the area of weakness, develop a new reporting mechanism. He reports to you twice per day. In each morning report (better done via a conversation at first) he outlines his plans for the day. By contrast, the closing report is the last thing he does before leaving the office, describing his results.

As you have these conversations, there’s usually not much coaching required. Instead, allow the added intensity to do the work. If he’s interested in doing a good job, you should see an immediate shift, but that’s not to say you should sit back and just listen. Be like a rudder that gently steers his performance back in the right direction. However, when a huge error emerges, jump in wholeheartedly… but don’t be overbearing.

After all, he used to be effective. You are trying to nudge him back to adequate performance, not demotivate him. Also, you are looking to restore your own confidence in his ability to produce results, one day at a time.

At the end of the period, evaluate the results and see if your intervention has been effective. If it hasn’t, take a more drastic step.

Step 3 –  Implement Temporary Control

Now, for a set period of time, you need to step in and take over the critical functions he has failed to perform. For example, if the poor performance surrounds the management of a project, become the project manager. If it’s focused on sales, become the sales manager.

Your job is to bring your expertise and authority to produce results, even if you are a relative novice in the area. Don’t shirk the role – you must do what is necessary to become effective in a short space of time. And don’t complain: this is why you are a manager.

If it helps you to pretend that he has just resigned, you may do so, just in order to put yourself in the right frame of mind. Truth be told, in terms of producing select results, he has already “walked off the job” even if he is putting in 20 hour days.

For his part, the low performing manager should keep control of all other non-failing functions. But in the area of weakness, he has now become your apprentice. Let him observe your actions to turn things around. Understand that his biggest Ah-Ha’s won’t come from what you say, but from what he sees you do. As he learns, return his former functions one small step at a time.

To be realistic, these three steps are not guaranteed to work. Sometimes the circumstances are beyond the capabilities of even the most effective manager. Then, you must seek alternate solutions using different talent, or by restructuring the job.

The approach outlined above represents a cold, hard requirement of being a manager. Restoring performance in tough situations involves difficult interactions. The way you execute them makes all the difference in producing the positive results everyone wants.

The original article was published on the Gleaner’s website, here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Recent research shows that there’s a big difference between (H)appiness and (h)appiness. If, as a manager, you know how to separate the two you can avoid the mistake of demotivating your employees.

(H)apiness is defined as employee satisfaction, the kind of overarching experience someone reports after a look back at the past year on the job. It’s all about selected, recaptured memories.

It’s quite different from (h)appiness, the immediate, moment-by-moment experience which flows from one minute to the next. This experience is, for the first time, being uncovered by social scientists who are pinging employees via smartphones and laptops. They are discovering some surprising results.

One is that lots of (h)appy moments are not necessarily correlated with (H)appiness. It explains why executives are confused when their (H)appiness survey scores go up and down without apparent rhyme or reason.

Yet, even if they don’t know what to do, most leaders still believe that increasing happy feelings at both levels is a good thing for the individual and the bottom-line.

Recent research from Microsoft Corporation challenges this notion. The study shows that if, as a manager, you try to increase (h)appiness you can make things worse for yourself, your employee and the company. Here’s why.

1. People admit they are (h)appiest doing rote work.
Rote work is defined as “mechanical or unthinking routine or repetition.” It’s necessary stuff, but produces little value, requiring almost no creativity.

Most positions in the real world include some rote work. Recently, I spent several hours manually cleaning up an Excel database. As boring as the chore was, it could not be delegated. In spite of my lack of enthusiasm and the absence of any fun or creative element, I had to pay full attention in order to avoid making a mistake.

When asked, employees report that they are (h)appiest doing this kind of work, even though the company derives a minimal benefit. If, as a manager, you focus on trying to increase this feeling, prepare yourself for behaviors that lead to low productivity.

2. The best work is sometimes stressful.
The fact is, you want more than (h)appiness. Instead, you want employees to show up at the office ready to do their best work. In prior columns, I shared the notion that this work occurs during the flow state: the times when an employee becomes deeply engrossed in a challenging task which requires their best skills. The result is high performance.

The Microsoft researchers argue that we are wrong to believe that the flow state requires (h)appiness. In fact, when people are in this particular zone they may experience high stress. Just imagine a child who puts forth his/her best during a GSAT exam. As a parent, you would be quite worried if he/she were to walk out and report a (h)appy experience. It doesn’t happen. Yet, it’s often a moment of life-changing, peak performance. Consider it to be the same one you, as a manager, are being asked to create.

3. Cure the problem of boredom with stress.
It gets worse. When you focus on (h)appiness you disengage your staff.

A recent Gallup study shows that 55% of Millennials are “not engaged at work” with another 16% being “actively disengaged.” Compared to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, they are the least engaged.

It’s no surprise. After all, they grew up surrounded by deeply absorbing technologies. Apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook are specifically engineered to command their attention and keep it for hours.

College, with its extreme demands, also occupies them fully. However, when Millennials graduate into the working world they are shocked… the office is full of demotivated zombies. Often, managers show up as  tyrants who demand that people “Do it my way or else”. This toxic brew, so adverse to the engaging world they have taken for granted, deadens their souls.

The answer is certainly not to add in a dose of attempted (h)appiness.

Instead, as a manager, look to borrow the emerging principles that app and game designers are using to make software engaging. The core “gamified” actions they apply are:
1. Craft objective goals
2. Set unambiguous scores
3. Create feedback mechanisms
4. Give employees the autonomy to make certain choices
5. Offer coaching

Work hard to fix any weak spots as you look to craft an environment that’s as engaging as a smartphone app or game. Keep in mind that human beings naturally love to learn and enjoy being intrinsically motivated.

So, your job is not to make employees artificially (h)appy. Instead, add in the kind of stress that challenges them to be engaged. They can handle it. It’s more likely to produce the (H)appy results everyone wants.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a free document with links to his articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

(This week I have included the audio version of the article. Use the graphic above to listen in.)

There’s no way to achieve long-term professional success without learning how to convert critical behaviours into habits. It’s a skill that’s not taught in the workplace, even though it’s key to accomplishing all worthwhile goals. How can you develop this ability?

Let’s start with a definition. A habit is an action that is initiated without conscious effort or motivation. If you have ever found yourself turning your steering wheel for home only to realize that you are supposed to be going in the opposite direction, you may understand their power. They require little energy to get started, making them a powerful ally. Of course, some can also become life-threatening enemies, causing us to focus on them exclusively.

That’s a common mistake.

For example, in my training I make a big deal about the negative influence of smartphones and their pervasive ability to turn people into dangerous users. For many, the act of purchasing a mobile phone is a precursor to, and predictor of, practices such as texting while driving.

However, there is a flip-side. Anyone can harness smartphone power to develop beneficial habits. Unfortunately, according to a recent University of London study, mobile apps and PC programs which are supposed to help us consciously build new habits fail to do so. They ignore existing research, rendering them impotent. Their failure is instructive: here’s what we can learn in our attempts to develop positive new habits.

1. Repetition Isn’t Enough
Habits aren’t formed just because we engage in the same practice over and over again. While repetition is important, habits also need cues and triggers that initiate a specific behaviour.

Cues and triggers are defined as specific events which lead to the habit being executed. For example, your decision to retire for the evening sets in play a number of sequential behaviours that occur even when you are tired and can’t think clearly.

Furthermore, when developing long-term habits, it’s much better to link them to events rather than the clock. This feature is one your doctor exploits by assigning your medication for mealtimes rather than clock-times. Therefore, to keep a habit in place, you need to be a good builder of these events.

2. Cues and Triggers Sometimes Don’t Work
There are times, however, when events aren’t enough. When you are learning a brand new habit, you may not know which events to use. In these cases, using a planned reminder such as a smartphone alarm can be effective in, for example, learning to take a 10:00 AM morning break. But, there is one catch.

While this tool is effective in the beginning, it’s a short-term crutch. In the long-term it presents a danger. According to the research, over-reliance on timed reminders can interfere with permanent habit formation. They are helpful, but become harmful later on.

Fortunately, there’s a more effective technique to use. Instead, turn on a reminder to help you notice which event occurs at the same time. For example, when the mid-morning alarm goes off, you may notice that the break coincides with a hunger or thirst pang.

After a while, you could wean yourself off the alarm, paying attention to the pang: your new trigger.

3. The Use of Rewards
The final piece of the puzzle is the role of positive reinforcement. Someone who wants to build new habits needs to become a smart cheerleader, rewarding him/herself appropriately. However, herein lies yet another catch.

In general, intrinsic rewards (such as a sense of personal satisfaction) are far better than extrinsic rewards such as a financial incentive granted by your manager. The question is, how do you tap into intrinsic rewards on a regular basis, given their intangible, ephemeral nature?

One key is to treat external rewards as dangerous distractions that may take your attention away from the joy inherent in the task. The other is to allow time for reflection (e.g. by journaling) so that you can stay present to positive inner experiences.

These insights imply that managers need to be cautious in their application of rewards. When tempted and distracted by external “Big-Ups”, many employees are prone to lose track of intrinsic motivation entirely. This is a recipe for trouble, putting all their satisfaction in one basket: their company’s.

It’s far better to train employees to be self-reliant on their own habits. Unfortunately, most companies don’t deliberately teach this skill and waste time in crafting manipulations. In the long-term, they never work as well as positive habits which are intrinsically motivating, especially when they happen to drive value to the bottom line.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a free document with links to his articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Unlike other problems professionals face, issues of work-life balance don’t happen overnight. How do you, as an ambitious employee, confront, overcome and master this challenge?

Two Cases
1. A retired executive reports: “I delegated my children to my wife. Apparently, she didn’t do a very good job because now that I am retired with lots of time to spend with the grandkids, none of them want anything to do with me!”

2. A mother of a GSAT student spends two years fighting for a new promotion. On the day it’s announced she gets a text from her son. He’s just “passed” for a high school whose name sends shivers down her spine: its name will only solicit piteous looks from her friends. A few minutes later one sends her a text: “My daughter got into Campion! My late nights and weekends paid off!!” She tucks away her smartphone, wondering if the cost to her son’s prospects was worth her personal gain.

These are not isolated incidents, nor are these the only symptoms. Overweight, divorce, and spiritual crises are just a few that hardworking people experience when there is an imbalance. While you are trying your best to lead a successful life, how can you prevent yourself from falling into a deep rut one small stumble at a time?

1. Overcoming a Scaling Problem
In my book, Perfect Time-Based Productivity, I chronicle a common story. Someone who was successful in high school, college, and their early career, experiences work-life balance issues in later life. For example, they can never catch up on their email. What has happened?

It’s simple: the techniques they used to reach their early success no longer work, but it’s not because they are lazy. The habits, practices, and rituals that were the keys to their success at an early age are inappropriate for their adult selves.

Remember when you were 16 years old and could consume copious amounts of sweet, fatty, greasy foods? None of it registered on the scale so you became accustomed to eating for the enjoyment of your palate. Now, that very same behaviour gets you in trouble because your metabolism has slowed to a crawl, but you don’t have what it takes to make it to the gym more than once every other week… sometimes.

To understand the big picture, replace calories with “time demands.” A time demand is an internal, individual commitment to complete an action in the future. Closing out each of them provides a feeling of fulfillment. Early on, as a teenager, you discovered that creating more of them was the first step to a greater sense of accomplishment.

However, as an adult, you must learn to say “No”, while simultaneously developing new techniques to handle greater volumes of time demands. If you don’t, the results are predictable… you steal time from your personal life in order to meet the requirements of your job, creating an imbalance. Just like your teenage eating habits, your immature practices for managing time demands create an adult problem.

Realizing this fact is the first step. Here is the next one to take in order to upgrade your techniques, even as others around you flounder.

2. Putting in Place the Ideal Week
You must plan out your entire week. Learn to use recurring events in your electronic calendar and lay out times to do your choice of the following:
– Exercise. (Include the time it takes to wake up properly, dress, drive to and from the location and recover.)
– Eat. (The number of people who skip meals or take lunch at 5PM is alarming.)
– Sleep. (If you fall asleep watching the television, consider using an alarm that starts your bed-time routine.)
– Process all your email. (Most professional jobs require you to periodically empty your inbox.)
– Spend time with your spouse and kids. (In an earlier article I mentioned the recommendation to spend a minimum of 15 hours per week with your spouse.)
– Set aside quiet time. (Schedule rejuvenation, meditation, reflection and prayer as often as you need.)
– Plan. (Each day deserves its own schedule so that you are not driven by emergencies.)

This ideal week is your foundation – an extreme act of self-care.

3. Maintaining Your Calendar
Given the importance of your ideal week, your calendar becomes central to your well-being so it’s carried with you at all times, usually in your smartphone. It becomes your defense against the demands of the world, the place where you have already decided what is important: a reason to say “No.” You begin to realise that taking lunch every day at noon is a fight for your right to live life on your terms. It simply does not come for free. Leaving it up to the circumstances or mere “buck-up” is a slippery slope to one day needing emergency surgery for a blistering ulcer.

These modern techniques are the keys to preventing bad daily practices from accumulating into long term problems. Take charge right away so you can make a slow but steady difference.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a complimentary document with links to articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

How Executives Overcome Their Hidden Communication Gaps

Why do CEO’s make egregious mistakes in the area of internal communication? Often, they resist a key requirement of the job: to develop “soft skills” outside their comfort zones.

For years, they long to be promoted to the company’s pinnacle, while failing to see the downside. It’s hard for them to understand how the top job is quite different from any other. The fact is, the CEO or MD position is the only one in which one’s boss isn’t visible on a daily basis. It gives new occupants a newfound freedom to act (or not), producing some bad outcomes, including the following.

Cases
1. A CEO walks through the office each morning, much in the same way he did before his promotion. After a few weeks, his trusted secretary pulls him aside to advise him: “Whenever you come in with your screwface, everyone has a bad day.” He’s shocked.

2. An MD decides not to say anything in a project meeting, hoping to deepen the commitment of team members. Instead, they come to believe the project should be killed, interpreting her silence to indicate a complete lack of support.

3. A top leader decides to hold short meetings with employees every month. He urges them to speak openly and frankly which, after a slow start, they begin to do. One morning, he retorts: “Is that all you do each day, come in this company and complain?” After his comment reverberates among the cubicles, the meetings die out.

What brings about these disasters? How do top leaders come to be separated from a reality that’s so obvious to others? Here are some reasons and recommendations.

1. They Lose Their Coach
When executives finally free themselves of direct supervision, they must fill the gap with other feedback mechanisms that are overt, consistent and frequent. Typically, they under-estimate the role former supervisors played in their development, or (even worse) assume they have no need for further feedback. In their minds, they have arrived. As a result, they act in the dark, oblivious to the consequences of their actions.

Recommendation: Develop a range of mechanisms such as regular employee surveys and focus groups to make it safe for staff members (and the occasional outsider) to give unfettered feedback.

2. They Lose Their Team
It’s easy for a newly minted top executive to destroy her working team: just believe that others only need to hear an explanation once. She unwittingly becomes a serial under-communicator.

Over time, her colleagues will fill the breach with their own interpretation of events. The less she communicates, the more their imaginations fill with dark thoughts. This creates an invisible wall between the top executive and her direct reports which makes them cautious, unwilling to commit because they never know what she believes.

Recommendation: Over-communicate to the point of discomfort, especially to direct reports. Continue until they can relay key messages as their own.

3. They Lose Their Knowledge
Each move up the corporate ladder creates a bit more distance between a manager and the employees who actually do the work. CEO’s or MD’s, by definition, have it the worst.

Most are impatient for results leading them to be more extroverted, demanding and assertive. Amidst the thrill of seeing others respond with haste, they sometimes don’t realize the trust being lost due to their poor listening.

This problem builds as the top executive becomes further separated from the information needed to do a good job. Now, he’s operating in a vacuum as collaboration between levels and across functional lines grinds to a halt. As a result, the best employees with the most up-dates-skills and access to the latest technologies stop sharing. He doesn’t understand that engaged employees take information to places it’s most needed and when he sets a poor tone, they go on strike.

Recommendation: Insist on quality conversations and meetings that build trust, while exposing employees to decision-makers.

The skills needed by a CEO to ask for feedback, get others involved and build information via trusted relationships make many uncomfortable. They are “soft” skills – the kind they have ignored over the years. After a while, it dawns on some  that their talents in this area are undeveloped but they don’t know how to make the transition.

The only way to ultimately escape the trap is to engage in some ruthless self-examination. The best
CEO’s I have worked with insist on carving out new personal and professional shortcomings. They are hell-bent on achieving their goals and are unwilling to be in the way.

It’s the opposite of what most do: convince themselves that all is well. Always. In these cases, it’s only a matter of time before they falter in the face of communication gaps they don’t even know they have.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a complimentary document with links to articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

 

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20160717/francis-wade-how-executives-overcome-hidden-communication-gaps

In today’s world, as an ambitious hard-working person, you are cursed. With the help of mobile, internet and cloud technology, you give yourself more to do than professionals in prior generations ever imagined. One of the problems you face is how to interrupt yourself when you get lost in a critical task.

If you have ever watched the TV show The West Wing, you may have noticed that the President employed the perfect administrative assistant. She never forgot anything, possessing a skillful way of interrupting her boss: the most powerful person in the world. Her message was simple: “Stop doing this, start doing that.”

These interventions kept the President on track with his plans for the day. Without them, he’d be operating blind. Eventually he would fall into chaos, a fact backed up by recent McKinsey research showing that admins make a measurable difference to an executive’s performance.

Unfortunately, most professionals, including those in Jamaica, no longer have administrative help. Even some that do, complain that their admin can’t be trusted to act like the character from the West Wing because his/her time management skills are not up to par. The fact is, administrative support is increasingly seen as a nice-to-have perk that can be cut, rather than a requirement to achieve high productivity.

In today’s world, you must be prepared to go it alone.

On the flip side, books like Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Deep Work by Cal Newport show that your best work takes place when you are able to devote total attention to a challenging task in a single sitting. In the cases where you are able to tackle the problem without being overwhelmed, you are pushed to use your best skills.

Unfortunately, these moments are becoming increasingly rare.

In today’s workplace interruptions are not only tolerated, they are encouraged: in some companies, it’s seen as rude to try to isolate yourself from others, no matter how critical the task. In others, answering every bleep, vibration and pop-up from your mobile device or laptop is seen as being “attentive”. The absolute worst corporate cultures actually reward employees who answer their email the quickest.

The problem is that once you enter the states of “Flow” and “Deep Work” you are likely to lose track of time. Furthermore, research shows that it’s futile to try to watch the clock while you’re being this productive. You end up multi-tasking by executing the task and watching the

clock at the same time. A better solution is to automate your interruptions.

This is the point where your device can actually be helpful. Like most people, you probably have an ad-hoc set of notifications set up on your smartphone, tablet and laptop. They sound off at random times, responding to a number of apps and system settings. You don’t understand how, or don’t have the bandwidth to fix them all. To survive, you adopt one of two extremes.

Perhaps you respond to every single signal your smartphone makes. According to researchers, this tactic is a fine way to simulate the symptoms of ADHD, ruining your productivity.

Most of us just ignore them all, hoping we don’t miss something important. Here’s a better alternative.

Step 1 – Turn Off All Notifications
Begin by leaving on the ringing of your phone and turning off everything else. Take a few days to re-accustom yourself to the relative silence. You are re-training your nervous system to tune back into your smartphone.

Step 2 – Make a List of Necessary Notifications
As your week progresses, notice which notifications you cannot do without. Separate permanent needs from one-time accidents. For example, just because you picked up an urgent email in 2014 based on a ping from your phone, doesn’t mean that you should keep this notification turned on. You may be making an error psychologists call a “Hasty Generalisation.” Set aside this list.

Step 3 – Catalog Situations Where Interruptions Are Necessary
Make a table of different locations and the actions you frequently take. Here is an example:

Step 4 – Turn On Notifications You Absolutely Need, One at a Time
Today, most devices offer ways to customize notifications so they only appear at certain times with a distinctive blend of sounds, vibrations and pop-ups. Wait a few days between turning each one on so that you can get accustomed to this new way of paying attention.

The end result will be one you may appreciate. For the first in a long time, you will have a device whose notifications are tuned to your needs. You won’t have an actual administrative assistant, but your smartphone will now be playing an essential role that helps you to be your most productive.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a complimentary document with links to his articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20160703/francis-wade-how-use-notifications-high-productivity

In my last column two weeks ago, I argued that customer-facing employees in the Caribbean habitually place their personal feelings ahead of professional service. The result is a wide and disturbing variation in customer experience that confounds executives, who end up fighting perpetual fires. How can a company create an ethos that overcomes the fearful vulnerability felt by frontline workers?

In the article I asserted that the prevailing, local service experience is driven by a dark, persistent pessimism. Frontline employees develop an advanced, defensive mindset against possible feelings of abuse, victimization, and disrespect. The culprit? The unaware,incoming customer who is fully expected to look down on them. The end result is a collection of four experiences: “VIP”, “Tourist” and “Friend” Service for the favoured few, and “Res A’ Dem Service” for the majority.

What can a company do to reverse this situation? Here are three solutions.

1. Hire for Resilience
Disney, SouthWest, and other companies have shown that the best attribute to seek when hiring unskilled workers is their attitude. The best ways to uncover this trait is to do psychometric testing, and to submit an applicant to realistic but challenging scenarios. It gives prospects a chance to demonstrate emotional resilience under pressure. If they can remain mission-driven in a test situation, even when their ego is being threatened, they may have what it takes to stick to a new service ethic if they get the job. (In HR circles, the approach is part of what is called an Assessment Centre.)

2. Make a Strong “Identity Appeal”
Psychologists have defined an “identity appeal” as a way of convincing someone to act in accordance with a group to which they belong. For example, we might say to a KC Old Boy: “I thought you guys never missed a single Champs?” It might entice him to buy a ticket.

On the other side of Heroes’ Circle I remember when, as an 11-year old First Former on the first day of school, my Wolmers Headmaster referred to us as “Gentlemen”, not “boys”. He explained that “We now expect you to behave as such” indicating that our days of wearing short pants and playing marbles were over.

This is not just related to high schools. There’s a reason we discover our nationalism when we visit or live in foreign countries. Case in point: The Penn Relays were a boring track meet before Jamaicans turned it into an international faceoff.

Companies can tap into this cultural tendency. One was forced to change its uniforms when employees, after a while, refused to wear them in public: “People dem out a road sey we favya helper!” This is what happens when companies ignore the fact that employees want to feel pride in their group of choice. When managers use this power wisely, they surround employees with elements like uniforms to send a powerful signal: you are a member of an elite group and are therefore expected to act accordingly.

When employees are encouraged to affiliate, they willingly step into a new identity. Cloaked with a new persona upon orientation, they are able to deliver consistent customer service that hits high standards. It becomes the only option available.

Unfortunately, many companies fritter away this connection, wasting social capital. Powerful symbols fall into disrepair, earning the frustration of employees who become disillusioned. At that point, only a personal transformation can help.

3. Transformation as a Choice
Just as powerful as an affiliation, but harder to bring about, is a transformation of the individual. For example, when an employee is made aware of the four default service experiences mentioned before it can be a revelation. A few respond immediately by changing their attitude, trying to avoid the worst case.

Most, however, need more than a simple explanation.

In corporate transformation exercises, I have seen employees distinguish the root causes of poor service delivery and defensive attitudes. Using the tools of inquiry, self-reflection, and open sharing, they are able to discover their unique, personal weaknesses. Once they see where they falter they have a choice to act differently when they learn the habits of mind that lead them to deliver “Res A’ Dem Service.”

However, it takes a great deal of courage to take this path.

Personal transformations on a corporate scale are expensive to procure and take a long time, but they are sometimes the only choice for a company with a frontline embedded in a defensive culture.

The truth is that none of these three steps are short or easy to take. But they are well worth the effort even though they may not resemble traditional customer service training imported from overseas. Only interventions that account for deeply held defensive feelings can help employees deliver professional service that produces a consistent experience.

The original Gleaner article appeared here – http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20160619/francis-wade-customer-service-must-be-more-personal-service-part-two

Why Customer Service Must Become More Than Personal Service – Part One

Jamaicans experience a daily struggle to receive a consistent, high level of customer service. This happens, in part, because quality service is allowed to devolve into a personal matter between an individual provider and his/her customer. Instead, it should be about a business relationship.

In a Gleaner column a few years ago I shared that there are three kinds of service experienced in Jamaica. Now, there is a fourth; here is a summary of each one.

1. VIP Service (the latest addition) is extended to the powerful few, whether Government Minister, big CEO or well-known pastor. The individual service provider lives in fear of making a mistake but quietly hopes to please the VIP in order to gain a future benefit.

2. Tourist Service is received only by foreigners. It’s the extra effort we make to give outsiders a special experience that makes them want to return with their friends. Delivered routinely in North Coast tourist enclaves, it has led to improved service across the island. (Incidentally, in Trinidad and Tobago I see this kind of service being actively suppressed; the late Dr. Eric Williams once stated that “Tourism is whore-ism.”)

3. Friend service is the extra courtesy we extend to people we know. Even the worst service worker with the nastiest attitude knows how to turn on the charm when the recipient turns out to be related in some way. As a result, Caribbean people know that long before they enter an establishment, they need to scope out “someone who knows someone.” It’s the only way to bypass a long line or a rude demeanour.

4. Res’ a Dem Service is doled out to those unfortunates unable to secure VIP, Tourist or Friend service. Its prevalence explains why no company that serves local customers has developed a strong reputation for good service. From insurance companies, government agencies, banks and schools… everyone has horror stories to tell. The tough question is, in a country that provides great service at the other levels, why does Res’ a Dem service persist?

While we often blame a lack of motivation or training, my work across the region points to a different cause: what philosophers call “a thrown way of being.” It’s a simple idea. We all wake up into the same fixed attitude and mindset each day without realizing it, much in the way that a fish lives in water without knowing any other medium.

The Jamaican service provider wakes up into a worldview shaped by our historical legacy of slavery. To keep the institution alive over the centuries, its creators infused it with themes of superiority and inferiority which reverberate. Today, we continue to seek opportunities to look down on each other – a “thrown way of being.”

This propensity has an obvious flip-side: we despise the feeling of being scorned. Customer-facing employees are especially vulnerable because they are instructed to extend a warm, kind, helpful hand. A customer is therefore in a position to reject this overture, leaving the provider feeling victimized, abused and disrespected.

To prevent this from happening, workers toughen up, effecting an unfriendly, sullen demeanor. It informs their facial expression, tone of voice and body language in ways that most of us would recognize in an instant. Unfortunately, it contrasts badly with the confident, smiley, “How Can I Help You?” perfected by their counterparts in North America.

For local business owners, this aspect is bad for the bottom-line. Customers who receive Res’ a Dem Service feel little loyalty, especially when they see other people receiving VIP, Tourist or Friend Service. Perhaps we have all noticed the provider who instantly transforms once the “right” customer shows up. It’s led me to ask myself: “Who am I…?” because in that moment, it hits like a personal insult.

This body blow is one that many top executives are immune from. Having long-ago outsourced these daily transactions to others, only extreme measures such as those portrayed on TV’s “Undercover Boss” come close to giving them a real experience.

It’s a pity because service workers who become lifeless and resentful aren’t being ignorant… they are caught in a dynamic that’s invisible, but powerful. It’s one that their external environment supports, but their internal state also keeps it in place. The end result is a slip into a personal world far removed from corporate objectives.

In my next column (Part Two) I will look at some solutions to help individual service providers disrupt this “thrown way of being.” Needless to say, this isn’t an easy topic but it’s a must: good service shouldn’t be a personal affair that defaults to “Res’ A Dem Service.” We all lose out when this is allowed to happen.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a free document with links to his articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

For more information on the topic of customer service, sign up here.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20160605/francis-wade-customer-service-must-become-more-personal-service

Here’s an old joke: “Ask a consultant what time it is and he’ll ask to see your watch.” This canard contains more than a grain of truth which can be converted into something useful – a way for executives to avoid the need for outsider-led interventions.

The executive suite is unlike any other team in a company. Newcomers who believe it’s just a slightly different version of other teams experience a rude awakening. New CEO’s, for example, discover that team members treat them differently in spite of their efforts to remain “one of the guys.”

This relationship change has the following two effects.

The first is that people who work for top executives withhold bad news, for fear of provoking an unwanted reaction. The second is that leaders who enjoy solving problems on their own learn that habitually doing so leaves others in the dark, unable to understand how or why key decisions are made.

These effects lead to a shared ignorance, which only becomes obvious when a poor decision is made or a company experiences gridlock. That’s when a consultant like me gets called in.

What my clients usually don’t know is that there is a key, infallible principle I arrive with and use on every engagement: Someone in the organization already has determined most (if not all) of the right answers. After all, employees have been exposed to the problem for much longer than I have and if they are reasonably committed and intelligent, they will have already cracked it.

This may sound insultingly simple – a version of “using the client’s watch to tell the time”. But clients often don’t see the factors which prevent the right answer from reaching the attention of those who need it. In Jamaican firms (and especially the ones which harbour authoritarian tendencies) the problem shows up in the following predictable ways.

1. Someone is out of favour
Chief executives often don’t have the time management skills to listen to everyone who says they have a solution to a problem. Therefore, they are forced to choose to ignore some, which means that the person with the right answer is sometimes not on the short list of favored insiders. The truths they have to share get lost.

In other instances, the person is out of favor because their credibility is in question, instantly discrediting their solution. The fact is, contrarians make people uncomfortable, especially when they refuse to parrot the CEO’s point of view in order to curry favor.

Often, my job consists of restoring someone’s professional reputation so that their message can be heard in the right way.

2. A communication gap
“Executese” – the specific language used by a leadership team – varies from one company to another. One of my tasks early in an engagement is to figure out the specific language being used. This is important because the person who has the right answer is often not on the aforementioned short list, therefore using a language that isn’t appreciated.

Case in point: A human resource manager who hasn’t learned the financial language used by the CEO/CFO/Board. Concerns couched in terms such as “employee morale” don’t get attention, compared to a loaded phrase such as “financial risk of poor employee performance.”

Often, I need to work with both sides so that the right message can be understood, and used.

3. Multiple sub-solutions
In most cases, the issue at hand doesn’t lend itself to simplistic solutions that can be popped out of the pages of an MBA textbook. Instead, there are multiple causes, each of which needs its own line of attack.

Unfortunately, this means that different people have partial answers that must be assembled, like a puzzle, into a coherent whole. This takes time, patience and bandwidth which executive teams don’t have, or don’t know they need to set aside. Putting the pieces together is a task I often have to do. I may help establish urgencies and priorities, but the initial assembly is much harder to complete.

My overall goal is one that my clients sometimes don’t realize at all: I aim to create an environment in which the kind of problem I am brought in to solve doesn’t recur. This may require any of following on their part:
– Better listening skills
– Improved time management skills
– An ability to engage employees on a consistent, deep basis

These issues even persist in executive teams which are actively working on their skills in these areas. They are tough to solve because they are an essential part of working in human organizations staffed with imperfect people. They will never go away completely. Instead, they must be mastered if executives hope to solve their own problems, without the need of outside help.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a free document with links to articles from 2010-2015, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

 

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20160522/francis-wade-why-consultants-need-see-your-watch-tell-time

Why “Nap Time” Is Part of Adult Productivity

It runs counter to commonsense thinking. Taking a sleep break in the middle of the workday turns out to be a smart practice, even though it runs foul of tradition.

For the most part, we don’t question our old assumptions. Everyone knows that Jamaica’s workers are inherently lazy. This deeply ingrained corner of our psyche hasn’t been questioned since work was organized in the first West Indian workplace – the slave plantation. Avoiding work, we accept, was a matter of principle in those days. Doing so without being detected by Backra became an art-form.

Maybe his absence explains why I feel guilty whenever I take a mid-day nap.

I have learned that my best work occurs in spurts, where I focus exclusively on a single task while actively avoiding distractions. This approach is endorsed by the authors of books like Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Deep Work by Cal Newport.

The downside is that it’s depleting. Once a focused task is completed I experience a hard drop in mental and physical energy. The only way to restore it is to take a complete break, sometimes by changing my physical location. Most of the time, however, I just take a nap.

That’s when the guilty feelings start.

After all, everyone knows that a diligent person doesn’t doze off during working hours, right? Not so, according to the latest research. Scientists state that sleep is an invaluable tool for high performers and it’s not just meant for the end of the day.

McKinsey’s Nick van Dam and Els van der Helm recently published an article on the Harvard Business Review website. Their interview of 180 business leaders found that 43% admitted to not getting enough sleep in the last four nights. It’s indicative of how poorly this tool for rejuvenation is being used. Naturally, if you’re not getting enough sleep at night, the way to compensate is with a short nap. But are there reasons to take a nap even if you do get enough sleep?

There are, according to Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University in England. “Tiny naps are far more refreshing than people tend to realize” he intones. That may be because there is a biological clock located in the hypothalamus that’s programmed to induce a “hump” of mid-afternoon sleepiness. Compared to getting more night-time sleep or using caffeine, taking a power nap was found to be the most effective remedy to this daily productivity dip.

Also, NASA research of its pilots has shown that a 26-minute nap (while accompanied by a co-pilot) enhanced performance by 34% and alertness by 54%. Separate studies have shown that naps also have physical benefits: reduced stress and a lower risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes and weight gain. Even learning and recall are improved. A number of studies indicate that someone is more likely to remember details after taking a nap.

Dr. Sara Mednick, professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, wrote a book called “Take a nap! Change Your Life.” As noted in a Bloomberg article, she recommends that individuals follow these steps.

1. Make time and space. Most sleep researchers recommend a short nap lasting from 5-25 minutes. It’s best done right after lunch and if your company doesn’t provide sleep-pods like Google, find a quiet spot such as the inside of a parked vehicle.

2. Set the right conditions by turning off the light and covering your eyes. Mute your smartphone and other devices.

3. Avoid caffeine in pre-nap hours, as well as nicotine, diet pills, and antidepressants. Sugary snacks can also keep you buzzing.

While writing my books, I returned to a habit learned while training for an ironman distance triathlon: Early to Bed, Early to Rise. Getting up at 3:30 AM gave me several hours to think and write without interruptions. The only way this tactic could work was to implement a regular mid-day nap.

Most Jamaican companies would scoff at this whole idea. Stuck in an old mentality, managers argue that our workers are “special” and would only abuse the “bonus” of taking a nap. If your company harbours such fears here’s one way to get past them. Set up a series of experiments with a small number of employees and objectively test the results. Use their experience to produce findings that can be customized fit your situation.

Just because your company hasn’t encouraged naps in the past doesn’t mean you should avoid this productivity tool. Not too long ago, the Internet, mobility and personal computing were foreign technologies. A nap costs much less money and effort to implement, but your company would have to get out of its own way: past the traditional ridicule, punishment and guilt that Backra would inflict. It’s updated commonsense.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a free summary of links to his past articles, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com