Executives unwittingly build up significant barriers to feedback. To prevent this tendency from affecting the bottom-line, execs need to be proactive.

In this article, I examine the specific actions they can take.

Why Executives Need to Make It Easy to Get Feedback

High-level executives live in a rarefied world of extreme competition and ambition, but the longer they stay at the top, the harder it becomes to get the kind of advice that overturns their thinking. Here’s what they can do early in their careers to open the doors to quality feedback that keeps them and their companies growing.

Corporate leaders tend to be big fish in small ponds. When they were young professionals, they had many people around them telling them what to do and how to do it better. That number shrunk rapidly as they progressed up the corporate ladder, creating a natural shortage of direct growth opportunities. By the time they reached the executive suite, with its outsize power and influence, others have shifted their behaviour.

The fact that executives tend to be somewhat smarter, better read and harder working than their peers further sets them apart. This difference often goes unrecognized, leading them to think they are being told everything they need to hear. They routinely underestimate how much feedback their colleagues are withholding, especially around their performance. They fool themselves into thinking they know what’s going on.

These are formidable obstacles. What can managers do (before they join the executive team) to force open the gates of communication? Doing these three tactics can help them at every step of the corporate ladder.

Tactic 1 – Don’t just invite feedback, ask for suggestions. Most people who work around executives aren’t skilled at giving feedback to anyone, let alone to powerful movers and shakers. They often couch their words, using indirect language, hinting at the problem they see. For example, instead of being blunt and pointing out a flaw in the leader’s performance, they might make a vague suggestion for a new business idea.

Executives need to encourage other people to speak up, even if they must do so in their own terms, at their own pace. It’s not hard to understand why someone with a difficult message to deliver will look for the safest method possible. Sometimes, this renders the communication obtuse, but the fact that the effort is being made indicates courage on the part of the messenger. Both their overt and hidden messages deserve to be amplified, but a leader needs to have good listening skills to hear them.

Tactic 2 – Use formal mechanisms. A Jamaican firm has adopted a novel approach – each professional carries with him/her a pre-printed card on which every feedback conversation is noted. Targets are set for each person, who needs to have a minimum number of conversations per month. Another method some companies use is a 360 degree evaluation, in which a manager’s performance is assessed from multiple angles. These structured methods help ensure that feedback is delivered, increasing the odds that an effort is made.

Tactic 3 – Seek early evidence. It’s easy for a persuasive leader to live in denial. All he/she must do is argue with early contrary evidence. A few years ago, I worked on a project in which I discovered that an executive team was at odds with its Managing Director. There was no open disagreement – things hadn’t gotten that bad. But there happened to be a vast difference in opinion that wouldn’t go away. No matter how hard she tried to persuade her direct reports that the problem wasn’t as bad as they thought, they wouldn’t budge.

Instead, she switched gears and argued that the issue didn’t exist because customers hadn’t complained about it yet. She was right – they hadn’t. It was the kind of problem that customers wouldn’t notice for a very long time. However, she missed the opportunity to deal with it during its early days, because it required a fix that would take several years to effect. On this point, her more experienced colleagues had an advantage she couldn’t fully appreciate.

Many employees make the mistake of believing that a top executives job is to keep things comfortably consistent. In the short term, many do try to stay in their comfort zone by making it hard for bad news to reach them. While this sort of ignorance may help them sleep better at night, in the long term everyone suffers. It’s difficult to run a company effectively on the basis of partial information, without critical feedback.

In fact, it endangers the results shareholders want, a fact that executives often don’t see clearly. More to the point, they also don’t see their own part in preventing head-turning advice from reaching them.

Achieving growth in these recessionary times requires ingenuity and sacrifice and companies must be provoked to reach new levels of performance. It takes a conscious and consistent effort to destroy barriers to the delivery of uncomfortable communication. But doing so is one way to prompt leaders and companies to grow.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To receive a Summary of Links to past columns, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com

Recent research has shown that Jamaica has more female managers than any other country. Also, unrelated research shows that women are better time managers.

Put the two together, and what do you get? Read this article recently published in the Jamaica Gleaner and you can find out… (the full text can be read here.)

How Women Might Solve Corporations’ Productivity Problems

A few weeks ago, Jamaicans woke up to a surprise announcement: we have the highest percentage of female managers in the world. While this certainly has social ramifications, it also means that we can leverage the power that women possess to solve our productivity problems.

However, the connection isn’t as simple as it seems. People often say that women are better are multitasking than men. Unfortunately, this is an oft repeated, but incorrect myth.

The confusion lies in the very definition of the word. Sometimes we use the term “multitasking” to refer to the juggling act that ambitious professionals must do to balance multiple roles, projects and responsibilities. Brigid Shulte, author of “Overwhelmed,” shared with me in a recent interview that women often assume the responsibilities of managing the home, in addition to their jobs. This isn’t real multitasking, it’s multi-project management.

Cognitive multitasking, which involves repeatedly switching one’s attention from one task to another, is where the modern challenge lies. Fuelled by new technology, we believe that by checking email in meetings, sending messages in the middle of conversations and texting while driving, are signs of being truly productive. Even worse: research shows that those who think they are better at doing two demanding tasks at the same time are fooling themselves: they are actually worse.

Fact: our brains are hard-wired for single-tasking, in which the best results come from being focused. Studies have shown that when we are forced to multitask in response to stimuli like a constant influx of email, our IQ drops by ten points. Furthermore, academic success has been linked to an individual’s ability to reduce distractions, doing the hard work needed to complete complex tasks.

Many of us are confused about the difference between the two kinds of multitasking, a fact I notice in my work with companies. As a result, employees don’t know how to be productive. In the absence of proper training, they mimic others in an attempt to get more done. Given the fact that there are more female managers, they are more likely to be copying a woman than a man.

The good news is that there are also studies showing that women are better time managers. While time itself cannot be managed, the research reveals that women are more at effective creating “time demands” and keeping them alive over long periods of time. (A time demand is an internal, individual commitment to complete an action in the future.)

Where does this ability come from? Studies show that women (and men) teach themselves critical skills as adolescents and faithfully continue them as adults. This ability sets them apart from their peers who might be just as intelligent, but don’t learn how to be productive. (If you can’t recall doing so, that’s normal.)

Although it’s not clear why teenage girls are able to pull this off, a good question to ask is: how can we in Jamaica use our situation to benefit our companies? If you are a woman, here are some ways to start.

1. Understand what multitasking really means. Distinguish between managing multiple roles or projects and cognitive multitasking. Teach others around you the pitfalls of those who develop the habit of switching their attention from one task to another. Explain the cost of “switch-tasking”: the small increment of time that’s lost when they swap one task for another. Be prepared to explain the difference over and over again until it becomes a widely understood fact.

2. Stop claiming that women are better at multitasking. It’s a confusing message that implies that this habit is somehow better. Instead, use facts and data: explain that women are better at managing time demands, and tend to teach themselves better habits that serve them later in life. Encourage others to do the same, even as you personally cut out behaviors such as pretending to listen while doing other tasks.

3. Give more time-based feedback. In her recent book, The NonVerbal Advantage, Dr. Carol Kinsey Goman showed that women have a capacity to give better feedback than men. They are better at picking up nonverbal cues, listening and showing empathy. Use these skills to step in and intervene. Coach others in ways to be productive by helping them see how they compare to world-class standards. Remember, many of your colleagues want to improve, but simply don’t know how. At the same time, cut out the blighs given away so freely: they only reinforce low standards.

On the face of it, Jamaica should be poised to improve its productivity because we have more female managers who tend to be armed with better time demand management skills. It may happen, but it will take the awareness, commitment and skills of one empowered woman at a time.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To receive a Summary of Links to past columns, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com

To read the article on the Jamaica Gleaner site, click here.

In this article I contrasted the few who are reliable with the greater number who are simply flaky.

The Stress of Being One of a Reliable Few

Executives, managers and board members are always on the lookout for the special handful of employees who are completely reliable. Once they identify them, they come to depend on them, giving them greater responsibilities while shunning those who are seen as flaky. Is this the best company strategy in the long-term, especially if you are one of the reliable few?

The flood of information and time demands employees experience in Jamaican companies has not been matched by an increase in their skill. Most firms are staffed by too many flakes: “harem-scarem,” scatterbrained colleagues who cannot be trusted to complete future tasks. They may be quite likable and well-intended, perhaps even a favorite in some ways. However, at the end of the day they disappoint: their promised actions are rarely fulfilled.

The experienced professional eventually learns to tell the difference between the reliable and their counterparts, but only after being burnt. Past, negative experience is one reason reliable people are never let go, once they have been found.

If you happen to be one of these people, how should you react to increased workload and responsibilities? Here are some positive tactics to employ.

Tactic 1 – Grow Your Own Skills

Even if you happen to be the most reliable, productive person in your office, the chances are good that you are a big fish in a small pond: still far from world-class standards.

Data gathered in hundreds of self-evaluations in my training tells the truth. Even weak executives think they are highly accomplished in managing time demands. The truth is, they are not: instead, they are strong at thinking on their feet, learning how to fast-talk their way out of trouble without actually improving a single behaviour. Few around them have the knowledge or courage to show them otherwise.

Your movement to the next level of performance means giving up these tricks. It also means sacrificing the false comfort of being only better than the small circle of people around you.

Tactic 2 – Identify and Rely on Others

If you are someone who is reliable you may have come to believe that no-one else can be trusted, so you do everything yourself. You see delegation, which is the same as asking for help, as a weakness. As a result, you end up being stressed.

There is some justification. In the past, you tried to rely on colleagues, only to have them let you down. Time demands fell through the cracks, causing you to work overtime to prevent a disaster from happening. You decided to never again have someone determine your fate, resolving to do everything yourself.

In the beginning, this tactic worked, but no-one can escape the fact that there is a limit to the number of time demands even a competent worker can execute. Instead of throwing up your hands in despair, there’s another option: rely on others.

This tactic may fly in the face of your experience, but here’s a way to mitigate the risk.

First, weed out those who are completely flaky from those who are only sometime flakes. Start to work with the more capable few with a view to building a trusted network of reliable colleagues. Help them experience a sense of autonomy, purpose and mastery, which are the key to deep motivation. Leverage this network to get the best work done, enhancing your reputation. It’s what the best civil servants have learned to do. Within government ministries, skillful Permanent Secretaries do this by working closely with each other, sometimes over several years, from different positions.

Tactic 3 – Train Others

Having a network of “lesser flakes” is just a start. Coach them along by showing them the cost of being unreliable. Ask them to paint a picture of what their life would be like if they were to become more reliable. Then, persuade them to seek out world-class examples of high productivity. Offer yourself as a living example (without telling them to copy you,) sharing the high standards you aspire to in your daily work.

Most will have never read a book on the topic. Doing so is a great place to start for many, who simply don’t know what it’s like to work in an ultra high-performing team. Show them how to seize opportunities to improve by working with, and learning from, others with superior skills.

Unfortunately, many people won’t be interested in this kind of improvement right away, so prepare yourself for a process that may take many months. However, at the end, you’ll be surrounded by more than the ordinary incompetence that runs rampant. You’ll have a networked team that you can rely on, even if none of its members report directly to you. It can make all the difference to your company and your daily work experience.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20150201/business/business6.html

You may believe that you are either the exception, or have no choice.

Regardless of the rationale, you are a manager who spends most of his/her time hovering over employees who are barely competent.

In this article, I look at what it takes to break out of this behavior, which enslaves both manager and employee.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20150118/business/business7.html

Email management has become a sign of competence, but we are slow to realize that our own personal habits get us into trouble. We need to start viewing our email inboxes as if they are no more than kitchen sinks, as I say in this column for the Jamaica Gleaner.

Here’s the article.

Within moments of lying face-down on the ground, King Alarm arrived, followed three hours later by the police. Why? My parents and I had just been held up and immobilised at home by three gunmen.

Little was taken and no-one was physically harmed, but I asked: “Why three hours? Why not three minutes?”

Earlier this year, as the host of CaribHR.Radio (an Internet radio show), I put a tough question to a minister of government from Trinidad and Tobago and also to the head of Antigua’s public sector transformation unit: “Why is it so hard to transform the public sector where so much is at stake?”

There are a myriad of reasons, but here’s one I discovered in these two episodes: Caribbean countries are stuck with a form of government that makes it hard to effect change.

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You can find the rest of the article here – Managing a Change in the Public Sector.

Left to their own devices, employees who become accustomed to giving a minimal effort forget what it’s like to work hard. How can you, as a Jamaican manager, turn their performance around before it’s too late?

While the employee who leaves work everyday at 4:59 PM on the dot may be doing so to make an appointment, it’s more likely he has developed the habit of doing as little as possible. Here’s a tip: when staff members are only on time for one, single appointment each day – “Quitting Time” – you may have a problem.

It means that significant effort is being put toward doing the minimum. At this point, staff are doing just enough to keep their jobs, staying one half-step ahead of trouble. It’s probably not the mindset they came to the workplace with, but it’s one that with the encouragement of others, they have developed. The stampede out the door at the end of the day is sad: people who enjoy what they are doing don’t try to escape from it as fast as they can.

How do you, as a manager, break the deadlock?

As you may have noticed, preaching, scolding and cajoling won’t work. In fact, they push workers into passive resistance. Here are some of the approaches that do work based in part on recent research.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Is Your Company Engaging or Entertaining Employees?

Employee engagement means more than just hiring comedians, handing out balloons and renting the island’s biggest Bounce-About for Family Day. Instead, it has to do with addressing staff’s key concerns in a way that builds a firm’s capacity for dealing with problems in the future.

Human Resource professionals are often seen as the “feel-good” squad of corporate life. When employees feel bad, as revealed by lunchroom complaints and internal surveys, HR’s job is to make them feel better. In these recessionary times, this job has become harder to do. Only longtime staff-members can recall famous Christmas Parties from the past: they have now been reduced to portion-controlled buffet luncheons held on Thursdays in late November… all to reduce costs.

Few are surprised when, a week later, the “intervention” has worn off and the complaints resume, revealing that the feel-good activity only offered a bit of entertainment. Even when it’s enhanced by the inclusion of families, expensive hotel rooms and fun add-ons like rafting, the effect is still the same. Authentic engagement takes more than titillation. Here’s why.

To read the rest of the article click here.

Are You Suffering from the 6 Modern Symptoms of Ineffective Time Management?

In the past, the signs of ‘poor time management’ were obvious, but in today’s age of the “always on” mobile Internet, you could be suffering from the modern symptoms afflicting Jamaican employees.

Many years ago, time management problems were easy to detect: arriving late and missing deadlines were clear red flags. In today’s world, however, things are different – the old symptoms remain, but a number of new ones have appeared, including the following six you may be experiencing today:

1. An Exploded Inbox
Perhaps the best indicator of a productivity problem is the state of your email Inbox. If you have 200 or more read and unread messages, you may believe that you simply get too much email. For you, the fault lies with your company and/or the people in your life; they are the reason you feel guilty and overwhelmed. The numbers don’t lie, however. If your Inbox is in trouble, it’s because your daily practices have made it so.

To read the rest of the article click here.

 

There’s some unique research about Family CEO’s emerging – they are less productive than their professional counterparts.

My recent article address the fact that this gap exists and gives some ideas about how it can be closed.

Click here for the article – Why Family CEO’s Are Less Productive.