Blog Bite: Attack the Problem, Not Each Other

When two people are about to start an argument, they have a choice.  They can either fight to be right, or they can fight to be one.

If they choose to fight to be right, they are going to focus on winning.  They will whip out facts to try to prove their case and be confused as to why the other sees the facts so differently.  They will try to impose their power on the other.  They won’t listen to understand, but instead listen to reply.  Frankly, as the argument intensifies, the lack of listening can get so bad that they actually don’t hear the other person at all and don’t answer what is being addressed.  Instead, at this point, two totally different arguments are happening.  The way one views the other speaking can seem really hurtful, dark, and condemning.  The typical result of this conflict is frustration, more distance, fear, and a huge wedge in the middle of the relationship. 

If they fight to be one, then they are going to attack the problem together by listening more, proving that they understand the other’s perspective, and focus more on their perceptions, rather than the facts.  They are not going to condemn, attack the person personally, or misuse power.  They are going to use higher emotional intelligence and leverage each other’s strengths to solve the problem.  The result is a strengthening of the relationship, confidence, growth, and everything in the middle of the relationship being cleared. 

Most arguments go south at the very beginning of the conflict.  It starts with the approach.  Do you want to be right, or do you want to be one?  Be clear in the beginning, and the conflict will go better - because if the other doesn’t join you in fighting to be one, you can always choose to not engage the argument until they do.

Chew On This:

• What type of relationship are we writing about in this blog?

Ryan C. Bailey & Associates is an organizational effectiveness firm focused on equipping leaders to develop in-demand high-performing teams to increase the health and effectiveness of the greater organization.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No client is being singled out.

5 Key Steps to Take After Your Peer is Promoted to Be Your Boss

Everyone knew the position was open.  Now, an HR manager has come to announce your new boss.  And the final candidate was...a peer?  Grinning from ear to ear, Jane stands up from amongst your team and moves to the front of the conference room, delineating herself as your new authority.

You suddenly realize the implications of this promotion.  Despite being on equal levels before, you and Jane are on very different levels now.  You report to her, and she appraises you.

You congratulate her, of course.  But once you all return to your cubicles, what should you do next?

Should you act like not much has changed?  Will you still be able to go out for beers next Friday?  Or should you embrace the change and distance yourself first?  Maybe she expects a new level of respect and professionalism.

Figuring out an appropriate path forward can be both confusing and challenging.  Here are 5 key steps to take after your peer is promoted to be your boss, along with why you ought to take these steps over their alternatives.  Let’s dive in!

#1: Spend some time (ideally, at least fifteen minutes) in reflection to build self-awareness.

A peer becoming your manager may not always be as simple as celebrating the new change and getting on with work.

• You may have wanted the position, and your peer being promoted makes you wonder where you went wrong or what you lacked.

• Your peer may also not be a friend, exactly.  And suddenly, you’re in a place where someone who doesn’t like you has the authority to evaluate your performance.

• Maybe you and your peer used to light-heartedly badmouth your old boss.  Will your peer suspect that you will continue to do the same to her?

• Even in the best case scenario where you are able to celebrate your ex-coworker’s promotion with sincerity, you may be losing a good friend and a confidante.

All of these complexities come with their own feelings: jealousy, nervousness, embarrassment, sorrow.  And those feelings, if left unchecked or unobserved, will drive the way you approach your relationship with your new boss.  One of the greatest and most common dangers is a disintegration of mutual trust.

So first, spend some time alone to journal or think through how you feel.  Or talk through the change with a close, non-work-related friend.  Being able to pin down which emotions are at play will be key to preventing unwanted emotions from sabotaging your new boss, and your own success.

#2: Resolve to achieve your long-term goals.

Once you know how you feel, make a decision on what you really want, long-term, and hold yourself to it.

For example, you might say:

“Right now, I feel really envious of Jane.  I wanted that position, I worked hard to grow into it, and I applied for it - but HR decided Jane was more qualified.  That feels really humiliating.

“But my long-term desire is to ensure that the whole team succeeds together, starting with a great boss.  If opportunities arise for me to passive-aggressively highlight Jane’s failures, I will choose to remain silent or to encourage her to get up and try again.  My decision is to pursue a productive, positive, and fun team, and I will not get in my own way.

“I will also use this opportunity to see what Jane has that I was missing so that when another equal position opens, I will definitely be ready.”

Once you’ve made a commitment to achieve your long-term goals, you are ready to launch into action.

#3: Embrace the change, internally and externally.

When your peer becomes your boss, you may want to keep acting the same as before.  “Nothing has to change, right?  We can still be friends!  In fact, working for a boss who was once an informal peer seems great!  Goodbye, strict pressure.  Goodbye, stuffy atmosphere.  Hello, chill boss!”

Unfortunately, that thinking is just not reasonable.  To best succeed in her role, your new boss actually needs you to embrace the change, not ignore it.

Why?  It may not be that your new boss wants to flex her new-found power by acting aloof.  Rather, she needs space in order to effectively exercise her authority.

For a moment, imagine yourself in her shoes.  One of her new responsibilities is writing up performance reviews for you, covering strengths and areas for improvements.  She also is responsible now for equipping, growing, and developing you.

If she were to remain chummy and informal with you, your performance reviews would be unjustifiably glowing.  And you might never receive constructive criticism or a challenging task, as those might jeopardize your relaxed friendship.  What would that do to your learning and future career progression?  Would your new boss be doing you a favor or a disservice by making things indefinitely easier on you?  What about the rest of the team?  Would everyone receive the same, constant thumbs-up, or would rumors of favoritism start spreading?

Trying to keep things the same as before is asking your new boss to act unfairly.

As a result, even if she also dislikes the change, your new boss is likely to pull back a bit to a professional distance.  Rather than fighting this, you can help.

To do so, acknowledge the change, first for yourself internally and then also for her externally.  You can say something like, “I’m looking forward to getting to know you in your new role,” or, “I’d love to meet with you to discuss how I can help support you in our new relationship.”

State openly and out loud that you intend to work well with your new boss.  Set a clear expectation that you respect her authority.  Whether your new boss is a friend or a past rival, these encouragements are guaranteed to relieve her of any worries she might have had about her new authority.  If she had felt the need to force her new power on you, she won’t anymore.  You will be helping her settle into her role with ease.  In that state, she will be best positioned to lead you and the rest of your team well.

#4: Brainstorm how you can add value and score wins.

With any boss, including a peer-turned-boss, you want to look for ways to add value and score wins.  Ask the same questions to your peer-turned-boss as you would to any boss:

• What is your preferred work style?

• What is your personality?

• What are you being held accountable to accomplish?

• Where do you spend the most time each day?

• How does my role affect you?

Remember that with the promotion comes a change in your relationship dynamic.  Even if you’ve worked alongside your new boss as peers for years, you should still ask these questions, as the answers to them will look different in a new context.

Then seek to align your strengths with your boss’ needs.  How can you score quick wins to build momentum?  How can you set yourself up to hit long-term goals?  In what ways do your unique abilities naturally compliment your boss’ blindspots?

The good news?  You can really leverage your old relationship in your new relationship.  For example, if you already know that your boss absolutely hates working with details but you rather enjoy them, you can offer to take on those pieces for her or give reports a final edit.  Or you may have heard your new boss vent about how she dislikes being interrupted while working on something.  Even before you’ve started working together, you know to schedule meetings or email instead.

Use what you know.  Build trust fast by adding value and anticipating needs.  When your boss sees and experiences the ways you adjust to her style, she is more likely to do the same to you.  Soon, you might find that you have a stronger relationship with your boss than you’ve ever had before.

#5: Set yourself apart by being honest and sharing regular feedback.

Anyone in authority can tell you the truth: getting prompt reports of bad news is tough.  We all naturally fear being “shot as the messenger”, especially if we are the source of the bad news in the first place.  And the flipside is also true: flattery easily finds its way to leaders with influence.

With any boss, you should be honest about your mistakes.  But if your boss was once a peer, this is again a case where you can powerfully leverage your old relationship for mutual wins.  You start from a foundation of trust with your boss, so your connection to each other is less likely to be toppled by failures or negative announcements.  You also know how and when to approach your new boss with concerns:

• In front of others or in private?

• Sandwiched by compliments?

• With a set of possible solutions?

• In email or in person?

Use that to your advantage.  Skip the flattery, and instead get into a habit of sharing regular feedback of the good and the bad.  Your boss will be grateful that she has someone she can trust, who she could trust from the very beginning.

~ ~ ~

Those are the 5 key steps!  Which of them resonates with you the most?

If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to contact me at megan@ryancbailey.com.  Always happy to connect!

Using Inspiration and External Motivation to Develop a High Performance Team

High performing teams (HPT) are teams that get a lot done, produce superior results, and love working together to accomplish their goals.  They believe in each other and are confident that each person is supposed to be on the team.  They are not afraid to push each other to bring the best out in one another.  When you are part of a high performing team, you don’t want to leave it.  They are so much fun to be a part of.

HPT’s don’t usually start off as High Performing Teams. HPTs are developed.  In order to build one, leaders need to know how to draw out the best in each individual member, and leaders need to know how to get them to collaborate well.  But how do they do that?  It starts with understanding the role that inspiration and external motivation play in the life of a team.

Inspiration Is About Creating Meaning and Purpose

Inspiration is about drawing meaning and purpose from a cause that is greater than we are.  Once inspired, a team has a vast store of internal motivation to go through walls, if necessary, to accomplish the mission of the team.  Internal motivation will continue if it is fueled from time to time.

External Motivation Is Used For Stretch Goals

External motivation--such as titles, more money, a seat at certain tables--only works temporarily.  The energy that comes from these one-time events won’t last.  However, when coupled with inspiration, external motivation can be a powerful way to summon great stores of energy, positivity, and fun in order to accomplish a very exciting stretch goal.

How to Relentlessly Inspire Your Team:

Start with a Rallying Cry

Leaders need to focus on inspiration, which comes from being passionate about the team’s common purpose. Steve Jobs’ motto, “A thousand songs in your pocket,” rallied Apple engineers to create the iPod.  Your team needs to come up with their rallying cry.  

How?  Brainstorm with your team about what got them interested in joining the team.  Look at what your team is tasked to do.  What is the most important part? How does it impact you and others at large when the team accomplishes it?  Is there a way to combine all three: the why of their joining the team, the most important part of what the team is tasked to do, and the impact the team will have?  Can you then say it in such a way that an intelligent third grader could get excited about it?  For the intelligent third grader to get it, you will need to eliminate details.  Focus on what it is, how it affects them and how it impacts others.  Capture it in a catchy phrase (seven words or less) that can become the team mantra.  Purpose will be cemented in this step.

Fall in Love With What You Are Doing

Next, ask your team to think about times they were doing things they absolutely loved.  What led them to fall in love with what they were doing?  Get into the weeds here for a bit.  As people vibe off of what others are saying, ask the team to come up with principles that the team can recreate to help one another fall in love with the team and their goals.

Discover Each Team Member’s Core Value

Now move individually. To gain high levels of commitment, find out what each team member longs for. What do they really want?  What are their deepest desires?  Look for what each of those things represents to them. For example, many people would assume that if you were talking to a sales team, each member of the team would want more money.  But that isn’t necessarily true.  You need to ask the question, “If you had more money, what would that give you which you did not have before?”  Some of the answers may include:

• If I had money, then I would have Significance

• If I had money, then I would have Love

• If I had money, then I would have Acceptance

• If I had money, then I would have Value

• If I had money, then I would have Enjoyment

• If I had money, then I would have Security

Each of the six letters of the word SLAVES is a core value to that person.  We are often slaves of those core values, since most of our decisions are made in an effort to achieve one of them.  Which letter drives each member of your team?  

Help members to discern this by asking them:

1. What do their longings and desires represent to them?  (i.e. Money = Value) 

2. If threatened, what do they react most strongly to, or even overly strongly to?  What does that threat represent?

3. What do they think about when they don’t have to think of anything?  What does that represent?

If they can’t seem to decide between a couple of letters, ask if there is something even deeper that just one of those letters gives them.  For example if they say, “I have narrowed down the list to Acceptance and Security, and I am not sure which one it is.”  Then ask, “If you have Acceptance, what will you then have?  And how about with Security?  If you have Security, then what would you have?”  If they say, “If I have Acceptance, then I have Security, but I can’t think of anything deeper that I would have if I had Security,” then a good guess would be that Security is their deepest value.  Often when you narrow it down to two SLAVES values, one value feeds the second value, but not vice versa. Once identified, appropriately feed their value in healthy ways.

Leverage What Comes Natural to Each Team Member for the Good of All

Next, look at what comes naturally to each person.  Start with their personality type.  As an ENFJ, I love reading a room or an individual and helping them in ways that create a major impact. 

Don’t forget to dig into their story.  What have they naturally done well over time, even when they were a kid?  What do they always get high marks for on performance reviews?  

How can they leverage what they naturally do well--whether from their personality type or their story--for the good of all?  If they don’t see how their natural gifts are valuable, help them come up with a list, starting with some of the things you see.  Then help them by asking questions like, “How do you think this gift will help José?  How about Michelle?  What about the higher-ups in the company?  How about our clients?  Other stakeholders?”  Keep generating options and asking the team member to write them down on something like a Google Doc so they can have easy access to the list whenever they need to review it.  This will help elevate their Self-Regard.

How about others on your team?  What do they do naturally?  How can they leverage those strengths for the good of all?

Make the Work Fun!

Next, collaborate with each team member as to how the work can be more (1) fun, (2) interesting, or (3) challenging.  Different personality types view those categories differently, so make sure individual needs are met.  

Once you know what works for each individual, look to the group.  Are there things in common with other members that they could do as a group to increase fun, interest, and challenge for all?  Pepper those things in from time to time.

Use External Motivation for Stretch Goals

Use external motivation to go after a real stretch goal, remembering that it is only  temporary.  If you are doing well with the inspiration piece, you may not need to use external motivation.  Every once in a while, however, there will be a need to accomplish a short-term goal which will be a challenge to achieve, and this may be a great time for external motivation, to encourage the team to go all-out to get it.  For example, if you know your team really wants to go to ABC and you know XYZ will be a challenging goal say, “If the team accomplishes XYZ, we all get to go to ABC and celebrate!”  From time to time, help them recall why they wanted to go to ABC, to keep the motivation fresh and active.  

If you want to develop your team into a high performing team, focus on inspiration and use external motivation only for the stretch goals.  Inspiration lasts... External motivation adds a little gas to achieve a stretch goal.

Chew On This:

• What inspires you? In other words, what gives you meaning and purpose?

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Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company.

Help! My Employees Want to Stay Unemployed!

At long last!  Several months after COVID-19 first hit the United States, businesses are beginning to reopen.  Strict quarantine rules are slowly being phased back as more people venture out for dining, personal care services, and recreation.

What does this mean for you?  As your company redesigns for social distancing and cleaning requirements, you may need to figure out how to re-staff.

But here’s the crux of the problem.  State unemployment benefits have risen dramatically in light of COVID-19 ($978 on average this year, compared to $378 on average last year).  And the federal CARES Act has been supplying all unemployed workers with an additional $600 per week, provided they are unemployed as a direct result of COVID-19.  As a result, around half of all workers in the United States are more financially incentivized to stay unemployed than to return to work.

If you run a company or have a hand in your firm’s HR strategy, you may struggle to get old or new staff members to fill positions.  So the purpose of this blog post is to give you 4 ways to encourage your eligible workforce to come back to work.

1. Create non-monetary incentives.

Let’s start off with some hope-giving statistics:

• 89% of bosses believe employees quit because they want more money.  But reality says that only 12% of employees switch jobs for a pay raise.

• American workers said they would be willing to give up 23% of their entire future lifetime earnings for a job that was always meaningful in a survey of 2,000+ participants.

• In a study conducted by Glassdoor, the top predictor of workplace satisfaction was not pay across all income levels.

In other words, money may not be the primary reason why employees are staying away from work.  Especially when you factor in the perilous effects of quarantine boredom (i.e. a high correlation with depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol abuse), your eligible workforce may be more ready to return than you’d expect.  Thinking strategically, you can create some truly compelling non-monetary incentives, which may work even better than upping wages.  Here are a few suggestions:

• Of course, let your eligible workforce know that you care about their health.  Follow OSHA guidelines.  But then also hold open conversations with previous staff members about what safety concerns they might have around returning.  What else can you do to give your team peace of mind?  Do they want frequent breaks to wash their hands?  Do they want you to provide high-quality masks?  Create a workplace that ensures your staff members don’t feel threatened to return.

• The CARES Act ends July 31st.  At that point, millions of Americans will be swarming back to work, unable to support themselves entirely on state unemployment benefits.  Let your old team know that you want them to have a secure job with you when that time comes.  Let them know that you want them specifically and give them reasons why.  For example, “Ian, no matter how busy and chaotic work is, your humor and optimism always make the day better for everyone,” or, “Sally, you work tirelessly and quietly, ensuring everything goes off without a hitch from the background.  Without you, we would never be able to run as smoothly as we do.”  Recognition is the #1 motivator of work productivity, whereas a pay raise ranks at only #5.  (And this goes without saying, but make sure your praise is genuine.  Flattery is unethical, easily detected, and ineffective.)

• Use reopening as an opportunity to clean out your culture.  No one’s work culture is perfect, and values are alive and ever-changing.  Core values may not have stuck and need to be analyzed and reconsidered.  Aspirational values may need to be updated.  Overtime, organizations collect accidental values: values that arise without intentionality from leadership and represent the commonalities of the majority.  In what ways has your workplace culture become tacky, exclusive, or just plain dull?  If you want some help in finding the answer, talk and listen to your front-line and most entry-level workers.  How can you make your company’s workplace the best place to be?

• Create meaningful work.  Do you know the long-term goals of your previous team members?  Do you know their passions?  If not, be willing to ask!  And let your old team know that, moving forward, you want more now than ever to help them achieve their goals and experience their passions every day at work.This may mean that you have to do some organizational shuffling.  (For example, Shelly likes making people happy but has been in data analytics; she should be moved to a customer-facing role.)  This may also mean that you have to give your employees more autonomy or change up accountability.  (For example, Ryan and Perry are competitive, but their work output is not easily measurable; you should come up with ways to quantify and track their work.)  How can you help your workers live fulfilling and satisfying lives?(As a disclaimer, this strategy can be extensive and challenging.  What do you do with an employee whose only passion is video games?  How do you thoughtfully hold these kinds of conversations with a staff of 30?  Reach out in the contact form below if you get stumped!)

• Lastly, foster opportunities to develop your people.  Everyone, even those who flip burgers unnoticed in the back of your store, wants to feel like they are growing, learning, and improving.  And every role develops what are called transferable skills, or skills that hold across industries and jobs.  (Some transferable skills include communication, problem solving, emotional self-awareness, etc.) Unfortunately, development of transferable skills often goes unnoticed and un-praised, in contrast to the often hyper-focus placed on bottom-line results.  What skills does a burger chef develop that may be helpful to her in future jobs?  If you want to invest in your people, you need to know in what ways you are investing in them and get creative.  For example, a burger chef might develop attention-to-detail, an awareness of work flow, organization, and/or cooperation.If you want to attract talent back to your business, give them reasons to come that go beyond their immediate circumstances and last into the rest of their life.  This can be as simple as attaching a list of transferable skills to each role and creating accountability and rewards around those skills.

These suggestions can seem daunting because they are (and should be) fairly time-consuming.  Doubting the fiscal return of your efforts is reasonable.  But these suggestions aren’t just “nice” ways to “smooth-talk” your staff back into work.  Holding these types of conversations not only creates personal impact, but also increased revenue.  Since we started with statistics, let’s end with one more:

• This study generated estimations that a highly meaningful job will produce an additional $9,078 per worker, per year, given established job satisfaction-to-productivity ratios.

Is the effort worth it to you?

2. Report an “Offer of Work.”

In some states, a refusal to return back to work (when given a fair offer) leads to disqualification from unemployment benefits.

For example, if you offer employment to Bob who used to work for you, Bob might reject your offer because he’s earning more unemployed than he would returning to your company.  You can counter his rejection by reporting a copy of your job offer to your state’s Department of Labor.  Bob will then lose his unemployment benefits.  At that point, you could then re-offer the position to Bob under his new conditions.

Some important notes for using this option:

• Clearly, the nature of this option is harsh.  Essentially, employers can use leverage to “force” employees back to work.In order to use this option honorably and effectively, be proactive in your communication.  If you can, build trust by hosting an open dialogue around a return to work before you extend offers; listen to fears and objections and see what you can do to help your team return to work with ease and eagerness.  If you can’t hold that kind of conversation, at least proactively let candidates know that they may be in danger of losing unemployment benefits if they reject your offer.  (This also eliminates the necessity of a re-offer.) Above all, if you use this option, strive to be fair.  If you can’t compensate your employees financially, again, how else can you compensate them with non-monetary incentives?

• Unfortunately, each state’s process is different and developed in real-time.  Some states are not yet even offering this option.  You may have to do a bit of hunting on your state’s Department of Labor website to find the details that apply to you.

• The offer you give must be more or less similar to the offer you first gave.  In other words, you can’t slash wages or significantly alter the role’s responsibilities.  (Again, details vary per state.)

3. Try employing workshare.

In some states, a workshare program allows you to employ your workforce for a percentage of their normal hours (e.g. 40%).  Those employees would then collect (1) 40% of their normal wages, (2) partial unemployment benefits from the state, and (3) $600 in benefits from the federal CARES Act.  In some cases, the combined total of the 3 sources of income would be greater than either full employment or full unemployment.

Again, each state varies on specifics.  Check out your state’s Department of Labor and see if you can create a plan that works for you and your employees.

4. Use the intermittent furlough strategy.

If you haven’t yet closed your business entirely, you may be able to immediately implement the intermittent furlough strategy.  This strategy avoids the mistake of reducing 10 staff members to 50% of their normal hours, an act that would disqualify them from unemployment benefits.  Instead, try employing 5 staff members for 100% of their normal hours in one week, and then employing the other 5 staff members for 100% of their normal hours in the next week.  Continuously alternate between the two subteams.

Due to new stipulations in the CARES Act, these employees can collect wages during their week on and unemployment benefits in their week off.

I hope that this article has helped!  Navigating through available solutions can be daunting and confusing, and we all are experiencing this for the first time.  If you have any questions on anything discussed above, please reach out to me at megan@ryancbailey.com.  Wishing you the best!

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Megan Koh is a Career Development Coach, with over 7 years of experience in helping others find and achieve their dream jobs.  She lives south of Atlanta and is engaged to her sweetheart Danny.

How To Help Your Team Reach Their Potential

A business leader who was running a very successful organization spoke to me about one of her direct reports. “He has to learn to adapt to those who report to him, not the other way around,” she said. I started thinking of how true that is. For leaders to succeed, they need to draw out the best in those that follow them. Since their followers have different personality types, a one-size-fits-all approach will leave some on the team less engaged.

What if the leader really understood those who follow him? What if he learned how his team was wired? Then, the leader could tap into the strengths of his team and, as a byproduct, benefit from their ingenuity, engagement, and support. So how do you become a flexible leader?

• Understand how each member of the team is wired.

  There are objective and subjective ways to understand how each team member is wired. Objective assessments such as Myers-Briggs, Birkman, and DiSC can give you many clues. When the team members digest the results of the assessment, be sure to ask them what parts really fit and what parts did not fit as well. Make note of those.

  Subjectively, you can observe when they come alive more. You can also be alert to what others on the team say they do better than average. Ask them about their dreams and goals, even if they are not work-related. You will gain lots of insight into what makes them tick.

• Understand what their strengths are.

  Very often with the objective assessments, the strengths are pegged in the results report. However, dig in deeper with them. Ask them under what circumstances they come alive, and what it is about those times that causes them to feel more alive. You can also ask them and those on their team what they do better than average, just go for the top three strengths.

• Provide them with opportunities where their strengths shine.

  Once you know their strengths, think about how you can encourage those strengths to be displayed more. It might be that someone on the team does the majority of the presenting to clients. However, it could also be that after you brainstorm with them, you discover how to leverage their strengths across their role. For example, I love getting to the heart of things and then developing actionable plans around those things. As I do this with clients, or talk about my services to potential clients, I am more in my groove.

  When I try to get practical without getting to the essence first, I am not as strong in what I do. I greatly admire people who are quick with the “right” steps, but that is not me. I need a little more time so we can get to the essence of the matter, then plans seem to flow much more easily. Take one of your direct reports.  What is their top strength and how can they leverage it more?

• Encourage them to find ways to contain their weaknesses.

  Time can be greatly wasted when someone focuses on overcoming their weaknesses instead of strengthening their strengths. I am not saying that weaknesses should not be worked on, but I am saying that their time might be better spent on learning to contain those weaknesses.

  For example, I can be impulsive. I can tell you a bunch of now-humorous stories from my past to illustrate how my impulsiveness did not gain me the results I desired. Today, even though I run my own company, I don’t let major decisions be made without a “committee” of different personality types giving feedback on that decision. Just recently we made it a policy that I will discuss major decisions with the team and solicit their input. In addition, I will solicit help from those whom I believe would have good insights into the decision. This has done wonders for my business life.

• Enjoy the fact that they will do things in a style that is different from yours.

  Very often when we see one of our direct reports doing something in a different style, we get a sense of foreboding that “it is not going to go well." This fuels a sense of insecurity which, in turn, may prompt us to try to make them do things in the style we would do them in.

  If this is our response, we are missing out on the ingenuity of those who are different from us.  The other option is to learn from them.  Perhaps we may grow even more by adapting some of what they do to our style. Before the sense of foreboding takes over, turn on your curiosity and ask yourself, “What if their style can work really well for them?”

  If you are still feeling insecure, then ask more questions before making any corrections.  See if they have answers for some of the fears you may have.

Adapting your style to your team will help you to reach and pull out the potential that is inside of them. In appreciation, those who follow you will increase their engagement and will want to support you even more.

Chew On This:

• How are the members of your team different? How can you meet them where they are at?

** This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

Confessions of a Perfectionist

I haven’t written a blog post in over two months. I want to write something from my heart - something that will grab your attention and lead you to share this blog with all of your friends. If I’m honest, I want more than that. I want you and your friends to hire my team and I.

So it feels like I have to be authentic, relevant, and insightful. I’ve filled myself with a perfectionistic pressure, creating a level of expectation that I cannot meet. So, yes. It’s been two months. I hid behind busyness when I needed to just be vulnerable, real, and let you in.

What is perfectionism?

Perfectionism is an attempt to control or manage ourselves, others, and others' perceptions of us - and it often thrives on intangible goals. In the workplace, perfectionism can be a chronic source of stress that actually leads to procrastination and a lack of productivity. When we are worried about accomplishing intangible goals, we tend to bypass or dismiss the attainable ones that lead to progress. In an attempt to be perceived as productive and successful, we then mask our procrastination with busyness. The hardest part of perfectionism is the drive to stay hidden instead of risk being vulnerable and seen.

The first goal, then, is to recognize the presence of perfectionism in our lives and become aware of its' impact on ourselves, our work, and our relationships.

• As a leader, how often have you hid behind busyness instead of letting your team or others in?

• How much have you let perfectionism get in the way of connection?

Next, we can choose to be vulnerable, let our flaws be seen, and let trusted people into our perfectionism and the fear that drives it.

• What would happen if you let your team into the insecure places of your heart?

• What if they joined you and felt a freedom to be real with you as well?

Finally, we can choose to see it as an opportunity for growth, shared human experience, and connection with our team.

• What would it be like to see your team come alive, engage, and accept you right where you are?

• What would it be like to become an agent for real change where your team knows they can be human at work?

No need for them to hide, manipulate or front that they have it together. No need to live in fear of being exposed. Every team member will know that they can be who they are and be accepted, wanted and pushed to be their best self.

Ultimately, cultivating authentic relationships is the key to building healthy teams and organizational cultures.

In authentic relationships, trust soars and people can easily see your strengths and know how to leverage them for the good of all. In teams that value authenticity, politics are at a minimum, engagement is high, turnover is low, people produce more and go about their work with far less confusion.

It feels risky to be real. Yet when someone in the room risks being real, the rest of us admire them and feel a pull to be real as well.

Someone has to start that. You as the leader are the best one to start.

Chew On This:

• What step will you take to be real today?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company that supports leaders in developing in-demand high performing teams

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

Lessons I Learned in 2017

It’s the last blog of 2017 for me.  It was a fantastic year, filled with many huge changes (to be discussed in a future blog post), and some valuable lessons for my team and me. At the end of a year, we take time to reflect on what has worked well, where there is room to grow, and what lessons we hope to carry over into the new year. Here are four valuable lessons from 2017: 1. Ask what your team expects of you regularly.

This year we’ve grown to a team of six (part-time and full-time) and are probably going to add a seventh in the next couple of months.  The growth has felt organic, more focused on the relationship than revenue.  We genuinely like being around each other and working together.

Recently, we outlined ways in which our work relationship would go.  We defined in a general way what the expectation for each member’s role is.  However, I wished I had asked each of them what they expected of me.

The team has shown great appreciation for what I have given, but I also learned that some of how I was trying to help were not as useful.  It was incredibly freeing to hear that I did not have to do as much.

I also saw that as time went on and we engaged different projects, I needed consistently to ask, “What do you expect from me as you engage this project?” I had tended to assume (and you know what happens when you ass-u-me), and I needed a clear understanding of expectations.

2. Sharpen the interpersonal dynamics as you go.

Another lesson learned is to actively clear any issues in interpersonal team dynamics as you go.  Since our team gets along so well with each other, what we needed to clear were tweaks, not major issues.  But even these tweaks were valuable.

Talking about how we experience one another has helped us to make personal shifts.  Capturing things in the moment helped us to notice that the dynamic of what was happening in ourselves was at play.  That awareness created great personal growth for us.

Also, it has been helpful to share what things, when we do them, really foster better relational dynamics.  So saying “When you did X, I felt engaged and alive” is the kind of statement that helped us understand what to do more for each other.

3. Diversify client base sooner.

Our largest client had crept up to 35% of revenue.  While we love working with them, 35% felt uncomfortable.  This year we took more active strides to diversify the client base than we ever had.  Carving out time to get out there and network has helped us to grow and to learn things from companies that have benefited all our clients.  I wish I had not sacrificed business development as much as I have for the immediate work that was presented.  Moreover, I wish I had hired faster so that I could spend more time developing the business.

4. Allow myself to be me, sooner, and not try to do it like everyone else.

Typically, coaching meetings are 1 hour long.  Early in 2017, a client had only 30 minutes, but we found that we did as much work in that 30min meeting as we had done in 60mins.  So I started experimenting with other clients and found the same thing.  Consistently they told me that they loved the “laser coaching” better than the 60min meetings.

There are plenty of coaches who use the laser coaching style.  I am built for it. I am more focused, think faster, ask better questions, and am not afraid to say hard things.  My clients are also more focused, come in prepared, can process what’s going on, and are much quicker to develop great plans for the issues they came to the meeting to resolve. They leave empowered, engaged, and eager to implement.  Moreover, the cost of laser sessions is less to them.  Win-Win all the way around.

As more and more clients chose the laser style of coaching, I wondered what had stopped me from doing this sooner?  Then it hit me: without realizing it, I had been following the example of some coaches whom I greatly admired.  They would never even consider having 30min meetings rather than 60min meetings.

They are great at what they do, but I needed to set myself up to do my best work, even if it is not in their style.

How about you?  What were the lessons you learned in 2017? I encourage you to sit with your team and explore these questions:

• What has worked in 2017?

• What are growth areas for 2018?

• How will you measure this growth?

• What are specific goals for each member within your team?

• How can you help each other in reaching those goals?

I would love to hear from you and compare.

Have a fantastic holiday season! Looking forward to connecting in the new year.

Chew On This:

• How can you perform your role in a way that is most you?

• How can your team learn from this year and encourage each other in the new year?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company that supports leaders in developing in-demand high performing teams.

How To Hold Effective One-On-One Meetings with Direct Reports

As a leader, your time is tight. If you have more than 4 or 5 direct reports, then time is even more crunched. One-on-one meetings may feel counter-productive when you have limited time and the option to meet virtually. However, these meetings are a key opportunity you have to develop each of those direct reports.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders, the author of How to Invest Your Time Like Money, says "One-on-ones are one of the most important productivity tools you have as a manager."

These are times when they can learn from you what it takes to get to the next level, and you can learn from them what is happening closer to the front-line and gain more practice developing a flexible management style.

Do your directs look forward to their one-on-one times with you?  Do you look forward to them?

The higher up you are, the more structure you will need to have since you will have fewer one-on-one times per month.

Here are a few tips that should help in establishing effective one-on-ones:

1. Come prepared.

One of the first one-on-one conversations you should have with your directs is how to have a one-on-one.

Is there a structure that you want to follow?  How about them?  What would make that time most valuable to them?

There is probably going to be a lot of overlap between the two of you but for clarity’s sake, encourage them to share their expectations, and you share yours.

After you’ve established what one-on-one’s are going to look like, you will know how to prepare for those meetings (see below).

Send an agenda for the one-on-one a couple of days in advance.  Be sure you have learned what it is they most want to talk about during their one-on-one.  Ideally, agenda items should be phrased as questions since questions get people thinking about answers.

This will help you both to prepare or at least start thinking about the topics.

2. Determine how often you will have one-on-ones and where.

Some direct reports may need more time than others, especially those who are newer to their role.  It is important to determine the pace of the meetings and stick to it.

3. Create an environment of focus.

One of the keys to effective one-on-one's is to create an environment where both of you can be fully present and focused.

Silencing or turning off phones completely helps.  But so does making sure there are no interruptions.

Another way to create a high level of focus is to shorten the meetings.  This forces both of you to be sharp.

4. Create a dialogue.

One-on-one meetings should feel more like a dialogue and less like a monologue.  One way to accomplish this is to start personally (see below).  Another is by starting with what the direct wants to talk about.  A third is by asking open-ended questions.  This limits the amount you speak and encourages your directs to say a lot more.

5. Start personally.

What is meaningful to them in life in general?  For many, it is going to be their families or another significant relationship.  For some, it is going to be favorite hobbies, restaurants, or adventures.  Show them that you care by remembering what matters to them.

Moving this way helps both you and your direct to be positive, open and vulnerable, ready to engage the meeting in a spirit of trust and collaboration.

Use your humor.  Laughing bonds people together.  Having a team that is tight with one another and with you will go far in developing the high performing team you’ve always wanted.

6. Start with a Win.

If each of you can share a win that you’ve had since the last time you met, that will go a long way in making the conversation positive.

7. Move to the core - discover what your report is doing in the most important area of their role.

Since time is usually tight, many clients have found it helpful to start with the most important area of their direct report’s role.  This is the point where you especially want to have influence.  It can help set them up for success.  Moreover, their best results will come by focusing on what is essential (cue Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism).

As part of your preparation, know what you want to know about the core.  Brainstorm here so that they can see how you process.  Also, they can sense how much you believe in them through this collaboration.

8. Update on project.

There is probably a project that you especially want to keep an eye on.  Typically, you do that by receiving email updates ahead of the meeting, then the update during your one-on-one is more about moving the project further.

This could also be a brainstorming time.  It could be an opportunity to discover the obstacles that your direct is facing, which you could help them remove.

Here is where you want to know how you could be of most value to them as they work on this key project.

9. Find ways to increase engagement.

You want to get a feel for what their overall engagement is like.  Do they love their role? Company? Their team? You?  What would help increase their engagement?

Getting a pulse on engagement is really important with your higher-performing directs.  Throughout the meeting find ways to increase their engagement by giving them opportunities to do the things that generate engagement for that specific direct report.

10. Feedback.

Feedback doesn’t need to be limited to formal reviews.  Start by sharing something you are grateful for concerning their performance since the last meeting.  Then give them some positive affirmations about their work, and one thing to focus on improving.  This kind of interaction can go a long way.

Hopefully, the more this becomes part of the dynamic between you and them, the more you will see how to help them grow and build upon their strengths.

11. Ask, “What can I do better?”

Asking for feedback is your chance to grow further.  You might not be able to accomplish everything all your directs want, but it is likely that gaining their feedback and modeling change and growth will go far for everyone on the team.

12. Both sides should send an email to one another with next steps

At the end of the meeting, it would be helpful to talk through next steps for each of you.  Get buy-in, and then each of you should send an email with those next steps to each other to make sure that you both are on the same page and know what each of you is empowered to do.

Chew On This:

• What has been your experience with effective one-on-one meetings?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company.

*This blog is an amalgamation of a few different clients.  No one single client is being singled out.

What I Learned About Being A Great Direct Report From An 18-Year-Old Intern

On Thursday of last week, I said goodbye to the youngest intern RCBA has ever had. She only worked with us for about six weeks, but she made such an impact that it was really hard to see her leave.

Megan is sharp, mega-talented, and has a keen strategic mind, but beyond all of that competence, she knows how to connect to people’s hearts, really commit, and fight hard to do what she does with excellence and love.

Let me give you an example. As my team is growing, I wanted to learn more about how I can lead them better. (Yes, I see the irony of the leadership coach wanting more insight on how to lead his own team.)

So I asked Megan to do some research on best practices, hoping to learn new ways to improve my leadership, which I could then pass on to clients.  Not only did she do precisely what I asked her to do, but without my asking her, she tailored her research to my personality type (ENFJ) and, more specifically, to what she had already learned about me.

When I read what she wrote, I was speechless.

I then gave her more responsibilities, which she mastered just as deftly. Then, with clients’ permission, she listened in on meetings and helped improve our trainings.

She has all the marks of someone who will go far in anything she decides to do.

If I take what I learned from her and add what I've learned from the other super talented team members we have at RCBA, I can see there are traits or practices that could lead to excelling in any role in virtually any company.

7 Traits of an Excellent Direct Report

1. Give your heart to what you do.

Are you just existing? Do you come alive when you are working? Is work just a paycheck? What if it were possible for you to come alive at work if you gave yourself to it?

I don't mean you should make work the number one priority in your life. That's not it. I mean fully commit to doing whatever is necessary to produce excellence during the hours that you are there. Invest, make sacrifices, find ways to make it fun, get to know those you work with, leverage their strengths, etc.

If you are in a toxic environment or doing something that really isn't you, then consider making a change. We spend so much time at work we might as well be fully engaged while we’re there. You have the power to increase your own engagement: just commit, invest, and sacrifice for it.

2. Set boundaries.

Megan and I could really enable each other to reach workaholic levels, but one thing Michael and Haley taught me was to set limits according to priorities.

For example, my wife and kids are a higher priority than work.  Intentionally blocking off time during the week, rarely working on Saturday and not working at all on Sundays has helped to cherish and grow my relationships with them. Having non-negotiable blocks for my wife and kids has helped me to make the most of my time at work and has helped me to enjoy work more.

3. Improve core competencies.

If you want to have a high impact at work, look for the most important thing which your role, your boss’ role and/or your team’s role requires, and start there. You will feel a ton of gratitude come your way.

4. Know yourself and your team well.

Megan is a self-professed Myers-Briggs geek. She leverages her ENTJ strengths and adapts to other personality types to foster greater communication and reduce the chance of conflict.

Ask each team member:

• How to work successfully with them

• How to energize them

• What frustrates them

• What stresses them out

• What they are looking to improve about themselves

• What they look like when they are chronically stressed, and how to best help them if they are there. (Often it is providing them with something that energizes them.)

Be sure to give them your answers to the bullet points above. We created templates for each personality type that you can use. You can find them here.

5. Manage up well.

Your boss does some things really well.  Other things could use improvement.

Megan was great at being able to see what I needed help with, and to fill in that gap.  She also gave some tips in passing that were very helpful.

If your boss wants to grow, that would be helpful.

6. Go beyond what you were asked to do.

If you always look for a way you can go beyond what you were asked to do, this will show your boss that you want to exceed expectations.  Don’t be surprised if your reviews and bonuses reflect that.

Make sure you complete what you were asked to do and then, in a separate part, show how you went beyond.

7. Risk sharing how things can be improved.

Ask how and when you can share some things that you believe could be improved.  Make sure that you are asking from a place of humility, not know-it-all arrogance.

Once you are given permission, say I’ve noticed X.  I wonder if Y could be a way to improve X.

Then let the brainstorming begin.

Becoming a valued resource for your boss, team, or company starts by committing not just your head but your heart to the role.  Looking for ways to go beyond sets you up for promotion and for leaving a lasting legacy in your role.

Chew On This:

• What would help you to commit both your head and your heart to what you do?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company.

How To Make The Most Of The Workshop You Attend

I'm on a flight to Los Angeles to deliver a workshop on Myers-Briggs and Emotional Intelligence. I'm thinking back to the training I did to become certified in the EQi-2.0 and how I wish I had taken more notes and spent more time reviewing.

Even though I love EQ work and use it extensively with clients, there are nuances of the EQi-2.0 assessment that I don't remember (already put a coaching meeting with an EQ trainer on my calendar).  This has got me thinking about how many of us attend workshops throughout the year, but don’t retain as much from them as we wish we could. According to Forbes, attendants of a lecture retain only about 50% of what they learn after two weeks.

So many helpful nuggets are given in a workshop that I wish I had a system to retain them all and then implement them well.  If you are still reading this blog, you probably can relate.  Here are some things I have found helpful throughout my years of attending and giving workshops:

1) Before you go into the workshop, perform brain dump.

Brain dumping is a way to get clear and be fully present. I wrote out 7 tips on how to be fully present when you have a lot on your mind in a previous blog. One exercise is called the “Brain Dump.”

This exercise involves listing on a piece of paper all of the things that are on your mind at the present moment. Think not just about work, but also about home, family, hobbies, entertainment, etc. Take 10 minutes to write them out.

Next to each item, quickly jot down the ideal outcome you want for that item. Then write down the next action step that needs to be taken to achieve that outcome.

This exercise clears your mind and creates space for more information.

2) Take really really clear notes.

I like taking electronic notes during workshops I attend. However, if I'm not careful, as the days, weeks and months go by, I may not fully understand what I wrote down when the time comes to review them.  Make sure you set aside some time to review your notes right away, as close to the end of the workshop as you can. The breaks during a workshop are even more ideal.

3) If the facilitator says anything that is unclear, ask them to clarify.

Don't be afraid to ask the facilitator to clear up a point they made. You will be doing yourself, your fellow participants, and the facilitator a favor. This is often how I get the best refinements to the workshops I conduct.

4) If the facilitator has not done so, see if you can whittle down the workshop to three main points. 

A client, after previewing slides, asked me to come up with five "pithy" phrases that the participants could use as a review slide. That advice alone moved my workshops to the next level. It turned out that senior leaders especially valued that slide.

5) See how you can immediately implement at least three core parts of the workshop - personalize it.

To make the most of the time you invested in participating in a workshop, look for ways you can immediately use what you've learned.

The idea is to start using what you've learned before you forget it.

See number 7 for one of my favorite ways.

6) Set up a few review times.

Typically, when I deliver a workshop, I like to have a group coaching call a month after the workshop, and another one three months after the workshop. This gives participants a chance to implement and develop questions to better utilize what they've learned.

If that feature is not offered to you and your team, request it, because it will dramatically increase retention and use.

If you're met with resistance, do it on your own. Don't feel shy about emailing the workshop facilitator with your brief questions. We'd love to be at further service.

7) Teach others what you've learned.

Before the beginning of the workshop, have in mind that you are going to teach others what you've learned.

This will help you be present, make sure that your notes are clear, and that you yourself understand everything.

Generously share with others what you've learned.  In the process, you will learn and implement much more than you would have otherwise.

Imagine the impact on your team if they got the nuggets that have helped you.

There is a reason you are participating in the workshops you're attending. You’ve invested time and money and energy into this opportunity. Make the most of it for yourself and for your team as you move your team towards higher performance.

Chew On This:

• What difference would it have made to you if you had been able to remember more of the workshops you attended?
• What steps can you take to make the most out of future workshops?

Ryan C. Bailey is President and CEO of an organizational effectiveness company.