Nir Megnazi – Coaching Leaders

What to do when an employee is not performing

Dammy Olopade — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 23:33:50 +0000

Have you ever seen a guy walking around with his zipper down? Or a lady with toilet roll stuck to her heels? As embarrassing as it must be for that person, we often feel somewhat embarrassed even to tell them. Is it a one-off mistake? Or is it a reflection of something more profound (e.g., character issue)?

Similarly, when addressing an employee’s performance issue can range from a knowledge/skill gap (that can be taught/resolved) to various possible problems related to not-being-a-good-fit (e.g., working as a team, goal/career alignment, etc.). Telling someone who may think they are doing well, that they are not performing to expectations can be a very uncomfortable conversation. There is a thin line between making a judgment on their abilities versus their character, and it’s often difficult to navigate.

Many factors need to be considered, as they affect employee performance, whether positively or negatively, or in the short-term or long-term. Below is a list of some of the most common factors, including some comments/actions for the manager. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list.

What are the employee’s super-powers? What are the talents, passions, values, and aspirations? Are they able to leverage their strengths on the job/role? Consider an assessment to help identify their top talents/strengths (e.g., Strengths Finder 2.0; others?). Have them sort and prioritize their top values, identifying the key non-negotiable ones. It’s less about a job-fit, and more about a job-alignment. How can they adjust “how” they do their job to better align with their strengths? You can refer to a previous article on “Here’s how to transform your team – fast!” for a more detailed look at this.

Is there clarity in what is expected of the employee? Is there clarity in what is expected of the employer, for the employee to do their jobs effectively? Consider a clear/written job-description, that includes the “what” and the “why,” but gives freedom for the employee to innovate and improve the “how.” Be clear about what/when to help set meaningful and realizable goals. Include any key dependencies with other groups/employees and even the manager. Help manage dependencies to allow the employee to focus on the work, at least initially. There are many excellent principles and applications in “The One Minute Manager” series by Ken Blanchard.

Does the employee have the right qualifications and training for the job? If not, can they be trained? Finding ways to identify and address any training gaps, or speed-up their ramp can be very effective. For example, pairing them up with accessible buddies, or connecting them with capable mentors. Take advantage of any resources available, paying attention to how best they learn. Some do very well with online resources/references, while some prefer traditional classroom-like settings for training, and some learn by doing. One shoe does not fit all, so be mindful and intentional about this.

Does the job/role provide opportunities to stretch/grow the employee? Do they have access to training and conferences in their area of expertise, to sharpen their skills and keep them competitive. Are there related (or even unrelated) areas that the employee wants to learn that still brings value to the organization one way or the other? Can their available bandwidth be modulated to accommodate these growth areas? People tend to stay where they can grow their impact, as this often correlates to the growth in compensation. Consider reading “Mindset: How you can fulfill your potential” by Carol Dweck, or other titles on growth-mindset.

Does the employee feel-at-home amongst the team? Are team-mates working with each other, and not against each other? Are issues identified and addressed quickly, to keep employees focused on goals? What activities can help the team bond better? Is there a diversity of thoughts, ideas, and backgrounds amongst the team members? Are these diverse ideas welcome from everyone in the team (inclusive workplace)? Are commonalities leveraged to help bring about unity and trust, even amongst diverse employees? A better way to grade diversity/inclusiveness in the team is to see if the last few ideas the team has worked on are all from one dominant source? If so, it’s time to promote other voices within the team. Trust me, they all have great ideas, but often many are talked-over, and that has become the status quo.

Are there any life challenges beyond the workplace that are impacting the employee’s ability to be fully engaged at work? These may range from marriage, babies, travel, college, to physical and mental health, addictions, divorce, and maybe even death in the family. Does the employee have a meaningful balance between the various aspects of their life? Are they actively engaged in hobbies and activities outside of work? Are there any red-flags like never taking time-off, or unusual changes in mood? Are there resources available to heal the “whole” person, such as counseling resources? Being open and supportive of the different aspects of the employees’ life frees them up from having to spend energy hiding/compensating for those things, and instead use that energy to be more productive.

Are there any disabilities or perceived limitations? Are all the employee’s relevant abilities being leveraged for the assigned tasks? As a team, can their strengths compensate for any gaps? [its ability that counts]

Most of the factors impacting employee performance that we’ve discussed above focus on the employee. There are also factors to consider that instead focus on the manager, and can equally impact employee performance.

Manager bias
Manager competence
Lack of manager involvement/availability
Lack of manager support (ramp/training)

I cannot put enough emphasis on this being a conversation. Saying something to someone, and having them understand what was said, are two different things. Being gentle in how you express the performance issues is important. Taking time to listen to their perspective, and making sure they understand (not just hear) yours is also important. Helping them navigate the options, whatever they may be, is not only good for them but you too. Current team members will look carefully at how you handled this to know if they can feel safe under your leadership.

It should be noted that all the above can be looked at in the context of improving performance, regardless of current performance, thus relevant to both high performing and under-performing employees in a positive manner that is win-win for both employee and employer.

In conclusion, every parent wants their kids to be successful, regardless of where they choose to settle (locally or abroad). If a manager has even an ounce of this same desired outcome for their employees, regardless of whether they later decide to stay in this team or not, then many of the concepts above will become easier to implement. This very well reflects the adage, take care of your employees, and they’ll take care of your business.

Why most teams fail to change their culture

Nir Megnazi — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 03:55:49 +0000

When I go over my #linkedin feed, I’m flooded with posts about how companies need to change their culture and how people leave toxic environments. It looks like it’s a consensus, but still, so many companies fail to do that.

When we say Culture, what do we mean?

Most employees want a change. Ask them, and they’ll tell you how much it’s needed. Still, when the rubber hits the road, many teams and companies try and fail. Why?

It has to do with the definition of culture. Let examine the following description from FranklinCovey, one of the world leading companies in the space of leadership.

Company culture is the collective behavior of your people

Culture is behavior! It’s how most of the people behave most of the time. In that sense, a failure of culture is a failure of applying a particular behavior.

For example, assume a team has set a goal to change its culture to let all team members to be heard and to share the work of the high impact tasks, in other words, inclusion. Adopting inclusion is easy when the team meets its milestones, and the pressure to deliver is medium to low.

The Culture change trap

However, what happens when pressure is high? When swift action is required, or there is a high risk, you’ll miss the milestone? As the manager of the team, you have two choices:

Decide on the fastest route to completion, putting your best employee on the job, manage it closely until the job is done. You lower the risk of missing the milestone.
Discuss the situation with the team and let other team members finish the job, knowing they will grow and develop, but at high risk, you might miss the milestone and risk quality.

Which will you choose?

Culture change is hard

Many team leaders, managers, directors, and executives will choose to complete the task as fast as possible, putting the best of the best on the job, as they fear failure. They fear what their customers will say. They fear how their boss or the public will perceive them.

When you prioritize results over culture, you might win in the short term but lose in the long run.

Culture is measured when the stakes are high. When expectations challenge your values. If you genuinely commit to creating a culture change, you MUST adhere to it at all times, especially when things get tough! If you don’t, employees will lose trust in leadership. They will perceive the culture shift as a PR stunt but will not commit to it.

How to avoid the trap

You avoid the trap by anticipating the challenge. For each new value introduced, brainstorm tough situations where the behavior will be challenged. Describe it and commit to the right behavior. Then publish it! Let everyone in your company know how to behave when things are rough. Setting expectations and leading by example are the key to a significant cultural change.

Bottom line

Culture is the collective behaviors of your people. It is tested when the risk is high. The best way to drive a culture change is to set expectations on how to behave and to lead by example.

2 Management traps that will make you lose everyone’s respect and trust

Nir Megnazi — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 22:51:00 +0000

“‘I can’t tell him what I’m doing!’

“I was walking outside with a friend enjoying a sunny day in Oregon. We like to catch up and share our work and progress. The sun warmed us as well as the long walk outside. I closed my eyes briefly and felt the sun rays on my face.

“My friend told me about the latest project he works on and the innovation he can create. He complained about how hard he’s working. ‘Why don’t you ask the team leader for help?’

“‘I can’t tell him what I’m doing! Last week he presented all my ideas to the project management as if they were his own!'”

There is no trust between the two. Even worse, the team leader is getting credit for something he didn’t do! My friend doesn’t get any credit, and as a result, hides his work from the team leader. Work progresses slower, and project management is not aware of potential innovation.

Team leader that assume all the credit can’t manage their teams effectively. Their team members question everything the team leader says, they work slower and aren’t motivated to create breakthroughs as they know their work isn’t appreciated. Eventually, employees leave.

What’s going on here?

Ego & Status

When observing leaders and managers who behave in the manner described above, we tend to describe them as focused on their “Status”. Or are full of their “Ego”. Which means they care only for themselves.

What causes these behaviors?

Our fears dictate our behavior

2 primal fears run our lives:

1) Am I good enough?

2) Will they love me?

We all have these fears, and they impact our lives in different ways. When we take credit for something we did not create, it’s because we want to feel significant, we want others to “love” us. When we get praise for our accomplishments, we feel that we are good enough. Even if we’re not the one who actually made the accomplishment. We still get a short “fix”.

We compare our status to others because we need to feel that we are better than others. That we are enough. The reality is that we are insecure.

Status driven managers are not bad people. They are merely working to satisfy their self-insecurity and their need to feel superior and important.

By doing so, they neglect the team, lose any respect they have from employees and peers and eventually from their manager. No one likes someone who only thinks about themselves.

Which type of leader are you?

Still, we find examples of status-driven managers who become CEOs of companies. In the book good to great by Jim Collins, the author describes CEOs who are level 4 leaders vs. level 5 leaders.

Level 4 leaders are the “know it all” leaders who focus on praising themselves. They are the “I” type. “I did this, I did that.” When they leave companies, the companies are rarely able to maintain production, and they crumble. Leaders like that leave an organization that can’t function without them. So much for success and glory.

Level 5 leaders are a “Us, We, Them” type of leaders. They focus on the benefit of the company and its teams rather than themselves. They rarely take credit for anything. They leave strong groups with capable leadership skills to keep running the company.

Quit the race

The race for status and Ego satisfaction ruins teams.

I became a manager 6 months after reading the book 7 habits of highly effective people. The main takeaway at that time for me was to stop comparing myself to others and focusing on giving value to others. I didn’t even realize that I’m always chasing others, trying to be like them, instead of being me.

I invite you, as you’re reading these lines, to stop and ask yourself:

“Is status important to me?” if you answer yes, keep asking: “Why is it even important?” I hope you find clarity when you ponder on these questions.

Bottom Line

Great leaders don’t take credit for the work of others. They get credit for growing experts who achieve great results.

Share your experience

Was the article helpful? Do you think others can benefit from it? Please take a moment and share it along with a comment that describes your takeaway. Feel free to mention me, so I get notified. That would be very helpful.

Thank you for reading this.

Nir Megnazi – Leadership Coach

When employees ask for a coach, this is what they really want.

Nir Megnazi — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 23:01:51 +0000

Must managers learn to coach? As part of my role as a leadership coach and a manager, I read a lot of studies. Every time I read a phrase about how managers should learn how to coach, I shake my head. The reason I disagree is not that I don’t find coaching helpful, I wouldn’t be a leadership coach if I didn’t think it can be a life-changing experience, it’s because when employees are asking for a coach, they are actually asking for something more.

Employees are asking us to help them learn, grow and make an impact

As managers and employees, we don’t always know exactly what we need ourselves to make progress and impact in our career. Sometimes we just feel that we are stuck. So we go to our manager and ask for help. Do we know exactly which tool can help us the most? Coaching? Mentoring? Consulting? What is the difference between them?

Consulting

Is “If this is your problem, this is the solution”. For example – If your code fails to run, here is a way to debug it and solve this.

Mentoring

Is about guidance on a journey. The mentor has taken the path or a part of a path that you are currently on. A mentor can look back and guide you on how to avoid roadblocks he already encountered and what are the best practices to move forward. Mentoring is about insights. For example – “If you want to become principal, this what I recommend from my experience…”

You can also mentor technically. Sometimes in mentoring, we can also teach or consult on specific areas.

Coaching

Is the skill of creating new options for behaviors and actions by broadening the coachee’s perspective of a current situation. When you see things differently, you can take different actions. The tools of coaching are listening and asking open-ended questions. There are many approaches to coaching, some are more active, some are more passive. There is a reason why it takes at least 2 years to learn and practice coaching. It’s a tough skill to acquire.

When I graduated from coaching school, I attended a training session with one of the school’s top teacher. She made coaching seem so easy and obvious. I left that training feeling that I should probably drop coaching as it was so hard for me at that time and that I would never reach her level of coaching. I’ve gotten better, and there is still a long journey for me. It’s a never-ending journey.

Managers can learn how to coach! But they need to be trained, they need to constantly practice and the most important thing is that they need to understand when they should coach.

What do they need right now?

The question a manager should ask himself when an employee comes with a challenge or a problem is “What does she/he need right now?” Usually when they have a technical challenge, consulting and mentoring fit best. When relationships are involved, there is a huge benefit for coaching.

In a development or problem-solving conversation, you can change the tool as needed.

The key is to listen carefully and focus on the employee. Not on solving the problem.

Bottom Line

Coaching is a powerful skill that needs to be learned and constantly practiced. Your employees want to learn and grow. Choose the best tool to help them learn and develop.

Share your experience

Thank you for reading this.

Nir Megnazi – Leadership Coach

Three reasons why you’re not enjoying your role as a first line manager, and what to do about it

Nir Megnazi — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 19:20:37 +0000

I sat with a good friend in a bar during one of his visits. He’s a very technical guy and knows his craft better than anyone I know. I told him about some of the work I do with first-line managers to help develop the skills they need to become outstanding.

His face twitched weirdly. “I don’t have time for any of your training. I’m too busy as it is. Manager’s training is a waste of my time.” I didn’t expect this response, my ego prepared a marvelous counter speech on how we can truly transform technical management, but instead, I chose to be curious and explore why he felt like this. “Can you tell me what makes you feel this way?” I asked. “Management is a tax. Instead of doing my job, I have to sit in meetings all day long, prepare employee assessments and write reports. You know how tight schedule is! Instead of wasting my time in training, I can do my work and make real progress. ”

I was surprised at how different we grasp management. While I see management as a force of multiplication and increased impact, he sees it as a tax! How is this possible?

It’s all about perception

It’s the way we perceive things. There are many reasons why we don’t enjoy our work. Here are three that I caught during our conversation.

We believe management is a tax.

It prevents us from investing in our technical part of our job where we believe we give the most value. Technical leads who become first-line managers often rely on their technical skills to succeed, but it can only get them so far. I agree it’s important, but I think investing in your team can boost your career.

Let’s use some basic math to explain. As a technical manager, you accomplish 2 units of works. You manage 10 people who are relative juniors and can accomplish 0.5 units of work each. Total of 7 units of work. How will the output of the team increase if over a year you will invest in increasing your output by 25%? You will now produce 2.5 units of work and a total of 7.5 units of work. What if instead, you grow the efficiency of your team by 25%? They will now produce 6.25 units and a total of 8.25 which is, of course, better than 7.5.

Investing in your team first provides you with the power of multiplication. The more you grow them, the better the output. Guess who is will get the credit for that?

We’re attending too many meetings.

No one likes when our time is wasted on pointless meetings. The real problem is that some of our meetings are far from being effective. Be proactive and make them effective. Ask for agenda before the meeting and don’t show up if there is none. If the agenda has no potential to create movement and progress in your project, talk with the organizer and discuss that. If someone derails the discussion, put him on the spot and get back to what’s effective and to the meeting goals. If it’s just a status meeting, ask for it on email. Here is a thumb rule – if we don’t make progress in a meeting, we shouldn’t have it.

Reports and assessments are a waste of time.

I have to admit; I hate writing a monthly report. I’d rather do the work and let someone else write it. But reports have a more important role than to report what you did. They create trust and increase confidence.

We once had a critical bug in one of the tools we released to our users which prevented them from making progress. We worked like crazy on fixing it. Our customers were checking on us daily and escalated the issue to our management. My manager then told me “I know you are doing the best you can to solve the issue. I know we are learning how not to repeat it in the future. Why not send a status report to SHOW what you are doing?” I sent a progress report daily and what happened next surprised me – all customer complaints and escalations stopped. Why? Because the status report helped them feel that the problem is our top priority, that someone is taking care of it. They didn’t have to escalate because we are already doing our best!

Reports are not just to report what you did. They are a great source of information and a tool to build trust and to show responsibility. Because I dislike reports, I ask the help of my team members to write their reports in a way that I can copy paste them to my report.

Bottom line

Management is a multiplication force for you and your career. Invest in your people and watch how your output multiplies. Become efficient so you can also do the things you love to do at work. Look at the things you must do as a manager and ask yourself if it can help you instead of waste your time.

Share your experience

Did you enjoy this article? Please take a moment and share it along with a comment that describes your takeaway. Feel free to mention me, so I get notified. That would be very helpful.

Thank you for reading this.

Nir Megnazi – Leadership Coach

How to respond when your boss expects the impossible

Nir Megnazi — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 19:23:05 +0000

“We just got a new project assigned to our team. You have four weeks to complete it. Oh, and there is no change to previous projects priority and deadlines” – True story.

Do you remember a situation were your manager asked you to do the impossible? Impossible means there is no way you will be successful. No way you will meet the deadline. The reason it’s impossible is the lack of resources – Time, people, skills, trust.

How do we feel when that happens? We might feel a wide variety of feelings. Angry, frustrated, afraid, stressed. We expect our managers to support us and give us tasks we can fulfill within the scheduled timeline or give us the resources to be successful.

What not to do

If you don’t do anything and follow your manager’s directives, most chances are you will fail. When you fail, there is a good chance your manager will blame you for the failure. I’m not suggesting you refuse to do the work. I recommend challenging your manager first.

A good manager makes sure to set goals that are achievable. The goals can be challenging, they can be stretch goals. The manager should believe wholeheartedly that you can accomplish the goals while growing your team, not overwork them. He should also have an idea of how to achieve the goal (and keep it to himself to let you come up with your own strategy).

In 2005 the group I worked in won a bet to fly to Greece for a full paid family vacation organized by the company. That was an excellent incentive for a goal we knew we could accomplish. Yes we worked hard, we had to be innovative, we had to change some of the ways we did things before. We had to become better. We did, and we won. The assigning manager believed we could do the job. We had the resources and the motivation to do it.

How to respond to impossible requests

Here is a fact. Your team can only invest 100% of the work. For a long project, you can even count for 120% as people will grow and get better. If you need to invest more than 100% X allocated time, you will inevitably fail.

Failing has its consequences. The project will delay, your team will take some heat , and your boss will fail. No one likes to fail. Here are the steps that will help you reduce the risk of failure:

Step 1: Estimate what can you achieve with your 100% effort – when can you finish if you had no deadline or how much work can you complete from the overall goal with the currently assigned timeline.

Step 2: Share with your manager the results of step #1 and ask for additional resources to meet the assigned goal and timeline

Step #3: If the manager agrees – great! If he says “No, you can do it with the current resources” respond with “How am I supposed to do that? Can you share with me how you think this is possible?” Move the problem to his domain. Don’t be afraid to give your manager an opportunity to teach you something or to deal with the challenge.

Step #4: If the manager refuses to help (Rare but I have seen my share) say “Here is what will happen when we reach the milestone closure time. We won’t be ready as we lack resources, then the response of our customers will be and then what we should do? Who will take responsibility for that?”

What everyone wants to avoid

No one wants to be responsible for the failure. Especially if you can expect what will be the impact of being late or not delivering with quality and on time.

Use this method to help your manager understand the impact of his request. Let him know that he is responsible to provide you with the resources to be successful. Help him understand that he will enjoy the fruits of success if he will set you for success. Your manager’s role is to help you succeed.

Bottom Line

As managers we need to help our employees grow and succeed. It is our responsibility. Our manager has the same responsibility towards you. Make sure he understands that too.

Share your experience

Did you enjoy this article? Please take a moment and share it along with a comment that describes your takeaway. Feel free to mention me, so I get notified. That would be very helpful.

Thank you for reading this.

Nir Megnazi – Leadership Coach

Solve your Goal Setting & Employee Evaluations with a straightforward strategy

Nir Megnazi — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 00:40:54 +0000

December & January are the busiest months of the year for us managers. We need to publish our goals for the coming year, and we need to collect & write employee evaluations. I remember myself working nights and weekends to complete these tasks. Not always sure what the exact goals should be as sometimes we don’t have clarity about the industry or our projects. Especially in this fast moving world where things change every week!

You have only one goal

What do you mean one goal? Have you smoked something recently? My excel has over 100 lines of things we need to accomplish and some 50 more of tasks we didn’t get done from last year!

Yet, I claim, you have only one goal. all the rest are a simple derivatives of this one simple goal.

Your goal is to help your clients succeed

Know your clients

Because you deliver something, a product or a service, you have clients. You have 3 types of clients:

Those who buy or receive your product or service
Those who YOU buy or receive a product or service from
Your team, your manager, your peers.

When you dedicate all your effort and resources to make your clients successful, you will earn their trust, you will get better results, your team will fill they have an impact, you will get more appreciation, more positive feedback, more respect, and basically YOU will be more successful.

This strategy is called “The strategy of Preeminence” defined by the #1 business accelerator expert Jay Abraham (No affiliation). Jay used it for business but it is applied beautifully also in the corporate world or any other work environment.

Type 1 Client

Let’s take an example. Let’s say my team delivers a piece of code to a larger product that Solves something. Two teams get our code. Integration and validation. How can I make them successful? Integration will probably answer (Go and ask them of course!) that delivery on time and according to spec will be great. Understand what it means and set a derived goal! Validation team will want to get the spec early and your cooperation on building a test plan review. again, Understand what it means and set a derived goal!

That will also help you write your employee evaluation. What’s the connection? Employee evaluation is about Impact. When you help your clients succeed, you make actual measurable Impact! Now it is easy to quantify the work your team did in order to generate success. Look at the last year goals, look at what success is and if you did act on the goals – here is your impact!

Type 2 client

Let’s look at another client – your vendors or teams that deliver to you. How easy it is to work with you? Do you define clear requirements and timelines? Go interview your vendors and suppliers. Help them deliver faster and with more quality. Derive your goals from that.

Type 3 client

How about your team? They are also your client. If you invest in their success they will reciprocate. they will invest in you above and beyond! Where do they want to grow to? what do they need in order to be successful at work? How can they be successful with work-life balance? Do they see their kids enough? Successful employees create great results!

5 steps process to define your derived goals:

Write down who ALL of your clients are
Set a meeting with your clients
Invest in understanding how they perceive reality. How things look from their point of view.
Discover what is success for them. Ask your clients how you can help in make them successful
Define the actions you need to take based on your findings

Bottom Line

Your goals are simply derived from your client’s success. Focus in helping your clients reach their goals, all your actions and processes will be positively impacted from that.

Share your experience

Did you enjoy this article? Please take a moment and share it along with a comment that describes your takeaway. Feel free to mention me, so I get notified. That would be very helpful.

Thank you for reading this.

Nir Megnazi – Leadership Coach

How hostage negotiation skills can take out the heat off a tough conversation with your employee

Nir Megnazi — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 23:01:26 +0000

Many managers feel that the worst part of being a manager is to have a tough conversation with their employees. Second only to laying off someone. We prefer as managers to focus on meeting our goals and solving challenges.

Just last week I answered two questions on the topic. One was “How do I tell my employee he has bad body odor and that people stay away from him.” The second was “How do I tell my employee that his complements might feel offensive or disturbing.”

Should I wait?

When we are faced with situations like this, we usually feel bad. We don’t like these conversations, we tend to postpone the tough conversations. We do that because we don’t want to be the ones who hurt someone else. We don’t want to get into an argument about something which is very sensitive.

But you must have a conversation. No matter what. What will happen if you don’t? Someone will get hurt. The problem won’t go away. It will get worse and then it will be harder to handle it. For example, someone will complain about sexual harassment in your team. You will be investigated for not stopping it. Maybe your employee with bad odor will leave as people don’t want any relationship with him and now you have to recruit someone new. It takes at least 6 months to get that team productivity back! You have to take action!

What can the best hostage negotiator teach us?

In his book “Never split the difference” (I’m not an affiliate), Chris Voss describes a technique called “accusation audit”. It is used to air all negative feeling at the beginning of a meeting and to address the worst assumptions in the room so they wont effect the rest of the negotiation. It also helps to build trust and shows you are emphatic to how the other side feels.

The technique is to think about what are the worst accusations the other side might feel or think about you. For example – “They try to rob us and take all the profit”.

At the beginning of the conversation you start with “You might think that we are trying to rob you and take all the profit”. Saying that out loud enables the other side to feel you are acknowledging their fears and emotions. Then you can start talking about why this is not true. It lowers the guard and reduces negative energy. It actually increases the trust between the 2 groups at the table (If you are negotiating).

Accusation audit for tough conversation

The technique can also be used to prepare someone for a difficult conversation. For example: “What I’m going to tell you might disturb you and make you feel angry.” When your boss says that to you, you prepare for your worst case scenario in your head which usually is far worse than what he will actually say. As a manager, when you share with your employee what’s going on, they are mentally prepared to receive the negative feedback.

Another important part of the conversation will be to emphasize that the goal of this conversation is not to bash the employee but to keep him safe and to contribute to his success. For example: “Alex, you are doing a great job and it’s important to me to make sure you are successful now and in the future. I’m going to share with you something right now because you are a valuable member of my team and I want to keep it that way in the future”

Tell the facts, not what you think

When you go into details, do not use language that will feel accusatory or offensive. Do it from a position of genuinely caring for him. “Jeremy, when we work with you in the same room we smell a bad odor which you probably understands makes people to want to keep some distance. I hope it’s not a health problem and that there is something we can do about it because I want you to succeed and feel great in this team.”

In this example, I didn’t say “You have bad body odor” as it may feel that I’m blaming him for something that he might not be aware or maybe can’t actually control. I describe whats going on and how people can interpret that or react to the situation.

Close with empowerment

At the end of my example I repeated the employee role and significance in the team to enforce the understanding how significant he is and that the conversation is about helping him and not bashing him.

After you have done that, stay quiet. Even if it takes 10 seconds (yes, it’s hard). Let your employee talk, let him respond. Listen carefully to what he has to say and respond accordingly.

If he resists, you can reiterate what you said without accusing him and close again with empowering message about his value.

Bottom Line

When we tell people how we think they are going to feel when we tell them something, they usually prepare for the worst case and respond better to the actual conversation.

Experiment with Accusation audit and refine it based on the reactions you get.

Share your experience

Did you enjoy this article? Please take a moment and share it along with a comment that describes your takeaway. Feel free to mention me so I get notified. That would be very helpful.

Thank you for reading this.

Nir Megnazi – Leadership Coach

Almost everyone has failed. Here’s how to make the most out of it

Nir Megnazi — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 19:35:18 +0000

Lets have a look at one thing we can’t avoid in life. I have failed in the past and I will fail again in the future. We all failed and will fail in the future. We didn’t want to fail, we didn’t expect to fail, but we fail!

What is failure?

Usually, failure is defined as not meeting ours or someone else’s expectations. At work it can be missing a deadline, it can be delivering a product with bad quality, it can be the way you react to what someone said and the relationship took a hit.

I’ts not me!

How do we feel when we fail? We tend to have an automatic response which is looking for the external factor we couldn’t control that was the reason why we failed. No one wants to feel that we’re to blame for this failure. We try hard to find the “real” reason outside.

This is a common and natural reaction, but is it productive? I recently got a parking ticket. Getting a ticket AFTER you paid for parking but arrived 10 minutes late can be the one thing that ruins your day. Doesn’t matter how much fun you had before you returned to your car. You might just had the most romantic date, maybe you got back from a great training or watched your favorite band. This parking ticket deletes all positive emotions. “That $#@%!^&@&^% ,10 minutes!! He was stalking my car for sure!” Your day is ruined. You now get mad about everything! That day, I shouted at my kids, I drove fast and recklessly. I blamed everyone but myself. Clearly not a productive outcome.

What if failure is not a bad thing?

You might ask “how come that my boss is yelling at me that we missed a deadline, is not a bad thing?” Let me suggest another perspective. It is a perspective I picked up while reading about Stoicism which is frequently preached by Tim Ferris and other self-made leaders. It blew my mind when I read it first. Lets step out of our emotions for a minute and review what is going on.

We had a target, we had a plan (I hope) and we failed to execute to our expectations.What does that tell you about the plan you made and the resources you planned for it? A failure is an opportunity to get better. Much better!! Why? We have so many things that we can learn and improve in life. What is the one thing that will create a future impact?

The gift of failure

You guessed right – the thing we just failed with! Failure helps us understand what we need to FOCUS on and improve! It’s an opportunity. Failure helps us choose what is our next steps. It Focuses us on whats not working, and what we should do about it.

We can cry over it, we can blame others or the circumstances, or we can take responsibility to learn from it and get better!

Accept that when we take decisions we rarely have all the data to take the right path for success. I didn’t know how long it will take me to get to my car. We take decisions based on what we know at that time and based on our previous experience. Failures are a way to course-correct the path toward the next success. Maybe next time I’ll add 30 minutes more just to be safe, or now I know that this training usually takes more than it should, so I can park in another place.

What success really looks like

When we plan, this is how we think the path to success will look. We set a goal, we set a plan, and we believe that just executing the plan will get us there.

The realistic path to success is that we plan, execute, fail and course correct.

We can see that if we look at the concept of constant optimization, failures serve as a tool to where we should optimize and improve to get a better result. The Lean & Scrum use it as their planning and learning mechanisms.

Turn failure into a future success

Next time you fail, use the following process to turn the failure into a future success.

Claim responsibility. Tell yourself this is a growth opportunity rather than a setback.
What actions are needed immediately to minimize the impact?
Review the planning stage – when you took decisions. What was missing there that could help you make a better decision? How can you make sure you will have this data next time you are going to decide?
What do you know or understand today on how things work that you didn’t before?
What steps can you take going forward to prevent this issue from happening again?
What resources do you need? Whose help do you need?

Summary

Investing the time to learn from failures will bring you faster toward success. Failures are milestones that help you FOCUS on what’s not working and how you need to optimize what you’re doing.

Share your experience

I know you failed before. Maybe in such a big way. Share what did you learn from that failure and what actions you took to turn it into a success. I’d love to read and learn from your experience!

Here’s how to transform your team – fast!

Dammy Olopade — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 00:05:30 +0000

By my partner Dammy Olopade

Do you know how sometimes things don’t seem to go well in your team? You might feel unhappy with the way your team is performing? It might be the relationship between you and your team, or maybe between team members, or with your customers. Maybe you consistently miss milestones, maybe you need to make sure the work is done. Are you feeling exhausted? You may need to make a change, a transformation. You must take action.

The first key to transforming your team, is to transform yourself … into a leader that can be the transformation they want to see in the team. If a person is leading but no one is following, what is that called? It sure isn’t leading. For your team to rise to the next level, your leadership must rise beyond that level. The rest of this blog will lay out some important steps in order to achieve that, while subsequent blogs will explore other facets of the same idea.

The 3 bricklayers

Borrowing from a story I love … “Once there were 3 bricklayers. Each one of them was asked what they were doing. The first man answered gruffly, ‘I’m laying bricks.’ The second man replied, ‘I’m putting up a wall.’ But the third man said enthusiastically and with pride, ‘I’m building a cathedral.'” –Author Unknown

What can we learn from the story? The first has a job (paid to do something), the second has a career (sees the big picture of what he’s doing), while the third has a calling (motivated by something bigger than him). Where are you on your journey? Which one of them best describes the current you? Which of them do you want be and why?

Below are areas of self-assessment, and can be helpful regardless of where you are in your leadership journey. As new leaders, they can help you to find your true self. As a leader with challenges (and we all have challenges), it can show you what areas you can improve. Even as a successful leader, it can show you various areas you can improve.

Know your strengths

What are your super-powers? What makes you unique? In what ways can these make what you do stand out? In contrast to that, also know your limitations. In what areas are you below the minimum allowed proficiency (may need to take multiple looks in the mirror)? Can you pivot away from these, or have others cover these gaps? Or do you need to grow some of these areas, to a manageable proficiency level?

Consider an assessment to help identify your top talents/strengths (eg. Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath; Now discover you strength, by Marcus Buckingham). Another great way to identify your strengths (and areas that are not) is to ask other people close enough to you who can be honest with you.

I remember a party I went to as a teenager where your entry could make or break how the rest of the evening turns out. A friend walked in all decked out, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him. He felt on top of the world thinking he nailed his entry based on his dressing (self-view), until someone told him his zipper was down and his fluorescent green underwear was showing (honest feedback). Check yourself!

Know your passions

Fill in this gap, “Will work for ______”. What areas are you so passionate about that you would willingly volunteer for free? Hint: When you do these, you feel refreshed instead of feeling drained.

Think of the last meeting you came out from with bursting energy, feeling on top of the world. What happened there? Were you able to influence? Was it a great solution to a problem the team had for months? What was that special thing that made you feel like that? Can you do it again and again?

Look back at some of the most fulfilling moments in your past to find out what were the commonalities. Are these still relevant, particularly if there has been big life-change events recently. Ask others if/when they’ve seen a spark in your eyes. What caused that spark? Are there any stimulants (or impediments) to igniting that spark.

Consider resources to help identify your passions (eg. Find your Passion, by Henry Junttila; It starts with Passion, by Keith Abraham)

Know your values

What are your Top3 non-negotiable values? This question is deceptively simple, but a small exercise will reveal this. Given a list of 50 values, sort/arrange them to identify your TopN (Example online resource here).

The reason this is harder than expected is because anyone can tell you their Top3 values since yesterday, as these issues have been top-of-mind, but when given time to think, especially with a much larger-and-well-researched list, we then start to truly put things in relative perspective. The key is not to focus on this Top10 (too many things), but to prioritize the list and identify the top 2-or-3 that are most important to you, and are non-negotiable. This implies that even though many things are important, they are often negotiable, so don’t get hung-up on them.

To further emphasize this point, if you asked a teenage girl what she would want in a future husband, she’ll quickly list 10 things (eg. tall, dark, handsome, rich, kind, etc.). If you returned years later after she’s married, and rated her husband against the list, you’ll find out 2 things, #1. Many of the things that were important were also negotiable, #2. Only one or two things were actually non-negotiable. This does not mean that the negotiable ones are not important, but they were not the most important. The teenage girls list of important things were an ideal to hope for, but not the “most important” things to apply. Find yours.

What are your future aspirations?

Most importantly, what are your aspirations? How well does it relate to the above three? Think of your strengths/passions/values as what got you here, and your aspirations as where they could propel you. They provide the “umph” (fuel, utzpa) for the journey ahead, and every unique advantage counts.

Consider the 100m dash at the Olympics. Did you know that there is less than 2.5% difference between the person who comes first vs. last (0.5% between first & second). 1% makes a huge difference! You want to make sure that you are taking every possible advantage on this journey, but unlike the Olympics, you are competing only with yourself, to be the best you can be, on this unique and personal journey of self-discovery.

You will be firing-on-all-cylinders when you can channel your strengths (what you are good at), passion (what you enjoy), and values (what you care the most about), towards your aspirations.

A personal vision

Taking the above, formulate a personal vision for yourself. Make sure that it is …

Relevant to your organization and the team (making sure you understand the big picture)
Big enough (grand, bigger than yourself, worthy of your calling) to attract others
Like Swiss cheese (has enough holes in it), such that they can find where their unique strengths, passions, values, and aspirations fit into this grand vision

You can’t give what you don’t have. In order to inspire your team, you first must be inspired!

Closing

I’ll close with a quote …

“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.” ― Greg Reid

Here’s to dreaming big (finding your “cathedral”) and realizing these with your team.

Question for you

How are you transforming your self? How are you transforming your team?

Kindly share your ideas in the comments section below. I would love to read them.