In the eighty years that have passed since the Hawthorne study, observations of people at work reveal much the same thing: in order to tap into the potential of human capital, executives and leaders must pay attention to their employees.

And that attention should be on a level that respects their basic human nature and individual differences.

If you're a manager, you intuitively know what research by the Gallup Organization reveals: many organizations are running at only about a third of their human potential.

Successful organizations don?t expect that employee incentives will guarantee better job performance. Instead, they pay attention to their people and what engages them.

As one CEO puts it, ?In today?s business world there are really only two important challenges: One is to reduce costs and cut prices. The other is to grow margins by acquiring and sustaining profitable customers. I can?t do that. My employees must do it, one customer at a time.?

Companies on the path of extreme competition must be able to provide more than price advantage. To make this possible, organizations must tap into employee motivation and discover what drives them. When they do, they unleash tremendous energy and potential.

What many organizations don?t see is that employee performance and its subsequent impact on customer engagement revolve around intrinsic motivation determined in the brain. This motivation defines specific talents and the emotional mechanisms that everyone brings to work.

Recent discoveries in neurosciences support the fact that emotional processes are integral to learning, reasoning and decision-making. How can leaders improve their understanding of their employees? strengths and motivating drives?

Some ideas come to mind: assessments, coaching, and conversations are excellent approaches. What else can be helpful when it comes to finding out what motivates and engages your people?

Labels: chip scholz, coaching, collaboration

One of the earliest studies of human behavior at work was done at AT&T's Western Electric Hawthorne Plant from 1927 by Harvard's Elton Mayo and published in a report by F. J. Roethlisberger and W. Dickson, Management and the Worker.

Their principle findings are still relevant today: when workers have an opportunity to contribute their thinking and learning to workplace issues, their job performance improves.

The initial study set out to discover how lighting affects performance and fatigue of workers. The findings revealed that it is not so much physical conditions that matter. People were motivated to perform well by the mere fact that someone took the time to pay attention to what they were doing.

They were also encouraged to interact socially and to contribute ideas. Their social needs were shown to have a powerful impact on their behavior at work.

Several current business books emphasize this same concept:

"The success of your organization doesn?t depend on your understanding of economics, or organizational development, or marketing. It depends, quite simply, on your understanding of human psychology: how each individual employee connects with your company and how each individual employee connects with your customers."~Curt Coffman and Gabriela Gonzalez-Molina, Ph.D. in Follow This Path: How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential, Warner Books, 2002.

If you haven't picked up a copy of Daniel H. Pink's new book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, do so today. He makes a good case for why businesses are out of sync with what the scientists have been saying for years:

All motivation is internally driven. Carrots and sticks may work for some routine tasks, but for many right-brain creative tasks, external rewards can interfere and distract from high performance.

Labels: chip scholz, coaching, executive leadership

Motivating others is surprisingly difficult. It's more complex than it appears. The most basic solution suggests that all motivation is intrinsic (i.e., found within the person you are trying to motivate).

But knowing what motivates each employee on a personal level is impractical.

To inspire your people to excel, you need to help them find meaning in their work and to feel productive on the job. You also have to encourage the personal qualities that enhance employees? performance, such as optimism, personal responsibility and dedication to values.

Take note of these three themes inherent to motivating people:

1. Helping people find meaning
2. Strengthening personal qualities
3. Fostering commitment beyond the job

In Dan Pink's latest book, Drive, he reviews the business theories and practices about motivation - and makes a clear case that management is out of sync with what science has been proving about human motivations and drives.

All motivation is intrinsic. Carrots and sticks not only don't work well, but in some cases can back-fire and actually yield lower performance results. When people focus too much on the reward, they can miss seeing creative solutions.

What's been your experience in getting people motivated?

Labels: chip scholz, coaching, communication

More than 30 years ago, Edgar Schein, a Sloan Fellows Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposed that people are primarily motivated by one of eight career anchors:

1. Technical/functional competence
2. General managerial competence
3. Autonomy/independence
4. Security/stability
5. Entrepreneurial creativity
6. Sense of service
7. Pure challenge
8. Freedom to organize themselves around their private lives

Once you understand each career anchor, you can determine the one that best fits each person on your team (or ask employees to help define what?s most important to them).

Ultimately, the people who work for you must communicate what matters most to them, and you, as the manager, must continually ask for this information.

Labels: career, chip scholz, collaboration

Do your employees find meaning and purpose in their work? If you're like most companies, according to Gallup, only about a third of people working are really engaged. So, what can you do to help them achieve meaning and purpose?

You don't need expensive training programs or complex compensation plans to connect your people to what really matters to them. Instead, create a sense of "we're all in this together" by sharing what you know about the company's business plans.

For example, when employees know as much as management does about the company's financial situation and business plans, they feel a sense of mutual partnership.

The other thing you can do on a more personal level, is to get to know what motivates each of your employees. You can determine this by observing their level of enthusiasm and interest in various parts of a project, be it the tech side of how things work or their desire to lead the team. You can then adapt your communication style and recognition systems to each person's intrinsic motivation.

"We still haven't learned that you can't enroll people's loyalty and creativity if you're not willing to enlarge the purpose of the work in ways far beyond money making," observes Margaret Wheatley, author and organizational expert.

People want to work to help improve the world. Companies that link their mission to core values and a purpose greater than the bottom line will create more engaged workers, boosting profitability in the long run.

Leaders can help by focusing on how much employees can grow, develop and find satisfaction in their work. Successful leaders focus not only on financial results, but also think about the experiences and opportunities that provide employees with intrinsic rewards as they contribute to building something substantial.

What excites people about their jobs? Have you asked them lately?

Labels: chip scholz, coaching, communication

Most companies have it all wrong. They don't know how to motivate their employees. What about yours? Are your people at work motivated, I mean really, from the inside out? Are you?

The most employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, research finds employees' morale sharply declines after their first six months?and continues to deteriorate for years afterward. That finding is based on surveys of about 1.2 million employees at 52 Fortune 1000 companies from 2001 through 2004, conducted by Sirota Survey Intelligence and reported in Harvard Business Review, April 2006.

Studies point to two sources of demotivation:

1. The policies and procedures companies employ in managing their workforces
   
2. The relationships that individual managers establish with their direct reports

There are really three basic goals of people at work. To maintain the enthusiasm employees bring to their jobs initially, management must understand these three sets of goals that most workers seek from their work:

• Equity: To be respected and to be treated fairly in areas such as pay, benefits, and job security
• Achievement: To be proud of one's job, accomplishments, and employer
• Camaraderie: To have good, productive relationships with fellow employees

I just started reading Drive, by Daniel H. Pink, and he discusses three major elements to job motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Maybe these are related in some way to the three goals that the Sirota research reports.

Anyway, it got me thinking. What motivates most people at work? We know it's not pay or benefits, at least not the kind of intrinsic motivation we're talking about here.

What do you think rings true in your work place? What key elements do people strive for? What gets them and keeps you engaged?

Labels: chip scholz, coaching, learning

Some workplaces encourage everyone to act competitively. Enron, for example, had an organizational culture in which winning and making the numbers counted more than relationships.

People like basketball coach Bobby Knight and Terrell Owens got away with more than would be tolerated in normal circumstances because we embrace clichés like "winning isn?t everything; it's the only thing" in the United States. It may appear that the more one is right and the more one wins, the bigger jerk you can be.

Leaders in most organizations not only get paid more than others; they also enjoy constant deference and false flattery. A huge body of research shows that when people are put in positions of power, they:

• Start talking more
• Take what they want for themselves
• Ignore what other people say or want
• Start ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior
• Start acting more rudely
• Generally treat any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs
  

Studies show power corrupts people and causes them to act as though they're above rules meant for others. Even trivial power advantages can change how people think and act, and usually for the worse.

Pay is a vivid sign of power differences, and a host of studies suggest that when the difference between the highest- and lowest-paid people in a company is reduced, good things happen: improved financial performance, better product quality and enhanced productivity.

And yet, the idea of reducing pay differences isn't catching on. CEOs of large corporations make more than 500 times what the average worker earns.

"If you want to have fewer assholes - and better organizational performance - reducing the difference between the highest- and lowest-status members of your organization is the way to go," according to Stanford Professor and author Robert Sutton.

Status differences will always be with us. But successful companies are doing everything they can to downplay and reduce status and power differences among managers and employees. Companies like Costco, the Men's Wearhouse and Southwest Airlines are prime examples.

This doesn't, however, mean you can eliminate the pecking order. Some people are more important to the organization than others because they are more difficult to replace or have more essential skills. This is the power-performance paradox.

How does competition play out in your organization? Are there rewards for performance? Do you see the downside?

Labels: chip scholz, collaboration

What can we do to help prevent jerks at work?

I agree with Robert Sutton and his book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn?t (Warner Business Books, 2007). If you haven't read it yet, you should.

Perhaps companies should be clearer about what it takes to keep a workplace free of jerk-like behaviors. Sutton suggests that if new hires were required to take a pledge and re-sign it each year during their performance reviews, there could be fewer incidents of jerk-like behaviors.

A sample pledge for non-jerk behaviors follows:

1. I will be passionate about my work and keep in mind what I love about what I do, especially when things are stressful or not going well.
2. I will respect others, even when I disagree with them.
3. I will listen with an open mind and learn from others, regardless of their position in the company.
4. I will strive to know when it is wise to take a firm stance and when to be flexible.
5. I will do what it takes to get the job done, within legal and ethical boundaries.
6. I will not waste money, and I will question costs. I will not take advantage of my position in the company for status reasons.
7. When I have a complaint and see something that isn?t working well, I will speak up and suggest actionable recommendations.
8. I recognize team efforts are needed to win and will give credit to others who help me succeed. I will ask others how I can help them succeed.
9. I will admit to not knowing everything and be willing to learn from others?even those lower in rank.
10. I will be dedicated to pursuing customer success. I will constantly ask how we can do things better from the customer?s perspective.
11. I will be transparent and honest. I will strive to promote a culture of trust. I will not let my negative moods infect others around me.
12. I will be a good person to work with?as a person in charge, team member and subordinate. I will not act like a jerk.
    

Good stuff, huh?

Labels: career, chip scholz

Engaging in joking and sarcasm will get you a few chuckles. Lord knows we need humor to get through some workdays. But there's almost always an element of negativity in funny remarks.

It's hard to be funny and not cross that fine line into backstabbing. Like everything in life, it's the way that you do it that carries weight, and reveals your intentions. A gentle poke at someone's weakspot can be just that, gentle. Perception is in the eye of the person receiving the poke.

The problem with jerks and jerk behaviors is that we often don't recognize how what we say can be negative. And we don't ask, don't try to genuinely be helpful. We might even assume the person knows we are "just kidding."

Bystanders also suffer ripple effects. A jerk poisons more than one victim. The damage spreads to coworkers, family members and friends who watch or hear about attacks, creating a larger pool of secondhand sufferers.

The results can be devastating, zapping people?s energy and, when serious, can cause absenteeism, loss of productivity, high turnover, depression and disengagement.

Research from the scientists who study these things is clear:

• Nasty interactions have a 500% greater impact on our moods than positive interactions.
  
• It takes numerous encounters with positive people to offset the energy and happiness sapped by a single episode with one jerk.

Organizations may inadvertently shelter jerks and, in some cases, promote them. The message: It's OK to be a jerk, as long as you produce results. Some of these people get away with it because they're considered to be mavericks, or eccentric or artistic in temperament.

I'm wondering about how to call someone out on their jerk behaviors at the moment they cross the line. It's hard, isn't it, without seeming like a jerk yourself... what do you think?

Labels: chip scholz, communication

I've been rereading The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn?t (Warner Business Books, 2007). Stanford Professor Robert I. Sutton argues that variations of terms like creep, jerk and bully don?t carry the same impact as the A-word, and he may be right.

But I wonder if it becomes too easy to slap the A-label on a boss or co-worker, when we don't see eye-to-eye, or simply don't like someone for vague reasons.

Everyone knows what Sutton's talking about. We?ve all experienced the nastiness of an unconstrained egomaniac who abuses power and intimidates others. Sutton defines two kinds: temporary and certified.

I think we get into trouble when we categorize someone as a real jerk, when he (or she) is having a temporary outbreak or a meltdown. Labels tend to stick, and color our perceptions forever after.

Raging maniacs are easy to spot. I think there's a more serious problem with borlerline jerks. Real damage occurs when someone engages in covert backstabbing and hypocrisy. I'm talking about when someone makes comments that are subtly demeaning. Some people even couch their insults in humor and hide behind sarcasm.

Jerk Behaviors

According to Sutton, everyday jerk behaviors include:

1. Personal insults and innuendoes
2. Invading one?s personal space or territory
3. Uninvited physical contact
4. Threats and intimidation, verbal and nonverbal
5. Sarcastic jokes, teasing and disguised insults
6. Email flames
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate
8. Rude interruptions
9. Two-faced attacks
10. Dirty looks, grimaces, eye-rolling
11. Treating people as though they?re invisible, keeping them out of the loop

I'll bet you can add to this list, especially if you've been on the receiving line. The problem is that jerk behaviors often go undetected, and they are contagious, worse than any H1N1 virus.

Especially when it comes to humor at someone else's expense. And it's hard to pass up a good wise-crack, isn't it?

Labels: chip scholz, communication

Years ago, scientists were studying nerve cells in Macaque monkeys' prefrontal cortices and found that specific cells fired when the monkeys threw a ball or ate a banana. To their surprise, these same cells fired when the monkeys watched another monkey perform these acts.

Fast forward to SuperBowl 2010, and you'll find millions of fans excited for the same reason when their favorite quarterback catches the football.

The brain has mirror neurons. When mirror neurons are fired, we have an ability to be transported into another person's mind, briefly making us feel what the other person is feeling.

These cells are the way nature causes us to care about other people. Scientist V.S. Ramachandran, in a 2007 article called "The Neurology of Self-Awareness" in Edge, calls these "empathy neurons," or "Dalai Lama neurons," because they dissolve the barriers between self and others.

The same neurons that make us feel like a successful quarterback make us capable of feeling another person's joy, but also their pain.

Therein lies the problem. We don't like our own pain, so how can we deal with someone else's? Instead, we avoid mentioning it. We don't bother recognizing what another person may be feeling. And we go around having conversations that avoid any vocabulary words describing emotions.

Psychiatrist Mark Goulston in his book Just Listen, suggests that we suffer a "mirror neuron receptor deficit." He says that many of CEOs and managers feel they give their best, only to be met day after day with apathy, hostility, or (worse!) no response at all.

This empathy deficit explains why we can feel overwhelmed when someone acknowledges either our pain or our joy. It's why we can tear up in a movie, even when it's not sad.

When you think about it, it's not hard to include words about feelings into our conversations with others, as in, "You must be feeling frustrated (angry, disappointed, confused, satisfied, etc.)?"

How hard is it? Try asking this question in your next important conversation:

"How does that make you feel?" Or, "Tell me how that must feel..."

The goal is to make the other person feel "felt."

It's a quarterback pass completion when you do.

Labels: chip scholz, communication

How well do you listen to your colleagues? Or for that matter, your close relationships in your family? Really? Maybe not...We don't actually listen because we think we know someone so well, we already know what they're saying and thinking... or so we think!

As a result, we mistake insecurity for arrogance, fear for stubborness, and legitimate anger for things like "he's just a jerk." We talk around people, over them, up against them, with very little actually talking with them.

In the work place, we often size people up instantly. We form some pretty good guesses from those first impressions. The problem is those impressions last forever, and many of them are a jumbled mix of fact, fiction, prejudice and unconscious intuitions. Those first impressions affect our conversations with another person for months or years to come.

Here are some filters that we use to put people into mental boxes before we know them:

• Gender (and all the stereotypes that go with that filter...)
• Generation, age
• Nationality, ethic background, names, skin color, etc.
• Education level, manner of speaking
• Emotion, emotional tone
  

Next time you meet someone for the first time, be aware of how you put people into these boxes, and of the assumptions you make when you have a conversation with them.

These filters are part of the GGNEE model suggested by Rick Middleton, founder of Executive Expression in Los Angeles, and mentioned in the book, Just Listen by Mark Goulston.

Labels: chip scholz, communication

You probably already know how to handle a tense situation intelligently. You wouldn't be in your position today if you didn't. At least subconsciously, inside your brain, you're already experienced in going from attack mode to emotional mode to smart mode.

Every difficult conversation involves all three of these parts: your snake brain, your rabbit brain, and your human brain. Unfortunately, much of your human wisdom is there but lies buried in your instincts.

You may not have access to what it is exactly that helps you manage tense emotions when you need to.

When anger strikes, you react. It's hard to switch to calm as fast as you need to.

Typically this happens: A few minutes after a stressful encounter, your pulse starts to slow down, you start breathing more slowly and you calm down a little. A good bit of time after that, you gain enough self-control to start thinking your options through. And later that day, you start thinking, "I'll bet there's a smart way to resolve this so that everybody wins."

Often, however, it's too late. And if you've reacted in the heat of the moment with harsh words, you may have already lost a sale, alienated a coworker, or lost esteem in someone's eyes.

What's the solution? In a stressful encounter, you may have about two minutes to get control and salvage the situation. Those two minutes can mean you'll have the advantage over everyone else in the room. You'll be the only person thinking straight.

I'm reading a good book on how to get through to people in a crisis.

Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, (Amacom, 2010) recommends a five step mental process in times of stress or crisis. It doesn't matter if the situation is a fender-bender, a teenager at home, an argument with a lover, or a work situation, these steps in this order will get you back on track when you're upset.

1. "Oh F#@&" - The Reaction Phase: This is a disaster, I'm screwed, what just happened, it's all over. Oh fooey...
   
2. "Oh God" - The Release Phase: This is a huge mess, I'm stuck with it, why does this always happen to me?
3. "Oh Jeez" - The Recenter Phase: Alright, I can fix this, but it's not going to be fun.
4. "Oh Well" - The Refocus Stage: I'm not going to let this ruin my life/ my career/ my day/this relationship, and here's what I need to do right now to make it better?
5. "OK" - The Reengage Phase: Okay, I'm ready to fix this, let's go.
   

Goulston's not saying you can solve a crisis in two minutes. You can't. But you can think your way through to possible solutions quickly. These five mental steps give you a way to create a path out of panic mode into solution mode.

As a result, you'll be able to say the right things instead of making things worse by saying the wrong ones. What do you think? Next time you're in a crisis, try saying to yourself:

1. "Oh F#@%"
2. "Oh God"
3. "Oh Jeez"
4. "Oh well"
5. "OK"

Labels: chip scholz, communication

Every difficult conversation involves grappling with these three components:

• Facts
• Feelings
• Identity & context
  

Conversing successfully requires learning to manage all three simultaneously. When you consider each of these factors before having a difficult conversation, it?s a first step to better conversations.

Here are five more steps to consider when engaging in difficult conversations:

1. Decipher the underlying structure: what happened, what the feelings are, how identity is involved
2. Interpret the significance of what is said and what is not
3. Identify the erroneous but deeply ingrained assumptions that keep you stuck
4. Manage strong emotions, yours and theirs
5. Spot ways your self-image affects the conversation, and ways the conversation affects your self image

In what ways do you feel like throwing a punch at the person, instead of talking it through? Or, maybe you'd just like to avoid him or her altogether and wait for the problem to go away? Both these options are not available if you want to survive, because:

A. Nobody wins when a fight is over
B. Nothing is resolved when there is no conversation

Let's face it, those who "win" are those who engage, those who have the tough conversations.

Labels: chip scholz, communication

Fifteen years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project has produced some interesting information about what goes on during conflict. The book, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, is written by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen and Roger Fisher (Penguin Books, 2000).

Given that we prepare ourselves extensively for almost everything including our educations and careers, it is surprising that we haven't studied conversations more.

All difficult conversations share a common structure. To see the structure, we need to understand what is being said, and also what's not being said. We need to see not only what people are thinking and feeling but also what they're not saying to each other.

There are basically three kinds of conversations, no matter what the subject. In each of these kinds of conversations, we make predictable errors that distort our thoughts and feelings.

1. The "What Happened?" conversation. There is usually disagreement about what happened or what should happen. Stop arguing about who's right: explore each other's stories and try to learn something new. Don't assume meanings. Disentangle intent from impact. Abandon blaming anyone and think in terms of contributions to the solution.
   
   
2. The "Feelings" conversation. Every difficult conversation also asks and answers questions about feelings. Are they valid? Appropriate? Should I admit them or deny them? What about the other person?s feelings, will I hurt them? What if they get angry? Often feelings are not addressed directly and so they interfere with the conversation even more.
   
   
3. The "Identity" conversation. This is where we examine what's at stake: what do I stand to lose or gain? Am I competent or incompetent, worthy or unlovable? What impact might this have on my career, marriage, self-esteem, our relationship? These issues determine the degree to which we feel off-centered and anxious.
   

Labels: chip scholz, communication