As any fan of The Office can attest, negative managerial behaviour severely affects employees’ work lives.

Managers’ day-to-day and moment-to-moment actions also create a ripple effect, directly facilitating or impeding the organisation’s ability to function.

The best managers recognise their power to influence and strive to build teams with great inner work lives.

In The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Press, 2011), Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer describe how people with great inner work lives have:

• Consistently positive emotions
• Strong motivation
• Favorable perceptions of the organisation, their work and their colleagues

The worst managers undermine others’ inner work lives, often unwittingly. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees at seven companies, Amabile and Kramer found surprising results on the factors that affect performance.

What matters most is forward momentum in meaningful work—in a word, progress. Managers who recognise the need for even small wins set the stage for high performance.

But surveys of CEOs and project leaders reveal that 95 percent fundamentally misunderstand the need for this critical motivator.

What Really Motivates Us?

If you lead knowledge workers, you likely employ these conventional management practices:

• Recruit the best talent.
• Provide appropriate incentives.
• Give stretch assignments to develop talent.
• Use emotional intelligence to connect with each individual.
• Review performance carefully.

Unfortunately, you may miss the most fundamental source of leverage: managing for progress. Recognising even the smallest win has a more powerful impact than virtually anything else.

In a survey by Amabile and Kramer, 669 managers ranked five factors that could influence motivation and emotions at work:

1. Recognition
2. Incentives
3. Interpersonal support
4. Clear goals
5. Support for making progress in the work

Managers incorrectly ranked “support for making progress” dead last, with most citing “recognition for good work” as the most important motivator.

Your ability to focus on progress is paramount. Video-game designers excel at this mission, hooking players on the steady pace of progress bars.

Facilitating Progress

When you focus on small wins and facilitate progress, your employees will find the energy and drive required to perform optimally.

Two key forces enable progress:

• Catalysts—Events that directly advance project work, such as:
  • Clear goals
  • Autonomy
  • Resources, including time
  • Reviewing lessons from errors and succes
• Nourishers—Interpersonal events that uplift workers, including:
  • Encouragement and support
  • Demonstrations of respect
  • Collegiality

Dealing with Setbacks

Three events undermine people’s inner work lives:

1. Setbacks—The biggest downer, yet inevitable in any sort of meaningful work
2. Inhibitors—Events that directly hinder project work
3. Toxins—Interpersonal events that undermine the people doing the work

Negative events carry a greater impact than positive ones. We pay more attention to them, remember them, and spend more time thinking and talking about them.

Example 1:

Catalyst  - Did I discuss lessons from today’s successes and problems with my team? or

Inhibitor – Did I “punish” failure, or neglect to find lessons and/or opportunities in problems and successes?

Example 2:

Nourisher – Is there a sense of personal and professional affiliation and camaraderie within the team? or

Toxin – Is there tension or antagonism among members of the team or between a team member and me?

Source: T. Amabile & S. Kramer, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Press, 2011)

That’s why it’s so important for managers and team leaders to counteract negative events with positive perceptions and comments. Research shows it takes three positive messages to balance a negative one.

To better manage your people:

1. Focus first on the day’s progress and setbacks.
2. Next, think about specific events: the catalysts and nourishers that affected progress.
3. Finally, prepare for action: What’s the one step you can take to best facilitate progress?

Recognising small wins is the best way to motivate your team—the key principle revealed through rigorous analysis of daily journal entries by Amabile and Kramer.

Every day events affect our inner work lives, and managers are certainly not exempt. As a leader, you must tend to your staff’s inner work lives by providing support each day. You, too, will perform best when your inner work life is positive and strong.

Review each day’s events and how much you’ve accomplished—no matter how difficult or disappointing. Even if gains seem relatively miniscule, you’ll benefit from an honest assessment. Remember: Setbacks are inevitable, but they serve as learning opportunities.

 Progress triggers a positive inner work life. To boost yours, focus on providing your people with catalysts and nourishers. Buffer them, as much as possible, from inhibitors and toxins. This sets the sta

Businesses are also becoming more intrinsically complex. It’s harder to predict outcomes because intricate systems interact in unexpected ways.

Interpreting data also proves more challenging because:

1. The degree of complexity may lie beyond our cognitive limits.
2. Past behaviour may not predict future actions.
3. In a complex system, an outlier may have a disproportionate impact.

In a September 2011 Harvard Business Review article, business professors Gökçe Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath distinguish between organisations that are merely complicated and those that are genuinely complex.

Complicated Versus Complex

Simple systems feature few—and extremely predictable—interactions. When you turn a light switch on or off, you expect the same result every time.

Complicated systems have many moving parts, and they operate in patterned ways. We can make accurate predictions about how they will behave. For example, flying a commercial airplane involves complicated, but predictable, steps. As a result, it’s reliably safe.

In contrast, complex systems may operate in patterned ways, but their interactions are continually changing. Air traffic control is a complex system that constantly changes in reaction to weather, aircraft downtimes and other critical variables. The system is predictable not because it produces the same results from the same starting conditions, but because it has been designed to continuously adjust as its components change in relation to one another.

Two problems commonly surface in complex systems: unintended consequences and difficulties in making sense of a situation. With multiple independent and interrelated parts in a system, it’s hard to predict all of the possible consequences of a change in one component. And with so many data and informational components to deal with, it’s tough for an individual decision maker to visualise and master an entire complex system.

Most executives tend to overestimate the amount of information they can process, but humans have cognitive limits. No manager can understand every aspect of a complex business, yet many refuse to acknowledge this reality.

Managerial Blindness

Focusing on only one thing can prevent us from seeing other key areas—a concept known as inattentional blindness. Furthermore, an outlier or rare event may be ignored when it doesn’t appear often enough for us to learn how it will affect the system.

Collectively, these problems may cause confusion and hinder job performance. Unfortunately, many companies deal with increasing complexity by further complicating their systems, adding new coordination procedures and structures. Extra layers of management or measurements only serve to decrease effectiveness.

In the same issue of HBR, consultant Yves Morieux reports that managers in the most complicated companies spend 40% of their time writing reports and up to 60% in coordination meetings. Today’s companies, on average, set six times as many performance requirements as they did in 1955. Back then, CEOs committed to four to seven performance imperatives; today, they commit to 25–40.

Many businesses adopt conflicting performance imperatives:

• They strive to satisfy customers with low prices and high quality.
• They seek to customise offerings for specific markets and standardise them for the greatest operating return.
• They want to innovate and be efficient.

If managers are challenged with these complexities, imagine the effect on workers. People at all levels crave clarity and simplicity. A manager must navigate murky waters and emerge with plans that inspire cooperative action. It’s not that simple.

Real Cooperation

More than ever, leaders need input from others to grasp complexities and determine how they affect other parts of the system. This requires them to ask a lot of questions. In Morieux’s words: “Real cooperation isn’t a matter of getting along well; it’s taking into account the constraints and goals of others.”

Staying on track is much easier with a guide or checklist. Michael Useem, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of The Leadership Moment, has published The Leader’s Checklist to create a clear roadmap for navigating any situation. Key questions help customise the list to fit specific needs.

A leader must be able to keep the big picture in clear view, while attending to all of the small executions that will lead to the right outcomes. Each principle should generate a set of questions that help leaders test, retest, refine and update their preparedness for any situation.

The Leader’s Checklist

Professor Useem’s list is presented here in condensed form, as space allows. Sample questions are presented with each principle.

1.       Articulate a Vision: Formulate a clear and persuasive vision, and communicate why it’s important to all members of the enterprise.

1. Do my direct reports see the forest, as well as the trees?
2. Does everyone in the firm know not only where we are going, but, most importantly, why?
3. Is the destination compelling and appealing?

2.       Think and Act Strategically: Make a practical plan for achieving this vision, including both short- and long-term strategies. Anticipate reactions and resistance before they happen by considering all stakeholders’ perspectives.

1. Do we have a realistic plan for creating short-term results, as well as mapping out the future?
2. Have we considered all stakeholders and anticipated objections?
3. Has everyone bought into, and does everyone understand, the firm’s competitive strategy and value drivers? Can they explain it to others?
   

3.       Express Confidence: Provide frequent feedback to express appreciation for the support of those who work with and for you.

1. Do the people you work with know you respect and value their talents and efforts?
2. Have you made it clear that their upward guidance is welcomed and sought?
3. Is there a sense of engagement on the frontlines, with a minimum of “us” vs. “them” mentality?
   

4.       Take Charge and Act Decisively: Embrace a bias for action by taking responsibility, even if it isn’t formally delegated. Make good and timely decisions, and ensure they are executed.

1. Are you prepared to take charge, even when you are not in charge?
2. If so, do you have the capacity and position to embrace responsibility?
3. For technical decisions, are you ready to delegate, but not abdicate?
4. Are most of your decisions both good and timely?
5. Do you convey your strategic intent and then let others reach their own decisions?

5.       Communicate Persuasively: Communicate in ways that people will not forget, through use of personal stories and examples that back up ideas. Simplicity and clarity are critical.

1. Are messages about vision, strategy and character crystal-clear and indelible?
2. Have you mobilised all communication channels, from purely personal to social media?
3. Can you deliver a compelling speech before the elevator reaches the 10th floor?

6.       Motivate the Troops, and Honour the Front Lines: Appreciate the distinctive intentions that people bring to their work; build on diversity to bring out the best in people. Delegate authority except for strategic decisions. Stay close to those who are most directly engaged with the enterprise’s work.

1. Have you identified each person’s “hot button” and focused on it?
2. Do you work personal pride and shared purpose into most communications?
3. Are you keeping some ammunition dry for those urgent moments when you need it?
4. Have you made your intent clear and empowered those around you to act?
5. Do you regularly meet with those in direct contact with customers?
6. Can your people communicate their ideas and concerns to you?

7.       Build Leadership in Others, and Plan for Succession: Develop leadership throughout the organisation, giving people opportunities to make decisions, manage others and obtain coaching.

1. Are all managers expected to build leadership among their subordinates?
2. Does the company culture foster the effective exercise of leadership?
3. Are leadership development opportunities available to most, if not all, managers?

8.       Manage Relations, and Identify Personal Implications: Build enduring personal ties with those who work with you, and engage the feelings and passions of the workplace. Help people appreciate the impact that the vision and strategy are likely to have on their own work and the firm’s future.

1. Is the hierarchy reduced to a minimum, and does bad news travel up?
2. Are managers self-aware and empathetic?
3. Are autocratic, egocentric and irritable behaviours censured?
4. Do employees appreciate how the firm’s vision and strategy affect them individually?
5. What private sacrifices will be necessary for achieving the common cause?
6. How will the plan affect people’s personal livelihood and the quality of their work lives?

9.       Convey Your Character: Through storytelling, gestures and genuine sharing, ensure that others appreciate that you are a person of integrity.

1. Have you communicated your commitment to performance with integrity?
2. Do others know you as a person? Do they know your aspirations and hopes?
    

10.   Dampen Over-Optimism: To balance the hubris of success, focus attention on latent threats and unresolved problems. Protect against managers’ tendency to engage in unwarranted risk.

1. Have you prepared the organisation for unlikely, but extremely consequential, events?
2. Do you celebrate success, but also guard against the byproduct of excess confidence?
3. Have you paved the way not only for quarterly results, but for long-term performance?

11.   Build a Diverse Top Team: Although leaders take final responsibility, leadership is most effective when there is a team of capable people who can collectively work together to resolve key challenges. Diversity of thinking ensures better decisions.

1. Have you drawn quality performers into your inner circle?
2. Are they diverse in expertise, but united in purpose?
3. Are they as engaged and energised as you?

12.   Place Common Interest First: In setting strategy, communicating vision and reaching decisions, common purpose comes first and personal self-interest last.

1. In all decisions, have you placed shared purpose ahead of private gain?
2. Do the firm’s vision and strategy embody the organisation’s mission?
3. Are you thinking like a chief executive, even if you are not one?

Not all of these questions are applicable to every situation, but it is the questioning that counts. Whether you are facing a typical day at the office or walking into a crisis, ask yourself and others these questions to inspire correct actions. Only then can you make sense of the complexities you encounter.

Leaders learn to manage complexities not by prescribing specific behaviours, but by creating an environment for optimal behaviours to occur—even though “optimal” cannot be defined in advance.

Problems are solved when you leverage others’ cooperation, skills and ingenuity. Employee satisfaction and performance will concurrently improve. There’s less need for complicated layers of management, with more energy available to manage situations wisely and effectively.

One study of CEOs showed that positivity training could boost their productivity by 15 percent, and managers improved customer satisfaction by 42 percent. Despite such training’s amazing results, many leaders remain completely unfamiliar with the concept.

In business, positive emotions yield:

1. Better decisions. Researchers at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business studied how positive moods affect managers. Managers with greater positivity were more accurate and careful in making decisions, and were more effective interpersonally.
2. Better team work. Managers with positive emotions infect their work groups with similar feelings and show improved team coordination, while reporting less effort to accomplish more.
3. Better negotiating. At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, researchers learned that when people negotiate complex bargains, positivity again surfaces as a contributing factor for success. Negotiators who strategically display positivity are more likely to gain concessions, close deals and incorporate future business relationships into the contracts they seal.

Positive emotions directly correlate with:

• Increased creativity
• More curiosity and interest in the world
• Better health
• Better social relationships
• Optimism and perseverance
• Longevity

The business benefits of positivity include:

• Lower turnover
• Improved customer service
• Better supervisor evaluations
• Lower emotional fatigue
• Higher job satisfaction
• Better organisational citizenship (ethics)
• Fewer work absences
• Improved innovation
• Better safety records

Emotions’ Role in Business

For businesses and organizations, emotions are functional. Both negative and positive emotions work to drive results. Negative emotions serve to limit our thoughts and behaviours, helping us to act more decisively in times of stress or crisis.

Positivity broadens your outlook, opens you to new solutions and ideas, and brings more possibilities into view. Positivity fosters vital human moments that go beyond optimism and a smiling face. It infuses your mindset and outlook, affects your heart rhythms and body chemistry, reduces muscle tension and improves relationships.

The Broaden-and-Build Model of Positive Emotions

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, outlines her “broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions” in Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity and Thrive (Crown Archetype, 2009).

Dr. Fredrickson suggests that positive emotions (enjoyment, happiness, joy, interest and anticipation) broaden our awareness and encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions. Over time, this expanded behavioural repertoire helps us build skills and resources.

In contrast, negative emotions prompt narrow, immediate, survival-oriented behaviours.

Positivity and High Performance

For years, organisational psychologist Marcial Losada, PhD, studied the characteristics of high-performing business teams. As part of his work, he designed a meeting room to capture the real-time behaviour of business teams in action.

The room resembled any ordinary boardroom, but it was fitted with one-way mirrors and video cameras that allowed research assistants to record every statement during company teams’ hour-long meetings.

In particular, Dr. Losada tracked whether individuals’ statements were:

1. Positive or negative
2. Self- or other-focused
3. Based on inquiry (asking questions) or advocacy (defending a point of view)

By the mid-’90s, 60 different teams had been observed and coded. At the same time, each team’s performance level was identified based on independent data. Twenty-five percent met the criteria for high performance based on three distinct indicators:

1. Profitability
2. Customer satisfaction ratings
3. Evaluations by superiors, peers and subordinates

About 30 percent scored low on all three factors. The rest had mixed profiles. Dr. Losada also rated team behaviour on connectivity (how well tuned or responsive members were to one another).

When he later divided the teams into high, low and mixed performance levels, striking differences emerged. High-performance teams stood out by their unusually high positivity-to-negativity ratios: about 6:1. Mixed-performance teams scored ratios of 2:1, while low-performing teams scored 1:1.

High-performing teams also had higher connectivity ratings and an interesting balance on other dimensions. Members asked questions as much as they defended their own views, and they cast their attention outward as much as inward.

Low-performing teams, however, had far lower connectivity, asked almost no questions and showed almost no outward focus.

The Tipping Point: 3:1 Positivity Ratio

The positivity/negativity ratio has been found to be a critical parameter in ascertaining what kinds of dynamics are possible for business teams. It is measured by counting the instances of positive feedback (e.g., “that is a good idea”) vs. negative feedback (e.g., “this is not what I expected; I am disappointed”).

Dr. Losada’s findings can be summarised as follows: If a team is highly connected, its members will tend to maintain an equilibrium between internal and external focus, as well as between inquiry and advocacy. They will also maintain a positivity/negativity ratio above 3:1.

If connectivity is low, the team will be more internally focused, it will advocate strongly, and its positivity/negativity ratio will be below 3:1.

Dr. Losada’s research correlates with Dr. Fredrickson’s, in that both independently arrived at a 3:1 positivity-to-negativity ratio for optimal functioning (whether for individuals or teams).

Improve Your Ratio

You can take a self-evaluation of your positivity/negativity ratio at Dr. Fredrickson’s site, www.positivityratio.com. To improve your ratio, you must decrease the number and intensity of negative moments, increase the positive moments, or both.

The goal is not to eliminate bad thoughts. Negative emotions are appropriate and useful. We need to become aware, however, of gratuitous negativity. Fortunately, simple awareness of negativity has a curative effect. Once you learn to spot it, you can defuse it.

To reduce negative thinking, adopt these useful techniques from the field of cognitive behavioural psychology and Dr. Fredrickson’s book:

1. Dispute negative, black-and-white thinking habits (always/never, most/least, internal/external).
2. Break ruminative thinking (use distractions to change mood).
3. Become more mindful (observe without judgement).
4. Reduce bad news streams.
5. Avoid gossip and sarcasm.
6. Smile more often at people.

It may take a while for positive thinking to become natural and habitual. Try these frequently cited exercises to create positive thinking habits:

1. Practice gratitude. Keep a daily gratitude list. Ask yourself questions like “What went right?” and “What was the best part of today?”
2. Practice positive feedback. Catch people doing things right. As you practice this skill and express your appreciation more often, people will shine.
3. Envision your best possible future. When you daydream about your future, you set yourself up for goal-directed behaviours. Envisioning your best possible future helps you persevere and provides hope.

While many factors cause disengagement, the most prevalent is feeling overwhelmed (or, conversely, underwhelmed). Disconnection and overload pose obstacles to performance, yet they often go undetected or ignored because neither qualifies as a disciplinary issue.

But you can’t sprint to peak performance. In addition to variety and stimulation, we require food, rest, human engagement, physical exercise and challenge. You cannot expect a human being to sit at a desk for hours and produce quality work without these essential elements.

If you work too many hours, your brain’s supply of neurotransmitters will be depleted, and you won’t be able to sustain top performance. Without proper care, the brain will underperform—and brain fatigue mimics disengagement and lack of commitment.

Using Brain Science to Bring Out the Best

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, author of Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People (Harvard Business Press, 2011), synthesises new neurological research into five sequential steps managers can apply to maximise employees’ peak performance:

1. Select: Put the right people in the right job, and give them responsibilities that “light up” their brains.
2. Connect: Strengthen interpersonal bonds among team members.
3. Play: Help people unleash their imaginations at work.
4. Grapple and Grow: When the pressure’s on, enable employees to achieve mastery of their work.
5. Shine: Use the right rewards to promote loyalty and stoke your people’s desire to excel.

Step 1: Select

To match the right person to the right job, examine how three key questions intersect:

1. At what tasks or jobs does this person excel?
2. What does he/she like to do?
3. How does he/she add value to the organisation?

Set the stage for your employees to do well with responsibilities they enjoy. You can then determine how they will add the greatest possible value to your organisation.

According to a 2005 Harris Interactive poll, 33 percent of 7,718 employees surveyed believed they had reached a dead end in their jobs, and 21 percent were eager to change careers. Only 20 percent felt passionate about their work.

When so many skilled and motivated people spend decades moving from one job to the next, something is wrong. They clearly have not landed in the right outlets for their talents and strengths. Their brains never light up.

The better the fit, the better the performance. It’s easy to spot peak performance when it happens. It’s what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008). Employees who work at optimum levels experience a state of “flow,” typically losing themselves in a project, meeting or discussion. They may lose track of time or where they are.

People require clear roles that allow them to succeed, while also providing room to learn, grow and be challenged.

Step 2: Connect

Managers and employees require a mutual atmosphere of trust, optimism, openness, transparency, creativity and positive energy. Each group can contribute to reducing toxic fear and worry, insecurity, backstabbing, gossip and disconnection. A positive working environment starts with how the boss handles negativity, failure and problems. The boss sets the tone and models preferred behaviours and reactions. Employees take their cues from those who lead them.

To encourage connection:

• Look for the spark of brilliance within everyone.
• Encourage a learning mindset.
• Model and teach optimism, as well as the belief that teamwork can overcome any problem.
• Use human moments instead of relying on electronic communication.
• Learn about each person.
• Treat everyone with respect, especially those you dislike.
• Meet people where they are, and know that most will do their best with what they have.
• Encourage reality.
• Use humour without sarcasm or at others’ expense.
• Seek out the quiet ones, and try to bring them in.

Step 3: Play

Play isn’t limited to break time. Any activity that involves the imagination lights up our brains and produces creative thoughts and ideas.

Encourage imaginative play with these steps:

• Ask open-ended questions.
• Encourage everyone to produce three new ideas each month.
• Allow for irreverence or goofiness (without disrespect), and model this behaviour.
• Brainstorm.
• Reward new ideas and innovations.
• Encourage people to question everything.

Step 4: Grapple and Grow

Help people engage imaginatively with tasks they like and at which they excel. You can then encourage them to stretch beyond their usual limits.

If tasks are too easy, people will fall into boredom and routine without making any progress or learning anything new. Your job, as a manager, is to be a catalyst when people get stuck, offering suggestions but letting them work out solutions.

Step 5: Shine

Every employee should feel recognised and valued for what he or she does. Recognition should not be reserved solely for a group’s stars.

People learn from mistakes, and they grow even more when their successes are noticed and praised. Letting them know that you appreciate victories large and small will motivate them and secure their loyalty.

When a person is underperforming, consider that lack of recognition may be a cause. An employee usually won’t come right out and tell you that he/she feels undervalued, so you must look for the subtle signs. In addition:

• Be on the lookout for moments when you can catch someone doing something right. It doesn’t have to be unusual or spectacular. Don’t withhold compliments.
• Be generous with praise. People will pick up on your use of praise and start to perform for themselves and each other.
• Recognise attitudes, as well as achievements. Optimism and a growth mindset are two attitudes you can single out and encourage. Look for others.

There is no question that the memories of our lives are recorded in terms of positive and negative experiences. Now scientists propose that each day our brains — i.e. our thoughts and our emotions — keep track of our positive and negative moments and the resulting score contributes to our overall mood.

Our emotional tone or mood is defined by the number of positive vs. negative moments experienced during the course of a day. This is not news to those people who study emotional intelligence and how the brain works. But it has major implications for how we can improve the quality of our lives and our relationships.

Let’s look at an example:

• Let’s say you are getting ready to go to work. You go out to breakfast to find the children have spilled milk and not cleaned up properly. Your spouse complains there’s no more cereal and who ate the last banana, so you score 3 negatives.
• You find another banana, the spouse says thanks, you get everything cleaned up, the kids out the door and you get a hug. Score 3 positives. (Score is now -3 + 3= zero)
• Traffic is heavy, you get off the freeway, take a shortcut and get to work in time: score another positive moment: +1.
• The receptionist says the boss is gunning for you, and your hair looks great. Score a neutral (one negative and one positive).
• The boss catches you on the way to your desk and says you must redo your report because it’s inadequate. Score another negative.
• You pass by your desk to get your report and a co-worker is upset about something. You listen to her for a few minutes, say a few encouraging words that seem to cheer her up. Score a positive.
• When you finally get back to your boss’ office, he makes a remark about taking too long. He criticises your work and dismisses you without adequate discussion, score 3 negatives.
• Your day continues with a succession of good moments and bad ones. By the time you leave work and arrive home, your score is 10 positive and 15 negative moments, for a total ratio of 2:3.

At the end of the workday, you are tired and full of left over emotions, usually a mix of positive and negative. But when you arrive home, you find that your children have things they need to talk about, need your attention, and need you to drive them to activities.

You have no time and no place to unwind and take care of your own emotional basket. And because emotions are contagious, usually trickling down from the leader (guess who’s leader at home) — your kids end up mirroring the mood you are in. Your mood is more negative than positive because of the ratio of your day’s experiences.

The Magic Ratio

Over the past decade, scientists have explored the impact of positive-to-negative interaction ratios in our work and personal life. And they’ve found that this ratio can be used to predict —with remarkable accuracy — everything from workplace performance to divorce.

This work began with noted psychologist John Gottman’s exploration of positive-to-negative ratios in marriages. Using a 5:1 ratio, which Gottman dubbed “the magic ratio,” he and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce by scoring their positive and negative interactions in one 15-minute conversation between each husband and wife. Ten years later, the follow-up revealed that they had predicted divorce with 94% accuracy.

Apparently there is a similar magic ratio for measuring worker satisfaction. The Gallup Organisation has surveyed some 4 million workers on the topics of recognition and praise, and they delivered startling results. Along with the 65% of people who reported receiving no recognition on the job last year, an estimated 22 million workers are presently “actively disengaged,” or extremely negative in their workplace. The number one reason that Americans leave their jobs is that they don’t feel appreciated. There are not enough positive moments to offset the negative ones.

A recent study found that workgroups with positive-to-negative interaction ratios greater than 3:1 are significantly more productive than teams that do not reach this ratio.

The Bucket and the Dipper

In a recent book How Full is Your Bucket, psychologists Donald O. Clifton and Tom Rath propose a metaphor of looking at positive and negative interactions during the day. Imagine we all have a bucket within us that needs to be filled with positive experiences, such as recognition or praise. When we’re negative toward others, we use a dipper to remove from their buckets and diminish their positive outlook. When we treat others in a positive manner, we fill not only their buckets but ours as well.

Here are 5 strategies from these authors for increasing your magic ratio of positive to negative moments in any given day:

• Prevent “Bucket Dipping.” Increase your own awareness of how often your comments are negative. Work toward a ratio of five positive comments to every one negative comment.
• Shine a light on what’s right. Try focusing on what employees or peers do right rather than where they need improvement, and discover the power of reinforcing good behaviors.
• Make best friends. People with best friends at work have better safety records, receive higher customer satisfaction scores, and increase workplace productivity.
• Give unexpectedly. A recent poll showed that the vast majority of people prefer gifts that are unexpected.
• Reverse the Golden Rule. Instead of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” you should “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” Individualisation is key when filling others’ buckets.

If your are having a particularly lousy day of negative moments, try turning it around using some of these strategies suggested by Gretchen  Rubin, author of The Happiness Project:

• Resist the urge to “treat” yourself to short term pleasures like ice-cream, cake, cigarettes or a few beers that will make you feel a lot worse later on.
• Do something nice for someone else.
• Distract yourself.
• Create a calmer environment and clear away some clutter on your desk.
• Get at least one thing accomplished like attending to that nagging task you’ve been procrastinating over.
• Exercise. It improves your mood, as long as you don’t use it to ruminate.
• Stay in contact with other human beings, especially friends.
• Go to bed.
• Remind yourself that you are a winner and how you are really great at many things.
• Write down your worries and then burn them.
• Be grateful.
• Get up and move around.
• Plan something to look forward to.
• Act happy… and happiness usually follows.

 Resources:

Clifton, D.O., & Rath, T. (2004) How Full is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life. NY: Gallup Press.

Peterson, C. and Seligman, M. E. P. (Eds.) (2004) Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification.  NY: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, G., (2009) The Happiness Project. Harper Collins Publishers. NY.

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2010/11/13-tips-for-dealing-with-a-really-lousy-day.html

But as these leaders vent their frustrations, they’re actually looking in the wrong direction.

Here’s the real truth: If employees aren’t motivated, then we should look to their managers and organisational practices. Leaders who dismiss their teams’ grievances can sabotage staff performance and bottom-line results.

If you want your employees to perform to their best abilities, take some advice from organisational behaviour expert Stephen P. Robbins, PhD, author of The Truth about Managing People (FT Press, 2007). Contrary to much of the misleading, generalised and inconsistent information found in business books, Robbins has researched human behaviour and provides practical advice on what works—and what doesn’t—when managing a team.

The traditional framework for workplace incentives and disincentives, generally falls into one of two camps:  

• “Do ____, and you’ll get a bonus.” or
• “Don’t do ____, or you’ll get fired.”

Robbins points out that this approach discourages employees from examining the reasons why a task may or may not make sense. It forces them to make quick, intuitive decisions based on behaviours the system has historically rewarded and punished. But there are sometimes uninvited consequences.

Let’s examine 10 common myths about motivation.

Myth #1: People simply lack the motivation to work.

If you believe this myth, think about three things that may be going on in your employees’ minds. Ask yourself:

1. Do your employees believe their maximum efforts will be recognised in performance appraisals?  For many employees, the response is a resounding “no.” Their skill level may be deficient, which means that no matter how hard they try, they’re unlikely to be high performers. Or, if the appraisal system assesses factors like loyalty or initiative, more effort won’t result in a better review. If employees think their best efforts will yield only a mediocre review, they will suffer from low motivation (Worrall, 2009).
2. Do employees believe a good performance appraisal will lead to organisational rewards? When pay is allocated on seniority or special relationships, employees perceive the performance-reward relationship to be weak and demotivating.
3. Are the rewards that employees receive the ones they want? Some people want promotions, others desire pay, and still others seek more interesting assignments. When rewards aren’t tailored to employees’ specific wants and motivating drives, then incentives are suboptimised.

To motivate employees, do what’s necessary to strengthen performance-reward relationships. Make it obvious that specific behaviours will be rewarded, and always keep your word to maintain credibility and morale.

The Real Truth: If employees aren’t motivated, look to their managers and organisational practices—not the workers. If the performance-reward relationship is weak, motivation drops.

Myth #2: Happy workers are productive workers.

Everyone assumes satisfied workers are naturally more productive. This theory plays out as flexible work hours, onsite childcare and workout facilities, retirement plans and attractive workplaces. While these amenities are nice perks, they really aren’t incentives for high performance.

While there is a correlation between job satisfaction and productivity, it’s actually quite minimal: between +0.14 and +0.30. Thus, no more than 9 percent—or as low as 2 percent—of the variance in output can be attributed to employee satisfaction.

This is hardly enough to justify spending more money on making employees happier and more comfortable. Such benefits may contribute to employee retention, but not to productivity. Moreover, the evidence suggests that productive workers are more likely to be happy workers, rather than the reverse.

Productivity leads to job satisfaction. If you do a good job, you feel positive about your efforts. This, in turn, fuels your energy to accomplish more. Higher productivity should also be recognised with praise, increased pay and the opportunity to earn even greater rewards.

The Real Truth: Evidence suggests productive workers are more likely to be happy workers, rather than the reverse.

Direct your efforts toward helping employees become more productive. Find ways to increase their training, improve job design, provide better tools and resources, and remove barriers that may impede them from doing a first-rate job (Worrall, 2009).

Myth #3: Tell employees to do their best, and let them find their own path.

A mountain of evidence shows us that people perform best when they’re given goals:

• Specific goals increase performance.
• Difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance.
• Feedback leads to higher performance.

When you give an assignment with instructions to “do your best,” you aren’t providing enough specificity. Employees perform better when they know what needs to be done, the outcomes you seek, and how much effort they’ll need to expend to achieve results.

The Real Truth: A large percentage of employees believe they lack specific goals at work. Clear, challenging goals, accompanied by feedback, set the stage for higher output.

Myth #4: People want to set their own goals.

In spite of the logic behind participatory management, there’s little evidence to show that goals set in partnership, between employee and manager, are superior to those unilaterally assigned by the boss.

Why wouldn’t people do better with goals they help set?

The explanation may lie in the reality of workplace conditions. For participation to work:

• There must be adequate time to give input.
• Issues must be relevant to employees’ interests.
• Employees must have adequate knowledge and skills to share their insights.
• The workplace culture must support employee involvement.

These conditions are sorely lacking in many workplaces, despite management’s best intentions. In addition, some people don’t want the responsibilities that come with participation. They prefer to be told what to do and let the boss do the worrying.

The Real Truth: Participation is no sure means for improving employee performance.

Myth #5: Happiness leads to “flow” experiences.

When you are deeply involved in your work, nothing else seems to matter. You lose track of time—a state known as flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Smart managers know that flow is a particularly fertile work condition. 

Flow experiences are periods of deep concentration during which workers report feelings of gratitude and satisfaction. Can managers take steps to create this state? Absolutely.

To enter into flow, employees must be:

• Challenged  
• Goal-directed
• Provided with feedback
• Allowed total concentration and creativity

Flow will materialise only when managers give their employees sufficiently challenging tasks and the necessary time to apply creativity without distractions and interruptions.

The Real Truth: Flow is most likely to be experienced at work and requires periods of intense concentration, without distractions. Managers can ensure that working conditions allow such concentration and minimal interruptions.

Myth #6: Feedback needs to address personal qualities.

Telling employees that they’re doing a “good job” isn’t good enough. Neither are comments about attitudes or efforts. Feedback must be specific and about behaviours, not personal attributes.

No matter how upset you may be, limit feedback to job-related issues, and never criticise someone personally because of an inappropriate action. This is counterproductive, as it evokes strong emotional reactions that bury actual feedback.

The Real Truth:    Feedback is effective when it is specific to behaviours and impersonal. Feedback should be descritive,m rather than judgementeal or evaluative.

Myth #7: Reward behaviours that indicate high performance.

Unfortunately, it’s easy—and often tempting—to measure the wrong indicators.

For example, the number of phone calls an employee places doesn’t measure customer relationships or sales. And when managers reward individual accomplishments, yet consistently say they’re team-focused, employees take notice.

When you discuss the importance of quality work, pay special attention to employees who exceed their production goals, but churn out below-average work. Be sure to send the right message.

The Real Truth: Managers routinely measure behaviours they’re trying to discourage and fail to reward the ones they actually want. You get what you reward. If you want quality, reward it—and avoid rewarding quantity.

Myth #8: Reward absolute results.

We know that employees make comparisons and look at relative rewards. They evaluate what they bring to their jobs, in terms of experience, effort, education and competence, with the rewards they receive: salary, pay raises and recognition.

Employees compare their situations to those of friends, colleagues, competitors or prior jobs. They assess how equitably they’re being treated.

Your team will likely be motivated when members feel they are equitably rewarded for their contributions. When they feel under-rewarded, they become angry, and this perceived inequity can lead to absences, reduced productivity, fudging on expenses and/or requests for a raise.

The Real Truth: People compare their rewards to those that others receive. As a manager, you cannot overlook this fact, and you need to be sensitive to the perceptions of relative rewards.

Myth #9: Low-skilled workers receive pay and benefits commensurate with their value.

How do you motivate individuals who earn very low wages and lack opportunities to significantly increase their pay or receive promotions?Traditional approaches have focused on providing more flexible work schedules and filling these jobs with teenagers or retired people. But something isn’t working: Turnover rates at fast-food restaurant chains still hover at around 300 percent annually.

Some chains have experimented with stock options and incentive pay; broader responsibilities for inventory, scheduling and hiring; and retirement plans, health insurance and scholarship money. But over a four-year period, turnover rates have been only minimally reduced: approximately 160 percent to 223 percent.

The Real Truth: Unless pay and benefits are significantly increased, high turnover will likely continue in these jobs.

Myth #10: You can systematically apply motivation strategies to produce high performance.

Job success depends on having adequate support resources. No matter how motivated employees may be, they won’t perform well if they lack equipment, work space, supplies, skills or others’ cooperation. They will quickly lose motivation, no matter the incentives or rewards offered.

As you determine why a particular worker is performing poorly, examine the work environment to see if it’s supportive. Employee performance is a combination and interaction of:

• Ability
• Motivation
• Opportunity

The Real Truth: Regardless of motivation, employee performance will suffer if the work environment is unsupportive. The most willing and able employee may face obstacles that constrain performance.

Further Reading:

Csikszentmihalyi, M., (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row.

Robbins, S.P., (2007) The Truth about Managing People, FT Press.

Worrall, D., (2009)  A Climate for Change, Life Success Publishing.

In the business world, where time management is always a priority, multitasking skills are expected, especially in younger workers reared in multiple media environments (i.e., computers, iPods, iPhones, TV, video games, online social sites, texting and instant messaging).

Beginning in 2005, however, studies began to show that distractions negatively affected productivity and efficiency. A study funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the University of London’s Institute of Psychiatry found that “workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.” The report termed this new “infomania” a serious threat to workplace productivity.

A second study from the University of California at Irvine monitored interruptions among office personnel. Researchers found that it took an average of 25 minutes for workers to recover from interruptions (phone calls, emails) and return to their original tasks.

In 2007, Jonathan B. Spira, CEO and chief analyst at the business research firm Basex, estimated that extreme multitasking and information overload cost the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity.

The brain doesn’t handle more than one problem well. While we can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time, we cannot pay attention to multiple challenges. Instead, the brain must switch tasks, using up time and energy. And when task-switching is poorly executed, we waste time and make mistakes.

With too many simultaneous demands on the brain, a “response-selection bottleneck” occurs. Some psychologists, such as David Meyer at the University of Michigan, believe that with training, the brain can learn to task-switch more effectively. Scientific evidence reveals that certain simple tasks are amenable to improvement with practice.

But Dr. Meyer’s and others’ research has also found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline. These chemicals, released into our bodies over the long term, can be detrimental to our health, contributing to heart disease and short-term memory loss.

The Art of Paying Attention

When we are talking about multitasking, we are really concerned with the brain functions of attention and focus. These highly prized functions include:

• Shifting our attention from one priority to another
• Judging which objects are worthy of our attention
• Ignoring distractions that aren’t pertinent to the issue at hand

Individuals who learn to focus their attention and concentration clearly have an advantage over those trying to multitask in chaotic work environments.

Smart Multitasking

All the research in the world won’t discourage us from juggling more than one ball. So, if we’re going to multitask, how can we do it effectively?

1. Work on your most important task first thing in the morning. Give yourself a time frame to work on this task, either to completion or a reasonable stopping point. Next, move to the second highest-priority task. If you can gain a foothold on two or three important tasks each morning, you’ll feel more available and in control of the rest of your day.
2. Use a capture tool, such as a handwritten notebook or computer program, for on-the-spot notes regarding what needs to be accomplished.
3. Use to-do lists for different contexts (phone calls, computer tasks, errands, home, team, recreation).
4. Plan your day in blocks, with open blocks for urgent issues that arise. Try half-hour blocks or hour blocks—whatever works best for you. If necessary, use a timer to alert you when it’s time to move on.
5. Turn off all distractions when working on a task in a time block. Shut off email, the Internet and your cell phone. Let everything go to voice mail. Focus on your designated  task without worrying about all the other stuff on your plate.
6. Plan for the urgent. When something unexpected pops up, take control by putting it on your agenda. Let people know you’ll attend to them in 5 or 10 minutes, which gives you time to wrap up your current project. Deal with email and voice mail at regular, predetermined intervals.
7. When something interrupts you and it cannot be postponed, note where you are with the task at hand. Write down key words to facilitate returning to your ideas. This will save your brain some time in trying to reconstruct your previous processes.
8. Take deep breaths, stretch and allow frequent breaks to refocus on what really matters. Far too often, a task will take us down “rabbit trails” that don’t lead to real results. Stay on target and focussed by stepping back, reviewing and taking short mental breaks.
9. Don’t try to finish everything at once. Working in intervals on specific parts of a task will give your subconscious mind the time it needs to reflect on and solve challenges. 
10. Instead of multitasking, learn to delegate. Which parts of your workload can be handled by someone who would embrace the opportunity? Ask for help. You’ll be surprised at how often assistance is available. You don’t have to do it all.

Perhaps the only true multitasking occurs outside conscious thought. Neuroscientists estimate that our five senses take in 11 million pieces of information every second—and only 40 are processed consciously.

Our subconscious mind filters only what requires our conscious attention, which explains why we often come up with solutions after a break or good night’s sleep.

To learn more about this topic see one of my earlier articles: http://www.climateforchangebook.com/wordpress/2009/12/relax-dont-worry-the-brain-science-of-productivity/#more-100

According to Gallup research, what employees want most — along with competitive pay — is quality management. When they feel unappreciated and disapprove of their managers, they leave or join the growing ranks of the disengaged.

 3 Steps to Positive Leadership

In 2005, Jerry Krueger and Emily Killham shared the results of Gallup research that showed managers play a crucial role in employee well-being and engagement—but the research didn’t study what managers specifically did to elicit positive responses.

That’s why Margaret Greenberg, president of The Greenberg Group, and Dana Arakawa, a program associate at the John Templeton Foundation, put the theory of positive leadership to the test. They wanted to know if managers who apply positive leadership practices have teams with higher project performance and employee engagement.

As it turns out, positive managers practice three leadership behaviours:

1. Use a strengths-based approach.
2. Provide frequent recognition and encouragement.
3. Maintain a positive perspective when difficulties arise.

None is an innate behaviour, but all can be learned.

A Strengths-Based Approach

There’s a reason why managers’ focus on strengths and weaknesses is so important. Most organisations are obsessed with fixing weaknesses. They conduct performance reviews, 360-degree assessments and the like to evaluate how well employees and managers are measuring up to predefined goals and competencies.

Managers are instructed to look at an employee’s assessed gap and coach for greater performance in areas of weakness. But such assessments usually pay only cursory attention to an employee’s strengths. Performance reviews and subsequent remedial programs focus almost exclusively on weaknesses.

Focus on What Works

Too many managers assume that employees need to be good at many things, rather than excellent in the key areas.

Recent studies have firmly established that focusing on what works, followed by a program to scale it to greater levels, is a more practical and efficient approach to developing people and their performance.

Managers who take a strengths-based approach help employees identify strengths and align their talents with their work. These managers don’t ignore employee weaknesses, but fixing them isn’t their primary focus.

Greenberg and Arakawa found that managers who focused on strengths enjoyed superior team performance, as opposed to managers who focused on weaknesses.

The Problem-Seeking Mindset

It’s not enough to wait for performance reviews and project completion to deliver feedback. Praise must be frequent, ongoing and specific to current behaviours—not vague or general.

Sadly, we’re predisposed to look for the negative: in ourselves, in others and for external events. We rarely scan our environment and ask:

• “What’s working right now… and how can we do more of it?”
• Instead, we look around and ask: “What’s broken—and how can we fix it?”

The problem-seeking mindset is one of the brain’s shortcomings, while also serving as a protective device to spare us from danger and making mistakes.

In Switch (2010), Dan and Chip Heath write about “finding the bright spots” in our work and lives. After extensive research, the two business school professors have documented how we’re wired to focus on bad over good.

It’s no wonder performance reviews and feedback are usually aimed at what’s not working. Yet, some successful individuals can override this brain tendency and focus on the positive, at least enough to create successful relationships both at work and home.

John Gottman, a psychologist who studies marital conversations, finds that couples who sustain long-term marriages use language that reflects five times more positive statements than negative ones. In fact, he calls this “the magic ratio” and claims it will accurately predict if a marriage will last. He urges managers to use a ratio of 5:1 positive statements in conversations with employees.

When Things Go Wrong

Managing long-term, multimillion-dollar projects that involve dozens of people and several workgroups is a complex challenge, and things are bound to go wrong. How managers respond to problems has a direct and measurable impact on both the employees and the project.

Researchers Greenberg and Arakawa asked employees:

• “When a problem crops up on my project, is my project manager able to help me come up with solutions?”
• “What steps does your project manager take when such a problem arises?”

Here’s what they found:

• Managers who maintain a positive perspective don’t turn setbacks into catastrophes.
• They don’t fly off the handle; they control their emotions.
• They recognise what’s within their sphere of influence (and what’s not).
• They see and discuss the problem as an opportunity.
• They provide a solution-oriented perspective.

Greenberg and Arakawa also discovered that managers who maintained a positive perspective when things went awry experienced greater project performance. Managers who scored in the top quartile for positive perspective (as reported by their employees, not self-report) had significantly higher project performance than those in the bottom quartile.

Reflect on how you as a manager and leader can implement positive leadership by practicing these behaviours:

1.      Focus on and work with people’s strengths.

2.      Improve the frequency with which you give praise and recognition.

3.      Respond with a positive, solutions-orientation when the going gets rough.

The truth is, most of us don’t know how to ask good questions, or when we do ask a really great question, it is by accident. There are several ways to ask questions. Some people seem really good at it, while others use a random, what-ever-pops-into-their-head approach.

Fifty percent of good communications is good listening. Asking the right questions must precede good listening. Good questions pave the way for good communications.

We have all encountered problems with bosses and colleagues, and especially with spouses from asking the wrong question at the wrong time. We scratch our heads and wonder what went wrong. After all, we were just asking, right?

The problem is that we were raised by parents and teachers who asked the wrong questions for most of our lives. Parents ask their children questions designed to teach them something. Teachers also use questions that are rhetorical or Socratic, designed to make us think and come up with the right answer, as predetermined by them. There is usually only one right answer, the one they are looking for.

Here’s a clue: these people—parents and teachers—aren’t really asking questions. They are trying to tell us something. They do not ask questions to learn something, but to teach what they determine is important. We learn from parents and teachers the wrong way to ask questions in the adult world.

What Real Questions Are Supposed to Do

Real questions are designed to learn about the other person’s way of thinking, and to gather information. A truly neutral question is rare. Most of us ask leading questions designed to influence others to our way of thinking, just like our parents and teachers do.

Instead of gathering information about the other person’s perspective, our questions lead someone down a thinking path of our choice. One needs only to view TV courtroom dramas to see prime examples of leading questions.

When you ask leading questions, you must hold your own agenda in sight, and design your questions to end up with a predetermined answer. The person asking the question is focused on getting to this result, and therefore is not really listening to the responder with an open and receptive mind.

While this can be an effective teaching method, it is not a way of developing true and meaningful communications, because the listening is cut off by predetermined goals on the part of one person.

Different Kinds of Questions

Managers overuse this leading style of questioning, and then wonder why they don’t fully understand the actions of employees. They don’t have a grasp on what is really going on, because they aren’t asking open questions designed for learning.

People in relationships, including spouses, often fall into the “leading question” trap, in persistent attempts to influence the perspective of the other person. People communicate better when they start asking neutral questions to learn about the perspective of the other.

Some authors define questions as being empowering or disempowering. Empowering questions are positive ones, such as:

• What works best for you?
• What are you doing right?
• What is your favourite part of this?
• When are you most effective?

Disempowering questions are also called judging questions. They bring up negative feelings and focus on what is wrong:

• Why did you do that?
• What went wrong?
• Who caused this?
• How could this have happened?

Notice that these disempowering questions can appear to be neutral. They resemble information-gathering questions. It depends on the source, the context, and tone of voice. There is a fine-line between information-gathering where one is exploring causes in order to find solutions, and questions that judge and blame. It also depends on who is asking the questions, their position of authority, and their prior history of being judgemental and blaming.

In order to frame questions in a neutral, exploration context, it may be necessary to qualify questions with statements such as:

• Help me to understand this situation…
• I just want to clarify the sources of this problem so we can solve it…
• Without blaming anyone, can we identify where we went wrong here?

Questions are clearly the way to create open discussions, deepen relationships, and create a learning environment necessary in any relationship, be it at work or at home.

We all fall into the trap of trying to influence through our questions, because it is so ingrained in us from early childhood on. It is hard to ask truly neutral, non-leading questions without influencing.

Questions that Encourage Problem-Solving

Here are some guidelines for creating a more problem-solving approach in our communications and questions.

When problem-solving with another person, remember these three kinds of questions designed for three different levels of interactions (Argyris):

Single loop questions: How can you fix this problem? What needs to be done differently? How can this be done better, faster, more efficiently?

Double loop questions: Is this the right problem to fix? What else needs to be considered? Is there another way to get better results?

Triple loop questions: What is your role in this, and how do you need to be in order for this to be solved? What shifts in your thinking and being need to happen?

Clearly there is much that goes into asking the right questions at the right time. There is a body of research designed around Appreciative Inquiry, in which people are taught the effectiveness of keeping discussions and questions positive.

We live in a culture that readily diagnoses what is wrong, gaps in performance, and areas for improvement. We focus a disproportionate amount of time on how to fix things, without adequately investigating what is right. We would do well to remember that the research demonstrates that people learn better when reinforced positively rather than negatively.

Resources:

Adams, M.G. (2004) Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. Berrett-Koehler, Inc.

Block, P. (2002) The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters. Berrett-Koehler, Inc.

Hammond, S. (1996) The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry. Thin Book Publishing Co.

Miller, J. G. (2001) QBQ! The Question Behind the Question. Denver Press.

Mayer, B. (1997) The Magic in Asking the Right Questions. Bill Mayer International.

Torbert, B. & Associates. (2004) Action Inquiry: the Secret of Timely and Transforming Leadership. Berrett-Koehler, Inc.

Failure to Confront Problem Behaviour

            Leaders such as you want to be liked as much as anybody else does, so you’re likely to delegate the distasteful job of confronting people about their behaviour to other people or to business systems. Good leaders, after all, are supposed to delegate. The trouble is that although business systems can deliver for hard outcomes, they consistently fail to do so in regard to confronting behavioural shortcomings, teamwork problems, and sustained change.

            An expert in leadership coaching and development named Marshall Goldsmith discovered an interesting paradox. Although you may think that people will like you more if you avoid conflict situations with them, they actually respect you more when you face up and deliver the truth with compassion.

            Good leaders frequently engage external consultants and executive coaches to help make serious breakthroughs in such matters, as appropriately trained coaches can gather data and provide you with objective feedback honestly and confidentially. Executive coaches and consultants, furthermore, can also help successful leaders to improve their capacity to hold their direct reports accountable for delivering long-term, sustained behavioural change.

Over-Reliance on Outdated Performance Management Systems

            The traditional performance-management process is inherently problematic as a tool for sustained behavioural change and cultural alignment. The Taylorist school of management originally developed this process within industrial-age organisations in which organisational control was the norm and managers assumed the role of being judge, jury, and sometimes executioner. This disempowering model undermines the goals of those modern organisations for which competition and rapid change demand a culture that encourages employee discretion, responsiveness, and innovation, these being the factors that drive sustained positive change. 

Effective modern organisations have the capacity to respond to change with speed and agility. People who have a deep personal connection with their work and a sense of control drive such organisations. They’ve tapped into their own motivations and problem-solving skills and feel empowered to make a difference.

            External coaches can help you shape your organisation’s behaviour and culture so this can happen by providing objective leadership-performance feedback from multiple sources, helping you to understand and apply the latest techniques for promoting positive organisational cultures, and shifting the balance of your performance conversations from feedback about the past to the more empowering technique of feed-forward for the future.

Leaders Preaching Teamwork but Not Demonstrating It In Practice

            The senior leadership team’s behaviour is the ultimate model of any organisation’s values, culture, and teamwork. Although leaders can be adamant about their walking the talk, many are often unaware that other people see the situation differently.

            We can understand why this discrepancy exists between how leaders perceive themselves and how others see them exists by examining the career paths of many  senior leaders. Three things have probably played a role in most senior leaders achieving their present status. You’ve probably demonstrated significant specialist or generalist expertise, an ability to lead others within your area of expertise, and, more elusively, an ability to manage up, to understand the big picture, and to become noticed by being in the right place at the right time.

            When senior leaders arrive at the top, however a potential problem emerges. Open and honest collaboration with peers, who were also rivals, is unlikely to be a factor in such career-ladder climbs. This, then, becomes the final challenge for those on a senior team leading major organisational-cultural change. The qualities of self-reliance and achievement that had been invaluable for reaching the top can damage your effectiveness by reinforcing rivalries and operational silos between business areas, thereby undermining the ability to demonstrate cohesive teamwork, culture, and leadership.

            As a senior leader you can ill afford to dismiss your need to operate as part of a cohesive senior team and expect other teams within your organisation to operate cohesively within and across business units. Experienced consultants and coaches can introduce simple techniques to help senior teams confront the part that their own behaviour and language has played in undermining the culture and values they espouse – often with profound results.

            In order to achieve such results, exemplary organisations use executive coaching as the most powerful component of their leadership development and organisational-change toolkit. Organisations and senior leaders who seriously want to improve find that the benefits of focussed coaching programs for leadership teams are undeniable. Such programs help you to learn:

•              what conversations you aren’t having in your business and what that is costing you,
•              how your senior team can unlock its capacity to create a positive, high-performing organisational culture in which people want to work,
•              how to know if you’re walking the talk and what to do about it if  you’re not,
•              how to make change last without your having to be there all the time, and
•              how to feel more confident as a senior leader.

            For a confidential discussion about discovering whether an executive-leadership coaching program would make a difference for your organisation, call  02 9599 6791 now, or email me at di@humanresourceschange.com.au.

To Your Success

Di Worrall

Corporate Change Specialist, Executive Coach, Author

Nominee 2010 Telstra Business Women’s Awards

Principal Worrall & Associates

www.humanresourceschange.com.au 

“The insight I gained into myself from Di’s coaching was truly eye opening.  I gained clarity with regard to my strengths, and more importantly, discovered areas of potential improvement that I was previously unaware of.  Once identified, small changes was all it took to produce significant positive results.  I highly recommend Di’s coaching to people who are serious in exploring continuous self improvement.”

Mark Migallo, ANZ Channel Development Manager, Sun Microsystems