Embracing Change At Work

If you’ve ever been in a meeting and uttered the dreaded word “change,” you’ve probably had the experience of watching the faces of the attendees express emotions ranging from horror to glee. It’s been my experience in the corporate world that no two people have the same reaction.

It’s important to understand that to many people the idea of change feels threatening. Even if the current process, organizational structure or focus is outdated or even obsolete, employees are familiar with it. Sometimes no matter how inefficient or emotionally painful a situation is, they’ve developed a certain comfort level. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve worked with a company that said, “But we’ve always done it that way,” I could retire right now.

The way they’ve always done it may well be the way it was originally organized in 1980 or 1990. If a company wants to expand instead of contract, it must self-reflect. If the C-suite is composed of a majority of yes-men and -women, change is unlikely to happen until it’s too late to reverse the slide. In cases such as this, it’s often helpful to bring in an external perspective to evaluate the business and recommend a plan of action that can initiate meaningful change. In fact, you might even want to have the consultants initiate the initial changes themselves, so as to reduce the opportunity of backsliding once they’ve left.

In his book Elastic: Unlocking Your Brain’s Ability to Embrace Change, Leonard Mlodinow points out, “Today’s society bestows rewards as never before upon those who are comfortable with change, and it may punish those who are not, for what used to be the safe terrain of stability is now often a dangerous minefield of stagnation.”

One of the important pieces of the puzzle in the beginning stages of any plan to change is to bring the new vision into complete focus. Trying to begin implementation before this phase is completed will ensure failure. I worked with a large retail company whose upper management decided to introduce an entirely new ordering system for their multiple call centers. It would save money because it was more efficient and would allow the agents to perform their jobs in a faster time frame per call.

The problems were legion. They never bothered to show it to any focus groups from the company. They did not test the system in beta mode long enough. They never asked anyone who worked with the existing systems to explain the pros and cons of the existing programming.

Instead, they filmed an announcement from the CEO, who had only been working with the company for under a year and had never even touched the current system or traveled to any of the call centers. The filmed announcement was basically a pep rally with no helpful information, but it was required watching for every employee.

The resulting premature rollout was a predictable disaster. There were multiple malfunctions, employees having meltdowns because they couldn’t meet their stats and supervisors tearing their hair out because with no training beyond a PowerPoint presentation, they were expected to troubleshoot every problem that arose. You can only imagine how frustrated the customers were, and you wouldn’t believe how many of them threatened to take their business elsewhere.

With some forethought and focus, it all could have been avoided. The only people who didn’t seem to realize that were in the C-suite. They could have done so much better (they couldn’t have done much worse, after all). They could’ve communicated their new vision for the company by email, social media, video, corporate intranet, motivational posters showing the benefits and meetings at the individual call centers where someone from upper management actually bothered to visit.

There’s no shortcut to effectively implementing change. It involves a process, and time and effort must be invested for it to be a success. After a clear explanation of the vision, there must be a high sense of urgency from management. Momentum must be maintained, or entropy will take over.

For progress to continue, obstacles to that progress must be removed. The obstacle could be a process, a tool that isn’t working properly, a lack of monetary commitment to the project or even a leader who overtly opposes the change and actively works to undermine it. If these hindrances are not removed, change won’t flow.

Real and lasting change cannot gain a foothold unless it’s broken up into smaller, more digestible pieces. The goal of expansion into European markets, for example, might be segmented by country, region or demographic. Whatever it is, once the first goal is met, it’s time to celebrate the victory. Those on the front lines will mostly just see the mountain of work ahead, and rewarding them for each success keeps them motivated to continue.

John P. Kotter, in his book Leading Change, advises, “Real transformation takes time. Complex efforts to change strategies or restructure businesses risk losing momentum if there are no short-term goals to meet and celebrate.”

Frequent feedback meetings are also imperative. If you’re not listening to your people on a regular basis, you’re not in touch with what’s actually happing on the front lines. You can look at reports all day long, but if you don’t actually make yourself available to hear what the problems and triumphs are, you don’t have a clear picture.

As a manager of people, it’s your job to motivate them to embrace the changes, listen to their fears and suggestions, and cheerlead the new company vision. Reward innovation and positive behavior, and share stories of success, no matter how small.

As the innovator Walt Disney pointed out, “Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.” If we don’t, we’ll surely fail.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

What’s Behind Employee Knowledge Hoarding And How To Fix It

I’ve observed a growing problem in today’s workplace where employees hide, hoard or simply don’t provide information to others in their organization. It’s disruptive and contributes substantially to the lack of productivity. Although employers have tried multiple solutions to the problem — meetings, team building, knowledge management systems — the issue remains largely unresolved.

Human beings are a complicated bunch, and, as it turns out, there are multiple reasons that can cause this breakdown in the flow of information from person to person, level to level or team to team. The fix depends largely on determining which specific issues are driving the behavior in each particular instance.

Individual Motivations

Individual motivations at work may be something as simple as the lack of time to communicate the information to the requestor. For example, if a certain colleague is constantly requesting information, it can be a serious drain on the time of the employee who is being asked. Frustration ensues, and the thought becomes, “If Dave in accounting doesn’t know how to do his job, why should I keep helping him at the risk of my own productivity stats?” On the other hand, an employee may hoard information for personal gain or power. Clarice in sales may have decided that if she doesn’t share her hard-earned knowledge with others on the sales team, she will continue to be the star and the most valuable player, who is immune to layoffs. Neither scenario benefits the organization as a whole. So, what’s the solution?

Authors of the Harvard Business Review article “Why Employees Don’t Share Knowledge with Each Other,” point to their research to help explain why people hide information or share it: “We found that more cognitively complex jobs — in which people need to process large amounts of information and solve complex problems — tended to promote more knowledge sharing, as did jobs offering more autonomy. By focusing on these aspects of work, managers can encourage employees to share more and hide less.”

A Lack Of Trust

Trust can also be a contributing factor as to why employees withhold information. To combat this, management may need to actively recognize and reward the contributions of those who exhibit the desired behavior. They also need to work to eliminate the various barriers at their company that are restricting the free flow of information. It might be that different members of a team are in very different time zones and find it difficult to communicate in a meaningful way. Or it could be that there’s a deep-seated rivalry between teams that are, in theory, supposed to be cooperating instead of competing.

In the book The 7 Fundamentals to Create and Sustain A Successful Knowledge Sharing Organization, author Patricia Pedraza-Nafziger says, “To encourage employees to share the knowledge gained through experience requires building trust and an understanding of how their knowledge will be used.” Be upfront and honest with employees. Explain the benefits of knowledge sharing, and remind everyone of shared goals.

Organizational Hierarchy

Another interesting study, “Helping Others Most When They Are Not Too Close: Status Distance as a Determinant of Interpersonal Helping in Organizations,” found that people in an organization were more likely to provide information if there was moderate distance between their positions on the organizational chart.

As the study’s abstract explains, “Scholars examining interpersonal relations in organizations have long known that status matters, but findings regarding the link between status differences and prosocial behavior have been equivocal.” In other words, you’re more likely to share information with individuals who are moderately distant from you in status because the feelings of potential competition or power status are diminished.

In my experience, one of the best ways to combat the employee knowledge hoarding tendency is to reward employees who participate in the consistent sharing of appropriate information and make clear the benefits of doing so. Management also needs to be responsive to recognizing those employees who are draining the productivity of others by requesting information that they should already know. It should be addressed by more training or perhaps a performance improvement plan.

In the end, it is the role of leadership in the organization to ensure the free flow of important information is actually happening on a day-to-day basis. Effective collaboration can move the needle for your company and improve the bottom line.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

Employee Motivation: It Really Does Matter

If you’ve ever been stuck in a job with no direction or motivation and have felt extremely discouraged, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, there are many employees who find themselves caught in the same situation. Managers and supervisors are often not taught how to motivate their employees. Regrettably, several management personnel are only advised on the performance-improvement-plan form of management. But often, the carrot produces better results than the stick.

Consider the bosses you’ve had in your career. Who were the good ones, and who were the bad ones, and — most importantly—what was the difference? After some contemplation, you’ll begin to see why the good ones were able to motivate you and make you passionate about coming into work.

Although it’s difficult in the corporate world to find employee satisfaction that is meaningful and lasting, as management, it’s your job to see to it your employees feel appreciated, which in turn will result in better teamwork, better attitudes and an eagerness to contribute.

Gregg Lederman, in his book CRAVE: You Can Enhance Employee Motivation in 10 Minutes by Friday, explains, “Strategic employee recognition is a management discipline that goes way beyond ‘being the right thing to do.’ Recognition should not be viewed only as a feel-good, altruistic endeavor. No, it’s a management discipline that should garner significant ROI.”

What makes Susan feel rewarded and valued won’t be the same as what motivates Kari or Chad. People are individuals, and being recognized in a way that is meaningful to them shows you care enough about them as individuals to acknowledge them as such. In my years of working with people in leadership positions, I always emphasize the importance of knowing enough about your employees to understand what they value individually as a reward. My advice is: If you don’t know, just ask. Most people are more than happy to relate what makes them feel appreciated.

If you are a supervisor or manager of a group of employees, it’s very important to understand that they aren’t robots. They require a human touch and frequent motivation. As a leader, it is your job to provide that. If you don’t, you’re going to find yourself constantly trying to fill the same positions over and over as unmotivated people get discouraged and quit.

In their book The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People, Gary Chapman and Paul White offer, “When leaders actively pursue teaching their team members how to communicate authentic appreciation in the ways desired by the recipients, the whole work culture improves. Interestingly, even managers and supervisors report they enjoy their work more! All of us thrive in an atmosphere of appreciation.”

My clients are often surprised how far a little bit of encouragement propels their employees and organization. In my experience, ignoring or discounting the importance of employee motivation often leads to disengagement.

In the HBR article “4 Reasons Good Employees Lose Their Motivation” (registration required), authors Richard E. Clark and Bror Saxberg offer this advice: “Carefully assessing the nature of the motivational failure — before taking action — is crucial. Applying the wrong strategy (say, urging an employee to work harder, when the reason is that they’re convinced they can’t do it) can actually backfire, causing motivation to falter further.”

They explain that these reasons fit into four categories: values mismatch, lack of self-efficacy, disruptive emotions and attribution errors.

Basically, the first one, values mismatch, means the employee isn’t connected with the value of the task and therefore is disinclined to perform the task. With the second “trap” (as they refer to it), the lack of self-efficacy points to the feeling that the employee is afraid they aren’t capable of performing the task, and so they are fearful of appearing incompetent.

I’ve seen that when employees are overwhelmed with negative emotions, such as frustration or anger, they feel overcome by disruptive emotions, and it interrupts their ability to be motivated enough to perform a task. When the managers I’ve worked with take the responsibility to recognize these signs and remove hindrances that are holding their employees back from their true potential, things change for the better.

It’s important to understand that the work your employees are doing needs to make a difference in some way and for you to help them see it, too. Otherwise, your employees will grow restless and feel automated. It’s up to you to inject some passion and help them to see how valuable they are to the organization. Let your employees know on a frequent basis that they are welcome any time to come to you for feedback and sincere communication, and you will reap the benefits of a motivated workforce.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

When Is It Time To Involve HR?

If you find yourself wondering if it’s appropriate to take an issue or complaint to your human resources department, it pays to give the situation some serious thought. They are trained, and in certain cases required, to approach your problem with gravitas and thoughtful consideration.

If you plan to take this step, you need to be prepared. Meticulous and relevant documentation will present your case better than a disjointed monologue ever could. If you truly believe you are being harassed or discriminated against at work, start with writing down the date, time, what was said or done to you and by whom in what specific situation. Don’t ramble, and stick with the facts. Accurate records are the fast track to disciplinary action by your company against the perpetrator.

Author Sachi Barreiro in the book Your Rights in the Workplace: An Employee’s Guide to Fair Treatment advised, “Check the facts again. The human memory is not nearly as accurate as we like to think it is, particularly when it comes to remembering numbers and dates.” To ensure accuracy when documenting any workplace complaint, “Make a written record of everything that happened, with dates and other important facts.”

Throughout my time working with a variety of organizations, I’ve seen the importance of approaching HR to address a situation firsthand. Below are my tips on how you can tell when it’s time to bring HR into the equation:

When should you approach HR?

You experienced discrimination or harassment: Under no circumstances do you have to put up with discrimination or harassment in the workplace. There are very specific laws in place to protect you. Your employer is under a legal obligation to protect you against discrimination because of several factors that are addressed by federal laws, such as those in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the book The Essential Guide to Handling Workplace Harassment & Discrimination, attorney Deborah C. England explained, “Harassment and discrimination are related but distinct concepts. An employer discriminates against an employee when it takes an action against the employee because of his or her membership in a protected group.” She continued, “Harassment is actually a type of discrimination, a particular way employers mistreat employees based on a protected trait.”

You need to take medical leave: In my experience, at some point in your work life, you’ll likely need to understand the family medical leave act, or FMLA. Almost everyone goes through the experiences of having an illness or having to care for a family member — and that is exactly what FMLA was enacted for. If you expect to be going through these situations, or similar medical situations, contact your HR department as early as possible. They’ll have paperwork for you to fill out and forms for you and your doctors to sign.

Taking care of these requirements ensures that you cannot be fired from your job because of medical problems and employment parameters that are recognized by the act. Your HR department will be able to help guide you through the process, but if you need to know more specific information, there are helpful online resources, such as the U.S. Department of Labor.

You witnessed wrongdoing: If at your place of employment you observe illegal happenings, such as chemical or mechanical hazards, you need to know that employers must abide by all applicable Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, as well as comply with the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act, “which requires employers to keep their workplace free of serious recognized hazards,” according to OSHA.

Depending on the violation, the complaint might be covered under OSHA statutes, and you don’t need to fear retaliation. The organization website also said that “employers may not discharge or otherwise retaliate against an employee because the employee has filed a complaint or exercised any other rights provided to employees by the statute.”

Your HR department might not be tasked with dealing with this type of reporting, but they will know who is, and they can direct you in regards to reporting procedures.

When is filing an HR complaint unnecessary?

If you’re wondering when it’s not appropriate to go to HR with a problem, it might help you to remember that though you’re not in elementary school anymore, some of the rules still apply. For example, if you tattled to your teacher because someone said they don’t like you, the teacher would have probably told you to work it out among yourselves. Believe it or not, the workplace is similar. If it’s something very minor, such as you not getting along with a peer, don’t take it to HR. If you want to complain because your boss gave you a negative review that was completely justified, find a solution yourself or with the help of a colleague. HR is not there to solve problems that you’ve caused or problems you can solve yourself.

HR plays a critical role in your company.

In my many years of working with companies of all sizes in many different sectors, a common theme I encounter is how to best resolve these many types of serious issues. My advice to senior management is to not treat the HR department as one that brings in no revenue.

Although they might be categorized as “overhead” on your expense spreadsheets, HR is an important and integral part of corporate compliance. You might be dismissive, but understand that you ignore their importance at your own company peril. Just ask any of your peers how much was paid out in harassment, discrimination and OSHA noncompliance judgments with regard to companies they have worked for in the past. My informed recommendation is to hire your HR representatives with care, and always treat them with respect.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

How To Prepare For Your Performance Review

Giving a thorough and fair performance appraisal requires a lot of skill and a fair amount of work by your manager. If you are an active participant in the process by providing your manager with accurate details of your accomplishments spanning the timeframe — a highlight reel as it were — you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.

As a leadership coach, I’ve developed a few tips for how you can prepare yourself for your next performance review:

Share accomplishments with your boss.

It’s important to remember that your supervisor or manager is likely as overwhelmed as you are. Time is a limited resource for all of us. Your bosses already have their deadlines and statistics to meet, so writing accurate and fair performance evaluations for your team is no easy feat. Because of this, don’t expect your manager to have noticed every single one of your many accomplishments.

In his book I Am Not Average: How to Succeed in Your Performance Review, Brian Poggi explained that in every organization, there are people who are the “glue.” They continue to raise the bar on their contributions and the value they bring. So use your annual review to brag on yourself. If you don’t, who will?

One of the kindest favors you can do for your supervisor (and ultimately for yourself) is to prepare an accurate and well-worded list of accomplishments for the past year and submit it on time or — better yet — early. Believe me, your conscientiousness and forethought will be recognized and very much appreciated. As a boss, there is almost nothing worse than trying to chase an employee down for their list of accomplishments. If they can’t be bothered, why should the boss care? The employees who will end up getting the most love (read: attention and care on their evaluation) are the ones who understand the priority of getting that annual accomplishment list turned in on time.

When you make this list, remember several important things:

• Bosses love numbers. Give accurate, quantitative information whenever possible.

• Review your job description. Give facts and figures to illustrate how you’ve met those requirements.

• Review last year’s review. How have you improved? How have you addressed any past issues?

In Inc., Jayson DeMers wrote, “Take inventory of all the accomplishments you’ve had over the past year (or the evaluation period) and list them out. Use objective data whenever possible — that means verifiable numbers.”

Although your boss might be constantly busy with the office door shut, take the time to check in regularly. Don’t make it long and tedious. Hit the highlights, ask the questions you need to ask (such as, “Am I headed in the right direction on the Crocker account?”), then get out of their way.

Address areas of concern.

The most uncomfortable part of any performance evaluation is usually regarding how you plan to rectify any deficiencies or concerns. It’s usually coupled with how you’ve improved from your last evaluation and how you’ve addressed any issues that were previously presented.

If you have any issues that you feel need to be addressed, bring them up, but be prepared to offer solutions. No one wants to hear about a bunch of problems in your working environment or your job when you don’t even have an idea of how to solve them. Don’t simply dump your problems on your manager.

Do your research before asking for a raise.

If you feel and can prove your service has been exceptional and you want to state your case for a raise, be sure you’ve researched current salaries for equivalent positions in your area. Without that information, you won’t have much traction.

Use your review as a guide for the rest of the year.

Ideally, you should start preparing for your next performance review only a few days after your previous one. Take some time to divorce yourself from any emotional connections to the evaluation. Re-read any documents you received in a quiet environment and consider the points that were made. Did your boss want you to step up more? Did they suggest you take the lead on an important project? Did they want you to stop turning in your reports late?

This is a perfect opportunity for your professional growth. Make notes, and put them in a coherent system — whether that system consists of notes on your calendar for the next year or is a cheat sheet you can glance at once a week. This system is your “study guide” for the next year. If you find yourself slipping back to your old ways, use your notes to snap your attention back to the matters you should be concentrating on. It’s your manager’s job to help your career growth. But if you ignore that advice, you’ll only have yourself to blame when the next mediocre review comes around.

When setting your goals for the next year, I’ve found it can be helpful to heed the advice of HBR’s Guide to Performance Management, which explained that people can sometimes become overwhelmed by complex goals. So, it can be helpful to break a large goal down into smaller, short-term pieces. According to the guide, “Setting monthly or quarterly goals, rather than annual ones, can narrow the focus enough to make the target achievable while still having a big impact.”

If your boss offers goals that are constructed in too big of a chunk, suggest a breakdown that is bite-sized.

In conclusion, if you want to advance in any organization, you’ll have to work for it. Take the time to put the effort into your performance review, and your dedication, attention to detail and desire to ascend in the organization will be readably apparent to your manager — perhaps distinguishing you as an up-and-comer.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes