Archive for the ‘Difficult People’ Category

Have You Ever Bullied Anyone?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Have You Bullied People?

Last week there were reports of bullying by our Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown. One report I heard was of a security guard being
bullied when the PM hit the back of his seat. I didn’t hear all the
details of this, but it sounded as though this was in a car.

I was called in to help an individual who had been bullying his
colleagues (including his manager) at a site in Europe. He had
thrown objects across the room during a meeting with a client and
‘had an argument with a door’ as my client put it. The door had,
apparently, come off worst.

When I met Tony (not his real name), he was about 6′ 4″ and looked

like a rugby player. I asked him about the client meeting. He
recounted the event giving very similar details to the ones I’d
already heard.

He was convinced he was right. Unfortunately he was going to be
fired if he didn’t change his ways.

As we talked it became clear he was unhappy and frightened. Over a
few sessions we worked together and he learned some more effective
ways to negotiate. I remember one day him asking me: ‘Nancy, why do
I make things that are so simple, so complicated?’

By the end of our work together he was so keen on what he had
learned that he asked me to come in and train the rest of his staff
on these techniques. I was delighted. But the most touching comment
of all was when he told me that, thanks to what he had learned, he
now had a really good relationship with his daughter.

Have You Ever Bullied Anyone?

I’m afraid any of us who answered this question with a ‘No’ would
be lying. Even the best of us did this at some time or other.
That’s because, when you are a baby, it’s the only way you have to
get what you want.

Babies don’t have the language skills we have as we grow older.
Mainly they can cry and bawl when they are unhappy and need
something, or look cute if they are happy. If you are a parent you
will know how much it means when your baby smiles at you.

So, unless you were never a baby, you will have bullied someone.
The thing is, it’s OK when you are a baby to behave like this.

It’s not OK when you are an adult.

So Why Does It Happen?

When you’re a baby your only negotiation skills involve crying and
smiling. As you get older your parents help you to learn better
negotiation skills. They remind you to say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’
(probably hundreds, if not thousands, of times).

You start to learn bartering skills. Your parents get you to think
about the needs and feelings of others:

‘How do you think Anne felt when you took her tractor without
asking?’

If you are lucky and your parents have good negotiation skills you
will see examples of excellent tools and strategies for difficult
situations.

If you are not lucky, your parents won’t have any negotiation
skills to speak of and you won’t have the opportunity to learn any.
So all you’ll have is bullying. That’s one way it happens.

Another way is when you are stressed and tired.

In these situations, the reasoning part of your brain, the
pre-frontal cortex (that eats up energy) does not have enough
energy to overrule other parts of your brain that just want you to
behave like a three-year-old. So that’s what you end up doing.

It’s compounded by the fact that, when you are feeling threatened,
stressed and tired, your ability to be aware of, and objective
about, your own behaviour is drastically reduced. (Sometimes to
about zero.)

As a consequence of this you think you are being quite reasonable.

What Can You Do?

People who bully others need help in learning how to negotiate
effectively. Just like Tony, they need to move on from their
childish fallback position of bullying people when they can’t have
what they want, to learning to negotiate properly.

They also need to learn to recognise the triggers; the situations
in which they are most likely to bully others. Once you are aware
of the triggers, you can be prepared and be ready to handle the
situations better.

Effective negotiation is about finding out what everyone’s needs
are and working out how they can be met. Bullying is about putting
your needs ahead of everyone else’s and not even considering their
needs.

Once Tony had learned how to negotiate properly he realised that
his life was much easier and nicer. There was no need for his
previous behaviour.

Having a ‘no tolerance’ policy on bullying is all very well, as
long as it’s backed up with the right kind of support for both the
individual being bullied and the one who is doing the bullying.

We can all learn how to stop bullying. It involves responding to
the bullying in a helpful way that doesn’t encourage bullying.
Unfortunately what many people do is respond in a way that makes it
worse, because they don’t know any other way.

Here’s one very simple thing to do if you are faced with someone
who shouts and bawls at you. I call it my ‘tantrum technique’. I
observed someone do this once and was so impressed I made notes and
honed it so I could pass it on to my clients.

Tantrum Technique

  1. Listen to what the person is saying. Do not interrupt, however
    tempting
  2. Summarise what they have said, using their name, language and
    intonation. This tells them you have really listened and you
    understand how bad things are:

    ‘So Tony, you are really upset because this report has not been finished yet and it’s causing your department severe problems.

  3. Wait for them to indicate if you have got it right or not. If
    not, don’t worry just go back to step 1 and repeat till you get a
    ‘yes’ at step 3.
  4. Ask them what they would like you to do about it. This sounds
    frightening because you imagine they will kinds of demands you
    can’t give them. Strangely this doesn’t happen. They generally
    don’t know what they want and you have taken the wind out of their
    sails.
  5. Wait for the response. When it comes, summarise it and let them
    know exactly what you can and can’t do, by when and (if
    appropriate) the cost.

One of my clients got £27,000 extra put onto their contract as a
result of using this technique with a very difficult client who was
as calm as a kitten by the end.

You may have to repeat a few of the steps again, but don’t worry,
just stick at it.

There are many other simple tools and techniques you can use in
these situations. If you would like to know more, see below.

Remember, there is ALWAYS something you can do in these situations.
You do not have to put up with this kind of treatment.

Please do pass this on to anyone you think might find it useful.

To find out more on how to deal with bullying at work, come to my
teleseminar at 11am on Thursday 11th March, UK time.

It’s just £25 including VAT. You can sign up using this link:

If you can’t join live on the day, you still get the recording and
all the materials.

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/teleseminars3.htm

(Edited by Caroline to correct formatting)

Posted in Bullies, Difficult People, Improving Performance, Management Skills | 4 Comments »

Dealing With Difficult Relatives at Christmas

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Back in 2003 I was interviewed for an article about dealing with difficult relatives at Christmas. I have been asked to re-publish that article, as it is nearly Christmas and some people found the advice handy.

Last week I ran a teleseminar on Feedback. One of the topics that came up from one of the participants was how to give feedback to a colleague who had bullied someone else in a meeting (of Directors) and was virtually boasting about it to others.

I have also had requests for help from people trying to deal with difficult behaviours at home. For all of you, here is the original article plus a few extra bits.

With Christmas Day falling on a Thursday this year, a leading behaviourist says the season of goodwill could actually become a battleground with families being packed together for up to four days.

Nancy Slessenger says, “Christmas is an artificial experience. It bears little resemblance to normal living. It is the one time of year when two or three generations can be packed in a house together. They start with good intentions, but tempers can flare, often sparked by trivial arguments.

“Instead of using the carving knife on the turkey, your thoughts turn to your husband – or his mother!”

But Nancy says there are ways of avoiding such extreme action and simple tricks to prevent family rows from becoming permanent rifts.

Nancy, author of ‘Understanding Misunderstandings’, says “We all know what it’s like to be frazzled in the kitchen when a family member, quite often an in-law, comes in and tells us how to cook the meal!

“Don’t shout. Ignore their advice but turn the tables by peppering them with questions such as – ‘So, what are your thoughts on stuffing? Home made or bought? And what do you cook the roast potatoes in, lard, goose fat, corn oil or duck fat? What do you think of Delia’s recipe? And do you still use Tupperware like the Queen?

“Pretty soon they’ll be sick of your questions and you won’t be bothered ever again.”

Nancy also has advice about handling the Christmas moaning Minnies.

“Don’t try and jolly them out of their misery – use the technique of being even more negative than they are!

“If they complain about the turkey say, ‘Yes, I agree it’s dreadful. We’ll all probably get food poisoning. Let’s throw it away and have some toast instead.’

“Or if they moan about their presents say, ‘Okay, we’ll take them to Oxfam next week if you don’t want to keep them.’

“Adopt this negative technique and they’ll soon stop moaning. If you try and be positive with them, you will make them even more negative.”

Some Additional Advice

That was the article, here’s an extra tip to keep you sane.

Bullies At Christmas

If you have relatives that tend to bully others, set clear boundaries. Be straight about the rules and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Bullies are people who are behaving like five-year-olds and need to be treated as such, till they learn how to behave like adults.

The reason they are bullying you is because you are treating them as though they are grown up and allowing them to behave badly.

What’s really sad is that they need love and attention but just don’t know how to get it. Everything they do means they get less love and attention, which paradoxically means they need more.

I spent five hours once coaching a man who terrified his work colleagues. He shouted at me and got very upset. After several hours he complained that ‘no one ever helped him with his problems’.

I asked him ‘I’ve been here since 9am, three hours ago. What do you think I’ve been trying to do?’ He looked at the floor. ‘After all the effort I’ve put in this morning, how do you think I felt when you said that nobody every helped you?’

His face went red and he looked at me and said ‘Sometimes I just need a hug.’ I was completely astonished and noticed that he was near to tears.

What To Say

Take the bully by the horns and be clear on what the boundaries are, just like you would with a five-year-old:

‘You can have your presents when you have finished clearing the table. Only people who help out get their presents.’

It will make your life a whole lot easier over the festive season.

To go with this blog there is s special offer, valid till 4th January 2010. This coupon gives you 25% off any of our products that help you to deal with ‘difficult people’. They are all on this page of our site:

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/difficultshop.htm


To get the discount, just put this into the box asking for the coupon code:  DIFFICULT RELATIVES

Then click the ‘apply’ button.

Let me know what you have to put up with at Christmas and please share your tips on how to do it.

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Are You Causing Your Employees Real Pain?

Monday, July 27th, 2009
Ellen, who I worked with years ago, spent many years caring for her father. She had a brother and sister who did not help at all and left all the work to her. She cooked meals for him every day and took them round to his house. She cleaned the house, she did his shopping and helped him in every way she could.

She never complained. She clearly loved her father greatly and saw herself as doing what any person would do.

Eventually her father died. She was very upset, but once again, set about organising everything while her siblings did nothing. The will was read and it turned out that he had left everything to her.

When she told me this I was pleased to hear it. I knew she hadn’t done it for the money, but it seemed fair to me that she should inherit what little he had left.

However, she didn’t think it was fair that her brother and sister should have nothing so, when the house was sold, for £8,700, (t was a long time ago) she split the proceeds equally between the three of them.

Then a letter arrived from the Inland Revenue (the tax people in the UK). They had assumed the house was worth £20,000 and she now had a bill of almost the entire sum she had originally received for the house.

Ellen was devastated. She contacted her brother and sister explaining the situation and asked for the money back. You won’t be surprised to learn that they did not return a single penny.

In the end she did manage to reach some kind of agreement with the Inland Revenue.

Beryl, who had known Ellen’s father, confided in me that he had deliberately left all the money to her because he knew what the others were like and felt she deserved it.

It’s So Unfair

I imagine most people on hearing about Ellen will immediately feel the pain of this woman and a sense of injustice at the unfairness of the situation.

Let’s take another situation

Gina had been working for her company for 14 years was suspended after an official complaint was made by a new employee about bullying and harassment.

Up till this point her record was regarded as excellent.

She was not allowed to contact people from her department and was ignored by other colleagues. This went on for months. Worse still she lived on the site so constantly saw people who ignored her.

Then there was a hearing. It was inconclusive. So the situation continued for a total of 18 months. I met her at this point. I remember her describing the pain of the situation she was in; ‘It’s like a knife in my heart.’

She was depressed and kept bursting into tears. She finally left.

Broken Leg

If you have ever broken a bone or had a serious injury, you’ll know that it really hurts.

What may surprise you is that the same part of your brain is responsible for the pain you feel in all three of these situations.

That part is the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. It is vital. If you remove this part of the brain in a mother rat then she will neglect her pups and most of them will die.

Reducing the Pain

Intriguingly, taking a pain-killer (like aspirin) will reduce the pain in all three situations (you may need something stronger for a broken leg).

Sticks and Stones

….May break my bones, but names will never hurt me. It seems this old piece of advice is completely untrue.

When people are in situations where they perceive they are unfairly treated, or ostracised  they feel real pain, just as bad as breaking a leg and will respond accordingly. It turns out that this kind of pain can take longer to heal than that from a physical cause.

Another True Story

I did some work for a brewery a long time ago. They no long exist as a company. They treated their employees incredibly badly. They had the most iniquitous bonus system I have ever seen. The lazy ‘fatcats’, who did nothing to add value, got huge percentages of vast undeserved salaries. Those who worked hard for very little, got virtually nothing.

They wanted me to design a way to present this scheme in order to (and I quote): ‘Make it look fair’. I interviewed one manager of 20 years standing. ‘We know this system stinks.’ He told me. ‘What I’d really like is someone just to say: ‘This is really unfair.’ Then I’d be happy.’

The Problem

We all find it far too easy to justify our own position and are much less able to see why others deserve something. Our cause (in our own eyes) is generally more just than theirs. This becomes truer the further we are distanced from others.

That’s how a person with an already huge salary ends up getting a 10% rise or gigantic bonus and someone on a small fraction of that salary ends up with a very small percentage of hardly anything.

It’s how companies implement expenses systems that the employees see as unfair.

It’s all too easy to implement systems that seem perfectly acceptable to you but seem completely unfair to others. Once people have been treated in this way, people then feel justified in treating you unfairly.

It’s The Same With Social Exclusion

Many people are finding that their jobs are being made redundant at the moment. One of the worst parts of this is the social exclusion. For many people redundancy can come across as a group of your friends rejecting you, and it causes real pain.

A Problem Shared

Apart from taking pain killers, social support is a good way of reducing the pain of these situations. Of course, as an employer it’s a good idea to think about things from as many perspectives as you can before implementing them and not letting yourself get too far removed from the people your decisions impact.

You can also do your best to ensure that people have a social support mechanism when they are in situations that are painful.

Get It Right In The First Place

The best solution is to make sure that you treat people fairly in the first place if at all possible, or at least be honest with them if you can’t do that.

This involves thinking carefully about who will be affected by your decisions and how they will look from their perspective. When we are under stress it’s very easy to ignore the feelings of others or overlook them. So make sure that you set aside time to consider those other perspective.

In our hurry to get things sorted it’s very easy to think that your own feelings are more important than than those of others. They aren’t.
Being aware that these mistakes are easy to make can reduce the chances of you making them. It’s easy to behave in thoughtless ways that have a bad impact for others when you are under stress – make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

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Is Dumbledore Really a Good Headmaster?

Monday, July 20th, 2009

This week I’d like to ask a question about a fictional character, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. These days he should probably be called the Head Teacher, but I’ve stuck to the title given to him by J K Rowling.

I love the Harry Potter books; I’ve read every one of them, listened to Stephen Fry reading them (possibly the best way to experience them in my view) and seen all the films.

They are also favourites of Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties here in the UK), who gave Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as her book of choice on Radio 4 because of her insights into police states.

Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore is often described as the best headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. So let’s look a bit more closely at what he achieved when measured against the responsibilities of any head teacher.

Responsibilities of the Head

The ultimate responsibility of a head teacher is the learning, development and safety of the students in their care.

Given the slightly unusual nature of the situation, the risks to life and limb for Hogwarts students seem to be higher than those in many other schools. I think we could say, initially at least, that Dumbledore has taken these seriously. Though his method for dealing with them is more to rely on the excellent ministrations of Madam Pomfrey than any weak-minded health and safety precautions.

In helping the students to be able to defend themselves against the unique dangers they face, I’m not sure we could agree that he has succeeded. In the crucial recruitment of a Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Dumbledore has singularly failed time and time again. Professor Quirrell, the first teacher Harry had in the subject, was under the control of Voldemort. Dumbledore was completely duped by Lockhart, a teacher entirely lacking in the magical or teaching skills required, though he did seem to have some interesting ideas about lessons.

In Professor Lupin we saw a man (or werewolf) who really knew his stuff and also how to teach. So this was a drastic improvement. He was unfortunately hounded out of his job due to blind prejudice from stupid parents.

We then see Professor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody take on the role. He seemed to be well qualified and his teaching skills seem to acceptable. However, we later discover that he is in no way who he pretends to be. Once again Dumledore has been duped.

We might ask why Professor Snape did not get the job in the first place. He clearly has the magical skills required, though his teaching skills and leaning towards favouritism need to be questioned.

It would probably be fair to say that Dumbledore had Professor Umbridge forced upon him so probably can’t be criticised too heavily in this case. Her focus on the theory with no practical application at all was nearly disastrous for those in her lessons.

In the areas of Divination and Care of Magical Creatures there are also serious shortcomings. Dumbledore recruits Professor Trelawney in case she makes another prophecy. Taking her on has nothing to do with her teaching skills (which are very poor).

Hagrid is certainly enthusiastic about his Magical creatures, but has no teaching skills. He is thrown into the job and tries hard but does not seem to be given any support in this new role.

What Does Dumbledore Do About It?

We don’t hear anything about his efforts to improve teaching and learning in the school, except for his constant efforts to replace the Defence Against The Dark Arts teachers. But this is only because they die, are irreparably damaged or forced to leave. He does not deliberately get rid of any of them.

He does not seem to use his skills (way above those of normal Head Teachers) to identify any shortcomings in his staff, nor give those teachers the benefit of his experience and skills.

He also seems to allow pupils to be given meaningless detention for trivial offences as though there is no clear policy on the matter. There is rampant bullying going on at Hogwarts. We get the impression that Dumbledore knows about this but seems to allow it to happen.

Standards

It is the responsibility of a senior manager like Dumbledore to set clear standards in all things including teaching, detention, discipline and behaviour.

Other Interests

We can, though, admit that Dumbledore has other things on his mind that are important; the vanquishing of Voldemort being of the highest priority.

A Very Important Question

As I ran a workshop last week (not for Hogwarts teachers) one of the participants said that she thought the reason that so many managers do not use the basic management skills they are taught (setting objectives, giving feedback and so on) is because there are no consequences if they don’t.

She is, as you will know, completely wrong and also, in a strange way, completely right.

The Consequences

The consequences of poor management are poor performance for the whole organisation. They are lost sales, redundancies and ultimately companies closing down. The trouble is that most managers don’t see any connection between these things and their own poor performance.

This is because no one makes it clear to them that they are responsible for what has gone wrong.

Back to Dumbledore

How many managers have put someone into a role that they have no training for without any support as Dumbledore did with Hagrid? How many have recruited people who have turned out to be all but useless like Lockhart? How many have allowed bullying to thrive in their departments and companies?

Many. And I suspect many haven’t thought the results were anything to do with them.

I suspect that very few have really thought about the long-term consequences for others of their errors and incompetence.

Responsibility and Seniority

It’s about time that people did have to take responsibility for their actions. The more senior you are, the more impact your actions and decisions have. But it often seems that the more senior you are the more you are cushioned from their impact. If things go wrong, you get a nice pay off (in the worst case) whilst others lose their jobs and yet others lose their savings and pensions.

At least we can say that Dumbledore did take responsibility. He did not sail away from Hogwarts with a golden handshake. He personally made the sacrifice. He also admitted to his mistakes and never lost touch with the consequences for others. Perhaps that’s why we like him.

Harry Potter

I think the reason I love the books so much is that the characters are so true to life, as are the situations, in a strange way. We have all seen people put into jobs they can’t do. We have all experienced unfair systems and seen managers do nothing about them or even be quite oblivious to them. We have also seen them make monumental mistakes and get away with it.

So we can understand how it feels and recognise the situations in the books.

Taking Responsibility

It’s time managers realised that they are responsible for the performance of the people in their departments and that un-tackled performance issues in any department are a performance issue for the manager of that department and should be treated as such.

Measuring Basic Performance Management by Senior Managers
In my view you need to ask people working for a senior manager these questions:

  • What are your objectives?
  • What are the performance standards?
  • What are your levels of performance so far this year?
  • What do you need to do differently in order to improve your performance?

If people in a manager’s department can answer these questions correctly, then we at least know that the foundations are there. If they can’t answer these simple questions then we need to find out why not and take action to improve the performance of the manager.

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Sir Alan or Sir Gerry?

Friday, July 10th, 2009

I recently watched Sir Gerry Robinson on TV looking at a couple of failing breweries to see if he was going to invest in either of them.

Ultimately he decided to invest in both.

During the whole program (next episode on C4 Thursday ‘Gerry’s Big Decision’ in the UK) I was once again impressed by his personal style.

It’s impossible not to compare him with Sir Alan Sugar, another Business TV personality.

Whilst I am generally appalled by Sir Alan’s behaviour (including implying that everyone lies on CVs and this is OK and suggesting that the same is true of expenses) I can’t help but like Sir Gerry’s approach.

The Breweries

One of these breweries was stunningly badly run if we are to believe what we were shown on TV. It was not the recession that was the problem it was sheer incompetent management. But what we saw from Sir Gerry was down to earth common sense, with compassion.

There was none of the bullying that seem to be the trademark behaviour of Sir Alan (described on the radio recently as a ‘cartoon manager’). It may be that this is just how is he portrayed for TV. I hope so.

I have not watched much of The Apprentice as I find the way people are manipulated to be quite offensive. And I am horrified to think that the fact this kind of behaviour is shown on TV may encourage some viewers to think it’s OK to behave like this.

Motivating

What I find with Sir Gerry is that I feel motivated when I watch him. He comes across as a nice person. I’m sure he has his faults, but you can’t help but think there’s a kind soul in there.

He also has a good business head. Of course I am biased because I am always impressed to see a person identify what they need to achieve and sort out their objectives (which he tends to do a lot).

He also seems to have effective ways of identifying people’s skills that don’t involve humiliating them.

Why Don’t We See More Of This?

I had lunch with a very interesting man a couple of weeks ago. He has emailed me a number of times, always with interesting points and questions, usually about this newsletter. So when I realised I’d be working close to where he works in the South West, I contacted him to see if he’d like to meet up.

As you will know, I think the ability to ask searching questions is very valuable. And he did ask some very good ones. I knew they were good because many of them were hard to answer, but seemed rather simple at first glance.

One of them was: ‘Why are there so few good managers?’ Apologies if I haven’t got the wording exactly right : )

My answer is that it’s a self-perpetuating situation. If you have never been managed by a good manager or never even seen one, how do you know what is good?

I liken it to buying a new dress (sorry chaps if this is boring for you). Today I was in Nottingham getting the tools for a really fun new exercise I’ve designed for a workshop on how to use your brain more effectively in decision-making. As I walked through the city centre I was forced to walk past one of my favourite clothes shops.

There was a sale on, so naturally I went in. I didn’t really need anything in particular, but there is a 50th birthday party of one of my oldest friends coming up so I had my eye out for something special.

I flicked through the clothes on the sale racks. Then I spotted a dress in olive green, very much my colour. It looked quite nice. I decided to try it on and it was amazing.

(For those of you who like details it was also reduced from £115 to £19! The shop is Jigsaw.)

The thing is, I didn’t know it was what I wanted (or needed) till I saw it.

My Old Friend Eric

One day I met up for a drink with my old colleague and engineer, called Eric. I asked him how he was getting on. He said that life was great because he had a fantastic boss. I was astonished.

I had to know what it was that made this man such a good manager. Eric, with a look of awe on his face, listed out his stunning qualities:
* He knows what I am doing and how I am getting on
* He helps me when I have problems
* He sets clear goals
* He has helped me create a really good development plan
* I get the idea he really cares about my career

None of this was rocket science. It was just that Eric had never encountered it before.

It’s Not Rocket Science

Being a good manager is not that hard, unless you don’t know what to do.

Sir Gerry

We need more examples like Sir Gerry so that people can see what effective management is all about and how to do it. Sir Gerry doesn’t make it look difficult or complicated and that’s because the basics aren’t.

My Old Maths Teacher

For a few years at school we had a wonderful maths teacher: Mike Bullen. He would never say he was good, (he is far too modest) but believe me, he was. One day, after we got some test results back, he was a little disappointed that some of us hadn’t done as well as we could have. People had made silly mistakes through carelessness, in spite of getting some of the really difficult questions right.

I remember him saying (slightly exasperated): ’If you could just get the easy questions right, you’d all be OK.’

I have found that advice to be amongst the most valuable I have ever been given so pass it on to you. I hope you find it helpful. If we all did more of this I suspect there would be lot more ‘Sir Gerry’s around to set a good example that others could learn from.

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If there was bullying here, I’d know

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Do you have problems like this in your organisation? Why do you think they happen? I would be really interested to read your comments.

The bus bringing my daughter home was half an hour late on Wednesday. As a consequence I ended up talking with one of the other mothers with whom I am normally just on nodding terms.

We chatted for a while about the school both our daughters used to go to. I said that I had been keen for my daughter to leave as soon as possible because I was not wholly happy with the Head Teacher. She looked very surprised and then in hushed tones, admitted that she thought him to be a ‘Tony Blair’ type who was smooth and a good talker but did nothing to resolve serious problems.

I had to laugh. This was because when I first encountered him I described him in exactly the same way to my husband. Even going so far as to say he was ‘like Tony Blair.’

Bullying

She went on to recount a meeting she had had with him to express her concern about bullying.

He adjusted his glasses so he could see her directly over them and said, in patronising tones: “There is no bullying here. If there was bullying here, I’d know.”

This was the same response I had from an HR director on a workshop who had been in her company for 20 years. She said the workshop was irrelevant to her because there was no bullying in her company.

She left early. The woman who had organised the workshop came up to me and apologised. She said she’d worked at that company as a consultant for many years and there was a massive bullying problem.

Why Didn’t They Know?

In an effort to be fair to the Head Teacher and the HR Director, I must point out that it can be hard to spot bullying, especially if you don’t know what you are looking for.

Lack of Awareness

I was working with a group recently running a workshop on recruitment. We very quickly identified the cause of their biggest problem in recruiting.

(Now I know recruitment may be the last thing on your mind at the moment, but I’m telling you this so that you know that not every corner of the economy is writhing in agony. Some of our clients are actually recruiting.)

Allow me to describe the process they use. Let’s see if you can spot what’s wrong.

1 The manager identifies that they need to recruit
2 They write out the job description
3 They compose the person specification, based on the job description
4 They write an advertisement
5 The HR department arranges for the advertisement to be posted
6 The applications come in
7 The manager shortlists the candidate
8 About 6 – 8 weeks later the HR department sends out a letter, only to the successful candidates, letting them know they have an interview either the next day or in the next couple of days
9 They hold the interviews on the arranged day, but only 10% of the candidates turn up and often not one of these is a suitable candidate.

Did you spot the problem? I expect you did. It’s the 6 – 8 week gap before sending out the interview offer letters.

I must admit I was horrified at this. To give people just one day’s notice of an interview after making them wait two months to learn if they have an interview is pretty bad. Not letting people know they have been unsuccessful is, to me, a lack of courtesy.

Also, I imagine most of the skilled candidates will have, by this time, been for interviews with other organisations and probably accepted offers from them.

The Costs

As part of the workshop last week we spent some time working out the cost of recruiting a new person. This assumed the person was a good fit for the role. The cost (when you add in the time of all those concerned, advertising and so on) can easily be between £10,000 and £20,000.

The cost of recruiting someone not suitable for the role is much, much higher. That’s what we are often tempted to do when faced with just a limited number of candidates and we are desperate.

So the cost of this one small problem with the process is massive.

It’s hard to put the cost of bullying in terms of money, but we have. Just one person bullying his team and colleagues cost one organisation (a hospital) £2.6m over five years. This included the cost of constant recruitment to replace people who had left as a result of this individual’s behaviour and the cost of using agency staff (double the normal employment cost) because recruitment proved more and more difficult as the individual became notorious.

How Can People Be So Blind?

Here are some of the reasons:
1 The person responsible for the offending part of the process has no idea of the cost of their inefficiency. They’re not doing it on purpose; they just don’t know that it’s a problem.

2 It may be that the process was fine when it was originally implemented, but over the years it has slipped and the people who knew what they were doing have been replaced. And no one has checked that it’s still working.

3 No one has told them there’s a problem.

4 They don’t listen because they are so convinced that their system (or school) is perfect that they can’t conceive of the situation being any different.

We Are All Guilty

I think this last reason is the root of it in many problems. And the worst thing is that we are all guilty of it. We just don’t want to believe there’s a problem or it has simply never occurred to us that there could be one. Even when faced with evidence, we deny it.

In the case of the bullying I suspect that even if the Head or HR Director ever asked people about bullying they asked people who didn’t want to tell them the truth for various reasons or were doing the bullying themselves. So as far as they were aware, there wasn’t a problem.

In the case of the recruitment process, I think that department is completely unaware of its responsibilities and defends its processes rather than investigating and improving them.

Responsibilities

When you are in charge of an organisation, department or process it is your responsibility to set up reliable independent checking processes to ensure that the service you are responsible for is performing as it should. It is not acceptable to wait till people complain about it or problems crop up.

Of course you can’t have a way of checking absolutely everything, but you should be checking the most important things.

The Easy Way

Here, at Vinehouse, we believe in doing things the easy way, wherever possible. So here’s what we suggest: Ask your customers (internal as well as external) what’s important to them about what you do. Then just ask them how they would know you were doing a good job.

Then set up systems to measure whatever they say is important. It’s not rocket science, but it could lead to drastic improvements in the performance of your organisation and some huge cost savings, if everyone just asked these simple questions.

Posted in Bullies, Feedback, Improving Performance | 3 Comments »

When People Won’t Do What You Want

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Every now and then I have a week where the same topic keeps coming up. It happened this week.

Several clients had problems getting people who worked for them to do their jobs. They were all slightly different situations, but the root was the same.

Misunderstandings

Sometimes it’s just a simple misunderstanding. You ask someone to do something (or you think you have) and then it doesn’t get done, or, somehow, it seems to still be on your plate.

I’m not talking about these one-off events, They are pretty simple to resolve. You just go back to the person, check what their understanding is, apologise for not explaining clearly and then explain what you really meant.

Today I want to talk about the long-term ones.

The Architect Of Your Own Downfall

I run lots of workshops on Performance Management. To me, there is nothing magic about managing performance. My job is to give you the straightforward, easy techniques that will enable you to get things done, and help you to make sure that your people can do their jobs well.

Most of us, at some time or other, do the complete reverse and put barriers in the way of our team members.

One of the worst cases I ever came across was Ricky (not his real name). He came on a workshop a while back. He complained at length about his staff. There were about 20 of these lazy spongers who felt it was their right to get paid, be developed and generally do things they enjoyed.

Their poor manager was at their beck and call, working for most of his waking hours, hardly paying himself anything and at the mercy of all their whims.

Hang On A Minute

Who started this company? Who had hired these people? Who had made the rules? Who had led them to believe that they had these ‘rights’?

Yes, it was Ricky himself. He had engineered the entire situation. I can still see his face as this hit him with all the gentleness of a brick.

The trouble was he thought all you had to do was to be nice to people and if you did that they would somehow magically know what they needed to do and automatically do a great job.

Another Example

I was working with a group who kept telling me they had a lot of performance issues with members of their teams. As we investigated, it transpired that hardly any of these people had been given any objectives, job descriptions or idea what they were supposed to be doing.

I think they could have managed without those if someone had just sat down with each new employee when they started and explained what was expected of them.

One Last Example

One of my greatest triumphs was reducing the turnover in a company to just 25%. You may be horrified at this (an acceptable rate is usually regarded to be 2-5% in normal times). So 25 people out of every hundred at that company left every year.

Before I did anything, it was 100%! Yes, everyone left every year (on average).

What’s the answer?

In the last case, all I did was implement a simple induction programme. People were welcomed in to the organisation, assigned a ‘buddy’, given some literature about the company, shown where the canteen was and so on.

Most importantly, their manager sat down with them and explained to them what they were responsible for, what was expected of them and how that would be measured.

Dealing With Problems

What if you are in the same situation as Ricky was? The good news is that you can resolve it. Ricky did and is a lot happier.

You need to sit down with people and go through what their responsibilities are. You can do this in various ways
1. Go through their job description, if you have one
2. Ask them what they think your responsibilities are (pay them on time, give them training, materials etc) then ask them what they think their responsibilities are (do the work, come in on time etc)
3. Go through specific projects and ask them what their plan is and what they personally are doing or need to do to complete each one
4. Ask them how they think their performance is measured
5. Get the whole team together, identify what needs to be achieved (your objectives) and who is responsible for each part of that. Then focus on what that means to each individual.

Standards

Whatever you do, you need to have agreed standards and expectations. So often people think that it’s just ‘obvious’. They think that because they are just hiring a waitress, she will automatically know what to do because she was a waitress somewhere before.

This will be true to a certain extent, but your organisation is bound to be different in some way. And it’s the same with any job.

Anne

I remember a woman who worked for me many years ago. She decided it was time for her to move on, so got another job and left. We were sorry to see her go. She was a skilled assembly worker and well liked.

Two days later she turned up and came to see me. She was in tears. She had started her new job and no one had spoken to her. She had gone to the canteen at lunch time and got her food and sat at a table all on her own. Then another woman turned up and greeted her: ‘Oy, that’s my seat.’

She begged me to take her back, which I did.

The Sad Truth

This was an employee who was a hard-working individual with high standards and her new employer had wasted all that effort and expense in recruiting her because they fell at the last fence. It wasn’t just the poor behaviour at lunch time, it was not being told what she was there for and what she needed to achieve.

Why is it so many people shy away from making these things clear? It seems some people are just too embarrassed to talk about it because ‘it goes without saying’. I’m saying it doesn’t.

Just Do It

My advice to you is to get these things clear at as early a stage as you possibly can. If you have the slightest impression that they are not clear, clarify them immediately. It saves so much trouble later on.

Good luck.

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The Surprising Effects of Rudeness

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

‘Manners Maketh Man’

I was often told this by my grandmother. It seems manners do a lot more than that – or rather the lack of them is worse than you may have thought.

Here’s a study on the topic that may interest you by Dr Amir Erez at the University of Florida

He and his colleagues tested the impact of three scenarios involving rude behaviour on a series of tasks measuring creativity and memory skills. Their guinea pigs were 275 students enrolled in management classes at UF and the University of Southern California.

In one test a stooge student arrived late to an experiment. After the student had apologised, explaining another class had finished late, one group of students then witnessed the experimenter rudely criticise the student and say he was unprofessional. The control group just saw the student being told he was too late to take part and being dismissed.

A second set of students was sent to a room where they were expecting to take part in a test. A small sign that was deliberately easy to miss was posted on the door redirecting them to another room.

Some of the students were politely redirected by the person in the room. The others were told: “Can’t you read? There is a sign on the door that tells you the experiment will be in (another room). But you didn’t even bother to look at the door, did you? Instead, you preferred to disturb me and ask for directions when you can clearly see that I am busy. I am not a secretary here, I am a busy professor.”

In the last study the students were told just to imagine themselves in one of these situations.

The Impact

Compared to the control group, the students who were treated rudely, or even imagined they had been, had reduced problem-solving skills, helpfulness and levels of creativity.

Why Does This Happen?

Amir Erez, who carried out these studies, says it’s because your thinking skills are impaired, even when they are just witnessing the event. Even imagining it reduced performance and the willingness to be a team player.

“In all three studies, we found that relatively minor incidents of being rude to people influences their functioning. It influences their performance on creative tasks, and on complex tasks. It influences helpfulness and it was consistent across the three studies” he said.

Can It Really Be That Bad?

Yes. The reason for this is that just minor levels of stress have a big impact on how your brain works. It all goes back to what happens in your brain when you perceive a threat. Parts of your brain get shut down. This literally makes it harder for you to use your normal range of thinking skills.

The Link Between Emotions and Thinking

There is good reason for this. Emotions are in part there to tell you where to direct your attention and energy. If you feel threatened then your energy and attention need to be directed to reduce the threat. Not much is left for being creative, helping others or problem-solving.

Your Best Teacher

Remember when you were a student or at school? Who was the teacher you liked the most? What did you like about that person?

I’ve asked this question many times. Think of your own answer before reading on.

Most people will give a description talking about what the teacher was like: ‘Good fun’ ‘Enthusiastic’ ‘He made me feel excited about the subject.’ Or ‘We were always relaxed with him.’ Or ‘She made the subject really interesting.’

They will describe their feelings. Very few ever say ‘He had a really good way of explaining quadratic equations.’

Now think of your worst teacher. What did you dislike about him or her? Often people will tell me the lessons were ‘boring’. Or ‘He really frightened us.’

What’s Going On Here?

An often neglected skill of teachers is that of eliciting emotions. In other words, getting people into the right emotion to learn. Astonishingly, this has a greater impact than their knowledge of the subject.

You will know this if you have had a teacher who knew their subject inside out but was still boring. (I remember a few of those myself.)

‘Boring’ is the emotion that tells you that the task you are involved in is of no use to you and not worth putting energy into. That’s why it’s so hard to concentrate on something you find boring.

Your brain is telling you not to.

‘Interesting’ is the emotion that tells you it’s worth paying attention and expending energy on this topic.

It’s The Same With Managers

Managers need the skill to elicit the right emotions from their team so that the job gets done and people are able to use their brains most effectively.

It turns out that being rude or even allowing rudeness in their team is completely counter-productive.

I suspect very few are aware of just how damaging this behaviour can be. Well, let’s hope they are unaware of it – I’d hate to think managers were deliberately going round reducing the performance of their teams.

What Can You Do?

Have clear standards. Many organisations have values or capabilities or competencies and behaviours. Unfortunately they are often vague, woolly and open to interpretation. For example: ‘Act with respect towards your colleagues.’

You need to make sure that these are written down so that everyone can understand them and knows what they need to do in order to meet them.

People also need to know what to do if someone is not meeting the standards.

You need to help those whose behaviour is below the required standard.
First, be aware that people who behave like this are generally as unaware of their behaviour as they are of the impact of it. They will need some coaching or training. Often, just bringing it to people’s attention is enough, but other times people need more support.

Most importantly, those at the top need to set the bar. They need to lead by example in any situation.

It Can Be Tough

Yes, this can be very difficult, but just think of the benefits: increased creativity, problem-solving skills and teamwork. Who would say ‘No’ to that at the moment?

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Posted in Bullies, Improving Performance, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »