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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 »

What’s Your Top Priority?

Monday, February 15th, 2010

It is a truth universally acknowledged that many people who need to improve their time management skills don’t have enough time to do it (and consequently don’t come on time management courses).

It’s an indicator of the failure of one of the most essential time management skills – that of the ability to prioritise (or prioritize if you are in the US).

Why does this happen? Why are so many people so bad at this?

An Example

I was once coaching a client who was in a really serious depression. I asked him what he wanted.

He described his life. It was ghastly as far as he could see. He was sharing a house with his ex-girlfriend. They could not sell the house and spent many hapless hours trying to get it into a state that was saleable.

So he was unhappy at home. He hated his current work project, he hated his manager and he saw no prospect of improvement. After listening to a stream of depressing examples for nearly an hour I said: ‘You’ve told me all things you don’t want. Now tell me what you do want.’

He paused and took a deep breath. Then he looked wistfully into the distance and told me:

‘All I want is to be able to go home in the evening, sit in my comfy armchair with a glass of wine, put some good music on the stereo, and enjoy reading a good book.’

It’s not much to ask, is it? But as I pointed out to him, he’d had 42 years to arrange it. So what had he been doing all that time?

How It Happens

We very easily get distracted from what we really want (often nothing more than a good book and a glass of wine) by lots of other ‘important’ things.

A friend of mine who I saw last week in the US sent me an email:

“The more time that goes by the more I’m seeing “objectives” as absolutely central to everything, upon everything, that I do.”

I’m not talking here about all those work objectives that come down from on high. I’m talking about those little things that you would like for yourself. That quiet evening reading, or that new hedge-trimmer. It’s easy to forget that the reason we do all the work, earn all the money and put in all that effort is often so we can have those little moments of enjoyment.

Prioritisation

This is all about deciding what you do next and when you do all the other tasks that have mounted up on your desk and in your inbox.

How To Prioritise

Before you can prioritise you need to identify what it is you want to achieve (your objectives). Hence the quote from my friend. Once you have done this, you are part way there. But there’s something else you must do first.

Criteria

Prioritisation is about having clear criteria for what you do and what you don’t do. The trouble is that the criteria change as time goes on, and that’s where most people fall down.

When you were at school (if you can remember that far back) you were more than likely able to do just about every task that came your way.

This probably included homework, sports activities, chores around the house and your social activities.

It may be you then went to college. The same was probably true. However, as soon as you got to the situation where you had more to do than time available, you had to decide which things you were going to do and which you weren’t.

Falling Off The Edge

If you don’t make a conscious decision about these things then some stuff just drops off the edge in a completely random way (for example: your mum’s birthday present, the assignment you were supposed to finish, cleaning your room and so on).

However, if you have clear criteria, you end up getting the important things done and lose the less important ones by choice, rather than accident.

Criteria

Criteria are just sieves that you put everything through so you can see what’s left. For example you might, if you were a very diligent student, decide that your top priority was things that would help you get your qualification.

So before doing anything you would ask yourself ‘Is doing this going to help me get my degree/certificate/grade 7? If the answer is ‘yes’ you do it. If not, you don’t.

Where It Gets Hard

That’s easy as far as it goes. The trouble is that as our lives go on, circumstances change. This happens especially in our working lives as we move to different jobs. Usually the next job is more complicated/senior than the last. This means it encompasses more stuff.

As a result of this, you need to change your criteria every time you change job, or your job changes so that you can get everything done and you are not swamped.

An Example

If you started as an HR admin person, you might read every letter or email that came in. You might handle every enquiry of a specific kind personally.

If you were promoted, you might no longer read all the letters, just ones from people complaining about something. You might just answer these personally, and delegate the others to an assistant.

A further promotion might mean you were responsible for a large budget and several staff as well as policy issues. At this stage you would need to have very clear criteria for which issues you got personally involved in, otherwise you would be overwhelmed.

Letting Go

People often see this as letting go or losing something. But they forget that they have taken on lots of other things and, in order to cope, must re-prioritise.

When Did You Last Reprioritise?

I recommend that everyone should at least check their criteria for prioritisation at least every six months. It doesn’t matter if you think they need to stay the same. It’s just a few minutes work. But I think you’ll find you do need to update – let me know if I’m wrong.

The Book, The Wine, The Music and the Comfy Chair

You’ll be pleased to learn that my client did successfully reprioritise his life and is now extremely happily married with a son. He sometimes even gets to read a book (well, he did before his son was born).

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Don’t forget to sign up for my Time Management Teleseminar

Tuesday 25th February, just £25 including VAT

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

You will discover

  • The two main things you can do to give yourself more time
  • How to deal with interruptions
  • How to say ‘no’
  • How to plan more effectively

And much more

If you don’t find it useful – you get your money back.

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Posted in Improving Performance, Management Skills, Objectives, Time Management | Comments Off

Problem With The In-Laws

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

To book your place on our next teleseminar,

Dealing With Difficult People, on 10th February

use this link.

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

You’ll find out how to deal with a whole range difficult people including?

negative people,

bullies,

nit-pickers,

thick-skinned insensitive people

and much more.

To get your discount for several teleseminars use this coupon code JAN19TELE

It’s valid till the end of January.

This week’s issue:

Problem With The In-Laws

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To add your comments and discuss the ideas in this email please go to my blog:

Last week I told you about a harrowing problem from a fellow reader. This week I have another one for you, not quite as harrowing, but still a problem for the lady concerned and rather embarrassing for me….

The Problem

We’ll call our correspondent Janet for the sake of anonymity.

Janet has a grandson. Quite understandably, she loves to go and look after her grandson and baby-sit for her daughter-in-law.

Though at first she got on extremely well with Sandra, her daughter-in-law, after a while relations became strained and she asked me for advice on how things could be resolved.

I asked what happened. (As usual I have changed a few of the details to keep it anonymous.)

The Incident

She went over to babysit and noticed that the washing had piled up rather so, as she was there anyway, she put a load of washing in. By the time Janet was home it was all done, ironed and put away.

Janet went berserk. She was insulted, furious and told her mother-in-law to mind her own business and only do the things she was asked to do.

There was a terrible phone call when Janet demanded to speak to Sandra’s husband. He went round to see if he could sort the problem out.

He failed.

There was a lot more to it than what I’ve put here, but I expect you get the picture.

How Embarrassing

As I read the email, I started to cringe. I remembered when my own mother-in-law had come to stay for the first time.

I was out for the day and when I came home things were different. Everything, including our bed and my underwear, had been ironed.

Things had been put away. I didn’t know where. Stuff had been made for tea. I could go on.

I felt insulted. Didn’t she think I could run my own house? I had lived on my own for over ten years, I knew what I was doing. And I never iron my knickers.

So I asked her not to do anything and just have a rest while she was here.

The Need To Be Useful

But the trouble was, she wasn’t happy. She felt useless because she wasn’t able to contribute. That hadn’t really occurred to me. So now I save up the jobs for her.

We have come to an understanding. She doesn’t do all those things round the house (particularly ironing the bed – it looked like a billiard table) or iron my knickers.

Instead, she does things that really help. I save up the ironing and, on Christmas day this year I had all the vegetables ready for her to peel and chop that morning. She always wakes up early on Christmas day so was delighted to have something to do. I was delighted not to have to do the sprouts.

This works really well for both of us (and no, I’m not renting her out, so don’t bother to ask).

Oh No! Am I Turning Into My Mother-in-Law?

Then something happened. I was watching one of my favourite sit-coms: The Big Bang Theory. Anyone who studied physics (or indeed any science subject) will probably like this reminder of their old socially incapable friends.

This episode featured one of the main characters, Sheldon, doing his laundry. He had a strange device for folding his clothes. He put them onto this piece of equipment that looked like several floor tiles loosely linked, and hey presto – they all came out folded the same size and looking like something out of Benetton.

I had to have one. (If you want one they are called Star Folders and you can find them on the web. I highly recommend them…) Now I can’t bear it if the towels and sheets in the linen cupboard aren’t correctly folded and filed. I’m hoping I’ll be able to resist the urge if my own daughter ever gets married…

Are You Denying Someone The Chance To Help?

I urge you to check if you are keeping everything to yourself and not letting others contribute somewhere in your life (work or home). Just yesterday I heard a doctor talking on the radio about out of hours services.

His point was that the government had dictated what those services should be and when they should be available. But these regulations did not suit all his patients, so he had developed a service that did suit his patients but did not comply with the government guidelines.

‘Why didn’t they involve us when they designed this system?’ He asked. Make sure you are involving the right people and remember to share the load.

Posted in Communication, Improving Performance, Management Skills | Comments Off

Doing the Right Thing

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

In case you are interested, our next teleseminar is on 10th Feb on Dealing With Difficult People.

I’ll be covering a whole range of really simple easy things you can do with

  • negative people,
  • bullies,
  • nit-pickers,
  • thick-skinned insensitive people

and much more.  To book your place on this or any of our teleseminars use this link:

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

To get your discount for several teleseminars use this coupon code JAN19TELE

It’s valid till the end of January.

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To add your comments and discuss the ideas in this email please go to my blog:

A few weeks ago I received a harrowing email from a Grapevine reader that completely grabbed my attention. I have made a few changes to keep the identity private.

A Really Difficult Problem

“I was hoping to seek your expert advice on a matter that has been bothering us. I manage an office of 10. One of my subordinates (an efficient worker) was recently diagnosed with a deadly disease. In my country the disease is much feared. None of my staff have a clue about it.

We are in a fix as to how to handle the situation. We can’t allow the person to continue without letting the other staff know about the condition, as the disease is feared to spread. We can’t even ask the person to leave, the employee is the only bread winner. My heart goes out to the person. We are based in XXXX, where lawsuits aren’t really a problem, so that is not what we are scared of. Can you help!”

Fortunately most of us will never be faced with such a dreadful dilemma. I spent a long time thinking about what to do and how I could possibly help this person.

I knew what I thought he should do: help the colleague as much as possible and educate his other colleagues. But I was also aware that it is very easy to give this advice from my safe little study where I do not have to deal with the cultural issues (which can be very hard).

What also preyed on my mind was the death, about 15 years ago, of a very dear friend of mine, from what I suspect was the same disease. Because of the stupid social prejudices of the time, our friend didn’t tell us he was dying, so we didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

Whilst I know he got the best medical treatment that was available at the time, I still deeply regret that circumstances meant he couldn’t tell us.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that our correspondent was likely to be a kind, caring person. Otherwise he would have simply fired the individual concerned. Perhaps even more importantly, I wanted his colleague and family to get the support they need.

So I cast about for examples of situations where people had done the right thing even though it was hard for them.

An Example

My mother’s mother, when advanced in years (certainly drawing her pension), was walking down the High Street one day and saw a ‘yob’ beating up a young Indian chap. She rushed up to him, brandishing her umbrella and shouted: ‘Put him down!’.

The ‘yob’ dropped his victim in surprise. They both stared at my grandmother. ‘Well run, you fool!’ She shouted, more on-the-ball than these men about a quarter of her age.

Over the years, I remember many occasions when my father made it quite clear to me that standing up for what was right was the correct course of action and nothing else was acceptable.

I knew he was right and that I had to give this advice, but had a concern that it would appear easy for me sitting in my comfortable office not having to live with the consequences. I sent some examples from my grandparents and from my father in the hope this would give our dear correspondent the support he needed.

A Week of Silence

I heard nothing for seven days. It was a long and worrying wait. Even though we had only exchanged a few emails I felt that this person was a friend in great need and I was really worried, for him and for his colleague. I wondered if I had gone too far and offended him.

Then, on 22nd Dec I had a really bad day. My mother-in-law was staying with us and she had not put the top on some soup properly so, when I reached for it, I spilled it all over my brand new fridge. I then had to spend half an hour cleaning it all out. As a consequence of rushing to leave I forgot two parcels I needed to post.

We left late. Then we got stuck in bad traffic. Then my mother-in-law decided that she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to go out for lunch as we had planned. Then she changed her mind again. So I ended up missing my lunch (a nightmare scenario for me.)

When I got home I hastily wrapped the parcels I had forgotten from earlier and rushed to the post office to find it closed. I called Charlie to get directions to another, but the directions were wrong. Eventually I finally found one that was open, just in time to see the postman leaving. So I had missed the post. I felt very annoyed.

As I stood grumbling to myself in the queue waiting for a woman who took a full 10 minutes, I absent-mindedly checked my emails and saw one from my dear friend. Here it is:

The Rersponse

“Dear Nancy,

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate, you taking out so much time in writing back. Especially to someone whom you hardly know! The Lord has surely blessed you with a very kind and patient heart.

Thank you a million for the words of encouragement and wisdom. I must apologize for not having responded to you any earlier. But I surely spent the week working out and deliver what I now firmly believe is the right way to handle this situation. I actually took the liberty of sharing extracts from your mail with the other decision makers here. In a gist here is what we decided & actioned:

1. The Colleague can continue to work with us as long as possible

2. The rest of the staff were apprised about the situation and also educated

3. Their support was sought in ensuring that the disease or the matter be never discussed with the colleague, and every attempt be made to make the colleague feel comfortable.

4. Also take certain educational sessions on necessary precautions that need to be taken compulsorily

5. Provide all the necessary medical reimbursements to handle the course of the medication

6. All informed were sworn into maintaining absolute privacy about the matter. Its not to be discussed for any reason whatsoever”

The Best Christmas Present

I can’t tell you how happy I was to get that email. To know that someone had taken the  challenging but right path, in spite of the personal difficulties for him was truly inspiring. That’s why I’m sharing it with you.

I hope you don’t ever have to deal with anything like this, but we do all have smaller situations when we have the opportunity to do something to make others’ lives better, even though there is a cost to us (financial or otherwise).

Bullying

Recently I’ve been helping someone deal with being bullied his their manager. Happily he was able to get a transfer to another department. The question was, should he do something about the way the manager behaved (it was pretty bad) to try to reduce the chances of it happening to someone else?

And if so, what?

He just wanted to get away from the situation and leave it behind him, which is understandable, but in this case that means it is almost certain someone else will run into the same problem (we already know who that will be).

Do You Have An Opportunity?

What can you do to right a wrong? If we all did this on behalf of our fellow creatures, I suspect there would be fewer injustices in the world and perhaps more happiness.

Have a go.

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Posted in Communication, Improving Performance, Management Skills | 1 Comment »

The Easy Things

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

New Teleseminars

Today we launch our new series of teleseminars on many different topics.(You just need a phone, no special equipment to join the teleseminar.) We’re giving discounts to you if you buy places on 4 or more, and if you book places for more than one person in your organisation.

As always you get a full set of notes, a transcript and a recording of the teleseminar (as soon as they are available).

The topics include

  • Bullying
  • Objectives and Appraisals
  • Dealing with Difficult People
  • Time Management
  • Creating Tenders
  • How to Deal With a Difficult Manager
  • How to Create Effective Powerpoint Presentations
  • How to Improve Your Memory

See them here:

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

To get your discount use this coupon code JAN19TELE

Remember, just like any other product, these teleseminars are covered by our full money back guarantee: If you are not happy with the material, the teleseminar or any aspect, we will give you a full refund.

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The Easy Things

I expect many of you will have really useful ideas on this topic that we can all share. Please add them by going to:

Just before Christmas I went to see my old friend Lindsey. It’s always a great conversation and I come away with lots of useful ideas and tips. This time was no exception.

Lindsey said she had decided that it was time to go through the house with a paper and pencil drawing up a list of the really simple, easy and cheap things she could do to improve it.

The Impact

As a result of this list and her actions she has saved between 25 and 35% of her heating bill.

The List

The simple things included:

  • Updating the draft exclusion,
  • Double-glazing one last window (a beautiful stained glass round window in the hall)
  • Adding more lagging to the hot water tank
  • Buying a water-reducing head for the shower

I was inspired and went directly to Wicks (a hardware store) to get an extra jacket for our hot water tank.

We have a solar panel on our roof and, as a result, a control panel that gives us the temperature of the hot water tank at any time of the day or night. I noticed an immediate improvement in the water temperature. It was up by between 4 and 5 degrees, and, not altogether surprisingly, kept up its temperature overnight much better.

As we have a very large tank, we had only been able to cover the top of it with the jacket I had bought, so we got a second one for the lower half and now it’s even better. I wish we’d done it years ago.

I checked a couple of web sites and they estimate the annual savings could be around £35 with an additional £10 for lagging the pipes. The jacket I bought was under £10.

My husband decided to sort out the drafts in the kitchen and I also invested in a radiator fan that sits on top of the radiator and makes sure the hot air comes into the room, rather than heating the wall.

Then we finally finished putting reflectors behind the radiators. This was a job we had started about 15 years ago when we had the heating installed. We had done all the radiators on the outside walls, but not the others.

All very easy stuff and really cheap.

Some Simple Things

So I started wondering what I could do at work along the same lines. Not surprisingly there were quite a few silly things I had just not got round to.

The Drawer

I have a handy drawer in my desk full of address labels, stamps and other postage things. I’ve it this way ever since I got the desk, when I was self-employed. But since then I have started the company and I now hardly ever send out any mail myself.

But there are lots of other things that I do do. So I took out all the postage stuff and put it somewhere else. I replaced it with equipment I use every day, including a stick of lip salve and some emergency chocolate. It sounds so simple, but what a difference it has made. (It has reduced the amount of exercise I get though.)

The Books

Spurred on, I went for the bookshelves. In my work I collect masses of books. Often things are recommended or it may be I am researching a new topic. But whatever it is I end up with lots of them.

The quality varies from the ones I would recommend to virtually anyone to the ones I would consider I’d get more value from if I lit the fire with them.

So I pulled down all in the latter category and put them in a pile ready for the charity shop, in the hope that someone else will find them useful. Suddenly there was a lot more space so I was able to tidy up a few other areas.

My Suggestion

Instead of making life really hard, what are the really easy things you could do to make it a bit better? Do let me know so we can all benefit.

Don’t forget to check out our new series of teleseminars:

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

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Posted in Admin, Improving Performance, Management Skills | 2 Comments »

Sir Gerry Does It Again

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Last week I watched the first part of another series by Sir Gerry Robinson. This time he was trying to fix Dementia care homes.

Nightmare

He mentioned that his own father had suffered from this awful disease. We were taken to the kind of home we imagine in our worst nightmares; elderly people sat in a lounge staring bleakly into space in silence for hours.

At one point a woman cried out for help for half an hour, and nobody came. Another issue was the way the owners had taken away meals from the staff. The staff are people on almost the minimum wage who work 10 hour shifts.

Let Them Eat Cake

We saw one scene where the particular owner grilled a member of the kitchen staff on half a loaf of bread she had found that had been labelled apparently for the night shift. She was clearly convinced that the crime committed was that this bread had been left for the member of staff not the residents.

Another owner spoke indignantly saying he didn’t want the kitchen staff having to bother with food for the carers when they were supposed to be looking after the residents. This was a man living in a £4m home.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

We then saw a very different home in Warwickshire. The residents were taking part in all kinds of activities; many of the normal daily routines that keep any house going: ironing, setting the tables and so on. It was a huge difference.

We must always bear in mind that this is TV, but even so, as my old friend Elaine would say ‘A blind man on a galloping horse could see that,’

The Manager

We met the manager, a cheerful friendly but above all enthusiastic man, who clearly cared. His approach seemed simple and straightforward.

We compared this to the poor woman managing one of the previous homes. She had had no training in this kind of care. She showed Sir Gerry the forms and files she had to keep on all the residents. These listed out all kinds of statistics designed to make sure they were safe. But as he pointed out, there was nothing about the quality of life.

There seemed to be no notes on the previous lives of the residents – nothing to give the staff clues that they could use in talking to the residents.

Quality of life

There was none. It had been sacrificed on the altar of safety. On a lovely sunny day the residents were all locked inside, for their own safety and we heard that you just couldn’t let them out.

As you can imagine, in the Warwickshire home, things were different. We saw the residents planting pansies and a man who was clearly very disabled in some kind of chair using what seemed to be his only working limb to paint a piece of furniture. He was clearly very happy to be doing something useful.

We saw lunchtime in Warwickshire where staff were sat enjoying their lunch with the residents. At the other homes we saw people being fed.

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch?

When Sir Gerry asked some of the disgruntled staff whose lunches had been withdrawn why they stayed, the answer was simple. It was because they really cared for the residents, in spite of the way they had been treated themselves.

What was heart-rending to me was that these very dedicated people were not given the skills or the opportunities to look after the people they cared so much about in a way that would really make those people happy.

A Free Lunch

We learned that it was no more expensive to run the home in this much more effective way.

And it’s so often the case. In fact, I would go as far as to say that running things well is almost always cheaper than doing it badly. If you find yourself cutting lunches and arguing over half a loaf of bread you really need to question what is going on.

When Gerry suggested to the ‘bread woman’ that she get some tips from the Warwickshire home it did not go down well. She responded aggressively and clearly felt threatened. She didn’t want to be ‘told what to do’.

Sometimes when people are in this situation they just can’t believe there is a solution and assume people are out to get them. Whereas Sir Gerry was just trying to help.

Dementia

As yet there is no cure. But there are things you can do to reduce the risks of getting dementia. Getting exercise, eating fresh fruit, vegetables and fish are all linked to lower risk of dementia. Vitamins C and E also reduce it.

Looking after your brain is another way to slow the onset of dementia. This means you need to keep mentally and physically active. This is not particularly recent research, yet the people in two of the homes featured on the programme were left with nothing to do and no stimulation at all for hours every day.

We know that, when you do this to any brain, within a matter of hours there is deterioration. This is why it’s so important to keep people active after operations and brain damage. Yes, they need lots of rest, but they also need to get their brains working.

Marian Diamond

In her groundbreaking research of many years ago now, Marian Diamond took some rats and put them into different environments. One group of 12 rats had toys to play with and other rats to communicate with in their cage. Another group of rats was put in isolation with nothing to do.

At the end of the experiment, there was a measurable difference in their brains. Those of the rats in the groups (the ‘enriched environment’) had more connections between the neurons than the rats that had been kept on their own.

I remember seeing Marian Diamond, who is Professor of Anatomy at Berkeley, show us diagrams of the neurons from the ‘enriched’ brains and the ‘impoverished’ brains. The difference was quite astonishing. The ‘enriched’ neurons had a forest of branches linking them. The others had a few twigs.

I met Marian Diamond several times at various conferences. One time, I went down to the gym early in the morning (about 6am) and there she was, already powering up and down the lanes in the pool. She then leapt out and did her weight training. She was easily 70 at that time.

We left the gym together and climbed up the stairs (about five floors) to our rooms. You can see some excerpts of her being interviewed here:

The Good Home

At the home in Warwickshire, they are helping their residents to keep those connections between neurons going in spite of their illness. In the other homes the problems are just compounded. But it’s not that difficult to do better.

And that’s the key point from Sir Gerry. You don’t have to be unpleasant or mean. Running things well, and making a profit can be done in a way that is fun and good for everyone. And it’s not hard. Sometimes it’s just a question of having the courage to ask for and accept some help.

If you are in the UK, and would like to watch it, the second and final episode of ‘Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes?’ is on BBC2 tonight at 9pm (15 Dec). Enjoy.   Let me know what you thin.

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Posted in Brain, Learning, Management Skills | 3 Comments »

Does 360 Degree Feedback Work? What Do You Think?

Monday, November 30th, 2009

I had an email from a Grapevine reader a while back asking what she could do about some very unpleasant feedback she had had.

Roughly, it suggested that she did a poor job, was bad at prioritising and often missed important things.

In the past, all the feedback she had had was about how well she was doing. She had never had any feedback like this before and was completely distraught. Worst of all, it was anonymous and there was no way of finding out what the individual meant, who they were or what they were referring to.

The feedback had come through a 360 Degree Feedback process that her company had introduced.

360 Degree Feedback

Just to clarify, 360 Degree Feedback refers to getting feedback on your performance from all levels of people you work with; managers, peers and those working for you.

Another Example

I worked with a client that had called me in because they had introduced a 360 feedback system and it had caused some serious problems. The MD had decided to ‘have a go’ first himself to show that it would be fine.

Unfortunately he got some feedback indicating all was not well. He then went on to ’share’ the information he had been given, but omitted to mention any of the less favourable comments.

Unfortunately, for those who had written those comments, this immediately destroyed the credibility of the whole system.

The Problem

In this case one of the main problems was the design of the system and the poor quality of the questions. They were really a licence for anyone to launch a rant about whatever they liked, instead of a way of getting useful, factual information that would help people to develop.

Training and Guidance

In my view people should not be asked to give this kind of information without, at the very least, some kind of guidance on how to do it. I have trained enough people on giving feedback to know that many people need some help in this area.

This is particularly true when they are looking for improvement or have problems with an individual. Any fool can moan and complain, but it takes a little skill to be clear about what is required in a helpful way.

The system (or ’solution’ as it’s often called) also needs to be very carefully designed, especially the questions. If not, it can cause many problems.

A Question For You: What Are Your Experiences of 360 Degree Feedback?

I’m asking this question because it came up in our Appraisals Teleseminar last week. Rachel, who works for the Alzheimer’s Society, and was taking part in the Teleseminar, wondered if anyone had got experience of this they were willing to share.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who have had both good and bad experiences in this area. So, please let me know, on the blog so we can all share this, what those experiences are and what you would recommend/not recommend.

I’m sure many of you have opinions on this topic. You probably also have your own questions. Please add them here.

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Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Feedback, Improving Performance, Management Skills, Training | 15 Comments »

Why Don’t Leaders Have The Skills They Expect Us To Have?

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

This was prompted by a comment in my blog from Dave McCoy, a long time contributor:

‘As always I am struck by the irony that “leaders” rarely show the qualities they expect in their staff…’

Let me know what you think.

This is something I have seen more often than I can count and I imagine you have too. But Dave’s point is why is it the case?

I think there are six main reasons:

  • Lack of awareness
  • Not taking responsibility
  • Poor feedback
  • No example to follow
  • Lack of training
  • Poor recruitment

Let me start with a short story. I was at the sixtieth birthday party (yes, another party) of a friend recently. He is from Jamaica and told a great story about one of the people who influenced him in his life. It was his grandmother.

One day she said to him:

‘You’d better get yourself an education, man.’  He paused and we all held our breath as we waited for her words of wisdom, so we could pass them on to our own children.

‘Coz you’re USELESS!’ he bellowed, impersonating the great lady.

‘You can’t even climb a tree like your brother…’ The tirade continued.

I was stunned, as was the rest of the audience. Then we all laughed. It was this piece of feedback that had prompted our friend to pull up his socks and, eventually, get a good education.

Sadly many leaders do not have as perceptive a grandmother as our friend did.

None Of Us Is As Self-Aware As We Could Be

This is the first reason, I think. No matter how skilled we are, there are faults we have that we are blind to.

It’s Worse For Leaders

However, most of us have the benefit of the odd piece of feedback from friends and family, or even colleagues.

How we respond to that feedback determines how much feedback we get in the future and whether it is reliable.

Unfortunately for leaders, the quality and objectivity of the feedback they get is often dubious. The paradox is that the worse their skills are the less likely they are to be given objective feedback (and to act on it).

This is because people are frightened to give them feedback or don’t have the skills themselves. The reason they don’t have the skills is because they have not been developed by their managers (because the managers don’t have the skills….)

Blame The Middle Managers

Many times we have heard of swathes of ‘middle managers’ being cut from an organisation that has become ‘top heavy’. In the health service in particular people are always concerned that the money goes ‘directly to the patients’, not to bureaucracy which, to them, is ‘middle management’.

But you must ask yourself: Who appointed all the middle managers? Who decided they were necessary? Who identified the skills required and drew up the organisational plans?

Yes, it was the senior managers. The ones who are so often immune from the cuts.

Why Don’t They Realise It’s Their Fault?

If you have children you will be familiar with the difficulty of choosing a school. Even when you’ve got a good one, if the head or principal changes, you know the school will too.

Like any organisation, the school is only as good as the person at the top.

The problem for the person at the top is that they have no example to follow. Whereas people lower down the chain can raise their game, can learn from their manager and be inspired to greater things by them, this option is not automatically open to someone at the top.

They have to make a conscious effort to do it. And many don’t. It simply doesn’t occur to them.

As a consequence of this, they do not improve their skills and this lack of development is cascaded down the organisation to the detriment of all.

Why Don’t They Go On The Training Courses Like Everyone Else?

They have lots of excuses but I think the main reason is fear. They don’t want to be found out.

One of the most successful programmes I have ever run was successful because the Managing Director (a man who had several glaring faults) insisted that all employees went through the programme and that included the directors.

We had one director on each module. Initially this was a struggle for some of the people there (not just the directors). But it soon started to work. They just mucked in with everyone else and the benefits were tremendous.

The Benefits

During a time of recession we increased orders and market share, whilst halving the number of complaints received.  (Their competitors all made cuts in staffing levels.) Having the directors on the programme meant that they knew what everyone was talking about and got help in implementing the new ideas.

It’s no good keeping them separate in some ivory tower so they can be allowed to imagine they don’t need to learn new skills.

Recruitment

Perhaps one last reason why you get this problem is the poor recruitment processes often used at senior levels. This can include badly drawn up person specifications so that the management skills required are given a very low priority if any value at all.

The worst case of this I saw was a man, apparently a ‘technical expert in his field’, who had previously been in academia and was recruited to run a massive department. Before this he had managed one secretary.

The HR representative warned the directors not to recruit him due to his appalling level of management skills but they ignored her advice. I was asked in much later to see what I could do to retrieve the situation. By then the damage had been done and it was far too late. I’m sorry to say that he was not able to learn the skills he needed to master in time; it would have taken years.

Looking at this list, perhaps it’s surprising that we have any skilled people at the top at all! But I think if they are prepared to accept the salary, they should be prepared to learn the skills and this should be made clear to them at the start. The trouble is, the rest of us let them get away with it.

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Posted in Feedback, Improving Performance, Learning, Management Skills | 7 Comments »

Are You In The Talent Pool?

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Why I Left Two Really Good Jobs

After nearly four years in my first job, I left. I needed to see something different.

When she heard I was leaving, Joan, the head of HR, called me to a meeting.

‘We were just about to promote you.’  She said and went on to tell me about all the great opportunities I was leaving behind. A few years later, I had a similar experience. I handed in my notice and was summoned to see the Group Manufacturing Director.

‘I had you in line to be the next Manufacturing Director at your site when your boss, Paul, moved on.’ He told me. ‘I’m very sorry you’re leaving.’

What these situations have in common is that neither of them had told me about the plans they had for my career. Had I known, I certainly would not have left when I did.

Talent Pools

Many of our customers have ‘talent pools’. At a very good lunch recently I was discussing this with an old friend. He’s an extremely talented individual (I mustn’t be too over the top because I know he reads this and it might go to his head, but he is very good).

The problem is, at his organisation, it really isn’t very clear if you are in the Talent Pool or not. And even if it is clear, no one really knows why they are in or out.

No manager is able to say to their team member ‘If you want to be in the Talent Pool you need to do this.’ Which is what they really should be able to say.

So the whole system is the source of rumour and misunderstanding (at best).

Should You Have A Talent Pool?

A good question. You need to ask yourself why you want a Talent Pool and how it will help.

In my view you should certainly have a clear idea of the possible potential of each employee. You should be clear what the opportunities are for them and what they need to do in order to meet the requirements for opportunities.

You should also know what talent you are going to need over the next few years and be matching that up with the people you already have where possible.

It may be that you want to identify people who have the potential (as far as you can tell) to join the Senior Management Team or the Directors.

Why Do People Keep It A Secret?

I’d like to think this is just incompetence rather than a deliberate attempt to annoy people. Usually it’s because the criteria for being in the talent pool are woolly and no one really understands them.

Often it’s because people don’t want to upset those who aren’t in the Talent Pool. Personally I think it’s worse for people to waste time speculating when knowing the answer would be quite useful. It almost implies that the company is ashamed of having a Talent Pool if they won’t let you know if you are in it.

Or it’s a way of wielding power over people.

Generally this approach just backfires (as it did in my case).

Clear Criteria

In many cases organisations have a box divided into nine squares and managers are asked to put their people into the correct box. The top right hand box means you’re in the pool.  What managers should be doing is assessing the skills of each individual carefully and objectively. However, only some managers are skilled enough to do this properly.

So you end up with seriously flawed information. If you’re going to do this, you need to have extremely clear criteria for each box so that managers can make an objective assessment and be confident in the assessments of their colleagues.

Unless there is this trust that all the assessments are carried out objectively and to the same standard, people will not have confidence in the system.

So if you are going to do it you must have clear and open criteria so you can make decisions easily. This is not as easy as it sounds, which is probably why people fail to do it so often.

What’s Important

In these situations you first need to be clear about what it is you want to achieve. So work out your objective. Then work out what’s important about the way you do it.

Once you’ve done that, you can start setting up a Talent Pool in a way that is appropriate for your organisation. I would urge you to do it in an open, straightforward way if you are going to do it.

Usually we want to improve the skills of people in our company, so there’s generally no harm in letting people know what skills we need them to develop and why.

Once you have your Talent Pool you need to be clear what you are going to do with it.

I have seen many cases where these people have left because expectations were not fulfilled. I’ve also seen cases where they were badly thought through.

In one particular case a company identified lots of very talented people and gave them the opportunity to get extra experience and training, but then, for some strange reason, others in the company were not willing to give them the opportunities they wanted, so many left. It’s hard to calculate the cost of this to the company involved.

Are You In The Talent Pool?

It’s always worth asking your manager about this. He or she may not be able to tell you, or may be reluctant. But it might avoid you making the mistake of leaving just because you are unclear about your prospects.

Of course you must remember that, however fantastic your skill set, sometimes there just aren’t any opportunities for you in your current organisation. You might as well find out now.

Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Communication, Feedback, Improving Performance, Management Skills, Training | 2 Comments »

What Do You Need To Know About Managing Performance?

Monday, October 5th, 2009

A Really Good Manager

One of the best managers I ever had the good fortune to work with was Ken, who was the production manager where I was the manufacturing director.

I am convinced he was virtually telepathic. He always seemed to know about everything before anyone else. He had the ability to walk onto the shop floor and know instantly if there was a problem.

One day a member of another team in my department came to see me. He asked me if I knew that one of the lads in the production department had been ‘bothering’ one of the younger women. Apparently he had been following her home and kept asking her out.

I was thrilled. At last, I was ahead of Ken. I wasted no time. I thanked my informant and went straight to see Ken. I was trying hard not to let a grin of satisfaction intrude on the conversation – after all it wouldn’t look good if I was smiling when I broached the subject with Ken.

‘Ken, did you realise Paul is causing a few problems with Marie?’ I asked innocently, holding my breath as I waited for him to ask me what it was about.

‘Spoke to him yesterday.’ Said Ken. ‘I think that’ll be an end to it.’

I have no idea how he did that. However, the rest of his tools were more obvious to we mere mortals.

What Is Managing Performance?

Managing performance is what a manager’s job is all about. He or she is responsible for getting the performance they need from their team.

Unfortunately not every manager is like Ken. Over the years I have encountered many examples of very skilled managers and also many examples of the complete reverse.

We have often been asked to run workshops on various aspects of managing performance. These cover anything from dealing with poor performance to delegating and empowering people.

New Tips Booklet

After several prompts I thought it was about time I put all the key points into a tips booklet to go with the others, but covering aspects of performance management that are not included in our material on objective setting, performance reviews, motivation or giving feedback.

However I want to make sure that we get everything that you need into the booklet.

So now it’s over to you.

What Do You Want?

What are your most important questions about this area? What is it you’d like to know? Or what would you like the managers in your company to know?

Please let me know by adding your ideas to this blog so that others can see them for inspiration.

One of the biggest problems many managers face is not being able to deal with poor performance. Probably about 90% of the performance issues I come across could have been tackled easily if they had been dealt with at the initial stages. But many managers either don’t notice or hope they will go away. I think this is because they don’t know how to tackle problems.

So let me know what it is you’d like to see in this new booklet – if it’s about tackling and spotting problems or about how to set things up so you don’t get them.

We have always had a great response from you whenever we’ve asked for your thoughts on these kinds of areas so I look forward to getting your questions and ideas and perhaps an interesting discussion on the blog.

Many thanks in advance.

Posted in Improving Performance, Learning, Management Skills, Objectives, Training | 13 Comments »

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