Weekly Tip – Build relationships with those ‘prickly’ folk

In summary, if you build relationships with bad communicators, the ‘prickly’ folk, or people that you don’t like very much, not only will you find that they might be okay after all, but you might just tap into a great resource.

Okay, what am I getting at? Maybe you are 100% professional, never have favourites and split your time appropriately for the size and nature of the task…. No?

At work it really comes down to outcomes, it’s what we are paid for. The outcome you want and the outcome you get from work requests often vary from person to person and day to day. So, take a scenario where you are at work, you have two people you need to get to do something for you. More often than not, if you have a good relationship with a person, you might call them, or if you are in the same building, perhaps you will find them, have a coffee with them, maybe even catch up on the week’s gossip.

The other guy or gal, you don’t get on with so well. They are really good at what they do, but they are abrasive to talk to, deliver work in exactly the way you asked, even though if they had used their initiative it could have been so much better, or sometimes it’s not what you asked for at all. Knowing this, you decide an Email will suffice with a list of requirements and hope that you don’t have to do too much re-work when it gets to you.

So why are these folk so awkward?

In my experience, the people who are good at building relationships tend to do well. The people who are poor at building relationships also tend to be the people that see these good relationships as “politics”, and often when it comes to promotion, “Favouritism”. In addition to this, the phrase “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is used very negatively. These are the people that can be abrasive, rude or even sarcastic, they receive Emails containing complex work requests instead of invites for coffee. They get frustrated when what they deliver is exactly what the person needs or asked for, but the person doesn't use it. I know this feeling well, as during my 20’s, I was one of these people, so speak from first-hand experience of the frustration of handing over a piece of work that I know to be extremely useful, then that work, and me, would subsequently be ignored. So in answer to the question ‘why are these folk so awkward?’ Simple, they believe they are good and are frustrated that nobody seems to see it, awkwardness is their way of acting out and make people work for their product.

So why bother with the prickly folk at all? If they don’t want to play ball – leave them to it, I will get it done elsewhere? That’s perfectly fine, but sometimes these people are really good at what they do, they also have probably been in the same role for a very long time too so have a lot of experience. Also, they probably have no clue that their interpersonal skills have such an impact on their work and career, they also don’t realise that they are treated the way they are treated because of their behaviour, not their work (The 20’s me really did think that if I kept being sarcastic about other people’s errors that they will do something about it! – I was being helpful… In a light hearted way… wasn't I?)

So building a relationship can work wonders, I'm not suggesting taking them out for a meal and a movie, but certainly wander to their desk or at least call them. More importantly ask them for their opinion, try your best to wade through any negativity that may be there and understand where they are coming from. They are probably just not articulating it very well. Think of this as sifting through the grit to find gold. Most importantly, give clear feedback on what was good at first until you've built up a good enough relationship to criticise. Most of the prickly folk out there are probably not getting regular feedback from their managers (If they were their prickly behaviour would have been handled).

Also, don’t expect miracles, first few times you do this, what you get might not be any better, but over time as you come to understand each other it will get more like your other, good relationships. At the very least you will have someone else to go for coffee with.

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Bonus Tip for the ‘Prickly folk’

If you are reading this and thinking, “Er… these ‘prickly folk’ sound a lot like me…” there is nothing wrong with getting an Email from a person you have a poor relationship and thinking, “This is a dumb, stupid request, they've had this three times and don’t do anything with it”, but saying that, or escalating to your manager isn't going to help you or the business. Maybe try picking up the phone and saying, “Hi, I'm hoping you can help. I've read your Email, and just wanted to check a couple of things, have you got a minute to chat?”.  This is the tough part – listen to them, understand where they are coming from and be critical of your work and understand why it’s not meeting their requirements. At no point do you say, “But we gave you that last week”. It is okay to say, “Okay, I think we can tweak a few things we've already done for you and get that sorted out”. Far better for both of you, as you don’t look like an unhelpful jobs-worth who can’t work with people, and they don’t feel stupid, so it’s great for everyone! (Note; If you make people feel stupid, it doesn't benefit you, in fact, they will quickly learn to work around you and in some cases, they may even seek revenge – and if they have better relationships than you, they will almost certainly win).

Sound a bit too much to handle? Just try using the phone or speaking in person and not blaming anybody for anything. Just talk about the work and what needs to change and don’t take it personally, and if you can give anyone a heads up that they have work or trouble coming their way, do so – they might remember it and even do the same for you.

Weekly Tip – Don’t use the word ‘Process’

To some stakeholders, ‘Process’ is a dirty word and only applicable to certain disciplines where it is a mandatory requirement for some reason. So, just don’t use the word ‘Process’ and you may get the outcome you want. My tip is;

• Clarify the outcome
• Clarify who does what by when
• Make and record agreements
• Create an enduring relationship
• Map the process and keep it to yourself

You may want a little more detail, as well as thinking “We could easily record this in a process map!”, so first, let’s understand the people involved;

Process Lovers;

For those of you who love process maps or talk in terms of process steps, and render your thoughts with lines and boxes, you may be frustrated that some stakeholders have zero interest in your efforts. Maybe you’ve been involved or ran DMAIC event and seen what can happen when people get together, understand their process in a visual way and make amazing improvements to that process.

Process Haters

For those of you that at the mention of the word ‘Process’ you cringe at the idea of process mapping or steps, you may agree in principle that it’s probably a good idea, but it’s just not for you. Maybe you’ve had bad experiences, or just not convinced it’s the way to work.

Process Agnostics

For those of you who are not too bothered either way, you may be happy enough to look at a process map, but you are comfortable with informal agreements too. As a process agnostic you may have considered getting your process(es) mapped, but it all seems a little too inaccessible.

Who is right?

All parties want a successful outcome and all believe that their approach to doing business is the right one. The Process Lovers think that the best way to communicate about business should be in an orderly and documented way, Process Haters on the other hand believe that we should stop messing around and get on with it.  Process Agnostics are happy either way, but will probably do business in a similar way to the Process Haters. So nobody is ‘right’ but if either side think action needs to be taken to improve business and customer outcomes, then we need to think carefully about our approach.

My experience tells me that Process Lovers are in the minority, especially at a senior level where decision making can be essential. As such, it’s down to the Process Lovers to do the hard work and not use the word “Process”.

How do we talk about process without talking about process?

There are different ways to do this, and I’ve certainly made a few mistakes along the way. Here are the ways I’ve found most effective;

• Clarify Outcome – Be careful here, conversations often get muddled, are you talking about issues with a successful business outcome or a successful customer outcome? For example, you might have a great quality product that the customer loves, but the cost to produce has resulted in that product becoming unprofitable.
• Who does what by when* - This is the most important of all, if you can reach a consensus on this with all stakeholders, then you pretty much have a process you can draw and keep to yourself.
• Make and record agreements – Sounds obvious, but I’ve been in too many meetings to remember where minutes and actions were not recorded. A shared summary can be enough.
• Create an enduring relationship – You may have clarified the outcome, agreed on who does what by when and made and recorded agreements, but these changes need to be embedded over a period of time. Building an ongoing relationship with the stakeholders concerned, in a way they want to communicate will get best results.
• Map the process and keep it to yourself – If you really want a process, draw one. But keep it to yourself. You don’t have to hide it from anyone, but don’t take it to a Process Hater and expect them to thank you for it. You never know, over time as trust is built up, those Process Haters and Agnostics may realise that you benefit from referring to a process or procedure (you are a Process Lover after all), they may even ask for a copy.

Right now, let’s be realistic, as a Process Hater, or agnostic you are probably jumping for joy and shouting, “No more talk of Process! Yay!”, whereas a Process Lover may be considering other aspects of what a coordinated process effort, or even what a simple process mapping workshop can deliver. As a Process Lover myself, I can empathise, but go back to the point of what a process is. If you have stakeholders that won’t engage with you because you use the word ‘Process’, then it has already failed. So, in these cases, Don’t use the word Process!

*This phrase I picked up from the Manager Tools Podcasts (available at www.manager-tools.com), and was in the context of Project Management, but I think is perfect for process too.

Weekly Tip; Be open about the fact it will get worse before it gets better

I've been lucky enough never to break a bone, but I remember someone from college who broke the arm they wrote with, and it was pretty close to exam time! They did adapt, but their skill of writing didn't quite catch up with their other arm. Why? Well their arm healed and they went back to the old way of working with their regular writing hand.

Some customers of change feel like they have a broken arm when change is imposed on them. To illustrate this, have you ever seen a post declaring that they will never use Facebook again because of the new layout or change in privacy policy? Usually, in a short space of time, this is forgotten and those same individuals are back sharing their lives on Facebook as they were before.

What is difference between a broken arm and Facebook functionality?

Choice.

If you want to continue using Facebook, you have no choice but to suck it up and get on with it. Most business change has a key issue, it is possible, once the dust settles to go back to the old way of working.

You may already know that after the implementation of a new system or process, that performance will, initially get worse before it gets better. This is often referred to as the ‘J’ curve, and is actually the same as any change, like when your picture upload facility changes on Facebook, or having to write with your other hand, you need to get used to the whole concept and learn the new way of working first before you can consider it being better than before.

The thing is, if we are not open about the J Curve of change with our stakeholders, and be clear that it will actually get worse to start with, the stakeholders involved may complain, protest and in worse case, refuse to use the newly implemented change, it will just feel like a broken arm that’s waiting to heal.

So the tip here is;

• Be honest about the fact that expect things to be worse initially, don’t just hide the fact in a PowerPoint slide buried in a briefing. If you know how long this might take tell them. Even better, if you know in what way it will get worse, let them know so those stakeholders can prepare
• Monitor non-conformity. Everyone sighs when they hear the word ‘Governance’ but many times I’ve seen a project team hand off a project to the stakeholders far too early, with potentially great projects abandoned
• Be present, your stakeholders may be struggling, misusing or misunderstanding what is going on, they need to be reassured that the performance dip was expected, that the figures are not going to get them in trouble, and they don’t need to go back to their old way of working.

Okay, so you've been honest and monitored non-conformity and you are available as you can be, but the stakeholders are still going off and doing their own thing. This is where your relationships come into play. Truly understanding what the issues are, and being honest with findings can be difficult. Did it in fact work better before? Was the solution the right solution? How could it be improved to work more effectively? Which Stakeholders are having the most trouble? Most importantly, is this a part of the J curve, or are we really seeing a declining trend in performance?

Answering these questions honestly can be difficult, but if it is put in with overall context of the change then it may be useful. An example might be call centre metric of ‘Call handling time’* is affected because a new process requires them to log more information from a customer. That information, further down the line leads to faster resolution and quality is higher. Over a period of time, this means that the same call centre will have less repeat calls from customers who are either complaining or wanting an update on their issue.

The business improves.

If, however, the call centre goes back to the old way of logging their calls, because they panic at the increase in call handling, later when they justify going back to the old way of working, they can show a dip in performance as a result of the change, and then their valiant efforts to claw their way back to their previous performance levels when they reverted.

They only saw the 'worse', they didn’t see the 'better', justifying their actions.

So, in summary, be honest about it getting worse, ensure stakeholders are engaged in the change and be available to help them through the change.

*From my experience, Call handling time is often used as a key metric for call centres and is often used out of context against other metrics. This example was used intentionally to highlight that a successful business outcome does not always equal an improvement in an individual departments measures.

Weekly Tip; Fear of Presenting? - Don’t think.

I built my confidence with presenting when I was in my teens. At age 15 I was teaching Karate to students who ranged in age from five to fifty.

Since then, I have spent many hours, both in and out of work with prepared, and sometimes unprepared material. It wasn’t just this experience that gives me confidence in speaking, it was actually reading one of Geoff Thompson’s* books on self-defence that I connected stage fright, with an issue some experienced Martial Artists face in a real street encounter – they freeze.

As a result I have come up with a tip that contains just two rules;

1. Don’t think
2. Prepare

So maybe a little more detail is needed? First thing, I don’t want this post to lead you to think I’m fearless when it comes to presenting. The reason I’m so comfortable with it is because I’m aware that most of the issues that people have on this subject is not really anything to do with fear. Like anyone else, I have the flight or fight mechanism built into my body. Great for running from danger, not so great when you are attempting to play the opening chords of an opening song on stage where your hands just stop working (my friends tell it better than me, but I once had an epic fail on attempting to play Master of Puppets by Metallica).

Now there is no easy way to stop this type of thing happening, but most things I have seen or read on presenting that deal with the notion of ‘stage fright’ seem to deal with the problem in the same way – by assuming it is something to do with your confidence, or some psychological issue that causes the problem. My bet is that it's neither of these.

Let’s talk biology for a second, (please note - I’m no expert!), but in basic terms, your body prepares itself for action (to run away or fight), it does this by;

• Getting your muscles, and your heart into gear (preparation a fight or to run)
• Minimising digestion to make sure the focus is on the muscles (it’s not needed while you are fighting or running)
• Taking away blood from the brain (you don’t need to think, you need to run or fight)

So you are on a stage about to present to five hundred people, and an adrenaline dump, or ‘rush’ happens, your hands are shaking, you are sweating (you can’t run or fight, so you freeze). What do you do?

There are only two things, considering this biology that make sense;

1. Don’t think; Just understand what is happening to you. Realise that you have chemical that is slowing your thought process down (your mind has gone blank because it’s supposed to). So stop thinking, if your hands are shaking, let them shake, if your voice has gone just wait.
2. Prepare. If you know that you get this chemical cocktail running through you, then prepare. What works for me is ensuring I am comfortable with the structure of what I'm talking about, I personally don’t memorise word for word. As doing this means that you have to think (and that would contradict number 1!).

Okay, this seems mega simple. That’s because it should be. During the time of an intense adrenaline rush, you just can’t think straight, there are many examples of Martial Artists with years of experience that struggle in a real conflict as they are thinking about what move they should use next, they freeze, instead of using a simple, well drilled response.

As a part of your preparation, especially if presenting is a major issue for you, you may want to drill certain habits in to your mannerisms as well as stalling techniques while you wait for the surge of adrenaline to pass (so you look like you are intentionally not speaking, as opposed to looking like a cat in head lights!). I won’t go into detail here, but an example of clearing your throat and then sipping on water can give a natural five to ten seconds for your body to sort itself out, a smile, anything that doesn't involve thinking - that will lead to trouble.

Final note, "Don't think" comes first for a reason, as adrenaline can hit at any time, you might be in a meeting and your boss says "Matt, can you just take us through X, Y and Z" so you have no prep time. Make sure if the adrenaline hits - don't think.

*There are a few self-defence authors I would recommend such as Jamie O’keefe, and Dave Turton, but Geoff Thompson was where I learned on the effects of adrenaline on the body.

Weekly Tip; Keep your GTD system water tight - not bomb proof

While working for npower, I used to send a Weekly Tip to an individual on a work-related, or sometimes non-work related subject. I promised to keep these going once I left the company, but instead of Emailing that person directly, I thought I would share... so as promised here's the first one;

Making your GTD System water tight - not bomb proof;
As a user of David Allen's GTD system, I used to have a lot of issues with managing my lists and projects. It used to feel bulky, complicated and hard to do.

I realised that the issue I was having, was that as I wrote an item down on a list, it would sometimes create another action, or, as I wrote Project Plans, they would be cluttered with actions that didn't really seem to add value and as a result, those Projects didn't get done as quickly. I thought that I was doing the right thing by writing everything down that could possibly be needed, but then I realised that the system needed to be water tight, and not bomb proof.

So on to the tip...

Make sure that any action you take (that is not "Job done"), you write down what the next action is at the time you complete that action (unless you are going to do the action straight away of course!). This makes things water tight (but not bomb proof).

For example;

I receive a refund cheque from the water company and have written on my errands list a reminder as follows;

@errands; Take refund cheque to the bank

***I deposit the cheque***

I then write on my @waiting list "Check online bank for water company cheque clearance"

***I check and it's all cleared***

JOB DONE!

This is a simple example, but can be useful in lots of other circumstances e.g. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Well, I sent you an Email about it" and you roll your eyes. This approach can help, as you may have an action on your Next Actions list of "Send X Report to Jane", and then, you can put an action in your calendar to say "Call Jane to confirm Report X is okay". This type of attention builds relationships and stops things slipping through the gaps. Makes things water tight as the desired outcome is that Jane can take action with the report, not that it's just been Emailed to her.

Some of you may be a GTD follower, and think, "All these actions should be on the project plan" (and therefore be bomb proof). By definition, in GTD speak, anything that requires 2 or more actions is a project, but I think setting up Projects for small things, will make your system appear bomb proof, but in reality it can often be a time wasting activity that actually delays getting things done.

Using the example above, if I were to do a "Water company refund project" There are then about 5 actions you will need to take e.g. 

• Call water company requesting refund
• Awaiting arrival of cheque of £X from water company
• Process the cheque when it arrives (put the cheque in your wallet)
• Take cheque to bank
• Check statement for clearance.

But would you set up a project? Probably not, but writing down these actions as they are needed will help you keep things water tight. A bomb proof approach would have you write a complete plan like this one, as it could be argued that you may forget to write down the next action that is required, but I think a method of writing down actions when they are needed is much more realistic for many situations we face day to day.

BEWARE! 

• Only use this technique if you are clear and confident that the scope of the action is unquestionable (if there may be some ambiguity, opening a project to clarify scope can be beneficial)
• I use this for outcome I write in my projects plans e.g. a Finance project might have "Get refund from water company" - I would then go to my next action list and write "Call water company and request refund" without transcribing it on my Finance project actions list, or further detailing the additional required actions. This may seem a tenuous link between actions and projects but to get over this I number my projects e.g. 23. Finance Project, and then on the actions list next to the action I write a '23' with a circle around it to relate the action to the project. So although there isn't a direct link between the project plan outcome of "Get refund from water company", I can take a pretty good guess the majority of the time!! (water tight, not bomb proof remember!).

Glossary and useful info;

• GTD = Getting things done, a time management system. See www.davidco.com
• Use of @ in this post; I use these to denote lists, so in text files I can clearly see where my list starts e.g. @Next, @Calls, @Errands, @Waiting etc. If you are wondering why there are multiple lists, best look into GTD and www.davidco.com
• Projects, in this context can be as simple or as detailed as required, but for GTD purposes, simple outcome statements and lists of key outcomes, maybe a few key stakeholder names, is what I had in mind when writing this post - not a full project plan/Gantt chart.
• I don't use anything special to manage my 'system', on re-reading this, it may sound like I got some fancy software or something, so I want to make clear, I run my entire GTD system from a A5 moleskin notebook at home, and then write errands on a notepad on my iphone when I'm out and about (I used to try to carry an A6 notepad with me everywhere - fine in an office environment, but impractical for day-to-day management).

iPhone free 4 track thing

Hardly used this, it's a free 4 track for the iPhone called mtsr - but it seems to work well, and is making me excited about the irig I've got on order. Awesome for penning ideas anyway.

I may have a mess and if I can create anything that doesn't sound too horrific I will post it.

There are some others out there, so if anyone has had any success with this or anything else let me know!

Dilbert

Made me chuckle...

Location:Halesowen,United Kingdom