Tag Archive for: culture

Chris Kolenda: What an Offsite should do for your leadership team

What an offsite should do for your leadership team

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Are you looking for ways to strengthen how well your leadership team works together?

You are not alone. Remote and hybrid work reduce in-person contact time and place a premium on building trust, communicating clearly, and strengthening buy-in.

Relationships are vital to successful leadership teams; you must make every in-person opportunity count.

Many leaders use offsites as a team-building tool and often come away disappointed.

If done poorly, the offsite becomes a forgettable boondoggle as people nod off in the conference center, breathing stale air, staring outside at the pool, and wondering when the pain will end.

You wonder if the juice was worth the squeeze.

It does not have to be that way.

If done well, an off-site can boost your relationships, strengthening trust, buy-in, and communication. You get people out of their comfort zones, doing something interesting that brings new perspectives and energy to your business.

You should gain new tools that get results and shorten the path to success. The experience should get everyone on the same page and pointed in the right direction and create a shared language and stories that speed up trust and understanding. You come away with a durable commitment to the leadership team you aspire to be.

Your #1s will draw on that experience for years, using it to overcome obstacles and seize new opportunities. People remember the best offsites for the rest of their lives.

Creating unforgettable, high-value experiences is vital to your team’s growth and health, so my events occur at national parks and powerful historical venues.

Here’s how the process works. 

  1. We discuss your focus areas and select a location and game plan.
  2. You get adventure, thought leadership customized to your needs, tools that improve performance and decision-making, and time to address your most essential issues.
  3. We conclude with a workshop, creating action steps that get results.

Are you ready to forget the hotel “bored-room” offsites and go for something extraordinary that will pay dividends for years?

Here’s what CEO Lisa Larter said about our recent trip to Antietam & Gettysburg: 

“Our leadership team recently attended an exclusive leadership experience with Chris in Antietam and Gettysburg. We spent three days immersed in conversations that were specific to our team and the aspirations and challenges we are currently facing as leaders.

Chris used lessons from the battles at Antietam and Gettysburg to help us see our leadership skills in a whole new way. He provided us with tools and models that we can use for a lifetime.

What was great about this experience was the level of customization Chris provided for us in conjunction with being outdoors in beautiful and historic places. This was not a traditional talking head leadership experience. Chris is thoughtful in terms of how he is able to get every member of the team to participate.

His use of intentional questions not only allowed us to get to know each other better but also gave us the opportunity to share openly and honestly, which strengthened trust between all of us.

Chris fosters an environment where he models what he is teaching and inspires everyone to really use critical thinking in all aspects of how we lead.

He is a master facilitator and guide, providing us with a life-changing and transformational leadership experience. If you have a team of 5 or more leaders and you want to improve your culture and communication, I can’t recommend this event enough.

Some of what we discussed included:

  • How to make courageous decisions and become brave leaders
  • How to get over imposter syndrome and the importance of caring about others
  • How to move out of your comfort zone and navigate chaos
  • The competitive advantage of clarity, speed, and disruption
  • How to create a high-performing organization
  • The importance of defining acceptable versus awesome to eradicate perfectionism
  • Why feedback is useless and feedforward is the only way
  • How to cultivate initiative within a team
  • How to inspire accountability and get people to anticipate outcomes
  • How to disagree agreeably

This is what we covered in one day…

My notebook overflows with value from the time we spent with Chris. If you need a leadership expert who walks his talk and delivers value, Chris Kolenda is definitely that person.“

Let’s discuss what an outdoor offsite could look like for you and your organization.

P.S. I’m thinking about hosting an innovative thought leadership event in May at the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields. The objective is to help you develop new thought leadership that simplifies complexity for your clients and employees, provide tools that improve clarity, accountability, buy-in, and decision-making, and arm you with new stories to convey ideas and inspire buy-in. 

Sharing these ideas and experiences will build your relationships with other top leaders and consultants. Magic always happens when terrific people with an abundance mentality help each other grow. 

The investment in this program is $5500 if you pay before December 31st, 2023 or $4500 if you confirm and pay by Friday, December 15th, 2023.

Interested? Send me an email.

Chris Kolenda: 3 Steps to Take Instead of Complaining about Gen Z’s Fragile Mental Health.

3 Steps to Take Instead of Complaining about Gen Z’s Fragile Mental Health.

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Do you have Gen Z employees (most of your twenty-somethings) whose mental health is fragile? 

They want feedback but only the positive kind; they’re frequently taking mental health sick days and have difficulty recovering from setbacks. The result is lower productivity, increased workplace drama, and more stress for everyone else.

I hear leaders complaining about Gen Z’s poor resilience and work ethic. You might be correct, but that’s irrelevant.

Here’s the deal: if you cannot inspire your Gen Z employees to contribute their best to your company’s success, the fault is in the mirror.

You can have the best processes and plans in the world, but if you cannot gain the buy-in of the people in front of you, then all you have are interesting theories and ideas that don’t work.

When I worked with the Cleveland Browns a few years ago, the tight ends coach told me he coached at Army in the 1980s under legendary coach Jim Young. I was a cadet then and remembered we were 2-9 my freshman year. It was ugly.

The coach said after the season that Young got them together and said, “This was our fault.” They brought their winning system from the University of Arizona to West Point and expected it to work fine there, too.

Army could not field quarterbacks with cannons for their arms, grow 300+lb linemen who could hold blocks, or receivers who could outrun opposing cornerbacks. 

It was a great system at Arizona but an epic fail at West Point.

Instead of complaining about the talent they didn’t have, Young and his staff examined the talent in front of them. They were smaller than their opponents but quick, agile, disciplined, and made good decisions. 

The best offense for Army’s talent was the so-called wishbone. It amplified their strengths and masked their limitations. Army went 8-3-1 the following year, tying Tennessee in Knoxville and winning a bowl game. 

Your Gen Z employees grew up with the toxic effects of social media, online bullying, and snowplow parenting (where parents violently blast away any obstacles in their children’s lives so they never encounter any difficulties). Mental health challenges among teens skyrocketed after 2012.

You handle social media and online bullying okay because you’ve built life experience and resilience beforehand. Many in Gen Z never had that opportunity.

It’s not their fault.

If you cannot adapt your practices to the talent in front of you, it’s your fault, not theirs.

Here are some things you can do:

  1. Feeding Forward. Most employees get defensive when you rake them over the coals for mistakes. Many Gen Zs shut down. Instead of harping on past mistakes, focus on improving future performance. Ask these questions:
    1. What went well that you want to sustain? (This discussion focuses on the behaviors you want them to repeat in the future).
    2. In what ways did you improve over the last time? (This discussion helps them visualize their improvement, so they keep doing it.)
    3. What would you like to improve for next time? (This discussion gets them to focus on how to improve instead of what they did wrong).
    4. What does ideal support from me look like? (This question elicits a specific response and lets them know you want to support them).
  2. Weekly 1-1 check-ins. Spend 15 minutes one-on-one with each direct report, setting them up for success. Hit reply if you’d like a copy of the format I recommend.
  3. 90-day Updates. Spend an hour once per quarter with each direct report, discussing how they’ve improved and want to improve over the next 90 days. It’s also an opportunity to update their Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Yes, I have a format for this one, too, that I’m happy to share.

These three simple practices will help your Gen Z (and other employees) contribute their best while reducing sick days and workplace anxiety. 

For a copy of my resources or for more discussion on leading your Gen Z employees, send me an email or schedule a call. 

Chris Kolenda: You cannot afford to waste a single brain when it comes to your company’s success.

You cannot afford to waste a single brain when it comes to your company’s success.

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What would happen if all your employees were engaged and committed to your company’s success?

What would change if two-thirds or more of your employees were committed to your company’s success?

Many leaders rely on a few all-stars, hoping the rest can pull some of the load. According to Gallup, barely one out of every three employees reports being engaged at work. With one-third or fewer pulling the load, you are burning the candle at both ends.

I met someone this morning at a global affairs conference in Washington, DC, who shared her story of burnout and walkout. Her employer was content to waste the talents of the unengaged and ride the workhorses until they broke.

No leader intends to waste the brains and talents of their employees, but most don’t know how to move them from unengaged to engaged without micromanagement. Who has the time for that?

What if you could get more people pulling the load? Your all-stars would still be in their zones of genius, stay with you longer, and contribute better, because the unengaged are pulling on the oars in the right direction and cadence.

Everyone has unique gifts– natural strengths or superpowers – that too often get overlooked in the hunt to hire people with the right skills.

You need to put people in roles where they use their natural talents and exploit them with their skills.

When you put people in roles that don’t engage their natural talents or skills, they will fail and drop out.

A more common occurrence is putting people in roles that match their skills but not their natural talents. It’s like putting a big-ideas person into a role that requires them to pore over Excel spreadsheet details. High-functioning big-ideas people will perform the job well but burn more energy than a details person will. This problem is what happened to the person I met in DC.

The upper left quadrant occurs when someone is in a role matching their talents, but they do not yet have the skills to exploit them. Steve Jobs, for example, was in this quadrant during his first stint at Apple. His people skills were so terrible that he got fired from the company he founded.

Jobs grew from the experience and developed enough people skills to avoid being radioactive. He moved into this zone of genius.

How can you help people find their zone of genius? I’ve created the PROM Archetypes® quiz to give you a broad frame. PROM stands for the four types of people you find in the workplace: Pioneers, Reconcilers, Operators, and Mavericks. They each make distinct contributions when in their zones of genius. 

Once you have their PROM Archetype® and identify their zone of genius, you can more precisely define the skills they need to exploit them. You can also use this tool to check your company’s cognitive diversity.

When you know people’s natural talents and skills, you can put them in zone-of-genius roles where they will thrive.

There’s no reason to waste people’s talents.

Would you like to discuss ways to use the PROM Archetypes® to strengthen your company and help everyone get good at getting better? Schedule a call. There’s no cost, obligation, or BS.

Chris Kolenda: Boosting Psychological Confidence

Boosting Psychological Confidence

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Psychological confidence arises when people are willing to speak up without fear of retribution; they do so respectfully and are confident they’ll be heard.

I prefer this term over psychological safety because safety-ism has created an expectation that employees should be free from accountability. Psychological confidence is about the courage to speak up and listen with an open mind, not about trigger warnings, safe spaces, and microaggressions.

People with psychological confidence report problems immediately, offer you fresh ideas that improve your business, and responsibly try new things that make your people, processes, and products work better. 

You don’t get innovation without psychological confidence.

According to an Accenture study that cites Gartner, HBR, and Gallup, companies with high psychological safety (confidence) experience:

27% lower turnover

76% higher engagement

50% more productivity

Your employees experience:

74% less stress

67% willingness to try new things

29% more life satisfaction

All three elements are vital for psychological confidence. Employees who fear retribution for disagreeing with their boss will keep problems and ideas to themselves, just like the co-pilot on the ill-fated Air France flight 447. 

The inability to disagree agreeably promotes gaslighting – employees will stay silent to avoid being blasted by a colleague. Such self-censoring is rampant on college campuses. 

Finally, no one will waste the effort to speak up if they don’t believe you’ll take them seriously; exhibit A is FTX’s collapse.

Magic happens when all three elements are working together. The willingness to speak up and disagree agreeably creates open-mindedness. Speaking up and believing you’ll be taken seriously creates confidence, and agreeing disagreeably while knowing you’ll be taken seriously builds trust.

Open-mindedness, confidence, and trust are the heartbeat of psychological confidence, creating the abundance mentality to share wisdom and co-create, leading to innovation.

To help you assess the degree of psychological confidence in your organization, Dr. Mark Goulston and I developed a survey that produces your Net Psychological Confidence Score.  

You can take it here as an individual to gauge your personal level of confidence. We can also create a version customized for your organization.

You’ll gain:

  • Your organization’s Net Psychological Confidence score, which you can use as a baseline for gauging progress.
  • Knowledge on what factors are playing the most significant role in your score.
  • Follow-up videos and action steps you can use immediately to strengthen your organization’s psychological confidence.
  • Greater trust, more innovation, lower turnover, and less stress as you implement these steps. 

Check out the survey here, and email me or schedule a call if you’d like to see if your Net Psychological Confidence Score is a good fit for your organization.

Chris Kolenda: Harvard students cheering on Hamas shows why character counts

Harvard students cheering on Hamas shows why character counts

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American students’ celebration of Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians shows that elite education is losing its soul.

Why it matters: employees who cannot grasp the three basics of character formation: think critically, conduct basic moral reasoning, and maintain an open mind, will stifle innovation, cut ethical corners, and undermine your culture. 

Trusting relationships are the glue that holds organizations together. You should assess a prospective employee’s character before hiring them. 

Education, Plato wrote in The Republic, is the guardian of the guardians. Its purpose was not technical training but intelligence and character formation. You demonstrated your character through action in the public square and on the battlefield.

“The function of education,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “is to teach one to think intensively and critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

Sadly, many students get indoctrination rather than the intellectual courage that comes from practicing critical thinking, moral reasoning, and agreeable disagreement. 

How else to explain their inability to see Hamas’s mass murder as beyond the pale?

One can condemn Hamas’s atrocities while at the same time empathizing with the plight of Palestinians and Israelis who want to live a peaceful and prosperous life, however they define it. One can support Israel’s right to self-defense while at the same time demanding their adherence to the laws of war and respect for Palestinian civilian lives. Hamas’s murdering thugs are Palestinians, but only a fraction of Palestinians are Hamas.

Who benefits from Palestinian misery and Israeli paranoia? Hamas, of course, and associated groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (whose errant rocket killed scores of innocent civilians outside a Gaza hospital).

Many students have become, in words ascribed to Lenin, the “useful idiots” of those who seek to divide humanity based on their chromosomes, categorizing them into colonized/colonizers and oppressed/oppressors. The former, in this simplistic view, are good, and the latter are evil, so any action against evil is justified. 

Hence, you have university students cheering on Hamas as they beheaded Israeli civilians and butchered children. It’s obvious who benefits, on both sides of the aisle, from pitting people against each other.

“The philosophy of the school room in one generation,” Abraham Lincoln warned, “will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

The Enron, Madoff, Theranos, and FTX scandals, among others, show the damage when people lack moral and intellectual courage. Given what we see on many college campuses, such scandals will likely increase. Employers aware of the danger have revoked employment offers from students who celebrated Hamas murders.

Before the indoctrinated become bosses, you may see a perverse Robinhood effect – talented, self-righteous employees who sabotage your company.  

Artificial intelligence can improve this problem by leveling the book-smarts playing field. 

A B-level graduate of character from a state university can tap into artificial intelligence for the book smarts. The reverse is not true for the elite college A-student who lacks moral and intellectual courage.

P.S. Many students report that self-censoring is a significant problem on many college campuses. It’s a habit that may carry into the workplace. Did you know employees who report low psychological confidence are reluctant to identify problems, offer fresh ideas, and try new things?

​​Employees with high psychological confidence report significantly lower stress and anxiety and substantially higher performance, productivity, and innovation. Dr. Mark Goulston and I developed this psychological confidence survey so you can assess and identify ways to improve. We can also survey your entire team and provide you with a Net Psychological Confidence Score.

Chris Kolenda: Do you want Awesome repeats? Three-peats? Make this one simple change.

Do you want Awesome repeats? Three-peats? Make this one simple change.

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If you have good employees who perform inconsistently, I’ve got a way for you to boost individual and team performance with one simple change.

Most business owners I know are relentlessly positive people. Natural optimists who believe they can succeed and are willing to try new things to grow their business and bring out their employees’ best.

It’s not unusual for them to walk around the business complimenting people for their good work.

Stay awesome, Joe!

Keep on rocking it, Sara!

I appreciate you, Jane!

The effect of general compliments on employer and employee alike is easy to see: smiles, enjoyment, a boost in everyone’s mood.

Then, everyone moves on. Joe, Sara, and Jane keep doing good but inconsistent work. 

They know you appreciate them but don’t know what behaviors to repeat or adopt because your praise is too general.

What, exactly, is Joe doing that’s awesome, and what can Sara and Jane learn from it and vice versa?

If you want them to repeat high performance, you need to make your compliments specific. That way, Joe knows precisely what you believe is awesome about his performance.

Because he’s performed it and you acknowledged what he did, Joe knows what to do again. So do Sara and Jane, and they know what they can adopt from each other because you told them with a specific compliment.

Joe, I loved how you handled that customer’s complaint. You maintained eye contact, made sure she knew she was heard by repeating the complaint back to her, and used your discretionary funds to fix the problem and make her feel like a winner. Stay awesome, Joe!

Sara, the way you coached Brian to solve a problem he was facing was perfect. You asked him what he would do and what support he needed from you to make it happen. Brian’s solution wasn’t perfect – you knew that – and you knew that a good solution he owned was better than you giving him a perfect solution. Keep on rocking it, Sara!

This practice works everywhere you go. When I complimented a flight attendant on how well he treated people by looking at them directly and acknowledging them, I noticed he started doing it even more than he had before. The same happens with nearly everyone providing a service.

Specific compliments are your way to celebrate what right looks like, and the effect is infectious because your employee and their co-workers know precisely what to repeat.

General comments give a temporary mood uplift. Specific compliments give you a sustainable performance boost.

Let me know how this action works for you by sending me an email or leaving a comment.

Chris Kolenda: Leading in an AI World: 4 Ways to Repair the Trust Crisis

Leading in an AI World: 4 Ways to Repair the Trust Crisis

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Have you considered how AI will affect relationships in your workplace?

If not, it’s time to get ahead of the curve. Information technology provides massive benefits to society and your business, but its misuse has damaged relationships and created a trust crisis. 

Is that person really working all of those hours?

Is that “Hey Chris” email for me or personalized spam? 

Why do my employees make more than I do? 

Will a bot take my job?

Why does the CEO, who gets mega-millions, say she cares about us but can’t afford to give us raises or training?

It’s not that our company’s leaders won’t keep their promises; it’s just that they haven’t.

AI can widen the breach; it can also repair it. 

We live in an era where AI isn’t just a tool—it’s becoming a co-worker. 

AI exposes contradictions, say-do gaps, and potential unfairness while creating deep anxiety and uncertainty. This trust crisis corrodes relationships, impedes performance, and sours your company’s culture.

Why should you care? High-trust companies reportedly outperform their rivals by nearly 300%. 

And yet, how do you sustain trust as AI takes on more roles while raising troubling questions about credibility, agency, and employee value?

Here are four behaviors that will inspire employees to contribute their best even as AI’s role expands (my chatbot helped me craft these ideas after I gave it suitable prompts).

  1. Be Transparent with AI Integration: Remove the enigma surrounding AI. Educate your team on extracting the best from AI while recognizing its limitations. Your employees’ ability to provide actionable prompts will make AI an ally in your mission, not a mystery.
  2. Boosting Human-AI Innovation: AI can crunch numbers but can’t think outside the box. AI’s efficiency plus human creativity reduces risk and improves innovation. Leaders who promote critical thinking will get the best from AI while limiting garbage-in-garbage-out problems, drift, and look-a-like challenges.
  1. Creating Ever-Better Personal Interaction: Relationships become more important with remote work and distributed teams. You have a reduced margin for error, making every human touchpoint critical for building trust and unity. Face-to-face interactions in high-quality and innovative off-sites accelerate belief in you and each other.  
  1. Gaining Buy-In & Proactive Accountability: Move away from AI as a surveillance tool. Build a culture where leaders use AI to help employees improve future performance and spark their discretionary effort. 

You can anticipate AI’s effects on workplace relationships and develop behaviors that maximize its capabilities while limiting the downsides.

Anticipatory action on your part becomes compounding interest as trust increases performance, which enhances confidence in your company’s future. Wait, and you’ll regret the bill for corrective action.

Are you ready to get ahead of the curve? Schedule a call or email me for information about my keynotes and workshops on building trust in an AI world.

Chris Kolenda: The Fetterman Rule: How Companies Win the Struggle for Accountability

The Fetterman Rule: How Companies Win the Struggle for Accountability

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Does your company struggle with accountability? 

If so, the U.S. Senate’s recent dress code drama will help you understand the struggle and take corrective action.

If you are like most people, you prefer to avoid confrontation, but you’ll do it if necessary. This preference accounts for why many leaders wait to confront deviations from standards until they become too big to ignore.

The problem with waiting, though, is that deviations become hard to break habits. You will spend significant time and energy and pay a high emotional tax trying to break a bad habit. 

You are better off nipping the problem in the bud right away when there’s no emotional attachment to the deviation, and it hasn’t become a habit.

The best case is when your employees enforce standards among each other so you don’t have to get involved. 

This is where the Fetterman Rule comes into play: your standards are what you tolerate. 

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman loves to dress in a hoodie and shorts; it’s reportedly part of his persona to connect with blue-collar constituents. I’ve got no opinion on his politics or how he dresses in his own home or when he’s out and about.

The U.S. Senate, however, has had an unwritten business attire dress code, and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer tolerated Fetterman’s flaunting of it. He even planned to abolish the dress code to accommodate him. 

Worrying about the new policy’s effect, Senators voted overwhelmingly to establish business attire as the official dress code for the Senate floor.

Your best indicator of buy-in is when your employees enforce standards among each other.

Creating buy-in for standards means that people need clarity about them; they must believe that they are better off when everyone follows the standards, and there must be consequences to guard against deviation.

Do your employees enforce your company’s standards, or do you feel you’re doing it alone? 

If you’d like to get your employees more involved in accountability, schedule a call, and we can discuss what’s getting in the way and specific action steps you can take to move forward.

Chris Kolenda: 13 Behaviours Draining Your Energy: The Michelangelo Principle Can Help Your Leadership Improve

13 Behaviors Draining Your Energy: The Michelangelo Principle Can Help Your Leadership Improve

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Are you a leader tired of people telling you to pile more stuff – goals, reading, workshops, conferences, journaling, activities, etc. – onto your overloaded life? 

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The individual ideas sound great, but who has the time for it all? It feels like the good intentions on the road to hell. 

If you are like most leaders experiencing good idea overload, you pass on capacity-building activities as nice-to-dos. 

I’ll get to it when I’m not so busy.

You leave opportunities on the table for becoming ever-better, and the delays rob you of development’s compounding interest effect.

If you’re experiencing this tension, I’ve got something that will help you create more space in your rucksack, and it’s not another failed productivity hack. 

Take away your time and energy vampires by following the Michelangelo Principle.

When someone asked Michelangelo how he created David, the sculptor replied that he simply took away everything that was not David. 

The Michelangelo Mindset is a term I first heard from Dr. Mark Goulston about the importance of removing the obstacles in your way. 

For this article, the Michelangelo Principle states that you must take away what’s holding you back to become an ever-better version of yourself. 

Imagine someone piling more “good stuff” onto the marble containing David, making Michelangelo’s job harder. We might never have this work of genius.

The principle is the same for you. In this case, you want to prune away behaviors that create needless friction. 

Behaviors – how you apply your standards to the people around you – separate elite leaders from everyone else. At a certain point, your skills and experiences no longer differential you. Your behaviors set you apart.

Below are fourteen behaviors that drain your time and energy. Most leaders have two or three of these behaviors. Prune these away, and you’ll save hours each week in no longer correcting miscommunication and misaligned work or having to pick up the slack that didn’t need to happen.

  1. Adding unnecessary value. When you improve someone’s idea by 5%, you reduce their commitment by 50%. Your employees perform far better with an 80% solution that they own than with a 100% solution you provide. You waste time and energy because you must make up for lost employee commitment.
  1. Offering unsolicited advice. Your good intentions create resentment by saying, “I’m better than you.” You waste time and energy by creating needless friction. Your employee is worse off, and you must pick up the slack. Ask, instead, what support you can provide to help them succeed faster. 
  1. Winning every argument. When you insist on winning every argument, you drag out meetings, create unnecessary conflict, and undermine goodwill. Gaining people’s buy-in is more important. Once you’ve got that, shut up and move out. 
  1. Butting in. Nothing matters before the But. The same goes for However and No. You create resentment with these words that say, “You make a good point, but my point is better than yours.” You waste time with needless input and micromanaging compliance with your mouse-turd caveats.
  1. Providing Constructive Criticism. Criticism builds defensiveness, which impedes progress. You waste time and energy relitigating the past, and your employee is less likely to innovate and try new things. Stop dwelling on history and start framing a better future by feeding forward: “How will you do it better next time?” 
  1. Justifying your actions after requesting feedback. You asked for feedback on what you can do better. Your employee tells you something you do that bothers them. When you justify your actions, you imply someone other than you is at fault. They feel they stuck their neck out, wasted their time, and gained your resentment. When you ask for advice and get it, say, “Thank you.” 
  1. Not Listening. Instead of focusing on your employee, you try to multitask. Your employee thinks they are unimportant to you, and you get only a fraction of what they said. Other times, you listen to respond (see winning every argument), so you miss their more essential points. You waste time and energy on misunderstandings and rework. Focus 100 percent of your attention on listening without passing judgment. Seek first to understand. 
  1. Speaking (or typing) when Angry. You are guaranteed to worsen the situation by creating resentment, putting your foot in your mouth, and piling on problems. Step away from the keyboard, go for a walk, and ask, “What can I do to improve the situation?” 
  1. Negativity fixation. You want to show how smart you are by explaining why every new idea will fail, so you stifle initiative, undermine ownership, and stay mired in a failing status quo. Ask instead, “How will you address this challenge?”
  1. Feeding someone’s negativity fixation. You’ll waste hours arguing back and forth with a know-it-all who’s stuck in their ways. Ask instead, “If it were possible, how would you do it?
  1. Letting Perfectionism impede progress. Moving from an 80 to 90 percent solution can be prohibitive in time, money, and opportunity cost, so stop waiting for perfection. Go with the 80 percent solution and adapt as needed. You’ll save time, energy, and resources while seizing opportunities that grow your business.
  1. Obsessive fault-finding. Some leaders treat finding an error like discovering a buried treasure. You spend so much time looking for what’s wrong that you miss seeing and recognizing what’s right. You spend time correcting faults, large and small, but fail to reinforce productive behavior, so unnecessary problems keep piling up.
  1. Finger-pointing. Leaders who obsess over faults tend to fixate on blame. This tendency creates predictable backlash as people try to defend themselves, cover their backsides, and re-litigate the past. While you waste all this time and energy, the problem’s cause remains. Focus on the cause, not blame, address it, and move on.
  1. Being the Hero. When you parachute to solve everyone’s problems and answer their questions, you become a crutch for your employees. Instead of building self-reliance, you create dependency. You rob yourself of the time to do your job, and rob your employer of the value you are supposed to provide. Instead of solving the problem for them, ask, “How would you do it?” 

Are you ready to slay your time and energy vampires to become an ever-better you? I can help you zero in on the behaviors to chip away and give you the action steps you need to reveal your own David. Schedule a call here and let’s get started.

Chris Kolenda: Constructive Criticism Often Isn’t: Do This Instead

Constructive Criticism Often Isn’t: Do This Instead

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Providing and receiving feedback ranks among the workplace’s most anxiety-producing conversations. Here’s how to avoid awkwardness while helping people improve.

According to a Harris poll, sixty-nine percent of managers fear communicating with their employees. Providing feedback is the #1 most dreaded conversation.

A Gallup poll suggests that most people want feedback but only 26 percent report that the feedback they receive is helpful. 

People want feedback to ensure their jobs are safe and improves their performance. Nobody likes criticism, and few people enjoy criticizing.

Criticism tends to invite defensiveness and resentment, neither of which improves performance or strengthens relationships. 

Hence the dilemma: how do you help people perform better when both parties fear criticism? Here are six steps that improve future performance.

  1. Caring. People have to know that you care about them as people before they trust your feedback. Unless your employees believe you care, they’ll view even the most constructive criticism as evidence that you don’t like them. “Joan’s busting my chops because she hates me.”

Show you care by getting to know people as human beings rather than as human resources. Get to know their goals and aspirations, hobbies, families, and other matters vital to them. Ask them periodically about these parts of their lives, provide articles or posts they might find interesting, and ensure they have the time to engage in essential activities.

  1. Let them talk first. Start with their self-assessment. Ask your employee, “How did that go? What points do you want to sustain, and where do you want to improve?” They’ll most likely identify the most critical areas. If they miss something, ask, “Tell me more about ___.”
  1. Feedforward. Dwelling on the past doesn’t do much good and invites harm. Trying to get your employee to admit to failing is a power trip. 

Focus instead on improving future performance. People tend to know when they are falling short and are often their own worst critics (see above). Ask, “How will you do it better next time?” 

  1. Avoid unsolicited advice. When you give unsolicited advice, the other party tends to identify ways it won’t work. 

When asked, offer advice and action steps because the employee is now open-minded. Avoid “here’s how I do it,” and use “Here are some ways you could do that; what will work best for you?” 

  1. Ask for specific ways you can help. You need to let your employees know you’ve got their back and will support their efforts to improve. 

Avoid vague questions like, “What can I do to help,” because you’ll mostly get noncommital answers or “Nothing I can think of right now.”

Ask, instead, “What’s one specific way I can help you improve __,” and follow through. 

  1. Celebrate wins. After the next event or during your following 90-day review, ask, “What achievements make you the proudest?” and “In what ways have you improved?” before asking, “If doing even better were possible, what would you want to improve and how would you do that?”

These six steps will remove the anxiety from feedback sessions, strengthen your relationships, and improve your organization’s performance. 

How are these steps working for you? I love celebrating your wins. Send me an email and let me know, or schedule a call.