Tina Lewis Rowe

Spite and Malice–Only Fun As A Card Game

Spite and malice harms everyone and should be stopped.

Whether you are a manager, supervisor, employee, parent, sibling, friend or just want to be a decent human being, be on the alert for indicators of mean-spirited, petty, maliciously vile behavior. Don’t do it yourself and don’t ignore it in others.

The card game, Spite and Malice, has been around for a long time under a variety of names. It can be fun to play when played in the spirit of fun, even though it certainly appeals to the competitive spririt as well. It’s described on one site as “a game with attitude.”  One reviewer commented on the fun of playing the “Stop anyone” card, when you see someone is on a winning streak. Another said, “This is a cutthroat game where you do what it takes to keep someone from winning, then they do it back to you.”  The Hasboro card box says, “If you can’t beat’em, annoy’em.” It sounds like some workplaces I’ve heard about!

At  work, these are often the indicators of spiteful, malicious behavior:

• Sarcastic, snide remarks to diminish someone or their work.
• Behavior or comments designed to make it difficult for someone to do their work effectively.
• Waiting until others are around to point out a mistake or problem.
• Doing something you know will result in a bad situation for someone else.
• Facial expressions, gestures, comments or actions that cause someone else to feel unwanted, disliked, or demeaned.
• Frequently ridiculing or mocking someone rather than talking to them directly about a problem or issue.
• Being an obstructionist and stubbornly resisting someone else, just to avoid complying or just to create a problem for them.  (This is also a description of passive-aggressive behavior.)
• Stabbing someone in the back and twisting the knife. (That’s a high-level psychological phrase.)

Spiteful, malicious behavior is a clear indicator of ongoing contention that harms everyone, even those who are not the direct target. It uses time ineffectively and often results in long, long meetings or frequent cross-purpose conversations that get no positive results. It creates tension and ill-will. It’s nasty. Even if there is someone who seems to be deserving of a slap-down or a put-down or a straightening-up, it isn’t the appropriate way to improve things.

If you are a manger or supervisor and you hear or observe something that seems malicious or spiteful: Stop the behavior immediately, investigate it further and if you were correct in your observations, direct the employee to never do it again. Make it clear that the behavior was not useful, not professional and not acceptable. If there was provocation, deal with that as well. But, make sure the petty, vengeful behavior stops.

If you are the target of spite and malice: Don’t respond with more of it. Get it out in the open and let the other person know you heard it or felt it. See if you can deal with the underlying problem. Find out if you have created part of the problem. If that doesn’t help, document what happened and the effect it had on you and others and ask for assistance in getting it stopped. Don’t drop hints, act like a long-suffering victim or gossip about the other person, just ask for help in a reasonable way.

Some good comments when confronting directly:
“You say that as though you’re joking, but I don’t think you mean it that way. How do you mean it?”

“It seems as though you are purposely resisting this. Is it because of me or because of the idea or both?”

“It seems like there is some hidden message in what you’re saying. If you talk to me directly maybe we can get things in the open and deal with it.”

If you are tempted to be malicious or spiteful: One indicator of spite and malice is sneaky, behind the scenes, manipulative behavior designed to harm someone else. But you can also be nasty and mean right out in the open. A good test is this: What results are you trying to get?

If you are trying to make life difficult for someone else or trying to harm them or their work in some way, stop yourself before someone else has to stop you. Find the root cause for your feelings of anger or agression and deal with those issues.

The bottom line: No one ever looked more professional after showing spite or malice. No one has ever brought about positive changes through malicious or spiteful behavior. Stop it when you observe it and don’t do it yourself.

In card games it can be fun to block other players in every hand they play, while chortling to yourself or openly about it. At work, the stakes are too high to play those kind of games.

July 7th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Challenging and Problematic People, Personal and Professional Development, Supervision and Management | 9 comments

What Are The Best Tests For Hiring and Promotion?

Can you tell by looking?

In 1917, William F. Kemble, an engineer who was engaged in introducing standardized hiring and promotional tests for business and industry, wrote Choosing Employees By Test. (Industrial Management Library, The Engineering Magazine Company. New York.) Kemble was a strong advocate of the scientific and mathematical approach to business and industry. This was at a time when large businesses were using efficiency experts, vocationalists and labor standardizers--early versions of Human Resources staff.

Mr. Kemble believed that almost all knowledge, skills and aptitudes could be determined by a series of written and physical tests which could be administered in a relatively short amount of time and used as a basis for hiring and promotion.  Some of his ideas will sound familiar:

If employers so desire, the initial record found by the tests given to each applicant may be followed up by monthly reports of work accomplishments, all reduced to a card system. Upon these records can be based many decisions about employment, raises or promotions which would otherwise be done by guesswork or favoritism.

Unfortunately he mixed science and his personal opinions a great deal.  One of his tests involved having candidates for an executive position answer questions about the potential of scientific and engineering accomplishments. (Could there be a building ten times taller than the Woolworth Building? Will man ever be able to tunnel from Alaska to Asia? Will wireless power ever be developed for areoplanes? Will gold ever be transmuted from base metal?) The results of the tests as well as the way candidates acted as they were taking it, were ranked in this way: Idiot, Chaotic, Normal, Intelligent, Executive. (Which would you be?)

One of Kemble’s supposedly scientific tests involved comparing a photograph of a potential employee to lists of “common physical manifestations of mental and moral characteristics.” In this way he believed he could tell if a person was intelligent, a drunkard, petulant, lazy, moral, in good health, good with mathematics or any of dozens of other traits. He assigned points to each facial characterisic so the overall intelligence or morality of an applicant could be given a numerical rating.

The full-face and profile photos at the top of this article are part of such a test. He knew the people in the photographs and had a sample of one hundred good salesmen guess the answers to his questions. They had a 66% to 79% correct response rate. Thus, he reasoned, a potential salesperson should have a similarly correct rate of response.

These were the characteristics applicants matched to the photographs:

• Quick in action.
• Irritable.
• Healthy.
• Very temperate in drink.
• Constant church goer.
• Business person.
• Artistic.
• Saves money.
• Highly educated.
• Industrious worker.

Sadly for me, the correct answers weren’t provided! What do you think?

Kemble’s book has recently been scanned and published by Nabu Press, as having historical significance. However, I have an original edition, which I found in one of my old-book hunts years ago. It has 333 pages of small print, all focused on what he was sure was the future of employment testing. Some of it was logical and accurate and much of it was not.  He apparently did not write another book and also did not make enough of a mark on the world of business that he is cited in other sources. I feel badly about that because he sounded so earnest, dedicated and convinced. As a result, I wanted to honor him here by sharing his photo and a little bit about his work.  I hope he had a happy life, contributed to the happiness of the lives of others and felt he was successful. I wish that for you, too!

William Fretz Kemble
1874-?

June 26th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Assessment Centers and Interviews, Personal and Professional Development, Supervision and Management, Training, Technology, Blogs, A/V etc. | 7 comments

Be The One Who Makes Good Things Happen

You’ll hear these remarks often in meetings or business conversations:

“I wish we could do that.”
“Maybe we can do that one of these days.”
“I sure wish they would do that.”
“I’ll have to try to get that started sometime.”
“I don’t think there is anything we can do about that.”
“There’s no way I can make it better.”
“I’d love to help you, but I’m low level in the business.”
“It’s a good idea but I’m sure they wouldn’t approve it.”

What if the conversations sounded like this, instead:
“I’ll get started on it.”
“Give me a month and it’ll be done.”
“You have my word on it. I’ll make it happen.”
“I’m going to give it my best effort, you can bet on that.”
“I’ll do something about it the minute I hang up the phone.”

Putting Your Leadership To The Test

It seems that we toss the concept of leadership around a lot.  Many people read books on leadership, talk about it, lament that there isn’t more of it and fancy that they are leaders. In promotional processes, nothing is more common than to hear a candidate say he or she takes a leadership role. The interview panel thinks: “Oh yeah? What have you done that has led others to something good?”

So, that can be a test of your leadership in your corner of the world: What have you done lately to make good things happen? What you done to move an idea from concept to reality? What you done to facilitate, champion or do the tough work for a project that is worthwhile?

Of course, there are situations where we suggest or try and are told no. There may be good reasons for that or not. However, more often, we don’t even try–we anticipate the no. Or, we wait for someone else to make things happen, then we support them. Or, we procrastinate until after the holidays or after vacation or after the budget gets approved or whatever. If there is something you can help make happen–do it now. I used the photo above, of am Amish farmer plowing a field, because I am so often reminded that everyone wants a bumper crop but few want to get behind the plow, be the plow, or pull the plow.

Brian Hill of Mental Ammo Made Things Happen.

Last year I was contacted by Brian Hill, about conducting an advanced instructor class for his organization.  Brian also has his own website and does training and consulting. He didn’t know me and had no particular reason to ensure he made things happen for the training—but he did. On his own he made the contacts, did the convincing and set things up. Then, he followed through with all the details involved. He did an outstanding job and I appreciated it all very much.

Brian could have talked about the training for months or years. He could have said it was a shame the inspirational and fascinating speaker and trainer, Tina Lewis Rowe, hadn’t been asked to present the class. (I put that in bold, so a search bot might pick it up.) He could have put it on his “To Do” list and done nothing. Instead, he moved forward, made the effort and showed his leadership. And the class was great!

What Can You Make Happen?

It’s easy for us to talk big about what we could do, could do and might do. The big question is: What have you done and what is in the works? Another question is: What have you vaguely promised you might try to get accomplished but so far have done nothing about?

Starting today and in the future, you be the one who makes things happen.

June 18th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Assessment Centers and Interviews, Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development, Service to Customers, Clients and Coworkers, Supervision and Management | 8 comments

Keeping The Fun In Office Birthday Celebrations

Many offices have parties to celebrate birthdays. Some celebrate on the actual day while larger offices may have a party day once a month to celebrate for everyone born that month. Still others go out to lunch or do something else  in honor of the birthday person. (I tend to think the it’s mostly a way for everyone to take a cake break.)

As fun as these can sometimes be, they also can create problems that could have been avoided with a few guidelines, requirements and limitations.

1. Let employees develop the guidelines, using established criteria or with final approval by the manager.  It’s good to let employees decide about events that pertain directly to them, but the outcome is still the responsibility of the manager.

Sometimes employees aren’t thinking of the big picture or don’t have the insight to know what could be problematic. For example, a suggestion in one office was for each employee to take turns hosting an event–but that can’t be required and may not be possible for everyone. Another office wanted to do a fun “Old Folks Home” theme for an older employee. NOT a good idea. One group wanted to require a sizable monthly donation for parties.  And, I very clearly recall the disciplinary action that followed a Male Strip-O-Gram for a female employee’s birthday.

2. Keep celebrations as simple and inexpensive as possible. The more simple and the less expensive the party, the less set-up and clean-up time is involved and the less money has to be gotten from an office fund, individual contributions or the pockets of managers and supervisors.

Consider really tasty cookies, simple cupcakes, the least expensive source for the cake, a plain fruit tray or one that is made at work. Or, do as some offices do and eliminate a food event altogether, focusing instead on verbal and written birthday wishes.

3. Have equitable parties. It can be embarrassing and hurtful to have a giant party for Betty but only a few cupcakes in the break room for Barbara. Or, to take Bill to lunch but not do anything for Bob. The best way keep it even is to do about the same thing for everyone, every time. If the employee has special dietary needs, get a small serving for the honoree but the usual thing for everyone else.

There is a gorgeous office-wrapping display shown on this site (and I really like the site too!) It looks lovely and probably was fun. However, I am aware of a similar situation in which the next employee with a birthday ( a very nice person who was well-liked) arrived at work expecting something similar, only to find everyone had been too busy to do it. She shrugged it off in front if everyone, but it hurt her terribly and made the other employee feel badly too. 

4. Don’t let birthday celebrations become a reason for conflict. Many people do not like having their cubicles decorated or having similar complicated birthday activities.  Ask ahead of time if someone is OK with having the usual birthday celebration. If he or she doesn’t want the celebration assure them it won’t be a lot of hoopla. If they still don’t want it, don’t try to argue them into it. 

 I’m familiar with an office where they have a birthday bash for every employee, including the ones who don’t attend their own event–and invariably there is some negative talk about the person who didn’t want a party. 

In an office I visited not long ago the manager commented that one of the employees had taken her birthday and the day after off, knowing the weekend followed, to avoid having her cubicle decorated for her 40th birthday.  “What she doesn’t realize”, the manager said with a grin, “is that we’re just going to wait until she comes back, however long that takes.”  My response was, “Good grief! You’re concerned about conflict in your office. Why do you want to create another one for no reason?”  

5. Keep focused on the spirit of the celebration. It”s good to honor birthdays and to have a reason to smile and enjoy a break, perhaps with something good to eat.  However, like most things that are done with good intentions, birthday celebrations can create problems that outweigh the good. Keeping them simple, inexpensive, equitable and welcomed can help ensure success.

May 23rd, 2010 Posted by TLR | Food, Fitness, Fun, Life and Work, Service to Customers, Clients and Coworkers, Supervision and Management | 9 comments

Rah-Rah Meetings Are Often Nothing To Cheer About

The employees have their bagels and hot tea or coffee and they gather around the conference table for the weekly or monthly update meeting. After a few opening remarks the manager or supervisor says, “OK then! Let’s go around the table and share what we’re doing right now! Ava, you and your team are sure working hard on your new project, so why don’t you share some of that with the rest of us?”

Two hours later a bored and irritated group trudge out of the meeting, glad it’s over for another week or month.

That negative image is not meant to suggest that you should never have people share information about their work. There can be value in such meetings on occasion. However, think carefully before you make them a regular occurrence or end every staff meeting with a sharing session.  

The Pros and the Cons

1. Everyone gets a chance to talk about their accomplishments and the work they and their teams are doing.
Another view: Self-reporting is often inaccurate, especially if there is a feeling that the more work you report, the better you’ll sound.  Many people over-dramatize or fluff to sound impressive, get sympathy or justify not helping others. This is especially a problem when others know the person reporting only has a lot of things to do because he or she procrastinates or wastes time. Consider setting a time limit of one minute per person and not one second more. People only need to hear an overview list of what others are doing, if that. Managers should not need these reports to make him or her aware of the work being done.

2. Everyone can appreciate the myriad tasks involved in the big picture of work and how much every individual contributes.
Another view: Once you know that, you don’t need to be told the next month and the next and the next. Consider limiting sharing meetings to every six months or so.  

3. Team members may find areas of common focus or concern and perhaps can assist each other.
Another view: The role of a supervisor or manager is to be aware of what work is being done and to bring employees together in ways that will assist them. Consider teaching employees the value of checking with each other to see if someone else has expertise, experience or information. 

4. Managers and supervisors can see how employees interact with each other and how supportive individuals are of the team.
Another view: Rarely do managers do or say anything about how individuals act in meetings, either to commend or correct. They should, but they don’t. I don’t know of many (or any) managers or supervisors who have ever included meeting behavior in performance evaluations. Again, they should, but they don’t. Consider evaluating interactions that take place in other group formats.

5. The manager or supervisor can use the meeting to build the team and identify issues that need to be handled.
Another view: The reports are usually about what one person is doing or what that person’s group is doing, not about the overall work of the group or the organization, so they are not team-oriented. Rarely does the manager or supervisor do a closing that pulls all of the information together for the group, ending the meeting with a team focus. In addition, most issues that are disclosed in meetings are already known. Some meetings are called specifically to get known issues “out in the open.” Problems should be intervened about while they are happening or soon after, rather than waiting to have the problems vented in a meeting. 

6. The manager has an opportunity to commend in public.
Another view:  Some of the weakest, most embarrassing expressions of appreciation I have ever heard have been in meetings when a manager felt compelled to say something positive. Consider a private, sincere thank you. Show your appreciation in public by the supportive, friendly way you treat people and the occasional comment that others hear.

The bottom line: Meetings to share information about work have value when there are clear connections between what each person is doing an an overall task to be accomplished. There is even more value when the leader or a faciliatator briefly makes that connection for the group as each person talks. What I have found to be unhelpful and even damaging are meetings where many people talk at length about their current work and their To Do lists.  Those who like to preen about their work and lists of tasks seem to love those meetings.  Most employees dislike them and resent being required to participate.

Personal, direct and specific conversations will do more to build individuals and the team than forced sharing, with or without bagels and hot tea or coffee.

May 4th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Life and Work, Service to Customers, Clients and Coworkers, Supervision and Management | 9 comments

Evaluating Work–You Have To Consider More Than The Numbers

Unless a job involves producing widgets on a conveyor belt or is considered successful based solely on numbers, supervisors and managers have to go past how many tasks someone is doing, if they want to evaluate work accurately. Only by being aware of the true nature of  the work being done can employees be fairly and accurately evaluated and commended, coached for improvement or corrected.

Quantity is not the only measurement of effort or value. Managers who are not fully aware of the complexity of the work being done by employees or not aware of their work habits, can be taken-in by flat comparisons. For example, at a staff meeting Kevin says he is “hammered with work” and has twenty-five project files, five of which are due tomorrow. He says they have been a hassle from day one and he may have to work late to finish them on time. Lynn reports on her four projects that are going smoothly and will be finished ahead of time. She is smiling and chats later about taking the next day off to have a long weekend. Who has the most work and who deserves the most positive recognition?

The only way for a supervisor or manager to respond accurately is to know the nature of the projects, the work habits of the employees and any other facts that are pertinent to the work. There are several explanations for disparity in the reports by Kevin and Lynn.

• Lynn dumped some of her work onto Kevin who, being a martyr, let it happen.
• They both had the same amount of work several weeks ago, but Kevin procrastinated on his and let the projects pile up. Lynn has worked effectively all along and has kept her work current.
• Kevin has more tasks, but they are dinky little projects that should take him less than a half hour each to do, while Lynn is working on four very complex projects that involve many crucial details, plans, reports, meetings and outcomes.
• Kevin exaggerates to make himself seem overworked. Lynn exaggerates to make herself seem serenely efficient. 
• Work that didn’t seem complex when it was assigned to Kevin has had unexpected setbacks, through no fault of his, while Lynn’s work turned out to be much less time consuming than expected.
• There has been a disparity in assigning work and Kevin is slowly burning out while Lynn is having a good time.
• Kevin is not very competent at his work and makes it seem difficult but Lynn is highly competent and makes it seem easy.

There are probably other options, but those are the main ones. (If you were going to suggest that Lynn has a relationship with the manager, I’m ignoring you!) The issue for the supervisor or manager is this: Kevin and Lynn may both be working effectively and efficiently, neither may be, or one may be but not the other. That is why it is so crucial that those ultimately responsible for work are continually aware of what is being done and how effectively it is being accomplished.  Sadly, that sometimes doesn’t happen unless there is an hourly report on widget production being delivered to the boss–and your work isn’t like that.

 If you are a manager or supervisor: Consider your work area or your assignment, shift, sector, unit or group and ask yourself:

• How much work is each employee dealing with now and how much in the last month? Six months? Year?
• What has been the complexity of the work, the significance of it, the number of details involved? 
• What has been the general habit of each employee about completing it? Is it often late, always on time, often in need of correction, always exemplary?
• Are there some employees who are not only doing work you can tabulate but who volunteer to do other things that need to be done? Are there some who never do the tasks that add value to the organization?
• Are you evaluating contributions accurately and responding to work needs fairly? Is there a squeaky wheel who gets an inequitable amount of your time? Are there some who rarely communicate but who might appreciate your interest and conversation?
• Is the lengthy task list of some the result of poor decisions or time management on their part?
• Are some working on much more complex issues than others? Is that being acknowledged and evaluated appropriately?
• Does someone deserve to be commended for the one big task he or she accomplished recently while another should be corrected for failing to do many small tasks in a timely manner? Or vice versa?
• Does work need to be realigned or would it be unfair to require an efficient worker to do more work to relieve an inefficient one?
• Is work going fine, but the individuals involved just have different ways of talking about it? Would you prefer they find other ways to talk about it?

Make it your priority to know everything there is to know about the work of your group–then to respond appropriately. You not only will help the individuals involved, you will build the team and establish yourself as a manager or supervisor who knows what is going on–a rarity in many workplaces!

If you are an employee who is frustrated by what seems to be an inequity about work: Before you assume that is the case, based solely on the number of tasks you have, compared to someone else, consider the other issues that might be involved. Are you sure there is a problem that needs to be remedied? Or, could there be some other explanation?

If you genuinely think you are trying to do more than you can reasonably be expected to accomplish and there are others who could help, develop your reasoning and ask your supervisor or manager for assistance. At least maybe you can negotiate some extra time for a few things. Or, you may find he or she simply wasn’t fully aware of the situation. If your manager doesn’t agree with your assessment, try to see the other perspective. Save your documentation, keep working and try again in a week or two or more, when you have done as much as you can do during that time.

The bottom line: When work is being discussed, don’t let overworked be confused with inefficient, ineffective or exaggerated. Don’t confuse quantity of tasks with complexity or significance. If you are responsible for the work of others, make sure work is correctly and fairly distributed, that you know how it is being done, that you intervene when needed to ensure it is done correctly and on time, and that you stay part of it until it is completed successfully.

April 17th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Supervision and Management | 7 comments

Body Odor and Bad Breath and Dandruff, Oh My!

Have you ever needed to talk to someone
about a hygiene issue?

You’ll notice I didn’t ask if you had ever talked to someone about a hygiene issue–just if you have needed to. Most of the time supervisors, managers, coworkers, friends and family members only think about how unpleasant or embarrassing that person is to be around. Some of the most frequent questions on the Ask The Workplace Doctors website, to which I contribute, are about such situations–which often have been going on for years, even decades!

Not all personal odors or grooming issues are easily remedied by the person who has them.  However, it is still the responsibility of the person most directly responsible for an employee’s work to talk to the employee and to document that conversation in case it gets solved now but occurs again.

Make sure you are being appropriate. Talk to the person above you in the organization, or to HR or others who can advise you about what is appropriate to discuss and what is not–and how to best talk about the subject. A supervisor lamented to me that he got in trouble for telling an employee, “You smell like *************!” I hope you wouldn’t consider anything that inappropriate! It’s possible to talk to an employee and get a commitment to make an improvement, without being crude, rude or inappropriate in any other way.

What is the link to work? The answer to that question can provide you with a reason to talk directly and immediately to an employee who is not pleasant to be around for a personal reason. That can give you an opening statement and help you get over your awkwardness about telling someone they must improve in that area.

*Could it make coworkers less likely to want to work closely with him or her?
*Could it represent the organization poorly to others?
*Could it reduce effectiveness with clients or customers?
*Is there something in the employee manual about appearance or hygiene?
*Could it be an indicator of a health or emotional problem that could become more serious?
*Could it distract people from their focus on work?
*Could it harm the effectiveness and professional development of the employee?

Any of those issues are reason enough for a supervisor or manager to intervene about hygiene problems. In addition to the more obvious ones are too much perfume (even strong smelling deodorant), tobacco smells, greasy smells and stains, foot odor, chewing tobacco residue on teeth and stale coffee breath.

Use the One Minute Manager concept: The book by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson as been around since the 1980s, but it still offers a great approach, especially for awkward communication scenarios. The characteristics of a brief correction or re-direction (or other action) are: Immediate, Specific and Brief. It’s sort of like Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover–just do it.

Instead of being immediate, specific and brief, supervisors tend to talk all around the subject or try to minimize the problem to save the feelings of the employees. As a result they often cause hurt or hard feelings and still don’t get the situation changed—and a changed situation is the requirement for effectiveness.

If you supervise someone who needs to improve  his or her hygiene, appearance or overall personal presentation, fulfill your responsibilty about it. If you are a coworker or family member, help the person avoid public embarrassment by talking to them directly and in a friendly way. Talking about such things doesn’t require a judgmental tone or an embarrassed, nervous, hesitant approach. Say what you have smelled or noticed. Take the initial approach that you are sure they will want to do something right away to fix the situation. 

Expect some disagreement but get a commitment.A natural reflex when we are criticised or corrected is to be defensive and to respond hastily–sometimes angrily–to avoid embarrassment.  Expect that and don’t let it bother you or stop you. You have the responsibility and the authority to ask for appropriate changes, so do it without lengthy justifications and arguments.

Most of the time, even if an employee doesn’t agree there is a problem, he or she will agree to do something to change the situation. If that doesn’t happen, spend a few more minutes to insist upon it in a firm but friendly manner.

The bottom line: We live in a culture where body and breath odor, uncleanliness or unsightly hygiene issues are not acceptable. Usually they can be corrected fairly easily–but often a supervisor, manager, coworker or friend has to bring it to the attention of the person involved. If you  have that responsibility or that opportunity, do it the right way but do it.

April 11th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Challenging and Problematic People, Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development, Supervision and Management | 6 comments

Who Is Responsible For Resolving Contention At Work?

“You two work it out” is almost never an effective way to handle contentious situations between employees. It can create even more problems for several reasons:

*It is unlikely that employees will have the skill, the will, or the capability to improve the situation. If they have the ability to resolve a serious problem they probably would have had the ability to avoid it in the first place.

*If there is clearly an aggressor that person will not see a need to change and the other person may not feel able to communicate directly about it.

*If an effort is made by one or both employees, but it doesn’t change the situation, the employees may feel justified in negative responses.

*The “solution” decided upon by employees may not be in the best interests of everyone involved or the overall work group or organization.

*A hands-off approach by a manager can leave an employee vulnerable to increased hostility and an escalation of the problem.

*In every case the manager or supervisor fails to fulfill an essential role: To develop and maintain a work place in which everyone can stay focused on work.

How to know there is a need for supervisory or managerial intervention:

• You have observed or heard about an ongoing conflict between employees. (More than one or two incidents or only one incident that created a work disruption for the employees or others.)
• Someone has hinted to you about it. If it matters enough to mention it to you, it matters enough for you to do something.

The bottom line: When there is a conflict, disagreement or a situation that is often frustrating or upsetting to employees or that stops or hurts work for anyone because of issues about it, it is time for a manager or supervisor to find out more and say or do something directly. The employees can be involved in the process but they should not be left to do it alone.

One thing is certain: There has been a management failure when employees start accepting a breakdown in civility, cooperation or effectiveness as normal for work or something they have to learn to work around or through on an ongoing basis.

A large part of a supervisor’s job–and certainly the task of a leader–is to identify problems and work with and through others to help solve them. Situations that keep employees from working well together are problems that require direct involvement by a supervisor. The task cannot effectively be delegated to employees–especially not to the employees involved.

April 5th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Challenging and Problematic People, Life and Work, Supervision and Management | 6 comments

An Audit Report

The article last week was about doing a quick audit of a work place, a group or even your own work, to see what is going on–especially if things have been going wrong.

A reader, Rae T. , sent a comment saying he was going to conduct a quick audit to see why things were in a perpetual state of “SNAFU” at his work. He wrote me a series of emails about it and gave me permission to write an overview here.  (With some details changed to avoid identifying anything about the work place.)

Rae said he didn’t discover anything completely brand new, but it reinforced some things he had been told about and was concerned about.  He also noticed a couple of things that surprised and disappointed him.

As a result, he is in the process of conducting a more detailed work audit in which he is looking at the behavior and performance of each employee as well as their roles in the group with which he works.  An important issue is this: He made a promise to himself and to his own boss that he would do something about his findings. THAT is the crucial part!

Here are the key issues Rae T. noted  in his quick audit:

1. Conversations took up large amounts of time.  Rae wants employees to enjoy work and to interact with each other during the day. But he noticed that employees would go to someone’s desk to ask a small work question, then segue to a personal conversation, then general talk, then gripes about work, then more talk. An employee who says she has too much to do to get it done on time, spent a total of almost two hours in such conversations, spread out over the day in segments of twenty minutes or longer.  (The talking may be an avoidance issue, but it doesn’t help to get the work done and is noticed by other employees.) That matter is being resolved now.

2. Interruptions not only slowed work down, the way they were handled kept work from being completed.  Rae noticed that most of the interruptions (phone calls, emails, having someone come over to ask a question, etc.) seemed to frustrate employees.  He made this observation, which I thought was very interesting:

“The problem wasn’t only that somone was frustrated at being interrupted, it was how they handled the interruptions.  Instead of taking a few notes to work on later and getting back to the work in front of them, they tended to start working right then on everything brought to their attention, even non-emergency things. So, they had a whole bunch of half-finished things going all the time, which was demoralizing to them I could tell. “

Rae added this: “I noticed this interruption problem off and on through the day I was auditing.  The next day, when I was doing my own work, I realized I was doing it too. I had fifteen things going and didn’t finish any of them. Several of those things could have waited and I don’t know why I took time away from other things to work on them.”

3. Some people made work less effective for others because of their behavior.  Rae said none of the behavioral situations he noticed were surprises and he is determined to do something about them. They range from someone with a sour approach to most coworkers and supervisors, to someone who routinely irritates people with his overall demeanor.

4. There was a recurring complaint about one aspect of work. During the day, Rae heard some of the same comments made by everyone about a specific work problem. Rae said he had complained about the same thing before he became a supervisor.  He tends to think it’s a problem that is so ingrained it can’t be fixed–but he’s going to work with other people to find a solution or at least an improvement.

Look closely: Those four issues are probably common to your work place as well.  I suggested to Rae that he look even more closely, if there have been serious problems lately, to identify what else might be causing them, rather than assuming he had found the root cause. It’s like the visual you sometimes see of a high-powered microscope starting on the surface and getting down to the molecular level!

However, Rae’s quick audit provided him with the impetus to check the work even more closely–and he is involved with that now. He has his own work to do and can’t devote hours a day to auditing.  However, he plans to spend about thirty minutes every day, observing, looking at productivity and effectiveness, interviewing employees and others and thinking. All of those are great ways for him to immerse himself in the work for which he is ultimately responsible. He also is going to help employees audit their own work and encourage them to identify things they can improve on their own.

I hope you will take the time to survey your work place and find out what’s going on around there. It’s a fascinating and worthwhile activity!

March 29th, 2010 Posted by TLR | Life and Work, Supervision and Management | 4 comments

What Is Going On Around Here?

What is going on around here???

In your work place do you often hear that good work can’t be done or done on time because everyone is too busy? Do you notice recurring problems related to quality or quantity of work or the interactions between employees? Does everything seem to be a disorganized mess and it’s not because of creative productivity it’s because things are a disorganized mess? Do you often think that few things get done efficiently and effectively–they only get done painfully and with one crisis after another?  Conduct a work audit and find out what is going on.

You can apply this same concept to your own work when you feel you are bogged down, when there have been complaints or hints about a need for a improvement or when you just want to reevaluate your efforts and results. You can also use the concept when you want to have something specific to take to your supervisor if you feel there are problems outside your control.

Steps for a quick work audit

• Resist the thought that you know the problems already. If you do know what the problems are, you should be doing something specific about them.  However, whether you think you know what ails your work place or not, audit anyway to get a better look. One key benefit is that your conversations about it afterwards will let employees know you are aware of their work and their roles in the work place.  If you are looking at your own work, you can discuss it with your supervisor or manager to show that you are taking responsibility for your work and results.
• Identify the core job description or work requirement. What is the essential work that must be done? If the essential mission isn’t happening in the right way, there is a breakdown or failure somewhere or with someone, no matter how sincerely people are trying or how well other things are being done.
• Make a list of the people and processes that have the key roles in getting work done.  Focus on your own group but also consider where there might be weak or strong connections between your group and other areas. You may need to work with supervisors, managers or fellow employees in those areas to find solutions to problems. (Or you may need to find ways to work around those people, if they are determined to create problems.)
• Review, survey and evaluate, using quick methods that give you snapshot of work.

Re-read emails or memos about work issues.
Talk to a few key internal or external clients or customers to get their perspectives.
Make a list of the problems, concerns and complaints you have heard from individuals in the group.
Look at work statistics or work products and see if there are deficiencies.
Go into work areas to see what is happening.
Now and then stop to listen and closely observe. 

Those actions will not give you the thorough assessment you might want to do later, but they can quickly help you understand:

• The overall activity level of the work place and each individual employee.
• What the work environment looks like, sounds like and feels like.
• What is being done right now instead of work and how much time is being spent on that activity.
• What work methods you are seeing that may keep work from being done effectively and efficiently.
• The apparent attitudes of all levels about their work–employees, supervisors, managers, and others, based on what they say and do.
• The status of the complete picture of good work: performance that is high in quality and quantity and behavior that is effective and appropriate.
• Who is steadily working and who is not.
• Who is assisting and who is distracting.
• The end result of it all for clients, customers, users and others in the work chain. (In a short time you may get a very clear picture of why there have been complaints or grumbling!)

The bottom line: Improved effectiveness and efficiency and an improved work place starts with getting a picture of where things stand right now. Conduct a brief work audit to begin to find out. Take a few hours and briefly audit work–your own or the work of those for whom you are responsible. Then, get with each person for whom you are responsible and direct the immediate changes that are needed. Next, set a schedule for long-term improvement. It is possible to achieve that, so keep your focus and give others a focus as well.

March 22nd, 2010 Posted by TLR | Personal and Professional Development, Service to Customers, Clients and Coworkers, Supervision and Management | 6 comments