Keeping Valued Team Members

Restoring Commitment to Prevent Resignations

	Be alert for signs of unhappiness.

Which members of your team would you miss most if they left tomorrow? And what makes them so valuable?

Chances are, they’ve been there long enough to know exactly how the organization works. Highly competent at what they do, efficient, organized and with excellent soft skills, they know who to talk to in other departments to solve major problems. As such, they’re the “go to people” whenever things get difficult.

When you’ve got these kind of people around, your team achieves more – not only through their direct contribution, but because they set the standard in attitude, behavior and results for everyone else.

As a manager, you really want to keep these valued players happy, so that your team continues to benefit from their exceptional performance.

But what if you notice signs that some of your leading people may feel that their futures lie elsewhere? If you get to the point where you receive their resignations, your team is likely to be in trouble. Just a few of the consequences are loss of knowledge, disruption, lower collective morale, and the time and effort wasted recruiting and training replacements. All in all, it might take months – or years – to rebuild your team.

Understanding how to handle this sort of situation, or even better, being able to avoid it happening in the first place, is critical to keeping valued team members happy, effective and engaged.

This article helps you to recognize and avoid the issues that might push a team member to leave. Use step-by-step approach to help avoid potential pitfalls, so that you can continue to get the best from your team’s star players.

Step 1: Identify the Warning Signs

The sooner that you detect that someone might be thinking of leaving, the better chance you have of changing their mind. This is why you should always be on the look-out for significant changes in the behavior of members of your team.

The kind of signs that you might need to be concerned about include:

• Impatience, either with people or tasks.
• Disengagement from the team, perhaps by being “absent” mentally, or using increased sick leave.
• The venting of negative feelings in “water cooler conversations”.

Be aware that any change in behavior may be significant when it comes to making sure that valued team members are happy. In some cases, a seemingly positive change may be just as much of a warning sign as an obviously negative one. For example, a team member whose productivity suddenly increases may perhaps see this as a way of impressing a potential new boss in another department, or she may be anxious to leave with a clear desk and a clear conscience.

Similarly, a colleague who used to stay focused on his work, but who begins to chat at colleagues’ desks, may be avoiding doing work that he no longer enjoys.

There’s no need to become cynical about such changes, but do consider them in the context of that team-member’s performance and behavior. Then you can decide the best way to sustain that person’s contribution to the team.

Seasonal Factors There are particular times in the calendar year when you need to be especially alert to changes in people’s attitudes. When people have longer periods away from their jobs, such as during summer or end of year vacations, they may be prompted to rethink their situation. Such “moments of truth” can also occur at the signing-off of long projects, or even at the end of the financial year. Team members who’ve been in their role for some time may feel a responsibility, or even a moral obligation, to make a move only when one activity is finished and the next hasn’t yet started.

Step 2: Understand Possible Problems

Of course, it can often be difficult to link the symptoms of unhappiness with their underlying causes. For example, one team member may withdraw from office chit-chat because she feels overworked. Another with the same problem – feeling overworked – might take refuge in muttered discussions at the coffee machine.

However, there are several tools that can help you understand why someone might want to leave a job.

• Herzberg’s Motivators and Hygiene Factors
  According to influential researcher, Frederick Herzberg, people become dissatisfied with their jobs when certain “hygiene factors” are not being fully provided.

  Salary is traditionally given as an example of a job hygiene factor. However, in an economic climate where people’s pay expectations have decreased, other hygiene factors – such as good relationships with supervisors – will often be more important.

  Herzberg’s model also states that, even when there are no hygiene factor problems causing a team member to be dissatisfied with their job, they won’t necessarily be satisfied with their work. To experience job satisfaction, “motivating factors” need to be in place. Typical motivators are the content of work itself, recognition of effort, and the availability of growth opportunities.

  Often the reasons for a valued team member “wanting out” involve a combination of inadequate hygiene factors and missing motivators, so make sure that you consider both when looking for early warning signs that someone might be considering leaving.

• Expectancy Theory
  This states that people are motivated to work harder when they feel that the effort they put in will lead to a certain performance level, and that this performance level will, in turn, lead to a desirable outcome.

  So, when you’re considering someone who appears to be de-motivated, look for situations in which the link between effort and outcome has been broken. Was a project they were working on cancelled just before implementation, for example? Are results no better, despite the team member working hard to implement new initiatives? Or has the bonus pot been slashed?

Although this step involves “guessing” what the problem is, when it would clearly be more efficient to ask this straight out, it helps to spend a little time up front to consider what might be going on: this gives you the opportunity to prepare responses. Time is often of the essence in fending off a resignation – especially if the person involved is already interviewing elsewhere. You want to avoid having to say “I see, well, let me go away and think about how I can help with that, and we’ll talk again next week.”

Step 3: Talk to Your Team Member

Once you’ve thought about what the issues might be, it’s time to have a friendly chat with your team member to see if anything’s troubling him or her. Use informal, open questions, in a private, one-to-one session.

Sometimes all it takes is a question like “How’s it going?” or “How do you feel about project X?” to get the person to open up. Make sure that you listen carefully, and that you both have enough time for everything that needs to be said.

Step 4: Fixing the Issue

Work on a plan to improve the situation together.

Depending on the situation, you should be able to find some helpful suggestions in Mind Tools articles on Dealing with Poor Performance and Re-engaging Team Members.

Try to find a solution which plays to your valued team member’s particular strengths. This can often be more profitable for both the person and the organization than focusing on eradicating weaknesses in performance. Using the Reflected Best Self™ Exercise is a good way to help team members define exactly what their strengths are, helping them to go even further with their current job.

Prevention is Better Than Cure

In the long term, remember that there are a number of things you should be doing on an ongoing basis to keep people engaged, productive and happy. These include:

• Making sure that you work on building the trust of your team, so that your people feel confident discussing their jobs with you.
• Helping to create job satisfaction for individual team members.
• Rewarding your team in ways that make people feel appreciated and recognized. This doesn’t need to cost anything!

Tip: At the end of the day, you need to accept that there will be some factors that you just can’t influence. For example, a team member may wish to work in another city or country for personal reasons. Or someone may accept a career promotion, which means a move to a different part of the organization, because your department simply can’t offer a similar opportunity right now. Understanding that these kinds of factor do exist, and that you can’t do anything about them, will help you manage these departures so that they minimize the impact on other key players. Explain the situation to your team, and use the methods outlined in this article to keep the rest of your valued team members on board.

Key Points

Keeping valued team members means not only maintaining the right work environment, but also being sensitive to signs of change. You can avoid resignations by paying attention to factors like team trust and job satisfaction. By appropriate monitoring of changes in employees’ behavior, and careful analysis of the possible causes, you can handle problems with less effort and more success.

Re-Engaging Team Members

Turning Negative Back to Positive

	Engaged team members make a valuable contribution.

“Excuse me, I’m the new program office administrator, and I need to book a hotel for a meeting. Could you help me with that?” you ask another administrator.

“Uh, just go on the intranet,” replies your colleague, who then turns back to the person sitting next to her and resumes her conversation about her weekend plans.

“Okay…” you might reply uncomfortably, even though you’ve already spent half an hour trying to find the right web page.

Sound familiar? You’ve just encountered a “disengaged” employee. If you had a workforce full of disengaged employees, how devastating would that be to your business?

Disengaged people exist in all types of businesses, across all industries. You can spot them by their indifferent, blasé attitudes. They don’t care about the company, they probably don’t like their jobs, and they send negative signals everywhere they go.

Disengaged people are like poison – they don’t perform their own jobs well, they drive customers away, and they have a bad influence on your other staff. Yet few people start off disengaged. It’s typically a process that happens over time, as employee and employer expectations grow further and further apart.

What Is an Engaged Team Member?

Fortunately, you can re-engage members of your team and build back their pride and commitment. But you’ll need to make a continuous effort and a strong investment in positive human capital management techniques.

The first step is to understand what an engaged team member looks like: Engaged people go above and beyond their job descriptions to get things done. They’re committed to the organization’s success, and they’re willing to do what’s necessary to reach goals.

It’s important to understand that while many “average” employees are not quite fully engaged, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re completely disengaged. However, these average employees need re-engagement as well.

To reach a level of full engagement, you must build a people-focused workplace – one that recognizes that your people genuinely are your most important resource.

Re-engaging People

To achieve this, you need to meet people’s expectations and provide a great work environment. There are several key management practices that are fundamental to this process. By providing these workplace conditions and continuously reinforcing their practice throughout the company, you can re-engage people who have fallen out of step with your purpose and vision.

We can divide re-engagement approaches into four areas:

1. Fact-Finding – Activities that help you (a) understand disengagement and your current situation and (b) monitor your situation on an ongoing basis.

2. Establishing an Environment for Engagement – Activities that help engagement flourish.

3. Hygiene Factors – Activities that help avoid de-motivation by managing people’s stress, putting people in the right jobs, and providing feedback.

4. Motivators – Practices that help increase motivation and engagement.

Not all ideas will apply to all situations however, as a whole, these are the conditions and practices that will help you build people’s engagement. We’ll now look at each of these in detail.

1. Fact-finding

• Ask yourself when you ever felt unenthused and unengaged. This is a good place to start your re-engagement process. When you understand the sorts of things that caused you to disconnect with your company in the past, you may gain some insight into what members of your team are feeling right now.

• Talk to your people about their expectations and issues. Having clear expectations is a fundamental factor in re-engaging people. If people feel that they’ve been treated unfairly or have not been provided with the employment conditions they expected, you need to know. Once discrepancies are found, work toward a resolution as soon as possible. This lets people know that you care and you take their needs seriously.

  And ask them about the situations and issues that may be upsetting them. Push beyond the issues that are immediately obvious – the problem may lie with issues that are entrenched and systematic, and that the person thinks are just part of the way things are.

  This step is particularly important when you become the new manager of a group of people who are already disengaged. Resist the temptation to blame the former manager – instead, focus on moving forward from where you are now, based on what you find out from talking to your new people.

• Schedule regular “one-on-ones” with members of your team. Talk with individual team members about what they believe is expected of them, and then clarify and make modifications as necessary. When you keep communication open, you can often avoid potential conflicts and misunderstandings that can grow worse and lead to major problems.

• Survey employee engagement on a regular basis. With any kind of change process, it’s usually a good idea to regularly ask your people questions related to their dedication and commitment to the company. Use the issues you’ve identified as a starting point, and construct a questionnaire to discover what you’re doing well and where there’s room for improvement. Use the results to begin a re-engagement plan that will help you build a stronger and more devoted workforce.

2. Establishing an Environment for Engagement

• Be honest and forthright about your own role in people’s disengagement. A little humility goes a long way toward re-engaging someone. What if your management practices have contradicted any of the above points? What if you’ve been weaker in your commitment recently, and you’ve contributed to the current situation? Admit it, apologize for your actions, and construct a solid plan to move forward. This is a great way to start rebuilding your team’s trust and show how supporting one another can make huge differences for everyone. By demonstrating your commitment to your people, they will likely respond with a renewed commitment to you and the business.

• Practice participative management. People usually want to participate and be involved. They want and need to feel that they matter and that their contributions are valued. To engage them, provide lots of opportunities for them to be involved with decisions. It’s also important that people feel able to voice their ideas and raise issues – without judgment or fear of punishment. To re-engage people, help them feel confident that you’ll welcome their contributions and that you’ll really listen to what they say.

• Be a model for commitment to the organization. When employees believe their boss and senior management are committed to the company, that can provide proof that the company is indeed worth committing to. If you have doubts or express negativity toward the business, you can’t expect members of your team to be totally dedicated and engaged. They take their cues from you, and they’ll react to your opinions and actions.

3. Hygiene Factors

• Identify and manage stress and burnout. Overworked employees can have a difficult time engaging. They simply have too many competing needs, the greatest of which is their own survival. If you want engaged people, develop a genuine concern for their health and welfare. By using regular one-on-ones and staying connected to members of your team, you should be able to keep on top of their workload and stress factors. Do what you can to alleviate their stress by using the tools on Stress Management pages, and refer your people for assistance as necessary.

• Put people in the right jobs. As you get to know members of your team through regular contact and feedback, think about ways to capitalize on their unique strengths and talents. Rather than focusing on a specific smaller problem or disciplining someone, look at the bigger picture: Does the person fit the job? You may need to regroup which tasks go with which jobs, or allow people to rotate jobs in order to enrich their learning opportunities. Work with members of your team to meet your company’s needs. When people know you’re dedicated to their success, they will, in turn, dedicate themselves to your success.

• Provide fair and regular feedback. Most people respond incredibly well to praise and recognition. For effective employee engagement, this can be difficult if you restrict yourself to a formal program or yearly performance appraisals. Make a conscious effort to observe when people are doing things right, and show them every day that they’re appreciated. When you need to provide corrective feedback, make sure it’s timely, and centered on a specific task.

For more on hygiene factors and motivators, see article on Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory.

4. Motivators

• Provide growth opportunities. A big factor in employee engagement is building long-term commitment. This is important because it retains knowledge within the company and reduces turnover. Provide incentive for people to stay long term by discovering their talents and figuring out ways to use those talents within the organization.

This can be a powerful method of re-engagement. However, be careful that you don’t try to re-engage someone by promising too much. Be genuine in your offers – otherwise, you can do much more damage to your reputation and to the person’s welfare in the long run.

• Help people understand the big picture. Too often, people don’t understand what’s going on in the organization outside of the small world around their own jobs. When that happens, it’s easy for them to become disconnected and disillusioned. Make sure that members of your team know the company’s vision and strategy. They need to recognize the roles they play in the organization’s success. To do this, keep people well informed, and make sure they stay focused on the big picture.

• Align personal and organizational goals. Make sure that people’s goals are tied to departmental and company goals (this is related to understanding the big picture). A key part of engaging people is ensuring that the company’s success matters to them. If you can link personal success and accomplishment to overall company goals, then you provide the basis for an engaged workplace.

Tip: If you’ve done all you can to engage someone, and they are still not engaged, you may need to take disciplinary action, either to emphasize the need for change or to remove someone who is blocking the team’s progress. If you don’t, you risk jeopardizing your whole team’s progress. This is not an option to take lightly, so talk to your HR department as a first step.

Key Points

Employee engagement is a critical factor in a company’s success. When you have people who are committed to your business, they’ll stay with you long term and they’ll work very hard to make the organization a success. It’s extremely important, therefore, that you actively re-engage people who are disconnected with the company and that you work to build and maintain an engaged team. The keys to employee engagement are great management practices, including strong teams and a firm sense that what your people do on a daily basis matters to their boss and to the business as a whole.

The bottom line is that people need to feel wanted. Show them how much they’re needed and why. Be honest and trustworthy – and acknowledge, with everything you do, that your people truly are the company’s most valuable resource.

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Creating Job Satisfaction

Getting the Most From Your Job.

	The key to job satisfaction is your attitude.

“Find a job you like, and you add five days to every week.”
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

For many of us, the idea of having a job that is truly satisfying – the kind where work doesn’t feel like work anymore – is pure fantasy. Sure, professional athletes, ski patrollers and golf pros may have found a way of doing what they love and getting paid for it. But is there actually anyone out there who dreams of sitting at a desk and processing paper, or watching products fly by them on conveyor belts, or working to solve other people’s problems?

Career dreams are one thing; practical reality is often another. When they happily coincide, seize the opportunity and enjoy it! Luckily, when they do not, it’s good to know that it is possible to get job satisfaction from a practical choice of career. Job satisfaction doesn’t have to mean pursuing the ultra-glamorous, or making money from your hobby. You can work at job satisfaction, and find it in the most unexpected places…

The heart of job satisfaction is in your attitude and expectations; it’s more about how you approach your job than the actual duties you perform. Whether you work on the farm, a production line, in the corner office or on the basketball court, the secret is to understand the key ingredients of your unique recipe for job satisfaction.

Identify Your Satisfaction Triggers

There are three basic approaches to work: is it a job, a career, or a passion? Depending on which type of work you are in right now, the things that give you satisfaction will vary.

• If you work at a JOB, the compensation aspects of the position will probably hold more appeal than anything else, and have the greatest impact on whether you stay or go.
• If you work at a CAREER, you are looking for promotions and career development opportunities. Your overall satisfaction is typically linked with your status, power, or position.
• If you work at a PASSION, the work itself is the factor that determines your satisfaction, regardless of money, prestige, or control.

Inevitably, these are generalizations, and you will probably find that you get satisfaction from more than one approach to work. Being aware of the type of work you are doing, and the things you need for job satisfaction, will help you to identify and adjust your satisfaction expectations accordingly.

Building Job Satisfaction

Once you have identified the blend of status, power, or intrinsic enjoyment that need to be present in your work for you to feel satisfied, you then need to work on some of our seven ‘ingredients’ for a satisfying job. These ingredients are:

• Self-awareness.
• Challenge.
• Variety.
• Positive attitude.
• Knowing your options.
• Balanced lifestyle.
• A sense of purpose.

Self-Awareness

The first step in the search for job satisfaction is to know yourself. If you’re to be happy and successful, you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses. This will help you identify what types of profession will allow you to build on those strengths, and minimize those weaknesses. A useful framework for conducting this type of analysis is a Personal SWOT analysis.

It is difficult to feel satisfied with something you aren’t very good at, so rather than spend time beating yourself up about it, take a long hard look at the things at which you excel, and try to find a position that uses some of those skills too.

Another important component of self-awareness is to have a good understanding of your personality traits and your preferred style of working. A useful tool for this is Schein’s Career Anchors (premium members’ article), which helps you understand what you value and what motivates you in your career, (and also what you do not value, and what de-motivates you).

By increasing your self-awareness, you can work towards the ideal blend of compensation, status, and intrinsic reward that suits you, and that you can realistically achieve. Knowing this will help you to set appropriate goals, and manage your own expectations.

The greater the match between your preferences and the requirements of the job, the more potential for job satisfaction you have. The remaining six ‘ingredients’ determine how much of that potential you actually achieve.

Challenge

Some days you may deny it, but we all thrive on interesting challenges. Does this mean your job has to be the head of engineering at NASA? No, different things challenge different people at different times. You just need to figure out what you can do to make sure you don’t allow yourself to go stale at work.

Even if the job itself is not all that challenging, you can make it challenging. Some great ideas here include:

• Set performance standards for yourself – aim to beat your previous record, or set up a friendly competition among co-workers.
• Teach others your skills – little is more challenging, or rewarding, than passing your skills and knowledge on to others.
• Ask for new responsibilities – these will give you opportunities to stretch yourself.
• Start or take on a project that uses skills you would like to use, or want to improve.
• Commit to professional development – take courses, read books or trade magazines and attend seminars. However you do it, keep your skills fresh and current.

Variety

Closely related to the need for challenge is the need to minimize boredom. Boredom is a common culprit when it comes to job dissatisfaction. When you are bored, you lack interest and enthusiasm, and even a well-matched job becomes dissatisfying. Some common methods to alleviate boredom at work include:

• Cross train and learn new skills.
• Ask to be moved to a new assignment or department requiring the same skills.
• Ask to work a different shift.
• Volunteer to take on new tasks.
• Get involved with committee work.
• Go on extended leave, or take a sabbatical.

Tip 1: If your job is inherently repetitive, then add variety by changing your routine. Instead of sitting in the lunchroom for your break, go outside, or reposition your desk so you have different scenery. Tip 2: All jobs have elements or tasks that are boring, and if you’re to do your job well, you’ll need to do these tasks well (you can bet that there are things that even your CEO doesn’t like doing!) However, make sure there’s plenty of interesting work to offset the boredom.

Positive Attitude

Attitude plays a huge role in how you perceive your job and your life in general. If you are depressed, angry or frustrated, you’re much less likely to be satisfied with anything. Making a change to a positive attitude is a complex process that requires a lot of work and a strong commitment. However, over time, you can turn your internal dialogues around and start to see most events in your life as positive and worthwhile. Here are some tips:

• Stop negative thoughts from entering your mind.
  
• Reframe your thoughts to the positive.
  
• Put the events of the day in the correct context.
  
• Don’t dwell on setbacks.
  
• Commit to viewing obstacles as challenges.
  
• Accept that mistakes are simply opportunities to learn.
  
• Become an optimist.

To help you with your quest to become positive, MindTools has a useful article titled Rational Positive Thinking, which helps you to identify and change negative and unhappy thinking patterns.

Know Your Options

When you feel trapped, you can start to get anxious. At first you wonder what else is out there for you. This progresses to the point where you become convinced that anything other than the job you’re doing has got to be more satisfying. To combat this, continuously scan your environment for opportunities. When you feel you have options, you have more control. When you make a positive choice to stay with a job, that job has much more appeal than if you feel forced to stay in because you feel you have no alternative.

• Keep a list of your accomplishments.
• Update your resume on a regular basis.
• Keep up to date on employment trends.
• Research other jobs that interest you.
• Adopt an ‘I’m keeping my options open’ approach.

Maintain a Balanced Lifestyle

You’ll have heard many times that you need to keep your life and work in balance. When you focus too much on one at the expense of the other, you risk creating all sorts of problems. When work takes over your life, it is easy to resent it and lose your sense of perspective: suddenly everything about your life is clouded with negativity.

The Life Career Rainbow (premium members’ article) and The Wheel of Life are two great tools to use when seeking to attain and maintain an appropriate work life balance.

Find a Sense of Purpose

Last, but certainly not least (for many people) is the need to find a sense of purpose in the things you do. Even if you have a boring job, it helps a lot if you can see the real benefit you’re providing for people.

Even the most mundane job usually has purpose if you dig deep enough. And if it doesn’t, should you be wasting your life doing it?

If you’re struggling to see the value in what you do (or if you want to sharpen your image of it) see our article on mission statements and vision statements: Unleashing the Power of Purpose.

Key points:

Work plays a significant role in our lives. In our quest to be happy and productive, having a strong sense of job satisfaction is important. When you are dissatisfied with your job, this tends to have an influence on your overall outlook on life. While you may not be in the career of your dreams right now, it is still your responsibility to make sure that what you are doing is satisfying to you.

By knowing the key elements that go into job satisfaction, you can choose to take control and make the changes you need to feel really satisfied and motivated by what you do. Make one small change at work today that makes you feel good or different – build on that change and create a satisfying environment for yourself.

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Empathy at Work

Developing Skills to Understand Other People

	Learn how to really “connect” with someone.

“Tom is a great accountant, but his ‘people’ skills hold him back. I can’t see how he’ll ever be promoted unless he does something about it.”

Many of us know people who have reached a certain point in their careers because they have excellent technical skills – but they somehow don’t get along with team members, because their people skills lag far behind their other job skills.

This might be due to the insensitive manner in which they ask co-workers for things, the way they never seem to listen to what others say, or their intolerance for other working approaches.

Do you have colleagues like Tom? Or are you, perhaps, like Tom?

Workers with poor people skills can often find themselves in the middle of unnecessary conflict. This can be exhausting and stressful for all concerned, and it can destroy even the best laid work plans.

Many people are confident that they can develop new technical skills and knowledge through training and experience. However, there’s a common belief that “you are how you are” when it comes to people skills – or “soft” skills – and that there’s little or nothing you can do to change these.

Fortunately, this is far from true. And a great place to start improving soft skills is by developing the ability to empathize with others.

What Is Empathy?

Empathy is simply recognizing emotions in others, and being able to “put yourself in another person‘s shoes” – understanding the other person’s perspective and reality.

To be empathic, you have to think beyond yourself and your own concerns. Once you see beyond your own world, you’ll realize that there’s so much to discover and appreciate!

People who are accused of being egotistical and selfish, or lacking perspective, have often missed the big picture: that they are just single individuals in a world with billions of other people (although, yes, this can be overwhelming if you think about it too long!)

If you’ve been called any of these things, then remind yourself that the world is full of other people, and you can’t escape their influence on your life. It’s far better to accept this, and to decide to build relationships and understanding, rather than try to stand alone all of the time.

Using Empathy Effectively

To start using empathy more effectively, consider the following:

1. Put aside your viewpoint, and try to see things from the other person’s point of view.
   When you do this, you’ll realize that other people most likely aren’t being evil, unkind, stubborn, or unreasonable – they’re probably just reacting to the situation with the knowledge they have.
2. Validate the other person’s perspective.
   Once you “see” why others believe what they believe, acknowledge it. Remember: acknowledgement does not always equal agreement. You can accept that people have different opinions from your own, and that they may have good reason to hold those opinions.
3. Examine your attitude.
   Are you more concerned with getting your way, winning, or being right? Or, is your priority to find a solution, build relationships, and accept others? Without an open mind and attitude, you probably won’t have enough room for empathy.
4. Listen.
   Listen to the entire message that the other person is trying to communicate.
   • Listen with your ears: What is he or she saying, and what tone is being used?
   • Listen with your eyes: What is the person doing with his or her body while speaking?
   • Listen with your instincts: Do you sense that the person is holding something important back?
   • Listen with your heart: What do you think the other person feels?

    

5. Ask what the other person would do.
   When in doubt, ask the person to explain his or her position. This is probably the simplest, and most direct, way to understand the other person. However, it’s probably the least used way to develop empathy.

   It’s fine if you ask what the other person wants: you don’t earn any “bonus points” for figuring it out on your own.

   For example, the boss who gives her young team members turkey vouchers for the holidays, when most of them don’t even cook, is using her idea of a practical gift – not theirs.

Practice these skills when you interact with people. You’ll likely appear much more caring and approachable – simply because you have increased your interest in what others think, feel, and experience. It’s a great gift to be willing and able to see the world from a variety of perspectives – and it’s a gift that you can use all of the time, in any situation.

Here are some more tips for an empathic conversation:

• Pay attention, physically and mentally, to what’s happening.
• Listen carefully, and note the key words and phrases that people use.
• Respond encouragingly to the central message.
• Be flexible – prepare to change direction as the other person’s thoughts and feelings also change.
• Look for cues that you’re on target.

Key Points

Developing an empathic approach is perhaps the most significant effort you can make toward improving your people skills. When you understand others, they’ll probably want to understand you – and this is how you can start to build cooperation, collaboration, and teamwork.

Expert Power

Expert Power
Lead From the Front

There are many different power bases that a leader can use.

These include problematic ones such as the power of position, the power to give rewards, the power to punish and the power to control information. While these types of power do have some strength, they can put the person being led in an unhealthy position of weakness, and can leave leaders using these power bases looking autocratic and out of touch.

More than this, society has changed hugely over the last 50 years. Citizens are individually more powerful, and employees are more able to change jobs. Few of us enjoy having power exerted over us, and many will do what they can to undermine people who use these sorts of power.

However, there are three types of positive power that effective leaders can use: charismatic power, expert power and referent power.

This article teaches the technique of building expert power.

Using the Tool:

Expert power is essential because, as a leader, your team looks to you for direction and guidance. Team members need to believe in your ability to lead in a worthwhile direction, give sound advice, and co-ordinate a good result.

If members of your team see you as a true expert, they will be much more receptive when you try to persuade them to do something, and when you want to inspire them to make more of an effort.

And if they see you as an expert, you’ll find it much easier to motivate them:

• If team members respect your expertise, they’ll trust you to show them how to work effectively.

• If team members respect your judgment, they’ll trust you to guide their efforts in such a way that you’ll make the most of their hard work.

• If they can see your expertise, they’ll believe that you have the wisdom to direct their efforts towards a goal that is genuinely worthwhile.

Taken together, if your team sees you as an expert, you’ll find it much easier to motivate your people to perform at their best.

So how do you build expert power?

• Gain expertise: The first step is fairly obvious (if time consuming) - gain expertise. And, if you are already using tools like information gathering, the chances are that you have already progressed well ahead in this direction.

But just being an expert isn’t enough, it is also necessary that your people recognize your expertise and see you as a credible source of information and advice. Gary A. Yukl, in his book “Leadership in Organizations,” details some steps to build expert power. These are:

• Promote an image of expertise: Since perceived expertise in many occupations is associated with a person’s education and experience, a leader should (subtly) make sure that subordinates, peers, and superiors are aware of his or her formal education, relevant work experience, and significant accomplishments.

  One common way of doing this is to display diplomas, licenses, awards, and other evidence of expertise in a prominent location in your office - after all, if you’ve worked hard to gain knowledge, it’s fair that you get credit for it. Another tactic is to make subtle references to prior education or experience (for example, “When I was chief engineer at GE, we had a problem similar to this one”). Beware, however: this can easily be overdone.

• Maintain credibility: Once established, you should carefully protect your image of expertise. Avoid making careless comments about subjects on which you are poorly informed, and avoid being associated with projects with a low likelihood of success.

• Act confidently and decisively in a crisis: In a crisis or emergency, subordinates prefer a “take charge” leader who appears to know how to direct the group in coping with the problem. In this kind of situation, your people will associate confident, firm leadership with expert knowledge. Even if you’re not sure how to deal with a crisis, you’ll lose influence with members of your team if you appear confused.

• Keep informed: Expert power is exercised through rational persuasion and demonstration of expertise. Rational persuasion depends on a firm grasp of up-to-date facts. It is therefore essential that you keep well-informed of developments within your team, within your organization, and in the outside world.

• Recognize team member concerns: Use of rational persuasion should not be seen as a form of one-way communication from the leader to members of his or her team. Listen carefully to the concerns and uncertainties of your team members, and make sure that you address these.

• Avoid threatening the self-esteem of subordinates: Expert power is based on a knowledge differential between the leader and team members. Unfortunately, the very existence of this differential can cause problems if you’re not careful about the way in which you exercise expert power.

  Team members can dislike unfavorable status comparisons where the gap is very large and obvious. And they are likely to be upset by a leader who acts in a superior way, and arrogantly flaunts his greater expertise.

  In the process of arguing for what they want, some leaders lecture their team members in a condescending manner and convey the impression that the other team members are “ignorant.” Guard against this.