HRM Leadership Development & Team Effectiveness sampler Dec 2013 by Wiley PD Asia

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Leadership Development & Team Effectiveness Perspectives from Leading Experts

Essential resources f or training and HR p rofessionals

Teams

Building Better

70 Tools and Techniques for

Strengthening Performance Within and Across Teams

ROBERT W. BARNER, Ph.D . CHARLOTTE P. BARNER, Ed .D

CY NT HIA CL AY R AY OL IT T

PEER

PO W ER

TRAN SFO RMIN G WOR KPLACE RELATION SHIP S

INTRODUCTION

This sampler includes selected material from Wileyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new and leading titles on Human Resource and Professional Development, including the bookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s full Table of Contents as well as a full sample chapter. Jocelyn Berard, Accelerating Leadership Development

978-1-118-46411-3; August 2013 }} Table of Contents }} Chapter 1: The Leadership Success Profile }} About the Author

Robert Barner & Charlotte Barner, Building Better Teams

978-1-118-12726-1; June 2012 }} Table of Contents }} Introduction }} Chapter 1: A Systematic Approach to Team Building - Getting Started }} About the Authors

Jennifer Robin & Michael Burchell, No Excuses

978-1-118-35242-7; August 2013 }} Table of Contents }} Chapter 1: The Anatomy of an Excuse }} About the Authors

Cynthia Clay & Ray Olitt, Peer Power

978-1-118-20545-7; February 2012 }} Table of Contents }} Chapter 1: Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid): Manipulating, Whining, Attacking, and Bullying }} About the Authors

Trevor Wilson, The Human Equity Advantage

978-1-118-45840-2; May 2013 }} Table of Contents (use page 1-2 of pdf) }} Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity Afterword: My Why of Human Equity

Robert Benfari, Understanding and Changing Your Management Style, 2nd edition 978-1-118-39946-0; July 2013 }} Table of Contents }} Chapter 1: Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings: How They Influence Performance }} About the Author

117

Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION: THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE FRAMEWORK

PART I: LEADERSHIP AND SUCCESSION

CHAPTER 1: The Leadership Success Profile

CHAPTER 2: Identifying Leadership Potential

CHAPTER 3: Diagnosing Development Needs

CHAPTER 4: Prescribing Development Solutions

CHAPTER 5: Ensuring and Reviewing Development

PART II: LEADERSHIP IN ACTION

111

CHAPTER 6: Leaders as Coaches

113

CHAPTER 7: Motivate for Full Engagement

135

CHAPTER 8: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

155

CHAPTER 9: Delegate Deliberately and Provide Feedback

173

CHAPTER 10: Influential Leadership

195

PART III: LEADERSHIP BEST PRACTICES

207

CHAPTER 11: Align for Results

209

CHAPTER 12: From Doing to Leading, and Other Leadership Transitions

235

CHAPTER 13: Onboarding

255

CHAPTER 14: Contemporary Development Solutions

271

CONCLUSION

289

REFERENCES

292

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

303

INDEX

305

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PART I

Leadership and Succession

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The Leadership Success Profile

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Dee Hock

The first few chapters of this book lay out the theory and practice that organizations can use to recognize and develop great leaders. It is a process that includes defining the success profile required for leadership positions (What does it take to be successful as a leader in your organization?), identifying those high-potential individuals within your organization (Who are the future leader candidates?), diagnosing their strengths and specific development needs (What can they leverage and acquire to become better leaders?), determining how to accelerate their development by taking advantage of multiple development approaches and, finally, determining how to make sure development and growth are happening.

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Most leaders today come to the position armed with a distinct skill set or expertise from some sort of technical background. Making the leap from that position to a leadership position, commonly called the leadership transition, is often misunderstood and underestimated. There is a world of difference between doing a particular job and managing people who are doing those same tasks. People get the idea from the world of sports and entertainment that it’s easy to do: former players become bigleague coaches and the likes of Clint Eastwood make the transition from actor to Oscar-winning director and producer. We tend not to notice that as many fail as succeed. In simple terms, the leadership success profile is a clear definition of what it takes to be an effective leader in a certain organization. Once it has been clearly defined, it will be used to diagnose the actual leaders (Chapter 3) or the high-potential ones (Chapter 2) in order to determine what to do to develop them (Chapter 4).

THE CRITICAL COMPONENTS What does it take to be successful in a leadership role? A number of individuals both within and outside an organization may have the necessary qualities. However, until an organization determines exactly what specific combination of ability, background and personal makeup is required, launching a search to fill a leadership position or implementing a solution to grow leaders will prove fruitless. Through research and firsthand observation, we at Global Knowledge have identified a set of four key requirements that are critical components of the leadership success profile. These are: • • • •

Competencies Knowledge Experience Personal traits/motivation

Acres of forest have been sacrificed to detail the volumes of academic research on the areas of competencies and personality traits/motivation in relation to leadership development. Perhaps surprisingly, very little research

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Knowledge Personality Traits / Motivation Experience

Competencies

Figure 1.1: The Triangle of Truth

has been done on experience and knowledge and their development. We refer somewhat tongue-in-cheek to the holistic combination that makes up the leadership profile at Global Knowledge as the “Triangle of Truth.” An individual needs to have or acquire certain elements of all four components of the triangle as they relate to leadership. The combination includes attributes that go well beyond what is generally in a person’s résumé. A résumé, after all, lays out only what the person has done and perhaps describes some competencies. It does not describe that person’s makeup. The leadership success profile is not a schematic describing any one individual but rather a description of the requirements at the job or level in an organization (for example, vice-president or director level). The level-bylevel approach is one that more and more companies are adopting.

Competencies (What I Can Do) Competencies can be best described as a set of desired behaviors. For example, at one particular pharmaceutical company, the competency requirement for the vice-president of sales revolves around customer focus—providing internal and external customers with value. (See sidebar,

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“What It Takes to Succeed as a Leader at TD Bank.”) So just what does that look like in action? A typical behavior would be identifying, building and maintaining long-term customer relationships. Other behaviors that illustrate key competencies might be grouped under the heading “Things the individual is skilled at” or “Things the individual is required to have (or learn) to fill the role.”

Knowledge (What I Know) The knowledge necessary in the leadership success profile could be organizational knowledge or product knowledge, or knowledge of systems and business functions. It also could include knowledge of laws and regulations. This component of the profile could be roughly described as “This is what I know.” Experience (What I Have Done) The experience component of the leadership success profile might be tagged as “This is what I have done”; this, too, is a key component of any potential leader’s résumé. Rather than vague descriptions, such as “I have ten years of business planning experience,” the experience component must be expressed in granular and specific terms, articulating the types of situations the candidate has experienced and exposed to justify a claim as a “good manager.” Examples might include having led an advisory group of customers, or having addressed public relations challenges, such as a product recall or labor issue. In the finance arena, it could be a specific experience, such as having implemented a budget-tracking system and defended the variances. Personality Traits/Motivation (Who I Am) Why is it important to define personality traits when creating a success profile for a particular leadership role? The simple answer is that any individual’s personality traits will influence their leadership style, which will go a long way to determining the leadership results of the person in that role. 10

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Chapter 1: The Leadership Success Profile

WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED AS A LEADER AT TD BANK TD Bank has, like many other organizations, a leadership profile. But what is interesting to note is how it clearly made it behaviors-based, actionable and observable. Competencies, or profiles, should not be done to meet HR obligations. These words and definitions need to mean something for the line managers who will apply them, and they need to be the right ones for the organization. The most important challenge for a leadership profile is to “make it happen” in a day-to-day fashion. For example, some leaders may say sarcastically, “The values and competencies are on the wall, but not in the hall!” At TD Bank, numerous efforts are made at all levels, including the executive level, to live the competencies and make them real. All executives must realize the power of what they say and do; they are visible and influential. So if they believe, talk and live the competencies, they are sending a very powerful message—one much more powerful than any official communication.

TD’S LEADERSHIP PROFILE Make an Impact and Value Speed Leaders at TD make an impact by: • Getting things done. • Valuing speed. • Focusing on what matters. • Owning results—not blaming others. • Knowing the business from the ground up and customer in. • Finding ways to outperform—not settling for average. • Delivering superior results for all stakeholders in both the short and long term. Build for the Future Leaders at TD build for the future by: • Having a vision and proactively taking action to implement it. • Developing tomorrow’s leaders. (continued)

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• Creating an organization that starts with the customer. • Building organizational capabilities today that business will need tomorrow. • Seeking continuous improvement. • Creating a learning environment.

Inspire the Will to Win Leaders at TD inspire the will to win by: • Demonstrating passion for the business. • Attracting and retaining great people. • Bringing out the best in individuals and teams and making it fun. • Showing perseverance and resilience in bad times. • Recognizing and rewarding the contributions of others, both in little ways and more formally. • Caring about people.

Act Decisively while Working Effectively in Teams Leaders at TD work effectively in teams by: • Being driven to win for the TD team. • Making things happen by leveraging their partners. • Using positive influence, not power, to deliver results. • Showing trust in their business partners. • Working well with people who are different than they are. • Knowing instinctively how to engage the organization to make things happen.

Live Transparently and Respect Different Views Leaders at TD live transparently by: • Speaking candidly but with respect. • Not rounding corners. • Having no time for internal politics. (continued)

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• Respecting different views. • Being grounded, authentic and genuine, and not taking themselves too seriously. • Being willing to personally wear problems. • Surfacing problems, fixing them and learning from them. • Recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses. Show Excellent Judgment Leaders at TD show excellent judgment by: • Making pragmatic decisions using a mix of intellect, experience and street smarts. • Dealing with tough issues fairly, decisively and calmly. • Making timely decisions, even in ambiguous, rapidly changing situations. • Taking intelligent and prudent risks. • Making decisions based on what’s best for TD, not their ego. Demonstrate Unwavering Integrity Leaders at TD demonstrate unwavering integrity by: • Doing the right thing to the highest ethical standards. • Putting the interests of the organization above their own and their business unit’s. • Treating people with respect. • Showing that actions speak louder than words. • Acting as a role model publicly and privately. • Demonstrating loyalty and responsibility to TD.

THE BUCKET LIST The TD Bank profile is certainly a positive model, but there are many ways to define what it takes for a leader to be successful. Joseph D’Cruz, professor emeritus of strategic management at the University of Toronto’s 13

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Rotman School of Management, describes five “buckets” of competency that successful leaders need to develop: 1. Management basics. The first bucket consists of fundamental competencies such as planning, deployment, accountability and performance management, as well as continuous improvement as popularized by Japanese management approaches. 2. Strategic outlook. Frontline managers who are preparing to move to higher levels in the organization need to be coached to think strategically and assess their own abilities and capabilities. 3. People skills. D’Cruz argues that leaders must be able to manage people effectively—“that is the individual interpersonal stuff, such as having difficult conversations, performance management, as well as team management skills and even some self-management and selfregulation, seeing how your behavior impacts others.” 4. Analytical competence. The fourth bucket is understanding data. The successful leader possesses a basic understanding of statistics and behavioral economics. 5. Skill at negotiation. “Every manager throughout an organization can be thought of in terms of negotiation,” says D’Cruz. “Negotiating with the people who work for you, you are negotiating with the people you report to, you are dealing with peers of the organization.” D’Cruz is a big believer in “interest-based negotiation,” where both sides come away satisfied rather than endure a zero-sum negotiation in which one side tries to better the other. Alan Booth, an associate partner at professional services firm Deloitte, highlights three core competencies for any leadership success profile. “It starts with intellectual horsepower, somebody who gets it, somebody who is a quick study,” he says. “The second is maturity and resilience—someone who can take direct feedback, analyze it, learn from it and get back to work. The third is the ability to manage relationships with others: the ability to form them, the ability to leverage them and the ability to add value to the relationship.”

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Earlier in the chapter, the four essential leadership requirements that make up the Triangle of Truth were listed. Remember, though, that it’s imperative to take a holistic view of the success profile for any given leadership position. In reality, most people’s skills, experiences and traits cannot be configured into neat triangles. Sometimes, for example, people are “professional students,” with a handful of degrees but little or no real-world experience working in an organization. A leadership success profile has these four components because, to be effective, leaders need the right balance of experience, knowledge, competencies and traits according to the position and the organization. To use another analogy, building a robust leadership success profile is akin to constructing a stable foundation for a house. Hogan Assessments, a firm that provides a variety of psychological assessment tools that have HR applications, contends that every well-run organization needs to have a competency model encompassing four broad skill sets: 1. Intrapersonal: integrity, emotional stability and self-control 2. Interpersonal: the ability to build and maintain relationships together with compassion, empathy and humility 3. Business: a capacity to analyze data, allocate resources and forecast budgets 4. Leadership: vision, a gift for empowering staff and the ability to act as a good role model HOW TO DEFINE AND EVALUATE LEADERSHIP Leadership is typically defined in terms of the persons in charge. That is a mistake. Why? Leadership should be defined in terms of the ability to build and maintain a high-performing team. And when it is time to evaluate leadership, we should look at it in terms of the performance of the team relative to the other teams with which it competes. This is rarely done. Source: Hogan 2003.

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COMPETENCIES, EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE The following section outlines just what is contained in a real-world leadership success profile for a Global Knowledge client. The sample profile provides the observable behaviors or actions that are required for successful job performance on the executive leadership team, organized by competencies, experience and knowledge. The most important aspect of competencies is to make them relevant for the people who will use them: the job incumbent, the incumbent’s leader and people in HR. It also has to be easy to understand. Can you see the person doing this behavior? If the language is too vague or esoteric, it will lead to confusion. Competencies • Customer focus. The ideal person for the job provides internal and external customers with value-added quality service, and identifies, builds and maintains long-term customer relationships that are of strategic significance and drive the success of the business. He or she takes accountability to provide service and resolve customer issues in a manner that exceeds customer and market expectations. As well, this person must use customer data and feedback to identify changes required and understand customer/market trends and adapt products, sales, processes and customer relationships. • Industry networking. The ideal person for the executive leadership team is required to have prominence beyond the walls of the organization and is required to “develop and maintain relationships with competitors, stakeholders, government and regulatory organizations” and “identify valued relationships with key organizations related to the pharmaceutical industry.” The individual is also required to “develop and maintain a planned network of relationships,” use that network “to identify opportunities, gather market intelligence and resolve challenges” and “maintain high visibility for company in the industry and the community.” • Resource management. Because even the largest companies have limited resources, the executive-team member is asked to “prudently manage the company’s financial, technology and space resources to achieve 16

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•

business goals,” and to develop budgets “to align with company strategy and revenue plans,” while maintaining access to “resources and capabilities across the multiple companies” and “to monitor performance against plans and reassign resources as required.” Business processes (problem solving and decision making). The individual is required to use logical processes to resolve issues by making decisions “based on principles, values and business cases”; to champion initiatives that have “significant potential paybacks but possible adverse consequences, based on an assessment of the risks and benefits”; and to integrate risk management into departmental and organizational planning. Creativity and innovation. The individual is asked to develop “leadingedge, new or improved ways of doing things,” which requires him or her to, among other things, apply innovative solutions “to significant business issues, challenge current products and processes, create a culture that promotes and rewards creativity and innovation, [and] champion new ideas and facilitate their implementation.” People and leadership (collaboration). The ability to work collaboratively is a major part of having what it takes for a spot on the company’s executive leadership team, so the individual is required to work cooperatively and constructively with others to achieve desired outcomes, which include encouraging “idea sharing and debate from all areas and all levels” of the company while “soliciting and using ideas and opinions of others” and “assertively challenging others in a tactful and diplomatic way.” Courage. Yes, courage is also required, because members of the executive leadership team are expected to take actions that may be unpopular but necessary. To do that, the sought-after individual offers “fact-based assessments of situations, offers [his or her] own perspective even when others disagree” and “sustains initiatives in the face of resistance and setbacks.” Coaching and developing others. A top executive also needs to be a coach and is required to plan and support the development of employee skills for current or future job roles by helping others “in exploring and discovering new possibilities,” creating a work environment “of empowerment, self-development and continuous learning” and reinforcing “the importance of development and learning as a business priority.” 17

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Experience As a member of the executive leadership team, the individual also needs to have experienced or had exposure to several key business situations: • Leadership challenges. The ideal executive-team candidate would have experience leading a regional advisory group of customers, working on a new product launch, addressing a public relations challenge such as a product recall or delayed product launch, developing local market knowledge through focused networking activities and representing the company in external professional or regulatory associations. • Business processes. The individual is asked to have relevant knowledge or experience of the full product lifecycle by working in various company departments, allowing him or her to develop new techniques, products or services, lead a team through process change, deal with the impact of delays in operations and participate in negotiation of supplier agreements for a new product launch.

Knowledge To be a member of the executive leadership team, the individual is required to have company-specific knowledge of its processes, systems, services and external relationships. It’s a list that includes knowledge of the company’s vision, its mission, strategy, departments and functions, finances, customers and people and external relationships. THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONALITY I like to say when I work with leaders that their personality traits are the DNA of their behaviors. Robert Hogan’s definition is that “personality concerns the characteristics inside people that explain why they do what they do” (Hogan 2012). Hogan then adds two dimensions to personality, depending on whether we are looking at it from the inside or the outside: “Personality should be defined from two perspectives. First, there is personality from the inside, which is called identity. This is the person you think you are and it is best defined by your hopes, dreams, aspirations,

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Chapter 1: The Leadership Success Profile

goals, and intentions—i.e., your values. Second, there is personality from the outside, which is called reputation. This is the person that others think you are.” In Chapter 3 we will review how to measure each component of the success factor. One of the key objectives is to identify if there is disparity between the person’s identity and his or her reputation. The larger the gap, the bigger the problem. Advanced research demonstrates that we can distinguish two aspects of personality traits, the enablers and the derailers—or what we might think of as the bright side and dark side of performance. The “bright side” refers to our way of relating to others at our best in “normal” conditions. Hogan says that the so-called dark side “reflects the impression we make on others when we let our guard down, or when we are at our worst.” Derailers tend to show when leaders are stressed, in unusual situations or operating under pressure. Hogan likes to say, perhaps with a sliver of irony, that “the bright side concerns the person you meet in an interview; the dark side concerns the person who actually comes to work!” (Hogan and Kaiser 2005). Of course, these two sides of personality always coexist and affect your reputation as a leader. The personality traits defined by Hogan as enablers, or the bright side, fall under the following headings: • Adjustment. The Adjustment scale reflects the degree to which a person is calm and even-tempered or, conversely, moody and volatile. High scorers seem confident, resilient and optimistic. Low scorers seem tense, irritable and negative. • Ambition. The Ambition scale evaluates the degree to which a person seems leaderlike, seeks status and values achievement. High scorers seem competitive and eager to advance. Low scorers seem unassertive and less interested in advancement. • Sociability. The Sociability scale assesses the degree to which a person appears talkative and socially self-confident. High scorers seem outgoing, colorful and impulsive. They dislike working by themselves. Low scorers seem reserved and quiet. They avoid calling attention to themselves and do not mind working alone.

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• Interpersonal Sensitivity. The Interpersonal Sensitivity scale reflects social skill, tact and perceptiveness. High scorers seem friendly, warm and popular. Low scorers seem independent, frank and direct. • Prudence. The Prudence scale concerns self-control and conscientiousness. High scorers seem organized, dependable and thorough. They follow rules and are easy to supervise. Low scorers seem impulsive and flexible. They tend to resist rules and close supervision; however, they may be creative and spontaneous. • Inquisitiveness. The Inquisitive scale reflects the degree to which a person seems curious, adventurous and imaginative. High scorers tend to be quick-witted and visionary, but they may be easily bored and not pay attention to details. Low scorers tend to be practical, focused and able to concentrate for long periods. • Learning Approach. The Learning Approach scale reflects the degree to which a person enjoys academic activities and values education as an end in itself. High scorers tend to enjoy reading and studying. Low scorers are less interested in formal education and more interested in hands-on learning. Hogan defines the following personality traits as derailers, or the dark side, that can put leaders at risk: • Excitability. Marks those who appear overly enthusiastic about people or projects, and then become disappointed with them. Result: they seem to lack persistence. • Skepticism. Marks those who are socially insightful, but cynical and overly sensitive to criticism. Result: they seem to lack trust. • Caution. Marks those who are overly worried about being criticized. Result: they seem resistant to change and reluctant to take chances. • Reserve. Marks those who lack interest in or awareness of the feelings of others. Result: they tend to be poor communicators. • Leisureliness. Marks those who are independent but tend to ignore others’ requests and become irritable if they persist. Result: they come across as stubborn, procrastinating and uncooperative. • Boldness. Marks those who have an inflated view of their competency and worth. Result: they tend to be unable to admit mistakes or learn from experience. 20

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• Mischievousness. Marks those who are charming, risk-taking and excitement-seeking. Result: they may have trouble maintaining commitments and learning from experience. • Colorfulness. Marks those who are dramatic, engaging and attentionseeking. Result: they may become preoccupied with being noticed and lack sustained focus. • Imaginativeness. Marks those who think and act in interesting, unusual and even eccentric ways. Result: they appear to be creative but may lack judgment. • Diligence. Marks those who are conscientious perfectionists and hard to please. Result: they tend to disempower staff. • Dutifulness. Marks those who are eager to please and reluctant to act independently. Result: they may be pleasant and agreeable but reluctant to support subordinates.

LAST THOUGHTS ON WHAT IT TAKES Brian Branson, president and CEO of Global Knowledge, sees one critical characteristic of leadership that is often overlooked by organizations. “The most important leadership characteristic is integrity, ethics,” he says. “If a leader doesn’t have that, it doesn’t mean he or she will not be successful, but people will ultimately realize that the leader lacks integrity and, at the end of the day, that creates tremendous risk—for talent retention, and real business risk.” He recalls working as CFO for a competitor of WorldCom in the late 1990s and puzzling along with the rest of his management team about how its rival could have such superior profit margins. “I kept saying, ‘I can’t figure it out.’ It turned out that they were not doing the right thing—that is why they had better numbers.” WorldCom emerged to be behind one of the largest accounting frauds in U.S. history. “So, to me, integrity is the most important thing. If you don’t have that, you don’t have the foundation to build upon,” Branson says. Generosity in leadership is another key trait. “My first manager was such a significant influence on me because he gave credit to those around him. When he brought a client into the room, he would say, ‘Bob did this for us, Betsy did this for us.’ He never took any credit for himself. So what did that do? It may or may not have had an impact in the eyes of the 21

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customer. However, for the employees around the table, it motivated them. I wanted to work hard for that person because I knew that he recognized the commitment that I had and brought to the table. It was an important lesson for me in my first job out of college. I saw that you could be successful without heaping the praise upon yourself, and instead building up those around you.” Dr. Jack Kitts, CEO of The Ottawa Hospital, looks for three traits or attitudes when evaluating leadership candidates. “First of all, they have to be high energy. Nobody wants to follow a leader who is a downer,” he explains. Also, “they have to have a passion for the organization; it has to be evident they really want that organization to be the best and succeed. And, finally, they have to have a positive focus. In every challenge there is an opportunity.

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY Going beyond Core Personality Traits Research on the relationship between personality, motivation and leadership development has found consistent strong support for the Big Five personality traits—the foundation for all personality trait measurement tools. The Big Five are often described as follows: 1. Extraversion. This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness. 2. Agreeableness. This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection and other pro-social behaviors. 3. Conscientiousness. Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details. 4. Neuroticism. Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability and sadness. 5. Openness. This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight; those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests.

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Each of the five personality factors are represented on a continuum. As an example, on one end we can find strong extraversion, with strong introversion on the other end. In society, people are somewhere in between the two polar ends of the continuum. While endorsing the importance of the Big Five personality traits, two studies looked beyond the Big Five to examine work orientation and motivation as desirable traits needed for leadership, as well as precursors to the inclination to engage in leadership self-development. Studies by Boyce, Zaccaro and Wisecarver (2010) and Hendricks and Payne (2007) move away from traditional applications of trait theory to examine multiple individual differences, as predictors of leadership effectiveness and leadersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; inclination to engage in self-development. In their empirical study of 400 undergraduate psychology students, Hendricks and Payne examine the relationship between the personality traits of goal orientation, leadership self-efficacy, motivation to lead and leadership development. The authors found that learning goal orientation was positively related to leadership self-efficacy, whereas leadership self-efficacy was positively related to both affective-identity and social-normative motivation to lead, suggesting that individuals with a high level of leader-goal orientation are more likely to want to lead because they like to lead and feel a sense of duty to lead. In their study of 400 junior military leaders, Boyce, Zaccaro and Wisecarver extend the findings of Hendriks and Payne to include motivation as a precursor to engage in self-development activities, finding that for leaders with low or moderate levels of motivation, an organizational support program positively influenced their engagement in self-development. This research on personality and motivation and its relationship to leadership development has practical implications for organizations in predicting successful leadership through assessments of individual personality differences to support selection, placement and promotion decisions. Because personality traits tend to be established early in life and remain reasonably stable, this research also has implications for training leaders. Hendriks and Payne (2007) point out that the development of leaders may be more efficient if the Big Five, along with the factors of learning goal orientation, leadership self-efficacy and motivation to lead, are taken into

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account when selecting who receives leadership training and development. Furthermore, the authors suggest that trainers work to enhance the traits of leadership self-efficacy and motivation to lead during leader training because they tend to be more pliable than learning goal orientation and other stable personality factors. Boyce, Zaccaro and Wisecarver (2010) recommend that organizations screen and target employees with low selfdevelopment inclinations to receive structured organizational support that would motivate leaders to engage in self-development, and provide them with the resources and skills necessary to do so effectively.

Competencies A review of the literature examining the relationship between core competencies and leadership found that it reflected the increased global nature of business environments. In her review of global leadership research, Jokinen (2005) attempts to combine the findings in an integrative framework that would contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the effect that different aspects of globalization have on leadership development. The author reports that in order to develop a network of specialists, organizations are continuing to select for and develop leader competencies based primarily on human capital, and only secondarily working to develop and train general managers with a global mindset. She identifies characteristics of a global mindset that lead to global competencies, including bigger, broader picture thinking (leading to managing competitiveness); balancing contradictory demands and needs (managing complexity); trust in networked processes, rather than in hierarchical structures (managing adaptability); valuing multicultural teamwork and diversity (managing teams); and seeing change as opportunity (managing uncertainty). In addition, she identifies three main types or levels of global leadership competencies: 1. Core competencies, including self-awareness, engagement in person transformation and inquisitiveness 2. Mental competencies related to self-regulation, social judgment and cognitive ability 3. Behavioral competencies related to social and networking skills 24

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Chapter 1: The Leadership Success Profile

More recently, in a review of five major leadership studies, published from 2002 to 2007, that surveyed executives, leaders, HR professionals and training managers across a wide range of industries, McCallum and O’Connell (2009) sought to raise the awareness of relational competence by attempting to clarify the role that human and social capital orientation competencies each play in leadership. This study represents a significant shift from past research that focused on the “hard” individual-leader competency growth, to give more attention to the “soft” relational context within which leadership takes place. An analysis of data from 150 to 5,000 respondents that identified critical competencies as either human or social capital revealed mixed results. Human capital competencies were classified as those that involved individual-level knowledge, skills and abilities (e.g., work experience, education, knowledge, skills and abilities). Social capital competencies involved relational ones (e.g., social awareness, selfmanagement, forging commitments, fostering cooperation, coordination and networking, giving feedback and establishing trust). The results found that while there is still a tilt toward human capital rather than social capital in leadership, there is a growing trend toward the increasing awareness of and need to develop the latter, especially in light of the volatility and virtual nature of organizations. Looking to future leaders, McCallum and O’Connell identify critical individual and relational leader competencies, including master strategist, change manager, relationship builder/network manager and talent manager. Other skills and qualities found to be important are cognitive ability, strategic and analytical thinking, decision-making skills, communication skills, influence and persuasion, ability to manage in a context of diversity, ability to delegate and manage risk, and personal adaptability. It is clear from the literature that effective future leadership will increasingly value and require both human and social capital competencies. The authors argue that the power of each is found more in their symbiotic relationship than in their individual strengths. Most recently, a study by Gentry and Sparks (2012) samples a total of 9,942 practicing managers from over 1,550 companies in forty countries, with a minimum of twenty managers per country, to determine whether certain leadership competencies are universally endorsed by managers across countries as being important for success in organizations, or if the 25

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Accelerating Leadership Development

importance of the leadership competencies is dependent on cultural factors. Across the forty countries, more than two-thirds of managers (averaging 66 to 80 percent) believed that resourcefulness, change management, and building and mending relationships were each important for success in their organizations. Together, the literature reviewed on the importance of competencies on leadership development offers several practical implications for organizations. Gentry and Sparks argue that to be successful, organizations need to invest in training and development to address leader competencies, including being strategic and future-oriented in their management of material, human and financial resources; managing change by creating new systems; and mobilizing others to follow and focus on building and maintaining relationships through the establishment of a strong network of ties, internally and with business partners. McCallum and Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell suggest that social capital could be emphasized in leadership development by creating a more open systems mindset, drawing attention to the importance of relationships by capitalizing on coaching, mentoring and specific job assignments, and work at hiring for the long term.

Knowledge and Experience Most major learning and development theories place experience at the center of the learning process. Successful experiences in leadership roles in a variety of frameworks (family, educational, social and work) serve to strengthen an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s belief in his or her ability to be a leader. In a recent experimental study that compared a group of fifty soldiers perceived as leaders with a group of thirty soldiers perceived as non-leaders, Amit and colleagues (2009) examine the impact of early experiences on leadersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; development. The quantitative part of the study found that leaders, more than non-leaders, remembered themselves as experiencing more influential leadership roles at school, enjoying social status at school and trying to change things in the school framework. A thematic analysis of the qualitative part of the study indicated that leaders report many more childhood experiences perceived relevant to the development of leader identity than non-leaders report. They also found that the development of leader identity through accumulated experiences leads to increased self-efficacy as a leader and to the acquisition of knowledge of influence, including 26

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Chapter 1: The Leadership Success Profile

self- and other awareness, situational awareness and diagnostic knowledge. The authors note that the diagnostic knowledge acquired through analysis of one’s experiences provides individuals with the sensitivity to read situations as well as people’s feelings and motivations, skills determined to be important in transactional-type leadership. Another recent but later experimental study by Dragoni and colleagues (2011) extends and builds on the findings of Amit et al. (2009) by investigating the relationship between work experience and leadership. Through an investigation of the work histories and individual characteristics of 703 executives, the authors found that the accumulation of work experience was directly related to executives’ ability to think strategically about their organizations and business environments, identifying cognitive ability as the strongest predictor of strategic thinking competency and finding consistency with other research that executives’ extraversion was positively related to their accumulated work experience. Given that cognitive ability was identified as the strongest predictor of strategic thinking competency, hiring for executives with strategic thinking and decisionmaking competencies should lean toward choosing “smart” leaders over those with experience. However, the positive relationship between extraversion and accumulated work experience has implications for organizations in terms of selecting managers for further development. Extraverted individuals can be expected to be more proactive and motivated to learn and develop, and therefore will be likely to seek out various developmental opportunities, which in turn will lead to an increase in amassed work experience. Organizations of all sizes and industries face tough challenges in preparing managerial personnel to assume future leadership positions. A study by Groves (2007) introduces a best-practices model for integrating the leadership development and succession planning process through optimal utilization of managers and a supportive organizational culture. Interviews with thirty CEOs and HR executives across fifteen best-practice organizations revealed that best-practice organizations effectively build their leadership pipeline by: 1. Developing the organization’s mentor network by engaging managers in mentoring relationships with high-potential leadership employees. 27

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Accelerating Leadership Development

2. Ensuring active manager participation in the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s method of identifying high-potential employees. 3. Fully engaging managers at all levels in leadership development activities, such as teaching courses and creating project-based learning experiences (e.g., stretch assignments and action-learning projects) for high potentials. 4. Ensuring a flexible and fluid succession planning process by frequently updating lists of high potentials based on project-based performance, and basing succession decisions on a diverse pool of candidates. 5. Creating organization-wide forums (e.g., leadership academy) for exposing high potentials to multiple stakeholders, including senior executives and board members. 6. Establishing a supportive organizational culture through active CEO and senior management participation in development programs, performance appraisal and reward systems that reinforce managerial engagement. 7. Evaluating the effectiveness of leadership development practices through empirical studies that model program theory and assess knowledge, behavior and results outcomes. Having a holistic view of what it takes to be an effective leader is critical. It does not take only one of two competencies: a combination of knowledge, experience, competencies and personality traits is absolutely necessary. Defining the success profile is setting the foundation to so many activities in talent management, such as learning and development, succession management, recruitment and selection, and performance management. Now that we have defined what it takes, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s see how we can identify those high-potential leaders for whom we will invest significant effort.

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About the Author Jocelyn Bérard is Vice-President Leadership and Business Solutions, International, for Global Knowledge. He has worked in the leadership and talent management field for twenty-five years, with clients in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. His business unit at Global Knowledge focuses on research and intervention initiatives with organizations to develop their leaders and improve their talent management. A sought-after speaker, Bérard has presented at numerous HR associations in Canada, Europe and the United States, including CSTD, HRPA, CRHA and SHRM, and is a frequent speaker at Global Knowledge Executive Speaker Series events. Global Knowledge is an award-winning global organization known for its strategic solutions with a very strong focus on people development. The company is one of the world’s largest learning and development firms with training centers around the world.

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Essential resources for training and HR professionals

Teams Building Better Building Better

70 Tools and Techniques for

Strengthening Performance Strengthening Performance Within and Across Teams Within and Across Teams 70 Tools and Techniques for

ROBERT W. BARNER, Ph.D. ROBERT W. BARNER, Ph.D. CHARLOTTE P. BARNER, Ed.D CHARLOTTE P. BARNER, Ed.D

Table of Contents Table of Contents List of Tools vii List of Figures and Tables xi List of Tools vii xiii Acknowledgments List of the Figures and Tables xi About Authors xv Acknowledgments xiii xix About the Contributors About the Authors Introduction xxvii xv About the Contributors xix SECTION ONE A Systematic Approach to Team Building 1 Introduction xxvii Chapter 1 Getting Started 3 SECTION ONE A Systematic Approach to Team Building 1 Chapter 2 Planning the Team-Building Session 11 Chapter Started 3Action Planning, and Follow-Up 25 Chapter 13 Getting Implementation, Chapter SessionTools 11 39 Chapter 24 Planning Selectingthe theTeam-Building Right Team-Building Chapter 3 Implementation, Action Planning, and Follow-Up 25 SECTION TWO Managing Team-Building Challenges 47 Chapter 4 Selecting the Right Team-Building Tools 39 Chapter vi

5 Clarifying Future Direction 49 SECTION TWO Managing Team-Building Challenges 47 Chapter 6 Fostering Team Innovation 63

Contents

Chapter 75 Establishing Clarifying Future Direction Chapter Mutual Trust and49Collaboration 79

Chapter 86 Managing Fostering Change Team Innovation 63 Chapter 107 v

Chapter 9 Building Commitment 131 Chapter 10 Managing Organizational Boundaries 151 Chapter 11 Working Virtually 171 Chapter 12 Overcoming Setbacks 199 Chapter 13 Managing Across Cultures 217 SECTION THREE Tools and Techniques for Team Building 241 Chapter 14 The Tool Kit 243 Index 449

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Introduction Why Is This Book Important?

UILDING BETTER TEAMS: 70 Tools and Techniques for Strengthening Performance Within and Across Teams is intended to fill an important void in the area of team building. This book provides team and group members with the tools they need to work together more effectively and to build a stronger foundation of mutual trust and support. To accomplish this the book eschews the use of role plays, pretend exercises, and vague theories on team building in favor of providing the reader with a set of applied tools and techniques that can make an immediate and direct impact on team performance and relationships. Approached in this way, team building moves beyond a one-time training event to become an ongoing, easily sustainable part of a teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s functioning and interactions.

xxvii

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xxviii

Introduction

Who Will Benefit from This Book? Building Better Teams is designed for a wide range of readers. This book will be of value to any professional who is attempting to promote team performance and collaboration within a group context, and can be applied to profit and nonprofit work groups, temporary cross-functional and project teams, community agencies, and volunteer organizations. Team facilitators will discover that this book can be an important part of their team-building repertoire, while managers and team leaders who have had little prior experience in team building will find the techniques that they encounter here easy to use within their work teams. In addition, organizational development, training, and human resource professionals will find this book a useful and important resource for supporting employee engagement and change management efforts, or for training programs in interpersonal communication, and team development. Finally, if you are a team-building consultant or university instructor you will find that this book can serve as a useful, applied resource for helping your participants gain critical team development skills. As an example, the authors have used this book as a resource in directing team-building consulting activities, as a supplemental resource in graduate courses they conduct on team dynamics and team building, and as an integral part of a graduate-level, international organizational collaboration study abroad course that they coteach each summer.

How Can You Apply This Book? This book comprises three parts: Section One, A Systematic Approach to Team Building, explains some of the factors that characterize effective team building, introduces a fivestep process for directing a team-building session, and shows you how to select the right team-building tools for your session. If you have never before conducted a team-building session this section provides a good overview of a suggested approach. This section will also be useful when you are getting team members, leaders, and senior sponsors aligned regarding the goals and intended outcomes of team building. for more about this book, visit wiley.com

Introduction

xxix

Section Two, Managing Team-Building Challenges, outlines nine critical challenges that teams often encounter and highlights the opportunities within each challenge. This section provides team leaders and members with guidelines for dealing with each challenge and actions they can take leading up to or concurrent with a team-building session to create opportunities within each team challenge. These suggestions also specify some of the tools and techniques included within the Tool Kit. Section Three, Tools and Techniques for Team Building, introduces Chapter Fourteen, The Tool Kit, which offers seventy tools and techniques that you can use when facilitating team-building sessions or managing teams or groups. For each tool, we have provided guidelines and tips for effective application and included a variety of forms and templates. There are many ways to apply and obtain benefit from this book. If you are planning for a team or group meeting where an important issue is going to be discussed, a decision made, or plan of action developed, then you will find the tools in this book to be very helpful. Chapter Four, Selecting the Right Team-Building Tools, will help you choose the appropriate tools for that meeting. If you are planning a workshop on team building then we advise you to provide each workshop participant a copy of this book. Ask participants to read the first three chapters, as well as the introductions to those selected exercises that you are proposing for the workshop. One useful training technique is to have participants divide into teams of three or four and ask each breakout team to discuss how they might go about applying selected techniques to their own teams or work groups. Selective tools can also be used to help groups that extend beyond intact teams (such as directing boards or cross-functional teams) to obtain better outcomes from task-focused meetings. Examples would include meetings in which group members are attempting to encourage creative idea generation, establish consensus-based decision making, or see decisions implemented through clear action plans. The Traffic Light Technique introduced in this book is an example of such a tool. for more about this book, visit wiley.com

xxx

Introduction

If you are planning a major team-building activity then you will want to make use of the Online Facilitator’s Guide. This guide is available to you free with the purchase of this book. Directions for accessing this guide can be found in the Appendix. The Facilitator’s Guide provides several resources, including: • Guidelines for determining when to use team building, and conditions under which team building should not be attempted • Steps for planning for your team-building session, how to obtain the greatest value from that session, and how to make use of this book in the planning and implementation of that session • An online version of the Team Building Assessment Questionnaire© that you may print and distribute to quickly determine where to direct your team-building efforts • A PowerPoint template that you are free to download and customize for use in your session Contact information on the authors is provided should you wish to obtain consulting help in facilitating your team-building event.

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1 Getting Started

Building Better Teams: An Evolution in Thinking This book had its genesis in a team-building text written by one of the editors (Robert) over ten years ago entitled The Team Troubleshooter: How to Find and Fix Team Problems. That said, the authors feel it would be erroneous to refer to Building Better Teams as a text revision. Instead, Building Better Teams represents a significant shift in the authors’ thinking regarding what it takes for teams or groups to build a strong foundation of trust and mutual cooperation, and to forge strong alliances with key organizational partners and stakeholders. In this regard, Building Better Teams represents an evolutionary development from its predecessor, in that it incorporates three critical changes in thinking regarding the conditions under which teams learn from their collective experiences. These changes are: (a) rethinking the idea of “teams,” (b) a shift from fixing to building, and (c) a shift from conflict management to collaboration. 3

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Building Better Teams

The First Change: Rethinking the Idea of “Teams” As organizations continue to evolve, the concept of what is a “team” has also undergone significant change. Not too long ago, the word “team” brought to mind the image of a relatively stable and permanent work unit made up of managers and their direct reports. This concept has quickly morphed to include such diverse groups as temporary project teams, governing boards for nonprofit organizations, teams that operate within government agencies and professional organizations, and large broad-based groups that are attempting to seek common ground on such critical social issues as community sustainability. In addition, we have seen the proliferation of organizations as global constructs that attempt to bridge national and cultural borders. Many teams mirror these changes in the increasing cultural diversity of their membership. As team-building professionals, it is important that we acknowledge these differences by checking our assumptions regarding the appropriateness and effectiveness of the tools and approaches we bring to the team-building process. Accordingly, this text differs significantly from its predecessor by incorporating the perspectives of consultants from different countries who have implemented team building in a variety of international and organizational settings. These contributors include international mediators, private management consultants, university instructors, and corporate professionals in the fields of leadership and organizational development. We feel that this infusion of talent and diverse perspectives provides a broader foundation for strengthening team performance.

The Second Change: From Fixing to Building Traditionally, team building has been viewed as a set of interventions that are designed to “fix” a team only after that team has experienced conflict or crisis. The result is that, all too frequently, team building has not been attempted until after team members may have experienced a serious erosion of their performance, interpersonal relationships, and mutual trust. Unfortunately, very often team facilitators and leaders pay insufficient attention to the many ways in which they could take preemptive action to help

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Getting Started

teams strengthen their performance and relationships—before team members find themselves enmeshed in damaging conflict. To understand what we are talking about, imagine the flow of organizational communication as a river. Entering the river from upstream we see different parties trying to determine the most effective way to engage in initial dialogues on important opportunities or challenges. If they misstep at this point, differences of opinion may shift to become stronger disagreements, then could escalate into embedded conflicts. Often, farther down the communication stream, a third-party facilitator or mediator will be called in to help the conflicting parties “resolve the problem.” Building Better Teams offers a team-building approach that can be applied “at the source of the river”; that is, as part of a team development process for newly formed teams or as a set of tools for helping experienced teams engage in initial conversations about important issues or potential opportunities for growth.

The Third Change: From Conflict Management to Collaboration The original text from which Building Better Teams evolved defined team building from the traditional, more limited perspective of helping teams identify and fix performance problems. That traditional perspective has given way to an increasing emphasis on techniques that can help teams, work groups, and organizations build a foundation of trust, cooperation, and mutual support. This change involves more than a perspective shift in how we view team building, for the tools involved in building team collaboration are very different from those used to manage conflicts. Collaboratively based tools vary in their form and function, but have in common the aim of helping to shape dialogue so that different parties enter into their initial discussions in a positive way and develop a constructive view of a shared future. This new perspective and these tools help team members seek common ground as they identify what it is that they can gather their energy around—that is, what supports and strengthens team functioning. This emerging perspective is supported by research findings from areas such as positive psychology and appreciative inquiry. The rapidly emerging

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Building Better Teams

field of positive psychology, as exemplified in the seminal work of psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman, has shed light on the degree to which a teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention serves to direct its energy. That is, teams perform at their best when they are able to construct a viable and positive image of their desired future, and then work to focus their attention on the strengths and resources that they can bring to bear in actualizing that positive, envisioned state. In other words, we focus our attention on what works, and where possible we seek models of success that we can replicate and build upon. This concept is reflected in what David Cooperrider, a renowned organizational behavior researcher in the field of appreciative inquiry, has termed the heliotropic principal. Appreciative inquiry also emphasizes the role that language plays in influencing organizational meaning making and behavior. This bookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s authors align with this principal to emphasize the importance that language plays in any team-building process, beginning with the way in which a team defines and formulates its needs and desired outcomes. Although an extensive review of positive psychology and appreciative inquiry is outside the scope of this book, at the end of this chapter the authors have listed additional reading on these subjects. The authors want to stress that we acknowledge the value in helping teams identify and effectively resolve intra- and interteam conflicts; indeed, this book offers a variety of tools for supporting conflict resolution. At the same time, a fundamental premise on which Building Better Teams has been developed is that too often facilitators, team leaders, and members rely exclusively on conflict-resolution strategies simply because they have few alternative methods at their disposal. To that end, you will find that Building Better Teams emphasizes the application of team building as a set of preemptive interventions that can be used to help teams set the stage for productive and positive dialogues.

Some Underlying Assumptions Regarding Teams Building Better Teams introduces a team improvement strategy that is based on four underlying assumptions. Understanding these assumptions will help you obtain the greatest benefit from this book.

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Getting Started

Individuals Can Affect Team Performance Regardless of whether you are a new team member, an experienced team leader, an outside facilitator, or one who has been asked to lead a crossfunctional team, you can play an important role in helping your team strengthen its performance. This book will show you how. If you are concerned that you lack the influence or authority to make a productive impact on your team, don’t be. Throughout Building Better Teams, you will be introduced to a variety of tools and techniques that you can use to help make a positive impact on your team. By taking the initiative to share these ideas with others in your team you can help your work group perform at its best.

Team Members Require an Active Voice in the Process There is a tendency to view team building as a process that is constructed and directed by an outside facilitator. The implication of this view is that a facilitator has the responsibility for defining the team’s needs and desired outcomes, selecting the most appropriate team-building approach, and actively leading the team through this preselected process. In short, the facilitator leads and the team blindly follows. In contrast, Building Better Teams takes the position that team building is best accomplished when facilitators work with team leaders and members as equal partners in the co-construction and management of the team-building process. So, if you think that defining the needs and requirements of your team is something that is best left to the “experts,” think again. The authors believe that team members and leaders are the ones who are most qualified to understand the types of job demands and challenges that they are encountering. We also believe that people are more likely to take accountability for implementing change when they are fully involved in the change process. What many people lack is a tool kit to help them effectively facilitate teambuilding sessions. This book is designed to provide those tools, as well as instructions for successfully implementing them. If you are a team leader you will find that Building Better Teams will encourage the members of your team to see themselves as active partners in their team’s success. If you are a team-building facilitator you will find that

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Getting Started

On the other hand, training is never a substitute for a facilitated teambuilding session. One of the core assumptions on which this book is based is that substantial change occurs when teams or groups are provided with applied tools and techniques that allow them to tackle actual opportunities and challenges. Such an approach makes use of the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s common history and experience and encourages team members to articulate those factors that impede or support their performance. The authors believe that facilitators who rely heavily on artificial exercises do so because they do not know how to connect, head on, with the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actual experiences. The good news is that team interventions do not have to be intimidating. If you have a solid plan, you can take the first step toward helping a team maximize its performance and strengthen relationships among team members. Planning your team-building session is introduced next in Chapter Two.

Additional Reading on Appreciative Inquiry Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2005). Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Cooperrider, D., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J. (2008). Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change. Brunswick, Ohio: Crown Custom Publishing. Hammond, S. A. (1998). The Thin Book on Appreciative Inquiry. Bend, Oregon: Thin Book.

Additional Reading on Positive Psychology Bakker, A. (Ed.) (in press). Advances in Positive Organizational Psychology. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Donaldson, S. I., Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Nakamura, J. (Eds.). (2011). Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society. New York: Psychology Press. Lopez, S., & Snyder, C. R. (Eds.) (2009). Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.

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About the Authors About the Authors

R R

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OBERT W. BARNER, PHD, is the associate director of executive education and a full-time faculty member at the Annette Simmons Caldwell School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. OBERT W. BARNER, PHD, is the associate director of executive education Prior to joining SMU, Robert held senior-level corporate HR positions at and a full-time faculty member at the Annette Simmons Caldwell School several companies, with three of these positions supporting global operaof Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. tions. These roles included responsibilities for career planning, executive Prior to joining SMU, Robert held senior-level corporate HR positions at development and coaching, the assessment and development of high-potenseveral companies, with three of these positions supporting global operatial leaders, and talent management. Robert’s work experience also includes tions. These roles included responsibilities for career planning, executive management consulting to such companies as GTE, AT&T, Harris, Disney, development and coaching, the assessment and development of high-potenTXU, Honeywell, and United Technologies. tial leaders, and talent management. Robert’s work experience also includes Robert has published over thirty articles in such journals as the OD management consulting to such companies as GTE, AT&T, Harris, Disney, Practitioner, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Team Performance TXU, Honeywell, and United Technologies. Management, the Journal for Quality & Participation, and Career Development Robert has published over thirty articles in such journals as the OD International. He is the author of six books, with foreign language translaPractitioner, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Team Performance tions in Arabic, German, Norwegian, and Estonian. His most recent book, The Authors Management, the Journal for Quality & Participation, and Career Development International. He is the author of six books, with foreign language translaxv tions in Arabic, German, Norwegian, and Estonian. His most recent book,

Accelerating the Development of Your Leaders, was published by Pfeiffer/Wiley in 2011. Robert has also contributed to seven text anthologies, including three xv that are used in college curricula. Most recently he has coauthored two chapters for the Oxford Handbook of Reciprocal Adult Development and Learning03/05/12 (Carol Hoare, editor; Oxford University Press, 2011). Dr. Barner currently serves as a reviewer for the Journal for Organizational Change Management03/05/12 and is currently a reviewer for the Journal of Management Development. Dr. Barner has presented to international conferences on the subjects of executive coaching, team building, and talent management strategy, including the OD Network Conferences (2006, 2008, and 2010), the 2009 International Conference on Collaboration and Innovation sponsored by Purdue University, and the SW HR Conferences. Robert holds master’s and doctorate degrees in organization development from Fielding Graduate University, and bachelor degrees in education and psychology from Florida Atlantic University. Charlotte P. Barner, EdD, has over twenty years of experience in the area of human and organizational learning and development. Charlotte is an for more about this book, visit wiley.com

3:26 PM

d xvi

The Authors

organization development from Fielding Graduate University, and bachelor degrees in education and psychology from Florida Atlantic University. Charlotte P. Barner, EdD, has over twenty years of experience in the area of human and organizational learning and development. Charlotte is an executive consultant in the area of organizational effectiveness and is adjunct professor and student adviser for the Organizational Dynamics concentration within the Annette Simmons Caldwell School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University’s Master’s of Liberal Studies Program. Prior to joining SMU in 2010, Charlotte held senior corporate leadership positions responsible for creating and implementing human and organizational development strategies and systems. Most recently, Charlotte established and led the Organizational Effectiveness function for one of North America’s top sales and marketing companies with clients such as Apple iTunes, AT&T, Best Buy, Cadbury, Disney, HP, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart, as well as all of North America’s major movie and gaming producers. Charlotte was previously president and partner of a long-term, U.S.-based HD/OD consulting corporation serving such clients as AT&T, Disney, GTE, Harris Corporation, Honeywell, and United Technologies. Dr. Charlotte P. Barner has authored articles in professional journals over xvii the years, including coauthoring a three-part job-search series in Wall Street Journal’s National Business Employment Weekly. Most recently, Charlotte has coauthored chapters for the Oxford Handbook of Reciprocal Adult Development and Learning (Carol Hoare, editor; Oxford University Press, 2011) and Advances in Positive Organizational Psychology (Arnold Bakker, editor; Emerald, in press 2013). Charlotte has served as primary editor on several books and journal articles. Finally, Charlotte presents at national and international HR and OD conferences, such as Academy of Management. Dr. Charlotte P. Barner’s doctorate is in Human & Organizational Learning from The George Washington University. Her master of education in Curriculum Design & Instructional Technologies is with honors from George Mason University, and her undergraduate degree in Business & Human Resources Administration is from Barry University.

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03/05/12

CONTENTS

Foreword by Amy Lyman Introduction: Creating a Great Workplace 1 The Anatomy of an Excuse 2 I Think [Like a Great Workplace Leader], Therefore I Am [a Great Workplace Leader] 3 We Are What We Repeatedly Do 4 I Didn’t Have Enough Time to Do It Right 5 That’s Just Not My Job 6 My Industry Is Different 7 It’s Just Not the Right Time 8 I’d Be a Great People Manager if It Weren’t for All the People 9 My Boss Ate My Homework 10 The “One Rule” for Excuses Notes Acknowledgments About the Authors Index

ix 1 9 25 45 65 85 105 127 149 169 187 195 201 205 207

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CHAPTER

THE ANATOMY OF AN EXCUSE

ou are a manager. Are you good at your job? What if you could be even better? You can create a smart strategy, offer amazing products and services, and be operationally efficient, but unless you can consistently bring out the best in your people, none of that matters. How do you get people to bring their very best to their work and go above and beyond just what’s required? You create a great workplace. There is no more certain avenue of increasing productivity, managing employee engagement, or creating the conditions for collaborative creativity than to create a great place to work. Most successful, experienced managers understand this truism well. The other, equally true statement is that every manager and every organization can create a great place to work. The trick is in clearing out the obstacles that might keep you from creating such an environment. This book will show you how. Both of us are affiliated with the Great Place to Work® Institute, a global research, training, and management consultancy. It is best known in the United States for compiling FORTUNE magazine’s annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For®, although the Institute operates and publishes similar lists in over

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CHAPTER

THE ANATOMY OF AN EXCUSE

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The Anatomy of an Excuse

all across this spectrum have created great workplaces. What this means is that if you have the privilege of managing people, there is no reason you can’t create a great workplace. We also know that any work group in any organization in any industry can be a great workplace. Some of the organizations that make our lists are large technology firms, like Google and Microsoft. Others are industrial firms like Lincoln Industries or Devon Energy. Some are retail operations like Nordstrom or Starbucks and are geographically spread out, and others have a single office like XPLANE. Some are multinational like The Coca-Cola Company, and others are based in a single country, like Futurice in Finland. They cut across industry, size, location, and business model. Think of a company characteristic, and we can find at least one that is a best company somewhere in the world. So, if any company can be a great workplace, every company can—yours included. Are there legitimate obstacles that make it a challenge to fully engage your workforce? Sure there are. And we will examine them in this book along with ways of dealing with them. But most of the reasons we hear from managers as to why they cannot create or sustain a great workplace are hurdles, not brick walls. We know you want to be a successful people manager—you would not still be reading this book if that wasn’t the case. If you’ve run into problems, it’s not a lack of desire or interest or hope. We believe that examining perceived obstacles in a clearheaded, no-nonsense fashion is an important step in determining the right course of action. In order to help you overcome whatever obstacles you may find in your path, we visited ten recognized “best companies to work for” that would offer insight into how they did it. We purposefully selected each of these companies for the type of organization they are. We visited them and met with line managers, HR leaders, and top executives. We researched them

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No Excuses

thoroughly in advance, examining information we had previously collected from them, as well as reviewing their annual reports and websites. The companies we highlight throughout this book are further described at www.mygreatworkplace.com, but many of them need no introduction: • • • • • • • • • •

Accenture Alston & Bird Balfour Beatty The Coca-Cola Companies Devon Energy Mayo Clinic NetApp Teach for America Whole Foods Market Zappos

We utilized what we learned from these organizations and their managers, along with other research, data, and best practices from the Institute’s databases, and our own consulting experience to provide context, insight, and solutions for you as you consider your own workplace.

W HY IT MATTE RS As we noted at the top of the chapter, having a great workplace is good for business. Several studies make clear the business case for increasing trust and creating a great workplace for employees. Some of them even use the best companies lists as their research sample. Faleye and Trahan in their article in the Journal of Business Ethics1 looked at employee productivity, total productivity, profitability, and value. “Consistent with the event study results,”

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they wrote, “we find that the Best Companies [relative to control panel of S&P 500] outperform comparable firms on all measures. These results are highly robust.” The work of Alex Edmans at the Wharton School provides further evidence. In his study, Edmans analyzed the relationship between employee satisfaction and long-run stock performance. He utilized the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® list over an eight-year period, and even when controlling for other factors (such as risk or industry), found that the 100 Best portfolio earned over double the market returns by the end of 2005. High-trust workplaces consistently outperform lower-trust workplaces.2 Indeed, when comparing the best companies to work for with other companies in the same industry, we find that the best companies outperform their peers consistently with regard to financial performance, along with decreased absenteeism, on-the-job injuries, voluntary turnover, shrinkage (in retail), and so on. The graph in Figure 1.1 highlights annualized returns of the publicly traded best companies compared to the S&P 500 since the first

ANNUALIZED RETURNS 1998-2009 10.00% 8.00% 6.00% 4.00% 2.00%

10.30%

6.44%

2.95%

3.27%

“100 BEST” RESET ANNUALLY

“100 BEST” BUY AND HOLD

S & P 500

RUSSELL 3000

0.00%

Figure 1.1 100 Best Annualized Returns

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FORTUNE list was published. More information about related studies can be found online at www.mygreatworkplace.com. If you still don’t feel like you are the one to create a great workplace in your work group, don’t stay stuck. By our measure, you are held back by a combination of two things: an error in framing combined with one or more material challenges in your environment. Both need to be addressed in order to move forward, but it may be helpful to break them apart to understand what you are up against. NO E XC U SE S This book is called No Excuses, because we believe that great workplace leaders take a “no excuses” approach, and we want to help you take that approach. Within any excuse is a bona fide or material challenge, along with the framing stuff that prevents you from staying out of your own way. While the challenge you may be facing is real, it is not insurmountable. But your attitude and your sense of organizational identity—the way you frame your challenge—can fool you into believing it is. Your attitude is the internal frame you need to create a great workplace, and your organization’s identity is the best way to frame your external environment. In a way, these two tasks are prerequisites to conquering the material challenges that actually do exist in your environment, so we need to deal with them first.

The Attitude Great workplace managers have a no-nonsense attitude. They believe that creating a great workplace is both necessary and possible, and they hold themselves responsible for doing so. As Walter

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Robb, Co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, tells us, “I never like it when people don’t take responsibility. It should always be about what can you do, not what can’t you do.” This is not to say that doing so is easy or straightforward, and there certainly is no shortage of sleepless nights or heart-wrenching decisions in these managers’ lives. But great managers are resolute and confident with periods of being doubtful and indecisive, not the other way around. As we’ll discuss in Chapter 2, managers of great workplaces also have productive beliefs, thoughts, and schemas. They avoid cognitive obstacles to making productive changes in their work environment. Specifically, they believe that success is a product of hard work and effort rather than luck or chance; they have an internal locus of control. Great managers avoid overgeneralizing; they see the nuances in their work environment and they aren’t seduced by best practices that just don’t fit. Great managers have high aspirations; they don’t anchor their own judgments of success too low. And last but not least, great managers are comfortable taking the long view; they don’t discount the value of a long-term gain in favor of a short-term win.

The Identity Equally important is clarity about the organization’s identity. Think about any major decision you have ever made and this will ring true. In making that decision, you want your head to be clear; you want the right attitude. But that alone won’t suffice. Without also considering your identity—your values, your responsibilities, and your goals—you cannot make a good decision, let alone dedicate yourself to it. The same is true in your organization. Any decision succeeds or fails with regard to how well it reflects and reinforces the best of the organization’s identity. When challenges

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arise, sometimes they do so simply because the manager has lost sight of the organization’s identity, not because they are truly insurmountable obstacles. Remember that great workplace leaders can’t set out to build trust independently of the business activities they must carry out on a daily basis. We’ve seen leaders create task forces and strategic goals and whole departments dedicated to creating a better workplace—to building more trust. But, without giving trust a context, it just doesn’t grow. A stand-alone great workplace initiative may get some attention for a while, or serve as a convenient retort when justifying an employee expenditure request, but it doesn’t really take hold as part of the fabric of the organization until it is woven into the vision and values, and carried out in the execution of the strategic direction. Keeping these markers of identity top of mind is paramount. Chapter 3 gives you insight as to what it takes to have a strong sense of organizational identity, and how you might reinforce it over and over again through the way you plan, structure, and execute on your work group’s tasks. While an important prerequisite for any great workplace, a strong sense of identity is also necessary to provide ballast as you are attacking the real challenge. When addressing an issue that makes your great workplace tough, you are going to flail and falter, and you will likely get exhausted trying to gain momentum at the outset. A clear sense of your organization’s identity creates some stability against which to balance the uncertainty of addressing the big obstacles.

The Challenge Factor the attitude and the organizational identity out of any excuse and you get a material challenge. In our role as consultants, we too are intimidated and humbled as we help managers

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get real about facing them. But we are armed with an understanding that the best places to work also face challenges, and they have overcome them. And we believe you can too. Chapters 4 through 9 help you understand how great companies have overcome challenges, and where you might start in doing the same. In Chapter 4, we’ll talk about bad habits and the challenge of inertia that has a bit to do with attitude, but a lot to do with how to put focused effort into shifting behaviors to align better with great workplace ideals. For instance, promoting people based upon tenure long after that is the only way to gain expertise is a bad habit, and an obstacle to building trust. Failing to change habits is a behavioral obstacle from which we’ll help you to break free. In Chapter 5, we’ll talk about strategic and operations constraints, and the organizational politics that often travel with them. You know the ones: roles, goals, boundaries, authority, and politics. Wearing multiple hats, addressing competing goals, sharing responsibility with disinterested others—all are hindrances to thinking strategically about your workplace. But none are insurmountable. In fact, the key to your success as a manager is to figure this out—how to be in twelve places at once, while producing superior work, and creating a great workplace. In Chapter 6, we talk about larger organizational and industry forces. As companies in a specific industry go about addressing issues in the marketplace, industry standards take shape that can be at odds with creating a great workplace. It should come as no surprise that every single organization in every single country that has ever made our list of great workplaces has constraints that are hallmarks of their industry. Their leaders just know how to overcome them. You can learn, too. Unlike the more static challenges that are a consequence of your unique operational environment or your larger industry, disruptive events are more acute, and we deal with those in

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Chapter 7. Often, these excuses are prefaced by, “It’s just not the right time, because . . . ,” followed by lamentations about layoffs, mergers and acquisitions, and leadership changes. We argue that the tough times are actually some of the most important times to build trust, particularly when the alternative is to break it. It is always the right time, and believing otherwise is an excuse. Remarkably, another great workplace excuse archetype is the people themselves. In Chapter 8, we talk about how to address the real challenges that come from the people who are already on board in the organization, perhaps before a great working environment was a consideration. We’ve heard that a great workplace will never fly because employees have an entitlement mentality, they live paycheck-to-paycheck, they work part-time or casually, they have low education levels—you name it! Funny that seeing employees as people is one of the hallmarks of a great workplace, but these excuses reflect a tendency to treat them as a group, and therefore an obstacle to a great workplace. As Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre hotels, said in his 2009 Huffington Post blog,3 “Our people will never aspire to more than a job if all they focus on is the fact that they clean toilets in a hotel. But when one sees the broader purpose of what they do, they start to realize their work can fulfill in ways they hadn’t imagined. And, the positive result of being in a workplace full of happy fellow employees is noticeable to everyone who comes into contact with an organization.” No matter the nature of your workforce, a workplace exists that brings out their best work. Last but not least, we also address the challenge of leadership in Chapter 9. Probably the most difficult question we are asked is “Can a workplace be great if top leadership is not on board?” The frank answer is that we’ve never seen a great place to work that didn’t have the belief, support, and buy-in of its senior leaders. However, we’ve also seen great departments, locations, and lines of business that exist within an organization that as a whole isn’t

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really all that great. In Chapter 9, we’ll give you everything we’ve surmised from our experiences with great workplaces and managers who lead them about how to negotiate mixed messages that come from on high. HOW TO U SE TH IS BO O K As you determine how you can best use the material in this book, it may be helpful to review a few of the key ideologies that guide us when we consult with companies hoping to improve the trust, pride, and camaraderie in their workplaces.

Gr e a t Wo r k p l a c e s B r i n g A b o u t B e t te r S o c i e t i e s Though we work hard to demonstrate that there are tangible gains in productivity, time, and money when trust is built, we truly believe that great workplaces bring about better societies. In short, building more trust at work (or in other organizations you lead) is the right thing to do for families, for communities, and for the world at large. When people have work relationships characterized by trust, pride, and camaraderie, their potential for success is greater. And when people feel like they’ve succeeded, they are more present and giving with their families, more engaged in community activities, and more friendly to the barista who makes their morning latte.

S u s p e n d Yo u r D i s b e l i e f If ever you feel that our perspective on this is a hindrance, we ask that you attempt to suspend your disbelief. Even if you can’t get

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on board with our “right thing to do” notion, can you at least agree that it’s not the wrong thing to do? And, if that doesn’t work for you at some point, skip the section you are reading and move on. We promise we won’t spend too much time in the land of milk and honey before returning to the confines of the business world and its challenges, both of which we know you are well accustomed to.

Organizations Are Complex, Living Systems Organizations are complex, living systems. As such, they will constantly pull toward equilibrium and consistency. Any disruption in the system, including changing your beliefs or behaviors to align with a great workplace, will usually be met with some resistance. Simply put, the only way to sustain the change long enough for it to become the new equilibrium often means changing the adjacent aspects of the system. People, processes, systems, business models, strategies, and organizational culture need to be aligned in order for the change to hold. Thus, if you decide to hire for culture fit, you need to change the interview processes, the interview skills and approach of your managers, the human resource information system (HRIS) that compiles candidate information and ratings, and the performance appraisal model that reinforces those cultural fit characteristics. Of course, all of this assumes that you know what your culture is all about in the first place, and that you are deliberately reinforcing the aspects of your culture that drive productivity. The result is that moving from a mediocre workplace to a good one, and then from a good workplace to a great one, is never just about changing one thing, or even a small set of things. It is

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about taking a systems perspective on why the culture is the way it is, how it is reinforced, the business results it produces (or hinders), and the competing priorities associated with it. It’s just as much about removing obstacles and changing perspectives as it is altering behavior and creating new ways of working. It’s just as much about unlearning as it is learning. We’ll guide you through the trees as much as possible, but you should always keep the forest in mind.

Wh a t B e s t P r a c t i c e s A r e a n d A r e N o t Best practices are child prodigies. Like a five-year-old piano maestro, best practices are very good at a few things—they inspire, they illustrate, they clarify. But they are not adept at many other things necessary for a company’s survival, let alone improvement, when it comes to a great workplace. Consider the following: •

•

Best practices aren’t recipes. They should never be adopted wholesale, and they should be evolutions rather than installations. But they can provide us direction and aspiration as we put our own practices into place. Thus, don’t roll out an online suggestion system to employees who spend no time in front of computer screens, and refrain from making salaries transparent until you are sure they are fair. Best practices aren’t mandates. They should never be considered “must haves” when it comes to creating a great workplace. But they should help us to consider the nature of our own business model and how it might support and be supported by a practice like the one being articulated. For instance, child care centers or subsidies are seen at many workplaces, but not all of them. The key is that where they

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•

are present, they meet a real need of the employees and help to support the trust relationship by providing caring and support. Best practices aren’t goals. They are a means to an end, which is building more trust, pride, and camaraderie in the workplace. When your goal is to launch and maintain a practice like new hire celebrations, you are missing the point. The goal is to make new employees feel welcome and to increase the camaraderie in the work group. That’s the goal, not a practice put in place to create it. Frankly, the practice may or may not stand the test of time.

As you read this book, you’ll encounter many best practices. We believe that we grow and learn from understanding and conversing about what goes on in great workplaces. We believe that best practices can be incredibly useful to you on your journey . . . when used correctly. On our website, www.mygreatworkplace.com, we’ll walk you through how to analyze a best practice in the context of your own work environment, and how to distill the relevant bits for your use. We’ll give you an idea of what falling into the trap of treating them like recipes, mandates, or goals looks like, and how to pull yourself out of it. But you need to be vigilant about your use of best practices, and how they are used in other parts of your organization.

Tr u s t I s t h e Fo u n d a t i o n Last but not least, we believe trust is the foundation. We don’t use words like engagement to describe a healthy workplace, because engagement is a result of high levels of trust. Not the other way around. If you want to influence the results on an engagement survey, you need to do something with your employees and not

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to your employees. If you want to have a reciprocal relationship that shares both the responsibilities and the successes in building a desirable culture and a productive work environment, you build a strong trust relationship, which is a two-way street. Your job as a leader is an important one. You shepherd, steward, facilitate, and champion a great culture. But you don’t create it. Rather, you enable everyone to do so. Using language and ideas that derive from the above key perspectives, you’ll find scores of best practices, comments from managers at the best places to work, and our advice. We’ll speak like a personal consultant would, showing our understanding of the obstacle by talking about its nature, origin, and impact but then providing thoughts and suggestions for moving past it. We’ll illustrate how specific practices can be tailored or taken in spirit and applied to your organization, and we’ll provide the most targeted suggestions from the managers we’ve interviewed. We hope you find yourself in a conversation with us as you read, and that you’ll take that conversation to Twitter, LinkedIn, and email if you want us to get even more specific. As with any good conversation, you may need time to digest the information you receive, match it up with your own experience, and determine which parts of it are the most informative and useful. We invite you to do that. Perhaps you’ll skim the book on a bi-coastal flight, but come back to the chapters you find most relevant and engage more deeply with them. We encourage it. Or perhaps you’ll be more structured, reading and reflecting deliberately on each chapter. Be our guest. At the very least, we suggest you read and reflect upon the next two chapters before being more selective. Chapter 2 ensures that your attitude is a productive one, and it helps to clear out the cobwebs of what the late motivational speaker Zig Ziglar is famous for calling “Stinkin’ Thinkin’.” Chapter 3 asks that you

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take a hard look at your vision, values, and strategic imperatives. Make sure they provide the elusive mix of stability and inspiration that any workplace culture change needs. Excuses are really just difficulties dressed up in cognitive challenges and a lack of clarity about your organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity. Adjust your attitude, understand and align with the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity, and those difficulties become challenges that seem a bit more manageable. They wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be easy by any stretch, but we know you can overcome them. Begin with this: On the other side of the challenges is a great workplace, and there is no longer an excuse to stay paralyzed in anything but.

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ABOUT

THE

AUTHORS

Jennifer Robin, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at Great Place to Work® Institute. A former consultant with the Institute, she led the Advisory Practice, helping senior leaders integrate their organization’s culture with its strategy and aligning efforts to be a great workplace. Currently, Jennifer teaches in undergraduate, MBA, and professional programs in the Foster College of Business at Bradley University. She serves as an adjunct consultant for the Institute and conducts research on the importance of values and stories to organizational culture and the leader behaviors that build trust. Jennifer holds a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Tennessee and undergraduate degrees in both Human Resource Management and Psychology from the University of Northern Iowa. In her spare time, Jennifer can be found on hiking trails, in airports, or spoiling her nieces. Michael Burchell, Ed.D., is Vice President, International Operations at Great Place to Work® Institute. A member of the corporate management team, Michael oversees affiliate operations, global expansion efforts, and the business development of multinational clients across the Great Place to Work® network.

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About the Authors

Previously, Michael led consulting services for the Institute in the United States. He also co-owns and is a director for Great Place to Work® Institute in the United Arab Emirates based in Dubai. Prior to joining the Institute, Michael worked at W. L. Gore & Associates, and the University of Massachusetts. Michael received his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and also holds degrees from Colorado State University and the University of Southern California. Michael’s address is in Washington, DC, but he lives in seat 8A on flights to various destinations around the globe. Great Place to Work® Institute is a global research, consulting, and training firm that helps organizations identify, create, and sustain great workplaces through the development of high-trust workplace cultures. The Institute serves businesses, non-profits and government agencies from forty-one affiliate offices covering more than forty-five countries. Co-founded by bestselling business author Robert Levering and organizational consultant Amy Lyman, Ph.D., in collaboration with a team of professionals committed to the recognition and development of great workplaces around the world, the Institute’s mission is to build a better society by helping companies transform their workplaces. Great Place to Work® clients are those companies and organizations that wish to maintain Best Company environments, those that are ready to dramatically improve the culture within their workplaces, and those in between the two. The Institute believes that organizations that build trust and create a rewarding cycle of personal contribution and appreciation create workplace cultures that deliver outstanding business performance.

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CYNTHIA CL AY R AY OLI T T

PEER

POWER

TRANSFORMING WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIPS

Contents

Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvii

Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid): Manipulating, Whining, Attacking, and Bullying 1

What We Have Learned: Four Key Principles

Strategies for Transforming Relationships

From the Attacker to the Constructive Critic

From the Whiner to the Problem Solver

From the Scene Stealer to the Ally

From the Drive-by Boss to the Engaged Leader

From the Manipulator to the Open Communicator

27 39

83 103 125

From the Clueless Colleague to the Considerate Teammate 145 xiii for more about this book, visit wiley.com

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CONTENTS

From the Faux-Smart Boss to the Knowledgeable Leader 167

From the Slacker to the Contributor

From the Bully to the Assertive Leader

From Challenges to Collaboration

Technology: A Blessing and a Curse

193 215

235 253

Moving Forward: From Passive Reader to Active Communicator 265 Appendices Appendix 1: Interpreting Your Responses to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;About Youâ&#x20AC;? Questionnaire 269 Appendix 2: Principles and Strategies Used in the Case Chapters 275 Appendix 3: References 277

About the Authors Index 282

279

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C H A P T E R

Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid): Manipulating, Whining, Attacking, and Bullying

N WRITING THIS BOOK, we talked through our failures, embarrassing moments, and just downright humiliating attempts to get others to change their behavior or do what we wanted. It was humbling to revisit the dumb mistakes we made with challenging peers. We attempted to get their support or manage their difficult behaviors by manipulating, whining, attacking, and bullying. We still aren’t perfect, but we have learned from these common mistakes and we can speak from painful experience: these behaviors may work in the short run but they rarely work in the long run. We’re going to take them one by one and tell you exactly why they don’t work. In Chapter 2 we’ll introduce some principles that will get better, consistently positive results. Through mastering these principles, you will begin your journey to developing your peer power.

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M A N I P U L AT I N G Cynthia has a confession to make. In the past she has resorted to subtle manipulation to try to get her own way. Once she was responsible for recruiting volunteers to work on the board of a nonprofit organization. Her approach to volunteers sometimes involved telling them that her highly intuitive nature gave her a strong feeling that they were “perfect” for the role. In truth, Cynthia was more worried about filling a vacancy on the board than whether a volunteer was well suited for the job. Often her target would feel special and pleased to be seen as someone who was just right for a spot on the board. Cynthia didn’t like the way she felt after these encounters and in time she realized that this form of manipulation preyed on people with lower self-esteem. The result was often mistrust, blame, and board members who quit. We define “manipulating” as attempting to influence someone’s attitude or behavior through deception or secrecy. If you tell someone you don’t have adequate resources even though you do so he won’t ask for your help, you’re manipulating the situation. If you pretend you don’t want something We define “manipulating” from somebody when you do him a as attempting to influence favor (but you’re really expecting that someone’s attitude or now he’ll “owe you one”), you are manipulating him. If you intentionally behavior through make ambiguous statements in an edeception or secrecy. mail hoping to buy additional time, you are manipulating the situation. If you pretend to agree with someone to get her to like you, then you are engaging in manipulation. If you withhold critical information that might influence a decision, you are manipulating the outcome. If you flatter someone so she will support you or give you what you want, you are manipulating. P2: ABC Whether your manipulation becomes obvious or peoJWSF005-Clay January 3, 2012 14:22 Printer Name: Toblatantly Come ple simply feel uneasy around you, manipulating is usually discovered. Manipulators often find that it is very hard to keep track of all of the little deceptions they engage in. Ultimately, manipulators damage trust, which can be difficult, if not impossible, to regain. Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid) 3 In the long run, manipulators find that they are no longer able to influence others because people begin to go out of their way to avoid being manipulated. for more about this book, visit wiley.com

influence others because people begin to go out of their way to avoid being manipulated.

WHINING When Ray worked at an aerospace company, he was unhappy with his colleague Bill. He frequently noticed Bill using a computer for personal business, even though Bill insisted he did not have time to share the workload when Ray was stretched thin. Each time Ray saw Bill slacking off, he became more frustrated and whined to Bill and another peer, Mary. Ray attempted to make Bill feel guilty—after all, look how overworked Ray was! And look how unfairly Bill was treating him! In private conversations with Mary, Ray whined about how unfair Bill was being. (Ray winces even now remembering this situation.) As you can imagine, neither Bill nor Mary appreciated Ray’s approach. It only made the situation worse. Bill began to defend himself by complaining about Ray to other coworkers. Mary pointed out to Ray how he had sometimes been unreliable and finally told Ray to knock it off. Ray realized that he needed to find more constructive ways of working with people who disappointed him. Whining is complaining without seeking to improve the situation. We might whine directly to the coworker who is frustrating us (with an “Oh, poor me” tone of Whining is complaining voice): “Shannon, I can’t get my work done. This job is just impossible. without seeking to improve the situation. You’re making it so hard for me. I can’t even sleep at night.” Or we might gossip and whine about Shannon to someone else: “Shannon is driving me nuts. She never gives me what I need.” Whether you whine to your coworker directly, whine to others behind her back, or send whiny e-mails to your peers, you are assuming the role of the victim in a workplace drama. Playing the victim can result in satisfying, self-righteous feelings. But people find whiners to be annoying and rarely respect them. Whiners lose credibility because their complaints often seem exaggerated. When your coworkers listen to you whine about your peers,

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they probably wonder what you’re saying about them behind their backs. And when they learn that you have been whining about them, they may attack you with anger. They may even forward your negative e-mails to the person you’re complaining about. You may have experienced the escalating cycle of whining, attacking, whining, and attacking that can be set into motion. Sad to say, whiny victims bring out aggressive attacks from others. Does this mean you should never discuss your frustrations about someone at work with your friends? Of course not! Talking a problem through with someone you trust can be helpful. Listening to advice can help you prepare to handle a situation. But if you find that you are constantly complaining about the same person or situation to many different people, you’ve fallen into the trap of whining. If you vent your frustrations about someone without seeking a resolution, you’re whining. Instead of tackling an issue head-on, you’re reinforcing your negative view of a person or situation, intensifying your own anger, damaging someone’s reputation, losing your own credibility, and probably annoying everyone around you. Avoiding whining does not mean you remain silent about workplace problems. Organizations need employees who speak up. Share your concerns with the appropriate people. As long as you do your homework, avoid blaming and embarrassing, and focus on solutions, you are not whining.

A T TA C K I N G Cynthia has been known to attack when under stress. (Please note that she has always felt bad when she has resorted to this coping technique.) On one occasion, she prepared to lead an important meeting despite feeling under the weather. She wrote the agenda, created materials for the people who would be attending, and organized binders that were carefully placed on the table for the meeting attendees. Cynthia was expecting to hear appreciative comments for her efforts. Instead, as the meeting began, one of the participants stated that she didn’t think the agenda was on target, didn’t agree with the decisions made at the last meeting, and wanted to take

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Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid)

this meeting in a different direction. Cynthia lost her composure (imagine a volcano erupting), began to rant about what it had taken her to get ready for the meeting, and verbally attacked the woman who dared to oppose her. After quashing all dissenting opinions, Cynthia led a very quiet meeting to a rapid conclusion. Attacking is the repeated expresAttacking is the repeated sion of anger and frustration in the expression of anger and form of inappropriate personal criticism. It often may include namefrustration in the form of calling and blaming statements. It inappropriate personal rarely gets people to cooperate. Most criticism. victims of an attack give in, comply, and bow down to end the aggressive attack. If you attack as your method of gaining compliance, you may have experienced verbal abuse or flaming e-mail attacks yourself and believe that it toughens people up. You may think that creating fear will motivate them to change. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re right; fear is a motivator. People will do what you want as long as they believe you can harm their careers, their reputations, or their work lives. If you attack your colleagues, you may feel better momentarily and even see immediate results. In the end, however, those who attack others fail to gain loyalty, trust, enduring relationships, or commitment from others. Instead, people go around them, quit their jobs to escape the attacks, and may eventually respond by attacking the attacker.

B U L LY I N G Ray worked with Brit at a data processing company. The two of them were assigned to create a class jointly. Ray worked very hard to prepare his portions of the class. Usually when he met with Brit to review their progress, she indicated she had not been able to complete her segments. After a while Ray began to bully Brit to deliver on her promises. When these demands were ignored, Ray told Brit that he would just prepare the class by himself, but would let others know of her lack of cooperation. As a result of that threat, Brit contributed a bare minimum of work. In the end, Ray was forced to share

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PEER POWER

credit with Brit for a successful class, which he resented, just as Brit resented Ray’s attempts to bully her. Tension between the two of them continued for several months. In looking back, Ray realized that Brit lost all desire to collaborate with him because of his bullying. Bullying occurs when someone Bullying occurs when makes unreasonable demands or someone makes uses inappropriate threats that exceed natural and appropriate conseunreasonable demands quences. The bully stamps his feet, or uses inappropriate threats that exceed raises his voice, and insists that others do what he wants. If they don’t, natural and appropriate the bully will make sure there are negconsequences. ative consequences. You’ve probably run across a bully before, whether on the school playground, in your neighborhood, or in the next cubicle at work. Be honest now: have you ever prematurely told someone you’ll go over her head if she doesn’t do what you want? You’ve engaged in bullying. Have you ever copied someone’s boss on every little issue or problem? That’s a form of virtual bullying. Have you ever pushed hard to get someone to do something with a tone that implies she has little choice? That’s bullying. Have you ever threatened to drag your heels on a decision or undermine someone else’s initiative? That’s actually a form of bullying as well. The problem with bullying is that it often produces long-lasting resentment and retaliation. Bullies have few allies at work (except those people who align themselves with the bully as a way to protect themselves or gain power from the association).

WHERE WE’RE HEADED It was embarrassing to write this chapter because we like to think we were born with superior peer power. You may have winced, chuckled, or cried at our examples. Perhaps you saw yourself or others reflected in the stories. We encourage you to complete the self-assessment at the end of this chapter to see whether you may have unintentionally adopted these four powerless behaviors.

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Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid)

If you are using some of these ineffective practices, you’ll find practical suggestions for modifying your behavior in the next chapter and throughout this book. If you need to deal with these behaviors when used by others, explore our case studies. We’ve developed practical strategies for handling manipulating, whining, attacking, and bullying (in Chapters 8, 5, 4, and 12 respectively), as well as many other unproductive behaviors.

PERSONAL SELF-ASSESSMENT We’ve bared our souls and shared some of the disastrous mistakes we’ve made in the past. We invite you to follow our example and approach this simple self-assessment with honesty. We’ve listed several behaviors that people often use to get what they want. Place a ✓ in the column that indicates how frequently you use that behavior. When you’ve completed the assessment, we’ll provide a simple scoring key that will point you toward the four key principles that support better behavioral choices in the workplace.

Behavior

Never Rarely

Sometimes Often

1. I tell “white lies” to get what I want. 2. I point out problems, but no one solves them. 3. I pretend to agree with people to make them happy. 4. If someone makes me angry, I raise my voice to express my concerns. 5. I speak directly to the person I’m having difficulty with. 6. I have to mention problems over and over again to get people to change their behavior. (continued )

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PEER POWER

Behavior

Never Rarely

Sometimes Often

7. I gain cooperation by forcefully presenting my position. 8. I consider others’ needs when making requests. 9. I push people to do things my way. 10. I withhold my support or cooperation to make sure my needs are addressed. 11. I manage my emotions when upset with someone. 12. I retaliate if people treat me disrespectfully. 13. I complain about one or two people at work to my colleagues. 14. I share both the pros and cons of my recommendations. 15. People tell me I am intimidating. 16. I lose my temper when people aren’t doing the right thing.

PERSONAL SELF-ASSESSMENT SCORING KEY For each statement in the scoring key below, find the score that corresponds to your response and write that score in the empty box on that line. For most of the statements, the higher scores indicate behavior we don’t encourage. However, for each category there is one statement (grayed area) for which the point scale is reversed. (These grayed areas contain behaviors we do encourage.) Total your points for each behavior. The higher your score, the more likely you are using this inappropriate coping strategy. Your score for each behavior will fall somewhere between 0 and 12.

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Mistakes We Have Made (And You Can Avoid)

I point out problems, but no one solves them.

I pretend to agree with people to make them happy.

If someone makes me angry, I raise my voice to express my concerns.

I speak directly to the person I’m having difficulty with.

I have to mention problems over and over again to get people to change their behavior.

I gain cooperation by forcefully presenting my position.

I consider others’ needs when making requests.

I push people to do things my way.

10.

I withhold my support or cooperation to make sure my needs are addressed.

11.

I manage my emotions when upset with someone.

Bullying

Often

Attacking

Sometimes

I tell “white lies” to get what I want.

Whining

Rarely

Behavior

Manipulating

Never

Enter your score in the empty box

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PEER POWER

13.

I complain about one or two people at work to my colleagues.

14.

I share both the pros and cons of my recommendations.

15.

People tell me I am intimidating.

16.

I lose my temper when people aren’t doing the right thing.

Bullying

Attacking

Often

I retaliate if people treat me disrespectfully.

Whining

Sometimes

12.

Behavior

Manipulating

Rarely

Enter your score in the empty box

Never

Total Points for each Behavior:

No matter what your scores in these areas, there are probably techniques in your repertoire of behaviors that don’t really serve you. None of us is perfect! We invite you to explore more constructive principles and practices in Chapter 2 that will improve your relationships by quantum leaps in the weeks ahead. You’re on the way to becoming a powerful peer.

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About the Authors

C Y N T H I A C L AY Cynthia Clayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s career has centered on helping managers, teams, and individuals work together more effectively. She brings over twenty-five years in training and organizational development to her current role as founder and president of NetSpeed Learning Solutions. Her company provides learning and training programs that blend the best of instructor-led training (in person or on the web) with web-based performance support and measurement tools. In this capacity she has:

Grown the company from a sole proprietorship to a global training company Developed twenty-four NetSpeed Leadership management and professional skills training programs (face-to-face and webinar delivery) Developed Blazing Service for customer service skill development (face-to-face and webinar delivery) Developed Peer Power for the development of communication and conflict resolutions skills (face-to-face and webinar delivery) Developed NetSpeed Fast Tracks, a social media platform for social learning 279 for more about this book, visit wiley.com

280

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Worked with clients as diverse as BP, Monsanto, Government Accountability Office, Microsoft, Pennsylvania National Gaming, Genentech, and Nielsen

Prior to founding NetSpeed Learning Solutions in 2000, Cynthia managed the training and development department at a major hospital and held key positions in management development, human resources, and training at a national bank. Cynthia is a popular presenter at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) International Conference and speaks frequently at ASTD regional chapter meetings around the country. She has also been recognized as an expert on effective web conference delivery of training by CLO magazine (August 2008), and is a featured webinar presenter for Adobe, CLO magazine, www.trainingindustry.com and www.hr.com. In 2010 she received the Contributor of the Year award from ISA (the association of learning providers). She is the author of Great Webinars, published by Pfeiffer. Cynthia earned her master of fine arts (MFA) in Theater Directing from the University of Washington. She believes that directing theater productions requires the same interpersonal skills required for working successfully with peers and colleagues.

R AY O L I T T Ray Olitt has over twenty-five years of experience in the training and organizational development field. He currently consults with and coaches leaders in a variety of for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He retired as manager of organizational development for a health insurance company in 2003. Prior to that, he served as manager of management and professional development for a bank and as a management and organizational development specialist for two aerospace companies. In these roles, some of his accomplishments included:

Designing and conducting hundreds of classes for managers, employees and self-directed teams, averaging 9.2 on a tenpoint course evaluation scale. Topics included â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dealing with

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About the Authors

281

Difficult People and Conflict,” “Giving and Receiving Feedback,” “Influencing Others and Selling Ideas,” “Interpersonal Skills and Effective Listening,” and “Working Well with People over Whom You Have No Authority.” Planning and leading over a hundred strategic planning, team building, and group problem-solving sessions, averaging 9.3 on a ten-point participant evaluation scale. Gaining management support to implement and lead a new Employee Diversity Program and a new employee opinion survey process. Receiving five merit bonus awards and two Human Resources Program of the Year awards. Being selected as company Employee of the Year from over two thousand employees.

Ray’s skills at engaging audiences with practical content have resulted in dozens of invitations to present workshops at home and abroad. Ray designed and frequently taught the very popular workshop “Working Well with People over Whom You Have No Authority” for a human resources organization serving all of Washington State. This workshop has attracted more attendees than any comparable program in the organization’s history. Ray earned an EdD from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a specialization in Adult Curriculum Development.

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Contents Foreword by Lamarr Lark

Foreword by Gerry Bouey

PART ONE: BEYOND DIVERSITY TO HUMAN EQUITY: THE REQUIRED SHIFT

Chapter One: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

Chapter Two: The Evolution of the Equity Continuum Case Study: Mount Sinai Hospitalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Workforce Census

29 51

Chapter Three: The Essential Role of Leaders and Managers Case Study: Ontario Public Service Diversity Mentoring Partnership Program

PART TWO: IMPLEMENTING HUMAN EQUITY

Chapter Four: Human Capital and the Differentiation of Talent

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viii

Contents

Chapter Five: Talent Differentiation in Action Case Study: Dynamic Industrial Company Practices Talent Differentiation

105

Chapter Six: The SHAPE of Talent

121

Chapter Seven: The Eight Core Competencies of the Equitable Leader Case Study: The Equitable Leader Assessment at Deloitte

143 167

106

Chapter Eight: Ernst & Young: A Journey Toward Human Equity Leadership

173

PART THREE: MEASURING HUMAN EQUITY

191

Chapter Nine: Arriving at the Human Equity Assessment Tool

193

Chapter Ten: The Equitable Leader Assessment Case Study: Ontario Ministry of Labour Equitable Leadership Assessment

211

Conclusion: The Why of Human Equity

247

Afterword: My Why of Human Equity

253

Appendix

263

Glossary

297

Special Offer

301

Index

303

233

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PART ONE

BEYOND DIVERSITY TO HUMAN EQUITY: THE REQUIRED SHIFT

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Chapter 1

DIVERSITY FATIGUE AND THE UNFULFILLED PROMISE OF DIVERSITY A couple of years ago I met with two dozen leading diversity practitioners to identify some of the toughest challenges they were facing. Among the usual responses, such as lack of leadership buy-in, no effective outreach strategies and challenges empowering employee network groups, there was a new theme. It was a theme that eventually seemed to dominate the entire discussion, yet none of us could quite put our finger on it. Finally someone said, “Our organization is facing diversity fatigue.” That was it: diversity fatigue. What, you may well ask, is diversity fatigue? It encompasses several things, including the Herculean effort required by diversity practitioners to keep the momentum going amid the toughest economic crisis since the Depression. It is trying to repackage and sell the business case for diversity by showing specific return on investment at a time of limited dollars for any corporate imperative. It is trying to figure out how to creatively communicate diversity in an extremely time-scarce environment when people struggle to do more with less. It is maintaining the gains with front-line managers (the so-called frozen middle) who ask, “When will this diversity thing end? Have we not handled it by now?” It also involves the endless task of breaking down silos among groups that have interest only in their particular dimension of diversity. All this is what we call diversity fatigue.

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In July 2007, a leading North American human resources publication called Profiles in Diversity Journal ran a fascinating series of essays entitled “The Pioneers of Diversity.” I was honored to be asked to join the group of 30 leading thinkers to comment on the state of the diversity industry at that point. Each pioneer was asked to write a short essay on where diversity came from, where it is now and where it needs to go next. Not surprisingly, the pioneers agreed on where diversity came from—that is, when the concept first arose: the 1987 Hudson Institute’s study Workforce 2000, which accurately forecast several dramatic changes to the North American workforce. Interestingly, most of the pioneers also agreed on where we are right now: most felt we are at a stalemate, one we’ve been stuck in for at least the last decade. At the very least, diversity needed a face-lift, if not a transformation. The most intriguing aspect of the essays, however, was the question of where we need to go next. There was virtually no alignment on this important question. I decided to use this opportunity to formally introduce and write about human equity, which I had started thinking about in 2001. I called the pioneers’ essay “Diversity: Ready to Evolve.” I argued that it was time the conversation about diversity evolved from a preoccupation with superficial variations of gender, race and sexual orientation, to focus on the many characteristics that make every person unique. I argued that while the demographic dimensions of diversity could inform who a person is, they could never define that person. I concluded that it was time for human equity, a concept that focuses on maximizing the diverse talents of your total workforce. It was just recently, on a coffee break from what, until that point, appeared to be a typical diversity executive briefing, that a senior executive of one of the most powerful global Fortune 100 companies turned to me and said: “Diversity is dividing our people. We’ve got blacks over here, Hispanics over there, gays in one corner, lesbians in the other. It’s not working! And we don’t know how to fix it. How do I get everyone on the same page when they’re only concerned about their own issues?”

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

Being in the diversity consulting field for over two decades, I might be expected to be frustrated by the executive’s comment. Au contraire! I was encouraged—and relieved. Finally, someone in a corner office was waking up to the fact that something is broken in the diversity arena. Two or three years ago, you would not have heard this level of candor, even in a private conversation—political correctness would not allow it. Diversity was a sacred cow, and any criticism of it by executives had the potential of leading to accusations of not being committed, not “getting it” or, heaven forbid, being one of those old boys from the white, privileged, sexist, racist, homophobic power network. Thankfully, it would appear that things are changing and some courageous executives are finally willing to move beyond political correctness and confront the brutal truth about corporate diversity. More and more, C-level executives are asking those responsible for diversity and human resources, “Are we really making progress?” “What has been the return on investment of all this activity?” and “What difference have you actually made?” The truth is, anyone who has been in the field for more than 20 years has quietly been asking himself or herself the same questions and wondering what we should be doing next. The best leaders know that in today’s demanding market they will have to reinvent their organizations at least every three years. In 2010, the IBM Global CEO study found that almost 70 percent of global CEOs think their current business model is sustainable for only another three years; the other 30 percent believed it may be usable for as long as another five years. As the bestselling author Jason Jennings says in his excellent book The Reinventors: Today a combination of stagnant Western markets, former third world nations embracing technology and becoming manufacturing powerhouses with middle classes larger than that of the US, technology that makes everything increasingly transparent and customers who believe that they can get exactly what they want when they want it at a price they’re willing to pay[,] all add up

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to a game changing business environment. Anyone who thinks that they’ll get a free pass and that they don’t have to constantly reinvent their business has their head in the sand.1 After three decades of diversity, important lessons have been learned about how to do it the wrong way. We are now at a critical juncture in the journey and need to make some tough decisions about which road to take. The diversity industry has clearly hit a wall and needs to reinvent itself. It needs a breakthrough if it is going to be relevant to the business agenda over the next decade. What are the current problems with diversity? Let’s borrow from the David Letterman School of Analysis, counting down from 10.

THE TOP 10 PROBLEMS WITH DIVERSITY TODAY 10. Diversity cannot be achieved simply by focusing on improving the representation of women. 9. There is a hierarchy of inequity in diversity that breeds inter-group competition. 8. Success in diversity cannot be measured simply by tracking cosmetic changes in demographic representation. 7. Diversity has been dominated by an American-specific agenda and mindset, despite it being a global issue. 6. Diversity is too focused on “superficial” differences such as race, gender and sexual orientation. 5. Diversity in practice is about equity for some, rather than equity for all. 4. Diversity virtually ignores the importance of leadership behavior. 3. Diversity has not moved beyond awareness education about race, gender, culture and sexual orientation. 2. Diversity is based on a deficit paradigm. 1. Jason Jennings, The Reinventors: How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change (New York: Penguin Group, 2012), 4.

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

And the last—and most significant—problem with diversity today (drum roll, please) . . . 1. Diversity focuses on groups rather than the individual. Let’s take a closer look at these problems. Problem 10: Diversity cannot be achieved simply by focusing on improving the representation of women. In 1962, research scientist Felice Schwartz created Catalyst, which soon became the leading not-for-profit gender research think tank in the United States. Today, this impressive organization works globally with offices in the United States, Canada and Europe, and has more than 400 preeminent member corporations looking to Catalyst for research, information and advice about women in the workforce. Catalyst is based on a hypothesis Schwartz put forward, also in 1962. She believed that the reason women had not made it to the executive positions in the Fortune 500 multinational corporations was not rooted in mal intent. Rather, it was simply an issue of ignorance. Maybe, she hypothesized, the leaders of these organizations were unaware of the appalling state of affairs surrounding gender representation. That is, they just didn’t have all the facts. In 1993 Catalyst conducted the first census of women in board positions and three years later introduced the Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners. These annual counts are based on the belief that if a credible census of the executive boardrooms and positions were conducted and the numbers were shown to the male executives, they would surely act. These leaders of conscience would be “shamed” into fixing the problem if it was indubitably proven to exist. Thus, the annual Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners, which will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary, was born. I first attended the very prestigious Catalyst dinner about a decade ago as a guest of one of our international clients, who joined almost every other Fortune 500 company at this impressive event.

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I had the pleasure of listening to the then global president of Catalyst present the data from the think tank’s latest census. She explained that really what she was about to present was the report card on gender issues in the North American corporate world over the past three decades. “Let’s start with the CEO office,” she began. “How many women are currently CEOs of a major Fortune 500?” I thought to myself, “By now it’s got to be over 10 percent,” so 50 women, I figured. “One!” she announced with relish. “Not 1 percent,” she emphasized. “One. Carly Fiorina at HP. ” She continued by asking about the level just below CEO. “How many women are direct reports to the CEO?” She was referring to those at the executive vice president level. Okay, this has to be about 10 percent, I reasoned. “Four percent!” she announced. She continued to work her way down level by level—5 percent, 7 percent, 9 percent . . . not reaching double digits until the director level, and not reaching close to gender parity until the senior manager level. At this rate, she noted, it will take us 250 years to get to gender parity in the executive offices of the Fortune 500 companies. If I wasn’t already totally shocked by her research, I was by what she said next: “We’ve just got to work harder.” My head began to spin, and all I could hear was Dr. Phil’s voice in my head asking, “How’s that working for you?” “You’re telling me that after more than 50 years of researching this issue of gender representation in corporate America and almost 20 years of presenting the representation numbers, the best answer you’ve got for us is Do more of the same, but just do it harder?” I thought about Einstein’s wonderful definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. “Don’t you get it, lady? Something is broken!” In the diversity field, gender is considered the crucible. It was reasoned that if organizations could overcome the attitudinal and systemic issues that lead to the gender representation disparities illustrated by the

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

Catalyst numbers, then they could apply these solutions to all the other underrepresented groups in the workforce. So here we sit, 50 years after Schwartz hypothesized that women were underrepresented at executive levels simply because of ignorance, almost 20 years of credible, comprehensive, bulletproof Catalyst research and almost nothing has changed. In fact, at a recent Canadian Catalyst dinner, I heard the global CEO and president make a virtually identical presentation—only this time she had it recorded on video. Improving gender representation was always the hope for other underrepresented groups in organizations. If the glass ceiling was broken for women, it would not be long before it was broken for other equityseeking groups. However, as we can see from the annual Catalyst numbers, progress has been glacial and it may be time to look to another strategy to diversify the workforce. Problem 9: There is a hierarchy of inequity that breeds inter-group competition. Years ago, when I was in government pushing for the kinder, gentler Canadian version of Affirmative Action, which we called Employment Equity, I watched an impressive presentation about the discrimination faced by gay men in the workforce. The group presenting had done an admirable job of collecting enough data to prove that homosexuals were in fact facing as much discrimination in the Canadian workforce as any other equity-seeking group. Thus, they argued that they too should be considered a designated group under the proposed employment equity legislation. Now, this was more than two decades ago, so the likelihood that any politician in his or her right mind would make homosexuals a designated group under affirmative action was “snowball in hell” territory. It was a compelling presentation nevertheless. Yet, I sat in the audience, having a different conversation in my mind. “You know, that’s mildly interesting about homosexuals,” I said to myself, “but frankly what they have to say doesn’t affect me. Women have got theirs and I want mine. You gay guys will get yours right after my

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The Human Equity Advantage

group (i.e., visible minorities). If it’s between your group and mine— mine comes first.” Years later, my hero, Nelson Mandela, would name this interesting condition “the hierarchy of inequity,” whereby my inequity is more pressing or more important than your inequity—a very human but counterproductive mindset. More on that later. Many of the leading Fortune 500 corporations have created internal networking groups for women, ethnic minorities, gays, people with disabilities, Aboriginals, and so on. At least one major global corporation boasts more than 100 internal advocacy groups, including one for straight, white, able-bodied males (SWAMs). What, you may ask, are these groups up to? Are they working on improving the bottom line of their company? Maximizing shareholder value? Identifying productivity inefficiencies? Nope. By and large, these groups are concentrating on their own agendas and how to get the corporation to pay more attention to their issues—which ultimately means paying less attention to the issues of the other groups. Recently, an “inclusiveness change agent” in a major Fortune 500 company confided to me that she had been chastised by her head office’s executive champion for gender issues about losing focus because of the time and effort she spent on inclusiveness. “You are watering down our progress on gender by focusing on these other groups,” she was told. I actually think this is a very human response. Self-interest always trumps the interest of the collective. There are few purely altruistic acts, if any. The view is usually “What’s in it for me?” and people ultimately will focus on issues on the agenda that most concern them. The establishment of diversity networking groups was a promising phase a decade ago, but now we have to ask what these groups are doing to improve the capacity of the organization to attract, excite and retain the very best talent regardless of gender, race, culture, sexual orientation, nationality and so on. In a study of more than 800 companies in the EEOC (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) data base over a 30-year period, diversity affinity groups and networking programs did little to improve the position of underrepresented groups into management or

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

executive positions. Despite that fact, these networks continue to be one of the most popular diversity interventions.2 Problem 8: Success in diversity cannot be measured simply by tracking cosmetic changes in demographic representation. This is a lesson I wrote about almost two decades ago in my book Diversity at Work and it is still as valid today as it was then. Most people think diversity is just about fixing the numbers. Demographic changes in representation may be signals that attitudinal or systemic barriers are being removed, but the focus on cosmetically changing demographics will not lead to the promise of diversity, which has always been improved business outcomes. Long before Clarence Thomas became the lightning rod for sexual harassment, he was equally despised as a vocal opponent of quotas and using numerical representation as a measure of success. In 1980, he was appointed to chair the U.S.-based Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and equity-seeking groups across the country shuddered when he announced an embargo on quotas. His intention was to reduce the government’s reliance on numerical representation as the primary focus of affirmative action. He argued that the reliance on numbers was a “weak and limited weapon” against inequity in the workplace. In his words, “The numbers distort the real issues surrounding discrimination. This approach fails because it allows an employer to hide continued discrimination behind good numbers.”3 Although I don’t consider myself a fan of Thomas, I think he may have had a point. Indeed, a quick review of the latest trend in the U.S. multimilliondollar discrimination class action lawsuits indicate that Thomas may have been on to something. Look for the pattern. Those organizations that sign the most expensive anti-discrimination settlements one year magically make it to the top of the Best Diversity Employers list the next year. 2. Frank Dobbin, Alexandra Kalev and Erin Kelly, “Diversity Management in Corporate America,” American Sociological Review 6, no. 4 (2007): 21–27. 3. Quoted by Thomas Sowell in The Quest for Cosmic Justice (New York: Free Press, 1999), 40.

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They have a deathbed conversion, somehow managing in one year to significantly improve their representation of women, minorities or other groups within the organization. These are numbers that did not shift for years, yet now the progress is so remarkable that the employer can actually move to the head of the class in the numbers-conscious diversity industry—with a little help from some well-placed advertising investments in the website or publication that features the award. This is not to say that organizations should ignore representation. Representation is one of several measures of progress, but it is not the most important metric. Despite being the focus of the diversity industry, demographic representation has proven itself to be a lagging, non-predictive and often imprecise metric. Problem 7: Diversity has been dominated by an American-specific agenda and mindset, despite it being a global issue. A number of years ago, I was asked to speak at a major corporate social responsibility conference in Brussels. It was one of my first times speaking about diversity outside North America. Just before delivering my speech, I met the gentleman who was to introduce me. He was a European managing director of a large U.S.-based multinational. He had a copy of my bio in his hand, with portions highlighted so that he would be able to read it more easily from the podium. He looked confused. “Mr. Wilson,” he said, “I’ve read your bio, and I’m still trying to figure out what you actually do.” “Oh, I’m a diversity consultant,” I offered, assuming that would clear everything up. “Diversity?” he queried. “This is Europe! We don’t have diversity here. We don’t have African–Americans here. We don’t have Hispanics here. Diversity is not relevant to us.” A few years later I was working on an assignment for a French bank in Bahrain. The CEO was a French national who had spent more than 30 years in the United Arab Emirates. He was a fascinating leader whom people described as being as much Arab as he was French. He was the perfect bridge between the two cultures. He was the type of leader that

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

really “got” human equity the first time he heard about it. He immediately became a vigorous champion for the introduction of a human equity intervention, starting with his direct reports. He asked me to meet individually with his 15 executives to explain human equity to them. Fourteen of the meetings were routine and finished within days of the CEO’s request. The fifteenth meeting was next to impossible to schedule and then even more difficult to confirm. I assumed this particular leader was simply extremely busy, so I decided to “camp out” at his office in case he found a few spare minutes in his schedule. After being announced, I sat in his waiting room for most of the afternoon. His assistant was very apologetic and explained that her boss was always very busy. She offered me several alternative dates, but as I was leaving the next day, I continued to wait him out. Finally, after his assistant had left, he surfaced from his office. He invited me in, saying, “I only have a few minutes, but I understand you are here to talk to me about diversity. That’s the American stuff about women and minorities, right?” “Well, it used to be,” I said. “It has evolved a bit over the past 20 years.” “Evolved to what?” he asked suspiciously. “To human equity,” I responded. “What is human equity?” I proceeded to try to cram 20 years of evolution into the space of two minutes. I spoke to him about the distinction between diversity, inclusion, human capital and human equity, giving him a crash course on optimizing human potential. He clearly was engaged and within 20 minutes we were in deep conversation about human equity. Ninety minutes later he confessed that he had had no intention of meeting with me, despite his boss’s request. He had no intention of supporting some American consultant bringing an American idea of affirmative action that did not fit his company’s corporate culture. He indicated that while he still had no interest in diversity, he was very intrigued by this idea of human equity. These two incidents confirmed for me one of the biggest problems with diversity: it is perceived as an American issue based in American civil

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rights history, a history that has been dominated by issues of gender and race and, more recently, sexual orientation. These are issues that will not resonate in countries where differences in language, class or religion are far more relevant to the diversity conversation. For example, the French/ English debate, one of the most enduring issues of difference in Canada, rarely fits into the American diversity agenda. From September 2011 to December 2011, the Conference Board asked almost 800 global CEOs to rank in descending order the top challenges they anticipated their companies facing in the coming years. The resulting list for European CEOs is: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Innovation Human capital Global political/economic risk Government regulation Global expansion Cost optimization Customer relationships Sustainability Corporate brand and reputation Investor relations.

In light of the continued labor shortages caused by declining fertility rates and the social issues caused by immigrants brought in to meet these shortages, it is quite amazing that diversity has missed the European CEO list. I believe it is because this issue is still seen as an American oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and not relevant to the European business agenda. The European managing director who was to introduce me at the Brussels conference was not an ignorant man. He was well read, educated and business savvy. How was it, then, that he had come to the conclusion that this diversity thing was only relevant in America? My guess would be because he was asked to implement a diversity program created by his American head office, by Americans, to deal with American issues. Now, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get me wrong, I love Americans.

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

Some of my best friends are American. But I have seen many “global” organizations that simply don’t get it. You can’t sit in a head office in New York, Washington, Dallas, Seattle, Atlanta or wherever and design a global diversity strategy without including others in the world. It’s not only illogical, it’s irresponsible. Recently, one of our U.S. clients took over a major technology company in India that has more than 20,000 employees. These 20,000 people will not become Americans just because their head office has shifted from Mumbai to Chicago. Their cultural values will remain the same and, more importantly, so will their corporate cultural values, unless the new head office makes a concerted effort to integrate this new acquisition into its culture. Our consultancy, TWI Inc., spends a lot of time on helping our clients understand the impact of being a truly global organization. As we tell our clients, the guiding rule of dealing with culture is this: what seems reasonable and logical in one culture may be totally irrelevant in another. Most failed mergers and acquisitions happen not because the numbers are wrong but because the corporate cultures clash. And that is when both are within the same hemisphere. Global acquisitions, outsourcing, offshoring and supply-chaining will generate some of the most challenging diversity issues we have ever seen. As such, most existing diversity strategies designed for the U.S. domestic market will prove insufficient in this challenging new global environment. We will come to see that this is where the promise of human equity comes in. Human equity evolves the diversity discussion about groups into the critical area of human capital—the second most important anticipated challenge of the Conference Board study. CEOs in Europe, China, India and the United States wake up at night in a cold sweat worrying about the lack of qualified talent to meet their innovation and future leadership needs. It turns out that moving this message beyond America relies a lot on the terminology. While diversity and sometimes inclusion are seen as U.S. concepts, human equity does not have the same baggage. While there is a relationship between diversity and human equity, these are quite different concepts. At the end of this book is a glossary of terms to help

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readers understand fully what we are talking about as we move beyond diversity into the lesser-known area of inclusion and the brand-new area of human equity. Problem 6: Diversity is too focused on “superficial” differences such as race, gender and sexual orientation. One of the most exciting projects I have worked on in the past 20 years was for NASA. At one of the strategy sessions, I had the good fortune to listen to a scientist who had worked on the human genome mapping project. He explained that one of the first things scientists had to do was figure out the various possible combinations of human DNA. He explained that in the old days, the conventional wisdom was that there were infinite combinations of the billions of molecules of the double helix. But this imprecise estimate needed to be quantified in order to precisely map the full genome. He pointed out that roughly 3 billion pairs of biochemicals make up the double-stranded DNA commonly known as the double helix, but that there are a multitude of variations to these combinations. He pointed out that it is this multitude of variations that makes everyone unique. Upon doing the math, the scientists estimated that there are 10 to the power of 2.5 billion possible combinations of human DNA. He went on to say that if you divide this number by the current population in the world (7 billion), you will see the diversity of the human family. I almost fell off my chair. I knew this was the next step in the journey. In Diversity at Work, I attempted to explain that this discussion was not really about how many women, minorities or LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) people you have in your workplace. This discussion is really about talent. If you have 5,000 employees, then what you have is 5,000 individual units of talent. If leadership could figure out how to tap into each unit of talent and unleash that talent for the mission of the organization, that would substantially impact on any business outcome on the leadership agenda anywhere in the world. Not long after hearing about the impressive DNA combinations, I was reading an excellent article by Marcus Buckingham entitled “What Great Managers Do.” Buckingham writes: “Differences of trait and talent for more about this book, visit wiley.com

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are like blood types. They cut across the superficial variations of race, sex and age and capture each person’s uniqueness.”4 Wow, I thought. Talent comes in all packages—precisely 10 to the power of 2.5 billion. However, my talent is not defined by my race. My race does not define who I am, nor does my gender, age, nationality, sexual orientation or any other diversity dimension. These superficial characteristics may inform who I am, but they do not define who I am. Just as they didn’t define me 100 years ago, they do not define me today. Over the past 20 years, diversity has devolved into conversations about how many women, minorities, gays and lesbians you have in your workforce. This totally misses the point. What this conversation is really about is tapping into the 10 to the power of 2.5 billion possible combinations of human DNA globally. And since no single demographic group has a monopoly on any kind of talent, you will inevitably see a change in demographic composition simply by properly harnessing total human capital. Diversity’s traditional focus on changing the demographic composition of the workforce has been putting the cart before the horse. If you focus on truly identifying and leveraging talent, the long-awaited demographic changes will come. This thought of leveraging total human capital is far more exciting than simply changing the demographic composition of the workforce. Problem 5: Diversity in practice is about equity for some, rather than equity for all. I argued in Diversity at Work that one of the most valuable lessons we have learned from years of legislated and now litigated fairness is the need to include all employees in a diversity program, including SWAMs (straight, white, able-bodied males). I attempted to argue that you can’t pursue equity for one, two or even 10 groups. You are really striving for equity for all. I asked, “If discrimination against my black grandfather was wrong 100 years ago, then how can discrimination against my neighbor’s white 4. Marcus Buckingham, “What Great Managers Do,” Harvard Business Review 83, no. 3 (2005): 70–79, 148.

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son today be justified? In order to create total equity in our society, all discrimination must be attacked.” Over the past 17 years, this is the area where I have had the most battles. One of my many critics is quoted as saying, “I don’t know how he can justify his position . . . how can he compare a white man’s parenting needs and the needs of people of color? There is a huge difference between them and the problems and barriers that exist to people of color getting and staying in the work force.”5 Maybe, but let’s at least check in with the white, single dad before jumping to this conclusion. Recently, I was invited to speak at an internal diversity conference where the audience was made up of the company’s eight employee resource groups (ERGs). As mentioned above, establishing employee resource groups is a common diversity practice where groups are organized to represent the interests of various components of an organization’s workforce based on demographic identity. Each ERG was asked to make a presentation on its progress to date and plans for the future. I was suitably impressed that the organization had ventured beyond the usual constituencies of gender, race and sexual orientation to create several other non-traditional employee resource groups. For example, there was an ERG for English as a second language employees, an ERG for new and young employees and even an ERG for faith-based employees. From the outside it appeared as if the organization’s diversity strategy was inclusive and the established, sanctioned ERGs covered all bases. However, upon closer inspection, I saw that one very important group was missing—the straight, white, able-bodied male (SWAM). It turned out that I was not the only one who had noticed this “oversight.” In fact, I was informed that a new employee resource group dedicated to SWAMs had organically formed in one of the company’s regional plants. The group was called WOMEN. This was an acronym standing for “White, Original, Men’s Employee Network.” 5. Speech by Antoni Shelton, Executive Director of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, 2007.

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The organization’s leadership and other employee resource groups were not amused. The possibility of sanctioning this upstart group was not even considered. I thought this was an interesting take on diversity and inclusion. This particular company was in a resource-based industry that has been dominated by straight, white, able-bodied males for the past century. So how was it that this group was not seen as worthy of being part of the organization’s well-developed and long-standing ERG network? The unarticulated and somewhat politically incorrect answer is that this group apparently faces no employment barriers, no discrimination and no unfair treatment, which is the reason SWAMs have held power positions in most organizations for so long. In other words, “They had their turn, and now it’s our turn.” It’s an approach that has never been successful, whether you are talking about Kosovo, Rwanda or legislated equity. I would suspect that this model of SWAM exclusion is prevalent in most organizations pursuing diversity today. I was amused to see that every resource group at this ERG conference had an almost identical mission statement. The mission of the women’s group was “to help the company become the employer of choice for women.” The minority group’s mission was “to help the company become the employer of choice for people of color.” In fact, other than the target group being different, all eight ERGs had exactly the same mission. In my opinion, this created a zero-sum approach to diversity. For every member of my group that “wins,” one member of seven other groups must lose. Earlier I mentioned a condition called the hierarchy of inequity referred to by Nelson Mandela. This is the notion that the exclusion or bias I face as a black man is somehow more important than the inequity my fellow white male employee may face because of his age, education or historical group membership. The hierarchy of inequity breeds the insidious and destructive mindset that, until you are finished dealing with the unfairness facing my group, you should not start dealing with the inequity facing any other group. As I mentioned above in the discussion of Catalyst, this may be a counterproductive perspective. One inequity cannot take precedence over another in any system. We must be willing to take on inequity when we find it even if does not impact directly on our personal group.

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In cases like the company cited above, a good place to start may be with the group that has traditionally been excluded from the diversity strategy—that is, straight, white, able-bodied males. My last words of advice to the leaders of the organization were to fully sanction the WOMEN group and make it a part of the solution rather than a resentful example of an exclusive diversity strategy. Problem 4: Diversity virtually ignores the importance of leadership behavior. The diversity industry’s lopsided focus on representation has led to its missing one of the most important variables in the creation of an equitable and inclusive workplace. After years of examining interventions that make a real difference, I am convinced that if an organization has not properly handled leadership behavior it will not succeed in changing the corporate culture. In 2004 Robert Sutton’s widely read Harvard Business Review article “More Trouble Than They’re Worth” and his follow-up book in 2007, The No Asshole Rule, introduced the idea of a relatively small group (i.e., about 10 percent) of mean-spirited leaders who have enormous impact on the work environment. This group of leaders, now commonly called boss-holes, abuse their power and authority to get their way, using fear to motivate or manipulate workers. In one blog post, Sutton explains his use of the not-so-politicallycorrect term asshole: I was determined to use the word asshole in the title because, to me, other words like “jerk,” “bully,” “tyrant,” “despot,” and so on are just euphemisms for what people really call those creeps. And when I have done such damage to people (indeed, all of us are capable of being assholes some of the time), that is what I call myself. I know the term offends some people, but nothing else captures the emotional wallop.6 6. Robert I. Sutton, “Why I Wrote The No Asshole Rule,” Harvard Business Review Blog Network, March 17, 2007.

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In my experience, the typical diversity programs that focus on representation and tactical group initiatives pay little attention to identifying and dealing with the boss-holes. This may be because it is much more uncomfortable to confront the behavior of this group who are generally unconsciously incompetent (that is, they don’t know what they don’t know) about their behavior. While their behavior may be transparent to them—they don’t even notice it—it is never transparent to the people who work for them. However, because of their level in the organization, it could be a career-limiting move to tell them about their behavior. Another problem is this 10 percent are the most hopeful that they are leaders in these areas. In fact, we will see that these lowest 10 percent leaders mark themselves perfect scores on behavior related to dignity and respect, equitable opportunity, and ethics and integrity, while their colleagues mark them substantially below the norm (more on this in Chapter 7). Because of their unconscious incompetence, members of this group feel that the problems related to equity and inclusion rest anywhere but with them. There is a famous merger in the legal industry that occurred more than a decade ago that people still talk about. A leading Canadian law firm looked to merge with an established American law firm based in New York City. At the celebration event for the merger, a founding partner of the New York firm sexually harassed nine female partners from the Canadian firm. The next day these nine women jointly took their complaint to the CEO and gave him an ultimatum—“It’s either us or him, and if it’s us, we will not be going quietly.” Within a week, the partner’s letter of resignation appeared on the front page of one of the largest newspapers in the country. The firm had accepted his resignation, acknowledging that his behavior was inappropriate and violated the firm’s policy against sexual harassment. But there are many organizations that tolerate this type of behavior because of the leader’s high-level position or because that person is a valued or tenured member of the leadership group. This leads these organizations into a common trap: when individuals reach positions of influence where few employees have

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the power to tell them about their unacceptable behavior without fear of reprisal or retribution, the unacceptable behavior continues and possibly even escalates. Psychological studies have shown that boss-holes such as the partner of the New York law firm reduce productivity, stifle creativity and cause high rates of absenteeism and turnover. Research also shows that 25 percent of bullied employees and 20 percent of those who witness the bullying will eventually quit because of it or “quit” by staying in their jobs but essentially checking out—something known in organizational psychology as psychic absenteeism. Diversity practitioners have spent a lot of time looking at the representation of women and minorities, putting employee resource groups together and improving policies on outreach and selection, yet the group encompassing the lowest 10 percent of leaders has remained virtually untouched. Finding and helping the boss-holes move out of their unconscious incompetence is the most important thing an organization can do to move toward equity. Chapter 3 further discusses this idea of the lowest 10 percent, and the importance of good leadership—and shifting leadership behavior where necessary. Problem 3: Diversity has not moved beyond awareness education about race, gender, culture and sexual orientation. Over the past 20 years, many organizations have offered diversity awareness training programs designed to help their organization move toward a more equitable and inclusive work environment. Diversity awareness education generally moves people from a state of unconscious incompetence (where they don’t know what they don’t know) to a state of conscious incompetence (where they know what they don’t know). Organizations that are further along in their journey to an equitable and inclusive work environment understand that awareness training is only a first step in the education process. These organizations adopt an integrated approach that leads people beyond awareness to understanding, and then beyond understanding to behavioral change. We often remind our clients that a workplace environment does not change because people

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begin to think differently, a workplace culture changes when people begin to act differently, that is, when they become consciously competent. Although diversity education has focused on improving awareness about race, gender, culture, sexual orientation and so on, sustainable organizational change is the result of behavioral change, especially that of managers and leaders. Our firm’s experience is that progress toward an equitable and inclusive work environment is more likely to happen when key opinion leaders move beyond awareness and understanding to exhibit actions and behavior that demonstrate the commitment to equity and inclusion. To do this, the organization needs to move beyond a course in diversity to create a full human equity curriculum that will involve employee skills transfer, including the introduction of new management tools designed from a positive psychology perspective. Stages of Commitment to Change—Fostering an Inclusive Environment Internalization

Unconscious Competence

Institutionalization Adoption

Degree of Support for the Change

Take Action Positive Perception Understanding

Conscious Competence Conscious Incompetence

Awareness Contact

d ne ai ed st t su es /T ot N ted ec t ej no R n n io rt is po ptio e ec p D su erc to P e iv at

on s es

Unconscious Incompetence

Time Adapted from ODR, Inc.©

In an integrated approach to education, a critical mass of managers and leaders move beyond awareness and understanding to the point where they take action to operate with conscious competence. With the requisite skills and competencies, managers and leaders can effectively create sustainable organizational change and move beyond the group focus of diversity.

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Problem 2: Diversity is based on a deficit paradigm. One of the biggest problems with diversity is its focus on righting the historical wrongs of certain groups. Diversity, like most of today’s management paradigms, is deficit-based, dealing with what is wrong with certain groups in the world of work. Notwithstanding the platitudes about celebrating differences, a scan of the academic research related to diversity will uncover less than inspiring titles such as “Issues in Managing an Increasingly Diverse Workforce,” or “A Field Study of Diversity, Conflict and Performance in Work Groups” or “The Relationship Between Race, Organizational Diversity and Absenteeism.” While there is no doubt that there is value in this type of research, it cannot help but create the feeling that diversity is something to be fixed, managed or handled. This, more than anything else, fuels the problem of diversity fatigue. In this book we look to the relatively new science of positive psychology as a way out of this dilemma. In 1998 Dr. Martin Seligman was the chair of the American Psychological Association. He confronted the psychological establishment with a challenge. Seligman’s challenge was based on the premise that the existing model of psychology was unbalanced. He argued that since the Second World War, psychology had been dedicated to what was wrong with people and the work of psychologists had been focused on trying to fix their patients; in his words, “trying to bring people from minus 200 to zero.” Seligman evidenced his perspective with a review of the academic literature. He found a startling 21 to 1 ratio between deficit-focused articles and those aimed at the positive. There were 5,584 articles about anger, 41,416 about anxiety and 54,040 focused on depression. On the other side of the equation, there were only 415 articles related to joy, 2,400 related to life satisfaction and a measly 1,700 related to what some call the ultimate reward, happiness. As Seligman put it: “The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side; it has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little

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of his potentialities, his virtues, his achievements, his aspirations or his psychological height. It is as if psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only half its rightful jurisdiction and that the darker, meaner half.” I believe the same could be said of the field of diversity. It has been far more focused on the negative side of differences in the workplace rather than looking at how to optimize on differences at an individual level. Looking to the strengths-based work of positive psychology pioneers such as Seligman, David Cooperrider and Chris Peterson, and referencing Gallup’s early research on strengths-based management, the evolution to human equity promises the first management paradigm approached from a positive psychology perspective. Problem 1: Diversity focuses on groups rather than the individual. In 1999 Dr. Janet Smith was asked to create a task force on diversity for the Canadian federal government. She pushed back, saying diversity was not the issue but inclusion was. When she was asked to define inclusion she used a definition that in an inclusive environment each person (not each group) is valued because of his or her unique difference. Up until that point the diversity conversation had focused on groups, for example, my group of men, your group of women, my group of minorities, your group of lesbians, etc. This is where the diversity conversation has been for the past two decades. This has led to each group fighting for its rightful place in the organization and has led to concerns regarding tokenism for some groups and accusations of reverse discrimination against others. And yet, not much has changed in who runs the most powerful organizations today. According to Catalyst, women CEOs represent less than 4 percent of the Fortune 500 companies today. One of the most influential African–American networking groups, the Executive Leadership Council, has pointed to the fact that the percentage of African– Americans in senior executive positions has actually decreased over the past decade. The vast majority of Fortune 1000 corporations’

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leadership positions are still dominated by one demographic group, that is, SWAMs. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, SWAMs represent a majority of managers, with white females barely making 30 percent and blacks, Hispanics and Asian– Americans each representing less than 5 percent. Organizations have experimented with hundreds of diversity measures focused on improving the conditions of selected groups and it is time to move beyond the group focus of diversity. I am more than my group. While my group identity may inform who I am, it cannot define me. The fact that I am a black male over the age of 55 does not mean I cannot master the use of social media or become an effective president. The same stereotypes we talk about fighting in diversity have raised their head again but in more politically correct garb. In order to access the full promise of the diversity of talent in the workplace we need to evolve beyond the group conversation of diversity, using whatever you now know about a particular group to apply it back to the individual. In my earlier book, Diversity at Work, I called for a shift from the “Age of Equality” to the “Age of Equity,” where people get treated equitably and differences are recognized not just because it is the right thing to do but because it will directly impact on the productivity and competitiveness of the organization. Today I call for yet another shift, a shift that moves beyond the conversation about diversity into the conversation about human equity, where differences are not just recognized but are seen as critical for organizational success. This shift uses positive psychology strategies to focus on job/talent fit. Most importantly, this shift moves beyond the group focus of diversity toward the individual focus of human equity, which allows for talent differentiation, differential investment in high performers and the opportunity to discover and play to the strengths of each employee.

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Chapter 1: Diversity Fatigue and the Unfulfilled Promise of Diversity

The Required Shift Assimilation

Tolerance

Inclusion

Past

Present

Future

Equality

Diversity

Human Equity

• Differences are ignored • Treat people the same • Focus on “fit”

Group focused

• Differences are recognized • Treat people equitably • Focus on righting historical wrongs

Group focused

• • • • •

Differences are critical Focus on job/talent fit Play to the strengths Invest in your best Talent Differentiation

Individual focused

Source: Trevor Wilson, Diversity at Work: The Business Case for Equity (Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., 1996)

In the next chapter we will look at the evolution of this conversation by reviewing a measurement tool called the Equity Continuum. That chapter will further trace where we have come from, where we are now and where we need to go to move toward human equity.

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Afterword: My Why of Human Equity Shortly before I graduated from university in the early 1980s, I heard a survey result that scared the hell out of me. Apparently, 90 percent of people hated their job. Hated! I swore to myself that I would not be in that number. Within two years of that earnest but silent pledge, I was smack in the middle of that 90 percent, working as a teller supervisor at one of the largest commercial banks in Canada. Not only did I hate my job, but I was also awful at it. “How did this happen?” I would ask myself regularly. “Where did I go wrong?” I spent about two years in this living hell before escaping to do something else. But looking back, I can see that those two years of suffering started me on the path to understanding human equity; it was when the why of human equity started to manifest for me. I say “started” because it would take almost 30 years for the full picture of human equity to unfold, including the 20 years my colleagues at TWI and I spent with the idea of diversity. It has been a slow gestation, almost like putting together a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, with only a handful of pieces being provided every year from 1987 to 2011, when the final piece was provided and I could see the whole picture. Those first two years of my career initiated a search that continues to this day. The search had me seek out ancient great thinkers and teachers, challenging self-development courses and sacred manuscripts. It had me travel around the world in an attempt to understand what really matters in life and why so many people are unfulfilled in their work. for more about this book, visit wiley.com

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I have had two midlife crises. The first was actually a pre-midlife crisis, I suppose, since it happened when I was 27 years old. It was prompted by my confronting the “bill of goods” that I had unconsciously bought into during my university years. The unquestioned belief was that if you went to the right school, got a reputable degree, found a worthy spouse, bought a nice house with a white picket fence and a few cars, and had a couple of kids, you would be happy. I followed this checklist with great fervor. By the time I was 27, I had pretty much completed the list. One night in particular stands out for me. It was around 2 a.m. I walked down the stairs of my very nice suburban home, with my beautiful wife sleeping upstairs and my first child safely in his crib. I remember thinking, “You have done it. You have completed the entire checklist.” Oh sure, I could get another car, or have another child or even buy a nicer house, but by and large I had checked everything off the list. The frightening part was that when I looked inside myself, I realized that there was no happiness. Where was this happiness that I had been promised? How did I miss it? Where did I get ripped off ? That was the beginning of a crisis for me—and the first piece of the human equity puzzle. The search for happiness started with finding what life was really about beyond that checklist based mostly on material things. And so I started to search for my purpose. It was that search that led me to three quotations that would have a profound effect on me. To me, these three quotations represent the essence and the why of human equity. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were

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255

born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. —Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love1 To me, this quote represents much of what human equity is about. In most of my life, fear has been present. It was present when I entered the workforce, it was there during my first job, it was there when I left that job, it was there when I got married, it was there when I had my first son, it was there when I had my first daughter, it was there when I went through divorce, it was there when I wrote my first book, it is here now. It is relentless and ubiquitous. It visits regularly and frequently leads to another common foe: procrastination. I suspect I am not the only one who has this type of relationship with fear. It is the primary reason that it has taken 17 years to write this second book. But then the quote takes us beyond fear to point to the possibility for something else—“our light.” A light that has been put in each one of us. A light so brilliant and fabulous when accessed that it can actually change the world. Most people don’t spend too much time thinking of themselves in these terms, but that does not mean they don’t have this light. It may simply mean they have yet to see it. And until that time they play small. They live partially, instead of fully self-actualized. The quote ends with hope, the hope of finding our light. And as we find it and live it, we unconsciously become a role model for others. We live out of happiness instead of worry, we live out of hope instead of fear, we show up in the world as the passionate, impactful creative beings that we already are even though we may not know it. By accessing our light we defeat fear and prepare ourselves for the promise encapsulated in the second quote: 1. Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 21.

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To man has been given the job of emulating his maker—of becoming a creator, finding new and broader and better ways through which to express the creative force in him. His is the work of creating beauty, of bringing more of comfort, of joy and happiness into the world. You are a son of God, a Creator; therefore creation is expected of you. You are to spread seeds not merely of human kind but of intellect as well. You are to leave the world a better place than you found it, with more of joy in it, more of beauty, of comfort, of understanding, of light. Robert Collier, The Law of the Higher Potential2 Here we are offered the promise of creation. Rarely do we think of ourselves as creators emulating the source that created us all. But surely this is the case: we create and are capable of creation. We simply need to look at the plethora of inventions that continue to flow from these body/mind organisms called human beings—everything from the wheel, the chair, the atomic bomb, all the way through to the Internet. All inventions, including this book, were created through some person. I say “through” because I believe we are the channels for these ideas, not the source. Perhaps one of the most impactful speeches I’ve ever heard was given by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was called “The Impotence of God.” Tutu explained that we always talk about the omnipotence of God and how God can do everything. But rarely do we talk about the impotence of God. “God has no mouth,” he explained. “He uses your mouth. God has no arms, he uses your arms. God has no body, he uses your body. You are co-creators with God.”3 And as co-creators, what are we here to create? As the last line of the Collier quote says, we are here to create something that will leave the world a better place than we found it. 2. Robert Collier, The Law of the Higher Potential (Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press, 1947), 48. 3. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, interviewed by Sir David Frost, “God’s Omnipotence and Impotence: Archbishop Tutu—The Frost Interview” (2013): www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ySCkDwYaZlE.

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Not too long ago I heard about a survey of 90-year-olds.4 They were asked, knowing what they know now, how they would live their lives differently if they had a chance to do it all over again. Their answers fell into three themes: 1. Worry less 2. Risk more 3. Work on something that would live beyond them. The “something” in this last point no doubt refers to something that would bring more comfort, joy, understanding or light. This is another piece of the why of human equity. This is what some people call legacy. One hundred years from now, will Bill Gates be remembered more for the billions of dollars he made at Microsoft or for giving away billions of dollars through his foundation? I suspect the latter. The last is a declaration of how to live and also how not to live: This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which

4. Keith Boudreau (www.growthcoachnorthshore.com), “If I Could Go Back and Change One Thing,” January 2011.

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Afterword: My Why of Human Equity

I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. —George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903 Being used for a purpose is an important part of understanding the why of human equity. For years I would say a prayer that ended with, “Let me become all you planned for me.” If you take the theme of using the light from the first quote, the creative ability referred to in the second quote and the idea of being used for a mighty purpose in this last quote, you have the why of human equity. But what of the option referred to in this third quote, of “being a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy”—an option many choose to take? It is so easy to assume that the world revolves around us. But what if we are only part of something much bigger? What if we each have a unique and important contribution to make to this place? What if we had the courage to use our power to make this world a better place? Would we not want to have this light burn as brightly as possible before it is extinguished?

• • • Every thirteen minutes another hundred people—members of the wealthiest and best-educated generation the world has ever known—begin reckoning with their mortality and asking deep questions about meaning, significance and what they truly want. When the cold front of demographics meets the warm front of unrealized dreams, the result will be a thunderstorm of purpose the likes of which the world has never seen. —Daniel Pink, Drive5 5. Pink, Drive, 133.

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My second midlife crisis began more than 20 years later, on June 11, 2005. While I was no longer wallowing in the unhappiness I felt at age 27, there was something else that had raised its head. Some refer to it as the flame of dissatisfaction, some call it halftime, some just call it the fear of getting old. I was being confronted with turning 50 and the realization that most of what, when I was young, I hoped my life would look like was unlikely to happen. I was past my prime and old age was looming fast. I was facing the fact that I probably had fewer years left on this planet than I had already used. On that day a woman shared with me that she was “born again” at 50 and had started counting her age all over again. She explained that this meant she was only 5 years old, not the 55 years she looked. I thought this was a better way of looking at turning 50 than simply believing you were getting old. When I applied this idea to my own life, I realized that it was exactly nine months to the day before I would turn 50. In other words, this was the day of my second conception. On the date of my first conception, I wasn’t conscious; however, I certainly was on this second one. This second conception allowed me the opportunity to witness the nine-month gestation period of a second, yet-to-be-lived life. I spent the following nine months looking deeply at what was next for me. It was a very difficult time. There were many questions and many visits to very dark places. At one point I wrote in my journal that I now knew how dark the womb must be. Somewhere in this gestation period I came across two books by Bob Buford: Halftime and Finishing Well. Buford is a very successful businessman who had also lamented over getting old as he turned 50. He was explaining his dilemma to an 80-year-old man one day and the wise old soul pointed out to him that 50 was not old. It may have been old when people died at age 65, but it wasn’t old today when people are expected to go to 80, 90 maybe even 100. In fact, he said, “If you go to 100, think of 50 as the halftime point in your life.” Buford extended this line of reasoning into his concept of halftime. The halftime movement has since grown into a full curriculum of courses and online support groups that involves thousands of baby boomers and their spouses.

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Afterword: My Why of Human Equity

Halftime is based on the premise that life has two periods: the first half and the second half—just like in a soccer game. And just like in a soccer game, the second half need bear no resemblance to the first half. The book explains that the first half (up to age 50) is about getting. It is all about the list I was confronted with in my mid-20s. You get your house, you get your spouse, you get your job, you get your car, and the rest of your “stuff,” which creates some level of material success and comfort. As another spiritual thinker, Neale Donald Walsch, writes of this transition from first to second half: Your younger years were never meant for truth teaching but for truth gathering . . . and you will be searching and experimenting and finding and failing and forming and reforming your truth, your idea about yourself until you are half a century on this planet . . . then you become a wiser one, an elder. . . . it is elders who know of truth and life. Of what is important and what is not. Of what is really meant by such terms as integrity, honesty, loyalty, friendship and love. —Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 36 In other words, by the time you reach 50 you are ready for your second half, which is no longer about getting but about giving back. Your second half is about what you will leave behind—that is, being used by a mighty purpose. This second half is the half of your life reserved for purpose, significance and legacy. In Finishing Well, Buford documents notable leaders who lived their second half quite differently from their first half. Apparently, this book led Bill Gates to leave Microsoft, where he had made billions of dollars for himself, to run the foundation where he will use some of this money to end diseases on the planet that have already been beaten in the developed world, educate every child by supporting education breakthroughs such 6. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 3 (Newburyport, MA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 1998), 34–35.

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as the Khan Academy, and make technology available to every person. Talk about leaving the world a better place than he found it. A few months ago, an old friend told me that after almost 23 years, he was two steps away from the CEO position in his company, a leading Fortune 500 organization. He explained that if he left his job today at 48, he could get 75 percent of his pension; if he stayed another two years, he would get 100 percent. I asked what his dilemma was. He went on to explain that he didn’t think he could last another two years there. After more than 20 years at it, the work was no longer meaningful to him, and he doubted that he was making a difference. I told him it sounded like he was going through a midlife crisis and shared some of the learnings from my own seven years earlier, when I had discovered Halftime. Within months of our conversation, he voluntarily left his six-figure job, designed and negotiated a generous golden handshake package and had recommitted to his 25-year dream of becoming a minister. In 2006, the first members of the baby boom generation turned 60. Somewhere between ages 50 and 60 is the time that people will begin to ask questions like, “When am I going to make a difference in my life?” and “What is my purpose?” Given that in the United States alone there are almost 80 million boomers, each day more than 11,000 people will hit this age of purpose. Human equity—with its emphasis on the unique abilities that each one of us has to offer—can play a major role in the transition of this group from the first to the second half.

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Contents Preface About the Author

v vii

Introduction: What Leaders and Managers Need to Know About Human Nature

1 Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings: How They Influence Performance

Pre–Chapter 2 Activity: What Is My Psychological Type?

2 Psychological Type: A Cognitive Approach

Pre–Chapter 3 Activity: What Are My Needs?

115

3 Needs: Our Pathways to Competence Pre–Chapter 4 Activity: What Are My Power Bases?

4 The Bases of Power: The Uses and Abuses of Influence Pre–Chapter 5 Activity: What Is My Conflict Style?

125 145

153 181

5 Conflict: Getting to Resolution

193

6 Values: Our Compass in Life

223

Pre–Chapter 7 Activity: What Is My Stress Quotient?

243

7 Stress: Responding to Pressure

255

8 Management Scenarios

289

9 Integration of the Building Blocks

317

Bibliography Index

331 337

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Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings

CHAPTER ONE

How They Influence Performance

Developing new skills sometimes requires changing our attitudes and cognitive beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. We need an evidence-based model for this developmental process. Cognitive restructuring, one of the newest approaches to changing behavior, is based on a framework developed by Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck. The basic goal is to identify internal monologues that are related to stressful events, to evaluate this self-talk for its rationality and influence on behavior, and then to produce new self-talk to modify the original cognition and the undesired behavioral pattern. In order to set the stage for cognitive restructuring, we need a model describing our behavior when we are confronted with stress. How we react to stressful events can be described in a series of behavioral proceedings that is referred to as the ABC chain. It begins with the trigger event (A). How the event is perceived, which is a function of the person’s core beliefs and assumptions, forms the (B) of the Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013 9:42am chain. The (C) part is the response: behavioral, physiological, and psychological. Through the process of perception, largely based on previous assumptions, we label events in a positive or negative way, and this labeling in turn gives rise to emotional and behavioral reactions. Our perceptual labeling may be accurate, or it may be inaccurate, inappropriate, or irrational. When the latter happens, we put ourselves into a state of stress. The cognitive restructuring technique focuses on changing our assumptions, perceptions, and feelings (APFs). Let’s look at a short example. Joe an engineer reports to John a senior project engineer and is called into John’s office. John immediately jumped to the problem: ‘‘The damn circuit failed for the tenth time. Joe, we have to fix the problem, or we’ll have a severe overrun.’’ As John paced around the room, constantly looking at the test documents and slamming them on his desk, Joe could only think, ‘‘This is awful. John is accusing me of fouling up. I only did what the design people told me to do. He is really mad at me. There go my stomach cramps again. What am I going to say?’’ He stood immobilized with anxiety and fear, until John demanded of him, ‘‘Joe, what are we going to do? We need answers. We need action—and promptly!’’ Finally Joe stammered, ‘‘I’ll do my best. I’ll go back to the lab and see what I can do.’’ John is a reactive type who lets his emotions show when under stress. In this instance, John was angry at the design, not at Joe, who did not explore what John was angry about. In a quick reaction, Joe misperceived the situation and subjected it to negative distortion. He evaluated John’s emotional reaction as directed at him rather than at the situation. Further, he allowed his negative emotional reaction for more about this book, visit wiley.com

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me of fouling up. I only did what the design people told me to do. He is really mad at me. There go my stomach cramps again. What am I going to say?’’ He stood immobilized with anxiety and fear, until John demanded of him, ‘‘Joe, what are we going to do? We need answers. We need action—and promptly!’’ Finally Joe stammered, ‘‘I’ll do my best. I’ll go back to the lab and see what I can do.’’ John is a reactive type who lets his emotions show when under stress. In this instance, John was angry at the design, not at Joe, who did not explore what John was angry about. In a quick reaction, Joe misperceived the situation and subjected it to negative distortion. He evaluated John’s emotional reaction as directed at him rather than at the situation. Further, he allowed his negative emotional reaction to overwhelm him and prevent engaging in dialogue with John to examine and solve the problem. Finally, he left to avoid further emotional damage. Criticism from a tyrannical boss can be perceived differently by different people. Joe had been taught that perfection is the sole goal in life. He perceives his boss’s criticism as an unconditional putdown of him personally, not his behavior. As a result, he suffers anxiety and fear of failure whenever he has to interact with his boss. Eventually he may avoid his boss—a perceived solution that only compounds the problematic situation. A vicious cycle of the boss’s anger and Joe’s terror ﬂights develops. Cognitive restructuring would help Joe deal with his difﬁculties. Cognitive restructuring would take this scenario and Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013

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• Demonstrate that Joe’s reaction did not ﬁt the reality. He had an irrational or distorted view of the interchange. • Demonstrate that if he continues to allow false perceptions and beliefs to shape his present and future behavior in a negative way, he will set himself up for failure. • Help Joe change his thinking (his cognition) and abandon his irrational beliefs.

• Help Joe develop a more rational appraisal of such situations and generate alternative interpretations.

Understanding and Changing Your Management Style

The critical factors in this case are Joe’s APFs. They will form the foundation for understanding and modifying his ABC chain of reactions. The next sections will elucidate these concepts.

THE BASIS OF OUR ASSUMPTIONS, PERCEPTIONS, AND FEELINGS As we pass through life, we build up an assumptive system of what is, what should be, and what ought to be. These assumptions, highly charged by emotional events and our upbringing, come from encounters that we take for granted. We all have assumptions based on our beliefs, values, and attitudes, though the range and depth of them vary from person to person. Because these assumptions and beliefs in part determine our needs structure, becoming conscious of them can help us modify these underlying elements and lead to change. Perception is what we process through the ﬁve senses or how we interpret these sensations through intuition. Given that there are different ways of processing a situation, there is tremendous latitude in what we perceive. There are general laws of perception, but individuals create their own spin in a given situation. Cognitive restructuring makes us acutely aware of the role of our perceptions in determining our behavior. By modifying our perceptions, we alter our emotional state and our reactive behavior. Feelings—pain, pleasure, hate, love, disdain, grief, hope, joy, disgust, and so on—are our evaluative reactions to a situation. Our emotional state is critically linked to our immediate perceptions. For example, love can change our perception of another’s thoughtless action into acceptance, or hate can intensify our percepfor more about this book, visit wiley.com tion of the same act into a deliberate affront or worse. Assumptions, perceptions,

a situation, there is tremendous latitude in what we perceive. There are general laws of perception, but individuals create their own spin in a given situation. Cognitive restructuring makes us acutely aware of the role of our perceptions in determining our behavior. By modifying our perceptions, we alter our emotional state and our reactive behavior. Feelings—pain, pleasure, hate, love, disdain, grief, hope, joy, disgust, and so on—are our evaluative reactions to a situation. Our emotional state is critically linked to our immediate perceptions. For example, love can change our perception c01.tex of another’s thoughtless action into acceptance, or hate can intensify ourBenfari perception of the same act into a deliberate affront or worse. Assumptions, perceptions, and feelings interact, each influencing the other. Deeply rooted assumptions can distort our perceptions such that they reinforce the old assumptions. By opening up our perceptual field with ‘‘floodlight’’ vision rather than ‘‘spotlight’’ vision, we have the opportunity to alter these assumptions. The emotional tone can reinforce or alter either assumptions or perceptions. Assumptions can set the stage for a positive or a negative emotional state. A current perception that triggers a previous negative or positive image can affect our emotional state. Practitioners in the field of cognitive restructuring have identifiedand three core Assumptions, Perceptions, Feelings activities that are necessary to bring about behavioral change:

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1. Identiﬁcation of the thoughts, beliefs, and values that cause negative affect and behavior. This is a systematic attempt to bring to the surface automatic, and sometimes dangerous, thoughts so that we can recognize them. 2. Evaluation of these thoughts, beliefs, and values in an attempt to judge their validity. 3. Shifting of any irrational or untenable beliefs to a more rational basis. The anxiety level is reduced by repeated attempts at mastering the irrational belief. Cognitive restructuring takes into account self-talk, all our internal scripts, of a positive or a negative nature, that promote or deter our purpose. We all talk to ourselves. In this ongoing process, we may build up scripts that are so negative that they interfere with our well-being and performance. In order to diagnose your self-talk, take into consideration the following particulars: • Self-concept: the degree of your self-worth and any corresponding negative thoughts about the outcome • Self-instructions: corrective scripts that promote new behavior • Self-reinforcement: changes of approach, even in moderate degrees, that you reinforce with positive self-talk Cognitive restructuring can be used to modify most elements of management Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013 style. It can be directed at these elements:

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• Modifying psychological type for a given situation • Strengthening and changing motive patterns • Developing positive power and inﬂuencing skills • Overcoming barriers to effective conﬂict resolution • Managing stress

• Coping with organizational culture

Understanding and Changing Your Management Style

HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW When Robin ﬂew in to Phoenix to work with Todd, who had recently transferred for more about this book, visit wiley.com into her district from another sales territory, she thought it would probably just

• Managing stress • Coping with organizational culture

HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW When Robin flew in to Phoenix to work with Todd, who had recently transferred into her district from another sales territory, she thought it would probably just be a typical pleasant day of visiting customers and writing orders. But it did not turn out that way. Even though she had heard great things about Todd, he was withdrawn and dull, did not seem to pick up on opportunities, and had not drawn up a logical call list so that they could use their time well. Her questions to him elicited little response; Robin started to wonder whether the other district manager had ‘‘dumped’’ Todd on her. She found herself criticizing everything about him, his clothes, his need for a haircut, his sloppy briefcase, his way of greeting buyers he was meeting for the first time. Robin started to feel anxious; how would she ever make her numbers with this dullard in such a key territory? Would she have to start a termination process—if so, how soon? She hated this kind of conflict; that was why she was so careful in the way she hired reps. Her team always came in first in the company in sales because she hand-picked them and nurtured their efforts. Todd had an attitude she did not like and one that, moreover, would surely keep him from making his goals. As they walked in to make their last call of the day, Robin wondered what she was going to do with this guy. He just did not seem to have ‘‘it.’’ When we encounter a particular situation, our reaction to it is like the process of taking a snapshot. We scan the environment, decide what we want to focus on, and take the picture. The specific settings (lens, focus, and speed) influence the type of photo we get. Depending on the type of lens (wide-angle or telephoto), for example, breadth may be sacrificed for detail or vice versa. In addition, Benfari we c01.tex highlight certain aspects at the expense of others and may distort or lose some parts of the scene as we reduce three dimensions to two. Details may be lost or blurred if we haven’t used the right settings; filters could further influence the image we get of the scene we are trying to capture. As managers (and as human beings), we process information and conceptualize events and people in much the same way. Our mindset at the time determines whether we focus on the broad, the narrow, or selected portions of what we see, hear, and observe. The first images of events and people give us data Assumptions, and Feelings that we evaluate as being positive, neutral, or negative. ItPerceptions, has been estimated that we evaluate 95 percent of our perceptions as positive or negative rather than neutral. In the example of Robin and Todd, Robin had decided very early on that the experience of working together was negative. Those perceptions will color her working and personal relationship with Todd from that point forward. The ability to be aware of our assumptions, perceptions, and feelings and to change the way we view situations and people (and our reactions to them) is essential to the Integrated Management Style Model. The capacity to shift thinking empowers managers to make the best use of the building blocks of management style, to alter our behavior, and to affect others’ behavior. In this chapter, we will look first at how assumptions, perceptions, and feelings operate as part of management style, then discuss cognitive restructuring as a method to change the way we view ourselves, our coworkers, and our organizations.

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ASSUMPTIONS: WHAT WE TAKE FOR GRANTED Throughout our lives, we build up assumptions about what is and what ought to be. for more about this book, visit wiley.com In broadest terms, assumptions include all the beliefs, values, and attitudes that we

as part of management style, then discuss cognitive restructuring as a method to change the way we view ourselves, our coworkers, and our organizations.

ASSUMPTIONS: WHAT WE TAKE FOR GRANTED

Throughout our lives, we build up assumptions about what is and what ought to be. In broadest terms, assumptions include all the beliefs, values, and attitudes that we hold. Almost all our assumptions are based on our own or others’ past perceptions and experiences. These assumptions, highly charged by emotional events and our upbringing, vary in range and depth. We have assumptions about people’s motivations: they are lazy and need to be prodded into action, or they are driven by a sense of competency. We have assumptions about ourselves: I am an honest person, or I am a person who has integrity. We have assumptions about causality: spare the rod and spoil the child, or high levels of stress leads to high performance. Because they play such a major role in determining our needs, assumptions must be made conscious if we are to modify our behavior as managers. Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013 9:42am Page 23 Some assumptions are neutral. For example, I assume that the sun will rise and set every day. Because this a natural occurrence, my assumption will be right and taken for granted until the day it doesn’t. My assumption that no one can create programming code that is as elegant and efficient as mine is not neutral; it is charged with beliefs and values that affect the way I manage the programmers who report to me. My assumption about myself and about the work to be done is fraught with imperatives of shoulds and oughts that control my perceptions of the world and people around me. It does not necessarily reflect objective reality, only my uncontested beliefs Your aboutManagement how I shouldStyle behave. Understanding and Changing We may clearly articulate some assumptions, whereas others may be based on fact or doctrine that we profess. Others, nested in the unconscious, may only be vaguely articulated in our awareness. Both overt and unconscious assumptions can drive our actions, but when assumptions are unconscious, they can lead to a host of problems, especially for managers who are also confronting the assumptions of those they manage. In fact, assumptions underlie all the building blocks of management style. They profoundly affect how we perceive the world, handle conflict, address our needs, use power, manage stress, and prioritize our values. There are three basic elements in assumptions: beliefs, values, and attitudes. Beliefs, the most basic of assumptions, are the relationships that we assume exist between certain facts and outcomes: E = mc2 , the earth revolves around the sun, disease is caused by bacteria and viruses, all men are created equal, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, and so on. Taken together, our beliefs make up our basic underlying understanding of ourselves and our environment. Beliefs are founded on past and present experience and on knowledge that has been given the stamp of approval by authorities. The electron microscope, for example, allows us to see the bacteria and viruses that we heard or read about in print. Some beliefs are based on untested assumptions that can be dysfunctional—for example, that traditional IQ predicts performance in a job, that women are the weaker sex. Values are based on assumptions, but unlike simple beliefs, they are evaluative. Values are assumptions about what is or what ought to be that express a preference in a positive or negative way. Examples of values would include ‘‘Experience is desirable,’’ ‘‘People ought to be honest,’’ ‘‘People should be free,’’ and so on. (Chapter Six is devoted to the explication and discussion of values.) Attitudes, which are based on beliefs or values, are both more complex and more general. For example, some people hold the attitude that training is a waste of time and that businesses should spend more resources on assessing existing capabilities for jobs. This attitude can be thought of as an assumption based on the belief that behavior derives completely from innate abilities. In that view, training is a negative drain on resources. The implications of this attitude, however, are more far-reaching and ‘‘loaded’’ than either the belief or value on for more about this book, visit wiley.com which it is based. The assumption discards all evidence that says that there are

Values are assumptions about what is or what ought to be that express a preference in a positive or negative way. Examples of values would include ‘‘Experience is desirable,’’ ‘‘People ought to be honest,’’ ‘‘People should be free,’’ and so on. (Chapter Six is devoted to the explication and discussion of values.) Attitudes, which are based on beliefs or values, are both more complex and Benfari isc01.tex more general. For example, some people hold the attitude that training a waste of time and that businesses should spend more resources on assessing existing capabilities for jobs. This attitude can be thought of as an assumption based on the belief that behavior derives completely from innate abilities. In that view, training is a negative drain on resources. The implications of this attitude, however, are more far-reaching and ‘‘loaded’’ than either the belief or value on which it is based. The assumption discards all evidence that says that there are some aspects of behavior that we can change. Some may be innate, but a large number are based on acquiring skills. Training in these areas is productive for both the individual and the organization. Unchallenged assumptionsand andFeelings values Assumptions, Perceptions, close out opportunities for growth and potential, especially when dealing with underprivileged and disenfranchised groups. Everyone who manages is well aware of the importance of assumptions, but it is obviously not necessary (or possible) to be aware of all of everyone else’s assumptions to understand them better. It is, however, crucial to sense which assumptions are salient and important in a given situation. By ‘‘salient,’’ we mean the extent to which the person is preoccupied with that assumption, such as, ‘‘I ought to be the most technically competent person in my group.’’ By ‘‘important,’’ we mean the extent to which an assumption is central to other assumptions or beliefs. For example, the assumption, ‘‘I am a good manager and ought to be viewed by others as being good,’’ is a central assumption. If this assumption is called into question, it is apt to lead to concerns about a number of other assumptions as well, such as, ‘‘I ought to be a strong leader’’ or ‘‘I ought to have inﬂuence within the company.’’ Important or highly charged assumptions are usually those that are most closely related to a person’s self-concept. Because they are so much a part of us, we are often not aware of our assumptions, while at other times we recognize them clearly and speciﬁcally. The more aware we are of the assumptions we make, the better we can understand what is going on inside us. Similarly, the more we can identify other people’s important assumptions, the more we will be able to understand them from their own points of view. Seeking out another’s assumptions often helps us become more aware of our own, just as understanding our own helps us see others’ more clearly. The central skill here is being able to recognize and accept (if not approve of) the differences between our own assumptions and those of others. For example, the following list of ten common assumptions about work and motivation is not exhaustive, but it illustrates the assumptions that drive our behavior and our relationships at work:

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• Individual self-interest fosters economic growth and harmony. • Competition brings out the best in people and groups. • Meritocracy is the only standard for rewards in society. • Collaboration leads to managing by committee.

Understanding and Changing Your Management Style

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• An individual is measured by his wealth. • An individual is measured by her personal achievements. • Teamwork leads to greater productivity. • People need to be told, shown, and trained in proper work habits. • People need a sense that they are respected as capable of assuming responsibility. • People depend and expect direction from above; they do not want to think for themselves. If you take a moment to examine these assumptions and the beliefs, values, and attitudes they engender, it’s not hard to see the behavior they encourage. How well, for instance, would a matrix organization work in a corporation which assumed that competition brings out the best in people, that individuals are measured by their achievements, and that teamwork leads to greater productivity?

PERCEPTION: HOW WE INTERPRET EXPERIENCE The process by which we take in information through our ﬁve senses and make meaning of it is all part of perception. In the earlier example, when Robin came to work with Todd, she was taking in information about his appearance, his attitude, his behavior, his sales performance, and his intelligence. She put that all data together and came up with the perception that Todd was not what she’d been promised and perhaps didn’t even belong on her staff. In psychological types, a sensing person bases her perceptions on what she considers facts and details in the situation. An intuitive type of person can arrive at a perception without being aware of the concrete basis for it. Intuitive types can make leaps from the past or present to future possibilities. There are many other factors in our interpretations of situations and experiences as well. Given the many different ways of processing a situation, perception can varyBenfari just c01.tex as widely from individual to individual. Scientiﬁc research on attitudes and beliefs makes us acutely aware of the role of our own perceptions in determining our behavior in a situation. By modifying our perceptions, we can alter our emotional state and our reactive behavior. Robin had a set of perceptions of Todd based on assumptions that equated casual dress and appearance with incompetence. The feeling tone was decidedly negative. If Robin could neutralize her perception and readjust her assumptions about Todd, it might be possible for the two of them to develop a more congenial and productive relationship. Cognitive restructuring is Perceptions, and Feelings the technique for effecting this neutralizing Assumptions, change process. To understand perception, it’s important to realize that

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• We structure our perceptions to fit our wishes, biases, needs, and expectations. When I am hungry, I focus my attention on food and drink. The steak at seven o’clock appears more satisfying than it would right after lunch. • Emotions may influence the perceptual process, either intensifying it or interfering with it. When I am angry with a subordinate, any shortcomings I see will confirm my negative appraisal. • We are unaware that we are distorting reality because our defenses are at work. When I project blame onto another person, it may be that I feel guilty in the situation but cannot face up to it. • Inner factors (memory, emotion, wishes, cultural background, and psychological type) carry more weight than external factors (immediate perceptions, more thisarebook, visit wiley.com logical input from others). If I have beenfor taught thatabout minorities less than

• We are unaware that we are distorting reality because our defenses are at work. When I project blame onto another person, it may be that I feel guilty in the situation but cannot face up to it. • Inner factors (memory, emotion, wishes, cultural background, and psychological type) carry more weight than external factors (immediate perceptions, logical input from others). If I have been taught that minorities are less than competent, I will override perceptions where this is not confirmed. • Previous experience with positive or negative reinforcement in similar situations generates strong biases that influence the current perception. If I have been punished for bringing up problems in the past, I will overlook and deny problems that arise in the present. • Life experiences and traditions in our culture can influence how we process information, particularly when we interact with others from a different culture. If I have been taught to maintain a respectable distance from another person Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013 when we’re in conversation (in North American culture a foot and a half or greater), I may be put off when a South American stands much closer to me when we talk. I may retreat and focus on maintaining the appropriate distance, and lose sight of what is being said.

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• The human brain is systematic and selective in the way it organizes the information it receives into a perceptual whole, what German psychologists of the 1920s

and 1930s called a ‘‘gestalt’’ (or pattern of awareness) that is based on all sensory inputs that we take in when we are awake. We are constantly combining new information with previous assumptions and perceptions in an attempt to create a consistent and coherent pattern that makes sense to us. Each thought must Understanding and Changing Your Management Style fit within that pattern even if it is illogical or false. Consequently, perception becomes our own construction of what constitutes reality. • Other major factors affect perception, including regional variation, climate, population density, population variety, nationality or ethnic background and allegiance, religious beliefs, educational level, emotional maturity or immaturity, social class, professional background, and gender. A person from New York may turn off a client from Augusta, Georgia, by his accent, and vice versa. Seeing Situations in New Ways: Functional Perception Perception plays a profound role in our organizational life: how we deal with conflict, handle gender differences, develop strategic plans for the future, implement procedures for daily operations, handle stress, motivate others, and use power. The most practical approach to dealing with the multitude of perceptions that inevitably exist in organizations is to develop ‘‘functional perception,’’ a way of looking at how our perceptions mesh with others’. The process for developing functional perception follows these ten steps: 1. Understand your motives, beliefs, and assumptions about the world around you. Then try to understand the motives, beliefs, and assumptions of others. 2. Construct situations where hypotheses, perceptions, and concerns can be aired, tested, and confirmed or discarded. 3. Create a climate of openness for others to discuss the ‘‘undiscussable.’’ Generate valid information, avoid premature attribution, and focus on behavior. 4. Listen to your intuitions, which are guides to your inner assumptions, beliefs, and feelings. Go beyond the surface or obvious interpretation of your assumptions. Some assumptions are layered deep in the unconscious.

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5. Seek feedback from others on their assumptions, perceptions, and feelings about the situation. Give feedback to others on your response to their perspectives. 6. Take responsibility for your assumptions, perceptions, and feelings. Put your statements in the ‘‘I think,’’ ‘‘I feel,’’ ‘‘I believe’’ format. 7. Through reading, listening, and observation, broaden your perspective in regard to people, things, and events. Use literature, art, politics, behavior, humanities, philosophy, ethics, and science as your springboard to a new level of awareness. 8. Accept the anxiety that accompanies uncertainty. We can help others in making emotion acceptable, but must remember to separate people from the problem. 9. Do not turn the situation into a win-lose proposition. Comparing assumptions, perceptions, and feelings is not a contest or game. It is serious business, and the goal is a wise solution. 10. Recognize that as we learn, we broaden our perspectives by making appropriate perceptual, conceptual, and philosophical shifts in our worldview. As an example of a situation where functional perception could have made a difference, consider this scenario. When John Fraser, who was president of the elementary and high school division of Jason Publications, hired Carol Mack as sales director for his division, she came highly recommended from a rival publisher in New York. John had held Carol’s job for ten years before being promoted to senior vice president of operations. His colleagues, Dick Enders (president), Mike Collins (CFO), and Mason Stuart (VP of the college division) had agreed to recruit a female for the director of sales position. Carol seemed to be the best on paper and in the interviews. After six months on the job, Carol wondered whether John was holding on toV2 - 05/11/2013 Benfari c01.tex the reins of the sales side of the elementary–high school division too much. It was natural for a period of learning to take place under John’s guidance, but it appeared to her that he did not trust her ability to go it alone. John repeatedly voiced concerns about Carol to the senior management team. He thought she was too aggressive, didn’t ﬁt in with the Jason management style, and didn’t relate well to the all-male ﬁeld sales staff. John told the group that the

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‘‘the jury is still out on her.’’ But he never told Carol any of this; she felt as though she was living in a vacuum when it came to feedback. Understanding Changing Your Management Were John’sand perceptions functional, or wereStyle old scripts and assumptions driving his view of Carol? If he had followed the ten steps of functional perception, John could have avoided what ultimately did happen—the dismissal of a motivated and productive person. Carol’s dismissal resulted in a lawsuit against Jason Publications, considerable financial damages, and a loss of reputation for John. 1. What were Carol’s needs and motivations? Did John understand her assumptions and beliefs about the sales director’s job? How did those perceptions match his own? 2. Was Carol too aggressive? Did her style fit with Jason Publications? What was the problem with the field representatives? John needed more data than his crude perceptions about Carol. 3. John needed to discuss his perceptions with Carol in an open fashion so that both could air their perceptions and assumptions. He needed to make it possifor more about this book, visit wiley.com ble to focus on behavior rather than on personality or hidden preconceptions.

match his own? 2. Was Carol too aggressive? Did her style fit with Jason Publications? What was the problem with the field representatives? John needed more data than his crude perceptions about Carol. 3. John needed to discuss his perceptions with Carol in an open fashion so that both could air their perceptions and assumptions. He needed to make it possible to focus on behavior rather than on personality or hidden preconceptions. 4. What were John’s underlying assumptions about women in management? Did he have preconceived attitudes and beliefs that blocked his functional perception of the situation? 5. John needed to seek information from Carol’s subordinates and Jason’s customers in addition to the views of the field reps. 6. John should own up to his assumptions, perceptions, and feelings and not look to reinforcement from the ‘‘in-group.’’ 7. John might try reading about the role of women in management, as well as case histories and books in this area to broaden his perspective. 8. What anxieties were underlying John’s perceptions? Did Carol threaten him Benfari c01.tex in some way? Did she violate his set of assumptions about how women were supposed to behave? How was Carol as a person separate from the problem John perceived?

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9. John set up a win-lose situation where he was going to amass all the evidence in favor of getting rid of Carol. A win-win approach would have salvaged both Carol’s and his career at Jason Publications. 10. John might have used this situation with Carol as a learning experience to profoundly change his worldview. Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings

Checking Our Awareness of Perceptions Perhaps the most important ingredient in functional perception is awareness of the factors that affect our response to people and situations. The key to that awareness is understanding the relatively stable set of perceptions that make up your own self-concept because, quite simply, you can’t understand other people until you understand yourself. By analyzing the perceptions that make up selfconcept (what is unique about us, what distinguishes us from others, what makes us similar), we not only gain a fuller and more accurate sense of ourselves but also sharpen our ability to understand others. The following inventory is a useful way to ask the questions that will help you better understand your own self-concept.

Uniqueness What makes you different from others? For example, you might think about how you’re different from your boss—are you more interested in facts and details or in the big picture? What about your boss? Do you like working alone or in a team? What does your boss prefer? Image of Others What yardstick(s) do you use to evaluate others? For example, do you judge people by qualities such as dependability and honesty, or by other qualities? Do you judge quickly or hold off? What puts you off about other people (for example, a confrontational approach)? What draws you to other people? What do other people do that makes you uncomfortable? Image of Self What do you like best about yourself? What do you like least about yourself? For example, are you well-organized? Good at follow-through? Do you tolerate ambiguity well? Past Experiences

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people by qualities such as dependability and honesty, or by other qualities? Do you judge quickly or hold off? What puts you off about other people (for example, a confrontational approach)? What draws you to other people? What do other people do that makes you uncomfortable? Image of Self What do you like best about yourself? What do you like least about yourself? For example, are you well-organized? Good at follow-through? Do you tolerate ambiguity well? Benfari

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Past Experiences What are the most important past experiences that made an impression on you? When have you felt most effective at work? For instance, have you developed any new systems? What about that project made it a valuable learning experience? In what settings (for example, task forces) have you felt least successful?

Mood What are your and mood states? Your Are you consistentStyle and stable or likely to fluctuate? Understanding Changing Management How do these mood states affect your perceptions? For instance, when do you become anxious and cranky? Do you have any tendencies toward depression or anxiety? What triggers those states? How do you control them? In what situations (at work and home) do you feel most comfortable and calm? Life Experience and Learning What are the important things you have learned in the past five years? How do they affect your assumptions about life? For example, what have you learned about whether a relatively structured or unstructured environment works best for you? What has been most useful in learning to deal with uncertainty? How have the things you’ve learned helped you find a more suitable career path? Values What values do you cherish? What possession—tangible or intangible—would you surrender last? List your five most important values concerning your personal and work life (for example, family security, health, responsibility, freedom, respect, and so on). Familiarity, Comfort Zone In what area of activity are you most familiar and secure? For example, do you like to work completely autonomously, or would you rather have a clear set of expectations, objectives, and means to carry out your work? Uncertainty, Discomfort Zone In what area of activity do you feel insecure and anxious? For example, are you stressed when you have too many tasks to accomplish at the same time? When boundaries are unclear? When you have to face interpersonal conflict? Wants What one thing would you most want to do? For example, travel internationally? Study art? Become a writer? Emotions How do you handle your emotions? Are you more open or closed? Do you express your emotions freely or try to modulate them? What happens to your emotions

Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings

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under stress? What effect does the way you handle emotions have on your life at work and at home? Focus What activity do you give most of your attention to? For instance, do you give equal weight to job and to family? Are you able to focus on each one when you’re in that situation? Motivation What needs drive you in life? For example, are you driven by the need for personal achievement? Wealth? Freedom? Autonomy? Control? Completion of the Incomplete Do you communicate the whole story? How do you communicate? For example, are you direct? Concise? Has anyone told you that you sometimes don’t give all the information that is needed? Simplification Versus Complication Do you look to simple or complex explanations of people, events, and things? For example, do you enjoy detail and difﬁcult puzzles? Or do you like to ﬁnd the ‘‘common denominator’’?

FEELINGS: HOW WE REACT TO OUR PERCEPTIONS

Feelings, the third important component of the way that we process situations, people, and events, are our emotional reactions to our immediate perceptions. Perceptions elicit emotional responses, which become part of the ‘‘script’’ that determines how we will deal with a particular situation and other situations that elicit similar responses. Current feelings are based in previous experiences that we learned to see as positive or negative. We all bring our feelings to work us, V2 - 05/11/2013 9:42am Page 33 Benfariwith c01.tex much as we might not like to admit it. For managers, understanding the ranges of feelings that are apt to surface in the workplace and knowing how to respond are essential not only to shifting our own management style but also to creating a higher quality of life for everyone around us. Our earliest emotional response, anxiety, develops out of situations where we are afraid of being deprived of food and water or comfort. Unlike fear, which is a reaction to a specific danger, anxiety is an unspecified, vague feeling of uncertainty and helplessness in the face of a perceived threat. Guilt is another feeling that develops early and in our lives asYour the product of theStyle ‘‘shoulds’’ and ‘‘oughts’’ that are Understanding Changing Management scripted for us by the adults in our lives. We feel guilty when we perceive that we have violated some moral or legal standard as defined by figures of authority. It is important to make a distinction between guilt and shame. Shame occurs when we do not live up to what we ideally should be. Thus, a person may be guilty of a crime but ashamed of self. Or a person may be guilty—and know it—of violating the rules of the Security and Exchange Commission but not be ashamed of it. That person may in fact be proud of getting around what he or she perceives as restrictive regulations. Anxiety, guilt, and shame have positive and negative outcomes. Prolonged ‘‘untamed’’ anxiety leads to emotional and behavioral paralysis as the person unconsciously withdraws from situations that trigger that feeling. Sustained guilt turns an individual into a compulsive worrier or a repressed antisocial. Excessive shame forces us to restrict our actions so as not be revealed as worthless. On the for more about this book, visit wiley.com positive side, anxiety can alert us to dangers or challenges that must be overcome.

we do not live up to what we ideally should be. Thus, a person may be guilty of a crime but ashamed of self. Or a person may be guilty—and know it—of violating the rules of the Security and Exchange Commission but not be ashamed of it. That person may in fact be proud of getting around what he or she perceives as restrictive regulations. Anxiety, guilt, and shame have positive and negative outcomes. Prolonged ‘‘untamed’’ anxiety leads to emotional and behavioral paralysis as the person unconsciously withdraws from situations that trigger that feeling. Sustained guilt turns an individual into a compulsive worrier or a repressed antisocial. Excessive shame forces us to restrict our actions so as not be revealed as worthless. On the positive side, anxiety can alert us to dangers or challenges that must be overcome. When we have successfully navigated through those dangers, we gain a sense of self-mastery. Dealing effectively with guilt refines our sense of responsibility and commitments to others. Controlling our feelings of shame makes us more aware of our actions toward others. As we grow up, our feelings become more differentiated into pleasure, pain, hate, love, disdain, grief, hope, joy, disgust, and so on. As we continue to develop, we learn to identify which feelings are attached to our perceptions. If we are punished when a red card is placed in front of us, we will feel apprehension when we see red in the future. We are taught basic assumptions about what is right and wrong or acceptable. In this sense, our emotional state is critically linked to our immediate perceptions, and our future perceptions are linked to these ‘‘scripts’’ about our behavior. Our feelings result from meeting the expectations of our Benfari c01.tex scripted assumptions. For example, we are taught that individual competitiveness is a worthy goal. As we go through life, we will perceive that we have won or not won the game, the sale, the desired person, or the promotion. A variety of feelings will be attached to perceptions of failure—anger at the situation, shame for not performing, incompetence, or rage at ourselves. The particular feeling depends upon our previous conditioning and the distinctive combination of assumptions, perceptions, and feelings. Feelings often come in pairs, where one is positive andPerceptions, the other negative (for Assumptions, and Feelings example, love and hate, disgust and delight, ambiguity and clarity, panic and control). Although we tend to think that negative feelings should be avoided, there are times when they are justified. For example, you may feel indignation when someone violates your trust. The challenge is how you handle your indignation. Do you take a defensive position and repress your indignation? Do you lash back at the person with rage? Do you become depressed over the incident? None of these responses will help resolve the conflict. When we move from feeling indignation in that moment toward constructive confrontation with the other person, we are more proactive and reduce stress. (See Chapter Eight for specific strategies for handling interpersonal conflicts.)

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ASSUMPTIONS, PERCEPTIONS, AND FEELINGS AT WORK: A CASE STUDY Before Tom’s recent promotion to section manager in a digital processing lab, he was a technical contributor in another section of the department. Tom was raised to be self-reliant, strong, and extremely competitive. He prided himself on his ability to solve technical problems with the greatest competence. He held these basic assumptions about life and work: • I must stand alone. • Individuality is the highest virtue in the world. • I must ﬁght any intrusion.

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person, we are more proactive and reduce stress. (See Chapter Eight for speciﬁc strategies for handling interpersonal conﬂicts.)

Benfari

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In his new position, Tom was put in charge of a group investigating technological transfer within the department that was composed of colleagues from other sections and subordinates from his section. He decided that he would make a list of the technologies that could be used in the department and present it to the group. When people questioned how he came up with the list, he became angry

and resentful about what he perceived as criticism and withdrew from active participation. Understanding and Changing Management Style questions as intrusion and Tom’s perceptual ﬁlters Your looked at his group’s aroused negative feelings. Working as a collaborator threatened his core assumptions about his self-worth. Like most autonomous people, he needed unrestricted freedom of choice, action, and expression. When he encountered this stressful situation, his reaction was to ﬁght. Tom’s assumptions conditioned him to perceive active problem solving as a personal threat rather than as a challenge for the group to solve. Tom does not have to remain stuck in this destructive cycle with his assumptions, perceptions, and feelings. He can instead choose to • Examine his basic assumptions. • Accept his negative feelings as the result of these assumptions. • Recognize that his perceptions and feelings are based on his core assumptions. • Move toward restructuring his assumptions and changing his mind through cognitive restructuring.

CHANGING YOUR MIND CHANGES EVERYTHING Becoming aware of our assumptions, perceptions, and feelings is the ﬁrst step in cognitive restructuring, a behavioral method we can use to change how we perceive and judge the world. The advantage of cognitive restructuring is that it fully accounts not just for behavior (which has been a common way of trying to change management style) but also for thoughts and perceptions. The Key: How We Talk to Ourselves One of the basic concepts of cognitive restructuring is ‘‘self-talk’’—all the ways we talk to ourselves in positive or negative ways. Talking to ourselves builds up scripts for action that may be so negative that they interfere with our well-being for more about this book, visit wiley.com and performance. To recognize and correct the effects of self-talk in a given

fully accounts not just for behavior (which has been a common way of trying to change management style) but also for thoughts and perceptions. The Key: How We Talk to Ourselves One of the basic concepts of cognitive restructuring is ‘‘self-talk’’—all the ways Benfari c01.tex we talk to ourselves in positive or negative ways. Talking to ourselves builds up scripts for action that may be so negative that they interfere with our well-being and performance. To recognize and correct the effects of self-talk in a given situation, three elements have to be taken into consideration: Your self-concept: your sense of self-worth and any corresponding negative thoughts about it that may inﬂuence your perception of the situation. If your self-concept is dominated by low self-esteem, unwarranted guilt and shame will set you up for failure. Your instructions to yourself: corrective scripts that promote new behavior. If, Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings for example, you have a coworker who unexpectedly explodes when asked about work-related problems, you may feel angry or anxious and vow to avoid that person at all costs. The inevitable result is that small problems escalate until they reach crisis proportions. You could change your self-talk so that you tell yourself, ‘‘She feels powerless under these circumstances. She is caught off guard, and her defense is to explode out of frustration. My job is to not react, let her run down, and move on to problem solving. Maybe I can identify the circumstances that trigger the explosions and avoid them by giving her a memo outlining our problems. I will try this when the next problem arises.’’ Your reinforcements to yourself: changes in approach, even in moderate ones, that you can reinforce with positive self-talk. If you decided, for example, to give your coworker a memo before meetings so that she can be prepared, you notice that she still explodes, but because you remain calm and in control, the outburst subsides, and she moves into working on the problem. At this point, you reinforce yourself by silently congratulating yourself for taking this stance. You pat yourself on the back and say progress has been made. You didn’t change your coworker, but you shifted your behavior and now ﬁnd that your relationship with her is moving steadily in the right direction. You also feel a lot less stress, and work will go more smoothly.

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The Basics of Changing Your Thinking In cognitive restructuring, three core activities are necessary for change. First, the thoughts, beliefs, and values that cause negative feelings and behavior must be identiﬁed. We must systematically bring to the surface automatic (and sometimes negative or dangerous) thoughts so that we can recognize them. Second, those thoughts, beliefs, and values must be evaluated for their validity. And, ﬁnally, irrational or untenable beliefs must be countered and shifted to a more rational basis.

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Step One: Identify What You’re Thinking The ﬁrst task in cognitive restructuring is ‘‘thought catching.’’ In thought catching, we become aware of automatic thoughts, images, and accompanying feelings that we have when we are stressed and that we perceive as positive or negative. For example, negative automatic thoughts might include

I will be punished for not being perfect. I will not be able to cope with my boss. The future is bleak and uncertain. There is nothing I can do to control myself. I am doomed to failure. Life has no meaning. There is no one I can turn to. I will be blamed for any failure. Step Two: Evaluate the Impact of Thoughts The second step is determining the consequences of the thought and whether it causes negative feelings. If you think the future is bleak and uncertain, you may very well feel despair and futility. To change these thoughts to more positive formulations, cognitive restructuring would demonstrate that

• This reaction may not ﬁt the reality. We may have had an irrational or distorted view of the situation. • Continuing to hold these perceptions and beliefs will affect our present and future behavior, probably in a negative way. We will set ourselves up for failure. Step Three: Cope with and Counter Negative Thoughts Benfari c01.tex Once we have identiﬁed the thought and evaluated the impact on our feelings and behavior, we can employ positive coping mechanisms and a technique called countering to change the way we handle the distressing situation.

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USING COPING MECHANISMS With coping mechanisms, we learn to change distress into challenge and face problems in a calm, rational fashion. They help us abandon irrational beliefs and Perceptions, and Feelings generate new alternatives. With countering, Assumptions, we develop thoughts that can be used to go against a ﬁrmly held negative belief or assumption. For example, Jackson works for a boss who is a micromanager. Whenever there is a problem, Jackson’s boss, Rich, comes in and wants to take over the project. Then Jackson gets anxious and depressed and says to himself over and over, ‘‘The situation is futile. There is no way to cope with Rich. Every day is doomsday at work.’’ The presence of such thoughts is not the problem; it’s that the negative thoughts produce negative feelings and poor coping behaviors. A vicious cycle develops that feeds on itself if it is not interrupted. Cognitive restructuring in this case might look something like this: Thought The situation is futile.

Evaluation of Thought

Coping Mechanism

This can only lead into Recognize that Rich is a for more book, despair. difficultabout person.this He feels the visit

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problems in a calm, rational fashion. They help us abandon irrational beliefs and generate new alternatives. With countering, we develop thoughts that can be used to go against a ﬁrmly held negative belief or assumption. For example, Jackson works for a boss who is a micromanager. Whenever there is a problem, Jackson’s boss, Rich, comes in and wants to take over the project. Then Jackson gets anxious and depressed and says to himself over and over, ‘‘The situation is futile. There is no way to cope with Rich. Every day is doomsday at work.’’ The presence of such thoughts is not the problem; it’s that the negative thoughts produce negative feelings and poor coping behaviors. A vicious cycle develops that feeds on itself if it is not interrupted. Cognitive restructuring in this case might look something like this: Thought

Evaluation of Thought

Coping Mechanism

The situation is futile.

This can only lead into despair.

Recognize that Rich is a difficult person. He feels the same frustrations and helplessness as the rest of us.

There is no way to cope with Rich.

My coworker Sharon seems to be able to deal with Rich, so I can do the same.

Follow the procedures for dealing with difficult people (see Chapter Seven).

Every day is doomsday at work.

It will be doomsday if I continue to think this way.

I must look at work and life as a challenge. Benfari Benfari

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Sarah held these beliefs about her role as staff coordinator and her boss, Hank: ‘‘Hank is the boss. I must be doing something wrong if he needles me. My role is to obey authority without questioning. We are all helpless when faced with a superior force. The boss does the problem solving, not me.’’ Thought

Evaluation of Thought

Coping Mechanism

This makes makes me me a a Authority has has its its limitations. limitations. My role is to This Authority dependent, subservient subservient There are are no no imperatives imperatives to to obey authority dependent, There person. follow. II can can question, question, offer offer without person. follow. opinions, and and still still be be loyal. loyal. questioning. opinions, Understanding and Changing Your Management Style can practice practice role role playing playing There are are countless countless We We are are all all There II can with my husband. He can be be examples of the Davids helpless when helpless when examples of the Davids with my husband. He can the boss, boss, and and II can can learn learn to to and Goliaths Goliaths in in the the world. world. the faced with with a a faced and be positively assertive. I can look at people who superior force. superior force. I can look at people who be positively assertive. overcome superior superior overcome forces, e.g., Gandhi. forces, e.g., Gandhi. The The boss boss does does the problem the problem solving, not not me. me. solving,

No one one wins wins team team games games No alone. Problem solving is alone. Problem solving is a collaborative collaborative process. process. a

Follow the the procedures procedures for for Follow collaborative conflict collaborative conflict resolution. resolution.

Sarah used positive self-talk (a type of countering) when she was in difﬁcult situations. She learned that life can be unfair and that people can be difﬁcult, so she developed a strategy based on challenge and mastery. When Hank started needling her, she said to herself, ‘‘Well, here he goes again, same old Hank. I don’t know whether he realizes what he is doing. But regardless, I can’t control him, and I don’t want to. I will be in charge of myself and try to work out a solution to the problem. I am not helpless and powerless. I am in control.’’ Sarah has applied cognitive restructuring techniques to change her perceptions and reactions to a chronic situation.

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COUNTERING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS

cognitive restructuring techniques to change her perceptions and reactions to a chronic situation. Benfari

COUNTERING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS

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Like coping mechanisms, countering helps replace negative thoughts and beliefs with new assumptions and perceptions that can help change behavior. The advantage of countering is that it is a structured process for getting at the thinking that so often drives unproductive behavior. In the usual practice of cognitive restructuring, countering is used to erase noxious, irrational thoughts, but as we will see in subsequent chapters, it can be applied as well to restructuring our needs, power bases, conﬂict styles, and ways of managing stress. The theory behind countering is that when you repeatedly counter a negative thought, belief, or assumption, you weaken it and build up an effective charge that Assumptions, Perceptions, andeveryone Feelings reduces its potency. For example, I might have an irrational belief that must love me. It can be countered by: ‘‘Baloney! Fat chance in hell! Really, there are many people who are incapable of showing respect, affection, or compassion for others. When I encounter them, I must take this into consideration.’’ The more counters you muster against an assumption or belief, the more likely you will succeed in reducing its power. There are least three types of counters: alternative interpretations, coping statements, and protective beliefs counters.

Alternative Interpretations These counters are designed to give us new ways to think about a situation, attitude, or person. For example, Murray, a stockbroker, believes that he must succeed in everything that he undertakes. It seems that everything in his life—family, the schools he attended, and his competitive work environment—have reinforced his high need for achievement. He is regularly anxious, tense, and depressed. If he were to develop an alternative interpretation of success, he might say to himself, ‘‘I have only so much energy to expend. If I squander it on many endeavors, I will be mediocre in all, so I’d better focus on what I really want to do.’’ Or he could say, ‘‘My family was a stress-ridden bunch of workaholics who never enjoyed life and were miserable for it. I should not follow their imperative.’’ Or, ‘‘Those high-priced schools had a set of values that bred competitiveness and lack of compassion. After all, look at the products of the British public schools!’’ These alternative interpretations could decrease Murray’s achievement need to a manageable level, away from the driven frenzy for success. Matthew, a middle manager, believes that if he is not in total control, all will be lost. This belief strengthens his need to dominate his subordinates, his wife, his friends, and his children. Matthew could reevaluate that assumption by developing some alternative interpretations. He could ask himself, ‘‘Now, Matthew, what would happen if you delegated the authority to Jim on the next project?’’ ‘‘Well, he could fail, and my boss would come down on me.’’

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‘‘Do you really believe that Jim will fail and your boss would blame you? After all, Jim has followed your orders faithfully in the past. Don’t you owe him the respect to prove his competence to you and himself?’’ ‘‘Well, I could try out a small project with him and see what happens.’’ Matthew can repeat this kind of internal dialogue with all the catastrophes that he imagines would happen with his wife, his children, and his friends, and even work out a worst-case scenario. If he repeatedly does this, his fear of catastrophe and need to dominate will diminish. Coping Statements The rationale behind the use of coping statements is that they help us anticipate problems (which we fear or dread) and devise ways of dealing with them. Coping statements are especially effective in countering negative self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, Sally believes that she can’t confront Elizabeth (her boss) on the overruns on a key project. She frets, ‘‘She’ll blame me, and I’ll suffer.’’ So Sally does not tell Elizabeth, and the accounting system reveals the overruns at the end of the quarter. Elizabeth angrily asks Sally why she withheld the information. Sally feels guilty and depressed—another case of the negative self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, Sally could construct a script of coping statements so that she can deal with the situation and reach a wise solution. For example, instead of thinking, ‘‘I can’t face Elizabeth. She is a lethal weapon and will explode when she hears the bad news. It will be kill-the-messenger time. I feel depressed. Maybe it will go away,’’ she can try a positive coping message: ‘‘There are three reasons why the project is overrun: (1) the client added scope to the work, (2) some estimates for parts were off, and (3) Nick, a programmer, had a heart attack. These seem to be plausible reasons why we are overrun. I know this may be difficult for me to convey to Elizabeth, but I will rehearse this five times and go in and discuss this with her.’’ After practicing her coping routine, Sally enters Elizabeth’s office: ‘‘Elizabeth, I want to update you on the project. We have encountered three significant problems, and I want your advice on how we should handle the projected Benfari c01.tex overrun.’’ Elizabeth replies, ‘‘I’m glad you came to me before the quarter was up. Maybe we can do something about it.’’ After the problem-solving session, Sally should give herself some positive reinforcement: ‘‘Boy, that was easy. I’m going to try this every time I have these negative thoughts.’’

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Protective Belief Counters Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings 41 Protective beliefs are cherished assumptions that serve as security blankets. They act as magical thoughts that maintain a strong defensive armor against change. If I don’t ride herd on my subordinates, says a manager, they will goof off. The assumption behind this belief is the old saying, ‘‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’’ It is also tied to a need to dominate and be aggressive. The belief is so strong that the manager feels that if he gives it up, something will go wrong. Protective beliefs arise because we want to maintain personal power. Putting down another person elevates us. Protective beliefs can also arise from one’s social support system. If a group believes strongly in a protective belief, it is hard to stand up without fear of being ostracized. The protective belief bonds us to the group. Protective beliefs also persist because we may feel that something disastrous will happen if we change our beliefs. In this case, the protective belief wards off unwanted anxiety. For example, someone might say, ‘‘I’ve been very successful in using the old purchasing system. If I try to learn the new one,this I willbook, fail. I will for more about visit wiley.com stick to what I know.’’ This protective belief reduces anxiety in the short run but

strong that the manager feels that if he gives it up, something will go wrong. Protective beliefs arise because we want to maintain personal power. Putting down another person elevates us. Protective beliefs can also arise from one’s social support system. If a group believes strongly in a protective belief, it is hard to stand up without fear of being ostracized. The protective belief bonds us to the group. Protective beliefs also persist because we may feel that something disastrous will happen if we change our beliefs. In this case, the protective belief wards off unwanted anxiety. For example, someone might say, ‘‘I’ve been very successful in using the old purchasing system. If I try to learn the new one, I will fail. I will stick to what I know.’’ This protective belief reduces anxiety in the short run but is self-defeating for long-run competence. For example, Agnes, the head of the publications department in a large financial firm, needed to address her protective beliefs when she found that she was disturbed by her company’s move to upgrade its hardware and software. First, she uncovered her beliefs: 1. The old word processor worked quite well. Why fix what is not broken? 2. I am an expert with twenty years of experience. What do those young, wetbehind-the-ears kids know about my job? 3. My boss has praised me in the past, and he will stand by me. 4. If we change to the new system, my subordinates will think I am giving in. 5. Giving up power in any area is always dangerous. Benfari

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Protective beliefs can actually be useful in helping us gain access to underlying concerns. Then we can use counters to break down the concerns. Agnes thought about what anticipated disasters those beliefs might be protecting her against: 1. I may show my incompetence if I try the new system. 2. I am getting old, and I may be slipping. 3. Maybe I am uncertain about my relationship with my boss.

4. I cannot lose control over my subordinates.

Understanding and Changing Your Management Style

5. This is a political environment. Anyone who shows weakness will be swallowed up. Agnes used the following counters to combat her protective beliefs:

1. I can attend the training sessions as a student. They are risk-free environments because mistakes are part of the learning process. 2. Age equals wisdom. I can use my experience with the previous system to help integrate the new one. I can act as a consultant when problems arise. 3. I will set up progress meetings with my boss to discuss the new system. He will be grateful for my positive attitude. 4. I will discuss the new system with my subordinates to get their perceptions and feelings. This will maintain my stature as a caring, receptive boss. 5. Everyone else is in the same boat—naive and anxious. My positive attitude can lend support to others. This can lead to positive bonds and break down destructive competition.

5. Everyone else is in the same boat—naive and anxious. My positive attitude can lend support to others. This can lead to positive bonds and break down destructive competition.

SHIFTING YOUR PERCEPTIONS AS A MANAGER Most of our beliefs, attitudes, and values are positive, constructive, and reality based, but some are based on distorted perceptions that may develop into harmful life themes. Our day-to-day perceptions may be guided by negative and/or traumatic experiences or poor role models; we organize what we perceive today in the light of the past. For example, you may think, ‘‘I am helpless. My strategy to resolve this discomforting feeling is to attach myself to people who can help me.’’ If this is a persistent pattern, you become a dependent person. Or Benfari c01.tex you may think, ‘‘Errors are bad; I must not err. I must be constantly alert to cues that may disrupt my drive for perfection.’’ Or, ‘‘People are potential adversaries. I organize my perceptions to be on guard against signs of competition from others. I have to be a wary person.’’ Or, ‘‘I could be stepped on. I develop resistance strategies to cope with this perception of the world. I am uncooperative even when it is in my best interest to be a team player.’’ All these patterns of behavior based on previous assumptions are maladaptive if they become habitual ways of organizing our current perceptions as managers. Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings Similarly, it’s important to recognize that all manner of behaviors that we may not like in other people—egocentricity, competitiveness, exhibitionism—may be adaptive in certain situations but grossly maladaptive in others. We only have other people’s behavior to indicate what is going on within them, because it’s uncommon for them to reveal their thoughts, feelings, and wishes. Behavior is what we want to change, however, and in order for that to happen, their perceptions of a given type of experience must first shift. The key to perceptual shifting in the workplace is the manager’s own perceptions. It starts with identifying any perceptions that have a negative effect on interpersonal relationships. For example, you might hold the belief that your boss is like someone else you know (a big brother, your mother, a teacher) who once caused you psychological harm. That past event influences your immediate perception, leading to negative feelings and judgments about your boss. Usually an unfavorable pattern is not corrected until the faulty perception is changed and a more realistic, less damaging pattern replaces it. In other words, if earlier perceptions of an authority figure are affecting your relationship with your boss, you will have to shift your perceptions in order to remove the negative emotion you’re feeling and replace it with more neutral and productive perceptions. The centerpiece of making these perceptual shifts is completing a three-column worksheet that is divided up as follows:

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Column 1: List every thought or belief or assumption that causes negative effects in a particular situation. ‘‘Driving in trafﬁc is making me crazy. I can’t concentrate on anything else.’’ Column 2: Think of the personal negative consequences of the belief. Try to look at past experience as a guide. ‘‘When I have these thoughts I become angry, distracted, and all keyed by the time I reach work. It is not good for me.’’ Column 3: Record the best argument against (that is, the counter for) the belief. Ideally, this argument will be emotionally persuasive as well as rationally sound. ‘‘No one can make me mad or stressed. I am doing this to myself. I can gain control by listening to my favorite radio station. I can use this time to go over my day’s schedule in my head. I can prepare my day before I get to the ofﬁce.’’

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Plan to spend ﬁve to ten minutes a day meditating on critical past incidents that disprove the irrational belief and make sure you ﬁll in worksheet for all those perceptions that need to be shifted because they are no longer serving you.

COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING AND THE ELEMENTS OF MANAGEMENT STYLE The three steps of cognitive restructuring can be especially useful to modify most elements of management style. Let’s look at each one individually. Modifying Psychological Type As an innate part of us, psychological type is not an element we want to reconstruct over the long haul. But sometimes we need to adjust to meet the requirements of the people and the task at hand. A person with a thinking (T) orientation may have to develop the opposite pole, feeling (F), in order to assess the impact of his or her judgments. The logical, analytical, and impersonal manner of the thinking type sometimes leaves out the human side of the equation. For example, such a person’s thinking might need to shift as follows: Assumption/ Belief

Evaluation

Counter for Shifting Perception

The logic of the decision should always dictate action.

Sometimes what appears to logical can be countered with other viewpoints.

My logic needs to be reinforced or countered by others’ perceptions and concerns in the situation.

One must disregard personal feelings at all costs.

This can lead to negative impacts on others.

I must always ask, ‘‘Who is affected by this decision? In what way? Is there an Benfari c01.tex alternative?’’

Individual values do not count in making a decision.

Discarding personal values leads to a lack of diversity.

My personal goals supersede

Evaluation This has gotten me in trouble in the past.

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I must respect personal values. Only then can we reach a productive consensus on a problem.

Strengthening and Changing Motives and Needs Our motives and needs can either be powerful forces in thePerceptions, service of performance Assumptions, and Feelings or saboteurs if we let them get in the way. Cognitive restructuring can be useful in helping us identify negative needs patterns and change them for the better. For instance, Malcolm was a hard-driving, aggressive investment banker who at times alienated his staff and his partners. His high need for achievement, together with his aggressiveness, dominated his managerial style. After a series of key employees left the ﬁrm, Malcolm decided he needed to modify his approach to people. He started by looking at the basic assumptions behind his achievement and aggressive drives, then outlined his assumptions, evaluated them, and developed counters. Assumption/ Belief

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Counter for Shifting Perception I can still fulfill my for more about thispersonal book, visit wiley.com goals by coordinating my

with his aggressiveness, dominated his managerial style. After a series of key employees left the ﬁrm, Malcolm decided he needed to modify his approach to people. He started by looking at the basic assumptions behind his achievement and aggressive drives, then outlined his assumptions, evaluated them, and developed counters. Assumption/ Belief

Evaluation

Counter for Shifting Perception

My personal goals supersede all others.

This has gotten me in trouble in the past. People see me as self-centered and aloof.

I can still fulfill my personal goals by coordinating my efforts with others in a win-win strategy.

I personally have to do the job.

I have been accused of not being a team player. Even my boss thinks this gets in the way of effective performance.

The firm is a team. I may be the leader one day, but someone else can take the lead. Our goals are interrelated.

I must prove I am the best.

This assumption has created enemies for me.

I need colleagues and loyal subordinates, not competitors and enemies.

Developing Positive Power and Influence Skills The effective use of power is a learned skill and has little to do with innate factors. Sometimes our assumptions about power get in the way of using positive Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013 inﬂuence skills. Marsha was a shy lead programmer in an educational software company, who had difﬁculty in leading her group. It appeared that she had faulty assumptions about power that blocked her effectiveness. Three of her major assumptions are listed as follows.

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Understanding Management Style Counter for Shifting Assumption/and Changing Your Evaluation Belief Perception

I am very low in dominance. I cannot be a powerful person.

Power is a learned skill.

Power is not dominance; it is influencing others through my behavior.

I need to be the expert at all times.

This power base has limited use. Being the expert too often turns people off.

I can use my expert power when asked for. It is like a battery charge—use when needed.

All power corrupts.

Some power is corrupting. Power when used positively gets things done.

I need to look at what is needed to get the job done. I can influence people without hurting them. When this happens, I am effective.

Practicing Effective Conflict Resolution The way that we approach conﬂict management is based on our assumptions about what causes it and how it should be dealt with. Cognitive restructuring can be particularly useful in bringing those assumptions to the surface and countering them. Assumption/ Belief

Evaluation

Counter for Shifting

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used positively gets things done.

can influence people without hurting them. When this happens, I am effective.

Practicing Effective Conflict Resolution The way that we approach conďŹ&#x201A;ict management is based on our assumptions about what causes it and how it should be dealt with. Cognitive restructuring can be particularly useful in bringing those assumptions to the surface and countering them. Assumption/ Belief

Evaluation

Counter for Shifting Perception

Conflict must be avoided at all costs.

In the long run the issue will get more serious.

Conflict is natural and can be solved by following the correct procedures.

Conflict is a contest of wills.

Conflict will degenerate into warring factions.

Conflict is not a contest. It is directing energies toward a Benfari c01.tex solution.

Personalities determine how conflict is solved.

Interjecting personality attacks only exacerbates the problem.

Evaluation

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You can separate the people from the problem. Focus on perceptions, concerns, and mutual options for gain.

Managing the Irrational Beliefs Behind Stress Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings Stress can be caused by our irrational thoughts about the way things should be. These irrational thoughts or beliefs can lead to internal stress that causes us misery. Sheldon, a bright but harried marketing manager, had the following irrational thoughts that needed to be restructured. Assumption/ Belief

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Counter for Shifting Perception

My self-worth is tied to my achievements.

Failure will bring on depression and/or guilt.

There is more to me than my material achievements. These will change as time goes on. I must look to other avenues for self-worth.

There is a perfect and best way to do a job.

This leads to an obsessive search for the perfect way. I can be frustrated and discard one approach after another.

Some home runs go five hundred feet, and others just make it over the fence. A home run is a home run.

There are wicked people out in the world who must be punished.

This can lead to paranoid thoughts. I will constantly be on the lookout for these people, leaving little time for anything else.

For every wicked person, there are one hundred good people. I should concentrate on being good and rewarding others for their goodness.

Coping with Organizational Culture There are times when we face organizational changes that our beliefs can get in the way of coping with the impending events. Jessicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company was in the throes of a merger, and she uncovered four beliefs that were paralyzing her daily work for more about this book, visit wiley.com patterns.

rewarding others for their goodness.

little time for anything else.

Coping with Organizational Culture There are times when we face organizational changes that our beliefs can get in Benfari c01.tex V2 - 05/11/2013 the way of coping with the impending events. Jessicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company was in the throes of a merger, and she uncovered four beliefs that were paralyzing her daily work patterns.

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Assumption/ Evaluation Counter for Shifting Belief Perception Understanding and Changing Your Management Style The new merger This may happen, but the I cannot control the macro will change the outcome is not decided. culture. The more I focus on company. what I cannot change, the more futile it becomes. The changes will have a negative impact on my group.

This thought could be a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

I have control over myself and the micro environment I work in.

My current or new boss will prove to be difficult.

He may be under stress or living with uncertainty as I am.

I can manage my boss by understanding his goals, needs, and style.

The uncertainty will be stressful.

Uncertainty can be managed.

I can cope by practicing stress management and relaxation techniques.

CONCLUSION The key to understanding how we view the world is the APF model of assumptions, perceptions, and feelings. By focusing on these elements, we can isolate and eliminate faulty views about ourselves and others. This model allows us to cognitively restructure our management style and control stress. We will be using the model throughout the book in the appropriate chapters.

Assumptions, Perceptions, and Feelings

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About the Author

Robert Benfari, AB, MBA, PhD, MSPH, is a multidiscipline behavioral scientist who has spent most of his career in teaching, research, and practice as a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Division of Continuing Education. He is trained in psychology, organizational behavior, and behavioral medicine. Benfari is a project-oriented scientist and practitioner. Working in the professional schools at Harvard, he has applied the principles of his expertise to solving such problems as Developing models for understanding and changing management style (ongoing research and development) Assessment of management talent (ATT Management Progress Study) Behavioral interventions for changing health habits (MRFIT Program) Cross-cultural studies of mental health (Stirling County Program) Devising computer programs for psychiatric diagnosis, one the earliest applications in the ﬁeld (Computers and Society Program) Perceptual vertigo—pilot training (U.S. Navy project) He has published in all these areas and has received numerous teaching awards at Harvard. Benfari has worked with industry in a consulting capacity, and conducts workshops on developing one’s management style. His clients include ATT, IBM, U.S. State Department, Raytheon, Coopers & Lybrand UK, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Navy, Ocean Spray, Foster-Miller, and others. Benfari has conducted seminars at various universities in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Israel, and Cyprus.

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The chapters from this sampler are extracted from the following titles: Accelerating Leadership Development: Practical Solutions for Building Your Organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Potential 978-1-118-46411-3, August 2013, Jossey-Bass

Building Better Teams: 70 Tools and Techniques for Strengthening Performance Within and Across Teams 978-1-118-12726-1, June 2012, Wiley

No Excuses: How You Can Turn Any Workplace Into A Great One 978-1-118-35242-7, August 2013, Jossey-Bass

Peer Power: Transforming Workplace Relationships 978-1-118-20545-7, February 2012, Jossey-Bass

The Human Equity Advantage: Beyond Diversity to Talent Optimization 978-1-118-45840-2, May 2013, Jossey-Bass

Understanding and Changing Your Management Style, 2nd edition: Assessments and Tools for Self-development 978-1-118-39946-0, July 2013, Jossey-Bass

To view a wider selection of human resource and professional development titles, please visit

www.wiley.com

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