Posts by Jean-Francois (JF) Hivon

Why aren’t people more direct?

Sharon managed a group of eleven customer service representatives. Brenda, one of the senior CSRs, worked in the department for thirty-six years. The customers loved her because she was dedicated and technically competent. Her co-workers had no use for her. She was abrupt and manipulative, exploded unpredictably and without cause.

Almost everyone on the team had asked Sharon to deal with Brenda, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to do it. Sharon knew how sensitive Brenda was about critical feedback. Historically, trying to hold her accountable had created outbursts of tears and anger. Sharon couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her like that.

Instead, she counseled the rest of the team to overlook Brenda’s foibles and empathize with her weaknesses. Her justification to herself - “I’m sure she’ll retire within the next five or six years.”

Rather than choosing to be direct and temporarily being “uncomfortable” in addressing a sensitive and longstanding issue, Sharon chose to avoid the situation. In doing so, she also chose to pay a longer-term price. For example:

• Within the next three months, Sharon lost three excellent employees. Each of them cited Brenda as the main reason for their exit.
• The rest of the team was losing respect for Sharon. When she tried to hold them accountable, they just shrugged her off.
• Sharon’s stress level was very high and she had begun to 
dread coming into work.
• Brenda never received the feedback needed and therefore was never given the opportunity to change. She carried the same behavior onto her next role.

By being indirect, Sharon was holding back her truth and dodging reality, doing so at her own (and others’) peril. Avoiding reality causes a silent, invisible seepage of negative energy that pervades an environment and destroys results.

Why aren’t we more direct?

During the past twenty years, as we’ve helped individuals and organizations build their capacity for more effective conversations, our observations have led to four main reasons people are not direct:

• “I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”
• “I fear that I may be hurt in the end.”
• “I don’t want to damage our relationship.”
• “I don’t know what to do if they don’t take it well.”

Each of these fears is energized by something in our past experience that we now accept as truth. For example: When my friend Paul was growing up, every time he had an important conversation with his dad, his viewpoint was disapproved of, judged, and put down. He came to the conclusion that, “If I speak up, I will get hurt.” This became his truth, and his excuse for not being direct.

Life assumptions like these drive our behaviors in unproductive ways.

Here are two actions that can help you increase your level of “directness”?

One.The next time you walk into a situation where you need to be direct with feedback, consider preparing using these two steps:

1. Get to the root of your fears with three powerful questions. Ask yourself:
   1. “Why am I unwilling to be direct?” What am I afraid of?”
   2. “What past experiences have caused me to come to that conclusion?”
   3. “Are those conclusions serving me in this situation?”\

1. Assess the cost.
   1. “What is the cost of not being direct in this situation?”
   2. “How could it impact me, others and the individual?”

Two. Over the next week, track and record those situations where you sense a physical sensation (tight chest, butterflies, etc.) that is associated with a situation where you need to be direct with someone. Simply be mindful of those situations and the physical sensation associated with them can lead to improvements in your willingness to be more direct.

Next week, we’ll write about how you can be direct with your needs (rather than your opinions) and why that might be good for you, your team, your organization and your family.  

The Art of De-Motivating People (and how to stop it)

A recent article in the Washington Post “How to completely and utterly destroy an employees work life” sheds valuable insight on the impact bosses have on their direct reports’ attitudes.

The researchers analyzed the work diaries of more than 200 people over several months. In addition to learning what motivates and encourages workers, they also learned what discourages and disengages them:

“We discovered a key factor you can use to make employees miserable on the job. It is to simply keep them from making progress in meaningful work. People want to make a valuable contribution, and feel great when they make progress toward doing so.”

When people encounter interference, they can feel like they aren’t able to make a valuable contribution. Interference can be personal, interpersonal or structural. Either way, when there is too much interference and people don’t feel like they are making progress on something meaningful, work gets old, fast. Who volunteers to be unappreciated and ignored? No one – because that doesn’t emotionally engage people.

In our own research (Download the Five Drivers of Engagement), we found that work environments that don’t foster emotional engagement, forfeit extra effort, creativity, productivity, and potentially most importantly, people’s energy.

Some managers and leaders just don’t get it and they seem bent on building and maintaining their own power bases, literally “showing you who’s boss.” This type of leader sabotages employees’ projects, frequently changes goals, assumes low morale is the employees’ fault and attacks or threatens anyone who dares to suggest otherwise.

We have identified five core elements that correlate to engaged people the level of energy they have to give to their work, their families and their communities. The five areas are:

• I Fit
• I'm Clear
• I'm Supported
• I'm Valued
• I'm Inspired

The degree to which an individual can emphatically make these five statements, reveals how engaged and energized they are, and directly relates to the amount of effort and energy they can offer to their organization.

When employees have a sense of purpose, significance and security, when they feel that they belong to a group yet have the freedom to work and advance individually—that creates an environment where people are engaged and energized; one that is primed to deliver real productivity gains and outstanding results.

If you’re leading people, one of your key roles is to understand and remove interference that is getting in the way of people making progress on meaningful work.  

What are you doing to remove interference?

How to stop toxic communication

Companies across North America are suffering from communication cancer, a toxic form of communication that destroys respect, trust, energy, and above all, performance.

In our work with business leaders, we have uncovered four of the most common causes of communication toxicity in organizations. They are:

• Indirect Communication
 - The use of nonverbal messages, disapproving attitudes, critical humor or public teasing to send a veiled message to someone instead of having a direct, face-to-face conversation.

• Character Assassination - Dishonoring people when they are not there to speak for themselves by assigning malice to their actions, words or motives.

• Public Redressing
 - Uncovering someone’s private issue in a public forum because it’s uncomfortable to go face-to-face with that person.

• e-Stabbing - 
Sending out a scathing e-mail and cc’ing or blind-copying those to whom you wish to "leak" juicy information or sending an e-mail to request someone’s assistance and cc’ing his or her supervisor so the person is forced to comply.

Take these examples:

• At a national sales conference, a CEO unexpectedly and publicly dresses down his corporate sales team for not meeting its sales targets — figures that the CEO had devised and given to the sales force without its input.

• Employees at a growing start-up firm enjoy an innovative work culture filled with office friendships. The atmosphere quickly devolves when candid feedback is suppressed in order to preserve friendships. It’s replaced by widespread complaining, discontent and passive-aggressive behavior behind each other’s backs.

• A CEO sends out a holiday policy change that varies for each employee level of the organization. Senior executives get a specific holiday off with pay, while middle managers can take a day off in lieu, and administrative support will be docked the day's pay. The policy is communicated in a single e-mail sent to all the organization’s 5,000 employees.

If you’re ready step into the journey of stopping “toxic communication” at work, at home or in your community, we recommend these four actions:

1. Use direct communication and avoid sending messages (email) that might leave ambiguity in the mind of the receiver. Practice “XYZ” communication: “When you do X, it makes me feel Y. Could I ask you to do Z instead?”
2. Shut down character assassinations. To avoid becoming a character assassin, use this simple rule: While speaking about someone to others, picture them beside you and only say the things you would say if they were present. If you are a victim of toxic communication, invest in a direct, face-to-face conversation with the person who started the toxic message and those infected.
3. Interrupt public redressing. If you are a manager, don’t discipline people in front of their peers unless the issue absolutely must be addressed publicly, in the moment, to avert a greater disaster.
4. Go face-to-face with e-stabbers. Help them understand the implications of using technology as a fault-broadcaster, a power-lever or a rear-covering device. One or two face-to-face conversations with a person like that will provide a healthy disincentive.

By removing the toxic communication from your workplace, you create the space for healthier and more productive dialogue that leads to higher levels of energy and more performance.

What other types of toxic communication do you see in your organization?