During re-entry of the Columbia shuttle on February 1, 2003, the craft disintegrated, killing all seven crew members on board. It was later discovered that warnings and concerns about potential damage were suppressed, resulting in this stinging statement in a follow-up report: “NASA’s organizational culture had as much to do with this accident as the foam did.”

The Columbia disaster is only one example highlighted in a Harvard Management Communication article, How to Get the Bad News You Need.  It states that few executives actively engage in suppressing the flow of information, but the absence of policies and procedures to encourage employees to speak up, actually encourages them to keep vital information to themselves. The threat of embarrassment, humiliation or career damage is a silencer that can be overcome using some of the following strategies:

1. Promise not to kill the messenger, then don’t. Let people know they won’t get into trouble for revealing bad news, by standing behind them.
2. Be aware of your own emotional response to bad news. If you pound your fist on your desk, let the messenger know your anger is directed at the situation, not the person.
3. Respond. Not responding to bad news, or simply remaining silent may discourage the messenger from coming forward in the future.
4. Avoid interrupting or patronizing the person, or changing the subject while they deliver bad news. These actions demonstrate disrespect.
5. Demonstrate trust in employees by sharing numbers or plans, and be willing to acknowledge your own mistakes.
6. Create “events” where honesty is expected and demonstrate that “honesty” behaviour is okay.

Categories: InnovationLeadership

My neighbour Jim was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his house. He invests big chunks of time doing this, keeping it immaculate. And he’s always smiling.

Why does he do it? The sidewalk really isn’t his, yet he cares for it as if he owned every single slab. Jim is doing work for his city, keeping their sidewalk in pristine condition, and he never expects a dime for his efforts. Why? It’s all about psychological ownership; in Jim’s mind, the sidewalk is his.

The transfer of ownership from the city to Jim occurred not because of any contractual arrangement – it happened because of Jim’s felt needs. You see, Jim has a strong need for significance and for belonging.

Significance: Jim receives respect and admiration from us – his neighbours - because of how great his yard and sidewalk look.

Belonging: Jim does not want to be “like Bob” – the guy the rest of us look down upon - because of the way his yard tarnishes our street.

Does Jim receive a paycheck for his work? Absolutely! It’s just that it’s an emotional paycheck from his neighbours, rather than a financial one from the city.

Why is this linkage between felt needs and ownership important to understand? Because people go the extra mile when they feel emotional ownership. That emotional ownership is triggered by having their felt needs being met.

Your employees will go the extra mile – like Jim does - to build the success of your company when they feel they own it. That feeling of owning the success of your company gets triggered when doing so meets their felt needs for belonging, significance or meaning.

Energizing employees is an inside job – focusing first on the inner architecture of felt needs – the emotional payoffs that cause employees to own the success of your company. These intrinsic motivators have been, and always will be what drives extraordinary effort.

Here are four quick facts about Felt Needs that will help you deliver an emotional paycheck to your employees:

1. Felt needs don’t have to be (and can’t be) created. Employees come fully equipped with them (batteries included).
2. Felt needs (when met) release emotional engagement, that elusive element that unlocks 400% more discretionary effort than rational engagement (See our book “Love at Work” for more on this.)
3. Felt needs can be identified by any leader who learns how to engage in a “What matters most?” conversation. We will write more about this in an upcoming post.
4. Felt needs (when met) are the payoff that enables employees to “work for free” (and feel fully alive doing so).

Categories:

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.  

Categories:

Read the following items and ask yourself “What do they have in common?”

• Signs are placed in the patient rooms suggesting that the patient has a right to insist that their caregivers wash their hands before and after contact with them.
• Rapid response teams try to compensate for the absence of clinician availability (and now we even encourage the patient or his or her family to activate such an evaluation.)  
• Nurse navigators lead patients through the complex maze of care while positions like “Chief Experience Officer” monitor customer satisfaction.

So, what do they have in common? They are all work-arounds; attempts to patch up a broken and dysfunctional system. No wonder twenty-two patients die an hour from avoidable harm.

Why?The two most important people responsible for our patients’ care frequently never talk to each other, and when they do, the interchange is often dysfunctional.

Humans have a tendency to sensationalize and focus on the negative.  But research tells us that less than 5% of physician-nurse relationships are disruptive. What’s the rest of the story?  Sadly, only 15% of both physician and nurses rated their relationships as collegial; and only 25% were ‘very good’ (Rosenstein).  Considering that the most important factor in a study of 13 ICU’s of patient mortality was the relationship between the nurse and physician, this is great cause for alarm (Knaus, Baggs).

Several structural changes have contributed to the distancing of the traditional physician-nurse relationship over the past twenty years. In fact, you will find both physicians and nurses stating it was ‘better in the old days’.  Why?

Physicians have become progressively more sub-specialized, diffusing responsibility and challenging the ability to integrate care. As margin per RVU has declined, physicians find themselves working ever harder, leaving less time for conversation at all levels.  In order to protect some time outside of their practice, coverage groups expanded reducing the number of days on-call. Now, the primary attending is often unreachable. On-call physicians are reluctant to make decisions for another doctor’s patient. In fact, it is common practice among physicians that weekend call really means placing clinical decisions on hold until Monday morning. Mid-level providers often perform follow-up care, especially for surgical specialists. Rounding in the morning is hurried. There is no time to locate the primary nurse. Sadly, physicians too often don’t even know the names of the nurses who care for their patients. How easy it is to be disrespectful of someone who remains anonymous - especially over the telephone.

Structural changes have impacted nursing as well. Twelve-hour shifts make continuity of care difficult. The number of tasks a nurse needs to perform in an 8-hour shift exceeds 160 and no task takes longer than 2 minutes 45 seconds.  Only 40% of a nurse’s work is actually nursing – the rest of the time they are performing clerical duties, locating missing medications, trying to find equipment or on the telephone on hold.  Nearly 30% of her or his time is spent charting information no one reads.  The result? 80 percent of a nurse’s workday is away from the bedside.

Economic stresses have caused healthcare organizations to rigorously try to control staffing ratios. Historic patient-to-nurse ratios don’t apply in a world where length of stay shortens as patient acuity increases. While a nurse may be assigned 4-6 patients per shift, the number of admissions, discharges, and transfers can comprise 80 percent of the patients. One nurse admits, another gives care and yet another nurse discharges in 48 hours - another example of why failed communication is the number one cause of medical error. 

How can this system of relating to each other be professionally or personally satisfying for either physicians or nurses?  How can it possibly be deemed ‘safe’?

Some structural changes have the potential to reverse this trend. The advent of intensivist and hospitalist physicians is reducing the number of doctors involved in complex patient care. Team rounding is becoming more prevalent, and physician availability for an entire shift improves opportunities for communication. SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment- Recommendation/Request) communication has been useful. It improves the nurses’ understanding, supports their professionalism, and helps prevent the entrapment of physicians when a lack of necessary information precludes good decision-making.

Most of all, it is essential to personalize the nurse–physician relationship. Physicians must commit to knowing the nurses’ names and nurses must insist on identifying themselves before each encounter. When you know someone, and know something about them outside of their work role, it becomes much more difficult to ignore them or communicate in a disruptive manner and communication flows more freely. One important improvement would be to have a physician present a brief teaching experience to nurses weekly or, at least monthly. Another example would be to have the charge nurse present a case scenario at weekly physician rounds – unheard of at most institutions.

Nothing will change without leadership. Executives must lead this cultural change by insisting on daily communication, physicians knowing nurses names, creating informal structures such as joint educational and celebratory venues and bedside rounding, and actually living the values of the institution by zero tolerance on all disruptive behavior – same rules for all roles. Until the two most critical professionals in patient care can work together for the benefit of the patient, we will continue to send subtle, covert warnings to the general public just under the radar – bring someone with you, ask your caregivers to wash, call Rapid Response if you need to- because the two most important people in your care, physicians and nurses, don’t have the relationship that you need to be safe.

What is your hospital doing to improve relationships between professionals who care for patients?

Categories:

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?

Categories: Leadership

We are just getting ready to head out to the job site. Today we put on a rolled-asphalt roof, and then we tarred the seams. We need to hang the door and trim the exterior of the house and sheet the interior walls.  On the outside, we have to position the new outhouse and a new shower house. Hopefully, the main water container will arrive today and they can have an enclosed container for their water use. They don't have electricity so we are running all the tools off of a generator which makes for a noisy site! Our team is running really well, full of smiles and a willingness to try anything. No one stands apart or alone, and it is a beautiful picture of team work with a tremendous sense of flow. The experienced ones are supportive and they encourage the teens who are trying their hand at everything, with many doing things that stretch them well beyond their comfort zones…

Categories: Leadership

A manager walks onto the unit and observes the secretary texting, a nurse on Facebook, and a resident on his droid checking skiing conditions.   What’s the most unlikely part of the above situation?  The manager walking onto the unit. 

As I travel across the country one thing is eminently clear: managers are noticeably absent from the front line.  It happened very slowly over a long period of time as their workload increased and changed demanding that they spend more time in meetings and their offices.  Staff complain frequently that “I haven’t even seen my manager for two weeks – and I work day shift!”  While most hospitals have a policy regarding use of IT for personal reasons during work, very, very few actually enforce that rule.

If it’s not enforced, then it’s not a rule. It’s the norm.

A recent email blast from “Plexus” entitled “Do Electronic Devices in Health Care Present New Risks for Patient Safety” resonated with me on a very deep level confirming suspicions gathered from informal conversations across the country.  Fifty five percent of perfusion technicians admitted having cell phone conversations while monitoring machines – and half had texted during surgery.  Then a New York Times story by Matt Richtel highlighted a malpractice case where a neurosurgeon made over ten personal calls during surgery to family members and business associates.   The problem is bigger than leaders realize for several reasons.

Acute changes ping our radar, while gradual changes are more insidious. Their great danger lies in the fact that human beings simply don’t notice small and incremental changes (Human Adaptability Theory).  For example, I was called down to California to teach high reliability skills after the anesthesiologist accidentally drew up 10 cc’s of Epinephrine instead of Toradol.  The eighteen year old patient in an out-patient surgery center coded.  I guarantee you that the norm of bringing a phone into surgery started when someone had an emergency (like a very sick child) and put their phone in their pocket on vibrate…. (and no one was harmed); then another member of the team was waiting for a real estate deal on his new house….(and no one was harmed)….so they all started bringing them in until one day… years later….an eighteen year old in for a simple knee surgery nearly dies.  Little mini-Challenger explosions…

We lost the Challenger because in two successive launches NASA was able to forget their own rules regarding the lowest safe launch temperature and convinced themselves that prior success with deviation insured future success with deviation – a single solitary voice saying “Don’t do this” was overridden. 

Personal use of IT during operations and work time is now rampant because of a lack of awareness of the problem, a lack of leadership and normalization of deviancy.  A new norm that holds that human beings can multitask while driving, operating or performing nursing functions now exists despite the fact that research consistently validates the opposite.   What can you do?

1. Make a decision.  It’s only a rule if it’s enforced.  Ask for your leaders to give examples of how they handled these situations in public meetings.  Are cell phones being used in your operating room?  If so, you are asking for a ruinous verdict.
2. Determine the scope or prevalence with real data. Use survey monkey to craft a brief questionnaire asking staff to anonymously report how frequently they see their co-workers texting, on Facebook or making calls or using blackberries/droids for personal reasons. 
3. Ensure that managers have a sufficient amount of presence on the unit to actually enforce the rule.   Ask them if they have the time – objectively assess their workload.
4. Even then, managers will not act unless HR has their backand they have the skills necessary to hold staff accountable.  Ever try asking a neurosurgeon to stop talking on his/her cell phone in the operating room?   It’s not pretty.  But if staff know you have their back, then you’ll at least have a better chance than the Challenger crew.  

Tell us your story - is technology creating unnecessary distractions in your workplace?

Categories: Healthcare

Despite the breakdown of the numbers, when you don’t go face-to-face in communication, you lose the chemical benefits we talked about in our post about sparking fascination and trust in conversations. In a phone conversation, you have the advantage of using vocal cues, but an email relies completely on the words. If the above formula is true, there is a 7 % chance of conveying what you need to, based on words alone. Add a camera to the call, and you have some of the advantages of face-to-face, but you still lack that chemical connection of being present with one another, in the same room.

Charitable Interpretation, where you interpret the other person’s meaning and intent with goodwill, and attach the most favorable perspective to their words, is a tool you can use in any conversation – virtual or otherwise.

Phone & Teleconference Conversations

•Take a few minutes at the start of your conversation for up-front connection and bonding. Be intentional and authentic, while respecting the need for others on the call, to get on with the business of the call.

•Smile. Even though the other party may not be able to see it, your smile comes through in your voice and enhances connection.

•Demonstrate respect to engage your virtual audience – give your undivided focus. Don’t give in to the urge of answering your email while the other person Is talking. Remember, hearing is more acute in a phone call and the other party may hear the tapping of a keyboard.

•Reflect implications: reflect back the essence of the speaker’s message, and the implications of what that may mean inside their world. This sends a clear signal to them that you deeply understand their message as well as where they are coming from. People tend to trust someone who understands them.

•Use word pictures and stories to intrigue the listener and help them understand your world.

Email Conversations

•Before composing an email, step into the other person’s world and ask yourself whether this is the best way to send the message, or if a phone call or a face-to-face conversation is best. If it is an emotional, personal or sensitive issue, email is not the vehicle to use.

•Consider the language that most appeal to this person. Are they technical or non-technical, formal or informal, expressive or succinct? Frame your message in the language that will make it easy for them to read and relate to.

• When you read something ambiguous in an email and it strikes you the “wrong way”, pick up the phone and ask clarifying questions with the intent of understanding, rather than being accusatory. Get curious. If it’s impossible for you to go voice to voice, then send an email asking for clarification: “I wanted to check with you on your email earlier today. Your comment on me being like ‘a dog with a bone’ could be interpreted as either admiring my perseverance or being annoyed at my stubbornness. I wanted to make sure I understood your intent. Can you say more?” Do not allow your uneasiness to go unvoiced, otherwise your heightened sensitivity may be mis-read in subsequent communication.

What has worked for you in your virtual conversations? Share your ideas here – we want to hear your suggestions!

Categories: LifeLeadership

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? 

Categories: LifeLeadership

Eight years ago, when my son was a sophomore in high school, I came home to find his body lying limp on the living room floor.  All 6 foot 2 inches crumbled into a half-fetal position; eyes open, pulse steady, but no response after several attempts to rouse him.  Eventually he mumbled, “Leave me alone”.

It was then that his sister told me what happened.  His classmate from homeroom had committed suicide.  “Go away”, he muttered if anyone tried to speak or touch him, wanting to be left alone in his pain. 

I am like that too.  When hurting, I search out my metaphorical cave and hide from reality until the hurricane of events and emotions pass and I can see where I am again.  And then, I write. Because my son would not listen; because I could not reach him; I wrote a letter to all the children in the newspaper:

“We cannot hear a silent scream.  If you are drowning, reach out your hand.  There are so many of you in this tumultuous sea…these are indeed rough waters.”

I am reminded of this story after hearing about two nurses who committed suicide in the last few months – one related to a medication error and the other related to bullying on the unit.  These are rough waters in healthcare as well.  What can we do so this never happens again?

Stress precipitates depression in working men and women (Melchior et al).  A study by Welsh found that 35% of a sample of medical surgical nurses had clinical depression.  For nurses, the amount of stress due to the workload alone has increased dramatically over the last decade.  Mental Stress?  We know that nurses perform 160 tasks in an 8 hour shift with no task lasting longer than 2:45 seconds; that nurses stack 7 or more items to remember at any given time and that up to 30% of their time is spent charting (Bujak, Bartholomew).  Physical Stress?  Musculo-skeletal disorders are reported in more than 60% of the nursing workforce (Levtak et al).  And then, there are pressures from the system itself.  Yesterday several nurses were told (yet again) by their manager to “clock out first and then finish your charting” – a clear federal violation but an increasingly common practice as managers struggle to crunch the budget.  As the healthcare system transitions from a business to a service model, nurses are clearly feeling the brunt of the impact.

Nurses were found to have “a general lack of knowledge on how to identify and support nurses with health problems.” (Letvak et al).  Respondents in one survey discussed nurses they knew who were working under the influence of drugs to compensate for pain and anti-anxiety etc.  We must become as skilled in approaching each other in these delicate situations as we are in attending to our patients.

As professionals, we are trained to be alert to the signs and symptoms of depression and mental illness.  It is time to expand our perspective, use this psychiatric skill set, and offer the same level of compassion, education and support we would give our patients, to each other. 

Watch for behavioral changes, or changes in thought processes, or moods such as irritability. Don’t consistently chalk it off as a ‘personality problem’.

1. Absenteeism.  Peers who are out of work more than usual – sick days or constant physical illness perhaps complaining of inability to sleep- or get out of bed.
2. Isolation.  Decreased communication or a change in socialization patterns
3. Negative self talk; feelings of unworthiness,  decreased self esteem

And if you know of a nurse who is on medications and feel that it is impacting the quality and safety of care delivered, talk to them first.  Bring up specific observations.

TIP: Don’t know how to begin? 

Remember this: Start with your heart; then say what you see…. 

“I am concerned about you.  I noticed that______.  

Perhaps it is human nature to want to draw inward when stressed or upset.  But these fast passed, stressful times call for just the opposite.  It is time to widen that circle of wisdom, skill and caring to your peers with arms wide open.  From this moment on, let us be known as the profession that nurtures and feeds its young; as the profession that cares deeply and passionately about life, healing, wellness and prevention – starting with each other.  

We are indeed better together.

Categories: Healthcare

The Connection Contagion

Great leaders understand the powerful secret of human connection. They spend time interacting with employees, showing interest in them as a person (versus treating them like corporate chattel), listening to them, and thanking them face-to-face for their contribution. When you need to convey optimism, passion, purpose, gratitude or seriousness, the most effective way to do it is face-to-face. The limbic system in your brain regulates emotions, and sends out a wavelength in face-to-face conversations that act as a contagion to imprint others with passion and it can powerfully serve an entire organization. If you need to deliver excitement and enthusiasm, or perhaps compassion and kindness, along with your words, consider a face-to-face conversation as your default, if possible.

Create Trust / Reduce Tension

Face-to-face conversation is essential if you need to create trust and reduce tension in a relationship. It increases trust, bonding, attention, and pleasure, and it reduces fear and worry. As Edward Halowell puts it in his Harvard Business Review article called The Human Moment at Work:

“Nature … equips us with hormones that promote trust and bonding: oxytocin and vasopressin. Most abundant in nursing mothers, these hormones are always present to some degree in all of us, but they rise when we feel empathy for another person – in particular when we are meeting with someone face to face. It has been shown that these bonding hormones are at suppressed levels when people are physically separate.”

That explains why it’s easier to rip someone apart in an email than it would be if you were standing in front of them. But face-to-face conversation not only produces trust, it can be the happy Prozac moment of your day. Hallowell adds that “scientists hypothesize that in-person contact stimulates two important neurotransmitters: dopamine, which enhances attention and pleasure, and serotonin, which reduces fear and worry.”

Spark Fascination

Have you ever had a conversation with an “expert” who is explaining something that is intricate and complex, but you find yourself fully capable of comprehending what is being said? It’s as if all your channels are open - no distorted buzzing in the background. In another conversation, a different expert is explaining a subject that is no more complex but you feel thick and slow, unable to comprehend the message.

What was the difference? Sometimes it’s more than just your affinity with the subject matter or how ‘with it’ you felt on a given day. Often, chemistry can be at play. Perhaps the first speaker made you feel respected and valued. The second made you feel patronized and disrespected. Each of these two interactions sets into motion a very different hormonal chain of events.

Daniel Goleman, in Working with Emotional Intelligence,discusses the scientific evidence regarding the physical effects on people when they are disrespected or respected. “When we experience stress -- for example, when we’re being psychologically “erased” or simply ignored by others -- our bodies release cortisol, sometimes called the stress hormone. When cortisol is released into our pre-frontal cortex, the logic center or CPU of our brains, can shut down up to sixty-six percent of our rational reasoning powers. The unhappy effect is that we find it hard to understand what is being said. We literally remain stupid, no matter how hard we try to understand.”

He adds that whensomeone positively engages us, “our brain is being soaked in a bath of catecholamines and other substances triggered by the adrenal system. These chemicals prime the brain to stay attentive and interested, even fascinated, and energized for an almost effortless, sustained effort.”

If you want to make a deep and lasting imprint on people, make them feel respected and valued as you converse with them. Doing so will enable them to find the fascination that keeps them engaged to the point of full understanding.

This post discusses face-to-face conversation as the ideal default mode when communicating, to take advantage of your body’s natural chemicals to engage in a better connection. Next week will introduce reality, and talk about how to be more effective at having better conversations virtually and electronically.

Categories: Love at WorkLifeLeadership

This morning I did a google search for “Think Outside the Box” and received 17,800,000 results. As I scanned the results, it became apparent that there is no shortage of tools, tips and advice on how to “think outside the box”. So, what’s the problem?

Simplistic is right! I sat back and wondered, what does it actually mean to “think outside the box”? What exactly, are we asking people to do?

Take a leap of faith… that sounds nice but the reason I want to innovate is to drive better results. And taking a “leap of faith” feels a little uncomfortable if not downright risky when,  really, I’m accountable for improving quality, efficieny and sales. If I was sure that taking a leap of faith was all it took to create breakthrough solutions that would be one thing, but…

Fortunately, there are tried and true innovation best practices that are available to anyone.

Innovation does not have to be complex. There are simple, practical “back-of-the-napkin” tools you can use to create innovative solutions to both everyday problems and your most important strategic challenges.

In the coming weeks, we’ll explore some of these tools, and  in the process help you (and us) become more innovative and achieve the results we all want. 

Categories: InnovationLeadership

Do such wonder drugs exist? Yes, but not in tablet form, they’re stored inside you. All of us come equipped with hormones that, when triggered and released, have a remarkable effect on our ability to connect, create trust and fascinate people. These hormones produce a relational chemistry we have with some people and completely miss with others.

Let’s explore the simple science of how human beings ‘synch’ with each other. The limbic system of your brain (the emotional center) is an open-loop system, meaning emotions can be contagious. Someone’s tears, or their smile can trigger an involuntary sympathetic reaction in you.

In their book Primal Leadership, Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee discuss this open-loop phenomenon and describe how emotions spread between people.They cite studies in which scientists measure the heart rate of two people as they have a good conversation. At the beginning of the conversation, their bodies are functioning at different rhythms, but fifteen minutes later their physiological profiles look remarkably similar – a phenomenon called mirroring.

Scientists describe [the limbic loop] as “interpersonal limbic regulation,” whereby one person transmits signals that can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular function, sleep rhythms, and even immune function inside the body of another…The open-loop design of the limbic system means that other people can change our very physiology – and so our emotions.

Put us together in face-to-face conversations and we regulate one another’s emotions. You’ve probably experienced this yourself. One team member’s strong, buoyant mood affects one person after another until the whole team is feeling upbeat. Another member’s critical, negative mood can equally infect an entire team in destructive ways. These authors go on to say:

This circuitry also attunes our own biology to the dominant range of feelings of the person we are with, so that our emotional states tend to converge. One term scientist’s use for this neural attunement is limbic resonance, ‘a symphony of mutual exchange and internal adaptation’ whereby two people harmonize their emotional state.

Recent discoveries in neuroscience confirm there are steps you can take to increase your chemistry in the relationships that are most important to you. In the coming weeks we’ll share how you can create connections, increase trust and spark fascination in your conversations – both face-to-face and virtually.

Categories: LeadershipSales

You may have heard the saying: "People don't leave organizations, they leave people.” (In particular, their direct manager.).  A lot of work has been done to try to "fix" managers.   I am not suggesting that developing managers is a bad thing, in fact it is imperative that managers continue to learn and grow to become the type of leaders everyone wants to follow.  However, when speaking about engaging employees, the burden has fallen again on the shoulders of managers which I would argue is not only unfair, but is also doomed to fail or get little traction.  A manager’s role in engagement is to create the conditions in which employees’ needs (including their own), can be met through mutual accountability.

Engagement and the culture of the organization is as much the responsibility of the employee as it is for their leaders.  Otherwise  the organization is setting itself up to have employees with entitlement issues, constantly waiting for their managers to make them feel better or to give them what they need. Managers are people just like anyone else.  They wake up in the morning with the best intentions in the world to support and recognize their people, and to ensure the organization is successful.  But they are human—not mind readers.  From Juice's research on engagement, we have created a short-cut to understanding engagement from both a rational, and an emotional level, through 5 statements:

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

The degree to which an employee can make these 5 statements with emphasis will uncover how engaged and energized they are, and directly relates to the amount of discretionary effort and energy they can offer to the organization. These are not simply "employee" statements; they apply from the janitor up to the CEO, and typically a manager (unless highly tuned-in and skilled in the art of leadership) will not distinguish  which of these are most important to their direct reports.   Nor will they recognize what their employee is lacking or needing in order to assist them in moving towards higher levels of engagement.

The manager needs to create the conditions and develop the skills where:

• honest, authentic conversations can emerge and employees feel comfortable asking questions if they are not clear;
• they can discuss their fit and how they would like to advance in the organization;
• they can point out areas where they need support;
• they can express the areas in which value and inspiration are not present for them
• they can be a part of the solution: committed partners for the success of the individual needs, the team needs, the organizational needs and the needs of the client.

Categories: HealthcareLeadershipSales

Perhaps I should have been stronger in my warning. As a parent of a child this age, Jonah’s plea is hard to watch. As a parent of a child who has been bullied, it is hard to watch. As a parent, I am just as lost as other parents about what to do to support a child when this happens. This insidious behavior can often leave our kids speechless - lacking the words to articulate and express what is going on. It may be their emotional, irritable or acting-out behavior that signals a problem. Thanks, Jonah, for putting words to what our kids are feeling.

As adults, we are just as perplexed about what to do when bullying happens in the workplace. The government introduced anti-bullying legislation in the workplace in Ontario 18 months ago and it has increased awareness about the problem, yet people are still unsure what to do if it happens to them, or if they see it happening to others. Bullying, in its simplest form, is one person being mean to another. It is an expression of an unmet need based in fear and characterized by threatening behavior.

I tell my kids that if they feel bullied, or if they witness behavior that appears to be bullying, they need to Speak Up, Speak Out and Speak Loud. They need to speak up to an adult or person of authority about the issue, speak out to the person mistreating them by creating boundaries around acceptable behaviors, and speak loud until they truly feel like they have been heard and the issue is being addressed by someone who can help. This isn’t always possible if children don’t feel safe in their school environment, and it isn’t possible if employees don’t feel safe in their work environment.

In addition to holding bullying behaviors to account, it is essential to understand what is at the core of the "bully’s" unmet need. This requires effective conversation and inquiry, which few of us have been trained to do. It is especially difficult when you are the parent of one of the children involved because it is such an emotional issue – staying calm and rational is not easy!

How have you navigated bullying behavior – either in your workplace or with your children? This is an issue that requires more conversation and an exchange of ideas. We’d like to hear yours… As parents, it is our responsibility to model impeccable behavior and perhaps we can do that by talking more about the issue.

Categories: Current EventsLife