You Aren’t a Doctor, Those Are Not Your Monkeys

On October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 By Cathy NoiceIn Workplace NavigatorLeave a comment

You’ve worked for bosses like this. They dole out all the advice. They tell you precisely how to do everything; never let you make a decision. They keep your hands tied tight so that you don’t make a move without permission. When you do take a chance and make a small decision, they slap your hands so it never happens again. Your motivation drops and essentially, you give up and stay at your job, waiting for the next edict to come your way or the next prescription to be written by your boss. They aren’t really doctors but they play them at work.

So think about it. Where are you prescribing to the people in your life? “Honey, can you mow the lawn before it gets too hot out?” “Suzie that work around is ridiculous, do it this way.” “You should use Excel, it’s much faster and ask Joe for help.” Sounds harmless. You’re just getting things done. But how do the people on the other end of that exchange feel? Perhaps more robot than human. “I don’t get paid to think. I’ll just sit here and wait for the next set of orders. I wonder what’s happening on Facebook.” Yep. Checked out.

So how to stop prescribing? Here are some ideas.

• Ask for help in solving the problem. This is part of the essential skills suggested by Development Dimensions International (DDI). When you ask for help people feel more confident, more empowered. I know this requires a bit of vulnerability. You’re thinking, “But I’m the boss. I will look weak if I ask for HELP.” Help is not a four letter word. OK, it is but it’s not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of engaging your employees. Who would you rather work for or with? A prescriber or an empowerer? Make sure you ask for help.

• If humanly possible, use your employee’s idea. Why is that? Buy in. Whose idea do you think that employee is going to bust their tail to make sure it works? That’s right, their idea. “OK Suzie, so you think Access is the better route for using this data?” Suzie will jump hoops to make sure Access is the right software for the data. If the whole idea seems too expensive or will take too long, be sure to use a piece of their suggestion. Maybe they know an internal resource that can help with the project. Use your employee’s idea. And be the team player you want them to be.

• Don’t remove responsibility. When I teach this concept in workshops, I refer to the responsibility as “monkeys”. So when you are done with the conversation who is responsible for the care and feeding of the monkey going forward? If you look up on your shoulder and there is a monkey sitting there, be sure to clearly delegate that monkey back to your coworker or direct report. It doesn’t mean you don’t check in on the monkeys to make sure they are clean and fed. They aren’t sitting on your back. Clearly keep the responsibility with your coworker.

• Share thoughts, feelings and rationale. This is another caveat from DDI. When a doctor prescribes you medication, you want to know why the heck you are taking it. What’s in it for me? In an organization, this means over communicating. Constantly. By all means necessary. As I tell my Human Resource students at Duke University, Human Resources is in charge of the communication piece. So if there is a new corporate strategy, tell them, email them, call them, and meet with them. Over and over and over again. Everyone will stay in lock step if they all know the mission. Share the rationale. If something does inadvertently get prescribed they are much more likely to follow through.

As Daniel Pink wrote in his book, Drive, “Harnessing the power of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic remuneration can be thoroughly satisfying and infinitely more rewarding”. An employee who is being engaged and allowed to direct their own ship is far more motivated and successful. Don’t dampen that spirit so that you can have the last word “as the boss”. Put your prescription pad away.

Stepping into Conflict; It’s OK to Rock the Boat

On January 11, 2015January 4, 2015 By Cathy NoiceIn Workplace NavigatorLeave a comment

Over the last few months there have been several events accompanied by insights that bubbled up into an enormous realization; I avoid conflict. I think a lot of us avoid conflict but I realized this had become an almost daily occurrence. The illusion has been that if I avoid something uncomfortable like telling my son “No”, he will remain happy and the conflict will go away. In reality, it just builds. It may not appear today but that conflict will be back or the effects of not saying “No” will have a long term impact. The worst case scenario is that a relationship whether at work or personally, can be irreparably harmed.

I recently facilitated a fantastic new training model called “5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team” based on a book by Patrick Lencioni. The first behavior is vulnerability based trust, (i.e. can I admit mistakes, can I ask for help, showing weakness, etc.) and the second behavior is constructive conflict. Patrick describes conflict:

“Therefore, it is key that leaders demonstrate restraint when their people engage in conflict, and allow resolution to occur naturally, as messy as it can sometimes be. This can be a challenge because many leaders feel that they are somehow failing in their jobs by losing control of their teams during conflict.”

Just replace the word parent, partner or friend into that quote for “leader” and child, spouse or coworker for “team”. I realized that I felt like conflict was failing whether it was with my husband, my mother, my assistant or my son. It turns out that stepping into conflict is critical and necessary for all teams, relationships and marriages. Wow. So my avoiding the conflict or not letting the conflict occur between folks at work and at home was actually destructive. That’s a big, “Aha!”

So here are some of the things I’ve been working on in order to step into conflict:

1. Uncomfortable. I’ve been trying to embrace being uncomfortable. I’m the kind of person who goes around smoothing the waters. Human Resource folks do this all the time. Talk to Marketing, talk to Accounting, talk to Production and make it all right. Make sure everyone is happy. This is an illusion. It’s just pacifying everyone and no solution is ever figured out. In recent weeks I’ve tried to pick at the scab and to be uncomfortable. I need to rock the boat. I bring up the financial shortfall or the difference in opinion or talk about the lapse in communication. Step into being uncomfortable.

2. Discord. I’m trying to be accepting of discord. My idea or interpretation is not the only one that matters. I know that sounds obvious but we all have our own world view. I need to allow for a difference of opinion and let it go. It’s easy to get attached to a difference of opinion as if the other person doesn’t respect me or my ideas. Staying detached from the difference and not making up assumptions for the discord is critical. I realized this when I look at my parent’s marriage. My father is a devout conservative Republican and my mother is a bleeding heart Liberal. They will celebrate 60 years of marriage in 2015. That amounts to a lot of discord. From Carter to Bush, there was a lot of passionate debate but they were able to agree to disagree. Accept discord.

3. Ask. Be open to ask for help. As Tal Ben-Shahar espouses in his book, The Pursuit of Perfect, reaching out and being vulnerable enough to ask for help can strengthen your relationship with your team, your family and your boss. The perfectionist in all of us defaults to giving advice instead of asking for it ourselves. Think about it for a minute. When someone asks you for help, aren’t you honored? Doesn’t it strengthen your relationship? There is the fabled story that Ben Franklin asked to borrow a prized book from an arch rival. The arch rival lent it to him. From that point forward he was an ally. How can you keep an enemy of someone you lent a prized book to? It takes vulnerability to ask for help.

4. Empathy. Put on someone else’s shoes to understand where they are coming from. I’ve learned some very powerful tools from my training with CRR Global. One of them is about looking at someone else’s position from the perspective of them living in a different land. I did this recently with a group regarding the utilization of the company cafeteria. We divided the group into three “lands”, one group ate in the cafeteria on a regular basis, the other rarely or never ate in the cafeteria and the last group were the workers in the cafeteria. They each stood in their land and told us what is was like in the land. Then they each visited the other lands to find out what it was like to be from a different perspective. It was completely enlightening. To hear a coworker say that “it must be difficult to try and serve food when the employees are limited on time” or “I just want to escape from work so I go off premise”. Every point was valid and hearing it expressed built empathy for all the participants. Empathy is key.

5. Act. Do something. Sitting back and criticizing behind someone’s back is the coward’s way out. Take a deep breath, face your fears and take a step forward. If you don’t like the new policy, the bonus plan or the joke your co-worker just told; step up and speak up. This is definitely the hardest part for me. Based on several books and articles I have read this probably because women are more comfortable advocating for others than themselves. I’ve done this in baby steps. If I wait until I’m not emotionally charged and speak privately to the offender by saying something like, “You may not realize this but I was offended by what you said”, or “In my opinion this project looks tenuous based on the feedback I’m getting from our clients”; I am capable of acting to affect change Act and be heard.

Facing conflict instead of hiding from it is scary, messy and imperfect. It means that you can’t play it small. Rock the boat before it tips over! In the long run, your relationships and your team will be strengthened by it.

Living (And Cooking) by Feel. 4 Tactics to Learn From Failure.

On June 8, 2014June 8, 2014 By Cathy NoiceIn Workplace NavigatorLeave a comment

I’m a cook. I’m a great cook. It’s taken years of practice to be great cook. I began my cooking career by making Hamburger Helper at about the age of 12 or so. My Mother wanted a night off and relinquished her kitchen to my novice hands. I can remember running back and forth into the living room and asking “how do I know when the meat is brown” or “what is sauteing” or “what number do I put the burner on the stove to if it’s medium-high”. My Mother was exasperated. It reached the point of my Mother saying, “I’ll just do it myself” but I prevailed. Who knew that making a meal from Hamburger Helper could be so full of questions? I’m sure my Mother could have made it with her eyes closed but I had to begin the Inquisition to make sure I did it correctly. It’s amazing how when you are new at something, it all seems so unfamiliar and foreign; like rooting around in the dark trying to find the light switch. Logic doesn’t always prevail.

Flash forward 8 years and now I’m at the Cornell Hotel School and working in an institutional kitchen. I can’t remember the name of the course but we (the students) prepared food for the Rathskeller restaurant located in the hotel school. I was in charge of making a carrot cake. I burned the edges of the cake. I figured it was salvageable and then trimmed about 30% of the cake to get rid of the edges. I then inadvertently spilled some milk on the cake. I shrugged and just continued to trim and covered up all the remaining madness with icing. I took it out to the line to serve only to have the famed Professor Vance Christian take a piece. I cringed, sweated profusely and hid in the back of the kitchen. He hunted me down some 20 minutes later as I cowered in the back to compliment me on the cake. “It was so moist”. Hmmm, my hodgepodge had worked out. This was a long way from Hamburger Helper, I was flying by the seat of my pants and it actually worked out!

Sometimes I think we think that perfection equals mastery. What it really comes down to is having enough experience to be able to let go and riff. And maybe it’s not experience as much as confidence to know you can create something delicious out of failure.

So how to you let go of perfectionism and just go by feel? Here are some ideas:

1. Ask for help. We spend so much time acting like we know everything. It’s OK not to know everything, especially when you are new at something, like Hamburger Helper…or playing the clarinet…or being a boss. Ask your Mom, your best friend or a mentor for help. You can’t let go and go by feel if you haven’t learned the basics first. I didn’t come out of the hotel school knowing how to manage, I had to ask for help from coworkers, other managers, friends and my boss. Ask for help.

2. Read the book (slow down). My favorite chef is Alton Brown. He always says to read the recipe like a good book. I have to admit that most flops in the kitchen have come from not reading the recipe like a good book first. Invariably, there is some step I “skimmed” over and now the meat has to marinate overnight…for the dinner party in two hours. Oops. Read the instructions. This is helpful with anything involving upgrades on your computer to a newer version like say “Java”. I click through and don’t realize I have now committed to a new browser along with the upgrade. Slow down and read the book.

3. Experiment. Once you’ve learned the ropes, experiment. If I’m facilitating a new training, or a new recipe, or trying a new coaching model; I try it the first time by the book. Once I’ve got the hang of it? I experiment. Less stock, more salt, more cooling time, more students in the class, less time on the activity. Try it out by the book the first time, but then tweak it the next, and more after that. Now you are starting to go by feel.

4. Let go. Let go of the perfectionism, the technology, the “way we’ve always done it”. I was coaching a client recently who was able to run a personal record in a half marathon. He knew what his pace had to be to finish faster but he bailed on his running app. He “ran by feel”. He realized that “the numbers rob you of the joy”. When you are focused on what the app says your pace is or making sure you follow the recipe by the letter, you lose a little bit (or a lot) of the joy in the process. Let go.

As I write this, I’m trying to make homemade gnocchi for the first time. I have to say I read many recipes before trying this particular recipe out. I read them like good books. I’m following this to the letter, but if it turns out great, next time there will definitely be some revisions, I’ll let go and cook by feel.