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Author: Melissa Davies

Categories
Effective Communication

Has Spring Really Sprung?

As my Scottish-Canadian Granny used to say to me “Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the birdies is!”  The calendar indicates that it arrived ten days ago but from where I’m sitting right now in northern Virginia, it is cold, damp, foggy, and miserable looking out there.  Yet I am still filled with the dream of a warm day on the horizon, arriving soon I hope!

Given the grayness of the view from my window, I wonder how this weather impacts our communication with each other.  Consider those around you – do you notice a general change in the tone of those you come in contact with?  More importantly from my perspective, if and when you see a change, what do you do about it?  Do you rise above the mire and muck or do you drop right down into it with them.

Individually, are you able to move past this and be upbeat with your colleagues, friends and family?  Or does it pull you into a daylong funk that you find difficulty emerging from, snapping at people as they enter your space?

It can be difficult to be that solitary light of peace when the storms are roiling around you.  At the same time, isn’t it worth it?

I look forward to hearing your perspectives on these questions; in the meantime, I’m going in search of some hot tea and a good book to curl up with….maybe I should find a travel magazine instead!

Categories
Leadership Development Leadership Training

Leadership Development and Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins

In 1925, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wrote the Seven Social Sins, sometimes called the Seven Blunders of the World. He published it in his weekly newspaper, later giving the handwritten list to his grandson, shortly before his assassination. His social sins consisted of a list that can be applied in today’s world when implementing leadership development and training for teams and organizations.

Gandhi’s belief was that without awareness and purposeful resistance to these pitfalls, these sins could damage both individuals and countries. In this day and age, it is important to see that several of these principles can be applied as cautionary tales to businesses and organizations as well.

In order for organizations and teams to function with a high level of productivity while maintaining a valued work environment for employees, managers, and teams, there must be:

Strong work ethics and standards
Individual and organizational integrity
Characteristics of virtue
A well-defined company culture
Attention to cultural diversity
An eye toward the greater good within the organization
Company values

These principles, as they relate back to Gandhi’s original social sins, can help shape a productive organization. When conquering and defining these ideas through strong leadership and training, organizations can be set on a path toward their highest productivity and success.

Organizations that emphasize attention to these ideals and train to cultivate the right tools and team development create a win-win for those participating in the workplace.

Categories
Corporate Teams Training and Productivity Tips Training Programs

Corporate Team Building and Training

We’re Doing What? This Isn’t My Idea of Team Building!

If you need to take a mental health break and want to have a few laughs, do an online search for team building gone wrong. You’ll find a selection of videos that for some are funny, and for others, bring back bad memories of their own failed team-building events. Here’s one to start you off.

Poor video Steve. He almost suffered head trauma. He obviously was a good sport for posting the video. However, he will now be remembered as the guy who took a gainer off the girl’s pink bike – not the man who sold the most widgets, an engineer who solved a pressing design flaw, or the executive with innovative ideas. We don’t know what this man does, but you get the point.

This month, I want to talk about team building and corporate training programs.

A company-sponsored team-building event can be a useful tool to bring diverse groups of people together or specific people, like new hires, or teams recently re-organized under new managers.

Studies have shown that workers are often more productive away from the office and can benefit from speaking to and working across, departments on shared projects and goals. The benefits can also apply to people working in service or manufacturing industries. When you change the venue, you can change the message.

However, one organizer’s idea of team building does not fit all. Trust exercises, puzzles, sports competitions, public performances, etc. are exciting to a lot of people. Hey, I can juggle and love jumping out of trees – let’s do it! But for others, whether due to physical limitations or intense loathing of an idea, these competitive team events are stressful – like “going to the doctor” stressful. Why would you do that to someone? Messages such as, try something new and get out of your comfort zone to spur creative team results, don’t work. It brings us all back to gym class where you were either picked first or last or hiding in the locker room so you didn’t have to participate at all.

Companies can run effective offsite programs that include social events and sports if it’s appropriate for your group. However, ask a department of working parents to spend a night away from their family and you inadvertently start an avalanche of turmoil as parents have to find overnight daycare and reschedule more than just their own lives.

If you decide to have a fun wine-tasting or cocktail-mixing event, you may be stressing people who don’t drink for medical, addiction or religious reasons.

My point – the purpose of team building is to build teams, not destroy people or force them into embarrassing situations, or call attention to personal attributes.

Training – The Flip Side

Let’s talk about how you can improve your teams and their performance through training.

Gone are the days when one person did one job. Employees are expected to be masters of multiple technologies and processes wrapped in company values and shared goals. One of the best ways to achieve these high-performing experts is through continued training, either formal classroom work, offsite workshops, or online programs.

Employees want job training and expect it as part of the job benefits. Training programs also build loyalty and shared skills. Training can be designed for the teleworker or the worker on the line. It can – and should – be customized to your company and the goals of your workforce.

And yes, you can combine training with corporate team-building exercises. Just keep your employees’ feet on the ground and not swinging from the trees.

I’ve included interesting resources and ideas to help you think through retreat and training exercises, along with a few laughs.

Contact me with your leadership and team questions. I’d be happy to build an offsite learning or training program for you.

Categories
Leadership Development Leadership Skills Leadership Training

Leading Teams Through Change

For most people change is uncomfortable. Yet successful organizations are frequently changing and adapting to elements that affect and enhance their productivity and help them achieve their goals.

For those tasked with leading a team and helping others to facilitate change, this may mean employing a variety of emotional leadership skills that we discussed in recent postings here. As a change leader it is important to understand that individuals react, respond and transition through change differently.

According to the Personal Transition Curve, developed by John Fisher, a leading contributor to change management theories, there are 11 different degrees of reaction and phases an individual may pass through as they are coping with change: Anxiety, happiness, fear, threat, guilt, depression, denial, disillusionment, hostility, gradual acceptance, and moving forward.

It is important to provide support, training, mentoring, and coaching to successfully see individuals and teams through change. Change is a process that affects several aspects including organizational restructuring as well as dealing with attitudes and behaviors.

Leadership and change expert Dr. John Kotter devised his 8-step process for leading change.

Essentially the steps involved are:

Establishing a sense of urgency
It is important for the company’s management to be convinced there is a need for change. Without establishing a need for change things will remain at the status quo.

Creating a leadership team
This is a core group within the organization that can lead change and lend their authority to the activity of change. In essence, they then become the guiding team who will support and direct the path toward the new reality.

Developing a shared vision
A clear cohesive vision that is easily communicated is essential to help develop a strategy to address changes.

Communicating the vision and strategy
The guiding team can employ transformation by clearly communicating the goals and vision through seminars, presentations, and other ways to target the message and facilitate change.

Encouraging action
Obstacles will always arise as each individual is dealing with their various reactions to change. It is important to encourage risk taking. If key individuals within the organization are blocking the change, it is important to identify this and take action. By dealing with obstacles swiftly and fairly there is less chance of undermining the operation.

Creating short-term wins
It is important to set achievable goals that will move the process of change forward. Break the vision and path into manageable hurdles that will facilitate activity and movement toward the greater goal. A short-term win will allow people to earn recognition and rewards on the path toward greater change.

Building the Momentum
Be persistent in moving toward the overall goals of the change. Do not accept short-term wins as final change. Understand that implementing change takes time. It is not something that happens overnight and it is important to make sure that backsliding into old habits do not take place. Continue moving forward and do not declare victory prematurely.

Lasting Change
A successful change is one that is anchored into the corporate culture. As team members associate change with their own contributions, they will see it as part of the organization that they help build. Hence they will view themselves as being a part of the change and not just enacting that change as directed by their upper management and leadership.

By understanding the reactions individuals have toward change, and systematically leading them through a process of change, strong leaders can employ different emotional leadership skills and successfully facilitate change within their organization.

Categories
Effective Communication Leadership Development Leadership Skills

Effective Communication Starts with a Feeling

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
-Maya Angelou

If you have ever heard award-winning author and poet Maya Angelou speak, you understand immediately you are in the presence of a master communicator.

Angelou transcends normal communication to elicit a feeling. Reading her words on paper can be an uplifting or memorable experience, but seeing the genuine intensity and intelligence in her facial expressions as her voice bathes you in words is an experience that reaches further than understanding on a mental level. She takes you to a place of greater empathy and connection. She takes you for a walk in her own shoes and helps you feel what she feels.

Communication was never meant to be an endless monologue of directions as often happens in today’s workplace. By taking a page from Angelou’s skillful ability to convey a message, one can achieve effective communication in the workplace far beyond that of typical office interactions.

Inter-Office Communication Can Make or Break the Spirit of a Company
Communicating effectively in the workplace hinges upon the ability to convey a common goal and empower feelings of cohesion in teams within an organization.

The communication needs of an organization goes beyond the transmission of rote messages; they must include the ability to generate and develop an internal feeling shared by a work team. When this happens, remarkable results can be achieved in the overall unity of an organization and its productivity.

Within the entire workplace spectrum, integrative-independent communication skills are ever-present. Colleagues bicker about the same topic only to find that they are really saying the same disconnected thing from a different perspective. Others complain and argue to the point where they refuse to work with each other. Even further on the spectrum, others opt to remain silent and watch the system as it slowly breaks down into a disordered state.

Today’s workplace is incredibly diverse – at the very least ethnically, generationally, and spiritually. The ability to successfully exchange relevant information becomes even more vital in this diversity. Team members who communicate in an integrative manner look each other in the eyes and speak to the heart of the matter. They have learned strategies that allow them to observe the issue from a seamless framework without any animosity.

As Angelou conveys so succinctly: People will always remember how you make them feel. By using effective communication to bring positive and productive feelings to the workplace, companies benefit immensely. This is why it is so important to train team members to use interpersonal and integrative communication skills to achieve organizational success.

Categories
Effective Communication Personal Development Professional Development

When the Cherry Blossoms Don’t Bloom

March in Northern Virginia and Washington, DC, kicks off the region’s “Everyone’s Coming to Town” season. Beginning with the Cherry Blossom Festival than on to the spring break pilgrimage, moving right into the summer tourists! Great to have everyone here putting money into the economy but who isn’t glad to have the roads back in September!

Think of all the planning that goes into the festival, the parade, and the trips. All those plane, train, and car rides, vacation days, packing, and rest stops! It’s as if spring fever is a planning virus.

Yet at times, life doesn’t go according to plan. You put in to attend a conference only to learn your co-worker has been chosen to go instead. Your car needs a repair – there goes your vacation fund. A new project hits your team and you are staring at it late at night. You didn’t get the raise/promotion/(insert your work reward of choice) that you were counting on. Your entire family comes in for the Cherry Blossom Festival and once again the trees aren’t blooming. Heck, at this year’s rate, they’ll be done by the end of March!

But the celebration goes on.

Here are some strategies for success in the workplace, even when life doesn’t go according to plan.

To be fair, there are life events that are hard to dust yourself off from, such as a significant illness, the death of a loved one, or a crushing personal crisis like a divorce or bankruptcy. Life-altering events need care and nurturing.

But when you feel off kilter because your request to travel to a conference was denied or you are chastised by your boss for being late again because traffic patterns continue to change, it’s time to evaluate and push through.

Take responsibility for your actions.

Each job disappointment is unique but when you are denied a request, overlooked for an accolade, or taken to task for a behavior, ask yourself, “Did I somehow contribute to this outcome?”

It’s hard to take responsibility when you are angry at a situation or a person. Why was your request denied? Is it a budget issue, a poor time for you to be away from the office, or a project? Did you fail to check the most recent travel reports and once again underestimated your commute? Did a co-worker do a better job?

By owning your mistakes, you can learn from them, work harder and make changes.

Stop expecting rewards when you don’t deserve them.

If you are denied earned vacation time, overlooked for a promotion after consistently high evaluations, or are not being paid for legitimate paid overtime, you have an HR problem that needs to be officially resolved.

But if you are denied vacation and you’ve only been on the job for three months, you have unrealistic expectations. If you feel you should have received a promotion over a co-worker, take some time to investigate his or her qualifications and ask your manager what you can do better. If you still feel you should have received the job, it may be time to look for a new job. That may be its own reward.

Give yourself a break.

It’s ok to admit you’re not perfect. No one is perfect. We all have days and even months when bad goes to worse. Recognize that life and work run in cycles.

Winter runs into spring and no matter how much we plan for the cherry blossoms, they don’t bloom when expected. But they do eventually bloom. Just plan for the traffic when they do.

When the Cherry Blossoms Don’t Bloom

Categories
Leadership Development

Integrity: How to Practice Courageous Behavior

Let’s talk about integrity. This wasn’t the topic I started to write about this month, but considering all that has transpired, it seemed timely and more than relevant.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve watched various people in many careers stepping down or undergoing an ethics review. It even has a name, “the Weinstein Effect,” after the disgraced Hollywood media mogul, Harvey Weinstein – just in case you’re that one person in a million who missed it.

Bad behavior, and in many of these case cases, illegal sexual harassment and assault, whether it happened thirty years ago or thirty minutes ago, is a crime. A crime in the sense of you go to jail and face punitive damages. A crime in that it robs another person, in most cases, a young woman, of their dignity, a sense of self, and self-respect.

People who use their power or perceived power to prey on others lack integrity. Merriam-Webster defines integrity as “a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; incorruptibility.”

From my work with teams and managers/leaders within the Beltway and across this country, integrity is one of the first qualities people say they want in their leaders, colleagues, and organizations. Everyone says that they have it. (Do you know anyone who will say, “Nah, I don’t have any integrity”?)

If the reprehensible behavior of politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, and anyone in a position of power isn’t enough to make you angry, let’s look at the financial costs.

According to the Office of Compliance, Congress has paid out more than $17 million to victims from 1997 – 2017. These are our tax dollars. Is this how we want them to be used? To clean up after an elected official who couldn’t understand what it meant to treat a person with respect and dignity? I don’t know about you but it’s a hard NO for me.

How do we demonstrate integrity?

  • Behave honestly and ethically
    • Recognize that you are a model for those around you
    • Talk about what it means to behave ethically
    • Challenge systems and people that encourage dishonesty
    • Provide facts, cite data-driven websites and resources
  • Maintain high standards of ethical behavior
    • Discuss ethical concerns at work and in your personal life
    • Be honest and fair with your feedback to people
    • Be consistent in your behavior
    • Do what you say you will
  • Practice courageous behavior
    • Speak out against racist, sexist, and other abusive comments and behavior
    • Be willing to take risks and stand up for what you believe in
    • Show empathy and communicate from a position of respect for all
    • Stand up for what is right, and don’t allow others to be thrown under the proverbial bus when you know it’s wrong

I don’t know how we got this far away from coming from a position of integrity – but I will actively work towards moving back to it.

Will you join me?

This article first appeared in Prince William Living Magazine

Categories
Diversity Training

Diversity in the USA is a Thing of Beauty

This July, let us celebrate our collective interdependence and embrace what we all bring to the 4th of July picnic table.

Everyone is American on the 4th – just like everyone is Irish on St. Paddy’s Day. People celebrate the oneness of being citizens of this country – a diverse nation where people are embraced and welcomed.

Progressive Workplace Culture

Now let’s put it into the context of our workplaces. Northern Virginia has one of the most diverse work environments in the nation. People find themselves mixing with folks who they may not choose to if it was outside the workday. For the most part, none of us choose our co-workers or bosses. We join a company and then work toward a common mission, serving clients or customers who also come from all different walks of life.

Over the last several months, there have been a series of videos surfacing online, showing individual Americans speaking to other Americans through the veil of hate. “Go back where you came from!” “Stop stealing our jobs.” “Learn to speak English, that’s what we do here!”

I don’t know about you but for me, it’s beyond horrific to see these incidents. For these individuals who are on the receiving end of this vitriol, decent, hardworking folks who are struggling to learn another language, understand the culture and idiosyncrasies of living within a new country, and establishing new roots all at the same time as missing their family and friends from their previous home, it must be terrifying and humiliating. Just learning a new language alone is a daunting task, never mind navigating life in Northern Virginia!

As these images stream across our social media feeds and through the daily news, we become numb, desensitized, and step back into our safe zones.

At work, we watch our colleagues get thrown under the proverbial bus by a member of our team or a supervisor or we hear them being put through the wringer by the team gossip. Yet do we say anything?

We become the video watching bystanders who sit back and watch and never say a word.

No one is suggesting that anyone put himself or herself in harm’s way by intervening in a threatening situation. That is when you call the police. However, standing up for another’s rights or even the rights of someone to be an “other” is part of the American experience.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “In the end, what will hurt the most is not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

This article was first published in Prince William Living Magazine

Categories
Business Skills Training Leadership Development Leadership Skills Leadership Training Professional Development Wise Ways Consulting

A Review of Performance Reviews

To paraphrase a well-known Biblical verse, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven….” And to every employer and employee there is a time for an annual performance review.

If you think my pulling in the Bible is a bit heavy handed, it’s not. To many, this annual ritual is fraught with the same emotional up swells, wrath, judgement, and indignation as any powerful religious parable. And like the reading of any religious text (the Bible isn’t exclusive to this metaphor) it is followed with faith, awe, and confusion.

The Annual Performance Review As A Tool

The human resources community has been examining the role of the annual performance review as a tool for, well…employee performance. The results shouldn’t surprise anyone who has given or received an evaluation. It can be a miserable experience that people on both side of the desk feel is a waste of time. Many companies have done away with the formal review, opting instead for real-time evaluations. However, that isn’t yet the norm. There still needs to be a formal vehicle for tracking how employees are, or are not doing their jobs, as well as disciplinary actions, and accolades that lead to promotions.

Global advising firm, Willis Towers Watson in a 2016 study on employee evaluations, formally referred to in the report as employee value proposition (EVP), revealed some interesting results.

Employees want employers to connect with them the same way they connect and value their customers. Employees who are unhappy with performance reviews cite that their managers lack the skills or the time to make it effective. Only 51% of employers say that performance management is effective at creating a positive employee experience.

Employees who do find reviews helpful are often the most engaged employees. This means their managers have done an effective job in placing their role within the overall organization, provided positive coaching and feedback, and attended to employees’ concerns for security, pay equity, and a clear career path.  You can find the complete study here and it’s a worthwhile read: https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en/insights/2016/09/employers-look-to-modernize-the-employee-value-proposition

But here’s the spoiler alert. Effective employee reviews come down to effective communication skills. The same hold true on the other side of the desk. Employees need to listen and ask the right questions to elicit the most helpful feedback.

Anyone who has worked with Wise Ways Consulting has hopefully walked away with an appreciation for the power of communication in the workplace and a belief that there is always room for improvement.

Categories
Leadership Training Personal Development Professional Development Wise Ways Consulting

The Value of Getting Out of Town

In an earlier post, I advised readers to plan for their summer vacations.  There is a tremendous value both physical and mental for taking time off.

Now that summer is here, and I hope you have scheduled your time off, I want to push you out of the Northern Virginia nest. It’s easy to want to plan a “stay-cation.” Northern Virginia has many regional treasures and monuments, historic battlefields, great nature trails, and fabulous panoramic views of the Potomac.

However, getting away from work should mean getting away from the stressors of life in this region!

Every day we deal with it – the constant political and economic chatter. We get it from the person sitting next to us at work, on the news, at the PX, at our kids’ soccer games even!  “Is the government going to shut down?”  “I’m a contractor.  Is my employer going to win that recompete?”  Some work on the Hill – that comes with its own set of headaches!

Because of where we live, we hear more and know more than we probably want to! As Dr. Seuss’ Grinch says, “all of the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!”

Many advocate the value of a ‘stay-cation’.  It’s easy and cost-effective. But this year, if you are able, get out of town and away from the chatter.

The Benefits Of Vacation And Travel

According to a 2016 report from Project: Time Off, an initiative of the U.S. Travel Association, estimates that an incredible 659 million vacation days went unused in 2015.  That’s 1.8 million years. I won’t even begin to calculate the salaries.

  • Travel keeps you healthier. Another study showed that women who vacation at least twice a year have a much lower risk of having a heart attack as compared to those who only travel every six years or so. For men who don’t take a vacation, the study showed a 20 percent higher risk of death and a 30 percent greater risk of heart disease.
  • Vacation helps with your mood. When vacationing at least twice a year, women are less likely to suffer from depression and chronic stress than those who take time away less than once every two years.
  • Escaping town helps with our relationships. Spending time away from this area will allow us to have time away from work, the smart phone, and the work-obsession environment that we inhabit.  It’ll give us time to truly reconnect with those closest to us.
  • Dedicating time to a vacation helps improve our self-esteem. By putting our mental health first and committing to our vacation days, it tells us that we are important and worthy of that time away!
  • Vacations boost creativity. New stimuli including faces, places, tastes, smells, experiences, can help bring about new creative ideas!  Being able to develop new avenues to tap into your creativity can help as you work through challenges back at the office or at home.

Leaving the region will help you leave the chatter behind.  Set your email and voice mail to an away message and leave the noise behind.  Save the stay-cation spots for when friends and relatives come into town, for when they are escaping their own chatter-filled regions.

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