Communications Archives - Page 2 of 6

How to have a tough conversation with that jerk at work

January 21, 2015 by Tom Leave a Comment

This morning I was working with a client. The discussion was about “How do I handle a conversation with a difficult customer?”

Have you ever had that problem?

What does it feel like knowing that you need to talk about it, and you can’t?
What would it feel like to have that conversation over with?
What would it feel like to have the other person not mad at you at the end of the discussion?
What would it be like at work to partner with them rather than be at odds with them?

This morning’s coaching call reminded me that this is a common issue and one that you may be facing, too.
I know I’ve had tough conversations with customers, partners, team members and bosses. Sometimes I’ve handled it well.
Other times not so much.

I Really Blew it

I remember a time that I had Jay (a team member) tell me he had made no progress on the work I had assigned him because Alan (MY boss) had told him to work on something else. Of course, Alan still expected me to get results on the stuff that I had originally assigned to Jay.

The more I thought about it, the madder I got. Who did Alan think he was to undermine my authority? Alan and I had previously talked about the fact that I needed Jay to work on this, and we both knew that Jay really didn’t want to do it. When Alan approached Jay, it was a clear signal that Jay didn’t need to worry about that crummy project that Tom had assigned.

anger-18658_1920_pixabay_public_domain — The more I thought about it, the more I think I had the same look on my face, as she does on hers. I was MAD!

How could he do that? (Alan owned the company, and was used to doing what he wanted, that’s how!)

I was frustrated, embarrassed, and I felt completely disrespected. Jay was a new addition to my team (he had previously reported directly to Alan, and did not appreciate the change.) Jay didn’t want to work for me, he didn’t want the project I assigned to him, and now Alan was telling him to ignore me and focus on the stuff that Alan wanted.

I got on the phone and challenged Alan’s having undermined my authority. We shot barbs back and forth a few times, and eventually I was shouting at Alan. The call ended quickly.

Let’s go over a quick list of what I did wrong:

I was not “calm and centered.” I was MAD!
I did not “slow down and listen” – I was focused on telling Alan exactly how wrong he was and how mad I was.
I didn’t ”acknowledge his perspective. In fact I didn’t care about his point of view.

Here’s a great Harvard Business Review article on this topic. I thought you might appreciate it.

For what it’s worth, in my conversation with Alan, I think I broke every rule listed in the article.

If you’d like help preparing for a difficult conversation, I can help. (I’ve learned a thing or two since I worked for Alan, thankfully!)
Give me a call!

Charlotte Hiring Managers – Your Best Tech Folks Are Going To Quit, Unless….

October 16, 2014 by Tom Leave a Comment

I was at a meeting this week with a group of tech leaders. One of them said

“There’s so much competition for tech talent – and they know it! We have a terrible time finding and keeping the people we need. If they are unhappy they can leave any time and find another company to work for.”

I’ve only been in the Charlotte area for about a year, but that “felt” right to me.After living in DC for the last 20 years – where there are lots of tech jobs and lots of recruiters, I’ve been shocked by how many MORE staffing firms exist here and the seemingly huge number of sales reps who work for them. Charlotte seems to be in a big growth cycle, particularly for IT folks.

Coming from a tech background myself, I wanted to take a look at some objective measurements. I was blown away by what I found.

Much thanks goes to Paul Hendershot who heads up the research department of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce for compiling this data and helping me understand it.

Based on data from EMSI, covering the Charlotte area, for the period Jan 2013-present:

Job Postings Outstrip Actual Hires

Charlotte is 63% above the national average in job postings.
This means that Charlotte hiring companies are looking to fill almost twice as many jobs in our market as in the national average.

Demand is high! This shows that there’s a lot of need for developers, systems analysts, DBAs, network architects and 10 other specific jobs doing IT work.

On average employers post between 3,000 and 4,000 job openings per month.

On average employers actually fill about 1,100 jobs per month.

What about new college grads?

The 22 local college level training programs that equip people for these jobs graduated only 762 people last year!This means that annual demand is somewhere around 30,000 jobs, and supply is about 13,200!

Hiring managers: this means that:

Unless you’ve got something great to offer you will have a terrible time finding people, and when you do, you had better make them happy.

You’re wasting your compensation dollars!

When supply is low and demand is high, econ 101 tells us that the price goes up – way up.
The natural tendency is to offer

higher base pay and bonuses –
signing bonuses,
retention bonuses,
performance bonuses – whatever it takes to get people to stay.

Of course, you do need to pay fairly. Your pay needs to be close to the going rate – at least average in the market because people are not stupid – and they will find the fair market price for their skills – but you SHOULD NOT have to over pay.

Here’s why paying huge wads of cash will fail.

Money does not intrinsically motivate knowledge workers.

Charlotte is one of the lowest cost of living economies in the nation. Once people’s basic needs are met, money will not keep them. Because the cost of living is less here than it is in Nashville, Austin, Atlanta, even Charleston SC! (source: Numbeo.com) people need less to meet their basic needs. That means that much of the incentive cash you’re giving them won’t help you if they hate their boss!Many times, they will even choose to work for less money!

When I was a hiring manager working for a large company who underpaid tech workers – I was able to build a high-skill team of Java developers. I recruited some really smart people – and I even got a few to agree to substantial pay cuts in the process. They wanted something other than money. My team had what they wanted.But my experience is not data, right?

Don’t believe me? You don’t have to!

Check out Dan Pink’s book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Using a data-driven approach, Pink found that knowledge workers are not coin operated.

They are instead fundamentally driven by three things: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. They are not fundamentally driven by larger paychecks, free food and a game room at the office. They are not driven by crushing workloads and inadequate project resources, either!

People join an organization, but they quit their boss.

If the work environment is toxic, people will leave, especially in Charlotte NC where the market is hot right now!

You are probably setting your teams up for failure
Most organizations reward employees for delivery – successful project completion or for technical skills alone.

The best salesman becomes the sales manager.
The best accountant becomes the accounting manager.
The best developer becomes the development manager.
The best DBA becomes the manager of the DBAs.

The problem is that this won’t let you create a great work environment.Leading people is different from technical skills. When you promote a person (or your overall system has consistently promoted people to positions of power) based on technical skill not leadership skills you are setting yourself up for failure!

“High potentials don’t just become leaders. There’s some knowledge that you’ve got to give them to be able to become good leaders and good managers” – Dr. Peter Bamberger, Tel Aviv University Business School

What are you doing today to set your teams up for success?

It is possible to create an environment where you’ve got technical leaders who promote a great culture.But it won’t happen automatically. In fact, unless you are quite intentional about it, it won’t happen at all!

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

If you have promoted based on technical skills, your managers are largely unprepared to build high performing teams. If your HR systems use the knee-jerk “let’s pay them more” approach, you’re not going to win, either!

Do you want to be the place that people are excited to “get” to work?
Do you want to build a company where technical people won’t even consider leaving?

You need to set up a system that creates great bosses.

It’s possible, and it’s a lot cheaper than you might think!

Remember – people join organizations, but they quit their boss.

But If It’s Not Money, What Do They Really Want?

You need to think about how to organize work in ways that speak to the needs of the technical team members.Your team members need Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

Autonomy

Bank of America’s cancellation of the MyWork (work from home) program is an example of what not to do. One team I know is made up entirely of team members who live in different cities. They have collaborated from their homes using email, phone and IM. Now because the program has been cancelled they all have to go in to a BoA office to collaborate over email, phone and IM. This will NOT be helping their productivity or engagement at work.Team members need to have the freedom to create the results – and the freedom to do it the way they want to do it.

Do they work best in pair programming? Make it happen.
Do they have a tough commute or family needs that make getting to the office at exactly 9:00 a problem? Let them have a flexible schedule.
Is there some time consuming bureacratic system that made sense in the past but now just gets in the way of progress? Now is a great time to let them come up with a better system!

Mastery

Your geeks feel a sense of accomplishment when they are experts in their craft.The good news here is that you’re likely already doing things that encourage people to be masters of their craft. Encourage them to be great at the geek work, and also let them know that they need to grow in their understanding of business and in working with people.

Purpose

Most organizations really struggle with this one. Team members need to understand how their work contributes to the higher purpose of the organization – and potentially to the greater good of the world around you.Do they know that today? Do you? Making some time to think about how to align their work with the mission of the organization, and deliver value that matters will really engage them in the work.

You need a plan to get there

It turns out that people can learn to be leaders.

“If you take an engineer and you want to turn him into a leader in an organization you can’t just assume that you promote them and they will learn over time how to become a leader. Some of them will. The vast majority won’t.” –Dr. Peter Bamberger, Tel Aviv University Business School

But – they WON’T learn unless you have a plan, and you help them take the right steps.
You need a plan to grow the leadership skills of the people in leadership positions and the people who want to someday be in those leadership positions.

I can help your current tech leaders and team members learn the critical skills that they need to

Manage Conflict,
Improve Communications,
Delegate work, and
Plan well.

Give me a call. We can put a great plan together that fits your budget and your schedule.

Your folks may already be looking for opportunities elsewhere, and as I noted above – in this market opportunities are abundant! 240-668-4799

What If I’m Not In Charlotte?

Your market or tech talent may not be as competitive as Charlotte, but your tech folks have options – and you’ll get more done, more profitably if you can get them engaged in success.

Let’s not let geography get in the way. I serve clients outside the Charlotte market regularly. I’d be happy to talk about really effective options that we can create together to help your team. Let’s get started – call me! 240-668-4799

Who is John C Maxwell, and Why Should I Care?

October 7, 2014 by Tom Leave a Comment

Many times when I tell people I am partnered with John C. Maxwell they say “Interesting. Who is John Maxwell?”

I smile because I remember when I didn’t know who he was.

It was more than 15 years ago when I was first introduced to John.

I was a geek working on technical projects. I had studied my technical discipline (software development) and that had served me well. I had moved up in position through the early part of my career and wanted to learn how to “make the jump” to be more effective. A friend introduced me to John’s book Developing the Leader Within You.

What is Leadership?

In this interview, I answer that question and I talk about three key questions that your team members are dying for you to answer. I also talk about how people who are “just an employee” can improve their influence with others.

Who is John?

John C. Maxwell is the foremost leadership thinker, the most influential leadership speaker in the world. It’s not just my opinion. Ask Inc Magazine. Ask GlobalGurus and any number of other sites. John tops the list year after year as the most influential leadership thinker, trainer and speaker in the world.

He is the author over 70 + books (new one this Wednesday), sold over 24 million books including 2 million copies of “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, that he is by far and away the #1 Leadership Guru in the world (Inc. Magazine and other sources), has been doing it for four decades….

Take a look at the bookshelf from a local Barnes and Noble bookstore.

John’s books start at the end of the top shelf, fill the entire 2nd and continue onto the third. Over 1/15th of the business shelves.

BTW, this picture is less than half of the books he has written, but who is counting?

John has sold more books on leadership than anyone else. Three of his books have sold over a million copies, and he is in the Amazon.com hall of fame as of the top selling authors in history.

So what? Why should I care about John Maxwell?

That is an excellent question. Who cares about leadership? I didn’t think about leadership at all. I thought about:

How my technical skills were amazing, and people should see them, and I should be rewarded for my brilliance, and
How annoying it was that the “real work” was idiotically interrupted for “politics” and “games”

What I learned was that my thinking limited my growth and advancement! I was so focused on technical competence that I overlooked the power of relationships and influence.

Learning from John helped me reframe my thinking and allowed me to achieve so much more!

I grew in my ability to lead myself

I got better at making and keeping commitments.
I became a better communicator
I learned how to DWISIWD – do what I said I would do – because people are watching me all the time to see if my actions match my words – in big and in small things!
I learned how to plan more effectively
I discovered tools to help me get help from others

I grew in my ability to lead others

I learned how to get others to want to help me
I learned how to equip others so that they could perform well
I learned how to grow my team’s effectiveness
Our projects got healthier
Our portfolio of projects got larger
I learned how to build a high performing team from a group of smart individuals
Our team got bigger

I became a leader of leaders

I learned how to help people grow from team member to team leader
I learned how to help people learn to equip others
I learned how to help the entire organization excel by growing leadership skills across technical disciplines

Tom is John’s Partner in the John Maxwell Team

When I learned that I could get to know John, work with his team, and become one of an elite set of leadership speakers, trainers, and coaches; it was an easy choice. John had added so much to me over the years that it was clear how much more I could gain.

So let me ask you: What do you want?

Do you want to communicate more clearly?
Do you want to work more smoothly with team members and customers?
Do you want to get great work from your team (even if they don’t report to you?)
Do you want to get more of the most important work done?
Do you want these things for your team members?

How Can You Get These Results?

You probably don’t have the budget to work directly with John. It’s true. John works with very few organizations these days, and as the worlds #1 leadership guru, he charges a fortune for his time.

You CAN work with me! I help highly technical experts communicate clearly, manage conflict productively, delegate effectively and plan well.

I can bring the best leadership thinking and practical action to you and your teams, and together we can grow your leadership skills and the leadership skills of people around you.

GIVE ME A CALL!

You can reach me at 240-668-4799 or via email at Tom@BrightHillGroup.com

Let’s get started on YOUR leadership journey!

240-668-4799