Archives 2018

How to Deal with A Boss with Zero Emotional Intelligence

For most of my career emotions were something to be avoided like the plague.

Emotions were acceptable only when a bone was sticking out of you.

The only undeniable truth in life is that we are human and by definition we are emotional.

Our partners, children and even our pets sense our emotion and learn how to respond when we are sick, happy, sad or distracted.

read about sharing information

But what about work?

To work with people with low Emotional Intelligence, you need to learn how to communicate differently.

You might already know that emotional intelligence can influence your job success, but what can you do if your boss comes off as an emotional void?

Don’t panic, the situations more hopeful than you think.

But brace yourself have to have an awkward conversation.

What is EI?

When you say that your boss has low EI, it could mean:

• that she’s unconsciously cruel – think The Devil Wears Prada; or,
• he doesn’t know what their team needs to do their best work – think ‘The only time no is an OK answer is when you if asked if you have had enough.’

If your boss has low EI, they struggle to read your emotions.

They miss the non-verbal communications you are naturally sending them.

Alternatively, someone with high EI will have four skills. They:

• Accurately read their own emotions: they can perceive the emotions with their and the experiences of others.
• Use passion to facilitate thinking: if they need quiet to focus, they put themselves in a calm place
• Understand how emotions progress: they know irritation leads to frustration, which inevitably leads to rage
• Regulate their feelings: they don’t become overwhelmed by their feelings

EI doesn’t equal being good!

EI is not about virtuousness: it’s more about being able to understand your and others’ interior lives and how your actions and environments affect them. To work well with people with low EI, then, you need to accommodate that misapprehension.

 “Emotions are information, people who are low in EI are lacking the ability to take in, understand, or process a critical part of the way that we communicate in the world.

 If they can’t read your emotions, they won’t be getting all the info you’re naturally sending them.

 They’re missing this information, so you have to clarify.”

 –    Professor Sigal Barsade: University of Pennsylvania

So, what do you do?

 Book an appointment with your boss. Then you can follow this framework for sensitive conversations using the 4 F’s:

1. First: When you make the appointment, say that you want to have a conversation that will be valuable to your working relationship
2. Facts: Begin the meeting by retelling what happened for each of you
3. Feelings: Tell the impact that the meeting had on you
4. Future: Help each other figure out what you could do differently and what can be done by everybody to address the situation

Don’t forget to end on a high note: share why it’s such a good thing you two had the conversation.

By facing your bosses low IE with a conversation like this, you can help people to see that information that’s before them.

Read about partnering with your boss

Failing Better … what a load of nonsense.

In my world when something fails – it fails.

And, there is no glory in failing.

I had had jobs that when failing meant someone may have been killed or suffered greatly.

There is no ‘fast or better’ in any of that.

Nor is there honour in finding comfort in a cliché when the people you are responsible for are hurt economically, physically or emotionally.

When a post-mortem is conducted after the failure, and the best you can say is that at least you failed better and fast is like a child receiving a participation medal.

Failures must be analyzed to learn what went wrong so those mistakes can be avoided in the future.

Here is the thing, as the leader your plan should never be allowed to run until it fails.

When implementing any plan, you should consider the military adage: no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

There will be people, circumstances and destiny that will get in the way of your success and you.

You MUST give yourself time and space to take a strategic view of what is happening as your plan progresses.

If your team is large enough, appoint someone to manage the day-to-day operations to allow you to stay at a strategic and keep an eye out for the inevitable pitfalls and trip lines that will get in the way of success.

If you are part of a small team, it is arguably more important to be aware of because it is a challenge to be operational and strategic at the same time.

Whether leading a small or large team here are the three things you can do to avoid becoming a Fail Better case study by:

1. Making sure your boss or an executive champion can help you stay strategic and focused
   

Click here to read more about talking to your boss

2. Maintaining conversations with peers and your team so you hear and understand what they are seeing

Click here to read about talking to your people

3. Taking time every day to consider how things are going and listen to your gut for warning signs that something is wrong. Then validate your feelings with data and evidence.

Imagine

Imagine going to bed one evening.

You cuddle up with your loved one and sleep peacefully.

You get up, pour a coffee and turn on the news.

A reporter advises you that your team has just grown by a factor of 4; your operating budget ballooned by ten times; and, your team is headline news with the world watching your every move.

When I led a large disaster response organization, this was my nightly reality.

It happened with great regularity, and pulling together a team on a moment’s notice and grow the business to respond to the disaster was exhilarating as any rush you could imagine.

Reality

Most business leaders do not face that level of overnight growth, but what CEO doesn’t dream of dealing with rapid business growth.

The energy and excitement when everything you touch seems to turn to gold are way more appealing than saying no, dealing with falling revenues and laying good people off.

Over the past few years, I have worked with many leaders who have grown their organizations several times in size.

To a person, they are energized by the growth. But they were equally frustrated by the disconnect between strategy and operations; stymied by broken lines of communications; and, falling employee morale.

Whether you are navigating a booming startup or a long-established organization, leading through periods of rapid-growth is hard work.

This article will explore those challenges and offer ideas to help you succeed.

What are the challenges?

1 – Speed – When everything is moving so incredibly fast it seems impossible to pause and think. Rapid-growth creates a vortex that sucks up everyone’s time and energy leaving little time to do anything but survive each activity and get to the next.

Speed becomes a stimulant, with people striving to move faster and faster, but testing the team’s limit to execute.

2 – Shortsightedness – The collective view becomes shortsighted. Everything in the immediate foreground is crystal clear and yet things more than a few days or weeks away seems off far off over the horizon.

Forward thinking and strategic planning are almost impossible in this chronically myopic environment.

3. People Processes – In the high-growth environment, people processes break down. Onboarding is fast and furious. The focus becomes on getting bodies in seats.

Leadership development stops being

individual contributors and left to sink or swim as collective contributors.

Managers end up in over their heads feelings.

Consider These 4 Questions to Mitigate the Challenges of Rapid-Growth:

1 – Who’s eyeing the future? Somebody must be accountable for looking beyond the moment and towards the future.

The CEO or Executive Director is responsible for the long-range view and must hold the senior managers accountable through dialogue and clarity of strategic instructions.

2 – Who’s watching the store? It is essential to have someone focus on the business functions (processes, infrastructure, and quality) because rapid-growth can only be successful unless it built on the organization’s existing foundation.

Somebody must be responsible for fighting inertia, push continuous improvement, eliminating bottlenecks and ensure that the organization’s support functions and future investments are done based on future needs.

3 – Who’s looking after talent? In times of rapid growth, there is a tendency to hire and promote fast and sort issues out later. Trust me when I say there is a very high cost of ignoring hiring, and development processes.

Consider distributing this burden to the all your employees by actively involving them in recruiting and onboarding new team members.

4. Who’s building the culture? To be an effective leader, you must understand the power your values are as the reference point to everyone who works with you. 

If you compromise values for expediency, you send a signal to the organization that they are just so many words. Use them in every aspect of organizational culture: from hiring, firing, resolving problems, serving stakeholders and growing the business.

Final Thoughts

There is nothing more exciting than living through a period of rapid growth.

It is like lashing yourself to a bucking bronco and hanging on for dear life.

For leaders, cool heads must prevail on the issues of strategy, talent, operations, and culture or the trashing can break your organization’s back.

A client asked, “What is the one roadblock I will encounter when improving the culture of leadership in my company?

I responded, “You.”

My client is bright, smart and successful, yet she could not break free to the next level in business.

Quite frankly she was her own trip wire.

My client:

– wanted to know what’s going on with every initiative and project
– tried to be personally acquainted with all the customers
– wanted to master of all the technology of the business
– wanted to feel like the hero, because no one can do what she can do

My client is doomed to a life of Sisyphean tasks with little hope of business growth, financial freedom, or the ability to take some time off.

Read more about Sisyphus and leadership

The more of the leader that is necessary to operate the business on a day to day basis, the smaller the business will remain.

Once we identified that my client was getting in her way of reaching their potential, we agreed that she had two choices.

1. Get comfortable with being the “key” employee and never achieve the kind of time and money freedom she wanted; or,

2. Choose to make a permanent adjustment that will transform their company forever.

Since I have been a part of helping leaders transform their leadership experience, I can reveal the three time-tested steps to get out of your way and achieve success.

Look in the mirror – Explain to yourself and your team that you are the limiting factor of the business. By being a micro-manager, technician, loving status quo, wearing too many departmental hats, always the hero, you have been holding back the success of the business, but now it’s time for a change.

Read More About Being Self Aware

Lead – Leadership is void when you are too busy doing the work of the business, but now you must be strong and decisive. To galvanize this strategic shift how you conduct business create strategic objectives that will provide direction to the team.

Read more about  taking action

Enable – Actively engage your team by changing your language from instructive to intentional. For example, tell your team that you intend to achieve an objective and ask for them to provide the how.

Read more about enabling people

The key in all three of these steps is in realizing that you must take action because no one else in your company will do it for you. For the few, the brave, those who pursue excellence and not status quo, now is the perfect time for a change.

Great leadership always comes from looking down on your business honestly.

What type of leader are you?

When I speak to various groups, I use my military and emergency management experience to teach leadership and project management lessons.

Recently I was asked if there was a difference between leading projects in a military and a civilian setting.

Yes, there are times in the military when project management is intense, and timings are compressed, but at its core, the principals are the same.

When I entered the military, I had no idea that that the training I received and the rules developed for infantry tactics were invaluable in leading project teams.

 Here is my top ten:

1. Plan. To survive combat, the infantry leader must think beyond the immediate situation and assess possible outcomes. The project manager should define how objectives will be met regarding scope, requirements, schedule, resources, risks, cost, quality and performance.

2. Study your Intel. In combat, knowing the situation on the ground is key to effectively adjusting your position. In project management, team composition, costs, weather and projects requirements will, most likely, change before completion, so stay ahead of it.

3. Check your kit. The tradition of the sergeant doing a weapons check is mirrored by the project manager’s check on available resources. Are the resource management & procurement management plans consistent with the project plan?

4. Check your communications. An infantry leader has a range of communication tool to stay in touch with those directing the operation and those executing the orders. Your communication tools should be diverse and tailored to the needs of all levels of internal and external stakeholders.

5. Know your team. Like the infantry leader, the project manager must be aware of team members’ capabilities as missions and projects fail due to the departure of a key contributor. Have the adequate backup and to shape your team, so its overall performance is greater than any one individual.

6. Never leave a team member behind. Combat team members must know that the team leader will take care of them. The project manager often demands extreme dedication from team members. In return, team members should be rewarded for successful project completion.

7. Know the territory. The infantry leader must be able to use the lay of the land advantageously. Likewise, a project manager must know the circumstances surrounding the project and must be able to internalize and articulate the goals of the project.

8. Be decisive. When an opportunity for failure looms, infantry leader is the person to evaluate the threat, enact a recovery strategy, and monitor the situation until the danger passes. Above all, the infantry leader and project manager must provide a clear vision of success.

9. Lead. The combat infantry leader often must make difficult decisions. Project managers are not involved in life-or-death decisions, but the stakes can be high.

10. The mission isn’t over until the paperwork is done. Once the mission is complete, the first order of business is to debrief & document the results. As project management: document the project, detail the results, move from implementation to sustained operations, and document lessons learned.

‘No great strategy was born without careful thought.’ (Anon) 

On the other side of that saying is the truism:

‘there comes a time in every great endeavour that you have to shoot the planners and start!’

Strategic planning is important.

By doing it you set priorities, guide investment decisions, and layout growth plans. But for many, the strategic planning has become just a thing you have to do and either result in a glorified budget or lots of razzle-dazzle & jazz-hands in the form of analysis, charts, and presentations – but with little that can be translated into action.

The result? Many strategic plans end up on the shelf, posted on the website or hidden away on a shared drive.

Many of you start new strategic planning cycle – how do you avoid being a statistic?

Use these four steps to make better use of the work that goes into planning a strategy & achieve something:

1. Experiment & test the assumptions

The very essence of the strategic plans is that they are a vision of a future state. And that necessarily requires assumptions that certain outcomes (increased revenue, improved margins, higher ROI’s) will result from a given initiative.

But too often these assumptions are only supported by secondary research, educated guesses, or assumptions rather than field tests.

The result? Managers are uncomfortable and unsure with moving into action, committing resources or preferring to stay with the business they know rather than possibilities that may or may not pan out.

To overcome this inertia, ask managers to include specific, short-term experiments, whose results will show what works and what does not.

2. Banish BS Words

Strategic plans are often filled with empty phrases such as “Leverage our World Class Operating Capabilities” or head-scratching statements like “Reshape Our Pricing Strategy to Drive Demand While Maintaining Market Access.”

Unclear language signals that you do not have a clear idea of what is needed to succeed. I have heard of organizations banning words and phrases such as leverage synergy, innovative and robust.

3. Banish the template

The template is the standard tool for strategic planning. I think in 13 years as an executive in a large NGO I have seen at least 15 strategic planning templates – often several in a single year.

Ideally, they force us to consider various topics – SWOT & environmental scans, competitive analysis and the comparison of data from across the organization.

But the rigid use of templates can focus actions on corporate requirements rather than how to grow business. When the same templates are used over & over & over, the result can be stale ideas, blah-blah responses, and worse, camouflaging key issues and opportunities that need to be addressed.

Avoiding this may be as simple as eliminating sections that no longer make sense or even better – throwing it in the garbage and starting over.

4. Ask provocative questions.

In theory, strategic planning should foster intense debates and discussions; but when the process is rigidly structured, and the documents crammed full of data, the dialogue will be stilted or constrained.

To overcome this, it’s important to ask tough questions when plans are presented in a way that can lead to unscripted answers that will enrich the thinking and increase everyone’s level of confidence in moving forward. A few examples include:

• “What are the top 2 or 3 things that must go right for this strategy to work?”
• “If we pursue this strategy, what are we deciding not to do?” and
• “What specific capabilities will we need to develop for this plan to succeed?”

Closing Thoughts

Strategic planning is an important part of the life cycle of any organization.

The challenge is to make sure that it’s more than busy work, or another corporate exercise, or razzle-dazzle jazz hands.

Click here to read about ‘busy-work.’