Communication & Interpersonal Skills Archives - Page 17 of 100

Home
Archives: Communication & Interpersonal Skills

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, New & Frontline Leadership, Teamwork & Collaboration

Engaging Employees for the Right Reasons

by Kevin Eikenberry

Ok, you’ve all heard about the importance of engaging your employees. In fact, you’ve probably heard it directly from me or Guy if you’ve been hanging around here very long. Here’s some data to “prove” it though. Here’s what a survey from Maclean and Company recently found:

A disengaged employee costs an organization approximately $3,400 for every $10,000 in annual salary.
Disengaged employees cost the American economy up to $350 billion per year due to lost productivity.

I love this type of research because it talks to the data side of our brain and reminds us that our work isn’t all about the data! In our book, From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership, my co-author Guy Harris and I talk about task functions of leadership and people functions of leadership. This fact illustrates the incredible connection between the two.

Here are some other facts:

As leaders we are leading people.
People want to follow people they know, like and trust.

And those things require an emotional connection, don’t they?

Let me see if I can enter the conversation that might be going on in your mind now:

Q: Does this mean we as leaders must become friends with all of our followers?

A: No, of course not.

Q: Does that mean I have to spend equal amounts of time with everyone, in some sort of fairness balance?

A: No – you will be naturally attracted to some people and their personalities, your personal connections, and more. That is ok. You don’t have the mental, emotional or physical bandwidth to do this with everyone you lead – but that doesn’t mean you ignore it with everyone either.

Q: What does this mean then?

A; Be real with people. Let them know you care. Be likeable.

Engagement is a great word, but a trendy one. Don’t lose the meaning underneath the trendiness. As a leader we are only leading if people are following. And people follow people.

Be real.

Engage people because it is the right thing to do, not because it is another thing on our task list.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Long-Distance Work, Teamwork & Collaboration

Giving and Accepting Peer Feedback

When you think about what makes a high-functioning team (whether in person, remote or hybrid) really click, several factors come to mind. In our research for The Long-Distance Teammate, we discovered one of the most important things that contribute to a really solid, trusting, team culture: a constant flow of feedback from and to our colleagues.

Giving is as important as getting

When many of us think “feedback,” we think of the positive and constructive remarks we get from our manager. After all, it’s their job to help us get better at what we do. Generally, we’re open to that feedback because it’s expected. Even if we’re not crazy about what we hear, it’s part of the employer-employee relationship.

But teams that really innovate, include everyone, and are super-productive have a dynamic that lesser teams don’t share. They give frequent feedback to each other, regardless of their position or lack of authority.

Of course, it’s important to define exactly what feedback is. Oxford Dictionary says it’s “information about reactions to a product, a person’s performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement.”

The two critical components of feedback

We’re going to suggest there are two key phrases in that definition that are critical to peer feedback.

The first is it’s information. The feedback is based on something very specific. Data is important, especially when giving peer feedback without any kind of official authority. “Good job in that meeting,” is different from, “I liked what you said about the addressing the email problem with the marketing plan.”

Not surprisingly people will accept positive feedback from almost anyone. But if you’re giving corrective feedback, the more data, information, and experience (like case studies) you can provide, the more likely it is to be received.

The second term in that definition is “for improvement.” All feedback, whether positive or critical, is about improving the work of the team as well as the individual. I am always reminded of Socrates’ questions you should ask before speaking. There are five of them:

Is it true?
Is it good?
Is it kind?
Is it useful?
Is it necessary?

These definitely apply to giving feedback. In particular, true, kind, and useful are key components of peer to peer feedback. If you’re giving factual, provable (information again) information in a way that is kind and applicable, it’s likely to be received differently than vague, snarky comments that don’t seem to be actionable.

Why should people listen to you?

Even when you have the best of intentions, people often resist feedback that is perceived as negative. AT this point, it’s important to remember that people accept critique from us based on three factors: our position or authority, our expertise, and our relationship with the person.

As a colleague, you probably lack authority. To put it bluntly, people have to listen to their boss, they don’t HAVE to listen to you. So why would they?

This is where the other two reasons come into play. Do you have experience with the subject? Have you been there longer? Have you successfully dealt with the same customer service problem in the past? Your expertise is (if presented properly) of value to the other person. Odds are they want to be better at their job, or make a situation easier.

The most important factor in someone’s willingness (maybe even yours?) to accept feedback is the relationship between the two of you. People will take advice from those they know, like and trust much more willingly than from a complete stranger, or someone where the relationship is tense.

You can build the relationship over time by offering positive feedback first. A “good job,” or “thanks for asking that question, I was wondering the same thing,” can pave the way for more critical input later on. Think about it: if someone you’ve never interacted with and have no existing relationship suddenly tries to tell you how to do your job, how well do you think you’d respond?

If you’re not comfortable offering peer feedback, make a point of sharing good, positive comments with your teammates. Then use Socrates’ questions to frame your feedback, and position it as coming from either expertise or a desire to build the relationship.

If you are approached by a teammate with feedback, take a moment to assess what they say before responding. Odds are they are really trying to help, they may just not be terribly artful in how they made their comment.

Be open to offering and receiving feedback from your colleagues. It might be uncomfortable at first, but it builds strong relationships and helps overcome the challenges of remote and hybrid work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wayne Turmel
Co-Founder and Product Line Manager

Wayne Turmel is the co-founder and Product Line Manager for the Remote Leadership Institute. For twenty years he’s been obsessed with helping managers communicate more effectively with their teams, bosses and customers. Wayne is the author of several books that demystify communicating through technology including Meet Like You Mean It – a Leader’s Guide to Painless & Productive Virtual Meetings, 10 Steps to Successful Virtual Presentations and 6 Weeks to a Great Webinar. His work appears frequently in Management-Issues.com.

Wayne, along with Kevin Eikenberry, has co-authored the definitive book on leading remotely, The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership. Wayne and Kevin’s follow-up book, The Long-Distance Teammate, offers a roadmap for success not just for leaders, but for everyone making the transition to working remotely.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, New & Frontline Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

Is Your Organization Resilient Enough to Survive The Next Disruption?

Eventually, a major crisis will impact your company. It’s not a matter of “if” but of “when.” And while COVID-19 is the most obvious disruptor, it’s certainly not the last. We all face a new era of uncertainty, volatility, and disruption. Organizations are rocked by technological shake-ups, shifting consumer habits, and political and social unrest, not to mention internal upheavals like harassment, violence, scandal, and more.

Diana Hendel, PharmD and Mark Goulston, MD, coauthors of Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side say the most resilient organizations are those that prepare to deal with traumatic events.

“Organizations that will stand the test of time are those that put a plan in place to deal with the kinds of disasters that could create traumatic stress in their people and destabilize their culture,” says Dr. Hendel.

What does such a plan look like? While it varies from company to company, and is too comprehensive to describe here, Hendel and Goulston share a few of the “must haves” of resilient organizations.

Get a firm grasp on the difference between trauma and stress.

While stress upsets our balance in the moment, we still maintain a feeling of control over our lives. Most of us deal with routine stress daily and are able to manage it (up to a point, anyway). Trauma, on the other hand, overwhelms our self-protective structure and sends us scrambling for survival. It leaves us vulnerable, helpless, groundless. It shatters our sense of safety and security and changes how we look at the world. And unaddressed, it can result in long term harm.

Launch a Rapid Response Process the moment a crisis occurs.

You might think of this as a “Code Blue.” It’s a standardized, preplanned approach for dealing with disruption. Getting one in place helps everyone know exactly what to do so that decisions can be made quickly, efficiently, and with a focus on safety. Here are the components to focus on:

Gather your Rapid Response Team. Appoint people to this team before a crisis happens and make sure they know their respective roles. It should include all senior leaders and leaders of key functions such as operations/logistics, security, finance, HR, communications/PR facilities, etc.
Allow the leader in charge to delegate. You need a central commander to manage response activities such as assigning personnel, deploying equipment, obtaining additional resources, etc. This leader must be fully present, visible, and available in the heat of crisis.
Have the team report to the command center. This is a pre-determined location (physical and/or virtual) for monitoring and reacting to events. You should also select a CODE WORD that puts the Rapid Response Process into action.
Gather relevant information. In a crisis it’s critical to centralize information, facts, and data. What’s known? What isn’t known? The goal is to organize and coordinate response activities, ensuring that the most pressing needs are met and that resources are properly allocated.
Promote a unifying message. It is vital to deliberately shape and disseminate a message of unity. Make sure your message is one of “we are all in it together.” This helps people transcend the impulse to split into factions.

“Name, claim, and frame trauma” from the onset.

This helps everyone understand what is happening to individuals and to the group. It gives us the language to talk about it so that everyone is on the same page. It helps people say “Aha, this is why I am feeling so bad!” And it gives everyone permission to finally seek real help.

Know the “red flags” of traumatized employees.

When people are traumatized, they experience the “fight, flight, freeze” survival response. This is the body’s natural response to danger that enables us to defend ourselves or flee to safety or freeze as a means of survival (much like playing dead in the animal kingdom). Fight, flight, freeze can manifest in different ways. Some people might become hostile, belligerent, aggressive, or otherwise “difficult”—often seemingly without adequate cause. Others might cling to their “competence zone,” blindly doing what they’ve always done even though it no longer works. People dig in and resist change. Or they may insist they are “fine,” even when it is clear they are struggling.

“Meanwhile, leaders may behave in distinctively un-leaderly ways as well,” notes Dr. Goulston. “They might hide out in their office instead of jumping into action, or else make rash, knee-jerk decisions when they were previously known for levelheaded steadiness.”

Get super focused on communication. (Think: “VITAL.”)

In times of crisis, employees need frequent, real-time, transparent communication more than ever. The acronym VITAL will help you remember the tenets around communicating in the aftermath of trauma:

Visible. Leaders must be highly visible and take the lead in communication. Don’t hide behind a spokesperson. Communicate quickly and clearly to reduce ambiguity.
“In it Together.” Double down on messages connected to teambuilding, camaraderie, purpose. Acknowledge fears and worries as normal. Let people know what to expect.
Transparent. Align leadership in how they see the external environment and make sure everyone agrees on what “success” looks like so messages are cascaded consistently. Don’t create voids by waiting to communicate. Tackle rumors head on. Share bad news the minute you have it.
Accessible. Use all modalities (video, email, intranet, text, town halls, etc.) to convey messages from the senior leader. Have a central repository/FAQ where people can get info and ask questions between regular communication sessions.
Listening. Ask questions and leave room for inquiry. When listening, stop talking. Resist the temptation to just listen for what you want to hear (your job is to hear and deal with the hard stuff too).

Leverage the power of the 4th F.

You already know about the Fight/Flight/Freeze response. You may not know about the lesser known “fourth F.” This stands for friend. It represents the bonding that occurs in response to trauma due to the presence of oxytocin (the “love” hormone that fuels friendships). This hormone causes people to bond in the aftermath of trauma. If leaders can leverage this camaraderie early on it can bring the entire organization together. However, if they fail to do this, the fourth F can work against your organization as individuals bond with likeminded coworkers and end up splitting into factions. People begin to question other peoples’ motives and start taking sides. This division can lead to deep polarization.

Use “both/and” to stop post-trauma polarization.

When a traumatic event occurs, opposing views can divide the organization. People believe the right course of action is either “A” or “B.” They see themselves as right and the other side as wrong. Leaders succumb to pressure and choose one option over the other (say, Choice A). When the downsides of that action appear, they reverse courses and go to the other extreme. Naturally, the downsides of Choice B then appear…and leaders swing back to Choice A. With every swing of the pendulum division deepens. This is incredibly damaging to your culture.

“A ‘BOTH/AND’ mindset helps us manage polarization,” says Dr. Hendel. “Instead of approaching issues with an either/or mentality, organizations can leverage both sides of these polarities with a both/and approach. The idea is to maximize the effects of both sides and minimize the downsides of each. For example, in a crisis, effective leaders can BOTH take charge AND build consensus. They can be direct and candid AND diplomatic and tactful.”

It actually is possible to recover and go on to thrive in the aftermath of trauma, assert the authors. But it’s a process—and the process starts long before the disruptive event occurs.

“Don’t be caught unprepared,” advises Dr. Goulston. “When trauma shows up at your front door, the sooner you take action, the sooner you can make things right—and the sooner your employees can be on the road to healing.”

About the authors

Diana Hendel, PharmD

Dr. Diana Hendel is the coauthor of Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side (HarperCollins Leadership, Spring 2021) and Why Cope When You Can Heal?: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD (Harper Horizon, December 2020). She is an executive coach and leadership consultant, former hospital CEO, and the author of Responsible: A Memoir, a riveting and deeply personal account of leading during and through the aftermath of a deadly workplace trauma.

Mark Goulston, MD, FAPA

Dr. Mark Goulston is the coauthor of Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side (HarperCollins Leadership, Spring 2021) and Why Cope When You Can Heal?: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD (Harper Horizon, December 2020). He is a board-certified psychiatrist, fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, former assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA-NPI, and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. He is the creator of Theory Y Executive Coaching that he provides to CEOs, presidents, founders, and entrepreneurs, and is a TEDx and international keynote speaker.

About the Book:

Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side (HarperCollins Leadership, March 2021, ISBN: 978-1-4002-2837-9, $17.99) is available from major online booksellers.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Long-Distance Work, Organizational Leadership, Teamwork & Collaboration

Getting Clear on Your Relationship Building Expectations

by Guy Harris

In 20 years of working to help leaders grow their skills, I have yet to meet a leader who did not understand the need to be clear about their expectations with their team. I am not saying that I have never met a leader who had challenges in this area. I am saying that all of the leaders I have worked with were at least aware of the need to set clear expectations.

In nearly every case, their understanding of setting expectations was about task accomplishment and results. Rarely have I met leaders who consciously and clearly set expectations for relationship building.

Relationships Matter

Poor workplace relationships almost always lead to poorly or incompletely resolved conflicts. One study indicates that up to two-thirds of all workplace performance issues can be traced to an unresolved workplace conflict. Team relationships are more than a feel-good desire. They are directly related to business results. Good working relationships are as important to team effectiveness and results as good tools, good processes, and clearly defined results goals.

When everyone is working on the same schedule and in the same basic environment – in the same or similar physical location – you might not need to set relationship building expectations. You can rely on organic and incidental interactions between team members to generate the type of working relationships needed to build a good team. People who see each other on a regular basis can figure out a way to work together even if they are not “best buds” outside of work.

Remote Work Changes the Dynamic

When people work in a fully remote or hybrid work environment, accidental and incidental interaction will not happen, and relationships will not develop accidentally or incidentally. In a remote or hybrid work team, relationships will only develop intentionally and on purpose. You can make a valid argument that good relationships usually require some level of intentionality, and, in a remote or hybrid work environment, this need is amplified even further.

The need for heightened intentionality around building team relationships implies that leaders need to increase both their awareness of and focus on relationship building as a critical element for team success. One way that leaders can bring focus to the need for team relationship building is for team leaders to define behavioral expectations for each team member that facilitate relationship development with other team members – specific behaviors expected of every team member in order to make it possible to build a productive relationship.

What Leaders Can Do

While you cannot set relationship quality expectations for your team – you cannot demand or expect that everyone will like every other member of the team, you can set expectations for behaviors that are likely to improve relationships between team members. Exactly what behaviors to define will depend on your team history and environment, and here are a few ideas to get you started. You can set expectations for:

Frequency of team member interactions
Use of webcams for video meetings
Use of instant messaging channels and status notifications
Creating special instant messaging channels dedicated to “just for fun” interactions

For example, in the Kevin Eikenberry Group, we have an expectation that new team members will schedule a “get to know you” call (preferably on video) with every existing team member in their first two weeks on the team, and every existing team member is expected to make scheduling these calls a priority.

As you move forward with hybrid work teams, remember that relationships have a strong impact on team results. To improve the odds of great results, be as mindful and intentional about relationship building behaviors as you are about task accomplishment behaviors.

Check out this course from The Remote Leadership Institute if you would like to improve your remote relationship building skills.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Leadership, Long-Distance Work, Organizational Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

Picking Alternatives to Email

You tell me – is email the best thing since sliced bread or the bane of your work existence? Chances are you have considered it to be both – perhaps on the same day. My colleague and co-author Wayne Turmel wrote a great post with the same title on our Remote Leadership Institute blog and I encourage you to read it. I want to go in a different direction and point you to an important point: email is a tool (nothing more, nothing less).

Have You Been Here?

Have you ever been a part of an email thread, two, three or four messages in that is getting…confusing and frustrating? Have you seen an email thread devolve and create miscommunication and perhaps even damage trust or a relationship?

Chances are you have.

What does this happen?

It happens in large part because email isn’t a good tool for a conversation, even though we use it that way all the time.

Email is a Tool

Email is a tool…and so is a hammer. I own multiple hammers – claw hammers, ball pean hammers, sledgehammers, chipping hammers, rubber mallets and more. And I have a favorite – it is the sledgehammer I swung hundreds of times with my dad as a kid. If I need to put a nail in the wall, I shouldn’t use the sledgehammer, even though it is my favorite hammer. It is the wrong tool for the job.

Similarly, email is the wrong tool for a conversation.

Unfortunately, while we have a variety of communication tools at our disposal, we often stick with our favorite (or the one we are most comfortable with).

How often are you using email when it is the wrong tool?

You Can Change Tools

The way to solve the email thread that isn’t working is to have someone walk down the hall (in the old days), pick up the phone, or fire up a webcam. Switching from email to a conversation will likely change your results quickly – and the sooner you make the switch the better. Your experience tells you that you can switch tools if you need to (and like in this case, that is a good idea). But why not start with the communication goal, and pick the right tool from the start? If email is the right tool, great, send that email. But if not, be proactive to create better communication outcomes from the start.

The future of work may be unclear, but it is clear that at least for the foreseeable future, email will be a part of it. If you are looking for more tips on how to lead in the future of work, subscribe to our Future of Work Newsletter. Every week, you’ll get articles, resources and tools that will help you, your team and your organization be more successful in the ever-changing remote work environment. Sign up here!

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Long-Distance Work

Picking Alternatives to Email

Maybe the most divisive topic in remote work is whether email is a help or a hindrance to our productivity. It’s fast, convenient and pretty much free. On the other hand, there’s too much of it, our inboxes are inundated, and responding to all those notifications stops us from doing other, more productive, work. There is a whole cottage industry of experts saying we need to use it better or smarter, while still others advocate for getting rid of it entirely. Is that even possible?

I am old enough (just barely, thank you) to remember a time before email. In the approximately 30 years or so I’ve been a manager, we’ve gone from email becoming a new and better replacement for fax machines and traditional mail, to being the default manner of communication in the workplace. It has allowed people to collaborate from anywhere in the world at almost the speed of light. We send emails to people two desks away from us.

Email is largely responsible for the fact that we can work remotely as productively as we do. Can you imagine making it through the pandemic without it? And as imperfect as email is, what are the alternatives?

The Hyperactive Hive Mind

The reason email overwhelms us, according to experts like Cal Newport, author of A World Without Email-Reimaging Work in an Age of communication Overload, is that we try to recreate the way we work in an office. We engage in what he calls, “the hyperactive hive mind.” This means we try to respond instantly to requests and new information as quickly as we would if the person were to ask it to our face. In person, we can see if the person has received our message, and we can promise to deal with things when it’s the right time. That’s hard to do when we work remotely. In order to look like responsive teammates, we drop what we’re doing and treat every incoming email as if it’s equally important. Conversations go back and forth, adding or elaborating information as they go on. Email threads do the same thing, only they can go back and forth for days or weeks without reaching a conclusion.

The alternatives depend on what you’re trying to achieve with the communication in the first place:

Text messaging

Just as in our personal lives, text messages are great for quick, short messages when we need to reach someone in the fastest way possible—which these days is our cell phone. This should be used for quick yes/no type questions or updates or to find out if someone is available to have a richer conversation.

Chat conversations, messaging apps, collaboration channels

Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others can reduce or eliminate email in several ways. First, people tend to have these tools on all the time while they are at work, and status updates let others know when we are unavailable. Setting up conversations or channels based on topic, work team, or individuals separates messages from a single email box, which can make it easier to focus on one task at a time.

Additionally, these tools work both synchronously and asynchronously. You can leave a message for later, add to it at any time, and stay on topic. You can also be very specific about recipients, eliminating the number of “cc”s and stuffing the inbox of people who don’t care about that topic at that time.

These tools also let us shift gears quickly: If communicating in writing isn’t getting you closer to a solution you can fire up a one-on-one conversation with the push of a button or call a meeting. These tools also integrate with other applications and platforms making it easy to access information in real time. These tools also work best on devices with real keyboards, which means you can craft longer, clearer, and more professional messages than with your thumbs.

Telephone. (The part you talk with)

There was a time when the only thing you could do on a telephone was talk. This still adds value, and a clear, detailed voicemail often allows easy access and clearer information than an email. Using the phone these days also indicates a level of urgency or importance that might not be obvious in an email. Plus, you can strengthen and clarify your message with the tone of voice you use. You can talk while walking, driving, or in places it might not be easy to type a message.

Actually meeting in person

Most of the problems with meetings lie in the fact you shouldn’t be meeting at all. But when it is the right thing to do, using asynchronous tools to help people come in prepared and focused can actually end a lot of email threads that threaten to go on forever. Every person on the team should be empowered to call a halt to a thread and demand people change how they talk to each other. Sometimes a short synchronous meeting (in person or online) is better than any other solution.

Of course, email still works. If you stop before replying, consider other options (or if you need to stop what you’re doing and respond at all) and take the time to be clear, you’ll reduce the amount of email you have to deal with. You can also coach those you work with to use the right tool for the right job which will make your job easier and help speed collaboration and accuracy.

The trick, as with so much in life, is consciously choosing the right form of communication for the task at hand, rather than just responding without thinking.

Join us today and every day this week for Virtual LeaderCon. You can find out more and register here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wayne Turmel
Co-Founder and Product Line Manager

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Long-Distance Work, New & Frontline Leadership, Organizational Leadership

Transitioning to Your Leadership Role with a Hybrid Team

by Guy Harris

The transition from individual contributor to leader calls for changes in at least three areas of your work life: your relationships, your skills, and your mindset. Managing these three transitions simultaneously is almost always a challenge, and the challenge is made even more difficult when you work with a “hybrid” work in the office/work from home team.

Of these three transitions, the relationship transition is the one most likely made more difficult by a hybrid-team work environment. In From Bud to Boss, we recommend that you have intentional transition conversations with your team, your friends, your new peer group of leaders, your new boss, your former boss, and any other people with whom you interact on a regular basis in your new role.

When you are all in one location, these conversations probably happen relatively easily and naturally. When some of your team and your peers are in the office and some are at home, these conversations can run in to some challenges.

Here are three suggestions for making these conversations more successful so that you can transition to a leadership role as smoothly and quickly as possible:

Talk with remotely located team members as richly and frequently as possible

For most people, the frequency and richness of talking with people in person is different from talking with people on the phone or on a video call.

Talking with people often happens naturally and organically in the office – you run in to each other in the hallway or the break room or you stop by each other’s office or work location during the day. It is relatively easy to have conversations without “making” them happen. They just happen because you are working in the same location.

Talking with people on the phone or via video call takes a bit more effort and rarely happens organically. You won’t “bump into” someone on your computer the same way you will walking down the hall.

This difference in conversation frequency and richness can lead to transitioning relationships with people you see in the office relatively quickly compared to transitioning relationships with people who are working from home. To combat this potential challenge, make it a point to schedule calls with your work from home team members so that you can put in the work necessary to develop a leadership relationship with these team members. (Pro tip – Phone calls are good, and video calls are usually richer and more dynamic.)

Talk with your peer group

Talking with your team is probably a pretty natural thing to do. Talking with your leader peer group might not be – especially if some are working from home and some are working in the office. As with your team (and assuming you are working in the office), you can have frequent, incidental conversations with other leaders who are also working in the office. And you can miss the opportunity to talk with leaders who are working from home.

As with your team, remember to schedule time to speak with your leadership peers who are not working in the same location as you so that you can also advance those relationships and work out any cross-team communication issues before they become a problem.

Make your conversations about more than just work

In all of these conversations, the tendency to talk only about work tasks so that you can get on to something else is higher with phone and video calls than with face-to-face conversations. While getting tasks planned or completed is definitely a reason for talking with either your team or your peers, remember that a big part of your leadership transition is also about relationships. Both sharing bits of your personal life and hearing parts of theirs are major contributors to building a relationship in order to develop the mutual trust and respect typically seen in high-performing teams.

While you work on developing your leadership skills and adjusting your mindset, remember to invest the time necessary to build healthy and productive relationships with both your team and your leadership peers. Having transition conversations with them so that you understand each other better is a key part of your relationship development effort. If you work in a hybrid work in the office/work from home team, keep these three tips in mind to minimize the risk of missing out on great professional relationships with people who work from home.

The best way to equip yourself with all the tools you need to effectively lead remote and hybrid teams is the Remote Leadership Certificate Series. Find out more about this career-enhancing opportunity.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Personal & Professional Development

The Starting Point for Greater Influence

Would you like to have people hear you, value your input, and more often follow your lead and ideas? If so, you are striving for greater influence. When you have greater influence, you have greater confidence, you are less stressed, and will likely be more productive. Those are all good things. But when people think about having greater influence, they often have some self-limiting beliefs that get in their way. Let’s dispel some myths and help you get out of the starting gate to be a more powerful influencer.

The Myths

It isn’t just position. We often think of influence as being something that comes with position. The President is influential. A judge is influential. And more personally – our parents or our boss are influential. All of those people can be influential with us, but is it only position? Taken alone, positional influence often leads to compliance, but not commitment in others.
It isn’t about pushy. Some people feel that if they try to be influential, they will come across as pushy. You likely know people you might view as pushy. But you wouldn’t classify everyone you find influential in that way, would you?
It isn’t in your DNA. Some people seem naturally influential and persuasive. While it is possible that their unique, personal characteristics help, not all of the approaches to influence come at birth. And just because it looks easy to them now, doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard to build those skills.

The Starting Point

The myths point to influence as given, taken, or a gift at birth.

But they are myths.

The truth is everyone is naturally influential. We all have greater influence than we likely realize. Let me prove it to you.

When you smile. When you smile at someone, what do they do? They instinctively and almost automatically smile back. Why did they smile? Because you did. Isn’t this proof of your influence?
With your friends. You are influential with your friends. They take your advice, buy clothes like yours, listen to what you listen to, and watch what you watch. Why? Because they know, like, and trust you.
In everyday events. Hold a door open for someone. Wave people through the parking lot while you wait for them. Pick up something someone dropped. When you do those things, you change the mood and outlook of others. Like the smile – you might not say a word. But you influenced their outlook and attitude, perhaps for the rest of the day. (And yes, you could do things that might negatively influence them too. But why would we want to focus on those, even though they prove the same point?)

The starting point to being more influential is realizing that you already have greater influence than you know. From that starting point, we can go to work building skills to gain even greater influence.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Personal & Professional Development

Would You Like to Be More Influential?

Everyone would like to be more influential – get their ideas across and make a bigger impact. While I believe everyone wants those things, many also worry about being seen as pushy or presumptuous, brassy or bold, or even self-serving. Is it possible to influence powerfully and maintain relationships, yet not be seen in a negative light? Can we be influential without seeming like the stereotypical used car salesman?

The short answer is yes, you can.

You can influence powerfully without positional power or pushing people around. You can have people value your ideas and input without damaging your relationship. In fact, you can actually build your relationships as you gain influence.

Imagine having your ideas considered, valued, and applied. Think of the greater impact you could have. Imagine how you could even be more influential with your children!

Influencing powerfully is a master skill for work and life. While there is work to do, there is a road map you can follow. You can look for and learn from others and take a trial-and-error approach. Or you can accelerate your progress, accelerate your influence, and reduce your stress and worry at the same time.

Introducing the Influencing Powerfully Master Class

There are a few different takes on the Master Class format. Almost all versions give learners access to valuable content in bite-sized pieces. They are consumable whenever and wherever you want, in whatever order you prefer. You can find Master Classes on virtually any topic, hobby, or skillset. While you might want to be a better cook, writer, or photographer, few skills will be more valuable to your future success (and happiness) than having greater influence with your perspectives and ideas.

In our latest Master Class, you will learn timeless skills and the latest strategies for:

Influencing for help not harm
Applying an influence model in everyday interactions
Recognizing and strengthening your sources of influence
Expanding your influence as a leader
Using your skills ethically in every area of your life
Creating an action plan to become more influential

You can get the details and get instant access to the 15 video lessons in this course (plus 12 bonus resources) here.

Become a PRO Member – and Get This Master Class for Free!

When you register for the Influencing Powerfully Master Class, you can also upgrade to a PRO membership. PRO Membership offers you exclusive access to three foundational Master Classes (Remarkable Learning, Remarkable Mindsets, and Remarkable Productivity) and other additional resources curated just for you. Upgrade to PRO Membership with a Master Class purchase and get your initial Master Class for free. That’s right – when you upgrade to PRO your investment for the Influencing Powerfully Master Class is zero! ‎PRO Members receive discounts on all future Master Classes, as well as our entire catalog of Virtual and On-Demand Workshops.

Start Today

If you want to build stronger working relationships, have less conflict, better connections, and greater productivity (both personally and organizationally), this Master Class is for you. As you master these skills, you will change your working life and success. These are skills that will reduce your frustration, improve your results and happiness for the rest of your career. It might be the best $79 you ever invested in yourself.

If you are thinking about this organizationally, and want to discuss this in more depth or understand our volume discounts, send an email here.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Leadership, Long-Distance Work

Five Simple Exercises to Build Your Hybrid Team

In the early days of the pandemic, the rush was on for remote team building. People looked for ways to host virtual lunches, virtual happy hours, and other time-consuming, sometimes elaborate approaches to building teams virtually. Now that many organizations are settling into – or planning for – a hybrid workplace, they are looking for ways to do hybrid team building. I want to share some simple, tested ways to create engagement and connection across your hybrid teams, without costing hours or increasing the risk of Zoom fatigue.

Team Building Is Complex

Team building is often reduced to “getting people to know and like each other.” And while those are important goals, truly building a team goes beyond those basics. I cannot cover all of those aspects here today. But I can give you some simple approaches to facilitate engagement, relationships, and understanding across your hybrid team. (For a more in-depth look at the intricacies of leading hybrid teams, consider our Building Effective Hybrid Teams Master Class.) With that clarification, here are five simple ways to help your team grow and stay connected.

Make Every Meeting a Chance For Hybrid Team Building. While there is nothing wrong with a separate meeting or virtual gathering with the purpose of “team building” (and if these approaches are working for you keep doing them!) you can build connection and relationship in every meeting too. Carve out 5-10 minutes at the start of meetings where this is the goal. Focus on the relationships before you move to the results. Take that time to nurture the connections before you get on to the challenges in front of you.

Share Simple Things. Building connection doesn’t have to be difficult or complex. Have your meeting on a Friday? Ask everyone to quickly share one thing they are going to do over the weekend (probably more energy-producing if you ask it as “one thing you are looking forward to this weekend”). If you meet on Monday, have people share one good thing that happened over the weekend. These types of questions give people a glimpse into other people’s personalities and likes and creates new connections and conversations outside of the meeting. I’ve also asked the team to share one thing they are grateful for at that moment – this simple question lifted our spirits, gave us new insights into each other and lifted the energy of our hybrid meeting significantly.

Share Favorites. I have asked my team to share a variety of favorites over time. I’ve asked people to: share a favorite food, a favorite TV show as a kid, your favorite childhood book, as examples. You can also have people send their answers to you in advance and create a contest – where people have to guess each other’s favorite. This takes a little longer but provides a more interactive twist. As people share their answers, people keep track of how many they guessed correctly, and allows for giving a small gift to the person who was most accurate. Once I asked the team to share their favorite candy, and after the completion of a major team project that candy showed up at everyone’s home.

Share Ideas or Tips. This allows you to rely on the wisdom of the group and can help build trust across the team. Ask people to share something interesting and helpful to the rest of the team. Use your imagination in selecting a question! Here are three examples: one thing they do to reduce stress, one way they avoid Zoom fatigue, one way they stay connected to others on the team. As they share their ideas, everyone else is getting practical tips and seeing others in positive and helpful ways.

Keep The Mission in Mind. While we want to keep people connected to each other, we need to keep people connected to your mission, your meaning and your purpose too. Share the big picture with the team regularly (perhaps at the start of each full team meeting), and have people share stories of progress towards and instances of success in reaching that mission.

These ideas are only meant to be a start in helping you with hybrid team building. Using the ideas here will keep you going for awhile and give you the confidence to create your own ideas. You can also share this article with your team, and invite others to take responsibility for the team building segment of your next hybrid or virtual meeting.

….

Want to stay abreast of the latest ideas, tools, and approaches to succeed in a remote/hybrid workplace? Want to both follow the trends and get tools to succeed in this new world? If so, sign up for our Future of Work Newsletter. It will help you work and lead more effectively in this new world of work. Subscribe now for free!

Page 1 of 8

First

Last