work Archives - Cortex Leadership Consulting

March 1, 2019 By Lynda Foster

Appreciation.

It’s doesn’t have to be a big deal.

We don’t ask for it, but it sure does feel good when we get it.

In fact, in a few seconds, you could instantly change the engagement rate of people who work for and with you.

It doesn’t cost you anything, except a piece of humble pie.

What’s even more surprising, is that the giver of it can experience a surge in attitude from simply expressing it.

Appreciation.

It’s the secret sauce to better work relationships that doesn’t have to cost you or your company a dime.

Appreciation is different than recognition. Recognition at work is seen as something you do to “reward” someone for a job well done. Appreciation is instead the recognition of who someone is and what they mean to you. Appreciation is about recognizing that a person has provided a value to you that no one else could have because it was unique to them. It’s more than a quick “thank you” that you shoot over an email to a group of people. It’s not what you say in a big speech you are giving after some herculean effort by someone or your team.

Appreciation is something you give, from your heart, that touches theirs.

Organizations are searching and meeting and discussing what things they could do to improve engagement and retain their best employees.

It’s simple. Make the time and effort to slow down and truly let someone know how much you appreciate them for the value they bring to you, their team, and your organization.

It’s a few minutes, a few words, and trust me, it will not cost you a dime and be priceless to both of you.

Employee appreciation day was March 1st. Forget the day. Let’s make it daily.

August 5, 2018 By Lynda Foster

One Thing That Could Matter Most in Resolving Conflicts at Work

One Thing That Could Matter Most in Resolving Conflicts at Work
by: Lynda McNutt Foster

If you think that you aren’t supposed to experience conflict at work or there is a way to completely avoid it, you’re probably not going to get very good at resolving it when it arises. Good people, with great intentions can have misunderstandings, let one another down, breach trust at some level, or just get pretty annoyed at the other person just because they spend so much time together at work. It’s common to look at another person and think that what they did was just “weird” and can I just say it because so many people think it, “stupid”.

To get better at being a leader you’ll need to practice navigating conflicts and many of those conflicts come from people not seeing the other person’s perspective or point of view. Conflicts become worse when people think that their point of view is the “right” one and that the other person “should” have done something different than they did.

A recent Fast Company article entitled, All Your CoWorkers Behaviors, Explained stood out to me. Two out of three of the ways to explain “weird” behavior are things we talk about in our training frequently which are traits (different behavioral types as described in DISC assessments) and goals (which align with the Motivators or Driving Forces assessments). It can help to resolve a conflict, or even avoid one, by understanding which behavioral types you are dealing with and what is going to motivate them to reach their goals. If you know what someone’s goals are it helps in understanding what they are focused on.

The situation matters.

The third explanation of why a coworker may behave a certain way was one that comes up during one-on-one coaching sessions. It is about discovering the situation or context of the behavior you are observing. The situation someone finds themselves is can have a significant effect on what decisions they make. It takes time to listen for the facts of a situation. Some people aren’t that good at explaining their situation or don’t have a great memory to communicate the facts well. Others give TOO many facts and data about their situation which requires patience and concentration to decipher.

It can be quite the slippery slope of a time trap to even ask about the details of a situation, so you want to make sure they matter. They usually don’t if the conflict is of a minor nature or the problem seems based in drama. It’s a good rule of thumb to dig into the situation if you see a consistent pattern or patterns of behavior occurring. There could be a very good reason why one of the people is acting the way that they are.

For instance, people can get pretty upset when they perceive that one of their teammates isn’t pulling their weight. They may feel that they have to make up for the lack of work by the other team member and they can perceive that as unfair. Whether it is or it isn’t you are probably going to be navigating a conflict, whether someone has voiced it or not. Perhaps there isn’t clarity around what the roles, responsibilities, and expectations are for each member of the team. Maybe, the expectations of the team member that is upset are not reasonable for the project or circumstance. It could also be true that the team member that is being seen as not pulling their weight is dealing with a situation that others are not aware of and that has not been communicated, or perhaps cannot be.

I coached a leader once, let’s call him “Joe”, that took over a department in which 3 of the 5 members he inherited in his new position were unable to do their job. One was very ill and had to frequently call out sick, another was dealing with an emotional issue that caused them to be withdrawn and extremely limited in their ability to complete tasks. Still the other one was simply someone that was close to retirement and believed they could “coast” through the last few years of their employment with the organization.

[Read more…]

June 25, 2017 By Lynda Foster

Conscious Business: Ask yourself different questions

I received this email from a viewer last week:

I’m hoping you can help. I am so mad and need someone to tell me how I can fix this situation. My boss is constantly missing in action. He swoops in once a week, throws tons of things at me to do and he is off again. When I send him an email it takes days for him to get back to me. I feel overwhelmed. He should respect me enough, and the job I do for him, to slow down to see what questions I might have or even give a flip how I am. He doesn’t seem to care and I’m starting to feel the same way. What can I do to get him to start respecting me more?

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon situation. In today’s workplace leaders are asked to manage others along with having a long task list of their own to complete. They are sometimes so focused on the things they have on their checklist that they forget that the most important job they have is to support and develop others on their team. There’s that, which is an explanation of the poor behavior. It’s not a solution though, and Teresa wanted a solution. Unfortunately, she was asking the wrong questions to herself and me. With questions designed to focus on the problem, finding the root cause to fix the issue permanently would never be found.

In David Emerald’s work, TED* The Empowerment Dynamic, the main model states that what we focus on drives our inner state that leads to our behaviors. When we’re focused on the problem our anxiety goes up and we react with a fight, flight, freeze or appease mentality. That type of thinking will help us if we’re running away from a bear in the woods, but doesn’t do much when we have a complex challenge with multiple components. When we have that type of problem, we need to focus on what we want, or the vision, use our passion to motivate us to take the sometimes difficult baby steps to move in our desired direction.

In Fred Kofman’s book, Conscious Business, How to Build Value Through Values, he explains the questions we ask ourselves when we are focused on the problem and not on the vision or outcome we want to achieve. They are:

What happened to me?
Who’s to blame for it?
Why did they do it to me?
What should they have done instead?
What should they do now to repair the damage?
What punishment do they deserve for doing it?

These types of questions are common when we’re talking to ourselves and many times are the types of questions we ask our friends, family, and coworkers when they are faced with a problem. Like a gerbil on a wheel, when you ask yourself or someone else these questions you simply run round and round on the wheel and never find the solution. When you ask these questions to yourself or are being asked by someone else your anxiety goes up and you probably end up fighting with someone about it, avoiding the conflict and trying to forget about it, spend a lot of time analyzing the situation to death, or appeasing everyone to try and “rescue” everyone and yourself from the tension. Can you picture yourself doing this? I know I have.

To discover the solution to a challenge you must first see yourself as part of the problem. This might sound crazy to some of you. “See myself in the problem. You clearly don’t understand what I just told you. He dumps on me. He doesn’t get back to me. He is rude and uncaring to me. How am I part of the problem and how in the heck could that help things for me to think that way?” If you can’t understand how you might have contributed to the problem, in any way, how are you going to feel empowered enough to be part of the solution?

To solve something that is challenging you (code for: a problem that is a pain in your toocus and it is disrupting your work or home life) start with asking yourself these questions.

What challenge did you face?
How might you have contributed (inadvertently) to the situation through action, inaction or tolerance? (starting to get the picture?)
What response did you choose?
Could you have responded more effectively? (with more dignity?)
Could you have prepared better to mitigate the risks?
What would you ideally like to have happen?
Is there something you can do now to improve the situation?
What can you learn from this?

After going through each of the questions with rigorous honesty you’ll perhaps become more clear on what you want and what you need to do differently to help you find the solution.

For our friend, Teresa, who wrote me, my suggestion, after answering the questions, is to schedule a conversation, sometimes known as a “sweaty” conversation, with her boss. Show respect and empathy for the situation he may be in. Let him know what her intention is – to get him what he needs with the level of standards she likes to perform at. To do that, she needs to explain what she wants and needs, knowing that there may be some negotiation involved so that the resolution is one they both feel motivated to execute for one another. Leave the “should” library at the door. Thinking that things “should” be different than they are or he “should” be a certain way is ignoring current reality which is never helpful.

This might seem a little time-consuming. After all, you are already overwhelmed with work. If you just forgot about it and did your job…. STOP! Trying to forget about it or “quitting the job” is WAY more time consuming than the 10-minute sweaty conversation, I promise you.

You are strong, smart and extremely capable or you wouldn’t have read this far. Go forth this week and conquer!