Building a Learning Culture Within Organizations

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Ellen Bailey, VP of Diversity and Culture at Harvard Business Publishing.

In this episode, Ellen dives into the strategies behind establishing a learning culture within leadership and organizations and provides insight into how HBP champions this mindset change for their culture and people.

What Is a Learning Organization?

Ellen Bailey: Organizations, including our own, need to shift how we think about a learning organization. Let’s shift from having a checklist to having guidelines; let’s shift to being more transparent with our employees, so they know the thoughts behind our decision-making process and strategic goals. So that enables them to make smart decisions, and it allows them to take risks and innovate and change how we work and think beyond the moment in a way that supports our goals and strategy.

Building Trust Into Workplace Culture

Ellen Bailey: There’s a little bit of learning and development that goes into enabling an organization to be a trusting organization because you have to change some processes to allow people to do that. It’s not just about folks’ good intent. And we can do training and development and learning to help with behaviours, but you also have to have the processes in the mechanisms that support that.

Leaders Don’t Have to Have All The Answers

Ellen Bailey: We fear that if we don’t have the answers, people will question our ability. We are not comfortable with demonstrating authenticity and vulnerability due to that. And so, back to the Fearless Organization article. I will quote Amy Edmondson one more time when she says that in situations we haven’t faced before, it is simply not possible to have all the answers. And so that’s what I continue to express to our team. So we continue to grow and innovate and go and go beyond where we have been. So what got us here will not get us there. And so as we continue to try to advance the thought leadership to impact the world globally, to improve the practice of management, then we aren’t going to have all those answers. And so we need to demonstrate that vulnerability internally, especially with our teams.

Leaders Should Facilitate Individual and Team Elevation

Ellen Bailey: We all have opportunities to facilitate someone’s best, especially as leaders. And so, how do we do that so they can continue to excel? I find so many gaps in that because leaders often feel they need all the answers. We have leaders that are afraid people will run past them, and it’s like, no, no, everybody wins when you facilitate your team best, and you can identify with them on a human level to help them be most productive. It’s fun and awesome to see people you work with continue to excel and do great things.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership

Link to full podcast episode

How to Effectively Lead Your People While Scaling

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Ryan Benn, CEO and Group Publisher at

Alive Publishing Group Inc.

In this episode, Ryan dives into the strategies behind establishing effective workplace relationships and how that translates to scaling business.

Building Effective Teams

Ryan Benn: So then it’s a way that makes sense for me because I think many of us would default to going out and being like, I’m going to hire the best person for that job. And then you go separately, two months later, I’m going to hire the best person for that job. I’m going to hire the best IT manager. I’m going to hire the best HR manager. I’m going to hire the best accountant that you can find. Kind of logical. It’s kind of how the process is built. It’s expected, right? You end up with the best in everything, and you go, none of these people want to work together. None of them are collaborative. They all have different interests. And this whole thing is breaking down.

Culture Misalignment

Ange MacCabe: What drives me crazy is when people in positions of power talk about their employees, like their family, to create that psychological contract, but they don’t treat them like family. Right. What you’re subscribing to, or what I’m hearing from you, is that you have a community, and it feels family-orientated. Like there is authenticity in what you’re saying, Ryan, which is absolutely amazing, the other piece that comes up for me is often, team members come into the workplace that they’re not going to be like, I’m going to do a shit job for Ryan today. They’re going to be like, I want to do the best job ever, and I don’t know how to do it. So I’m going to stress myself out until I get there. As leaders, the onus is on us to be able to help mentor, not manage the work-life integration pieces. And so that when you really know your people and what motivates them. For some people, they really do need that black and white.

Work is work. Personal is personal, and I need that divide, or I can’t shut off, and it stresses me out. If that’s their persona, then it’s leaning into them to help mentor so that it fits from a culture or company perspective.

Not Subscribing to Old School Leadership Styles

Ryan Benn: When you’re aware of your blind spots and accept them or work to change them. It really helps because these are such buzzwords when I say things like transparency and authenticity. But I really believe in them from a leadership perspective. I think it’s the modern world; I don’t think leaders should be viewed as infallible and more knowledgeable than everybody else. I think it’s such an old-school approach to leadership.

Relentlessly Self Aware

Ange MacCabe: Stepping back a little bit. You had identified early on that you were able to really go inward and identify your strengths and areas of growth, and therefore, you were able to hire for your weaknesses, and you were vulnerable about the same. That takes a bit of self-reflection and cause and effect. Ryan in the sense of being able to do this in a two-pronged step. So, one, what’s going on with me internally? And then two, how do I communicate that and exhibit that to my team members so that there’s actual validity behind what I’m saying versus discredit? What was your approach to that? How did you go about it?

Ryan Benn: Yeah. Super interesting. It’s not easy, and for me, it probably came easier. I don’t know why, nature vs. nurture, I’m not sure. But for certain, I think the skill is, I would say, relentlessly self-aware.

I like to be able to think that I can walk out of here and say, listen, you might not like it, I might not like it, but I’m this, then I can at least say, well, I want to change that, or I don’t want to change that, but at least knowing that it’s actually there. I think blind spots in leadership are one of the hardest things, which is not being able to step back and say, how are others viewing me?

You Can’t Fake Experience

Ryan Benn: From a leadership perspective. One of the things I’ve realized is that in one of my coin lines, you can’t fake experience. So when I was first jumping into the role, I could have energy, I could have vitality, I could have leadership skills, but I’d never been through a recession, I’d never led change, I never acquired a company, I’d never done any of these things. So first acknowledging that was a big point of personal growth for me was accepting the fact that I didn’t bring that experience. How was I going to surround myself and gain that experience with having peers and leadership around me and, at the same time, just being comfortable with the fact that I could ask questions and say, I’ve never done this before?

For more leadership insights check out my blog: Fostering Community

Link to full podcast episode

Leadership Spotlight: Supporting Scaling Teams

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How to Support Teams as they Scale

I had the chance to chat with Phil Chang and Kenny Vannucci from This Commerce Life about what it looks like to support teams as they scale.

These are the main takeaways from this conversation.

Going from Player to Coach – Kenny

“I always go back to sports. You’ve got to go from being the player to being the coach. And you have to understand what that transition means you delegate. And delegate doesn’t mean you throw shit on people’s desks and walk away. Delegation is teaching – putting it on the desk, following up, and understanding what you’re good at and maybe not good at— potentially hiring a good assistant coach. But I think most fall apart because most entrepreneurs or founders think they can do it all. Yeah. And if they could do it all, why are they talking to anybody about anything? Just do it. Right. But what they should find out is there are only X amount of hours in a day, and quite frankly, you can’t do it all, and you can’t do it all well.”

Keeping Teams in The Loop – Phil

“In that process of growing, we need to keep doing is briefing our teams right like the ability to keep your team on track and yet give them enough room involves here’s where we want months ago here are the taboo things or the things you cannot do. Everything else is fair game. I don’t know what it’s going to look like because even the three of us, if I said, draw me a garden, the three of us would come up with something different, but at the end of the day, that’s what I wanted.”

Start Thinking Like a CEO – Phil

When you’re an owner, you’re used to doing everything independently. It’s a tried and true formula. You rely on yourself. The inspiration is from you. You have to have a certain stubbornness and no fear. Because everyone will say you can’t. I can’t do it. You can’t do it. And you build that kind of like ironclad. I can do it. I’m going to make it. Screw you, guys. I got to get it done. But when you want to scale, I feel like the first thing those folks need to do is stop thinking like an owner and start thinking like a CEO.

Leading Without Ego – Me (Ange MacCabe)

“And I can tell you within my growth and getting vulnerable here, the Ange three years ago would not sit in front of a group and say, hey, can you critique me on, you know, on my video or my presentation or hit, right? I could not do that at that point. I did it two months ago and didn’t even think about it. And my team, the first thing they said to me was, are you sure right now? Do you want us to take it away and then give you written feedback?

And I’m like; we’re doing a working meeting, so let’s hear what we have to say here. It’s okay. Safe space. We’re all flipping friends here. And it took them a minute.

And we’re all coaches and consultants. We play in this space. It took them a minute to adjust to that concept, I’m going to give my CEO and co-founder feedback, and she will be okay with it. And it was a huge learning opportunity for the team and me to be like, okay, so this is a safe space to speak.

For more leadership insights, check out our post on Fueling Team Performance.

Establishing Honest Communication Within your Organization

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I’m pleased to introduce you to Steven Gaffney, President and CEO at Steven Gaffney Company.

For 20+ years, Steven has been helping top leaders, teams, and organizations create Consistent, High-Achieving Teams across all organizations. Steven is a consultant, public speaker and author with a passion for unlocking and teaching people how to communicate at high-achieving and consistent levels.

In this episode, Steven and I examine what it takes to establish honest communication within the workplace and why it’s essential for an organization’s ROI.

Emotionally Intelligent Communication

Steven Gaffney: When I talk about honest communication, I’m talking about a certain element of that, and that’s about what people don’t say to each other. In fact, if people forget everything out of what we’re going to talk about, the most important message right up front is the biggest problem in life is not what people say; it’s actually what they don’t say to each other. It’s, you know, withholding, although people don’t like that. Oh, I’m not lying. Well, if you let somebody not say something to you and you feel like they lied to you, that is a breakdown of trust, so the key is to get the unsaid items said.

Whole Person Performance

Ange MacCabe: I think that it’s safe to speak, and so I speak, and then it’s like I’m taken aback based on others’ reactions. And I’m kind of like, well, wait. I thought we were supposed to talk this way, and then I’m feeling kind of like I have this vulnerability hangover. And to your point, I’m on the blacklist, and I still believe that there’s a lot more work that needs to be done because what you’re speaking to, Steven, is having kind of that emotional Whole Person Performance approach is kind of what we dub here at Intuity Performance. Whole Person Performance, meaning that our hearts and feelings aren’t left at home; they come with us. We’re a whole package, and so separating our work self from our personal self is no longer a thing. But then, how do you help employers feel comfortable? Because from a societal perspective, it’s been so uncomfortable to talk about feelings in the workplace or to get deep in the workplace or even personal in the workplace.

Creating Emotional Safety

Steven Gaffney: In my experiences, and I’ve been at this for over 25 years is, people can think it’s safe, but they need to feel that it’s safe. It’s about creating that emotional safety, and that is the most important trait in a leader. Because if you create that emotional safety, people will share stuff, and you don’t have to make all the right decisions because if something goes the wrong direction, people will tell you if they fear the outcome of speaking up, they’ll shut down. So creating that emotional safety is the key.

Redefining Comfort

Ange MacCabe: How do you move people from a place of discomfort to comfort? Because that’s a learned behaviour, for sure.

Steven Gaffney: Well, first of all, is to reframe comfort. When we’re uncomfortable, that’s a sign of growth. It’s not a sign to stop. Now, there are certain exceptions to that, but overall, somebody will say, well, I’m just not comfortable with that, and I’m like, okay, so what’s your point? But actually, when we grow in life – I can think of many, many teachers and mentors of mine from whom I’ve learned so much and who pushed me to do something. Sometimes I was like, I don’t even agree. But I did it, and I’m so thankful.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Gabriel Cowan’s Leadership Spotlight on: Creating a Healthy and Consistent Company Culture

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode! New episodes of The Human Side of Business Podcast air bi-weekly on Mondays at 1 pm ET.

Creating a Healthy and Consistent Company Culture

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Gabriel Cowan, Chief Executive Officer at Audio Design Desk.

Audio Design Desk, won 2022 NAB Product of the Year, CES Innovator and Fast Company’s “Next Big Thing In Tech” with its AI-assisted software suite that reinvents the process of creating audio for video. Used on Netflix, HBOMax, Amazon Prime, and others, ADD gives creatives the ability to perform sound design, sound effects, and music in real-time, turning hours of tedious work into minutes of immersive fun.

In this episode Gabriel and I dive into workplace culture and discuss the strategies behind maintaining a consistent and healthy work environment.

Developing Workplace Culture

Gabriel Cowan: So I think in terms of creating a positive culture, there will always be conflict, there will always be issues. If you can remove the assumptions, remove the gossip, the minute that you start hearing people chattering and go and step into whatever the issue is and leader through curiosity – my experience is that there’s a real reason for whatever the issue is, and the person on the other side of that issue is struggling with it, and they need resources. These are the three resources we have. We have time, money and creativity. And we don’t have any more time or any more money. So we have to get creative about solving this problem. And that’s where this trust can really help.

Open Communication in Leadership

Gabriel Cowan: I think what has been positive about our culture, even though it’s on Zoom, is just keeping really open with everybody. So in these morning meetings, I really share exactly what’s going on with a fundraising thing or with a business thing, or with our business, the good and the bad. But to have people share in the challenges as well as the opportunity really does create that environment where we’ve all experienced challenges. And somebody like, literally, sometimes an intern will have a voice in one of the challenges that I’m presenting in the morning, and that’ll be the spark of an idea that solves that challenge. Not to mention that just having a community to commiserate with makes you feel better.

Utilizing Employee Skill Sets

Gabriel Cowan: You’re always going to get 200% out of somebody when they’re doing something that they like. And so as much as I possibly, I find out where people are, what they like to do, and then try to lead them towards that. My partner in this business is a guy named Ryan Francesconi, he said a job is three things: It’s how much you learn, how much you make, and how much shit you take. That’s it. Ryan is a programmer, he could be making, like, ridiculous money. He’s like, I’m not making as much, but I take zero shit and I’m learning a ton. And it is true that not taking crap, that’s a huge pressure valve that can be released. So we try to lead with empathy and we try to make sure that they’re all learning.

Defining Expectations

Ange MacCabe: Right, so my definition of good performance from a consulting perspective is that people are industrious, they can have high levels of autonomy. There’s candor and transparency, and they’re huge problem solvers. And in the consulting world, problem solving is not as commonsensical as one would think it would be. So one of my jobs in creating Intuity Performance was to really kind of check my own expectations at the door, and I guess figure out what’s my 75%, versus me having the expectation that a consultant is going to be able to step in and meet my expectations out of the gate without me saying anything? So I guess my question has multiple parts in the sense of how are people showing up in your organization if they’re not meeting your expectations?

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Laura Meyer’s Leadership Spotlight on: Leading with Intention.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode! New episodes of The Human Side of Business Podcast air bi-weekly on Mondays at 1 pm ET.

Leadership Spotlight: Leading with Intention

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Laura Meyer, the founder of Envision Horizons.

Laura has helped over 150 brands build successful Amazon businesses through her agency and consultancy work. In addition to working with consumer product companies, Laura has a passion for supporting female-founded and mission-driven companies.

In this episode Laura and I dive into intentional leadership and discuss the strategies behind leading with intention.

Communication Is a Two-way Street

Laura Meyer: There absolutely needs to be a two way street of communication. And there’s no question that my company has grown and improved in what we call, leveling up because of the feedback coming from the team. And I always tell new team members on their first day or their first week, don’t be intimidated by me, raise your hand. This is not an organization where we’re going to get upset or yell or do anything. If you have an idea, like, I want to hear the ideas because the reality is I don’t want to have to come up with all the ideas. It’s a lot of work to try and think everything, so perspectives from all levels of an organization are so important to have.

The Big Thing About Intentional Leadership

Laura Meyer: The big thing with intentional leadership and also just growing a business overall, it has to be a part of your company’s goals or initiatives to be good leaders and to put an emphasis on your team. If it’s not a primary focus, then you’re not going to be good at it, plain and simple. It doesn’t just come second nature to all of the leaders within your team. So you also need to think through, okay, how can I give the directors and managers within my organization autonomy in the kind of the subcultures that they want to produce while also having a consistency across the organization? And like everything, it takes work.

The strategies behind Intentional Leadership

Ange MacCabe: When it comes to intentional leadership, it’s really getting strategic about how you’re approaching things, both from the tactical side of things, so creating consistency, but also the human side of things to create continued momentum and create engagement as well.

Leadership EI-Q

Laura Meyer: I also think being a leader, you need to be self aware, knowing what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, and what you don’t like doing. I will be very honest, I love people, I’m an extrovert, but I don’t necessarily love managing people and training people. Like, I’m a salesperson at heart. I love driving new business. I love developing new programs. That is what I’m good at and that is what I love to do. So, looking forward to next year, that’s really where I’m designing our org chart and our accountability chart to accommodate. Because I do have a team member who’s wonderful at onboarding and training and making team members feel comfortable.

If you’re interested in learning more from our Spotlight Leaders check out Dustin DeVries’s Leadership Spotlight on: Facilitating Empowered Teams.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you don’t miss and episode! New episodes of The Human Side of Business Podcast air bi-weekly on Mondays at 1 pm ET.

Leadership Spotlight: Building Transparency and Trust in Leadership

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Jeff Kelly, CEO of The Flower Cart Group, about Transparency and Trust in leadership.

Jeff dives into the challenges of leading a firmly established team and how he took a people-centric approach to leadership when integrating with his team as their new leader.

Building Trust Through Team Collaboration

Jeff Kelly: Full transparency. We know each other, so, you know, I’m not a very confrontational person and certainly not intimidating as a boss.. So I think that’s one of the things I learned. I don’t see that as a weakness. I see that as a strength. If you play it as a strength.

Ange MacCabe: Very much so, because I hear you in the sense that you’re utilizing that from a place of authenticity. Like you’re using that from a place of what I call positive vulnerability. Right. So you’re saying, hey, I have a thought that I really want to put out here. You’re my subject matter expertise. Let’s solve this problem. This together, essentially, is what I’m hearing. And based on that transparency and that continued effort that you put in over time, Jeff, what I’m hearing is you build strong trust across the team, especially your management group.

Learning How to Be Vulnerable As a Leader

Jeff Kelly: When I took over here, I was in my early forties and it was my first overall senior leadership role. I had leadership positions in other organizations, but I as the director at the time needed to do a check on my own energy and enthusiasm, which is crucial, but at the same time, that ability to understand when it’s appropriate to overshare or when you do overshare – maybe that was not such a great idea. Right?

Looking to Your Team for Their Expertise

Jeff Kelly: Early days, an opportunity came up with a local business not too far from us. And I wanted to work towards training, experiences being compensated, participants to be compensated. And I basically said, Guys, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. Let’s make it happen. Let’s put ideas out on the table. And to the credit of my team at the time, I think it was well understood that this was a line in the sand for me. I wasn’t going to back down from this.. But at the same time, I was looking at them saying, you guys are the experts in delivering this, how we can make this work. And they rose to the occasion.

Staying People-centered With an Open Door Policy

Ange MacCabe: There’s a lot that you’ve said that is piquing my interest. So I really like your approach to getting to know me. Integration. So there’s still boundaries, right? Because oftentimes what you hear from leaders is, yes, I always have an open door policy. And that can be disheartening to some employees when they see that your door is closed half the time. Right. Because the realistic approach of things is that you do have to close your door sometimes to have confidential conversations, just to have some space to focus as well as continue to lead the organization. So really appreciating your thought process. Hey, when my door is open, please come in. Get to know me, interrupt me. That is an authentic approach to transparency, which I’m sure helped you along the way with trust.

What is Transparency?

Jeff Kelly: Being transparent means you have to come from a place of vulnerability. Because for me, being transparent means being open to hear both support and criticism. I’m talking about it in the context of new ideas and new directions and change essentially in a change management environment which I still find myself in.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Become a Better Leader

Link to full podcast episode

The Super Power of DISC

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Chances are you’ve taken a personality profile test at some point in your professional journey.

These tests are often used in HR to fill leadership positions and help organizations build productive and successful teams. They also can provide great insight for personal growth, goal setting and achievements.

With a solid nod to the man who created Wonder Woman, Dr William Moulton Marston (BA Harvard University, LLB Harvard Law School, PhD Psychology, Harvard University) not only invented the first lie detector test and authored numerous self help books, but developed the DISC model for non-judgmental behavioural assessment that has become very popular and useful in the modern workplace.

I see DISC as a superpower that everyone can harness and deploy.

DISC is broken down into 4 primary behavioural tendencies and emotions: Dominant, Influencing, Steady, Conscientious.

We all have natural styles as well as adapted styles, and more than one. Awareness and understanding of our styles combined with the recognition of the styles of others, through the development of empathy, a key component in using DISC successfully leads to more effective communications, enhanced relationships, better problem solving, reduced conflicts, greater motivation, improved morale, stronger leadership, and higher job satisfaction.

Ready to dive in? Contact us today!

10 Tips On How To Become A Better Listener

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Good talkers can be found in every boardroom, classroom, and everywhere in between. Good listeners, on the other hand, are hard to come by. Listening has turned into an art form. With so many distractions and advertisements pulling you in so many directions, people have learned to just tune out. This has compromised our ability to have conversations resulting in us treating people the same way that we treat online banner ads.

This is not a new phenomenon. I’m not saying that prior generations were better listeners and were always actively engaged in conversation with one another. However, without the technology we’ve grown up with today, a thoughtful conversation was a form of entertainment.

This reminds me of a quote from the movie Fight Club (1999) between Edward Norton and Marla Signer.

Edward Norton: When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just…

Marla Singer: Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?

Has this ever happened to you? You’re having a conversation with someone and something comes to mind that you must get out right away. Everything that’s said after your thought has been lost or tuned out, unintentionally.

It’s difficult to be a better listener. It actually takes effort. Unlike passive conversation, listening intently and asking thought-provoking questions and answers is an active form of communication. If you’ve gotten this far, you’re up for the challenge. Most people focus on developing their speaking skills for presentations, public speaking, and pitching ideas.

But now you’ll be one of the few who will focus on the listening skills that commonly get overlooked.

Here are your top 10 habits to become a better listener:

1. Pay Attention

People’s number one problem with listening is that, well, they actually don’t. They are easily distracted by outside forces, like playing with their phone, thinking of something else, and are usually everywhere but present in the conversation. Pay attention to the person in front of you by facing them while they speak and avoid outside distractions. Nod your head during the conversation and keep general eye contact to show your interest.

2. Stay Focused

Next time you’re in a conversation, dedicate yourself solely to that person. Listen to what they have to say by offering your time. Give them your undivided attention so they feel you’re devoted to them. Through actively listening, a better listener will make them feel what they have to say is important. By staying focused, the conversation will come easy. Coming up with good questions is very difficult when you’ve only heard half the conversation.

3. Paraphrase

Find different points where there is a pause in conversation that you can paraphrase what has been said. Show the speaker that you’ve actually been listening by repeating in your own words what they said. A better listener can do this by asking for clarification/elaboration on something or confirming what has been said for better understanding.

4. Give feedback

Give feedback during the conversation without interrupting. Reassure the speaker of how they must have felt during the situation they are describing. “Oh, you must have been so distraught/scared/surprised”, “That sounds like so much fun!” etc.

Ask thoughtful questions about how they must have been feeling and try to connect with their experience (without talking about your similar experience). Let them relive the experience the way they felt.

“So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

5. Be Genuinely Interested

Exhibit genuine interest in the speaker. The easiest way to do this is to actually be interested in what they have to say. Be open to learning and curious about new ideas. You don’t have to agree with the speaker, but wanting to learn and understand what they are saying will show interest.

This will also help you understand other people’s point of view and may even change your way of thinking.

6. Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Cues

During a conversation, non-verbal cues will provide you with as much, if not more, information than what the speaker is actually saying. Pay attention to his tone, body language, and facial expressions to give you a sense of their emotions and how he’s feeling. Respond accordingly by mirroring their emotions through your posture, facial expressions, and language.

If someone is upset about a situation, don’t start speaking loudly at her! Show empathy and understanding of what she is going through. Put yourself in her situation and try to understand how she must have felt (again, NOT how you would feel in the same situation).

7. Lean into being Quiet

They key to becoming a better listener is the opposite of good speaking… lean into being quiet!

You can do this by paying attention to what the speaker is saying, instead of trying to “guess” what’s coming next. Let the conversation roll out rather than jumping ahead. The biggest mistake you can do is to try and finish their sentence for them because most of the time you’ll be wrong.

The brain can process listening to words twice as fast as the speaker can speak them. Don’t try and rush ahead of the conversation, let the speaker guide the conversation at their own pace.

8. Don’t Multi-Task

It’s now scientifically proven that our brains cannot multi-task effectively. And those of us who think, “Yes, this applies to everyone else, but I’m good at it!”. You are wrong.

I’ll be honest; I was one of those naysayers at first and felt I could juggle many tasks at once. But looking back at it, you never really accomplish anything and your attention is significantly divided. Apply the same principals to listening. Instead of thinking of what you’re going to say next, just listen patiently until it’s your turn to speak.

9. Avoid Offering Advice

In general, don’t offer your advice on the situation unless asked to. A lot of times people just need to speak out loud to be able to come to a conclusion. They usually want to figure out their problems themselves and will tend to disagree with what you suggest.

If you must offer your opinion, ask first: “Would you like to hear what I think”, but use this sparingly.

10. Don’t Steer The Conversation

The speaker is there to steer the conversation how they see fit. Take note not to ask questions that will lead away from the topic at hand. What usually happens is you’ll end up talking about something completely different from what the speaker intended to discuss. If the conversation does fall off track, learn to steer it back by asking them to tell you more about what you were initially discussing and give them a moment to get back on track.

Wrap Up

Become a better listener; let people speak to their heart’s content. Having a genuine interest in what they have to say will increase your likeability and they might even claim that you’re a great person to talk to! Even if you only did a small percentage of the talking.

People are always more willing to listen after they’ve said everything they had to say. If you want to be heard, let the other person speak until they’ve said their piece. You can read more about why leaders speak last in our upcoming post: 6 Habits of Highly Successful Leaders (That You’ve Never Heard Of Before)

Attentive listening will help you in social situations, at work, and even networking. I hope these 10 tips have helped inspire you to become a better listener.

Your Action Plan Challenge

Choose three tips from above and write them down in your agenda, calender, notepad or desktop. Conscientiously execute these tips over the next week when you’re in conversations with coworkers, family and friends. If you think of it write down quick notes after your conversation.

Did you notice a difference in the speakers reactions?

Were you able to provide better insight through active listening?

Keep this up throughout the next couple weeks and try different listening tactics to see how they work out for you. Good luck.

A Fix to Performance Reviews: Starts With Asking the Right Questions

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Starts Asking the Right Questions

It’s that time of year for many, yes! Performance reviews. Many leaders cringe at the thought of adding more to their plate. So much so that research has shown over 90% of managers identify that performance reviews are not valuable, ratings cause debates or minimally awkward moments over performance. This creates an overall negative or lackluster feelings towards creating/conducting performance reviews which at the receiving end as an employee is not encouraging. In another study, 54% of people indicated that performance reviews make no impact on actual performance (McKinsey & Company).

What are the reasons holding us to our archaic and arguably ‘broken’ approach to performance?

In my experience, I’ve heard classics like:

  • Well we’ve always done it like this
  • It’s not the worst system (but not many are happy with it)
  • We do not have time or money to invest in fixing it
  • Performance reviews and discussions take too much time to do and our turnover is low, so what’s the point!

Other studies as seen published by Gallop point to organizations may not exactly know how to fix their performance management systems issues and that is enough of a barrier to halt any attempts for positive change.

What makes performance matter?

Having employees feel validated and holding performance conversations regularly can increase productivity by up to 20%, studies have shown. If done correctly, performance is a psychological contract between your team members and management resulting in increased employee engagement and less “gaming” on company time. That alone is a cost savings of millions per year in employee retention and keeping company knowledge within your walls. In addition, it gives employees one on one time with their manager and a clear picture of their performance and expectations. The end result leaves the employee minimally knowing where they stand and further engaged, resulting in higher productivity.

How do we fix a broken performance system?

So we understand all of the reasons for what makes a poor performance program that doesn’t work and the barriers it may bring. What about the ways performance systems can work? There are so many options out there these days. They do not have to be attached to a huge ticket performance platform with oodles of automation (although your HR team would love you for it!); but it does need to make sense for your company culture and your team members. So how do we fix a broken performance system? You start asking questions and REALLY look at your culture, the actual style (not just what is written on your walls). Diving into fully understanding your culture, objectives for doing performance and dialing it into individual objectives and value for employees are four key components of a successful performance program.

Your organization ‘type’ impacts the performance management style

What this means is if your company is profit driven, all goals and objectives should be aligned and performance measured the same, within reason and communicated at all levels. Arguably, performance would be aggregate based on company net profits each year with conservative measures. At the other end of the spectrum is if a company is extremely team oriented, their performance program would include agreed upon goals, measures and a budget for managers to oversee for year end performance increases. Having alignment between culture and performance is key. Otherwise you will have disengagement and water-cooler conversations about why the ratings were so hard that year and coincidentally company profits were down 13% that year. In other words, a perception of a failed performance program.

What is the best performance program?

The best performance program is one that fits and is customized to your organization. There are many out there ranging in style and age of inception. When there is culture alignment with the structure of performance program it’s an easier fit to your organization:

  • Is it 360 feedback
  • Management by objectives
  • Competency based
  • Anchored ranking
  • The coach approach

Personally, I am an advocate for a hybrid of objectives and the coach approach to performance, for so many reasons. A few are: ease of use, employee buy in, two way conversations and meaningful objectives that are measurable.

What objectives are you trying to achieve with your overall performance program?

Understanding the what and the why to conducting performance within your organization approaches performance with purpose. Is it keeping alignment? Achieving productivity? Stretching performance? Or simply gains on profit margins? Regardless of the what and why, establishing objectives and communicating them to your team sets the tone and purpose for reviews.

Do we really need individual objectives?

In short, yes! Tying individual objectives to departmental then organizational objectives gives your team members a clear and succinct picture to their daily purpose of their role, how they impact the organization and add value. Making individual objectives clear, measurable, accountable and a joint venture further sets the tone or stage for expectations and the team member’s vision for the year. This takes away any doubt as to what they are going to do for the year for achievement. It will also allow for accountability in how the team member chooses to complete the objective, within reason of course. These are such important things to have if you aim for a productive performance program and year.

Keeping the people in performance – is there value?

Here’s the thing we often do not think of: if we keep ‘people’ in mind while building and conducting performance reviews we will be much better off by way of value in performance, ease of conversations, higher levels of retention and effort from employees. Talking to the employee as an asset rather than a liability is a learned behavior that is pivotal to impacting positive performance. Discussing succession, training, mentoring or job enrichment opportunities are all ideas that will assist in keeping your team members proactive and feeling wanted in their roles. Other things that can lead to positive performance outcomes are:

  • When deciding on ratings think about the actual outcomes and be transparent in communication. How an employee obtains a five should not be a mystery or moving target. Consistent rating is certainly key.
  • Regardless of the tool, team members must have a comment box. Having team members reflect on their own performance allows for alignment between the manager and team member.
  • Companies ought to be transparent as to how ratings impact their compensation, if at all. Employees should not be in the dark on the formula.
  • When discussing annual performance, it should never be a surprise: good, bad or indifferent.
  • Ensure there is an approach to keep employees engaged and wanting to provide feedback and viewpoints on their goals/objectives and performance.

A performance review isn’t broken if there is value. We do not need Cadillac systems, just systems that work for our respective organizations.

If you would like to discuss your performance system(s) in detail, connect with us!