Team
Play
Strategies for Successful People Management
Shirley
McKinnon
Copyright © 2011 by Shirley McKinnon
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Front cover
photograph by Fisher Photo
Cartoons by Janet Wolf
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Dedication
For my Mum, who always understood.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
Problems
with the sales team
Problems
with other managers
Problems
at home
1
THE ‘NICE GUY’
Late
for work
The
emotional battery
Handling
the situation
Struggling
to make budget
Getting
past the excuses
The
Nice Guy pendulum
Summary
2
PROBLEM PEOPLE
Problem
people and illness
Problem
people as victims
Problem
people appear to be nice people
Problem
people and scarcity
How
to handle problem people
Problem
people as managers
Problem
people as clients
Problem
people as friends
Summary
3
THE LAWS OF REAL VALUE
A
little boy’s bike
When
it all goes wrong
Real
value for employees
Real
value for the boss
Creating
real value with clients
Real
value in relationships
Laws
of real value in children
Summary
4
DO THEY FEEL LISTENED TO?
Rules
for the game of listening
Genuine
listening
Risks
in genuine listening
Listen
with your eyes
Listening
to women
Managers
listening to teams
Summary
5
TRIGGERING OTHER PEOPLE
Cause
and effect
Ego
states
The
Parent ego state
The
Child ego state
The
Adult ego state
Successful
communication
Blocking
or crossing the transaction
Summary
6
THE PUZZLE OF LOW SELF-ESTEEM
Identifying
low self-esteem
Low
selfesteem in the workplace
The
healthy self-esteem disadvantage
The
low self-esteem point of view
What
destroys self-esteem?
Managing
low self-esteem
Youth
and low self-esteem
Low
self-esteem in managers and bosses
Low
self-esteem in clients
Summary
7
DELEGATION
Do
they understand?
Peace
of mind
Roles
and responsibility
Attached
versus committed
The
final step in delegation
Summary
8
MOTIVATION
What
is motivation?
Motivating
people
The
unconscious incompetent
The
conscious incompetent
The
conscious competent
The
unconscious competent
Deciding
what to train
Training
managers
Summary
9
THE FORMULA FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE
The
path to being in flow
The
trap of the euphoric
Pulling
out of the euphoric
Occasional
duck to consistent eagle
Summary
10
TEAM BUILDINGDIFFERENCES THAT GET IN THE WAY
The
introvert
The
extrovert
Feeling
people-oriented people
Thinking-logical
people
Temperament
and bosses
The
Artisan
The
Guardian
The
Idealist
The
Rational
Summary
11
FINDING THE TIME
Decision-making
skills
Practical
time management
Being
a good team player
Summary
EPILOGUE
Nicole
Sonia
Hamid
Con
Gina
The
boss
The
management team
At
home
Summary
David Brownston stared blindly out of the train window and wondered what he was doing wrong. He’d been in the job for six months now, and with all his experience of dealing with people, he should have his team really pumping. They were going reas onably well, but ... The uncomfortable part of it was that he suspected he was having very little influence on them. Some months were good, others were mediocre. Sometimes, he could see a rep was going to miss budget and couldn’t seem to do a thing about it. Other times, it came as a complete surprise to both him and the rep. And, if he was honest with himself, with or without his help, they picked themselves up, put in the effort and hours needed, and exceeded beyond all expectations the following month. So why couldn’t he get them doing that every month? He was the sales manager of a dedicated team that was exceeding budget. But too often they struggled in last-minute bursts of desperation. And while the team was jubilant that they had done it again, David knew that there had to be a better way. When he took this job, he had pictured a slow, solid building of client bases for his people and had worked on building their skills and motivation. But there were days when their contempt for him was obvious, weeks when he couldn’t get one of them to take him out with them on client meetings. He let his mind linger on them individually, itemising the issues he saw they had.
There was Nicole, vivacious and bubbly. Nicole was a nightmare when it came to paperwork. Being disorganised seemed as natural as breathing to her. She created chaos in the office, but her clients loved her. She was bright and fun to have around and most months she did well. Occasionally, she soared and wrote the kind of figures that David knew she was capable of achieving every month. But every time she hit the big figures, some personal drama would happen and take her focus off her work. There would be a new man in her life, or an ex-boyfriend would reappear, or her sister would have trouble with her husband and Nicole would be there to support her, or one of the other reps would have a problem and Nicole would somehow become involved. The following month she would be struggling to make budget. Then there was Sonia. Sonia had a heart of gold. She had years of experience in the industry and she made budget every month -just. It never worried her, though. If she had a great start to her month, she would spend the rest of the month catching up with her old clients over lunch and drinks, and wouldn’t sell another thing till the end of the month. She would make budget again -just. She didn’t seem to care. It drove David nuts, and he couldn’t find a way to motivate her. He’d tried incentives, bonuses, vouchers, free dinners, all kinds of things that he had been told were meant to motivate, and she just smiled and made budget again. Just. Hamid was a quiet guy, a little distant but very professional. If you asked Hamid to do something, you knew it was going to get done. He would go to the ends of the earth for his clients and they had huge respect for him. The problem was that Hamid took a long time to build a relationship with a client. He was a little distant, not really a warm person, and it always took three to four visits before he made a sale. And it seemed he always had to resell the client. David didn’t know how to teach Hamid to make relationships quickly with clients because he himself did it instinctively. Hamid made budget most months, too, but it was hard slog. Even though he was slowly building his client base, it was no easier for him to go back and get repeat sales. And it only took the loss of one client to set him back several months. The truth was that Hamid was getting as frustrated as David was with his performance and David was worried that he was going to lose him. Hamid was very slowly building to become a solid performer, but David didn’t know how to get him to the next level. And he needed to get there, fast.
Con was everybody’s friend. He was a big softy. His relationships with his clients were strong and long-lasting. In fact, Con went too far for his clients, he tended to over-promise and that often resulted in under-delivering. He quite simply couldn’t say no to a client. And while he would forgive his clients anything, he was very hard on himself and those around him. David had heard mutterings from Con’s clerical assistant. She had spat the dummy one day and maintained that he would never speak to her that way if she was a client. David knew that Con was too soft with his clients and accepted their excuses as real. He knew that Con could double his figures if he would get just a little firmer, but nothing he said seemed to make any difference. They had had a couple of talks and Con had seemed to listen and agree with him, but nothing had changed. David couldn’t seem to make an impact on him or change the way he did things. Last, but not least, there was Gina. Gina was every sales manager’s dream. She was totally focused, she had goals she and her husband had set together, and she was determined to succeed. She was professional, organised, good with internal staff and excellent with clients. Most months she was twenty per cent above budget. She loved her job and, to top it all off, she had a stable relationship with her partner. Only a sales manager would know the value of that, thought David to himself. He had begun to wonder if there were any good relationships left out there. It seemed to him that every person in his department took turns each month to have a personal drama. Gina didn’t. Well, at least, if she did she kept it to herself until she had solved it. She was a total professional. And that was going to leave him with a problem, too. David knew that it was only a matter of time until either the company promoted her into a management position or she moved elsewhere for promotion. It would be great for her, but he would lose the only person he seemed to be able to influence in the department. Gina had great systems that she used to keep her on track. He had used them several times as an example for Nicole. David would have thought that if Nicole could see that Gina’s success was largely dependent upon these systems, she might stick with them. And she did, for a whole week. But then she dropped back again. He was starting to feel pretty ineffective with them. Oh sure, they were grateful for the creative features he came up with, the ideas he rolled off, the support he gave them in keeping the pressure on the administrative staff to keep up with the work, the computers he seemed to be able to squeeze from management. But his job was handling people, making them more successful. David had to admit it to himself that he could manage the work, but he wasn’t really managing the people. He knew he didn’t inspire them, he wasn’t changing the way they worked and often they simply avoided him. ‘I wish someone could tell me what I’m doing wrong,’ he muttered to himself.
It wasn’t just his sales team that was causing him problems. It seemed to David that he spent as much time working around the other managers in the management team as he did with his own people. There were times when David seriously wondered if they were working for the same company. Andre in the accounts department was always taking potshots at David’s reps. He was always making comments about long, boozy client lunches and how they didn’t know what hard work was. He judged them harshly and seemed to enjoy sending his people around to stir things up because a form hadn’t been filled in correctly. There was very little give and take between the departments; it seemed to David that Andre’s staff abruptly demanded and David’s reps complied. This wasted a lot of time and every incident increased the resentment the reps felt. The information technology department was always condescending, too. They were supposed to be teaching the reps how to use their new laptops, but it just wasn’t happening. Sylvia, the manager of the department, didn’t seem to understand what the salespeople needed. She was trying to make them work the way she wanted them to work, and it just wasn’t practical. Sylvia wanted the reps to use the software she had picked and couldn’t see that it was going to make them spend more time on administration. Sure, it would make life easier in the long run, but at what cost of daily and weekly time for the reps? It kept them off the road. But every time they tried to discuss it, they both became frustrated. David just couldn’t get Sylvia to see his side of things. And as for the creative department, they were supposed to be there to support sales. That was a joke. They were prima donnas who took offence if the client didn’t like their creative concepts.
It seemed to David that some of the creative people felt that the advertisers were wrong for wanting to sell products. But when he tried to address these issues with Sam, the creative director, he was always running out the door to go to a client meeting. David was never able to get any answers, from him. When he cornered him, the only answer David got was that he would talk to his people about it, but nothing ever changed. If David brought it up at a management meeting in an attempt to get the situation discussed, Sam would become very quiet. He’d sit there, head down, avoiding eye contact. This was very frustrating. David had talked about the situation with his general manager, and he had seemed just as frustrated with Sam. This wasn’t too encouraging for David, because if the general manager couldn’t do anything about him, what hope did David have? Sometimes it seemed as if the managers were deliberately trying to make his job harder. He had to fight for things that obviously would make his department more effective, if not more efficient. And he included his boss in this. It seemed that some days, David quite simply got off-side with his boss. He couldn’t explain it any other way. Some days, David just couldn’t get through to him; either he wasn’t communicating well or his boss just wasn’t listening. David didn’t know what it was that got in the way or what to do about it.
He was working long hours trying to make this work, but it didn’t seem to help in the long run. It only made things worse at home. Shelley understood his need for recognition and was happy to allow for his ambition, but her patience was running short. She told him at the weekend that she felt he wasn’t listening any more -not to her, and certainly not to the kids. David thought that was ironic. She was accusing him of doing what he was accusing his boss of doing. Maybe if he watched what his boss was doing to him, he could work out what he was doing wrong with his kids. David thought about his kids for a moment. Justin was fifteen, Annie thirteen. His relationship with Justin was falling apart. Every time that David tried to communicate with his son, it seemed to get worse. Justin was either sullen or accused him of not listening or not understanding. And he was right, thought
David. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand his kids and why he couldn’t have a reasonable conversation with them. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t identify what it was his reps were doing and how to improve it. He didn’t understand why the management team didn’t work together better instead of driving each other nuts all the time. And he didn’t understand why he couldn’t communicate better with his boss. He got on really well with all the clients, why couldn’t he do that with others in the office? ‘I wish someone could tell me what I’m doing wrong. I wish that someone would take all these people one by one and tell me how to handle them and how to make a difference.’ * This book will tell you how to handle your people and how to make a difference. Read through the concepts and processes described here. You will find David’s solutions for all these people problems in the epilogue.
From the moment we pick up our first favourite toy, we are trained to be ‘nice’. We are taught to be fair. Heart-broken, we watch another child take possession of the toy dearest to our heart and we are supposed to be content, even happy that we have been able to share! In the midst of a raging fury and a sense of injustice, we learn that the greatest sin is to be selfish, to think of ourselves first. We’re taught that we must be nice to others, to look after them, regardless of how we feel about it. Being nice helps keep everything calm and civilised. Being nice supports everyone and makes them happy. And that’s what we’re supposed to do -make others happy. This behaviour solves some of the problems of human interaction, but it also creates some. We want to be nice, we want to be fair and give the other person the benefit of the doubt. We want to support them and show them we care. And if we are dealing with other Nice Guys, they will repay us by becoming more loyal and hardworking. They will come to like us more. True? Let’s look at some examples and see if it really works that way.
One of your staff is late for work and has been late every day this week. You reluctantly call her into your office and address the issue. She admits she’s been late and, visibly upset, explains that she’s having terrible arguments with her partner. You are sympathetic but firm, you understand she’s having problems at home but she must try to get to work on time. You extract a promise from her and send her on her way.
You feel that you have addressed the situation calmly, fairly and firmly, with understanding and compassion, and that you have reminded her of her obligations to the company. The next day, much to your satisfaction, she is on time. The following day, she’s running late again. You wonder what you did wrong. What did you miss? Right intention, wrong application. Look back on your meeting with your staff member. Who did most of the talking? You did. Who dictated the promise for her to be on time? You did. What part did she take in the proceedings? She was upset because she had a problem at home, she listened to you and she agreed with you. But she also knows that you are a Nice Guy and she’d rather face your disapproval than confront the real problem. If changing is too much trouble for her, deep down she knows that you will let her off the hook. Again. Because you are a Nice Guy, your problem with your staff member is likely to get worse. You may let her off the hook. If you do, you will have to address the situation further down the track when it has become an even bigger problem. By letting her off the hook you will be sending her some powerful messages:
• It’s okay for her to let her personal life spill over into her work life.
• Her arguments with her partner are more important than her professional image.
• You think it’s okay for her to be late as long as she has a good enough excuse.
Why would you let her off the hook? There are two reasons, and they are both because you are a Nice Guy. Firstly, you want to be supportive. Secondly, you don’t want to upset anyone. You may feel that you are supporting her by not putting too much pressure on her while she is under stress at home. You think, she’s upset, it would be better if I talk to her tomorrow when she’s calmer. I’ll talk to her when the time is right. And then tomorrow you are busy, so you decide to talk to her the next day. You are secretly hoping that by the time you get around to talking to her, the problem will have gone away. By letting her off the hook, you are not supporting her in her work role, you are supporting her as an incapable person who can’t get to work on time. You are saying, she isn’t capable of looking after herself, I’ll look after her. And that’s how you may feel, that she needs looking after. But how has letting her off the hook actually helped her? You see, your problem with your staff member is not that she is having problems with her partner, but that she isn’t taking responsibility for getting to work on time. The arguments are almost irrelevant. They are a real problem for her, but, as far as getting to work on time is concerned, they are just the excuse. And if she doesn’t take responsibility for getting to work on time now, she’ll have other excuses when the arguments stop. The issue is how she behaves because of them. There are two other issues here. Firstly, if your staff member is getting sympathy from the rest of the office with the drama in her life, she may not be interested in stopping the arguments, or changing the behaviour. Believe it or not, some people thrive on the attention they get when they are having problems. They mistake attention and sympathy for popularity. Playing the victim is very rewarding for them. If you have a potential victim on your hands, put strong standards in place and stop the clusters of sympathetic ears. She won’t flourish under such a ‘hostile’ boss, and will either straighten up and get on with the job or she will leave. Secondly, if she is sloppy about getting to work on time, she may well be sloppy in other areas. We carry our standards and ethics through all parts of our lives. We like to think that while we may do something not so well in one area of our lives, we do it better elsewhere in our lives. You might think that while you’re late for work, you’re seldom late in your private life. I’ll bet your friends and family disagree! The positive side of this is that if we improve our ethics in one area, we generally tighten up in other areas. Small improvement in one area is usually followed by small improvements in other areas. So how does letting her off the hook help her? It doesn’t.
Deep down, you already know this. So what stops you from dealing with the situation? Emotion. Yours. You imagine what is going to happen when you talk to her. You know that she is already upset and you imagine her bursting into tears in your office. You will feel embarrassed. She will think you are cold and unfeeling, and that’s not your intention. You want to be understanding, but you need her to get to work on time. You don’t want to upset her, but you know you need to say something. So you avoid it. Not deliberately, but you rationalise that you will find the right time, when you’ve got a moment. Or maybe you will call her in to the office, but will be more abrupt than you intended and hurry the interview to get her out of your office before she gets too upset and starts to cry. It is your own emotion, and your imagination, that stops you from handling it properly. You feel uncomfortable at the thought of upsetting her further, and you want to avoid feeling uncomfortable. But by avoiding the emotion, you actually create a more emotionally fraught situation. What you avoid, you create.
What you avoid, you create.
If you avoid handling the issue, you will get angry and impatient every time she comes in late. The emotional pressure will build until you have to say something. And when you do you will be very angry. She will be mortified because she thought you didn’t really mind, and now she finds that you did. And not only did you mind, but you’ve been watching and waiting and not saying anything. She will be really upset! You will have created exactly what you were trying to avoid. Unexpressed emotion is like a battery. Don’t say something and the battery starts to charge up. Something else comes up and the battery charges up a little more. She is late again. When you don’t address it, the battery charges up still more. You come across a cluster of office staff comforting her in the corridor and walk by without saying anything. Frustration builds and the battery charges up even more. When she is late yet again it’s like putting a spanner across the connections of the battery, kapow! Your reaction is extreme, and you say things that later you will regret. Now, if you had said something in the first place, the battery wouldn’t have charged up. Expressing what you feel in an appropriate way dissipates the energy and you feel calm afterwards. Don’t say what you want to and you will continue to think about it, and continue to get annoyed well beyond what the situation deserves.
If you speak up now, in an appropriate way, you will be acknowledging that your staff member is capable of doing better. You will be able to work with her to achieve that result. You will be contributing to her becoming a more professional and valued employee. She will respect you for the result you will get, and you will certainly feel better about your handling of the situation. So, you need to break through the hesitation created by your emotion and imagination. This takes practice, determination and a long-term point of view. It’s very much like standing on the edge of a swimming pool. You’ve been gardening, and you’re hot and dusty. You know the water is going to feel icy cold and you hesitate. Common sense and logic tell you that you’ll feel better after a swim, but you still hesitate. Your imagination stops you. You imagine the shock of the cold water. You even shiver at the thought of it. Emotion and imagination are more powerful than thoughts or logic. It takes practice to learn that the result is worth it. If your intention is strong and you have a sense of long-term consequences, you dive in. The cold water makes you gasp, but you keep swimming. Soon you feel revitalised and refreshed, you feel great! You’re pleased that you dived in.
Emotion and imagination are more powerful than thoughts or logic.
It is your emotion that makes you hesitate. You have the best of intentions; you don’t want to hurt or upset others. You need to take the long-term point of view. Will it be better or worse if you put off the discussion? Will it help your staff member if she faces the same situation again? Are you supporting her as a capable person? Or are you supporting her as an incapable person?
So, how do you handle this kind of situation without being an ogre, firmly but with understanding, and encourage her to change? Firstly, you have to get her to take responsibility for her behaviour. You have to get her to tell you what she’s been doing that is not acceptable either to the firm or for her in the long run. Secondly, she needs to tell you what should be happening, what she should be doing that she’s not (arriving at work on time). Ask her what might stop her from getting to work on time. What things does she need to put into place to ensure she gets to work on time? When she thinks about this, she will run the likely events through her mind. She will imagine the emotions she might feel and the obstacles she might face, and she will prepare herself. We all know that role-plays allow us to prepare ourselves and handle things better, but we seldom do this with others who are struggling with a problem. The things that you need to ask are:
• What should be happening?
• What do you need to do to make this happen?
• What’s the first thing you need to do to make this happen?
• What might stop you?
• What do you need to do to ensure you continue the way you intend to?
In this case, your staff member needs to get to work on time. This means that she either has to stop arguing with her partner or ensure that she patches things up the night before. Or she may have to leave the argument behind her at home when she comes to work. That way she will catch the bus or train as she had planned. The key is for her to take responsibility for what is happening to her. Then she will be able to commit to changing the behaviour that is unacceptable. Telling people that they have to change and getting them to agree to it is not going to change anything. Change is only possible if she accepts the responsibility for the behaviour in the first place.
Telling people that they have to change and getting them to agree to it is not going to change anything.
Once she has accepted the responsibility, she needs a strong reason to change. Walk her down the long-term consequences of her behaviour. As her boss, you will get impatient and dissatisfied with her. She may even lose her job. How will that help her cope with her problems? It must only make things worse. You can support her and be understanding, but not at the expense of dropping the standards. You can be most supportive by maintaining standards and helping her become more professional.
Picture this. One of your salespeople is struggling to make budget and you have been watching him for a while, trying to figure out what he’s doing wrong. Finally, you spot it and call him into your office to have a chat. You ask him what he thinks is not working for him and patiently listen to his excuses, but you already know what he’s doing wrong. He’s not closing strongly at the end of the sale. Now, you got the job as sales manager because you were good at sales and you know exactly what your salesperson needs to do. So you tell him. You tell him what he’s not doing and, encouraged by him nodding his head in embarrassed agreement, you tell him what you would do if you were in his shoes. You go over some specific examples to demonstrate to him how successful your techniques were, you check that he understands and send him on his way. You feel pleased with yourself because you have just done your job exceptionally well. You have identified the problem, given him the solution, motivated and encouraged him and sent him back out there to try it for himself. Right? Wrong. Chances are that your salesperson will go out there with good intentions and give it a try. Chances are that nothing will change and he will continue to try to make sales without closing. Or he may decide that your method works for you, but he and his customers are different and what you have told him doesn’t apply to them. But he won’t tell you this. He’ll just continue on his own way of doing things and, again, nothing will change. I’m not saying that if he could see a way of changing that was acceptable to him, he wouldn’t try it, but you haven’t given him one. Think about it. Your solution to the problem is not necessarily the right solution for the person who has the problem. And that’s the whole point! It’s not you who has the problem. Your salesperson thinks differently, acts differently and feels differently about what he does.
Your solution to the problem is not necessarily the right solution for the person who has the problem.
Who did most of the talking? You. Who dictated the solution? You. What part did your salesperson take in the proceedings? He was embarrassed because he knew he was doing something wrong. He listened to you, and he agreed with you. But do you know why he isn’t closing strongly at the end of the sale? Perhaps he thinks that the product is too expensive and feels uncomfort-able charging that much. Perhaps he feels he is putting pressure on people. If he’s a Nice Guy, closing the sale may feel as if he is pushing and he won’t want to threaten the relationship. You don’t know why he isn’t closing strongly at the end of the sale. And if you don’t know, how can you help him? Can you see that, with the best intention in the world, you are being the Nice Guy again and solving his problem for him? How have you made him take responsibility? Have you got a commitment from him or just an agreement with what you are saying? You need to find out what your salesperson thinks should be happening. What stops him? It is what stops him that you have to address. If you can’t get him to identify what stops him, you need to read immediately the chapter in this book on listening skills. Cancel all your appointments, close your office door and read that chapter on listening skills -you are not getting to the real problem. You are simply addressing the problem you would have if you were in his shoes. Handling the real problem will make you the best sales manager the company has ever had, because so few managers are able to do this. Remember, emotion and imagination are more powerful than thoughts or logic. So, even though you have given your salesperson a logical explanation of how to solve his problem, he still feels bad about doing it. He will not follow your advice. He will continue to do it his way, even though it is proving not to be a successful way of operating. You have to find out how he feels and what it is he is avoiding.
Whenever we do something we shouldn’t or do something we feel uncomfortable about, we have to make it okay with ourselves. So we rationalise what we do. We justify why we had to do it that way. And when explaining this to another person we are convincing. We’re convincing because we have talked ourselves into believing our rationalisations. We have to in order to feel okay about what we’ve done. Actually, deep down we don’t feel okay, but we don’t want to look too closely, because either we don’t have the solution, or the solution wasn’t palatable to us at the time and we took the easy way out. For whatever reason, when we are questioned as to why we did things that way, we trot out the rationalisations, the justifications, the excuses. And the Nice Guy accepts them as real. But, as we’re starting to see, believe these excuses and you’re not getting to the real problem. So, how do you spot when someone’s giving you excuses? Often they will give you two, three, four, even five excuses, one after the other. It only takes one thing to stop us. If you get two or three excuses one after the other, know that’s just what they are, excuses, and keep asking questions.
If you get two or three excuses one after the other, know that’s just what they are, excuses, and keep asking questions.
I was working with a sales manager who was having difficulty with one of her staff who consistently demonstrated behaviour that she felt was unacceptable. Up until that point, she had not addressed it. At the start of our session, she burst out with a description of how the staff member had done it again and how frustrated she was with him. I asked her if she had addressed it with him. She said she hadn’t and explained why, and absolutely assured me that the next time she saw him do this again she’d handle it. She’d talk to him and make him aware, in no uncertain terms, that this was unacceptable to her. She was very convincing, but I was more interested in what had stopped her, not what she was going to do in the future. If you don’t do something different, whatever stops you this time will also stop you next time.
If you don’t do something different, whatever stops you this time will also stop you next time.
‘So, why didn’t you talk to him?’ I asked her. ‘There was nowhere private where I could talk to him,’ she said. ‘I was really busy, so was he, and it was his birthday.’
So, she had four reasons for not addressing this situation with him. I decided to address each excuse, one at a time. ‘You had nowhere private to talk to him? What about the room we’re in now? What was wrong with this room?’ ‘Someone was using it.’ At this point, she still believes her rationalisations. ‘And you couldn’t find an office anywhere else in the whole building that you could use?’ ‘Well, I suppose if I had gone looking I could have found one. But I was really busy at that time and he was flat out, too.’ ‘But didn’t you tell me that the next time he behaved like that you would have an example to use to address his behaviour? And so you needed to do it immediately?’ ‘Yes, I did. But it was his birthday.’ She’s starting to realise that there’s something wrong with her justifications, and she’s starting to feel uncomfortable. ‘So, explain to me how the fact that it’s his birthday makes a difference.’ ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ sarcasm slips in as she starts to get defensive -we must be getting close, this is a last attempt to put me off, ‘but I think birthdays should be happy days, not days where someone upsets you.’ ‘So, you think that addressing his behaviour and making him a more valuable employee is going to upset him?’ ‘Not when you put it that way, no.’ ‘But you felt he was going to get upset if you addressed this behaviour with him?’ ‘Yes, of course I did.’ ‘So what were you really trying to avoid?’ She gave me a shocked look, thought for a moment, grinned and said, ‘I was trying to avoid upsetting him. And of course, when I finally do talk to him, I’ll be so frustrated, I will upset him more.’ Now she knows what she’s really dealing with. She’s avoiding conflict and doesn’t want to upset her staff. She’s a typical Nice Guy, but now her awareness has lifted on why she behaves the way she does and what she’s trying to avoid. If she keeps a longterm perspective on her staff, focuses on helping them grow and improve, and understands that it’s her fear of conflict that kicks in and stops her, she’s got a far better chance of pushing through to get a good result. Another way of identifying if the person is handing you excuses, is to ask yourself, does this make sense? She said that she had no place in which to talk to him. Are you expected to believe that in the whole building there was not one room where she could have had a private talk with him? And if this was the case, surely they could have gone to a local coffee shop and discussed this over coffee. But, of course, this solution wouldn’t have been acceptable to her if she thought he was going to get upset. Now it makes sense; once you have the real problem, it makes complete sense. But until then, it doesn’t.
Another way of identifying if the person is handing you excuses, is to ask yourself, does this make sense?
She was busy? What’s she supposed to do, wait until she’s got nothing to do before she can address issues with her staff? She’s paid to be busy! She’s meant to be busy for most of her day. Even when she’s planning and thinking, essential parts of her job, she’s still busy. Starting to get the picture? If it doesn’t make sense, ask the person to explain it to you. In the effort to explain the thinking process to you, you will see the lack of logic or the weakness; you may even spot what it is that the person is trying to avoid. If a situation is not being addressed, chances are that the person is trying to avoid something unpleasant. In other words, that person might be a Nice Guy like you.
Now, you may be saying to yourself, well, some of this fits, but I’m not a Nice Guy because I am tough on some people. And that’s the double whammy of Nice Guys, they’re toughest on themselves and those closest to them. They’ll demand high standards, have high expectations, and will be tough on people close to them and with themselves.
But when it comes to negative people or people with problems, Nice Guys will swing the other way. They will want to help. They can’t stand the thought of anyone being upset or hurt. They’ll know what people in trouble need to do to get out of trouble. They’ll start to give them solutions, and bingo, they’re hooked! They’ve latched themselves on to a problem person and they’ll bend over backwards to be ‘fair’, but all the while they are being manipulated by the problem person. Their good intentions will ensure that they are softest on those who cause them the most problems. Eventually, they will be forced to handle them and, chances are, they will then go over the top. They’ll be left wondering what they did wrong. What they did wrong was to try to help a person who wanted the problem more than the solution. Nice Guys look at the wrong thing. They look at the problem. They should be looking at what the person is doing to create the situation.
Nice Guys look at the wrong thing. They look at the problem. They should be looking at what the person is doing to create the situation.
To identify if you’ve fallen into this trap, look around you and see if you have people you help who are unable to help you in return. In other words, if you’ve been helping a sales rep and, after a reasonable period of time, the rep still isn’t helping you by achieving budget, take another look at the situation. Put aside the excuses both you and the rep believe in, and look at what is stopping the rep from achieving. What is it the rep is doing that is contributing to the situation? Nice Guys usually only see one point of view, that of the person in trouble. But there’s another side to the story. Take a good hard look.
Encourage other people to take responsibility for their behaviour. Get them to tell you:
• What they’ve been doing that is not acceptable either to the firm or to themselves in the long run
• What should be happening
• What they need to do to make this happen
• What the first step is that they need to take to make sure that this happens
• What might stop them
• What they need to do to ensure they continue through with their intention.
Ask yourself whether you have:
• Helped make them more capable
• Got to the heart of the problem or simply addressed the excuses
• Worked harder for them than they have themselves.
Is there someone in your team who claims a lot of your attention? Does someone seem to be on your mind most of the time? Does someone have a problem that you help solve and it is quickly followed by another problem? Your good people get the job done and achieve good results. This person may also get good results, but there are always dramas. Assess how much time you spend with each person in your department. Get an accurate picture of how much time you spend with each of them or worrying about each of them. If you find there are one or two who claim too much of your time and attention, the chances are you have a problem person on your hands. And, let’s face it, you’ve got enough to do without constantly having to attend to one or two people above all the others in your department. Problem people may be in the wrong job, or this behaviour may be an indication of how they live their lives. Problem people take your attention off the things you do successfully to put time and effort into handling them. They may use a camouflage of niceness, but these people have a hidden agenda that is destructive to your plans, your relationships or your team.
Problem people take your attention off the things you do successfully to put time and effort into handling them.
The reason managers spend so much time on problem people is that they can appear to be indispensable. The first rule of business is to get rid of anyone who is indispensable. If you consider one of your staff to be indispensable, this means that their presence in your business is essential, that it can’t operate without them. This makes your business reliant on that person and dangerously vulnerable. What happens if they go on holiday, get hit by a bus, or, even worse, go to work for your competitors? In a business situation, there are two kinds of problem people. One achieves target but takes a huge chunk of time and attention. Looking over the team results at the end of the month, you’ll probably reassure yourself that maybe all the time and attention was worth it. That’s why these people are so hard to handle at the end of the day, they produce. If they weren’t producing good results, you would have had a reason to get rid of them by now. But you haven’t, because the bottom line is that they achieve budget. But at what cost for you and the other staff in your department? Is it really worth it? Imagine if you had someone producing the same results without taking so much of your time and attention during the month. The other type of problem people don’t perform, but you know they are capable of it. You may be particularly fond of these people and want to see them do well. They show glimpses of their capabilities and you want to support them. You know they can do it and they say all the right things. You hope this is the month they are going to make it. But deep down, you have a sneaking suspicion that they won’t, as much as you’d like them to. Or if they do, you suspect that the following month they’ll miss budget again. It’s important to understand how problem people operate. They attack what you do so that you don’t focus on what they’re doing. You present the new budget to your sales team. Your good people may comment that the budgets are high, but they’ll give it their best shot. The problem person will accuse you of being interested only in the dollars. In all sorts of subtle ways, problem people make you feel sorry for them. Fancy having to work for a boss who’s only interested in the dollars! And because there’s an element of truth in what they say (of course you’re interested in achieving budget), you back off. That’s not how you want to be, or how you want your staff to perceive you. You realise that somehow you’ve been sidetracked, but you now feel uncomfortable about handling them. Problem people are very good at generalising. ‘Everybody thinks you’re too tough!’ You imagine a wave of condemnation about you. In fact, it is only the problem person and that person’s friends, and usually only one sympathiser at that. But problem people manage to make it sound as if the whole office is talking about you behind your back and has banded together in agreement about your faulty management of them. Problem people always talk about what they’ve done in the past and what they’re going to do in the future. They’ll remind you of the great record they had at their last job and walk you through all the things they have in the pipeline. Problem people create confusion around the results they are getting and live on hope. They get caught in their own PR and exaggeration, and resist at all costs focusing on the results they are getting now. If their results are down and you discuss this with them, they’ll sidetrack you by pointing out your violations to take your focus off their present behaviour. Problem people may also compulsively avoid confronting reality, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a manager to handle them. I was working with a woman I considered to be a problem person and asked her if she had achieved budget for the month. Firmly and convincingly, she assured me that she had. Now, I knew that she had missed budget and was intrigued that she could claim she had achieved it. ‘Really? You got budget this month? Are you sure?’ ‘Yes, of course I’m sure,’ she said, smiling and looking a little sideways at me. Now, this would stop most people asking any further. By the slight movement of her head, she is indicating that I am asking silly questions. But I knew she hadn’t got budget! ‘But I was under the impression that you had missed budget this month.’ ‘No, I got budget this month.’ After a slight hesitation, she then said, ‘Of course, I lost Skyzone’s order. But before they cancelled, I did have budget.’ And she launched into the story of how another rep had stolen Skyzone from her. It was someone else’s fault, she was just the poor victim. Later, her manager was amazed at the accuracy of my prediction that within the next week she would be away with a migraine.
In fact, I predicted that when she did get budget, she wouldn’t cope with the success anyway and would again fall victim to a migraine. I was right both times. If you are locked into this pattern, you won’t allow yourself to have success. So when things do go well, problem people will go to extraordinary lengths to get themselves back into trouble so that you can feel sorry for them again. And so that they can feel sorry for themselves. Problem people will try to distract you from focusing on their results by telling you about the things you do wrong or about what the other reps or managers are doing to them. Once you have identified what they are doing, ignore the feelings of sympathy which will flood to the surface, and remain focused on the issue of their results.
Problem people will try to distract you from focusing on their results by telling you about the things you do wrong or about what the other reps or managers are doing to them.
Another technique problem people use is to get you to take on their problems as your own. You can’t solve them because they aren’t your problems. You can run around trying to solve the problems, but you will be wasting your time. You will feel inadequate, which means that when they so kindly point out your shortfalls ‘Everyone thinks you’re too tough!’ -you’ll feel that they could be right. If you’re a Nice Guy, this will distract you and you’ll seriously examine the truth of it. Your attention is now on whether you are too tough and off the results the problem people are achieving, or not achieving. They will have distracted you from addressing their behaviour by getting you to focus on an element of truth about yours. This creates emotional confusion for you, and your judgement will become even more flawed around them. But your behaviour and how they feel about it isn’t the issue here. Problem people reduce your certainty and create foggy thinking. You knew exactly what to do, but since talking to them, you’re not so sure anymore.
Problem people reduce your certainty and create foggy thinking.
For example, Alan comes to you with the complaint, ‘Kate really annoys me when she makes personal phone calls.’ You don’t have a problem with the calls Kate makes because she keeps them short. But you ask her to keep her calls to a minimum. Then Alan finds something else about Kate that bothers him. You chase up this new problem to attempt to fix it. After all, you are trying to create a happy, motivated team. But what about Alan? What is he trying to create? Is he taking responsibility for the relationship by running to you to fix it for him? The fact is, it isn’t your problem. You should simply say, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it? You’d better handle that with Kate.’ Problem people take your attention off the game and move it onto their problem. They don’t take responsibility, they blame usually you, if you’re the one bringing a problem to their attention.
Problem people take your attention off the game and move it onto their problem.
Be alert for problem people putting the blame on illness. If they haven’t achieved their budget it may be because they were away with a migraine, a cold or some other illness. Monitor their sick days and identify whether they get ill with surprising regularity. Then go back and insist on them achieving budget. If your best people were close to achieving budget and they didn’t feel well, they would drag themselves to work and make it happen despite the illness. Problem people won’t. Anything will stop them and they’ll condemn you for insisting on them achieving budget and not having sympathy for their situation. But why do problem people get ill so regularly? Problem people are often people in the wrong job. Most of us have at some time or another been in a job we didn’t like, or worked for a boss we disliked. Can you remember what that was like? It’s depressing. You feel unhappy, resentful and critical. You focus on all the things you don’t like about the place, and what you focus on magnifies. You complain to anyone who will listen, and disassociate yourself from all the potentially good things about your situation. Studies show that stress and unhappiness weaken our immune system and we are more prone to illness. Because we feel low, we have less energy. Everything takes more effort. We drag ourselves around, feeling sorry for ourselves, and before we know it, that attitude becomes the norm for us. It’s not until we step out of an unhappy situation that we realise how much it was affecting us. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will be out of that pot with one super-motivated bound. But if you put it in a pot of warm water that it feels comfortable in and slowly turn up the heat, it will get used to the hotter water. Turn it up again and it will adjust again. You will be able to boil the water and the frog won’t have jumped out. That’s the way it is with unhappiness. We become unhappy, and this level becomes normal for us. Slowly, it gets worse and we get used to that, until we are desperately unhappy. But it feels completely normal, so we don’t do anything about changing our circumstances. Once out of the situation, we can be horrified how desperately unhappy we were without realising it. I’ve seen people get sick time after time until their illness forced them to give up the job they hated. You work it out. On the other side of the coin, when we’re in a job we love, we’re motivated, we have huge amounts of creativity and energy, and nothing can stop us achieving what we are aiming for. And we seldom get sick.