Why do ‘transformational change’ program fail so often?

Why do ‘transformational change’ programs fail so often? (Apparently 7 out of 10 do).

You will probably have seen this happen, if not in your own organisation, then somewhere else.

There are lots of reasons, and I’m sure communications is one; bad communications and the lack of communications. Have a look at this short video made by one of our clients - Twist and Shout - and see if you recognise anyone.

The question is; what do you do about it? How do you deal with people who behave in this way?

Firstly you need to recognise that you recruited and trained these people. You have created them. So you might need to ask how that happened.

Secondly it’s worth thinking about how you have communicated your messages. So often people at the top are really enthusiastic about change and haven’t carefully thought through the implications for others.

So when they do tell everyone about the changes, they seem to forget that some people are not going to like them and, as a result, handle the message insensitively.

This creates cynicism and negativity. Then the people at the top complain about all the negativity and cynicism, which, had they been more skilled in their communications, could have been avoided.

I heard several people tell me of one senior manager who told his whole site how great the changes were going to be and how much he was looking forward to his new role. The changes clearly meant that at least 30% of the audience would lose their jobs.

They watched his crass insensitivity open-mouthed and he still didn’t notice.

And, not doubt, senior managers later complained of negativity and cynicism and were surprised when employees did not want to uproot their entire families to stay with the company. They all knew people who had done that before only to be made redundant months later.    

I’m not suggesting all senior managers are so inept. But I do think that it can be very easy for extremely senior people to lose touch with the vast majority and, as a result, completely ignore their needs.





Change doesn't 'have to be so difficult.

Why plans fail

I was quite surprised to read Seth Godin, who I normally admire, saying that plans almost always fail.
I don’t agree with this. Bad plans fail. Plans that are not updated fail and plans that have no clear objective fail.

Plans that work

However, well thought out plans do work, very often. The trouble is that most people don’t bother to plan carefully and think that they will just be able to muddle through.
Then they get used to what it’s like to muddle through and so muddling through becomes the norm.
When you allow that to happen you have lowered your standards. So now, you don’t even think about planning effectively, you just accept the status quo.

"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine."

-- John C. Maxwell

What planning means

Planning effectively means taking time to think a task through, to identify what needs to be done when, and what could go wrong. It means you need to review your plan regularly and keep your eyes open for indications that you need to modify your plan.

It means, as John Maxwell says, changing something in your life daily. All you need to do is think about things before you start them. Just give yourself a few minutes. Ask:

• Why am I doing this?
• What do I need to achieve?
• What would be the most effective way to do it?

That will get you started. Then build the habit. As you start to see a return on your investment, you can build your skill, which in turn will give you more time.

The pay off`

Planning really pays off. It is the corner stone of time management.

A client of mine who is a project manager recently had a performance review. His manager said: “I don’t know how you get so much done.” 

This is a sad reflection on the manager. The individual is good at planning. He does not rush into any project or new situation; he gathers the information, organises it and works out his plan very carefully. Then he keeps monitoring it all.

When there are problems he usually has a contingency plan. He has many contingency plans. Most of them never need to be used.

The result you get from planning

The result is he is able to achieve twice what most of his colleagues do. He is not superhuman. He just puts his effort in where it gives the most benefit. It may not be as glamorous as charging in and saving the day, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, but it is much cheaper and less stressful.
In fact most people are working far harder than they need to do just because they don’t plan. Make sure you’re not one of them.

Get more help here.

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/TimeManagementTips.htm

Distractions, attention and the M5

On Friday here in the UK there was one of the worst motorway crashes we have experienced.

It was on the M5 in Somerset. As it happened a friend of ours passed the very spot of the accident just one hour before.

She told us of a large bonfire and fireworks very close to the motorway. She told us that she saw lorries swerving and that she and the others in the car were all distracted by it.

Attention

There are several facets of the skill of attention. They include the ability to:

• Give your attention to one part of the environment
• Sustain your attention
• Release your attention so you can move it to something else

You can have problems in any one of these areas.

Key skills

You need to be able to choose what we pay attention to. When you are easily distracted this means you have a problem in this area.

However, your visual system is tuned to spot things that might pose a danger to you. In particular, to spot movement and difference.

So, for example, if there is one white stone amongst 300 grey stones, you will spot that white stone.

If you are watching TV and, on the other side of the room, there is a sudden movement, your eyes will be drawn to it. Or if there
This is an instinctive reaction and it’s very hard to stop yourself responding in this way.

Once you have moved your attention, you then need to decide what to do next. If the movement is nothing to worry about (for example, curtains fluttering in the breeze) the chances are you will resume your enjoyment of your TV programme.

If an animal is springing at you from the gloom or a fire has started, you will probably decide that the new threat is more worthy of your attention than the TV.

The important thing is to be able to make those decisions.

Problems with attention

Either being unable to move your attention when you need to, or being unable to keep it on the matter in hand is a problem.

Bored?

Boredom is an emotion that tells your body that there is nothing to be gained from paying attention to a specific topic. Unfortunately, when you are trying to work on an important task, this can be very counter-productive.

On the other hand, when you are driving and your attention is caught by fireworks, this can make driving safely momentarily much more difficult. If you are startled by something, you tend to raise your hands in the air.

However, you raise your dominant hand less (because you have better control of it). This is an entirely voluntary response; you can’t stop yourself.

What it means is that if you are a right-handed driver, and you are startled, you are likely to swerve to the right. If you are left-handed, you will swerve to the left.

On a normal duel carriageway this is bad enough, but on a motorway, it’s very dangerous to have three lanes of traffic swerving.

I don’t know if this was the cause of, or contributed to the dreadful accident on Friday, but it’s easy to imagine that having fireworks apparently so close to the motorway would not help. Driving does need concentration and focus of attention.

We know this because even talking on a hands-free phone while you are driving increases the risk of accident.

Your brain

Your brain only has so much room for conscious processing. To test this out just try remembering a new phone number at the same time as doing your next task. Unless you have an effective memory technique (which takes it out of your working memory) you’ll find it hard to perform to your usual standard.

Being able to concentrate on your tasks is a key aspect of time management.

There’s a whole section on how to concentrate more effectively in my booklet “Time Management Made Easy” on page 11. You will find seven tips there on now to maintain attention.

For more help go here.

How to get objectives achieved

People often ask me how you go about getting the objectives achieved, once you have agreed them. It’s all very well spending all that time writing SMART objectives and goals, but there’s no point if you don’t follow through.

One very simple way is to have regular review meetings. They don’t have to be onerous. In fact, it’s much better if they are not.

All you need to do is get together, with either your whole team or just an individual. Then you check the progress against each objective.

You simply ask:

• What has happened so far
• Where you are against the plan
• What help is required to make sure you meet the deadline.

Now, if you have never done this before, the first few meetings will take quite a while. However, as you gain experience, the meetings will become shorter and shorter.

How often should you have the meetings?

The answer is always “more often than you think”.
Once or twice a week is usually a good starting point. The key is to ensure success, rather than catch problems and then have to deal with them.


Steve Jobs did this at Apple twice a week. It didn’t do Apple any harm.

Dos and Don’ts for meetings

• Do fix a regular time every day/week
• Don’t cancel the meeting if someone is off
• Do stick to the point
• Don’t get dragged into the detail and start working on the issues in the meeting
• Do arrange a separate time to work on problems that are identified
• Don’t blame people
• Do reward people for bringing up issues and talking about them openly

Should unemployed people take boring jobs?

Today I heard people on the radio commenting about young unemployed people and whether they should take ‘boring jobs in factories’, especially if they are well educated. Some thought they should not have to take these jobs.

There are two problems with the view that you should not have to do this as a well-educated person:

The assumption that everyone should have great jobs that they like
The assumption that jobs in factories are boring and bad

On the first point, I think we need to admit that there are times when we all need to do jobs we don’t particularly like. If you are like me you will have done plenty of these.

I have cleaned, been a barmaid, a waitress, an usherette (which is why I have seen Bambi 16 times) and worked in a factory amongst other things.
I soon learned that the people where you work and your attitude both make a big difference to how much you like your job.

These jobs were OK

When I was cleaning I quite enjoyed it. If I had a job like that now I know I would love doing it whilst listening to my ipod (there weren’t such things in those days).

When I worked in factories I met plenty of people who enjoyed their jobs. This does not mean they were bad, stupid or boring people. They were great people. At least one was a member of MENSA.

Camaraderie

In most of the factories where I worked the camaraderie was fantastic and many of those people were extremely skilled.

It’s always easy to look down on a job you don’t know much about.

There are always going to be things you have to do that you don’t like. I hate filling in my tax return and doing my expenses, but I know it has to be done. So I do it.

I don’t really like doing the washing up either, but I do it.

Too much TV

I wonder sometimes if people watch too many TV series where the characters have fantastic jobs or become instant successes and millionaires. So they forget that most successful people have had to start off doing jobs they didn’t particularly want or like. For many people, that’s how life is. So you have to make the best of it.

If you are a manager, you should be doing your best to ensure that people enjoy their time at work. It is possible to arrange this, even for people in jobs that don’t seem to be much fun.

Instant success

This is very rare. JK Rowling worked for years before she was a successful author and was rejected many times. Steve Jobs was not an instant success. They had to work hard.

The wrong priorities and objectives

At the weekend I met up with a friend who is a completely dedicated doctor. She told me what had happened recently at her hospital. She looked at the new rotas and pointed out to the managers that they might be better for staff in some way, they would result in worse patient care.

“You sound as though you think we should put patient care first.” Responded the manager in tones that indicated that this was not his goal.

My friend was horrified.

Patient care is the priority

If any manager in the NHS is not intent on putting patient care first, I think we really need to ask what he or she is doing in that job. We need to know why they were recruited and who was responsible for such an error.

I would find it hard to justify their continuing employment.

Good patient care does not cost more

As we talked I was glad to see we were in complete agreement. Good patient care does not cost more. Often it costs less.

A young friend who is currently working as a healthcare assistant told us that part of her job is to move food from where one person has put it - just a few inches out of reach of the patient - to where the patient can reach it. She does the same for their drinks.

This is completely wasted effort and it is inexcusable that people are so badly managed that they are apparently completely unaware of the priorities in their work.

The objectives are wrong

In a case like this it is clear that the objectives at the top are wrong as are the priorities. These things need to be got right by those in charge. Otherwise no one stands a chance, patient or employee.

Bad Management

Spot checks at geriatric wards in 100 hospitals have revealed that 35 needed to make improvements and 18 did not meet legal standards. At two of the trusts there were major concerns. So the Care Quality Commission tells us today.

How is it that people end up behaving like this? It is bad management.

It starts at the top

It always starts from the top. It is the responsibility of the people at the top to set the standards and make it clear what they mean.
I have seen relatives in hospital extremely well cared-for and looked after. I also remember, when my grandmother was in hospital before she died, witnessing exactly the problems described in this report. And that was over 30 years ago. The simple act of putting her cup out of her reach caused her great problems.

This was not a case of ‘understaffing’ or ‘lack of resources’. It was someone who was not clear what she was supposed to be doing and why.

The new recruit

Many years ago I took over a production department in a factory. Jane, a new recruit, joined one morning.
At coffee break she was the only person sat at the table in the corner while the supervisors and team members sat at different tables laughing and joking, clearly enjoying themselves.

I was horrified.

I called the supervisors to a meeting. I asked them what they thought they were doing during their break. I was greeted with blank looks of complete mystification. I asked them who was responsible for the new recruit, Jane. Alison said Jane was in her team.

So I asked her how she thought Jane would be feeling sat on her own at a table, ignored by everyone else while they all sat around laughing a joking.

Red faces and a prickling embarrassed silence followed. Things were rather different at lunchtime and we never had the problem again.

They were good people

These supervisors were not monsters; they were good, kind and friendly people. They were just not thinking. They were completely focused on their own needs and had forgotten their responsibilities.

My responsibility as their manager
But also, it was my responsibility to set the standards and make them abundantly clear. I needed to make sure that they knew that, as supervisors, they were not only responsible for the quality of the products, the scheduling of the work and training. They were also responsible for ensuring the people in their teams were happy at work.

Some hospitals

Messages like this seem not to have got through to some (but not all) hospital departments. It’s very easy for this to happen when the focus from the top is on admin and cost saving.

Priorities

When times are tough, people get stressed and it’s much harder to prioritise effectively. You tend to react instead of plan and you also tend to focus on yourself rather than those in your care. And this happens right at the top, where it has the biggest impact.

For more on this see this article on how to avoid mistakes when implementing change which goes through how these situations arise and what to do about them.

The leaders need the right skills

It’s very easy to blame the individual nurses, but this is a leadership and management issue. If these problems are occurring it means the systems are wrong, the priorities are wrong and the objectives are wrong, or have not been cascaded properly. 

Toot your flute

Apparently Tuesday this week was ‘toot your flute’ day. The day when you are supposed to blow your own trumpet.

If this is something you find hard to do, it might be time to put some effort in.

Unless you are able to let others know how skilled you are you run the risk of, at the very least, not being recognised for you achievements (not getting the promotion you deserve). At worst you could lose your job or not get the job you really should get and be passed over by others who are less skilled than you are.

So how do you ‘toot your flute’?

There is no need to boast

Many people are concerned that what they say might sound like boasting. There is no need to worry about that. You don’t have to say “I’m wonderful.” or “I’m great.” Mohamed Ali could get away with it, but the rest of us might feel a bit uncomfortable trumpeting our achievements in that way.

Stick to the facts

All you need to do is be factual. An easy way to have little ‘aside’ type comments to make at the right moment.

Practice these and be ready with them. For example:

• Yes, that was when I had just finished the project on XYZ.
• I remember that because it was very similar to what I did in sales last year.

Ask questions

The other way to do it is by asking questions. 

This is particularly useful when people make negative assumptions about your achievements or just don’t realise what your role was or what you achieved.

All you do here is ask questions like:

• What do you know about how this project was run?
• What is your understanding of the results that were achieved in this project?
• What makes you think it was John that was responsible for this?
• How do you know that Jane won that order?

And then follow it up with something like:
I think there may have been a misunderstanding here. I’m sure it was completely unintentional. I was the person who got the lead from XXX and got the agreement to double the order.

Be reasonable and forgiving. It always comes across much better than getting cross about the situation. And makes you look good, without making the other person feel defensive.

For more useful questions to help you in check out my booklet: “Questions Made Easy”.

Stressed out? 4 things to do

Stress is now the biggest cause of absence from work, according to a report by the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) and Simplyhealth.

But what can you do about it?
Three of the biggest problems when you are stressed are:

1. You lose your ability to prioritise
2. You lose your ability to set goals
3. Your memory starts to fail

These combine to make you inefficient. This increases your workload and adds to your stress, so you end up in a downward spiral.

Get help here

Your responsibilities as a manager

As a manager this means you need to be even clearer about objectives and priorities than usual.

Priorities

Setting priorities depends on being able to see the big picture, an ability that diminishes when you are stressed. (You will have noticed the very short-term knee-jerk reactions of people who are stressed.)

Have your long-term priorities worked out, written down and in clear view all the time. Refer to them every day and make sure you check your day-to-day tasks against them - ask yourself “How does this task fit in with my priorities?”

Check your objectives against the priorities to make sure you are focusing on the right things. (Focusing on the wrong things is a typical reaction of people who are stressed.)

Plans

Take a mental step back and review and update your plans every day. Doing this will help to prevent the panicking that can often set in when you are stressed and can even stop you from getting stressed in the first place.

Memory

Memory is about having systems to make remembering easier. So make sure you have systems and write things down rather than trying to remember everything.

For more techniques get the recording of my teleseminar on memory.

Exercise

The feeling of being stressed is caused by a chemical that your own body produces: cortisol. It accumulates in your body and makes you feel more and more stressed, damaging your brain into the bargain (which causes the memory problems amongst other things).

Flush out the cortisol by taking aerobic exercise. 15 - 20 minutes will really help. If possible exercise at the end of a stressful day so you don’t have the cortisol in your system over night. Regular exercise will reduce the chances of you getting stressed in the first place.

Get help

For more help, tools and techniques get you can get any of the product in our stress range at a discount of 25% by using this code:

Stressed out

Want to improve your hearing?

An interesting article in Psychology and Aging describes research that identifies a difference in the hearing of musicians and non-musicians.

It turns out that if you have musical training you cannot hear quiet sounds better than those with no musical training can hear, but on other measures you score more highly.

If you have had musical training (in the research they used people with at least six years) you will be better at discerning speech against background noise, spotting badly tuned music and breaks in a continuous tone.

These are all to do with the way your brain processes the sound you hear. So if you want to be able to hear conversations in a crowded restaurant as you get older, start learning to play an instrument.

Your brain can always be improved. By learning new skills you make new connections in your brain. You can even grow new brain cells (neurons). If you want to grow more, get some aerobic exercise. This increases the release of neurotropic factors. These help you to grow new neurons.

Getting some musical training is just one way to do it. Go here for more ideas on improving your brain.

Which experts should you trust?

Taking advice from experts

Do you believe experts who are confident in their predictions? Philip Tetlock says this might be a mistake.

Take weather forecasters. You won’t be surprised to learn that the UK weather forecasters do not have a very good reputation for the accuracy of their forecasts. But wait; there are forecasters who do. Apparently those in the US have a better track record.

It turns out that there are two reasons for this. The first is that the US forecasters tend to give their predictions (which is what a forecast is) in terms of percentages; “60% chance of rain tomorrow” Where as ours predict with more certainty; “It will rain tomorrow.”

The other reason he says, for the better track record, is that the US forecasters take more effort to get feedback and learn from it. Feedback is essential for learning. You cannot improve if you don’t get feedback.

It turns out that from his research there are two types of expert. Those who are not even as good at predicting as tossing a coin would be, and those who are better than chance.  This does not just apply to weather forecasters.

Unfortunately Philip Tetlock discovered that there is an inverse correlation between ‘fame’ and ‘accuracy’.

This turns out to be because the media likes those who seem to be certain, not those who say they’ don’t know’ sometimes. Which in turn means that we, the views, are forcing the issue.

We like certainty

The irony is that the more certain experts are, the less reliable they are but the more we believe them.

It seems we just don’t like uncertainty.

Two lessons

Be more ready to trust experts who are not certain and are willing to say they don’t know.
Make sure you get feedback so that you can improve any predictions you make.

A simple experiment to try

One of the key skills in time management is being able to estimate how long tasks will take accurately. This is something that many people are very bad at and for some reason, seem to make no effort to improve.

Here’s a very easy way to improve your estimation skills in anything. It will often take less than a week to see really drastic improvements.

Choose your of task

It could be doing your emails, phoning a customer or updating your expenses.

Make your estimate

Write down how long you think it will take (I usually put this straight into my schedule).

Check your estimate against your prediction (feedback)

This is pretty easy. If you estimated 10 minutes and it took 20 you are 100% out.
Make your next estimate, and correct it based on your previous estimate
In my example you need to double the time you estimate for that task next time.

Very soon you will be able to estimate times quickly and accurately.

Lastly

Do not dismiss people who are cautious with their predictions or who say they don’t know. They probably know more than the people who tell you they are certain.

Why are women still paid so much less?

According to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), the Holy Grail of truly equal pay in the UK is still 100 years away.

The good news is that if you are in a junior management position then your pay is likely to be equal to that of your colleagues. However, for more senior roles the CMI found a gap of £10,546 between men and women.

Are men better at these jobs?

Why is this? I can’t believe that men are better at these jobs than women. But what I can believe is that women’s behaviour is often perceived as less authoritative and powerful and then it is assumed that they don’t contribute as much or don’t do such a good job.

How do you feel when you discover that seriously incompetent people are paid far more than skilled people who are doing a better job?

It doesn’t matter if they are male or female. We have all known people who are very skilled, who achieve excellent results but who are not recognised.

This is a key aspect of performance management.

Better measures

What we need is to have fair and open ways of measuring performance. This means what people have achieved, how they have done it and the value that has been added by an individual (or, on the other side, the cost that must be paid as the result of their actions).

Unless you do this, it’s very hard to take any action to improve performance. Getting this right is one of the foundations of performance management.

These measurements also need to be linked to pay. It’s far too easy to judge people by all kinds of criteria that are completely irrelevant. It’s also very hard for anyone to be completely objective when it comes to this which is why we need open systems that make it clear what is valued and why.
Of course it helps if you have clear objectives in the first place and set up measures right at the beginning.

An easy performance management mistake

When I had a large production department many years ago, I checked the output and quality of the work the individuals in my team did over a year. To my horror I discovered that Margit, the person who had produced the most (by far) and with no quality problems at all, was paid almost the least in the whole department.

The woman who was paid the most was an attractive, young, chatty individual who excelled at letting senior managers know how hard she worked and how skilled she was. Her output was average as was her quality.

Margit was not pretty, she was overweight and her English could best be described as basic. But these things should not have had any impact on how we measured her performance.

You should not be swayed by people whose main skill is telling you how great they are.

What criteria do you use when assessing performance?

Are you mistaking rudeness for leadership skills?

I recently read an article suggesting that managers who behave fairly and treat their team members with respect can lose out to those who don’t.

The sad thing is we all know that this happens a great deal. It tied in with another interesting article about how we often mistake rudeness in people for power in the Scientific American. about how rude people can be perceived as powerful

Rude Leaders

I think it’s a disgrace that we still make these mistakes. Or perhaps it’s a reflection on some of the leaders we see who often behave rudely. What we need to remember is that we are the people who give them a license to behave like this.

You're Fired

How many people watch Alan Sugar and enjoy it? To me his behaviour is often appalling. I would like to think that he treats people badly just because it makes good TV, but I have been informed by people who have know some of his employees that it’s not an act.

It’s time we made it clear that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable, both in young people and also in senior managers.

Standards for Leaders

We need to set higher standards of behaviour for our leaders. There is no need to be rude in order to lead.

Behaving fairly results in having better and more effective companies and teams which results in achieving more for the benefit of all.

That’s what good performance management is all about. Rudeness is a lazy way of behaving when you either don’t know any better or can’t be bothered to behave more respectfully towards your fellow human beings.

For more information, the article is “Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind” by Batia M. Wiesenfeld, Naomi B. Rothman, Sara L. Wheeler-Smith, and Adam D. Galinsky

Exceeding expectations - why you need to be careful

Are you the kind of person that always likes to exceed everyone’s expectations?  Yes, of course you are. It’s always good to do that, right?

When I was buying a new kitchen I had a supplier round to give me a quote. I don’t remember the exact figure but it was around £5000. The kitchen was OK, but not exactly what I was looking for.

Then, by chance, I found a place in Bristol that had, in its window, the most beautiful dresser I had ever seen. I still remember it now.

Silas Stephens

I went into the workshop and met Silas. I asked for a brochure. He didn’t have one, just a photo album. I looked at all the wonderful and original designs. Every one was different. Each fitted the house (or in some cases boat) perfectly.

His work ranged from kitchens to bathrooms to covers for wells and intricate country gates.

I was in love.  He came to my house in Nottingham and took lots of measurements. When he came back he had an armful of drawings, pieces of smooth varnished woods of various types and coloured tile.  He had a plan for turning my dingy kitchen into a welcoming and cosy monument to delicious food and hospitality.

In a few seconds I made the decision.

The other supplier

A week later, the other supplier came round to see if he had the order. I felt a little sorry for the salesman. The plastic trimmed units he was selling could simply not compete in any way with the beauty of the designs or the quality of the work from Silas.

I let him know that I had decided to go with a different supplier.
Exceeding my expectations

His response was, “I can halve the price for you.”

I was quite shocked. Questions sprang to mind:
How could he suddenly give me that much off?
What profit were they making on the original price?
What kind of quality could they possibly be offering at that price?

Instead of being impressed, I had even less confidence in them than I’d had before.

The programmers

Whilst working on our website we experienced many delays. At one stage we were told we would have to wait 15 (working) days to have some key work done. We weren’t happy with this, as you can imagine. However, they managed to do it in just 3.

Yes, this was exceeding our expectations (which had been set very low by now) but it did not make us very confident in their ability to plan.

We suspected that they were under-resourced and that they were madly juggling the work so that other customers were now waiting.

Exceeding expectations

It’s fine to exceed expectations in some ways, but you need to be careful you don’t make yourself look bad instead of looking good when you do this. Setting realistic expectations and showing you are reliable is also a very attractive (and sometimes undervalued) quality.

How to make the most of measures in objectives

The importance of being measured – how to measure objectives

What should you measure? And how should you measure it? These are two very important questions when it comes to setting goals, objectives and targets.

You know it’s important that objectives are SMART, (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bounded) but that’s no good if you are measuring the wrong thing or the wrong person is getting the information.

Example of the wrong measure

I was reading a book about measuring objectives recently. Yes, there are such books.

The thing that worried me was that the author was suggesting that all the information should be going to the manager. In only one casual aside did he mention that people might like to get the measures themselves.

He talks about the objective of reducing errors per 100 sales. `He suggests the Sales Processing Manager and the Customer Relationship Manager should be getting this information.

But he does not mention the people responsible for this task.

A typical mistake made by managers

So often managers put themselves and their processes between the person doing the job and the results they get.

If you want someone to improve their performance and level of skill, it’s vital that they get the information they need in order to do that.

Getting a report at the end of the week telling you that there were 5 errors in every hundred orders is almost useless. What you need is to know straight away if the order is correct or not.

Then you can work out what you need to do to get it right every time.
Even worse, putting all the information in the manager’s hands first is one of the biggest mistakes people make. It’s like being back at school and waiting for the results of your exams.

You can trust your people to get it right if they have the right information
If you get the information you need immediately you can work out how to do a good job every time. To keep this information from people is both patronising and stupid. It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Get people to give you the information

Instead of operating in this schoolteacher manner, either make the information as automated as possible and give everyone access to it, or get the individuals to report the information back to you, instead of you giving it to them.

This will make it much easier for people to take responsibility for improving their performance and you will find they are much more motivated.

What’s wrong with self-help people?

Have you ever heard of Anger Management? It was very popular a few years ago. One of our clients had a customer who was an anger management consultant. This consultant ran courses for people in a house miles from anywhere.

His delegates would arrive late at night. Those who travelled by train would end up in a virtually deserted station two miles from the house. There was no taxi service and no phone reception. They had to make their way along unmarked and narrow lanes and then through a field (carrying their luggage) till, if they were lucky, they reached the house.

Those who came by car would have to make their way along a pot-holed road so full of deep craters that it was almost guaranteed to generate a big repair bill. 

By the time they had risked their necks getting to the location of the anger management course, most of them were very angry at the way they had been treated.

They were then told that it was their fault that they were angry and they needed to learn how to manage their anger.

I can only imagine how angry they were to hear this.

A difficult person to deal with

It turned out that this consultant was very difficult to deal with. He seemed to incite anger wherever he went. So he encountered a world full of anger and thought people should learn to control it.

Self help consultants

My dear friend Bryan told me a similar tale recently. His client presses DVDs and CDs. The one group of people this guy hates dealing with was the ‘self-help’ consultants. Awkward, fussy, difficult, they take the biscuit.

He far prefers the small bands and groups that comprised his normal, happy customers.

Oh dear. I cringed a bit when I heard this and wondered what we had been like to deal with when we produced our CDs and DVDs. I hope we were better than this.

Are you creating your own difficult people?

It’s undeniable that there are some people who are very hard to deal with.  But it’s also undeniable that there are some people who go around creating their very own difficult people.

I gave a talk recently on how to deal with difficult people. Before the meal I met a chap who reported having to deal with many awkward and difficult souls so bad you could end up poking needles in your eyes rather than wanting to talk to them.

Within a few seconds it became obvious why he experienced these problems. The tall, tanned man with the ready smile who had been part of the conversation quickly spotted someone he really needed to talk to on the other side of the room and I was left saddled with the guy while he told me of all the dreadful people he worked with. Then he moved onto his wife.

Just in case you are wondering what this delightful chap did, the main problem was his unerring belief that he is right and love of showing others just how wrong they are.

What are you doing to cause your problems?

So here’s the key – before you go blaming others for behaving badly, always ask yourself what you could have done that may have encouraged the response you are getting.

At least 90% of the time, you’ll find that there’s another way you could approach the individual that will often give you a better response. Find out what here.

How to promise what you can deliver

Do you know someone who is always late? Or do you take a train or plane that is always late?

I flew to Glasgow this week. The flight was delayed by 2 hours. The man behind me in the queue confided that this was usually the case on that day of the week.

I can accept the odd problem that causes a plane to be delayed, but when it happens every week, you wonder what is going on.

Change the schedule

If the plane is never on time, why don’t you just change the schedule? I asked one of the staff this question and was met with a blank stare. We didn’t even get an apology from her.

Telling people what they want to hear

So many times I have seen problems caused solely by people promising things they just can’t deliver.

Work out when you can deliver and then promise people that date or time. Don’t pretend you can give a faster service than possible just to make a person happy at that moment – you are storing up problems for the future. People really don’t like being let down.

Don’t annoy people more than necessary

Even worse, our helpful member of staff told us that we still had to turn up at the published time next week (even if we could see the flight was delayed), in case they somehow manage to bring the flight forward (so that it was only 1 hour 30 minutes late).

This kind of behaviour shows a complete lack of consideration for others. It’s just the same in hospitals where people are often kept in the waiting room much longer than necessary.

Sometimes there is a real emergency

I have been going to the same dentist for 25 years. One of the reasons I stay with them is that they are so reliable. Last time I went was the first time I have ever been kept waiting. It turned out that two of the dentists were off and two emergency patients had come in that morning.

My dentist had had to deal with both of them. However, she apologised profusely and I felt that, given the previous track record, I was happy to cope with this one-time delay.

Most of the time you can schedule things properly, even appointments in hospitals.

You just need to put a bit of effort in working out how long things really take, rather than how long you would like them to take. This is the vital time management skill of estimating. Without it planning is useless.

Learning how to estimate

This is very quick to learn. All you do is estimate how long you think a task will take. Then measure how long it really does take. Work out the percentage difference and change your estimate next time accordingly.
Keep doing this, and very soon your skills will improve.

For more help with time management go here.

To see our teleseminar on time management go here

How to stop interruptions in meetings

Do you have this problem with someone who keeps interrupting you in meetings?

Here’s what to do and an example of how it worked.

I was asked to run a meeting for a colleague who was having real trouble with one of the committee members (we’ll call her Beryl) who constantly interrupted everyone in the meetings. I’d seen the woman in action, so knew what he was up against.

I told him to follow my lead and not to worry about what I was doing if it seemed a bit strange.

Frame the meeting

At the beginning of the meeting I made it clear that everyone would get a chance to voice his or her opinion at each stage of the process.

We went through the first step. Beryl interrupted. I told her she would get her turn as soon as those ahead of her had been asked. I asked the others, then her. She voiced her concerns, which I summarised and noted to make it clear I had listened to them.

Proactive approach

After the next point, before she could interrupt (I could see her drawing breath) I told Beryl she would be asked as soon as it was her turn. Every time I saw her about to speak, I repeated the same process, and always made sure I asked her for her views.

After about half an hour she ran out of things to say. I persisted and kept asking her for her views. By the end of the meeting she was simply waving her hand to say she had nothing more to add.

My fellow school governors were astonished. She had been transformed in a matter of hours.

The secret of the transformation

Beryl just wanted to be heard. When she thought no one would listen, that just made her more determined to be heard. So she tried harder. Of course the more she tried, the more they resisted. The system was self-perpetuating.

Instead of falling in line with this system myself, I set up a new system, which meant that Beryl felt confident that she would have a chance to speak and be listened to. So all the effort was removed and she became, once again, a useful member of the team instead of a pain in the neck.

For more help with all kinds of difficult behaviour check our products to help you with difficult people and bullies.

How should we treat witnesses in trials?

You may have heard of the complaints about how the family of a murdered girl, Milly Dowler, were treated very badly by the defence lawyers at the trial of her murderer Levi Bellfield.

About 25 years ago, I witnessed similar behaviour by defence lawyers in a trial where I was on the jury. The judge apologised for the treatment of the witness on behalf of the British nation.

During his defence, the lawyer accused a Japanese woman who was the victim of pick pocketing on the London Underground of sleeping with four of the other witnesses. It was appalling. And there was no need for it.

His way of trying to prove his client’s innocence was to discredit the witness. All he did was to turn everyone against him.

The truth

According to the research, the best way of finding out if someone is telling the truth is to ask him or her the right questions.

In this case, asking a person to tell you what the events were in reverse order is most effective. I feel sure if someone had questioned his defendants that way, it would have been obvious they were lying.

It’s a bit macho

Unfortunately some people, probably those who have watched too many bad cop films, still seem to think that the bullying tactics are the most effective.

Maria Hartwig and John Jay of College of Criminal Justice in New York showed that in just three hours of training they could improve the success rate of interrogators at spotting lies from 56% to 85%.

It’s time we started using these techniques that mainly involve the skilful use of questions not just in the courtroom, but also in job interviews, particularly for the most senior positions. 

So often untrustworthy or incompetent people have ended up with a lot of power simply because no one asked the right questions.

Micromanaging and box ticking at the Probation Service

The Justice Select Committee has just published a report about the probation service. The service is described as having a ‘tick-box, bean-counting culture’ and they say that probation staff spend just a quarter of their time face to face with offenders, MPs said.

Is filling in forms bad?

The rest of the time is spent filling in forms, sending emails, and complying with official targets and dictats.

Is this a bad thing? From what has been said so far it would seem that there might be some inappropriate and time-consuming measures that probation officers have to comply with. And this means that they don’t spend the time needed with their clients.

The trouble is it is very easy to underestimate the amount of time it takes to do all the admin compared to the ‘real job’.

A chef

Let’s take the example of a chef. In order for the chef to be able to cook wonderful meals here are some of the other tasks that need to be completed:

• Buying the food
• Furnishing the restaurant
• Keeping the place clean
• The washing-up
• Replacing broken and old equipment
• Hiring staff
• Marketing the restaurant
• Serving the customers
• Planning the menus
• Doing the laundry
• Dealing with any staff issues
• Doing the accounts and book-keeping
• Redecorating
• Training the staff
• Designing and keeping up to date the website
• Answering emails

In a well-run restaurant you would like to think that the chef spent most of his or her time cooking the food. But you would also like him or her to have a say in the menu, the food that is bought, the wine, hiring and training staff, dealing with customers, what equipment is needed in the restaurant to cook and prepare the food

How much time do you spend on your job?

Pretty soon, your chef is not spending anything like 100% of his or her time preparing food.
The true measure of the skill of the chef is the taste and quality of the food, but that doesn’t mean he or she spends every minute cooking it.

So it is with the probation officers. Any manager should be making sure that his or her team are able to produce the results required to the level of quality required and needs to be taking away obstacles in their way.

Badly set objectives

Badly set objectives around how much time you spend on particular tasks do not help. It’s very easy to assume that the amount of time spent on a task is what’s important. But that’s not the way to measure it.

It would probably be better to have 10 minutes with an exceptional probation officer than two hours with one who does not know the job.

Alcoholism

Sheila Hancock tells of John Thaw, who for part of his life suffered an addiction to alcohol. Somehow she found an expert who saw him for six sessions over a week. He never drank again.

I would love to know what he did during that time.

I imagine quite a lot of his time was spent honing his skills.

I mention this because a customer of the probation service was interviewed today and explained how his probation officer had helped him recover from his addiction to alcohol.

Probation objectives

In researching this article I tried to find the objectives of the Probation Service. The closest I could get was this – from Ireland.

The Probation Service works with offenders and others to reduce offending and to make communities safer places. We work closely with the Courts Service, the Irish Prisons Service, An Garda Síochána and many organisations in the community to achieve those aims.

The more I looked into it, the more it seemed that much of the job of the probation officer is about preparing reports, making assessments and dealing with the courts. If this is the case, it’s not surprising that they spend apparently so little time with their clients.

The job of a good manager is to ensure their team is able to achieve their objectives and do whatever they can to remove all the unnecessary stuff from them – but the trouble is there’s always someone creating more of that unnecessary stuff (often the government) and very often the objectives for it are unclear though it seems reasonable at the time.

You need to review and update objectives and measures and make sure they are SMART quite frequently, or you end up in this kind of situation very easily.

The question is – what are they really there for? Once this is clear then you can decide how to measure it.

How to spot a liar

It’s a hundred years since the polygraph was invented, the machine that is supposed to be able to tell if someone is telling lies or not.

It would seem that it’s not very good at telling. In fact, with a little training, you could do the job more accurately yourself.

What’s interesting about lying is that it is a vital part of the society we live in. When someone asks you “How are you?” it’s not the done thing to say how bad things are, even if they are. The correct, polite response is to say that you are fine. Sometimes that’s a lie.

So we all do it.

Who is best at lying?

It’s the charming smooth-talkers. This is contrary to what you might think. Perhaps it’s why people get taken in.

How can you tell if someone is lying?

It’s hard. But one good way to determine the truth is through careful questioning. Not the kind of Sweeney-type shouting and threatening:
“It was you that killed him, wasn’t it?”

One of the most effective techniques is to get people to tell you what happened in reverse order. That’s because it’s so much harder to get all the details right when you are having to make them up backwards.

Lying is quite a difficult process and demands quite a level of skill.

Being nervous

This is not a good indication of lying – truth-tellers also get nervous.

Training

Training can help you to become better at spotting lies.  There are clues, according to the research of Stephen Porter’s Forensic Psychology Lab at Dalhousie University.

There are some muscles in your face that you can’t control and those are the ones that give you away.

It seems that small flashes of your true emotions break through, though sometimes not for very long, so being able to watch a video recording of the answers can help a lot. If you haven’t got one handy, use questions about what happened.

Are you distracted by the wrong problems?

This week our government seems completely transfixed by the phone hacking scandal. And I do think it’s a scandal I am completely against this kind of behaviour.

But I also think that there are other serious problems that the government should be focussing on at the moment. Like the economy.

Of course, the media don’t help. This is a problem with the media itself, so it’s bound to be of more interest to them than other issues.

It’s easy to be distracted

The trouble is, when there are very serious problems to be tackled it’s very easy to get distracted by things that aren’t as serious. This is because you lose your ability to prioritise.

Prioritisation is a vital skill that you generally need more of when there are many problems to be solved.

How to prioritise

The first thing is to make sure you have a clear, SMART objective or goal. Once you have this, ask yourself what will enable you to achieve it.

Draw up a plan

It’s always good to have a plan. Even if you change it later, it’s still a good thing to start with one. It helps you to keep focussed on the right things rather than lurching from one thing to another all the time.

Reassess you plan

Lastly, keep checking the plan and update it if you need to. Often new problems crop up that cause extra work or simply divert you from your goals. Make sure you keep your plan up to date so you are always working on the things that will help you the most.

Is this a fair question?

"Are you corrupt?"

Is this a fair question? It’s one that was asked of Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Yates by MPs in the Select Committee yesterday in the Wilson Room at Portcullis House.

It may be a fair question, but is it any use?

Not really. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would answer this question with a “Yes.”

The purpose of the question

We need to know what the purpose of this question was. It almost sounds as though the questioner was trying to make a statement rather than ask a question.

The right questions

If you want to know if someone is corrupt, then you need to ask different questions. You need to identify what they did and compare that with the behaviour of an honest person.

Strangely quite a few people who we would consider to be corrupt often don’t seem to think they have done anything wrong (you may recall questioning of the directors of Enron and the looks of disbelief of those questioning them).

Another question, “Are you incompetent?” is of similar value.
The trouble with these questions is that they tell you more about the competence of the questioner than the person who is being questioned.

Get more information on how to ask questions here.

Phone hacking - should the managers have know?

Should the editor of the News of the World have known what was going on and that many stories were being sourced through illegal phone hacking? Is it possible for an editor to know all the details of what is going on in his or her paper?

You can’t know everything

It’s simply not possible for the editor to know what everyone is doing and how every story has made it to the paper. Just as it is not possible for the CEO of any company to know every detail of what goes on in the business.

You can still make sure it’s legal

However, people at the top are paid not just to get results but also to make sure that they are achieved without breaking any laws.

The old excuse

It is completely unacceptable for senior managers to give the excuse that they ‘didn’t know’ what was going on.  What this means is either they did know and are lying or they did not have the proper systems in place to make sure the company was being run legally.

In either case, they have failed in their duties.

Systems

You need to have systems that ensure and encourage people to behave properly and meet the required standards. If the systems are designed well, it will be easy for employees to behave properly and meet the standards.
And if they don’t meet the required standards, they either need help or to be penalised.

If the BBC behaved like this, they could lose their license. But there is no such penalty for a newspaper. So there is no reason for them to behave within the law.

System failures

System failures need to be dealt with by installing new systems that work properly. Managers who do not have the skills or inclination to set up these systems should not be in the job.

For more on how to manage effectively go to our website

Training programs - Keys to success

At the weekend I went to the reunion of a company I worked with long ago. It was one of the first big projects I ran for a client.

In those days we called it Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM predates and led to Six Sigma.

The goal of the project was mainly to stay in business.

What the project achieved

We succeeded. In fact, while all their competitors laid staff off and lost business, my client increased their market share. One of the most pleasing results was that, whilst increasing sales, they reduced the level of complaints by 50%.

How the results were achieved
Looking back there were two distinguishing features of that project.

Everyone was involved

One of the key steps that Barry, the MD of the company, insisted on was that everyone was involved. And he really did mean everyone.

We ran a series of workshops and a director attended each one. The people were mixed up so that there were representatives from each department and each level in every group.

This alone led to improved understanding in the company.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this done so well in any other client. It wasn’t just lip service. They were there in person.

Personal introduction

The other key aspect was that Barry himself introduced the project. He introduced the start of each series of workshops and he himself attended in one of the groups and certainly contributed a great deal to it.

The difference

It wasn’t always easy, but his personal approach meant that the project was championed right at the top, people knew he really meant it and things happened quickly.

Excuses

Since then I have heard many excuses from senior people as to why they can’t attend workshops like this. Often the HR people have said it’s not even worth asking them. And I’m sure they think they have much more important things to do.

I’m not sure that’s true.

Does this offend you?

Are there any songs that you find offensive? I heard part of a fascinating radio programme about this (“Taboo be Doo” on BBC Radio 4) today.

What was so interesting was that there are some very old songs that, had they been written today, would be banned and not played on the radio.

However, it would seem that because they are old, it’s OK.

Some of these turned out to be some of my favourite records from my murky past.

Not listening

What was also interesting was that there were a few songs that, if you weren’t listening, might be offensive, but if you took the trouble to hear the words properly, told a very different story.

Are you listening?

This is such a common problem. You hear, or partly hear, what someone has said and just assume the rest of it. Or you hear it and interpret it in a way that is not what the speaker had in mind.

This was particularly true of a song called “I’m Not All There” by Harry Carlton in which the person who is apparently “not all there” gets the last laugh, in spite (and possibly because) of what others may think of him.

It’s very easily done, and it’s the way your brain works to save time. It sees part of a pattern and just fills in the rest. This is how your memory works, which is why it’s not always reliable.

In the main it’s very useful, but it can be dangerous in some situations. It can lead to all kinds of unnecessary arguments and problems.

Dangerous situations

So the key is: how do you tell the difference between these situations? How do you know which are the ones where you can get away with making assumptions and which are the ones where you need to pay more attention and ask some questions?

How to tell the difference

Here’s a simple rule of thumb. If you find something offensive, pay more attention and ask some questions before you take offence. 

Free learning

Are you making the most of free learning?

I ran into a dear friend today at the market. She had, somewhat reluctantly, taken a new job a few weeks back. Her first stories about it were a bit worrying. It sounded ghastly.

But not today. Today she was full of the stories of a wonderful and skilled colleague she had met and is now working closely with. Her eyes were sparkling with life and she could hardly stop singing his praises.

“I’m learning such a lot.” She said.

I was put in mind of an old colleague of mine. I was so impressed with her communication skills that I got onto a project with her, just so I could observe what she was doing and find out how it worked.

That was the start of a long road that I am still travelling. My question to you is: are you making the most of the free opportunities for learning that surround you?

So many people waste these free opportunities, but they are everywhere, if you know what to look for.

Lessons to look for

Focus on spotting people who do something well. They don’t have to do everything well, just one thing. Then try copying what they do and see if it works for you. I guarantee, the more you look, the more you will find.

The other side of the learning coin

And remember that there are also things you don’t want to copy. That’s useful to learn too. It’s a bit like the old saying I once saw on a doormat:

All our visitors make us happy; some when they arrive, others when they leave.

Go here for more about how to keep yourself learning – and how to look after your brain.
Go here to check out the questions you could be using to help yourself.

What’s the difference between good and great training?

How do you measure your training? Here’s a question I came across recently.

What’s the difference between good and great training?

We all know the difference between good and bad training, but it’s harder to tell the difference between ‘good’ and ‘great’ training.

Perhaps it’s not as hard as all that.

The results matter

Ultimately, the real test is: did it work? What are people doing differently as a result of the training?

Even if a trainer is using all the best techniques and tools, the training is only any good if it works. It’s the same with anything.

A clear objective

That’s why it’s so useful to have a really clear objective for your training. So often I’ve been asked for ‘a presentation skills course’. When I’ve asked the client what they want people to be able to do differently by the end of the training they have often had no clear idea.

Here’s how to structure a training objective:

All delegates are able to present the safety information so that the members of their team know how to use the new equipment safely by the end of the day.

If, after your delegates have been out and presented to their teams, everyone is using the equipment safely, then your training has been successful.

For more help with training, see our workshop on Training Skills

Your memory – how reliable is it?

How’s your memory? Do think it’s accurate? Can you rely on it? Have you tested it?

Memory is not a video

It’s easy to imagine that the way we remember things is like viewing an old film or video. But that’s not really the case. Your brain doesn’t work like that.

Memory is about making sense of things

Here’s an interesting experiment carried out by Elizabeth Loftus, one of the top researchers in the field.

A group of people were shown a film of a car crash. They were then asked questions about it. One question was:

“How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”

Others were asked:
“How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”

Those asked the second question said the car was going a lot faster than those asked the first question. Even more interestingly, when they were asked later if they had seen any broken glass, those who were asked the second question were more likely to say there was broken glass.

There was no broken glass at all. They constructed it in their memories.

Your memory is not reliable – you just think it is

It’s important to know this, so that when you are convinced you remember word for word what a person said, it’s probably extremely unlikely that you do. If you need to remember information like that, write it down.

And be aware that the way you ask others about what they ‘remember’ has a big impact on what they think they remember.

And yes, I did check the recording of the interview to make sure I got the details for this blog correct, just in case you are wondering.

To find out how you can improve your memory, check out our teleseminar on memory. To look after your brain, get our booklet "Boost Your Brain in Your Spare Time"

Nepotism

Why it’s bound to exist in your company

You think you treat people fairly and that you make decisions objectively. We all do. But the trouble is that in reality, no one does.

Here’s a simple experiment. A group of people were asked to identify the best candidate for a job:

A woman who was intelligent.

Or:

A man who was streetwise.

Another group was asked to identify the best candidate for the same job:

A woman who was streetwise.

Or:

A man who was intelligent.

In both groups more people chose the man, indicating that the group overall was biased towards the man.

Why you can’t be objective

This is because we are all subject to influences that we are completely unaware of. We can spot them in others – sometimes they are blindingly obvious and you wonder how people can be so unaware.

If everyone in the two groups choosing between the man and woman had been completely objective then the proportions of ‘streetwise’ and ‘intelligent’ would have been the same for each group.

Clear criteria and standards

This is why it’s so important to have really clear criteria, measures and standards for making decisions.

When you delegate decision-making the most important thing to do is make the criteria clear. To do that, ask yourself:

What’s important about ________?

For example:
“What’s important about this equipment?’

or

“What’s important about the way this new process is implemented?”

Then make sure that the people you are delegating to are really clear about the criteria.

Managing your manager

If your manager is poor at delegating these things, just ask him or her the same question. Then, when you have made the decision, show how you have met the criteria.

For more help managing people get our Management Essentials booklet set

Should you have mystery candidates?

Have you checked the quality of interviews in your company recently? I’ve been working with some clients who have been for interviews in a range of different companies and organisations.

Hearing their experiences has been quite depressing. It's made me ask myself it we should have mystery candidates, in the same way that shops employ mystery shoppers.

Bad interviews

These are just a few. How do you know that your standards are better than this? We have ‘mystery shoppers’ perhaps it’s time to have ‘mystery candidates’.

One candidate was sat aghast while her interviewers argued amongst themselves about the position. They hadn’t even agreed what it was, and this was the second interview.

They were over a week late getting back to her.

Poor skills

Another candidate was told he would be asked competence-based questions and was asked questions that didn’t really apply to the job, and weren’t competence-based questions.

He did his best to build some rapport with the people interviewing him as they walked to the room, but the interviewer seemed to be lacking in any social skills.

Poor administration

A third candidate was told that the final decision would be made in a meeting of all the assessors at the end of the day. Yet, before that meeting took place, she was told she hadn’t got the post. We discovered they had appointed the internal candidate.

Another organisation, ‘did not have time’ to update the job descriptions and person specifications so ended up recruiting people into senior posts who did not have the required skills.

These are just a few recent examples.

Bad questions

As part of my training in how to be interviewed I have a section on how to answer really bad interview questions. They are the ones that people who have not been trained properly on how to interview tend to ask. Things like:

“Why should we give you this job?”

“If you were in a lift and saw a member of staff acting in a way that is against our diversity policy, what would you do?”

I keep hoping I will be able to leave this section out, but unfortunately it’s still necessary to prepare candidates.

Why these questions are so bad
Just in case you are wondering why these questions are so bad, here’s an outline:

“Why should we give you this job?”
Your objective in an interview is to find out if the individual has the skills and behaviours to do the job. You have only a limited time to do that. You need to spend that time gathering useful information that will enable you to make a decision.

This question is perfect for those with the “gift of the gab”. They will be able to impress you with their clever answers. However, these are often not the people who do a good job. There are lots of other questions that will give you much more reliable information.

“If you were in a lift and saw a member of staff making racist comments, what would you do?”

This is a hypothetical question, so the reliability of the answer is very low. If you want to know whether someone could handle a situation like this, ask

“Have you ever seen a member of staff making racist comments? “

If they say they have, then:

“What did you do?”

If they have not been in this position, you could ask them what they would do, but remember, this is just what they think they would do (or what they think you would like to hear). It’s not reliable.

These examples are all real and give a very bad impression to candidates. Make sure it’s not happening in your organisation. For more help with questions, see our booklet "Questions Made Easy"

You can get some help in recruitment here in our booklet "How to Interview Successfully"

Strategy – the right one for the right situation

Are your strategies up to date?

We all have strategies that we use in particular situations. If you want to be successful you need to make sure you are using the right strategy in the right situation.

Do you remember your parents making you finish all the food on your plate when you were young? They may have even said you could not have your pudding till you had finished your vegetables.

That was probably a useful strategy to get you to eat the healthy food with all the vitamins in.

Out of date strategies

Now you are older, are you using the same strategy? This strategy is not a very good one for maintaining a healthy weight. You need a different strategy, because your objective is different.

But we tend to get comfortable with strategies that we grew up with.

Do not interrupt

When you were young, were you told not to interrupt others? Not to speak till you were spoken to? Many people were.

Others grew up with a strategy of interrupting when they wanted to speak.

If you are from the first group in a meeting with people from the second group, you will have trouble being heard.

The right strategy

Neither strategy is wrong, you just need to know which to use when.

The strategy you choose depends on your objective and your situation. But many people don’t consciously make a decision to use a particular strategy; they just carry on doing what they have always done, even though the situation has changed.

It is time to review your strategies and see which are working and which need to be updated.

Start with checking your objectives and what you are doing to achieve them. Is it working? If not, it might be you need to change your strategy.

How to increase creativity

I think creativity is natural in many people but what happens is you find systems that seem almost deliberately designed to stifle creativity and innovation.

Here’s a common one and how to avoid it.

Consistency

You often hear people saying that they want everything to be consistent. This is very often the case when you are talking about training courses and workshops.

I’ve even had clients draft out objectives like:
Ensure all the modules that are run are consistent.

The trouble is – which you will immediately know if you have been reading any of my material on objectives – you could achieve this by running consistently bad workshops.

As long as they were all as bad as each other, you would have achieved this objective.

Making everyone do everything in the same way means that no one has any room to be creative.  There is a place for this. We don’t want people doing ‘creative accountancy’ or being creative when they are supposed to be running procedures in nuclear power plants.

But there are many situations where we do want people to be creative and to innovate.

Standards of achievement

The way to do this is to have an objective around the standards. What you usually want in these situations is for everyone to at least meet a certain set of standards.

Having an objective about standards means that people are then free to exceed the standards and come up with innovative ways to improve.

When that happens you can find out what they are doing and repeat it in other areas. Then you raise your standards.

Creativity and innovation

In this way you will ensure that you get constant improvement from creativity and innovation and your minimum standards are met, which is probably what people wanted in the first place when they were talking about “consistency”.

5Big Change Mistakes - 5 Not Learning from Past Changes

There can’t be many organisations that have not had to implement changes in the past. Unfortunately from the way some of them implement each new change, you would imagine that they have never done it before.

One reason for this is that many of the people who like and enjoy change are the kinds of people who don’t like planning and detailed careful work.

So they just go ahead with a change and, before the dust has settled and they have checked if it has had the desired effect, they are onto the next change.

Bad managers

There are some managers who are brought into a department purely to implement changes. You have probably seen them yourself.

I came across a particularly bad one recently. She had been rotated into a department to ‘gain experience’. She made a complete mess of it and left the members of the department not only to implement the changes but also to sort out all the extra problems she had caused.

The results of your work

If you don’t have to stick around to see the impact of your work, you can be left thinking that it’s all gone very well. So it’s really easy to make the same mistakes time and time again.

If you have to live with your mistakes you are likely at least to be motivated to do it better the next time.

Learn from your experience

Ideally you need to set out clear goals and objectives. Then make sure you have all the tools in place to ensure you can measure your results.

Yes, it does take time, but it means that, next time, you can do it a lot better.

What should you measure?

Identify what is important to you in this situation. When I was a production manager, the most important things were getting the output and keeping the quality up.

When we had to make a big change, these were the things we checked. By focussing on these, you can plan your change more effectively.

A difficult change

One of the most difficult changes I had to handle was when a very popular supervisor who worked for me retired. It was hard to imagine that anyone could fill Anne’s shoes. She was one of those ‘larger than life’ characters.

I had noticed that output was often reduced when the department lost motivation and suspected that people would be very de-motivated after Anne had left.

I was a very young and inexperience manager when I worked with her, and she taught me a lot. Even now, as I write this, I still feel tremendous sadness at losing her. Not only was she extremely skilled in her job, she was a great friend and fun to work with.

I remember her telling me that she bought her Christmas cards in the January sales every year. That probably gives you an idea of how much planning she did.

My plans

We organised a surprise party and all kinds of other events to celebrate her retirement.

But on top of this, I put a huge amount of effort into planning how we would keep up the output after her final day and keep up the motivation in the team. It paid off. In fact, the output was higher the week after she left than it was the previous week.

Out of respect for Anne, I never mentioned it. But I did learn that you can implement changes effectively if you learn from your past experience and build on it.

Christmas cards

Every year, as regular as clockwork, on 1st December I received a card from Anne. Then, about ten years ago now, I had a card from her husband saying she had passed away, a change I wasn’t quite as well prepared for.

For a summary of five big mistakes when implementing change see this article


5 Big mistakes to avoid when making change

5 Big Change Mistakes - 4 Bad Communication

Much of the so-called resistance to change is caused by it being communicated badly to those who are impacted by the change.

I heard of one company that decided to close down a large site. A senior manager came over to talk to everyone about the changes and the closure in a big meeting.

One individual asked him: “Do you regret having to close this site?” “No.” Was his reply.

I don’t think I was the only one shocked by that unfeeling and callous response. It certainly didn’t smooth things along.

Decisions about change

When you have to make decisions that will impact others, it’s vital to think about the needs of those individuals. One of those needs is often to know why the changes are taking place and how the decisions are made.

By not explaining the reasons you make it easy for all kinds of rumours to develop.

Worse still is that people perceive the changes to be unfair. If they don’t know the reasons they will speculate. When people are dealing with changes they don’t like, their speculations are likely to be more negative than positive.

Unfairness

Part of your brain, anterior insular, is finely tuned to pick up any hint of unfairness. This is because being treated unfairly is a sign that you might be rejected from your social group. So any hint that this is the case signals danger.

As a result you can feel actual physical pain. So it’s not surprising that people react badly to these situations, especially when the communication is poor.

Recognise people’s feelings

If you are able to think this through and be honest and straightforward in your communications, implementing change will be a lot easier.

Bad communications

Another client told me that he received a phone call one day from his manager saying he needed to be at a particular hotel at 9am for an announcement but she couldn’t tell him anything else.

You can imagine how he felt that evening and what a good night’s sleep he had.

The trouble is that his manager had been told she was not allowed to let people know the contents of the announcement.

It’s this kind of misguided communication strategy that really causes problems.

Good communications

One of the other managers in this same situation broke the rules and told her people about the announcement but also added – “You will still have a job at the end of it". Her people were much happier about it.

Telling people the worst

Often you shy away from giving bad news because you just don’t know how to do it. I was astonished to hear, years ago, that doctors did not get any training in how to tell people their relatives had died. I’m sure that’s changed now (I hope so). But I’m not sure that industry has moved very far forward on this.

When you have to give bad news

People don’t always hear bad news, or understand it correctly. A colleague of mine spent years trying for a baby. Finally she went to see her doctor. He was astonished. She’d had her ovaries removed five years earlier so she was never going to get pregnant.

I can’t believe the doctor who removed her ovaries didn’t explain this was the case, but I can believe that she just didn’t hear what he had to say properly. And perhaps he didn’t explain it very well.

Tips for giving bad news

Use clear, simple language: “You will not be able to have children after this operation.”

Identify what the main concerns of the person on the receiving end will be and tell the person what you are planning to do about them:

“There will be a full compensation package for everyone who is losing their job. The details are on this sheet. Your pension rights will not be affected. For people who want to move, there will be some help. We’ll be giving information about that on Monday.”

Do not, as another senior manager did, start going on about how great your own new job will be as a result of the changes. It’s not the time, place or audience for that.

Have the information on paper as well as telling people. This gives them a chance to look at it when they have got over the shock.

Tell them several times. I know this can seem a waste of time, but people often need to hear the news several times before they understand it completely. It’s no good giving a two-hour presentation packed with complicated information (as one company did) and then complaining, “We’ve already given them all the information they need.”

Give people plenty of time to talk about their feelings and express concerns. Far from making things worse, this can really help people to feel better.

In short – imagine yourself in their position, with their background, skills and circumstances and treat them as you would like to be treated.

For a summary of five big mistakes when implementing change see this article

5 Big mistakes to avoid when making change

5 Big Change Mistakes - 3 No Clear Priorities

When you are making changes, often there are many things that need to be done, and it seems like they all need to be done at once.

People have to carry on with their everyday jobs, but they also have to make the changes.

Make a plan. This may seem like extra work when you are already busy, but it will save you a great deal of time and money in the long term.

Get the objective clear

Once you have clearly identified what needs to be achieved it’s vital to work out a plan. This can take some time and is more difficult when you are panicking.

The first step in working out a plan is to be really clear about what you need to achieve. Spend some time working out your objective and get it really clear.

Then work out your deadline.

I always like to leave a little leeway here, but it’s not always possible.

Make a list of your tasks

Once you have done this, one option is to work backwards from the deadline. This should help you to identify all the tasks that need to be completed in order for you to implement your change.

Don’t make it hard – check with the others who are involved and ask for their input and advice.

Estimate how long each task will take

Once you have a list of all the tasks, it’s useful to estimate how long each will take. Most people tend to be rather optimistic when they do this. So make sure you allow some slack for problems you haven’t anticipated.

If it’s something you haven’t done before ask others who have, how long it really takes and what their suggestions are for completing the task easily and efficiently.

Identify your critical path

You may also want to work out your ‘critical path’. These are the tasks that are linked and have to be done in a certain order and can’t be made shorter. For example, if you are cooking your Christmas dinner, the turkey is often the critical path.

You have to buy it, prepare it (with stuffing and so on), cook it and carve it. You can’t carve it while you’re cooking it, or prepare it while you are buying it. All the tasks have to happen in that sequence. And there is a minimum time for the whole thing that you can’t reduce.

If you buy it on Christmas Eve and prepare it then put it in the oven at midnight (depending on the size) it won’t be ready before midday on Christmas day. If you put it in the oven late or if the oven breaks down (as happened to a friend of mine) then the whole dinner is going to be late and you can’t catch up.

So this is part of your plan that you need to focus on and get right.

Finalise your plan

Put your tasks in order. What needs to be done when and who needs to do it. Be very clear about when tasks must be completed.

Let everyone know

Make sure people know what needs to be done first and why. This will make it much easier for them to prioritise all their other tasks around the changes you are implementing.

Keep people up to date with progress and any modifications to the plan. Give them reasons.

Be clear about other ongoing work and how it fits in and what needs to be done first. Make sure people get some help if their workload is going to be drastically increased.

For a summary of five big mistakes when implementing change see this article

5 Big mistakes to avoid when making change

5 Big change mistakes – 2 Not involving people

So often senior managers start working on change without involving the people who know most about what needs to happen and how to implement it.

Yes, sometimes you can’t tell people what’s going on for all kinds of reasons, but too often this is used as an excuse – or perhaps it’s just a habit.

If you can explain to people what you need to achieve to your team, very often you will be surprised at the ideas they come up with.
The change

In one company where I was working, during a previous and tough recession, we were really struggling. It may seem like a minor thing, but we, (the management team) decided that we just could not spare any money at all to pay for the traditional Christmas lunch normally funded by the company so we made a change and cancelled the event.

I announced this to the employees and apologised. They all knew how bad things were (sales had dropped like a stone, a familiar story).

The delegation

But later that day a small delegation came to see me. I was told that they had decided the Christmas lunch was too important for morale to miss. So they had decided it was going ahead.

They had already planned how they were going to do it with everyone making a small contribution and bringing in food.

The tradition

Part of the tradition was that everyone got a present from the company. So some money was scraped together through donations, enough for £2 per person.

One of the senior supervisors and I went into Nottingham and spent the afternoon getting a present for every single person, from the cleaner to the managing director. Each for £2 or less.

The successful event

The chief test engineer dressed up as Father Christmas and gave out each present after an excellent lunch that had not cost the company a penny.

It is still one of my most treasured memories. It made me realise what could be done if you just shared things with people and gave them a chance to contribute.

Include people

If you implement changes without including people you will almost always discover that things could have been done much more efficiently, better and cheaper if you involved them.

This is particularly annoying for those on the receiving end. In turn this leads to de-motivation and all kinds of other unnecessary problems. So why not save yourself the trouble?

For a summary of five big mistakes when implementing change see this article
5 Big mistakes to avoid when making change

5 Big change mistakes - 1 The wrong objective

5 Big mistakes when implementing change - 1 The wrong objective

One of the big mistakes people make when they are implementing change is not getting the objective right at the beginning.

Make sure you have a SMART objective

Make sure you are clear on what it is you need to achieve through the changes you are planning. The wrong objective (or no objective at all) will lead you down the wrong path.

Time spent on this can seem like a waste when you are keen to get on or there is an emergency – perhaps when the creditors are banging on the door. But it will be worth it.

Ask yourself some questions:

• What do we need to achieve?
• How would we know we had achieved it?
• How would you know you were making progress?
• When do we need to achieve it by?
• What would it look like?
• How do we need it to be in six months?
• How do we need it to be in a year?

Don’t just do this on your own. Ask your team. Run it by others to see if it makes sense.

Don’t worry about how you are going to achieve it at this stage, just what it is you need to achieve.

For example:
Imagine your sales have dropped and the revenue is reduced.
You might start with an objective like:

“Reduce costs.”

This objective is not very specific. What is it you need to achieve?

“Run the company within a new budget”
“Increase revenue”

What budget and what revenue do you need?

“Run the company within a budget of £XX this year”
“Increase the revenue to £YY per year by end 2014”

There are many other objectives that come under these and you need to discuss them with those involved. Don’t start working out how you are going to achieve it at this stage. I know it’s very tempting, but it’s a distraction from getting your objectives clear.

The next posting on big mistakes in implementing change – not involving people early enough – comes out on Thursday 19th May.

For a summary of five big mistakes when implementing change see this article:

5 Big mistakes to avoid when making change