We always want to gain some sort of commitment from attendees at training sessions to applying their learning into the workplace. Sometimes we have limited time to explore how they are going to do this. Here are a number of questions (based on management training) you can use to encourage the attendee to think about;

·        

how they will apply the learning

what the benefits of applying the learning will be

what the consequences of not applying the learning will be

 Great Questions

1. What, specifically, are you going to do differently as a result of this training? When will you do this? How will you know you have been successful?

2. What management reputation would you like to have in 12 months time? How will this training help you to achieve that?

3. What do you want your staff and boss to be saying about you in 6 months time?

4. What further questions does this training raise for you? How are you going to find the answers?

5. Where are you going to find the support you need to apply this training?

And what I think is the very best question you can ask;

6. If you leave this training and do nothing different, what will the consequences be?

It’s all about helping the attendee to see a) the benefits of applying the training into the workplace and / or b) the consequences of taking no  action at all

Some managers, though, are reluctant to hold these conversations in case they result in ‘opening a can of worms’ – more specifically in case the staff member comes to them with a list of wants and needs they, the manager, cannot meet

Here’s a simple process that enables you to talk to your staff member about their job satisfaction in a way that’s risk free and highly motivational

Four Steps for Talking about Job Satisfaction

STEP ONE. Explain to the staff member that you would like to talk with them about their job satisfaction and how you both can either maintain it if it’s high or improve it if it needs improvement. Top tip: make this conversation only about their job satisfaction as it has much more perceived value as a ‘stand alone’ conversation rather than tacked on to a conversation about their performance

STEP TWO. Ask the staff member to undertake this exercise in preparation for the meeting:

1. Answer the question ‘What do you want from your job, me as your manager, the organisation’?

2. Identify which of these ‘wants’ can be addressed by you and me, rather than ‘wants’ that can only be addressed by others / the business (because what we are aiming to do here is focus on what we can directly influence)

3. Of these, rate your current level of satisfaction between 0 (not at all satisfied) to 5 (fully satisfied)

STEP THREE. At the meeting ask the staff member to talk through their list. Use questions like these to explore their answers;

·         Tell me more about why this issue is important to you?

·         What are your priorities here?

·         What ideas do you have on how you and I can maintain or improve your satisfaction in these areas?

Dealing with Unworkable Ideas

There may be ideas that are (in your opinion) not ‘workable’. For example, the staff member may want to undertake some training which means they will be away from their job during a time when you know there will be a high volume of work to complete. Explore these areas with questions, particularly with any variation on the key question ‘Talk me through how that would work?’

So in this example you might ask ‘Thinking about the pressure of work we will be under at that time, talk me through how you think we can cope with you being away on the training.  How would that work?’

Often using the ‘Talk me through’ technique the staff member will come to the conclusion that their idea is not workable. You can then move on to other options. Of course, if they can talk this through with you and come up with a good plan, then the idea is workable and you can simply go with it!       

STEP FOUR. Make an action plan. Here you want to select two or three ideas you and the staff member can implement. Please note the ‘you and’ part of the last statement because if you, and only you, come away from the meeting with a ‘to do’ list, something’s gone wrong. Why? Because job satisfaction is a joint responsibility. Your staff member has, as an intelligent adult, a responsibility for their own satisfaction at work. You can, and do, play a large part in influencing your staff’s satisfaction but they have to play their part too. So be sure to include in the action planning a question on the lines of ‘and what will you do?’                   

Summary

Having conversations with your staff member about their job satisfaction may feel like just one more thing on your ever expanding ‘to do list’! The benefits, though, of spending some good quality, focused time on this issue can be enormous in terms of both staff motivation and in building your relationship with them.

And here’s the great part. Even if you and the staff member cannot come up with a whole range of actions to maintain or improve their job satisfaction, most people find that the very fact that their manager is interested in their satisfaction and prepared to spend time discussing this with them is highly motivational in itself. It’s a ‘no lose’ situation   

If you would like to know more about motivating you staff I’d like to invite you to check out some of my free videos where you learn about how to motivate staff to high performance – you can find them at http://www.10mmt.com/watch-videos/

Most of us know that research shows that staff members who know clearly what is expected of them are both more productive and have higher levels of job satisfaction than those who don’t. We also know that achieving high levels of clarity with our staff is sometimes easier said than done, particularly for those areas of performance that are unquantifiable – the behaviours rather than the numbers. This is why I’m often asked by the managers, team leaders, supervisors and business owners I work with to help them to define and describe more clearly what they want from their staff. Here’s a technique that works really well – using a model    

How to use a Model

The simple idea here is to find someone who is performing well in the area and then use that person as your model of good performance

So, if you think Dev is a really effective team player, you describe what you see them doing that makes you think of them as an effective team player

Or if Carole is getting great feedback from clients you find out what she’s doing to get that feedback so you can use her as a model for ‘effective client management’ 

The key here is to focus on the behaviours the person is demonstrating – it’s all about analysing what the ‘model’ is doing which is so effective

2 Ways to analyse a model

1. By paying close attention to their behaviours – observing them ‘in action’. This means you need to pay particular attention to Dev when he is in ‘team playing mode’. For example, what does he do in team meetings  that is so effective? What do you see him doing with his team members? Is it that he often builds on other people’s ideas in meetings? Is it the way he offers support to less experienced team members? You are simply trying to ‘unpick’ what it is that makes you (and probably others) regard him as effective in this area      

2. By asking the model. You may not be able to observe the model in action, you may not be able to accompany Carole to her client meetings. The approach here is to find out from them what they do that makes them effective. For example you could ask Carole ‘would you mind spending 10 minutes with me explaining how you get such great feedback from clients?’ You would then be aiming to get Carole to describe specifically what she does that gets such great results. Is it about the preparation she does? Her knowledge of the client? Her ability to adjust her style to meet theirs?  Here you are helping Carole ‘unpick’ what makes her so successful in this area 

Clearly you then need to write down the outcomes of your analysis. Let’s take a look at example

An example – Team Player

 Here’s my description of what I would expect to see if I watched an effective team player in action

·         Knows what the team needs to do and what they need to do to contribute

·         Looks around  and sees when others need help, then offers help

·         Involved in team meetings and events – always has something useful to say

·         Comes up with ideas on ways the team can work together more effectively

·         Other team members say they are good to work with     

Now clearly this might not be your description of ‘team playing’, it may look quite different in your organization or for your team. I’m simply aiming here to give you an idea how these behaviours might be demonstrated

A word of warning

What I don’t mean you should be doing is using the model as an example. Saying to your staff members ‘If you were all like Dev everything would be fine’ or ‘Can’t you just be great with clients, like Carole?’ won’t work (so that’s something you didn’t know then!). What we need to do is to take the information we have gathered and to then to describe those behaviours as performance objectives we can use with our staff to clarify our expectations       

Describing the behaviours as performance objectives

In order to make this description into a performance objective you simply need to reframe it into positive outcome language or the language style you usually use in your business for objectives. Here is the team player description written as an objective

Performance objective – Team Player

·         Explain the team objectives and your role in meeting those objectives

·         Identify when your team members need help or assistance and offer that help

·         Fully participate in team meetings and events

·         Identify ways the team can work together more effectively

·         Gain feedback that you are an effective team worker

Summary

When you can describe what your expectations of your staff are you can then begin to share and agree with your staff what these expectations look like in practice – using performance objectives. You can then begin to work with those staff to coach them towards meeting those objectives – and your expectations   

And now I’d like to invite you to watch, for free, session one of my management training course ‘Motivating your staff with powerful performance objectives’ where you will learn ‘How to use a three step process for getting really clear on what you want from your staff’. Watch now at  http://www.10mmt.com/watch-videos/

From Joan Henshaw, the author and presenter of the video management training series ‘The 10 Minute Management Toolkit’ – the flexible, cost effective and time effective way to help managers, team leaders and supervisors learn how to motivate their staff to high performance

 It’s all about making that start!      

STEP ONE – IDENTIFY THE TASKS

The first step is to identify the tasks that would be suitable for delegation.

1.         Make a list of all the tasks you currently perform

2.         Delete from the list the tasks you must do yourself

These may be tasks which:

·         Are a requirement of your job which no one else can do

·         You are ‘legally’ responsible for carrying out

·         Only you have the expertise and experience for and it would be impossible or impractical to help your team members gain that expertise and experience.

3.         The tasks that have not been deleted from the list are those that you potentially could delegate totally or partially

4.         Ask the question – which of these tasks, if delegated, will free up the most time, so that I can concentrate on those tasks only I can do?  

STEP TWO – IDENTIFY THE INDIVIDUAL

The second step is to identify the individual who would be best suited to undertake the delegated task.

In identifying the individual you may want to use some of the following selection criteria:

•                      Spare capacity (i.e. they’ve got the time)

•                      Best fit – in job terms

•                      The team member has a special interest in the task

•                      The delegated task may help to meet a development need

•                      The team member already has the skills/knowledge to complete the task.

STEP THREE – IDENTIFY THE APPROPRIATE DEGREE OF DELEGATION

At this step you should consider the aptitude and potential of the team member and decide upon the ‘degree’ of delegation:

Degree 1           Full Delegation:

The team member takes over the task fully

Degree 2           Shared Delegation:

You and the team member share the task and agree who will be responsible for which parts.  This is useful when the person is not ready to take full responsibility but can do elements of it now and learn others later.

Degree 3           Contributory Delegation:

At this stage the team member is not ready to take on a large part of the task but may contribute to some part of the task

Now you’ve got the what, the who, and how much in place – is it time to delegate?

Proudfoot Consultings (www.proudfootconsulting.com) annual Productivity Survey for 2007 shows that in the UK 33.3% of the time spent in work is unproductive. Taking into account that they estimate that the optimum ‘labour utilisation’ time is considered to be 85% this means that UK businesses are wasting just over 18% of working hours.

Here’s what they say about the reason

‘Whatever business you’re in, pay particular attention to the calibre and capabilities of those who directly supervise frontline workers. Poor worker supervision has always been a prominent reason for wasted working time in our Business Reviews and in the last two years has risen to become the dominant factor’

That’s just short of a day a week, then, lost to poor supervision

Before we explore this issue further I should point out that this report is based on research of large businesses (with turnover in excess of £100m). Clearly, managing staff in a smaller organisation can be very different. For example, there’s less likelihood of there being a long ‘chain of command’ and it’s clearly more difficult for staff members in a small enterprise to be unproductive, at least intentionally. However I’d say it’s worth all organisations, whatever the size, periodically taking a critical look at how they manage their staff

Here are a few questions you can use to assess your people management practices (based on my model of effective people management):

1. Are your staff crystal clear on what’s expected of them? Have you described and agreed what good performance looks like for their job? Are these agreed descriptions written as performance standards or objectives?

2. Do you monitor your staff’s actual performance against the standards or objectives on an ongoing basis? Are your staff involved in monitoring their own performance?

3. Do you and your staff review together their performance on a regular basis (every 3 months is standard good practice)? Do you give them objective, evidence- based feedback? Do you agree on areas of outstanding performance and how these can be built upon? Do you identify and agree any areas of improvement? 

4. Do you discuss your staff’s job satisfaction with them so that you can, together, develop ways to maintain or enhance their satisfaction?

Do you now feel like having a lie down? I do know this all sounds like an awful lot of work and it certainly does take some time commitment to manage your staff effectively. However research does demonstrate again and again that not only does effective people management positively impact productivity and business performance but it also positively impacts your staff’s job satisfaction. A win for the business, a win for your staff and not nearly as hard as it sounds with the right tools and techniques

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, or you know you could listen better some of the time, you could try this simple technique taught to me some years ago by a wonderful man called Alan Mumford. At the time Alan was coaching me in facilitation skills and talking about how to judge when to speak out (make an intervention) and when to keep quiet. His advice was;

 ‘The first time I feel I want to intervene, I keep quiet. The second time I feel the need, I do the same. If I feel for a third time that I need to say something then, and only then, do I speak up. Very often if I wait until the third time, I won’t need to speak at all’

Here’s a way of applying this technique in a one to one conversation

Step One – the first time you want to speak, hold your tongue. If the other person has ‘dried up’ ask a question instead of offering an opinion or solution eg Tell me more about …

Step Two – the second time you want to speak, do the same. If another question isn’t appropriate, try reflecting back what you’ve heard so far and asking the other person to check that you have understood them eg So I think what you’re saying is that…Have I got that right?

Step Three – If you still want to speak then go ahead. A way to keep the conversation flowing and to help you stay in ‘listening mode’ is to frame your suggestions as questions rather than directions eg ‘have you thought about involving your team in this’? then ‘how do you think you can best do this?’ rather than ‘you need to involve the team and here’s the best way to do it …’  

This technique works well in any situation where it’s important to give another person the opportunity to work out a solution for themselves, or when you just want to give someone some good quality ‘air time’. It’s a neat technique – easy to learn, easy to apply, and very effective.

C             Now this staff member is driving me nuts

J              What is she doing, or not doing, that is giving you a problem?

C             It’s just that she’s such a boring teacher

J              Give me an example?

C             OK. I dropped into one of her lessons this week as part of my observation schedule. Oh my goodness, I’ve never seen such a set of bored pupils in my life. Half of them were asleep, a group of them were writing SOS messages on the window (in their own blood) and one kid was trying to make an escape tunnel, using a biro     

J              Really?

C             Well no, but not far off. Now I’m guessing you’re going to say to me ‘Oh for crying out loud Colin, just sit her down and tell her she’s boring’  

J              Do you think that would work?

C             No

J              Me neither

C             Ha! I knew you wouldn’t be able to help me with this one

Putting aside Colin’s clear lack of confidence in my abilities (oh yeah of little faith), it’s not

uncommon for managers to decide that some performance problems are just too difficult to

address. These issues then get put in the ‘too hard tray’ and left, often to fester

Of course telling someone ‘you’re a boring teacher’ or ‘the pupils find you boring’ won’t work. Feedback on personality traits or characteristics is just too hard to understand and too hard to accept (I talk about why in the blog ‘How to give positive criticism – with the focus on behaviours’ http://www.10mmt.com/how-to-give-positive-criticism-with-the-focus-on-behaviours/ ).

So what do you do?

The first step is to articulate the behaviours – not your interpretation of the results of those behaviours (as Colin had)

The question I asked Colin was What are you seeing the teacher doing, or not doing that has led you to label her as ‘boring’?

Here’s some of what he came up with;

She did not;

1. Make enough use of the available IT facilities – minimal use of the interactive whiteboard to show videos, on line resources etc

2.  Use enough research / problem solving exercises

3. Explain the learning intention – what she expected the pupils to be able to do as a result of the lesson

4. Use enough group discussion techniques

How does this help?

By thinking ‘behaviours’ we can now move from the highly subjective and judgemental statement / thinking

‘My staff member is boring’

To the much more objective and non judgemental statement / thinking

‘My observation is that my staff member is not demonstrating the use of a number of tools and techniques designed to engage the pupils’

Which means we can move from feeling, as Colin did, that the situation was too difficult to address – who would be prepared to tell someone they were ‘boring’, or that ‘clients find your presentations boring’? -  to seeing that when we talk behaviourally no performance issue is ‘out of bounds’

quantifiable element of their staff member’s performance.  They don’t find it too difficult to say something like ‘We agreed you would produce 30 units a day. This record shows you’re producing 20. Can you agree there’s a problem here with your performance?’

The challenge

What many managers find much more challenging is giving criticism on the unquantifiable elements of the staff member’s performance. This is how managers often describe this type of issue to me

·         He’s got a poor attitude

·         She lacks confidence

·         He’s not a team player

·         She’s arrogant

Clearly it’s not too hard to see the problem managers have with raising these types of issue.  It is difficult to see a conversation going well based on an opening line ‘I want to talk to you about your attitude. It stinks’ (and if you think I’ve made that last statement up, I’m sorry to say I haven’t)

So how do you give this type of criticism?

The first step is to focus on behaviours, and only the behaviours. What you will notice from our manager’s statements above is that they are talking about the staff member’s characteristics or personality traits. As you may have noticed from your own experience, criticising a person’s characteristics or personality traits very rarely works well. If ever. Criticism specifically focussed on behaviours is much more likely to be understood and accepted. Here’s why

1. Behaviours vs. Characteristics or Personality Traits

When a staff member receives criticism on their behaviours they generally ‘hear’ that criticism on the cognitive or intellectual level (‘in the head’)

 When they receive criticism of their characteristics or personality they generally ‘hear’ that on the emotional level (’in the heart’)

Criticism based on our behaviours is easier to accept than criticism of our personality or characteristics because it is based on

·         what we do

NOT ON

·         who we are

Also, although most people believe they can change what they do. Very few people believe they can

change who they are

 A couple of examples:

A) If I were to say to you

When you turn up late to team briefings it causes a problem (Behaviour)

It would probably feel easier to accept than if I were to say

Your lack of commitment to the team is causing a problem (Characteristic / Personality trait)

B) When you interrupt me in front of a client it causes a problem (Behaviour)

Would probably feel easier to accept than

Your arrogance is causing a problem (Characteristic /Personality trait)

So, criticism based on behaviours is both a) depersonalised and b) focussed on the belief that the person can change. This makes it easier to accept and consequently easier to give

2. Facts vs. Assumptions

The second reason is that it’s easier to give criticism on behaviours is because behavioural

criticism is based on facts not assumptions

Examples

A) When I talk about you turning up late for a meeting – that’s a fact

When I talk about your lack of commitment – that’s an assumption

B) When I talk about there being three errors in the report you gave me – that’s a fact

When I talk about your lack of interest in your work – that’s an assumption

The reality is I can’t actually know what your level of commitment or interest in your work is – I can only assume, or guess, based on my interpretation of your behaviours

But it is assumption and it is guesswork and, putting aside any moral objection you might have to making assumptions about a person, assumptions can be argued against and facts cannot.  And that’s why it’s a problem

Another example

Have you ever said to anyone ‘You just don’t listen!’?

Have you ever had the following response?

 ‘Your assumption that I don’t listen to you is absolutely correct. I rarely, if ever, pay attention to anything anyone else says. Thank you for pointing this out to me. I shall now endeavour to hang on to every word you say’ 

I thought not    

Almost any criticism of characteristics or personality trait will be met with an argument.   

‘You don’t listen’                                                                                              ‘I do’

‘You’re not committed enough’                                                                      ‘I am’

And so it goes on

3. Objectivity

When you focus on behaviours you can give examples:

Yesterday you came to the meeting 20 minutes late

 There were three errors in the report you gave me

What examples give you is objectivity – because you’re talking about facts – and criticism that is seen as being objective is always easier to understand and accept

A summary of the benefits of focussing on behaviours  

a) It depersonalises the criticism as much as is possible – it’s not about the person. It is

About what they do or have done

b) Most people believe they can change what they do. Very few people believe they can

change who they are

c) It’s difficult to disagree with facts. It’s easy to disagree with assumption

d) Facts bring objectivity. Objective criticism is easier to accept and easier to give

Want to know more about this topic? You can watch Session One from the video ‘Motivating your staff to improve their performance with positive criticism’ for FREE at http://www.10mmt.com/wp-login.php?action=register

In this session you can learn;

·         How an iceberg can help you understand (and explain) the concept of behavioural criticism

·         Why the focus on behaviours can be such a challenge

·         A two step exercise for preparing to give criticism on behaviours

Just click on ‘Register’ and then enter our member’s area where you can learn:

How to use a three step process for getting really clear on what you want from your staff

 Great for:

·         Testing the level of clarity you have with your staff (because your staff can’t give you what they don’t know you want!) 

·         Identifying why you don’t always get what you want from your staff

·         Finding information than can help you describe what you want – without reinventing the wheel

Learn this technique in the video ‘Motivating your staff with powerful performance objectives. Session One‘

How to hold a motivational performance review (or appraisal) meeting

Including:

·         How to put together the meeting agenda

·         How to deal with any disagreements when reviewing performance – the easy way

·         5 top tips for reviewing performance – quick and easy ways to improve your review meetings 

·         Using ‘dual value’ for selecting development activities

Learn this in the video ‘Motivating your staff by monitoring and reviewing performance. Session Three

How to prepare to give positive criticism

Including:

·         Exploring the difference between personality traits and behaviours – and why this is important

·         Understanding the difference between facts and assumptions

·         How an iceberg can show us why giving criticism is such a challenge – and what to do to meet this challenge

·         How to describe the criticism in clear, objective, non-judgemental language so that it is easy to understand and easy to accept 

Learn this in the video ‘Motivating your staff to improve their performance with positive criticism. Session One’

Register today at the ‘Watch Videos’ page here http://www.10mmt.com/previews/then just ’click and learn’! 

1. A motivational element – engaging managers in the ‘why’ and the benefits 

2. Self managed learning using the 10MMT video workshop    

3. Support in applying learning into practice  

Here’s the solution     

STEP ONE – MOTIVATION

STEP TWO – SELF MANAGED LEARNING

STEP THREE -SUPPORT

Summary

So often traditional management training courses concentrate on motivation and imparting knowledge and then ….. that’s it!  

In this blended learning solution the manager is also helped to apply the knowledge they gain, and to significantly develop their skills 

The outcome? Not only will the manager improve their own performance, they will improve the performance of their staff members. High impact, flexible training that really makes a difference 

Joan Henshaw is the author and presenter of the video management training series ‘The 10 Minute Management Toolkit’ – the flexible, cost effective and time effective way to help managers, team leaders and supervisors learn how to motivate their staff to high performance.