The Intentional Stress Secret aka: The WYGDA Factor

The Secret Reason for Fabricated Stress in Your Team: The WYGDA factor

   The Problem Child.   The Instigator.  Nearly every  team has one, and far too many managers have gone head-to-head with at least one at some point in his career.
 This employee seems to create conflict wherever he or she goes. Some actually appear to enjoy the dramas that are left in their wake. Whether your problem child is overtly hostile, attention seeking, or simply basking in the spotlight of infamy, the resulting stresses are all the same for you and your team.

 As a manager in Baltimore many years ago, this type of employee was more than just a minor nuisance, and on some teams they actually outnumbered the more mature workers who showed up every day to give a fair effort without rocking the boat. This type of imbalance can have a devastating effect on overall production, even if only because the fabricated dissention is contagious.
 These boat rockers could easily tie up the majority of your day with headache-inducing conflicts and needless personal dramas, and why not? You are going to pay them either way, and by forcing the WYGDA factor they are in fact being paid to complain, to waste your time, and to hold up production.
 They go home happy every day, while you and your team fall further behind schedule.

So, What You Gonna Do About it?

  This is a game of dares, first and foremost. Falling under the heading of the Get Over Game, the long term goal is to take effective control away from management and put it in the hands of a small group of bullies who will keep you dancing on your strings like a puppet.

 This is not nearly as far-fetched, nor as tough, as you may think. You will automatically deny being that easy to manipulate, and it's just that type of arrogance that the players will expect and use to gain control.

  The short-term goals are almost meaningless when viewed individually: Create a new complaint each day; Recruit more players to each create a new daily complaint; Divide lower management; Feed the local rumor mill negative stories that undermine the managers; Stall production at every opportunity; Bully any member who refuses to play along; and last but surely not least, Push and keep the tension levels to a breaking point.

 To the uninitiated, it is rather illuminating to discover how many vulnerabilities are created by a passively trusting management team.

 That Chain of Command that you have so much respect for doesn't even exist in the Get Over game. Prepare to have your back scarred by a dozen knives. The bully will go straight to the top with petty, and sometimes even fabricated, complaints about you and your performance.

 What You Gonna Do About it? Nothing. There's nothing you can do directly, and she knows it.

 There's nothing easy about being bullied at any point in your life, but it can be particularly frustrating when the bully is your employee. You offer respect on the daily, and in many cases you even care on a personal level, but there's always that one person who looks at you like you just asked for a kidney; or the one who makes you feel like you need a bath after they talk to you.

 So, What You Gonna Do About it?

First: Clear The Air.

  

The WYGDA bully will vary his tactical approach to suit the environment, so the ammo of choice may differ, but the bully's primary weapon is always the same: Threats. Lots of empty threats.

 She will threaten to call her attorney if you don't comply. He will threaten to call the NAACP if you don't give in. She will threaten to form a union if you refuse to promote her. He will go over your head repeatedly, thus keeping you under pressure by the trickle-down effect.

 Call the Bluff. The best way to deal with this smokescreen is to lay all the cards out on the table.

Hand her the phone from your desk, and offer to dial the number. Take back control of your position and at the same time you take the wind out of her sails.

 Bullying a manager works because he/she feels that they hold an ace up the sleeve. They know a trick, or a friend is teaching them about something that worked in the past. There is a bit of truth in every rumor, and these stories are no different.

 The key is to become fiercely proactive at the first signs of a power struggle, and cover your legal bases.

Notify your legal department of the possibility that a standoff may be imminent, and begin the paper trail with your first meeting. Witness accounts are golden, and if your meeting witness is also from HR or legal, you can consider your posterior adequately covered.

 Sadly enough, WYGDA bullying does work to a degree, and I have watched a few Baltimore companies become completely devoured by hired bullies to the point of eventual collapse.

  In the one that haunts me to this day, it was myself who had hired the ringleader. By the time the mistake was realized by the owners, he had already caused enough damage to create the snowball effect that would bring the company down.
 Twice I tried to fire him, because he was costing us customers directly, but he cried (and lied) to the owner and was re-hired, effectively placing himself on the "protected list" which meant even the slightest hint of future negativity from me could legally be construed as harassment...and I had to watch with my hands tied as he destroyed everything that we had built.
 We (the owner that I met with weekly and myself) knew that he was a DuKE, but we arrogantly believed that we could manage this small quirk. He wasn't the only one, after all.
 A DuKE is someone experiencing the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and this young man was the living definition of someone living with DKE syndrome.
 In this case, he was thoroughly convinced that he was a natural genius (because mom said so..?) who should be calling all the shots, and that we should essentially hand the company over to him.
 In truth, he had the people skills of a porcupine, and the business sense of grade school bully.
 I will try to expand on the topic of DuKEs in a future post, as it is a very interesting topic.

 In any event, you can take my word for this: The guilt that comes from installing a cancer into your work family, one that forces the people you love and respect to suffer, is not something that you can shake off easily. I've had to live with this every day since.
 So take the lead right from the start, thus making positive changes in your future.
 Every manager enjoys the belief that he is no pushover, and when an employee begins to push you have the opportunity to prove your character to everyone involved.

  2015   The Leader Coach   §   JB Stran

  

Players and Spectators: The Speedbump Secret

Players vs Spectators: Your Team Is Comprised of Both 

  The Productivity Factor:

  The Player-versus-Spectator (PvS) scenario occurs when your team contains one or more people who are  hindering the true potential of the team and your carefully designed process.

Despite your best efforts to implement an efficient and streamlined process with a fair workload balance, by which the team's goals can be met, your final results will always be tainted by the PvS factor.
 Most managers are rarely, if ever, aware that it even exists to mar the outcome.

 

  Incidental Spectators:

  While each member of the team is enjoying fair compensation for their collective skills and potential ROI, it often happens that a few will become more spectator than player, who will almost immediately become a speedbump on the path to the team's goals.
 This gradual reversion from active participant to overseer can be the result of recent disappointments, a missed opportunity at work, or experimentation on a low-energy day that was allowed to go unchecked.  In the case of the newly-hired, they may be simply allowing their true nature to show, now that the honeymoon is over.

  Because humans are creatures of habit, an otherwise active team member who experiments with the spectator status is prone to repeat this behaviour, unaware that they have become a speedbump that the team must navigate every time a new project includes the spectator.
 Due to some basic primal programming, spectator status is also contagious.

 Spectator traits will manifest in a few ways, and the most common types being as follows:

> The Gab.
 The gabber is easy to spot. Common signs include standing around talking junk when everyone else is working; walking away from the project at random times to find a conversation, and similar ways to show the team that they aren't really tuned in.

> The Child.

 Being no one's favorite, the child simply refuses to cooperate, and you can't make her. You will pay her in full for her time despite your unmet expectations, and there is nothing you can do about it.

 * The child is a new manager's nightmare, but a seasoned leader will quickly recognize the potential for a complete attitude make-over. The child will either mature, or make way for her adult replacement.

> The Boss.

 Self-appointed managers tend to set themselves apart from the group at the start of a project, having decided beforehand that they will not be contributing to the hands-on portion of the work. Whether lacking in ideas or manual skills, he/she prefers to hang around at the edges and critique the others.

 Bosses tend to be a bit more annoying to the team than other forms of spectator, if only for the constant distractions from the job at hand.

 The Enablers: 

Your ground-level managers will almost immediately notice that the team is dealing with a member who prefers to watch, and in some cases even refuses to actively participate in current projects.
 The hands-on type of manager will make a weak attempt to advise the spectator that participating from a distance isn't really considered participation at all, and then move on to more pressing team matters.
This type of enabling won't serve the team's needs, and only feeds the spectator's position as an outsider.

  "They only whip the horse that wants to work" 

Current people management skills have been tainted by the politically correct and the liberalistic trends that make many managers feel that their hands are tied if an employee displays a standoffish attitude toward team goals, but the truth of the matter is just the opposite.
 While it is considerably easier to hire than to fire, in the case of an employee who has chosen to take a spectator position while receiving player pay, you are in effect dealing with a refusal to work, which is a clear violation of both company policy and the employment agreement he/she signed on the date of hire.
 This is a key point to maintain in the case of the employee who feels that they are carrying "an ace up the sleeve" in the form of race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other personal status that federal labor laws have deemed as protected from discrimination.  This feeling of entitlement is a common misinterpretation of the laws that were designed to protect from abuses, rather than become a weapon that causes your company to lose valuable time and resources.

Who Really Runs This Show?

 Trust me: Many of your team members are asking this very question every time a project is hindered from the onset because they were saddled with a spectator who is clearly operating under a personal set of rules, to the detriment of the team's progress.

 The team is counting on you to defend their investment of time and effort in the project, by either converting the spectator back into a player, or at the very least, to take the spectator off of the field by assigning her to something less demanding.

  “We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” 
― Will Rogers

  Obviously you will never be able to convert every weak link into a star performer, but this piece isn't about every weak link.  This is about the simple difference between Can't and Won't because the spectator status is a personal choice, and like any other choice can be un-chosen.

 Problematic employees in other areas of the job who also display spectator habits can be easily considered to be new volunteers for your disciplinary paper-trail system of attitude adjustment.
 True spectators who have dug in their heels will not respond to verbal berating or empty threats, since they have made it clear with their behaviour that they won't be pushed.

 Mutual respect among your employees is both vital and productive, and it is with this in mind that the spectator requires a refresher in the importance of a balanced workload for each team member.
 Anything less is disrespectful to her peers, and in the extreme can be construed by some team members as a form of bullying that has been endorsed by the management.
 This latter is a highly undesirable situation that starts with a breakdown of communications, which leads to a decline in production stats, and in all likelihood ends with unnecessary tensions over legal liabilities.

 In the interest of fair and ethical treatment toward every member of the team, as well as maximizing the profitability potential of your assets, the spectators will require some specialized face time from you in an attempt to get them back to being active members of the team.

 As a firm believer in the "Three Strikes" rule of business, it seems reasonable that the first written warning should be sufficient to bring the unintentional spectator back to the huddle with her head in the game, and a second written notice will begin the process of replacing a poor investment with someone who has the potential to be a new star performer.


 2015   ≈ the Leader Coach blog   ≈ JB Stran  All Rights Reserved

Effective Employee Communication

How to Communicate Effectively with Your Team

by J.B. Stran

 § To quote George Bernard Shaw:

  "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has happened."

 In his book "The Three Big Questions For A Frantic Family", management guru Pat Lencioni made it clear that managers spend lots of time and energy to develop and implement very specific and strategic plans for our businesses. 

 At home however, we tend to fly by the seat of our pants with our family members.

 A similar phenomenon occurs within many businesses: We plan and strategize tirelessly to best engage external audiences such as customers, investors, media, and community, while too often forgetting to invest in our most valuable constituency, the employees who have the most control over the future of the company.

 "You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere"      ≈ Lee Iacocca

  Employees have a significant impact on the final outcome of any work project.
 They want to know where the company's heart is, it's vision and values. Your team members will engage or disengage based on the effectiveness of local management's ability to convey these core principles, along with clear, timely and effective updates.

Regular Communication Practices:

  Develop a plan to regularly communicate with employees without making it tedious, especially if you have a younger workforce who tend to find routines difficult.

 Regular meetings don't need to be weekly, but they will be necessary from time to time.

 Pepper in the occasional one-on-one meetings to touch on recent successes and shortcomings.

> Avoid feedback that criticizes the employee rather than their actions.

 Some members are more sensitive to criticism than others, just as some managers may have a personal presence that intimidates or 'rashes' certain employees.

> Ask if employees would like to receive feedback alerts to their smartphones.

 Younger and more tech-savvy team members often prefer to get simple notices from and about the team the same way that they get their news: In small casual bites, and at their own pace.

> Employ social media for company alerts and workforce updates.

  * Tip: Start a Facebook page for employee 'Weekly/Monthly News' updates to foster a feeling of engagement. The team can catch-up with their phones, tablets or computers at their pace, and show up the next day feeling briefed and up to date on the latest happenings that affect them and their goals.

( Now that most teenagers are moving away from Facebook, mainly because their parents have joined and are able to easily monitor them, team communication via this medium can have a more professional flavor.)

Bonus: This could help to eliminate the local rumor mill, and you can delegate the authority for this mission to an entry-level manager or to a particular employee-level (shift managers,foreman, department managers, etc.) whom you feel will remain professional, avoiding local gossip or any other unauthorized 'news'.
  You and your management team are the editors, and they the reporter(s).

 

Feedback in the Workplace:

   Solicit an active system of feedback from your employees.

 This facilitates two-way communication and lets employees know that their ideas are important.

 For managers, this offers the opportunity to gain new ideas, as well as offering some detailed insight into the employee's evolving jobs and skills.

 As an example; While one employee is responding to complaints regarding a company policy or process, another employee may actually have a simple solution to the problem causing said complaints.

 >  Give feedback to encourage continued effort.

  Respect the time and effort of the employee, and take note of specific areas of any shortcomings and  training gaps that will need to be addressed at a future one-on-one meeting.

    "Never miss a good chance to shut up"   ≈ Will Rogers

 >  Listening can be your most valuable communication skill.

  People begin to heal the moment they feel that someone is listening.  Your "open door" policy means very little if you're glancing at incoming emails, or answering the phone, or any of the other subtle and often unconscious ways that managers show a lack of personal interest in what's being said. 

“The most successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.”      ≈  Bernard M. Baruch

  The stronger your reputation as a good listener, the more comfortable employees will feel when they have information to share. This could easily relate to your being apprised of a potentially costly problem long before it has brewed to that stage.

 > Coaching is the best Feedback.

  Coaching is based on mutual respect, strict confidentiality, and trust. Your employees first need to know that you are credible, so only promise what you can deliver.

Managers can create credibility by admitting when they are wrong; never taking credit for another employee's ideas; never denigrating an employee for their ideas, especially in front of others; always indicating a willingness to communicate openly.

 Match actions with your words. If you say you will address a situation in a certain way, then follow through. Anything less, and you are undermining your own credibility.

 Remain objective. Never "spin" or assume how a piece of news will be interpreted.

Questioning effectively is key to the coaching approach. The coach asks questions to achieve:

 - an accurate assessment of where the employee may need additional training,

 - the proper response by management to meet mutual goals,

 - the best path to help the employee find answers for themselves.

“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.” 
≈ Abraham Lincoln

> Negative Feedback 

 Some situations may cause undue tension on the part of the employee if they are made to feel as if under a personal attack. There are a few steps you can take to avoid this when the time has come for handling a difficult situation and you feel momentarily anxious about finding the right words.

  

 - Prepare yourself. Check facts and positions, and deal with feelings, both yours and theirs.

 - Approach the situation constructively. Humiliated employees will be reluctant to change.

 - Deal with excuses respectively. Accountability is ideal, but some may need more time to get there.

 - Ensure that people can accomplish what they said they will do. Support is always appreciated, and in most cases you will find it reciprocated.

  “We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.” 
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

≈ 2015  Leader Hacker   /   JB Stran