Blanchard LeaderChat

Contrary to the “Don’t get personal at work” philosophy there is growing evidence that strong relationships at work are a key ingredient to high performance. In Why Relationships at Work Are So Important, best-selling author Susan Fowler, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies explains that “relatedness”—a feeling of connectedness and belonging—is one of the primary nutrients necessary for individuals to thrive in the workplace.

For individuals looking to improve their ability to work successfully with others, Fowler recommends a 3-step process.

• Identify the relationships you are currently involved in at work. Are the people in your immediate circle of influence helping you achieve your goals at work? What is the nature of your relationships? If those relationships are superficial, negative, or nonexistent, then there is a very real chance that you are not going to achieve your goals—at least not in a way that is going to leave you with a sense of vitality, or joy in your accomplishment.
• Determine if the conflict issues in your relationships are caused by a values conflict—where you see things differently, or a dispositional conflict—where your preferred style of responding is different.
• Take action. If you are experiencing a values difference with another person, look for areas where you have values in common. Some common examples are a dedication to helping customers, or a common commitment to high quality work. If the strained relationship is being caused by differences in disposition, take a minute to explore and understand the different ways people respond to work situations. Fowler prefers a behavioral model, such as DISC, as a way to understand dispositional differences including whether a person is more introverted or extraverted, or more controlling or accepting in typical situations.

The basic human need for relatedness or meaningful relationships at work tends to get diminished in many organizations according to Fowler. Don’t let that happen in your organization.

“Managers are often taught that it is not inside the scope of a manager’s role or appropriate to deal with personal issues. But the research is clear that to ignore a person’s need for meaningful relationships in the workplace is to ignore an essential ingredient for basic motivation, vitality, and the sense of well-being that results in a person’s good intentions at work.

Check out the full text of Why Relationships at Work Are So Important here.  Also, don’t miss Fowler’s October 20 complimentary webinar on Creating Effective Work Relationships.

Trust has taken a hit lately in all facets of our life. Chalk it up to the combined effects of the economic meltdown, financial mismanagement, and an increasing sense that, in business at least, everyone seems to be in it only for themselves. The result has been dwindling levels of trust in organizations to a recent new low point where only seven percent of workers strongly agree that they trust their senior leaders to look out for their best interest.

But discussing trust can be a tricky issue.  How do you tell someone that you don’t trust them without them taking it personally?  To help with the process, Cynthia Olmstead, founder and president of TrustWorks Group, recommends stepping back from personal assessments of individual trustworthiness to instead focus on the behaviors that are leading to that conclusion.  By focusing on behaviors, you can begin a dialogue that allows trust to be discussed openly.  Olmstead recommends looking at four factors to help uncover some of the behaviors that might be eroding trust in a relationship.     

• Ability—do leaders demonstrate competence through expertise, experience, and capability in getting the desired results?
• Believability—do leaders walk the talk of a core set of values, demonstrate honesty, and use fair practices?
• Connectedness—do leaders interact with staff, communicate and share information, provide praise, and give recognition?
• Dependability—do leaders take accountability for their actions, and consistently follow up?

Once you’ve identified the behaviors that are causing trust levels to decline, think about ways that they could be rebuilt.  In order to be perceived as trustworthy, you have to act trustworthy.  Using the same four categories, Olmstead believes that leaders can look at their behavior and make changes accordingly. 

To learn more about these behaviors and improving trust in your organization be sure to check out the online article With Trust, It’s a Leader’s Behavior That Counts Most or learn more about a complimentary webinar that Olmstead will be conducting on May 20, Trust: The Critical Link to a High Energy Workplace.

Great leaders personify trust. What are the behaviors that generate trustworthy feelings in others? Identifying and acting in ways consistent with trustworthiness is one of the first ways to begin cracking that code.

Organizations around the world have been forced to change the way they do business. The worldwide recession, downsized workforces, and value-conscious customers have created a new set of expectations. A just-released white paper from The Ken Blanchard Companies identifies key strategies for leaders. Here are four of my favorites to get you started on positioning your company for success. 

• Change the organizational mindset. In many companies people have been hunkered down and focused on the short term for almost two years. The emphasis has been on cutting costs, holding down expenses, and weathering the storm.  Now that the worst is over, how do you let people know that it’s okay to lift your head, look around a little bit, and cautiously make new plans for the future?  One thing that leaders can do is share a vision for the road ahead, indicate that growth is a goal again, and let people know that they can try new things that have some risk involved. You want people to start thinking about stepping out again, but they have to feel safe in order to make that leap.
• Give people behavioral examples. What does “try new things that have some risk involved” really mean? The best organizations define the values, attitudes, and practices they desire in clear behavioral terms. People have gotten pretty clear about what they shouldn’t be doing over the past 18 months; make sure they are just as clear about what they should be doing now. The more specific and granular the examples are the better.
• Stay open to change. Constant adaptation is a key for thriving in the new business reality. Pay attention to customers’ expectations and competitors’ innovations. Especially after an extended time of downsizing it’s important for organizations to embrace new ways of thinking to breathe new life into old practices and generate innovative new ideas.
• Involve everyone. Smart leaders look for good ideas everywhere. This means checking in with people who are informal leaders in the organization as well as the people who are in formal positions. By listening to everyone—including people with divergent points of view, you increase the odds that the organization will be more responsive, adaptive, and successful in the face of change.

 By sharing power and expanding influence, leaders can create an organization with a strong overall capacity to change and succeed. The new business reality demands that organizations find new ways to address old problems. To learn more ways to increase your organization’s ability to succeed, be sure to check out the complete white paper, Thriving in the New Business Reality from the Blanchard website.

In an article for the May issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine entitled The Leadership-Profit Chain, authors Drea Zigarmi and Scott Blanchard identify the impact of leadership behaviors on employee passion and customer devotion. Their research shows that organizations can’t treat employees poorly, put pressure on them, and then expect them to perform at high levels.

Sometimes organizations operate as though they’ve forgotten the human element of business, and that people have strong feelings about the way they are treated that translates into subsequent behavior. Zigarmi and Blanchard remind us that leaders need to see employees as more than just assets to be maximized.

5 Recommended Leadership Behaviors

For leaders looking to treat people right and provide employees with the direction and support they need to succeed, here are five ways the authors recommend getting started:

1. Provide strong strategic leadership that includes setting an overall vision for the organization, coordinating the efforts of employees toward that purpose, and keeping them prepared to adapt to changing conditions as necessary.
2. Identify and focus the organization on key strategic imperatives that have purpose for the customer or meaning for the greater community. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
3. Send consistent messages based on a clear vision and the type of culture the organization wants to create. Behaviorally define the values that guide the way employees interact with customers and each other.
4. Identify employee needs and strive to meet them. Day-to-day leadership is the linchpin that drives the ways that employees engage with clients.
5. Don’t make profit your only goal. Profit is a byproduct of serving the customer, which can only be achieved by serving the employee. Don’t fall into a trap of thinking that an organization can’t focus on both people and results. Organizations can focus on both at the same time and should.

If leaders create the right environment and engage in the right behaviors, employees will give their best to the organization. This leads to a greater sense of excitement and passion at work that leads to better customer service and retention.

You can access the full text of The Leadership-Profit Chain article here.  Also be sure to check out the Key Factors Influencing Employee Passion which identifies 12 components of an engaging work environment.