Self-Perception vs. Reality

photo by Victoria Peckham

Another hidden gem from Sheena Iyengar’s The Art of Choosing. Dr. Iyengar had several hundred Columbia Business School students get 360-degree feedback from past managers, colleagues and subordinates.

The lesson?  You’re not as great as you think you are so get over yourself.

Turns out that 90% saw “…significant discrepancies between how they saw themselves and how others interpreted their actions.  Many who thought they were popular and valuable team players learned that they were seen as average and difficult to work with.”

90%.

Unfortunately for that group, others’ perception is reality.

Even worse news is that Dr. Iyengar references a study by Daniel Ames that reported that “…in the workplace, people who attempted to overtly enhance their position and reputation were seen as disruptive to the group and ultimately performed poorly.”

This speaks to the importance of being able to have those immensely difficult conversations about who we fundamentally are (or perceived to be) as people and how we behave in the workplace.

The more you have in common with others in terms of values and personality the easier these conversations are and the better you understand and appropriately interpret the actions of your colleagues.  This gets to the heart of what we’re measuring at RoundPegg and why we so vehemently believe that hiring for fit needs some objectivity and rigor.

And while we may not have the exact answer, we believe we’re taking a big step toward the solution with our internal Touchy Feely meetings.  It’s damn hard to discuss our perceptions that rub or (possibly harder) to be on the receiving end of that feedback.  But it’s what makes a group and company run more efficiently and effectively.  When we can get out of one another’s way we’re better able to put the business first.

We can all improve and we will be far more successful if we’re able to listen to others’ perceptions and internalize that.

Everyone and every company is a work in progress, to be sure, but nothing worthwhile is easy.

Kaizen.

Building Great Teams – A How To

Aligning teams and getting everyone engaged and pulling in the same direction is key to your business’ success.  Engaged employees are 50% more productive than under or dis-engaged employees according to Gallup.

To pick up a few action items on how to re-engage your team, follow along with Natalie Baumgartner, RoundPegg’s Chief Psychologist as she outlines the most important things you can do.

Why Feedback Fails

photo by elevate printing

John Maeda’s recent post on the Harvard Business blogs discusses the value of being critiqued.  Two things stood out to me.  First, how the concept of feedback (aka crits) is entrenched in the supposedly emotionally-based art world and yet the supposedly emotionless, fact-based business world does everything possible to avoid annual reviews.  Second, was the fact that the business world has no idea how to constructively give feedback. (The latter likely follows from the former, of course.)

So…a few thoughts on how to start turning that ship.

Feedback often fails to motivate because we unintentionally make the conversation human.  Seriously.  We make evaluative judgments about the other individual rather than framing the conversation around their goals.  Though the content of the conversation is about the individual and their actions you want to be able to disassociate the individual from the process as much as possible.  You also need to make it apparent that you’re working to the same end point without placating or making unproductive comments in order to ‘soften the blow.’

It’s far easier to be critiqued by others when you know they have your interests in mind.  This is the subtle difference between being a coach and being a manager.

Know what motivates (why one works).  Know each individual’s goals (where they want to be).  And know how to talk to them in a way that gets heard (what springs them to action).

Not knowing these will likely lead to a brilliant failure.  It may not be immediately apparent, but the individual will likely shut down in the short-term and need time to bounce back.  That process can be long and if not properly managed, irreparable.   If you don’t already know the answers to the above a good starting point for giving feedback would be to start the conversation with the first two questions.  If you know the answers, start by reiterating them.

Giving feedback is incredibly hard.  Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news.  Yet, most people want to be able to take some credit for helping others succeed.  Mentally shift how you think about this activity and it will get a little easier.  And your team should become more productive.

Criticism is Stupid

Criticism is easy.  Any knucklehead can do it.

Real genius is in seeing why something will work rather than the 100 reasons why it won’t.

photo by daftgirly

As the team leader you need solutions from your team.  You need them to unabashedly throw out half-baked ideas because it’s only from those nascent thoughts that real change comes.  Allowing criticism to creep into your work environment creates a competitive scenario where people are first looking to score points by killing the ideas of others rather than coming up with solutions of their own.

Instead focus on collaboration.  People shouldn’t be made to feel stupid because there were a couple flaws in their idea.  Focus on what works in the idea and follow those breadcrumbs.

It all begins with you.  The team will follow your lead.  With that, a few thoughts:

• Encourage your team to throw out their filters
• Don’t tolerate criticism.  Instead require people to build off the original idea if they feel the need to comment
• When presented with a problem ignore your first reaction to spew out an answer.  Ask people for their solutions first.  Get them in the habit of thinking ahead and seeing opportunity instead of hurdles
• Have fun with your failures.  Celebrate them in a light-hearted way.  It’s not the end of the world
• Act on the ideas. If your idea will change the world then you’ll need to know how.  Often the problems you thought you would have before your idea was unleashed aren’t the ones that matter most

This is something I struggle with all the time in my internal voice.  I’m my own greatest critic, but I’m changing.  What else do you have?  Any other ideas?

Brown-Nosing, Sycophantism & Sucking Up

We’re all guilty of kissing ass at some point.  We laugh at a boss’ joke that isn’t funny.  We concede that an idea might work despite it’s obvious (to us) flaws.  But what is that ingratiating behavior costing us?

Not much as it turns out.  Despite the article being titled Workers “Sucking Up” Bad For Business: Experts the only evidence given shows what a boon it is to workers:

• 20% more likely to land a job when ingratiating themselves to the hiring manager
• 64% more likely to get appointed to a corporate board

Forget for a moment, what that does to a business.  What does that say about you and I that we are so easily fooled?  We think we’re smart enough to evaluate people based on merit, but obviously we’re susceptible to a little ass kissing.  This means in all of our evaluative efforts where our subjectivity comes into play (hiring, annual reviews, promotions and firing) we can’t be trusted.

photo by mallix

We need more rigorous and objective measures in terms of who to hire and who to promote.  While it’s impossible and foolhardy to do away with human measure in these areas we too often think we’re God’s gift to intuition and therefore aren’t willing to allow another objective data source to interfere with our decision-making process.

So back to why this is bad for business.  Sure, group think is a problem.  Yep, it fails to reward good ideas.

But it’s also a vicious circle.  When we promote the suck ups it’s because we don’t have the self-confidence to firmly stand behind our own decisions.  Likewise, the people sucking up will be the ones who can’t get ahead on the quality of their own thoughts.  This creates an organizational weak-mindedness that dumbs down innovation and work quality.  And in a knowledge-based company that trades on its ideas that’s a deathblow.  Inertia will carry you along for a while, but the friction of the marketplace and the internal competition to see who can suck up best will grind you to a halt soon enough.

For all the leaders out there, don’t succumb to the sycophants.  If for no other reason than it points to your own obvious flaws and weaknesses.  Have a little self respect and self confidence.  You’re better than that.