I always want to do things right and hate making mistakes. When I say or do things I wish I hadn’t done, I relive those scenarios way more than I care to admit, also known as obsessing. But maybe life isn’t about doing everything right. What if our primary job in life is to be happy?
Lots of people will set 2025 personal goals. If setting specific personal goals works for you, do it. Just don’t set yourself up to fail. You’re not likely to lose 30 pounds, save 20% of your income, start a not-for-profit, visit five new countries, and become a fantastic cook in one year. Maybe dial those 2025 goals back and pick two of them, but only if you enjoy working towards those goals.
Perhaps life isn’t about getting more done. Perhaps life is really about enjoying more.
If you want to set 2025 personal goals, I would love if they were:
Have a job you love.
Spend time with people who make you feel good.
Speak your truth (nicely).
Have a job you love. You don’t need to keep a job that doesn’t allow you to do work you enjoy and are good at. There are lots of jobs out there. Go get one you like.
Spend time with people who make you feel good. Stop spending time with people you don’t like or feel good with. Your discretionary time is limited.
Speak your truth (nicely). People are more likely to quit a job and a relationship than to say what isn’t working and to ask for what they want. Fear less; speak more. When you speak from a desire to make things better and to strengthen relationships, there is little you can’t say, so start talking.
I won’t tell you not to save money, travel more, or become a gourmet cook. But what if your job in 2025 isn’t to do more? What if your primary job is to be happy? What would your 2025 goals be then?
As someone who writes and teaches about effective communication in the workplace, I suspect the people I work and live with are expecting me to model good communication skills all the time. The good news: I try really hard to always do the right thing and impact people positively. The bad news, I’m human and sometimes I don’t get it right.
One of the things I’m proud of about Candid Culture, is that we are real people, working with real people. We work very hard to practice effective communication in the workplace and to always model what we’re teaching. And yet, like all people, we get busy, rushed, and tired. We read emails we intend to reply to but then forget to do so. We occasionally send emails, when we should pick up the phone.
In my world, a good communicator is not someone who always communicates perfectly.
A good communicator who practices effective communication in the workplace is someone who:
Cares about people and consistently works to communicate in the way others need.
Asks for and is open to feedback about how they impact people.
Listens and watches other people’s verbal and non-verbal communication.
Alters their communication style to meet other people’s needs.
Takes responsibility when things don’t go well.
I advocate for picking up the phone, even when you want to do everything but, being patient, even when you’re frustrated, and asking questions, versus accusing. And I’m going to admit, I’m working to do these things too. Sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I don’t. I’m in the trenches with you, working to say and do the right things every day.
I promised you five tips to practice effective communication in the workplace and to be generous with people:
Only call people when you have adequate time, attention, and patience to have whatever conversation needs to be had.
If you need a few days to return a call, say so. Let the person know when you’ll call.
Prepare for conversations. Plan what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it.
Don’t have hard conversations when you’re frustrated, tired, or busy. They won’t go well.
If the conversation goes poorly, call back later and clean it up.
Being a good communicator doesn’t mean being perfect. It means caring enough to notice when you miss the mark, cleaning up your messes, and working to do it better next time. I’m working on the above recommendations too. And when I screw it up, you can be assured that my mistakes will become examples in our training programs of what not to do, followed by a new technique that will hopefully work for all of us.
Every time I ignore the red flags I see when interviewing a candidate, or when I feel an employee is struggling, or a project is off track, I pay the price. Every single time.
You interview a candidate who has had three jobs in the last year. You think, “Maybe this one will work out.” No, it won’t. Move on. You haven’t gotten an update from a project team in over a month. You think, “This group is typically reliable. Things are probably fine.” Check in. Even the most diligent employees need accountability and attention.
They call them red flags for a reason. If you suspect a problem, there likely is one. Don’t just wait and ‘see how things go.’ Make a hard decision, get more information, or get involved. Wait and see is often a recipe for disaster.
Sometimes we don’t get involved because we don’t have the time or want to focus on other things. Other times we just don’t trust or listen to our gut.
Trust yourself.
Here are six steps you can take to help listen to yourself and ensure you don’t overlook or ignore red flags:
1. Become very clear about your desired outcome. Decide what you want.
2. Eliminate distractions. Get quiet, aka, still your mind.
3. Think about the situation at hand. Weigh the facts and your options.
4. Decide without belaboring.
5. Act on your decision.
6. Don’t look back. Your initial decision is usually the right one.
Trusting and listening to ourselves can be hard. Perhaps it’s the fear of making a mistake or being wrong. Chances are you’re right, so pay attention to the red flags, trust yourself, and listen to your gut.
Most people would rather get a root canal than participate in an annual employee performance appraisal.
The reasons employee performance appraisals are so difficult is simple:
Many managers don’t deliver timely and balanced feedback throughout the year.
Many employees don’t ask for regular feedback.
Too much information is delivered during the annual employee performance appraisal.
And as crazy as it sounds, managers and employees haven’t agreed to give and receive regular and candid feedback.
Here are four steps to ensure employee performance appraisals are useful and positive:
Managers and employees must agree to give and receive balanced, candid feedback. Don’t assume the agreement to speak honestly (throughout the year) is implicit, make it explicit.
Managers, be honest and courageous. Don’t rate an employee a five who is really a three. You don’t do anyone any favors. Employees want to know how they’re really doing, no matter how much the feedback may sting.
Managers, focus on three things the employee did well and three things to do more of next year. Any more input is overwhelming.
Managers, schedule a second conversation a week after the employee performance appraisal, so employees can think about and process what you’ve said and discuss further, if necessary.
The key to being able to speak candidly during an employee performance appraisal is as simple as agreeing that you will do so and then being receptive to whatever is said. And don’t make feedback conversations a one-time event. If you do a rigorous workout after not exercising for a long time, you often can’t move the next day. Feedback conversations aren’t any different. They require practice for both the manager and employee to be comfortable. Speak regularly, even just for a few minutes. And remember, the right answer to feedback, in the moment, is “thank you.” Make it easy to tell you the truth.
Posted under Uncategorized on December 2, 2024 by Shari Harley. 0 Comments
Lots of organizations do exit interviews after employees give notice. Exit interviews can be a source of helpful information. Employees have little to lose after they’ve quit, so they’re likely to speak candidly about their work experience. But asking for feedback after an employee has quit is a little (a lot) too late. The time to ask about an employee’s working experience is every 90 days, if not more frequently.
Employees quit. It’s a natural part of doing business. And some turnover is healthy and helpful. Surprises, however, are not helpful and are unnecessary. Turnover should rarely, if ever, be a surprise. The writing is always on the wall, if you ask the right questions and make it easy to speak freely.
Most employees are concerned about giving feedback when their input is negative. Employees at almost every company believe there is “a list,” and those who speak up, end up on it, and then mysteriously disappear from the organization. Mind you, no one has ever seen the list, but employees at all types of organizations are certain it exists.
If you want to reduce the turnover in your organization and increase employee engagement and satisfaction, ask for feedback regularly, and make it easy to speak candidly.
Five ways to get your employees talking before they quit:
Ask for feedback at the end of every meeting. Simply ask, “What are you enjoying about your job? What are you not enjoying?” Or ask, “What makes your job easier? What makes your job harder?”
Manage your responses to feedback. The easier it is to tell you the truth, the more truth you’ll get. Employees are afraid of their manager’s reactions. Resist the urge to become defensive (which is very difficult to do). Saying, “I’m sorry that was your experience. Thank you for telling me,” goes a long way. Employees will breathe a sigh of relief and are more likely to speak candidly in the future.
Replace one satisfaction survey with roundtable discussions during which a leader or manager asks a small group of employees for feedback. Live conversations build trust and loyalty. Written surveys do not.
Help employees who aren’t a good fit, exit the organization. Don’t allow poor performers or employees who aren’t a good culture fit to drag down other employees. Help misplaced employees find a better match. The right employees raise performance and morale, the wrong employees destroy both.
Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. Just because you asked for feedback, doesn’t mean you have to act on that information. Employees don’t typically expect all of their requests to be met. It’s often enough just to be able to speak and be heard.
Keep doing exit interviews, and add quarterly or monthly requests for feedback. Talk with people over the phone, via video, or in person. Ask one or two simple questions to get the other person talking. Manage your face and body language. Say “thank you” for the feedback, and watch your employee engagement and satisfaction rise.
Thanksgiving is coming up in a few days. You might visit family and friends who care about you and want what’s best for you. Sometimes people, in the spirit of caring, give unsolicited feedback and advice.
Unsolicited feedback at best feels like someone is trying to help, at worst it feels like criticism. Underneath the feedback might be the message, “If you were doing this right, I wouldn’t need to give you this advice.” I put unsolicited feedback and advice in the same bucket.
If you find yourself receiving unsolicited advice, you don’t have to smile politely and take it. It’s ok to put an end to feedback and advice.
Simply smile, tell the person you appreciate them caring enough to give you that advice, and say that you’re not looking for advice on that topic at this time. And then smile again. Smiling softens most messages. Say nothing more. Most people will stop talking.
This method of acknowledging the person talking is respectful and firm. To pull it off, watch your tone. If you can safely add the words, “you dummy” to something you say, you have a tone issue. Be genuinely appreciative and enforce boundaries. You’re not the 7/11. You’re not open for feedback and others’ input all the time.
If the person continues giving you advice, simply say the same thing again. “Thank you for caring enough to share that with me. I really appreciate your concern. I’m not looking for advice at this time.” If the person keeps talking, just say, “I’m going to get a drink.” Then get up and go get a drink.
The time to talk about what everyone needs to feel comfortable at Thanksgiving dinner is now. Don’t wait until Thursday. Consider what you need to feel comfortable and make requests today. Breakdowns are predictable, and what you can predict, you can often prevent.
If stopping unsolicited feedback feels uncomfortable, tell people before you see them, “I don’t want to talk about _____________ (fill in the blank). Please don’t bring it up over Thanksgiving.” You can soften that request any way you like.
Most difficult conversation are preventable, and preventing a difficult conversation is always easier than having one. Setting boundaries might be feel uncomfortable, but it’s likely not as uncomfortable as having a conversation you don’t want to have and then feeling like you need to avoid someone for the rest of the evening and possibly year. It’s ok to say, “No thank you. Now please pass the pie.”
When something ‘bad’ happens, my nine-year-old is quick to ask who is at fault, hoping, of course, it’s not him. I’m trying to get him to use the word accountability instead, and to understand that if he has some accountability, he has some control over what happens. If he has no accountability, he has no control. A tough concept for a nine-year-old.
Stuff happens. People won’t give you what you need to complete projects. Things will break. When breakdowns happen, I always ask myself, “What could I have done to prevent this situation?” or “What did I do to help create this situation?”
It may sound odd that I always look at myself when breakdowns occur, even when it’s someone else who didn’t do their job. It’s just easier. When I can identify something I could have done to make a situation go differently, I feel more in control – aka better.
I’m the person who gets off a highway jammed with traffic. The alternative route may end up taking longer, but at least I’m moving. I feel like I’m doing something and thus have more control. Taking responsibility for what happens to you is similar. When you’re accountable for what happens, you can do something to improve your situation. When someone else is accountable, you’re at the mercy of other people and have very little control.
There are, of course, exceptions to the practice that “we’re accountable.” Terrible and unfair acts of violence, crime, and illness happen to people, about which they have no control. But in general, in our day-to-day lives, there is typically something we did to contribute to a bad situation or something we can do to improve it.
Here are four practices for improving difficult situations even when you didn’t create the mess alone.
Ask more questions. If you’re not clear as to what someone is expecting from you, ask. Even if their instructions aren’t clear, it is you who will likely be held accountable later.
Tell people what you think they’re expecting and what you’re planning to do, to ensure everyone’s expectations are aligned. This beats doing weeks’ worth of work, only to discover what you created isn’t what someone else had it mind.
Ask for specific feedback as projects progress. Don’t wait until the end of a project to find out how you performed.
Admit when you make a mistake or when you wish you had done something differently. Don’t wait for someone to tell you. Saying, “I’m sorry. How can I make this right with you?” goes a long way.
These are really delegation practices — reverse delegation. Help people express their expectations of you clearly, so you can be successful.
I am always asking the questions, “What could I have done differently? What did I do to contribute to this situation, what can I do now to make this situation better?” I encourage you to do the same, even when someone else drops the ball. You can’t control others, but you can control you. And your happiness and success is your responsibility.
Leaders with virtual and hybrid workforces are worried about losing their organization’s culture. Some organizations are calling employees back into the office to retain culture. Others are hosting in-person social events, retreats, and meetings to help employees reconnect and strengthen culture.
Getting together in person is nice but it isn’t always possible. And what happens when everyone goes home? Culture is built on a daily basis.
Organizational culture is an outcome of the decisions we make and how those decisions get made, how we treat people, and how we communicate and work together. If you want to strengthen your organization’s culture, do it every day.
To strengthen your culture, take small regular actions.
Start each meeting helping employees get to know each other better, from a work perspective.
Host town halls at least twice a year.
Host roundtable discussions between senior leaders and a diverse sample of your workforce.
Have leaders and managers leave employees a weekly voicemail. Share a recent success, challenge, or goal. Keep messages short and authentic. Set the tone for the week.
All of these actions can be done virtually or in a hybrid setting.
Give employees opportunities to talk to each other about the things that matter most at work. Do this regularly – at least a few times a year.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money to strengthen and retain your culture. Go small – regularly.
Being in the wrong job feels terrible. It’s not unlike being in the wrong romantic relationship or group of friends. We feel misplaced. Everything is a struggle. Feeling like we don’t fit and can’t be successful is one of the worst feelings in the world.
The ideal situation is for an underperforming employee to decide to move on. But when this doesn’t happen, managers need to help employees make a change.
The first step in helping an underperforming employee move on to something where they can be more successful is to accept that giving upgrade (negative) feedback and managing employee performance is not unkind. When managers have an underperforming employee, they often think it isn’t nice to say something. Managers don’t want to hurt employees’ feelings or deal with their defensive reactions. When we help someone move on to a job that they will enjoy and where they can excel, we do the employee a favor. We set them free from a difficult situation that they were not able to leave out of their own volition.
I get asked the question, “How do I know when it’s time to let an employee go?” a lot.
Here’s what I teach managers in our coaching training program. There are four reasons employees don’t do what they need to do:
They don’t know how.
They don’t think they know how.
They don’t want to.
They can’t. Even with coaching and training, they don’t have the ability to do what you’re asking.
Numbers one and two are coachable. With the right training and coaching, employees will likely be able to do what you’re asking them to do.
Giving consistent feedback works well for number three.
Number four is not coachable. No amount of training, coaching, or feedback will make a difference.
When you’re confronted with someone who simply can’t do what you need them to do, it’s time to help the person make a change.
The way you discover whether or not someone can do something is to:
Set clear expectations
Observe performance
Train, coach, and give feedback
Repeat
After you’ve trained, coached, and given feedback for a period of time, and the person still can’t do what you’re asking them to do, it’s time to make a change.
Making a change does not mean firing someone. You have options:
Take away responsibilities the person can’t do well and give them responsibilities they can do well.
Rotate the person to a different job.
Firing someone is always a last resort.
Sometimes we get too attached to job descriptions. When the job description outlines a specific responsibility that the person can’t do, we fire the person versus considering who else in the organization could do that task? Be open-minded. If you have a person who is engaged, committed, and able to do most of their job, be flexible and creative. Swap responsibilities, when you can. Employees who are failing in one job, may do very well in a different job.
If you’ve stripped away the parts of a job an underperforming employee can’t do well, and the person is still not performing – it’s time to make a change. This is a difficult conversation that no manager wants to have. Yet I promise you, this conversation feels better to your employee than suffering in a job in which they can’t be successful. After you’ve set expectations, observed performance, and coached and given feedback repeatedly, letting someone go or rotating to the person to a different role is kinder than letting the employee flounder in a job in which they cannot be successful.
Last week some unknown person sent me emails predicting my future. According to the anonymous clairvoyant, in ten years my life will be going well. I’ll have a second child who is amazingly athletic, and I will be offered a job in Oshkosh that I shouldn’t take. After the third predictive email, the sender wanted to know if I had questions about my future. I didn’t.
The whole thing was wildly creepy.
No one should take advice from someone they don’t know, especially someone with this much discretionary time. The emailer needs a volunteer job.
Why would I want someone else to tell me my future? That’s something I enjoy creating.
I see myself as 100% responsible for everything that happens to me. As strange as it sounds, life is easier when I’m accountable. If I miss a plane because of traffic, I should have left for the airport earlier. If I get overcharged in a restaurant, I should have checked the bill more carefully. If I do a bunch of work for a client and later find out that the work I did isn’t what the client really wanted, I should have asked more questions upfront and asked for feedback earlier.
When I’m responsible for what happens to me, I have some control. When someone else is responsible, I have no control.
Instead of seeking answers about what might happen, pursue the things you want. If you want a different job in your organization, tell someone who can do something about it. If you got passed over for a job, ask the hiring manager for feedback of what would have made you a better candidate. If the hiring manager doesn’t give you any information, ask your current boss to get the information for you. If one of your co-workers excludes you from projects, ask them why. If someone you work with seems to dislike you, ask for feedback about what you did to damage the relationship. Regardless of how challenging the situation and how disappointing the results, there is typically something you did to either contribute to the situation or something you can do to change the situation.
I don’t mean to minimize how hard some life circumstances are. But I do want you to see yourself as in charge of what happens to you.
Create the life you want by:
Asking, “What do I really want, and what’s one thing I can do right now to get closer to that goal?” Then take one step. Then take one more, and so on.
If negative things are happening, ask, “What could I have done differently to have a different outcome?” Or, ask, “If I could do this over again, what would I do differently?” Then next time, do it differently.
Regardless of how hard or bad something is, there is typically something you can do to make the situation better. Take your life, your career, and your relationships into your own hands, where they belong.
