Resisting Change

Change is sure to come.  It doesn't matter where we live, where we work, where we socialize, or where we eat, change will come.  Despite the fact that people know change is coming, they will still resist it.  When people get settled into a comfortable routine, they don't like it when someone changes what they are doing and they have a tendency to dig in their heels.  This is particularly true in the workplace when people get used to doing something a certain way, they don't want anybody to upset the apple cart as the saying goes.  If a supervisor in the workplace wants to change the way things are done, the employees will get upset.  There are two possible reasons for their reaction, one technical and one social.  From the technical perspective, people will have to learn something new-a new way of doing it.  That probably means stopping everything an attending training.  For some employees this feels like starting over.  From the social perspective, reorganization probably takes place and the employees will have to move to a new desk, in a new location, and work with new people they have not worked with before.  They were very happy with the previous team arrangement.  Jack sat in the same cubicle with Jill.  Now he's in the cubicle with Rebecca.  Jack and never got along with Rebecca but now he has to work with her.  What a bummer!  If any managers want to manage change, they should recognize the two reasons people resist and take steps to minimize the negative aspect.  Good luck managing change.

Start It Well

The great playwright, William Shakespeare penned, "Alls well that ends well. This statement means if the end is great, don't go back and focus on things that could have made the outcome a disaster. For example, if you slipped and fell in an icy intersection but were able to get up and scramble to a safe spot unhurt, never say, "If a car had been coming, I'd be dead." The fact is a car wasn't coming. Now I would like to take another side of this famous saying and state, "If it starts well, it will end well" or alternatively, "If it starts badly it will end badly." The recent Super Bowl football game is an example. It started badly for the Broncos when, on the very first play of the game after the kickoff, the center hiked the ball over the quarterback's head and it bounced into the end zone to be covered by a Bronco for a safety. The result--two points Seahawks. It was doom for the Broncos after that bad first play. They never recovered. This phenomenon is true in many walks of life. For example, if you are making a public speech and you falter on your very opening statement, it is almost impossible to recover. You will lose your audience immediately. All people will remember is how you flubbed the introduction to your speech. Moreover, it will stick with you a long time also. You will constantly be saying, "If I had just chosen different words." or "If I had not told that joke." Too late!! Using another example, if you are starting a serious budget conversation with your spouse and you open with a statement that makes him or her angry, forget it! The conversation is doomed. Suppose you were to say, "Honey, you are spending too much money that we don't have and you need to stop it!" That will never fly as an opening statement in a budget discussion. Here's a third example: If you are starting a big project, select a starting step that will give you a big success at the beginning and that will motivate you to continue to successful completion because all that "Starts well, ends well." If you are teaching a class, open with some positive statements that create a successful atmosphere. If you are a substitute for the scheduled speaker never say, "I'm here because JillJack couldn't make it." That just tells the audience they are getting second best. In anything we undertake that has a starting point, we should never start with a bust at the bottom and have to climb uphill. We should start with a bang at the top and coast downhill to a successful finish.

Facilitator Magic

According to Wikipedia, a facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them in achieving the objectives without taking a particular position in the discussion. It is important to not take a position but remain neutral and objective in order to make quality decisions about controlling the group. The facilitator eases the flow of communication between members of the group. Good facilitation practice is particularly important when training adults. Do you want to be a great facilitator and work magic? Here are ten tips to get you started: 1. Make your participants feel welcome and happy they came to your session. 2. Use unique techniques that keep them wide awake for the total time. 3. Use techniques to keep them actively and emotionally engaged. 4. Always make them feel like they are contributing to the success of the session. 5. Always make the material easy to comprehend and grasp. 6. Manage the session by controlling motor mouths but don’t intimidate them. 7. Make the discussions realistic and interesting by using real work place situations. 8. When people say, “I don’t know,” help them come up with the right answer and then praise them as if they knew all along. 9. Give the participants plenty of “take away” techniques they can put into practice immediately. 10. Always provide an answer to their questions even if you have to research and provide it later.

Overcoming Fear of Public Speaking

Three of 10 people can walk in front of an audience, dazzle them with an opening "grabber" statement to capture their attention, and transition to three key points that provide information or elicit a decision. Three of 10 people can do that with accuracy, brevity, and clarity. Moreover, they can do it without fear. You are probably thinking, "What about the other seven?" Well, when the other seven walk in front of an audience they are trembling with fear. Speaking in front of people is the number one fear in the nation. People are more afraid of public speaking than they are of snakes, ghosts, and even death. What are they afraid of? There are two possibilities. The first is that at some point in their lives, they had a very bad experience in public. That experience is indelibly imprinted in their long-term memory. And now every time they walk in front of an audience that one bad experience bursts forth and the stomach butterflies and the shakes begin. The second reason is they project onto the audience, believing the audience is just sitting there waiting for them to forget their lines or make a mistake. So the self fulfilling prophecy steps in and they make a mistake or forget their lines thus confirming their belief about what the audience is thinking. But hold on! You can overcome this fear with what I call "self talk." Here's how it works. There is something positive and rewarding that you can do better than anybody else, something you have done so many times, you can do it in your sleep. Tell yourself over and over again how good you are at it. In fact, tell yourself so many times that you indelibly write it on your long-term memory, overwriting the one bad experience that you had. Furthermore, when you look out at the audience and see them staring at you, waiting for you to make a mistake (you briefly think), say to yourself, "I bet you can't sing a song, paint a picture, play the piano, or write a poem (insert whatever is your forte) like I can. This "self talk" will put you head and shoulders above anybody in the audience. After all, they need you! That's why you are standing in front of them making this presentation. So seize every opportunity to speak publicly and eventually the fear will be gone.

Email's Darkside

The technique used to move information from A to B dates back to 2400 BC in ancient Egypt. The Pharaohs printed their decrees on scrolls and sent them out to the people by courier. Certainly, that must have taken days, maybe even weeks. We have come a long way since then. Just in the last 60 years our electronic geniuses have led the evolution of information transfer to the point where we can create a decree, click the "send" button and have it appear virtually anywhere in the world in seconds. A round of applause for email, one of the greatest innovations of our time! But, hold on! This is the bright side. Just like yin and yang, email also has its dark side. Similar to a few alcoholic drinks, email can give us the courage to say what should have been left unsaid. To further exacerbate the situation, it's now in writing--etched in stone. Sometimes even for public view, depending on the distribution. And once it's in writing, it can come back to haunt us at a later date. In some instances, email supplants the vital face-to-face communication necessary for effective interpersonal relations. For example, a supervisor, afraid of confrontation, will use email to correct an employee's errant behavior when face-to-face communication would have been much more effective. These are just two examples among many of the dark side of email. In my opinion, before we click the "send" button, we should click the "delete" button and have a face-to-face conversation instead.

The Grapevine

There is a very famous song by Marvin Gaye entitled, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." What is the meaning of the grapevine? When we hear something through the grapevine, we are learning it informally and unofficially by means of gossip and rumor. This information is usually passed from one person to another by word of mouth, text, or email. It is passed perhaps in a confidential manner among friends or colleagues sometimes with the accompanying statement, "Don't tell anybody I told you." Yeah, right. Thirty minutes later, because every person has a trust partner, everybody in the organization knows. But what do they know? Usually nothing because the grapevine mostly contains what happened but the reason it happened or the real problem that created the situation is missing. When these facts are missing, people make up facts to fill the gaps. Everybody wants to speculate or "juice" it up. The grapevine can also imply information obtained from overheard conversations or other anonymous sources. For instance "I heard through the grapevine that Jack got a nasty email from the boss and is considering leaving the organization." The grapevine can be a deadly virus in organizations. It has created enemies, lowered morale, hampered productivity, dampened spirits, broken confidences and created mistrust. Formal and official communication should be the antidote to combat the deadly grapevine. The top manager should prevent these negative consequencies by having the courage to either formally and officially communicate the truth or take steps to strip all the grapes off the vine thereby quelling the gossip and rumor.

Bypassing the Boss

The relationship you have with your manager is critical. It is your utmost responsibility to always meet your manager’s requirements. Unfortunately, this can sometimes place you in a very awkward position. Managers are not perfect and you don’t always agree with their requirements and decisions. When you have such a disagreement, common sense protocol tells you to discuss the matter with the manager and make well supported alternative recommendations. Unfortunately some managers are not reasonable. They think their way is the only way and tell you, “Do it my way, or else.” Now you feel trapped and think the only solution is to plead your case to higher authority. So, you bypass your manager and go directly to your manager’s boss. No, stop! This is one of the worst mistakes one could make in the workplace. Never ever bypass a manager and go to higher authority. This is the quickest way to get in trouble with your immediate boss. It sets up an element of mistrust that is sometime difficult, if not impossible to repair. When your manager wants you to do something and you have a different way of doing it, show how your manager will befit by doing it your way. If that fails, then ask yourself the LEM question: “Is my manager’s way of doing it Legal? Is it Ethical? Is it Moral?” If the answer to these three questions is “Yes,” then stop arguing. Just do it and move on to the next requirement.