All posts by Ruth Henderson

Kindness & Curiosity in Coaching

February 10, 2014Blog

One of our most favourite things to do is to teach. And when teaching, one of our most favourite topics to cover is how to be an effective Coach at work. (We’ve coachwritten about it here, here, and here.) And when teaching about being a Coach, one of our most favourite concepts is that of “Kindness & Curiosity”. We consistently get feedback from our students that this way of coaching is transformative for them.

I remember learning about it from my Mum when I was a little kid. We were driving behind someone who was exceedingly slow, and she said “well, maybe her passenger has a pot of hot soup on her lap, and they’re taking it to someone who’s sick.” Another time, we were cut off by someone who was speeding and weaving, and she said “maybe his wife’s having a baby and he’s trying to get to the hospital”.

I know. Kind of far-fetched, but it could be true. And although it doesn’t make it right, it does give you some context and make you think.

The next time I was introduced to this phrase was by an executive coach. I was talking to her about a difficult situation I was facing in the office – a fellow Director had shouted at me in a public place about something she believed one of my employees had done. I was taken aback and reacted quite defensively. My coach said to me, “Ruth, what kind of day, or week, or life must this woman be dealing with that makes her act like this?” And then she said the phrase I have never forgotten:

Kindness and curiosity leave no room for anger and resentment.

Oddly enough, the same situation presented itself again only a week later. With the same person. Instead of reacting, I looked at her and said in an even tone, “how can I help you with this?”

It was like I poured a bucket of water on her. She stopped, looked flustered, and completely changed her tone. She was still angry, but she was able to be conversational. (I later found out she was facing serious personal problems. It wasn’t my job to coach her on her behaviour, but it was my responsibility to respond professionally. Being kind and curious allowed me to do that. Oh, and believe it or not, we are now friends.)

How to Make It Work in Coaching

Ok, so you get it. But maybe you’re thinking, how is this any different than “do unto others” – you know, being nice to people is important, and when we coach people we should be nice. coach1

It’s a little different. The Golden Rule says we should treat others the way we would want to be treated. In coaching this applies because we should treat each other with respect, dignity and fairness.

On the other hand, the principle of Kindness and Curiosity applies specifically to a person’s natural tendency to make assumptions and jump to conclusions which may frame our approach and our words. It allows us to step back and stop from taking things personally, which allows us to “take the high road” and hopefully direct the conversation in a constructive manner.

So the next time you have to coach an employee in a difficult or confrontational situation, be kind and curious. It will keep you from getting angry and resentful, and your coaching session will be much more productive and effective.

I’d love to know if you give it a shot – let me know how it goes!

Ruth.

PS – watch for our public course on coaching, soon to be scheduled. Hopefully this spring!

Guest Blog: Musings on Process & Social Media

January 31, 2014Blog,

Hi everyone! Please join us in welcoming David Keyes to the Whiteboard Consulting family. He joined us this month as Project Assistant, and is already bringing fresh eyes and a helping had to Nicole and me. We’re thrilled to have him, and of course immediately asked him to fill in as guest blogger this week while Nicole is sitting on a beach enjoying a well-deserved break.

This week David shares his thoughts on social media and processes… Enjoy!

Ruth.

Thoughts from a Process & Social Media Rookie

Hello, my name is David Keyes, I am the newest addition to the Whiteboard Consulting family and it’s a thrill and an honour to be here. My role is that of coordinator, the arranger of schedules and the booker of appointments, along with a bunch of other hats and roles when needed. As Nicole is on vacation they’ve asked me to step up and write a blog entry for this week.

I was given the task of looking at social media to see how best we can exploit this ever growing and not easily defined medium.

social-key

My first question was, “how do I translate Whiteboard Consulting, not to mention myself and my thoughts and my role here to a social media presence?”

When I went to college no one had a desktop computer, it was 1981 and a single computer still filled a room. All of my projects and promotions were done by hand, photocopying and pressing and distributing, so much work and time went into that – now a single sentence can reach millions and one needn’t get out of ones chair! Even our smallest thoughts or photos of our lunch can be beamed internationally and to enormous audiences in real time, it makes one a little careful about all those people seeing what you say/do/think! It gives a platform for everyone, everyone’s voice can be heard and it allows for connections previous generations have never been able to engage in! It’s miraculous and scary and inspiring.

While sitting in a facilitated process mapping session it dawned on me that this room full of invigorated participants furiously throwing ideas and thoughts out to be captured by a skilled facilitator on flip chart paper, was in fact an analogue version of Twitter. That perhaps all those cyber-voices and social medias were in fact like the voices in this room, brainstorming a concept.

I find I am a contradiction of naiveté and cynicism with the medium. Despite my hesitation to post online, I’m now looking forward to riding the social media trends and hopefully using it as a way to stimulate a dialogue about words and processes. Maybe rather than approaching it with hesitancy it will help us understand better who we are and what we are doing here. Perhaps it is worth sharing ideas, ideas worth reading twenty years from now.

David

Oh for Process Sake!

January 9, 2014Blog, , ,

One of the things that Nicole and I hear a lot is that people don’t like processes that are just put in place for process’ sake.

process4

Well neither do we.

There is nothing less motivating than having to document in gory detail every step of a business process, just because someone says it’s a good idea. Ok, maybe one thing is less motivating, and that’s having someone hand you a process map and tell you to “follow this” when you’ve had no engagement in its development. You feel like you’re handcuffed by more red tape, and you become frustrated.

Process for process’ sake is bureaucratic, restrictive, and demotivating. Click to Tweet.

And, it Gives Good Processes a Bad Name

I admit it, I’m a little sensitive about the barely concealed eye-roll and sympathetic smile that I often see when I tell people what I do for a living.

“A process consultant! Oh! That sounds… interesting.” And then, “isn’t that just a lot of  maps and stuff? I have binders of those in my office and use them every day.” <insert good-natured-but-annoying hardy har hars here>

You can’t really blame the organization. With the rise in popularity of process improvement methodologies like Lean, Six Sigma, ISO, and others, there’s also an increased desire to jump on the band wagon, get certified, and advertise the fact that you are now a high-quality organization.

Well the fact of the matter is that process maps do not a high quality process make. You can map bad processes too! And, you can map good ones poorly. And, worst of all, you can map things that don’t need to be mapped.

Three Ways to Give Your Process Credibility

  1. Give your process a purpose, and let people know what that purpose is. Why are you insisting that people follow a specific process? Make sure there’s a good reason (e.g. audits, financial controls, quality impacts, budgetary impacts, efficiency impacts), otherwise it’s best to let people have control over how they achieve their objectives.
  2. process3Engage people in the development of the process. We love it when we meet with managers who tell us how a process works, and then talk to the people who actually do the work. Usually managers  have no idea what really happens. A great way to increase employee engagement is to ask the process users to be part of the documentation and improvement effort. It will make them feel part of the organization, and even address some of the “what’s in it for me” feeling that is deep inside everyone’s work persona.
  3. Hold people accountable. Launching a process, engaging people, communicating – that’s all very nice. And in six months no one will remember anything about it, unless you hold people accountable for sticking to the  steps. Make it part of your coaching conversations. Model the behaviour you want to see by following processes yourself. Reward people who both stick to them, and consistently strive to make them better.

You don’t have to do process for process’ sake. In fact, we hope you don’t. Help give good processes the recognition they deserve! (And positively transform your organization at the same time.)

Until next time (and Happy New Year, by the way),

Ruth.

Process Improvement via The Whiteboard Way© – Step Three

November 9, 2013Blog, , , , ,

This week we continue our series on The Whiteboard Way© by taking you through what just might be the “favourite” phase in the process improvement journey – “Imagine It!”

Why is it the favourite phase? Well, it’s because most people have a solution in mind when they start this journey, and up until now we haven’t allowed them to even suggest it. We were all about  problem definition in Step One (remember, no solutions) and then the visual representation by drawing the current state in Step Two. In the third phase, we finally get down to business and talk about some possible ways to fix the problem.

Finally! I Can Just Implement My Idea, Right?

Um, no. Sorry. There are a few things we need to do to make sure that your idea not only will fix the problem, but that it’s also the best place to start. Sometimes great ideas are trumped by new ideas that we find in the first few steps of Step Three. If you can hang in a little longer, what we want to do next is brainstorm all the possible causes for the problem you designed in Step One, and drew in Step Two.

We’ve been looking at three different problem statements in this series:

  •  In the last 3 months we have had to fix this issue 6 times for four customers, causing dissatisfaction for our customers and wasted processing time for our staff.
  •  Each month we are 5-7 days late completing this process, impacting other departments and generating late fees for the company.
  •  This piece of work costs the organization $5,000 per month. Best practices in similar companies is half that amount.

Let’s take a closer look at the first example. It seems that we’ve sent the wrong thing to our customers 3 times in 6 months. Our shipping manager is pretty sure that it’s because we hired 4 new people in the warehouse, and they’re just not using the shipping system properly. He’d like to do some training for them – it will cost $1,500 a person to attend a two day course, and will require hiring temps to backfill while they’re off at training.

In “Imagine It”, the first thing we have to do is think of all the potential reasons for the mis-shipped products. We love to use a tool called a Fishbone Diagram to help people come up with “root causes” for the problem. This diagram is best drawn on a big whiteboard or brown roll-paper on the wall. At the head of the fishbone you put the problem “Mis-shipped products”. Each of the bones in the spine represents a common category of root causes. These categories are designed to trigger thoughts while brainstorming – participants use them to think of all the things in that category that could possibly impact the outcome.

A completed Fishbone Diagram for this issue might look like this.

Screen Shot 2013-11-09 at 6.32.38 PM

Actually, it would probably look much messier and with dozens more ideas. But let’s run with this one.

Our shipping manager’s idea of training being the big concern is right there on the fishbone, under the “People” category. But during the brainstorming session, someone pointed out that there have been a few power outages recently and that all the picking had to be done manually. Also that the website had been updated, and that customers in Vancouver had called in with issues using the online order forms.

Suddenly, the training idea has taken a back burner until the other ideas are investigated. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, or even the wrong idea – it’s just that a little more investigation is needed first.

In this case, it turns out that the power outage was the root cause – each mis-shipment was linked directly to times when the picking process had to be done manually.

Now What?

A few things. First, you might want to investigate why you’re having so many power outages! Is it a freak of nature or do you have electrical issues? Second, how can you improve the manual picking process? Use your new process mapping skills to look at the current process and see where there might be room for improvement and ways to prevent mistakes from happening (the Japanese term for this is Poke Yoke – error proofing).

You might want to prove that the new process will work too. That’s the topic for next week.

Until then, please leave a comment – anything! Process questions, ideas for an upcoming blog, your thoughts on the Maple Leaf’s’ chances this year. Whatever!

Ruth.

How to Hire the Right Consultant

October 17, 2013Blog, ,

consultantSo you’ve decided you need a consultant, right? No? Not sure?

Well let’s tackle your decision before we get to the “how to hire the right consultant” question. Because actually, the decision of whether or not to hire a consultant is just as important to your overall satisfaction as is the hiring process itself. Click to Tweet

Many people experience angst when deciding whether to bring in outside expertise. After all, we consultants are right up there with lawyers in the ranks of professions who often get a bad rap. Therefore, we recommend you think about it like a business case: if you have a piece of important work that needs to be done, and either a) there is no one in your organization with the right skills to do it, or b) they aren’t available… then you need a consultant to help you. There’s just no way around it.

So now that’s taken care of. You need a consultant.

How then, do you go about finding one that won’t leave you feeling “shmoozed” and left with a bunch of expensive binders and documents that aren’t helpful and aren’t what you need?

Would it surprise you if I said it’s all in the process?

Well it’s true, and it’s really just a matter of asking and answering the right questions, in the right order.

consultant1

  1. Do you have a realistic budget? This may seem self-evident, but you’d be surprised. Some organizations agree they have a budget but haven’t decided on exactly how much. Then, when they finally map out the work they want done, they find they can’t afford it. So first consider the budget. Then when you get to scoping and hiring, your expectations will be aligned with your budget.
  2. Have you decided whether you need Advice or Implementation? The distinction is important. Are you looking for a person(s) who can do a review and provide you with considered advice and best practices for comparison? Or do you already have a clear idea of what you want to do, and therefore you simply need someone to confirm your thoughts and then execute on the strategy? Perhaps you need both, and that’s fine – just remember they are very different skill sets.
  3. Have you clearly defined the outcomes you expect and the timelines in which you expect them? It’s dangerous to be vague in this area, and yet so tempting. We have read many proposal documents that ask for “high level plans” and completion “in the fourth quarter”. (By the way, good consultants will clarify these things via a scoping conversation.)
  4. Have you written a fantastic proposal? Many proposals are dozens of pages long depending on the industry and the sector. Most of them have a “core” section that describes the environment, the challenge, and the expectations as clearly as possible. The better this section is set out, the better the quality of responses you will get from potential consultants.
  5. Are you interviewing more than one candidate? Whether you are in the public sector and required to interview at least three, or in the private sector and can hire whomever you like, it’s important to keep your options open. Why? Because at the very least you will be able to determine a personality fit (which is a key to a successful relationship), and at best you will hear about potential approaches that you never even considered.
  6. Have you set out some on-going support and touch-points for the consultant once they start? It’s often the case that there is a kickoff meeting, a few introductions are made, and the consultant is then left to fend for him/herself. If you can provide a single-point-of-contact for them, set up a few touchpoint meetings in advance, and show your interest and support throughout (even if you assign the oversight to someone else), it goes a long way to building that trusting relationship, which is likely to make the consultant go that extra mile to make sure you’re happy (even delighted!).

We’d love to hear about your “consultant hiring” experiences. Please feel free to comment below, or Tweet us @whiteboardcons!

Until next time,

Ruth.

All for One and One for All!

October 8, 2013Blog, ,

all for one

Ah, the Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and, of course, d’Artagnan – righting wrongs, fighting evil, and sharing witty remarks along the way (essentially the 17th century version of The Avengers). Their motto, “all for one and one for all”, has become the norm when cheering for teamwork and presenting a united front in the face of hardship or a common goal.

Interestingly, in the late19th century, the Swiss used the phrase as part of a campaign to bring about a feeling of solidarity and national unity during troubled times (following widespread flooding in the Alps), and it’s become their unofficial, but traditional, national motto.

The phrase was perfect for that particular campaign, as it really evoked that spirit of support and common accountability, reminding everyone that one is not successful unless everyone is successful.

So what does that have to do with business processes?

Everything.

All too often Nicole and I come across organizations with detailed strategic plans, tactical plans and clear roles & responsibilities, and yet they are either failing in their execution, or executing on the backs of employees who are demoralized, frustrated, and just plain tired.

Nine times out of ten, they’re missing that “all for one and one for all” mentality. Instead, they have organizational structures that promote an insular focus based on empire-building and individual success. Common accountability is nowhere to be seen.

The people in an organization are like the players on a sports team. On a winning team, each individual has a defined role, interacts with other people at set times, understands their goals and can compare themselves against performance metrics. Most of all, they know they simply can NOT be successful unless their team mates are successful. Who cares how many goalsteam you can score if no one can pass you the puck and the defense can’t keep the other team away from the net? (I can’t believe I just used a hockey analogy… I don’t even watch it. Go Leafs!)

A successful organization is one in which it behooves someone to make a colleague successful, because the individual’s gain is tied to the colleague’s success. It’s nice to take the high road and hope everyone will be altruistic in their approach (helping the other person be successful simply because it’s the right thing to do). However we know that although many people operate this way, it is often not the norm in a culture of pressing deadlines and reduced budgets.

Therefore, whether it’s via financial reward or some other kind of reward or benefit, mutual goals are critical to developing that atmosphere of collaboration and camaraderie.

Five Ways to Instill that “All for One” Culture

  1. Start to change your organizational culture by referring to employees as team members, and not as “staff”. It’s a small thing, but it really helps.
  2. If you have a bonus structure, create bonus criteria that include a shared or common accountability as well as individual performance. Many companies have 1/3 individual performance, 1/3 divisional performance, and 1/3 company performance as the weighting.
  3. If you don’t have a formal bonus structure, develop another means of rewarding collaboration. Tie performance to a common goal, and reward successful teams according to the type of reward that is most meaningful for them. (Don’t know what that is? Ask!)
  4. Develop key corporate processes and performance metrics that support both the ability of teams to work together towards the goal and their ability to measure progress towards achieving that goal.
  5. Communicate! Communicate! Communicate! It sounds simple, but it’s often left out. Don’t forget to communicate the way people need to hear it – for some it’s visual, for some it’s written, and for others it’s auditory. Do whatever works, even if it’s all three.

Do you have a structure that encourages collaboration? Tell us about it! Give us a shout via Twitter @whiteboardcons using#betterfastercheaper or email us at info@whiteboardconsulting.ca/staging.

Until next time,

Ruth.

 

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