Tag Archive: leadership

Even Coaches Need Coaches

July 8, 2016BlogCoaching, communication, consultant, consulting, decision making, employee engagement, leadership, management, whiteboard consultingRuth Henderson

If you’ve been reading our blogs for a while, or have noticed our recent “Whiteboard Pro-Tip Videos,” you know that we are HUGE fans of effective coaching conversations as a means of increasing employee engagement and building strong teams. (Read our article on “Being a Great Coach in the Office” which was published in the Huffington Post last year.)

Our workshops have helped scores of people improve their coaching skills, and our one-on-one coaching sessions have helped individuals figure out how to become “unstuck” with whatever roadblock is preventing them from getting where they want to go.

But what if you’re already a pretty good, even fantastic, coach? You get it, you’re good at it, you practice it, your team is highly engaged and successful, and in fact you’ve been training others to grow their own coaching skills.

Do you need a coach if you’re already a coach?

Just about any professional needs their own services from time to time, and we know that they can’t (or shouldn’t) treat themselves and expect great results. Think about it:

Doctors need to see other doctors for physicals and prescriptions.
Personal trainers have personal trainers to spot them when they lift weight, and push them when they get tired.
Physiotherapists see other physiotherapists to manipulate and treat musculoskeletal issues.
Lawyers hire other lawyers to represent them (except on TV, where they are VERY good at representing themselves).
Therapists get advice and counselling from other therapists.
Ministers, Priests, Rabbis, and Imams seek spiritual guidance from others.

And so it goes with coaching.

Even expert coaches need someone else to help them self-discover solutions to problems they are facing. Here are three possible scenarios in which it would be critical for a coach to get coaching from someone else:

Edgar has been coaching for 15 years, and is known for his openness, strength, and amazing leadership style. He thought he had seen it all until one of his peers lashed out at him in a leadership meeting, embarrassing him and creating a stressful atmosphere. Edgar knows he has to talk to this person, and is trying to prepare his approach. He’s just not sure how to open the conversation and would like to bounce some ideas off someone.
Natasha has to coach a young member of her team who is fresh out of college, eager, keen, smart, and… obnoxious. She’s pretty sure how she will handle it, and would love to role play the possible outcomes. After all, Natasha is a Baby Boomer, and needs to sound helpful and encouraging, not “old” and “out of date.”
Salome is a senior leader with plenty of coaching experience who feels disengaged and even a little bored at work. She’s not sure what to do and would like some objective guidance.

No matter how much experience we have, we can always use some coaching to help us out. And remember, coaching isn’t the same has having coffee with a friend (although that’s always helpful too!) Friends are encouraging and supportive listeners, and can often be biased towards a specific solution.

Coaches are also encouraging and supportive, and have NO bias. Therefore, the solution you come up with is 100% yours, and was probably hiding deep down inside your brain somewhere all along.

If you need a coach, check out our coaching services by clicking here, or email us at info@whiteboardconsulting.ca. We’d be glad to help you, and our 15-minute telephone strategy session is FREE! How can you go wrong? (You can’t.)

Until next time,

Ruth.

Sorry. Be Canadian and apologize at work.

June 29, 2016Blog#canadaday, apologies, apologizing, british empire, business, canada, canada day, canadian, canadianisms, corporate, culture, independance day, justin bieber, leadership, office, sorry, traits, workNicole North

Canada Day.

Tomorrow, July 1st, we celebrate Canada Day. Sorry to say, it’s not with the same gusto as our neighbours to the South celebrate Independence Day, but we celebrate with a certain “Je ne sais quoi,” that only we Canadians have. Mostly we celebrate with beer, swimming in the lake, and mildly dangerous home fireworks.

In honour of the birth of our country….wait, let me google that’s what we are actually celebrating to be sure.

Canada Day (French: Fête du Canada) is the national day of Canada, a federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Constitution Act, 1867 (then called the British North America Act, 1867), which united three colonies into a single country called Canada within the British Empire

(source: Wikipedia)

Hmm. Interesting. Not sure I knew that explicitly. Thank heavens for the interweb. Either way, the day off in the middle of summer where I always go to a cottage got me thinking about being Canadian and office culture.

Canadian Workplace Traits

What Canadian traits do we have in the office workplace (if any)? While I know you all want me to describe the intricacies of using “Eh,” I will not. Sorry. Oh ha, there it is! What I am going to discuss is our use of sorry and how it impacts our business culture.

Compared to our English speaking neighbours, apparently we have a penchant for overusing the apologetic term. Our friends to the South apparently don’t say it at all, and according to the National Post, our accented colleagues in the UK don’t mean it.

#sorrynotsorry

So presumably the theory is, when we say sorry too much we are meek, over-polite, and perhaps even admitting guilt that isn’t there (I won’t begin to tell you the number of times someone bumps into me and I say sorry!).

So in the work environment, we want to create a culture that is polite, respectful, accountable (meaning we are willing to say out loud that we bungled something up), but saying sorry for everything might undermine our career aspirations. Saying sorry might:

a) be perceived as excessive and unnecessary (particularly for the analytical types who may favour data to feelings),

b) create a perception that we’ve done something wrong, when we actually haven’t, and finally,

c) it might render the use of the word somewhat meaningless.

How to Say Sorry Just Enough!

When you have hurt someone’s feelings. So, in yesterday’s TPS report meeting, you tell Cynthia that the new TPS reports are “THE DUMBEST IDEA EVER”. Cynthia has been a little aloof lately, and you find out later she designed the new TPS reports. This is a good time to admit that your statement was offensive. “Cynthia, yesterday I said the new TPS reports were dumb. I realize that might have been offensive. I’m sorry. Can you help me understand them better so I can have a better appreciation of the work you did?”
When you have made an error and are owning up to it. Once very early on in my career in the Ontario Public Service, I made a $150,000 procurement error. I forgot to type over the system default date of April 1 with Mar 31. We lost that money from our budget that year. After creating a small wading pool of sweat in my cubicle and panicking to the point of fainting, I went into Lumbergh’s (not his real name…but there is a movie reference here) office and said: “I made an error in the system. This money is coming out of this years budget, not last years. This is how I’m going to fix it so this never happens again. I’m SO sorry.” Lumbergh turned beet red with rage, and then immediately resumed his natural “public service pale,” and said – “thanks for owning up to it, not making excuses about the system, and for your apology. Let’s move on”. Now, I wasn’t normally a fan of Lumbergh, but in that moment I could’ve hugged him.
When you have not acted politely. You interrupted Sally’s story during a meeting. You failed to notice Henry two-stepping it to catch the open door because he had two coffees in his hand and let the door crash into his face and his lattes. “Wow. I’m sorry. I just interrupted you/slammed expensive coffee into your face. Please go on/let me hold the door.”

The Goldilocks of Sorry – Just Right.

My point here is that sorrys don’t have to become ubiquitous. Use sorry sincerely and genuinely. Don’t say “Sorry, but…..it was x,y,z’s fault” – that negates your sorry and says you aren’t sorry at all. Don’t say sorry unless you know what you are sorry for. Don’t say sorry when someone bumps in to you (say excuse me instead – and honestly as Canadians we don’t want to be doormats!). Don’t say sorry when you are late for the 100th meeting in a row. You clearly aren’t sorry because you aren’t fixing your complete lack of respect for others’ time.

Say sorry when you screw up, and you know it. Say it in isolation. I’m sorry {period}. Let it sink in. Say it with passion, and if you must, add an “eh” on the end to seal the deal. And as a major belieber, it is never too late to say sorry.

Happy Canada Day!

Until Next Time,

Nicole

The Risk of Being Too Comfortable

May 12, 2016Blogbusiness processes, change, Change Management, consistency, efficiency, innovation, leadership, process, stuart maclean, vinyl cafeRuth Henderson

Last weekend I found myself listening to Stuart MacLean‘s “Vinyl Cafe” on CBC Radio. I was driving north for a few hours, and prefer to listen to a talk show or podcast so my brain stays active and I stay awake – always a good thing when driving solo. If you have never heard a Vinyl Cafe podcast or listened to Mr. MacLean tell a story about the fictional Dave and his wife Morley, then you are missing out on a good piece of Canadiana and the opportunity to enjoy a full belly laugh.

The podcast I listened to was called “Summer,” and was the story of how Dave and Morley rented a cottage in the Laurentian Mountains (north of Montreal). Instead of paying for the rental, they agreed to do some work around the cottage, including removing a wall and tearing up the lawn. Sadly, they stayed in the wrong cottage and disaster ensued. It turns out this cottage owner liked things to remain the same in all ways, and his cottage hadn’t changed in over 50 years. Of course Mr. MacLean tells the story much better than I can – suffice it to say, the moral of the story is that change can result in good things, but you should try to avoid being surprised by it.

During the telling of the story, Mr. MacLean used the phrase “The Cathedral of Constancy” in reference to Jean-Francois’ cottage. He said that although nothing had changed in 50 years, we mustn’t assume that it is in disrepair. Oh no – it is well maintained, neat and clean. “It’s been kept up perfectly,” he says, “but not updated.”

That got me to thinking – isn’t this avoidance of change the way we often get into trouble?

Our computer gives us a notice that we have an update to do, and we don’t do it because it’s a pain. We keep clicking “remind me later” and suddenly a quick update becomes a huge deal when we finally get around to it. Or worse, it crashes.

We refuse to get a new phone until the old one breaks, bypassing several new models and operating systems, and then realize the differences are so enormous from our old phone that we have to learn a completely new way of communicating.

We keep things the same in our organization, relying on efficient processes that work just fine, thank you very much. We don’t modernize or innovate – because we don’t see the need – and then someday we realize that the business world has passed us by, and we have a whole lot of catching up to do. Never mind the principle of staying “ahead of the game,” we aren’t even keeping up with “the game!”

“But Ruth,” I can hear you thinking, “aren’t you always saying that consistency and repeatability are good things? That they ensure efficiency and effectiveness?”

Well, yes. Yes I do say those things, and I believe them. And I also believe that there is a danger in becoming complacent in that efficiency; that the desire to avoid change, stay comfortable, and rely on what we know may cause us to miss out on things that are even better.

It is just as important to maintain vigilance on efficient processes as it is to completely shake up the whole system and innovate. (Click here to tweet that statement.) The trick is to do both at the same time, and to ensure that changes to the processes are properly planned, communicated, and implemented.

Is your organization a “Cathedral of Constancy?” Or are you and your team on the lookout for opportunities to modernize and improve? How do you balance consistency with innovation?

Leave us your thoughts in the comments below – we’d love to hear them!

Until next time,

Ruth.

PS – you can find the podcast called “Summer” in iTunes. It first aired on May 6, 2016, and the story of Dave and Morley begins a few minutes into the recording.

Crush Your Next Interview

May 6, 2016BlogChange Management, communication, communication styles, consistency, employee engagement, interviews, leadership, managementwhiteboardconsulting

The image above shows all the classic things we’ve learned to do before an important meeting or interview.

Dress appropriately. Not only does that mean not “under dressing,” but it also means not “over dressing!” Do your research and then dress one level up.
Arrive in good time. Well, duh.
Body language. Be aware! Assume an open and interested position (arms resting in your lap or on the arms of your chair), don’t check your watch or (heaven forbid) your phone, and above all else, don’t interrupt!
Expect the unexpected. Yup. What if you’re kept waiting 30 minutes? What if you have to do a presentation on the spot? What if it’s super hot in the interview room? Plan to keep your cool in all situations.
Ask questions. For sure. And don’t ask “when will you make your decision,” as if you already have the job. A great one is “what will the most challenging thing be for the successful applicant?”

But those are the standard things. The things you can learn if you google “interview prep” or ask your friend how they got their job.

Secrets to Crushing Any Interview

Use “I” not “we.” Yes, that’s right. Talk about yourself. As someone who has interviewed hundreds of people, I can tell you that when you are asked to “tell me about a time when you led a complicated project with a diverse team,” then I want to know what YOU did specifically. Not what your whole team did. Now is not the time to “share the credit.” For example:
- Bad answer: I was the project lead for Project X, and we worked together to create SMART goals, communicate effectively, and follow project management principles.
- Good answer: I was the project lead for Project X, and early on I established the team guidelines. I facilitated the team agreement on goals, coordinated and moderated regular updates, and developed job shadowing practices so that people could fill in for each other during crunch times.
Use action words. In the example above the words “established,” “facilitated,” “coordinated,” “moderated,” and “developed” are all action words. Example: “Tell me about the work you did in your most favourite job?”
- Bad answer: I loved my job two years ago because I was responsible for team engagement and new employee onboarding and it was very rewarding.
- Good answer: I loved my job two years ago because I championed team engagement by leading quarterly brainstorming sessions, developing and implementing engagement programs like Job Shadowing for new employees, and facilitating bi-annual engagement feedback sessions with the VP. It was really rewarding to see engagement scores increase and to get positive feedback from the team.
Tell stories. Many interviewers will start a question with “describe a time when you…” Others will start with, “have you ever…” And still others will say things like, “what’s your greatest or worst skill?” Each of these is a chance to tell a story. It will be tempting to answer quickly, but what you want to do is answer in a way they will visualize and remember. Example: “OK, you’ve been telling me about all these things that you do so well, but we all have weaknesses or opportunities to improve. What’s one of yours?
- Bad answer: I actually don’t have any weaknesses because I have been honing my skills for years. (I’m not kidding. That’s a real answer I got once.)
- Alternate bad answer: A weakness? Oh. Well, I guess I can get flustered some times when timelines shift quickly, but I am really good at re-configuring my plans so everything comes out ok.
- Good answer: On a recent project the timelines shifted a few times, as they often do on large projects. By the third time shift I realized that I should be using a different milestone chart that is more adaptable when there are changes. By implementing that, I was able to reduce the frustration I can feel if things shift too frequently.

These three tips will help you stand out (in a good way) and increase your likelihood of winning the competition. Have you used any of these before? Let us know on Twitter (@whiteboardcons) using #InterviewPrep!

Until next time,

Ruth.

PS – did you know we offer coaching for interview prep? It’s true. Click here and read all about it.

3 Steps to take before you quit your job

April 8, 2016Blogboss, dream job, hiring, interview, interview skills, job, job search, leader, leadership, management, manager, networking, opportunities, organizational realignment, quit, quitting, references, resources, skills, tools, work, work life balanceNicole North

It happens so suddenly. Things seem to be chugging along and one afternoon you come to the drastic realization: “I want to quit my job”. It may have been percolating for some time. Anger and resentment like to age like a fine wine (mmm wine. Is it Friday yet?). Maybe something specific has triggered your sudden need for change. Perhaps you’ve had a sudden leadership shuffle or organizational realignment that just turned your work-life upside down. Either way, something has to change and you’re going with the all -or-nothing approach. You want to quit your job.

Okay, sit back and breathe. This has happened to all of us. The following 3 steps ensure that you are making the right move, and if the move is real – how to make sure you are prime interview material.

3 Steps to Take Before You Quit Your Job

Assess. Correct. Act.

1) Assess

First things first. Let’s do some root cause analysis. Some questions to ask yourself:

What do you love about your job?
What are you really good at?
What could you be better at?
What makes you think you should be better at them?
What do you dislike about your job?
Which one in particular (there may be many, try to pick the one with the biggest impact) would you say is making you want to leave?
Why [insert answer to your last question here]? i.e. Why do you think your boss doesn’t know how to lead?
Why [insert answer to the last question here]? i.e. Why do you think your boss has no desire to help you to succeed?
Why….[you get the picture right]? i.e. Why do you think your boss dislikes you as a human?
What evidence do you have to support your beliefs/observations?
Is it possible these are assumptions?
Where do you want to go?
Why do you think it will be better?
What evidence do you have that supports that?
Is there a person/place/resource that you could use to determine if another agency/consulting firm/hospital etc. will be better?

*Note: This line of questioning will hopefully have you saying things like “Well, I just assume s/he dislikes me because x,y,z, but I don’t know this for a fact.”

2) Correct

Now, finding a job can take a while. So maybe there are some opportunities in that big list above to make some course corrections. Make things better. Maybe they get so great you don’t need to leave, or maybe they just become more tolerable while you are on the hunt for that new dream job.

What can YOU change about your behaviours/habits/style that could help?
What skills/experiences do you need to develop to make the transition?
What tools, resources, people (mentors, colleagues etc.) do you have to help you make changes/get experience and skills?
What changes would help that YOU have influence over?
What things do you think can OTHERS change? Are you willing to have a conversation with them about it/work together to solve it?
What things aren’t going to change/things you don’t have control or influence over (i.e. policies, organizational structure) ? Can you come to terms with that staying the same during your transition?
What things might get in the way?

3) Act

Now do the things. Make the changes. Use your influence, tools, resources, and people to help you get what you need. Make the best of the situation. Now is a great time to “SHINE”. This will serve a couple of purposes: work will be more bearable, you will have overall better days that make you happier, you will be more confident, and you’ll have people who are willing to give great references. You may love it so much, you decide to stay.

Have you had the sudden urge to leave? Did you act on it? Did you use some of these steps? How did it turn out? What would you have done differently? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below or on Twitter @whiteboardcons #iquit.

Until next time!

Nicole

Advice vs. Coaching

April 1, 2016Blogadvice, Change Management, Coaching, communication, communication styles, leadership, mentoring, mentorshipRuth Henderson

“Oh, I’d love a coach!” said Bob after chatting with Melissa at a cocktail party. “I’ve been looking for one for a few weeks, actually.”

“Cool,” replied Melissa. “What is it that’s triggered you to look for a coach? Something at home? At work?”

“There’s lots going on at work, and I have no idea what to do next,” Bob sighed. “I need someone to tell me what to do.”

Melissa takes a deep breath. She has no intention of telling anyone to do anything – she’s a coach, not an advisor.

Advice vs. Coaching

There are so many people in our lives who will happily tell us what to do. Friends, parents, siblings, co-workers – the list is endless. Some of these people have the experience and technical skills to give us highly valued and valuable advice, and yet it’s interesting – in the end, we follow our own advice.

There are remarkably fewer skilled people who know that you are your own best resource, and who have the ability to help you get out of your own way and find the pathway that resonates with you the most.

Henry Kimsey-House, co-founder of Coaches Training Institute and respected author, has a great way of describing the difference between coaching and advising. (Listen to his ten minute discussion by clicking here.)

Advisors, he says, stand in front of you and face you. You ask them their opinions and they give them to you, based on their experience and background.

Coaches, however, stand next to you, facing the same direction, and look to the horizon saying, “Where do you want to go?”

So what do I need then – a coach or an advisor?

Do you need help sorting through highly technical issues that require specific areas of knowledge? –> you need an advisor
- stocks or bonds
- surgery or medication
- corporation or partnership
- skills required to move into a specific role (i.e. mentorship)
Are you trying to decide between a few different options? –> you need a coach to help you pull out the answer that is already in your head, but is hiding behind the swirl of facts and choices and noise
- take job 1 or job 2
- quit a job or try a different approach
- love it or list it (haha – HGTV reference)
Are you trying to figure out what to do next? –> you need a coach to help you plot your course and consider barriers and enablers along the way
- grow the business now or later, and what’s the first step
- prepare for retirement
- land a job you want
- make a major shift in your life
- cross something off your bucket list
Are you frustrated in dealing with difficult people? –> you need a coach to help you understand your own styles before you can understand others

It is SO tempting to just have others tell us what to do. And guess what? Even when they tell us, we still have to make the final decision.

Trust an advisor when you need technical advice and information. Trust a coach when you need to sort through options. You’ll be so much more satisfied with the result.

Until next time,

Ruth.

Happy Birthday to Us!

March 12, 2016Blogbirthday, business process improvement, business processes, change, Change Management, Coaching, communication, culture shift, leadership, management behavior, process, Process Improvement, the whiteboard way, trainingRuth Henderson

On March 28th Whiteboard turns 4 years old. 4 years! This is a big deal – according to Start Up Canada, only 70% of the more than 100,000 new small businesses that open each year actually last to year 2, and only 51% to year five. These are pretty daunting stats, and we are really thrilled to still be here, loving what we do.

What’s our secret?

Besides persistence and patience you mean? Well, the other day Nicole and I were talking about how our business has changed and grown in its short four-year existence. We started out as a company focused purely on process improvement consulting, determined to help businesses become more effective and efficient using our own methodology, The Whiteboard Way©.

We soon discovered that people didn’t just hold up their hands and say, “Oh pick us! We need process improvement!” No, in fact a lot of people don’t even know what the term means or why they should care about it. So we found ourselves trying to explain our business to people, most of whom nodded politely or stared like a deer in the headlights.

We found our work shifting to training and facilitation, knowing that what people REALLY need is a culture shift that will encourage innovation, inspire creativity, and allow people to try, fail, and try again. It is only by developing culture that organizations can attempt a massive (or moderate) change and hope to be successful. As the saying goes:

We started focusing on proving training on things that are most likely to help organizations be successful at implementing change. Things like:

Learning how (and when) to have rewarding conversations with people at work. Yes – conversations. It’s not as simple as you might think, and our coaching course helps people-managers build their skills in this area. It’s probably our most popular course.
Understanding the difference between leading and managing, and why that’s important in building an effective team.
Becoming self-aware and realizing how that can lead to truly effective communication.
Knowing how to set goals and understanding why measurements are important (hint: people like to know when they’re winning).
Helping teams understand the flow of work through an organization, and how gaps in process can cause frustration and inefficiency.

So now we don’t do process improvement? We teach?

Uh, no.

Don’t misunderstand me. We “do” process improvement. It happens to be one of the most amazing tools there is to help organizations improve business results. It’s just not the only tool.

We now describe ourselves as Change Management consultants who help uncover hidden opportunities to improve business results. And we do that by seeking to understand our clients, our course participants, our partners, and – always – ourselves.

Through our coaching program, we seek to understand you – the person – and help you get to the root of whatever barriers are in your way.
Through our process improvement work, we seek to understand the organization, and uncover hidden opportunities to improve business results.
Through our psychometric assessments (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) we help you seek to understand yourself and the people around you.
Through our speaking, training, and facilitation, we seek to understand our participants, and by so doing we ensure our workshops are dynamic, fun, relevant, and valuable.

And for our 5th year?

Not only have we added new services to our repertoire, but this year we are also excited to be exploring a new associate model which will allow us to expand the Whiteboard brand to other cities! This is going to be awesome, so stay tuned for more on that later in the year.

Thank you to all our clients, partners, and supporters who make it continually fun to do what we do. We couldn’t – and wouldn’t – do it without you!

Until next time,

Ruth.

3 Questions to ask your potential new boss to avoid a toxic workplace.

March 4, 2016Blogbusiness, Change Management, Coaching, culture, interview, interview questions, interviews, leadership, management, management behaviour, motivation, performance, resiliency, situational leadership model, stages of team development, team, team building, team development, toxic workplace, trainingNicole North

Why oh why did I take this job?

You spent days perfecting your resume. Days finding the right salutation for your cover letter. Weeks ruining your manicure fretting about the interview process. And if you happen to work in the public sector, you’ve spent hours rehearsing your presentation assignment with anyone who will listen.

All that hard work, and the phone finally rings – “We’d like to offer you the job!”

Fast forward 2 goodbye cake parties, 12 transition meetings, and 17 emails about how lucky you are to “get out of here”. You’ve got your big girl/boy suit on and it is week 3 of your new job.

You said the biggest challenge was going to be what?

You thought you did the right thing! You asked the golden end-of-interview question:

“What will be the biggest challenge you foresee for the winning candidate in this new role?”

This is a great question. But they didn’t tell you that the office is the perfect example of a toxic workplace! You are dissapointed, demotivated, and think you may have made the worst decision ever!

Don’t get me wrong, “a challenge” from one individual to another has a great deal of variability. For one it might be subject matter expertise, for another it is senior management support. Managers looking for a team member aren’t going to say things like:

The culture is super toxic, have fun!
I’m a really great operational manger, but I suck at leadership (oh and I hate team meetings FYI).
Your team is the worst performing team in our entire company.
My boss is even worse than I am.

3 Questions to ask your potential new boss (BEFORE you say YES!)

You might feel images awkward asking these questions. I guarantee that this moment of mild awkwardness is FAR less painful than arriving at TWCC (Toxic Workplace Culture Central). Read more on the signs of a toxic workplace culture here.

How would you describe the culture of the organization? This is a great open-ended question that’s pretty hard to hide behind. If you have an honest hiring manager, they will be clear about the challenges and opportunities. Be ready with some probing questions to help you out in case you get some tight lipped answers (i.e. You say “Great”, tell me more? How would employees describe the culture? How would another team describe the culture?). I would be delighted with answers like: our branch does a bi-annual team building event offsite, we have a running club, we have a lunchtime yoga session that more than half of the team participates in etc.
Can you tell me about the history of the team that I’ll be working with? Ooh. This question is more loaded than a baked potato. Here’s where you can find out things like how new (or how established) your team is. Perhaps you do some diagnosis on their stage of team development, or how you might apply the situational leadership model. You can start to understand how resilient the team might be to change (based on their recent history with change).
What kinds of systems/processes are currently in place in the organization to support open and transparent communication and team building? What I would want to hear in this answer are things like: we have weekly 1:1 coaching sessions with our team, we have a very rigorous performance review process, we believe strongly in training, coaching, and having difficult conversations…

Remember, the hiring panel is not only interviewing you, but you are interviewing them – to see if this job, culture, and environment is a great fit for you. Otherwise, on to the next opportunity!

Now what if you’ve got the job and you’ve got the toxic culture blues? Not to worry, stay tuned and next time I’ll share the top 3 tips to dramatically improve your culture (even if you aren’t a manager)!

Until Next Time,

Nicole

P.S. Looking for a new role? Ruth is offering 3 coaching sessions to a select few volunteers, snag this $500 value before spots are gone! Ruth@whiteboardconsulting.ca/staging

Sometimes the Flavour of the Month is Chocolate. And It’s Good.

February 5, 2016Blogbusiness process improvement, business processes, change, Change Management, Coaching, communication, communication styles, continuous improvement, culture shift, efficiency, flavour of the month, leadership, process, Process ImprovementRuth Henderson

If you work for anyone other than yourself, you have probably lived this phrase in some way:

“Ugh – this new initiative is nothing other than the new flavour of the month. It’ll never stick and next year they’ll roll out something else.”

Sound familiar? These words have probably assaulted your ears (or crossed your lips), when the organization is trying with best intentions to make a change or an improvement. The person who is responsible for the change is excited about the initiative, and is frustrated beyond believe with this blasé response from the team.

So why do people say it?

First, a little Change Management theory for you – we know from Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross‘ work that people experience grief in an emotional roller coaster. When Kubler-Ross pioneered the concept of the 5 Stages of Grief, people became aware that grief impacts us all the same way and yet differently too.

In other words, we all go through the stages of Grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance), but we may go through them differently. Some may linger in one stage or another, and some may fly through a stage so quickly as to appear to bypass it. The way in which we go through these stages is greatly impacted by our personal resilience, the amount of stress we are dealing with at the moment, and our experiences with grief in the past.

The same is true with change. In fact, Kubler-Ross’ model has been adapted to create the Change Curve, used by Change Management experts, teachers, and coaches. There are several different variations of the curve itself, and we like this one the best:

You can see the similarity to the 5 Stages of Grief – in this model we have Denial, Anger, Exploration, and Acceptance.

Imagine then, an employee who is not only experiencing change at work, but also at home (spouse has been demoted, child has moved out, parent is ill). This employee, we’ll call him Rob, has been a good worker and has been around for about 15 years. You are Rob’s manager, and very excited about a new program to create a more efficient process for doing the work of Rob and the entire team. When you meet to discuss it, Rob breaks open the “Flavour of the Month” remark, and the team snickers.

This is because Rob has been around for a couple of business cycles. He’s seen change implemented, re-implemented, de-implemented, and implemented again. He’s tired and his resilience is low – he feels that change is a pendulum, and that people should just make up their damn minds and stick with something.

Well, here’s the thing…

The United States’ National Bureau of Economic Research states that since 1945 the average business cycle has been just less than six years. That length of time may also be impacted by your industry, budget issues, technology advancement, and general business trends.

So in other words, every few years the business world changes. And in order to be relevant in that world, an organization must change with it. The change the organization is implementing is probably the right thing, for right now. In a few years it may no longer be the right thing. So yeah. It might well be the flavour of the month, and there’s nothing wrong with that (unless an organization is making change for change’s sake – and that’s a whole different discussion.)

The trick is to implement the “new flavour” carefully, using change management best practices from the outset and communicating the “why and why now” message in the most effective way for the team.

If that’s all done correctly, then the answer to Rob is as easy as, “Yes Rob, it IS the flavour of the month. It’s chocolate. And it’s good.”

Until next time,

Ruth.

The Same Only Different

January 22, 2016Blogbusiness culture, business innovation, business process improvement, Coaching, communication, continuous improvement, innovation, innovation vs. improvement, leadership, Process Improvement, roles and responsibilitiesRuth Henderson

Have you ever heard people use terms interchangeably that are really quite different? Does it make you cringe inside?

It’s like nails on a chalkboard when I hear people say “performance management” or “mentoring” when they mean “coaching.” Or when they say they need someone to “facilitate” when they actually mean they need someone to “train.” And one of my favourites: “leading” vs. “managing.”

Another, and the topic of today’s blog, is Innovation vs. Improvement. This mix-up, while seemingly innocuous, can lead to real organizational design issues, confused roles & responsibilities, and broken down processes.

Potato Po-tah-to?

The thing is, these groups of terms aren’t the same at all (although they can be related,) and yet people seem to use them as if they are synonyms. I’m not sure why, although I suspect it has to do with business culture that loves to invent words (incent, for instance), create catch phrases and buzz words (like Dashboard or Viewability), and even completely misuse words (like Key Performance Indicator for every single metric in an organization. Ummm… “Key” means “most important,” not “all encompassing.”)

In our course The Process of Coaching, we spend some time discussing what it means to coach vs. mentor. I hear the two phrases used jointly all the time:

“You need some coaching and mentoring.”
“Do you have a coach or mentor?”
“Let’s set up a coaching/mentoring program.”

The same is true of Innovation and Improvement.

“We have a great Innovation and Improvement department.”
“What we need to do to at this company is improve and innovate.”
“I’m the Innovation/Improvement manager.”

My Dad had a great phrase, and I think it helps here:

“ All crows are blackbirds, but not all blackbirds are crows.”

So all (or almost all) Innovation is Improvement, but not all Improvement is Innovation. The following diagram shows what I mean more clearly:

Why is this important?

Some of you may be thinking, “Oh come on. It’s just semantics.” Well, actually, no. It’s not.

Lets take a look at what makes these terms different:

Improvement, or process improvement, refers to looking at how something is done – the steps, roles, and materials used – and making it more effective and efficient (Side note: effective and efficient are two more terms that are often used interchangeably. Effective means doing something with high quality. Efficient means doing something in a way that makes the best use of required resources – either the company’s or the customer’s.) This could be something like boarding planes by zone instead of rows, bankers lines instead of individual lines, or even something simple like improved signage in busy places.
Innovation means doing or creating something that is new in order to grow, keep up with competition, or be groundbreaking industry leaders. It can be a new process (for instance, the ability to tap your credit card at many stores), a new product that changes the way we live (smart phones), or a new business model that changes the way we interact with organizations (online shopping). You can see that the new process of paying by tap is also an improvement to how you pay today, whereas online shopping was an entirely new model, never conceived of before. Does it improve things? Some would debate that! But it certainly changes things.

In “Coaching for Improved Work Performance,” Ferdinand Fournies said that the biggest reason for people not doing what they are supposed to do is that they don’t know what they are supposed to do.

Sounds so simple!

If we fail to distinguish between Innovation and Improvement, we fail to be clear in our message of expectations to our employees. Is an Innovation & Improvement team supposed to increase efficiency or lead groundbreaking change? A manager with skills and background that is heavier in one area than another could influence the direction of the team greatly.

In fact, the two goals are different enough that they could be at odds if not managed correctly. Imagine asking for project approval – which one gets higher priority in the budget? Or, think about what would happen if you hired a bunch of Process Improvement experts and asked them to be creative and innovative as well? I would argue these are very different (although not mutually exclusive) skillsets.

If you want both Innovation and Improvement, make sure that the team or teams are clear in what their goals and responsibilities are. And if both Innovation and Improvement are under the accountability of the same person, make sure he or she has a clear and balanced plan for each.

It’s not just semantics. It’s important.

Until next time,

Ruth.

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