My vast readership usually lands here and finds case studies addressing real-world problems that tend to pop up with regularity in today’s workplaces.  This time, however, I’d like to address the topic of incentives during hard economic times.

The best supervisors, in addition to all the work they do themselves, manage to let the people who work for them know that they’re seen, known, and that they’re appreciated for what they bring to the organization.  Recognition ranges from big and small tangible rewards, to awards and official recognition, to good human eye contact, a simple handshake, and heartfelt expression of gratitude.  A workplace may not ever be a family like The Waltons, but there’s a human reality that occurs when people come together 8+ hours every day that supervisors both help create and experience.

Here are a few of the most common ways to acknowledge your valued employees:

Material rewards: Bonuses, cash prizes, gift cards, free turkeys – all those “old favorites” continue to be highly valued by employees.

Recognition: There’s a reason why virtually any organization with more than 25 employees recognizes an employee of the month; it works. Profiles in newsletters, pictures on the wall, getting to park in the big boss’s parking space for a week, etc; they’re gestures, sure, but they resonate to deep needs inside most people.

Appreciation:  It may seem like only a minor distinction, but appreciation can be expressed privately by a supervisor to a particular employee or a team without being formal recognition.  When a supervisor says out loud that he or she sees the effort that went into a job well done, bringing specificity and awareness of the particular challenges met by those employees, many people report there’s almost nothing better than that authentic moment – even including material rewards.

The gift of time: Not all supervisors are even in the position to offer it, but these days almost nothing matches the opportunity to get away early, be given an afternoon off, flex with a fellow employee, or otherwise have a few hours drop into an employee’s lap which allows him or her time to shop, prepare, fit something in, have bonus family time, or just grab a nap.  More and more, on anyone’s list of wants and needs, “more time” tops the list.

So, even in a time of economic austerity, there are proven ways – often with no cost involved – to show your employees that you notice and appreciate a job well done.

I’m partial toward humility since, in addition to having lots to be personally humble about, that’s also when the best learning opportunities occur. Of course, I’m only partially ever really successful, and right now is a good example.  I used to think I was pretty good at sensing the Zeitgeist, getting a decent early handle on the likely public “take” on an issue, then anticipating how it will play out politically – whether I agreed with it or not.

But when it comes to the current economic crisis, I have no clue what most people are really thinking and feeling about how we got here and where we should go from here. I certainly do see the screaming, the accusations, and the denunciations.  Obviously, I see political paralysis. I’m aware of what people want me to think. I endlessly hear the drumbeat of the “narratives.” – and I note well the supposedly sophisticated point of view that reality is nothing but competing narratives. That’s why there’s so much shrillness: people fear the “wrong” narrative will manage to prevail if it isn’t denounced and scorned out of existence.

Because I try to converse with smart (but humble) people of all political stripes, I still do encounter honest Democrats who admit to worrying privately that massive deficit spending, in the midst of a massive public debt, isn’t succeeding at righting the ship and returning us to that good old, reliable prosperity – 3% GDP yearly increase – anytime soon.

Likewise, I know Republicans and conservative-types who do actually worry that slam-the-brakes austerity may indeed exacerbate the recession, as so many fear – even though they otherwise still strongly believe that mindlessly funding the government sector and piling up debt is stupid and self-destructive.

Sadly though, they’re minorities within their own ideological groups. Moderation, reasonableness, and acknowledging the valid concerns of people with whom you disagree is mostly seen as vacillation and weakness by the swath of our fellow citizens fortunate enough to possess the correct narrative. 

What I’m not sure about, what I don’t have any “feel” for this time, is what the majority of people in the middle – centrists, independents, as well as those above and below the political spectrum who avoid politics - really think has happened to the world.

Is it even possible to arrive at a tentative, essentially intuitive “take” on the current crisis that doesn’t, by virtue of the words used when it’s expressed, automatically place someone in one camp or another? Greedy bankers, big government liberals, the Nanny state, profits over people.  People barely get started thinking out loud, yet they’re jumped on right away. Can an adult conversation even happen?

As a current affairs guy I’m all for talking about any and all of the issues: the size and role of government, how big a military can we have, how best to cut the debt, etc., and I never expect everyone to be fully informed on everything, but I’m struck by the ignorance and incoherence people reveal with zero humlity as they go after the villains inhabiting their thought-free narratives - the very last thing we need with so much at stake.

This is the group I always counted on in the clutch to finally, reluctantly, start paying attention to what it really thinks, not what others want it to think, and then throw its weight so that we’re all nudged onto the difficult, but necessary path.

Even for me, that last sentence seems laughably naïve. 

I’m seeing so many overwhelmed people, too “busy” to think, let alone do much about the mess we’re in.  I see everyone’s eyes glued to cell phones.  It’s a tough world out there. The most angry and certain among us have political religions and are required by their political faiths to “take action,” but most regular people have too much on their plate now and would rather be able to take a nap.

Normally what happens next politically would reflect the broad middle’s response to what it thinks is the real problem - and therefore the best solution to that problem – even if the constituent groups of the Left and Right don’t like it and scream bloody murder.  At least that way we make higher quality mistakes from which we might learn.

I admit it, though. I’m not that optimistic.

Since I do both, I’ve often been asked, “What’s the differences between coaching and consulting?”

Fo businesses, the distinction is  straightforward: coaching means the process of working directly with personnel to achieve higher performance - by effectively listening, supporting, challenging, and facilitating personal development and learning. It’s a role, and it’s about interacting dynamically to help someone be more productive.

Consultation in the business world means any kind of service provided by someone - not a full time employee of the organization – who identifies problems and recommends specific solutions to those problems. Very often consultants provide or perform those identified tasks directly.

My strategy for helping my clients is a “blend” of Coaching methods and skills with the capacity to also address specific organizational tasks. Mostly I coach, because the essence of the work does boil down to those direct, ongoing interactions – in person or by telephone – that help supervisors and managers reframe and renew their own goals by taking effective action.

The consulting part comes about when clients want specific advice and concrete examples to help them think well and brainstorm possible solutions to a current problem. I do that.  My years in Employee Assistance Programs often demanded urgent, focused consultation to get done whatever could be done in one session: hear the problem, ask clarifying questions, then quickly come up with a “do-able” plan based on specific recommendations and action steps.

Because I’ve received formal “Coach” training, I’m extremely aware that the professional coaching world is leery of any claim to be able to “solve” someone’s problems. They want the distinction between coaching and consulting to be crystal clear.  I agree.

My clients like my direct approach, precisely because I’ve been willing to be explicit and say, for example:  ”you need a lawyer,” or “you should call the school and request a meeting regarding your child’s situation,” or even “it may be time to seek employment elsewhere.”

Too often, having more than a single session has been a luxury, and having the time which allows clients to navigate, practice, make mistakes, and learn their way to their optimal performance is heaven itself.

But EAP work has always  meant that less-than-ideal was the norm, so I’m comfortable with clients wanting clear feedback, concrete plans, and as much hope and relief from the problems and pressures that brought them in as is humanly possible. 

So – yes - I coach and I consult, and my style is the blend it needs to be to respond to a client’s unique needs.

And that leads me to my special 90 for 90 offer. Read about it here.

Jackie was a bit of a “player.” He admitted as much himself as we sat at the picnic table outside the facilities management building on the Thursday before his final day at work.  He had a big personality, and for a decent stretch it looked like it was all working.  Everybody knew Jackie, and many thought he was higher on the food chain than he really was. 

“It happened so fast.  I thought I knew what I was doing, but I was clueless about the politics.”

Actually, for awhile there Jackie looked like a political maestro, but the story of how it all came crashing down boiled down, according to Jackie, to “realizing too late, that I’d pissed off somebody I thought had my back.”

Anyone who manages or supervises has a personal philosophy about how the world really works, even when they aren’t particularly deep thinkers and have never cracked a philosophy book.

Who really runs the show? Who’s got the real power? What will it cost me if I say out loud I’m for or against someone’s idea? What will really happen if I choose A over B? How honest can I be? Who can I actually trust to say what I think? How much autonomy do I really have? Who do I really go to when I need to address a sticky problem? How much is it true, really, that being good at the work means honest mistakes aren’t punished? Is it true that the real, but unspoken task is to make your boss look good, and there’s a price to pay if you don’t?

Some totally avoid thinking about things like that and they’d probably pass a lie detector test, but their actions reveal that their basic instinct – survival instinct for some – is to clue into stuff like that and operate accordingly.

One problem is the employees are watching. They notice what’s really true about a supervisor’s character and integrity.  Jackie wasn’t a terrible supervisor and he wasn’t lazy, but he put a lot of energy into schmoozing and he liked the limelight. So Jackie’s fan base was a mile wide and an inch deep.

We all need to pay our bills, and compromising with less-than-ideal is something we all do sometimes – but we need to be doing more than surviving.  We have interesting things to tell ourselves about ourselves – if we’d only just listen.

Not all managers come straight from grad school with their MBA.  All across the country workplaces promote line employees into supervisory and management positions.

And one of the many challenges a new manager can face is having to manage the very people who were previously coworkers and friends.

Here’s an audio that looks at an all-too-common scenario:  

My blog hasn’t become a high-traffic site yet, but that hasn’t stopped some interesting exchanges anyway.

I put this post and comments about coaching highly intelligent people on two of my blogs – I felt there was a poignant quality to the exchange.

 Now I’ve received a very harsh, angry comment from someone who, I first thought,  may know the writer and her family directly, and who apparently became incensed by what he read here.

The gist of his angry comment is that the mother was being blatantly self-serving and self-justifying, not really doing right by her son.  He does make specific criticisms – putting kids with problems on psychiatric meds for one - but his tone is excessively harsh.  (That harshness means I won’t “approve” his comment, but I’d like to respond to some of it anyway.)

My first instinct is to be protective of the mother who commented on my post and shared some of her concerns about her son.  I appreciate that she was looking for something, clicked around, found my blog, and shared her situation with heart.

It’s virtually impossible to be brutally honest about ourselves and our families – either to ourselves or others.  That’s not really news, and I’m very used to starting out with a more or less distorted, one-sided, very human narrative whenever I start listening and trying to be helpful.

Having a child who struggles causes anguish in any parent, but, yes, it’s also true that some parents don’t respond as effectively as they otherwise might, and it’s usually because they’re invested in seeing reality through “lenses” that are more about the person doing the looking than the person or situation being looked at.

But, again…most of us know that.

Since my work is usually with people already up to their necks in very ripe problems, with no chance of backtracking to square one for a “do over,” my focus is always on how we can best move forward from here, starting now. 

My angry commenter apparently saw my exchange with “Alpha”  as the Mom sanitizing her own part, avoiding responsibility - and me providing her with the cover to do it.

I truly don’t see it that way, but in my next post I do want to take up some of what got touched upon in his comment: specifically,  giving too much credibility to professional expertise, and – even more specifically – diagnosing children, then putting them on psychiatric meds.

To be continued …..

Shaun-

To make a long story short, I’ve worked 11 years for a local Credit Union that’s “merged” with (been taken over by) a larger, statewide group of CU’s 18 months ago. It’s the only job I’ve ever had. I started as a teller, and now I manage the office that does collections and billings. At first we were assured our jobs were safe, but that was then, and now a new regional director has arrived and it’s obvious he’s looking for redundancy, consolidation, and cutting. After a month, the serious rumor is that our department will be dissolved and I’m gone – along with everyone who works with me. There’s a slim, outside chance I’ll be asked to take a job at the other end of the state, 300 miles away.

I’ve lived in this city all my life, my three kids are happy in this school system, and my wife works near our home, part time so she can be home as much as possible. Should I accept it and move on? Should I try to fight for my job? Will I regret it if I don’t?  What’s the best approach to thinking about this?

Frank R.

Frank-

I’ll begin by saying I honestly couldn’t tell you for sure, but this is a good example of a point I often make: any situation like this has some elements beyond your control – some you couldn’t possibly ever know – and other elements are yours: your skills, your confidence, your temperament, the state of your marriage, and what’s true about the effect this has on the “script” you have for yourself.

I try hard not to sound too “shrinky,” at this blog, but this is a situation when it helps to actually know yourself fairly well. Many feel the only way to go is to fight: advocate for yourself, tell them they’re wrong, and show them why in quantifiable terms.

Some people have the temperament and energy to do that effectively, not become obsessed, not embarrass themselves, and either succeed, or not be devastated if they don’t succeed.  But, obviously, it’s also possible to twist yourself into knots trying to do something that was never a realistic outcome.

Having done this work for so many years, I’m struck by how many people have told me, after the fact, that they’d had an immediate gut feeling the first split second the new information hit them – and then either did or didn’t listen to it. But virtually 100% of the time the gut feeling was right.

Some people want to fight, need to fight, are good at fighting, and therefore do have a higher probability of success – but no guarantee.

Other people have no stomach for fighting, dislike the disruption it creates, only do it because they’re afraid not to, don’t like who they become while fighting, don’t do it well anyway, and regret the time wasted. That doesn’t make them cowards, and doesn’t mean they don’t fight well on behalf of others.

Most of us are in-between, and hopefully have learned some things, gained some wisdom, and gotten better at picking our battles as we’ve gotten older.

This recession has created a lot of moments like yours, adding to the “normal” changes that were par for the course during the best of times. You and your wife need to talk. Your kids will be fine if Mom and Dad are on the same page. If that other job becomes a live option you can turn it into a family adventure. 

Which actually is the way to look at your situation if you choose stay where you are anyway.  After you grieve the loss, be grateful for the stability your Credit Union job provided for the time it did, then recognize that you won’t starve, your family has its eyes on you, character and perseverance still matter, keep learning, and  – I sound like Pollyanna – it’s all going to be OK.

Shaun

Shaun -

I run crews on multiple sites. I’ve got one guy who works for me who’s turned into a mystery man.  At first he was a real go-getter who definitely wanted to show me something, and he seemed totally OK with the extra stuff I gave him to do that I was sure he could handle.  I thought I had a solid, reliable guy I could develop – maybe put on the promotion track.

But a couple of weeks ago I had a situation where I got called away on short notice, and I asked this guy to plug-in for me, see that things were followed up, closed down properly, etc.  He’d done each task before – nothing new was put on him.

When I got back there were a lot of problems – to say the least. Some stuff didn’t get done, and a lot of what did was half-assed. I may have had a little edginess in my voice when I asked what the heck had happened, but I didn’t yell, I didn’t accuse, I didn’t say out loud he’d screwed up.

What I got back from him was a “cold fish” stare, short answers and shrugs – which surprised me and frankly pissed me off – so I asked directly if he was having a problem with me.  He shook his head no.

Ever since then he runs hot and cold. Some days he’s OK, almost like he was, but other days he’s just putting in the time, doing what he’s told, head down. 

What’s your take?

Ron

The important thing is to not overreact.  Unless he decides to tell you what happened that day, you’ll never know – and the sad thing is it’s possible he doesn’t really know himself.

I could go to town on this one, start psychologizing all over the place, and turn this episode into the complex and subtle human drama it might actually be.

Maybe he got stuck on one particular task he’d forgotten how to handle, wasn’t sure what to do next, panicked, become laden with anxiety, and said “EFF-it, I don’t want to be doing this.”  His personal insecurities got away from him.

Or that could be completely wrong. He may have a substance abuse problem, snuck a beer, got buzzed, spaced out, got confused, felt lost.

He may be clinically depressed, have very low self-esteem, have a fear of success, etc.

But here’s the thing, Ron, he’s actually simplified things for you – he’s not supervisor material. You were right to think he might be someone to develop, but he’s shown you he wasn’t up to it – at least for now.

You need to do your job and let go of what you don’t know and can’t do anything about. 

If he continues to perform adequately at his job, fine.  Good for him, good for you.  No reprisals – (obviously) – but also don’t convey anger or resentment that he’s let you down.    

Remember, sometimes personal problems affect an employee’s job performance.  If your company has an Employee Assistance Program, that’s what it’s there for. 

It’s always more of a blow than we realize when our goodwill and positive efforts are apparently rejected. Unfortunately, it happens a lot these days, and it’s (mostly) not personal.  The goal is to develop the right kind of “thick skin” for your supervisor role, while also not letting it extend into your personal and family life – where awareness and sensitivity are useful, necessary assets.

Let me know if this helps, Ron.

Shaun

This is a re-post from a previous “page.”

The more I Coach, the more it’s clear that there’s no getting around the need to take action, to do something other than what’s going on right now. Highly intelligent, underachievers are different, but they’re also just like everyone else in so many ways – something they might not always be thrilled to hear.

Underachievers have trouble connecting their cognitive style to their interactions with other people, the workplace, their own emotions, and the way the real world works.

Again, it’s the “just like the rest of us” part that’s mostly the problem, not the “different” part. The need for an identity, a place in the world, validation, meaningful work, colleagues, friends, and income is the same for almost everyone, and even those who, from the outside, seem to be very “different” are still mostly wired like the rest of us – highly emotional creatures, first and foremost, needing to find a comfortable, credible way of facing the world.

It’s very sad that someone’s own mental functioning can so often be a form of misery, avoidance, drifting, and isolation. Being highly intelligent should be a piece of wonderful good fortune, an asset to living one’s life well, and an absolute blast. Which is why my work with “very smart” people begins by focusing on strengths.

One of my approaches to coaching someone really smart is to go right at the obvious paradox that, the smarter you are, the more readily you realize how much you don’t know – truly. It’s the point about healthy humility as opposed to humiliation. Yes, it’s good to crunch information quickly, or be naturally creative, but, by now, most people come to know from experience how “way off” they can be (and have already been) – especially about things having to do with human beings.

That’s not negative, that’s positive, liberating emotional honesty. If you’re truly smart, it’s about being curious about the world as well as trying to get it right, (whatever it is), not about being seen by others to be right.

Managing one’s own feelings is a task everyone – from “very smart” to mentally “challenged” – has to accomplish in order to navigate life well.

Frankly, working with smart people to become more productive and relaxed, combines two major threads important to me.

One is that under-achieving, smart people, even the ones with difficult personalities, can be in terrible anguish – whether they’re quite able to feel it or not – and they need help just like anyone else.

Plus, the world surely needs all the help it can get – especially from people who might, just possibly, be part of generating creative solutions.

Having our smartest people function on as many cylinders as possible is good for all of us.

shareshareshareshare

Dear Ray:

I remember our last chat in the lobby outside the auditorium waiting for the main speaker to close out the conference. You seemed a little wistful compared to our previous encounters, and I wondered whether being up to your Adams apple in clients now is more of a cold shower than you’d anticipated.

As I drove away, I knew I wanted to send you a short note of support, and, if it doesn’t bother you, pass along some tidbits from my experience that might apply to what you’re going through now. I’m sure you’ll ultimately be fine with the clients, but it is a bit of a jolt to see how unattentive, or unreliable, seemingly uninterested in their own problems, unappreciative, and how truly damaged so many are. Not all, as I know you know, and I also know you have plenty of clients you do, very much, look forward to seeing.

Still, there’s always some disillusionment that happens when you’re geared up to engage a client, and then receive very little real energy for that engagement coming toward you. We tend to imagine ourselves having these wonderful, dynamic sessions with our clients – validating their struggles, emphasizing strengths, and by the respect and attention we give to their life stories, affirm the existence of hope – for them, and yourself.

Sadly, it can start to feel less like active treatment, and more like custodial care – or even worse, a cynical, going-through-the-motions paperwork process. Some show up (maybe) and therefore continue to earn the DSM – IV diagnostic label you give them, which means that the government money is released and pays Medicaid, or SSI disability, etc. – as well as your salary, your boss’s salary, and the cost of the paperclips.

You’ll get past that, but first you have to go through it.

Respecting clients DOES matter, of course. Just like everyone else, they can sense your true state of mind, and how you really feel about being there with them for that session. I’m certain you’ll navigate all of this, sort out the real from the ideal, and reconcile yourself to it. Think of it as “tempered idealism.”

Your colleagues may be a different matter, however, and that’s where it can be especially hard. I’ve told you how fortunate I was that my first job was virtually a textbook model for “how it ought to be.” We were there for each other, we talked cases, we talked ideas, we fretted about the patients together, we went out for beers after the shift. It was great – and it’s been downhill ever since.

These days, it’s more like another workplace, not a sanctuary for healing, and maybe that’s simply unavoidable. Your colleagues, like you, make their own peace with the work, and then, often without realizing it, become disengaged from all the anger, sorrow, fear, and despair. It shows up in the lack of interest in talking about cases or engaging in professional collegiality, going home at the dot of 5:30, and a pervasive, but usually cheerful cynicism about virtually everything.

But you’ll notice right away, there will be some colleagues who stand out, and rise above. They fight the cynicism, they like the clients, they like the work. Respond to them, Ray. Support those people. Say thanks to those people. Cherish those people.

As I reflect on who “makes it,” it seems to boil down to a combination of temperament, curiosity, experiential reinforcement, and sometimes nothing more than pure dumb luck with some of the early cases. I remember an enthusiastic young colleague I was sure had the right stuff for the long haul, but she was unlucky, and got caught in a buzzsaw – a particularly sick client, poor supervision, paperwork that wasn’t bad (but could have been better), a family out for blood, and lawyers hovering. She crawled away.

You feel like someone wired to go the distance, Ray. Who knows. You’ll want to develop a style as freed-up as possible, while maintaining that reliable professionalism. As you know I began evolving my Coaching techniques in the late 80′s, and it kept me going in clinical work for years.

You do need to have that emotional energy to go in each day, sleeves rolled up, knowing what you do is important, and engage, listen and learn, teach, advocate for hope, really try to make a difference … and then you need to drop the ball, go home to your family, and make a good life for yourself there. You’ll pick up the ball the next day.

It’s meaningful, noble work, Ray. Truly. And, who knows – you may have the right kind of wiring, enough savvy, and the ambition to someday parlay your experiences and real, hard-won skills into a thriving private practice – writing, speaking, coaching, teaching, or consulting.

For now, it’s dues time. Case after case.

Learn. Be present. Give.

I’m betting you won’t regret it.

Warm regards,

Shaun