Managing Employees for High Performance

Communication is THE defining success factor on teams of any kind.

Communication gets blamed for all the ills of society from the current government shutdown in the United States to virtually every married couple filing for divorce.

Whether your team is 2 people in a very small business, two human beings in an intimate relationship or a multi-matrixed global team for a multi-national company, this communication model holds true:

Communication leads to trust, trust leads to positive influence, positive influence leads to high performing results.

There is also no guarantee high-performing results will be the outcome of this model. There are too many external factors impacting those results, but the opposite IS true.

There can be no high-performing results from your team if this model breaks down.

This model breaks down when communication does not support the building of trust. This is especially important to understand because there are only three potential outcomes when you communicate and two of them (or 66%) either slowly erodes trust, or instantly destroys trust, with those with whom we’re speaking.

As a leader for your company, here’s a great way to accelerate the development of higher levels of trust:

1. Bring your team together for a meeting where you facilitate a discussion on improving communication. Everyone will agree it can always be better.
2. Shift the gravitational pull of the conversation away from the flow of information regarding who gets what information from whom and when, to impersonal communication and how individual team members can communicate more effectively between each other to build higher levels of trust.
3. Introduce my model of “The 7 Deadliest Communication Sins.”
4. Tell them you know you, personally, can improve your communication skills in each of these seven areas and you’d like their help.
5.  Have the team each identify just one of the seven that they think would be best for you to start working on.
6. Have them answer for you, either in writing or in person (non anonymously, promising no repercussions or negative impact) these 3 questions:

• What must I stop doing?
• What must I keep doing?
• What must I start doing?

7. Review the feedback, decide where to start, then tell everyone on the team you want both positive reinforcement when they notice a change for the better, and you want them to point out
times when you engage in communication that fails to meet the new standard.

This activity will have an immediate impact on the level of trust between you and each team member in specific three ways:

• It will give you direct feedback on ways you can become an even better communicator and leader.
• It will show a humble, vulnerable side of you that will transform your relationship with them forever.
• It will open team members to accepting appropriately presented constructive feedback from you when you need to offer it because you have led the way

Your ego is going to resist this exercise.

It is going to be hard.

It is going to stretch your comfort zone like few other activities.

It will make you a better leader, it will bring your team closer while building the higher levels of trust you need create outstanding results together.

To build more power communication skills and habits, check out Communicate to Influence Up, Down & All Around 2.0, my newest tele-class training that launches soon, learn more and get a significant early registration discount at www.CommunicationPowerForLeaders.com/influence

‘til next time, communicate with power!

P.S. – For a list of all Power Words in the Conscious Communicator Series click here

After my seminar at the Project Management Institute’s Austin, Texas Professional Development Day last week I had the privilege of meeting one of my seminar attendees, and his wife who met him after the conference.

A discussion ensued about the strategies in my seminar he 7 Deadliest Sins of Leadership & Workplace Communication” settling deeper into the topic of Lack of Focused Attention because my seminar attendee’s wife, a successful realtor in the Austin area, mentioned she has a strategy for respectfully interrupting people when she calls them.

Since I often learn from my seminar students I was very open to learning a new strategy to borrow for my trainings.

She proceeded to tell me, “whenever I call someone and I feel like I may be interrupting them I want to make sure I’m respectful, so what I say is…

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

After hearing her suggestion, I said, “that’s a good way to do it, and I’m wondering if you would be open to an even better way?”

She said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “well, your approach is good up to a point and what it does is plant the suggestion that it is a bad time for them to speak with you. That language violates another of my communication sins, ‘A Lack of Desirable Behaviors.’

“What you want to say instead, to plant the suggestion that it is a good time for them to speak and allow them to feel more positively inclined to be comfortable with the interruption, is this…

“Is this a good time for us to speak?”

Basically, the same question, asked with the same intention, and focused on the positive outcome you desire.

Language like this is, positive focused, very influential and will lead your subject to fulfill your request much more frequently.

It will also build your reputation as an influential communicator, show yourself as a peer of whomever you are calling and build trust with everyone with whom you are trying to get their attention.

This simple shift in language is another strategy to make you a power communicator.

To build more power communication skills and habits, check out Communicate to Influence Up, Down & All Around 2.0, my newest tele-class training that launches soon, learn more and get a significant early registration discount at www.CommunicationPowerForLeaders.com/influence

‘til next time, communicate with power!

P.S. – For a list of all Power Words in the Conscious Communicator Series click here

Yesterday, an employee of the convention center, whose name was Eileen, came up to me as I was cleaning up after my presentation at the conference I was speaking at.

She said she heard some of my talk while she was working around and beside the room in which I was speaking and she wanted to grab the list of my “7 Deadliest Communication Sins.”

As I was putting my things away I gave her one of the handouts so she could take notes as I went down the list.

When I got to #4, which is “A Lack of Respectful ReBUTals,” I explained to her that it meant we should  avoid disingenuous phrases that incorporate the word “BUT” when offering feedback to people or when in a discussion or debate on issues, such as “That’s a really great idea, but…”

She said, “that’s right, because ‘behold the truth, it comes after the but!’ She told me that was something a teacher told her many years ago.

That is so true!

What you really believe comes after the “BUT.”

Which means, whatever comes before is negated and worthless.

In applying those phrases, which we do to try to be supportive and non-confrontational, we create negative energy and feelings in the other person who does not feel supported when the other side of the statement hits them between the eyes.

I love that phrase, “behold the truth, it comes after the “BUT.” I will be using that in my future talks, for sure. Thanks, Eileen!

On Monday, at another training, one of my seminar participants was very familiar with this strategy,. He understood its power in communication and helped me in my discussion of it.

This workshop participant, whose name was Jeff, not only reinforced the strategy of replacing BUT with “AND” as the transitional word, he was very articulate in telling the rest of the audience of 50 business professionals that it is a very, very challenging communication skill to incorporate.

Jeff reinforced that it takes tremendous, conscious forethought to craft your language in such a way that it fits with the “and” transition to provide a truly supportive and reinforcing statement that builds trust and provides a foundation on which the conversation can move forward in a positive manner.

So, this is a “thank you” to both Jeff and Eileen for adding value to my work, and making my programs even better, plus a “thank you” to all my workshop participants for allowing me the privilege and honor of giving me their valuable time and attention each time.

’til next time, make it a great week!

This week’s 2nd Power Word is the type of communication a leader must master to be most effective…CANDID!

In my communication seminars and keynotes audiences continue to remind me that CANDID communication, or the lack of it, is one of the biggest issues in their work environment.

Leaders must master the art of CANDID communication and balance it with another of our leadership Power Words, compassion (Power Word #42).

CANDID communication is the skill of saying what needs to be said, and that is in the best interests of the individual and the organization, plus doing it at the first most appropriate time.

Great leaders master the balance, or what I call the leaders’ communication triad of prompt, direct and respectful.

How good are you at CANDID communication? How good are your organization’s leaders at CANDID communication?

’til next time, leave a comment below and make it a great holiday weekend (in the U.S.)!

P.S. – To become triple times better at impacting audiences with your public presentations, go here an subscribe to 52 Presentation Power Tips