Some Online Store

Employee recognition is about leaders communicating two things: awareness (“I know you did a great job on that project”) and appreciation (“Thanks for getting us out of this predicament”). That’s it. Anything else is of secondary importance at best. The Gallup research discussed in chapter 2 clearly confirms the critical importance
of leadership awareness and appreciation of work done. Hearing expressions of both are among the twelve elements “needed to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.”13 When neither occurs, ever, employees often look for another place to work.

Communicating awareness of employee performance fills a profound need that we all have to be acknowledged for the good things we do. We want others, especially our bosses, to know about the effort we make and the things we achieve. We want to be visible contributors to the organizations of which we are members. When we deliver value to our organization, our organizational identity, our sense of affiliation, is strengthened.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

But when performance recognition is communicated effectively, it serves a solid purpose: reinforcing the continuation of desired behavior. There’s a growing literature on reward and recognition strategies for organizations that highlights the importance of leader recognition of employee performance, both individual and team.12 We think recognition is indeed a critical dimension of persuasive communication when it’s focused on reinforcing goaldirected behavior, as well as solidarity with the organization.

So how can leaders avoid issuing just another jaded recognition communication? First, simply by tying recognition not to the calendar but to an activity or achievement. The phrase “catching employees (or colleagues) doing something right” probably captures this strategy best. Spontaneity equates with sincerity in acknowledging worthy performance, and doing it directly, face-to-face, is the most powerful way of all. But leaders can’t always catch people in the act of doing something right, so the next best thing is to offer delayed recognition ASAP.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Sustained Persuasion: Recognition of Effort and Accomplishment
Dilbert’s manager is forever looking around for someone to pin a special achievement award on, while Dilbert and his colleagues are usually equal to the task of deflecting such recognition, because it’s essentially a meaningless ritual. And so are the numerous related gestures in organizations that routinely name an employee of the month, without specifying why he or she is so designated or what performance led to such mention (it may simply have been Jane’s turn).

Figure 6-6. Communication tactics to win buy-in to goals.
? Be realistic in setting goals, and what’s needed to reach them.
? Express optimism about goal attainment.
? Use action verbs that convey energy and momentum to describe the means to goal attainment: stretch, push, exceed, drive, win, etc.
? Emphasize consequences and make it clear that success will be rewarded: People are motivated to work toward a goal when goal attainment carries positive and certain outcomes for them and for the
organization.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

In a study of American elections, researchers found that voters are influenced by language that is “highly certain, highly optimistic, highly realistic, and highly active.”10 So are American consumers, we would hasten to add, and people in organizations. The implications for leadership communication that aim to establish employee consensus and buy-in to a particular decision or initiative might therefore look like those in Figure 6-6.

In most organizations that work hard at building consensus around key decisions, leadership communications makes two things especially clear: what’s best for the organization and what’s best for its people. When the organization must take action that might compromise the immediate interests of some employees for the sake of the wider organization, leaders can still be persuasive if they explain thoroughly and listen to employee concerns.

Psychologist Robert Cialdini suggests an additional strategy here, based upon research indicating that most of us are more inclined to prevent lost opportunities than to reap potential gain.11 Without resorting to fear mongering, leaders add an important dimension to any direction-setting communication by pointing out what the organization and its people stand to lose by not following a given plan.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Management professor Jay Conger has suggested that there are at least four ways in which leaders commonly fail to be persuasive:

1. “They attempt to make their case with an up-front, hard sell, “the “slam-dunk” approach that can trigger an instinctive push-back from others who might have been prepared to listen to a more collaborative approach.

2. “They resist compromise,” when even a modest compromise might buy agreement, while stubbornness sends a message that forestalls future cooperation.

3. “They think the secret of persuasion lies in presenting great arguments,” while sidestepping the importance of context, credibility, and mutual benefit.

4. “They assume persuasion is a one-shot effort,” ignoring the importance of engagement as a key to fair process, and the time required for real buy-in.9

Each of these failures runs aground on the principles of fair process articulated by Kim and Mauborgne. To be persuasive, especially with more mobile and better educated employees, leaders must provide thorough explanations that connect with big-picture understandings. They must find ways to make common cause and to build win-win propositions. And they should try throughout to be open to questions, feedback, and ideas for alternative solutions.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

In chapter 5 we offered ideas for how leaders might best communicate the reasoning behind their thinking and decision making. Explaining underlying reasons and assumptions is an equally important leadership tactic when they want to be persuasive, steering people in the right directions. Chapters 9 and 10 include some thoughts on how leaders might uncover the reasoning of people who don’t agree with them.

The first challenge in winning agreement and support for decisions that lead to significant work (and work life) consequences is forging a good understanding about those decisions with employees. Understanding includes both how the organization stands to benefit and how individuals are affected. Using data thoughtfully can also be an effective means to persuade. Being as specific as possible about individual consequences, both positive and negative, can also make an argument more convincing (at the risk of making HR and legal staffs uncomfortable).

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Trying to explain his refusal to finance foreign language courses in schools, Texas Governor James “Pa” Ferguson in 1917 argued, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas.”7 We think Governor Ferguson was onto something here, even though Jesus, of course, didn’t speak English.
Ferguson wanted to win the support of his constituents by explaining the reasoning behind his actions, and he wanted to make his explanation a compelling, if inaccurate, one.

W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, in their study of perceptions of “fair process” among managers and employees in knowledge economy companies, concluded that sharing a full explanation behind the reasons for decisions, as well as asking for input and feedback, are critical to the perception that fairness has been exercised. Leaders need to make sure that everyone with a stake in a decision and its outcomes should feel well briefed on how the decision was made. “An explanation of the thinking that underlies decisions makes people confident that managers have considered their opinions and have made those decisions impartially in the overall interests of the company. An explanation allows employees to trust managers’ intentions even if their own ideas have been rejected.”8

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

They also communicate a valuable perspective for understanding organizational direction by:

? Distinguishing between “official explanations” and what actually happens in the organization
? Translating corporate communications into news the person can use
? Providing practical counsel for getting around organizational roadblocks

Communicating as a mentor might involve the tactics of Figure 6-5 to support direction setting. Mentors succeed when they create and sustain a nonjudgmental, collegial relationship. Their communication strategy needs to be less directive and more facilitative, delivered in the manner of a concerned ally and trusted friend.

Component 3. Persuading People To Act
“Leadership is the art of getting others to do something
you want done because they want to do it.” (Anonimous)

Figure 6-5. Tactics for effective mentor communications.
? Be a respectful, attentive listener for those you mentor.
? Express clear bias toward their success.
? Establish their “readiness” for advice before you give it.
? Offer advice that’s relevant to their agendas, not yours.
? Couch advice in the first person: “What’s worked for me in the past . . .” (offered gently, modestly, and anecdotally).
? Illustrate advice with both personal successes and personal failures.
? Use the Socratic method discussed earlier: It’s often the best way to deliver advice.
? Preface your feedback with your intentions for giving it: What’s its potential for use? How might it benefit the user?
? Invite any kind of question (even those labeled by one mentor as those silly-ass questions you know better than to ask”).
? Be an “open channel” sounding board for hypotheses, guesses, trial balloons, anything they want to try.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

The dialogue that MEC leaders facilitated with their own teams as part of a learning worksheet exercise might include questions like these:

? What could we do to minimize or prevent such problems in the future?
? If we tried to solve the problem this way, what might happen?
? What might success look like if we solved the problem?
? What could I help you do?

Communicating as a Mentor
Coach and mentor are two leadership communication roles that help employees navigate effectively through organizational life. Each role carries with it several critical communication attributes. Leaders communicate like a coach when they incorporate specific goals in their direction setting, as well as inspiration and instruction for achieving those goals. When leaders acts as mentors, on the other hand, they are less concerned with reaching a specific destination as they are with making the journey easier and more rewarding for the persons being mentored. Mentors have both a personal and an organizational interest in the success of their charges. They offer how-to advice, organizational shortcuts, personalized feedback, and moral support, among other things.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Everyone was asked to consider the same data sets, the same issues and challenges. Thus, virtually all parts of the company drew not only a more accurate picture of the company’s business context but also a remarkably consistent one.

The work unit and team conversations also allowed leaders and their people to draw their own conclusions regarding specific action implications for their respective functions and responsibilities. MEC later incorporated a version of the worksheet exercise into its new employee orientation program and regularly provides new data on how the organization is coping in its weekly employee publication.

Bringing Understanding to Complexity These worksheets are communication tools that help leaders not only present information in
a compelling way but also engage their people to think and talk about organizational priorities and directions. They are good context builders for complex subjects, like the “future of the industry” or the “changing client profile.” They also trade on a leadership communication technique as old as Socrates: the use of questioning to help someone arrive at a conclusion, or bring out a latent idea.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator