relationship management

The owner of my local coffee shop tells me he travelled from the UK to Italy to visit three potential suppliers and try their coffee blends before making a selection for his shop. That's the attention to detail and eye for customer service I like.

My central heating engineer explained in uncomplicated detail why a larger and very different type of gas boiler was better suited to my needs and PROMISED me, yes PROMISED me that, although more expensive to buy and install would save me money over the winter. He also installed when he said he would and took exactly the length of time he predicted. He was right about the savings too!

So why does my bank bombard me with jargon and change the conditions of service whenever they want? Why do politicians never answer a straight question with a straight answer? Why are the 'experts' at my computer outlet not able to supply what I ask for when they ask me what I want? "What are you looking for?" he asked. "I want an Intel Duo 2, running at 2.1 with 4GB Ram and 500GB hard drive", was my response. Why did he then try and sell me a laptop running at 1.6 with 3GB Ram and a 320GB hard drive? Was he trying to test my patience?

Some service/product suppliers seem to have a natural inclination towards relationship management - without any formal training or development yet others (whom you might expect had been exposed to such development) merely seem to pay lip-service to the concept.

Business owners (entrepreneurs) know the value of customer loyalty and recommendations for future business but many working for large organisations don't seem to have the same vested interest - though their job security and prospects must also depend on the organisation's survival and growth.

What is relationship management and how best then to nurture it? Think about any relationship - you and your partner; you and your children; you and your co-workers; you and your customers. In our relationships we have expectations - though these are often not specified or made obvious. In good healthy relationships we also have trust. If we don't have trust, what is the basis for the relationship? If I can't trust my partner or my child or my co-worker to do what they say or to be where they say, when they say (keep a commitment) or not to do something (keep their commitment), what is the value of the relationship?

If my customers cannot trust what I say or cannot rely on my delivery promises how can I hope to maintain an effective client relationship?

From your dealings with customers today, write down 3 things you could have done differently (better) to improve the relationship; to help maintain the business, that would have made you feel better about yourself and them.
From your dealings with suppliers today, write down 3 things they did or said that improved your relationships with them.
Reflect and take the learning with you.
Do this every day for the next couple of weeks and see what happens to your relationship management.

It's more than this of course but this could be a good beginning.

Back to Basics

Had to wait in today for a plumber at my daughter's place. She had problems with the plumber before and couldn't seem to get him nor her landlord to solve a significant issue.

When he arrived I was alarmed at his lack of sense or urgency; the problem he was called-out to solve had been a problem for more than two weeks and - to add to the misery - a leak had also developed in the meantime.

Then he displayed seemingly little desire to get the job done. I had to coerce him to go and get the correct parts (another two hour delay!) and then stand over him to ensure he got the job done.

Let me temporarily leave that to one side.

In the week I had a meeting with an old client and our discussion had turned with intrigue to the notion that there is more knowledge than ever before and easy access to it, but people do not seem to know or be able to do any more. We concluded that people did not know or understand or use the basics sufficiently.

Isn't that where the plumber was too? Surely the basics for the plumber was to arrive with all he needed; do the job he was employed to do; leave without leaving a mess or distressed customers. On his first visit he had left leaving my daughter distressed and angry and without fixing the problem. What about Right First Time? What about being prepared? On the visit today he arrived without old towels to catch the inevitable water leaks and without all the tools he needed. What about Customer Service?

Twenty years ago we were labouring with Right First Time; Total Quality Management; Customer Service, etc. We then thought we had those issues covered and moved on to other issues of personal development and empowerment in organisations.

Now it seems we have returned to an era of poor workmanship; poor customer relations; mis-management of time and resources; errors and downright lack or responsibility.

What are we doing in organisations to drive through the basics? What are we doing to ensure we get it Right First Time; that we meet customer expectations and that we deliver what we promise? At a time when many wrongly assume they can save money by cutting training spend (as if it were a cost rather than an investment) we could be investing in the capability we need both now and for when the economy improves.

Maintaining performance after redundancy

I came back to the country this week to see yet more have been made redundant (as many as 80,000 in the last two weeks). That's 80,000 husbands or wives, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters. Every one of them with a story to tell of how they worked and gave of themselves only to have their efforts rewarded by losing their jobs.

That's 80,000 out of work and if only 1% are suffering badly, that's 800 unfortunate people who will be going through anguish and pain and rage and other emotions that stop them from seeing the light that might be at the end of the tunnel.

The impact on self-esteem can be harsh and what makes us think only 1% are impacted? What if it's only 5% - that's 4,000 people! What about the families of those made redundant? What about those left behind in the workplace? We rarely think about the impact on the 'survivors' (something that David Noer was writing about 16 years ago in Healing the Wounds [Jossey-Bass, California]).

When organisations make redundancies they leave people behind - the 'survivors'; these survivors feel emotions too, just as those who have lost their jobs - though the feelings of the survivors will include grief, anxiety and fear.

Whilst organisations try and help those they have 'let go' little thought is given to the survivors who must maintain performance. Noer gives a telling metaphor or a family with caring parents and good children who find they can no longer afford to keep all their children. Previously the family had breakfast together and this was a warm and happy time. One day the Mother tells the children they can no longer afford to keep them all so two have to go but the two will be helped through this period by moving in with relatives. The following day the family (minus the two) meet for breakfast and all evidence of the missing two has been removed. The remaining two are expected to be grateful and work harder around the house, now that they are two 'short' for the chores.

How do you suppose the two remaining children were feeling?
Were their emotions different from the two who had to leave?

Organisations need to do more to help those who remain, as well as help those who have to go or performance will inevitably suffer.

Executive Career Coaching

This has been a week in which middle-class unemployment has been prominent. The problem faces those who have just graduated to those who have been in senior manager and Director positions for many years.

There are now 29% more applicants for graduate vacancies than there were in 2008; half of the country's leading employers believe they will hire the same number next year as they did this year (despite the numbers of graduates increasing) and a quarter suggest they will hire fewer. Top employers have recruited only 72% of the target graduate intake they estimated at the start of the year.

Increasing numbers of people in senior management and Director level jobs have also been hit by the recession and, since the nature of unemployment is that it lags behind the economy, even when things do pick up, unemployment will continue to rise for many months.

It is not all gloom and doom. A client manager called this week for a friendly ear to listen to a job offer and help him work through the questions he might ask of himself.

These scenarios - unemployment amongst executives and potential high-fliers and challenging job opportunities for some share a common thread; the need for an impartial listener who can help work through the issues and types of questions that need to be addressed of both self and opportunities.

One of the areas of coaching we undertake is role transition coaching, where we (www.stephenhuntleyassociates.com) help people with the challenges they will face when entering a new role.

When people are promoted to new positions or are going for a new job they need to clarify for themselves as much as they can about the new territory; they need to know what they will have to do to perform effectively and, what level of higher-order thinking they will need to pursue. These three areas (context, interactions and intellect) will give people the information they need to (a) ask the right type of questions during the selection process and (b) make an informed decision.

Being aware of your attitude to ambiguity and the degree to which you reflect, as a part of learning, tells you something about yourself vis-a-vis the potential role, as will a measure of your prefence for structure and planning. Surprising then that so many candidates do not have a measure of themselves in this respect. In part, an explanation too of why so many apply for inappropriate roles and cannot understand why they may have been rejected or (if they were successful) why the job did not work out as anticipated.

If you would like to know more about what we offer in our coaching, contact stephenhuntley@consultant.com or visit www.stephenhuntleyassociates.com for information on the work we do and the clients we have worked with.

Anger Management

I was reminded this week of how angry people are: threats to employment and housing; insufficient money; not enough time; no hope; injustice; fear; dependence; overbearing parents and unruly children and many more factors are making people angry.

As managers we have to deal with anger and no more so than when we work with colleagues who are fearful of losing their jobs (as many are currently) or who feel victimised or who feel they have suffered an injustice. Even those spared from redundancy are angry - the survivor syndrome referred to by Noer in Healing the Wounds (Jossey-Bass, 1993). Noer suggested survivors of redundancy feel depressed and have a sense of guilt, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment and stress.

These are powerful emotions and as managers we have to help our colleagues cope with this anger. The first thing is, who really wants to talk about their anger when they are angry? If a manager and managed person were to try and work through anger a plan might help, such as:
SPADAIR

1. Share views of the issue or problem (it is important NOT to bring personalities into this so focus on the PROBLEM)
2. Perception - yours and theirs, to be made clear
3. Agree what the problem (cause of the anger) is
4. Develop potential solutions
5. Agree a workable solution
6. Implement the solution
7. Review progress within a short time

We have to recognise that you often cannot remove the things or people that make you angry but that you can only learn to control your reactions. Our anger can be plotted on a scale from mild irritation at on end to rage at the other but plotting anger like this may not be helpful and may in fact only make us more angry. What we need are techniques that allow us to keep our anger under control or at bay.

We could try relaxing - how many of us really know how? How many of us know how to breathe deeply rather than breathing high in the chest? How many of us know how to use the power of imagery to help us relax? How many of us would be helped by exercise such as yoga? Or perhaps we have to work on changing the way we think about issues - I recognise this one for myself! I can become angry at things and my anger might be manifest by harsh words or overly dramatic reactions but my girlfriend seems to have the ability to put things into context and ask questions such as, "Did anyone die as a result?" and I have a moment where (despite myself) I find I am smiling inside and less angry. Putting things into context like this and changing the way we see things (cognitive restructuring) can help.

You may be able to avoid some stressful situations that lead to anger. For example, one commute I used to do took me through heavy south-London traffic every night until I realised there was a longer though much more scenic and peaceful route through a royal park. I avoided the stress of the commute by replacing it with a more enjoyable ride home.

In the extreme, perhaps managers need to recognise they too need help and the colleague might be better advised seeking help from a person trained in counselling for the workplace. Sometimes, dealing with the situations that might otherwise leave us angry, in a more effective way, can be helped by specific training such as assertiveness skills or interpersonal skills.

If you find a colleague (or even yourself) demonstrating rage or using sarcasm or wanting to throw things around or use emotional language to hurt others or provoke arguments or tension - possibly you need to learn to control your anger too?

More on Listening

Following last week's blog I was asked to give some simple tips on what a good listener would do and the skills that need to be developed to demonstrate empathy.

I indicated previously that if we are asked to listen but do not reflect on the message or think about the communication we will not learn anything of the subject being discussed. Active listening has three basic steps:

• Hear
• Understand
• Judge.

We hear what the speaker has to say; we understand in our own way (we each have a 'schema' or a view of the world that helps us understand in our own way); we judge whether the communication makes sense to us.

Want to be a good listener? Try this:

1. give the speaker your full attention
2. focus on the subject
3. let the speaker finish
   
4. finish listening before you start speaking
5. ask yourself, "what were the main ideas?"
6. ask questions to clarify your understanding

Want to develop skills that will help you with empathy? Try this:

• ACKNOWLEDGE the speaker - this can be something simple like maintaining eye contact - you might try and show them you realise they are there.
• PARAPHRASE - respond by repeating part of the communication in your words - not like a drone or a parrot but to indicate you are listening.
  
• REFLECT/CHECK - reflect back to the speaker either the content you heard or your feeling about it - your understanding may not be what they intend so it's a good idea to clarify this early in the communication.
  
• INTERPRET - a cautious 'guess' of the feeling or meaning attached to the communication by the speaker - you are not psychoanalysing the speaker or stating without question what the situation IS - you are attempting to get on the same wavelength as the speaker so your 'interpretation' is tentative
  
• SUMMARISE - bring all the meaning and feeling together and help to focus understanding
• PROBE - careful! This is not an interrogation - what you can aim to do here is use supportive questioning to clarify and get more information.
• SUPPORT - when the speaker reveales their feelings it might help to demonstrate you care about their feelings or at least recognise them and understand they have them.
• BE QUIET - try not to interrupt - we can aim to give the speaker the space to talk and the time to think without pushing them on/without requiring them to move to our speed.

Perhaps it would be better to illustrate what a poor listener might do? Let me leave you this week with five tips to being a poor listener - practice them regularly! They might give you a better picture of what a good listener could do.

1. talk, talk and continue to talk, so the speaker cannot fully or adequately explain
2. when not talking, spend your time thinking about the next set of questions you might ask
3. interupt as much as possible and do so by being rude and loud
4. look away, do not maintain eye contact, sigh, scratch yourself, looked bored, show no interest
5. do not ask questions that clarify your understanding but rather, ask questions that threaten the speaker and put them on edge

When would you like to begin practicing these attributes?

I accept no liability for anything that might happen to you as a result of applying these 'techniques'!

Developing performance through listening and empathy

A major hurdle for many in developing their performance is their lack of real listening and failure to empathise so this week’s blog aims to cover some important points in listening skill and empathy.
So what is listening? When we listen well we employ active listening and there are three components:
1. Hearing
2. Understanding
3. Judging
We ‘hear’ to catch what the speaker is saying; we interpret and perceive to ‘understand’; we determine whether or not it makes sense to us when we ‘judge’ the content (we weigh it up). This does not mean we judge the speaker or the meaning they attach to their communication but rather, we determine for ourselves what sense it makes to us.

So when you really listen to someone you listen, in other words, you cannot talk when they are talking since you will not hear what they say. To interpret you may need to ask questions and this act of asking questions signals the speaker we are listening.

Listening requires concentration; you cannot fully hear their point of view or process information when you argue mentally or judge what they are saying before they have completed. An open mind is a mind that is receiving and listening to information

Listening, as with any other skill requires deliberate practice.

So what is empathy? Empathy is being able to share and understand the emotions and feelings another person is experiencing. It is definitely not sympathy but is the ability you can develop of identifying with another’s thoughts and concerns; it is about putting yourself ‘in their shoes’. To identify with another’s feelings you must first be able to identify your own feelings since without this capacity how can you understand how another person is feeling? For example, if you have not felt loss, how can you put yourself in the position of a person who is feeling loss? If you have not felt pleasure, how will you empathise with a person who is feeling pleasure? A working example is discrimination – if you have not felt discrimination could you understand the feelings of a person who is feeling discriminated against? I recently felt the force of both age and race discrimination and the pain and distress it can cause and although not pleasant it has helped in my understanding and empathy to those who experience various forms of discrimination on a daily basis.

Feeling the depths of depression and the heights of elation help us all to develop an understanding and an emotional link with others; the empathy we can display as a result takes us further in our understanding of others and their emotions. You will be effective when your comments reflect exactly what the talker has been saying; paraphrasing in your own words their comments.

You need to listen and make tentative comments, checking for understanding. Too many people (and managers in particular) do not practice empathy and as a result we often hear them make judgements or give advice or ask pointed, direct questions (that tend to determine where the conversation goes). For example, a manager is told about as problem a colleague has with another staff member and immediately says:
1. I hope you didn’t say too much – that would be a rash thing to do
2. I suggest what you do is ......
3. Did you mention the problem she caused with... Did it occur to you not to say what you did... Have you ever considered giving yourself more time to reflect on...???

We have to demonstrate an interest in the issue and try to clarify to get a real understanding, without guiding or imposing or telling.

To develop our levels of performance we need to learn to listen and empathise.

performance process

For almost twenty years I have been asking managers what they think their role is. It no longer surprises me that many find it hard to define this and those that attempt a response say it is ‘something’ to do with managing their people. This elusive ‘something’ does in fact appear to have a common theme with most, which is, managing the performance of colleagues.

What do we mean by performance? Essentially it is about the conduct of a role; what a person adds to the organisation’s efforts to reach specific goals; what they contribute. Although many managers agree it is their responsibility to ensure people meet targets they appear to spend little time agreeing what that contribution should be or what the overall targets are. Few employees can tell you their organisation’s strategy so what part can they take in ensuring what they do supports the strategy? The have to hope their manager passes on targets that meet the organisation’s goals. We have extensive experience of working with clients to determine what their performance management processes might look like and to design solutions with clients and help in effective implementation. For a client list see www.stephenhuntleyassociates.com.

Managing performance is however more than this. It is about agreeing what the role is for each employee and what the expectation is in performing that role; what the targets are and what can be provided to ensure people are knowledgeable and technically competent to achieve their targets. Organisations therefore need a model of what good looks like or, even better, what supreme performance looks like so they can compare employees to an ideal super-performer and begin the process of ensuring all staff become more effective. This process would also enable employees to determine for themselves what their needs are to become super-performers.

It is hard to see how anyone can become ‘engaged’ and take responsibility for meeting targets if they do not know what capabilities they will need to perform their role to maximum effect.

Organisations that are using a performance management system, even the simplest of systems, find that they can communicate significant organisational information (including strategy) via such a system. Goals can be cascaded down to every level in the organisation when managers are managing performance based on a notion of competence and objectives.