Do you ever have trouble remembering someone’s name, or a task that you were supposed to have accomplished but didn’t, or maybe how to safely execute a procedure that you don’t do very often? I know…. you can’t remember! Well if you do forget then you are perfectly normal. Forgetting is a cognitive event that everyone experiences from time to time, but why? What causes us to forget and is there anything we can do about it? Bottom line is that when we forget, we have either failed to encode the information into long-term-memory (LTM), which means we don’t have the information stored in the first place, or we have failed to retrieve it effectively. The failure to remember the name of someone that we have just met is probably an encoding failure because we don’t move the person’s name from working memory to LTM and it just disappears or gets knocked-out because of the short-term nature of working memory. To get it into LTM we have to “elaborate” on the information in some way, maybe with a rhyme, or rehearsal, or some other mnemonic technique. The problem is that most of us either don’t expend the effort needed to transfer information like names of people we probably won’t meet again to LTM, or other information that comes in right after we hear the name interferes with transfer. But what about information that is important, like a meeting that we scheduled for 10:00 AM next Monday with a coworker about an important project that we are working on, or wearing your safety glasses when using a grinder in your home workshop? Both are important but might require different assistance to avoid forgetting. Maybe you put the meeting on your calendar but didn’t create a reminder because this is an important meeting and you will certainly not forget to check your calendar Sunday night. But you were busy watching Sunday Night Football and didn’t check your calendar and when you got a call from your coworker at 10:10 on Monday morning asking why you weren’t in the meeting, you were totally shocked that you hadn’t remembered the event. Maybe you began operating your grinder without putting on your safety glasses because the glasses weren’t readily available. These types of retrieval failures are most likely caused by something that impacts us all….interference at retrieval. There has been a lot of research into the effects of interference on memory both at encoding and at retrieval and the evidence is pretty clear…..retrieval is cue dependent (a context effect) in that it is stimulated by hints and clues from the external and internal environment (i.e., our context). If the salient cues that were present at encoding are present at retrieval, then you are less likely to forget, i.e. have a retrieval failure. The more similar the context at encoding and retrieval the greater the chances of remembering. Interference by dissimilar cues like the report that you started working on at 8:00 AM on Monday when you got to work increase the chances of forgetting the meeting. Or not having safety glasses readily available and obvious on the grinder. The way we can capitalize on the strengths of our brains and overcome it’s short comings is to better understand how our brains work. In the case of the meeting, creating cues that will be present at both encoding and retrieval is very helpful. Creating a reminder when putting the event on your calendar and then experiencing that same reminder cue before the meeting, or putting the meeting on your to-do list and then visualizing your to-do list at the beginning of the day are things that capitalize on our brain’s strengths and help avoid its weaknesses. But what about remembering to wear your safety glasses when operating a grinder? Something as simple as hanging safety glasses on the grinder switch can help. Also, research has clearly demonstrated that emotional cues tied to information at encoding increase the chances of accurate retrieval. Creating a visual image of an eye injury or hearing/reading a vivid story of a real grinder related eye injury will increase the chances that simply seeing the grinder will cause you to remember to put on your safety glasses. The bottom line is that the more we understand how we function cognitively, the better able we are to create contexts that help us remember and succeed.
Why Does Context Matter?
If you’ve been reading our blogs for some time you know that we center our approach to human performance around the idea of “context”. Context is at the heart of the science of Human Factors, also referred to as “ergonomics”. Human Factors involves understanding and integrating humans with the systems that they must use to succeed and context is central to that understanding. To say that we are a product of our environment is accurate, but far too simplistic for those attempting to be more intentional in changing performance. A practical way to look at context is to think of the world around us as composed of pieces of information that we must process in order to successfully interact with our environment. These pieces of information include the other people, physical surroundings, weather, rules, laws, timing, and on and on and on. The breakdown in this process is when it comes time for us to crunch that data and react to it. Our brains, at the time of this writing, still have the edge on computers in that we can intentionally take in data rather than passively waiting for something else to give us the data, and we can then decide how we behave with respect to that data where a computer is programmed to behave in predictable ways. However, at times, that unpredictability could also be a weakness for humans.
The two most glaring weaknesses in processing the data are topics that we have written about just recently (Hardwired Blog and Cognitive Bias Blog). The first of these can be explained by staying with our computer analogy. For those of you that understand computer hardware, you would never spend your money on a new computer that has a single core processor, which means it can only process one job at a time. While our brains aren’t exactly single core processors, they are close. We can actually do two jobs at a time, just not very well and we bounce back and forth between these jobs more than we actually process them simultaneously. Due to this, our brains like to automate as many jobs as possible in order to free itself up to process when the time comes. This automatic (System 1) processing impedes our more in-depth System 2 processing and while necessary for speedy success, it can also lead to errors due to failure to include relevant data. In other words, while living most of our lives in System I is critical to our survival, it is also a weakness as there are times that we don’t shift into System II when we should, we stay in automation. Unfortunately we are also susceptible to cognitive biases, or distortions in the way we interact with the reality of our context. You can read more about these biases (here) but just know that our brains have a filter in how we intake the data of our context and those distortions can actually change the way our brains work.
So what are some examples of how context has shaped behavior and performance?
- Countries that have round-a-bouts (or traffic circles) have lower vehicle mortality rates because the accidents that occur at intersections are side swipes rather than t-bones.
- People that live in rural areas tend to be more politically conservative and those in urban areas tend to be more politically liberal. The reason is that those living in smaller population densities tend to be more self-reliant and those living in higher population densities rely on others, in particularly, government services.
- People who work in creative fields, (artists, writers, musicians, etc.) are more creative when they frequently change the environment where they do their work. The new location stimulates the executive center of the brain.
- Painting the holding facilities of people arrested under the influence of alcohol a particular shade of pink has proven to lower violent outbursts. *Read the book “Drunk Tank Pink”, it’s genius.
- A person that collapses due to acute illness in a street is less likely to be provided aid by other people if that street has heavy foot traffic. The fewer people that are around the more likely one of those people will provide aid.
- As a hiring manager, I’m more likely to hire a person whose name is common and which matches my age expectation.
- School yard fights increase during the spring time when the wind blows harder causing the children to become irritable.
These are all examples of how the context around us can change our behaviors and performance. If we can start looking at our context in more intentional ways and engineering it to be more conducive to high performance, we will ultimately be better at everything we do, at work and home.
Just Pay Attention and You Won’t Get Hurt!
I have been thinking about the role of “attention” in personal safety lately. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard supervisors say…”He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if he had just been paying attention.” In reality, he was paying attention, just to the wrong things. Let me illustrate this with a brief observation. Two of my grandsons (ages 4 and 6) play organized baseball. The 4-year old plays what is called Tee-ball. It is Tee-ball because the coach places the ball on a chest high Tee and the batter attempts to hit the ball into the field of play where there are players on the opposing team manning the normal defensive positions. It is my observation of the players on defense that has helped me understand attention to a greater depth. Most of the batters at this age can’t hit the ball past the infield and most of them are lucky to get it to the pitchers mound, so the outfielders have very little chance of actually having a ball get to them and they seem to know this. For the most part, the “pitcher” (i.e., the person standing on the mound) and to some extent the other in-fielders watch the batter and respond to the ball. The outfielders however are a very different story. They spend their time playing in the dirt, rolling on the ground, chasing butterflies or chasing each other. When, on the rare occasion that a ball does get to the outfield the coach has to yell instructions to his outfielders to get them to look for the ball, pick it up and throw it to the infield. There is a definite difference of attention between the infield and the outfield in Tee-ball. This is not the case in the “machine-pitch” league that my 6-year old grandson plays in however. For the most part all of the defensive players seem to attend to the batter and respond when the ball is hit. So what is the difference? Obviously there is a maturational difference between the 4/5-year olds and the 6/7-year olds but I don’t think this explains all of the attentional difference because even Tee-ball players seem to pay more attention when playing the infield. I think much of it has to do with expectations and saliency. Attention is the process of selecting among the many competing stimuli that are present in one’s environment and then processing some while inhibiting the processing of others. That selection process is driven by the goals and expectations that we have and the salience of the external variables in our environment. The goal of a 4-year old “pitcher” is to impress her parents, grandparents and coach and she expects the ball to come her way, thus attention is directed to the batter and the ball. The 4-year old outfielder has a goal of getting through this inning so that he can bat again and impress his audience knowing that the probability of having a ball come his way is very small. The goals and expectations are different in the infield and outfield so the stimuli that are attended to are different. The same is true in the workplace. What is salient, important and obvious to the supervisor (after the injury occurred) are not necessarily what was salient, important and obvious to the injured employee before the injury occurred. We can’t attend to everything, so it is the job of the supervisor (parent; Tee-ball coach) to make those stimuli that are the most important (e.g., risk in the workplace, batter and ball in the Tee-ball game) salient. This is where the discussions that take place before, during and after the job are so important to focusing the attention of workers on the salient stimuli in their environment. Blaming the person for “not paying attention” is not the answer because we don’t intentionally “not pay attention”. Creating a context where the important stimuli are salient is a good starting point.
Stress and Human Performance
If you examine the research literature on the topic of “psychological stress” you will find that there is a lot of disagreement on a definition of that term. However, there is almost total agreement that while stress can have positive effects in some situations, it can also have very negative effects on human performance in other situations. For our purposes we will accept the Mirriam-Webster definition of stress as “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.” While this definition ignores the positive effects of moderate stress that research shows is needed for motivation and action, it does describe a state that we all have experienced, and some of you may be experiencing right now. Stress comes in several forms, including acute stress (in an emergency situation), chronic stress (from factors such as job, family, etc), stressful life events (e.g., divorce, death of a loved one, etc) and just those daily hassles (e.g., traffic, arguments, etc). The one common thing in all of these types of stress is that they originate as a response to context. There’s that word again….the one that we seem to talk about in just about all of our blogs. Not only is stress a response to various aspects of our context, stress becomes part of our context and then impacts our performance and the decisions that we make. Stress is our physiological response to our interpretation/appraisal of our context and it directly impacts cognition, social behavior and general performance. Salient contextual factors such as noise, peer pressure, authority pressure, task load and time pressure have been shown to have detrimental impact on performance. Research is clear that high levels of stress cause us to narrow our attention span, decrease search behavior, react slower to peripheral cues, reduce our vigilance, degrade problem solving and rely on over learned responses that may or may not be best in the current situation. In other words, we tend to make poorer decisions that can lead to failure and even injury. Stress also causes us to lose our team perspective and it decreases the frequency with which we provide help to others. This is especially impactful when working in high risk environments where watching your partners back and intervening when necessary is critical to maintaining safety and stopping unsafe actions and incidents.
So how do we deal with this so that stress doesn’t negatively impact performance?
We suggest a two-pronged approach involving (1) control of context and (2) control of how we interpret context in the moment. Keep in mind that we are talking about normal stress reactions that we all experience, not pathological reactions that are best dealt with by trained therapists. Let’s start with control of context and let’s set that context in the workplace. In the workplace, context is, to a large extent under the control/influence of supervision and management. So what should supervisors and managers do? They should attempt to set realistic production objectives with realistic time constraints to create a context that help control stress produced by task load and time pressure. They should minimize where possible the amount and duration of noise. They should make sure that employees are trained so that they have the knowledge and skills required to meet those production objectives. Simply being aware of the negative impact of stress, the relationship between stress and context, and the impact that they personally can have on that context will go a long way in stress control. But what about how the individual interprets context in the moment. Simple awareness that we can control stress reactions through our interpretation of context is a very good starting point. In our February 25, 2015 blog we discussed how we are “Hardwired to Jump to Conclusions”. In that discussion we saw how research supports the involvement of two different cognitive “Systems” in decision making and that System 1 tends to make quick decisions based on past experience and System 2 tends to be more rational and analytic. Research demonstrates that the more stress we are experiencing, the more likely we are to engage in System 1 thinking which increases the likelihood that we will make less informed and perhaps less effective decisions. We suggest that you use the initial physiological stress reactions as a “trigger” to stop, engage System 2 cognitive functions and evaluate your current context to determine what, if anything, can be done to create a different, less stressful context. But what if you can’t change the context? As we all know, there are times when we have a deadline and we are stuck in traffic and we can’t change that. But we can stop, engage System 2 thinking, slow down our physiological response, realize that stressing out is not going to change the situation and figure out the best way out of this situation. This of course takes practice and there are times when we won’t be successful, but understanding stress and how to respond to it can become an effective strategy to help us perform effectively in stressful conditions.
Are Safety Incentive Programs Counterproductive?
In our February 11, 2015 blog we talked about “How Context Impacts Your Motivation” and one of the contextual aspect of many workplaces is a Safety Incentive Program designed to motivate employees to improve their safety performance. Historically the “safety bonus” has been contingent on not having any Lost Time Injuries (LTI’s) on the team during a specified period of time. The idea is to provide an extrinsic reward for safe performance that will increase the likelihood of safe behavior so that accidents will be reduced or eliminated. We also concluded in that blog that what we really want is people working for us who are highly intrinsically motivated and not in need of a lot of extrinsic “push” to perform. Safety Incentive Programs are completely based on the notion of extrinsic “push”. So do they work? We know from research dating back to the 1960’s that the introduction of an extrinsic reward for engaging in an activity that is already driven intrinsically will reduce the desire to engage in that activity when the reward is removed. In other words, extrinsic reward can have the consequence of reducing intrinsic motivation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get hurt and I would assume that most people don’t want to get injured either. People are already intrinsically motivated to be safe and avoid pain. We also know that financial incentives can have perverse and unintended consequences. It is well known that Safety Incentive Programs can have the unintended consequence of under reporting of incidents and even injuries. Peer pressure to keep the incident quiet so that the team won’t lose it’s safety bonus happens in many organization. This not only leads to reduced information about why incidents are occurring, but it also decreases management’s ability to improve unsafe conditions, procedures, etc. resulting in similar incidents becoming more likely in the future. Because of this, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recently determined that safety incentive programs based on incident frequency must be eliminated because of these unintended consequences. Their suggestion is that safety bonuses should be contingent on upstream activities such as participation in safety improvement efforts like safety meetings, training, etc. On a side note, in some organizations, the Production Incentive Program is in direct conflict with the Safety Incentive Program so that production outweighs safety from a financial perspective. When this happens production speed can interfere with focus on safety and incidents become more likely. Our View
It is our view that Safety Incentive Programs are not only unnecessary, but potentially counterproductive. Capitalizing on the already present intrinsic motivation to be safe and creating an organizational culture/context that fosters that motivation to work together as a team to keep each other safe is much more positive and effective than the addition of the extrinsic incentive of money for safety. We suggest that management take the money budgeted for the safety incentive program and give pay increases while simultaneous examining and improving organizational context to help keep employees safe.
Hardwired to Jump to Conclusions
Have you ever misinterpreted what someone said, or why they said it, responded defensively and ended up needing to apologize for your response? Or, have you ever been driving down the freeway, minding your own business, driving the speed limit and gotten cut off by someone? If you have, and you are like me then you probably shouted something like “jerk” or “idiot”. (By the way, as my 6-year old grandson reminded me from the back seat the other day….the other driver can’t hear you!) As it turns out, we are actually cognitively hardwired to respond quickly with an attributional interpretation of what we see and hear. It is how we attempt to make sense of our fast paced, complex world. Daniel Kahneman in his 2011 book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” proposes that we have two different cognitive systems, one designed for automatic, rapid interpretation of input with little or no effort or voluntary control (System 1) and the other designed for conscious, effortful and rational interpretation of information (System 2). We spend most of our time utilizing System 1 in our daily lives because it requires much less effort and energy as it helps us make sense of our busy world. The problem is that System 1 analysis is based on limited data and depends on past experience and easily accessible knowledge to make interpretations, and thus is often wrong. When I interpreted the actions of the driver that cut me off to be the result of his intellect (“idiot”), it was System 1 processing that led to that interpretation. I “jumped to a conclusion” without sufficient processing. I didn’t allow System 2 to do it’s work. If I stay with my System 1 interpretation, then the next time I get cut off I am even more likely to see an “idiot” because that interpretation is the most easily accessible one because of the previous experience, but if I allow System 2 to operate I can change the way I perceive future events of this nature. System 2 allocates attention and effortful processing to alternative interpretations of data/events. It requires more time but also increases the probability of being right in our interpretation of the data. Asking myself if there could be other reasons why the driver cut me off is a System 2 function. Identifying and evaluating those possibilities is also a System 2 function. Engaging in System 2 cognitive processing can alter the information stored in my brain and thus affect the way I perceive and respond to similar events in the future.
So how can we stop jumping to conclusions?
It would be great if we could override our brains wiring and skip System 1 processing but we can’t. Actually, without System 1 we would not be very efficient because we would over analyze just about everything. What we can do is recognize when we are jumping to conclusions (guessing about intent for example) and force ourselves to focus our attention on other possible explanations, i.e. activate System 2. You need to find your “guessing trigger” to signal you to call up System 2. When you realize that you are thinking negatively (“idiot”) about someone or feeling a negative emotion like anger or frustration, simply ask yourself…. “Is there something I am missing here?” “Is there another possible explanation for this?” Simply asking this will activate System 2 processing (and also calm you down) and lead to a more accurate interpretation of the event. It will help override your natural tendency to jump to conclusions. It might even keep you from looking like an “idiot” when you have to apologize for your wrong interpretation and action.
How Context Impacts Your Motivation
We have been writing and speaking for several years about the importance of an individual's context on their performance and decision making. In fact context is a central component of our SafetyCompass® and PerformanceCompass® training programs. When we talk about context we mean the factors including the individual, others, physical surroundings and organizational systems that are present and salient to the individual in the moment and that impact what the person decides to do. The individuals contribution to context includes such things as knowledge, ability, attention, physical condition and emotional condition. Another aspect of a person's context is their current level of motivation but it is important to note that their current level of motivation is also impacted by their context. There are two types of motivation commonly referred to as “intrinsic motivation” and “extrinsic motivation”. Intrinsic motivation (sometimes also referred to as “self” motivation) comes from within the person and is developed over time as a result of success (meaningful accomplishment) and recognition from individuals that the person deems to be significant (e.g. parents, siblings, boss, etc.). Extrinsic motivation is brought about by the desire for and application of external consequences such as money and praise. It would be nice if everyone was 100% intrinsically motivated but the reality is that we are all, for the most part motivated to do well for the sake of self gratification and for the praise and other external consequences that success derives, e.g. we like the money our successful performance generates. It is also important to understand that our level of intrinsic motivation can be impacted by aspects of our context other than money and praise. Think about how your desire to perform can change because of your physical condition. Are you more motivated when you feel good or when you are sick or tired? Are you more motivated when you understand why you are doing something and how you are supposed to do it? Are there some locations and times of day where/when you seem to be more motivated and productive than others? I seem to have a higher level of motivation and success writing blogs and chapters for our upcoming SafetyCompass book in the morning, in a cubicle in the local library than I do in the afternoon, at my desk in my office. Is your motivation to engage in certain actions impacted by what those you work with find important and talk about? Are you more motivated to do things that your boss says are priorities? Do you find yourself more successful and more motivated when you have your workplace organized in a way that makes you feel more comfortable? Are you more motivated to perform a procedure that you understand and agree with than one that is confusing or just wrong? Most of you would probably consider yourselves to be pretty highly intrinsically motivated but if you answered “yes” to any of these questions then you, like me, are also impacted by extrinsic factors in your contexts. So why is this important? If you are a boss or a parent who has responsibility for the performance of others, you can also have impact on the contexts that those individuals work/live in. The greater your understanding of those contexts and the more you “engineer” them for success, the more successful you, and they will be.
Sustaining Good Performance
We have spent a lot of time talking about the side of accountability that involves correcting failure. But if you will recall our discussion in January, accountability actually involves an examination of the facts/reasons underlying a specific event/result (accounting) followed by the application of appropriate consequences for those actions and results in an attempt to more predictably have success going forward. In other words, accountability involves first the identification of both failure and success, followed by an examination of the underlying reasons for the failure/success and then the determination of the appropriate consequences to help sustain the success or eliminate the failure in the future. This month we would like to discuss the appropriate application of consequences following success so that we will have a greater chance of sustaining good performance going forward. But why is this important anyway? When we ask supervisors/managers what they really want from their employees we get a very consistent response…..”We want employees who give us good results and who take initiative!” My response to this is that the two are highly interrelated. Let me explain what I mean by this. People who take initiative are people with high levels of Self-Esteem or Self-Confidence which is developed from meaningful (to the person) accomplishment followed by recognition by someone significant to the individual. In most cases the supervisor/manager has a significant level of control over both of those variables, i.e. they control the tasks that the employee is allowed to engage in, they control recognition and they are significant to their employees (in most cases). Obviously, for success to occur while engaging in meaningful tasks, there needs to be support through training, necessary resources, etc. and when success occurs there needs to be the appropriate application of recognition, or what psychologists call “reinforcement”. Reinforcement by definition is a consequence that when following a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will reoccur in the future. If that reinforcement is recognition by a significant person then it will also serve the function of increasing self-confidence and the likelihood of initiative. It is important that the recognition follows some important guidelines however. Let’s look at four important aspects of reinforcement; What, When, Where and How.
WHAT. The rule here is to reinforce the behavior/performance that you want to continue and not the person. This focus on behavior ties the reinforcement to that behavior in the future and is what increases it’s chances of reoccurrence. This will also act to increase self-esteem even though you do not focus on the individual. For example, saying….”Thank you. You got that report in on time and with no errors” is much more effective than, “Thank you. You are becoming a very reliable employee.” While the latter may make the person feel better, it does nothing to point out exactly what you want going forward.
WHEN. Reinforcement is not always appropriate as we will discuss below, but when it is it has been demonstrated that reinforcement that immediately follows an action is in most cases the most powerful and effective. While some delay may be necessary in some cases, waiting until the annual performance appraisal is certainly not the best option.
WHERE. While failure should always be redirected in private, success should be reinforced in public in most cases. Public recognition does two things, it makes the person look good in front of peers and at the same time demonstrates your expectations to others on your team. It must always however be appropriately done as we will discuss below.
HOW
- Keep it brief and simple. It should, in most cases take only a few words and therefore a few seconds to reinforce performance. If you feel it is necessary to explain in more detail the exact performance/result then do so, but don’t carry on forever. You will lose the person’s attention and perhaps even embarrass the person in front of peers.
- Be genuine. Let the person know that you truly appreciate their success and expect it to continue into the future. Sarcasm has no place in the application of reinforcement.
- Make it appropriate to the level of performance. Most of the time a simple “thank you” with a connection to the successful performance is appropriate, but when the result is significant and worthy of additional recognition, just make sure that it fits. For example, if the person has contributed beyond expectations and their impact has had a noticeable impact on revenue, then a bonus might be in order. Failure to evaluate the appropriateness of recognition could lead to reduced performance in the future.
- Be consistent among employees. While meaningfulness varies among employees the need for recognition doesn’t. Make sure that you find what is meaningful for each employee and apply recognition where appropriate in a consistent manner.
- Avoid scheduled or predictable recognition. Psychological research shows that variable (unpredictable) reinforcement is more effective for behaviors that have been learned. While teaching a skill the application of continuous reinforcement is best, but after the skills is learned change to a less frequent, less predictable schedule and you will find that employees will be successful for a longer period of time.
What’s the point?
Sustained successful performance accompanied by initiative requires self confidence. Meaningful accomplishment followed by recognition by a significant person helps to create that self confidence and thus sustained success. If you are a supervisor (or a parent) you have more control over this process than you might imagine.
Dealing with Defensiveness in Relationships
If you are a normal human, then you are regularly stuck dealing with defensiveness in relationships, both in yourself and in others. Defensiveness is the normal human reaction to threats to a person’s reputation and/or dignity. We are hardwired to protect ourselves both physically and emotionally and we do that by either fleeing or fighting. We call these “retreating” or “pushing” and both are signs of defensiveness. When we feel threatened, some of us, at times, get quiet and don’t say anything. Others argue back or provide justification for their actions. Depending on the situation and the person with whom we are interacting, all of us can, for the most part, resort to either defense mechanism.
The bottom line is that defensiveness, while normal, is also harmful and disruptive because it doesn’t help us think or communicate effectively. As a matter of fact, it causes us to “dumb down” and become cognitively less effective in the moment.
We call this process “the Defensive Cycle” and it looks like this:
Us
- It starts when we see or hear someone do or say something.
- We then make a bad “guess” about why they did it. That bad guess is what is called the “Fundamental Attribution Error” because we mistakenly attribute the other person's action to some internal state of theirs that puts them into a bad light (e.g. poor motivation, selfishness, personal satisfaction in insulting or devaluing you in some way).
- That interpretation then creates a desire in us to defend.
- We then do so by either retreating (sulking, withdrawing, looking down, etc) or by pushing back (using harsh words, giving a harsh glare, etc).
Them
- The other person observes our action.
- They interpret our response as offensive.
- They likewise defend by either retreating or pushing.
Us
- We in turn respond and the cycle goes on until someone “wins” (actually until both lose because there is always a winner and a loser and when we lose we like to get even with the winner which leads to another defensive cycle).
Notice that the defensive cycle begins when one person does or says something and the other person “guesses” bad intent. It is that “guess” that is the problem because we can't determine the true intent unless we communicate. Unfortunately, the bad guess leads to anger or frustration which impedes the very communication we need.
Dealing with Us
We suggest that the key to defusing your defensiveness is to “Learn Your Trigger”. When you become angry or frustrated, let that emotion trigger curiosity rather than blame.
When you become angry or frustrated, think to yourself, “I must be guessing something bad. Why would this person have done or said that?”
Simply stopping and asking yourself this question interrupts the defensive cycle, re-engages your brain and keeps your cognitive skills at a higher level so that you can hold a more effective, less defensive conversation. So that is how you can help control your defensiveness, but what about the other person’s defensiveness?
Dealing with Them
Remember that defensiveness starts with a bad guess, so when the other person becomes defensive it is because they have attributed bad intent to what you have done or said. Your job is to help them understand your true intent which you can do by simply telling them what that intent is.
Use what we call a “Do/Don’t Statement” to accomplish this. Tell them what you do mean and, if necessary, tell them what you don’t mean.
For example
You and your spouse are planning to attend some event and it is time to leave. You are not sure that she is aware of the time since she doesn’t wear a watch, so you say to her…”Do you know what time it is“ and she responds with “I can tell time!”
To this you could respond with a Do/Don’t statement to clarify what you really mean…”I certainly don’t mean to insult you or make you feel rushed, I just wanted to know if you were aware that it is time to leave.”
Dealing effectively with both your defensiveness and the defensiveness of others will lead to happier, healthier relationships and a lot less “getting even”.
4 Feedback Pitfalls Every Manager Should Avoid
Giving feedback to employees is critical for improvement to occur, but effective feedback involves avoiding these four pitfalls.
1. Avoiding feedback all together or waiting too long to give it
Research has demonstrated that feedback that follows immediately after the action will have the biggest impact on the behavior. Immediate negative feedback will weaken unwanted behavior and immediate positive feedback will strengthen behavior. But don't let not being able to give immediate feedback keep you from giving it at all. Later is still better than not-at-all!
2. Over-or under-boarding
Have you ever seen a manager call someone up in front of a group for some success and go on-and-on about the success, totally embarrassing the recipient of the praise? That is what we call "over-boarding" and it should be avoided because the praise actually becomes punishing and has an effect opposite of that which is desired. On the other hand, failing to provide enough feedback for significant success can lead to reduced motivation in the future. For example, you just saved the company $2 million and the boss, in private says, "Hey, thanks." Make it appropriate to the level of success.
3. Blaming the employee for a failure
Blame rarely fixes anything; it usually only de-motivates. Focus on finding the real reason for a failure and fix that. Blame may be quick and satisfying, but it is not effective.
4. Punishing in public
No one likes being "made an example of" or humiliated in front of their peers. Such humiliation leads to "getting even" and employees can be very creative when getting even ... like work slow-downs, fake injuries, bad-mouthing the boss behind his back, or talking bad about the company to potential customers. Negative feedback should always be given in private. There are instances when a witness will be present, but the witness should not be a coworker of the person receiving feedback.
3 Keys to Building and Maintaining Confidence and Confidentiality
“Confidence” is the feeling or belief that you can rely on someone to do what they say they will do, including keeping personal information confidential. In supervisor and coaching relationships there must be mutual confidence between the parties for mutual trust to be developed. Here are three keys to developing confidence in a relationship.
1. Set confidentiality ground rules.
This may seem unnecessary, but just setting a ground rule that all information about each other is to be held in confidence unless there is agreement to the contrary can help create an environment of trust. This will create an atmosphere where the parties are willing to be vulnerable with each other, making it easier to be helpful to the other person.
2. Be honest about expectations and abilities.
In supervisor or coaching relationships it is critical that each party understand the capabilities and expectations of the other. This requires that honest evaluation of what is expected from the other person and what the other person feels competent to deliver is made clear. Supervisors must have confidence that the employee understands and is able to deliver. The employee must have confidence that the supervisor is providing complete information about expectations and the resources necessary for success. Failure in either of these areas can lead to lack of confidence.
3. Keep promises.
This is simple; do what you say you will do. People need to be able to rely on others if trust is going to be maintained. When you can’t do what you say you will do, then make sure that you make the other person aware at the earliest possible time so that surprises are eliminated. The ability to rely on the other person to do what they say they will do and to protect that which is told in confidence is critical to the development of mutual trust in a relationship.
All They Care About Is Money!
So is money a requirement for motivating employees? For years we have been asking students in our Performance Management classes to tell us why people leave their jobs, and for years they have told us that most people leave for more money.
Actually, research has consistently shown that while salary increase is important, it is usually far down the list of reasons why employees decide to leave for another job. Significantly more people leave because they want more or new challenges, they are not happy with how they are treated by their current supervisor or they believe their contributions are not valued. Money is obviously important because it allows us to meet our basic needs and achieve some of our life goals, but it may not be as important as other factors that are in the direct control of supervisors.
Using Extrinsic Motivators Effectively
The best supervisors understand that money is just one of the extrinsic motivators that they have at their disposal and that the way they use these motivators is more important than the motivators themselves. Because of this, they follow what we call “The Contingency Rule” in the application of all extrinsic motivators. So what is this rule?
The Contingency Rule: Tie the extrinsic motivator to performance. Extrinsic motivators that supervisors have at their disposal include such things as money, praise, job assignments, training opportunities, etc. Making the receipt of any of these contingent on successful performance is critical to their motivational impact. For example, it has been well documented that cost of living increases act as a satisfier and not as a motivator because they are not tied to performance. It could be argued that not receiving an expected cost of living increase could act as a motivator to look for another job, but in this case it would be a de-motivator for improved performance in the current job.
"Best Bosses" are clear about what they expect from employees, and they are also clear about the relationship between accomplishment of those expectations and extrinsic motivators. When people know that successful performance leads to increase in pay, praise, desired job assignments, etc, they are much more likely to put out the effort required to receive those things. Failure to understand these contingencies will only lead to employee confusion, dissatisfaction and lowered motivation. It might also lead the person to look for another job.
Conflicting goals make room for performance failures
Most people do not set out to fail. On the contrary, most of us regularly attempt to succeed; but at times we do fail none-the-less. The role of a supervisor is to get results through the efforts of other people, so an important question for supervisors is, “Why does a specific performance failure occur?” There are a lot of reasons - knowledge, skill, motivation, etc. - and key among them is something called “goal conflict”.
We live in a complex work-world with multiple competing demands. We must be safe, fast, cheap and valuable all at the same time. It is humanly impossible to make all of these goals #1 at the same time, so we make cost-benefit tradeoffs and “choose” which objective is the most important at the time given the pressures of the environment/culture that we are in. I may choose to “hurry” because of time pressure, but in so doing sacrifice safety and quality.
As a supervisor I need to understand the drivers behind employees’ performance failure before I can adequately help them become successful. What “tradeoffs” did the employee make that produced the failure? Did his desire to “please” the supervisor outweigh his calculation of his own skill-level? Did her perceived pressure to produce outweigh the thought to evaluate hazards associated with the task and take precautionary action?
Unless we as supervisors take the time to evaluate the conflicting goals that drive employees’ performance, we will be less effective in reducing the opportunity for failure.
Consequence Predictability and Results
Have you ever worked for someone whose reactions were unpredictable? One day they were giving positive feedback for success and the next day they were dressing you down for the same results? How did/would that make you feel? What impact would that have on your desire to achieve good results? For most of us the lack of predictability would create a reduction in motivation to succeed and show initiative. Research has shown that lack of predictability of consequences increases stress and that increased stress, beyond a certain point, reduces the ability of individuals to perform. When we know what to expect, we are less stressed and more likely to put out the effort required for success. Although we might not appreciate a “knit-picking” boss, we can live with it (for a while), if we know that it is his/her style and it is predictable. We all prefer working for someone who provides consistent positive feedback for success and consistent input (redirection) on how to be more successful when we fail.
It is always better to hold people accountable for their results in a predictable and consistent manner. As always, we recommend fair evaluation of results followed by consistent/predictable positive feedback for success and consistent/predictable redirection of actions that have led to failure.
By the way, parents, this goes for your children, too. They need to know that they can expect appropriate, consistent and predictable consequences when they succeed and when they fail.
4 Keys to Effective Listening that Maintain Mutual Respect
“Respect” does not necessarily mean to admire or even to like the other person, but it does mean to see the other person as worthy of special consideration. Mutual respect therefore means to be considerate of each other as a means of building trust. The primary way that we show respect is through the way that we listen to the other person and the way the other person listens to us. There are four keys to effective listening that impact the perception of respect.
1. Look like you are listening. It has been said that up to 80% of what you communicate about your interest in what the other person is saying is carried by the way you look. This includes appropriate eye contact, facial expression, body posture, arm position, etc. If you don’t look like you are interested and that you are really listening, then the other person is very likely to feel that you aren’t and that is communicated as lack of respect. You may be listening but failure to look like like you are listening is almost always viewed as lack of respect.
2. Ask clarifying questions. One of the quickest ways to demonstrate disrespect is to interrupt the other person with comments or judgement about what they are saying, but interrupting to ask a clarifying question communicates that you are listening and that you care about really understanding what the other person is saying.
3. Paraphrase to demonstrate your desire to understand. Paraphrasing is not repeating back exactly what the person said but rather your understanding of the meaning behind what they said. This, like clarifying questions, indicates that you are interested in truly understanding both the content and intent behind their message and in doing so, it demonstrates respect.
4. Apologize when you are disrespectful or perceived to be disrespectful. Sometimes we say things that are either clearly disrespectful or could be viewed to be disrespectful by the way we said it. In such cases it is appropriate to apologize. We suggest that you use a “do/don’t statement” such as “I am sorry I came across that way. I certainly don’t intend to be disrespectful, and I really do want to make sure that I understand what you are saying.”
Why Rule Breaking Makes Sense
Complexity & Rationality Why do employees decide to break the rules? Do it their way? Resist change? It doesn’t make any sense!
It can be frustrating, and often perplexing, when employees fail to adhere to company policies and procedures, especially when those policies and procedures are in their best interest. There is a useful way to think about this issue: What employees do makes sense...to them; but the complexity of work environments makes it hard to understand why it makes sense to them.
We live and work in complex environments. It helps to think of our environments as systems with overlapping and interacting components - including people, things, rules, values, etc. - which are, in turn, complex sub-systems. One of the principles of complex systems is that the “people” component tends to respond only to the limited information that they are presented with locally. We make decisions based on our knowledge of what makes sense at the local level, which is called “local rationality”.
The policies and procedures contained in the corporate manual are only influential if they are brought to bear on the daily lives of people in the workplace. If those policies and procedures only exist in the manual and are not made a part of the local workplace, then they don’t exist in reality and will not have an impact on performance. They will lack influence.
Companies have policies and procedures for a reason - to create good, reliable results; so it is the responsibility of supervisors to bring those policies and procedures to life in the workplace. By intentionally incorporating formal policies and procedures into the “local” work environments of employees - through conversation, feedback, modeling, etc. - supervisors make it “rational” to follow the rules.
6 Steps to Effective Accountability
“Hold them accountable for their performance!” This is an often repeated and seldom understood mantra in today’s workplace. Accountability is a critical aspect of the very best organizations, but there is a significant distinction in the way the best approach it. First and foremost, the very best do not equate accountability with punishment. But if accountability is not just punishment, then what is it?
Accountability can be viewed as a 6-step process which, if applied correctly, will create an environment where people will willingly receive feedback and see the process as constructive.
1. Set clear expectations
Never expect results that you haven’t clearly communicated to your employees. If you expect them to perform in a certain manner, you must first communicate that expectation to them. Keep in mind that almost every employee wants to please the boss and experience both organizational and personal success. They can’t do this if they don’t know what is expected of them.
2. Compare results to expectations
When possible, quantitative metrics should be in place for every desired result. These metrics should assess the relationship between the actual result and the result that was expected. If the metric shows success then positive feedback is in order. If, however, the metric indicates a gap, or failure, then move to step #3 with intentional curiosity as to why the gap exists.
3. Account for the “why” behind failure to meet expectations (Don’t assume poor motivation)
I once had a young engineer who was just starting his career ask for the best tip I could give him as a future manager. I told him that he must be curious and a great diagnostician. Human failure is seldom the cause of anything, rather it is almost always the result of something. If you have found a gap between expectations and performance, you should work with the employee to find out what caused it. The vast majority of the time we find out it is something within the work system that caused the gap to occur and not that “they just didn’t care or work hard enough”. Remember that humans work in incredibly complex and dynamic systems and often the consequence of that complexity is human failure. Examine the context (Self; Others; Surroundings; Systems) that the person was in and which aspects of that context impacted performance. Don’t start by assuming that personal motivation is the cause. If you do, you will most likely create defensiveness and fail to find the “real” cause behind the failure. Objectively evaluate all possibilities before finalizing your conclusion. Remember, accountability literally means to “take an account” of what caused the failure.
4. Find a fix so that the person can be successful in the future
Once you have diagnosed the cause of the failure, put a fix into place to eliminate the cause. This could be training or mentoring if knowledge or skill is missing, new equipment if failure is the result of not having the correct resources for success, contractual changes with your clients if there is incentive to rush or take short cuts, or a multitude of other fixes. Just remember that the fix should affect the cause of the actual gap, not just punish the person who failed. If progressive discipline (punishment) is in order, move to step #5.
5. Apply negative consequences appropriately
Yes, sometimes punishment (progressive discipline) is in order, but it should only be used when trying to impact motivation or to document repeated failure. Helping the person understand the consequences of continued failure or the impact that failure is having on how he is perceived by you and/or his team members can have a significant impact of motivation. Keep in mind that the primary objective of any progressive discipline program is performance improvement. So whether you are conducting an informal counseling session or discussing a written reprimand, care should be taken to communicate clearly and respectfully, with a focus on determining the real cause of failure.
6. Model by holding yourself accountable for your results
Employees are impacted more by what they see their supervisors do than by what their supervisors say should be done. If you want your employees to respond positively to being held accountable then you must be open to feedback from your employees and publicly admit and diagnose your own performance gaps. This shows that accountability is not something that should be feared and it also provides the opportunity to make bosses, employees, and the organization more successful.
While these steps are important, the way you communicate is also critical. Make sure you do so with respect and with the person’s best interest in mind. If you can minimize or eliminate defensiveness, you will be well on the road to helping others improve and get the results that you both want.
3 Considerations When Implementing New Policies & Procedures
Most organizations have policies and procedures that they expect employees to follow. One difference between the best organizations and the rest is how those policies and procedures integrate with various components of the organization. In this blog we will detail three key organizational components that the best take into consideration when evaluating and implementing new policies and procedures. Let’s begin with an example of the impact of a new policy and its associated procedure in a normal organization.
Company XYZ was having problems tracking expenses incurred by their employees when they were traveling on company business. To deal with these issues, they decided to institute a policy that all employees must use a new web-based program to record all expenses, scan receipts, and track payment. The procedure was straight forward and only required an employee to log into the system using their employee number, input requested information including the vendor name, total amount spent, and scans of receipts. When the information was completed the employee simply hit submit and the program took over from there. The CFO was very excited about this new policy because it was going to make his life and his office staff’s job much easier. Six month’s later they went back to their paper tracking system because they had continued complaints from employees and they terminated one employee who refused to use the system. The CFO determined that it was a failure because employee’s were simply too irresponsible to use a new and simple procedure.
So how do the best avoid these types of problems? Do they simply hire more responsible and competent employees or is there something else? With the example above in mind, let’s examine how the best organizations look at three key factors to help develop and implement new initiatives, including policies and procedures.
1. The Individual Employee (Self):
People are very complex and make decisions about things on the basis of a variety of factors which include knowledge and past experience. People are also typically averse to change because it requires effort and many times is counter to the habits that they have developed over time. The best organizations want to affect both the knowledge and habits of employees to ensure that they actually comply with new P&P. In the case of the expense tracker, the best organizations might train employees on the proper use of the software and hardware (computer and scanner) and on the value associated with the new procedure, so that they had the necessary knowledge and skills and were therefore competent and motivated to use the new procedure. They could also address old habits with email reminders, signage in the workplace, or other means to prompt a break in the old habits associated with the paper tracking system.
2. Other People in the Organization and How They Affect the Individual Employee (Others):
The performance of individual employees is influenced by the people around them in significant and specific ways. Two of the common factors exerting this influence are the “help” and “model” provided by others. When an employee is experiencing difficulty with the execution of a new procedure because of knowledge, skill or resources, getting assistance from a coworker can provide the needed support to create success. The best organizations create work environments where peer support and assistance is both encouraged and reinforced by management. Modeling simply means that other people demonstrate that they are accepting change by utilizing and supporting the new policy or procedure. When an employee sees others using the new procedure to input their expenses without complaint, they are more likely to want to comply with the policy. If they see other employees, especially the boss, not doing so then they are more likely to see the new policy as a mere suggestion and resist or avoid the new procedure all together.
3. The “Stuff” Around Us That Impacts Our Performance (Surroundings):
The best policies and procedures are merely good ideas without the surroundings to support their use. Our employees work in environments that not only include other people, but also physical surroundings such as climate, equipment and the layout of that equipment. These physical surroundings impact the ease with which people can implement new policies and procedures. Let’s return to our expense report example. The operations of the XYZ company are often conducted at remote sites that don’t have the tools of a modern office. Employees have laptops but wifi and scanners are only located at central field offices. Employees rarely spend any significant time in these offices, rather they perform their work out in the field. The equipment they need to use the new procedure is a resource that they would have to travel great distances, after hours to use. For these employees, in these surroundings it was just easier to turn in paper receipts and reports hoping somebody else would log it for them.
Managers in the best organizations understand that the knowledge and habits of individual employees, the help and model provided by others, and the surroundings in which employees find themselves are significant factors in determining the successful utilization of organizational policies and procedures. They understand that without deliberately addressing each of these contextual factors they are likely to fail in the implementation of new initiatives.
The Secret to Conflict Resolution -- Stop Compromising
We hear the word “compromise” anytime we turn on the TV or read a newspaper article about how the U.S. Congress should fix our fiscal woes. Talking heads and Joe Public alike beg for more compromise to fix the situation. Is it possible that compromise is what is putting us in such a predicament? Compromise is based on giving up something you want, thus it is based on “losing”. As that term suggests, I give a little, you give a little, and we meet somewhere in the middle at an agreement. While compromise sounds like the best way to get unstuck, it actually leaves both parties feeling unsatisfied, almost as if they gave up too much.
To truly resolve conflict we suggest another “C” word -- “Collaboration”. To collaborate, two or more parties must brainstorm ideas to fix a problem. The goal, in the end, is to walk away with a solution that is more likely to truly “fix” the situation over which the parties were at odds to begin with. The process is really pretty easy. First, the two parties must come to an agreement on a goal that they both want to achieve. Once that goal is agreed on, they brainstorm ways to get them to their shared goal. No giving up one’s beliefs or buying into the other guy’s beliefs, simply agreed upon strategies that can get both parties what they have agreed that they both want. The task then is to choose one solution that both parties have already agreed will achieve the common goal.
Let’s look at an actual conflict that shows how this works. There was a state in the Southern U.S. that was having violent clashes between Pro-Choice and Pro-Life groups. The state’s governor knew he must do something before more violence led to somebody’s death. He told his assistant that he wanted the leadership of both groups to meet with him so they could come to some sort of agreement to stop the violence. His assistant, thinking the governor had lost his mind, questioned if getting these two groups together in the same room was wise, but the governor insisted.
When the meeting did occur, both sides were at each other’s throats from the moment they arrived in the meeting room. The governor eventually created calm so that he could address the restless crowd. What he told them was surprising even to is staff. He said, “As you all know, we have a significant teen pregnancy problem in our state. We rank 49th out of the 50 states in teen pregnancies and 50th in the number of teenaged abortions. What I need from you is to help me solve this problem. I need your ideas for cutting back the rate of teen pregnancy so that we can cut the number of abortions in the state.” Both sides instantly changed their demeanor. After all, the vast majority of abortions are performed on teenaged mothers. If they could solve that problem, their debate would become moot.
For the next few weeks both sides met and came up with a strategy to lower the pregnancy rate of girls in their state. They worked together, civilly to reach a common goal, and in the end, they lowered the teen aged pregnancy rate over 50% in their state.
How about you, how does this work in your world? Can you find a common goal to work towards rather than trying to determine what you are willing to give up, and therefore feeling unsatisfied? Stop compromising when you are at odds with your co-worker, spouse, or neighbor and find a way to create an action plan that gets you both to a mutual goal. If only they understood this in Washington.
Don't Throw Them Under the Bus
This month’s “Best Boss” characteristics are being a problem solver and a team builder. Best Bosses often exemplify these characteristics in tandem, at a moment when lesser bosses solve problems at the expense of the team. That moment is when poor performance has resulted in a problem and it just seems easier to throw the “guilty” under the bus. Instead, effectively redirecting poor performance can single-handedly change the fortunes of an employee, team, or even the organization as a whole. The best bosses use these redirection moments to not only take performance from bad to good, but build team morale. Let’s use a specific example to make sense of the skills that shape these characteristics. Thomas is an engineer working with a team of other engineers on a project with the company’s most important client. Thomas is tasked with providing specs for the design of a key portion of the project to the team, upper management, and the client. During the presentation, the client becomes very upset when a fundamental error is discovered in the supply chain logistics. The client leaves the meeting and tells the team lead, Sarah, that she has one week to fix the problem before they begin looking for a new engineering firm. Sarah is taken back by the threat of losing the client and now has some very tough decisions to make.
The first thing she does is assemble the team and give them the latest details on the timeline and the mistakes made. Sarah’s next step clearly identifies her as a “Best Boss.” She says, “Look, at some point, we’ve all made a mistake that could impact the success of our team. I don’t blame any individual for the supply chain issue, but I now ask that we all lean on one another to fix the problem, and in the end, we will flourish as a team.”
At this critical moment it would be very easy, and costly, for her to blame Thomas for the mistake. After all, he is in charge of the supply chain. To some bosses, he must be held accountable which in many cases means punishment. Fortunately, Sarah does not jump to place blame, but instead rallies the troops to come together and fix it as a team. From that moment on, the team will have increased morale and a sincere sense of being a part of a true team.
The next thing she does is facilitate a rigorous problem solving session where they:
- Identify the Problem
- Explore the Problem
- Set Objectives
- Create an Action Plan
- Measure and Correct
In the end, the team finds the cause of the error and fixes it to such an extent that the client thanks them for their attention to detail. They remain their top client to this very day. Thomas is now a team lead on a different team and claims that, without Sarah, he would never have reached such a level in the company. He still calls her weekly for tips on managing his new team.