Why do my staff not listen to what I’m telling them?

THE PROBLEM

In Part 1 we looked at the first two areas of communication problem listed below:

• Unrealistic expectations and assumptions;
• One way communication from all parties;
• Incomplete communications cycle;
• Incompatible language patterns;
• Emotional subtext.

In this article we will examine the other three and then we can look at some communications strategies that will ensure that you, as a manager will get the best results from your people.

Incomplete communications cycle

In the example in Part 1, Mike, the manager, did not follow a complete communication cycle. He told Rita/Beth what he wanted done but did ask for feedback. He did not establish whether Rita or Beth could see any problems with his plan and he did not confirm with Beth the details of how she was going to implement his changes. In the case of Rita, he did not complete his communications cycle by talking to the people in the shipping department and getting their input.

In my experience, a very high percentage of business problems are caused by incomplete communication cycles.

Incompatible language patterns

An obvious incompatible language pattern can occur when one of more people in a communication are speaking in a language that is not their first language. Their understanding of each other may be filtered through their incomplete understanding of each others’ words. The same occurs when the people communicating are of widely different education levels or when one or more of them uses a lot of slang words or jargon.

A deeper level of incompatibility can occur with what are referred to as language modalities. If you listen closely to how people talk you will notice that people will say the same thing in different ways for example:

“I don’t see how it can work.”
“That doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Something feels wrong about that.”

Some people use a lot of visual words: see what I mean, look at it this way, show me, etc. Others use auditory words: sounds good, I hear you, that’s clear as a bell, etc. Others use kinesthetic (feeling) words, it doesn’t feel right, how does that grab you, I can’t grasp what he is saying.

The modality that we favor, depends on how we primarily experience the world, visually, aurally or through our feelings. The fact of the matter is that most of us use all three modalities but tend to favor one, to a greater or lesser extent, over the others.

People who strongly favor different modalities often have a great deal of difficulty communicating.

(If this is an area that interests you I would recommend the book Frogs Into Princes by John Grinder and Richard Bandler.)

Emotional subtext

Communications are often impeded by emotional subtext. There are as many issues as are imaginable:

• One party is distracted thinking about the argument they had with their spouse/partner last night;
• One party is grieving a loss and can not concentrate;
• The parties dislike each other;
• The parties are in opposition politically;
• The parties are physically attracted to each other…

The list is pretty close to being infinite.

THE SOLUTION

To ensure a complete communications cycle:

• Make sure that all parties involved in any decision about change are part of the communication process;
• Make sure that everybody is encouraged to put forward their point of view;
• Create an atmosphere in which people are respectful of other people’s ideas. This starts with you. If you are respectful of everyone’s ideas – even if you disagree with them – then others will follow suit;
• When coming to decisions make sure that everyone who is part of that decision gets to express the decision in their own words;
• Watch carefully for body language that indicates suppressed disagreement and ask the person involved to express their opinion;
• Attempt to reach consensus rather than either forcing your own decision on people or putting the decision to a vote. Either tactic creates winners and losers. Watch out for a future blog post on Reaching Consensus.

To deal with incompatible language patterns:

• When communicating with someone whose language skills are poor, make sure that you:
  • use short, clear, common words and phrases;
  • speak clearly, a little more slowly and avoid too much slang;
  • avoid talking loudly – it does not increase clarity;
  • get the other person to describe any agreement or decision in their own words;
• Listen to how people say things, do they use visual, auditory or feeling words? Modify your own speech patterns to match theirs. This is not easy to do but if you can achieve it, it will pay dividends.

To reduce the impact of emotional subtext:

• Be empathetic. We are emotion-driven creatures who make most of our decisions based on how we feel. For example, most interviewers make the hiring decision within the first thirty seconds of meeting a candidate – this is not based on any logic but just on how the interviewer feels (often with disastrous consequences);
• Be considerate of people’s emotions and be prepared to delay communication until they are feeling better;
• When communicating with political rivals, rely on logic and make sure that they come to an agreement. There is an interesting story about Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM. He is said to have locked two political rivals in a conference room and refused to let them out until they reached an agreement on some matter. They lasted through lunch and well into the afternoon but when they realized that he would leave them there all night, if he had to, they quickly came to an agreement;
• Do everything you can to avoid political rivalries, even if it means terminating one of the parties;
• Do not tolerate rudeness, personal attacks or snide remarks;
• Always be sensitive to the emotional subtext that is part of every communication.

Remember, the meaning of your communication is the response you get. If you are not getting the results you expected, it is up to you to change your communication style.

Having a team that works well together and communicates effectively all starts with hiring the right people. That is easier said than done but if you want to manage that sort of team you can start by clicking here.

Why do my staff not listen to what I’m telling them?

THE PROBLEM

Entrepreneurs and managers frequently have difficulty communicating with their employees. This often manifests itself in questions like “Why do my staff not listen to what I’m telling them?” “Why was this done wrongly… again?” “Why can’t my people take the initiative and just get the job done?” “Why can’t my people think more like businesspeople?”

At the heart of problems like these is a breakdown in communication and it can be from a variety of causes:

• Unrealistic expectations and assumptions;
• One way communication from all parties;
• Incomplete communications cycle;
• Incompatible language patterns;
• Emotional subtext.

In this blog entry we will examine the first two causes and then we can look at some communications strategies that will ensure that you, as a manager will get the best results from your people.

Unrealistic expectations and assumptions

These can come from both sides of a communication and can be unrealistic in either direction. Let me give you some examples.

Manager with a too high expectation

Joe is a manager in a manufacturing plant and he has worked there for  fifteen years. He wants his newly hired foreman, Alvin, to make some changes to the set up of the most complex machine in the plant. Joe sits down with Alvin and quickly goes through what he needs done, with the expectation that Alvin will understand everything and that if he doesn’t, he will question Joe about the task.

Joe’s expectation is unrealistic because (i) Alvin is new there and may be unfamiliar with this type of machine and (ii) if Alvin has questions, he may be inhibited from asking them because he is new and does not want to create the impression that does not understand, which is a fairly normal human reaction. Or Alvin may be familiar with a similar machine and he just assumes that the plant’s machine is the same.

Either way, the end result is likely to be that the set up is not done the way Joe intended.

Manager with too low expectation

Janice is a project manager in a software company, she came up through the ranks, starting as a programmer and then quickly being promoted to designer and then software architect. The project she is managing is critical to her company. She gives the people on the project very detailed step by step instructions on how she wants each task done.

This may seem like a good communication approach: everyone knows exactly want is required of them, right? However, Janice is forgetting the fragility of the human ego; she is, in fact, communicating to her team members that message that she does not trust them to think for themselves. This will create friction and resistance from her team members and may result in some negative outcomes. For example, Dave knows that the instructions she has given him are wrong because doing it her way will cause the software to operate slowly. But Dave feels undervalued by her and so he does it her way just so that he can prove her wrong later. Perhaps this is an immature reaction by Dave but it is not unusual.

Employee with too high expectations

Rita has worked in the warehouse of an auto parts distribution company for five years. Her new boss, Mike, is out to make his mark by reducing lead times. He wants some reorganization of the way in which orders are picked from the shelves. He sits down with Rita and gives her details of what he wants done. Rita understands his instructions but she has a strong feeling that what he wants done will cause some problems for the shipping department. She knows that Mike is a very smart guy and she expects that he knows what he is doing and that he has cleared the changes with the shipping department. Rita is the type of person who respects her boss’s authority and so she just doesn’t question Mike’s instructions.

Rita’s intuition was right and the changes, rather than reducing lead times, increase them. In the post mortem meeting Rita points out the flaw in Mike’s approach and he wonders why she didn’t say something before.

Employee with too low expectations

Let’s look at the previous example from another point of view. Instead of dealing with Rita, Mike is dealing with Beth. Beth is an experienced employee who has seen one manager after another make changes most of which have been ineffective. She has a low expectation of management. She has the same intuition as Rita so when Beth executes Mike’s instructions, she makes a couple of very sensible changes of her own that will eliminate the potential problem in the shipping department. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know (and Mike omitted to tell her) that he has also asked the shipping department to make changes to match the changes in the picking operation.

Beth’s changes to Mike’s instructions now cause a major problem when the goods arrive in shipping.

One way communication from all parties

This is the classic communication problem: “I talk and you listen.” Just sit in any meeting and you hear this communication approach endlessly. It can come from the manager and it can come from the employee. Either way it is a big problem. People are not really listening to what the other person says but are eagerly putting in their ten cents worth.

One way in which you can spot this happening is when Fred is talking about something and Bill eagerly interrupts with, “In my old company we—” but Fred continues talking and makes some additional important points. When he has finished, Bill says exactly the same words as before, “In my old company we—” This is a pretty strong indication that Bill has not been actively listening to what Fred was saying and has not heard Fred’s additional points; Bill was just biding his time to make the same point that he was going to make before Fred added the new information.

Communication can only happen when both parties are listening, understanding and reacting to each others’ words.

THE SOLUTION

The meaning of your communication is the response you get – John Grinder and Richard Bandler.

You, as the entrepreneur and/or manager have to take responsibility for communication in your organization. If you communicate something to your staff and it doesn’t get the desired result, you failed in the communication. You carry the can.

It is very easy to say, “But I explained it well, they just didn’t follow my instructions.” If that is the case, you still bear the responsibility; your boss, shareholders or investors will hold you responsible.

Here are some strategies for ensuring that the type of problems described above do not happen to you.

Respect

Communication must come from a place of mutual respect. You always need to be earning your employee’s respect. One way to do this is for you to be respectful of them; respectful of their knowledge and experience or of their hard work. Be respectful when assigning tasks: if they are experienced, get their input; if they are inexperienced be considerate.

Give context

Do not just assign tasks to people. Let them know the bigger picture; let them know what you are trying to achieve and why. Ask their input and listen very carefully; often they will have suggestions that are better than your own ideas. Agree each task with them by making sure that you both explain the details of the task to each other, each in your own words. Always ask if they can see any problems with the task and encourage them to come and see you if they encounter problems as they go along.

Be sensitive to the individual

If, like Rita in the example above they are deferential to people in authority, encourage them to question your ideas. If they are like Beth, who does not have a great respect for authority, make sure that you are both in agreement with the task and make sure that she knows that you are prepared to change the task if she has good reasons why it won’t work.

Listen like a hawk

Listen very carefully to everything your employees say and listen with an open mind. Listen with your ears and your eyes. Watch for clues in their expression, body language or tone of voice that they do not understand or do not agree. If you spot something or if your intuition is bothering you, then clarify with the employee. “You look like you don’t agree, Jim.” “I get the feeling that you think it won’t work, Mary.” Probe until you get clarity.

In the next post we will discuss the other three areas of communication breakdown: incomplete communications cycle, incompatible language patterns and emotional subtext.

Being able to communicate with employees is a key element in the hiring process. To make sure you always hire people with whom you can communicate well, click here.

Most entrepreneurs, executives and managers find interviewing hard. Either they don’t like it or they are just not very good at it. There are a number of reasons, some of which apply to just about everyone faced with the job of interviewing a potential candidate:

• Lack of comfort. Some people are not comfortable with the whole process of interviewing. Either they feel inadequately trained or they find it hard to make the hiring decision that will have a huge impact of the company and the candidate.
• Conflicting goals. Should I be selling the person on the job? Should I be checking them out? Should I be doing both and, if so, how?
• No plan. Very few interviewers go into the meeting armed with a planned list of interview questions that will tell them very specifically if this candidate is right or wrong for this job.
• No training. The whole subject of how to hire great people is remarkably absent from business training curricula and most of the books on the subject deal with interviewing tricks and (supposedly) clever questions to ask candidates.

There are, of course, other reasons why people find interviewing so hard but I believe that the above four are the big ones. Let’s examine each of them.

Getting comfortable.

Nobody feels comfortable doing something that they have not been trained for and that will also require them to make an important decision. There are however some things that you can do to increase your comfort level:

List the things you want the candidate to be able to do (Performance Goals) and be specific. For example:

• I want this salesperson to sell $200,000 of XYZ product per quarter;
• I want this programmer to be able to write a Java program to update a database with sales transactions and finish the program within 2 weeks;
• I want this manager to organize the accounting so that we can have financial statements complete by the fifth working day of the month.

List as many Performance Goals as you can (at least 10) and make sure that they are specific, time related, quantified and achievable.

Focus on the candidate’s performance. You need to know how she or he has performed in previous jobs. Get specifics, for example:

• What was your sales quota? What amount did you actually sell? How was your performance compared to other sales people in the company?
• How many Java programs have you written that update databases with 50 or more tables? How long did the most complex one take? What difficulties did you encounter and how did you deal with them?

The best way to get comfortable with the interview process is to learn how to do it in the context of a complete hiring system, but more on that later.

Resolving the conflicting goals.

In many ways, interviewing (in fact the whole hiring process) is a bit like dating. On the one hand, you want to make a really good impression and on the other hand you want to check out the other person completely.

You need to plan the interview in such a way that the candidate is talking 65-70% of the time. The meeting should take 1 to 1¼ hours and be structured as follows:

1. Introduction to the company and the job. 10 minutes (maximum)
2. Your questions to the candidate. 40 minutes+
3. The candidate’s questions to you. 10 minutes+
4. The wrap up. 5 minutes

During Stage 1 you sell the candidate on the company and the job.

During Stage 2 you check out in detail whether the candidate is right for the job.

During Stages 3 and 4, if you think the candidate may be right for the position, you take every opportunity to sell the candidate on the job.

Having a plan.

Having a plan for an interview entails:

• Having a good environment for the interview: a clean and tidy office; having water, juice, coffee or tea available; being dressed appropriately;

• Having a written list of very specific questions about those elements of the candidate’s performance in previous jobs that relate to how you want him or her to perform in this job;

• Having a place on the list of questions to jot notes about the candidate’s answers;

• Having good clear answers to questions that you think the candidate may ask about the job, the company and the salary or compensation package.

Training.

Our system How to Hire Great Employees – First Time, Every Time has a wealth of information on:

• How to get comfortable with the interviewing process;
• How to analyze the job in order to find out how you want the successful candidate to perform;
• How to analyze the candidates’ résumés so that you will know the right questions to ask;
• How to structure the interview;
• How to develop a list of questions that relate each candidate’s performance;
• A questioning pattern that will let you get the truth about the candidates’ performance without appearing aggressive or overbearing.

Most importantly, it takes you through a step by step process to define the job you want done, find a source of well qualified candidates, prepare a package that will impress the candidates with the job and the company, select, interview, check out, test and hire the very best people. To find out how to turn yourself into a world class hiring manager, click here.

As I write this, we are in one of the toughest global recessions since the 1930’s. Investors of all stripes have seen sometimes as much as 50% of their portfolios wiped out. Many have put their money in safer investments (or in cash) but the wiser investors are carefully buying up good quality, undervalued stocks that will rebound when we start to pull out of the recession.

Entrepreneurs and corporate managers can learn a lot from these canny investors when it comes to hiring. Now might be a good time to hire good quality, undervalued employees who will pay big dividends when we start to pull out of the recession. If your company is looking to hire, there are some misconceptions that you should be aware of which can turn these opportunities into disaster.

But there is a way to take advantage of the recession, big time.

Let’s start with the Big Fallacy: “Because we’re in a recession, there are a lot more good people out there, looking for jobs, who we can hire.” This is a commonly held belief and it is completely incorrect.

If you value your business or organization, you want to hire good people, right? But how do we define good. For any job, out of all the people who could do it, 25% are good to excellent, 50% are average and 25% are from below average to incompetent. You, I hope, want to hire from the top end of the good employees, let’s say at least from the top 10%, or even better, from the top 3%.

But as a recession deepens and companies lay people off, unless they are bound by union contracts, the people they lay off first are in the bottom 25% and the people they lay off next are in the average range. Companies will fight like mad to keep the good people who are in the top 25%!

The end result is that the people looking for jobs in a recessionary market are usually (but not always) in the average to poor end of the performance scale. So instead of looking for 1 person in 10 you are having to find that 1 person in 25, 50, 100 or more.

However, there is one great way for you to turn the tables in your favor.

Many of the companies who employ the sort people that you want to hire are also caught in the recession. They may have had one or more rounds of layoffs and of course, they have laid off the poorer performers. So the people who are still working for them are probably (a) the higher performing employees and/or (b) overworked because of the layoffs and/or (c) worried about the future of their jobs and their company. Here is a pool of people who are probably good performers and who might be very motivated to switch employers. These are the people who you should be targeting to hire.

That said, how do you find these people? How do you approach them? How do you persuade them to consider working for you?

The usual answer to this question is to employ an employment agency or headhunter. This can be a good solution if you use a firm that will proactively go out and find you the candidates who are currently working. Unfortunately, these firms are the exception rather than the rule; most work from a database of résumés of people looking for work.

But, if you can find the right one, now might be a good time to use a headhunter. During a recession employment agencies and headhunters are all hurting financially and you may just get a break on the fees. Nevertheless, even at discounted rates, a headhunter can be expensive.

Our system How to Hire Great Employees – First Time, Every Time will show you how to source that top 10% of employees: how to find them, how to approach them and how to make them fall over themselves to work for you. In addition, if you decide to use a headhunter, it also has a information on how to find the right one and how to work with them so that you get the best results from them.

Most importantly, it takes you through a step by step process to select, interview, check out, test and hire the very best people from that top 10%. To find out how to turn yourself into a world class hiring manager, click here.