It’s the ultimate “bad news” message and the one we hope we will never have to give to someone. It is unlikely that you will go through your management career without ever having to dismiss someone and in today’s climate, the chances that you will are ever-increasing. So here are a few do’s and don’ts to help you approach this task with a little more confidence.

 Do’s

• Dismiss bullies – they are self-centred and will do all in their power to destroy your team members and you, if you let them
• Dismiss non-contributors. They “consume” your time, other people’s time and the organisation’s resources and give little in return.
• Have a robust process for selection in the event of multiple redundancies and make sure it focuses on the skills/ competencies needed for the future
• Expect emotional outbursts and get trained on how to deal with them
• Tell the person concerned in private. Obvious but you’d be surprised.
• Treat the person concerned with dignity and leave your personal feelings to one side. Very hard but empathy means staying emotionally detached.

 Don’ts

• Loose your “cool”. You are a manager – you are expected to behave professionally even if the other person doesn’t.
• Instantly dismiss. It sounds very macho but will usually cost your organisation a lot of money in the end. For gross misconduct, suspend and re-engage when you are in control.
• Do it on a Friday afternoon because you have been dreading it all week. It will ruin the weekend – for both of you.
• Use euphemisms like “downsizing”, “letting you go”, “organisational re-engineering”. They may make you feel better but they only confuse or make people angry when they translate the real meaning.
• Tell someone “I know exactly how you feel” unless you have been dismissed yourself.
• “Delegate” the task of telling the bad news to anyone else (including the HR department). For “delegation” read “abdication” – only reigning monarchs can get away with this and still survive!

If you are in doubt and need some professional support drop me a line at:

gerry@gem-associates.com or call me on (44) 1270 666541. This is one task you do need help with.

 Let’s be honest about it, making people redundant is never going to be anything but unpleasant for you and the people directly affected. There is no way it can ever be a “pleasant” experience. However it does not have to be nasty and there is a way that both you and the people concerned can come through the experience with some respect for each other. And the key elements are having a procedure which is thoroughly professional combined with good old-fashioned face-to-face communication.

 I want to start with the last issue first because there are some tasks which can only and should only be carried out by a face-to-face to face meeting and telling someone they are about to lose their job is one of them. “Bad news” should never be e-mailed or tweeted.

In fact what prompted me to write this article was receiving some bad news myself recently by e-mail. Briefly I was asked if I could deliver some training on Diversity and Equal Opportunities at very short notice. It meant some long hours of preparation over the weekend but I was happy to oblige. You can imagine my disappointment and yes anger to receive an e-mail two days later to tell me that the client was now seeking proposals from other sources and would contact me if they required my services. It wasn’t the message that irked me but the way it was delivered. No discussion, no exchange of views, no engagement.  A telephone call would have been nice.

 Now for some positive stuff, which demonstrates the benefits of face-to-face communication. I recently helped a client who had to make some staff redundant. They were natural entrepreneurs with an excellent product but had been caught by the economic down-turn. They had never been in this position before and were not looking forward to doing it but they were determined to do it correctly.   Here are some points they learned which you may find useful.

• Make sure you have a good business case and can back it up with some hard numbers.
• Call all staff together and tell them the situation.
• Ask them for co-operation and alternatives –they may surprise you!
• If redundancies are compulsory, have a rigorous selection process which identifies skills for the future and can be used to identify who will be redundant and why.
• Train line managers to use the process and how to deliver “bad news” face to face with empathy.
• Use your contacts to help them job-seek. Many people don’t know how.
• Look after the “survivors”. Many people feel survivor’s guilt even though they are glad they were not chosen.
• Where you have trade unions work with them but do not delegate the communication process. Managers manage, trade unions represent.

Giving “bad news” was never going to be pleasant. But during the exercise I heard several people tell the company managers that they were impressed at the professional, sincere and honest way the exercise was carried out. 

Need some help? Why not contact me on: (44) 1270 666541 or (44) 7801 272666 or e-mail me at: gerry@gem-associates.com

This week I want to give you some “tips” on a topic which causes HR people and line managers a lot of consternation and occasionally to fall out with each other – the annual appraisal or performance management review. Performance reviews and annual appraisals are often used to measure staff performance against the shared vision and goals of the organisation. This article is a little light-hearted but does contain some serious messages in some easy-to-follow steps.

1. Don’t put the cart before the horse

Many appraisal documents require a “score” to be given as a measure of the employee’s performance/ability in key areas in what is often referred to as the Skills Matrix. Usually the box for the score comes before the section which requires evidence to justify it. Try reversing the order of these boxes so that the score is the end column. That way you focus more on the performance than the score.

2. Don’t use scores to sit on the fence. 

It’s a good bet that if you have a range of scores from 1-5, many managers will opt for a “3” – known in the trade as “central tendency”. By doing so many managers avoid two key elements which help their people – praise for a really good effort and constructive criticism when something needs improving. Use a scoring system which has no mid-point.

3. Miracles are unlikely – don’t count on them.

People don’t change the habits of a life-time in a week. No matter how good you are at identifying behaviour that needs to change or performance that needs to improve, people need time to deliver so give them some. You are more likely to get results if you identify one-two key areas for concentrated effort than presenting a “list “of improvements that need to be rectified.

4. Be specific – generalities confuse.

Advice like “Your communication style needs to improve” will prompt the response “What do you mean?” If you really mean that the person needs to stop using technical language when they are talking or sending e-mails to customers – tell them so.  Give them examples of what they are doing and how it could be improved by using the language customers normally use. Oh yes…. “could do better” is an escape clause for managers who can’t do any better themselves.

5. Deal with “crimes” when they happen.

Some issues e.g. misbehaviour or frequent absences need to be dealt with when they occur. Saving them up until the annual appraisal doesn’t help anyone. By that time they will have forgotten the incident and will wonder why you have brought it up instead of resolving it at the time.

6. Remember no system is perfect.

Recognise that no ‘Performance Management’ or ‘Appraisal’ system is perfect so let the person being appraised suggest ways it can be improved for the next time. You may be surprised at the ideas they put forward, some of which may be really helpful.

If you are planning to introduce an appraisal system in your organisation and are unsure about how to go about it why not contact me at: gerry@gem-associates.com or call me on:

44 1270 666541

“What gets measured gets managed” is a saying often quoted in business. It’s a very good axiom and helps managers stay focused on tasks which deliver results. Numbers make us feel more secure if we are trying to substantiate a claim or prove a point and opinions can be just that – one person’s view of the world or the people in it. So is it wise or even possible to limit performance management discussions to only those factors we can measure and ignore those that we cannot?

The problem is that there are times when managers are required to make a judgement on their people, where exact measurements are more difficult to quantify. You’ve guessed it – I’m talking about what many managers and their people dread – the annual appraisal interview. A sales manager will have relatively little difficulty in identifying his/her best salesperson and the same can be said of a production manager. They analyse the end results, subtract any costs within the control of the person concerned and hey presto – we have a productive or non-productive worker.

 However we all know the annual appraisal doesn’t work like that. I have often heard employees who have a low opinion of the value of performance management appraisals, claim that the reason they received a good or poor appraisal depended solely on whether they were “liked” by the line manager. Their actual performance or contribution was hardly ever mentioned.

Perhaps that that is why scoring or rating was introduced to the appraisal interview. “You can’t argue with the score” may be true for a game of cricket or football but the passions evoked by a scoring system which is perceived to have little relevance to the way in which the individual goes about their daily task makes us question its  value to the organisation.

But this is the real world and scoring systems will always be with us. So how do we make them better? Much of the documentation I have come across which is used to assess performance management, starts out by identifying the key tasks and competencies needed for the role – a very good start. However the next column immediately asks managers to score the individual against the competency. The final column on the form asks managers to give the evidence needed to substantiate the score. Is this a classic example of cart before horse? I have heard managers admit they award scores with great ease and then virtually invent the evidence to substantiate the score.

 Here is a suggestion. Why not reverse the order of the last two columns mentioned? If you have taken the time to accurately describe examples of behaviours which demonstrate good or poor performance, scoring becomes much easier easy and much more objective. Some might “argue with the score” but it may be much more difficult. I have recently used this approach with a client. The response from managers carrying out performance management reviews and those receiving them was quite amazing – less arguments about the “score” and much more about the behaviour and approach to the role. Isn’t that what we wanted all along?

 How do we avoid “central tendency” or sitting on the fence?  Next weeks blog will give you a few ideas.

I would be delighted to hear your comments about this article : gerry@gem-associates.com

Most people hate meetings for several reasons. First, too many meetings don’t have agendas that are followed. Second, bad meetings stray off the agenda and chase rabbits. Third, bad meetings don’t result in any actions or decisions. And fourth, poorly run meetings are just plain unproductive and a huge waste of our precious time.

To make an immediate improvement, invite only those people who will get something out of the meeting. This goes for recurring meetings too. Only have people come if they are going to contribute and/or get something out of the meeting.

Encourage brevity. Ask people to circulate lengthy reports in advance by email. Let people give high-level summaries but don’t let status reports turn into lengthy monologues. Try to focus on the information that the meeting as a whole needs to know.

Some Tips
Have an agenda and stick to it.
Block half the time you usually do for meetings and keep strict time .
Don’t tolerate late starts.
Consider banning mobiles or laptops from meetings-especially short sessions-to prevent participants from zoning out.
Consider holding a stand-up meeting, which research shows may cut meeting length by as much as a third.
If there are follow-up or action items, make it crystal clear who should be doing what and who is accountable.

If a meeting needs to take place, and you have whittled it down only to the people who need to attend, it is time to make sure the meeting is focussed on what it needs to achieve. Make sure you have an agenda in place, and circulated to all participants, at least 24 hours before the meeting start time. And it’s no good having an agenda if you don’t stick to it. Sure, major issues could arise before the meeting, but anyone who vitally needs to discuss that now can speak to you before the meeting starts. Don’t let rambling diversions occur in the meeting itself.

Do whatever you can to start and end on time. If people arrive late, don’t pause to fill them in. A good strategy for keeping your meeting on schedule is to send the agenda out ahead of time, allowing attendees to review the items and come prepared for discussion.

4. How to Deal with Difficult Delegates

In my experience most delegates attend a course to learn something new, gain more knowledge or learn how to manage a situation they are having difficulty dealing with. They will listen and contribute to the course and leave it with a sense of having gained personally and professionally. Now and again you will meet delegates who seem to have their own agenda. Potentially they can inhibit the rest of the group from learning. As the trainer, you need to learn how to deal effectively with those who, consciously or not, impose their thinking and behaviour on other members. Here are some of the more challenging behaviours you are likely to meet.

• The “Enthusiastic” Dominant

Enthusiastic dominants are lovely people. They tend to be out-going and friendly and express their views openly and with great gusto. They are not malicious but one of their problems (and yours!) is that they are not good listeners. The result is that they can be totally unaware of dominating discussions and potentially blocking others from participating. By adopting a “friendly-assertive” style you can get your message across because they will recognise this style as their own. You want them to participate but at the same time you want to hear the views of others. You need to make an intervention along the following lines:

“Thanks very much for that Jane. A lot of good stuff there. Your main point is……..have I got that right? Let’s see how other people feel about that?”

It is important that you don’t stifle their enthusiasm as they can be the life blood of a training session. If they feel side-lined, their withdrawal will not help anyone and you will loose a good ally.

• The “Aggressive” Dominant

 The aggressive dominant are down-right unpleasant and their behaviour can be threatening – for you and for other delegates. They are usually well aware of the impact they have on others. So you owe it to yourself and the other delegates to prevent them from taking  over the session. Again you will need to make an intervention but this time a “firmly-assertive” style is needed to let this individual know that you are serious. Try the following:

“You clearly have some very fixed views on that issue. I wouldn’t agree with all of them but I would like to hear alternative views from other people.”

However resist the temptation to engage with this person. They like nothing better than a good argument, one which they are determined to win. You will have much more impact with the group by facilitating the conversation and making sure that other views are heard and the “agressive dominanl” is not allowed to rulee. Be firm when you intervene so that they are left in no doubt that you are in charge of the group.

• Sarcasm

Dealing with sarcasm can be very tricky. It is a very subtle form of bullying and is usually delivered as humour but is designed to score a point – usually at someone’s expense. However there may be a grain of truth behind the comment. The best way to handle it is to ask the person to justify what they have just said. Try this:

“Him….. that’s interesting. What makes you say that?”

Sarcastic people are very skilled at delivering a “killer line” then sitting back to enjoy the impact it has just had.  When challenged to defend it, they tend to get confused as they are now scrabbling around to think of a good argument to defend the indefensible. Very hard when five pairs of eyes are on you.

 I am sure you have come across other types of behaviour which have challenged you in the training room. I would be delighted to hear how you dealt with them.

E-mail me on gl@gemas.co.uk  with your best examples.

3. How to Manage the Group Interaction

What happens within a group at a course is as important as the content you have put into the course material. Sometimes I feel that many trainers have not been sufficiently prepared to deal with this issue and experience “burnout” as a result.

You cannot know the background of most of the delegates in detail but you can prevent cliques developing which may hinder the success of the course. Here are some suggestions.

• Mix the sexes up

Women are much better at engaging and networking with each other than men. They are naturally more “social” and better listeners. They are also more adept at reading body language. Men have a tendency to analyse facts and are not as good at reading body-language. Read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,” if you don’t believe me. Mix them up equally if possible so that you get at least one woman in any group of three.

• Separate people from the same company/department

If there are people from the same company/department on the course, try to separate them, otherwise you run the risk of “in-our-company/department-we-do-it this-way” thinking. You are aiming for people to interact with each other so that they learn by experiencing new ideas and listening to alternative viewpoints. But do explain to delegates why you are separating them or you may be viewed as a kill-joy. Whether they take the learning on board is up to them but you owe it to the group to give them as many opportunities as possible to interact with each other.

• Explain the rules of group working

If you give the group an exercise, give some guidelines/rules for group working;

   - appoint a chair to manage participation

  -   no talking over each other

   -   listen without interrupting

   -    no “dominating” the discussion by one/two people

   -    staying silent throughout is not a team behaviour

Why is this as important as your content? The answer lies in whether you think of yourself as a “tutor” or a person who can facilitate learning. Tutors lecture; facilitators encourage individuals to learn by themselves and from interacting with others.

I hope you have found something of value from the above and I will see you next week. Please send me any comments /suggestions you care to make.

gl@gemas.co.uk

 Hello again. For those of you who sometimes struggle to get delegates to participate here are some ideas you may find useful.

2. How To Increase Participation From Your Delegates

The best trainers that I have worked with or observed delivering training sessions, spend less time talking and more time facilitating interactions.  Does that mean they take a back seat and let the group carry on? Absolutely not.

What they have discovered is that people learn as much form discussing and evaluating ideas from the trainer than they ever will from passive listening. If you give them an opportunity to practise a skill you have just been discussing, it will reinforce the learning even more. More about this later. So how do you generate participation? Here are some suggestions. Some of them may make you uncomfortable but there is old saying:

“You will never discover new lands until you wave goodbye to the old shore”.

• Make a commitment to yourself to talk less

It might help if you stop thinking of yourself as a “tutor”. Those of you who went through college/university will no doubt have painful memories of tutors who bored you rigid by endless monologues of facts and figures delivered in dull tone. But no matter how engaging your delivery style or how interesting your topic is, the human brain can only take in so much. “Tutors talk – trainers engage.”  

• Deliberately introduce questions

Questions usually provoke a response. So instead of “giving the answer”, try to “elicit the response”. Let’s assume you were running a course on Interviewing Techniques. A fundamental skill for a good interviewer is the ability to formulate an Open question, ask it and then listen to the response. You know the definition of an Open question but do the delegates?  Try asking each one to write down their definition and record their answers. You may be surprised by the results.

• Be provocative –  if and when you have to

 Sometimes even the best crafted question to the group produces silence. Silence may be golden but too much of it can kill a training session. I was observing a relatively inexperienced trainer delivering a session on Management Skills and the group was more inclined to write than speak. Either inspiration or frustration caused the trainer to ask the question:

“Who would agree with me that macho-management is sometimes necessary”?

Participation was not a problem from that point on. 

• Introduce pairs/group exercises

People learn far more when they have to work out the answers for themselves. Of course it’s not as easy as having someone give you the answer but it is more rewarding. Using the topic mentioned above how about an exercise which required the pair/group to list three positives and three negatives for macho-management and tell you the results they produce.

If you want to move from “tutoring” to facilitating learning, try some of the above.

See you next week for another “How To….”     gl@gemas.co.uk

“How To” Techniques for Trainers

It struck me that having written and posted the first part of what was going to be a three-part series on “Tips for Trainers”, some of you out there might find guidance on how to achieve an end result more useful. From now on I shall call them “How To’s” and relate them to specific topics. I hope you find them useful.

1. How To Make “Ice-Breakers” More Effective

I have read several “ice-breaker tips” and I sometimes wonder why or how this title came about. Let me be quite clear about “ice-breakers”. They are either ships with hardened steel which break up frozen ice or people who dive into frozen water and who are clinically insane. Ice is for making good cocktails. Frozen water is a hostile environment into which no human should ever venture. So why treat a group as if it was a frozen lake to be broken into?

I have also witnessed “ice-breaking” sessions where delegates were invited to write the name of a well-known celebrity on a “Stick It” note, stick it on their partner’s head and invite the hapless delegate to guess the name of the celebrity. A great party game (with cocktails) but I would question its relevance to a training session.

Your Objective ……to get people to relax, be comfortable and engage with each other as early as possible.

Let’s start with a title which does what it says on the tin – call it “Getting To Know You”. Here is an exercise which does this and is relevant for the delegates on the course.  Ask them to talk to each other in pairs and find out:

• Their names
• Their job role
• The most important thing they want to learn for  the course
• Something about themselves which is amusing, unusual or interesting

Now ask them to introduce their partner to the group and tell everyone what they have just learned. If you use the technique to introduce yourself to the group they will understand how it works and will not find it so daunting. Always ask them to talk about their partner – many people are reluctant to talk about themselves early on during the course but have no problem talking about someone else.

There are people who find it difficult to think of something amusing, unusual or interesting about themselves. Give them some help. Suggest a new skill, hobby or pastime they have taken up in the last six months or an encounter with someone they found enjoyable or even bizarre. In reality it doesn’t matter –what matters is to get them relaxed and to send an early signal that participation from them is something that will happen all throughout the course.

Give it a go…..you’ll be surprised how well it works. One last tip….. put a time limit on the one-to-one discussion. Some strangers become life long fiends given half a chance!

See you next week for another “How To….”  I would appreciate your feedback on gl@gemas.co.uk

Tips for Trainers

Part 1

Someone once said to me that trainers were like actors. They love the acclaim and applause but silence is like a death sentence to them. Also, like actors, they will skim over the great reviews but spend hours of angst over the one critical review which may have been undeserved and highly personal. Interaction between you and the group is essential (presumably you are not talking for your own benefit) and we all want and like positive and constructive feedback.

Some trainers will claim they have delivered more courses than they have had hot dinners and will give you “sure fire” tips that guarantee success when running a course. They are either exaggerating their brilliance or they eat salads all year round-even in winter. I have delivered a lot of training over the last twelve years and have learned some good ideas and practises from other people. Feel free to use them if you think they may be of value.

1. Make the Room Your Domain

You need to be comfortable with the environment, if you are going to try to influence people who you have never met before. So if you walk into a room which has been set up for you to “lecture” – change the layout. One skill I quickly acquired when I started training was scene-shifting. Having small groups of 4-5 people around circular tables is ideal but a U-shaped layout is much more the norm.

Delegates expect to be able to interact and converse easily with each other on a course. They do not enjoy trying to observe you through someone else’s head. So if you arrive and the layout is not to your advantage – change it. I once met a slightly snooty conference organiser who told me: “That’s not the way we normally have the room laid out sir.” I thanked him for his comment and told him that I was experimenting with different layouts until I had found the best one. The layout was changed.

2. Dazzle the Audience not Yourself

I am still surprised by speakers who put themselves or allow themselves to be put directly in front of the LDC projector. They are either blinded by the light or move to their left to avoid the glare and to avoid creating a back shadow but then allow the screen to be the centre of focus.  Solution… move the projector to your right. Then go to the back of the room and check that anyone sitting at the back can read what is on the screen. Actors may love the spotlight being on them but you won’t.

3. Don’t Dry Up

This has nothing to do with being able to remember what comes next in your notes. Trainers are seldom stuck for words. If you are going to talk for a large portion for the day, your vocal chords will need lubricating. An old colleague of mine told me to drink only room-temperature water and to avoid iced-water, fizzy water, coffee, tea and milk like the plague. Here is why.

• Iced water causes the vocal chords to contract then expand. The pitch of your voice will change as this happens. Funny for the audience, but not for you.
• Fizzy (carbonated) water fills you with wind. Need I say more?
• Coffee is a diuretic-it draws water into your bladder which is why people on a diet drink it. “Holding it” is painful and distracting.
• Tea has a similar effect but not as pronounced as coffee.
• Milk is great for replacing lost energy or calcium in bones. However it coats the vocal cords so that you are constantly clearing your throat. Drink if after everyone has left to replace the energy to have lost in delivering a superb course.

If you found these tips useful, lookmout for more tips next week.

Gerry Lynch