Dan Erwin

BIG SURPRISE ON HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE INDUSTRY

This morning's New York Times reported a massive turn-around on the part of the health care insurance industry.  The insurers floated the idea that they could end higher premiums to sick people--with coverage for all Americans.  What a change from the Clinton era!

GEN-Y SKILLS: STREET SMARTS, VULNERABILITY & TACTFULNESS

An NPR conversation yesterday jogged me about an important subject in communication:  tactfulness.Two statements came immediately to mind: 

"You don't understand what I'm saying," versus "I'm not certain that I'm being very clear."

The first lacks street smarts, vulnerability and tactfulness.  The second statement will work well in most any setting.  The distinction, often labeled a lack of vulnerability, comes up regularly and in important, even strategic situations.  Trying to sell an idea, explain a difference of opinion, deal with a mistake, or, well, you name it, the contexts are endless.

I haven't heard the terminology in years, but the distinction I'm making is between "you" messages and "I" messages.  "You" messages are readily perceived as judgmental or accusatory, and they can quickly escalate a conversation.  "You" messages suggest blame.  They encourage the recipient to deny wrong-doing or misunderstanding and often result in an argument.  And, it would be a waste of time and energy that could be avoided simply by changing the pronoun when you initiate a statement.

Writing this post, I realized that this is an example of how language and understanding evolve over time.  What used to be talked about as "you" messages has become an issue of the "unwillingness to be vulnerable" in common parlance.  And business managers often move conversations about the failure to be vulnerable to a conversation about an employee's lack of street smarts.  Again, this is ultimately about whether you begin a sentence with "you" or "I" and follow through with the different implications of that pronoun.

FYI:  Learning to use the correct pronoun is not nearly as simple as this post makes it seem.  Linguists  tell us that we learn to speak and communicate by mimicking.  Once we've had a bit of success and start repeating a given format, brain scientists tell us that we're teeing up certain neurons that with repetition build a strong model in our brains.  Changing the model will take insight, practice, feedback, self-awareness and the willingness to become an effective "noticer."

And all this because of two pronouns, one of which gets us into trouble while the other will save the day. 

THE TRILLION DOLLAR US HEDGE FUND

Got a million questions about what's going on in Treasury Secretary Geithner's bailout?  In a brilliant, understandable discussion, Brad DeLong, the CalBerkeley economist clears out a lot of the fog.

Basically, he says that the US is about to become the world's largest hedge fund investor  to buy up risky and distressed but probably fundamentally undervalued assets.

And what if it doesn't work?  You'll need bottled water, sewing needles and ammunition.

Check it out. 

GEN-Y SKILLS: HOW TO LISTEN AND NOT MISUNDERSTAND

Here's the scenario:  Your boss interrupts your work to make a request of you.  You march off to take care of it and 30 minutes into it you stop and say to yourself, "Wait a minute.  Was that what she wanted me to do?"  You're not certain. Then, as one of my commenters put it, you wonder whether you need to hear something several times before it sinks in.  You muddle around with what you thought he said, and finally tuck your tail between your legs, go back and double check his request. 

So how do you avoid those sometimes embarrassing misunderstandings?

Begin with this insight:  You hear with your ears, but listen with your mind.  Listening is not about recording information on a disc, but interacting with it, making sense of it and putting it into actionable formats.

Paradoxically, listening is really about asking questions.  By that I mean that listening is about various forms of questions that clarify what's being said.  Many professionals are successful at paraphrasing.  Paraphrasing is simply putting what you thought you heard into your own terms, and then asking if that's what the other person meant.  I have no doubt that paraphrasing will raise your listening batting average. 

What's the best way to listen and not misunderstand?

Paraphrasing, however, is a poor second to the action implication question.  The action implication question is a form of clarification in which you respond to what was communicated by describing what you are going to do, what's going to happen as a result of your listening.  Keep in mind that you want to insure that you have really understood not only what the other person said, but also what was meant. 

Here's the scene:  your boss is delegating a task to you, describing the what and why.  Like most smart bosses, she's leaving the how up to you.  Now you're at the place to check your listening.  Here are some possible action implication questions for that scenario:

• In light of what you've said, I plan to attack the problem by . . . What do you think?

• Based of what you've said, I see a couple drawbacks to trying. . . . Instead, it seems to me that the best strategy is to. . . . Make sense to you?

• Based on what I understand thus far, I think that the next three steps should be . . . . Do you think that will handle all the issues?

In each of these responses, you acknowledged what was said, laid out the suggested remedy, and concluded with a question.  Theaction question gives your boss an opportunity to assess your remedy or solution, and based on what you've said, figure out whether you understood her correctly.

When your boss confirms your action steps, that's the sign that you listened and understood correctly.  When your boss rejects your solution, that's the sign that either her communication was inadequate or you misunderstood.  In any instance it provides an opportunity for both of you to problem solve and go through the action implication process again. 

Action implication is a slick model that will take time to learn, but will provide the best opportunity for effective listening in both tactical and strategic business settings.  It also forces a dialog between you and your boss, which cannot help but be useful for the long term.

HOW TO GET A BETTER BOSS

Why do most people leave their job?  Your first response may be. . . the money.  But if you are thinking about leaving your job after the recession's over, I'll guess the answer is not money.  All the research tells us that most of the time people leave their job because of their boss. 

If you've just gotten a new job, admittedly a rare experience in this economy, but the manager was not at all what you expected, or you're caught with a manager that is very difficult, there's a high possibility you can get a new manager.  All ears?

To get a better manager, create one for yourself.

I suspect your first response might be one of two:  What are you drinking, Dan; or what planet are you living on?  When you dig deeply into frustrating relations, the issues are rarely clear.  In a recent article, David Brooks of the New York Times reminds his readers,

that psychologists say that when a couple comes in for marriage therapy, there are three patients in the room--the husband, the wife and the marriage itself.  The marriage is the living history of all the things that have happened between husband and wife.  Once the patterns are set, the marriage itself begins to shape their individual behavior.  Though it exists in the space between them, it has an influence all its own.

In the same way, managers and their subordinates have an organizational culture.  Out of numerous decisions, a relationship emerges which frames and influences future decisions.  When the relationship stinks, it takes someone to intervene and restructure it.  Unless you're going to bring in an intervention consultant, which isn't likely, the person who can best manage the change is a smart and aware subordinate.  Admittedly, this goes against the grain so much that I have had to cajole many subordinates to take charge.  But in every instance, they come back saying, "I didn't know this could be done."  It works in grand fashion!

As Kotter and Gabarro of Harvard have found, most subordinates fail to realize that they are essential to their boss's success.  Managers depend on their reports and they desperately need reliability, honesty and cooperation from those reports.  That's a perfect set-up for creating a new and different relationship.  It's just that you, the subordinate, are going to have to step up to the plate, offer your services in a different way and build a new relationship contract that will make it easy for your boss to commit to working with you more effectively.

It's actually a lot easier than most think. 

Some of the important relationship issues include the kinds of things your boss needs to know, how he sets priorities, how he goes about making decisions, how much he wants to be involved in the decision process and how often he wants to be updated.  When you do an analysis of breakdowns, you'll find that a number of your issues fit in those boxes.

How do you get a better manager?

Set out to develop a mutual understanding around each of those issues.  One way is through a half hour conversation.  For example, let your boss know beforehand that you'd like to talk about how he sets his priorities for you and himself, and that with that information you can be a lot more valuable to him. 

You might say something as direct as, "Here's what I'd like to talk about.  if I could have a better understanding of how you set your priorities, I can get a lot more done for you and our business.  After all, I want you to succeed as much as I want to succeed."  If you think that's sucking up, think again.  Every sentence emphasizes a basic relationship fact.  It's just that few people talk that way to each other.  So preplan the conversation, lay out five to ten important questions about that single issue, talk to him about the conversation you want, get the appointment and a week later go into his office with notes (that's an indication you mean business) and get on with it.

If that's too gutsy for a first session, wait until there is a problem regarding an important issue.  For example, suppose there is a misunderstanding about timelines.  Your boss gets pissed off, you shut down, and avoid him for a short period of time.  A few days later, screw up your courage, tell him you've got a number of questions about priority setting and time lines, and you'd like to set up a half hour to talk to him about how he goes about making those decisions. 

A caveat.  If you ask for too little, your boss is liable to want to give you the information when you first try to set up the meeting.  That'll be a mistake.  He's liable to give you an off-the-cuff response, and you really need more than that.  So, while you're setting up the meeting give him four or five questions.  Tell him you'd like for him to give some real thought to the issue.  Again, you can say, that it'd be a better use of time if both of you can think about the issues a bit more before the meeting.

A week or two after your conversation, drop by to tell him what's working well as a result of your conversation.  Detail the issues.  Then, if needed, tell him what needs to work better and problem solve. 

The results will be striking.  Your boss will treat you differently, even making some changes himself.  Never forget that bosses are completely ignorant of what's going on in your mind.  So you need to learn how to manage those issues for ultimate success.  As in any behavioral gains, it'll take four or five attempts to become really successful at this.  Change is never instantaneous.

FYI:  After you've had a number of successful sessions, and are beginning to see change in both of you, you can begin to take care of your own career needs.  Success in the relationship means that you will be able to get the boss to provide you more resources, more insights--and more opportunities!

I'd appreciate a note about your experiences getting a better manager.

GEN-Y SKILLS: RESILIENCE, NETWORKING AND THE JOB MARKET

resilience:   an act of springing back: rebound, recoil, elasticity;  capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation, especially when the strain is caused by compressive stresses; the ability to achieve good outcomes after significant hardships

Things are really getting tough on the streets.  Like many of you, two of my friends have lost their jobs.

The current economy shows that resilience has become a needed commodity.

We now know resilience is not about doing it alone, but about growing with the help of others.  Like networking, resilience is about building relationships that make it possible to navigate the work world for the insight, support, help and optimism of others.  Access those networks for more than just a job! 

Intriguingly, studies in resilience have come up with two curious conclusions.  Resilience does not necessarily increase with age. 

So your older relatives and colleagues may not have much in the way of resilience to give you the smarts you're looking for.  Gray heads may be neither resilient nor wise.  In extensive German research at the famous Max Planck Institute, no evidence was found in four different studies that resilience or wisdom necessarily increase with age.  I used to think that as my hair turned gray and fell out, people would know it's a sign of great wisdom.  Once again, BIG MISTAKE.

A second study in the States found that you can vaccinate yourself with resilience at an early age.  There are three steps for vaccination:

• View a crisis as a problem to be addressed, and a puzzle to be solved.  So, get in the problem solving mode, keep adding to your fact base, and work at potential resolutions.
• Work with actions you can control.  Once you've identified issues out of your control, set them aside.   
• Go to relationships that grow you, not those that merely empathize with you.

Now that's encouraging!  And that's the kind of smarts needed today.

GEN-Y SKILL: SMALL TALK OR JUST GAB?

It's intriguing how often small talk questions and issues surface on Gen-Y blogs--and that's not the only place!  There's even a Small Talk Daily.  People across all generations struggle with small talk.   I've been hired by execs in their forties and fifties for the sole purpose of teaching them how to do small talk.  One exec in particular, a CFO at a nationally known firm, told me that his promotion meant that he would now have to be attending public events including cocktail parties, where small talk was needed.  He'd been chided by his wife because of his bystanding--and he was quite willing to pay an immoral fee to learn how to do small talk.  It had become a public relations issue for him.

But small-talk skills come up just about every week in the work setting.  And they're an imperative for network building, influence management, team building, employee assimilation and even managing people.  They are also phenomenally useful for initiating long-term client relationships.

Small talk, however, is profoundly misunderstood.  To get at that misunderstanding, I distinguish between small talk and gab.  Gab goes nowhere, whereas small talk is intentional. 

gab--to talk in an idle rapid, thoughtless manner; chatter. . . . he gabbed about his six kids. . . Edna Ferber referred to a gossip who had just heard something new. . . "She'll probably gab about it tomorrow until I have to shut her up."

In a business setting, gab refers to talk that is meant to show verbal facility, somehow capture attention, entertain a colleague or client, or disable shyness.  Human beings always seek to be in command of their actions.  Gab is a very common yet unsophisticated form of talk to express personal control of a situation, when reality may well be the opposite.  If you pay close attention to initial business conversations, you'll recognize that gab is far more prevalent than small talk.

In contrast, small talk, is highly intentional.  It is driven by purpose, and often strategic.  For example, in client relations, effective small talk is key to identifying common experience, surfacing thinking styles and decision processes, detailing fundamental values and piquing interest. 

It's rare for a professional to be aware of the different formats of normal conversation.  In today's world, where skills in complex communication are necessary for business, there are three forms of talk:  cliche, initiatory (small talk), and conversational leadership.   To get to conversational leadership, you'll always have to begin with cliche talk. 

When I'm in consulting mode and skip cliche talk, the nonverbals nearly always stop me.  They take the shape of something like, "Dan, aren't you at least going to say hello before we start all this work?"  I usually laugh, and do the requisite cliche talk.  In a recent conversation about these skills, a CIO told me that senior marketing people at IBM have become artistic in the use of these language technologies.  It's key to their success.

Cliche talk, those first few statements of low-level greeting includes such normal comments as, "Hello, how are you?  How've you been?" or "Hi, what's new?"  Cliche talk signals to the other person that your attitude is open and friendly, and, that if the situation permits, you're available for conversation.

The other end of small talk, conversational leadership, comprises sets of interpersonal and team skills such as problem solving, decision making, innovation and learning.

In the coming weeks I'll explore the small talk format, illustrate its uses and show, in a number of blogs, how to transition to conversational leadership.  Eventually there'll be at least one white paper on small talk with protocols and scripts that can be readily retranslated into whatever small talk situations you may face.

So, what questions do you have on small talk?

 

NEW MANAGER SKILLS: LEARNING

Be sure to check out my sixth and last post on slackermanager on Wednesday, the 18th.  With an emphasis upon continuous learning, the post lays out a number of keys for smart learning.  In today's economy, learning new skills and gaining new competencies is the real path long-term employability.

Check it out! 

GEN-Y LEARNING: VULNERABILITY AS STRATEGIC CLUE

On those occasions when I get to observe Gen-Yers seriously working to add competencies to their toolkit, they will come to me ask one fundamental question:  Where do I start?  Of course, they know the no-brainers like when your boss enumerates the skills you need to work on, recognizing the lack of a necessary competency through completion of assignments, or looking at a new opportunity and seeing they don't yet have the deeper skill base that's demanded.  However, there's one clue that Gen-Yers often miss--their gut!

If you're like most of us there are always times in which you catch yourself feeling vulnerable.  You know vulnerability--that feeling of being exposed, embarassed, threatened or taken advantage of because of something you didn't do or don't know.  In Geek talk (and by the way, I am a big Geek), the term vulnerability is applied to a computer system that has a weakness open to hacking, such as password security issues or design flaws.  That same definition readily transfers to personal vulnerability. 

Usually, we fudge our way out of those situations and take our leave, counting on it not to happen again.  We don't deliberately lie, we just omit some information.  Our response will have some sort of truth, but it won't be the truth.  We know it's not wise to blame someone for our failure, but we can drive our lack of knowledge or skill underground and plan to work the organizational minefields in the future.  BIG MISTAKE. 

Instead, reframe vulnerability not as a failure, but as a growth opportunity.      

Vulnerability is a signal, a clue, that you've got something to learn.  It's not a negative--it's an opportunity.

So when you get those oh-oh feelings, drill down and ask yourself what the problem is.  What don't you know?  What specifically don't you want to be embarassed about?  What in this situation or about that other person is threatening?  Very often the answer to those questions can be translated into needed skills for your toolkit.  And when you're emotionally and mentally driven to gain a new competency, that's a lot of motivation.  Harness it!

GEN-Y FEEDBACK: CIRCUMVENTING MANAGERIAL RESISTANCE

There are plenty of drivers demanding a a new paradigm for getting feedback.  The first one is obvious:  getting feedback by just asking is tough.  Fact of the matter, more often than not when you ask for feedback, the most you're liable to get is what I call the "generic stroke:"  "You did a good job."  It doesn't take a microscope to see that that won't do much for either your growth or your toolkit.

If you google getting feedback, you'll find that good people try all kinds of subtle ways to get information-- much of which turns out to be of little value.  It's no surprise to read posts in which the writers say something to the effect that we all know that you can't get HONEST FEEDBACK  in a formal setting. 

But most of us also understand that without feedback we can't grow and develop--and in the technology world in which we work, not growing is the death knell.

In a recent post on Gen-Y feedback, I pointed out that two issues are going to have to be resolved:  the sea-change of Gen-Y feedback expectations as well as the issues of managerial resistance.  In addition, I gave my readers a heads-up on why managers "detest" giving feedback.  I wrote that they fear there'll be heated arguments, strong rejection, impossible demands, stonewalling, tears or even threats of dismissal. 

So how can you deal constructively with that psychological and emotional mishmash?  Is there a different way to get really constructive feedback?

Most think that you'll have to deal directly with those emotions and frustrations in order to successfully lower the defensiveness and resistance.  Don't go there!  Instead, you need to use the skills of rhetoric, political science and negotiation--and take political action.  In short, the best way to deal with managerial resistance is to reframe the issue as an open, simple negotiation of mutual benefits and mutual understanding.  A new feedback paradigm.

Defensiveness, cynicism, frustration and anger are usually the result of a complete lack of talk about talk between managers and their reports. People haven't been trained to talk about talk and have neither protocols nor language in their toolkit.  They assume all kinds of work relations, and rarely talk about the kind of conversations they need.  They merely charge ahead in a face-to-face chat that begins with "I'd like some feedback on my project work."  Without preplanning and talk about talk, at least half the time, that conversation will go south very quickly.  It's no wonder that managers are resistant to giving feedback.  To add to the complexity, few managers have the training or the language to give developmental feedback--and it's rare for business professionals to understand the skills of political strategy. 

FYI:  When I use the term politics or political, 95% of the time I use it positively and constructively to refer to the actions and strategies of political science and the skills of rhetoric.  I despise statements such as "he's just being political."  They reveal a profound sense of cynicism and helplessness about the nature of reality.

Here's what political action looks like.  When President Obama wants to gain a commitment from Germany's Chancellor Merkel to rethink her decisions about needed financial investments, it begins with a long distance talk about the conversation that he wants to have with her.  It might go something like this:  "We need to have a conference regarding potential government investment in the financial markets, including our mutual concerns and objectives, understandings that need to be clarified, possible criteria for decisions, and other matters of importance."  This talk about the conversation inevitably takes place days or weeks before the face-to-face conversation.

This is a political strategy that sets the stage for clear understanding and the creation of mutual objectives and actionable decisions.  And, like conversations between managers and employees, it's a process that everyone has skin in. 

In the business setting, we compress and speed up the international processes of politics into what I call a social contract.  It's talk--not written or legal--about the kind of conversations you expect to be having. 

A social contract is essentially a plan for future conversations--for political action.  Some of you might be thinking, "Isn't all this very obvious?"  It might be intellectually obvious, but it's use is exceptionally rare.  All too often, we just charge ahead without pre-planning or detailing.  

So how do you want to prep your boss for a feedback conversation?   Here are some suggested conversation points: 

• What does your boss view as the best way to get work feedback?
• What kind of feedback questions should you use?
• What suggestion does he have for breaking feedback into chunks?
• What kind of timeline works best for him to give you feedback?
• What heads up can you give your boss about how you display defensiveness?

For utmost success these talks should take place before the actual experience of feedback.  Then when you come to the session, you already have mutual agreement on how it's going to proceed, what the conversation will be about and a means for limiting misunderstanding.

"Do I really need to do this much planning and talk for feedback?"  Absolutely yes.  If feedback is really important, you want to make certain that you can get the best results.  Just like plenty of planning is necessary for effective project delivery, the same is true for effective conversations.  Most of us have little to no training in language technologies--but such technologies will be required for measureable career growth. 

This is the new feedback paradigm.  It will take time and experience to get used to it.  But once you've learned it, you'll be able to execute the entire preplanning process in less than 30 minutes.  Thirty minutes is a small time investment for a big return on career and growth--and employability. 

P.S. This is a subject for future blogs and two or three free white papers.  Watch for them.