An Inclusive Difficult Conversation!

How do we handle difficult conversations? How do they make us feel? Do we as HR/Managers unintentionally make a conversation tougher than it usually should be?

I had written a post exploring some of the question above. The post was published last week by Kaleel Jamison Consulting on their blog site. Do give it a read and share your thoughts.

(http://blog.kjcg.com/index.php/2012/09/an-inclusive-difficult-conversation)

 

-

Sourav

Communities at work!

This year I am working on creating 2 communities – horizontal grouping of employees who come from different teams but are characterized by some similarity (e.g. – role, past experiences, gender, etc).

Why am I attempting to form a community? Well, there are changes that I am attempting in these 2 horizontal employee groupings. The attempt is to make the members of these communities far more effective at work and in their careers.

I have option of rolling out initiatives for them or to make them involved in entire ´upping the bar´ process (from design to execution).

Again  I have option of forming having a representative committee working on changes, or to involve the entire community – let them even own formation of representative committee (if that´s the path they want to choose).

So in essence, i am trying to create an impact on the 2 communities by working through community itself.

I am grappling with a few further questions.

• What makes community members come together and do something beyond their own self interest? 
•  If community has to work and make an impact, what is my role?

Would a community be different than a group?

I think word community has a much more involved sense – there is a sense of informality and also of belongingness/identity.

What are principles I can use to create a community from group of individuals who don´t necessarily work with each other/come across each other infrequently?

Well, I see 2 possibilities.

• Goals that inspire members to action (at times there may be no immediate self-benefit associated). 
• Goals pursuing which would further the self-benefit of members too.

I also see a possible hindrance- the need to show a green scorecard in a quarter (bane of stock market registered companies) is an opposing force to need to act today on something that needn´t necessarily yield results in short term.

How will these communities span out? I am not sure. There still are questions I don´t have answers to. 

I would share more as I create.

What have been your experiences in creating a community?

-

Sourav

Transitioning from Work to Home

You trudge back home in evening.

The mind's numb and body feels tired. 

You wonder  ´I have a few hours for myself in evening. But I feel energy drained.  At most, I could probably clear a few emails or watch TV for sometime before I crash. ´

And that possibly is what happens every weekday. By time  weekend arrives, you need space to recover from the tiredness of weekdays.  Saturday flies off and Sunday gets spent in doing a lot of things which could have possibly waited. 

Soon you get a feeling ´Where´s life beyond work and entertainment (in consumerist way we define it today)?´

Is it that you are short of ideas? Possibly not.

You may feel there is so much to do beyond work. You could write a blog, read a book, watch a movie, go out for a walk, hit gym, dance, listen to music, talk to people, etc. But over a period of time you realize you are doing none of these.

Is it that you are short of time?  Maybe not!

Think of extra hours that you decide to spend at work in evenings, as you don´t really know what to do with free time. Or extra hours in evening that drudge/while away, waiting for the day to end.

How do we make those extra hours more meaningful?

I find switching off from work and switching on to something else, in evenings, one of most difficult things to do.

By evening, mind feels still stuck at work. 

I´ve gone through such phases before and found my solutions. Over last month, I have been going through another such phase. I´ve tried previous solutions but they don´t seem to be working this time around.  That makes me wonder ´Is the block at how or at why?´

What are options I have to manage this transition?

My evening cup of tea does help. It´s a physical signal (taste, smell, etc) that tells me it´s time to switch off from work.

But I need some ritual that pushes me back from work to home. I´ve been trying some rituals but with limited impact.

I think there is this phase of uncomfortable forced practice one has to go through. 21 day rule for making anything a habit- maybe I should persist for 21 days with any ritual that I start off with.

Maybe, I should also try building a social network in Hyderabad beyond work and beyond industry crowd.

That´s what had given me sanity in Mumbai. That´s what might work for me in Hyderabad too.

What have your experiences been in transitioning from work to home? Do you find it a difficult transition?

-

Sourav

Dividing Limited Resources Appropriately!

How do we react to limited resources/win-lose scenarios?

Performance bell curve is a classic limited resource example. 

There are only a few slots for top performers- usually a manager wants just a tad bit more slots for his/her top performers and a tad bit less slots for his/her low performers.

What are different ways of dealing with this situation? Two obvious ways are:

• ·         Give limited resources proportionately to each team – everyone gains or loses equally.

• ·         Give limited resources appropriately to each team – some teams may get more than others.

Usually a leaders´ decision (1^st line of authority that both/multiple teams report up to) is required to drive non-proportionate/appropriate division of resources amongst different teams.

What happens when a leadership decision is not possible ?–maybe because leader isn´t there.  Is only solution to delegate decision higher up in hierarchy?

I would place responsibility on manager of each team. They have to come together and discuss allocation of resources. 

What are imperatives in such a process?:

• HR is facilitator in this process. I might be asked to recommend appropriate division of resources. But that makes it easy for managers to abdicate responsibility for decision taken. I would put responsibility squarely back on shoulders of managers – it´s your teams and you have to take a decision.

• Before we start discussion division of resources, managers have to debate and agree on principles on basis of which resources would be divided appropriately.  When there´s no principle, it´s difficult to find agreement.

But what does a facilitator do when he finds managers not willing to come on table and discuss?

• First, it´s a symptom of managers behaving ´territorially´.

• In such a case, discussion needs to be taken a notch higher. Discussion is no more about merits of coming to table and discussing.  Discussion should be about exploring with each manager ´why is s/he not coming on table and how might s/he being perceived because of that´. That is not an easy discussion but is certainly a necessary one. A Type A (go getter) person might respond to this process. Would a Type B person respond to this kind of a process? I think discussion with a Type B person would be about what is right thing to do.

-

Sourav

Employee Sessions!

Certain HR processes are periodic and predictable in their occurrence, e.g. - Training Need Identification, different steps of Performance process, etc.

Is there a need to communicate with employees when such predictable processes are underway?

I would contend yes! Even if there is no new message to provide or skill to develop, still there is a need to reinforce key message or make employees update their skills.

How do we communicate with employees when such predictable processes are underway? 

We could use low-context mechanisms, e.g.- mailers, emails.  While mailers can reach large populations at one go, it doesn´t guarantee participation or interest.  In fact, as a process owner you would not even know how many people read the mailers.

We could use high-context mechanisms, e.g. employee sessions/town halls/nukkad nataks (street plays). In these mechanisms, you would know participation rates and you can get a sense of what´s staying with the audience.

But, how do we know whether these employee sessions have worked or not?

I think there are a few things that need to be looked at:

·         What is targeted message for sessions? Were these delivered during session?

·         Who was target audience? What was participation rate of targeted audience?

·         Who should be delivering session? I think a joint business-HR facilitation for employee sessions on HR processes leaves a powerful message.   I have experienced such facilitation a number of times, and always it seems to drive involvement and powerful conversations within room.

·         By end of session, did audience understand & internalize the action items for them?

·         Were these actions actually worked upon post session? When it comes to behaviors, it´s not easy but also not impossible to measure.  We may not even have metrics but indicators (even qualitative) might do.

An effective employee session does a good job in all elements of pre- session communication, session design, choice of facilitator, facilitation skills, post session closure, and processes/interactions to support actioning at work place.

Does this sound similar to a training workshop design? Yes, it does in terms of process. Intent of employees sessions is awareness, understanding, learning, and committing to actions.

But I experienced designing and executing these sessions as being different from doing same for a training workshop. Have not been able to place my finger yet on what´s the difference though!

What´s been your experience with Employee Sessions? How would you figure out whether these sessions have worked or not?

-

Sourav

360 Degree Processes!

Over last few months, I facilitated 360 degree feedback process for a few employees.  

They have now received feedback reports and have undergone report debriefing sessions. While some of them seem to have accepted feedback & sound committed to working on them, some other seem compliant & a bit skeptical.

I´ve been thinking - ´As a 360 degree process facilitator, what are things I should/should not focus on?´.

·        Why does an employee want to undergo a 360 degree process?  In this case, the manager had suggested process to employees. I realized employees were enthusiastic, neutral, or skeptical about undergoing process.  I wondered ´Did manager commit a mistake by asking his employees to undergo process? Can these conditions lead to ownership of development process by employee?´ I don´t think manager committed a mistake by suggesting/recommending process. Necessary condition is that the employee feels need for undergoing the process.  How we get to that state is immaterial.

·        When might it be useful for an employee to undergo a 360 degree process?  I think an employee might consider undergoing the process after s/he has spent reasonable time (probably about a year) in a 'new stakeholder network'. This new stakeholder network might arise out of a role change, change in external stakeholder groups, etc.

·        What is feedback used for? If feedback will be used for performance/career decisions, then state it so. If it used for development decisions, then state it so. In either case, follow principle in letter and spirit. 360 degree process becomes dysfunctional when there is divergence between stated intent and actual practice. In previous case, an employee works on feedback because his career is at stake. In later case s/he works on feedback because s/he feels ownership for what´s expressed. Later case is preferred (there would be less ´forced performance´) but either case can bring about movement.

·        Who do we take feedback from? Do we choose only those who are like us (& hence might like us)? Are we willing to take risk to reach out to those who may be neutral about us too?

·        How do we deal with feedback? One frame of reference to look at feedback from is 'How are our actions being interpreted/perceived?´. In this frame, how our actions are interpreted matters more than our actions. Do we have control on way our actions are interpreted? I am not sure of that. But I do think we need to take responsibility for way our actions are interpreted.  When we start thinking about our actions and intentions, defenses might rise up. Under such circumstance, accepting feedback and working on same becomes difficult.

·        An employee signed up for 360 degree process, got his report, and underwent debriefing session too. What next? Where does process go from here? I think it is about whether employee is creating a development plan that has buy in of his superior (where would resources come from?)and is committing to any actions around same.  If these two things are happening, feedback process is possibly producing its outcome.

Have you experienced a 360 degree process? How was your experience like? What works and what does not?

-

Sourav