Do They Know

All she was doing was requesting some leave. Leave she was owed, no special requests. And yet days had gone by with no action. She told me, I’m waiting for the right moment. Her boss had to be approached when he was in ‘the right mood’ or otherwise the reaction could be unpredictable. Really? For leave?

I’ve had a few conversations like these lately where people are tiptoeing around colleagues, and people up and down the line. And we are all human - bad days where we are not operating at our best, or as our best self are going to happen from time to time.

But one of the best things leaders and teams can do for each other is consistency. We can’t predict all the things that will happen in our workplace. Ideally though how we will respond should be really predictable. And it should instil confidence not fear. Our behaviour to each other is one of the elements we can control and enables teams to build a sense of certainty regardless of the situation and workload.

If as a leader you are feeling a bit frayed at the edges, it might be time to reset. For teams, it's well worth a conversation to establish how we will be, regardless of what we have to do.

A bit of ‘No’ makes a better ‘Yes’

Saying 'Yes' means we are agreeing to something.

We say 'Yes' many times a day. What are some of the things you say 'Yes' to on a typical day? Note them down.

We say 'Yes' for a variety of reasons:

• It’s part of our job

• We can add value

• Moving towards goals and objectives

• Opportunity to do something we enjoy

• Obligation

• Feeling pressured

• No alternatives

• Repercussions if I say “No”

'Yes' implies a commitment. Each commitment we make occupies time and energetic space. Even if we will never deliver, it occupies time and thought. Sometimes we add guilt or anxiety as well. Consider the cost of that commitment (especially if delivery will be difficult) as well as the cost/benefit of saying 'Yes'. Sometimes ‘No’ would be a better response:

• If we say ‘No’ sometimes, it makes our 'Yes' more valuable.

• It makes it more likely that when we do say 'Yes', we will deliver.

• We avoid commitments that we are not willing to keep

Are there times you said 'Yes', but should have said 'No’? What was the cost/impact? Should you be saying ‘No’ more often? What would it take to do that?

Clarity is often missing in our agreements. The clearer you can be about what you are saying 'Yes' (or no) to, the higher the quality of your 'Yes'. Eg. I’ll get back to you soon is less clear than I’ll get back to you by COB. Clear agreements set clear expectations and are easier to deliver and/or manage.

Clarity = tangible agreements

Have you ever said 'Yes' when timing, quality, scope, responsibility, resources (or other details} were unclear? What impact does lack of clarity have on you, your team and others?

For this week, focus on improving the quality of your ‘'Yes'’. When asking others for a ‘'Yes'’, be clearer about what you are asking.

Expedient?

How much pressure are you under to get things done?

Many leaders are experiencing increasing transactional cadence. The rate that things pop into the “to-do’ list is intense. It has us asking ourselves what the most expedient way to deal with each item is. I reckon it’s the wrong question. The quickest way to a result sometimes creates second or third order consequences that consume more time, energy and resources than a little more initial effort might have.

In my front yard right now there’s a large messy hole. The team that installed soak wells and paving did a great job. It looked awesome. But through winter there’s been issues with drainage. Today they dug part of it up to find the problem. A quick compaction job to finish the original job, rather than return another day, left a hollow air space under a pipe. The pipe slumped into the hole and no longer ran freely. It will be a full day to fix, and a fair bit of mess to clean up afterwards.

Some of the leaders I work with are either doing similar, or people in their teams are.

Sending a text rather than meeting about a critical tweak got things moving immediately, but the team is now redoing a heap of work because it was misunderstood.

Assuming someone had been included in a major project briefing, rather than directly checking now has a team buried in contentious stakeholder management, because residents were not informed of a major project nearby.

A customer issue has escalated to a major complaint and standoff after a rushed approach to finding out what the real issue was.

A colleague's motivation has dropped because she wasn’t included in the celebration of a piece of work she majorly contributed too.

These are all examples of time, energy and resource waste because something was done in what appeared to be the expedient way, only to cause more consequences. Most of them could have been avoided with a bit more though before rushing to the desired end point.

Sometimes we have to slow down to go faster. It’s a lesson I find myself learning more often than I’d like. How about you? Where could you slow down to go faster?

The Missing Link

One of the teams I’ve been working with has a great feedback culture. They ask for it and give it. They clearly valued feedback and made it part of how they work together. They also give lots of positive feedback, and often pause to self-reflect - sometimes giving themselves feedback about something they could improve.

And yet all of them said the same thing. The feedback they received was hard to use.

Actionable detail is the missing link. Feedback is more valuable if it is actionable. The more specific the better.

“You did a great job today” is feedback, but not useful. “You did a great job today. The specialist information you brought to the meeting, and the way you broke it down for non specialists really helped our colleagues understand what was needed. You left them with a clear path for action too. Thank you and keep it up.” is much more useful.

“I need you to step up” is feedback that’s not useful. “When we met on site today, you hung in the background and didn’t raise any of the issues you have previously highlighted. Could you take a more active role in leading the project. Next time could you bring the issues up for discussion and guide the resolution. I can offer support if you need a hand to prep.”

If you’d like a tool for giving more useful feedback, let me know and I’ll send it through.

5.6:1

Years ago I saw this research by Losada and friends which says the highest performing teams give almost 6 times more positive than negative feedback. How these numbers were derived has copped lots of scrutiny and criticism, but I reckon that completely misses the point.

The ‘work’ of making a team excel, is in alignment. The clearer our shared expectations of things like behaviour, standards, targets, the more likely we can achieve them. Lack of clarity burns time, energy and resources. Knowing what a great job looks like and why is way more important than what substandard looks like.

Positive feedback clearly sends a message that we care about each other and value the good stuff. We’ve all experienced places where people only seem to speak up if there is a problem or a criticism - and never seem to notice people’s good work.

I reckon most of us have room to improve when it comes to this ratio. I know I do. And rather than focus on the number - focus on clarity. “Is what we tell each other about performance clear enough that we can take action on it? Do we emphasise good work more than things we need to improve?” Those are effective questions. P.S the same ideas work well in our personal relationships too.

Next week we’ll talk more about the clarity and quality of feedback.

Socks and Psychological Safety

One of the most embarrassing moments I’ve had as an adult happened a number of years ago when I bought some new socks (that wasn’t the embarrassing bit). I left them sitting on our kitchen bench for many days. One day, I was short of socks, so I went to the bench to find them. They weren’t there. I assumed my dear wife had cleared them up and put them somewhere. I asked her where they were and she said she had no idea. Then it got embarrassing - I got cranky and started asking her how the hell she could forget where she had put them when she had clearly moved them. It wasn’t my finest hour, and at the time I found it really hard to let it go. Some time later it got even more embarrassing when I found the socks and discovered that it was me who had moved them, and me who had forgotten where. It took a while to repair our relationship after I had acted so poorly.

I was thinking of this incident recently when working with a team who have some fractures in their team culture right now because people aren’t behaving at their best. Like me back then, they have been treating each other in less than ideal ways. It’s pretty human to want to avoid admitting and taking responsibility when we haven’t behaved at our best. It’s also pretty human to want to fire back, rather than extend grace and forgiveness when people treat you poorly (even more so if there’s zero justification for it). It can take a team quickly in a downward spiral where defensiveness, blame, and sniping become the new norm. It gets in the way of both productive effectiveness and team cohesiveness.

One simple principle is “Play the problem, not the person.”

Chunking Up

When I was working in the disability service sector, I was asked to get involved with a family whose services were not going well. More particularly, the mother of a young adult we were supporting did not think they were going well. She had made a number of complaints. I was told “they are a problem family” and warned that I would not be likely to get a reasonable response from mum. I was appreciative of the warning, but I reckon it wasn’t particularly helpful, as it predisposed me to an adversarial conversation. A few people before me had been in vigorous arguments with her about the service and not reached any suitable solutions. Mostly the interactions led to more complaints.

When I first met mum she was angry about a lot of things. She was entirely justified about a number of them. The volume of things she was unhappy about was big and some of the things were not solvable, so I chunked up. Chunking up is moving away from detail toward principle. If you go far enough, you eventually find territory where instead of arguing 2 sides, you both agree. For that mum and me it was that we both cared about high quality of life for her son.

Chunking up to a point of agreement allows two (or more) people to get away from adversarial positions and start on the same side. If you can find a bigger principle that is true for both and connect about that, then it’s easier to work back down into the details. Look at the details through the principle. “Does (detail) contribute or erode higher quality of life?” is a more useful conversation than arguing head to head over details. It becomes easier to see what is important to both parties, what should be fought for, and what should be compromised.

It took a number of sessions, immediate actions on some stuff that wasn’t great, more proactive changes and compromises for both of us, before everyone was satisfied with the service.

Where could you chunk up for a more effective conversation?

Inviting Response

An Executive leader recently noticed something in one of my workshops. He asked “When someone in the room asks a question or makes a comment, you seem to either agree or say something positive before commenting or answering, even if you don't agree with them. Is that deliberate?”

I love this kind of question from someone who is simultaneously engaging with content, plus observing the detail of what is happening in the room. That’s a useful skill to cultivate. And his observation was spot on. Some of the things I might say are:

• That’s a really interesting story, thanks for sharing it.

• Thanks for your question.

• Tell me more about…

• I can see how (reflect observation) would be potentially challenging in your context.

• Thanks for your insights.

• Thanks for your thoughtful response.

• I see, help me understand more about the impact of that.

Even when I strongly disagree with a perspective, it’s rare that I will immediately take an oppositional perspective without exploring further. For leaders, whatever the context, we have an overweighted share of creating (or damaging) psychological safety. I want people to interact, ask, challenge, respond. If I immediately disagree with them, or take a black and white opposing view, I immediately degrade the likelihood that others will speak or ask anything. Inviting dialogue can be challenging when we directly disagree, but if we shut people down, it doesn’t change their point of view. It shuts the gate on open participation, driving the real conversation underground and out of view.

How do you encourage open dialogue in your context? How do you handle contentious perspectives?

Thanks Paul for the thought provoking observation and question.

Chunking up

Feedback

How’s feedback working in your team?

When I ask teams about improving how well they work together, feedback almost always shows up in the conversation. Most teams tell me there is not enough feedback, or that it’s low quality. Ideally feedback is clear and specific enough that you can do something useful with it. In effective teams (ones where there are competent people and not much in the way of toxic behaviour), getting better at feedback is a great way to level up. But while a lot of us would like more (or better) feedback, hardly anyone gets excited about giving it. We shy away from it, concerned about negative reactions or hurting people’s feelings.

One of the best ways I know to change that dynamic is to start giving people clear and useful feedback about the great work they are doing as well as the stuff that needs improving. You’ll build a culture where feedback feels safe, and people feel valued whatever the nature of feedback you are giving.

Teams that nail this have a ratio of about 5X more positive feedback than corrective feedback.

What do you reckon the ratio is in your team?

The Gap

Some Aussie front line workers colourfully describe the office as ‘Bullshit Castle’. The castle might be HQ in another city, or the supervisors office. When they tell me more, the story is always about directives issued with no operational perspective. In the same organisations, leaders are often looking back the other way with low confidence about how business is being done on the front line. Clarity is low. Frustration (and/or scepticism) is high. Do-overs are frequent. It’s hard to get a complete picture of what's going on, because trust is like unicorn horn!

There’s a continuum at play. At one end, I reckon just about every organisation experiences some mild form of the above. It doesn’t cause major issues, but it slows everything down. At the other end there are highly toxic environments where people rarely bring their best and collaborative work is non-existent.

Where does your organisation sit on the continuum? Whether you have a vast icy wilderness to cross, or already great pathways, enhancing psychological safety will move you in the right direction.

I’d love to hear what’s working for you, and where the frustrations are.

What it Takes

I was invited to observe a team meeting today as part of work building on their already robust psychological safety. Four significant elements of how they work together really stood out.

1. Recognition - All sorts of things were recognised. New hires, project milestones, people’s skill and contribution, a recent big push on a project involving lots of extra time and covering for people who are away. No rose coloured glasses here though. Fatigue, mental health, a significant safety incident, concerns about links between HQ and operations were also openly discussed. There was ample celebration, but also deep dives into real and significant issues that deserved attention.

2. Up for the challenge - Several times people raised challenges to decisions, processes, people. The challengers spoke openly and directly. No one took offence. More often than not their challenge was met with open and curious questions seeking to understand their perspective more fully. Contributions were welcomed and explored.

3. Marking the Boundaries - At every opportunity people shared information, purpose, backstory, decision making parameters, reasoning and more (often as part of the challenge conversations). Everybody contributed to a more complete team view of what was happening, what was expected and what value they could add.

4. People took responsibility - When action was required someone put their hand up to own it. Timelines and detail were given. Follow up was arranged. Lots was getting done. People volunteered for this responsibility without prompting. It seemed expected and normal.

This team is quite a contrast to some others I have worked in and with. The kinds of contributions made by every individual in this meeting are often nowhere to be seen. One way traffic from the ‘chair’ coupled with defensive conversation and lack of accountability are more often the picture.

If you could pick one of the points above to focus on with your team, which would it be?

If you’d like to discuss building psychological safety in your team or organisation, let's have a chat.

Leading Voices

Quality leaders are able to share strongly held opinions, backed by quality information. When they do it well, there’s also an acknowledgement of other perspectives and an invitation to a deeper conversation. Done well, it provides both Psychological Safety to enter the discussion and also a clear direction from the leader. Psychological Safety does not mean watered down leadership, or the lack of robust debate.

Australia is on the verge of an historic vote on the Voice to Parliament. There are a range of strongly held perspectives on this. Unfortunately, a lot of the discussion is polarised and adversarial rather than as described above. This from Braden Hill is a great example of excellent leadership as described above. What do you think? How could you emulate this kind of leadership in your roles?

A Cautionary Tale

I was called in to facilitate a discussion between six team members from a settlement agency in a small open plan office. On a daily basis, they relied on each other for information, and to ensure timely settlements took place.

As with any workplace, there were a number of characters who would be unlikely to have much to do with each other outside work. Over the course of about two years, what started as a minor issue escalated to a full-blown investigation into bullying allegations. The heightened state of friction and tension in the office was causing significant performance issues, both individually and across the whole business. Balls were being dropped, and financial penalties were being applied due to non-delivery. The business was not dealing particularly well with the issue, and there was even the possibility of a massive escalation of the original complaint.

There were two issues that had once been minor, and had been allowed to escalate to the stage where they threatened work effectiveness, performance, peoples’ health, and the very company itself. The first was a personality clash that was exaggerated by the open plan office environment and sloppy personal and organisational management. Two people would spend large amounts of time talking about social situations and their personal lives. The kinds of conversations we all have over coffee, a meal or after work. The fact that it was during work time and in an open workspace had another colleague attempting to join the conversation. The others didn’t want to include her in the conversation. So far this is a minor issue.

Over time she felt increasingly excluded and marginalised from the conversations. She tried harder to join them. The other two increasingly shunned her and eventually escalated their behaviour to the point that a bullying and harassment complaint was made and the subsequent investigation found that they had not treated their colleague appropriately. Going forward there was considerable and difficult work required to repair the fractured relationships to the point that they could work effectively together again. Success would now require significant commitment, effort and willing participation from all parties.

In parallel, the person who eventually made the bullying complaint had several genuine performance issues with her work. Her manager had not dealt with these, and they too had escalated until the situation was untenable.

But the time I was involved, it was pretty much impossible for the manager to deal with any of the performance issues, without them being seen as an extension of the bullying the woman was experiencing. It seemed unlikely that the various players could find a space to move on from the issues. Their demeanour and attitudes suggested they would just continue to escalate their part in the drama.

Both issues could have been easily dealt with when they were hotspots or small tears. Like many in the face of tension, friction or conflict, the manager and others had avoided the issue for so long it had become largely unsalvageable.

The manager (and others) could have taken action to clarify expectations, set the bar, and catch it early. They could have:

• Addressed the issue of excessive social chat in the open plan work environment, especially when the conversations were not intended to be shared with everyone. Simply leaving these conversations for a morning coffee break or lunch would have made the issue disappear before it got traction.

• Addressed the performance issues as soon as they were noticed - initially by asking if the person needed support or clarification of their role, and ultimately through formal performance management if needed.

• Had a whole team conversation about expectations and behaviour in the open plan environment which would have enabled the team to set and monitor their own benchmarks for healthy ways of working together and getting the job done, as in the next case study.

The Edges of Clarity

“We meet and agree on the direction of the project. But then I find work is being done that is counter to the strategic direction we have agreed.” (A CEO)

“One of the decision makers is unavailable to meet for extended periods. Meanwhile we have to decide and take action. Then he shows up, doesn’t like the decisions and ‘throws grenades’.” (Company Director)

“My manager meets with me weekly and keeps getting involved in the nitty gritty of my projects. I’m a senior practitioner with years of experience managing projects like this. When she gets involved in this way, I feel like my skills aren’t valued and it slows everything down.” (Senior Technical Project Manager)

“Mate, we just sit on the sidelines until ‘Bullshit Castle’ tells us what to do. If we start anything, they always come and change it anyway, so what's the point? Might as well chill til they make up their mind.” (Frontline Supervisor)

Have you ever heard or said things like these? They are all real examples from coaching sessions over the years. All stem from a lack of clarity. Lack of clarity burns time, energy and resources. Do-overs, stress, frustration, lack of momentum, fatigue, cynicism are byproducts.

The challenge for clarity is that your expectations and assumptions are probably different to mine. Unless we spend some time understanding the gaps and creating alignment, we are destined to carry unnecessary load. It’s no wonder that “Lack of Clarity” is listed as a psychosocial hazard in the updated Work Health and Safety Legislation in Australia.

Time spent increasing clarity is never wasted time. It’s a case of slowing down to speed up. Where could you add clarity today?

Smiling: The Simplest Super Power

We were heading into an awkward moment, neither sure what to do next. I was being served by an older Malay woman in a store in Kuala Lumpur. Her limited English was way better than my limited Bahasa, so it was the language we were using. I asked a question, and despite our best efforts together, I couldn’t make it clear, and she couldn’t understand. We were both getting a little frustrated, not with each other, but with our mutual misunderstanding. I smiled. She smiled back. We laughed. It was a moment of human connection. Frustration dissipated. We tried again with more success.

According to some researchers, trust in a workplace has 2 components - Warmth and Competence. Warmth = approachability and safety. Competence = We’ll be able to get the job done. We humans judge warmth in milliseconds. Competence takes longer to establish. But guess what… If we are already seen as warm, we are more likely to be seen as competent too. A genuine smile is one of the fastest ways we have of conveying warmth. Smiling more is a simple super power to build trust and open the door for Psychological Safety.

It’s easy to forget when under pressure, in a hurry or dealing with contentious topics. And it’s also all the more important. Experiment with smiling more, I’d love to hear your results.

The Busy Dillema

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I was working with a leader (let’s call her Beth) last week who echoed a familiar theme. Busy! Not just with ‘busy work’. Beth faces a continual assault of important things joining her action list. Much of it is ‘Mission Critical’ - left for too long it becomes both important and urgent. Like many, she feels the timeframe for action is getting compressed. The result? Close range focus and compelling reactivity. Both feed the sense of urgent transactional pressure. So how the hell do you add clarity in the midst of that!

One of the simplest levers is to look for recurring patterns and see if you can inject clarity early. Beth works in human services and has an important customer whose service sometimes reaches a crisis point where their family gets involved. At a minimum, this requires some careful communication. At worst it results in a formal complaint and mandated response/action. The urgent (and important) requirement to respond adds pressure to Beth, her team and the person receiving the service.

When we unpacked it in detail, most of the issues arise because the family doesn't have enough information about what is happening. The family, Beth and her team spend hours (sometimes days) resolving the situation. When Beth contacts the family regularly to update them on the service, the larger concerns are dealt with while they are still manageable. It adds clarity for everyone. Adding a regular call or visit to update the family saves time and adds value for everyone involved.

The challenge for Beth is she is genuinely busy. The service is mostly going well. Making those regular calls will be in competition with many other urgent tasks. AND proactive action like this always creates clarity, capacity and alleviates pressure.

What are the recurring pressure points for you? What action could you take to add clarity and reduce the pressure?

Clear as Mud

Image by Hans from Pixabay

One of the greatest barriers to effective work is getting clear about what we want, need or expect for a job well done. Here are some examples of lack of clarity getting in the way of good work. They are all live examples from my own interactions with staff, or from leaders I coach.

• A designer sends me some sample ideas based on an initial brief. It’s not even close to what I was expecting. I’m baffled, because I’m sure I have been really clear about what I consider some of the fundamental ‘must haves’ in the design. When I go back to my brief I find several areas that I thought were crystal clear, but on reflection are very ambiguous. I have not set the designer up for success. I could have done a much clearer job of the brief. The designer could have asked for more clarification.

• A manager gets very frustrated when a high priority piece of work has received no attention for several weeks. They had given an urgent task to the person responsible. The urgent task was interpreted as a ‘drop everything else’ priority. He had shifted all his effort and attention to the new task. It left the manager questioning his capability and him feeling ambushed and unsupported.

• A team gets delegated work from their team leader. They take no action. Why? Because the team leader has a pattern of taking over part way through a delegated task and ‘re-doing’ it because it’s not ‘up to standard’. Neither the leader or the team can articulate what the ‘standard’ is. The team has decided to wait until the team leader initiates the direction, because it feels like a waste of time to do otherwise.

• A director gives a senior leader responsibility for coordinating the scheduling of staff for significant remote area projects that the team is delivering. The leader starts organising a detailed roster to ensure expertise, breaks, and logistics are all taken into account for each trip. She’s told she’s overstepping the mark. The directors wanted to be able to assemble their own project teams. The senior leader was completely confused about what was expected. Turns out they wanted someone tracking workloads and scheduling issues, to advise on team makeup, rather than someone to actually assemble the team. Both had a really different picture of what ‘coordination’ meant.

All these examples burnt time, energy and resources. They created frustration and more work to arrive at good outcomes. All of them involved capable, competent and enthusiastic people. Lack of clarity was a significant factor in all of them.

Do you have similar experiences where you work? What’s the impact?

Lack of role clarity is listed as a potential psychosocial hazard. Lack of clarity adds to workload and can certainly contribute to stress. Clarity also contributes to a sense of certainty and acts as a launch pad for high performance. Next time we’ll talk about what we can do to add clarity.

Break Back to Back

Guess what! Back to back virtual meetings cause elevated stress levels. Recent research from Microsoft confirms it, but none of us are surprised. Anyone who has leapt from one “Brady Bunch” screen to another has felt it.

Microsoft scanned the brains of 14 people as they went back-to-back, compared to taking a 5 to 10 minute break between meetings. Back to back = elevated and sustained stress levels (Red/Yellow scan). Short breaks = minimal stress (Blue scan).

And while the research focuses on virtual meetings, I reckon it would hold true for face to face ones as well (although at least there is a short decompression as you move from one to the other.)

Elevated stress smashes our ability to think, decide, solve, communicate, and collaborate. Most of those meetings require one or more of these from us. As a survival instructor, creating ‘task saturation’ was a really easy way to create duress for a team on a survival course. Impose a tight deadline, swamp them with information, ask for clear decisions and plans, hit them with distractions and before long the stress levels are through the roof and mistakes are made. That adds even more pressure, as now the team has to solve problems it has created for itself. Now add conflict (or at least friction/tension) as people get shorter and sharper with each other. Does this sound familiar?

We can do better. And we need to. This stuff has a direct impact on bottom line. In Australia there have also been recent changes to Work Health and Safety that put greater responsibility for workplace mental health and wellbeing on employers. This stuff has a pretty clear cause and effect chain. There are known health consequences of sustained levels of unhealthy stress. Back to Back environments may well end up in similar territory of allowing employees to operate in dangerous environments when fatigued. In a tight recruitment market, being a better place to work will also be a competitive edge. Proactively addressing this problem makes sense on many fronts.

Potential system solutions:

• Set calendar systems to make meetings 25 min rather than 30, or 50 min rather than 1hr.

• Set 2 or 3, 15 to 20 minute break blocks per day where none can book anyone for anything.

Potential style solutions:

• Have some meetings standing up/walking, and outside.

• Lead by example. Take mini breaks. Encourage others to do the same.

Potential working solutions:

• Give people greater say in the meetings that they attend, or at least ask ‘why do we need this meeting?’

• Get clear about what the meeting is for. If it’s not clear, can it.

People are generally experiencing higher than normal levels of fatigue, stress and burnout. “Push Through!” is a valid answer in short burn situations. It doesn’t work in longer burn ones.

Let’s create an environment where we all scan ‘Blue’.

That's Encouraging

Encouragement is twice as likely as criticism to create improvement, said Col Fink on Linked In. I asked Col if he had any data to back it up. ‘It feels intuitively right’ said Col. I agree. And there are some numbers too.

Losada and Heaphy did research looking at this in 2004. They don't quantify what "high" vs "medium" performance actually looks like. There has been significant criticism of their methodology since. I reckon as leaders, there are several actionable observations, regardless of validity of the numbers.

1. There is a disproportionate effect of positive reflection vs criticism - this spans territory like saying thanks and well done, gratitude practices, feedback and more.

2. 'Room for improvement' observations have greater traction in an environment biased toward the positive. Maybe that's because it feels like the person making the observations actually cares about us and notices the good stuff too.

3. We are biased to notice problems. I reckon that's the engine room of human success. We notice stuff and forget after improving it. This bias also reduces the likelihood that we'll repeat mistakes. That's the upside. The downside is we feel as if we are not getting anywhere especially in situations when the work is not physically visible or tangible. Positive reflection creates a sense of progress - It's a modern leadership imperative!

4. Whether praising or criticising (self or others) the good stuff happens when we are as clear and specific as possible. "Good Job" is less useful than "The simple layout of that project plan really helped me get my head around it. Thanks for the effort you put into that."

It's counterintuitive to pause and reflect positively on what’s been achieved. You'll be more likely to focus on the intense transactional cadence of getting the next thing done - but it has massive ROI. I reckon Col Fink's intuitive 2:1 is somewhere near the mark and it may even be higher.

How can you encourage someone right now?

Great Questions

I’ve been a fan of great questions my whole life. They have a way, when asked well, of opening and deepening really interesting conversations. Over the years I have kept notebooks filled with great questions I have heard. I was recently interviewed on Sonia Nolan’s “My Warm Table” podcast. Sonia combines questions about food, family and expertise that result in a dramatically different type of conversation. I’ve loved listening to Sonia and some of her other guests, and hope you enjoy the conversation we recently shared.

By the way, I’m keen to keep adding to worthwhile podcasts out there. People like Sonia put a lot of work into great content. If you know anyone looking for guests, let me know.