Someone on My Team Won’t Change – What Do I Do?

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June 22, 2022 | Mark Altman 

Category:

Managing down 

The Problem:

You’ve requested repeatedly that your employee better communicate project updates, but nothing has changed. 

Conversation Preparation Steps: 

Your role as a manager – and coach – is to: 

  1. Identify potential root cause(s) of your employee’s resistance to change, and 
  2. Set realistic outcomes for an initial conversation.
Identify The Root Cause: 

Get in a mindset of curiosity, not judgment, to understand what is driving your employee’s behavior. Ask questions to get to the real (not perceived) problem and empathize with the reason they haven’t yet been willing or able to change. 

Your employee may: 

  • Lack self-awareness and not realize they are continuing the unwanted behavior. 
  • Not see the value in changing their behavior. 
  • Not be willing to accept help/feedback. 
  • Not feel confident in or committed to implementing the new desired behavior. 
Set Realistic Outcomes for an Initial Conversation:

Change takes time. When we want someone to alter their behavior, we need to level-set our own expectations to be realistic. The following are the steps you must help your employee move through before any change can or will be made. 

Step 1: Employee gains awareness of and alignment on the problem. 

Step 2: Employee articulates that they see value in a different approach. 

Step 3: Employee identifies and articulates the benefits/rewards of making a change. 

Step 4: Employee creates incremental SMART goals and a follow-up plan. 

Step 5: Employee feels confident and committed regarding the goals and action plan.

Step 6: Employee plans to put new habits and behaviors into action. 

Takeaways: 
  • Often, we want a change conversation to be straightforward: “You’re doing/not doing X, and I want you to do Y instead,” but this approach is often ineffective.
  • To create change, we must first understand the root cause of an employee’s resistance to change, so that we can address it.
  • When implementing change, we must remember that there are several steps to creating lasting change. If we expect change instantly, we are likely to be frustrated and disappointed. 

Content derived from MindsetGo Training Programs: Managing Yourself; Courageous Conversations; Assertiveness

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

How to Stop Solving the Wrong Problems

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June 15, 2022 | Megan Fine 

A few weeks ago, my sweet grandmother passed away peacefully in her sleep. She was beloved by all who knew her, truly warm, charming, and delightful. She is and will continue to be dearly missed. 

Though her passing was not unexpected, I realized a few days before the funeral that I didn’t have something appropriate to wear.

I voiced my concern to my partner, Ilan, in a mind-dump of both emotions and logistics. In a kind attempt to help, he said, “Well, why don’t you wear a black cardigan? A black cardigan would be modest and match pretty much anything.”

The thing is – though I hadn’t voiced it – I wasn’t worried about my cardigan selection. I was far more focused on my shoes. I had a dress, but the heels I own didn’t match (and I wasn’t sure I could make it through a calling hour, service, burial, and reception in heels anyway!), flats didn’t seem quite right, and it was going to be in the 40s – too cold for sandals.

Though I knew he was trying to help, I felt annoyed at Ilan’s suggestion – now, in addition to figuring out what shoes to wear, I had to explain why a black cardigan was not the solution to my outfit issues.

This example is small (I love Ilan and his intentions were good!), but it highlights something we so often do when trying to help others – we jump into problem-solving mode too quickly and end up solving the wrong problem. Because he didn’t ask questions to understand my actual challenge (versus the perceived one), my partner provided a solution that was not a solution at all.

Had Ilan simply said, “Tell me more,” or probed, “What are you worried about specifically?” rather than jumping to an answer, he would have known what the true problem was, and we both could have avoided unnecessary stress and aggravation. 

The next time a team member or peer comes to your desk with a challenge or problem, remember to ask questions to understand the actual issue, not the perceived one. It will save you the trouble of solving the wrong problem and help you provide advice that’s truly worth your two cents.

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

My boss no shows or is late to our one-on-ones – Help!

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June 6, 2022 | Mark Altman

Category:

Managing up

The Problem:

Your boss is either consistently late or doesn’t show up at all for your 1:1s. In addition, they don’t give you a heads up or let you know they’re running late or not coming. Worse, they don’t seem to care or feel remorseful about their tardiness or no shows. 

The Root Cause: 

Your boss may: 

  • Struggle to manage themselves; they may be so overwhelmed with their schedule, putting out fires, and keeping up with the workload that communication stops. 
  • Have authority entitlement: “You work for me, and my priority is taking care of our customers/clients/prospects.” 
  • Be putting customers or sales prospects before you and expect you to understand that. 
  • Not value the 1:1s anyway so they see it as no big deal. 
The Solution:

Multiple Challenges/Determine a Realistic Outcome 

There are three separate problems here and it is unlikely you can solve all of them in one conversation. 

  1. Your boss is a varying degree of late,
  2. They don’t let you know, and
  3. They don’t seem to care.

Pick a starting point. In this case, it is that they at least extend the courtesy of letting you know when their plans change. 

The Conversation 

Have a “Managing Up” conversation with your boss and share your observation/experience to get alignment on the issue. Your boss may respond and say how busy they’ve been, make excuses, or otherwise not validate what you’re saying. Don’t let that deter you or get emotionally invested in their response.  

Make the Ask 

Instead, be direct, lead with empathy, and ask for permission: “I appreciate how much you have on your plate. Would it be okay to please let me know if you’re running late or can’t make a meeting? When you don’t do that, I’m missing out on opportunities to be productive, support my own team, and help the company be successful.” 

Make your request direct and reasonable, with a compelling motivation for them to comply. 

Proactive Accountability  

To help your boss build self-awareness and ultimately shift their behavior, ask, “If I become aware of you doing that again, do I have permission to hold you accountable?”

Content derived from MindsetGo Training Programs: Speak Up to Keep Up Assertiveness Training; Courageous Conversations 

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

Have a Colleague Who Consistently Interrupts You? Here’s What to Do About It

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May 30, 2022 | Mark Altman

Category:

Managing across

The Problem:

A colleague interrupts and speaks over you. 

The Root Cause:

Your colleague may: 

  • Not value your role/feedback. 
  • Not respect you. 
  • Feel what they have to say is most important. 
  • Have a blind spot: they don’t know they’re doing it; no one has ever given them the feedback.
The Resolution: 

You will need to have a managing across conversation with your colleague. These conversations can be challenging as you don’t have authority over someone when managing across. To set yourself up for success, use the following conversation template. 

Determine a Realistic Goal for the Conversation

Ideally, the first time we give feedback to someone, they immediately and permanently change their behavior, but that rarely happens. Set a goal and a realistic ask prior to the conversation.

Ask Permission 

Start the conversation by asking permission to give your colleague feedback: “Would it be okay if I give you feedback about something that’s been on my mind?”

Get Alignment 

Share your feedback and then ensure you are on the same page: “It’s been my experience in meetings that you sometimes interrupt and talk over me. I’m wondering if it surprises you to hear that?”

Share Observation (if appropriate) 

If your colleague responds that they are surprised or didn’t realize they were doing that, provide one or two concrete examples.

Make the Ask 

If your colleague responds with agreement – “I do tend to do that, I’m sorry” – then share your ask. Remember, this person may have had this habit for a long time; if your goal is for them to stop interrupting you entirely, that may not be realistic. 

Practice Proactive Accountability  

To help your colleague build self-awareness and ultimately shift their behavior, ask, “If I become aware of you doing that again, do I have permission to hold you accountable?”

Takeaways: 
  • Follow the template for a Managing Across Conversation: Determine Realistic Goal, Ask Permission, Get Alignment, Share Observation, Make the Ask, and Practice Proactive Accountability. 
  • Remember, habits take a long time to build but aren’t easy to break. Even if your colleague has good intentions, they likely will not change their behavior overnight. Ask permission to hold them accountable to support them in the change. 

Content derived from MindsetGo Training Programs: Speak Up to Keep Up Assertiveness Training; Courageous Conversations 

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

Stop Having Repeat Conversations with Your Team (Here’s How)

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May 17, 2022 | Mark Altman 

Picture this: it’s Monday morning and you’re holding your weekly team meeting. You’re brainstorming how to improve lead capture on your website, and as Natalie is sharing an idea, Tom jumps in with his thoughts, steamrolling right over her.  

You can see Natalie bristle with frustration and then go quiet the rest of the meeting. Tom’s idea was a good one, but now you’re missing out on Natalie and likely other team members’ contributions. A little self-awareness on Tom’s part would go a long way here – and the worst part is, you’ve addressed this issue with him before. What are you missing? 

Here are our keys to more effective conversations – so you can have them once, not several times. 

First, make the conversation safe and minimize anxiety by setting it up as follows. 

You: Hey Tom, do you have a few minutes to talk? Can we do a quick 15-minute zoom?  

Tom: Sure, what’s it about?     

You: I’ve just been reflecting on something, and I want to pick your brain.

Then, start the conversation by gauging the person’s self-awareness around their behavior. 

You: So, I wanted to pick your brain about how our team meetings are going. What are your thoughts?  

Tom: They’re fine, I guess. Why do you ask ?

At this point, do two things:

  1. Get alignment on the problem.
  2. Share your perceptions and observations using I statements. 

You: The reason why I asked is because my perception is in meetings sometimes you tend to interrupt. (Pause) And I was just wondering, does that surprise you that I’m saying that? 

If your employee becomes defensive or starts listing excuses, provide a tangible example of their behavior. 

Tom: Kind of. No one has ever given me that feedback before.  

You: No problem. I understand. So, I’m going to give you an example if that’s okay, just so you can understand my perspective.  

Tom: Okay, sure.

You: Yesterday, when Natalie was sharing during our brainstorm on lead capture, you jumped in before she had a chance to finish speaking. I noticed she seemed frustrated and didn’t share much after that. 

Tom: Yeah, I guess I could see that.

Now, here is where many leaders get it wrong because they make an ask, and given the hierarchy of leader and team member, of course the person will agree.  

Common Leadership Response: So, I am asking you to be mindful of not interrupting when someone else is sharing their thoughts. 

In addition, leaders who go this route:

  • Haven’t taken time to understand the root cause of the problem
  • Don’t know if their team member is motivated to change their behavior
  • Don’t know if their team member has the skills to change their behavior
  • Are seeking compliance instead of collaboration 

Why is Tom jumping into conversations at inappropriate times? How long has he had this habit? Does he see a compelling reason to change his behavior? Does he know how to go about changing his behavior? 

Without the emotional and conversational intelligence to address these questions and challenges, most leaders end up having the same conversations and making the same requests repeatedly without results. 

At MindsetGo, we build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets to create lasting habit and behavior change. If you’re ready to develop the emotional and conversational intelligence you need to stop having repeat conversations, contact us today. It never hurts to talk!

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

What to Do When an Employee Circumvents the Chain of Command

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May 4, 2022 | Mark Altman 

Category:

Managing up, down, and across 

The Problem:

Your direct report or colleague consistently circumvents the chain of command by going to your boss with questions and concerns instead of you. 

The Root Cause: 

Your report or colleague may: 

  • Feel frustrated at a lack of progress on something they want accomplished. 
  • Have an unmet expectation – something they wanted you to do that you didn’t – even though they may not have articulated that expectation to you. 
  • Not feel you are empowered to do anything about their problem. 
Your Choices:

You have the option to: 

  • Internalize the situation (and make it mean something about you, your report/colleague, your leadership skills, etc.), or 
  • Address it. 

If you choose to address it, you will need to have two conversations: one managing up and one managing across or down. 

Managing Up Conversation 

Have a conversation with your supervisor about the report/colleague’s behavior. 

You: Hey Susan, Jane is going to you to solve X problem instead of me. Have you noticed that?  

Allow your supervisor to respond. They may justify the behavior or make an excuse and regardless of their response, ask: “Will you support me in not enabling that behavior as it will impact my credibility otherwise?” 

Managing Down/Across Conversation 

Have a non-confrontational conversation with Jane. Use a curious, empathetic, nonjudgmental tone.  

You: Hey Jane, I noticed you went to my boss for X problem. I’m wondering why you didn’t just come to me directly? 

Jane may either become defensive or make an excuse and either way, empathize and validate her perspective, and then inquire further as needed: “I’m wondering why you made that choice?”  

Takeaways: 
  • You have choices: you can ignore the problem and hope it doesn’t repeat, internalize your frustration, or have a courageous conversation. 
  • If you choose to be assertive, you must have two conversations: one to ensure that your boss isn’t enabling the behavior and one to understand why the person is making that choice. 

Content derived from MindsetGo Training Programs: Managing Yourself; Courageous Conversations; Assertiveness 

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

Why Your Team Isn’t Following Through – And What to Do About It

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January 10, 2022 | Mark Altman

Picture this: it’s January, and you’re working on building a more effective social media marketing strategy this year. So you call up your marketing guy – let’s call him Steve – and you say, “Steve, we need a content calendar. Can you pull that together for next week?”

“Sure thing, no problem,” he tells you.

It’s a week later, and you follow up: “Hey Steve, how’s the content calendar coming?”

Silence, and then, “Uhh, the content calendar. Right. I didn’t have time to get to it this week…”

Cue the frustration. Why bother having a team if you can’t rely on them to follow through?

Yikes. Time for a reframe.

When a team member tells you they forgot or didn’t have time to do something, do you believe they’re actively trying to disappoint or frustrate you?

Life would be a lot easier if we could simply control other people. Unfortunately, that’s not the case; however, as leaders, we can influence their behavior and better set them up for success.

How do we do that? We ensure that we are getting commitment, not simply agreement, from our team.

  • Agreement = yes, in principal, I agree with what you’re saying
  • Commitment = I agree and I am set up to follow through

When motivating your team to act – to get commitment – you must help them articulate tangible and specific benefits of following through. Knowing what they need to do is not enough; they must understand why they need to do it.

Often, leaders have a top-down approach when articulating their why’s, i.e., they share their own reasoning with their team, but the most powerful motivation comes from team members articulating the why’s themselves.

I was recently coaching a client to take a 20-minute walk in the middle of his day, and he asked me, “Okay Mark, but what’s the return on investment?” For me, the answer was easy. I get six major benefits from taking a walk during my workday:

  • I get a break from screen time to clear my head.
  • I get fresh ideas about things I’m problem-solving.
  • Being outside in the fresh air is invigorating.
  • My stress levels drop by virtue of stepping away from work.
  • Things I may have forgotten pop into my head.
  • I plan for how I’m going to spend more time with my loved ones.

All great reasons for me to take a walk, but even more powerful is drawing out the client’s own specific and tangible benefits of building this new habit.

So let’s rethink that conversation with Steve. Next time, you might try: “Hey Steve, I feel like we need a content calendar. What do you think?”

“Okay, yeah, a content calendar. That could be useful.”

“How do you think having a content calendar might be helpful?”

“Hmm, well sometimes we miscommunicate about when we agreed to post things. And I know we talked about creating more coherent themes for our newsletters and social media pages. So that might help us plan a little better. And if we had a content calendar, we might be able to better align our posts with events we have going on.”

“Awesome, you think you can have that pulled together for our touch base next week?”

“You got it!”

Next time you meet with your team, focus on helping them articulate the benefits of the work they do, or the habits they’re trying to change, and let us know how it goes.

And stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll discuss the most effective tool for translating motivation into action.

Enjoy this post? Contact us to empower your leaders and teams to build the confidence, develop the skills, and embrace the mindset to create lasting habit and behavior change.

MindsetGo Acquires Whole Health Co, LLC to Address the Great Resignation and Build Engaged and Effective Workforces

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Boston, MA – January 6, 2022 | MindsetGo announced today the acquisition of Whole Health Co, LLC, a corporate wellness company offering custom services for businesses and schools. Whole Health Co-founder Patty Burke, CHC, CLC, joins MindsetGo as Director of Wellness, bringing her expertise in lifestyle habit change and an experienced team of health coaches and wellness experts to MindsetGo.

The acquisition expands MindsetGo’s existing organizational development services to also include mental, physical, and emotional support. These expanded offerings will in turn foster happy, productive, and resilient employees both in and out of the workplace.

U.S. employees are resigning in record-breaking numbers (one in four workers quit their jobs in 2021). This phenomenon, dubbed by economists as the Great Resignation, immediately presents employers with challenges including a depleted workforce, employee engagement, and retention. Organizations are seeing their leadership burn out while experiencing higher levels of anxiety and stress due to increased workloads and the additional challenges of remote work.

“When organizations evaluate their biggest challenges, mental and emotional wellness are typically not on the top of the list,” said Mark Altman, Founder of MindsetGo. “In fact, emotional intelligence and resiliency directly support people’s ability to manage themselves, cope with difficult people, navigate conflict, and adapt to change.” Whereas companies once invested in employee wellness simply to help lower health insurance costs, they are now prioritizing it to retain and support their talent. With the high cost of turnover (in some cases, one to two times an employee’s salary), they can’t afford not to invest in their employees’ well-being and success.

“More than ever, companies need support for attracting and retaining top talent as well as overcoming the challenges of an unstable labor market,” said Burke. “Providing support, resources, training, and personalized coaching for valued leaders and staff is critical for boosting employee productivity and ultimately, enhancing bottom lines.”

Survey data from Ginger’s “Third Annual Workforce Attitudes Toward Mental Health Report” revealed that a stunning 96% of CEOs consider their employee mental health efforts adequate, while only 69% of employees agree, revealing a gap between policy and initiative. What differentiates MindsetGo from other training and coaching organizations is a philosophy that focuses on habit change. Both Altman and Burke believe in going beyond simply educating clients, to helping people translate knowledge into action. They provide proven strategies, guidance, and encouragement that motivate people to take the steps they need to thrive, and not just survive, in both their personal and professional lives.

For more information, please contact MindsetGo.

 

About MindsetGo

MindsetGo empowers leaders, teams, and individuals to build the confidence, develop the skills, and embrace the mindset to create lasting habit and behavior change. Our methodology to support people in becoming more confident and effective communicators is based on helping them develop and use three communication components: emotional, multi-generational, and conversational intelligence. Being a confident communicator is not just the way you act, talk, and look; it’s a habitual way of thinking and reacting to various life situations.

Contact Mark Altman at 978-793-1159 or maltman@mindsetgo.com

 

Thinking vs Feeling

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Have you ever thought about the difference between the words think vs feel?

When you think something, it could imply you don’t actually know it. For example, if you were to walk into a store and ask one of their employees where you could find a certain item you were looking for, and they said “I think” it’s in aisle 8, then they aren’t really sure. As a leader, when you say I think you are also in problem-solving mode as opposed to asking questions and listening mode which often conveys an intellectual or analytical response.

As an alternative, get in the habit of saying “I feel” so you are speaking from the heart. How do another person’s actions make you feel? How will it help a person change their behavior or habits if that person knew how they made you feel? As we discussed in the last training, most often people don’t do things maliciously and sometimes they need a reminder on why and how to do things differently.

Let’s Get Engaged!

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Employee Disengagement

One of the most common observations about employees nowadays is that they are disengaged. But, what did we expect? We have seldom created a culture of open and honest communication and as a practical rule, that environment will not invent itself. It can only happen intentionally. Only by creating an atmosphere where employees feel engaged and valued, can we get genuine answers to those vital questions. Companies will often bring in outside consultants to do engagement surveys to gather more information about their employees. This is a necessary first step, however the ensuing critical thinking process is what will determine if and how to use the survey results.

Actions Need to Equal Words

Are you prepared to make changes if employees communicate they’re unhappy? Are you prepared to address their concerns if enough people are asking? We always advise companies to not ask questions you aren’t prepared to act on and have a clear metric on how many people need to voice a frustration to motivate you to change. Without some clear understanding of what the organization is prepared and able to do, any engagement survey is unlikely to fulfill its promise.

Next Steps

A difficult decision to make with assessments is whether to make them anonymous. When employees know that the assessment isn’t about punishment or judgment, and there are no consequences, the individuals will be more apt to be open and honest with their communication to leadership. On the flip side, leadership must acknowledge that creating the conditions for open conversation isn’t likely to happen if there is no past precedent. The challenge we help organizations with is how to create that culture for authentic sharing of thoughts, ideas, feelings, and general feedback. We must prepare for these crucial conversations before, during, and after we inquire about our employees’ engagement.

Accomplishing Success

After all, W. Edwards Deming, the father of modern quality, reminded us of two things—that the most important things in a company can’t be measured, and that people are entitled to enjoy their work.

For more information on how MindsetGo can help your company culture, improve internal and external communication among your leaders and teams, and improve employee engagement, please check out MindsetGo.com or call us at 978-206-1535.

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