Leadership and Change

I am going to leave the first comment on my own posting! Right after I posted this today, I read an article in the Star Tribune about an awards brunch that was held for top Metro Transit bus drivers and administration. The ceremony was held to honor "customer service, attendance, safe driving and overall performance."

The irony of the brunch was that last week, a Metro Transit driver was arrested for intoxicated driving while on the job. The ceremony was not canceled, although it was, as the newspaper described it, a "public relations nightmare." The leaders of the company wanted to recognize that although there was a problem with one driver, the incident could not overshadow the rest of the company's excellent work. A representative of the Metropolitan Council was also in attendance to thank Metro Transit for their efforts.

Continuing on with the brunch was an excellent way to repair trust that may have been broken by the alcohol incident, and was a great way to give the drivers a sense of community in a difficult time. The goal was for the drivers to still take pride in their work as a team, and the leaders sent the message that "one bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch."

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/41824182.html?elr=KArks:DCiUnP::DE8c7PiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

On Question #1. I have had many occasions where I have been surprised by my ability to raise my capabilities to a new level. One example that comes to mind is when I chose an Active Adventure in New Zealand, mostly hiking. I tried to get into shape before the trip knew it would still be a stretch for me since I am not naturally athletic or even very coordinated. But I managed all the hikes for two weeks even though I had very bad blisters towards the end. The group was very supportive and I realized that I could generally complete any hike just by going slowly and remembering to take in the scenery along the way.

In the workplace, I have had similar circumstances where I was in over my head and managed to find a way through either because a manager gave me more responsibility or because things were in worse shape than anyone realized. However, I have learned that there may be a tendency to overburden individuals with high problem solving abilities. People who can be thrown into any situation and figure out answers are highly valued for this skill but often can become victims of their own success. Employers need to be careful that when they are stretching capabilities of individuals they keep an eye out for the overall workload burden. Taking on new and exciting responsibilities is great, but not when the old responsibilities don't go away. Especially, in these times of doing more with less it is important for employees to push back if they feel they are being taken advantage of and for employers to realize that these talents need to be rewarded and that job responsibilities may need to shift to accommodate new job skills in order to be sustainable.

Bridgett, as a behaviorist, I loved your reference to classical conditioning. Certainly, timing of reward is critical, and as you point out, so is the relevance of the reinforcer to the receiver (i.e. monetary for some, simple recognition for others). In my experience as an employer, I found that by practicing common civility and courtesy by the timely use of please, thank you, and excuse me provides all of us with a more comfortable and trusting workplace. When you have a pleasant environment in which you are treated with simple day-to-day respect, productivity and creativity can flourish.

Public recognition of expertise is also a great reinforcer. I often use this when turning a client over to a technician for client education by saying, “Emily will now give you information on X to care properly for Sweetie’s condition. Emily is an expert on this.”

In regard to your first question, challenging one’s self and those around us to higher expectations usually bring great rewards. These challenges can be stressful though, and that is why a nurturing and supportive environment is so important.

K & P’s reference to perpetuating stories is a very powerful reinforcer for jobs well done. For instance, we always started our bi-weekly staff meetings with stories of phone calls or in-person appreciation from clients or the “thank you cards” received since the last meeting. We read the cards out loud, passed them around the table, and hung them on the internal communications board to enjoy over and over again. On a particularly trying day, they could be a great little pick-me-up.

And then the food…I feel like I am channeling my German grandmother every time I provide food, but it makes a big difference in creating a positive atmosphere. One of my former employers would buy lunch for every Saturday shift. We would bond and share stories of our busy Saturday over great deli sandwiches or pizza. It was a great way to decompress from the stress of the morning and provide sustenance for those going into the emergency shift. Appreciation expressed through food should not be underestimated. It helped me get many things accomplished in departmental offices while in vet school, and it continues to work as a potent reinforcer whether in the workplace or doggy daycare.

Bridget- Thanks for your post and questions.
There was a lot of great information to take away from this weeks reading, and it helped me to look at current and previous work experience to see what motivates me and others. I realized that I am definitely the type of person who does not care about getting praise in front of people that I do not know well, or have a friendship with. When I worked at Nordstroms all employees at our store would have to attend a mandatory meeting once every two to three months before the store opened (usually starting at 7:00am). Needless to say at that hour having to come into work to see videos of high up management etc... trying a shot at their acting careers in “funny” skits was not very motivating for me. The store manager would also go over the stores strengths and weaknesses and recognize a few employees who had stuck out with great customer service or going above and beyond. It was hard for me to ever really get into these meetings since there would be a few hundred employees, many of which you did not know. I felt I got a lot more out of our department meetings, since it was with the people I worked with directly on a day to day basis and had formed relationships with.

At my current job my office is open on Saturdays for half the day during our busy months of the year for us. My co-worker and I alternate working the Saturday shifts with our manager. Every Saturday that we are open our manager brings us a coffee and some doughnuts or muffins etc… He knows that we do not look forward to having to come in on a Saturday, and that little gesture of the coffee and treats really puts me in a good mood which makes me want to work/be more productive while I am there. I think it is another great example of how even a little thing can make a huge difference. I know that if I showed up to work on a Saturday and did not get any recognition from my boss that he realized it was not the most fun to have to work on a Saturday, I would probably sit at my desk and just think about how annoyed I was that I had to come in on the weekend and not get much work done.

I have actually been more surprised with myself recently in my career with tasks that I have taken on that have had high expectations. In general I always have set high expectations of myself to accomplish things in life and in particular, on the job. Recently I have found myself wanting a challenge and getting into tasks that require more thinking and challenge my performance. The greatest outcome of it all that is surprising is at the end of the task or situation you realize that you accomplished it – whether it was completely successful or not – but that regardless you actually did it.
Sometimes tasks that seem so daunting, out-of-reach, not within your knowledge area, or are challenging, are the ones that you did do your best on. As I take on new tasks and challenges, I think beforehand that I’m not sure if I have the know-how or the ability to take on these challenges, but I do because I know that I can do it and that I set high expectations for myself. As I work through the task, I learn so much through trial and error, breaking the task down so it is manageable, and perform to the best of my ability. At the end of the task, when I think about what I did do and accomplished (whether it was all successful or not) is greater than what I had imagined I could do when I began.
A big part of taking on situations that challenge you and your performance is having a leader that is willing to share these challenges with you, having the faith and support for you to try it on your own, learning along the way, and supporting you. Both you and the leader grow with each new situation, setting the bar higher, and realizing your potential along the way. I think this completely falls in line with the self-fulfilling prophecy theory that K & P note in chapter 11. A leader that has high expectations of you and will assist and support you along the way is an acknowledgment and is a form of encouragement that attaches a real personal, caring relationship that you both can believe in.

In a previous job, I had a director that would very frequently write notes of thanks, encouragement, or job well done. I remember the first time I received one in my box I looked to see if others had received one too. I felt uncomfortable thinking I was the only one getting praise. I was relieved to see small white envelopes scattered throughout the boxes. Even though I worked closely with everyone, I did not feel like anything I had done was worthy of being singled out. Don’t get me wrong – we all worked very hard, with a very difficult client population at times, and the note cards kept morale very high. I appreciated them each and every time – and occasionally they would be “coupons” for leaving three hours early on a Friday, or an invite to lunch on the director, or some chocolate. She definitely expected the best from us and she got it, because her recognition was always personalized and sincere.

In my current position, I work with some of the best and brightest. It raised the bar for me day one. During my “orientation period” I met with each staff person individually and what each of them offered was insight into how they got there and why they stayed. What was incorporated in all of those one on one meetings was what the organization valued and had for its goals. It was very clear that everyone had passion and purpose. And everyone was highly motivated to do their best and then some. I felt inspired from the start. It is not a culture of note card givers, but jobs well done are acknowledged and rewarded in other ways. Work/life balance is highly encouraged, and the environment is one of trust and genuine caring for each other’s well being.

Leaders get the best from others, not by building fires under people, but by building the fires within them (Kouzes and Posner p. 293).

Honestly most situations I can think of I feel like my superiors have had lower expectations for me. I guess I Think that I have had many bad bosses in my day especially when I was younger and had restaurant/bar jobs. And I definitely noticed that low expectations encouraged me to not try to do well at all. If anything that made me want to be lazy and do as little work as possible if my managers were unappreciative and thought the worse of their employees, because I had no respect for them as managers or as people. Some situations where I have been given high expectations are in my school career. I have had some extremely supportive teachers and advisors. When teachers encourage me and any their other students it makes such a difference. It can really set the mood for the rest of someone’s school years if they are given encouragement at the beginning. I specifically remember once in junior high. I thought I was bad at Math, but after I took as class with a certain teacher I did really well and I remember her telling my parents in front of me that I was one of the brightest students she had ever had. Bridget’s example with her boss reminded me of that because it caught me off guard but it really meant a lot to me and I think I did better in Math from then on because I could always hear her saying that in the back of my head, so even if I felt like something was really hard I knew I could handle it.
I don’t think that I have ever attended an organizational meeting that represented a loss, but I think it could potentially be helpful in the right context. It might help to discuss what went wrong and process the situation in a community setting. In order to not make a mistake again, it’s important to understand what went wrong. So maybe having a meeting to discuss that would be a good idea, I cant really think of how you would make that into a ceremony though. I would definitely be curious to hear about how that would work.

Question 2: Have you attended a ceremony for an organization that that marked a loss instead of a gain? Did it help or hinder the sense of community within the organization?

For five years I worked as a makeup artist at Knott's Berry Farm during the annual Halloween Haunt event. (I got paid to make monsters. It was pretty much the best job ever.) The seasonal workers that came back year ever made up a very large and wonderful (though slightly dysfunctional) family. One year in December, shortly after I finished what would be my last Haunt, my boss passed away. She was more than just a boss, she was also a creative mentor and an all-around remarkable lady.

They held her funeral at the amusement park. One night, after the park closed, we gathered at the tiny church that overlooked the lake. After a heartfelt reception, we walked to a reception hall, followed by the sound of bagpipes echoing across the lake.

As we entered the reception area, folks were standing there to greet us, handing out Mardi Gras beads. Melanie (my boss) was born on Mardis Gras - and the evening was going to be a celebration of her life. We watched pictures and videos of Mel and folks went up to the microphone to share Mel stories.

I always thought the entire reception was an act of extreme generosity on the part of executives in charge of the park. I think it is incredibly rare for a corporation to go to that much time and expense for the death of an employee - it really displayed the genuine sadness and loss they felt.

As for what it did for our community... Everybody felt sad, but everybody felt comforted in knowing that we had the support of our Haunt family to keep us going.

I looked at my blog from the night of her funeral, because this question made me curious about my initial reaction 7 years ago. I was greatly saddened by her loss and felt a heavy weight on my chest. At the time, her death and the subsequent funerary celebration made me think again about how I value other people, and why. Kant said that we are "bundles of perceptions and experiences." I thought: other people make up that experience, and when somebody dies it feels like something is missing, because this huge component of your personal experience is now absent and therefore a part of YOU is absent, quite literally.

I think the company allowing us to grieve Melanie's loss and celebrate her person together gave us the opportunity to value each other more, to cherish our coworkers and friends. It didn't try to make light of a sad situation, but it did demonstrate a positive to view death, and a healthy way to find comfort and peace in tragedy.

It has been my experience, similar to others, that gratitude, acknowledgment, encouragement, and lifting others can be powerful for both the giver and receiver. For the giver it reminds us how much we value others, their contribution and how much we need each other to succeed, for the receiver it may be the difference in how we function in the current environment and may help us to accomplish more than we thought we could have.

The previous posts share some great thoughts and experiences related to Bridget's questions. In regards to the first question on expectations, in my adult life, I believe it has been rare for me to have someone's expectations for me exceed my own. I understand that this may be my perception and that it is possible that others do have higher expectations for me than I do myself. In those cases it can be a bit of a surprise to realize that others are disappointed that I did not meet those expectations.

In the spirit of conversation, have you had experiences where you have been made aware that you have not met the expectations that others have for you? What was your response to those experiences?

In reading chapters 11 and 12, it was evident to me that this is where establishing trust, clarifying values, and gaining credibility really pay off. If a leader has not established this foundation of principles, any “encouragement of the heart” is going to seem disingenuous to employees or supposed followers. Just when I was starting to feel I had over-blogged Kouzes and Posner’s text, I discovered two more points of interest.

One interest from the reading regarded the concept of farewell parties. In particular, Bridget, my thoughts on this derived from your question on “attending a ceremony for an organization that marked a loss instead of a gain.”

I have seen many types of farewell parties. The best scenario (for everybody) is when the party celebrates the person and their accomplishment. This is usually a well-liked team-player who has taken a step forward within or outside of the organization, or is retiring. Unfortunately, this scenario doesn’t happen as often as one might suspect.

The worst scenario is the disingenuous send-off. The token gesture, which is usually known by everyone to be a token gesture, or at least suspected as such, is an incredibly uncomfortable scenario for all attending and does nothing to shore-up trust in the leadership. Kouzes and Posner cover this point. In my experience, I have seen numerous instances where there are actually two parties: one to pacify the leadership and the other for friends to get together, drink, and share their personal war stories. No matter how clandestine the operation, the latter experience never remains secretive and is a great way to burn a career bridge.

A second point of interest from the reading regarded developing relationships with followers on a personal level. That is an extremely challenging thing to do and as a manager for the past eleven years, I feel I can speak to this. A primary concern is that one has to be extremely careful not to show preferential treatment when building relationships on a personal level. The greater the number of people you supervise, the harder this is to accomplish. Even celebrating birthdays can be a challenge in some settings where you may not be able to prioritize a celebration ahead of a work-related emergency.

Furthermore, a successful effort to create and sustain friendships is not solely dependent on your skill as a manager or the time you invest, it also depends on the culture of the organization and the practices of higher executives. I agree that celebrations are a critical investment towards building trust and encouraging the heart and I have seen this practiced successfully, yet, in our current economic climate, I believe this practice has been shelved due to managers’ fears that they will look inefficient or costly to their supervisors and therefore deemed out-of-touch and expendable. To be fair, many companies and organizations simply can’t afford celebrations right now, even if they know it is a good investment. These days you may even find yourself a lead story on the news if you choose to celebrate – and I’m not just talking about banks.

A few years ago I received a plaque for 5 years of service as a county employee. These recognition "ceremonies" are held for employees at the regular county board meeting the month of the employee anniversary at five year increments. Employees wait for their name to be called by the chairperson. They walk forward to receive a plaque and reap in the glory of a short applause. That is it! Very impersonal - no personal kudos or recognition. Direct supervisors don't even typically attend.

Hum....after reading these K & Z chapters I ask myself, "How could this be done differently at our county?" A very simple solution comes to mind. Without changing the process, county supervisors could be asked to write a couple paragraphs about employee contributions to the vision, mission and values of the organization - the county. Remember, these county board meetings are televised and snippets are aired on our local radio station. These public, personal kudos would go a long way to boosting the morale of county employees. What does the county have to lose? It has a lot to gain: employee satisfaction, attachment and productivity.

High expectations placed upon us from external sources can be quite challenging. I don't remember ever being in a situation where the expectations placed on me were higher than those I placed on myself. But I have been in situations where the expectations of others were drastically different than the ones I was anticipating. In these circumstances, where I had to change my expectations to get in line with my superiors, at times I did try harder to achieve the goal. But there were times where I found myself disagreeing with other's expectations of me and that stunted my effort at times. This mostly occurred when the person placing those expectations on me never discussed them with me or gave reasons for their position. I always seemed to perform better when I helped create the expectations and guide the goal setting. What surprised me is how hard I will work and how much I will personally invest in a project when I believed in my role and helped define the end state.

I have never participated in a ceremony where a loss was marked instead of a gain. But I have been part of organizations that turned incentives into a joke. I will compare it to the trend of giving every 10 year old that plays in a sport a trophy even when they don't win. This mentality of rewarding everyone regardless of whether they earned that recognition or not became part of the group’s culture. We gave out rewards for everything. When 90% of an organization gets recognized for doing tasks or achieving an expected standard it erodes the effectiveness that awards can have. The ceremonies become just another meeting that employees need to attend and not a truly motivating event.

Unlike many of the responses above, my best experiences involving recognition and rewarding contributors doesn't come from a work setting. I hope I do not bore you all with my experiences on a collegiate team, but I think it is interesting to compare for the sake of discussion.

For the most part, I feel as though my coach has read Kouzes & Posner - or something like it. We start every single practice with a short (well, sometimes really long) meeting to recognize great performances and share stories of success. We often highlight certain comeback stories, and certain people who represent the 'right' way of doing things. This ritual creates a sense of value for our achievements, and I think all of us look forward to Monday's meeting after having a great race, knowing that we will likely be recognized for the performance. Sometimes these meetings address negative things that the group as a whole needs to correct, but usually they are positive and encouraging.

In sports, possibly even more than in the workplace in general, it seems that celebrating high achievement is a high priority. Athletic directors and coaches (some coaches, that is) seem to go out of their way to recognize and celebrate achievement. It is a way to encourage others and create a culture of success.

To answer Mick's question for further discussion: have you had experiences where you have been made aware that you have not met the expectations others have for you? What was your response to those experiences?

Last February I ran an OK/sub-par race on the opening leg of our relay. My coach immediately reprimanded me at the conclusion of the race and let me know how disappointed he was with my performance. I knew that I didn't have a great race, but I certainly didn't think it was horrible. I sure felt horrible after that though. I had never experienced such harsh words (publicly, in front of teammates) from my coach prior to that (in my junior season) and it was really hard for me to recover from that experience. I felt that we weren't on the same page and that I needed encouragement rather than being yelled at. I went on to be incredibly inconsistent the rest of the season, my confidence wavering and with a blurry understanding of my coach's expectations. Overall, it was a bad experience and it didn't seem to help motivate me or make me feel encouraged to do better.

I work for a company that uses The Gallup Organization’s Q12 survey to measure employee engagement. The company, with Gallup’s help, defines engaged employees as those who “are psychologically committed to their work; most productive; are looking for new and innovative ways to succeed in their role.” The Q12 survey includes twelve statements with which employees are asked to Agree or Disagree, using a five point scale.

While analyzing the results of this survey for several large groups within the company a few years ago, we noticed a pattern in the data. Regardless of how high the overall score was for a particular group, there was one statement that was consistently rated the lowest – “In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.”

When we talked to managers about the response their teams provided to this statement, they were often perplexed or frustrated. They would tell us how they regularly recognized people for good work during their Tuesday morning meetings, or describe other standard rhythms they had developed to publicly celebrate accomplishments. But, when we talked to employees, we heard a different story. After digging in a little more deeply, we developed a hypothesis – if the recognition is not personally meaningful to the person receiving it, then it is often not even considered to be recognition by the recipient.

Michael’s blog post is a great example of this. Being called in front of a group of people he did not know only added insult to the injury of having to be at work for an early morning meeting. Leaders often fail to consider the importance of tailoring recognition to the individual recipient. In my experience, this is because they don’t take the time to build relationships with individual employees. In that case, everyone is usually subjected to the form of recognition that is most important to the leader. As Kouzes and Posner point out, “personalized recognition comes down to being thoughtful.” Hollow gestures go unnoticed at best, at worst they will feed a downward spiral in an already negative culture.

I know I do well when given greater responsibilities from my boss. The reason I was given these responsibilities was because my boss believed in me. When someone believes in you it speaks volume. Everyday I tell my students that they are doing really well, and when they find themselves struggling with a procedure I tell them that this is a work in progress. The only way to improve your skills is through practice, the will to do well, and the belief in yourself that you can do it. By the end of the semester their skills have greatly improved and it makes them want to take on more difficult challenges. Verbal rewards are great for the psyche.

Unfortunately, not all reward systems bring about happy employees. I used to work for a company that gave out monetary incentives when achieving a goal. The problem with this type of reward system was that there were two of us who weren't in the "sales" part of the job and the only employees who sold merchandise were given the monetary reward. The two of us worked just as hard to achieve goals, but we were overlooked because the company did not have a reward system for someone in a position who did not sell. What made the reward system so "dirty" was that the incentives were given out behind the scenes. We found out about the monetary rewards when the money was given to an employee in an office with the door open and I was walking by during the exchange. Needless to say, the system was broken. It caused animosity between my coworkers and it created an environment of us versus them. Teamwork was not in the picture. There were numerous situations when I did receive a "thank you" and "good job" from my boss but I did not feel as though it was sincere. My coworker and I thought it was condescending when told "Thank you, we appreciate everything you're doing for us, keep up the good work."
The environment was not healthy, and it was the result of the inequality of the reward system. Some were given money and others were given a verbal reward. It definitely was messed up.

I have taken the time to read all the comments that everybody had presented with regard to the questions posed by Bridget, and I have found out that I am definitely working at a wrong place. Most of the comments indicate forms of recognition by managers to these employees were for doing a good job. My job situation is totally the opposite of these positive attributes that most of you talked about for your jobs. I am yet to see my supervisor engage us in a positive conversation about how hard we work. Instead, his attitude is like "you are paid to do this job", therefore he does not believe that it is his duty as a supervisor to acknowledge positive contributions made by his workers. He believes that drawing a salary is enough recognition for workers and so he forgets that he can raise workers' morale by saying positive things like " You are doing a good job", or "Thanks for your hard work". Kouzes and Posner (2007) contend that :"Recognition is about acknowledging good results and reinforcing positive performance. It's about shaping an environment in which everyone's contributions are noticed and appreciated" (p.281). Needless to say that workers' morales are quite low and they really don't have much respect for this supervisor. Since I have been working under the supervision of this manager, I have never seen a situation where he had taken the time to sincerely recognize any of the workers, even when we knew that we had exceeded expectations. But he is the first to notice one's mistakes and shortcomings.

At my job, we are always expected to do more work and take up added responsibilities. To this end therefore, everyone strives to perform higher than expectations, but the manager's attitude definitely "kills" the zeal of trying to maintain a higher level of expectation. Kouzes and Posner (2007) maintain that extraordinary achievements bloom more easily in climates in which performance is nutured with a higher volume of appreciative comments (p. 299).

As a person and a leader, I have always had high expectations for myself and others. There have been times people have said my expectations are too high and that I am putting too much pressure on them. Others have said, "Just do want she expects and you'll be fine." This speaks to the point that Pat and others made about knowing the capabilities of others. Knowing and understanding their capabilities means that you do have to develop some kind of relationship with them. One must be careful though, in the type of relationship. It seems as though some people assume that you have to be friends in order to do this. I believe that you have to be careful about that and maintain a professional distance at the same time as you truly know and care about others.

In addition to those who told me my expectations of others were too high, I've had others tell me not to lower my standards and expectations. I guess the message here is that many people do rise to meet high expectations, but you have to know them well enough so that the bar is set high, but not higher than they can achieve. I've had employees who were quite capable and had high potential, but were easily overwhelmed. Regardless of the praise, encouragement, and recognition I gave them a "relay race" approach seemed to work better than a sprint or marathon. (That's for you, Gabriele!)