My former boss told me that his boss, the General Manager, said "I’m not sure Janis understands how serious our problems are in the plants. She looks so cheerful all the time."

That stung!

My image of the nearly-perfect me was crushed. But this made me realize that I should be getting down to business much more quickly, helping supervisors get quality projects in place. The chit-chat and glad-handing would have to go.

From two centuries earlier, Robert Burns’ poem, "To A Louse" proved instructive to my current embarrassment. The young poet’s sighting, sitting in a church pew, of a louse crawling on the hair of the young woman in the pew in front of him, inspired his poetic lesson that we cannot see "behind us" or see those ugly things that might be crawling on us. Like head lice!

The last verse of Burns’ classic composition (in Old English) reads

"O wad some powr the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!"

The information my boss had shared with me about my business style was the giftie. A gift of GOLD.

Though it stung like a louse biting my ego, and initially made me feel lousy, it enabled me to choose to make visible and real changes in my work habits. Gold.

Now . . . what else are my colleagues noticing . . . that I need to find out?

As Burns’ next line reads (in new English)

"It would from many a blunder free us"

(To see ourselves as others see us).

Hmm, better ask them!

If it’s criticism, it’s not constructive.

A client fired me, explaining, "You’re not asking the hard questions!"                   

          Criticism: the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding

             Constructive: promoting further development or advancement

Here’s the litmus test for "constructive" – When I walk away, will she know exactly what to do?

Here’s how to correct others’ incorrect actions, and help them onto the right path:

1.  Focus on what you want (speak in future tense) rather than on what the person did wrong (past tense). For example, "David, I want you to be here and ready for work at 8:00," rather than "David, you’ve been late too much."

2.  Be excruciatingly specific. "Michelle, I want you to email 100% of your day’s patient records to me before you leave work," rather than "Michelle, you know how important it is to update records on a timely basis."

3.  Ask a question if the person’s failure to perform is not the norm for him: "John, it’s unusual for you to miss something like this. Is something happening that I don’t know about?" Not: "What happened here?!" 

We wish the problem would heal itself, but magic like this happens only rarely. Address it constructively. The other person will know exactly what to do, and will likely do it.

Now, on a lighter note: 
"Before you criticize someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes."

                                                                                  – Jack Handey, American Humorist

The manager of a retail store told employees that their responsibility was to make transactions easy and quick for customers. However, if an item had no price or bar code, the cashier was required to call a manager. 

What’s wrong with this picture?  

"Everybody’s behavior makes sense to them at the time," says Dr. Aubrey Daniels, founder of the consulting company bearing his name.

We can remove the mystery and superstition for why people do the "crazy" things they do (translation: things we don’t agree with).

It’s not voodoo. It’s the consequences.

"I just don’t understand why he won’t pick up his clothes. I end up picking them up every day."

The answer to the question is right there. You just read it.

When we don’t approve of someone else’s actions, and wish we knew how to change those actions, all we have to do is ask, "What happens for that person when he or she does that action?" If she keeps doing the same action, we know that a positive reinforcer (from some source) is fueling her behavior, keeping it running and running, no matter how much we detest that behavior.

When Mike’s daughter was nine, he gave her a laundry basket for her closet. "Put your dirty clothes in here, Shawn. The day before you want clean clothes, take your basket down to the laundry room." Downstairs they went for a lesson. Using her fingers, not his, he taught her, "Here’s how to run the washer." And later, "Now you get to put them in the dryer. Your fingers – - turn on the dryer." Many years later, Shawn’s the best laundry-doer you ever saw!

In our family, "Your fingers" became our frequent instruction, and reminder not to do things for others that they can do themselves. Sometimes the person on the receiving end of instruction (on the computer, for instance), would say, "My fingers!" to remind the other person to get out of the way and "let me do it."

In Leadership Training sessions, my watchword is "Never do for participants anything they can do for themselves." They love it because they get to:

1. Move around
2. Talk
3. Figure things out
4. Feel successful

As long as we’re doing the work for others around us, why SHOULD they ever do it for themselves?

What happened to Vickie? In her first week when Vickie checked with another department in order to give fast answers to customers, her co-workers coldly informed her "That’s not our job, and the credit people will complain to our boss." 

Later, when Vickie figured out a shortcut to speed up a procedure, her boss said, "Our policy is to do it the old way. Don’t waste your time on that." Vickie quickly learned that extra effort and improving  a process was frowned upon.

On the other side of the coin . . .

Atlanta’s Fulton County Government Manager John Sanford broke his quick stride across the spacious office lobby to bend over and pick up a tiny piece of paper from the carpet. He continued describing his goals for his 11,000 employees to a visitor without missing a beat. Half an hour later, Matt, his Operations Director, joined them walking down a long hallway. Suddenly, Matt sprang ahead and snatched up a paper clip from the floor.  It looked to the visitor as if Matt wanted to get there first. John gave Matt a quick wink, as if to say, "We share this."

What creates an atmosphere, culture, or set of behaviors like these?

Signals and consequences.

Signals: We notice what other people in the organization do, in this way learning what is valued around here.

Consequences: We receive positive or negative responses for what we do. Vickie got a negative response when she tried to do something extra for the customer. Matt got a positive response when he picked up trash (not exactly his job).

We "catch" our work habits from the people surrounding us, especially those we look up to.

You go, girls!

Thirty fitness buddies are exercising themselves dotty.

On the chart shown above, fitness buddies launched their goals and feedback for fitness. Buddies wrote their first names into a square, claiming it for their self-posting of points earned during a month. Their checklist of fitness behaviors they perform to earn points include keeping a food diary, hiking, playing Fitness Jeopardy, working out in the gym, swimming laps, and attending aerobics classes.

Each day, each person posts a dot into his or her square, with the goal of spelling out the word "FIT" by month’s end. This takes 30 dots (representing 30 activities).

We see tiny sticky notes written by the director of the fitness club as well as friends, proclaiming "You go, girls!" "Great start," or "Bravo."

Folks are engaging in some fitness behaviors for the first time: increasing the frequency and duration of exercise and making healthier food choices. When this month ends, each person will set personal goals for the new month.

After the first two weeks, attendance in exercise classes averaged 29 people, compared with 20 before the self-posting of feedback.

After classes, we can overhear, "Let’s go to the gym and post our dots."

Feedback makes fitness fun!

After five minutes in a meeting, Russell asks the question, “What are we saying here?” and writes down the answer. If the conversation starts wandering, he turns the five-minute timer on.  The purpose of his meetings is not to “yak,” but to:

• Define problems
• Identify causes
• Make decisions
• Plan actions (including reinforcement)

Writing decisions in a meeting includes a bonus, expressed here in a quote by Dr. Masaaki Imai, author of Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success:

          “The weakest ink is better than the strongest memory.”