Janis Allen

Gifts That Keep On Giving – Symbolic Awards That Tell a Story

Mike — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:18:38 +0000

By Michael McCarthy

Once upon a time, Performance Improvement Consultant Russell Justice wisely said: "The best positive reinforcement is anything that gives us a story to tell."

People go home from work with stories to tell every day. Most of the stories are not very positive. We want to give people good stories to tell. Good reinforcement “creates” a story to tell.

People say, “You won’t believe what the boss did today,” “Guess what Joe said,” or “Let me tell you what we did.” We want them talking about the fun they had, and the excitement of accomplishment.

At the appreciation dinner for the Nassau Habitat for Humanity in Fernandina, Florida, construction manager Patrick McCarthy found unique ways to give positive recognition to hard-working Habitat volunteers.

Using anecdotes and incidents from their work days, he created clever items that symbolized events, and running jokes among the “regulars” on the crew. Many volunteers were golfers, so Patrick modified golf clubs to create chuckles all around.

The volunteers from the framing crew each received a golf club with a hammer- head on the end. Presenting these, Patrick deadpanned: “The only way Fred can swing his arm is with a golf club, so now he can practice an overhead swing with this hammerhead club.”

For the painting crew chief, his golf club sported a brush at the opposite end of the grip. “This will reduce the number of brush strokes needed to paint a room,” quipped Patrick.

These items are treasures, of course, because they give people a story to tell. Patrick delighted them with their co-workers and family by telling funny stories about things that happened at work. And today those goofy golf clubs have become props for the stories their proud owners are telling to family and friends.

Symbolic recognition awards are . . . gifts that keep on giving.

We Affect Other People With Almost Everything We Do

Janis — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:22:28 +0000

When I was 11, I cut the grass in my family’s yard all by myself for the first time. Tired and sweaty, I was so proud. A family friend drove into the driveway just as I was finishing. His first words out of the car were “You missed a spot behind the shrubs.” I was crushed. Why hadn’t he noticed the rest of the four acres that I had completed correctly with so much sweat and effort? I suppose his eye was trained to look for the imperfect spot. I never wanted to cut the grass again.

Most of us know the power of other people’s approval or disapproval in motivating us to keep trying. Or to feel like throwing in the towel. A smile and a comment showing that someone values our efforts will keep us going for a long time.

Joanna tells about a week when her supervisor was out of town; she had been working through lunches and until 7:00 P.M. every night to meet department deadlines. She was feeling burned out, she said, when Wayne, a co-worker, came and stood for a minute at her cubicle door one evening, watching her work. “You work hard,” he quietly stated, and then turned back to his work.

“These three words kept me going for three more days,” breathed Joanna. Wayne is a man who doesn’t mince words, so I was quite positive that his comment was genuine. In my boss’s absence, someone recognized my work. In the past we’ve expected managers and supervisors to provide the positive recognition for the people who work for them. Or worse, we’ve depended on pay raises, end-of-project celebrations, or annual appraisals to motivate people.

“There’s nothing wrong with any of the things listed above,” Dr. Aubrey Daniels notes. “They’re just too little, too late." Many of us who are non-supervisors are ready and willing to take more of a leadership role in managing our own careers and work experiences. We want to take positive steps to support the good performance of our teammates, all in the name of creating the best products, the best customer service, and a good place to work.

Everyone likes to get recognition.

When my co-worker, like Wayne in the story above, notices what I do, I’ll make double sure I keep doing it.

From “Burned” to “Juiced”

Janis — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:11:08 +0000

A manufacturer had hired 24 employees from a company which had laid them off.

Most had been with that company for a long time and had trained newer co-workers (who weren’t laid off).

These 24 people were still feeling “burned” from their experience when their new boss asked them to cross-train each other. The goal was to become more flexible with short-turnaround customer orders.

The workers found every reason in the book not to teach co-workers what they knew:

“I don’t have time.”

“I can do it better than him.”

“She’ll mess it up and I’ll have to fix it later.”

Later, during a workshop, they discussed the pros and cons of cross-training (to the company’s health and to their own job security). They completed several “teach someone a task you’re good at” activities during the workshop and received positive comments from co-workers about the skills they shared

They made these activities a more interesting and fun experience by creating a poster to track the number of tasks they taught each other, each jotting down the task next to the learners’ and teachers’ names.

Once each week, they had a five-minute huddle around the poster and reviewed new additions to the poster (this is when the “trainer” and the “trainee” received positive recognition.

One person began carrying colored “gems” in his pocket, and gave one to each buddy who mastered the task being taught. This caught on, and soon everyone was carrying marbles or gems. They decided to put them in a jar because the gems were getting heavy in their pockets, and so they could see the gems as they filled the jar.

Within four weeks, all the cross-training had been completed by the initiative of the employees; the supervisor spending only five minutes each week reviewing their added trained tasks.

Positive reinforcement transformed this "I don’t want to get burned" task to "let me teach you."

Just like magic.

Start the New Year “Bright”

Janis — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:00:34 +0000

Start your department’s new year off with a book club. Learn something new and fun, and make your workplace more positive in the process.

May I suggest You Made My Day: Creating Co-worker Recognition & Relationships, by Michael McCarthy and Janis Allen, available on www.janisallen.com - just click on "bookstore."

Here’s an exerpt from the book:

Recognition and relationships are intertwined concepts that are difficult to separate. We find it similar to William Butler Yeats’ observation, "How do you tell the dancer from the dance?"

We often can’t tell the relationship from the recognition. A relationship is composed of the feelings created by past actions and words between two people. Recognition is showing how you value another person’s work.

Recognition (giving and receiving) is difficult or impossible when competitiveness, lack of trust, or insensitivity are part of the way people relate.

The New Year is a great time to transform those relationships into more positive ones!

Below are some ideas for organizing a group "read."

1. Set a frequent (twice per month works well) schedule for discussing an achievable number of pages to read. Two chapters per two weeks works for most everyone. Ask everyone in your group to place the dates and time on their calendars. Over lunch is a good treat.

2. Suggest that members (on a volunteer basis, not required) tell:

a. A key point or insight they gained from the chapter

b. An example they’ve seen in their own business or personal life

c. Ways they can apply the ideas within the group, or to other departments

Send your examples or insights to janisallen@janisallen.com, and we’ll publish them (with your permission) in future newsletters and blog posts.

Happy New Year to all, and to all a bright read!

Simon Says Beware

Janis — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:20:46 +0000

Jan, the owner of Simon the Jack Russell Terrier, trained Simon to touch a bell with his paw when he wanted to go outside.

One evening, Simon waited till she sat down to dinner, then rang the bell. When Jan left her plate of warm, delicious food to open the door, Simon ran past her, jumped onto her chair, and gobbled down her food.

Jan had intended "going outside" as the positive consequence for Simon’s ringing the bell. But smart Simon found a much more delicious consequence for the behavior of bell-ringing: her savory supper.

Does anyone in your life have YOU trained?

It’s happened to me.

Simone was responsible for assembling and shipping materials for my training classes. Each time I gave her my order, she’d say, "You’ll have to come over here and bring me the inserts," or some such. Pretty soon, I was spending more time preparing the shipments than she was. Eventually, I ended up preparing my own materials and taking them with me on the plane.

I had thought Simone would do a certain task when I rang the bell; actually, I did a certain task when she rang the bell. The more I did, the less Simone did. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

When unintended consequences are giving us the opposite of what we want, we can put a stop to our own behavior. Otherwise, our duties and our world can turn upside down.

Remember, as Simon says: "He who rings the bell, eats the treats."

Empowerment & The Hallelujah Chorus

Janis — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:47:11 +0000

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?

We can do two things to make it easy and non-threatening for our team members to make decisions independently.

1. First, ask them "What are some situations where you aren’t sure whether to take an action or to refer it to me?" Then clarify what you want: "Well, in a situation like that, I’d like you to (fill in a, b, or c below).

a. Ask me for a decision or permission before taking action

b. Inform me after taking action

c. No need to inform or involve me: "You handle it." (insert "Hallelujah Chorus" here)

2. Second, make a positive comment when he decides and acts. If his decision wasn’t exactly the one you’d like, calmly and warmly say "Next time, I’d like you to _________________. You made the right decision not to keep the customer waiting. I’m glad you handled it."

Correct the decision but reinforce the action of deciding.

How much time could you save yourself (while developing your team members) by moving the decision-making one notch "down the alphabet" above?

How much more will your team members enjoy their work, and be prepared for more responsibility?

How delighted will your (internal or external) customers become?

Hallelujah.

“What Do You Want to Be?”

Janis — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:12:20 +0000

"What do you want to be?" That’s what I ask people who are looking for a job, seemingly don’t have a goal, and need something to work toward," says Sheree Sorrells, an employment counselor at a North Carolina JobLink Center.

"It may be the first time anyone has asked the person that question in many years. Often, I notice his or her first reaction is to sit up straighter."

. . . sit up straighter . . . what does this tell us about what that person may be thinking or feeling?

Sitting up straighter could be the first in a series of behaviors leading to preparing oneself for a job. As we’ve all heard many times: "A long journey begins with a single step."

When I hear the question "What do you want to be?" it thrusts me into my imagination, and my dream. "I want to be a nurse, a firefighter, a chef, a business owner." Imagining myself in one of these roles pulls me up in my seat. It pulls me out of my present an into a different future. It pulls me to do the work to make that future come true.

Usually, people are asked what they want to do. Try asking someone you care about what they want to be. You may just be giving that person a handle to pull himself toward his dream.

Your Fingers

Janis — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:00:51 +0000

"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:

Move around
Talk
Figure things out
Feel successful

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

Be a Great Boss In a Tough Economy

Janis — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:27:10 +0000

Can’t offer more money?

Can’t guarantee job security?

Can’t give promotions now?

What can a boss do during a tough economy to show how she values people?

1. Ask their opinions. Close mouth and listen. Take notes. You don’t have to use all the ideas. Just save them. This demonstrates to that person that you take his ideas seriously. And who knows? There may be a gem in there somewhere – later if not sooner.

2. Keep your own complaints about the current situation to yourself. Vent to a trusted friend outside your organization or to a spouse or companion when you need to let off steam – not to your staff.

3. Listen to your staff’s frustrations but minimize the time you both spend talking about conditions neither of you can control. Once the problem has been stated, re-direct the conversation to the solution stage with a question like "What do you suggest?" or make a statement that gets the conversation onto today’s priorities. Whatever you listen to, you’ll get more of!

4. Give frequent informal recognition for work that you value. "Good solution," "You saved our bacon!" and "Great preparation for that meeting" are quick and cheap ways to motivate.

Life at work won’t always be this tough (it might get tougher!), so let’s make it as positive as humanly possible.

You Don’t Have to Be Crazy to Work Here – We’ll Train You

Janis — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:42:34 +0000

When Vickie started working here, she went out of her way to serve her customers quickly, and with a smile. Now she takes much longer, and often just tells them why something can’t be done.

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.