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Think about the last time you were talking to someone and they were paying attention. They seemed to be interested. They were “connected” with you and “in the moment”. This is to say they were actually listening. If you’re lucky enough to have had that experience recently, how’d that make you feel? I’ll bet most of you are saying things like “honored”, “respected”, “cared about”, “relieved” or even “shocked”. I get that. And anyone that has an audience of one or more gets it, too.
You see, I think with the fast pace of society, social networking, texting, etc…, we’ve lost touch with the importance and the “art” of listening. It takes commitment and time to decipher the words and emotions of the message. It also takes effort to figure out what might be an underlying meaning of the message. Read more »
This third entry of the series focuses on why tough conversations with employees don’t happen in business nearly as often as they should and how delaying or avoiding them actually harms employees.
About a year after I began a long term expatriate assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, one of the employees handed me a book by Eva Kras. She had spent twenty five years in Mexico and documented in an interesting way the fictional story of an expatriate working there. It was uncanny, as I was flipping through the pages, how I could relate to this guy. He was about getting results while on assignment and then going back home in two years. Those around him knew it, too. He rarely invested the time to get to know the people around him and considered it a waste of time. After all, US leaders often believe that if we take our eyes off the “ball”, results will suffer. I’m here to tell you that I was grateful to have read that book when I did. It represented a turning point for me not only as a leader in Mexico, but also as a person. 
This second entry of the series focuses on “asking” vs. “telling”. Situational leadership skills are essential when coaching and counseling employees, particularly when the discussion has a difficult message. These concepts help categorize the approach managers should take during employee interactions.
After six years in Mexico, we had the opportunity to stay in a Latin American culture and continue toward our family goal of working and living on international assignment for ten years. I landed an assignment in Puerto Rico. Living there was like a dream. We were on an island in the Caribbean where the temperature rarely got below 70 degrees or above 90 degrees (about 20 and 30 Celsius respectively). Baseball and golf were year-round sports. The culture was familiar and the employees in the factory were phenomenal workers.
Recall the last time someone broke an agreement with you. Think about how it made you feel in that moment. It doesn’t matter the size or significance of the agreement. Any time someone lets you down, it leaves a “mark”. And while I’d admit that some marks are deeper than others, they’re all marks and will in some way impact the trust you have in that person.
Employees and managers come in a myriad of styles and sensibilities. Tough managers can have challenges with equally tough employees, and passive managers with very sensitive employees… the combinations are infinite! This can be a complex topic and one we’ve heard many variations of over the years, so we thought we would make this a multi-part series to offer insights on how managers with different styles can better coach and counsel any employee.
As fuel prices escalate and energy costs rise, we thought this topic was worthy of mention. Every client of ours consumes energy and many of the candidates we introduce to our clients are interviewing for roles where cost reduction will be part of their mandate, particularly those in operational leadership roles. This is a topic that is very much relevant on both a social and business level, so being able to demonstrate energy savvy could be beneficial to work into interview dialogue.
Call it an “art” rather than a “science” because we’ve had so little time with this new phenomenon of leading remote employees. Time will reveal the best ways to get the most out of this environment in the areas of not only productivity, but also relationships. We’ll learn through experience many techniques for leading employees that we rarely see. In the mean time, here are five helpful ideas that can help you get the most out your long –distance working relationships.
How often do you take an inventory of how things have gone, how they’re going now and where you want to be down the road? Do you dwell on the past or procrastinate from taking action to create your desired future? If so, join the crowd and welcome to normality. Most of us talk often about how things were and we allow a lot of time to pass before we take action on things we want. We’re complainers and procrastinators by nature. Why? Because that’s how we were programmed from birth. We love spending time with friends and family talking about how things were instead of how we want things to be. Sometimes the closest we get to being productive in our lives is to complain about how things aren’t the way we’d like them to be. In doing so, we conveniently avoid taking action today on something that can lead to a success or a more favorable outcome later on.
