Consulting Quick Tip: Managing Expectations . . . or "Don't you have a quick fix?"

Speaking of a “quick fix,” don’t these look amazing? They certainly raise my expectations . . . would they taste as good as they look? Photo by Diogo Nunes on Unsplash

No Expectations . . . but a Real Surprise!

Years ago, my wife and I were in Paris and we decided we wanted to take a break from touring basilicas, museums, and galleries . . . and . . . just . . . go . . . to a movie. As we perused the newspaper (yes, it was back then!) a helpful Parisian told us to look for “VO” or “Version Originale” and we would get a film in English. With this information, and trying to pick something suitable, we picked a movie where the poster was of a piano player. The movie? Amadeus. We were blown away. Blown away by the music, the story, the acting. It was a block buster (no surprise to us) and to this day we still have special memories of going to the movie on the Champs Elysees.

The French paper had a illustration of a piano player. Not nearly as dramatic. If you haven’t seen the movie . . . you should. At least in ,my humble opinion. Image from Wikipedia

More common, however, has been a different experience. The experience of having “high” expectations for movies . . . instead of none . . . and being disappointed when they don’t deliver. Maybe you can relate? Expectations in consulting, as in movies, are a critical element of the experience

A limitation for Newbies

One of the challenges when you are new to consulting is . . . you are limited in experience and thus, the scope of your ability to intervene in client’s situations . . . to say it more plainly, “you are not sure what you can do.” Not yet. Even professionals appearing the most confident may be masking their inexperience and less-than-robust-resolutions-to-consulting-issues. Still, many get into consulting because they want to help and often, naturally, tend toward a personality of helping solve problems, encouraging others to develop their own competencies, and expecting continued growth and accountability for themselves.

The new consultant often can make one critical mistake: “trying to do too much.” A correlary to this problem is, “letting the customer assume you can do more than you can.” A consultant must manage both the customer and their own expectations.

One Goal but Two Views

One way to have good outcomes, early on, is to remember that the client does not see what you see. But, at the same time, you do not see what the client sees either. You have to describe it to them—and they to you—and, working together, you understand and then act.

Imagine for a minute that you are trying to defuse a bomb. All you have available to you is your observation skills, prior experiences, and intuition to guide you as you look at the bomb. But as a consultant you do have one other thing. You have a partner—the customer. Now imagine that although this partner can’t see the bomb—they are not seeing it like you are—but does have something you don’t . . . a manual telling how to defuse the bomb. How would you proceed?

Seems easy enough, doesn’t it. You communicate and defuse the bomb. Having done this multiple trainings with work teams, I can tell you that one of the first barriers to succeeding at this task is to rid one’s self of the expectations of what the “other” partner should do. The person at the site of the bomb expects to be told exactly what to do. The person with the manual expects the partner to help them “see” the bomb. Their expectations—and maladaptive coping—make them focus on elements that preclude a successful approach. At first. Slowly, they learn to focus on their own tasks and begin to work as a more efficient team, eventually solving the problems and succeeding.

The point is, to be successful, you need to carefully, manage your own . . . and your client’s . . . expectations. Leading the customer be being realistic in their expectations, recognizing the time involved in developing the past patterns and issues, and helping them to face the real work of change gets easier with experience. For the “newbie,” just remember two things: One, focus on what you really can do (“I can interview the team and see if I have a suggestion for how to help, and if not, help you find someone who can.”); and Two, don’t let the client’s hope for an easy or quick fix over-ride your judgement of the needed actions.

Tips on finding People-Gifted, Business Sense, Consultants

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Finding People-People with Gifts for Business—A follow up to our post “Making it look easy”

Hiring the Right Consultant is Not Simple

Hiring a coach/consultant for human system’s or organizational culture issues is not easy. While I touted in my last post hiring “people-people” for human systems issues, the truth is, it is even more complex. You will need someone gifted in people . . . and someone with experience with organizations.

Making the assumption that any “people-person”—any expert in behavioral health issues—will “do fine” in the organization arena can be just as naive as assuming any business consultant has the necessary people skills**. . Leaders make this mistake when they expect professionals with gifts in business to be good with people issues in a consulting role. At the same time, many leaders make the mistake of referring employees with work issues to therapists. This leads to very mixed results because many therapist have limited experience with organizational leadership. They are experts in mental health and if the issues are really individually-based—anger, anxiety, chemical dependency—then this may be an appropriate referral. If it is a broader issue that includes leadership, management, or or institutional issues, it may be ineffective or detrimental.

Finding the Right Gifts

So, what’s a leader to do? First, determine if the issue in organizational or an individual’s behavioral “problem.” Second, if it’s an individual issue consider a referral to EAP or an independent mental health professional. Third, if it is truly an organizational issue—creating new HR policies, a strategic plan, or new electronic records system— consider a business coach or consultant. Fourth, if is is organizational but has elements of an interpersonal or “human” element—organizational culture, team conflict, motivation, etc.—find someone gifted with people that also has experience in organizational leadership.

To determine if a “people-person” has the necessary organizational skills can be tricky. Below are some questions you can ask the professional to assess their ability to act as a systems consultant and not just a therapist.

Questions to Ask

Questions to ask a therapist to determine if they can act as a human systems consultant or coach:

• What experience have you had in leadership/managerial roles?

• What areas of an organization would you not give advice on?

• What, to you, is the definition of a healthy work team/organization/leader?

• What are the primary causes of problems in teams/organizations? (Look for an understanding of systems)

• Tell me about a time you helped a team/organization with a cultural/systemic change?

• What would you consider to be a successful outcome from an organizational consulting contract? (Again, looking for an awareness or organizational goals not simply personal goals.)

Ask these questions and you will get a feel for the ability of the consultant to use their people gifts in an organizational system. (As consultants you need to keep it simple—Like Steve Jobs)

** Having trained during the heyday of systemic theory, I feel fortunate to have studied topics like “Cybernetics of Cybernetics” and “Human Networks# as well as more traditional “organizational consulting” topics. Many younger therapists I talk have not had this systemic focus and are more likely to have had training in narrative or postmodern topics. Our Leading Edge Coaching with these professionals often is the first introduction these professionals have to understanding human systems.

In the last post I shared a picture of my Taylor 614ce acoustic. Here is my other “axe.” A custom built “Batswatter” electric built by my brother as a surprise gift. Ne, I’m not a huge Batman fan. There is a personal bat story that prompted the time. Oh, and it lights up. Too cool for my skill set.

Employee engagement? The problem isn't employees the problem is . . . there's no plan.

Photo by Conor Luddy on Unsplash

Employees get a lot of blame for their lack of engagement. Leadership initiatives to improve engagement often focus on techniques and programs to increase organizational engagement . . . by focusing on what to do to, or with, the employees. For the leaders themselves, the focus is on how to create the right environment or push the right "levers." Few leaders really know what they should focus on in their own leadership style. Below, we will give you 3 attributes to "set your sites on" to increase the likelihood to modeling engagement as a leader and increasing the odds that employees will follow your example.

Engagement

If you read leadership material, a lot of the "talk" around employee engagement is about how to get the employees to be engaged. That is, how to get them to voluntarily be connected to the organization and be willing to use their discretionary effort to reach it's goals.

Many authors note that this engagement is more than a list of actions or behaviors, it is a relationship as well, but they then, despite noting the reciprocal nature of engagement, focus on the employees . . . and ignore the leadership side of the equation. This leaves the impression often that engagement is something leaders get employees to do. Transformative leaders focus on becoming . . . and helping others become . . . aligned with the values of engagement.

So, here are a few, brief, thoughts to help focus on leadership's role in developing an engaged workforce.

Another term for engagement is "betrothal" which is defined as a "formal agreement to get married." (Seen in this light--leaders and employers are in a marriage-like relationship--is it surprising that there are so many challenges. Note that this engagement includes, a decision to enter an agreement or contract and, that contract is aimed at creating a more permanent relationship between two parties.

Leaders who want to have engaged employees need to model engagement behaviors themselves. This doesn't mean "preaching" about engagement or creating incentive to engagement behavior. Carrots and sticks only work in the short-term and ultimately disencentivze employees.

Remember, it's about a relationship . . . and no one prefers to be in a manipulative, coercive, or unsupportive relationship. Yes, unhealthy relationships exist and even persevere . . . as long as there is no better option. When another option becomes possible the relationship ends. 

While leaders often acknowledge both sides to this engagement relationship, i.e" "we want the best for our employees"; very few have thought through what it takes for a leader to engage with their employees on a deep level.  

But leaders don't have time to a deep in-depth study of what it takes to become an engagement exercise. So let's boil it down to it's roots. What does it take to model healthy engaged behaviors?  Here's what I think it takes . . . 3 primary attributes of an engaged leader . . . plus 2 for good measure!

1. Being Present

We hear a lot about "dead-beat Dads" or Mother's who "abandon" their children. We understand that to have a healthy relationship you must be present. Employees know when a leader is only "putting in the time" and not really "there for them."

2. absence can present itself  in terms of a burned-out leader, an overly committed leader, traumatic events, or other factors. A leader who is not physically, emotionally, or behaviorally present will not have an engaged workforce--or if they do, it will be inspire of the leader and due to informal leadership within the work team itself.

2. A Non-Anxious Presence

Once of the biggest killers of engagement comes through leaders that cannot operate as a "non-anxious presence." They react. They drive. They create an uncertain, anxious, fearful, environment where some employees feel threatened and cannot predict what the leader will do. Thus they engage in a lot of unhealthy coping strategies . . . lying, avoiding, playing-it-safe.  

3. High-level Communication

People think they communicate well. They don't. If you are trained and experienced in communication you know this. Within just two or three sentences, a trained expert can't identify elements that will make communication difficult, if not all-together, misleading. At it's worst it is corrosive or volitile. We do team training on communication utilizing a simple "disarm the bomb" electronic program. The teams are always terrible in the beginning. How can it be difficult to describe the color of wires or the buttons to push and in what sequence? Well, it is difficult. Imagine what happens to communication when their are emotions real consequences on people's lives in the mix.

Yet, like it or not, people are judged through the patterns of communication they employ.  This includes both verbal and non-verbal communication. It is impacted by the tendencies and trends over time but can be undone by one or more single events during high stress moments (see non-anxious presence above).

4. A Desire to Improve . . . that is stronger than a desire to protect one's since or "self!"

One of the biggest problems in working with executives or their teams is that they give "lip service" to wanting to improve but act like they are protecting their fragile egos. To date, I have never had a senior executive admit to me that they are afraid to get honest feedback, fear the challenges of changing to help their team's success, or say they are satisfied with their level of competence. I have had them resist taking negative feedback, being defensive, blaming others, or avoiding. After all, they are human, despite being accomplished and successful. This is a "blind spot" they need to get over. They need a hunger to improve that will keep them engaged when it is tough.

5. Commitment

In some form, every accomplishment is done for a reason. But reasons are not all alike in their ability to sustain effort. A reason that has deep meaning to the leader can sustains them through the difficult times . . . and keep them from "leaping ships" when experiencing quick success. The leader needs a deep commitment to something to risk engaging fully in the success of his organization. Without it employees will likely not engage deeply either. So, ask yourself this, "Why should I, as a leader, want to be present, non-anxious, and communicative?  Why strive to continue to improve?  Without good answers to these questions, your commitment, and your employees, is likely to wane with time.

All the best!