Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Leadership

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

  • How to Serve at Work (and at Home)

    How to Serve at Work (and at Home)

    The sink is piled high with dishes. The trash is overflowing. Laundry hasn’t been done in days. The baby is crying, and the third grader needs help with homework.  

    And my husband is playing Xbox. 

    I don’t want to have to ask for help, I want him to notice I need help and do it. 

    My urge for him to read my mind and miraculously unload the dishes and clean out the sink without me having to ask is temporarily outweighed by how bad the dishes piled up are bothering me. 

    “Could you empty the dishwasher and reload it, please?” I ask.

    “In a little bit.”  he says. 

    But it’s bothering me so bad, I do it myself.  I want it done NOW, not in a “little bit” whatever that means, which could be next year as far as I’m concerned.  

    And I seethe in resentment. Can he not SEE clearly that I need help? I don’t want to have to ask. I want him to want to serve me and our household by just doing what needs to be done.  

    Acts of Service is not my primary love language (quality time is), but it is my second.   Short of spending quality time with me, I want you to help me.  I think this may have something to do with the phase of life I find myself in when demands of home and work are intense all at once. 

    My husband has no need for acts of service as a love language.  He wants to do things his own way on his own time, so he rarely recognizes the need for acts of service. Hence him also wanting to do the dishes “in a little bit.” 

    But this example points to the fact that there are good and bad ways to serve others.  And “bad” ways are actually worse than not serving at all. 

    First, people who don’t value acts of service don’t want you to “help” them.  They want you to let them do it themselves. So, there’s that.  Resist the urge to serve when offering a “How can I help you?” leads them to think you think they are incompetent or incapable.  Or when they have such a need for control in how things get done, they want to do it themselves.

    For those that do want acts of service,  The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace suggests asking the following questions:

    1. What would be helpful to you?  In my example, the dishwasher unloaded and the sink cleaned out and a reloaded dishwasher, please. Then you can tackle third-grade homework, thank you. 
    2. How would you like the task(s) done?  Lord help me if my husband doesn’t know how to load and unload the dishwasher.  He does, and my issue isn’t so much how I want it done (although in other cases that might really matter) it is when I want it done….
    3. When would be the best time to help? NOW please, just now.  

    As the book states, “When we demonstrate that we are willing to help our colleagues in the ways most beneficial to them, rather than what is convenient for us, we communicate that we value and respect them (and how they do things).”

    I have a colleague whose primary love language is acts of service. She is constantly serving others at home and at work, so my guess is this is what she values because 75% of people predominantly speak the love language they want to receive.  

    I think I’ve often neglected to serve her by asking these questions because she is so quick to do it before me.  For example, we all work remotely, so we don’t have a common place where we meet or keep office items.  Therefore, it is not uncommon for us to need to get physical items to each other, such as documents that need to be signed, tools for training, or something to take to a client. She is always first to offer to bring it to me. Whether it is convenient for her or not. 

    I need to do better in serving her by asking, “When and where would be helpful for you for us to exchange these items?” and go get them from her when and where it is best for her, not for me. 

    By paying attention to how people want to be served through how they serve others, and by doing it their way, not ours, we demonstrate that we know how to appreciate others that value acts of service. 

    How can people best serve you at home and at the office?

     

    Disclaimer:  I kinda threw my husband under the bus in this story.  This is a true story, but the bigger truth is that nine times out of ten he is super helpful and servant oriented.  I’ve seen marriages unravel because of controlling wives (or husbands) who want all things done their way, on their time, and as my husband says, expects their spouse to always be able to read their minds.  When they don’t read their mind, they then stew in resentment for days or weeks.  This isn’t the extreme I’m pointing to either. We’d be best at home and at work to look for ways to serve each other realizing that part of that service is doing things how and when the person we are trying to serve wants it done.  But sometimes, serving also means realizing that giving someone a minute to play Xbox (or whatever mindless activity they need at the moment) when they’ve had a long day at work is an act of service too. 

  • The Way We Fail at Work with our Words and our Gifts

    The Way We Fail at Work with our Words and our Gifts

    Expressing love at work may seem like a little too much.  But in reality, showing love is really showing people you care.  It isn’t about recognizing people’s accomplishments, it’s about appreciating people for who they are. 

    When we are talking about love at work, we are really talking about how to show people you appreciate them.  We talked about how to apply quality time as a love language at work on the blog last week. Quality time is a love language that is sometimes hard to know how to apply to work, but the love languages that are most and least desired in terms of frequency of those who have completed the Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory assessment-a tool to assess showing appreciation through the love languages at the office- are two of the most frequently used forms of showing appreciation at the office. 

    But are we applying these two love languages correctly? 

    The most frequently used method of showing appreciation at the office is tangible gifts, yet it is the least frequently desired.  The employee recognition industry is a multi-billion dollar one.  But according to research cited in The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, “Only 6% of employees choose tangible gifts as their primary language, and 68% report it is their least valued appreciation language.” 

    The most desired form of showing appreciation- chosen by approximately 45% of employees surveyed through the MBA– is words of affirmation.  People wanted to feel appreciated by what you say to them. 

    The fact that the most frequently used way to thank people, or to show them appreciation, is the least desired one and that the most desired is so desired one points to what I think may be wrong with showing appreciation in the workplace in general. 

    We go wrong with gifts and we go wrong with words because we don’t do a good job of making them personal.   In fact, we’ve written about the best way to thank employees is to make it personal. 

     

    The Way We Fail at Work with our Words

    The way we make our words of affirmation mean nothing is by: 

    1. Not being specific. Saying, “thank you” or “atta boy” and leaving it at that.  We need to personalize our appreciation with specifics.  What did someone do or how do they consistently behave that you appreciate?
    2. We give our words in the wrong context.  Some people like public praise and some do not.  Making our words personal means knowing the right context to give them in.  Research cited in the The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace notes that 40-50% of employees do not want to receive recognition in front of a large group.  Most of the time though, words of appreciation are given in a formal setting with a large group once or twice a year at company events. 
    3. We only provide words of affirmation when performance warrants it.  Sometimes we need to praise for consistent behavior over time that is actually a reflection of someone’s character.  This still needs to be specific, but often people want to be noticed for who they are, not whether it led to an immediate result or not.  Character, in fact, is what leads to lasting results. 

     

    The Way We Fail at Work with our Gifts

    Tangible gifts are most often given to recognize people, not to show appreciation to them.   We get a watch or a plaque for our years of service, or a gift card for Christmas.  These are the types of things that make the employee recognition industry big business.  But they aren’t the things people desire. 

    Gifts go wrong when: 

    1. They aren’t personal. Does everyone want a watch or a plaque?  I really don’t care to have either myself.  What actually often means the most is when a tangible gift is given that you show you know a person well enough to give them something they want.  Giving someone a gift they don’t want or value actually has a worse effect than giving no gift at all. 
    2. They are lip service to appreciation.  When everyone gets the ham for Christmas every year, do you actually feel any appreciation?  My guess would be no. Especially if you are a vegetarian.  Lip service for appreciation is usually so depersonalized. 
    3. Stuff is the focus instead of experiences.  Gifts often fail to be what people actually want in a tangible gift.  What people often want if they value gifts are really experiences, not stuff.  They want tickets to the sports game, a gift certificate to the spa, or a small getaway.  But again, be sure not to violate number one.  Don’t give me a sports tickets and don’t give my husband a trip to the spa. 

     

    How often do you use words or gifts to show appreciation at work?  Which one do you default to and why? And do you make your words and your gifts personal?

  • 4 Ways to Apply Quality Time at Work

    4 Ways to Apply Quality Time at Work

    “Would you rather me 1) give you a high five or 2) work on a puzzle with you?” I asked my five and nine-year-old over the holiday break.  

    It was one set of about twenty force choice questions from the Five Love Languages for Kids quiz I was giving them in order to explore how my husband and I can continue to be mindful of how we can best customize our parenting to each child. 

    Both easily answered, “Work on a puzzle with you.” 

    The Love Languages quiz started in romantic relationships and describes five primary love languages: 

    1. Physical Touch
    2. Receiving Gifts
    3. Words of Affirmation
    4. Quality Time
    5. Acts of Service

    It helps us to build self-awareness of how we like to give and receive love.  

    We continued through the questions and discovered that both our children’s primary love language is quality time. 

    My husband stumbled into the quiz with the kids, so he and I also both took the couple’s quiz. Turns out, both of our primary love languages is also quality time. 

    So being mindful of this, we have started family night on Friday evenings which consists of making homemade pizza or some other simple meal together, eating, and either playing a game or watching a movie together.  We are trying to be mindful of how to give and receive love in a way that is meaningful, and we are fortunate that we all have the same primary love language. 

    Turns out love languages are also applicable in the workplace.  The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace and the corresponding Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory assessment help colleagues better understand how to customize appreciation towards others in order to build successful and empowering relationships at work. 

    Quality time may be your language of appreciation, but at work, it doesn’t have to be expressed through pizza and game night, and that isn’t actually how most people at work want or need it to be expressed.  

    From the book, “Our research indicates…. The employee simply wants to feel that what they are doing is significant and that their supervisor values their contribution.  Taking a few minutes to check-in and hear how things are going communicates genuine expression of interest in what they are doing and makes them feel valued.” 

    So if you are a supervisor or colleague is someone who values quality time, how do you express this at work?  Here are four ways to express quality time, grounded in realizing that by giving away time, you are giving away your most precious resource.  And your time is not about proximity to someone but about personal attention. 

    1. Focused attention:  On our first family game night, I started cleaning up the kitchen about ten minutes into the game while my husband was resisting the urge to look at his phone.  This new “tradition” wasn’t going to be successful if we didn’t focus all of our attention on it, and our kids quickly reminded us of this. “Mom, it’s your turn. Why are you cleaning up now?” they asked.   

    If we want to be good at giving quality time, we have to focus our attention on specifically that.  Stop multitasking, give undivided attention, and listen to give away true quality time.

    2. Quality conversation: The book states that this is “dialogue in which two individuals are sharing their thoughts, feelings and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context.”  This is why and where regular one-on-ones with those you manage are so important.  And this means your one-on-ones have to comply with number one above- focused attention.   Your phone, email, etc. should be put up during quality conversations.  

    Quality conversation requires empathetic listening by maintaining eye contact, resisting the urge to interrupt, listening for feelings and thoughts, observing body language and affirming feelings even if you disagree with their conclusions. 

    It also requires asking good questions.  Even though we don’t have a game or movie night every day of the week with our kids, we do try to sit down as a family for dinner most nights of the week.  Quality conversation is started by everyone having to answer three questions: 1) What was your high of the day? 2) What was your low of the day? and 3) What is your hope for tomorrow?  This has led to meaningful dialogue and a better understanding of each other. 

    3. Shared Experiences: Connecting inside and outside of work through shared experiences is an important way to express quality time.  Research by the authors of the book indicates that “men whose primary appreciation language is quality time often prefer to share experiences as opposed to sit-down conversations.”  A round of golf anyone? 

    We have quarterly planning meetings as a team at Horizon Point, which usually involves a full day of sitting around a table focusing attention and engaging in quality conversation to plan for the next three months.  I decided to begin 2020 by adding the element of the shared experience to this. We took the first part of our meeting where we shared our 2019 accomplishments and brainstormed on goals for a walk on the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge. The Sandhill Cranes are out in full force this time of year, and it was great to get outside with everyone and experience something together.   

     

    4. Working collegially with coworkers on a task and small group dialogue.  “Research shows that millennials and even Gen-Xers highly value working collaboratively with others,” states the book.   Working in groups is a way to engage learning and small group dialogue along with it helps to generate ideas and suggestions in a way that may help people feel less intimidated than by sharing one-on-one thoughts with their supervisor. 

    The key to applying love languages of appreciation at work is to make it personal.  By tuning in to what people need and giving them that- as opposed to what we need or what is easiest to give or what we can give in one blanketed way to everyone all at once- is the best way to show appreciation and motivate towards positive results. 

     

    How do you want to be appreciated at work? 

  • 6 Ways to Help Create Caring Instead of Callous Leaders

    6 Ways to Help Create Caring Instead of Callous Leaders

    I have the opportunity to coach a lot of middle managers. Quite often they are middle-aged men, and I’m working with them because there is some issue with how they lead (or actually don’t lead) others.   

    Through some type of feedback mechanism, these men are described mildly as “aloof” or “disinterested” (always related to how they are with people, not necessarily the tasks or functions of their job) to more extreme words like “jerk” or “a**hole”. 

    I’m brought in most of the time to try to fix their “personality”. Making them more caring and a better leader of people is my assignment.  

    If the goal is to help them grow and care, I’m up for the task. But the reason they are described in these unappealing ways is often not what it seems. It’s not a personality issue or another fixed trait issue where someone is born less or more caring because of their disposition.  

    Sometimes it’s a skill issue, meaning they just don’t know what they don’t know.  They want to be a leader of people, but they’ve never been taught how to do this.  This means I often help by providing tools, questions, and activities for self-reflection and awareness to help them facilitate positive leadership practices with others. 

    It’s never personality. It’s sometimes skill.  

    But it is almost always an issue of time.  

    You see, middle managers are often pulled in a million different directions. They are hurrying to do something for their boss, to be at the next meeting of which two-thirds or more of their scheduled workday is packed with, to complete a project, to approve someone’s PTO in an inefficient system.   Or trying to make it home in time to help their spouse, care for a child, or make it to another meeting of an organization they are involved within the community. 

    You see they aren’t callous, cold, or a jerk because they are born that way or don’t know how to be caring, they are these things because they are ALWAYS in a hurry and their task list is NEVER done.  

    Quite simply, they don’t have time for their people or don’t feel like they do. So when someone that reports to them comes in and needs to talk to them about an issue with the project they are working on or an issue with a co-worker, or to check on their PTO request for next week that hasn’t been approved yet, they appear at the best aggravated with the person, and at the worst, they act like a downright jerk to him or her. 

    In a classic study aptly titled “The Good Samaritan Study” Princeton researchers examined what conditions impact a group of seminary students actually helping someone. Personality and religious evaluations of each individual in the study were included. Some participants were told they were late for the task they were assigned to do (which was either to talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan or to talk about seminary jobs).  Others were told they had a few minutes to arrive where they needed to across campus for their assignment. 

    In route to give the talk, participants encountered a man obviously in distress. Some helped him, some didn’t. 

    Which ones helped the least?  Personality didn’t impact helping behaviors and neither did “religiousness” like a Samaritan.  Those that helped the least were the ones in a hurry.  In low hurry situations, 63% helped compared to high hurry where only 10% helped. That’s a huge difference. 

    Found in a summary of the conclusions of the study are some key insights: 

    Ironically, a person in a hurry is less likely to help people, even if he is going to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan…. Maybe that ‘ethics become a luxury as the speed of our daily lives increases’. Or maybe peoples’ cognition was narrowed by the hurriedness and they failed to make the immediate connection of an emergency. 

    Many subjects…. were in a conflict between helping the victim and meeting the needs of the experimenter. Conflict rather than callousness can explain the failure to stop.”

    So, if you are a leader of a middle manager, or honestly anyone this day in age where margins of time seem to be non-existent, work hard to: 

      1. Make sure they know that the most important function of their job is leading those they manage and that the majority of their time should be spent on activities that grow others.  Help those you lead prioritize people over projects.  Quite simply, the best way to do this is by your example. Do you see a man in distress and stop to help? If you don’t, the people who are watching you won’t either. 
      2. Set up conditions that allow people for margins in their day.  Cancel some meetings and give them permission to block time off for focused work where anyone- especially you (the experimenter)- doesn’t bother them or set-up expectations that create a constant state of hurry. 
      3. Give people permission to say no. 
      4. Help people learn and apply proven time management strategies and principles. I particularly like training around Covey’s principles in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First.
      5. Eliminate as much bureaucracy as you can.  Don’t make people have to get permission from you to do everything. Put systems in place that increase the autonomy and flexibility people have and allow for fluid communication channels where people don’t waste time having to track people down or wait on decisions from above. 
      6. Most of all, model these principles for the people you lead.  If you are always in a hurry you are setting the expectation that they should be too. 

     

    What is the number one reason you become less caring than you should be as a leader? 

  • Don’t Hoard Your Organization’s Wealth

    Don’t Hoard Your Organization’s Wealth

    “Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.” – Robert Boyce

    Organizations contain a wealth of knowledge. Some organizations spread that wealth, and some hoard it. Those that share the wealth of knowledge maximize their potential success. 

    I’m currently reading The Starbucks Experience by Joseph Michelli and even though my brother and sister-in-law are both former partners (that’s what Starbucks calls their employees), I had no idea just how strong of an emphasis Starbucks places on knowledge at all levels of the organization. From formal training and incentives for completion, requiring partners to sample all core products twice per year, providing every partner with one bag of coffee each week so that they stay familiar with products, and encouraging partners to share their knowledge with customers to help educate them on products, Starbucks understands the value knowledge adds to their business, the partner experience, and the customer experience. 

    Starbucks has over 11,000 locations worldwide, and a level of financial resources for training that most organizations don’t have. So how can smaller organizations help employees share the wealth of knowledge? 

    • Encourage a learning and teaching environment. Studies show that up to 90% of what we learn is through informal training. But most organizations focus their attention on formal training such as classes or certifications, with limited funds to support these efforts. When I chose a career in HR I knew very little about it. I was fortunate to work for a company that encouraged a learning and teaching environment. While I was encouraged to get certified, most of what I learned about HR I learned through those that I worked with. When client issues arose that I didn’t know how to handle, I was encouraged to seek the help of senior team members. As I advanced in the organization, I became that senior team member that others sought out for help. Ask yourself “what is one thing I taught someone this week?” and “what is one thing I learned from someone this week?” 
    • Cross-train and up-train staff. Giving employees insight into other areas of the business has many benefits. One way to do this is through cross-training, giving employees the opportunity to walk in other’s shoes so to speak. It helps create an understanding of the various departments and positions within the organization, encourages communication and collaboration, and increases employee engagement. In addition to cross-training, organizations need to plan for their future and up-training is a great way to prepare employees for advancement. As the saying goes, a leader’s job is to help develop their staff to one day take their place. Too often organizations create a succession plan but fail to prepare employees for advancement. 
    • Utilize internal resources. Training doesn’t have to be costly. A great way to reduce training costs is to use the resources you have within your organization. By providing internal training, an organization ensures that the training is relevant to the organization’s business and employees are better able to relate to the training. A great way to provide internal training is to have employees lead lunch and learn sessions. Employees are given the opportunity to share a glimpse of what they really do and share their expertise with their peers. It’s also a great way to help employees understand how the work of an individual or a department contributes to the overall goals of the organization. 

    While the return on investment may not be measurable using metrics, the sharing of knowledge has many benefits for employees, organizations, and their customers. The sharing of knowledge creates a culture of collaboration, improves employee morale, increases productivity, and contributes to organizational growth. Organizations see an improvement in problem-solving, decision-making abilities, customer delivery, and reduction in the loss of know-how due to turnover. 

    Does your organization share its wealth of knowledge or hoard it?