Category Archives: Relationship Management

Handle the Truth

… teams as well as couples have a list of undiscussables, issues they avoid broaching at all costs in order to preserve a modicum of peace, to preserve the relationship. In reality, the relationship steadily deteriorates for lack of the very conversation they so carefully avoid. It’s difficult to raise the level if the slide has lasted over a period of years, and that is what keeps many of us stuck.                                                                         —–Susan Scott, in Fierce Conversations

As long as I can remember, I have always been struck by the lack of honesty in conversations. It seems futile to me. Why talk, why relate if you won’t be honest with each other? People walk around constructing fictional stories about what is happening. Instead of putting ourselves out there, we place our mannequin selves in the world to talk with others’ less than life-size dolls. A young man tells his soon to be ex-girlfriend, “It’s not you, it’s me.”A boss tells the employee, “You didn’t get the promotion because the other candidate was just more qualified.” And a woman tells the waiter “Everything is fine.” It’s fiction; it’s deceit, and it’s destructive to people and relationships. It prohibits us from living the honest, connected lives we all yearn for. It blocks growth in organizations.

On occasion, the audience buys your fictional story. More often than not, deep down he/she knows that it’s a tale, and another insipid story is constructed. The story says “I can’t trust what people say, people don’t believe in me enough to be honest with me, there is something wrong with me, I can’t get a fair shake.” And in return they give you more fiction. Reality is lost. Mistrust is gained.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, you can’t always be honest with people. It’s often better to shade the truth or leave things undisclosed.”  To that, I say two things:

  1. You have obviously been told a lot of stories – and told a few yourself.
  2. How’s that working for you?

Six years after hiring a narcissistic, insecure manager who wreaked havoc on the company, a vice president asked an exiting employee for advice: “What do I do with this manager? She berates me and is despised all over the company. I was hoping her peers would deal with her.”After six years, one-hundred percent turnover, and immeasurable damage to the organization, the VP was still unwilling to have an honest conversation with herself, with the manager, and with numerous people throughout the organization.One year later the manager was fired. Why? What took so long?The longer the tale, the harder it is to look up to face reality.

Handle the Truth

Who can forget how the infuriated Colonel Jessep pompously screams “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH” at Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee in the movie, A Few Good Men. I believe this line resonates with so many of us not only because it is Kaffee’s triumphant moment, but also because at some level we believe it. People simply can’t handle the truth.

You must handle the truth – that is the truth. It would seem obvious but it seems not be.Top-selling books, Good to Great, Fierce Conversations, and Integrity all feature facing the truth as a central component of personal and business success.Why does it need to be said?Because it is a habit that is so uncommon in our world, that’s why.

A few weeks ago I attended a training program. During the first evening of training, one facilitator dominated the dialogue. He talked over his counterpart and crowded out any room for participant engagement.My initial reaction was to withdraw and, honestly, to dislike the man.Despite myself, I resolved to speak truth. The next morning before class I caught-up with the facilitator and gave him some straight feedback. Guess what he did.He handled the truth; no he embraced it and thanked me for caring about him!There in that conversation, a relationship was reborn.I left it liking him and him liking me. The rest of the workshop went very well.I, and about twenty other people, re-engaged in the workshop because we handled the truth.That conversation cost me nothing, salvaged the $18,000 expense for the course, and is producing a tremendous return on the investment.

Now, as I sit here recounting this story, I feel incredibly gratified because that is what I do for a living. I help people have honest truthful conversations with themselves, with their teams, and with their stakeholders and customers.As a result, they can make effective decisions and move forward together honestly and productively.

That is pretty cool.

What Makes 9.53 in 10 Humans Tick: Passion

It’s good to know that everyone is different.  But it is much more important and useful for managers to master the motivational principles that apply to 9.53 in 10 people (at my last count).  In a previous post I discussed how personal choice, or control, is an elemental motivational force.  Here, I discuss the role of passion as a motivator in the workplace.

Passion

You’ve heard the platitudes: Do what you love and the money will follow, and It isn’t work when you love what you are doing.  It is apparent that we all give “discretionary effort” to intrinsically rewarding work.  We saw this clearly in our Creativity Soirée.  Ken’s wife, Jennifer, mined her memory for poems and literature she and Ken shared over the years. Then she wrote a charming poem about their life together drawing from those writings.  Her passion for literature enveloped the whole of it to create yet more… literature.

I’ve encountered people who are passionate about all sorts of things.  I once met a fifty-some year-old man who won the lottery and continued to work on an assembly line.  I’ve encountered janitors who took great pleasure in keeping bathrooms spic and span, and I know a 72-year-old chiropractor who routinely works 12 hours days, by choice. Why do they do it? That’s easy – they really, truly, sincerely enjoy their work.

The Roots of Passion

We can say with absolute certainty that passion is rooted in a multitude of “indiscernible” sources.  We can say with equal certainty that a few easily understood forces drive personal passions.  Natural talent feeds a continuous cycle of success and rewards and increasing skill.  This cycle alone is a strong driver of the motivational engine.  People can literally get “high” on the feelings that come from experiencing this cycle.  When personal values link with talents and rewards, it is like giving a high octane fuel to the motivational compound.  Consequently, it is important for managers to understand the core motivational values of their team members.MVS and VRS

Motivational Value Systems (MVS)

I often turn to Relationship Awareness Theory to help me discern others’ motivational drivers. Elias Porter, PhD., developed Relationship Awareness Theory to explain what motivates people. He found that people tend to run on one of several “Motivational Values Systems” (MVS), and that blocked expression of those values is frequently the source of interpersonal conflicts.  Fortunately, it is not too difficult to predict a person’s values by observing their interpersonal style. You may easily relate with the four core styles because the people around you demonstrate them every day.

Sometimes it can be difficult to “peg” a person with a Flexible-Cohering MVS since they are so adaptable, doing whatever is needed at the time. “Blends” also can be difficult to identify because they show elements of two different core value systems. I know a man who, when he behaved very assertively, was asked “what happened to the kind, nurturing person I met a few weeks ago?”  But his behavior was entirely consistent with his MVS, which is the Assertive-Nurturing blend.  It was his passion to serve people that led him to stand-up for their needs in a direct and candid manner.

If you closely observe your team members, you can get a pretty good handle on their MVS, and hence their passions. If you are not that self-assured about  your observational powers, you could also employ the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) which identifies a person’s MVS, as well as how they tend to
respond during conflict situations.

Three Strategies for Tapping Passion

Job Selection

A while back, I had the privilege of providing some career coaching during a performance review. My team member (let’s call him “Joe”) was the ideal employee in every way, except that his great efforts resulted only in satisfactory performance. Joe was organized, diligent, always had a plan, and always completed his work on time. He showed all the marks of a person with an assertive-directive MVS.  The problem was that the research work was better suited for people with an Analytic – Autonomizing bent – for people who were more concerned with thinking deeply and getting the right answer than with marshaling resources to meet a goal.  As a result, Joe felt out of place and somewhat unsatisfied.  We agreed that he was better suited for project management, and in a few months Joe had a new job that he loved in the company. Everyone was happy that his hard work resulted in excellent results in his new role.

Realigning Job Roles and Activities

While changing jobs to find a better fit is one way to tap a person’s  passion, it is not the only way.  Managers can also shuffle roles and activities around on the team to improve alignment with each team member’s passions. Marcus Buckingham champions the use of a Strong-Week plan, which entails shifting as much of your job as you can towards activities that you enjoy and that you are good at.  While no job is toil-free, this is nonetheless an excellent strategy for managers and employees who want more, better, and satisfying results.

Leader Communication

Leaders shape others’ perspectives, especially their perspective on the meaning of the work. With a little forethought, a leader can communicate assignments, provide direction and recognize people in ways that appeal to their values. Altruistic people want to know that they are helping others; directive people want to know that they are instrumental in getting things done; autotomizing people want to be self-reliant and to do what is fair and logical; flexible-cohering people want to know that they are being flexible in service to the team. So, for example, words of praise might be worded differently to each different style.

Assignments and direction and decision making can be similarly framed to help employees connect with the work at a very meaningful level.

Relationship Awareness Theory gives managers easy-to-use categories for understanding the motivational values of their team members and provides clear direction on how to adjust their style of leadership for each person on the team.  But MVS is just one way of getting at passions; there are many others. The three strategies described above may or may not be effective ways of tapping a person’s passions in the work place.  If you want to find more strategies, just spend some time reflecting on:

  • The things that you voluntarily spend extra effort on time and again.
  • The activities that energize you and are hard to pull away from.
  • Put you on your soapbox.

Then develop strategies for doing them more and being recognized for them
in the workplace. It’s a small jump from making strategies for engaging your
own passions to making strategies to engage others’.