HR Article – 25 Behaviors that lead to mistrust

October 17, 2008 at 10:41 am (HR Articles, HR CaseStudy)
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25 behaviors that lead to mistrust
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“Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All of life is relationship – even life at work. And the most critical, foundational building block of a team is trust. Without trust most teams are really disparate collections of individuals called groups. The element that creates or erodes trust is your individual behavior. Trust can support teams to go the extra mile, work for the greater good of the team and the organization, foster open and honest communication and engender mutual respect and support. Distrust, on the other, often stems form a “me first” mind-set that leads to destructive conflict, egoism, and a “going through the motions” attitude.

As trite and worn as the statement “There is no ‘I’ in team.” is, its a fact of life at work that when trust is lacking among team members, they spend inordinate amounts of time and energy resisting others’ inappropriate behaviors, reacting to others’ disingenuousness, playing politics, resisting meetings, and feeling reluctant to ask for, or give, support.  In a culture characterized by mistrust, relationships suffer and when relationships suffer, performance, production and profits suffer. So, how might you be contributing to mistrust on your team?

Here are 25 behaviors that contribute to creating mistrust on your team:

1. You fail to keep your promises, agreements and commitments.
2. You serve your self first and others only when it is convenient.
3. You micromanage and resist delegating.
4. You demonstrate an inconsistency between what you say and how you behave.
5. You fail to share critical information with your colleagues.
6. You choose to not tell the truth.
7. You resort to blaming and scapegoating others rather than own your mistakes.
8. You judge, and criticize rather than offer constructive feedback.
9. You betray confidences, gossip and talk about others behind their backs.
10. You choose to not allow others to contribute or make decisions.
11. You downplay others’ talents, knowledge and skills.
12. You refuse to support others with their professional development.
13. You resist creating shared values, expectations and intentions in favor of your own agenda; you refuse to compromise and foster win-lose arguments.
14. You refuse to be held accountable by your colleagues.
15. You resist discussing your personal life, allowing your vulnerability, disclosing your weaknesses and admitting your relationship challenges.
16. You rationalize sarcasm, put-down humor and off-putting remarks as “good for the group”.
17. You fail to admit you need support and don’t ask colleagues for help.
18. You take others’ suggestions and critiques as personal attacks.
19. You fail to speak up in team meetings and avoid contributing constructively.
20. You refuse to consider the idea of constructive conflict and avoid conflict at all costs.
21. You consistently hijack team meetings and move them off topic.
22. You refuse to follow through on decisions agreed upon at team meetings.
23. You secretly engage in back-door negotiations with other team members to create your own alliances.
24.  You refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt and prefer to judge them without asking them to explain their position or actions.
25. You refuse to apologize for mistakes, misunderstandings and inappropriate behavior and dig your heels in to defend yourself and protect your reputation.

When you show up in integrity, authentically and allow your vulnerability, others will see you as genuine, warts and all. As such, your teammates will begin to trust you and gravitate towards you as you have created a personal container of safety in which others feel they can relate to you in an equally genuine fashion.

Communication and true teamwork is a function of trust, not technique. When trust is high, communication is easy and effortless. Communicating and relating are instantaneous. But, when trust is low, communicating and relating are efforting, exhausting, and time and energy consuming.

Finally, no one wants to give 100% to someone they can’t trust. Period!

So, some questions for self-reflection are:

* How deeply do you trust your own guidance?
* Do you trust that you know what’s best for you?
* Do you often find yourself needing to be in control?
* Do you feel the people in your life should think, feel and behave as you do?
* Are fear, doubt and anxiety a large part of your life?
* Where or when do you feel not good enough or not worthy enough?
* Do you generally feel most folks can’t be trusted?
* What would your life be like if you substituted trust for fear?
* Would you describe yourself as one who has a well-honed capacity to trust, be non-judgmental, and compassionate?
* Would folks describe you as a good listener? How do you know?
* Are you trustworthy?
* What does trust mean to you?
* On what do you base your notion of trust?
* Do you believe others, if asked, would say they trust you?
* Why is trust easy or difficult for you?
* What does someone have to do for you not to trust them?
* Do you have a lot of rules that have to be met before you trust someone?
* What was your experience around trust like when you were growing up?
* Have you ever been told, directly or indirectly, that you can’t be trusted? If so, what was that like?

“The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.” ­ Henry L. Stimson

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HR Loyalty:- Employee Loyalty

October 15, 2008 at 4:05 pm (HR Articles, TD and OB)
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You’d never consider hiring an illiterate person to work as a journalist, a technophobe to work in IT, or a hypochondriac to work in a medical centre.  Yet so many people get promoted to management positions without the one core characteristic that determines managerial success – a love of people.  And therein rests one of the biggest causes of staff disloyalty:  managers who don’t lead from the heart.

The same principle plays out in the harshest heartbreak of all – cheating.  If we look at the top reasons why husbands cheat on their wives or vice versa, we’ll see that each one of these is also a major reason why employees cease being loyal to their bosses.

Lack of Attention: Neglected partners are more likely to be unfaithful.  Similarly, if you don’t spend enough time with your employees, whether it’s via coaching, caring, communicating, or consulting, they’ll feel unloved and the result will be a resignation.

Getting Even: Some people cheat because they want revenge.  To get loyalty, you first have to give it.  The majority of staff turnover is precipitated by some kind of shock which acts as the last straw that finally causes an employee to just give up.

Unsatisfied Needs: A partner can be swayed to stray if something essential is missing from the relationship, such as intimacy.  As a manager, failure to identify and meet your employees’ needs, whatever they might be, will lead to disengagement which is a precursor to turnover.

Loss of Interest: Infidelity can occur when the cheater is unhappy with changes in their partner, such as an altered physique or attitude.  At work, if change occurs and you haven’t taken the time to get your employees’ buy-in, they’ll move on to an employer who bothers to make an effort.

Incorrect Fit: Sometimes two people just aren’t meant to be together.  Likewise, there are some employees who simply aren’t suited to be in your team.  There’s a cultural incongruence which should have been picked up during your recruitment process.

I’m not defending cheaters.  But what I am saying is that the more you understand the reasons why people cheat, the easier it is to create a relationship that’s less likely to end in a break-up.  Ditto at work.  The more you understand the real reasons why your employees resign, the less likely they’ll be to break away from your organisation.

By James Adonis

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Did You Know?

Only 25% of employees feel that their companies have any loyalty towards them and yet 56% of employees feel loyal towards their employers in return.

Source: Randstad

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Seven Ways of Employee ROI

October 14, 2008 at 3:48 pm (HR Articles, TD and OB)
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It’s no secret that the economy isn’t exactly booming right now. More people may be looking for work, but that doesn’t mean that they are the right people for your company. Instead of viewing employees as expendable, businesses should focus on getting the best return possible on the workforce they already have.

Employee retention is a very big issue and it always will be, regardless of the state of the economy. After all, the key to long-term growth and productivity is a workforce that’s familiar with your company and in sync with its goals. A workplace should excite and motivate employees, so they’ll want to stay around. And that means creating an environment that challenges people and helps them grow not just as employees, but as people.

Here are some ways organizations can foster the kind of growth-oriented workplace that will survive and thrive, even during a downturn:

* Forget Monetary Incentives: Focus On Relationships. Even if you can offer them, fat salaries and bonuses, more vacation time, and other perks will not increase employee loyalty. Instead, they tend to tie people to your company in the same manner that one trains a dog to stay in the yard—until, the people across the street offer a bigger, juicier bone. Creating a culture in which good relationships are valued gives employees a profound and rewarding reason to come to work every day. Only through relationships can people change and grow…and personal growth is a requirement for survival in our increasingly complex world.
* Help Employees Find their “Familiars.” What is a familiar? Simply put, it’s an emotional state we return to again and again. It is a feeling that holds tremendous power over our choices, relationships, and careers. Rooted in our families and our upbringing, the familiar is a feeling that we unconsciously reproduce, sometimes to our benefit, but often to our detriment. For instance, the eldest child of a large family might have grown up having to subrogate her needs to the needs of the younger children. Perhaps she was told she was selfish for asking for things for herself. It is no mystery that as an adult she is frustrated at work and has trouble communicating her needs to her boss. Her familiar—the feeling that she doesn’t really deserve to ask for anything—is reproduced in her work environment, where she is unable to assert herself.  You can help your employees tremendously by learning about familiars and encouraging them to identify—and subsequently diminish—their own.
* Seek Employee Input. A big part of creating a growth-oriented workplace is to constantly question your employees. “Did you notice what you did there?” “Why do you think you said that?” “I noticed that when your position was challenged in the meeting, you didn’t defend it—why do you think you backed down?” Creating a “question culture” will help employees identify their familiars. It will raise performance expectations throughout the company. It will train employees to think carefully about how they do their jobs and ensure that they have sound reasons for every decision they make.
* Encourage Conflict and Confrontation. Yes, you read that right. Conflict and confrontation are rarely pleasant, but they are the very definition of teamwork. They are also necessary to create growth relationships. The purpose of the workplace is not to make everyone happy—it is to grow people to their maximum potential. The enormous popularity of consensus decision making/negotiation, participatory management, and self-directed work teams is a sign of our unhealthy quest for comfort above all.
* Provide Honest, Caring Feedback. Keep the lines of communication open by continually telling your employees how they are doing. A relationship without honest feedback is a “mutual toleration society.” Unconditional acceptance—in both personal and professional relationships—is actually a form of abandonment, because it robs the other party of the most important catalysts for growth and change. (Hence the reason the feedback is labeled “caring”).
* Practice the Art of Self-Disclosure. Feedback cuts both ways; you want your employees to provide it to you as well. One way to do so is through self-disclosure. If you want to turn a stagnant employee relationship into a growth-oriented one—or start a new relationship out on the right foot—share your feelings first. This is a big risk because you don’t know how the other person will respond; you must be prepared to deal with any type of reaction you receive. But it’s a risk worth taking because you can learn a lot from your employees. Self-disclose often and you’ll model the kind of relationships you want to encourage in your company.
* Form An Accountability Group. Many people fear receiving or giving feedback because they don’t want to show weakness or cause discomfort to someone else. Put them in the right setting, however, and they may be willing to become involved. In an accountability group people give and receive feedback, create action plans based on that feedback, and hold group members accountable for implementing their plans. I have found accountability groups to be amazingly effective in helping clients overcome debilitating work and personal problems. Done correctly, they can lead individuals and organizations to transform themselves from the inside out.

I am certain that the actions detailed here will increase your company’s productivity. People who are personally and professionally fulfilled make better employees—it’s that simple. But the big reason to implement these strategies has more to do with tomorrow than today. Creating a work environment rich with opportunities for self-discovery is an investment in the future of your company. Begin now, and when the economy rebounds, your employees won’t leave you for greener pastures. Why would they? Your organization will be meeting needs far more compelling than a weekly paycheck.

[ An abstract from an article publish by Joan McCarthey, CPO - Human Consultancy Inc, in Human Capital Magazine]

-Pinal Mehta

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Inspiring Employees through Recognition

October 13, 2008 at 3:08 pm (HR Articles)
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As McDonald’s Founder Ray Kroc knew, there is no better way to inspire a team than with recognition. From the chairman of the board to the receptionist, we all have a deep-down craving for it. Build your company’s culture on the foundation of rewarding and recognizing hard workers, and you’ll create a fertile work environment where resiliency, high standards, high retention, loyalty, innovation, positive risk taking and high morale are present.

A Gallup poll revealed 65 percent of Americans haven’t received recognition in the past year. A United States Department of Labor study found the No. 1 reason why people leave organizations is they don’t feel appreciated. As American psychologist Abraham Maslow stated in his theory of motivation, people thrive on recognition as a form of self-value when they feel their contributions make a difference.

Consider the rewards that are most important to your organization. Jot down the kind of effort needed to bring those values from the abstract to the concrete. Build those efforts into job descriptions so employees become accountable for the action steps. Recognize those who achieve the best results, whether by praising them in public or giving a keepsake at the company celebration, complete with a speech about the employee’s commitment to excellence and the results it brought to the organization as a whole. Others will see what excellence is all about.

Let’s look at some time-tested ways leaders can inspire employees to do their best:

1. Make recognition a policy, not a perk.
Take time to develop a system of rewards for everyone at your company. Include pinnacle rewards for high lifetime achievers, such as McDonald’s coveted President’s Award, as well as more ordinary incentives, such as bonuses. Educate the entire staff about the program, post it for all to see, and promote it frequently.

2. Little things mean a lot.
A handshake is the least expensive way talent managers can recognize top performers – and perhaps the most effective. Look them in the eye and say thanks. Be specific about what the employee did that you appreciated so much, and why.

3. Recognize them with fanfare.
When bestowing an honor on a high-achieving employee, make it a celebration. That could mean inviting family members to be at an awards dinner, or stopping the workday early to hold a company-wide ceremony.

4. Remember the spouse.
For marathon efforts – such as large-scale projects or regional sales turnarounds – remember to recognize the employee’s significant other. After all, without the support of the employee’s partner, he or she wouldn’t have delivered such terrific results.

5. Respect your frontline.
Remember the little guys: the cashiers, customer-service people and maintenance staff. They are the face of your operation and will boost your brand better than anyone else if you make them feel appreciated.

6. Boost team spirit.
Recognizing teams or departments also is important. It binds employees together in pride. A plaque, a magnum of champagne and a Friday afternoon off are all ways you can tell a group of employees: “You did this together, and you excelled.”

7. Make rewards meaningful.
Don’t give front-row stadium seats to an employee who could care less about baseball. Find out employees’ favorite restaurants, for example, or whether they like theatre or music, and give them a night out they will really enjoy.

8. Recognition from the top means the most.
A personal phone call or thank-you note from the CEO often has more impact on an employee than anything else.

9. Don’t forget suppliers and clients.
When you create a culture steeped in recognition, your gratitude and appreciate should spread past your company walls. Don’t forget to thank loyal vendors and clients for their excellent contributions with a letter, a paperweight or even a charitable gift in their name.

[About the Author: Paul Facella is CEO of Inside Management, a consulting group. A 34-year veteran and former executive at McDonald's Corp., he is author of Everything I Know about Business I Learned at McDonald's.]

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