Closing the Distance in Three Simple Steps

Everyone has trouble with someone at work. Even you. Maybe it’s a less experienced team member. Maybe it’s a peer. Maybe it’s your boss. Whoever it is, you feel a distance, a wariness setting in toward this Other. Things used to be alright, but for whatever reason, they aren’t anymore. You don’t like the situation.

You are smart not to like it, and I hope you want to change it. Because whether a direct report, peer, or boss, it is in your best interests to regain a cordial working relationship. The Other affects your productivity and happiness. In some cases, the Other may also affect your monetary success and longevity in the organization.

Assuming you want the relationship to improve, it is vital to start with this understanding: nothing at all will change unless you make the first move. You are the only person you can control in the relationship. You have to initiate. Once you decide to do so, here are three essential steps to close the distance between you and the Other.

1. First, don’t make a big deal about it. Just approach the Other casually. Say hi. Make eye contact. That’s enough for one interaction. 
2. After that, get bolder. Engage the Other in a conversation. It can be about sports, work, or plans for the weekend. Keep it simple and short, then go about your business.
3. Finally, take a deep breath. Ask the Other out for lunch or coffee. Don’t have an agenda. Just go. Listen, chat, laugh when you can. Get to know the Other better or differently than you have before.

Through these little steps, perhaps you and the Other will find common ground. You might even get the opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings. At a minimum, though, you will know a little more about the Other than you did before.

Even if you discover you are unlikely to become best buddies, you will have defused some of the confusion and insecurity that existed in your mind. And you will surely be able to pat yourself on the back for making the effort.

Delay Gratification for Long-Term Success

A recent meeting with a plastic surgeon who is starting his own practice and an advertising representative reaffirmed what great relationship-builders do: They build trust and think long term.

When the surgeon described his patient relationships, he said “I spend more time talking people out of procedures than I ever do talking them into one.” He went on to say how committed he is to long-term, happy relationships with all of his patients.

Not long after, the sales rep began describing possible advertising packages to the doctor. She gently guided him away from the biggest and most expensive package, because she said “It just doesn’t make sense for you right now. Maybe after your business is booming, you’ll want to upgrade, but for now this smaller package meets your needs. I want you to feel comfortable knowing you made a decision that’s right for you.”

What? Did I just hear business people consciously walk away from money? Yes, yes I did.

Here’s why they did it, I think: As interested as the doctor is in having a strong practice, he knows instinctively that sometimes, a successful relationship means turning down business in the short term. While the advertising sales representative almost certainly would have loved a big contract by the end of the meeting, she knew that helping my client begin from a smaller, more practical point meant her contract with him would grow larger over time.

The surgeon and the sales rep focused on what was best for the “other” in their relationships, rather than on their own short-term needs. Is anyone going to be surprised when both are ultimately more successful than their peers over the long term? 

Chickens and Eggs

Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking with a managing partner of CPA firm. We were discussing communication among the three primary generations currently in the workplace (Boomer, Gen X and Millennial). He said several things that struck me:

“I try very hard to see the best in people.”

 “I’m one of the only Boomers in my firm, and I love being around younger people. They keep me fresh and their ideas intrigue me.”

 “We work really hard at our firm to get it right internally, because if we get it right internally, it’ll be right for our clients.”

Clearly, this man thinks differently. His words indicate that he’s optimistic, kind, and comfortable in his own skin. I imagine that he is consistently what the rest of us are only on our best days.

Here’s my chicken-and-egg question: did this guy become managing partner because he is consistently optimistic, kind, and comfortable in his skin? Or is he consistently all these things because he is the managing partner? Could it be some combination of the two?

What do you think? Take a look at your leaders. Compare your experiences with them to what I’ve described here. I hope all of you find scads of similarities. 

When Is As Important As What

When I ask managing partners and leaders of professional services firms about their biggest operational challenge, their answers are remarkably similar. Nearly all have to do with how to communicate with younger team members. Even though we’ve been dealing with Millennials in the workplace for several years now, the communication problems remain. The responsibility is bilateral.

One of my friends who leads a small CPA firm was bemoaning a recent hire: a bright young man who just can’t seem to get to work on time. When I asked the managing partner how he handled the issue, he said, “Well, I gave him a very harsh review at the end of the year.” “How’d he take it?”, I asked. “Not well. He seemed upset and confused, and yet still nothing has changed.”

What’s wrong with this picture?

The latest hire described above was angry and confused that he didn’t learn more quickly what he was doing wrong. As a Millennial, he expects rapid feedback, even when it’s negative. He has every right to that expectation, and he’s smart to want the feedback. Nothing is less useful than a critique offered several months after the fact.

If you are a Baby Boomer or Generation X-er, you might feel uncomfortable addressing specific issues such as tardiness, dress, and professionalism the moment they occur. It’s much easier, isn’t it, to fill out a standard evaluation form at the end of the year? The problem is, it’s useless, particularly to younger professionals. They want to know (and we all would do well to want to know) right away when things are going well or when they’re going poorly.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Millennials will handle your critique professionally or in a way that makes you comfortable, but this isn’t the point. Many Millennials absolutely need to improve their ability to take criticism; it’s a relatively new concept to them. Like the rest of us, they will learn that a well delivered and appropriately timed critique helps more than it hurts.

If your employees are driving you crazy, consider that you may be playing a part in that. If they aren’t living up to your expectations, tell them. Tell them immediately. Tell them why. And then help them to do better. That’s what leaders do.

Heads and Tails

The more I work with clients, the more I realize how often communication is misunderstood. Usually, we view it solely as the process of speaking and being heard; yet, we often forget the underlying elements that make communication effective. I am beginning see these elements as two sides of a coin. Heads, you’re talking; tails, you’re listening.

Honesty. It simply is impossible to work productively over the long term without the strong foundation that truthfulness provides. Be honest even when it’s not comfortable.

Heads – People rarely lose their integrity all at once; they do so interaction by interaction. So tell the truth as you understand it. Don’t sit on the sidelines of a meeting, offering nothing but sotto voce mumblings, only to play Monday morning quarterback afterward. That’s just not honest.

Tails –  Even when you don’t like hearing truth (and most of us often don’t), accepting it gracefully and gratefully makes you a stronger professional and allows valuable communication to occur. So swallow hard, take a deep breath, and accept someone else’s version of reality. Roll it around your mind a while before rendering judgment and responding.

Civility. This is easy when things are going smoothly, but conflict is part of life and business. That’s when things often go awry.

Heads - Express yourself skillfully and with kindness. Remember Ritz Carlton’s motto? “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Old world? Maybe. Timeless and widely applicable? Yes.

Tails – Resist sulkiness, yelling, and various other adolescent expressions of incivility when people make decisions you don’t like, disagree with your ideas, or fail to live up to your expectations.

Clarity. The pace of business lends itself to convoluted communication. A bevy of tools only complicates things more.

Heads – Think before you speak or write. Don’t just dash off an email or verbally toss instructions to team members. Deliver specific information about deadlines, expectations, and consequences for not meeting them. Learn to ask for what you want, respectfully and clearly. It’s a skill that can only be honed with practice, and it is well worth the effort (more on this topic here). If you want to be heard by someone, be sure you’re choosing a time when he or she has the emotional and intellectual room to hear you.

Tails – Pay attention during your interactions with people. The greatest compliment you can pay people is to look them in the eye and acknowledge their presence. All good communication starts with being awake and aware in the moment.

Communication is a coin toss: it can either simplify things in your organization or muck them up entirely.  The beauty of it is that you get to decide, interaction by interaction, how you will respond, no matter which way the coin lands.

Ask For What You Want

This month marks my 20^th anniversary of helping professionals improve their communications with clients and prospects, colleagues, and sometimes with themselves. Thousands of conversations with people just like you have taught me that even the most educated and experienced people have great difficulty asking for what they want.

Managers continue to run ineffective teams because they don’t know how to ask individuals in their group to do better. Employees gnaw at the cultural foundation with gossip and complaint because they don’t know how to ask for better treatment from co-workers. Leaders live in a constant state of irritation because they don’t know how to ask partners to participate in the business of the firm.

The results of not asking for what you want: unmet expectations, because they are unspoken; fractured relationships, because they are unclear from the outset; and broken trust because it is lost in consistently poor communication.

Nearly always, one of the two parties involved in miscommunication is utterly clueless as to any transgression or difficulty. This person simply had no idea he was hurting someone, or being unclear, or failing to adequately describe expectations. While he is in the dark about all this and going blithely about his day, the other party feels all kinds of negativity. Often, that negativity spills into other professional relationships. As office drama spins upward, productivity, camaraderie, and general happiness fall.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We all know the only person you can fully control is yourself; do that by asking for what you want. Take the initiative. Start the conversation only after your negative feelings (anger, embarrassment, hurt, etc.) have subsided. Ask him or her for some time when the two of you can talk. Describe your emotions surrounding something specific and relevant to the other person. Ask that person to work with you to improve the situation. If you need an apology, ask for it. If you need a change in behavior, ask for that, too. Be specific. Be as calm as you can. Make the communication or behavior the issue rather than the person.

Will you always get what you want? No. But in two decades of working in this arena, I know one thing for sure: you’ll never get it if you don’t ask.

Being Good

We have now migrated from the Season of Thanks to the Season of Be Good or Else. Be good or Santa won't visit you. Be good or you'll get coal in your stocking. I find these exhortations about goodness to be a bit tricky, don't you? When we take the concept of goodness from the personal into the professional realm, it gets even trickier.

Following is how I perceive being good at work. Maybe it will get you thinking more specifically about goodness and how it applies in your professional life.

• Our technical expertise is a given. If we want to be good at work, we need to think more broadly.
• Goodness is in the eye of the beholder. We need to understand how other people perceive us before we can begin to demonstrate goodness. We can do that by asking those we trust to tell us what they think about our conduct.
• Being good need not be difficult or high-falutin'. It may be as simple as slowing down our mental processes long enough to have a civilized interaction with a co-worker. It may mean removing our ear buds when someone is trying to talk to us, or not taking a call at that moment. Good behavior in a work environment means taking into consideration that we are in the environment with others and we owe them courtesy and respect. Any and all simple acts that show courtesy and respect are welcome contributors to goodness in the workplace.
• Goodness feels good. Most of us know when we are behaving well and when we're not. The two actions feel completely different. One leaves us and those around us energized, while the other depletes us and those around us.
• Good behavior serves our self interests. We enjoy feeling good more than feeling bad. We generally get better feedback when we're good, which can mean more clients, more interesting work, and more financial reward.
• Goodness is contagious. I know when I am treated to someone else's good behavior, I am inclined to behave better myself. Their goodness seems to fill my good behavior tank, allowing me to demonstrate the same to others.
• One final thing I have figured out: there are few angels among us who are good all the time. Everyone, especially in stressful times like these, has moments that are less than shining. Maybe part of being good at work is giving our colleagues a break when they have one of those less-than-shiny moments.

My wish for all of us this season is that we each give and receive the gift of goodness.

Happy holidays, everyone.