January 2009

In this Issue:

• Empowerment Difficulties download article
• Listen Up! Real Listening and How To Practice It download article
• Time To Turn Off The Technology? Work - Life Balance download article

Empowerment Difficulties

Question:  Over the last few months I have been trying to encourage my staff to take on more responsibility, and to become more involved in branch decision-making.  I have indicated at staff meetings that I wish to empower staff, and that I have an open door policy.  So far nothing much has come of it. Staff seems hesitant to voice their opinions at staff meetings, and it almost seems that they don't want more involvement. I'm firmly convinced that our branch needs input from everyone, so I'm getting very frustrated and angry. 

Response: 
One common error that managers make in this area is to assume that all that it will take to empower staff is to invite them in; much like one would invite a houseguest into the house. It's a lot more complicated than that.  
Keep in mind that staff who have worked in a more traditional hierarchical structure have developed some level of comfort with the status quo. We all get used to our work environments, and tend to resist change.  It is even possible that some staff will not want more responsibility--they prefer the more predictable arrangement where the boss makes most major decisions, and tells them what to do. It may not be realistic to expect all staff will be eager to see themselves empowered. 

Perhaps what is more important to recognize is that staff needs much more than an invitation to participate.  In order for people to fully participate in decision-making they need: 

1. Clear understanding of what YOU mean by empowerment, and the responsibilities, limits and expectations you have regarding participation.
2. Clear understanding of your branch's goals, values and priorities. Decision-making cannot occur in a vacuum. When staff are not clear about goals, values and priorities, they, rightfully become hesitant to jump in, for fear of looking foolish.
3. A well thought out and effective way of moving information around the organization. As with goals, values, and priorities, staff must have all of the relevant information needed to make informed in-context decisions, or even suggestions.
4. A clear process for input into the decision-making process. One reason many organizations use self-directed work teams is that once they are up and running, they provide the process, or forum, for input, suggestions and decision-making. This process formalizes the staff participation process.
5. Management consistency.  One thing about the empowerment process is that management can't offer it, and then pull it back if the decisions that come from it don't match with what management would have decided on its own.  That's not to say that managers must abide by every decision or suggestion offered by staff. It does mean that when managers overrule staff suggestions, that they must do so in the spirit of problem-solving rather than what can appear as arbitrariness.  By the way, when staff are clear about organizational goals, values, and priorities, and have access to all information related to the decision at hand, they are less likely to make decisions that will be ineffective, or that require over-ruling.
6. Opportunity for skill development.  People vary in terms of their ability to work productively with others, communicate their ideas, and do effective problem-solving. If we expect full participation, we must be willing to provide the tools for people to participate effectively.
7. A stable and respectful workplace.  In organizations that have a history of unmanaged or mis-mananaged conflict, people will have learned that it's dangerous to participate in anything but a superficial way. People who have been often criticized in harsh ways, by management or peers will be very careful about how they become involved.

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Listen Up! Real Listening and How To Practice It

By Robert Bacal

Improving Your Listening Skills
Whether you are an executive, manager or line employee, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to improve your listening skills. People who listen effectively are perceived as more helpful, more "in tune" and tend to exert more influence over others than those that are less effective listeners. Paradoxically, good listeners are listened to more than poor listeners. In this article, we are going to briefly discuss effective listening, and suggest an exercise you can use in the privacy of your own home to help you enhance your listening skills. Not only can you apply them at work, but in any relationship.

What Is Effective Listening?
We often confuse hearing with listening. While hearing is a function of biology, listening is a function of intentional behavior. It is something we choose to do, and as such, we need to build skills, and practice to be effective at it.

There are two major components to effective listening, or in other words, two families of skills that need to be mastered. The first component is your ability to focus your attention on the words, body language, and meaning of the speaker. If you are unable to focus your attention on these in a sustained manner, you will have difficulty understanding the nuances of what the speaker is expressing.
In terms of attention, you cannot be an excellent listener if:

• Your attention drifts to other things running around in your head while another person is speaking.
• You judge the speaker while he/she is speaking. Thinking about how you could say it better, the size of the person's nose, or how wrong the speaker is, is going to impede your task of understanding the speaker from the speaker's position.
• You spend most conversational time eagerly waiting for "your turn" to speak.
• You rehearse your response while the other person is speaking.
• You undertake some other activity while the other person is speaking (e.g... checking the time, making extensive notes, answering the phone, etc.).

So, in other words, effective listening requires you to focus your attention, and to acquire the discipline and skill to do this almost automatically. It does not come naturally!

The second component of effective listening relates to your ability to communicate your understanding of what the speaker is saying and meaning. Even if you manage to focus your attention on a speaker, if you cannot communicate this to the speaker, you will be unlikely to reap all of the potential benefits of effective listening.

Two common skills that fall into this category are empathetic listening (expressing your understanding of the feelings of the speaker), and reflective listening, or paraphrasing (expressing your understanding of the details of the speaker's talk).

Developing Attention-Focusing Skills
Comparatively speaking it is much easier to develop paraphrasing and empathetic listening verbal skills than it is to acquire the self-discipline of attention focusing. For this reason, we are going to discuss a simple technique to use to practice attention focusing. In her book "Staying Well With The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, Suzette Haden Elgin suggests that this form of practice is more effective than practicing on real people (at least at first). All it requires is a television, or radio, and a few minutes of uninterrupted time available on a regular basis.

1. Find a television or radio program that approximates real talk. In other words, the ideal program would have some period where the speaker talks for several minutes, uninterrupted. A sermon, speech or lecture is ideal. In fact Elgin suggests telecasts of parliament or government proceedings might be ideal, and since these are generally available in most areas via cable, they are also easy to find.
2. Give the speaker your full attention. Elgin suggests that you listen to the words AND watch the body language. Most people will find that stray thoughts intrude quite quickly, sometimes as often as every ten or fifteen seconds. Each time your mind wanders, "grab it" and refocus on the speaker. Don't get discouraged if you must do this many times. It will get easier.
3. nce you are able to listen with full attention to the TV/radio speaker, for a period of ten minutes, you will be ready to start practicing with people in person. Elgin suggests that you actually time yourself, since it is easy to misjudge the time when you are trying to listen.<
4. Those of you who have any background in meditation, relaxation exercises or the martial arts will recognize this type of practice as something very familiar. Attention focusing is a mental discipline, regardless of context.

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Time To Turn Off The Technology? Work - Life Balance

By Robert Bacal

I had to get some work done on my brakes. That entails bringing the car across town, and waiting on site until the work is completed. All told the time investment involved can eat up to two and a half hours of my work day. But luckily, I own a laptop computer that I can bring to the shop, so I can fill this normally ill-used time with useful activities. If I owned a cellular phone, I could also call clients, fax information, and receive faxed information. In other words, I could be a virtual office. I can work almost anywhere.

The question that occurred to me was this. While technology allows me to work at the auto mechanic's garage, at the mall, and in my car, does it make sense to do so? Is there some point where enough is enough?

Despite the fact that futurists trumpeted that technology would reduce our hours of work, research and certainly anecdotal evidence suggests the contrary. Staff and particularly management are actually putting in more hours than before. And now, not only are people increasing their hours at the office, but they have blurred the distinction between what is work time and what is not. For most people the ride to work was a time for thinking and driving, not working. That has changed. The home used to be more of a sanctuary from work--now it is becoming an extension of the office. When is enough, enough? When is it time to turn off the cell phone, turn off all the computers, and forget about work utterly and completely?

Decision-Making Criteria
Each person has to make their own decisions as to when and how to separate work time from non-work time. But if you are going to make the decision, and you should, what things should you consider? Let's look at a few criteria.

1. Constant overwork results in inferior work. Mental fatigue increases the chance that you will forget something, requiring you to revisit or re-do your work. Mental fatigue also increases the likelihood that you will "cut corners", since you will be rushing to complete the task. And, corner cutting can also result in having to re-do work, sometimes in embarrassing ways if you don't catch the resulting errors before other people see them.
Ask yourself: Does the quality of my work often suffer from the effects of mental fatigue?

2. Working in non-traditional settings (car, home, mechanic's garage) can also have an impact on the quality of your work. Non-traditional work venues are usually characterized by many distractions. If you are in your car, your concentration is split between driving, and talking on the cell phone. At home, you may be interrupted by your children popping in to say hello. And I am sure that the mechanic's garage is fraught with distracting elements, particularly when the estimate is presented!
What tends to happen is that it is more difficult to get things done in these settings. If you are distracted, you may forget things, or say things that don't make much sense, since your full attention is diverted. Again, we need to look at the quality of work done.
Ask yourself: Is the quality of work I do off-site equivalent to that of work I do in the office. How much extra time does it take to fix things that I do when I am distracted?

3. We know that people who focus their energies exclusively on work have a tendency to develop stress related difficulties. If you are in a situation where even your "leisure time" is occupied by thoughts of work that may be a problem.

• Are you having difficulty sleeping?
• Do thoughts about work intrude when you are not at work?
• Are you enjoying your time at work less and less?
• Do you have difficulty enjoying your time away from work?
• Are you becoming more irritable and less patient?

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