126 - Culture of Confidence

Good morning. I'm David Veech and this is Elevate Your Performance.

The term "High Performance Culture" has been in circulation for a pretty long time now with probably a dozen consulting firms offering strategies to create one.  Most of these are very good.  

What I want to do is to view the need for higher performance as a management-response problem, one that is created by leaders to take the organization to another level.  We'll have to define what we mean and how to measure it, and there are many components to this.

For example, at one client, they adopted an HPC that involved 15 key components, and many of them had subcomponents for further clarification.  It is an excellent package, but there weren't any measures of performance actually tied to HPC.  It was more of a "reminder" to leaders to behave according to the values described.

Based on my research, organizations want cultures of engagement.  They might call them Problem Solving cultures, or continuous improvement cultures, or even high performance cultures, but the desire is the same:  we want our people to show up, do good work, improve that work whenever they can, and achieve our goals.  So we have 4 key measurement areas:  Attendance, Productivity, Improvements, and Results.  But the way we measure and respond is far more important than what we measure.

Are we measuring these things at work?  Most places I've been aren't really.  But let's say we're not getting what we think we want.  If that's a problem, let's look at the root cause.  In the years that I've been working on this with people, I believe the single most important root cause for failure in all four of these areas is that our workforce has low self-efficacy for engagement.

Self-efficacy is the belief in our ability to influence events that affect our life and our sense of control over the way we experience events (Bandura, 1997). [From Self-Efficacy and Leadership Commitment During Lean Strategy Deployment by Angela D. Pearson. November 2019 PhD Dissertation.] 

Another way to think about it is our individual confidence in our ability to perform a particular task in a particular setting.  I think it is particularly relevant in a work environment.  Performing the work is typically taken care of during someone's on-boarding and on-the-job training.  

We expect people to have to work up to a level of competence over time.  But how much time to we spend reflecting on why that competence is really important?  In most cases, managers will tell you that competence is important only for how it affects the results; not how it affects the person.  

Competence is the most critical builder of self-efficacy for that job.  Competence leads to mastery.  Mastery leads to innovation.  When you're an expert, you don't burn cognitive energy on actually doing the work - you just work.  Your brain is free to think about ways to improve the work - but we, as leaders, need to make that a clear expectation.  We want you to achieve a level of competence because it will allow you to find better ways to work and that benefits both the worker and the company.

I've hit this in a few other videos, and in the future, I'll go into a lot more detail.  But for now, I'm going to shift gears a little over the next couple of weeks and talk about some historical developments that have shaped the way we think about work.  Hopefully, if we understand what shaped that thinking, we can change things and reshape or reframe our thinking.

Subscribe and follow along.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

Thinking about 2021

After the new year, I'm planning to get back into the daily video business.  I've been spending these past couple of weeks focused first on family, then on developing some new ideas.

Neither of these are really new ideas, but I'm mustering up some energy to get them going this time around.

First is a concept around a high confidence culture.  This is based on what I think is the most significant factor in a successful culture of engagement: self-efficacy.  I've been talking about self-efficacy for years and sometimes it seems like I'm the only lean guy who does.  Self-Efficacy is the confidence we have about our own ability to do a particular task.  It could be a particular job at work, or an entrepreneur's marketing efforts, or my confidence that I can take a train from one part of DC to another.

Self-efficacy isn't something that just happens. Leaders can help shape this in team members, and I believe this fundamental understanding of how to build confidence in team members, and then to let it flourish is the first step to becoming a more effective leader.

The second idea is to build a more focused practice on coaching others.  I intend to take on clients who want to become more effective leaders and build engaging, high-confidence cultures.  I need to keep it oriented toward leadership in organizations, since it's that culture piece that we want to employ to create a better work environment for as many people as we can.

I guess I'll end up with three tiers of membership.  

    Tier 1 is individual, one-on-one coaching.  It'll start with a 360 degree assessment.  I use the LifeStyles Inventory (LSI) from Human Synergistics.  It'll also include an organizational assessment for profitability using the Quantum Profit Science Profit Model and will show how your organization compares with its industry averages.  We'll build a personal development plan and a roadmap to more engagement and we'll connect once a month for an hour to help you with accountability.

    Tier 2 is individual, one-on-one coaching as in Tier 1 but with 2 sessions per month, plus access to a weekly group Zoom call that will use lean coffee dialog techniques to discuss issues that participants bring to the table, rather than a set agenda.

    Tier 3 is the big Kahuna.  It includes the same individual one-on-one coaching as at Tier 2, and this group'll get their own weekly Zoom call.  But for this group, we add a specific project for participants from their own workplace.  Every 6 to 8 weeks, we will have a 3 to 4 day workshop focusing on a deep dive into a familiar topic, or an introduction to something completely new.  Finally, twice a year, pandemics notwithstanding, we'll meet face-to-face as a group in a place where we can learn, reflect, and relax.

What will the coaching focus on?  I'm glad you asked.  As the author of a book on leadership and another book on problem solving, it's a good bet that we'll be spending a lot of time on both of those topics.  But they will always be discussed within the framework of the high confidence culture.  Lots of lean systems thinking, principles, practices, tools and techniques with a special emphasis on standardized work (no, it's not the same thing that you're familiar with), workplace organization, visual management systems, and problem solving systems.

What's it going to cost??  I haven't figured that out yet.  I do know that I'm capping tier 3 at 16 people so I can provide a proper level of attention to achieve their learning and performance objectives.  What would you be willing to pay to get one or two of your key people into a focused development group like that?  Let me know.  

If you want to know when we're going to start and how you can be first in line, send me an email (david.veech@leadersights.com).  If you're ready to take that plunge now, go to https://calendly.com/davidveech/15min and schedule a 15 minute video chat with me.

All the best and Happy New Year.

David

61 - Review and Reflect - Self Efficacy

This week we've focused on self-efficacy.  So how does this help you?  What do you get out of knowing about this topic?

I don't hear anyone talking about Self-Efficacy in the business world.  I do hear about it in Education and Development communities, but it seems like it's almost too academic for business.  That isn't really true, though.

It's important to understand cause and effect in any setting.  Ultimately, you want your work to be rewarding, both financially and spiritually.  Leaders want people to work more productively, and to continuously improve the ways we do the work. 

Designing work for self-efficacy and satisfaction provides both of these outcomes.

Self-efficacy is the confidence you have in your ability to do a particular task.  People with high self-efficacy will improve their workspace, try new things, and persist through failure.  If everyone in your company showed up doing these three things, that company would be unstoppable.

To review, there are 4 main elements: Mastery, Vicarious Learning, Verbal Persuasion or Coaching,
and Control. 

The learning piece focuses on designing work that a team can do together to build better relationships and learn from watching each other and talking about better ways to work together.

The coaching piece focuses on helping the team set better goals that challenge the skills of the team to build expertise in the required tasks. 

The coach also provide support and encouragement and should be done by whomever actually leads the team, even if it's a peer leader rather than a true supervisor.  By the way, in more advanced organizations, this can be a position through which team members rotate.

Mastery focuses on individual competence.  The higher the competence, the higher the self-efficacy.  So we deliberately focus on making everyone an expert.  Work that requires an expert feels more significant and meaningful that work that is menial.

To build that mastery, we set effective goals and targets that challenge our people in a positive way.  We provide the support they need to find the best way to do the work that achieves the challenge or hits the target.  Through repetition and accountability skills will improve.

So, while we can make an academic case out of this, there's nothing more practical that goal-setting, standardized work, practice, measurement, consistency, coaching, and feedback.

Tomorrow, go and make your work better.  Go and make work better for the people in your care.

Have a great day, and I'll see you tomorrow.

60 - The Elephant in the room

 

Today, I want to talk about the elephant in the room.  Not that I have one at the moment, but the metaphor has always been interesting to me.

We also use elephants in another metaphor about big problems - How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

But my daughter has always loved elephants and has quite the cute and cuddly collection that she's now sharing with my grand kids.

And I know elephants in the wild can at times be ferocious, but Elephants aren't predators.  We use the metaphor "elephant in the room" because its actually something that we can ignore, despite the tension. 

And eating an elephant, even one bite at a time, is a big job that is unpleasant, but if you don't finish, you can't really expect the elephant to eat you.

When I teach problem solving, and people want to start off with these giant problems that haven't really been clearly defined, I usually talk about a T Rex instead of an elephant. 

I don't want to be able to ignore a problem like the elephant in the room, so let's make it a T Rex and decide what we're going to do with it before it eats us (which problems are likely to do if they go unsolved.)

If we decide to eat the t rex, then we also have to decide where to start.  If we start in the toughest part, and that first bite ends up tasting bad, people won't want to keep eating.  If we start trying to solve a really tough problem without first building up some skill, we're not going to succeed.

Make the first bite some place juicy and tender, and properly cooked so it goes down sweet and nice and easy, so people will want to keep eating. 

Start with small pieces of a tough problem.  Build self-efficacy with a series of small wins.  This way, when it's time to tackle a really tough piece, we'll have the skills and the confidence to take it head on.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

59 - Control

The final piece of the self-efficacy puzzle is Control.

As humans, we have a legitimate need to feel like we are in control of our environment.  Whether its, family, household, community, or work, we are at ease when we feel like things are under control.

Whenever anything happens to disrupt that feeling of control, we freak out.  Some people more vibrantly than others!

At work, many people are content to control their workspace and they don't worry about much of
anything else.

Leaders need to feel like they are in control as well, and so they often try to manage everything, including people.  I don't know about you, but I don't particularly like being managed - I prefer to be led by a caring leader.

The hard part is that we've built these work systems that reinforce every leader's attempt to keep things under control.  But organizations are complex systems, impossible to absolutely control, until you change your perspective on what control really is.

In the Army, the term "command and control" is steeped into everything we do.  While there are plenty of micromanaging control freak jerks in leadership positions, what we teach everyone is really focused on executing a mission.

To execute a military mission, leaders are forced to let go.  The terrain and the fluid situation require decentralized execution, so we train soldiers to take control of their piece of the terrain and act however the changing situation demands.

To maintain an overall feeling of control, commanders explain their intent for the mission (where we want to be at the end) and we train like hell, so everyone knows what they have to do. 

In other words, commanders share their vision, make pretty detailed plans and assign specific missions, then develop their people so they can trust that when they let go, people will do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission and achieve the vision.

Isn't that what you want for your organization?  The more you help people feel like they have control over what they do, the higher the self-efficacy and the higher their satisfaction.  Go make someone's day today!

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

58 - Coaching for Self-efficacy

We're still talking about building your confidence and self-efficacy.

So far we have talked about Mastery and learning vicariously.   Today our topic is Coaching for self-efficacy.  If we are trying to push a team to achieve mastery in multiple tasks or job functions, we need to provide that team with effective coaching in the form of present and principled leadership.

The hallmark of an effective, professional, coaching leader is that they talk less and listen more.  That might not be what you see with sports coaches, but it's what works best in a work environment.

Too many leaders think coaching is primarily about feedback, and we're taught to always start with something positive before you destroy their morale with all the stuff they should be doing better.

Instead, remember that coaching is primarily about improvement.  To improve someone's performance, they need to know what's expected, so the coach helps the performer to set high standards that really challenge their skills. 

With any challenge, you should expect several failures because a good challenge exceeds their current skill level.  The coach supports the performer with the resources they need to build those skills.  That might be in the form of time or tools.

Coaching leaders also have to correct a performer.  We do this with compassion and again by asking questions and listening more.  Let the performer explain the result they got and what happened to get the result.  If they have failed, they know it.  You don't have to point that out!  Help them reflect on their performance to find where things went wrong and what they could do better next time.  Again - talk less, listen more.

Finally, a coach is the main source of encouragement.  If we are setting challenges that drive higher performance, there will be lots of failures along the way.  The coach helps the team persist through those failures by encouraging them to try again and to keep finding new ways to try the work until they can achieve the challenge.

The relationships you build as a proper coach will last a lifetime.  Remember:  Challenge, Support, Correct, and Encourage.  Four key skills for coaches.  Four key skills for leaders.

57 - Learning from Others

Are you part of a team at work?  How does your team work together?

Self-efficacy is a special kind of confidence we have about our ability to do particular tasks or
jobs.

People with high self-efficacy often improve their own workspace, try new things, and persist
through failure.

There are several deliberate things we can do ourselves and as leaders to build self-efficacy at work.  Yesterday, I spoke briefly about Mastery and how doing a job gets better with practice and that boosts self-efficacy.  Not exactly rocket science.  Leadership, though, can be the catalyst for getting that mastery process started.

But mastery is just one piece of the puzzle.  Another thing that helps is our ability to learn by watching other people.  This vicarious learning occurs throughout our lives, but an effective leader will design work that allows several people to work together and be able to actually see each other working.  As they work and discuss things, people will notice that they each do a job in a particular way.  Even when everyone is following the standardized work, there are still individual differences and knack points that certain people bring to the task that make it easier or quicker.

We have to see these differences ourselves, because the nature of expertise usually means the expert can't really explain what they do differently.  As we watch, we learn vicariously.  That gives us an opportunity to try what we've seen and then to make it better.

Bottom line:  put people on small teams and encourage them to experiment with different techniques to use while following the standardized work.

Join me at noon for a Lean Coffee discussion, and join me tomorrow for a webinar on Navigating Changing environments.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

56 - Mastery - Improving your confidence

How can you boost your confidence at work?

More specifically, How can you improve your self-efficacy toward a particular job or task?

Self-efficacy is task-oriented.  

We can be self-confident overall, but still lack confidence for something.  For example, I'm pretty confident about speaking to groups and teaching, but my self-efficacy about making videos was pretty low.  

Until recently, I haven't done much video work.  Getting lighting and angles right, editing software, where and how to post and cross-post on social media just seemed like a lot to learn. 

Keep in mind that low self-efficacy toward a task doesn't mean a fear of doing it, it just means that we have to be more deliberate about doing that kind of work.  It helps when the circumstances force your hand and offer a challenge!

To meet the challenge, you have to find the way to achieve it - you have to define the process.  I’ve been doing videos since the start of July.  Some of the early ones were rough.  My first one was actually sideways.  I'm still not an expert, but I'm on my way.  My self-efficacy is high, even if my skills haven't reached that mastery level.

To build self-efficacy then, the first step is to set a challenge.  Next, build your experience by trying lots of different things to discover the best way for you to do the job.  Then practice, measuring each attempt against your process and your goal.  That repetition and accountability is crucial.

Mastery of the task will make you more confident about the task and that will translate to other tasks.  Start small and build consistently with a series of small successes.  Each time you'll learn something and take one more step toward Mastery.  

Don’t forget, Lean Coffee discussion at noon tomorrow and my webinar on navigating change is Thursday at 2 pm eastern.  I hope I’ll see you then!   -DV