Challenge the Process

This challenge has been more difficult for me. My organization is a very large and complex one that has many different and complex businesses within it. We are a very risk adverse organization with low turnover so many people have been in place for a long time and can be resistant to doing things differently. In addition, our industry is heavily regulated so some communication tools such as Google Drive and comments live during a web-ex session are banned.

One area that my colleague Gina and I decided to pursue in effective communications across geographies. The company is based in Minneapolis with large centers in Boston, New York, Green Bay, Detroit, Las Vegas, Phoenix, London and Mumbai. Gina works out of the Las Vegas office and if often the one struggling with bad phone based approaches for meetings across geographies. Despite having an international and disperse workforce our communication tools across these geographies lag way behind other organizations. Most meetings are held with basic conference call technology which creates a very sub-standard experience for those joining on the phone. The phones do no have powerful microphones so conversations are very hard to follow with 6-10 people (or more) in a conference room and others joining by phone. The people on the phone often cannot hear over the rustling of paper, typing on keyboards and people talking over each other. Over 80% of the meeting rooms have only basic conference call capabilities.

Gina has complimented me several times (including sending me formal recognition notes) on my conference call management. I enforce one person speaking at a time and require any comments to be made directly into the microphone so all meeting participants can hear the conversation. I require that facilitators repeat questions to ensure those on the phone can hear them clearly and I purposefully call on the phone based participants to play an active role in the discussion.

Gina and I have introduced Adobe Connect and Web-ex with video to further improve the communications between locations. We have set up large video conferences with web-ex for file sharing and separate breakout phone lines for phone based participants to participate in small group work. These are behind the times basics that we are barely effective at using currently.

The resistance we receive to even these basic approaches to improving the communications experience across geographies is profound. People in the meeting in person don't want to be bothered with having to accomodate those on the phone and are not appreciative of the cost of not effectively engaging others.

We experimented with using FaceTime with iPads to include people in meetings and that was effective for those willing to try it. People had to be willing to use their personal iPad initially but with some success more people are having work acquire their's for them. This brings the person in to the room and allows them to more fully participate at the table with others. We have also looked into "robot" technologies that allow you to mount an iPad on a robot type of thing so that you can have mobility to move around the workplace. We have only read about this but we are eager to move forward and bring forward ideas that will measurably improve our engagement across geographies.

The organization is now piloting Skype for Business which will greatly improve our ability to communicate effectively with other locations and should improve communications immediately. We will continue to research and understand improved communications approaches and bring them forward. And in the meantime Gina and I will continue to force people to talk into the microphone, speak on person at a time and we will occasionally bring in an iPad to see each other during a meeting. And we will continue to research options and best practices to "innovate" which for us means catching up to what everyone else was doing 5 years ago!

Enable Others to Act

My former colleague Mary left a position in our company over two years ago and she has struggled finding her way since that time. She is an excellent professional but she lacks confidence. She left her position in our company following a difficult year of reporting to a new leader who she did not get along with. Her leader was very dominant and overbearing and that was not a good match for Jenny's very quiet and gentle style. Rather than be terminated she choose to leave the company thus negating her chance to receive unemployment benefits.

Her next position was not a good fit for her either and she ended up leaving that role after just a few months. The position was focused on web based training design and her process and skills did not match up to what the company owner wanted her to be able to provide. Following this her confidence was as low as it could get and she could not see a way for her to grow and find ongoing employment again.

We discussed several options and strategies for her moving forward including career counseling/coaching, looking for full-time permanent work and spending a few months or years working as a consultant. Consulting really seemed like the best option to me - she could target positions that would specifically update her skill set and not have to invest herself as fully as she had done as a full time employee.

We made a list of what she needed to have in a consulting role - the experiences that would update her skills, the type of culture and leadership she knew she could thrive in and what type of business sector she was interested in working within.

She took this list of criteria and she was able to find a consulting role that was a great fit. It was a long commute but when she came back to what she needed to update her skills she decided this position offered her the right opportunity. She performed very well in the role and ended up being extended two times over the course of her contract there.

She now has updated experiences to include on her resume and she has improved her skills in the area of web-based training design and she has a positive reference now as well.

Encourage the Heart

I make a regular practice of encouraging the heart. In the Enneagram I am a #2 - Helper which is from the heart center which aligns me with regular feedback on work well done. My workplace has a formal recognition program that provides each of us with the opportunity to recognize a co-worker formally.

I had the chance to send a thank you to someone who spoke at a Peer Learning Group I was facilitating. He was a co-facilitator for a session on leading through ambiguity and he did an outstanding job of leading a meaningful discussion with the group. My thank you to him very specifically called out the things I thought he had done very well with the group and the reaction the group had to him. It was very energizing to send it to him because it was heartfelt and specific. This individual is an executive VP and I have not sent many thank you notes like this to someone at his level but I really felt he did a great job so I sent it. He appreciated the recognition. I did this another time with a different VP guest speaker at another Peer Learning Group with very specific feedback and the VP was so excited to receive the thank you that she asked me to forward it on to her leader as well. That showed me that no matter what level you are in a company people appreciate a sincere thank you.

I also took the time to say thank you to my leader for her support last week before and after the election. I work with a group of like-minded individuals (on my small team) so there is a common set of values across our group. The day of the election she made it very easy for us to leave to vote. I was very upset and concerned by the results of the election and so was she. We spent an hour together talking about the election, our reactions and how we could support each other and some of our colleagues who were really having a difficult time. She even gave someone who was distraught he day off on Wednesday. On Friday I talked with my leader again and told her face to face how much I appreciated her support and her willingness to create some room for those of us who needed some time to adjust to the news. I felt good letting her know how much I appreciated her support in that moment and I know she was grateful for the recognition. It actually smoothed over some rough patches on our team - a common threat can do that for a group. And I think she is more likely to repeat the kind of one on one support again knowing it meant alot to the team.

I also took the time last week to think a line leader who volunteered some of his time to be interviewed for an article promoting use of our team development tools. We have struggled with how to promote the tools and get the word out about the tools. This leader volunteered to give us some quotes about how the team site has helped him and his group and he was very candid in his interview. I thanked him for his time and told him how much hearing his ideas had helped me think about some improvements for the site. He was complimented that his experience would be valuable enough to share it with others.

In all three of these examples I have seen the positive impact proving some heart encouragement to others can have. I felt better all week having engaged genuinely and positively with my colleagues and I think they felt appreciated as well. We don't do enough of that for each other.