Is that meeting really necessary?

Several years ago I worked with an organisation who called their UK sales reps into a meeting every Monday morning to report on the previous week.  There were at least 30 and each one had to contribute.  They were allowed to take their laptops into the meeting so the practice was for each rep to continue working whilst waiting for their turn to speak.  Effectively no-one except the Sales Director was actually listening to each presentation.  Add up the cost of all these salaries, the travel costs and the cost of lost time potentially speaking with customers and this was an extremely expensive exercise.

Of course, things have changed now – the pandemic has probably been responsible for the explosion in on-line meetings which of course are less time consuming and require less travel.  Commendable for all sorts of reasons.  So why is it I still hear of people switching off the camera, carrying on with emails, eating their breakfast and, in one case, going to take a bath while the meeting is in progress?

Regular meetings usually lose their flavour after a while and become a chore.  I’ve even heard people say ‘Crikey we’ve got XYZ meeting coming up – what are we going to talk about?’  What a complete waste of everyone’s time!

Making Meetings Valuable

The best way to evaluate your proposed meeting is to use the Alignment model as follows –

Purpose

What is this meeting for? What do you want people to DO as a result?  If it is just information dumping then send them a report, a spec, product release notes or something else – don’t waste their time in a meeting with all the associated costs.

Identity/Role

Who needs to be there and what role are they playing – facilitator, action taker, expert, learner, explorer.  If people don’t have a role to play don’t invite them – they will thank you for it!  Equally if you get invited to a meeting where you have no perceived role then have the courage to ask if its necessary for you to be there and what role you will be expected to play.

Values/Beliefs

Is this meeting important and, if so, what is important about it and to whom?  What do you believe about the outcomes?  Are they positive beliefs or negative?  If negative can you reframe them into something positive and look for the possibilities so that you don’t arrive at the meeting as a ‘naysayer’?

Capability

If the stated outcomes for the meeting are agreed upon do you and the organisation have the capability to carry them through?  If not what’s missing and how are you going to fill the gap?  Do you have the resources to do so?

Behaviour

If you achieve this outcome what behavioural changes would you expect to see in the organisation or team?  Are these acceptable and do they add value to the organisation?

Environment

How would achieving this outcome impacted not only your immediate environment,  but that of the team, the organisation and even possibly the community?

Taking these few simple steps before setting up a meeting will help you to –

• Stay focused
• Maintain employee engagement
• Cut costs
• Achieve outcomes
• Free up time

Happy meeting!

> > DOWNLOAD A FREE PDF OF THE Q1 MEETINGS ALIGNMENT MODEL < <

Pat Hutchinson, Quadrant 1 International Ltd  pat@quadrant1.com

PS – When you try this approach, please do write to me and let me know of your successes!  I look forward to hearing from you.

Anonymous Engagement Surveys – why they don’t work!

I was discussing Employee Engagement Expectations with a customer recently and he happened to mention that they had just completed an anonymous engagement survey. He was disgruntled because, although the survey suggested pockets of people who were likely to leave the organisation due to lack of recognition, as just one example, he didn’t know who or where they were and couldn’t therefore take action.  In other words –

‘Someone somewhere in the organization is unhappy about something but we don’t know the details and can’t therefore have a progressive conversation’

So why do organisations involve themselves in the anonymity of such surveys?  Frankly its due to a perception (not always reality) of a lack of trust.

In other words they believe that employees will be more open if they don’t have to put their name to something.  Doesn’t this reflect on the very organisers of the survey who unconsciously believe the organisation can’t be trusted?

Engagement tools are really useful for retaining talented staff!  But they have to be used properly.  Dan Harrison believes that employee engagement is a two-way process – it’s as much the organisation’s responsibility to keep staff engaged as it is for them to be engaged.  A survey should be the foundation for a conversation on an employee’s expectations.  For example, if an employee wants recognition, in  what format does he/she expect this, who from and how often?  If an employee is looking for development – in what areas, when and what format?  OK so it won’t always be possible to fulfil expectations but at least the employee receives the message that the organisation is interested in them and will consider them when opportunities arise.

Such an approach requires trust so pre-framing the exercise is crucial.  Employees must understand that the tool is to be used for improving engagement and not for anything else.

If you would like to know how to assess groups of employees, individuals or even the whole organisation for engagement expectations quickly and effectively, and to see the results instantly on an easy-to-read visual dashboard so that you know with whom to have progressive conversations please get in touch at pat@quadrant1.com or on 07768 922244 or find more information here. You can also read further about engagement analytics in this blog.

In the meantime ‘Stay Engaged!’

Pat Hutchinson

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Don’t expect feedback from internally referenced people

The feedback black hole

You’ve just completed a great project, met the deadlines and brought it in on budget. You are feeling good but nobody says a word? As days go by nothing comes back and you start to doubt your success. The internal dialogue ramps up to a point where you become totally focused on whether or not you did indeed complete a successful project. You venture to ask a couple of questions of the people from whom you may have expected some positive feedback but the bemused looks set you back even further so what’s going on?

What’s happening?

Unconscious behaviour patterns are playing out here. You may have a high need for recognition and appreciation because your external reference system means you value other peoples opinions, external qualifications etc in order to measure your own success. Internally referenced people, on the other hand, measure their success against their own internal measures. They include the word ‘I’ to a large degree in their conversation and don’t need others to tell them they have done a good job. They will be bemused when externally referenced people ask for feedback and unconsciously view it as ‘needy’.

No feedback needed, thanks

Internally referenced people don’t take kindly to feedback because unconsciously they have a high degree of certainty that they are right (they are not always of course!). The unconscious thinking is that ‘if I don’t need feedback then nor does anyone else’. Consequently they don’t give it out and if they do it can sounds contrived and awkward. This type of behaviour can often come across as ‘confidence’ and will invariably help the internally reference person up the promotion ladder. They can also be very hard to give feedback to so here is a tip for you –

If you want to give feedback to an internally referenced person start with ‘Of course you probably already know this ……..’

Are you internally or externally referenced? Find out with this short free questionnaire

If you would like to know more please get in touch with us 07768 92224 or  pat@quadrant1.com. Sign up to our newsletter

FREE WEBINAR: Organisational analytics for people

Organisational analytics for people

HIGH PERFORMING LEADERS, TALENT AND CULTURE

Free 1 hr webinar for people development professionals 

Friday 12th November 10:30am

USE OBJECTIVE DATA TO INSPIRE A CULTURE OF ENGAGEMENT, IDENTIFY TALENT AND DEVELOP LEADERSHIP COMPETENCE FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE

Webinar Highlights:

• Discover how objective data can support your people plans and business objectives
• Live demo of online interactive dashboards and simple traffic light colour scheme to visualise group and individual data
• Get your own free personalised example of your unique data

Download the brochure here

We will show you how you can:

CULTURE:

• Assess organisational culture and discover risk areas
• Explore the impact of individual and group behaviours on team dynamics
• Understand engagement and fulfilment levels across the business
• See how individuals values align with business objectives and goals

TALENT:

• Easily pinpoint strengths and identify High Potentials
• Drill down to each employees’ key factors
• Retain top talent by understanding what is important to individuals and groups

LEADERSHIP:

• Measure senior and emerging leadership competency
• Gain insight into the specific set of behaviours that impact each competency
• Implement actionable development plans that provide guidance and generate enthusiasm

All attendees will receive their own personalised example of their unique data

Quadrant 1 are delighted to be hosting this webinar in partnership with Tribero Ltd.

Does your organisation value trust?

Does your organisation value trust?

In my work as a leadership facilitator, I often work with organisations who include ‘Trust’ or ‘Trustworthiness’ in their company values.  This is a worthy value indeed and is often described in terms of accountability, responsibility for outcomes, transparency and supportiveness – again all very virtuous.  So why is it that when I ask groups of employees about their company values, they can only just about remember them and find it difficult to describe them in meaningful terms?  Of course, the first reason is sometimes obvious – they have been imposed on them from above and employees have not been given the opportunity to engage with the values and work out what they mean in terms of behaviour.  In which case they remain just words that appear on the walls of the organisation or on the website but not in the hearts of the employees.

But let’s take a deeper look –         

In reality, as an employee, you are asking me to trust my fellow employees to complete projects and tasks that are going to keep both internal and external customers happy.  Seems simple enough?  So, what gets in the way? Perhaps a delve into unconscious behavioural preferences might give us some answers.  The following continuums of preference will help us gain some insights.

Specifics – Big picture

People who prefer to work in the detail of a project are unlikely to trust the person with a big picture perspective to ‘do the job as well as I can’.  The big picture perception is that ‘this person will never get it done because he/she is so bogged down in the detail so I can’t trust them to get it done within the deadline’.

Internal Reference – External Reference

Internally referenced people don’t need others to tell them the way things are going or whether something is going to work – they simply ‘know’.  They are not always right of course but that’s ‘just the way it is’.  Externally referenced people measure their success externally i.e. someone else’s validation or a measure such as a degree, medal or certificate.  Internally referenced people see this as ‘flakey’ as externally referenced people often ask for feedback.  So, trust flies out the window here too.     Externally referenced people can view the internally referenced guy/gal as arrogant and ‘can’t be told’ so is obviously untrustworthy.

Procedures – Options

Procedural people get things done by following a procedure which has either been tried before or has been clearly laid out for them.  Options people review different choices and will often rewrite new procedures, much to the annoyance of the procedurals.  Definitely can’t be trusted because they change their minds!  Procedurals on the other hand, from the perspective of the person who prefers choice,  can’t be trusted to get creative and come up with new ideas and innovations!

Considerers – Doers

Considerers like to take their time to consider every aspect of a project before setting off.  ‘Oh we’ll never get this off the ground’ shout the doers. ‘If we want it done by the deadline considerers can’t be trusted!’  ‘Woha – hold back’ shout the considerers to the doers.  ‘We need to think this through – if you are just going to take off, we will make mistakes and get it wrong’.  Definitely can’t be trusted.   

And of course, there are many more unconscious patterns that make us either unconsciously trust or mistrust people.  These are extreme examples but nonetheless common in organisations and at grass roots level are far more dominant than the values passed down from above.  So now we have conflict and are in need of an answer.

The answer is simple – recognition and acceptance.  Recognising these patterns and valuing them all is paramount to success. Put a detail and global person together and they will come up with an excellent answer. A procedural person will put an options idea into practice and follow it through beautifully.  But trust will only come about through awareness of and capitalisation on, behavioural preference!

If you would like to know more about behavioural preferences and how they affect our results please call Pat on 07768 92224 or email pat@quadrant1.com

Pat Hutchinson is the co-author of Brilliant NLP, the Brilliant NLP Workbook and How to be Confident with NLP.  She is also the author of How to Sell with NLP all published by Pearson Education.  She has been working with leaders using NLP for 21 years.  For more information about Pat please see her Linked In profile

Happy Trusting!