Persuasion And Influence In The Workplace "The Execution"--Luciano The Key Santini

Hello everyone and how has the past week been for you? I have been busy busy and well busy. I have been looking and doing so much research on Emotional Intelligence that I believe my brain hurts ouch!!

OK let us start with some words of wisdom on persuasion from one of my mentors:

When you have talked yourself into what you want, stop talking and begin saying it with your actions.

Persuading yourself that you can do something is a strong beginning. Next develop a sound plan and get into action. The longer you delay, the harder it will be to begin. Seldom is a plan perfect. If you have a clear vision of your goal and a plan that is flexible enough to allow you to deal with unexpected obstacles or take advantage of unforeseen opportunities, don’t delay another minute. Just getting into action — even if you do have to make adjustments later — will help focus your mind and channel your energies in the direction of your objective.

Now let me just say a bit on persuasion of which I have used a few times in organizations to help both stakeholders and employees for better relationships and partnerships. We all know what persuasion is but do you know how to implement it and use it correctly that my friends is the trick. You ever find yourself dealing with an employee that does nothing but resist your every task and fights you tooth and nail until they get what they want. 

Have you then seen another person ask the same task and have that once resistance annoying person eating out  of their hand. What is the difference.? OK let me tell you ! It is simply how you execute and If you use your influence to persuade and use persuasive techniques without the use of power or control. We need to understand the changing workforce in organizations in today's world is so much different then 60 years ago. 

For one take a look at the technology! Then look at the new type of workers we are hiring. The days to control and tell people what to do are gone. I like to use the team approach and allow employees to think on their own and allow to make decisions that work for them. To have effective communication is probably the most important piece to bring employees and managers to think as one. leaders have to understand Emotional Intelligence and how to use it as well as learning the art of influence and persuasion to be able to accomplish any goals for their organization with so much less resistance and frustrations.

The Best Bosses Aren't Bossy

Good management motivates you to be productive—because you want to.

Post published by Victor Lipman on Apr 10, 2015 in Mind of the Manager

 

I was reading with interest recently about Sheryl Sandberg’s campaign to ban the word “bossy” (link is external)—because of the negative implications it can have for young girls’ feelings about future leadership.  While I’m very sympathetic to Sandberg’s message, there’s another aspect of the word “bossy” that interests me even more.  Even though the word “boss” has long been synonymous with “manager,” the simple fact is, the best bosses aren’t bossy.

The best bosses motivate you to be productive for them.  Not because you have to, but because you want to.

Over managing is one of the least discussed but most prevalent problems of management.   Too much management, or, more specifically, ineffective management—too often aka bossiness—is the enemy of productivity.

Human nature being what it is, the trouble with bossiness is it alienates people.   It doesn’t put them in the mindset to do their best for you.  If long-term employee productivity is your goal as a manager (and why wouldn’t it be?), there are numerous reasons why, over the long run, too much of the wrong kind of management will only work against you.

Let’s look quickly at a couple of management manifestations bossiness frequently takes.

Pesky micromanagement produces frustration more than productivity—Nobody likes to be micromanaged.  It’s natural to default to this style of management when you feel out of control and therefore want to exert control, but over time too much of this yields turnover not positive results.  The best managers invariably want to expand employees’ horizons, not confine them.

“Gotcha” management gets defensive behavior more than positive results—I’d been hearing so many complaints about this style of management recently, I made it the star of a recent post.  By “gotcha” management, I mean an approach that focuses management energy on catching employees doing something wrong.  “Gotcha with that one.”  “Gotcha there!”  Suffice to say, if employee engagement and productivity are your goals, “gotcha” management rarely gets you where you want to go.

Indeed, one of the keenest and most helpful insights I ever got about managing came from a former employee who’d grown tired of my bossiness.  One day she took me aside and said to me simply:

Tell talented people what you want done, not how to do it—She was entirely right.   Give talented people clear strategic direction and most often they’ll find their way to a far better solution than if you dictated one.  Sure, of course you as the manager need to be available to answer questions and instruct and coach and hold employees accountable as needed… but mostly what talented people need is space, not confinement.  The best managers create an environment where employees are confident to step out and take chances, not work in fear of mistakes.

The Passion To Serve Others Is A Must In Business-Luciano The Key Santini (SSDE)

Hello and good morning to everyone who continues to believe in my skills and also who read my posts. Thank you for the continuous support. Today I would like to continue talking a bit more on partnerships. I received some great feedback and some great questions from readers. Here are some questions that were sent to me: I will do my best to answer them as we go. remember this before going into any type of partnership!!! You must a have a love, and a passion to serve others.

People do not leave organizations-People leave bad leadership!!

The right partners will usually make great organizations. The wrong partners will usually not work out and will destroy a great idea and at the end the organization.

 

How do you see decisions being made? By whom? How will we resolve conflicts?

I think that when choices or decisions need to be made they need to be made by the person who is the leader or manager of the operation, however I also believe that before making any choices or decisions staff needs to be involved so they are aware of the changes that may be coming and why the changes are going to take place. 

On conflict resolution, I believe that any conflict that may arise from the choices you as a leader makes needs to be taken care of immediately  because if it is not addressed immediately it will grow to the size of a mountain and will be much more difficult to resolve. I also believe that if there are issues that involve service or employees they need to be brought into a meeting room and hash it out between people so there are no questions left unanswered.

I believe this is a very good question because it asks straight forward and so I will try to give you the best answer I know from experience.

Have you ever been in a partnership before? What happened?

This is a question to ask the partner to be, because if they have never been a partner before they will need to really think about what it means and how it will change their way of thought and how they will manage people and themselves. If they have been partners before what happened and have them explain their experience as a partner. If they had been a partner they need to be honest and explain why it did not work out or why it was a great partnership.

 If you remember previously I had stated in my last posting that sometimes a business partnership is like a marriage. If there is no commonality then there will be a rocky marriage which could end in a divorce (yes). If the answer is yes they had been in a partnership but did not work out or was not working out then ask why and what did they learn from that and did they make the changes needed for it to work.When this conversation is taking place you will be able to assess the truth  and you can a wiser choice whether to go into a partnership or not.

I will now talk about leadership and motivation one of my favorite subjects to talk about. I believe that as a leader a person needs to really be aware of the people they manage and to motivate them. The biggest issue is what i ask? well I sat that the biggest issues is this and really it is the biggest question.

I always ask the leader How do you motivate yourself? AAAAHAAA and that is where the problem lies because when I ask the question they have no idea what motivates them to begin with!!! It is a problem simply because if you the leader has no idea what motivates them,then how do they expect to motivate their staff hellloooo!!! I find this to a very big issue with organizational leadership. 

I also have found that sometimes it is not their fault because the organization has no intention to keep people for a long ting but what about the organizations that preach vision and mission and well being for their employees but have no idea what or how to do it!! 

When you have motivated leaders you will have motivated employees it is really that simple but so difficult to acquire. It is also a choice that needs to be made by the individual to be or not to be motivated!!!!!

Please continue to send me your most hear burning questions and I will continue to serve you with the best answers that I can come up from my experiences in business and with people in general.

Partnerships And Experience And How To Make Them Work-Luciano Santini SSDE

Good morning to all who follow my postings. It is always a real and true pleasure to write for you and so thank you so very much for your continued support.I have to warn you that before you read this we have to understand that when we go into partnerships there has to be clarity and communication mirrored like a marriage.

OK today I would like to talk about what it is to be in partnerships in real life or in business. Both can be draining and difficult if specifics and clarity is not properly placed from the beginning. When clarity and specifics are not in place from the get go you will always have difficulty trying to manage money for example or manage knowledge from staff. This will become a difficult and draining task simply due because you have no idea what to manage and thus complaints and rumors and gossip will always be a fire that needs constant water.

The one thing I know from experience is that most managers or CEOS who have no idea on managing knowledge will continue to manage people and at one time that was  the way to do it but today that is gone.

Cookie cutter plans  with no specificity and clarity are for wannabe managers and they will never work.

Unfair or Unbalanced Roles

by Robert Moskowitz

 

Like a good marriage, a good business partnership brings together two people whose personalities, skill sets, intelligence, know-how, and other attributes complement each other. When there is proper balance, the partnership produces a union that’s more powerful than either person acting alone.

But a successful partnership can’t happen or endure when there’s a fundamental imbalance. Trouble generally arises when one partner feels he or she has too much or too little:

• authority,
• responsibility,
• time commitments, or
• investment in a desired outcome.

The ideal situation is one in which each partner feels good about his or her contributions and the other partner’s efforts. Of course, the requirements of a business are constantly shifting. So, a successful partnership needs not only an initial balance, but also a mechanism for re-balancing the partners’ individual workloads as often as necessary.

I also believe that psychology and understanding people differences play a big part of managing partnerships appropriately. Psychologically, the inability to resolve conflicts often signals basic incompatibilities in a partnership, personal dislike, or divergent worldviews and values. But even if all that stays in the subconscious background, difficulty resolving disagreements generally reflects important differences in communication styles, priorities, and personal flexibility, any of which can put extra pressure on a relationship.

Another big reason partnerships do not work is because one or the other is afraid of confrontation and when this happening well guess what? When there are issues nothing will be said or stated and thus the world begins to fail to the point where frustration will set is and hatred towards each other and staff members will come to a boil.

People are afraid to confront one and another. If you are partners you should not be afraid to talk to each other about concerns or major issues that come up and resolve them together. This is a major reason some partnerships have so many issues they are afraid on a little confrontation and or hurt each others feelings.

Feeling must be put aside and focus on the business and staff. If one or the other is messing up somebody needs to voice it and be able to agree to sit down and work out the issues.  partners should be able to say what is on their minds and be able to listen to staff to listen what is on their minds as well.

If partners are afraid to listen to each other or face a little bit of confrontation when it happens then there will eventually be no partnership. 

ROLES that people will play:

Make sure you clearly define who is going to work on what so you aren’t stepping on each ideas. 

What Does Incompetence Mean To Great Leaders Or To Any Organization?--Luciano The Key Santini

Hello and how is all who read my blog and to all those who have subscribed to my postings. Today I would like to start to talk about management. How many times have you or someone you might know been a victim of being punished for  doing a great job in your organization?

I know that this can be a difficult question to answer when you are the victim. I have to tell you that I have talked to so many who are great leaders and because of jealousy or envy or or someone might feel threatened.

Who knows why they do what they do and to be honest you should never feel like a victim if you are doing your job to the best of your ability so at the end who cares!!

What about when a manager gets what they want or a better word get rewarded for doing an incompetent job? Well here is what happens: If other managers believe others who do less then they do will get the same rewards that belief will eventually take over and drain their energy and at the end either leave the company or  become like the rest.

The truth is and I know it has been stated many times over.: Good people do not leave organizations good people leave bad leadership!!!! People need to understand that if someone wants to do a great job they will and if they do not they simply will not period!!

I believe that no matter what anyone does or tries to bring a good person down they will always loose and never achieve the goal to cause misery.  As an individual you should create acceptance of responsibility for your own life, and the development of a workable plan to achieve what you desire.I believe that this will bring some peace and less anxiety and stress when you arrive to this point in your life facing this situation. I have done research and surveys on the Peter Principle and what most managers and leaders have stated is that it becomes very if not unbearably frustrating.

By Bob Sutton

My dad took special delight in the pseudoscientific jargon that Dr. Peter invented to describe the weird and wasteful behaviors displayed by those languishing at their level of incompetence.

 Peter gave absurd and comedic names to the tragic realities of working life. The root of the entire book, the condition of incompetence that Peter called "Final Placement Syndrome," leads some to develop "Abnormal Tabulology" (an "unusual and highly significant arrangement of his desk"). This pathology is manifested, for example, in "Tabulatory Gigantism" (an obsession with having a bigger desk than his colleagues) 

Incompetence," he argued, "knows no barrier of time or place." Dr. Peter observed that one reason so many employees are incompetent is that that the skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with what is required do the job itself. 

The skills required to run a great political campaign have little to do with the skills required to govern. There is nothing about being a great surgeon that prepares a doctor to run a hospital. 

Learning to be a great litigator in no way prepares a lawyer to run a law firm. Many organizations, from hospitals to law firms, use such standards to select new leaders—yet devote little or no attention to their management skills. They often end up with lousy leaders and lose their best individual performers. These observations remain just as true in 2015 as they did in 1969.

The value of actions depends on the courage they require.

Ordinary people who do extraordinary things for others are those we later call heroes. When asked why they performed as they did, they often say, “It was nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done in the circumstances.” Perhaps that’s their way of saying we all have the capacity for greatness. It is only when we are severely tested that we rise to the occasion and perform at the highest levels of our competence. 

You become a person who does the right things when presented with great opportunities the same way you achieve success at anything: through force of habit. If you make it a practice to take the appropriate action even when it seems unimportant and insignificant, you will do the right thing — without thinking — in important situations. If you let your actions speak for you, you will never have to worry about others recognizing your contribution. 

Conflict is all around us deal with it at the time and do not complain-Luciano The Key Santini

This is the way most people start out in life. People will always start out with goals but then they stop moving towards them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a fine world for the person who knows precisely what he or she expects from life and is busy getting it.

We are happiest when we are striving to achieve a goal. When we achieve one goal, it’s a natural human tendency to set another, usually bigger, one. W. Clement Stone calls it inspirational dissatisfaction — the letdown one experiences after a goal has been achieved and before the next step toward a new one has been taken. When you begin to experience that nagging feeling, it’s time to get into action! Make sure you have a long-range plan in place so that when one short-term goal has been achieved, there is a natural progression toward the next. 

 

In business how many times have start up fail before their first customers comes into the door. I have seen many and why? It is simple really it is because there is no communication of services or products to the clients. Why do managers and CEO's fail with staff? Simple again because they may be great at creating policies and procedures but have no idea how to communicate the changes they aspire to take place.

 

What happens next can be worse because people who  do not have the skills become stressed out about any little thing or change that comes their way and thus will feel disconnected from their peers and customers and go into a down spiral and usually never recover from.

 

Conflict is all around us deal with it at the time and do not complain

 

How do you or how does anyone define workplace conflict?

 

We find ourselves at our jobs every day and spending more time there then we do at home. If you are one of the lucky ones you actually have a job that constantly challenges you as a person in your ares of expertise or mentally. There will be times of course when  you try to satisfy the needs of the company or the needs of your superiors there will always some type of conflict involved.

As a manager one is constantly dealing with spoiled children and most of the time it is more a behavior issue then anything else and you find yourself mediating all the time. So what is workplace conflict? Well it be defined as a difference of opinions that happens between management or directives that are not explained clearly. I have this article from a connection of a linked in friend which I find to be very interesting regarding conflict.

By Myron Curry
The workplace is your second home. In fact, some of you probably spend more time at work than you do at home. You are indeed fortunate if you have the opportunity to work in a job which you find challenging and interesting. But, however satisfying your job is, there always seem to be some type of conflict.
Workplace conflict happens regularly between team members, departments, managers, suppliers, vendors and sometimes customers. If you are a manager, then the problem of workplace conflict becomes a major issue as you are confronted with it on a regular basis. As one manager complained, it seemed like they were spending more time mediating between people who behaved like spoiled children rather than creative and productive individuals.

 In 1998, Professors Gilbert and Kreikebaum have the opinion that even if one party senses or anticipates a disagreement justifiably, conflict may said to exist. On the other hand, Donahue and Kolt (1992) says that conflict is “……..A situation in which independent people express (manifest or latent) differences in satisfying their individual needs and interests and they experience interference from each other in accomplishing these goals”. Can this universal definition of conflict be applied to workplace conflict as well?
The dynamics the workplace is somewhat unique which makes workplace conflict different. Before starting to tackle the issue of conflict in the workplace, you have to keep the following characteristics in mind:

• While some people work because they love the job and truly care, many other need stronger motivation to put in their full effort in the job.
• You do not get to choose your colleagues. Yet, you have to spend a lot of time with them, often in a high pressure situation. This is definitely a recipe for conflict.
• The work environment is a hierarchical structure and employees are interdependent with one another. So, perceived inefficiency on the part of one employee is going to affect the job quality of others.
• There are a number of dynamics operating in the workplace. Interdependence exists between colleagues, between the employee and the manager, the employee and the customer as well as the employee and outside suppliers. Whenever this delicate balance is upset, workplace conflict is the inevitable result.
• Increases in the volume of interactions accompanied by a lack of open and definite communication are another vital ingredient in workplace conflict.
• People with different personalities, cultures and styles must often work together in an interdependent way. Personality clashes as well as a clash of ideas consequently set the ground for workplace conflict.

The result of all the above factors can cause a disruption of work environments and the creation of the workplace conflict.
According to one study by Thomas and Schmidt in 1976, a typical manager spends almost 30% of their time resolving workplace conflict issues. This was followed by another similar study by Watson and Hoffman in 1996 which showed that this time workplace conflict has actually escalated to 42% of a mangers time in recent years.
The fact is that workplace conflict can arise from a series of reasons including differences in work-styles, background and gender, personalities, and skill level. When these types of conflicts go unresolved, they may turn into a much bigger problem down the road.

The ability to address workplace conflict in the early stages is an important component to resolving the issue. Unanswered or unmanaged conflict can escalate can disrupted an organization's growth as workers start spending more time entrenched in conflict than they do working on organizational goals.

WHY DO GREAT MANAGERS FAIL

WHY DO GREAT MANAGERS FAIL

There are so many managers that are and have been on the road to success list every year since the beginning of their career with organizations. They are moved into different roles, taking on different responsibilities and succeeding and getting great results each and every time.

 They are recognized as strong leaders because of their ability to get results create relationships both inside and outside the organization. The one thing that happens is that upper management begins for whatever reasons to either feel or see a threat coming their way and things begin to change. Suddenly everyone begins to ask questions such as:

What is going on? The truth of the matter is that sometimes upper management does not have the skills to manage knowledge and so become afraid of knowledge and of course you will have a clear example of the Peter Principle. Their teams begin to become contentious and morale begins to waver.

 I did a research paper on the Peter Principle in college and what most people do not understand is that this move can be used either to promote someone who has no skills for the promotion or to set someone up for failure who is a great leader but does not have familiarity with a new role thus trying to ruin someone’s career but of course they will be told that this is a great career move for them. 

This is the funniest and worst move when upper management does this to a person who understands both because it will back fire showing upper management’s incompetence to deal with the issues at hand.

What is the Peter Principle you might ask? Well here is the definition?

In an organizational structure, the assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion  is often based on their performance in the current job ( Great at paperwork)but has no people or management skills or well liked because of special friendships or otherwise which results eventually in their being promoted to their highest level of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not competent.

This will cause morale issues throughout the organization or department or will have someone else to do their work until either they leave or get demoted but in some cases like nonprofits keep them  because they are ready to retire and nothing can be done due to the structure in place and unions involved is referred to as their "level of incompetence".

 When a great leader is moved or promoted to a new role and has no familiarity nor the skills to deal with a bad situation that has been established either by another incompetent person The employee has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching their career's ceiling in an organization thus becoming black listed for a long time and thus upper management who moved this person into that role can now say that the issues at hand are what they are due to the incompetence of the manager they promoted when in fact it is upper managements incompetence.

 Does this mean that the person who is moved into a new role is no longer a great leader?

Doing a seminar on the Peter Principle

  Of course not!! They didn’t lose their ability to lead.  Their abilities and skills had not just simply vanished but other parts of the situation had changed which was to be moved to a role of no familiarity.

Now of course there ways and techniques to avoid these things from happening that either  the human resource manager if they are competent can do or upper management can do if they are competent and here are a few methods that organizations can use to mitigate the risk associated with the Peter Principle:

• Refrain from promoting workers based on their current performance without proof of their abilities to succeed in the desired role.
• Provide in-service training for the desired roles for those being considered for promotion or moved into unfamiliar ground.
• Provide a parallel career path for good technical staff, possibly with the offer of additional pay, perks or recognition without requiring promotion to management,

Here is a great article written by friend of a good friend of mine who is an excellent leader herself.  

By Edith Onderick-Harvey on March 5, 2015 

I’ve seen five common reasons why a leader who has been effective in the past is now failing.

1. Some critical skills were overlooked before. Let’s talk about the obvious reason first.  Some leaders have not developed key skills that they need to be successful.  Just like brilliant students who breeze through school, sometimes people climb to positions of leadership because they are brilliant marketers, brilliant scientists, or brilliant (put your profession here). But along the road to success, the people around this leader choose to overlook a key skill (or two or three) until it can’t be overlooked any more and causes huge issues.  For example, if we go back to Jessica, throughout her career it was noted in talent reviews that she could be abrasive and often got things done through force of will rather than by building relationships and coalitions.  She thought of herself as ‘results-focused.’  When she moved into her Operations role, it became imperative for her to build relationship with peers in other parts of the organization to get results.  Interestingly, her ‘results-focus’ is what got in the way.

2. Cultural mismatch. This is a common reason why leaders who have been wildly successful in one environment for a long time, fail miserably in a very short time in another.  The way a person operates and becomes successful in one culture can be very different from another.  For example, a leader may have been very successful in a culture that a valued quick decision making and risk taking.  Put that same leader in an environment driven by consensus and a desire to explore issues from every angle before moving forward and wait for the results.

3. Process and system mismatch. In the 1800’s, some people did very well in the wild, wild west and others went back home to the security of their established communities.  Some leaders are very adept at working in environments with less defined processes and systems.  They either work without them or really enjoy putting them in place.  Others thrive in environments where processes and systems are clearly defined.  Think of the serial entrepreneur who is put into a large, complex organization that has acquired his firm.  Change was a way of life in his entrepreneurial firm but isn’t in this large organization.  Leading change in the former was easy; everyone thrived on it.  In the new organization it takes real work. The processes that exist are meant to maintain the status quo not change it and people in his new organization wonder why he was once perceived as someone who drove change.

4. Lack of management support. Even the most seasoned executive needs people in her corner.  She needs people who support her success.  She may need coaching and mentoring to navigate the new role.  Even the best CEO won’t succeed if the Chairman of the Board decides she is not the person for the job and needs to go.

5. Organization structure. We all have been in situations where roles aren’t clear, responsibilities are redundant, unnecessary internal competition is the norm, resources aren’t available or decision making is lost in layers of management morass.  Leaders can find themselves in the same situations.  I worked for an organization once that routinely pitted leaders against each other by giving them the same issue to address or initiative to lead in different parts of the organization without each leader knowing about the other’s charge.  There could only be one winner in this situation so one of them automatically was going to fail.