Month: February 2012

Posted on

Perspective on Demoting Yourself to Be True to Yourself

A woman using an escalator to go down
Believe it or not there is a positive side to this, but be careful what you wish for.

Believe it or not there is a positive side to this, but be careful what you wish for.

As they should, all employees should receive supervisory, management and leadership training–if only to know their functions. Often the training is job related or of a more general nature. The training helped this young man know the differences and decide his own fate. This article represents a positive view from a person in government who received such training and received a promotion for being exemplary but the move didn’t work. My side of the tale is a little more cautionary as you might expect–my being older and wiser. Just kidding.

Here’s the tale: A colleague of mine on Gov Loop wrote an interesting blog about demoting about himself to get what he truly wanted–when his promotion didn’t “agree” with him, Demoting Yourself–It Can Be a Good Thing. On his actions, I so glad it worked out well for him. My first thought! What good managers you have! On second thought: this doesn’t always turn out this well for everyone. He did the homework:

It takes up most of your life so don’t waste that valuable time unless it’s on something you love.
  • Know yourself (you work ethic, your work style, what makes you tick)
  • You’ve got to be happy with what you’re doing…if you’re not happy with what you do, it will be drain on both you and everyone else around you…or those that you manage. That’s worse then trying to stick it out.
  • Be honest with your managers. That might be hard for some to do, but the job of a manager is to help their people excel. If your manager is truly a good manager, they’ll find a way to do that.
  • Admit when you’re wrong. I’ve never backed down from a professional challenge. I did this time around. Admitting that wasn’t easy to do, but it was necessary.
  • Admitting you were wrong is =! fail (for you non-coders, =! means “not equal to”).”

I may not be supervising as Leader (big “L”) anymore, but I’m in a much better position to further excel at what I’m good at doing and STILL be a “leader.” In the end that’s good for me, my career, my life, and my organization.”

My trained colleague knew what needed to happen, advised management and it supported him. That is great! That’s the way management and true leadership should work. Leaders do that. I agree with another colleague in the group who said: “The fact that you were so well supported in this wise, but uncommon move by your managers is a testment to their integrity and training for their roles!”

However, there are some cautions to those employees who may not be as respected by their managers–who may be told, “Gee, after all the work I did to get you promoted,” or may be told, “if you don’t like the change, stay where you are until another slot is available,” and you can’t always go as you expect it to. Some employers will support you all the way and even give you positive accolades on your evaluation. For some employees whose employers haven’t been honest with them…

Problem: there is no guarantee. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea; I think it’s great to do what you are best at and what you love.

Not all bosses are great! They just get to stick to the top of the pack for some reason.

For everyone: be careful. Not all bosses are great! They just get to stick to the top of the pack for some reason. Make sure you are the “shining star” the boss tells you at review time. You are admitting your strengths and weaknesses and that is where some employers will take advantage of those weakness admissions and highlight them rather than your frankness, which shows character and leadership potential of a different kind. Some bosses tell everyone they are practically perfect. Some go a step further. I had one supervisor who made any of her staff feel (when he or she were sitting with her on a one-on-one) each member was her best employee–that each was a special confidant. Once the employee realizes it, she or he doesn’t know who or what to believe. Of course, this doesn’t create a trustful employee to employer situation (unlike your situation) and is a good morale breaker.

There is the supervisor, manager, or boss who tells you one thing in confidence, asks your opinion and then relays that to everyone you work with. This has nothing really to do with this article but it does place emphasis on the idea that you may not really know someone well, despite the meetings you have had. Be sure you do.

So, it doesn’t always work. It is also a way when an employer has to admit to making a mistake promoting you and can blame you in the end for being a disappointment in the job, or, what you wish for most–the informal “leadership” role may disappear when you go back to the ranks–thanks to a myriad of behind the scenes work to prove you shouldn’t have had the job in the first place. Most good employees do perform an informal leadership role and those shouldn’t be squandered, but they are sometimes for some else’s personal agenda.

Being a manager does require different skills and there are different types of managers so be careful not to leap at a promotion opportunity as many pointed out in my colleagues original blog, and I agree. Make sure it is what you want; the extra money, if there is any, may not be worth the headache and career move later to something more to your liking.

Getting the leadership, management, supervisory training is a good way to see if this is the life for you. It can also help you decide and help you navigate the system as professionally as possible.

Make sure it is what you want; the extra money, if there is any, may not be worth the headache and career move later to something more to your liking.

To read more on this topic, especially my side, I wrote a couple of related articles you may be interested in reading: “Finding the Way Out of a Coffin That’s Nailed Shut (without removing one nail”) and its sister article, The Way Out of a Coffin That is Nailed Shut. Just so you see stories like these can have unhappy endings. Be careful and make sure you are in an environment that isn’t dysfunctional in these kinds of things. It takes up most of your life so don’t waste that valuable time unless it’s on something you love.

I’m sure there is more on the subject from you and I want to hear it. Feel free to be heard. SPAM I delete, but comments, even disagreeing ones offer a different perspective and I’m all for that. My website is always available for your thoughts and perusal as well. You’ll find I try to be a communicator because I think it is most important and all my life I have been the guy who says what he thinks. Under the category, What I Say, you find links to my other articles and blogs on different subjects.

—

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

My book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development, takes a look at the first person to train: the caveman and cave women. I called my book the “Cave” “Man” book for a couple of reasons. 1. I don’t live in a real cave, and 2. The “Cave” is where we work today. Check it out! I warn you, it may seem a little odd as I set the stage, but later chapters tie the basics together in ways you’ll appreciate. It’s not a How-To Book (they only give you the basics and there are plenty of those on the web, but The Cave Man Guide can get you thinking in the right direction for the most effective training for your company. It’s an E-Book for any level of training. You can read it on the train into work and not feel you are working at all–or call it continuous learning. At least, that was my goal.

Happy training.

Posted on

Systems Thinking – A Leadership Imperative

A man thinking of a promising project

I write this blog struggling not to make it sound too academic. The subject is a topic many organizational thought leaders speak about and is foundational to implementing any of the new sciences of leadership. It also sets the stage for some upcoming topics, allowing you to understand and apply them in a much deeper way. So, here we go!

Systems are Webs of Relationships

Throughout this conversation, two visual metaphors help to imagine the organizational systems that exist all around us: the body of any living organism and the web of a spider (the observer stands at the center).

Systems, like all living organisms, are composed of parts and wholes. Parts are events, behaviors, functions (like marketing), people, or even ideas. The parts are arrayed with no particular design or logic except the relationships they have to the other parts, which can be local or global, virtual or co-located. These relationships are what make the system and establish its boundaries.

Often, when the system is hidden, we discover it when we discover the relationship that exists between two of the parts. I was recently talking with a consultant about her work and how she could apply it to healthcare. Many of her ideas and practices sounded familiar and, after looking over her website, I discovered that she is part of an intellectual system that has emerged from the Boston area (Harvard and MIT) over the last 20 years.

First Concept: Systems emerge from the dynamic relationships and interactions between their parts.

Let’s take the example of a team, a system we all participate in. The behavior of each team member (part) has an effect on the overall behavior of the team (whole). This is pretty easy to feel even if we can’t put our finger on why it happens. What we feel is the emotional system that has emerged from the interpersonal relationships between the team members. You have probably also noticed that some people are more strongly impacted by the behavior and ideas of an individual than others, they have a stronger connection within the overall system. In this way, systems can be balanced or out of balance. For those of us on the east coast who stayed up late to watch the Oscars, Monday morning we had a system out of balance due to lack of sleep.

Second Concept: All parts of a system are connected and interdependent.

One property of systems is that the system (the whole team) has an impact on each part (individuals). We experience this as team culture, identity, and context. When part of our team faces a challenge, the whole team experiences anxiety, concern, or tension. When success comes to even one individual, we all celebrate. Our connectedness leads to our interdependence: the behaviors of the parts effect the whole and the behaviors of the whole effect the parts. No one is exempt from being impacted by the system and the system is the result of the impact it makes on us.

Third Concept: The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, often far greater.

Every time I talk with groups about what makes a great team the word synergy comes up. In any system, the parts gain some of their properties (vitality and integrity) from the whole system. When one part of the system is separated from the whole, it loses something. We see this all the time in our organizations, we take a member of a high-performing team and put them somewhere else in the organization to take advantage of their abilities, and the team falls apart or the person’s performance is average in their new position. No surprise, they and their team were a product of the system. It may appear to us that one person was a standout star but that is seldom the whole story. If we want what “they” have, as leaders we need to figure out what the system is doing not what the parts are doing.

Fourth Concept: Every system has characteristics or properties that none of the individual parts have.

So leaders, how can you create the conditions for healthy, vibrant, and creative systems within your organization or team? Let me leave you with two quotes to ponder, how can your actions reflect this idea?

If each part of a system is made to operate as efficiently as possible, the system as a whole will not operate as effectively as possible. The performance of a system depends more on how its parts interact than on how they act independently of each other. Russ Ackoff, Creating the Corporate Future

…the performance of an organization depends more on how the parts work together than on how they work separately; if you optimize the performance of the parts, you systematically suboptimize the performance of the whole. …the job of leaders is to manage the interactions of the parts, not their actions. Ray Stata, Chairman, Analog Devices

Posted on

Spiritual Practices for the Beloved Community

Man with palms open while he meditates

In an earlier blog this year, I wrote about the influence of Martin Luther King Jr. on my life and his approach to social justice and peace. To create the Beloved Community we don’t need to have the gift of oration that King had, we don’t need to make tremendous sacrifices or put our life on the life. We need only connect with the love in our own heart and carry that into our work with conscious intent.

The Beloved Community

“The Beloved Community” is a term first coined by the theologian Josiah Royce, early in the 20th Century. Martin Luther King, Jr. used this term to describe the end-state of social change for greater justice and harmony between all people.

From the King Center website the following summarizes King’s vision of the Beloved Community.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community was not devoid of interpersonal, group or international conflict. Instead he recognized that conflict was an inevitable part of human experience. But he believed that conflicts could be resolved peacefully and adversaries could be reconciled through a mutual, determined commitment to nonviolence. No conflict, he believed, need erupt in violence. And all conflicts in The Beloved Community should end with reconciliation of adversaries cooperating together in a spirit of friendship and goodwill.

Weekly Steps as Spiritual Practice

For those of you who support this vision, who want to align your gifts, passion and purpose to create such a world, think of one area where you feel drawn to put your energy. It could be in your work, community, or any organization that will help future generations live with greater justice and peace.

Then read the six steps of non-violence below.

  • Focus on one step each day to practice the idea.
  • Review every night how you did with it.
  • At the end of the week, review the differences you made or how you felt doing this practice.
  • Reflect on how your faith came into play as you practiced these.
  • Note how your sense of connection to others shifts from this practice.

The Six Steps of Nonviolence described by The King Center:

Information Gathering – The way you determine the facts, the options for change, and the timing of pressure for raising the issue is a collective process.

Do you collect facts with an open heart and open mind? Do you truly seek to understand what is happening before you move to be understood? How do you seek options for change and work with others to collaborate on ideas?

Education – The process for developing articulate leaders, who are knowledgeable about the issues.

How are you developing yourself as a leader and role model for others? Do you seek the thoughts and ideas from divergent viewpoints so that you can be fully educated on an issue?

Personal Commitment – Means looking at your internal and external involvement in the nonviolent campaign and preparing yourself for long-term as well as short-term action.

What does non-violence mean to you? What stirs your soul enough to work for greater justice and peace?

Negotiation – The art of bringing together your views and those of your opponent to arrive at a just conclusion or clarify the unresolved issues.

How willing are you to negotiate on an action? Do you hear the opposing view before you arrive at a conclusion? Are you willing to speak up so that others know your side of the story, learn from your perspective what is happening?

Direct Action – Occurs when negotiations have broken down or failed to produce a just response to the contested issues and conditions.

What steps do you take in your work and community to improve conditions for others? How do you act at home or at work with an open heart, from love and peace rather than anger or fear?

Reconciliation – The mandatory closing step of a campaign, when the opponents and proponents celebrate the victory and provide joint leadership to implement change.

What victories do you celebrate when you and others have worked hard to complete a project? Did anything shift in your own heart regarding your views or relationship with those you view as an opponent? How do you want to share leadership for continual improvements?

Find ways in your work and throughout your week that you can practice doing these steps to create change right where you are. Leave a comment here to let us know how this practice worked for you.

*******************

For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

——————

Visit Linda’s website- www.lindajferguson.com for information about her coaching work, keynote presentations, seminar topics, and books.

Now available!! Linda’s new book, “Staying Grounded in Shifting Sand” – Click here to order.

Posted on

Women on Boards and its rationale

Business women and men in a board conference

In the modern world, women are outperforming men in many stages of their career; especially at school level, university and during the early years of work. However, despite a considerable number of women entering the corporate world, the gender diversity of top companies at executive and board level is woeful.

Background

In 2010, women made up only 12.5% of the directorships of FTSE 100 companies in the UK (see Women on Boards, The Davies Report, February 2011) and in 2008 women held only 12% of the directorships in the S&P 1500 (see RiskMetrics Group, Inc., “Board Practices: Trends in Board Structure at S&P 1,500 Companies”).

These low numbers are not through lack of initiatives from campaigners, governments and even the companies themselves. For example:

  • Norway has introduced a mandatory quota for their biggest companies;
  • following the Davies Report, there are new measures being introduced in the UK around diversity; the UK Corporate Governance Code is being amended to require companies to set out their diversity policy and the UK government is introducing new legislation requiring quoted companies to report on the number of women in senior executive roles; and
  • the SEC in the US has introduced a rule requiring corporations to disclose, inter alia, whether a nomination committee considers diversity in identifying nominees for director and, if so, how they consider diversity in this respect.

These and other changes are beginning to increase the number of women in boardrooms around the world but the change is occurring at a slow rate. This rate of change does make it worthwhile re-considering the rationale for increasing gender diversity in boardrooms as the current approach does not seem to be achieving the results that are expected.

Economic vs Social Rationale

Historically, gender diversity advocates relied primarily on moral arguments to persuade companies to change their recruitment policy towards women. However, in recent years, the argument has shifted with advocates pointing to studies that show that the share prices of companies with more diverse boards outperform companies with less diverse boards. The feeling is that hard-nosed shareholders, and the directors who owe a fiduciary duty to these shareholders, will be more receptive to economic rather than social or moral arguments.

This view has been readily adopted, not just by activists, but by the mainstream media and governments. Lord Davies in the UK said that “The business case for increasing the number of women on corporate boards is clear…… Evidence suggests that companies with a strong female representation at board and top management level perform better than those without and that gender-diverse boards have a positive impact on performance”. This is fairly representative of the argument being put forward at the moment.

This argument has its limits though and, perhaps, could be contributing to the slow rate of change. In her excellent paper, ‘Revisiting Justifications for Board Diversity’, Lisa Fairfax reviews the various empirical studies around the financial performance of companies with more diverse boards. She reviewed numerous studies that did support the economic case for gender diversity, but there were also studies that found no link or even showed a negative link between gender diversity and the economic performance. These are often overlooked or dismissed in discussions around this subject but are equally important.

Overall Ms Fairfax felt that “the empirical results provide at least some support for the proposition that board diversity may lead to increased firm value or improved corporate governance under certain conditions.” However, for me, the biggest question is over causation. Do the best performing companies naturally attract and support diverse boards or do diverse boards lead companies to perform better. This question has never been properly addressed in the empirical studies and it would be very difficult to do so.

The lack of clear evidence means that that economic argument for board diversity is weak at best. This may be a slightly controversial statement to make but I think it is important to put it forward as the reliance on the economic argument may actually be hindering the cause of gender diversity.The doubts over the link between economic performance and gender diversity are probably shared by many shareholders and boards of listed companies. If this is the main argument being put forward in support of gender diversity, it is one that can be ignored by these groups with impunity. After all, if the main rationale is the economic benefit, then the shareholders are the only ones to suffer if they are wrong.

On the other hand, many corporate governance developments over the years have not been supported by economic arguments and instead have won through by other means. For example, it is now an accepted position that strong independent directors are essential to good corporate governance. Yet there is relatively little empirical evidence of a positive effect on the value of a company from strong independent directors. It is assumed, but not proved.

It is widely accepted, and a view I share, that improved diversity in the board room (both in terms of gender diversity and other forms of diversity) is a good thing. It is a good thing from the perspective of society and also for the health and state of our companies. As is the case with independent directors, I believe it makes companies better prepared to deal with long term risks (by discouraging tunnel vision) which are rarely reflected in the share price until they happen.

I believe though that the focus on the business case for improving diversity may be harming this cause and advocates should present the wider argument rather than pushing the economic angle so much and hoping that the market will do the rest.

Nick Lindsay is a director of Elemental CoSec a provider of company secretarial services and corporate governance advice in the UK. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice or acted upon without seeking specific legal advice.

Posted on

Enthusiastic Employees: Do You Have Them?

enthusiastic workers in an organization

“I mean it. I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven here. If things stay this way, I’d like to spend the rest of my working life for this company. You feel like a real person, not just a number.”

This a quote from the book “The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What they Want” by David Sirota. Most people, when they’re hired, are ready to work hard and eager to contribute.

What happens to dampen their enthusiasm?

Sirota’s research states that the workplace is rife with myths – many of them involving how employers view employees. Here are the myths that deal with employee motivation.

1. “Employees will never be happy with their pay.”
In fact, about 40% of workers rate their salaries as good or very good. Less than a quarter or 23%, say it is poor or very poor. When employees complain about their pay, they are really unhappy with something else – perhaps the long hours, or lack of praise, or poor working conditions

2. “Most people don’t care whether they do a quality job.”
They care a lot! A major reason for worker frustration, the authors discover in their surveys, is not being able to get the job done or done well because of obstacles such as poor equipment, insufficient training, bureaucracy, and conflict among the various parts of an organization.

3. “Telling people they’ve done a good job makes them complacent.”
Recognition for good performance is one of the most powerful inducements to continued good performance.. When employee performance is taken for granted by management, as in, “that’s what we expect, why mention it,” employees and the company both lose.

4. “Most employees resist change, whatever it is.”
Actually workers resist change they perceive as harmful to them or to the company or new policies that were developed in secret. Give them better furniture, faster computers or easier softer systems and they have no complaints.

What are the truths about motivation?

The Enthusiastic Employee found that a vast majority of workers wanted these three things:

1. Equity:
They want to be treated fairly and justly – in relation to their peers and in relation to the basic conditions of employment (things like pay and benefits, safety and respect etc). The policies and practices that facilitate employee enthusiasm begin with the concept of equity — the degree to which people believe their employer treats them with fundamental fairness.

2. Achievement:
They want to be proud of what they do, and the organization for which they do it. They want to be recognized when they do a good job.

3. Camaraderie:
They want to interact with others and have co-operative relations while doing the work. Teamwork matters to most people.

Management Success Tip:

When employees feel enthusiastic about their work, it shows up in how they perform and how they treat customers. This, in turn, influences customers and their desire to buy or use your services. So, these three needs matter – they drive employee performance and business performance. Employee loyalty is not dead; it’s not even on life support. It’s there. Management needs to feed it regularly and give it air to breathe.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

Posted on

Career Advancement: Have You Hit the Glass Ceiling?

A man stressed out in his office with his hand on his head

Do you feel that you’ve gone as far as you can with your current employer? Are there sign that you’ve hit what’s known as the “glass ceiling?”

This is the point at which you can clearly see the next level of promotion yet, despite your best effort, something is stopping your career progression.

If you do, here are five steps to break through that glass.

1. Identify the key competencies.
They are the common skills and attributes of the people in your company’s upper levels. Companies that value innovation and strive to be leaders will probably promote individuals who are outgoing, risk takers, and not afraid to “tell it like it is.” However, if you work for a conservative company (such as a utility), chances are that top management are analytic thinkers with a reputation for avoiding risk and making careful decisions.

What behaviors does your company value and reward? What type of person is promoted?

2. Strengthen those competencies that count.
Once you know what sets leaders apart in the company, ask your boss what skill areas you need to develop. Let your boss know that you want to work toward a higher-level position. Work together with your boss to set goals and objectives, then monitor and measure your performance.

What areas of your performance can you improve? What additional skills do you need to develop to be considered for an advanced position?

3. Broaden your network.
You should also build relationships with other people in your organization. You never know who may be in a position to help you or provide you with valuable information. It’s important to network in all areas and levels of your company.

Who can you reach out to on a regular basis? Can you get involved with cross-functional teams?How can you expand your professional network outside of your organization?

4. Find a mentor.
Having a mentor is a powerful way to break through the glass ceiling. A mentor can help you learn how to get connected to the information and people who can help you. A mentor can also be a great source of ideas for your professional development and growth.

Will your boss be able to provide mentoring support? Are there people with strong political power who can offer you assistance?

5. Build your reputation
Ultimately, the way to get ahead is to get noticed. You want people to see your competence, leadership abilities, technical knowledge, and any other competencies that are typical of people at the top. Remember, while you can see up, those at the top can see down. Make sure that what they see is important. Here are some examples: Seek high-profile projects, speak up and contribute in meetings, share ideas with peers as well as people in higher positions.

How are you going to champion and market yourself to build your reputation?

Career Success Tip:

We can’t all be exactly the type of upper management person our company wants. What we can do is develop the skills that the company values. Arm yourself with a development plan as well as the help of your boss, a strong network, and, hopefully, a mentor. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone, and you may find new zones of opportunity.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

Posted on

A Future Capital Campaign: A Reader’s Questions

A business meeting on capital campaign

And Some Questions in Response:
We are a small 501(c)(3) arts organization with an annual budget of about $25,000 in a small community of about 4,000. We are looking at mounting a capital campaign to buy a building and make it a community arts center. Most buildings of the needed size are selling for $100,000 to $175,000. Considering remodeling, we think we are looking at having to raise $200,000 to $250,000.

*Does your estimate include what it will cost to run a capital campaign ?
*Do you have or can you “easily” get the funds needed to plan for and
implement a capital campaign ?
*How many people do you estimate will make gifts/commitments of
$10,000, $15,000, $25,000 or more ? That’s what will determine the
success (or failure) of your campaign.
*Who has the respect/credibility/clout to lead a campaign and get the
right people to want to give?

Our membership feels that raising the money is do-able over the course of two years.

*What happens to your organization’s reputation/credibility if you
run a capital campaign and don’t meet your goal ?
*Where have your members gotten their experience/expertise at
designing and implementing a capital campaign ?

We have, however, two very conservative board members. They want to know what happens with the capital fund if an organization does not achieve its goal. Say we raise $89,000 in two years, they ask, and then hit a brick wall and give up. I think such a thing won’t happen, but what do I tell them now, to assuage their concerns? Do the donations have to be returned?

It’s a good thing you have board members who require answers
to the hard questions. If you run a capital campaign, and it’s clear
to your prospects that you are raising the money to buy/renovate
a building, failure means returning every cent to the donors.

No capital campaign should be implemented without first having
a Study (professionally) done to determine the feasibility of attaining
the needed leadership and the likelihood of obtaining the larger gifts
that ensure reaching a goal.

Is there a way to phrase requests so that the funds could be used for other charitable purposes in the community?

When you ask people to support you, you must be clear why the money
is needed, and you must use it for the stated purpose(s).

If you run a major fundraising campaign and don’t tell your donors the
money is to buy and renovate a building … if you give the impression
that the money is to be used for something else … that’s fraud !!

If the “other charitable purposes” relate to your mission, you have to be
clear what all of those “purposes” might be.

Bottom line is that you don’t even think about doing a capital campaign
until you KNOW (not believe) it will be successful !!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating or expanding your fundraising program? Contact me at Hank@Major-Capital-Giving.com With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, I’ll be pleased to answer your questions.

Posted on

Ryan Braun: Victim or Villain?

Multi-drug Screen Test and Kit Boxes

The following is a guest post from frequent contributor Rick Kelley, director of crisis communications for Triad Strategies.

Ryan Braun: Victim or Villain?

To many who have listened to the sports pundits hammering major league baseball player Ryan Braun for winning an appeal of his 50-game suspension “on a technicality” after failing a drug test late last season, the Milwaukee Brewer star’s reputation is hopelessly soiled.

To many who heard Braun’s articulate and adamant assertions of his innocence in a news conference Friday afternoon, Braun is one athlete who may have deserved to become the first to successfully challenge a Major League Baseball drug-related penalty.

Former Phillies’ all-star and current ESPN baseball analyst John Kruk exemplifies those who, in 24 hours, turned 180 degrees from “he’s dirty” to “he’s made some excellent points.” Others, such as New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, went the other way.

To the extent that Braun, the National League Most Valuable Player last season, may have preserved his reputation, he owes it to a fundamental principle of crisis communication: develop and deliver your messages and don’t hide from those with questions (in this case, the news media). At the same time, Braun’s assertions regarding the testing process must withstand continuing scrutiny.

Braun clearly came prepared to deliver his messages. Those messages were persuasive and were delivered persuasively, beginning with his assertion that the collector of his urine sample had compromised the process by failing to submit the sample for 44 hours over a weekend.

Braun noted that he had passed drug screenings at least 25 times in his career, including three other times last season. He said he was told that the elevated level of testosterone allegedly detected in his urine sample was three times greater than the level detected in any previous drug test by any player. He said his weight, speed and strength have never fluctuated.

He also said, unlike how samples are handled once they arrive at the testing lab, those that sit in someone’s house over a weekend are not secured, implying that there were questions regarding misidentification or even tampering.

“There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way the entire thing works, that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened,” Braun said.

He then proceeded to answer all the questions reporters asked. Chief among them was what he thought could have occurred to his urine sample during the time before it was submitted – were the samples mixed up, was there tampering, etc. Braun refused to speculate.

Under journalism’s rules of engagement, news coverage can’t, or at least shouldn’t, include speculation unless a source is willing to provide it. To Braun’s credit, he didn’t walk down “Speculation Avenue.” Otherwise, he could have come across as defensive or, worse, appeared to ratify what the public already believed to be true (for an example, see our previous post involving Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola).

The lessons here are that crisis communication does not consist merely of showing up to answer reporters’ questions, and a news conference is an exercise in message discipline – responding, but pivoting back to the points you want to make. It takes preparation, usually involving professional help. We’d bet that Braun availed himself of such help.

Is it possible that Braun is simply a very good liar? Certainly, and cynics and skeptics will point to several of baseball’s most prominent players who proclaimed their innocence, only to be contradicted by evidence (Barry Bonds), proof (Rafael Palmeiro) or a subsequent confession (Mark McGwire).

And here we insert our usual crisis communication caveat: you cannot communicate your way out of something you behaved yourself into.

If he wasn’t being truthful, Braun may discover this the hard way. In throwing the sample collector under the bus, he has taken a considerable risk, creating an expectation that more of the story will be forthcoming. Additionally, now the sample collector’s reputation also is on the line, he may feel compelled to fight back.

If the rest of the story fails to materialize, or if it doesn’t hold up, Braun’s efforts to restore his good name will founder. Moreover, if the sample collector crawls out from under the bus and brings a defamation action against Braun, the communication aspect of his appeal strategy almost surely will have backfired.

In that case, Braun may find himself joining an already long list of baseball “heroes” who, despite spectacular achievements, can only enter the Baseball Hall of Fame the same way as the rest of us – by paying the admission fee.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

Rick Kelly is Director of Crisis Communications for Triad Strategies, and an unabashed Phillies fan.

Posted on

E is for Energy

Team rejoicing working together on a project in an office

If you follow this blog you know we are working our way through the alphabet, selecting words for each letter that embody different aspects of speaking and presenting. We have made our way to the letter “E.”

Energy. We all know how important energy is; too much and you feel like a nervous wreck, speaking too fast and bouncing off the walls like a toddler with too little sleep and too much sugar. Too little energy and you can come across as sleepy, slow, b o r i n g. Managing your energy so it is just right is a little tricky, but once you learn how to use it properly, you will be able to handle yourself under all kinds of pressure. As a result, your energy works with you and gives you power. (One little tip; stop thinking about nervousness, and think instead about using your energy rather than letting it act on you.)

Engaging. Usually the second thing my clients say makes a great speaker is being engaging. (The first one is confident!) A great speaker doesn’t just talk at or even to the audience, instead they engage them in dialog. You really can’t be boring if you are truly engaging. The best speakers use stories, examples, metaphors, visuals, discussions, or activities—whatever it takes to bring content to life and life to the audience. They ask questions, listen intently and care what the audience thinks. Great speakers encourage their audiences to ask meaningful questions, and they answer honestly. They foster give and take in every aspect of their presentations. They turn every talk into a conversation. And guess what? You can do these things as well.

Eye contact. This is such an important delivery skill, and one we sometimes overlook or underestimate it. Think about it; when you are face to face, eye contact is the single most important way to connect with your audience. Trouble is, when you are focusing on your thoughts, your words, or your slides, you might forget to look at your audience. Or it might be distracting, so you look away. Take time today to monitor your eye contact, and see if you can make a slow, steady connection with each person you are speaking with. Better yet, ask a trusted colleague to observe you and give you feedback on your eye contact. Ideally, it will be slower than sweeping the audience, but shorter than a staring contest. Two to four seconds per person is realistic but takes plenty of practice to master.

How have your embodied these attributes in your speaking? What results or outcomes have you enjoyed?

What other words come to mind for the letter E? And how about upcoming letters? Submit your ideas and get extra credit!

Posted on

Ways to Resolve Conflict in Your Team

group of workers in disagreement

From time to time most teams experience a falling out among team members. If not quickly resolved this can have a significant impact not just on the people in dispute but also on their colleagues.

Resolving Conflict in Work Teams image
If not quickly resolved conflict can have a significant impact on the people in the dispute and also their colleagues

Here are a few thoughts to help your team to deal with the discord: Continue reading “Ways to Resolve Conflict in Your Team”