Turnover is costly – just how costly? Research studies have shown that the cost of replacing a professional or managerial employee runs 1.5 to 3.0 times his or her annual salary. And it can cost up to five times annual salary if you are looking at the intellectual capital – what a key person knows – when he or she walks out the door.

For example, to replace a $50,000 top notch sales person with a large customer base can cost you $171,500. And a $150,000 technical manager can ultimately cost $380,000 to replace. That’s no small pocket change. Here are 4 steps to retain your best people.

1. Calculate the True Costs
This includes the direct administration cost of recruitment (ads, background checks, assessments, paperwork plus the manager’s and HR’s time for interviewing, training, orientation) PLUS the indirect costs of performance differential (lost productivity, impact on customers, disruption to the team, lower morale and the lost ‘institutional wisdom’)..

2. Study the Demographics
Understanding and conquering turnover requires probing into the details. For example:

• Who is leaving (high performers or low performers, older versus younger people, recent hires or people with long tenure)?
• What job categories or departments are experiencing the most turnover (production staff, systems analysts, salespeople, nursing staff)?
• When are they leaving (after two weeks, six months, five years, or ten years)?
• Where are they going (your competitor, another industry, back to school, out of town?)

3. Target Strategic Positions and People
Not all turnover is equal. Simply looking at an annual turnover rate of 17% doesn’t tell the complete story. The loss of a top engineer with ten years of experience, strong customer contacts, and good relationships with suppliers is obviously more troubling than losing a filing clerk you hired a month ago

4. Identify the Real Causes
First, you need to understand the current state of mind of your workforce. Start by identifying why people are staying and what you are doing that creates that desire to remain. Then find out what troubles people and would lessen their commitment to your organization. Focus groups and employee surveys are effective ways to obtain real time employee feedback; to identify the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ drivers of employee satisfaction; and to develop realistic solutions.

Then, examine the data for the key reasons people stay and leave. Do further research on selected individuals or employee segments. The person who left because their spouse got a fantastic job in a different city may not be worth further exploration. But the outstanding performer who left for ‘better opportunities’ or ‘personal reasons’ may be worth a follow-up call, even a year or so after.

How It Works:
In one company, a detailed analysis revealed that 30% of its IT and 40% of its MBA new hires were leaving in less than 36 months. It then estimated both the direct and indirect costs for these segments. And it came out to a whopping $1.5 million dollars.

Focus groups were conducted with current and departed IT / MBA employees. Compensation and benefits were not the key turnover drivers, but rather, the day-to-day work was not challenging. These young ‘bucks’ were bored and fearful of losing their edge. In addition, supervisors lacked basic management skills and were unable to state clearly performance expectations or provide meaningful feedback. Only then could solutions be developed to deal with the real causes of the turnover.

Management Success Tip:

Employee retention is an extraordinarily complex issue. There is no one magic bullet. What I have consistently found is: That it’s NOT the money. When someone leaves for ‘better opportunities’, what has happened is that certain dissatisfactions – like the ones above – caused the person to put out feelers, or to become curious about recruiter calls, or to start surfing the job boards.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach

Breathing aside, everything in our lives is a choice*. I can already hear the clamor of dissenting opinions. Read on and then we can debate.

* (Fair enough… there are obviously other automatically-regulated functions of the body that sustain life and fall into the same category as breathing, but hang with me on the concept, not the technicality).

Several years ago, one of my favorite industry thought-leaders planted this simple, yet significant, idea with me…. Every single action we take each day is a choice, and if we think it isn’t, than we are choosing think smaller, act smaller, and be smaller than we actually are.

Whether we realize it or not, many of us resist the power of choice because, with choice comes owning the responsibility of consequences. It’s a lot easier to throw up your hands and tell your spouse that you have to fly to New York tomorrow because a client demanded a meeting. Or, to resentfully give up another one of your daily work-outs because you have to go to a networking event.

But, the truth is, you are choosing to fly to New York tomorrow because you prefer the consequences of short-notice travel to the consequences of possibly losing a client. Or, you prefer to the potential benefits of attending the networking event to the potential benefits of honoring your boundary for self-care.

The Mindset of Choice

Choice is a mindset. Just like ‘abundance,’ ‘success,’ and ‘possibility’ are mindsets. A mindset is a set of assumptions and beliefs through which we see the world. These assumptions create a filter for information that perpetuate the belief (for example, have a scarcity mindset? You will see all of the instances where there is lack and overlook where there is abundance, thus validating your belief that there are not enough resources in the world). Mindsets can work for or against us.

The mindset of ‘choice’ is a success-perpetuating mindset. It allows us to see all the options present and make a decision based on the cost-benefit analysis of each option. The decision we land upon is the decision we’ve consciously made based on weighing the consequences or opportunities in each scenario.

The Language of Choice

The magical thing about a mindset is, just because you may not have a specific success-perpetuating mindset, doesn’t mean you can’t build it. One of the most effective ways to cultivate supportive mindsets is to change your language. Try this on for size:

No-Choice Mindset: “I have to cut this meeting short because I need to take this client call.”

Choice Mindset: “I’m going to cut this meeting short because I have a client call that I want to take.”

No-Choice Mindset: “I got roped into this Board of Directors meeting and have to go.”

Choice Mindset: “I was invited to the Board of Directors meeting and am going to take the opportunity to share my opinion.”

No-Choice Mindset: “I have to pay the mortgage.”

Choice Mindset: “I’m choosing to pay the mortgage because I prefer that to the consequences of being delinquent on my loan.”

The Practice of Choice

It may seem subtle, but the practice of cultivating a mindset of choice puts you in the greatest position of power. Freedom, expansion, and possibility come from choice. Limits, constriction, and inertia come from lack of choice.

Do you manage by walking around? What do you see? People excited about their job or people just going through the motions?

Here are 10 ways, that do not cost much if anything, to turn “it’s just a job” employees into engaged, energized employees.

1. Spend time out in the field. Ask your employees how you can help make their jobs easier. Work alongside them and even let them teach you what they do. Southwest Airlines has a mandate that every manager must spend 1/3 of his or her time in direct contact with employees and customers to create a stronger feeling of teamwork.

2. Hold a voluntary good news hour. Set aside time once a week so that .everyone can share good things that have happened in their lives and work during the last week

3. Celebrate everything you can. For example, meeting of short term goals, the end of the budget process, winning grants or new customers, extraordinary work, safety successes.

4. Surprise with spontaneous treats. Rent an ice cream cart or a popcorn machine. Take coffee and donuts to each person’s work station. How about a package of Lifesavers™ during a stressful time?

5. Praise frequently. A pat on the back, a short note of thanks, or a voice mail message from a manager can refill employees’ emotional bank accounts for weeks!

6. Hold informal “grapevine sessions” to control the flow of the rumor mill. Managers must be prepared to listen and to be completely truthful and open. Even when they can’t share specific information, they can honestly explain why and when it will be available.

7. Let people know what they do is important. Help your workers focus not on only a job description but also on how they fit into the big picture. That new sense of purpose will boost their self-esteem and motivation.

8. Don’t let respect slip under the radar screen. If you treat your employees with respect you will earn their respect. For example, if you pay attention to and take care of your front-line people, they will in turn pay attention to and take care of the customer. Start with daily greetings. Remember their birthdays or other important dates. Take an interest in their interests. Say thank you for a job well done.

9. Take them serious. There’s incredible brainpower all around you, so why not put it to work? You hired your employees because you thought they could make a valuable contribution. Ask for their suggestions to problems. Include them in decisions that affect their work. Give them enough authority that goes with their responsibility.

10. Work for your people. Listen and act quickly on their questions. Clear the way so they can do their jobs well. Once people see their leader as acting for them, or on their behalf, they develop a personal loyalty that energizes their performance.

Supervision Success Tip:

If someone asked your staff or frontline workers a few general questions about the company or your department, would they describe it in terms like ‘they’ and ‘them,’ or in terms like ‘we’ or ‘us’? What can you do, in your position, to move your people to feel engaged and part of your team? Also see Motivate Your Best People and The Enthusiastic Employee.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach

Does your hiring process consist of proven practices or just a hodgepodge of activities that get into gear when someone says, “I need more people” or “Sally has left and we need someone to take her place NOW?”

Smart hiring is more than posting requisitions, screening, interviewing and checking references. It is a series of specific procedures that can bring in top candidates or create poor hires. Here are six ways to enhance the entire recruitment process.

1. Select the right sourcing method.
While the typical sourcing channels include in-house recruiters, employee referral programs, executive search firms, advertising, temporary staffing agencies, campus recruiting and, of course, the internet, not all will be appropriate for filling every position. Are you trying to hire dozens of hourly wage jobs or a senior executive? Each will require different hiring methods. One size does not fit all.

2. Map, flow-chart or diagram what you do.
First uncover delays and glitches that waste time, interfere with getting the job done right the first time and drive good job seekers away. Then identify areas that can be improved by eliminating, simplifying or combining tasks or that can be streamlined electronically for efficiency.

3. Develop realistic job profiles.
Studies have shown that 25 percent of companies don’t take the crucial step of defining what they’re looking for before they begin the hiring process. If competencies (skills, motivations, and behaviors) are not first identified, you will waste precious interview time asking the wrong questions. Because jobs change over time, review the profiles periodically to verify they are still valid.

4. Create partnerships between human resources and hiring managers.
Remember that both are on the same team. Both are trying to attract and select the best people. Truly understanding the job to be filled requires good communication and cooperation. Jointly develop the job requirements, decide on the screening factors, plan the interviews, assign follow-up responsibilities, and establish selection criteria to make quality decisions.

5. Develop good metrics to make better use of your resources.
Are you getting the right people from your sourcing methods? Are you spending your recruitment budget wisely? To find out you need to evaluate the different sources based on the suitability of the candidates each source provides. Suitability can be measured by the percent of total applicants found to be qualified, the number of qualified applicants relative to the number of available positions, or the turnover rate of new hires overall.

6. Find out what’s working and what’s not.
Use ‘mystery candidates’ to experience your entire recruitment process and provide feedback. Do a survey of all new hires during orientation and ask them for their moments of impression. Then, reinforce the positive factors and eliminate the negative ones. Finally, use your exit interviews to identify additional improvement areas.

Management Success Tip:

The effectiveness of the recruitment process impacts the effectiveness of the organization. A new hire that does not fit the position will be difficult to develop, will perform poorly and more likely leave resulting in need to repeat the process. Only when recruitment is approached as a specific process with definable steps and measurable results can it be managed to ensure the hiring of quality people. Also see The Top 5 Hiring Mistakes and Smart Hiring: Selecting Top Talent.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach

If I was a fly on the wall what would I hear your employees say? Would it something like this? “They won’t allow me to make even the simplest decisions.” “The red tape here makes it very difficult to do my job.” “Management has to sign off on everything; they don’t trust me.”

A big time waster for managers is micro-managing – paying extreme attention to small details and not giving people the authority to do their job.

Why does it happen?

If it is such a time waster, why do so many managers get hooked into micro-managing? Here are some reasons.

• Top down mirroring. The CEO or President micro-manages his or her direct staff. The staff then unconsciously adopts the same management style with their direct reports. The practice spreads, or ‘mirrors’ itself, and becomes part of the culture.
• Fear. In today’s difficult economy, managers live in perpetual fear that their department better produce or else. This fear drives them to micro-manage, rather than trust their employees to make the appropriate decisions.
• A wrong belief. Many managers think success is based on amassing as much power as possible. They therefore do not allow their employees to make decisions by themselves because that would be giving up their own power. However, the more management allows employees to make decisions, the more powerful the entire organization will be.

What Can be Done?

Here are four strategies to influence managers to focus their time, energy and resources on the important tasks of managing – getting work down by and through others.

1. Start at the top. Hire an executive coach to help the CEO learn to trust and delegate to subordinates. Managers will then likely follow suit with their own direct reports.
2. Ask employees. Use focus groups and individual interviews to learn from employees what decision-making authority they feel they need to do their jobs well. Then communicate this information to their supervisors.
3. Put yourself in their shoes. It is very easy for managers to lose perspective about what decisions their employees really need to make by themselves. Managers should ask themselves, what decisions would I need to make if I were doing that job?
4. Train managers. Delegating and trusting employees are all skills that can be taught. During the training, those few managers that ARE doing a good job of delegating should be asked to share their best practices and successes with others.

Supervision Success Tip:

Many managers often know in their heart of hearts that they are micro managing. Yet they find it difficult to change old habits. Great managers are consummate learners and are willing to take risks and try new approaches.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Rather, the team or project leader functions like a coach who recognizes special talents in people and, at the same time, gets them to work together toward a common goal. The following steps will help you select a cohesive team and set it in the right direction.

1. Evaluate team candidates.
You may be called upon to assemble a team of players from different or competing organizations to take on a special assignment. Or, you have to pick from your own staff those who should work together on a particular project. Too often, leaders merely assess a project’s demands and select people on technical qualifications. But that approach can fail if the personalities and specific talents don’t mesh. Teams succeed when leaders give as much thought to team relationships as to the tasks that need to be performed.

Team members should complement each other’s talents. For example, one worker may find it easy to come up with idea, but may find it difficult to analyze problems. Another worker may have analytical skills but may not be creative. These two would play to each other’s strengths. Also recognize that some people can take a project and run it with little guidance. Others need every detail spelled out. Make sure you have a mixture of necessary skill sets to get the job done.

2. Get the team off to a good start.
To help members quickly move from the ‘me’ to the ‘we’ stage of effective teamwork, clarify the following:

• The big picture and goals. Explain the team’s mission or purpose and how it fits in with the company’s or department’s goals. Therefore members will become more motivated and empowered to get involved.
• The talent on the team. Discuss the value of each member – the skills and expertise they bring to the team. You may also want to let each person tell about their experiences. This starts to build trust and teamwork.
• The “who does what when.” When a team is formed, people often are confused about their particular roles and responsibilities. Get the team immediately involved in establishing specific short-term objectives as well as determining the steps required to accomplish these objectives.

3. Maintain involvement and productivity.
At this stage, members begin to understand what roles they need to play in order to reach the team’s objectives. The next step is to determine a set of ground rules of how they will operate together. Team members need to define effective team behaviors. For example, they need to discuss how they will handle conflict, how they will make decisions, how they will address the normal challenges of people working together.

4. Look out for these danger signs.
You have a problem if members: Don’t take responsibility for their actions; break into subgroups instead of sharing work; expect others to solve their problems; miss deadlines and lose interest in their work. If problems arise among team members, act quickly.

Have regular scheduled “let’s see how we’re doing” meetings to address issues, conflicts and uncertainties. Also provide on-going skills training in group problem-solving, decision making and conflict resolution.

Management Success Tip:

Don’t expect teams to develop in the dark or by accident. Create an environment for teamwork. Make sure you have provided the light that will spark member’s involvement, participation, and productivity.Remember to have fun together. that allows people to work better together.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Teams, teams, teams. Whether you love-em or loathe-em, you’ll have to learn to live, not only with them, but within them. You leadership will depend on it.

Here are five strategies for building and nurturing a winning team on the football field and in the workplace.

1. Manage by adultery.
It’s a term coined by Chaparrel Steel to describe its management philosophy of treating workers like adults instead of children. People are hired, not to do mindless jobs, but to put their brains to work. Management’s job is to give the team or work group a mission, see that they get the necessary resources and provide feedback and encouragement. Then turn them loose to be creative problem solvers.

2. Hire people who care.
When evaluating prospective employees, a major airline brings all job candidates together in a room and asks each person to make a presentation. Everybody thinks that the company officials are evaluating the person making the presentation. But in reality, the company is evaluating the candidates in the audience to see who are attentive and supportive as others are presenting. It is a strong signal that these people have the ability to care about others and are potential candidates to hire.

3. Make sure there is a scoreboard.
One critical difference between a group and a team is that a team knows what constitutes a win. Players in sports know instantly where their team stands and whether they are winning or losing. This information then affects how they are going to play the rest of the game. But in most businesses, employees may work for weeks and months and not know if they are winning, losing, or just hanging in there. Like sports teams, business teams should also have scoreboards. Then team members would have some idea how close they are to a win and what they need to do to make it happen.

4. Don’t take on your team’s monkeys or problems.
If the leader keeps running in and lifting the weights for his team, they are never going to build any of their own muscle. The trap in becoming a “hero leader” is that every time you pull a rabbit out of a hat, you generate more dependency from your team. Important: Astute leaders welcome their employees to discuss problems and solutions, but never let them leave their problems with the leader.

5. Set up your team to win, not lose.
If your team is faced with multiple tasks or problems, don’t always tackle the worst ones first. Conventional wisdom says prioritize your tasks and then begin tackling your most important problems, solve them and then move on to smaller ones. This approach ignores the fact that the biggest problem is usually the hardest to tackle. Therefore, if not prepared mentally, team members are more likely to fail, become demoralized and give up. This is not permission for all of us procrastinators to put aside our tough assignment. Rather, it allows us to gain the confidence to first experience success on a smaller level before going for “the big one.”

Management Success Tip:

Paul “Bear” Bryant, the legendary football coach at the University of Alabama, said winning team members need to know the following: “Tell me what you expect of me -Give me an opportunity to perform- Let me know how I’m doing -Give me guidance where I need it -Reward me according to my contributions.”

I couldn’t have said it better than Bear Bryant. Do you have winning teams?

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Do you every feel you’re spinning your wheels? Is there so much to do that when one project gets done there’s at least 10 more waiting for your attention?

In coaching supervisors and managers on work productivity, I advocate a doing a priority audit. That means taking time to assess a project, which can be as small that takes an hour or two or as big as something that takes a few weeks or months, before diving in. Either way, it’s important to ask the following questions to make sure you’re doing work that matters.

1. Why are I or we doing this?
Ever find yourself working on something but you don’t know why? Someone just told you to do this or that? It’s pretty common I think. It’s important to ask yourself (and others): What is this for? Who benefits? How does this help achieve our team, department,or organization goals? Knowing the purpose, the rationale or the “why” will help you be better focused.

2. What problem am I solving?
What’s the real problem? What’s happening that is not suppose to happen or what’s not happening that is suppose to happen? Who owns the problem – is it me, my team, my department or someone else? Sometimes you’ll find that you’re working on on what someone else thinks is crucial but is it really? That’s when it’s time to stop and reevaluate what you’re doing.

3. Is this actually useful?
Are we making something useful or are we just making something? It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness. Sometimes it’s fine to play a bit and build something that’s cool, but it’s worth asking yourself if it’s useful too. Cool wears off, useful never does.

4. Are we adding value?
Adding something is easy, adding value is harder. Is what I’m working on actually making the product or service more valuable for our customers? Can they get more out of it than they did before? There’s a fine line between adding value and just adding more features that few people want.

5. Is there an easier way?
There are lots of ways to do things, but for simplicity’s sake let’s say there are two primary ways: The easier way and the harder way. The easier way takes 1 unit of time. The harder way takes 10 units of time. Whenever you’re working on the harder way you should ask yourself is there an easier way? You’ll often find that the easier way is more than good enough for now.

Supervision Success Tip:

This is the big question: Is it really worth it? This one should come up all the time. Is what we’re doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling 6 people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight or could we just finish it up tomorrow? Is it worth getting all stressed out over a press release from a competitor?

Now it’s your turn to fill in the blank. Is it really worth__________________________?

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Do you have exceptional performers on your team? If you do, it can be a wonderful gift to have people who you can count on to get the right results; who thins about what else needs to be done without being told; who are always asking to do more.

You Don’t Want to Lose Them!

One cost-effective retention strategy is to stretch and challenge them. It’s not necessary to change someone’s job to build capabilities. The Center for Creative Leadership has generated developmental challenges that add professional and leadership opportunities to a person’s present job. These challenges will either:

• Require working with new people or high variety or time pressures.
• Call for influencing people with no or limited direct authority or control.
• Demand a “take charge” attitude that can lead to obvious success or failure.
• Involve building a team, starting something from scratch or solving a problem.

Three Types of Opportunities
Pick and choose the ones that “fit” your people, your company and your budget.

A. Small projects and start–ups:
They offer learning on the run, dealing with time pressures and dealing with groups not worked with before.

1. Be part of a task force on a pressing business problem
2. Handle a negotiation with a customer
3. Integrate systems across units
4. Supervise product, program, equipment or systems purchase
5. Go to college campus as a recruiter
6. Present a proposal to top management
7. Work short periods in other units
8. Serve on a new project / product review committee
9. Plan an off-site meeting, conference, etc.
10. Manage the visit of a VIP
11. Go off-site to troubleshoot problems
12. Be part of the company’s trade show booth team
13. Do a project with another function

B. Small scope jumps and fix-its:
They offer team building, taking responsibility, developing subordinates and dealing with time pressures.

14. Manage ad hoc group of inexperienced people
15. Supervise cost-cutting
16. Design new, simpler effectiveness measures
17. Assign to work on something they hate to do
18. Manage ad hoc group of former peers
19. Assign a project with a tight deadline

C. Small strategic assignments:
They offer developing influence skills and coping with uncertain situations with little control and few rules.

20. Spend a week with customers; write a report
21. Do postmortem on a failed project
22. Evaluate the impact of training
23. Write a speech for someone higher in the organization
24. Write a proposal for a new system, product, etc.
25. Interview outsiders on their view of the organization

Management Success Tip:

A paycheck is what helps people get to sleep at night, not what gets them going in the morning. It motivates employees to an extend. But for your stars they need more,. Remember help them to grow or out they go! Also see How Not to Motivate Your Best and Brightest

Which two or three “fit” your people, your company and your budget? Do you have others to add? Reply below.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Creating connection at the team level requires individuals to consciously connect first to themselves. The leadership literature confirms that emotional intelligence, presence, and influence all require self-awareness – as does connection.

Connection starts with your inner dialogue

We all have an inner dialogue that goes on in our mind, commenting on our experiences in the world moment-by-moment, situation-by-situation, person-by-person. It is so natural, so much a part of our “self,” that we rarely even hear the content or notice the impact it has on our actions. Tim Galloway calls it “Self 1”, Freud might say it is a product of the superego, and neuroscientists are beginning to believe it is an aspect of our consciousness. Regardless, mastering our inner narrative can change how we interact with the world and enables connection at a deeper level.

Full disclosure, this is not easy! I first became aware of the inner dialogue in 1985 listening to my mother after she had a mild stroke. She lost much of her ability to edit her inner dialogue, so we heard it as it happened. Wow, who knew? But then, wasn’t I also having a similar, but different, dialogue with myself? Equally enlightening was to observe how her inner dialogue created a self-fulfilling relationship with the world.

A Journey of a Million Miles

Tuning into your inner dialogue is a big step toward self-awareness. How critical, judgmental, blaming, or positive, praising, and playful is it? Connection with others requires that we be positive and see them as worthy of a deeper interaction. Since most of us operate as part of a team let’s start with how we can connect on that level.

Our inner narrative takes in all that we perceive during our interpersonal interactions – remember that includes the 90% non-verbal communication that is registering somewhere and showing up in our inner dialogue. “That was really stupid” can be directed toward another or ourselves. Either way it damages our ability to connect and react or interact positively. If this happens to you, “Mind the Gap!”

Biology of Business

Neurologically there is a gap between our physical (body and senses) processing of the environment, our brain’s interpretation of events (which collects all the body stuff and compares it to experiences from our past), and our conscious perception of the thoughts and feelings that tell us what is going on (the meaning we attach to any particular moment). In this gap multiple, if not millions, of possibilities exist simultaneously until they collapse into one “actionable state.” Simply stated, we have a choice in how we interpret and react to each encounter, and “Mind the Gap!” helps us identify the choices we are making.

Imagine a team meeting in which numerous ideas or opinions are flying around the room. Our tendency is to quickly assess (judge) the ideas and/or speakers based on our…what? Where does this come from? The brain bases it on our past experience, the body bases it on our reaction to the non-verbal, and our mind takes in all this and comments on it. Only when we “Mind the Gap!” can we create an internal dialogue that chooses to connect.

Let’s turn this meeting into one that “contextually welcomes connection.” Start the meeting with a check-in. For example, ask a question: Tell us one thing about your life that we would never guess? Or, What one or two words describe how you feel this moment? This creates the container for the meeting by: allowing everyone to leave what they were doing and come fully into this new space, reconnect with themselves (become embodied) before they have to connect with others, and express to the group who they are and how they are at this moment (creating the possibility for correct interpretation of their comments and actions, especially the non-verbal ones). The check-in, listening to others and determining my own, begins the connecting process. We now have the opportunity to interpret others correctly and respond with compassion even when we disagree.

With the check-in over, leaders (both formal and informal) have the responsibility for setting the pace of the meeting. Is it slow enough that connection can be maintained? Or, has it turned into a rapid fire, conversational shoot-out? Phrases, such as: “How interesting, tell us more”, “I wonder…” and “Let’s explore that further before we move on” provide the team with a chance to “Mind the Gap!” – keeping the conversation non-judgmental and people connected.

Be clear about where you are in the conversation. Is this a dialogue that is slow, reflective, and able to generate innovative ideas? Is it dialectic, where thesis and antithesis battle each other to create a better idea (synthesis), which must be hard on the problem but soft on the people? Or a discussion – action orientated, decision making, and assigning tasks and responsibilities. When team members are having different conversations at the same time without being aware of it, connection is impossible.

Close the meeting with a check-out. How is everyone feeling, what did they take away, what insight did they have? This confirms the connection that was established and prepares the team for an even deeper connection the next time they meet or as they work together between meetings.