Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The essence of effective feedback
Let's define effective feedback as information about a message that helps that the message produce the desired response.
People find it easiest to follow orders that tell them exactly what to do. Telling them what not to do leaves them with the burden of what to do. It's a little harder for you to think what they should do instead of what they should not, but it's dramatically more productive. Try it out: next time you are informing someone of what they you don't want them to do, give them one or more examples of what you would like to see instead. Notice that little extra work you need to do and the result of you what you say. Sometimes the reason that the recipient of the feedback has not done this is that it's a lot harder for them to think of alternatives that for you to. As you give successively more focussed feedback and they successively get closer to the desired response, it become easier for them to do so.
The response that a message produces can be partially correct. Great feedback pins down succinctly what worked so that it will continue to work next time. It also highlights what can be done in addition to get a response closer to that which is desired. These two elements can be combined a variety of ways:
Note: what is important here is for the team to get fluent in using one of other of these techniques. In the early stages, some will 'get it' and others still be explaining how badly their team members screwed up. In later stages, sincerity becomes steadily more important: it becomes facile for some to simply say "You did great but this is how you can do better". The can open the door to a good deal of (justified) sarcasm. Instead, sincerity necessitates that team members really think through why they value the input from the rest of the team. A little goes a long way and leads to a virtuous circle: everyone leaning on everyone else.
People find it easiest to follow orders that tell them exactly what to do. Telling them what not to do leaves them with the burden of what to do. It's a little harder for you to think what they should do instead of what they should not, but it's dramatically more productive. Try it out: next time you are informing someone of what they you don't want them to do, give them one or more examples of what you would like to see instead. Notice that little extra work you need to do and the result of you what you say. Sometimes the reason that the recipient of the feedback has not done this is that it's a lot harder for them to think of alternatives that for you to. As you give successively more focussed feedback and they successively get closer to the desired response, it become easier for them to do so.
The response that a message produces can be partially correct. Great feedback pins down succinctly what worked so that it will continue to work next time. It also highlights what can be done in addition to get a response closer to that which is desired. These two elements can be combined a variety of ways:
- Plus /delta: the plus says what works and the delta says what to do differently
- 10/10: the first number says what works and how to get a 10 says what do differently
- Keep / try: the keep says what to keep and the try says to do differently
Note: what is important here is for the team to get fluent in using one of other of these techniques. In the early stages, some will 'get it' and others still be explaining how badly their team members screwed up. In later stages, sincerity becomes steadily more important: it becomes facile for some to simply say "You did great but this is how you can do better". The can open the door to a good deal of (justified) sarcasm. Instead, sincerity necessitates that team members really think through why they value the input from the rest of the team. A little goes a long way and leads to a virtuous circle: everyone leaning on everyone else.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Six styles of leadership
Mike Flanagan talks about some of the different challenges he sees in a European leadership role rather than the more familiar American environment in.
There is an old Harvard Business Review article by Daniel Goleman (of emotional intelligence fame) called "Leadership that gets results", which discusses six different 'styles' of leadership. He points out the research of consulting firm Hay/McBer of a random sample of 3871 executives selected from a database of more than 20,000 executives worldwide. The research found six distinct leadership styles, each coming from different components of emotional intelligence. The styles develop naturally in an IT organisation and it's useful to understand the background of each style as well as its advantages and disadvantages.
A pace-setting style means you set high standards for yourself and others, and do not suffer fools gladly. You expect most things done yesterday and the rest the week before. If people do not perform, you are happy to let them leave or you will dispose of them. This style can be useful for short periods of time to deliver results quickly, or with a team of high-performers. However, you are often plagued by misunderstood expectations and when your team start to fail to deliver the results you expect, you will step in to 'help' out. They see this as micro-management. Some in the team are addicted to the high-stress life you lead them into, but most eventually suffer burn-out.
Many programmers and testers learn this leadership style with themselves and then apply it to their teams when they first start managing groups. Initial results can be outstanding as the team steps up and delivers their best for what they view as the technical guru of the team. However, over time results deteriorate and the new-born manager, not used to gathering feedback, assumes that everything is still working fine, or that a few 'stragglers' are holding them down. Some never learn another style and they find their teams always frayed at the edges with attrition and burn-out a typical result.
A pace-setting leader sometimes moves on to the yet more aggressive coercive style. It was the coercive leader who said "Teamwork is ... people doing what I tell 'em!" Tiny differences in their implementation of your exacting plans are not permitted -- they obviously need a tighter grip. As with the pace-setting style, 'my way or the highway' is the default response, but here rather than letting your team get to delivering results -- the ones you expect or otherwise -- you specify how they should get these results and if they don't follow your approach, they're off the team. For the team, this can be a terrifying style, creating widespread dissatisfaction and demotivation, especially in knowledge workers who often feel that they also know best. On the positive side, in a crisis situation, this style can save companies. When things go bad, people like to hear the truth and be told what to do about it.
The authoritative style focuses on communicating a vision and then giving feedback (both plus and delta) on how your team is doing in implementing the vision. Each smaller task and result is pinned to fit into the coherent whole. Although slower than the pacesetting or coercive styles, this style has long term positive effects on the team, building up their self-esteem and helping them on to progressively more difficult results. It also works in many more situations. In a crisis situation, or with a group of very experienced knowledge workers, the authoritative leader can sound pompous or just plain full-of-it.
As a democratic leader, you listen carefully to your team and their ideas about the direction you should all be travelling in. Investing time to get their full buy-in, you often win respect and loyalty. Because you are happier to show vulnerability and because you give as much feedback as you feel the team needs, your group is happier taking on more responsibility. They become flexible as their own understanding and ownership of the group's goals grows. It is ideal when the leader knows what peak he wishes to reach but not the best way there. The flip-side of this style can be endless meetings about meetings. Many discussions never end and excessive time is spent on talking over and over around the same options.
The affiliative leader goes further than the democratic leader by not just getting buy-in before executing tasks but feels his people's happiness is more important than the accomplishment of the tasks and goals. He only gives encouraging feedback and tries to build a happy team. The other side of the affiliative leader is that it's possible for very little to get done and non-performers to go unnoticed. The affiliative leader can be very charismatic and loved his team who will go beyond the call of duty to defend and to help him.
The final leadership style is the coaching style. This involves giving structured feedback to your team and plenty of it. In a team that it motivated to improve it can do wonders -- not only improving the performance of the tasks but also of the skills of the team members. Members of the team take more ownership and responsibility, become more aware of their own strengths and how to develop them and of their own weaknesses and how to use this knowledge too. However, in a crisis or turnaround situation, even the coaching style can prove too supportive and not directive enough.
There are a couple of points of view on these different styles. The first is that something deep inside pushes us to follow one or the other, something deep and immutable. I view this differently: the point of learning about the styles is to understand your behaviour and that of other leaders better and to become more aware of at what time what type of behaviour is most productive. Some go yet further and say that you may choose whatever style you need depending on the situation.
"Squeaky wheels get greased". You'll find generally that it's easy to lead people who think in a similar way and make similar choices to yourself. As people's style of thinking changes from your way, the awareness of a different styles becomes more important.
In one of my old teams, I ran a weekly meeting on 'Technology Leadership'. This dealt with aspects of technical architecture, business analysis, line and project management and leadership. One week we focussed on the six leadership styles. The team got an introduction to the different styles and then we set to work mapping which of our management team as well as which of the different managers and leaders in the technology group had which style.
Clarifying the leadership style often also brought into perspective what we admired about these leaders and what detracted from their -- and our -- success. For instance, the managing director of the time was seen as a visionary by those who shared his values but as coercive by most others. He was essential for leading the company through the troubled waters we were in but he also rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. As a result, despite some good initial results, attrition was becoming a problem as well as widespread de-motivation. This is classic crisis manager behaviour: when there is no crisis, he will manage to create one. Those who identified with his style of thinking saw him as a visionary.
I finished up by writing the six styles on the board and the group all came over to add a mark by the styles that they felt added most value. Everyone got three 'votes'. Concluding the session we discussed what we could change in our day-to-day lives to 'lead by example' and bring more of these styles into the company.
Our bonus question for the attentive of you at the front of the class: what leadership style was I using in this workshop?
There is an old Harvard Business Review article by Daniel Goleman (of emotional intelligence fame) called "Leadership that gets results", which discusses six different 'styles' of leadership. He points out the research of consulting firm Hay/McBer of a random sample of 3871 executives selected from a database of more than 20,000 executives worldwide. The research found six distinct leadership styles, each coming from different components of emotional intelligence. The styles develop naturally in an IT organisation and it's useful to understand the background of each style as well as its advantages and disadvantages.
A pace-setting style means you set high standards for yourself and others, and do not suffer fools gladly. You expect most things done yesterday and the rest the week before. If people do not perform, you are happy to let them leave or you will dispose of them. This style can be useful for short periods of time to deliver results quickly, or with a team of high-performers. However, you are often plagued by misunderstood expectations and when your team start to fail to deliver the results you expect, you will step in to 'help' out. They see this as micro-management. Some in the team are addicted to the high-stress life you lead them into, but most eventually suffer burn-out.
Many programmers and testers learn this leadership style with themselves and then apply it to their teams when they first start managing groups. Initial results can be outstanding as the team steps up and delivers their best for what they view as the technical guru of the team. However, over time results deteriorate and the new-born manager, not used to gathering feedback, assumes that everything is still working fine, or that a few 'stragglers' are holding them down. Some never learn another style and they find their teams always frayed at the edges with attrition and burn-out a typical result.
A pace-setting leader sometimes moves on to the yet more aggressive coercive style. It was the coercive leader who said "Teamwork is ... people doing what I tell 'em!" Tiny differences in their implementation of your exacting plans are not permitted -- they obviously need a tighter grip. As with the pace-setting style, 'my way or the highway' is the default response, but here rather than letting your team get to delivering results -- the ones you expect or otherwise -- you specify how they should get these results and if they don't follow your approach, they're off the team. For the team, this can be a terrifying style, creating widespread dissatisfaction and demotivation, especially in knowledge workers who often feel that they also know best. On the positive side, in a crisis situation, this style can save companies. When things go bad, people like to hear the truth and be told what to do about it.
The authoritative style focuses on communicating a vision and then giving feedback (both plus and delta) on how your team is doing in implementing the vision. Each smaller task and result is pinned to fit into the coherent whole. Although slower than the pacesetting or coercive styles, this style has long term positive effects on the team, building up their self-esteem and helping them on to progressively more difficult results. It also works in many more situations. In a crisis situation, or with a group of very experienced knowledge workers, the authoritative leader can sound pompous or just plain full-of-it.
As a democratic leader, you listen carefully to your team and their ideas about the direction you should all be travelling in. Investing time to get their full buy-in, you often win respect and loyalty. Because you are happier to show vulnerability and because you give as much feedback as you feel the team needs, your group is happier taking on more responsibility. They become flexible as their own understanding and ownership of the group's goals grows. It is ideal when the leader knows what peak he wishes to reach but not the best way there. The flip-side of this style can be endless meetings about meetings. Many discussions never end and excessive time is spent on talking over and over around the same options.
The affiliative leader goes further than the democratic leader by not just getting buy-in before executing tasks but feels his people's happiness is more important than the accomplishment of the tasks and goals. He only gives encouraging feedback and tries to build a happy team. The other side of the affiliative leader is that it's possible for very little to get done and non-performers to go unnoticed. The affiliative leader can be very charismatic and loved his team who will go beyond the call of duty to defend and to help him.
The final leadership style is the coaching style. This involves giving structured feedback to your team and plenty of it. In a team that it motivated to improve it can do wonders -- not only improving the performance of the tasks but also of the skills of the team members. Members of the team take more ownership and responsibility, become more aware of their own strengths and how to develop them and of their own weaknesses and how to use this knowledge too. However, in a crisis or turnaround situation, even the coaching style can prove too supportive and not directive enough.
There are a couple of points of view on these different styles. The first is that something deep inside pushes us to follow one or the other, something deep and immutable. I view this differently: the point of learning about the styles is to understand your behaviour and that of other leaders better and to become more aware of at what time what type of behaviour is most productive. Some go yet further and say that you may choose whatever style you need depending on the situation.
"Squeaky wheels get greased". You'll find generally that it's easy to lead people who think in a similar way and make similar choices to yourself. As people's style of thinking changes from your way, the awareness of a different styles becomes more important.
In one of my old teams, I ran a weekly meeting on 'Technology Leadership'. This dealt with aspects of technical architecture, business analysis, line and project management and leadership. One week we focussed on the six leadership styles. The team got an introduction to the different styles and then we set to work mapping which of our management team as well as which of the different managers and leaders in the technology group had which style.
Clarifying the leadership style often also brought into perspective what we admired about these leaders and what detracted from their -- and our -- success. For instance, the managing director of the time was seen as a visionary by those who shared his values but as coercive by most others. He was essential for leading the company through the troubled waters we were in but he also rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. As a result, despite some good initial results, attrition was becoming a problem as well as widespread de-motivation. This is classic crisis manager behaviour: when there is no crisis, he will manage to create one. Those who identified with his style of thinking saw him as a visionary.
I finished up by writing the six styles on the board and the group all came over to add a mark by the styles that they felt added most value. Everyone got three 'votes'. Concluding the session we discussed what we could change in our day-to-day lives to 'lead by example' and bring more of these styles into the company.
Our bonus question for the attentive of you at the front of the class: what leadership style was I using in this workshop?
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
User-centric mail
There is an principle of communication stating that the meaning of a communication is the response you get. Applying this simple principle to management reveals a myriad of useful practices.
When writing a mail, think carefully of who the audience of that mail is. Use this to define your approach. Is the audience more interested in headlines or details, in the story or the punchline? Most analysts, programmers and architects enjoy minutae. Most managers and executives require predominately headlines. Put what is most important at the top of your mail and what is least, at the bottom.
This user-centric approach to writing mail came from a lifetime of empirical study: reading many mails, and my teams will testify, writing many too. I act more quickly on pithy posts and react significantly more slowly to massive missives. In turn, I too learned that quick mails got quick results. I notice in myself and others that sometimes this necessitates writing a long mail first or planning out the message on paper in order to generate all the necessary arguments. Then a merciless pruning is necessary to the cut to the quick.
Some team members have not yet learnt to get the bare essentials of their arguments without writing everything down first. The only guidance they need is the indefatigable cardboard cut-out: imagine their audience as a great big cardboard cut-out model, standing behind them as they talk through the mail. How would they react? How could they change their mail to get a better reaction.
When writing a mail, think carefully of who the audience of that mail is. Use this to define your approach. Is the audience more interested in headlines or details, in the story or the punchline? Most analysts, programmers and architects enjoy minutae. Most managers and executives require predominately headlines. Put what is most important at the top of your mail and what is least, at the bottom.
This user-centric approach to writing mail came from a lifetime of empirical study: reading many mails, and my teams will testify, writing many too. I act more quickly on pithy posts and react significantly more slowly to massive missives. In turn, I too learned that quick mails got quick results. I notice in myself and others that sometimes this necessitates writing a long mail first or planning out the message on paper in order to generate all the necessary arguments. Then a merciless pruning is necessary to the cut to the quick.
Some team members have not yet learnt to get the bare essentials of their arguments without writing everything down first. The only guidance they need is the indefatigable cardboard cut-out: imagine their audience as a great big cardboard cut-out model, standing behind them as they talk through the mail. How would they react? How could they change their mail to get a better reaction.
