How (Un)ethical Are You as a Manager?

Most managers think they are ethical. But the truth is most of us are not. 

We would like to think we are objective:
> We obviously choose the best candidate for the organization’s benefit based on fair assessment and drawing rational conclusions.
> We only assign “high potential” status to those who are certainly high potential – and use historical data to drive decisions.
> We proactively offer mentorship to all team members, and are careful to be fair with our time… 

But the truth is, we harbor far too many unconscious (and unethical) biases that not only cause faulty decision-making but undermine our work as managers. 

Biases are not harmless, they are harmful. Our biases prevent us from recognizing high-performing workers, contribute to turnover, decrease the amount of trust within a team, and stop us from collaborating effectively. And these effects all contribute to lower performance.

You may now be thinking, “Hmm, when am I unethical as a manager?” (that is my hope, anyway!). Self-reflection is the first step in re-training our brains, and altering our unconscious bias. The great news is you are not powerless. In fact you can take deliberate actions to counteract the forceful pull of unconscious bias. 

• Regularly audit your decisions (this is also known as controlled processing). Why are you making the decisions you are? Why do your candidate pools look the way they do? Who gets the most talk time on the team? Who receives the most stretch projects? 

• Expand beyond your comfort zone. Actively look for environments that differ from your own and that challenge your biases. Attend an array of ERG events for exposure, or spend time in varying departments to observe the different mores within a workgroup that is not your own.

• Actively seek to change policy. Equity is not a trend, but it has emerged in the spotlight within corporate America. How can you influence hiring practices at your company? How do you ensure onboarding is equitable for your team and beyond?  

In my Fostering Inclusion in the Workplace workshop, we dive into the specifics of just how to create accountabilities to ensure behavioral change. Contact me to learn more about how this workshop can help you and your team, and in the meantime, I challenge you to practice the above steps.

The Layoff Resurgence and How to Support Your Team

Amidst broad-stroke layoffs, economic uncertainty, and organizational restructuring, it’s no wonder I am hearing a trend from clients: “I’m having a hard time focusing my team.” 

Layoffs cause insecurity and insecurity can cause a stable team to become weak; as team members feel threatened or in competition with others, trust and cohesion splinter.

As the work stress remains constant, so too does the workload. It’s not an easy pairing. What’s more, focus is already an issue: In one study it was discovered that 60.6% of employees rarely do one to two hours of deep focused work each day without distraction. With stimulation all around, the ability to focus is already a tall order. When stressors run high, distraction only increases. So, how do you realign, refocus, and reenergize your team during challenging times?

• Never underestimate the power of acknowledgment. Whether a team member expresses a favorable attitude, or a member of your workgroup completed a task efficiently, take the time to acknowledge them. (Try this today!) 

• Communicate. This seems like a no-brainer, but the elephant in the room is often overlooked. While you may not have all the answers and you will not be able to fix the problem in some cases, you can surely create a space that allows for debriefing after a challenging change has been made.

• Enable purposeful productivity by being specific. In your weekly 1:1s understand what is consuming their time. Are they getting the work done that they need to be doing? If not, you will need to offer support with prioritizing to-do lists and discuss time management (think calendar blocks for focused work). Find the challenges and aim to solve them.

As the variables continuously come our way, managers must continuously adapt and flex the muscles of a leader.

Motivate Your Team Members (a "How To")

When you think of your team members, do you think of them as eager to work more hours and initiate more responsibilities? Across the board, it seems to be a fair shake out: Some individuals are intrinsically motivated, and others pose a distinct challenge to their manager, resisting to get the bare minimum accomplished. The good news? There are solutions to help motivate your team members.

For many business owners and team leads alike, motivation is believed to stem from “what you get.” The extrinsic incentives — a term linked to Frederick Herzberg’s research on motivation. But here’s the thing about the research, it tells us that motivation does not come from those external incentives such as office perks. It’s not the company game room, the nap pods, the work-funded drinking extravaganzas, or even the promotions (which are all starting to return in the normal course). Instead, these are short-term fixes and there’s an expiration date associated with each. The dangling carrot of promotion is enough to keep someone motivated to reach that achievement, and yet it’s shown that as soon as the promotion is achieved, the motivation doesn’t last. Herzberg very pointedly directs organizations that they have limited power in motivating employees. (Um, yikes?)

Not to worry, the point in exposing the minimal purpose of extrinsic motivation is to demonstrate the necessity of the intrinsic rewards that unlock the vault of motivation (what makes our motor tick). It’s about allowing each person to turn their own keys in the ignition, not constantly trying to start it for them.

Let’s break it down so you can take the most useful tidbits along for the workday (otherwise, read Herzberg’s One More Time for full research).

Create a more enriching environment (leading to motivated employees) by employing the following:

• Accountability

  • Remove your need to control and make individuals accountable for their work. Not sure if you are controlling (e.g., a micromanager)? Ask for feedback.

• Responsibility

  • Rather than giving individuals responsibilities for one part of a task, give them ownership of the entire work stream or unit. Don’t fix it for them, and surely do not take credit for a team member’s work.

• Information flow

  • We like to filter information: Remove this extra step and include your team members in discussions. When trust increases, unhelpful water cooler discourse decreases.

• Challenge

  • Allow (and encourage) your team to take on new projects and responsibilities they haven’t addressed before.

• SME

  • Subject matter experts are essential in teams. Not only does this stem from added responsibility and accountability, but it also stems from the trust that this person owns the knowledge for a certain topic. Assigning individuals specializations is useful for their careers and for the teams of which they’re a part.

In short, this is a management worldview for motivation that says, “Empower, don’t control – Educate, don’t tell.”

Not only is this comprehensive, but it’s also reasonable. Of the listed suggestions, what can you immediately change for your team?

Just in Time for the Holidays: Tips on Managing Conflict

Conflict is like change – it’s constant. With the holidays in full swing, you are bound to face conflict in the coming weeks. But how can you best address it? Continue reading…

Conflict, and the stress that comes along with it, can be a key contributor to health problems, e.g., sleep issues, excessive eating, and can even increase the likelihood of a heart attack. And, stress is often associated with the holiday season. The good news is this: You can at least effectively manage the stress that derives from conflict by understanding the following…

There are four primary types of conflict. These include Relationship Conflict, Task Conflict, Process Conflict, and Status Conflict. While we see all four types of conflict in places of work, we typically see Relationship and Process Conflict in the home, which is what we will focus on today since you’re about to see relatives and might be responsible for this year’s cooking.

Relational conflict revolves around personal issues. It’s a feeling we know too well — a clash of personality, so to speak. These relationship-related forms of conflict consist of communication cues such as avoiding eye contact, using condescending tones during discussions, or sudden outbursts of anger / a rise in voice to one another.

When we manage this form of conflict well, we will learn more about ourselves and others. With the ability to not engage in these emotionally-charged behaviors, you can actually gain insight: If someone is reactive, what type of communication may you need to use with them in the future? If you're being difficult (let's face it, we know when we are) you should think about why. There’s a concept called “regulatory fit.” This simply means that we are more likely to put effort into the things we like doing. If you do not enjoy interacting with someone, you likely do not put effort into it, and this can lead to contempt. Thus, your knowledge of this should help you soften your edges.

And then there’s Process conflict. You’ll see this one this season as well — this refers to how something gets done, how quickly, and even who gets consulted in the process... Think: “That’s not how you wrap the presents, Sally.” or “You didn’t ask my mom for her opinion on the recipe?!” (At work, this can manifest itself through a disagreement in how you should implement policies, how quickly something should be rolled out, or who should be consulted. These are all relevant to the “how.”)

The variance in how we do something can actually be enlightening. It brings about hidden solutions. On many occasions I had team members share how they completed something, or how they reached an outcome. I not only was pleased they found a new method, but they taught me something in the process. When the in-laws’ way of doing things seem somewhat abstract, keep an open mind. Not sweating over the small stuff will ease conflict and your blood pressure.