More employees have started to bring their whole selves to work. Leaders need to pause and look at the HUMAN demands impacting their people. Addressing non-work stress, the mental and emotional demands of the last two years while balancing a full-time job is important to establish trust and transparency. Incorporating these practices in your re-introduction plans will ensure a healthier work environment for all.

We’ve all felt it. After months of changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world seems to be getting back into more normal rhythms. In communities, businesses, schools and activities are opening once more. Even so, those early months of the unknown turned into nearly two years of unanticipated challenges. While everyone did their best, adapting to the changes, facing the obstacles, overcoming the challenges, everyone is tired. We are feeling the fatigue at work, at home, everywhere. Everyone is languishing, feeling the tension, facing the burnout from your clients to your team members.

The fatigue your teams are feeling can manifest in many ways. Some may be cranky, others “in a fog.” Some may seem annoyed, others frustrated. Some may feel defiant, others angry. And the list goes on, leaving leaders with lots of challenges to overcome. So, just how do we, as leaders, get our team focused, energized, and reconnected – ready to strategize, boost engagement, and enhance productivity in a healthy work environment?

As we explore the solution to team fatigue, we must take note. Even if your business is flourishing and positioned well, your team may be struggling with the loss of energy, lack of determination, and feelings of malaise. The truth is, we all possess the ability to recover and bounce back, but everyone is different, so there is no one size fits all solution. Everyone’s resilience is based on personal needs, varied histories, and unique experiences. Identifying the solution requires an examination of human needs and giving people choices. Begin the process of battling fatigue by asking your team what they need and genuinely listening to the answer. Finding a solution is bound up in having real, honest conversations, or as we like to call them, Fierce Conversations.

Understanding Human Demands 

All your team members have unique human demands applying pressure and stress to specific areas of their lives. Knowing that, you can begin to understand those demands by getting to know your teams better. Each individual has different abilities, experiences, capabilities, and with those unique attributes come varying levels of stress, fatigue and burnout. Knowing your team members means you can gauge the demands they face outside of work with the expectations for them at work. You can understand their level of fatigue and develop the needed strategy to help them overcome any challenges.

When your teams are tired, honest conversations in personal meetings work best. Tired teams are more challenging to motivate than individual team members. Meet with team members privately, engage and encourage, listen and respond to needs and concerns. Teams will recognize you as part of the team, working alongside them to address issues, find solutions, and make the changes needed to restore energy, morale, and productivity.

In many cases, team fatigue results from a lack of self-care. With all the stressors facing most people today, self-care, including rest and rejuvenation, is neglected to meet life’s daily demands. Exhausted team members simply can’t be at their best at work or anywhere else. Encourage rest and recovery times for your teams and make it readily available. Factor it into planning. In most instances, you’ll find that when more leave time is used, team morale will be higher, and with it, productivity will increase as well. 

What Matters Most?

In most businesses, teams haven’t spent a lot of time together in person during the pandemic, which means they need ways to reconnect with one another. Find ways to connect which work for your teams. As they come together again, re-introduce your company’s mission and goals and motivate teams with your “why” and the significance of their purpose and contribution. Here, your goal should be to move past the urgent and address the principal issues that may have been neglected in light of the challenges your company faced during the early days of the pandemic. For businesses with success throughout COVID-19, the “important” might be developing ideas for long-term competitive advantages. For companies struggling due to the sudden shift in the global workforce, the “important” might be winning back lost customers. What matters most is employee health and well-being, enhanced engagement, and increased performance to come out of the pandemic challenges as a stronger company.

Recognize and Energize 

Already fatigued team members will face more significant challenges preparing for the expected post-pandemic boom. As leaders prepare teams, offering appreciation for performance during the pandemic can help energize team members. It’s not simply about recognition for wins and successes but also an appreciation for every contribution. Team members’ unique contributions and good work should always be acknowledged and celebrated. Recognition goes a long way in helping teams, and leaders overcome fatigue and sustain energy.

Offer insight on how teams can pull together, recognize one another’s contributions, and keep the energy flowing into your business. While recognition is a great start, there are many other ways to energize your teams. Real, honest communication is one way. Setting up friendly competitions is another. Dividing lengthy projects into manageable pieces is yet another. If setbacks occur, allow for honest feedback and constructive criticism. In doing so, teams see challenges as changeable, as opportunities to gain experience and learn, as areas they can positively influence. 

Find Balance for Success 

For team members, the challenges of the past years have not only resulted in fatigue but a great deal of evaluation, with many reimagining their lives and their successes. Returning team members and new team members want a more prominent role in balancing their future success. As a leader, you can meet this need by allowing teams’ input into your organization’s future. When you listen to diverse perspectives, team members find balance, teams feel empowered, and the company can truly meet its full potential. Honest, open communication can help leaders address the fatigue many teams are facing, reduce anxiety and stress levels and help teams see their place in the company’s future.

I grew up learning English as a second language. My traditional Chinese upbringing created an environment where I was not to speak up, share my perspective, or disagree with a decision in public or in private. Because of a lack of confidence and cultural norms, I was never the first to speak in a classroom or social setting. I developed a reputation as a shy, insecure person who didn’t have an opinion. It became easy to stay in the background. While I was not expected to chime in or have a strong opinion about any topic, I would find myself in situations where my heart was aching to speak up. I could feel the knots form in my stomach when a decision was made that I didn’t think was right, especially when it was a decision about my future.  

In my junior year of undergrad, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Hong Kong. It was an incredible experience. I was surrounded by people who looked just like me and grew up with similar cultural values and norms (although to all my Hong Kong friends, I was the American). I felt like I was home, really home. I learned and experienced so much that I decided that I wanted to move to Hong Kong after I graduated college. The problem was that I never had a REAL conversation with my parents about my dreams. I applied to jobs in Hong Kong and got interviews, but when it came time to fly out, my conversation with my parents was 30 seconds long and went like this:  

“I want to move to Hong Kong and work there.”  

“No.”  

And that was that. There was no deeper discussion, no opportunity to share why I wanted to go and learn why they didn’t want me to. My dream was deflated. I started a career in my hometown, San Francisco, and never looked back. Do I daydream about a different life, and what would have happened if I had the courage to have an authentic, meaningful conversation with my parents? Absolutely!  

As I look back to that one failed conversation over 20 years ago, I wonder what other major conversations in my life were missing because I lacked the skill, courage or confidence to invite them. What about you? Can you remember a time when you did not share your real thoughts and feelings? What difference would it have made if you did?   

How often do you find yourself hiding what you really think and feel, just to be polite and not upset the other person? In your work life, are you part of a culture of niceness that supersedes the need to be authentic? How has that impacted your experience of work? How has it impacted others’ experience of you? How might your life be different if you started showing up radically transparent TODAY?  While we know not having the real conversation can cost us, sharing our truths also has its risks. 

Snyder (1987)1 found that the more successful a person is at portraying inauthentic experiences or expressions, the more interpersonally competent he or she is judged to be. If we’re showing up sharing every thought and feeling candidly without a filter, we can rapidly derail our careers. In fact, Harter, Marod, Whitesell, & Cobbs (1996)2 argued that the ability to express thoughts and feelings that are contrary to one’s mental states is an important developmental adaptation. Think about it, when you are a new leader, trying to build relationships and a reputation, it makes sense that you would have the desire to cast yourself in the most positive light and take actions and make decisions that do not ‘rock the boat.’ In my experience, even when I know my direct supervisor is disappointed, their ability to be encouraging rather than assigning blame kept us moving forward. That was critical to our team’s morale. 

On the flip side, we know that when we are inauthentic, it poses a challenge to our own sense of self. It has a significant psychological cost. In a study completed in 2013, Gino, Kouchaki, and Galinsky 3 found that experiencing inauthenticity led participants to feel more immoral and impure, directly impacting their sense of worth. These are the costs of missed conversations, where we choose to hide what we really think and feel. As I shared earlier, my entire life trajectory was impacted by a conversation I wasn’t willing to have. There is an art in finding the right amount of authenticity in each situation. How much we say, how we say it and what we choose not to say impacts our results. As you strive to become more authentic, here are some questions to consider that could make all the difference. Grab a trusted friend to ask you these questions or coach yourself through them. 

How You Can Start Becoming More Authentic 

• Check your context filter: What stories am I telling myself? Being authentic can be scary. What might others think if I truly voice my thoughts, opinions, and feelings? What if my truth can sound hurtful? What if they don’t like what they hear? When these thoughts show up, pause, and check your context. 
  • What stories am I telling myself about the situation?
  • Do I have some biases showing up?
  • Is this true?
  • What information am I missing?
  • What evidence have I gathered so far?
• Check your intentions: Why am I afraid to step into this conversation? When you find emotions cropping up about a conversation you’re about to have, ask yourself:
  • What am I feeling (fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, etc.)?
  • What’s causing me to feel this way?
  • What factors have led up to this point? How long has it been going on?
  • Where have I avoided the opportunity to step into this conversation before?
  • What was the impact?
• Check your track record: How often have you talked yourself out of having a difficult conversation? When you recognize yourself about to do it again, ask yourself these questions:
  • What do I stand to lose if I don’t have this conversation? Is this true? What else is at stake?
  • What if I have the conversation, and it goes well? What results might I enjoy? What do I stand to gain?
  • What’s at risk if I do engage in the conversation? Are these results worth it? Are these potential results real, or are they the story that I’m telling myself? This is where you truly need to look within yourself to decide whether engaging in the current situation is worth the costs you’ve just listed. This is about thoughtfully considering the possible outcomes when you choose to engage in or avoid a conversation.

So my question to you is: How are you currently showing up when you’re surrounded by your peers, colleagues or family members? What about when conflict arises? Are you someone who tackles that challenge in the moment, authentically, or someone who runs in the other direction, avoiding the conversation?  

When I think about the times I have withheld my thoughts and opinions, I find myself playing and replaying the conversation in my head, wishing I spoke up. How might my life trajectory be different if I said what I really thought? What might my career choices, my family life, my social circle look like if I wasn’t afraid to say and do the things my heart wanted to do and say?  

I came across Founder and Author of Fierce Conversations Susan Scott’s keynote at a training conference. When she spoke about the costs of missing conversations, I realized how much of my life might have been different if I had engaged in the conversations I was so afraid of. My hope for you is that you stop avoiding conversations, and master the courage to come out from behind yourself, into the conversation and make it real. How might things be different for you in 2022 when you start showing up this way? 

To help you on your conversation journey, Fierce is ready to partner with you to start customizing your 2022 training.

 

 

Recently, there has been ongoing coverage and numerous discussions about the Metaverse leaving many wondering, “What exactly is the Metaverse?” Much like “the cloud” or “cloud computing,” the capabilities of the Metaverse have been around for quite some time, though the term wasn’t coined until later, at which time it was added to the mass lexicon.   

What is the Metaverse? 

Depending on whom you ask or where you search, you’ll find various definitions, all related, but it’s unlikely you will find a single, agreed-upon definition. Let’s break it down. Meta, a Greek prefix, means “beyond,” though you’ll find that when it is added to English words, it becomes “change.” The etymology of verse is simply a shortened version of “universe.  

Now, combined, the word Metaverse offers up several definitions: 

• The 3D virtual spaces are linked together in a perceived virtual universe. 
• The enhanced next step to the current worldwide web, which is based on text, videos, and images. 
• A reference to digital spaces which are made more lifelike by use of VR (Virtual Reality) or AR (augmented reality). 

Book and movie fans might immediately think of Neuromancer by William Gibson or The Matrix film series. Of course, you can’t miss Facebook’s pivot into the Metaverse, changing its name to “Meta” to signify what the leadership sees as the importance and wide range adoption of Metaverse experiences. 

Fierce on the Metaverse – Making Life Better 

Here at Fierce, we couldn’t agree more! The impact of the Metaverse will be phenomenal, particularly in the areas of training, learning, and development.  Prior to the Pandemic, we learned a great deal from our clients through our various voices of the customer listening posts, including our robust Net Promoter Score system and analytics.  We were getting 70 out of 100 NPS (Net Promotor Score) from our end learners – exceptional scores for our industry.  

However, once we started to truly dissect the data, the shortcomings in our model became apparent.  The question regarding our facilitators, “How would you rate the facilitator’s skills?” consistently scored in the 90s, indicating the learner loved the overall experience.  Two questions scored significantly lower – “How likely are you to use the concepts and models?” and “How ready are you to apply what you’ve learned?” Our scores, along with customer verbatims, illuminated to us that our learning efficacy was low.   

To overcome these challenges, we created the Fierce Strategic Pillars: 

1. Application – How do we get closer to using conversation techniques in the environment and situations so that our learners will utilize it easily?  Some learners grasp more readily onto tangible relatable examples versus theory.  They want the punchline versus frameworks. 
2. Sustainability – How do we make it easier for learners to sustain learning post facilitation or after a formal learning event?  In the real world, people want to recall easily and put into practice what they learned, and apply it in the moments they need it most. 
3. Scale – How can we offer palatable solutions for various audiences within an organization? Instead of just providing critical skillsets around engaging in your daily environment to mid-managers and above, our customers want to be able to deploy learning and sustainability to audiences, including front-line workers who can’t be taken offline for days or even hours at a reasonable cost for the organization. 

Fierce 3D/VR offerings – Synonymous with Metaverse 

Once we defined the challenges we wanted to solve, we took a step back to look at solutions.  In early 2020, one of our key solutions and crucial strategies was to use 3D/VR simulations. The simulations put the user in a gaming-like environment in which they control the direction of the conversation, learning along the way as well as from the outcome.  Accenture (Accenture Extended Reality – Immersive Learning for the future workforce) has found mixed-reality learning modalities to increase learning retention by 75 percent over passive modalities.  The 3D/VR environments can be very elaborate. Still, the point is to immerse the learner in the scenario and allow the learner to participate in a safe environment where they can learn or hit re-do to try again.  How many chances do we get to hit re-do in real life? 

The BETA tests provided great learning to iterate and prove our hypotheses and aligned with our strategic pillars.  A great example, from early in the pandemic, one of our long-term telecommunication customers with retail locations throughout the U.S. and well-known globally was having difficulty quickly deploying the needed training to their front-line sales staff. They faced numerous issues from customers coming in with COVID concerns on both sides of the spectrum, who fumbled with moving toward a consultative sale. On one side, a jittery customer might not want the salesperson to shake hands, give them a pen, or otherwise be in their personal space. On the other side, an agitated customer was upset about having to wear a mask or asking why the salesperson was wearing a mask—every customer presented with strong beliefs around what was happening with the pandemic responses. In talking with the VP of Sales, we developed simulations to capture their “secret sauce” to handle these situations, which could be deployed quickly, accessible on any device and absorbed in 15 minutes or less.  

We had another successful BETA with a large hospital chain that needed front-line nurses to be versed in providing feedback, confronting, and delegating to physicians.  They had similar constraints – not being able to take them off-line for hours or days of learning and needing to get impactful microlearning at scale in a familiar environment. 

 

Rich Human Connection – Surviving and Thriving  

Creating the modality in these situations was not enough. Fierce Conversations have always been about developing the techniques needed to engage your environment in any situation – be it the need to ask for feedback, provide feedback, confront a persistent problem, run better team meetings with clear accountability, get curious about a situation, etc.  These are foundational to everything and anything an organization hopes to accomplish.  

For example, we are not a competitive alternative offering to change management.  Change management frameworks and methodologies are essential, and at the intersection of change management are the people. The conversation techniques are what support the successful execution of change management plans. 

With the renewed focus on racial tensions and diversity, we quickly realized that we wanted to support these efforts towards positive change. We acknowledged we weren’t experts in DE&I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), but we knew many very passionate and accomplished thought leaders on the topic. From there, we created the “Powered by Fierce” model to leverage our platforms, investments in 3D/VR, and, most importantly, conversation techniques critical to the success of others’ philosophies and instruction.   

We partnered with Dr. Yasmin Davids, founder of the Dr. Yasmin Davids’ Leadership Institute, a multi-ethnic, anti-racist organization partnered with USC and UCSD. Dr. Davids teaches techniques on how to be “Graciously Assertive,” whereby women can be assertive and effective in the workplace just like their male counterparts while avoiding negative connotations such as “bossy” or “angry.”  We captured these techniques along with our conversation models in 3D/VR simulations, including an example of a male employee challenging a female boss on a given performance review.  Within the microaggression space, we do role reversals to illustrate the importance of engaging in these critical conversations to evoke learning and enrich relationships while avoiding anger, defensiveness, and toxic environments. 

According to TraingIndustry.com, 2021 State of Leadership Training Market, less than one percent of revenue is generated from immersive modalities of this type. Why? It has more to do with adoption. Frankly, it lies in the hands of decision-makers who need to realize the familiarity of those environments with younger generations, to see past “graphics” and the lack of human connection, and see immersive modalities as augmentation for the learner journey.  

At Fierce, we firmly believe this learning modality will continue to increase in adoption with use cases and capabilities continuing to be enhanced.  Fierce is passionate about empowering the world with conversation techniques and is partnering with leaders in their fields to bring immersive Metaverse Training to their learners along with embedded conversation techniques. Our mission is to better the world, one conversation at a time, and to continue as The Metaverse Training Company. 

 

 

There are only 50 days left in 2021. Can you believe it? As you reflect on this year, what worked? What didn’t work? Which goals did you meet? Which ones did you miss? And Why? As you’re taking note of where you’ve landed this year, think about what you want to change and all the possibilities that await you in 2022. And while you do this, make a plan. A purposeful plan that will allow you to meet those challenges and opportunities with confidence. To help, we’ve listed a few Fierce tips to help prepare you and your team for the new year. 

MAKE A NEW CONNECTION

In your typical week, think about all the individuals you interact with – whether it be on the phone, via email, and even people you pass by on the street. How many of these individuals do you genuinely attempt to foster a connection with? Let’s be honest: We can all spot if someone is not being genuine from a mile away. What we should be asking ourselves when interacting with others, is whether we are asking questions and actively listening during our conversations with these individuals or do we just wait for our turn to talk? As our Founder Susan Scott shares, “If you want to become a great leader, gain the capacity to connect with your colleagues and customers at a deep level…or lower your aim.” 

BE FIERCE: Make a new connection with someone in your life – whether it be inside or outside the office. Ask questions and really listen. Schedule a time in your calendar for this effort and make it a habit. 

GO DEEPER

How many times a week do you have a conversation that just stays at the surface level? With your boss? With your colleagues? With your family and friends? The truth is…It happens. Perhaps, more often than any of us would care to admit. Even when we are in the conversation, we can breeze past each other altogether. Here’s the thing: We are craving depth each day. We are craving real. We want people to care. Author Joseph Pine once said, “The experience of being understood, versus interpreted, is so compelling you can charge admission.” We need to seek to understand and go deeper in our own day-to-day conversations. 

BE FIERCE: Identify the relationships in your life that deserve extra attention. To do this ask yourself: Where and when do you tend to have your most meaningful conversations? Where and when do you tend to have the most superficial conversations?

ASK ‘WHAT ELSE?’

Think about when someone asks you: “How’s it going?” How do you usually respond? My guess is that the initial answer is surface level. Work is busy, but good. Family is good. Vacation was good. I’m good. Surprisingly enough, the conversation becomes drastically different when you ask ‘what else’ afterwards. Only after the ‘what else’ does something juicier come out. It’s almost like ‘what else’ translates to “No, really. I want to know.” Part of our Fierce Coaching Program, we instruct individuals to ask ‘what else’ at least three times in different parts of the conversation. You’ll find that each time you ask, you will go deeper into the question – exploring and unlocking new territory.

BE FIERCE: Start with the relationships in your life deserve extra attention. Concentrate on where and when you can ask, “What else?” It is only two words after all…

IMPROVE TWO RELATIONSHIPS

Here’s a simple five-word sentence, and yet the depth and applicability of this sentiment is powerful… The conversation is the relationship. 

Just think of all the relationships in your life… 

How would you rank the quality of your conversations with those relationships on a scale of 1 to 10 – with 1 being most satisfying and 10 being least satisfying. When you picture this spectrum, where would all your conversations land? Is one end of the spectrum heavier than the other? With that visual in mind, it’s important to ask ourselves what kinds of conversations we’re having:

• As a leader, are the conversations developmental and supportive or skeptical and controlling? As a team member, are the conversations collaborative and robust or superficial and frustrating?
• As a friend, are the conversations thoughtful and compassionate or assumptive and insincere? 
• As an individual, what kind of conversations are we having with ourselves? Are they encouraging and optimistic or critical and sabotaging? 

The quality of your conversations is a direct reflection of the quality of your relationships. 

BE FIERCE: Keep things simple. Start by identifying two relationships in your life where you are having the least satisfying conversations. Is it with your boss? With a team member? Your friend? Yourself? If you want to make the relationships more fulfilling, you must start by improving the content and quality of your conversations. Take them out to coffee. Schedule a lunch. Go somewhere that you can focus.

GET REAL

At Fierce, we do not have annual performance reviews. Instead, we engage in open and honest conversations every day of the year with the people central to our success. Talking about performance is just one of the many conversations you should be having with your leaders and team each day. We find that this activity aligns closely with one of our Fierce values: Be real. We describe it like this: There is no faking it at Fierce. We present ourselves – our capabilities and our knowledge – exactly as we are. We don’t pretend to be anything we aren’t. We are transparent with each other and our clients, and we embrace that which makes each of us unique. We regularly ask our employees how they are aligning with this value. What does this value mean to them? What does it look like? 

BE FIERCE: In the spirit of leading Fierce, get real and be your authentic self. Are you having the conversations you need to have with the people central to your success? If not, there is no better time than the present.

Improving the quality and depth of our conversations is a lifelong journey. There is a lot at stake to get it right – as professionals, as partners, as friends, as fellow inhabitants of Earth. Remember: While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a company, a relationship or a life – any single conversation can. That’s why it helps to take it one step at a time. 

Stay tuned for part two with more tips on how to make you and your team Fierce! 

 

 

 

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, a time dedicated to educating the public about disability employment issues and celebrating the many and varied contributions of workers with disabilities in the United States.

It’s important to celebrate the abilities and contributions of workers with disabilities because, just like other marginalized groups, people with disabilities are regularly left on the sidelines in the workplace. They often experience subtle forms of aggression or microaggressions.

A microaggression is an indirect, subtle, possibly unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group. Usually, these take the form of statements, actions, incidents, or exclusions. People with disabilities experience these microaggressions all the time. Sometimes even the most open-minded people may be unconsciously biased about their differently-abled counterparts. Still, microaggressions can be hurtful and painful for people with disabilities.

One common microaggression towards people with disabilities in the workplace is not inviting someone to an event because of a perceived lack of ability to participate, or not being prepared for a person with disabilities’ attendance at a meeting (for instance, not having a chair removed for a wheelchair space). And often, those with slower or delayed processing time for speaking are not provided with the necessary processing time.

Other examples of microaggressions towards people with disabilities in the workplace include not presuming competence or presuming incompetence, asking personal questions about devices, orthotics or whatever equipment the person uses, pushing a person’s wheelchair without asking them first, and saying something like, “You don’t look disabled.”

It is important to remember that we’ve probably all committed microaggression towards people with disabilities at some point in our lives. The good news is that we can learn and grow if we have the humility to admit to our mistakes and apologize for the emotional wake left behind. If you feel you have committed a microaggression towards a person with disabilities, or any person for that matter, be accountable for your actions and be willing to apologize for the emotional wake you may have left behind. Check your context and address any harmful assumptions or stereotypes.

If a person with disabilities points out to you that you, in fact, have committed a microaggression, listen carefully to what they tell you and if you are caught off guard, pause and realize that even though it may be hard for you to hear, there might be some learning here. Recognize that this person has taken the time and perhaps the courage to have the conversation with you and offer you feedback. Take responsibility for your emotional wake and ask them where else they have seen you commit microaggressions or how long they’ve been noticing this. You want to be aware so that you can avoid the behavior in the future. Take responsibility for your emotional wake. Apologize. Then describe your future focus. What will you do? What are the next steps you will take to avoid committing microaggressions? Tell them why it’s important for you to receive this feedback from them. Show gratitude and thank them for the opportunity to learn and grow.

As we celebrate the abilities of the diverse contributions of employees with disabilities this month, let’s also bring a greater awareness of the microaggressions they regularly experience. Awareness can create positive changes and fewer microaggressions towards people with disabilities. That would be a cause for celebration!

 

 

 

Raise your hand if you have experienced any change in your life this year. Silly question, I know. We all have experienced far more change than we ever bargained for. And it hasn’t been easy. There are no two ways about it, change is hard, and it’s persistent. And just as we individuals have experienced copious amounts of change in the last year and a half, so have the organizations we work for. Ever heard the saying, “Organizations don’t change, people do?”  The cumulative impact of individual change leads to shifts (large and small) in a business. If people didn’t change, organizations wouldn’t be able to either.

Chief executive of IBM for nearly a decade, Lou Gerstner led one of the most successful business transformations in history. He said the most important lesson he learned from his experience in change and transformation is that “culture is everything.”  He didn’t say the biggest lesson was the change methodology they used or the clarity of decision rights or reporting structure. He said the key was in the “culture.”  Tend to your organization’s culture (the people), and it can significantly impact your change efforts for the better. 

And yet, while most of us know intuitively that a healthy organizational culture is vital to successful change efforts, culture tends to be the first casualty during times of change. We hear things such as “they need to communicate better about this,” or “they aren’t looking out for our best interests,” or “they don’t care about me, they just care about their bottom line.”  The culture becomes fractured into two opposing groups – us versus them. 

According to Daniel Pink in his book “Drive,” When Robert Reich was U.S. Secretary of Labor, and he visited a company to talk with the employees, he would often conduct a “pronoun test” to determine the cultural health of that organization. He found employees who referred to their company in terms of “we” were more engaged than those who referred to the company as “they.”

When your employees buy into what you are doing (i.e., a major change effort), they tend to take more ownership. 

When they are satisfied, they say things like “look at everything we’ve accomplished!” or “We are getting things done!”

When they’re dissatisfied, they disconnect. Employees start to say things such as, “they aren’t communicating with us” or “they need to fix that.”

Reich concluded that an employee who uses “we” feels more integrated, identifies more with the company and takes more ownership. This leads to employees who are more likely to be satisfied, engaged and effective at what they do. There’s a sense of belonging to the organization and a deep understanding of shared culture. 

Bottom Line?  Whether you are a new leader on a team, implementing a new program, instituting your fifth “covid” working arrangement or working on merging two companies, focusing more deliberately on the people and the connections you’re creating with them has a direct impact on the success of the change you’re trying to make.

So how can we as leaders ignite our employees’ deeper connection, cut through the resistance to change and thrive?

Build Trust through Conversation.

When we trust the people who we work with and work for, we want to show up. We want to succeed. Trust in others promotes teamwork, aids in conflict management and fosters creativity during times of uncertainty. There’s a sense of camaraderie – we feel connected, we feel a part of the process. 

Trust comes not just from what you say but how you say it and how you behave after it’s been said. In the longer term, you build trust based on your persistent identity or how you show up with others repeatedly. Trust comes from the quality of the conversations you are having. The more honest and authentic the conversations, the more likely you will have a more trusting relationship. This is applicable both at the organization and the individual level. If the conversation stops, becomes muted or our dialogue consists only of top-down formal messaging with no real exchange, no real conversation, then all the possibilities for the individuals in that relationship, all the possibilities for what those individuals are trying to achieve, become smaller. 

The simplest way to build trust in your conversations is to be here, prepared to be nowhere else.

In other words, really be present. The last time you spoke face-to-face with someone, were you looking at them or were your eyes roaming the room in a sort of perpetual surveillance?  During your last phone conversation or Zoom call, were you genuinely listening, or were you scanning your email or sending an IM?  Being “present” sounds simple, yet during times of change, our mind may be anywhere but “here.”

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give another is the purity of our attention. It takes effort. But when we focus on the here and now, rather than thinking about the agenda for our next meeting or the project plan that needs our approval, our conversations, our relationships and our outcomes are far richer, more meaningful and more productive.

When you are present with the people important to you, in a way that they feel individually seen, valued, heard and recognized, they are more likely to become present and engaged with you – you build trust. 

And although we might think we don’t have the time and energy to be completely present during every single conversation,  we actually don’t have the time and energy not to. When we are not present, we miss each other. We may hear every word and yet still miss the message entirely. And because missed messages often lead to misunderstanding, we’ll need to spend time and energy resolving them later. 

Increasing the quality of the conversations you are having will help you build more trust and more emotional capital with your team, which will have a direct impact on supporting the change(s) you wish to implement.

So, ask yourself – who would benefit from your undivided attention?   

 

 

 

Over the past 15 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work for various companies where I’ve come across some exceptional leaders. Regardless of the industry, whether for-profit or nonprofit, public or private, two types of leaders always stand out. The first type are those who lead by sharing a compelling vision, always having the right answers and tackling tough challenges head-on. Then there are the leaders who focus on connecting with others, consistently gathering insights from multiple perspectives and spend time building relationships. Both are great leaders, but the glaring difference is that the latter are the leaders who gain genuine followership, fierce loyalty and a deep-seated trust among employees and peers. What makes the difference? It’s the ability to listen well. When thinking about mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and supporting people through change, this unique ability to listen well is a significant contributor to success or failure. Those who listen well create an environment that engages employees through challenging organizational transitions. Those who don’t encounter passive resistance to change. 

The global pandemic challenged every company to re-evaluate the way they do business. Organizational leaders carefully reviewed their portfolios to reassess their strategies for growth. This led to strategic mergers and acquisitions that hit historic levels as companies sought to acquire capabilities and increase market share, profitability and competitive advantage. In the third and fourth quarters of 2020, the pace of M&A announcements hit a record of 1,250 global transactions, totaling more than one trillion dollars. Additionally, the PwC 4th Annual Global CEO Survey (2021) found that 76% of CEOs expect global economic growth to improve in the next 12 months.  

With the pace of M&As exceeding expectations, it’s essential to recognize that most of them, up to 75%-83%, fail. In a study completed by KPMG, 80% of these failures were due to poor execution of change management strategies. A survey of Fortune 500 Chief Financial Officers found that 45% of leaders attributed the failures to “unexpected post-deal people problems.”

Research around change management in M&As has indicated that the driver of successful mergers centers around having a solid communication strategy. While I agree that communication is key, I want to emphasize that it is not simply the talking, sharing, presenting or painting the path forward aspects of communication that determine success. It is the listening well aspect. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” When it comes to M&As, the truth of this quote is magnified exponentially.  

Why Mergers Fail

Whenever a significant change occurs, most organizations invite senior leaders to offer ‘shared vision’ tours. Their strategy is to overcommunicate why the change is happening, how it will benefit the organization and what to expect. It is assumed that the rest of the organization will hop on the bandwagon and embrace the change because there was a solid communication strategy before, during and after the change. They’re surprised when change is received poorly — when people simply refuse to adopt new ways of doing things or when top talent simply leaves the organization in droves. But looking back, did the company listen well to their employees?  

The power of listening well — gathering multiple, and even competing perspectives — helps employees recognize that leaders do care, they want to understand and they truly appreciate everyone’s voice. Even if employees disagree with the decision to merge, their input is sought out, their concerns are heard and they now have a better understanding of everything involved in making the decision.  

Establishing Your Listening Well Strategy

Here are some powerful listening well activities and questions to think through as you prepare your employees for a merger and acquisition. 

Listening Well Before the Merger:

• Which departments or groups of employees might have the most difficult time adjusting to the change? What questions can I ask to understand their concerns? 
• Which groups across the organization might be most excited about the change? How might their enthusiasm be leveraged? 
• What are the most important communication channels to utilize when demonstrating that the ‘new organization’ truly wants to listen well?  
• How might you circle back to those who have shared their input? 

Listening Well During the Merger: 

• Which groups seem to have adapted to the M&A initiatives well? Which groups are lagging? What factors contribute to these results? 
• Which employees have most used communication channels during this M&A to share their perspectives? Which do they seem most comfortable with? How might more of those opportunities be created? 
• What are the most common challenges and concerns voiced during the transition? How might those concerns be addressed transparently?  
• How frequently have different perspectives been sought out? How has the organization made adaptations based on the feedback during the transitional period?  

Listening Well Post Merger: 

Continue to provide ‘listening well’ channels to employees to keep a pulse on how the merger has impacted employees. Ideas include: 

• Scheduling virtual and in-person forums dedicated to discussing how the merger is going. 
• Providing a company-wide anonymous feedback inbox regarding the transition. 
• Encouraging managers to include questions about how the transition has impacted employees during check-ins. 
• Creating a company blog dedicated to answering ongoing questions and sharing important information about the transition.    

Organizations that listen well succeed.  While a strong communication plan is an essential part of change management, the secret to success is to truly engage employees by listening well. Actions must demonstrate a sincere desire to understand employees’ thoughts, ideas and concerns. Listening well also requires follow-up to what was heard and creating space for a two-way conversation. If leaders practice some of the strategies listed above to listen well but fail to follow up, it risks becoming the ‘illusion of inclusion.’  

Whether your organization is going through a merger, acquisition or implementing a new strategy, recognize that a foundational key to successful change management is listening well.