Month: February 2023

From your own experience, describe the last meeting that you attended. How were decisions made? Was there a method to evaluate outcomes?

The last meeting I attended was what we call a huddle. After a large consulting relationship a few years ago, the concept of huddles were introduced to my organization. Not all teams use them, but most do. Some teams meet daily, some meet two – three times a week. Some even meet two times a day – all depends on their needs and type of work.

The huddle I last attended, is a team that I coach. They meet two times a week – Monday and Thursday. I attended both and coach the leader and team to efficiencies, connection, fill in information that I may have heard in other meetings, etc. This is a small team, 5 in all, and these are honestly some of my favorite meetings each week. The team consists of deeply dedicated employees and they are all really wonderful humans.

These meetings do have a method, for which the team follows each time. We kick off with morale and on Monday’s, the team shares weekend highlights. We use a huddle board (on One Note) so we follow a method on that page. Some folks post pics from the weekend. We move into recognition moments, then the deeper work. This is where they share important pieces of information, if something is needed, if a decision is needed, etc. Stories of success may be shared here as well – especially if a project or important deliverable has been accomplished. There may also be a moment of post-mortem during here as well. What did we learn from that? I often encourage that through my coaching.

This team’s outcomes are very much qualitative, so there are often moments of  learning from the sponsors and leadership team. The method to evaluate success in their outcomes is what we call Voice of Client – our internal clients. They do complete a survey (although most ignore it) however, they are very happy and comfortable providing verbal feedback so this team can continued to be a valued partner to them. We often end the huddle evaluating those comments as most of the team is measured on that success measure.

From your own experience, describe a situation in which you provided a double message. Did you intentionally provide it?

As a people leader for nearly 17 years, I have a phrase I use when someone leaves my team – Once on Team Commale, Always on Team Commale. What this means and the message I share is that I will always be open to continue to coach and support them. I say it verbally and I also write it in their final performance review. As I pondered the reading on a double message, this phrase came to mind for me. Do I truly mean it for each and every person that has reported to me? Ummmm – likely not, but I say it to all of them. I will add, that I do genuinely say this to nearly all of them, but there are a few that I would be happy to release on their career journey and move on. Yet, it is not uncommon, for some of those exact folks to find their way on my calendar for some coaching or mentorship.

One individual that was a part of an accelerated rotational program (high achieving person) came to mind as a strong example as a double message. In all honesty, he drove me nuts. Completely closed to feedback, believed that his first effort was perfect, gave appearances that rules did not apply to him, and he struggled with building trust with others. I had to often deliver constructive feedback to him, which he nearly always dismissed. He was someone that once he moved into a new role, I would have been happy to say “good luck” and say hello in the hall should I see him again. BUT, I told him, Once on Team Commale, Always on Team Commale. Many months went by, and suddenly I received an invite to catch up with him. I accepted, but internally admitted that I was not thrilled to be giving my time and energy to someone that never seemed to value my coaching. He did not send a note or provide any type of agenda, so I immediately thought the worst and went into the time together open for anything.

The day finally came, and I was amazed at the direction the conversation took and admittedly was pleasantly surprised. It turned out that this individual was receiving nearly the same feedback that I was providing and he was suddenly experiencing a bit of an existential crisis from his image of his perfect self. It was quite a session and we had a very serious and heartfelt conversation about growth, learning and embracing the feedback as a gift. It was a very rewarding  and moving experience for me, however, I most definitely provided a double message to him, as I did not want him on my team forever.

Because of the above example, I continue to share this message with my team, and I will continue to go into any time with my prior folks with openness and gratitude that they trust me and want to continue to grow from me, even if deep down, perhaps I don’t.

From your own experience, describe a situation in which you used face work.

A recent situation comes to mind regarding my understanding of Face work. Most of my division at work were asked to return to the office back in April. Many did, but many did not. I have one colleague that I never saw through the spring, summer or even fall season. He would show up to everything virtually (and was not alone there either) but often commented that he wanted to be treated like an adult and be able to make the best decision for himself as a working dad as to either working in the office or not in the office. Virtually, the team would listen, nod and let him vent and then move on.

Fast forward to late fall, my organization puts a policy in place that all employees MUST abide to the new hybrid model, or they would be considered to be defying the policy and that behavior could result in negative performance management. We all had to be in the office, T, W and R no matter what. My colleague was not happy about this at all. I finally saw him in the office and he took me aside to have a very serious venting session. During this hour, I had to use face work. I empathized for him, as I too like working from home, but I also see the value of being in office. He did not want to hear it and only wanted to vent about the way he wants to parent. I put on a listening “face” but deep down, did not agree with much of what he was saying. He wants to have lunch with his kids, play time with them, he does not want to use daycare. He wants to go for walks on sunny days and take them to the park. To me, this sounds like parenting and play time not work time, but he was adamant that he was correct. Keeping my face even keeled and compassionate was difficult, but I made the choice as much of our team has tried to reason with him in the past. But now, here we were, with a policy in place and a rule to follow. All I could coach him to was the policy and that he had a choice to stay or go or to be patient to see if this policy will finally get folks back in the office, and then some additional flexibility will come out of it. After all was said and done, he moved to a new department, hoping and wishing that they “might” have more flexibility, but at the end of the day, a company wide policy, will mostly be consistent across all organizations.

I did not like the way this conversation made me feel. It felt dishonest, as I was holding back my true feelings, yet I recognize that is the importance in face work, especially in situational and cultural moments. We do what we have to do in order to get through the moment or experience to save face. Reminds of the saying “we pick and choose our battles.”

From your own experience, describe a situation in which you used explicit questioning. How did this help you avoid the ORJI traps?

As an executive coach in my organization, explicit questioning is critical to success. I am often partnered with very senior leaders, engaged with sensitive and confidential information and my questioning and direction of conversation has the potential to influence that person’s decision making. Sometimes it is down right scary. As a human being, I think it is quite difficult to not fall into any of the ORJI model cycle steps. Through basic observation and emotional reactions, it takes great skill, experience and open-mindedness to remove stereotypes, assumptions, bias or preconceptions.

One example that comes to mind is when I was coaching a data team just prior to them going into a senior leadership event where their readout would shape the decision making and next steps for some big initiatives and changes. To try to avoid emotional reactions and judgement, especially as I already had a bit of assumptions based on the senior teams past behavior, I worked diligently with the team as this was a new scenario, new data, a new story and a strong potential to influence the senior leaders decision. The data team and I talked through word choice a lot – word choice is powerful. Something as simple as “I think we should take this direction” compared to “my recommendation based on what I shared today is that we…” We role played and practiced how the senior team might challenge the data. We ensured they not only knew their data in and out, but we went a deep step further, to ensure that their data story – the true story- was inviting, clear and relatable – and met the goals and OKRs of the senior team and the dept.

As their coach, once I gave them some solid tools and extra confidence through the role plays, I stepped back a bit for them to grow.  As I reflect on the ORJI model, I believe I was able to step back enough to avoid falling to deeply  into one of these ORJI steps. What I recognized, is that without a bias or pre-conceived judgement, I was able to let the data be more free and creative with what they brought to the table. I also think I was able to avoid this trap as I really believed in the data team and their group dynamic. They were highly engaged, excited about the opportunity, and they believed in their work and impact.  They had clear goals and worked well together toward them – hard to have bias with that type of set up. After all was said and done, their presentation was effective and they delivered a very positive readout with a clear and confident recommendation, all which were accepted and praised.