Unlock the secrets to effective leadership communication with insights from John & Greg as we explore essential books that every new supervisor and manager should have on their shelf. Discover the transformative power of "The One Minute Manager" by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, emphasizing the importance of one-minute goals, praise, reprimands, and appraisals. Learn how clear and concise communication can significantly enhance leadership effectiveness. We also delve into the themes of "Fierce Conversations" by Susan Scott, highlighting how passion, integrity, and authenticity can lead to significant cultural transformations and stronger relationships within your team.
In our discussion, we tackle the critical role of integrity and moral courage in leadership, particularly when addressing mistakes and engaging in honest, constructive conversations. Hear about Dr. Durst's drama triangle concept, which focuses on the roles of victim, rescuer, and prosecutor in conflicts, and the importance of staying fact-based. Gain practical tips to foster thoughtful, direct communication in appraisals and career reviews, ultimately leading to better understanding and growth within your team. Don't miss our insights on the unproductive behaviors represented by the Wurlitzer effect and stamp collecting metaphors, and how to steer clear of these pitfalls to ensure effective communication and problem-solving.
Unlock the secrets to effective leadership communication with insights from John & Greg as we explore essential books that every new supervisor and manager should have on their shelf. Discover the transformative power of "The One Minute Manager" by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, emphasizing the importance of one-minute goals, praise, reprimands, and appraisals. Learn how clear and concise communication can significantly enhance leadership effectiveness. We also delve into the themes of "Fierce Conversations" by Susan Scott, highlighting how passion, integrity, and authenticity can lead to significant cultural transformations and stronger relationships within your team.
In our discussion, we tackle the critical role of integrity and moral courage in leadership, particularly when addressing mistakes and engaging in honest, constructive conversations. Hear about Dr. Durst's drama triangle concept, which focuses on the roles of victim, rescuer, and prosecutor in conflicts, and the importance of staying fact-based. Gain practical tips to foster thoughtful, direct communication in appraisals and career reviews, ultimately leading to better understanding and growth within your team. Don't miss our insights on the unproductive behaviors represented by the Wurlitzer effect and stamp collecting metaphors, and how to steer clear of these pitfalls to ensure effective communication and problem-solving.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Success Secrets and Stories. I am your host, john Wendelowski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell. Greg, hey everybody. So this podcast is actually a little bit more personal. I wanted to try to explain something in terms of how I work with new supervision, new managers and what were the kind of things that I thought were important to discuss on the front end, and this is actually the three favorite books that I usually used as my first references. What we talked about in our last podcast was Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott, the One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, and then, obviously, my book is written on the basis of MBR by Dr Durst.
Speaker 2:
But these three basic cornerstones of communication to a manager or to a supervisor is something that I made a point of training and something I made a point of telling so that they would have a good foundation on what I expect from them, and I think that that step back is something that I wanted to try to explain. The One Minute Manager, for me, was one of the most important books in my early career. That really made it kind of important and it addressed one of my biggest problems. I would give instructions, and I got the comment back that it was unclear. I don't know exactly what you want me to do. It's so convoluted or it's so extreme, because there's so much that you're asking to be done at one time and a one-minute manager really kind of focused me, and they have four basic secrets One is the one-minute goal, the second is the one minute of praise, the third is the one minute of reprimands and the fourth, which is important, is appraisals, which is not a one-minute format. So, greg, why don't you start us off?
Speaker 1:
Thanks, john. Let's talk for a moment about the one-minute manager's effect. So direct input that clearly defines what needs to happen is a skill that every leader, every good leader, has to develop. You want to be clear in your instructions, you want to be clear in the praise you give, you want to be clear in the reprimand you send out and you want to be clear about your appraisals of your staff. Word salads are confusing and I would say they're not very tasty. The key ingredient is that you do not do your homework before you begin to speak. So you're kind of making it up, it's just kind of coming together, but it's not coming together.
Speaker 1:
Another hint from my personal experience practice your one-minute message with someone else so it's a buddy, co-worker, peer, and then you want to find out are they getting what you're sending? Is your approach, what you think it is clarity-wise? Now, think about one minute at a time. One-minute manager approach is meant to address frontline support of operations. So those supervisors right, working with the individual contributors to make things happen. Being aware of the conditions that you need to be addressed quickly is a direct conversation, not a casual conversation, not a passive, but a very direct conversation. You should be open to discussions when time is not critical not when you're rushed, when you have time to listen and give feedback, and the exchange of ideas and the operative order of exchange should be direct and to the point. Hold your audience responsible to respond in a concise and direct approach as well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and just to highlight, that is exactly what you should do for those three categories. But to make a point, and when you're doing an appraisal and a one-minute appraisal, that weekly, monthly kind of approach is short and to the point. It's more of a review rather than an appraisal. When you do the annual review, it's an exchange of ideas and for me, one of the things I did is I changed the performance review to a career review. So you want to take time for that particular approach.
Speaker 2:
The one-minute manager is trying to get you to think on your feet and to move, but when you actually are dealing with an appraisal, you need to step back. You need to help that person understand the positives and the negatives. It should not have a timeline on it, but you don't again want to make a word salad out of it. You want to be somewhat direct so that they can get clear in terms of impressions or expectations or direction, or expectations or direction. But that, I think, is one of the challenges of the one-minute manager. You can't rush the appraisal approach of it and I hope that helps. And what's our next one?
Speaker 1:
So, joe, we're going to talk about those two books the One-Minute Manager and Fierce Conversations. So these are two really good reference books and they're incredible tools for understanding leadership. From the preface of Fierce Conversations when you think of a fierce conversation, think about passion, think about integrity, think about authenticity and think about collaboration, and something that's very powerful could come out of that. That's called cultural transformation. But in the end, think of leadership.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and they had an interesting chart and I've seen these and I know sometimes it doesn't make sense, but when you're thinking about this subject they had a with fierce conversations and without fierce conversations and an interesting to the point comparison. So I'm just going to go through the list. First is without fierce conversation. The second is with fierce conversation. So focusing on activities versus versus focusing on results, feeding around a bush versus actually naming and addressing the issues, us versus them versus we or a partnership or a cooperation.
Speaker 2:
Overwhelmed versus timely resolutions. Micromanagement versus improved leadership effect and engagement. Customer-based pricing only how many times have we heard that? And it really comes down to relationship with the customer, because if they don't understand the nuances of whatever it is that you're doing and you're only competing with price, you're probably not going to be in the market very long. Sleepwalking or not involved versus shared enthusiasm and learning. And I think the last one is the most interesting one on your comparison sheet the culture of niceness, which is a lot of what I've dealt with in terms of not going through the training versus effectively confronting attitudes and issues. You're not trying to make friends, you're trying to get something done, you're looking for results. That niceness culture doesn't really help at all, and that's where some companies have dropped the ball. Greg, I think you have the next.
Speaker 1:
Thanks, john. So what do you think? Do you have a plan? Do you have the integrity in the organization to identify mistakes made by upper management? Do you have the moral courage to constructively make those challenges? Can you challenge authority by engaging in really tough but constructive conversations? If you can't do that, you have to ask yourself the question are you a leader?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and the next item that Susan talked about is how this actually affects your life, the things that are going on between your children, your parents, your marriage, and she went and gave a very interesting example of how fierce conversations are necessary.
Speaker 2:
And, let me use some of her words how many marriages derail because they don't say what they really are thinking, they're being polite All the way to divorce court. Really, is that where you want to find that resolution, understanding the strength of words, how you can agree or disagree but I respect your opinion and then find what is a compromise, instead of trying to go down the road of an argument for the sake of an argument. Try to find a way to look for the facts and look for resolutions, and sometimes you have to admit that there's somebody that has to change or you have to do something different, and it might not be something you appreciate or understand, but you have to make those efforts. The other part that I think was interesting is that she alluded to something that Dr Durst talked about, which was the drama triangle, and that really kind of falls into what I've seen happen in some of the arguments and in a work environment that you find the triangle of a victim, a rescuer and a prosecutor and they always play out.
Speaker 2:
It's in most organizations, whenever you see an argument and that's usually where the fierce conversation component doesn't exist that no one really wants to step back and actually look at solving it.
Speaker 2:
They're passionately applying this little drama triangle.
Speaker 2:
One of the things that Dr Ders talked about is sometimes you are fitting into those roles because of your past and how you actually were raised, the things that happened in your environment.
Speaker 2:
You're considering yourself a victim right off the bat, and really fierce conversations is not giving you the freedom to hide behind that victim or that rescuer or that prosecutor role. You have to really get involved in terms of the solutions and get out of the drama. The faster you get to the facts, the faster you're going to find a resolution, and that, I think, is the key for some of the arguments that you can talk about in a marriage, because sometimes it's the passions, the things that you've done as a kid or the things that you remember, and it has nothing to do with the facts of what the situation is. The sooner you can get to the core requirement of what you need to try to figure out, the faster you're going to find that drama goes away and you can actually find compromise. Those are kind of key words. The other part that I thought was interesting is probably the next part that Greg's going to be talking about is how can you affect those conversations and make them more effective, Greg, Thanks, john.
Speaker 1:
Fierce conversations take soft ears and eyes. You think about that for a moment. Maybe it sounds counterintuitive, but it's not. Fierce conversations require soft ears and soft eyes. If you're not engaged with your audience, how can you hear them or how can you see them? Eye contact, active listening, are key elements of create a reaction before your words could ever be heard. In my experience in the past, I've been asked to be an accountability partner for folks working on things just like this, having somebody critique them saying am I engaging? Am I looking at them in the eye? Am I getting my message across? Am I being deliberate? Am I being direct? Did you hear what I was saying? Did it make sense to you From an accountability standpoint? If I didn't say it, I would tell You're just talking. You're talking word salads. That's not going to be helpful.
Speaker 2:
But if I saw it, I gave him that praise and encouraged him to continue and a couple of other things that I thought was interesting from Dr Durst's being the Cause book that I used to talk to supervisors were actually two different subjects. One was the Wurlitzer effect, and what I thought was interesting about the Wurlitzer effect is you've been in a meeting where the one person stands up and said, oh man, I did that back in 1968. That never worked. We tried it, we tried it every way. We tried it just the way you described it. We're not going to do that again, are we okay? And so you try to go through the conversation and, sadly enough, you get on another subject and he comes right back in Wow, we tried that back in 1972, the exact same thing. And you, you finally have to look at the guy and say, look, okay, I get it, I understand the tune, but we're not interested in hearing how we can't get it done. We have a problem. We've identified something that needs to get done. Lovely tune. Not playing that tune on the Wurlitzer again about how we've done it in the old days and it never will work. We have to find a way to make it work.
Speaker 2:
But that Wurlitzer effect also happens in a personal kind of environment. Also happens in a personal kind of environment, like for me. I can get very reminiscent and sidetracked by music and some songs will detract and you'll stop concentrating on what you're supposed to be doing and especially when you're, like in a car and you're enjoying the music, you're not engaged in listening and then you're going to get yourself in trouble. Engagement and being in the now is a lot of what Fierce Conversation is talking about, a lot of what Dr Durst is talking about. The other thing that has an interesting derailing effect is stamp collecting and the stamp collecting side of it. Some people collect red stamps and brown stamps and yellow stamps and green stamps. Green stamps are an interesting stamp, the jealousy that somebody else is getting ahead, other people are considered better than I. Am. That poor me. I'm a victim. Well, you know, somebody who's in that mindset end up starting to collect all these cards, all these stamps of how bad their life is and they can be hard to talk to. If you have a fierce conversation with them, you're trying to pull them back from this victim stage and say you can make it whatever you want it to be If you want to be a victim, enjoy the ride, but you don't have to be. You can engage in this. If you wanted advancement, let's work on advancement.
Speaker 2:
The other one that I've always been entertained by is people who collect the red cards and how something has gone wrong in their working environment and maybe they're asking you to go on to another shift, like third shift, because there's cutbacks and there are layoffs and you don't want to be on a third shift and you start collecting red stamps. Well, again, I've seen. Unfortunately, red stamps are one of those stamps that have a little bit more effect. You collect so many of those red stamps and you'll usually find a person that will blow up and be argumentative or, more than likely, take that next step and resign.
Speaker 2:
Red stamps are probably one of the worst things that you can see, but unfortunately you have to deal with people who are stamp collectors or people who are stuck in the past and keep on bringing up examples of what won't work and you have to be able to manage past that. So those examples I have used when I have talked to people and I have helped them understand what it means to be in a leadership role and hopefully we've given you a little idea of what that beginning process of you as an executive leader need to make sure you have your leadership team understand. It would be these three books in my world, greg.
Speaker 1:
You know, john, sometimes we like to leave folks with a thing to think about. When you think about fierce conversations, think about the potential for cultural transformation. We're talking about powerful, meaningful, huge transformation, if you're comfortable enough and skilled enough and learned enough and invested in fierce conversations.
Speaker 2:
Right that whole part of not allowing silence or looking the other way to be an answer to leadership. If you are a leader, you're supposed to be cutting a path and leading by example, and sometimes that best example is saying what doesn't like to be said, because it's not easy and management shouldn't be easy. It has to be an investment. So, if you like what you heard, my book is available on amazoncom Building your Leadership Toolbox. This podcast is available in the format that you're listening to. Thank you, and also other popular formats like Apple, google, spotify and others. Dr Durst's books and his MBR program is available on SuccessfulGrowthAcademycom. If you would like to get a hold of us, we have a couple ways. One is buy us a cup of coffee and you can send us a message. Buy us a cup of coffee and you can send us a message. Or my email is wando75.jw at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:
And Greg, I can reach you at gpowell374 at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and the music is brought to you by my grandson. So we want to hear from you. Send us a message. We'd like to hear what you think of our podcast and what else we can do to make it important for you. Well, thanks, greg.
