The Metiss Group's Blog

It’s a well known fact that 75% of business startups fail in the first year, over 80% fail in the first 5 years, and only 4% survive 10 years. Given these overwhelming odds, why do so many entrepreneurs risk their life savings and start businesses?  When most people anticipate future events, their initial reaction is to be overly optimistic.

We’ve all sat in meetings where the high influencers in the group persuade the team with the optimistic vision.  The opinions of the quiet realists are often overlooked or stifled by the enthusiasm created by the energetic influencers.  Good leaders recognize decisions can be hijacked by the overly optimistic vocal team members and go out of their way to extract the opinions of the less forceful deep thinkers.

One approach is for leaders to challenge their team to conduct a premortem when making important decisions.  When the team has almost come to an important decision, have the team imagine they are a year into the future. They implemented the plan as it now exists.  The outcome was a disaster.  Have them discuss what went wrong that created the disaster.  It’s amazing how engaged the introverted conscientious team members become and how better decisions are made using this approach.

Leaders who empower their decision makers to conduct premortems make more successful decisions.

When communicating and giving feedback, leaders should use questions rather than statements for a number of reasons.

When leaders ask questions and solicit solutions, they gain commitment to the execution of that solution since the direct report feels empowered. Secondly, they expand the direct report’s critical thinking ability when they ask questions, probe for answers, outcomes, and long term ramifications.

In Jim Collins’ book, “How the Mighty Fall,” he stresses the importance of a leader’s question to statement ratio suggesting they appoint someone in a team meeting to track how many statements they make and how many questions are asked.  Then he suggests leaders systematically try to increase the number of questions to double that ratio over the period of one year.

Leaders should empower direct reports by using questions to increase critical thinking and problem solving ability throughout the organization for more success.

When asked, “What’s the one thing you most admire about your best boss?” most people answer something about communication and feedback.  When we ask people, “What’s the one thing you’d like more from your boss?” most people answer something about more communication and feedback.

So if communication and feedback is most admirable from leaders AND most people feel they don’t get enough from their boss, what are the chances direct reports are getting all the communication and feedback they want/need?  In the same way leaders want more feedback from their boss, their direct reports want more feedback from them.

When giving feedback keep these basics in mind:

• Feedback should on-going and delivered frequently;
• Feedback should be delivered timely, immediately after the demonstrated behavior;
• The feedback should describe the observed behavior not be personal or an opinion;
• Tailor the feedback to the direct report’s personality style;
• Keep the feedback productive, corrections should focus on future behaviors;
• Deliver both positive and course correction feedback (positive should out-weigh corrective).

Leaders empowering their direct reports with feedback and communication create more success for both.

Behaviors are observable actions we all demonstrate.  Some behaviors are more productive than others.  All behaviors leave those observing the behavior with an impression of us.  When providing feedback to your direct reports, site their behavior not your interpretation of the action.

Some examples:

• Instead of “You are rude and inconsiderate,” say “I’m concerned when you rolled your eyes and interrupted Tim during our meeting, you appear rude and inconsiderate.”
• Instead of “You need to be a better team player,” say “I’m worried when you said ‘we worked hard on that report’ despite being the only team member who didn’t stay late to work on it, you give the impression of not being a team player.”
• Instead of “Your clothes are unprofessional,” say “I’m afraid when you wore that sheer blouse, you looked unprofessional.”
• Instead of “You don’t care about your job,” say “I’m concerned when you showed up late for three meetings last week, you gave the impression you don’t care about your job.”
• Instead of “You did a good job yesterday,” say “You did a good job preparing the summary report for our team meeting yesterday.”

Empowered leaders keep feedback focused on the behavior not interpretations, making feedback conversations more objective and less argumentative for continued success.

Almost every company has some sort of annual goals.  But, according to the Staples Small Business Survey, more than 80% of small business owners admit they don’t give enough attention to achieving them.  Leaders should place more attention on aligning these targets throughout the organization. According to business thought leader James Fischer, companies that regularly allow staff to author, contribute and monitor the business goals have 60% less employee turnover than those that plan and strategize from the top down.

An organization’s goals should be communicated to everyone within the organization – everyone.  Department goals should be aligned with the organization goals and individual goals aligned with department goals.  Everyone should have objectives that are linked to the priorities of the organization.

Example: organization goal – increase sales by $500,000 by December 31; IT department goal – implement new CRM system by June 30; IT Manager goal – choose CRM system by February 1.

Once the leader shares organization and department goals, let direct reports determine their own objectives with the leader’s coaching. 

Leaders who empower their team to achieve individual goals benefit from employee engagement, collaboration, and corporate stewardship success.