employee withholds

Employee Withholds are Lies That Breakdown Communication & Teamwork

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When an employee withholds their thoughts, feeling and information it is as if they are lying about something. Holding back expressing a feeling about someone or a situation means that the person is hiding something that is affecting them negatively and it must come out. Otherwise it will have an impact on their performance and productivity or could affect the team or a co-worker.


An example would be if someone is a subject matter expert and knows that someone is having a problem that they could help solve with timely information. But because they do not like the person for whatever reason, they hold back the information, and this affects productivity. Withholds are lies and result from anger or fear, which are both negative emotions.


Prevention

The best way to deal with employee withholds is prevention and this should be part of employee development and teamwork training. Often employee training is focused on skill development such as technical or software skills, but personal development skills such as communication, attitude and teamwork also need to be delivered as part of a holistic approach to employee training.


Team training for employees that incorporates discussing withholds and lying should bring awareness along with ways to deal with negative emotions and situations that could be the cause. This could be how to confront somebody or how to express feelings when feeling hurt or mistreated by someone.

 

Another way to prevent employee withholds and lying is to have regular one on one discussions with employees. These conversations are about how the employee is feeling about their job and their experience in the workplace. It is a time to let employees express what is on their minds and unload any negative thoughts through open discussion. It is also an opportunity to build trust. The more these types of communications happen the more employee will feel safe to express themselves.


Just recently I experienced two situations in my personal life where people withheld something from me, and it escalated into them no longer speaking to me. The strange thing is I could not find out what caused them to act this way. One of them is a neighbour who I was quite friendly with and now will not look at me. This person is withholding something and has let this destroy our relationship. Rather than come forth and express what was bothering him he chose to withhold it and keep it secret. This a good case of self-deception as he must have found a way to justify his behavior to himself.


The bottom line is we are adults who sometimes behave as children and need to learn to act as the adults we are.


self confidence

Great Technique for Building Self Confidence and Motivation of Employees

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Self-confident and motivated employees will perform their job better and produce superior results. This just makes sense, right?


You can increase the self-confidence and motivation of employees by applying this simple technique. But it does take conscious awareness and knowledge of each employee.


The technique is to verbally recognize a trait that someone is using to produce a behaviour that generates a result. For example, Susan is a customer service representative and you hear her dealing with a client on the phone who is upset, and she applies great listening skills and empathy to calm the client down. This saves the company from losing the client to the competition.  You realize that the quality or trait that drives the behaviour is Susan‘s interest in people and her ability to quickly nurture a relationship and win their trust.


By verbally recognizing and pointing out this to Susan, you touch her in a deep way and get her to better understand herself and her qualities. This will increase her self-confidence and motivation and make her want to use this trait more often. By continuously using a strength you get better and better at it, just like a pro athlete or musician.


To apply this technique, you might say to Susan, I see how well you handled the irate client by apply good listening skills and showing empathy. This seems to have saved us the customer and shows your quality of caring for people and building relationships. Great job; keep it up!


This technique can be applied to any position and again all it takes is for you to be conscious and observant of people’s behaviour. Of course, you could just recognize the behaviour that produced the result but when you actually link it to a natural quality and strength of the person they are deeply touched and it increases their own self knowledge.


I suggest that for each employee you write down their key qualities that seem natural to them. Next to each quality write down a related behavior and then think of how this affects their performance and contributes to the company. Then look for opportunities to observe those behaviors in action and recognize them using this technique.


Even though the technique is quite simple it does take practice and to be conscious to observe people and look for opportunities to recognize them.


Perhaps start with one employee and make a conscious effort to become aware of their qualities and strengths and their behaviours and look for an opportunity to recognize that.


You will quickly see them light up from the feedback and become more confident in themselves. This will elevate you from a manager to a highly skilled leader just by applying this one technique. It will also make you highly respected by your employees and build trust with them. This will help you retain your top performers while boosting employee performance and engagement.


micromanaging

How to Stop Being a Micro-Manager

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Micromanaging employees does not work to have employees perform better. It causes people to become dependant on the manager to be told what to do and most employees hate it. Talented employees will after a while of being micromanaged seek another job.


Just the other day I was interviewing a candidate for a job with my client and he told me one of the key reasons he was looking for a change was because his boss micromanaged him.


Managers micromanage people because they fear losing control. A manager is responsible for the productivity and performance of their staff, but there are better ways to manage performance.


To stop micromanaging but still feel on top of things, you can apply this best practice approach.


  1. Discuss and agree on performance expectations with employees. You can ask employees to propose their own performance commitments and discuss until you find common ground. This is best done with mature employees. Otherwise have a discussion and propose what you want as commitments. Make sure to write everything down for later reference.
  2. Discuss and agree on support needed by the employee to achieve the desired performance expectations. Make sure you provide the support, or the resources needed.
  3. Set up a way to track and measure progress. These are key performance indicators (KPI’s). Make sure it is easy to do and whenever possible have the employee input the data or keep track for review with you.
  4. Make sure to schedule regular follow-ups to discuss the KPI’s and the support commitments you made.

This is a simple process that will allow you to evolve from a micromanager to a leader who empowers people to meet their own performance commitments. Employees will go from resenting your management style to appreciating you as a good leader.


achieving goals

Planning for Overcoming Obstacles to Achieving Goals

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Planning for obstacles that may stand in your way to achieve a goal or complete a project is essential. By not anticipating some of the major challenges that can hold you back, may be a good reason why many people quit working on their goals.


I have been on vacation and doing a lot of hiking. Sometimes there are obstacles in the way that we may not have anticipated. But by knowing the trail, your skill level and having the right equipment can make overcoming the obstacles doable.


The key section of my goal planning worksheet is obstacles and solutions.  That is why it is important to write down a goal using a goal planning worksheet and completing all the sections


Once you have a clear goal and vision for what you want to accomplish you can easily brainstorm possible obstacles. After writing the obstacles you can then foresee possible solutions. It then becomes natural to turn the solutions into action steps.


One of the hikes we are undertook was quite challenging and I even took quite a tumble and twisted my ankle. But I knew that the hike was still within my skill level and I continued to complete it. I was glad I had brought a walking stick, which I rarely do, because the descent was quite steep. So, the next time you set a goal or plan a project download my goal planning worksheet and complete the whole thing including the obstacles and solutions section. You will discover how more adapt you will be towards realizing your goal or project.