10 Wake-up Call Questions for Employees in Denial

Employees just tune it out. They stop hearing the company’s messages about sagging profits, increased competition, and high operating costs.   

Even as supervisors, we start to believe it’s probably just a scare tactic to get employees to work harder.  So we tune out the implications when our employees need us to lead. 

Look reality in the eye 

No one wants to be caught at work with their proverbial pants down. That means, as supervisors, we need to pay attention to what management is saying. 

As the supervisor, you’re the one expected to communicate what’s going on to your employees. You’re the messenger and sometimes the message isn’t very palatable, even to you. 

Even if your employees act skeptical, push back, or become dismissive, communicating what you can (some things may be proprietary) is a must.  

As a supervisor, your job is to get and keep the attention of your employees. You need to make sure they understand the realities of the marketplace and how they might be affected. 

You are their teacher and guide to their future success. So when they are at risk, you need to focus them on ways they can influence their future. 

Some work groups become particularly vulnerable when a business is feeling the financial squeeze—human resources, marketing, IT, customer service, finance—because some of their services can be subcontracted. 

These employees often feel the need to justify their cost-benefit to the company. Their tendency is to become defensive rather than to take the offense. 

Smart supervisors refocus their employees what their collective value to the company can/will be going forward. They help them self-assess and then reinvent themselves with their eyes wide open. 

Promote inquiry and vigilance. 

Here are ten questions every supervisor should work through routinely with his/her employees to wake up awareness and excite new ideas as part of planning and goal setting, no matter what conditions the company faces. 

In a working session or as part of routinely scheduled meetings, resolve each question through open discussion: 

1. What business are we in? For example, is it… 

• Delivering training programs or promoting more effective performance?
• Trouble-shooting software or building a tech savvy workforce?
• Answering customer questions or building a loyal customer following? 

2. If our work group no longer existed, who would notice or care?  

       Employees in other work groups, customers, regulators, suppliers, no one

3. How are we perceived within and outside the company? What’s our brand? Are we… 

• Sought-after specialists or just an after-thought
• Customer-oriented or internally focused
• Innovative leaders or status quo protectors 

4. Whose support do we need?

       Executive leadership, other department managers, internal clients, key customers,   regulators, media, each other 

5. How do we expand our influence?  

     Increased visibility, relationship building, collaborative activities, high quality work 

6. What do we need to do better?  

     Improve skills, output, processes, communication, trustworthiness, service  

7.  What’s at stake if we don’t retool/reposition ourselves?  

     Dissolution, downsizing, absorption into another department, loss of funding and/or   influence 

8. How much time do we have to get it together?  

     A year, six months, a quarter, asap! 

9. What do we need to do now?  

     Answer our unanswered questions, gather more data, generate more ideas, build a plan, distribute assignments, engage others, implement actions, debrief results, continue to improve

10. Who’s accountable for what? Make assignments.

     You as supervisor, individual employee team members—everyone has a part to play 

Work together—as a team! 

It’s been documented frequently, through workplace studies, that most employees trust what their immediate supervisors say over anyone else in the company. So what and how you tell them make a big difference. 

The more successful you are showing your employees how conditions in the company are likely to impact them, the more engaged and willing they’ll be to follow your lead. Do this and you’ll see resistance decline and teamwork increase.   

Try asking your employees these ten questions. You’ll be amazed at what you hear.

Photo from Minarae via Flickr

Change or Stagnation? What’ll It Be? | Facing Resistance Behaviors

Odd, isn’t it? We accept a job. Learn how it’s to be done. Then decide to do certain things our own way. That’s okay if our boss agrees that our way is as good or better. But often, s/he doesn’t think so.

We resist change when it doesn’t compute.

Few employees understand how their work impacts the business. Theirs is not a big picture view; it’s a focus on tasks. All jobs, in some way, affect:

• Profitability
• Brand identity
• Customers
• Efficiency and effectiveness
• Productivity 

The way we perform either helps or hurts the business and, often, the people we work with. When we resist changes designed to improve the business, we become an obstacle to success.

Resistance can be a cover up.

We rely on our knowledge, skills, and experience to help us achieve. Without the right skill set, we feel helpless and may try to hide our deficiencies.

We especially don’t like it when changes are made to the way we’ve always done our jobs. As a result, we may:

• overtly resist by creating “noise,” pushback, or non-participation
• covertly resist by “waiting it out,” expecting management to tire of the resistance and abandon the change 

Change follows consequences.

Successful businesses depend on change. Innovations are change and so are new programs, new employees, new equipment, and new processes. As employees, we are expected to accept and adapt to change willingly, regardless of how disruptive it may feel.   

Change is as good for us as it is for the business. It’s how we add knowledge and skills, test our capabilities, grow and position ourselves for advancement. We need it or we’ll stagnate, become soured about our careers, and lose our edge.

What a horse taught me!

Woody was the first horse I ever bred. He was big, had lots of personality and a strong will.  

As a yearling, he was coming into his own. I would feed him and my other horses at 5:30 AM and turn them out before I went to work.

For Woody this was an important ritual, teaching him the proper deportment he would need for a good life.

One morning he decided he didn’t want to be led out. When I entered the stall, he turned his back on me ready to kick. I was in no mood for attitude! After trying to coax him for about 5 minutes, I turned the other horses out, leaving him alone in the barn. I knew he wouldn’t like that and hoped it would convince him to cooperate.

Instead he got worse. Now, when I entered the stall, he turned and gave a hard kick at me. And another. It was clear: This was going to take a while. I couldn’t let Woody win for his sake and mine.

So I decided to wait him out. I stood at the stall door, holding the lead, and said, “Woody, when you’re ready, come over here, and I’ll take you out with your buddies.”

He looked at me and pitched a major temper tantrum. He bucked and bucked and hurled himself around. Then he’d stop, turn his back to me and peek around to see if I was still there watching. Then he’d carry on again—stop and peek. This went on for 20 minutes.

Finally, he tired of the drama. He quietly came over to me, let me hook the lead to his halter and walk him out to his pasture. That behavior never happened again!

Woody’s decision to ultimately accept what was expected was his ticket to a productive and happy career.

Business fitness boosts our change tolerance. 

Change always puts us a bit off our game. Our ability to see “what’s going on” at our jobs and “how we fit” helps us put change in a useful perspective. So when we face change, let’s invest in making it work and skip the tantrums!

What’s the most difficult change you had to adapt to? Did you resist or accept from the outset? How did it all work out?