9

HAVE DIRECT DIALOGUES

“Leaders of consequence are clear about the shadow they cast because they want to create followership.”

—JUD LINVILLE

Principle 7: Accountability Is an Advantage, Make It Your Obligation

There is no doubt now about the importance of setting and communicating standards. The challenge for many leaders comes when the standards aren’t met.

In 1792 BC, Sin-Muballit gave up his throne of Babylonia to his son, Hammurabi, because of his failing health and a struggling people. The well-educated prince faced many areas of struggle and concern as his reign as king began. As a religious man he believed it to be his responsibility to bring righteousness to his land, destroy evildoers, and ensure that the strong people should not harm the weak. To help he compiled 282 laws to assist him in his ruling of the people and region. It was evident that Hammurabi understood that if people honored an agreement, they should be held accountable for falling outside of it. For example, Law 232 stated that if a Babylonian builder built a house using subpar materials and, for that reason, the house collapsed causing the death of the owner, the builder would be put to death. Harsh consequences, yes, but Babylonian buildings saw an immediate improvement in quality.

Law 232 is just one example of how the now famous “Hammurabi’s Code” helped bring stability to the region and created a fairer system of checks and balances to how people treated each other. While there are issues with any set of laws and the interpretation of them, you would think a king who comes in and creates stricter punishment for breaking laws would be viewed as a bad ruler or, worse, face a rebellion. Quite the opposite is true. Not only did Hammurabi receive the honor of being declared a god within his own lifetime, but he was honored above all other kings of the second millennium BC. He was fondly remembered for bringing victory in war, bringing peace to the region, and most importantly bringing justice to those who had never had it thanks to what’s now known as Hammurabi’s Code.

While we could argue that many of the laws and consequences Hammurabi used are inappropriate today, there is no denying being a leader of consequence isn’t a bad or negative thing when it comes to performance. In fact, it’s required in order to build the best.

In many ways, the hardest element of leadership is being a leader of consequence and holding people accountable. Accountability is one of these words that has been used to the point that its meaning has been largely lost. The actual definition of accountability from BusinessDictionary.com is, “the obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner.” The word that has always jumped out to me here is obligation.

It is the obligation of all leaders to hold themselves accountable and help others do the same. Most people think of accountability in a negative way and believe because they are willing to fire someone that they are good at it. The truth is, accountability isn’t only focusing on the negative; firing someone is one of the weakest forms of it. To go a step further, accountability can be used to praise and recognize team members who meet and exceed the standards set by a leader.

To ensure your success when holding others accountable, a plan of action is imperative. Trying to do so haphazardly will result in a downright disaster. The Acts of Accountability Model provides perspective.

The horizontal line in Figure 9.1 represents how a team member is executing a set standard on a continuum. People can fail, meet, or exceed a standard at any given time. You provide accountability by sharing disapproval when someone fails to meet the standards, acknowledging them when standards are met, and/or giving praise when standards are exceeded in the Acts of Accountability Model (Figure 9.2). Since each situation will be different, you then choose the intensity of accountability appropriate to the actions or behavior of a team member.

FIGURE 9.1   Execution of Standards Continuum

FIGURE 9.2   Acts of Accountability Model

As an example, I have a standard that all team members “remain coachable.” This means it does not matter how experienced you are or how long you have been at LearnLoft, it’s everyone’s responsibility to remain a student and listen to others in order to improve. If someone fails to meet the standard, I have a Direct Dialogue and share disapproval. Through the delivery of an open and honest conversation, we work together to determine what might be causing the shortfall and how the behavior can be modified going forward. If employees are coachable during a conversation, I acknowledge their coachability to ensure they maintain the mindset in future conversations. If they ask questions and take notes about how to improve, I give praise and recognition for exceeding the standard.

The Acts of Accountability Model provides an easy-to-understand framework for you to lean on to determine the appropriate accountability in a multitude of situations. Once you are able to quickly identify the behaviors from someone on your team, here is how you engage in disapproval, acknowledgment, and praise by using Direct Dialogues.

Direct Dialogues

I use the term Direct Dialogue because it’s essential to be direct when pointing out how behavior can be improved or maintained and dialogue is an exchange of ideas, facts, and opinions of multiple people.

Direct Dialogues during moments of difficulty or even celebration can be uncomfortable, but consider the impact of not engaging in dialogue. If you withhold feedback in fear of a reaction, you are suppressing employees’ potential by not sharing something that could help them on their journey, ultimately stunting their professional development. If you refrain from giving praise in fear of being perceived as corny or “soft,” you are missing an opportunity to celebrate great work, which often leads to more of it in the future.

A meaningful Direct Dialogue requires the use of a three-part formula that has helped me and countless other leaders have successful dialogues with their people.

Standards + Evidence + Courage = Direct Dialogue

If you have all three parts—standards, evidence, and courage—the interactions with your team members who fail, meet, or exceed the standard will happen naturally because you will be evaluating the standards set for your team, constantly observing evidence, and showing the courage to bring important things to their attention. Conversely, if one of them is weak or doesn’t exist, your Direct Dialogue falls apart or doesn’t happen altogether.

Since we covered setting standards in great detail in the previous chapter, I am going to assume you have them in place. The second element of the formula is evidence. There is nothing that will derail a Direct Dialogue with your people more than the lack of evidence. Because of this, you need to be prepared with facts and not feelings to support your disapproval, acknowledgment, or praise.

The evidence should be specific, detailed, and tangible. Each role in an organization is different, but here are a few of my favorite examples:

SALESPERSON

Standard: Each person controls what he or she can control, not the outcome.

Fails: Missed key research statistic for a big opportunity that was available on the web. Lack of preparation for initial sales conversation with inbound lead, no dedicated time spent working on the fundamentals of selling outside of active opportunities.

Meets: Added the new opportunity into the CRM on time, completed follow-up letter to the prospect with the correct information.

Exceeds: Interviewed three additional stakeholders in an account to gain insight that helped win an opportunity, added all documentation and the data from others into the opportunity in the CRM prior to the scheduled date.

BARISTA

Standard: Create a positive experience for customers and coworkers.

Fails: Greeted customers without a smile on Wednesday morning, came in 15 minutes late for a shift on Friday morning and left coworkers to run understaffed, missed two opportunities to help team members during the morning rush on Monday.

Meets: Made all drinks correctly and on time on Monday, cleaned bathrooms on schedule, greeted customers with a smile during all shifts, supported the team during peak hours by refilling low items from the storeroom.

Exceeds: Took time outside of work to get educated on coffee beans and shared the knowledge with customers this weekend, helped customers download the app on Monday so they could earn rewards for their purchases, told new team member she was doing a great job on Monday during a morning rush.

I realize these are specific examples that might be unrelated to your leadership role, but they all provide tangible evidence.

Many leaders claim they are “too busy” to spot this evidence. Just walking around the office or being attentive during a meeting isn’t enough. Why? Because people are really good at straightening up or putting on an act when the boss comes around. Dedicate time on your calendar to proactively look for evidence each person is meeting, exceeding, or failing to meet standards. As you observe, take time to write down the specifics. The purpose isn’t to seek bad behavior or find ways to micromanage. It is to capture evidence to encourage, reinforce, or improve the performance.

Once you have gathered the evidence of why a team member is failing, meeting, or exceeding standards, then you need the most significant element of the formula, courage. Courage is simply the ability to do something that frightens you. C.S. Lewis famously said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” Lewis got it right because each and every virtue a leader needs to possess will meet its testing point at some time.

Most leaders aren’t comfortable with the idea of inviting a team member into a dialogue to share disapproval or praise, which is why courage is so necessary. If you fall into this category, ask yourself one simple question: “Will taking action help this person or encourage this person to continue something he or she is doing well?” If the answer is yes, it’s time to move to the execution of Direct Dialogues to share disapproval, acknowledgment, or praise.

Sharing Disapproval

Many of the leaders whose style is to elevate have an innate talent for delivering successful dialogues with team members who fail to meet the standards. They instinctively position the conversation to lower the emotional tension, position evidence in a way that shows they care, and ask the right questions to promote self-discovery. Most of us who struggle with this particular skill need an aid, one that helps us emulate what the best do instinctually. The 6-Step Disapproval Dialogue helps you do this.

It’s a straightforward set of steps that can be used to have more productive disapproval dialogues with your people in a short amount of time. The six steps include:

1.   Set the stage.

2.   Share evidence.

3.   Allow response.

4.   Talk impact.

5.   Coach for growth.

6.   Close with Actions.

Let’s jump into the steps in detail, so you not only understand the steps but can apply them.

STEP 1: SET THE STAGE

The majority of disapproval dialogues fail because both parties involved believe they are on different teams instead of the same one. It’s your job as a leader to set the stage for this dialogue so your team members know you are here to help not to hurt them. Start by stating a shared purpose statement to communicate you are on the same team, and you care about their development. It could sound like this: “We are here because we share the same goal. We both care about your personal growth and the development of our team.” By opening with a strong statement showing a common purpose for improvement, the guard of your team member will go down, and he or she will be open to the rest of the dialogue.

STEP 2: SHARE EVIDENCE

We have all heard the saying “Results speak for themselves.” But do they really? Take Mark McGwire, for example. He hit 70 home runs during the 1998 Major League Baseball season. At the time, this was the all-time record for a season. If you were Mark’s baseball manager and only looked at results for evidence that season, you would have nothing except praise. But years later it came out that McGwire used performance-enhancing drugs, which improved his odds of hitting so many home runs during the season. Based on results, McGwire set a record. Based on the underlying situation, however, he didn’t. This proves that results-based evidence is the wrong formula for long-term success.

In order to gain all of the needed evidence, observe both the current results as well as habits and behaviors on an ongoing basis. There are two things to look for within these behaviors and habits: will and skill.

Will = Attitude and positive motivation

Skill = Technical ability to execute the job

Will issues need to be addressed head-on, while skill issues need to be coached and developed. I will share more about coaching for skill issues later on in the book.

This is where the evidence you have collected about the areas of improvement comes into play because you will be listing off a few of the things that need to get better. Without facts, you will be stuck in a series of feelings that are ripe to be disregarded or, worse, countered with an alternative opinion. It could sound something like this: “I noticed Monday when your colleague Mike gave you ideas for improving your speed to complete the project, you immediately interrupted him and became defensive. This behavior of being uncoachable manifested itself again yesterday on our joint call with our client when you completely disregarded the feedback the client gave you about your work. Being coachable is a standard all of us are responsible for, including me. Is there anything going on I should know about because this isn’t like you?” By laying out the evidence of multiple events in which the will-oriented behaviors failed to meet the standard, you provide clarity. This clarity will elicit some form of a response or rebuttal.

STEP 3: ALLOW RESPONSE

Some people tend to be better at receiving feedback than others. Their response will include an agreement, a defensive statement, silence, or an argument. Allow them to voice their response and listen intently as they do. Remain calm and stick to the facts and/or proof about your observations. As John Quincy Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” The exchange might sound something like this:

TEAM MEMBER: “It was the client’s fault; they weren’t clear about what they wanted.”

YOU: “I was on the first call with the client, and they were clear about what they wanted. You weren’t coachable, and I am telling you this because I have seen you be coachable before. So, I was disappointed to see this when I know what you are capable of.”

By reiterating the facts and providing a statement of encouragement, you again offer a way to calm the emotions in the room and renew your shared purpose of growth and improvement.

STEP 4: TALK IMPACT

Since our brains are always thinking about either a pain or a gain, now is the time to get specific about the impact of team members’ behavior on themselves or the team if this behavior continues. It could sound something like this: “When you aren’t open to feedback or better ways of doing something, it slows us down and hurts our teamwork. We are only as strong as our weakest link.” In a swift comment, you make your team member aware of how the behavior not only affects the member but the team as a whole. If you have specific stats or examples of what the behavior cost the team, this is the time to share it.

STEP 5: COACH FOR GROWTH

As you will learn in the next chapter, every person could be in a different stage of role development, but it’s never a bad idea to ask a few great questions about how people plan to make changes. You can home in on open-ended questions that are focused on improving future outcomes. It could sound something like this: “What other approaches might you take next time?” or “What do you think we should do moving forward to ensure this doesn’t happen again?” Both of these questions allow your team member to internalize and determine the best way to solve the problem moving forward. If the person doesn’t have answers, be prepared to make a few suggestions or tell a story about how you weren’t coachable at one point and what you did to overcome it.

STEP 6: CLOSE WITH ACTIONS

Now it’s time to gain a mutual confirmation on what behaviors will change and how the team member plans on changing them. Talk in detail about the actions you expect in the future and if necessary the consequences if the behavior doesn’t change. It could sound something like this: “Can we agree that you have room for improvement when it comes to our standard of remaining coachable? As a next step, I am going to follow up on your current projects on May 15th at 11 a.m. to see how you are doing with your colleagues and our clients. I will send you a meeting invite.” By setting up a specific time and date to follow up, you show you are serious about inspecting what you expect. Once you have confirmed the next step, now the real work starts. These are things like documenting the conversation in an e-mail, following up and following through on your commitments to inspect, and observing and reassessing improvement over time. Create a system that works for your schedule to allow this type of detail. Below are a few best practices:

   Send an e-mail summarizing the conversation with a meeting request for a future date included.

   Schedule a one-on-one meeting with a colleague who works closely with the team member to gauge behavior change.

   Provide educational content to the team member around behavior change.

In every workshop I deliver, the question always comes up, “This is great, but what about the consequence of losing their job?” While the threat of firing can undoubtedly be a consequence, I prefer to see outcomes that aren’t so extreme. If you do choose extreme consequences (which I admit might be required at times), just know you have to have the courage to follow through if the behavior change isn’t met.

Having a disapproval dialogue when someone isn’t meeting the standard can be challenging. Often conflict will arise, or excuses will start flying from the person you are delivering the criticism to. Remember you are holding team members accountable to help them improve, so these dialogues must happen. Be direct, confident, and rely on the 6-Step Disapproval Dialogue to help you with both preparation and execution. Each situation and leader is different; the key is you are having the dialogue to help promote better choices to your team. You can go to buildingthebestbook.com/tools to download a copy of the 6-Step Disapproval Dialogue to help you.

Alternative Methods for a Disapproval Dialogue

Now that you have a clear pathway to have disapproval dialogues, you probably realize there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Not every leader does things exactly the same, but different methods can get similar results. There are two other methods I want to highlight.

A study done by researchers from Stanford, Columbia, and Yale explored the secrets of giving great feedback. They had middle-school teachers assign an essay-writing assignment to their students, after which students were given different types of teacher feedback.

To their surprise, researchers discovered that there was one particular type of teacher feedback that improved student effort and performance so much that they deemed it “magical.” Students who received this feedback chose to revise their paper far more often than students who did not and improved their performance significantly. What was the Magical Feedback? This one phrase:

“I am giving you these comments because I have high standards and I know that you can reach them.”

This simple phrase provides the opportunity for you as a leader to reiterate your high standards while sharing your belief in others out loud. I have successfully adopted this phrase in all areas of leadership. I use it with my children, my coworkers, and even my spouse because it works.

Joe Maddon, a successful Major League Baseball manager and current skipper for the Chicago Cubs, has a unique way of handling these disapproval dialogues with his team members. When one of his players violates a team rule or isn’t meeting the standards set by the coaching staff, he asks the player to get a nice bottle of wine and then open it with him in a one-on-one meeting. Thus he’s dedicated time to the player to have the disapproval dialogue, while at the same time creating a deep sense of connection between the two of them. This unorthodox approach turns the act of sharing disapproval into an act of deep connection. It doesn’t mean he isn’t delivering the message to the player, but he understands the walls that can go up when delivering a message that someone might not like to hear. The environment can be just as important as the message itself. The key here is to find what works best for you and your team. Once you find out the message that works best, be consistent in delivering it because it is paramount to help improve the performance of individual team members and the group as a whole.

Becoming a leader who embraces the challenge of having productive disapproval dialogues isn’t easy. But if you want to build the best, this is precisely the attitude and effort required. As I mentioned earlier, all accountability isn’t negative. There is a form that comes off as neutral.

Acknowledging When Standards Are Met

Many of the below-average leaders I interviewed for the book responded to the idea of acknowledging when standards are met with the following: “Why would I do that? That is what they are paid to do.” While I can understand where they are coming from, I found that leaders whose style is to elevate have the opposite mentality. When behaviors are up to the predetermined standards, these leaders take the time to acknowledge this fact. They continue to rely on the formula of Standards + Evidence + Courage = Direct Dialogue to ensure they share acknowledgment. Below are some of the most commonly used phrases these leaders use to show you how they do it:

   “Thank you!”

   “Well done!”

   “Good job!”

   “Looks good!”

   “I appreciate the work!”

   “Keep it up!”

Although this seems simple, choosing to use these words with your team can be a powerful tool. A large number of employees feel undervalued, underappreciated, and frustrated at work. Simple acts of acknowledgment go a long way toward helping employees feel the opposite of these negative emotions. It is important to note, you do not want to go overboard in praise and recognition or people will start to believe just meeting the standard is as good as they can do.

Giving Praise When Standards Are Exceeded

As important as sharing disapproval and acknowledgment are to creating a culture of accountability, it is equally important to give authentic praise and recognition when people go above and beyond the standard. Why? Because people have three basic needs—they need to feel well-liked, important, and appreciated. It is human nature. One way to help them fill these basic needs is to give them authentic praise. People of all generations, whether they admit it or not, like to be praised. Receiving recognition releases dopamine in the brain, making people feel good. Beyond that, dopamine has also been proven to create innovative thinking and promotes problem solving at work.

It is just like when you share a picture on social media that gets 100 likes or when someone leaves a positive comment on something you’ve shared. Those small recognitions make you feel good and make you want to keep doing it again.

Those leaders whose style is to elevate understand this. They continue to use the formula of Standards + Evidence + Courage = Direct Dialogue as their foundation for giving praise. In one of my coaching conversations with a client named Josh, he told me a story about someone on his team named Sharon. Due to some unforeseen circumstances out of anyone’s control, Sharon noticed the company’s website was offline at 6 p.m. While Sharon was not directly responsible for keeping the website up and running, she knew the standard Josh had previously set for his team, “It’s never not your job.”

Instead of shrugging it off as a problem she was not capable of solving and leaving it for the experts in the morning, she stayed at the office and worked relentlessly for over six hours navigating challenge after challenge to finally get the site online and live up to the standard. That same night, the e-commerce site sold multiple products—something it wouldn’t have been able to do if the site was not online. The next morning, Josh had the courage to give Sharon praise and recognition in front of the group by saying, “Last night’s effort made an immediate impact on our business, and I cannot thank you enough for your willingness to work hard and solve the problem.”

Josh did as good of a job at giving authentic praise as Sharon did being proactive in her work. He relied on the standards set, saw the evidence of Sharon’s effort, and had the courage to give praise. If that wasn’t enough he also provided a window into exactly how to give praise by being definitive about when the behaviors occurred, sharing the impact it had on the team, and delivering it in front of the entire team. By doing this, he got everyone thinking about additional ways to exceed the standard in order to make the same kind of impact as Sharon on an ongoing basis.

Since giving praise isn’t a strong suit for most leaders, I’ve developed the 3x3 Praise Model (Figure 9.3) to help. The first three parts of the model share what to do when giving praise. You can download a copy of the model at buildingthebestbook.com/tools.

FIGURE 9.3   3x3 Praise Model

The model shows how and where to give praise. First, how to give praise:

1.   Be definitive. Clarify what the team member did to exceed the standard. Instead of just focusing on the end result of the person’s work, focus on the behavior that produced it.

2.   Discuss the impact of the behavior. Highlight the impact the behavior had on the team, organization, or person. This is critical and often forgotten or assumed. Spell out what good things happened because of the person’s extra effort.

3.   Show appreciation. Tell the person how much it meant to you and how much you appreciate what he or she did for the team.

Now that you know what to do when giving praise, the other half of the 3x3 Praise Model focuses on where to do it.

1.   One-on-one. Giving authentic praise directly one-on-one in person works best. While you can certainly rely on text messages, e-mails, or a Slack message, the most powerful way to give praise is face-to-face. If it is not possible to do in person, leverage these other communication methods to share praise.

2.   Publicly. Giving praise one-on-one is great, but providing it in front of peers proves a platform to exude that praise beyond one individual and allows others to join in as well. It is almost like a built-in microphone. Not only does the person who deserves the praise get it from more people, but it promotes others on the team to emulate and mimic the behaviors that are receiving the praise.

3.   Indirectly. It is easy to think about giving praise when the team member is present, but what about doing it when the team member isn’t around? There is power in bragging about a team member’s behaviors and performance to others as well. Most of the time it gets back to the individual you’re praising, and now team members know you go out of your way to elevate them in front of others.

Most likely you already give praise to your people, so leverage the 3x3 Praise Model to think about additional ways of both where and when to give it to have the maximum impact. Giving praise costs you nothing, but it can mean the world to the person on the receiving end.

Taking Accountability to the Next Level

Taking the time to use the Acts of Accountability Model on a daily basis will improve your ability to identify the appropriate response and what level to impart. While I can’t overstate the importance of this, the best leaders know accountability doesn’t stop there. They are after something even deeper: a culture of accountability. Scott Frost knows a thing or two about this second level of accountability. He was hired as the head football coach at the University of Central Florida in 2015 with the team coming off of a 0-12 season under their previous head coach. Just two season later Frost guided UCF to an undefeated season, going 12-0 and being named coach of the year. Not only did he complete one of the great turnarounds in sports history, but he did it by focusing on his team. That success provided him the opportunity to return to Nebraska University to be the head football coach at his alma mater in 2018. When interviewed just a couple of months after starting his new job, Frost gave some insight to any leader trying to take accountability to the next level. “We need to train our leaders better. Once the team is holding each other accountable and the coaches do not have to do it, you’ve got a powerful team.”

While I have zero doubt Frost will be able to do this at Nebraska, what he’s striving to put into practice in order to create a true culture of accountability is something I call the Accountability Circle (Figure 9.4).

FIGURE 9.4   Accountability Circle

The first step is holding yourself accountable to meet and exceed the standards you set to be a part of the team. Then leveraging the great relationships you have built with your people, you earn the right to hold others accountable. It is intentionally built in a circle because in order to take accountability to the next level the team members themselves have to hold each other accountable to the standards so the leader isn’t always the one sharing disapproval, acknowledging when standards are met, or providing praise when they are exceeded. You always know you are getting near having a true culture of accountability when you see teammates hold each other accountable out of love and trying to help someone get better.

Now I do not pretend this is easy, but it is something every leader of a team or even a family should strive for. In order to begin this process, teach the Acts of Accountability Model and the Accountability Circle to your people.

Being a leader of consequence, where accountability is at the center of everything you do, will lead to improved performance. What you will also find is that not only will you be respected for it, but your people will appreciate and even end up demanding it.