In this lesson, you'll learn about the types of agreements you need from your employees. These agreements lay the foundation for future appraisals.
Agreement occurs at two levels. Logical agreement is the easier of the two to achieve. Emotional agreement is more difficult to acquire. It's also more powerful.
Plain English
Logical agreement occurs when your mind accepts the premise. Emotional agreement occurs when you desire to act on the idea.
I'm sure you've had an employee agree with your ideas, yet never act on them. It's frustrating, right? Why didn't the employee act? You achieved only logical agreement; you didn't get to the emotional agreement needed for action.
There is an old sales adage that says, "People buy with their emotions, then justify the decision with logic." Why? We buy emotionally because that's the way we're built. There's no magical insight here; that's just the way we are.
Why do we use logic to justify our decisions? We don't want to appear whimsical or foolish. We're afraid that if we admit to allowing our emotions to rule our decisions our intelligence will be suspect. That's why we use logic to mask the emotions involved in our decisions.
What does this mean to you as a leader? It means that your employees aren't likely to achieve their performance and development goals unless they agree emotionally to those goals. This reality places an additional burden on you. You not only have to get agreement, you have to gauge the level of agreement you're getting.
To help you understand what's involved in getting emotional agreement, let's look at the types of agreement you need.
You need agreement on your employee's strengths. This may seem like a ridiculous exercise. After all, the employee knows his strengths, doesn't he? Not necessarily.
Every employee has some tasks that he accomplishes with such natural ease that he doesn't realize that other people struggle with the same work. This is a common occurrence. You need to highlight their strengths to make sure they are aware of them. This awareness is crucial to their ability to teach these skills to co-workers.
Tip
Have your employees share their skills with each other. It's one of the most powerful, inexpensive, and readily available methods for helping your employees achieve their development goals.
When discussing your employees' performance, begin by agreeing on their strengths. It's a wonderful place to start. Not only does it set a positive tone for the meeting, it makes it easy for you to gain emotional agreement very quickly. The more quickly you open the door to agreement, the easier future agreements become.
The key to successfully discussing improvement opportunities is to avoid losing the ground gained while discussing strengths. This is not as easy as it might sound. Implicit in the need to improve is an admission that we're not as good as we should be. No one likes to admit that.
The need to improve shouldn't trouble us, but it does. Once again, we're facing the logic-versus-emotion argument. Logically, we know that we're not perfect, that we will never be perfect. Since perfection isn't possible, there is always opportunity for improvement. Intuitively we know this. We can even accept it logically. That doesn't mean we have to like it.
Emotionally, we despise the thought of being less than perfect. We hate admitting shortcomings. The mere thought of inadequacy brings us down emotionally.
Your employees wrestle with the same emotions we do. It is easy to trigger these emotions in your employees by using the wrong language in discussing improvement opportunities. Once lost, the emotional high gained from reviewing strengths is almost impossible to regain. How can you be sure that you're using the right language? Avoid discussing "the need to improve." Rather discuss the "desire to improve."
Here are some examples of language you can use:
Instead of asking, "How do you think you can improve your skills?" ask, "What's the next level of success you want to achieve with these skills?"
Rather than ask, "What are your weaknesses?" ask, "How can you build on your strengths?"
Don't ask, "Why do you struggle with this type of work?" Ask, "What would make it easier for you to accomplish this task?"
You get the picture.
When discussing improvement opportunities, you can either build on the momentum gained in your discussions of strengths or lose that momentum through ill-chosen words. The choice is yours.
Caution
There are lots more agreements to gain. Drop the ball at this early stage, and you've set yourself up for a long, difficult, and often unproductive appraisal meeting.
Once you've achieved emotional agreement on what needs to be improved, you and your employee have to agree on the approach to use. In an earlier lesson we spoke of the importance of leaving employees to their own devices. Let's revisit the emotional aspects of leader-directed versus employee-directed approaches.
Place yourself in the role of the employee. Let's assume that you and your boss have decided that you need to become more organized. Last year your boss attended a wonderful seminar on organization skills. He suggests that you attend the seminar.
You don't like group education. You prefer audio programs for several reasons. First, you feel that you learn better in a quieter environment. Second, you aren't the type of person who likes to participate in exercises, nor do you ask a lot of questions. Third, you enjoy the ability to rewind and review anything that didn't quite register the first time. Finally, you consider yourself a slow learner. It's not that you are stupid, it's just that sometimes it takes a little longer for you to grasp a concept than it does your co-workers.
Now let's assume that your boss insists that you take the seminar. What's your commitment likely to be? Are you likely to postpone action on this approach? If you do agree to attend the seminar, will your agreement be logical or emotional? How will the level of your agreement affect the benefit you gain from the seminar? How likely is it that your organizational skills will improve? The answers are obvious.
Am I suggesting that you give your employees carte blanche? Absolutely not! When you see that your employee's approach isn't going to work, you have a duty to convince him that it won't work. It's your job to prevent his failure.
Again, be precise in the language you use. Don't say, "That won't work." A statement like this puts the employee on the defensive. You know the odds of gaining emotional agreement when the employee is being defensive.
You're better off asking, "What's this approach going to do for you?" By using this question you get the employee to reexamine his decision. If you're right and he has overlooked something important, he will find the mistake during his analysis. If he doesn't see his error, ask follow-up questions that allow him to examine aspects of the decisions he hasn't considered. When he realizes his error he'll abandon his approach in favor of one that holds out the opportunity for success.
There are two keys to gaining emotional agreement on approaches:
When it comes to measuring improvement, emotional agreement hinges more on the amount of improvement than on the performance measure used.
Plain English
Amount of improvement relates to the level of success. Should the desired level of improvement be 10 percent, 30 percent, or 70 percent? Measures of performance include speed, number of defects, number of errors, and volume produced.
It's much easier for the employee to agree on the measure to be used than on the amount of improvement to be targeted. The key here is realism. Employees tend to be more conservative in their estimates than leaders do. Why?
First, employees are the ones who are committing to the goal. Since no one wants to fail, they naturally become cautious. Second, depending on your style, they may get the idea that you're trying to build a career on their results and you really don't care how it affects them. Third, there is the confidence issue. Some employees don't possess confidence commensurate with their skills. In other words, they underestimate their own abilities.
You have a much better chance of achieving emotional commitment to improvement measures if you ask your employees
For their estimate of what's realistic.
What obstacles stand in the way of greater improvement.
To help devise a plan for overcoming these obstacles.
Their participation in this process is the key to gaining emotional agreement.
If you're working with an employee whose fear simply won't allow him to agree to the performance measure you need, there is one more approach you can try. It's worked well for me when I've had an extremely cautious employee.
The approach, which is detailed below, is a combination of statements and questions that are designed to elicit agreement. Once again, pay particular attention to the language. The language is designed to help the employee remove the emotional constraints imposed by his comfort zone. Here's the approach:
I know that I'm asking you to stretch beyond your comfort zone.
I realize that you don't want to fail.
I don't want you to fail either.
If we agree that this lower level of performance is acceptable, will you try to achieve the higher level?
I promise you that missing the higher target won't negatively impact your next appraisal or your salary.
Achievement of the higher goal can, however, improve your next appraisal and offers the benefit of a higher increase.
I know that you have concerns about the more aggressive target, but I believe that you can achieve it.
Caution
You have to walk the talk. You cannot express disappointment, withhold praise, or adjust the salary increase because the employee doesn't hit the more aggressive target. If you do, you violate his trust. Trust lost is difficult to regain.
My experience is that when I take the pressure off employees and state confidence in their abilities, they typically achieve the more aggressive goal. To me, that's proof of their emotional commitment to the goal.
All the same fears and concerns that we discussed with improvement measures hold true for deadlines. When you develop the skills to deal with one, you equip yourself to handle both.
In particular, you want to gain agreement on the amount of increase that the employee will receive if he achieves his goals. The "amount" can be a percentage increase over his current base pay.
The key here is to emphasize the relationship between performance improvement, the value of the improvement, and the amount of increase. The clearer the employee's understanding of the value gained by the improvement, the less likely he is to demand unrealistic increases. People understand the concept of value. They employ it every day in their buying decisions. They also understand that the company is purchasing their services. If, for some reason, the employee forgets this simple fact, don't hesitate to remind him.
By using this value approach, you'll gain another valuable insight into your employee's character. How? You'll learn his definition of fair.
An employee who is greedy will ask for a disproportionate share of the value he generates. His willingness to "settle" for less depends on the importance he places on money and the presence of other aspects of job satisfaction.
Caution
Be aware that employees who "settle" for less than they want often balance the scales by reducing performance. That's contrary to your goal of improving performance.
For most employees the importance of salary declines if
There is significant investment in their education.
They have a sense of being a part of something bigger than themselves.
Their ideas are welcomed and acted upon.
Their contributions are recognized publicly.
They can choose their own devices in accomplishing goals.
They like their leader.
Those of you who have taken a job for more money and later found these satisfaction factors missing know exactly what I mean.
By providing more of the intangible aspects of job satisfaction you minimize the importance of money for most employees. This makes it easier for the two of you to agree on monetary rewards.
Agreement must occur at the emotional level if it's going to drive action.
Without action there is no improvement. Your employees' development depends on your ability to gain their emotional agreement.
Areas in which you need agreement are the employees' strengths, improvement opportunities, approaches to improvement, measures of improvement, deadlines for improvement, and rewards.