rethink the sandwich

As managers and leaders, how do we change the behavior of our people? We give feedback. If we're any good at giving feedback we know the "sandwich" model. The sandwich model states:

• Start with the bread: The bread is light and fluffy, highlighting the all the great work your employee does. 
• Then the meat: Identify the problem behaviors. Talk about specific examples of the problem behaviors. 
• Then finish with more bread: End on a high note. Talk about how their strengths can turn into strategies to improve the issues.

Let's go back to my first statement for a moment.

"As managers and leaders, how do we change the behavior of our people? We give feedback."

That is a little presumptuous though. We have two things being stated. On the one hand, we have the idea of "changing behavior", on the other, we have "giving feedback". Who says they are connected? This is what I know..

• Feedback helps people intelectualize behaviors.
• When we intelectualize things, it feels better.
• It feels like, if we just think hard enough we can change and be great.
• On the other hand...thinking about a behavior only lasts as long as our attention span.
• We might be dedicated to thinking about something for a day, a week, or maybe even if we're really good, a month.

So if not sandwiches, then what?! Believe it or not, we can learn something from drug addictions. Wait! Hear me out on this one...

When you study some of the most addictive behaviors, the behaviors that the people around the addict desperately want to change about them, you will find something very relatable to our situation. It doesn't matter how many times you beg, plead or give the BEST sandwich EVER. Behavior doesn't change until the addict decides for themselves that THEY are in fact committed to changing. So how do we take all this, make sense of it, and use it.

Here is my suggestion. Change the way we approach evaluations in the workplace and in organizations. As the leader or manager, hold off on that sandwich for a second. Follow these three steps:

Ask open ended, directed questions. The trick is to use the questions to inspire commitment from within. A commitment to who they are as a person or employee. Here are some questions, in my opinion, that can do this.

• What does success look like for you as an individual in your career?
• What inspires you?
• When was the last time you made a difference?
• What do you value?
• How do you hope to be perceived by those around you?

Sound motivational? It should, the technique is called "motivational interviewing". It's warm and fuzzy, but it works.

Listen, then continue to listen, and listen more. Listen. Part of you will want to share your hopes and dreams too. Part of you will want to comment on their responses. Don't. Just listen.

After they have identified success and personal values, its time to focus on asking the questions that will lead your staff to the answers you would have just told them anyway. When people can identify behaviors and strategies for themselves to get them where they want and need to be it turns into a personal commitment to changing their behavior.

If you have a staff member that is verbally abusive towards colleagues or abuses her power over others, you have probably tried giving feedback. But until they connect the problem to their own values, legacy and success they will not change. They will only intellectualize, reflect, and briefly change within their attention span.

Imagine revolutionizing the way we do evaluation meetings. Ditching the rubrics, likert scales and sandwiches, and sticking to...

Questions, Listen, Repeat

Bring the sandwich feedback method back into the picture when you have behaviors and strategies that they have personally committed to. Now you can dress your sandwich with phrases from the answers to your initial questions.

yum.

beyonce: your assessment strategist

Beyonce recently returned to the music scene after taking a year off from touring. She explains in her latest commercial what she did for her year long break from the stage. She studied performances of all kinds. By the time she closed out the year of observing she was that much more ready to get out there and perform. She understands the importance of taking time to evaluate and observe, and for that we can learn from her.

Summer is a great opportunity to take time away from the office and do some site visits. Get out there and check out how other institutions are doing things. Go outside of higher education for inspiration. Maybe check out some of the festivals in the area for some event planning inspiration. Volunteer for a big race to get a sense of how its organized. All of these things may just spark some new ideas at a time of year when we can live in the moment more so than when the academic year is in full swing.

lady gaga, your new social media strategist

I love this commercial. I like the song, and I love the authenticity of it. It's so "millennial" and I love it. I was watching it tonight when I am was in a thinking/writing mode. I saw it through a new lens.

Like her or not, if you know anything about Lady Gaga you know that she is relentlessly dedicated to her fans. She is all over every social media outlet, and keeps up with posting/updating.

Many student affairs departments are trying to break into the social media trends. Creating blogs, twitter accounts, fan pages, etc. The key takeaway we can learn from miss gaga....

YOU MUST KEEP UP WITH IT TO STAY RELEVANT

A fan page is working against you when it only has five fans and the last post was 7 months ago. This may seem like common sense, but in 2 minutes of searching I can find 9 department fan pages with this exact problem. Here are a few tips...

• Don't bite off more than you can chew... The first thought is to create it all at once. Start small. Pilot a fan page for a month, and monitor activity. Keep track of the amount of work to maintain it.
• Find the geek. I am a self proclaimed geek...so I can say that. Find the geek in the office that is really excited about this stuff. If they are interested in it, and have ownership over it, it's a great project for them. Don't be surprised if this person is a student or young professional.
• Strategize. Whether its rotating authors of blog posts or tweets, a strategy is important. It may seem to lack authenticity if things are scheduled out, but without it you risk the "7 months between posts" issue.
• Lastly, check out mashable.com for all the latest on everything social media. It's a great website and stellar resource.

motivation vs. morale

There is a student, his name is John and he goes to State University and works in an office on campus. The office does an "employee of the month" program. John did everything on the office check list and got a gold star. His boss throws holiday parties for John and his fellow student staffers where they get goodie bags with candy and trinkets. There is a bulletin board that John's boss decorates each month. Last month John was on the bulletin board because it was his birthday. Next month the student managers are going to make John and his fellow student employees paper plate awards.

John's supervisor, Kelly, is frustrated. She does all of this, and yet her staff is not motivated. She has thrown every morale booster in the book at her staff and yet they come in to work and do the bare minimum. Sound familiar?

Not surprised.

So many managers see motivation and morale as one in the same. Morale is not motivation. Morale is important, but leaders need to understand motivation to make change. According to the new research on motivation it takes intentional strategies that incorporate three fundamental components: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

In sum...

Autonomy: This can be provided in four different ways. Time, Technique, Team or Task. When John comes into work, he needs the ability to take ownership over projects. Following a checklist does not give John autonomy. Picking his hours, who he works with, what he does or how he does it...that's the key. It doesn't have to be all at once, but a little bit of each goes a long way.

Mastery: This can be executed in a few ways. When John begins his job he should meet with his manager and talk about what skills hes looking to learn or enhance. Maybe John wants to learn basic graphic design. Give him some projects related to that, let him be able to run with it as he sees fit. Maybe its designing the staff newsletter, or Then when he has to do the check list stuff its not as daunting.

Purpose: You'd have to be living under a rock to not know about the Susan G. Komen organization. Susan's sister started this global non-profit organization that now raises millions of dollars annually for breast cancer research after witnessing her sister's fall to breast cancer. This is purpose driven motivation. So how does it translate for Kelly and her student staff member John? Maybe John is a first generation student. Is there something he can do to support other first gens through the office? Purpose driven motivation can be very powerful.

Keep the pizza parties...

but mix in a few new strategies to make a bigger impact.

considering wellness

I had an idea I just had to share because I am not sure I have time to actually make it happen this year. A friend of mine told me about this cool thing that an orientation program had a little running group among the staff members. They would all go run together over the summer. I know for me when I was a NODA intern I loved that I had the chance to go for a run during the one break in the orientation program.  I have been brainstorming ways to try and integrate a wellness campaign into the summer staff experience. And then I thought...

What if each staff member had a pedometer? We could have contests for who had the most steps per session. Track how many steps we walked as a group. By the end of the summer we will probably have enough steps to have walked across the country. Just a thought...

i got your back

 

I recently attended the ACPA national convention and went to a session on women in higher education, specifically focusing on strategies for advancement, growth/development, and overall happiness with their work environment. One of the primary factors in a woman's perceived and actual success in their jobs was the prevalence of role models and mentors in their career. Gender of that mentor was not necessarily a large factor, but the presence of one did. A good discussion began among those in attendance about how much more complex this concept of mentoring really is than many make it out to be. A true mentor is very tough to come by. We may have supporters or good colleagues, but really finding someone that is invested in your success, celebrates those success with you, and is there to help you problem solve when things go wrong is a tough thing to find. It is a relationship vested in learning and mutual respect.

 Do you have a colleague that wants to see you succeed, catches you when you fall, and is there to listen to you process through ideas or vent? In my opinion, everyone needs a "biggest fan". It didn't take long for me to to realize, after getting into my first professional position, how different the work place was going to be from my experience as a student. In a workplace there are people with wide ranging levels of confidence in their self, differences in motives, and competition for attention from leadership (mostly driven by a need for increased resources or wanting to be recognized for potential promotions). With politics and these varying motives now in the mix, it seemed as though it would be tougher to find someone/people that I could rely on in this way. Don't get me wrong, I have great colleagues. But, as I mentioned above, a mentor is tough to come by. I have since found a few great mentors, and can't imagine working without them. It has inspired me to pay it forward. I haven't been working for too long, three years, but long enough that now a few new professionals have been hired since me. My new reflections on this have lead me to have a greater appreciation for those I have in my corner, and has motivated me to be more attentive to relationships I have now and will have in the future when I can serve as a mentor to others.

Questions I am trying to ask myself more often...
Who is your biggest fan?
Have you thanked them lately?
Does someone look up to you?
What are you doing to maintain that relationship, and enhance the learning and development of the one you mentor?

Here are a few good tips for maintaining these important relationships that I have learned from my biggest fans. They can and should be used by both parties in these relationships:

• Seeing a workshop or opportunity they might be good at or interested in, forwarding it along to them, and encouraging them to apply, join or attend
• Recognizing them with a "good job", lunch or nominating them for an award
• Thank you cards
• Being observant when they just need to vent and making time to let them do that
• When they vent, picking them back up with helping to brainstorm solutions or giving them positive words of encouragement
• Being there to review a project they are working on or offering them helpful feedback when they ask

These are just a few I have noticed from those that have made a difference in my life and continue to cheer me on.

anti-workshop series: crisis management

Crisis management is a life skill and a skill that many of our student leaders must learn and continue to build upon. Many times we teach this skill with roll plays or reviewing protocol with our students. I don't think we need to put an end to role playing or reviewing protocol, but to really explore the topic and ignite excitement about it there needs to be a little more training. Here are my "anti-workshop" suggestions.

• Pre-training: There are a few things you can have the students do before the training. I wouldn't do all of the following, but one or two is a good way to start building curiosity about the topic: Have the students write about a time when they felt like they poorly handled a crisis and when they (or someone they worked with previously) successfully handled a crisis.  Have them watch a video from an online news site of a crisis situation, tell them they are the leader in this situation (mayor, president, etc.) and ask them to respond to the following questions. What is the first thing you would do? What questions do you have about the situation that are not answered by the video that you would need answered to help deal with the situation? What does "success" look like in this situation? Lastly, have the students come up with a list of 5-7 questions they have about the topic?
• Training: As with any "anti-workshop" approach, the first thing I think about is who are the experts?

Who better to serve on a panel of experts, or serve as a site visit host than a fire"person", surgeon or trauma doctor, or police"person"? Setting up a site visit is a great opportunity to get the students off campus and into an environment that will challenge their thinking about problem solving and crisis management. Hearing from someone besides their boss or the typical person on campus that deals with crisis will ensure the learning will stick with them longer. The "typical person on campus" might know a whole lot about the topic, but bring them in at a later point. Giving students exposure to experts in the community is a great way to build relationships in the community as well. Provoke reflection. Have them look back at the reactions they originally wrote in the pre-training, and ask them to identify changes they would make now implementing what they learned. These changes can be captured as an assessment of the training.