Communication Strategies For Today’s Multi-Generational Workforce

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: May 11, 2017

The face of organizations as we know them is changing, driven most significantly by a multi-generational workforce. Different generations prefer differing means of communication, and failing to engage employees at all levels is a clear recipe for disaster.

From an extreme perspective, simply ignoring these differences will result in both ineffective communications and a lack of understanding between employees, witnessed in various forms including conflict, reduced productivity and poor morale.

So if you are managing amongst a diverse group consisting of various generations, consider the following to help improve the reception and value of your communications.

Baby Boomers: Use email for basic one directional communications, transitioning to face to face discussions for more important matters.

Generation X: Use email predominately, however follow up with face to face discussions when there is a sense of urgency or importance. Provide opportunities for small groups to consider your communications and to reach consensus on how best to move forward on what you have requested.

Millenials: Keep communications brief (i.e. instant messaging or texts). For more important discussions, hold in a group forum allowing those in attendance to freely discuss their thoughts and opinions relative to what you are trying to convey. Be open and receptive to feedback and avoid making harsh decisions without considering feedback first.

[Tweet “Different generations prefer differing means of communication in the workforce.”]

Taking time to consider how to best position and portray your communications is the only means to increase your effectiveness and establish an environment in which others are receptive to both yourself and your message.

Spend less time talking and more time thinking about how to convey your message.

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How Underestimating Departure Times Killed Credibility

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: May 8, 2017

This past week I was flying from Toronto to San Diego, a relatively straightforward flight with one stopover in San Francisco. Unfortunately, this didn’t end up being the case. Upon boarding the Air Canada flight, all the passengers were notified by the stewardess that the Captain and First Officer had not yet arrived for the flight. No big deal, I thought; I’ve got sixty minutes between the time we land and the time I have to catch my connecting flight. Within thirty minutes they both arrived, and preparation for the flight was underway – that is until there was a computer glitch, followed by additional paperwork that was necessary due to the glitch, followed by the ground crew leaving our aircraft to help others. It was an unfortunate series of events, through which I could see my ability to make my connecting flight slowly slipping away.

I remained optimistic until we were two hours past departure, at which point, I knew my luck had run out. Then the captain came on the PA one more time to advise that due to our additional idle time, we would now need to refuel.

Seriously?!

Despite the mounting issues, I didn’t become irritated until I realized during the second or third delay that each time the captain came over the PA to update the passengers (about once every thirty minutes), he ended his update by saying, “We should have you up and on your way in about five minutes.”

His estimates were never even close. In fact, during the last two delays passengers began laughing out loud and taunting the captain, yelling, “Sure we will!”

Underestimating the time it takes to do something, particularly when making commitments to others, absolutely kills your credibility. This is particularly true if you’re a leader, yet I run across leaders all the time who make commitments to their employees that they don’t follow through with. Worse yet, they often make similar commitments to customers (internally or externally), on which they do deliver. That’s right, they deliver on their commitments when it comes to serving customers, but rarely when it comes to employees.

Does that sound right to you? Have you possibly missed a few commitments to your employees recently?

If you have I’m not here to bash you about it; we all miss on delivering some of our commitments. However, doing so with your employees consistently can kill your credibility, particularly when they know you are meeting commitments for others. Fortunately there’s a better approach.

Best Approach:

When an employee asks you to do something, either do it immediately (if you have the time and it warrants immediate action), direct them to someone better suited to help them out (such as another employee or team member), or ask for time to reflect and follow up.

Asking for time may seem like a cop out, and to some degree it is. But if you actually do follow up and take action, you are now not tied to a commitment that you were never able to meet.

This week, try the Do It, Direct Them or Reflect approach and watch the benefits it provides.

Do it: You’ll gain credibility for taking action.

Direct them: You’ll empower the employees with new ideas on how to approach their challenges.

Reflect: You’ll have time to respond when it’s convenient for you.

Stop missing your commitments and try a more structured approach. Stuck on introducing this approach with some challenging employees? Email me. We can set up a time to discuss some specific strategies for your environment.

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Please Be Advised

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: April 24, 2017

Are you using templates and processes in an attempt to ensure your customer service representatives are delivering a consistent messages? If so, have you confirmed whether these responses are actually serving your customers?

There are few things that I find more frustrating than receiving a “canned” response during an interaction with customer service, and this week proved to be no exception. Following a quick online review of our personal benefit plan, my wife and I found a large claim that we’ve been waiting for to be missing from the claim history. Unfortunately it was after the normal business hours so I sent in a quick email inquiry to customer service. The response I received – four days later – was nothing short of insulting, suggesting, in a not-so-short four paragraphs, that we needed to check our statement balance online…

Really?

The point that fired me up the most however was the lack of personality. There was no greeting in the email, and the first sentence (and an additional three of six sentences in the email) began with the phrase “Please be advised…” Just typing it here boils my blood.

[Tweet “Standard template responses to customer inquiries frustrate customers and depersonalize responses. Stop using them.”]

I see this all the time in customer service. In an effort to streamline responses to customers and ensure consistent answers, leaders often revert to creating templates and processes for standardization. There are three problems with this:

1. Employees all have a different perspective on how standard responses are to be used – resulting in continued inconsistency in responses.

2. For those employees that are frustrated with using standard template responses, they often take their application to an extreme, de-personalizing and frustrating customers. You’ve likely experienced this if you’ve ever asked for a favor from someone in customer service only to be told that it’s not possible.

3. The more processes that you request your employees to follow, the less likely they are to think “outside the box,” diminishing creativity and a belief that they in fact have the ability to resolve customer issues.

There is a balance necessary when introducing processes and standardization into the customer service experience. Individual interactions with customers are often so sensitive to variability in personalities and behaviors that canned responses result in creating more issues rather then less.

This week spend a few minutes listening in or participating in your customer service interactions and look for the following components to a successful interaction:

1. Do employees greet and interact in a personalized manner?

2. Do your employees listen carefully to customer needs, demonstrating patience and taking time to ensure a complete understanding? Clarifying questions and paraphrasing is the key here.

3. Did the response satisfy the customer’s needs? Verify with customers following the call that their need was truly satisfied.

What ever your customer service representatives do there is one phrase I would suggest they avoid using at all costs in any template or standardized response you give them… “Please be advised….”

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Why No One Likes Taking One for the Team

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: February 27, 2017

Watching my boys play hockey every week reminds me of something that used to really bug me as a participant in team sports. I called it, “taking one for the team.” Typically, if the team loses a game or has a bad play, the coach will pull the team aside and give them a verbal “blast” relative to what they had done wrong.

When I was young this often involved the coach yelling and waving his arms around. Fortunately, this seems less common in team sports today. That said you only need to watch a few professional hockey or baseball games to see that this approach to providing feedback is still quite prominent in some settings.

Interestingly I’ve seen this same archaic and ineffective means of providing feedback used by many leaders in business.

It seems to be put into use when one or two employees make a bad decision or fail to meet a deadline. In response to the issue the supervisor or manager ends up pulling the entire team aside and giving them a verbal “blasts” about for their poor performance.

Have you ever had a boss like this? I have, and let me tell you it is not fun.

I’m often asked to coach leaders who use this, “take one for the team” approach as it often has long term impacts on team morale and productivity. When coaching these type of leaders I start by asking them why on earth they use this approach to feedback. Their response is often related to a belief that this “take one for the team approach” either saves them time or is a means to communicate the issue to a broader group.

No one that I’ve met likes being called to the carpet for something he or she has not done wrong. No one.

[Tweet “Providing feedback in a group setting where points aren’t relevant to all diminishes receptivity.”]

That’s not the only problem though. Studies have shown that providing feedback in a group setting, where the points raised aren’t entirely relevant to everyone participating, actually diminishes the receptivity to the feedback and over time lessens the respect recipients have for the person providing the feedback.

So the question is whether group feedback is effective. In essence should an employee have to, “take one for the team?”

The short answer is yes, group feedback can be effective. However, there are some rules to ensure recipients of the feedback are receptive. Here are a couple that I advise many of the leaders I coach to use when they are forced to provide feedback to a small group:

[Tweet “Use group feedback as a supplement to individual feedback.”]

First, use group feedback as a supplement to individual feedback.

If an employee has made a mistake and you’ve had an opportunity to discuss the issue directly with him or her, and coach the person on the proper process or protocol, with the employee’s permission bring the situation back to the group to discuss the lessons learned and include the employee in the presentation (if he or she is comfortable doing so). This creates an environment for group learning.

[Tweet “Approach group feedback as a collaborative dialogue.”]

Second, approach group feedback as a collaborative dialogue.

Discuss changes in process or mistakes that have been made in a group setting, and ask for feedback and ideas from the group on how to improve upon or resolve the situation moving forward. Thus the discussion is shifted from, “What was done wrong or missed?” to, “How can we make this process or approach better to avoid any errors or issues in the future?” Employees are more receptive to collectively discussing ideas for improving how they work than they are to hearing a one-sided view of what they are doing wrong.

Consider the week ahead and situations where you may be forced to provide feedback to a group.

How can you shift from a “take one for the team” approach to a collaborative dialogue focused on enticing employees. How can you encourage employees to participate in finding and identifying solutions to working better together?

Are you facing a situation where you’re unsure of how to shift to a more collaborative dialogue when providing feedback? Let me know the situation. I’ll be happy to share some additional ideas with you.

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Lessons in Resilience from a 5-Year-Old

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: February 6, 2017

Recently my youngest boy Dylan was sick with everything from a mild fever to stuffy nose and upset stomach. During several sleepless nights, my wife and I were up every few hours to get him water, medication, or just to lay with him and provide a backrub.

What I found surprising was that despite the lack of sleep and being under the weather, when I went into his room in the morning to ask how he was, Dylan sat up quickly and said, “Great!”

Really??

If you’ve had children, the one thing you’ve likely learned is that children are resilient. They can be under the weather, but their attitude and personality is often still quite upbeat.

It struck me while reflecting on how resilient children are that there are lessons to be learned from them that can be applied in building the resilience in a team. After all, most of the CEOs, executives, and business leaders I’ve met recently are seeking new and improved ways to help their teams become more self-sufficient, productive, and collaborative.

Enter team resilience.

The term resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Considering our desire to have our teams and the people on them achieve more and do so while working more effectively with their team members, there must be a level of resilience that exists both on an individual and team basis. To put it bluntly, in order to have a team and team members that can achieve higher levels of performance, we must ensure that the environment itself is one that supports a high degree of resilience.

Considering what makes a child resilient, there are a few things that you may not have thought of in the past.

Children primarily focus on having fun in their daily activities. Even when completing tasks or chores, fun is a natural element of getting their work done.

Children are encouraged while in school and through participation in sports to work in collaborative environments and value the input and ideas of others.

Children focus on what they see and experience.

The parents, teachers, and caregivers who work with children are generally patient, seeking to help the child understand through introspection rather than telling them what they should do without an explanation of why.

[Tweet “To achieve higher levels of performance, the environment must support a high degree of resilience.”]

So what does this tell us when it comes to building resilience in our teams? Well, at a strategic level we need to consider the environment, expectations, and communications we use.

Leaders need to practice being mentors and guiding employees rather then telling them specifically what to do and when they should do it.
Humor and having fun should be on the agenda to ensure that employees are productive. A study conducted by the Journal of Labour Economics found that employees who are happy at work are 12% more productive than those that aren’t.
Cross-training and various forms of interaction amongst employees that help them understand the roles and responsibilities of others is key to ensuring a greater understanding amongst team members and better collective decision-making.
The ability to try new things, learn from failures, and create memorable experiences is a key component to ensuring resilience. If, for instance, failures are avoided or employees are expected to simply remain at their workstations for fear of lower productivity, there is little ability to navigate unexpected experiences.

There are literally dozens of adjustments and changes that can be made that will build greater resilience in team members. That said, here is something I’d suggest you try with your team. Ask members individually and then collectively to provide a score between one and five for each of the four areas above. The scoring received will suggest to you where you need to shift efforts in order to build more resilience.

Let me know how you make out. In return, I’ll be sure to send you some additional considerations for building resilience in your team. Email shawn@casemoreandco.com

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Are Your Leadership Biases Muting Growth?

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: January 26, 2017

In much of the organizational development work I do, considerable time is spent on identifying and changing the leadership structure. As a result, these changes are to a more empowered team based structure with multi-channel communication. The reason this is so critical to the ongoing growth and profitability of an organization is that leaders at all levels of the company function within their own personal biases.

Consider, for example, that today you likely have leaders who are seeking to advance in their career. Some of which are looking towards retirement and others are struggling to keep up with the demands of their job. Add to this the fact that each and every leader has individual goals and challenges that may or may not align with those of their peers. When you start to add up these differences it becomes clear that each and every leader, when faced with the same question, may have a very different response.

So what does this mean to growth?

Are your leaders in sales, marketing, customer service and R&D operating from their own biases? Absolutely. What then is ensuring that your customers receive helpful communications, rapid response and a streamlined experience? Likely nothing, especially if these groups are all reporting up into different departments and executives.

It’s the customers experience, satisfaction and demands that should drive organizational decisions and investment, not the biases and preferences of your leaders.

[Tweet “Your customers should drive decisions and investments, not the biases of your leaders.”]

What can you do?

– Find ways to solicit information from your customers directly, without biases or filters.

– Connect with front line employees directly to understand their challenges in serving and supporting your customers.

– Introduce methods that facilitate bottom up communications that surpass leaders and avoid biases

– Encourage collaboration amongst departments without (that’s right!) without leaders present.

Look, we all have our own personal and professional biases. The keys is to ensure any filters do not hinder your ability to better serve, support and enhance your customers experience.

What are you going to do to eliminate your leadership biases?

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Communication Complexity in Today’s Workforce

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: January 5, 2017

The face of organizations as we know them is changing, driven most significantly by multi-generational workforces. Different generations prefer differing means of communication, and failing to engage employees at all levels is a clear recipe for disaster.

So if you are managing amongst a diverse group consisting of various generations, consider the following to help improve the reception and value of your communications.

Baby Boomers: Use email for basic one directional communications, transitioning to face to face discussions for more important matters.

[Tweet “The diversity in today’s workforce provides both challenges and opportunities.”] Taking time to consider how to best position and portray your communications is the only means to increase your effectiveness and establish an environment in which others are receptive to both yourself and your message.

Spend less time talking and more time thinking about how to convey your message.

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What Gets In The Way of Speed

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: March 2, 2016

I posted recently about how Speed is Power. Since I wrote this blog post the concept has been reinforced time and time again. Put bluntly, if you are managing or overseeing a business, the speed by which you and your team identify, implement and respond to your customers and the marketplace is directly proportional to the level of success (and revenue) achieved.

This concept, however important, seems to be lost when it comes to business today. For example I had to contact Google recently, only to have my seemingly simple questions require escalation. What should have been a 3 minute call turned into a 10 minute education (for the customer service agent!). I’ve also been attempting to reach a contractor lately who advised me to text him as the best way to reach him. Turns out he doesn’t respond to his texts (or answer his cell phone)!

(more…)

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What Donald Trump Can Teach Us About Business

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: August 11, 2015

Let me begin by saying that many of the statements and antics we have been exposed to during the campaign of Donald Trump are in many instances outlandish and inconsiderate, to say the least. You might even wonder what possible lessons might come from his running for president, and those that I will suggest may not be so obvious.

So set aside any possible biases you may have for or against Donald for a moment.

First off, if you’ve followed Donald on Twitter for any period of time you will be aware that he has been mentioning joining the running for years. Regardless of his intent, he is following through on commitments he has made, and more importantly on a commitment that many of his supporters have suggested he take.

(more…)

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What We Have is a Failure to Communicate

Shawn Casemore • No Comment
Posted: May 4, 2015

This past weekend I went for breakfast with my wife and two boys at a local establishment. Throughout the various interactions with our waiter my wife and I noticed how every discussion was left open-ended, as if to suggest that any closing comments would not come until it was time to leave.

Our bias was instantly to attribute this to the waiter’s age, but upon further reflection this is a broader societal affliction that is killing our confidence, credibility, and the level of trust we build in others.

How is this affliction affecting you? Have you stopped to think about how you communicate?

(more…)

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Communication Strategies For Today’s Multi-Generational Workforce

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How Underestimating Departure Times Killed Credibility

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Please Be Advised

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Why No One Likes Taking One for the Team

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Lessons in Resilience from a 5-Year-Old

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Are Your Leadership Biases Muting Growth?

So what does this mean to growth?

What can you do?

What are you going to do to eliminate your leadership biases?

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Communication Complexity in Today’s Workforce

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What Gets In The Way of Speed

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What Donald Trump Can Teach Us About Business

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What We Have is a Failure to Communicate

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