Power 3 Case Study

As the People and Culture Leader, when I first heard about the situation of the team member wanting two weeks off work and to stay at home, my immediate reaction, (this was in my head. I didn't say it out loud). He can have a couple of days off and then get his sorry butt back to work. We'll give you five days and you need to figure out the rest.

Now ponder this for a second or two. I'd have been in my rights to do that, but what do you think might've happened in terms of his level of Believing and Belonging and his level of engagement and discretionary effort?

How do you think this great performing team member might've reacted? If I'd responded that way?

Because all I was focused on was the immediate issue. 

We can't do without him for two weeks, and he needs to get back to work as soon as possible. I was ready to go in with all guns blazing, telling him in no uncertain terms that his ultimatum was unacceptable.

Now I probably would've ended up with both the team member and me being at loggerheads for years to come.

A teaching moment where I discovered how to influence rather than bulldoze!

Luckily, I got to sit beside a wonderful leader for many years and learn from him. And this scenario was just one of many where I discovered how to influence rather than bulldoze, how to inspire and engage rather than inflict command and control style leadership. Which generally leads to chaos, right?

I was learning how to get long-term, high performance and high commitment rather than short-term results.

Knowing what you want, both short and long term and in terms of relationship and personal growth will help you control your instinctive reaction, which is possibly to shut that person down in some way and get them doing exactly what you want ... and they get resentful.

This brilliant leader that I got to sit at the feet of for so many years, he said to this team member, when he came in with his ultimatum, he said, "Whoa. I wasn't expecting that. And I know this is a tough situation for you. Can you give me 15 minutes to have a think about this and then we can work it out and then work out how to make this work for all of us?"

Catch a breath so you can think straight!

Then he sat down with a piece of paper and he started writing down his thoughts and he was talking it through with me as he was going. Because he was a great coach, right?

And even though he possibly didn't realize it in that moment, he actually gave me a really good lesson, which was to take a breath and think before responding.

Because my go in all guns blazing approach to life, well, that generally leads to not so good results.

Now, I've tidied this all up a bit, what I'm about to share with you, because he wasn't working from the framework I'm giving you. In fact, I developed the framework over a few years of watching him and a couple of other leaders in operation and asking myself the question, "What's he doing here? What's the system he is using?" Because in this scenario this leader was just doing it pretty intuitively, right?

Task Goals first

So what he decided was that he wanted from the situation, (task) to minimize the amount of time away from work. In other words, to get this person back to work in the shortest time possible.

So if you think about it, that was Task and Bottom line and it was the short term result. 

He wanted to see if the team member could provide value-adding work to the team while taking care of his family situation.

So again, it was Task, Behaving and Bottom line, and it was short term.

He wanted to make sure that the team's capacity to cover the role wasn't stretched for an extended period of time due to this team member's absence.

So again, Task, Bottom line and short term.

Now if he'd stopped there, there's a high likelihood that he would've shifted this team member from sitting in the Contributor quadrant and shoved him down into the Hostage quadrant. And if you'd used what was going through my head, that's definitely what would've happened.

I'd have had this guy switched off for months, if not years, to come. However, this amazing leader went to the next step.

Switch From Short-Term to Long-Term Results

He thought about what he wanted for the long term. So the next few things he discussed with me as he wrote down on his slip of paper, he said he wanted to inspire the team member to feel committed to his team and the organization, both now and for the long term.

So this was all about getting the Task done, but it was also around building, Believing, and Belonging for the long term.

He wanted to help the team member understand his importance and his impact on the team and the business.

Again, this was Task and he was building, Believing for the long term.

He wanted to help the team member understand that he was highly skilled and not easily replaceable with casuals.

Task and building, Believing, and and Bottom line.

Relationship Goals

In terms of relationship goals, he wanted to ensure that both he and the team member were super comfortable with any decisions that they made.

That was about building Believing, and Belonging and Bottom line for the long term.

He wanted to ensure that the team member knew that his needs were being considered. The subtext here was that you want to take care of your family. You want support. Well we are listening.

This was about building, Believing, and Belonging.

He wanted to make certain that the team member knew how much he was valued and respected, which he did by reassuring him. Building, Believing, and Belonging.

He wanted to acknowledge that we are both going to be feeling vulnerable and to take account of that.

As this fabulous leader said to me. He came in demanding like that because he's afraid, so he is gone on attack mode, coming in and asking for forgiveness, not permission.

This was about building the relationship and about personal growth.

Leader's Growth

In terms of his growth and how he wanted to show up as a leader.

He wanted to maintain a position of curiosity rather than condemnation. So that was about his own Bottom line and his Behaviors.

He wanted to keep his hot temper under control and listen really carefully to the team member. Again, that was about his Bottom line.

Which when he said that I was shocked. I said to him, You're not hot tempered.

And his response was: On the inside I am. And if I don't take a moment, I say, and do all sorts of dumb things. I mean, that really rocked me. I never knew that.  

And he wanted to remember and respect that this is a person with his own hopes and dreams and aspirations, concerns and fears and vulnerabilities, not an object who is getting in the way of his success or an object for him to use to further his own or the company's ambitions.

Now the list wasn't laid out as neatly as this, and I've added in additional details because I came to know the thinking behind his list. So I've kind of melded together, but it was pretty much how he ran through it. Not as tidy though.

As well, I only developed the 4B's framework many years later.

But this leader was intuitively thinking at that type of level. They were the sort of things he was saying to me as he was writing his list out. Like I said, he was just a great coach. He was amazing.

And I wished I'd recorded the conversation so I could share it with you. But this is a pretty good recollection because I went home that night and I wrote down detailed notes in my journal because I knew it was a pivotable moment.

Here's how the conversation unfolded:

So here's how the conversation unfolded, and what I am going to share with you is a very abridged version of what this great leader coach said to the team member. So he started the conversation with: (And it wasn't a monologue, like I've got down here - it was very much a two-way conversation).

I know this is a difficult time for you and your family, and I know how important your family is to you.

I also hope that, you know why it's so important to us that you're here at work.

I can't hire a casual to do the work that you do. You just have a set of expertise that we can't easily replace. And you know that at the moment we're under the pump with people already off on leave, training and us being at peak production. So you not being here is going to put a load of pressure on your teammates.

Is there some way that you could come in for two or three or four hours a day to cover the busiest times when people are having breaks, etc..

If you could be here, say from 10 till 2, then I think we'd be able to cope.

And the team member immediately said, "Well, I hadn't thought of it that way, and I hadn't thought of coming in shorter hours."

The leader said to him, "Look, go away and have a bit of a think about it and see if you can come back with a suggestion for us. Because the reality is that two weeks is unworkable for us, but we also want to make sure that your family needs are being met."

The Pivotal Moment in the Conversation

Now the pivotal moment in the conversation was the sentence, "Your expertise, we can't really replace." That really brought this team member on board. You could see his chest swell up with pride as this leader said this.

Which switched him on to being more willing to find options that enabled him to support his team and the company.

And I have to reassure you, it was a two-way conversation. It wasn't just a monologue like I gave you just there. 

In fact, not only did it work out so that he could be in attendance during that three to four critical hours for his team when they were having lunches and breaks and stuff like that. (He got his neighbor to look after his kids in their home while he came into work).

He actually arranged to take work home for him to do during the other hours. There was training manuals and documentation, etc, that the team wanted to have done, but they'd never had time to get to it.

And interestingly, those manuals became a real place of pride for him, and he took ownership of keeping them up to date for quite a few years after. He actually morphed into a leadership role looking after training.

What could have been a train wreck turned into a great result

So it was really, really interesting: What could have been a train wreck turned into a great result.

How much different do you think that scenario would've played out if the leader coach had said, "We need you here. You need to organize your family situation so you can come back to work."

Certainly according to the legislative requirements, he would've been quite justified in saying something like this. But would it have resulted in engagement and commitment by that team member?

Focus on both short and long-term results

The key here was that this was a leader who was completely focused on both the immediate situation. And the long-term desire to have a committed and engaged team member, not someone who felt he had to choose between his family and his work.

And it all came down to him planning, and he came up with all of that in less than 15 minutes.

It probably really only took him about five or seven. He was so darn good at it, at it intuitively. And the rest of the time was spent coaching me.

Now, as I said, this was, this example was from the early 90s, but it was so powerful because it changed the trajectory of my life. It took me to a whole new level as a leader.

Take a moment and get your head straight so you are calm and cool.

So if someone hits you with something unexpectedly. Don't shy away from saying, "Hey, this is an important conversation. Now that I understand what you're wanting, can you give me 10 to 15 minutes to get my head straight? I want to make sure we both walk away from this conversation getting the best possible result."

Can you see how this type of pre-paving helps you to be a better influencer and leader?

It is Segment Intending on steroids, and if you back it up with the Behind Your Eyes and a couple of other techniques that you're going to discover shortly, you'll be unstoppable. So that's it for this one. I'll see you soon.