1. They expect their direct reports to communicate, collaborate, and work well with their cross-departmental colleagues and do not feel they should have to resolve conflict between team members.
2. They are too busy getting the operational parts of their job done and have not had the time to sit down and coach and counsel the employees.
3. Their schedule has not aligned with the employees. 
4. So much time has passed since the accountability issue occurred that the leader feels it would be inappropriate to bring up the problem now.
5. The CEO hopes the employee who is not accountable will resign or retire soon.
6. The CEO does not see the problem as that big of an issue. 
7. The CEO has not been honest and shared their concerns with the executive in the past in one-on-one meetings or their performance review. 
8. The employee is well-liked by the CEO’s board, and every time the CEO has tried to coach the employee in the past, they run to a board member and complain about the poor treatment from the CEO.
9. The CEO and the executive direct report are friends, and they don’t want to hurt the executive’s feelings.

Although each of these reasons sounds legitimate to the CEOs we are coaching, all of them are excuses that undermine both the CEO’s and the organization’s success. 

We have written previous blogs on how to coach an employee and hold them accountable. This blog is focused on the most important reasons why CEOs need to power through their excuses, lean into conflict, and be accountable to hold their direct reports accountable for being a great team player who has a reputation for high-quality, on-time performance in their job. 

Here are six reasons we hope will motivate a CEO or C-level leader to raise the bar on accountability with members of their executive team.

Bad Reputation: There are only two types of reputations. Good ones and bad ones. When CEOs do not hold all their executives accountable, they develop a bad reputation as leaders.

Lack of Respect: One of your job responsibilities is holding all your executives accountable. When you do not do your job, you lose respect. Your initial thoughts may be that the accountable team members are the ones who lose respect for you. You are correct, but that is not all. The executive who is not doing their job does not respect you either. If they did respect you, they would be doing their job and making you look like a great leader.

Lower Results: When the executives on your team are not accountable, the negative results spiral downward throughout the organization. Remember, if you are not holding leaders accountable for executing the company’s goals, the company will not see the results it needs to succeed. 

Conflict Increases: When executives don’t do what they are supposed to, it negatively impacts others in the organization, including the CEO. When people are negatively impacted by an executive who is either not producing quality work, on-time work or being a good team player, you almost always will have others tell you directly or indirectly that you are not doing your job (holding your team accountable).

Unhappy Team Members: No one is happy when a CEO does not hold people accountable. The team member who goes to bed each night knows they are not doing their job and are letting fellow team members down, as well as you and everyone else on the team who must deal with the fallout. 

You Hate Your Job: When executive team members do not do what we pay them to do, and you, as CEO, do not hold them accountable, you are guaranteed to have more long-term stress. When stress continues over long periods, most CEOs start to dislike their job… especially coming to work and looking at someone they are not holding accountable. 

That is it in a nutshell. If you want to have a lousy reputation as a CEO who is not respected, produces poor results with unhappy team members who thrive in conflict and stress and, ultimately, hate your job, then you now know the formula… don’t hold your executive team members accountable.

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In order to make it through this COVID environment, as leaders, we must learn to successfully change, but lead our team through the change as well. The following are ten proven actions that will help managers and supervisors guide employees through change.

1 – Involve employees: Employees are not so much against change as they are against being changed. Any time managers are going to implement organizational change, there is always a lag between the time the change has been discussed at the management level and the time the change is going to be implemented. Some managers like to hold the information about the change as long as they can from employees so that they don’t have to deal with push-back. But they don’t realize that employees will gain the information from another source. When employees do receive it from another source, it results in a loss of trust that employees have in the manager. As well, the information they gained may or may not be accurate. The sooner you involve employees in the process, the better off you will be implementing the change.

2 – Communicate with employees regarding their feelings. It is critical that managers and supervisors understand what employees are feeling regarding the change. When you accurately understand their feelings, you know what issues need to be addressed. Implementing change requires the ability to market and to sell. It is difficult to sell effectively without understanding your buyer’s needs, concerns, and fears. As well, employees are more likely to trust and follow a leader that they feel genuinely cares.

3 – Effectively delegate. Too often, managers and supervisors feel they must use self-protective measures, especially during organizational change. They start by trying to control all activities. Don’t try to cover all the bases yourself. You should concentrate on effective delegation during the early stages of the change process. Effective delegation is particularly good for two reasons: first, it helps you manage and maintain your workload, and second, it gives your employees a sense of involvement. Involvement positions employees to share responsibility for change and helps the manager gain buy-in.

4 – Raise the bar. Now, more than ever, you should ask more from your employees. It is expected that more work needs to be done during the change process. While it may be most practical to expect less in terms of performance, raise your expectations and theirs. During change, employees are more likely to alter their work habits, so reach for the opportunity and push them to try harder and work smarter. Require performance improvements and make the process challenging but remember to keep goals realistic in order to eliminate frustration and failure.

5 – Ask employees for their commitment. Once the change has been announced, it is important that you personally ask for each employee’s commitment to successfully implement the change. You must also assure the employee that, if there are problems, you want to hear about them. If a negative employee does not tell you, they will tell other employees why the change will not work.

6 – Expand communication channels. The change process usually means that normal communication channels in the firm need to be enlarged. At this time, your employees will be hungrier than ever for information and answers. You can “beef up” communication. First, give employees an opportunity to give you input. Start by becoming more available and asking more questions. Get employees’ opinions and reactions to the changes. Maintain your visibility and make it clear that you are an accessible boss. More importantly, be a careful listener. Second, keep employees updated regularly. Just letting your employees know that you have no new information is meaningful information to them. Strive to be specific; clear up rumors and misinformation that clutter the communication channels. Remember, it is almost impossible to overcommunicate in times of high change.

7 – Be firm, committed, and flexible. As you introduce a change, it is important that you see the change through to completion. Abandoning it halfway through the change process accomplishes two negative impacts. First, it destroys your credibility. Second, it tells every employee that the change will pass by if they push hard enough.

8 – Keep a positive attitude. Your attitude as a manager or supervisor will be a major factor in determining what type of climate your employees exhibit. Your attitude is the one thing that keeps you in control. Change can be stressful and confusing. Remain upbeat, positive, and enthusiastic. Foster motivation in others. During times of transition and change, try to compensate your employees for their extra effort. Write a brief note of encouragement on their paychecks; leave an affirming message on their voicemail; take them aside and tell them what a great job they are doing; listen to their comments and suggestions. Last, try to instill organizational change as a personal challenge that everyone can meet… with success!

9 – Measure results: When change is implemented, stay focused on achieving the vision and the specific results that will turn the vision into reality. If the goal of changing a process is to make the process more efficient and customer friendly, then measure the results and reward team members for achieving the goal.

10 – Celebrate success: Change is difficult. When changes have been successfully implemented, take time to acknowledge team members’ contributions and celebrate the team’s success.

Implementing organizational change, especially in uncertain times, will also be a challenge. By implementing these ten strategies, your ability as a leader to successfully implement the change increases significantly.

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Why Leaders get Imposter Syndrome

Many factors can compel leaders to feel like an imposter or fraud. Some include the leader’s work environment, prior bosses, or parenting style. For example, if your parents focused on perfection, or you had a boss that tore employees down for small mistakes, you may still feel doubtful of your skills and abilities. Since there are so many reasons why imposter syndrome may occur, it is important to have knowledge on how to combat it.

How to Combat Imposter Syndrome

Acknowledge your Doubts: Opening up about your feelings of self-doubt can act as a stress reliever and may help you realize that you are not the only person that feels insecure about your abilities. If you feel like you aren’t capable of producing good work or being in a high leadership position, take a look at yourself and see if you are being too self-critical. Remember, you were picked for that position for a good reason. If colleagues compliment your work or abilities frequently, that is a good sign that you may be too hard on yourself.

Build a Support System: Allowing others into your circle of trust can help you feel more encouraged and supported. If colleagues or friends know you are feeling like a fraud, they may be able to reassure you and remind you that you have what it takes to succeed in your position. If you are obsessing over a simple task, procrastinating, or talking negatively about yourself, a good support system will help guide you back on the right track.

Don’t Make Comparisons: Every person has a unique set of abilities, including strengths and weaknesses. If you think you have to be the best at everything, you will obsess over every task and never get things done. Also, comparing yourself to others will turn into a never-ending cycle where you are constantly putting yourself down. It is important to remember that nobody is perfect, and comparing yourself to others will only stall you from reaching success. Focus on success, not perfection.

Recognize your Accomplishments: Countless leaders will feel incompetent without realizing that many of their accomplishments were only attainable with their expertise. As a leader, you need to look at your accomplishments and recognize that you had the ability to succeed regardless of luck or good timing. That could be easier said than done, so if someone has complimented you on your work, keep that in the back of your mind the next time you are feeling like an imposter.

Get a Coach or Advisor: Most C-level executives have an executive coach or executive advisor that they use as their go-to person when they are in doubt with a decision, or need a sounding board. Having this go-to advisor helps these executives confirm why they are there and overcome self-doubt.

We have all had imposter syndrome at one time or another in our lives. No one is confident 100% of the time. If they are, they are usually considered to be arrogant 40% of the time. Follow these tips to keep yourself on track, confident, and successful as a leader.

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With the pandemic, it brought out a need, more than ever, for employees to be cross-trained with employees working remotely, in office, in quarantine, or out sick. If critical functions were only handled by one key employee, some departments found themselves in a bind. 

We have conducted Employee Engagement Surveys with over 100,000 employees. Organizations in Peter Barron Stark Companies’ Best of the Best Benchmark are consistently rated higher in the competencies of cross-departmental teamwork. Organizations that are strong in cross-departmental teamwork have employees with a broader knowledge than just their own job and an understanding of how the different departments and the jobs in it all connect to better serve the customer as well as each other. Organizations that grasp the importance of cross-training reap the benefits and gain a huge competitive advantage.

Not only does cross-training provide advantages to organizations, but to their employees as well.

Organizational advantages include:

• Coverage for an employee when they are sick or out on vacation
• Coverage to provide backfill when a qualified employee cannot be found in the shrinking workforce
• A smaller workforce is needed since employees can cover multiple functions based on the organization’s need
• Employees who are able to provide training on multiple skills
• Increased cross-departmental teamwork
• Development of future leaders

Employee advantages include:

• Increased morale due to a deeper understanding of how the business works and knowing they make a significant difference in the business’s success
• Opportunity to learn new skills
• Greater opportunity for a promotion
• Higher chance they will not be let go in tough economic times
• Prevents stagnation
• Greater job variety

If you are emerging from the pandemic and realizing that you have a few areas that are in need of some cross-training, the following 7 tips will help your team successfully take advantage of these benefits by implementing cross-training:

1 – Identify the specific critical tasks for which cross-training is needed. You can look at the need from a few different angles. 

• • What needs do our customers have that could be improved if multiple team members knew how to meet them?
  • Where are we vulnerable?  If this employee was to get hit by a bus today, are people already trained, ready to execute and get the job successfully accomplished? Ensure every job is backed up.
  • As you review your team member’s performance, what are the next logical steps to help them build their skills and increase their organizational value?

2 – Conduct a gap analysis: Determine what skills and knowledge are needed to successfully get the job done. Then, identify the employee’s current level of knowledge and skills. Develop a learning plan based on the gap. 

3 – Identify the right people to cross-train. Some team members love to learn new information and skills, while others are more comfortable completing the same tasks over and over. Here is your challenge as a leader: if you have a person in a critical position who refuses to cross-train others, you are being held hostage and putting the future health of your team or organization in jeopardy. Information hoarding kills cross-departmental teamwork and squashes creativity and innovation. If your competition has strong cross-departmental teamwork and your organization does not, you are going to be both vulnerable and at a significant disadvantage. Information hoarders seem to forget that we are all on the same team.

4 – Create the right environment: Information hoarders actually operate from a place of fear. To eliminate this fear, align the vision of cross-training with the goal of improving teamwork and service to the customers. This should help eliminate the feeling that information hoarders have that by sharing their information and teaching others their skills, the program is designed to eliminate them.

5 – Adjust workload: Employees learning a new skill will take longer to accomplish the task than a veteran of the position. Adjust their schedule temporarily until they are up to speed. 

6 – Reward team members for learning new skills and practicing collaborative behaviors. People do what they are rewarded and/or recognized for doing.

7 – Share information hoarders with your best competitor: If an employee is unwilling to train others, share information and work well cross-departmentally, you may be a lot better off sharing them with your best competitor and screwing up another organization’s strategic plan. 

Cross-training is good for the employees, the leaders, and for the organization. Put these seven tips into action and it will help you in building an organization that is rated by your employees as being the Best of the Best.

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When I asked this executive why he was not forthcoming with his boss, he responded, “I don’t feel psychologically safe.” When I asked, “What does that mean?” he responded, “The CEO will become very angry, get red in the face, raise his voice, cuss and probably fire me.” When I asked the leader if he had ever seen the CEO fire someone for botching a sale, he replied he hadn’t. 

Even if actually getting fired was a remote possibility, this executive was fearful about speaking the truth to his boss. My advice, which the particular leader did not put into action, was to go to his boss, tell the truth about the challenges with this client and then ask for the CEO’s help. I felt strongly that if the CEO met with this potential client, there was a good chance the sale could be saved. Real or not, this leader did not feel safe and the negative impact on this organization, and his team, is significant. 

Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School researcher, defines psychological safety as a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. 

What are the benefits of a psychologically safe environment?

When leaders are able to create and role model a psychologically safe environment, the following are the benefits:

• Lower turnover: Across the board, researchers have found a relationship between turnover intent and psychological safety. For example, respondents least likely to leave their organization strongly agreed with the statement “I can easily approach my manager to ask for help,” or, “My manager respects my personal values, even when they disagree,” while respondents most likely to exit their organization disagreed with these statements.  (2019 People Management Report PI)
• Stronger bonds of trust with the manager 

• More sharing of suggestions and ideas

• Quicker innovation

• More diversity and diverse opinions

• Better adaptation to adversity and crisis

• More ability to be agile in a network of teams; more likely to collaborate

As a leader, it will be much easier for your team members to follow you in the direction you are taking your team, or the organization. To ensure your organization and its leaders provide an environment of psychological safety, implement these 10 specific actions to promote psychological safety.

1. Define your culture: Clearly articulate your team or organization’s mission, vision, values, and strategic goals. Ensure employees know what they need to do, why they need to do this work and when the goals need to be completed. It is hard to hold employees and leaders accountable for creating a psychologically safe workplace when the organizational culture and goals have not been clearly defined. We work with organizations to help them build a culture where employees love coming to work and their customers love to do business. If employees do not feel comfortable taking a risk, being innovative, or speaking up when they have a concern or dissenting opinion, most likely, they do not love coming to work. 
2. Be a role model: Once your mission, vision and values are clearly defined, be a leader who is a positive role model for taking actions to turn the safe workplace environment into a reality. Employees will believe the behaviors they see in action more than the mission, vision and values that is posted on the walls. As a leader, make yourself vulnerable. Ask for honest feedback or admit when you don’t know the answer. A leader who helps others feel safe is consistent, calm, inquiring, sees mistakes as learning opportunities, and demonstrates the ability to learn, change and grow when needed.
3. Be fully engaged: When a team member speaks, give them 100% of your attention. Stop what you are doing. When you look at your phone, computer or sending an email while someone else is talking, it sends the message that you do not value them as a person. Being fully engaged also means demonstrating nonverbal communication that encourages your counterpart to continue communicating and sharing their opinion with you.
4. Seek first to understand: Your team members know that you are truly listening to them when you ask open-ended questions to gain an even better understanding about what is important to them. Even if you disagree, when people feel heard and valued, they will feel safe speaking up.
5. Be respectful: Almost every person has a deep need to be valued, included, appreciated, and accepted for the person they are and the gifts they bring to the team. When issues arise, lean into conflict sooner with the goal of improving understanding of different opinions, finding solutions, and building an even stronger relationship based on respect. Many times, it is possible to build an even stronger, more trusting relationship when a conflict or problem occurs, than if no conflict had ever surfaced.
6. Know yourself: Participate in a 360 Leadership Development Assessment. Have the assessment administered by a consulting firm that will have you rate yourself on leadership competencies as well as collect feedback from your boss, direct reports, peers, and internal customers. Most leaders who participate in a 360, and then take actions on their lowest rated competencies, will be rated even higher by their teammates on a second Leadership Development Assessment.
7. Focus on the aim frame: Focusing on the blame frame will create a culture where team members are focused first on CYA. Blaming managers guide conversations with the following questions: “What went wrong?” and, “Who do you blame”? Aim frame leaders ask questions that create psychological safety by taking the conversation in a very different direction. Aim frame managers ask, “Where do we want to be regarding this problem or opportunity?”  “What actions do you recommend we take to accomplish this?” and, “How can I support you in leading this change?” Aim frame leaders create environments that are psychologically safe.
8. Meet often: When you have one-on-one’s daily or weekly, all our research shows that employees will feel more comfortable sharing what is going well or right; as well as their areas or concerns. When you meet, delegate important work. When you delegate important work to your team, you indirectly tell people that you trust them and have confidence in their ability to deliver quality work on time.
9. Include your team on decisions that will impact their work: Have the courage and confidence to ask team members for their opinion regarding decisions that impact their work. This demonstrates that you have the confidence to seek out opinions that may be different from your own. Seeking out dissenting opinion and figuring out how to use this information to make an even better decision or outcome, will help team members feel safe speaking up when they think differently than you do. 
10. Reward and recognize people who are willing to speak up. Invite team members to speak up and challenge you. As a leader, you are in a much better place to lead when you know what people are thinking, even when team members are thinking something that is contrary to what you currently believe. Thank people who have the guts to speak up and tell you their truth. With good questioning skills, you may learn something new, or ask a question that helps someone else see things through a different lens with a different opinion.

By role modeling these actions, leaders can create an environment where team members feel psychologically safe and in turn, love coming to work.

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Negotiation is a life skill. All of us do it on a daily basis, and if we become conscious of the skill and practice it, all of us have the opportunity to become better at it.

The following are 10 tips to help you ensure a successful negotiation.

Tip #1 – recognize that everything in life is negotiable. From asking a significant other or your children to take out the garbage or clean up their room, to asking for a raise, to negotiating a merger and acquisition. Almost every communication in life where one counterpart is trying to change the action or interaction of the other counterpart is some form of a negotiation.

Tip #2 – go for win-win outcomes. Win-win outcomes are where both parties feel as though their needs and goals have been met. And here’s the kicker, both parties are willing to come back to the table and renegotiate with each other at a later time.

Tip #3 – aim high. Your level of aspiration going into the negotiation almost always will single-handedly determine your outcome leaving the negotiation. Go for the moon.

Tip #4 – have sound strategies and tactics. Most negotiators use three to five strategies and tactics over and over. What I encourage you to do is watch people use their life skills, and if you are an observer of life, you’ll start to recognize there are many different types of tactics you can use to help gain or maintain leverage in a negotiation.

Tip #5 – plan ahead and do research prior to showing up for the negotiation. The best negotiators with the best outcomes usually have the best and the most available information at their fingertips.

Tip #6 – listen. Remember, God gave you two ears and one mouth, and would really appreciate it in a negotiation, if you would use them in that order.

Tip #7 – if you are going to open up your mouth, we recommend asking questions. You can ask closed-ended questions if you’re trying to confirm a deal, point or gain a concession, you could ask open-ended questions if you’re trying to gain the maximum amount of information, but we encourage asking questions.

Tip #8 – learn how to effectively read your counterpart’s non-verbal behavior. Are they accepting of your ideas? Are they rejecting your ideas? Most of that information can be gained if you’re good at reading non-verbal behavior.

Tip #9 – learn to identify your counterpart’s behavioral style. Are they a shark? Are they a carp? Are they a dolphin? Are they amiable? Are they analytical? Are they a hard line, bottom line, results-oriented driver? Understanding who your counterpart is makes a huge difference in how you want to present information.

Tip #10 – remember, most negotiations give you the ability that if things are not right, get up and walk away. The side who is the least committed to the relationship almost always holds the most power.

Use these ten tips to hone in your negotiations skills. For move tips, sign up for our negotiation tactic of the week.

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As a leader, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to lead a team of people with diverse behavioral styles. Though your mission is not impossible, it can be very challenging if you don’t understand the variety of behavioral styles represented on your team and how to effectively bring them together.

When we work on team building projects with teams in trouble, we often hear comments like:

“He’s so results-driven and absolutely clueless as to how he comes across.”

“She is overly sensitive and takes everything so personally.”

“He might be able to solve the problem, but by the time he comes up with a solution, we’ll be out of business.”

“Her team can discuss options and possibilities at nauseam and never make a commitment.”

Frequently, the people described above are perceived to be roadblocks to effectively accomplishing team and organizational goals. In reality, they may be very effective yet, because their behavioral style is radically different from that of the leader or other team members, they are seen as difficult or unproductive. Although the different approach may be challenging for some team members, it is important to remember that in building a highly effective team, different is good.

Your challenge, or should I say opportunity, lies in understanding the motivation behind each person’s behavior, appreciating each behavioral style, and allowing each person to operate in the style that is most effective for them. There are hundreds of different instruments to define/analyze behavioral and communication styles. To keep it simple, we’ve just assigned simple descriptive words to talk about some of the different behaviors displayed by individual team members.

Here are some tips on how to interact with coworkers with different behavior types.

Driver

Style’s Primary Focus: Task Orientation
Motto: “Get it done!”

Common Behaviors – How to recognize a Driver:

• Fast paced
• Task oriented
• Focused on big picture, not details
• Comfortable taking risks
• Competitive
• Decisive

Tips for dealing with the Driver team member:

• Give recognition to their accomplishments.
• Don’t tell them what to do; instead, ask questions that allow them to discover things.
• When communicating with them, be time efficient, organized, and concise.
• Provide several alternative solutions to problems and let them pick the best solution.
• Keep your relationship business-like.

Amiable

Style’s Primary Focus: Relationships
Motto: “How can we help you?”

Common Behaviors – How to recognize an Amiable:

• Caring and empathetic
• Great listener
• Supportive, high concern for others
• Sensitive
• Shares personal feelings

Tips for dealing with Amiable team members:

• Don’t view an emotional response as being unprofessional; help Amiables move beyond the emotion to make good business decisions.
• Be supportive and understanding of their feelings.
• Know they avoid conflict.
• When you disagree, don’t debate facts and logic; instead say, “Let’s talk about what you are feeling.”
• Actively listen, even when the conversation seems to stray from business to a personal conversation. Acknowledge what is being said, then reroute the conversation back to business.

Analyzer

Style’s Primary Focus: Process
Motto: “Do it right the first time”

Common Behaviors – How to recognize an Analyzer

• Independent, autonomous
• Precise
• Detailed
• Curious
• Disciplined

Tips for dealing with the Analyzer team member:

• Involve them in projects early on. Since Analyzers see things at a much deeper level than other team members, they will need more time; but the time will pay off with their contribution to the details.
• Give them all the facts up front. Tell them what you need, but not how to accomplish the work.
• Allow time for analysis.
• Be specific about time frames for work to be completed. Hold them accountable to meeting the deadlines.
• Look for opportunities to provide meaningful recognition of their detailed orientation.

Harmonizer

Style’s Primary focus: Teamwork and collaboration . . . Working together is progress
Motto: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Common Behaviors – How to recognize a Harmonizer

• Sociable
• Considers many options
• Flexible/Adaptable
• Open to change
• Open-minded

Tips for dealing with Harmonizer team members:

• Provide time for collaboration and discussion.
• Allow for exploration of options.
• Consider alternatives; avoid insisting on only one way of doing things.
• Minimize independent work.
• When a decision is made, gain agreement about the details and the timeline and hold Harmonizers accountable.

Although it may feel good in the short run to hire people just like you, in the long run, cloning yourself will spell disaster for your team. Ultimately, the way to build a highly effective team is to consciously think about hiring, developing and retaining different or diverse thinkers and doers. Remember, great leaders treat team members the way they want to be treated, even when they are different. When it comes to building a successful team, different is good.

Is someone on your team driving you crazy or creating a roadblock to results?  Through our one-on-one coaching or our training session on Relationship Strategies, we can help you determine the unique behavioral style of each person on your team and work with you to create a plan to maximize the contribution of each team member.

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Every day we are bombarded with news about decisions made by leaders that cause us to question their integrity and ethics. So much so that we have banned the news in our home, especially after 7:00 p.m., to stave off the restlessness that comes with this kind of news and in the hopes of getting a sound night’s sleep!  We are facing a new kind of poverty – ethical leadership practices.

No matter what situation an organization finds itself in, it didn’t get there by chance, someone led it there. Organizations and their cultures are, therefore, shaped by the values and ethics of their leaders. Your decision-making, whether ethical or unethical, sends a powerful message throughout the organization.

Here are 7 tips to help you make ethical decisions, especially when the right decision seems difficult to make.

Practice “both-and” strategies with your values: Say, “Our goal is to return great profits and maintain a high-quality product.” Statements like this will keep every employee in your organization focused on your values and will ultimately yield more positive outcomes. When you say, “Either we can make great profits or we can produce a high-quality product,” you send a message that you are willing to compromise one of your core values and, ultimately, your integrity.

Take a firm stand on your values: Ethical leadership practices demonstrate unwavering commitment to their beliefs and values. During problem-solving and decision-making discussions, stay the course, provide time, and encourage everyone to persevere until you have a plan that supports all of your values. Using your values and long-term goals as a compass will help you avoid poor decisions based on short-term gains at the expense of long-term implications; and your character will remain intact.

Weigh each option against your values: Lay out a range of options and determine the pros and cons of each possible decision in light of your core values. When you ensure your decisions meet the “values test” you are modeling a commitment to high ethical standards.

Be honest and transparent in all communication: People want to know the truth, even when the information is difficult to hear. Employees can make sound decisions if they know what they are dealing with. The minute you sugarcoat bad news or cover up critical information, you have not only breached the trust between you and members of your team, you have undermined their ability to make productive decisions.

Reward employees for speaking up and seek their honest input: Employees need to feel empowered with the knowledge that their leaders want them to tell the truth and do the right thing, even during difficult circumstances. Leaders are better able to make sound decisions when they know the truth. When employees sense their leaders don’t want to hear the truth, they also believe their leaders are willing to compromise their integrity.

Imagine the decision publicized: Imagine that the soundness of your decision is going to be highlighted on the cable news networks or written about in an internet blog. Will others consider your decision a sound one that will positively highlight your moral character?

Do the right thing: Once your analysis leads you to a values-based decision, take action and hold everyone accountable to the decision, even in the face of opposition.  When it comes to doing the right thing, honesty and full disclosure will seldom be the wrong call. Remember the words of John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach at UCLA. “In life, there is a choice you need to make in everything you do…so keep in mind that in the end the choices you make, make you!”

What are the leadership values that guide your organizational decisions? You have a choice, and what you choose to value will ultimately determine your leadership legacy. Set high standards, walk your talk, and live by your values. The security of your position depends on it.

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I once negotiated the purchase of a car with three different dealers. The first two were clearly only interested in making a sale that benefitted them, so I moved on. The third dealer made it clear that, although he wanted to sell me a car at a price suitable to him, he was also interested in meeting my unique needs and sending me away a satisfied customer; he threw in some extra upgrades and an extended service agreement. I drove off content with my new car and when it came time to purchase another car, you can guess which salesperson I returned to.

In most negotiations, fostering a cooperative atmosphere increases the chances of a win-win outcome. When each party obtains something of greater value in exchange for something on which he or she places a lower value, both parties win. Each of them may have wished for more, but at least they are both satisfied and will be willing to negotiate again later.

Some negotiators have a strong reputation for consistently achieving win-win outcomes in their negotiations. To achieve this favorable reputation for yourself, keep the following guidelines in mind.

1. Avoid narrowing the negotiation down to one issue. Focusing on just one issue sets the scene for a win-lose outcome. The most common example is arguing over the price of a product or service. To avoid getting stuck on one issue such as price, try to visualize a juggler. A juggler does not juggle just one ball. In fact, the best jugglers are those who juggle several difficult objects—like knives. Keep this picture in mind when you negotiate: Let’s say you want to buy 100 mid-range, pro-level tablets for your corporation and your budget is $1,000 per tablet. The model you prefer is listed for $1,299 per tablet. You may be tempted to lock on to the price issue and do your best to get the tablets discounted to $1,000. Why? Because price is the easiest and most logical deal point to discuss. If you take this tack, you may be successful at reducing the price, but you take the chance of laying the foundation for a lose-lose outcome. Keeping that juggler in mind, a better strategy would be to bring up additional deal points to negotiate, such as delivery date, financing, upgrades, warranty, training, and support—all of which contribute to the overall “price” of the product. Bringing multiple issues to the table provides the opportunity for you to “juggle” the deal points to create a win-win outcome.

2. Realize that your counterpart does not have the same needs and wants you do. If you do not take this factor into consideration, you negotiate with the idea that your gain is your counterpart’s loss, and vice versa. With that attitude, it is virtually impossible to create a win-win negotiation outcome. In the computer example above, most negotiators would assume that the number-one goal of each counterpart would be to get the best respective price. But if price were the most important factor for all buyers, they would all purchase the cheapest computer, and no other model would ever be sold! The reason there are so many models is that buyers almost always have needs other than price that drive the outcome in negotiations.

3. Do not assume you know your counterpart’s needs. It’s very common for negotiators to assume they know exactly what their counterpart wants. For example, a salesperson “knows” that the buyer wants to buy the product or service at the lowest possible price. That may be true—but the buyer may have a much more powerful need that influences his or her decision to buy. By asking probing questions, the sales- person may discover other relevant facts, for example, that the buyer’s biggest concern is what his or her boss will think about the wisdom of the purchase decision.

By utilizing the three critical elements of a negotiation you can start to achieve a win-win negotiation outcome and build on your reputation as a trustworthy negotiator that people return to again and again.

If you want to take your conflict management skills to the next level and build lasting, win-win relationships with customers that will benefit you for years to come, purchase our new book “The Only Negotiating Guide You’ll Ever Need” or contact us for more information on how a Negotiation Skills Training workshop could benefit you, your team and your company for years to come.

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Exit interviews can serve as an essential part of your organization’s strategy to reduce employee turnover. However, exit interview shouldn’t be the first conversation an organization has with their employees about their thoughts on the company. Before we talk about the elements of effective exit interviews, let’s take a quick look at other opportunities to obtain valuable insight from employees before they choose to leave.

Leading organizations know that retention practices start at the time of hiring and continue day-to-day until an employee’s last day on the job.  Everyone in the organization should be keeping track of ongoing input regarding employee concerns and opportunities for improvement. Doing so means you should never be surprised by an employee’s reason for leaving your organization.

You have many excellent opportunities to invite input including one-on-one meetings, performance discussions, annual performance appraisals, focus groups, and employee surveys. Talent retention should be a continuous conversation.

Powerful questions to ask employees include:

• Why do you stay with the organization?
• What might make you consider leaving?
• What learning opportunities would help you be even more effective in your current job?
• What are your career goals and how can we support you in achieving them?
• How can we help you maintain a healthy work-life balance?

In addition to these questions, information gained from employee engagement surveys can provide you with valuable insight on changes you can make to ensure your best employees don’t leave to work with your competitors.

Now that we have established that an exit interview should never be the first conversation an organization has with an employee regarding his or her thoughts about the company, let’s consider the benefits of conducting exit interviews and what makes them effective if the need does arise.

three primary benefits of conducting exit interviews

Compilation of valuable, action-oriented data on why people are leaving and the opportunity to make strategic changes

Well-designed and administered exit interviews help you understand your employee’s perceptions about the work itself. This includes job elements, resources, working conditions, culture, and co-worker relationships. In addition, you have the opportunity to gain insight into strategic operations such as structure, systems, processes, policies and how adept your organization is at innovating and implementing change. You can also obtain valuable information about leadership effectiveness and what training and development initiatives could be put in place to further develop successful leaders.

Closure for employees, appreciation for their contributions, and goodwill

Exit interviews provide an excellent opportunity to thank employees and acknowledge their contributions and accomplishments. Exit conversations signal to employees that their perspective matters and can turn departing employees into company improvement consultants and ambassadors for your organization.

(Note: Exit interviews should be reserved for voluntary separations, because issues raised by layoffs and terminations for cause will require a special approach.)

Minimizing liability for your organization

Exit interviews help reduce the potential for lawsuits filed by exiting employees.  Discuss the company’s and the employee’s rights and obligations following termination.  Address unused paid time off, health insurance opportunities, non-compete clauses, and post-employment agreements. Ensure there will be no surprises after the employee separates from your company.

Conducting the Interview

Who should conduct the interview?

Interviews may be conducted by Human Resource professionals, an unbiased manager, or a trusted mentor. The interviewer must be well-versed in asking open-ended questions and listening to the answers. Regardless of the reason for the departure, employee separations are often emotional. Skilled interviewers will be adept at probing for the truth while at the same time remaining neutral and unemotional. The exit interview is not the time to fix a problem, although the interviewer may ask the employee for suggestions to resolve problems that surface. Use of an external third party interviewer is also a good option and will increase the likelihood that the interviewer will be well trained.  Employees may also be more cooperative and transparent with an interviewer from outside the organization.

Make It “Mandatory”

Participation rates increase when employees understand that an exit interview is part of your employment practices and that all employees are asked to participate in one when leaving the company.  Although you cannot legally require employees to participate, setting precedence will increase the likelihood that employees agree to be involved.

Make it Timely

Conduct your formal exit interview while the departing employee is still engaged; midway between the resignation notice and the departure date.  Don’t wait until the employee’s last week of work, or even worse, their last day. At this point the employee has likely already checked out.

Make It a Conversation

The exit conversation should be conducted by someone of consequence in the employee’s career who can offer them a chance to reflect back on their job and experience with your organization. The “check-out” process, retrieval of company property, and benefits information can be cold and clinical. Although this process can be administered by HR, it is best to conduct this part of the process separate from the exit conversation.

Some employers begin the exit interview process with a survey. Survey data can provide a fast and easy way to obtain comparable data, but don’t rely solely on survey data. Some people may not be as frank if they believe they are leaving a written record. An unstructured interview can produce a broader range of responses, even though consolidating information is more challenging. Standardized interview questions make it easier to spot trends, but are less likely to elicit unexpected insights. By combining surveys with structured and unstructured interviews you will gain more in-depth information to help your organization take strategic steps to improve employee retention and engagement.

Make it Meaningful

You can enrich the feedback you receive by scheduling several interactions – an interview, a survey, a phone call—before and after an employee departs. Many experts advocate conducting one interview while the employee is still there and one a few months after departure.

Departing employees may to be more emotional than usual. Creating some space and giving them time to adjust to their new circumstances may give you an opportunity to solicit more forthright responses. In one study,  59% of former employees who answered a questionnaire mailed several months after their exit gave reasons for leaving that differed from those they’d offered during their initial exit interviews. And every employee who had initially failed to cite causes for leaving mentioned specific reasons on the questionnaire.

Make it Confidential

Inform employees that all identifying information will be removed from their comments before being shared with anyone in the office. The only exception is if they report legal issues, criminal behavior, sexual harassment, or acts of discrimination.  Let the employee know you have an obligation to report these instances. Explain how your company will consolidate, share and take action on exit interview data. Think carefully about how to tactfully disseminate exit interview information, especially with regard to the interviewee’s candor about their manager.

Departing employees may be concerned about burning bridges or fear retribution. Encourage them to be as honest as they can, and help them understand that the purpose of the conversation is to assist the organization in learning what it does well and what it can do better to create an engaging environment where employees love to come to work.

Potential Interview Questions

Exit interview questions should uncover reasons for employee turnover as well as organizational strengths so your organization will know what it does well, and what needs improvement. Many employees accept another position before they announce their intent to leave their organization; consider asking about the new job, but not about how the two positions compare. The point is to gather benchmarking data about the competitive landscape. Valuable questions include:

• How do you feel things went here?
• What do you feel are the strengths of our organization?

• What suggestions do you have to improve our organization? Your job? Your work group?

• When did you realize you simply couldn’t work here anymore?

• What could we have done that would have stopped you from leaving?
• How does your new job fulfill your career goals?

• Under what conditions, if any, would you consider returning?

• Would you like us to stay in touch to let you know about future opportunities?
• What lessons will you take with you from your time here?
• Do you have any other suggestions that would help us build a more engaging culture?

Putting Your Data to Work

The main reason exit interviews fail to deliver valuable outcomes is lack of action. Work with your leadership team to take the following steps to make your exit interview data work for you:

• Compile and analyze the input
• Create a plan to distribute the data
• Time the distribution of the data with the strategic decision making cycle
• Include the exit interview data in the company’s annual review, strategic planning, recruiting strategies, training plans and management development programs
• Identify opportunity gaps and develop solutions
• Take action and measure positive changes

Don’t let arrogance undermine your ability to create an engaging culture where the best employees want to work.  Leaders often believe they already know the answers. Yet, they frequently discover through exit interviews that what they thought were the reasons for employees leaving are inaccurate.  Employees leave for a numerous reasons and exit interviews can identify what the true issues are and how your organization can make positive changes. Listen to your employees and take action!

This guide to exit interviews is available as a free PDF download. Click here to download!

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