“If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.”

Anonymous

Conversations. We have them all the time. With family, colleagues, friends, our dog—even ourselves. They’ve been taking place since the dawn of time. Conversing with others probably began like this:

Adam: “Why did you do that!? I told you not to eat from the forbidden tree! I can’t believe you would listen to that serpent’s lies! If you’d had a mother, you’d probably be just like her!!!”

Eve: “You did it, too! And why didn’t you kill that snake? You told me weeks ago you’d handle it. It wasn’t my fault. Why can’t you be more like your father???”

Sound familiar? (more…)

When it comes to handling organizational change, there’s been little change.

While in college a decade ago, Kristin was a bank teller. One day she called home on her break and I asked, “How’s your shift going?”

She lamented: “We’re just buried in change here!”

Being the expert that I am—and her super wise dad—I responded, “That’s typical today; lots of change going on inside organizations.” The ensuing silence was deafening. The daughter then said slowly and clearly to the father, “No … a customer brought in $3,000 in coins and we’re counting it.”

Oh. (more…)

In spite of the continued wave of trendy training, “employee engagement” is not a program.

Yep, you heard it here first. No matter what outside consultants are telling your executives, HR department, and training people, employee engagement is just not a corporate wide, culturally driven initiative.

Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Then what is it?

It is what good managers do. (more…)

Grab past QBQ QuickNotes here.

Enjoy two “fast and fun” QBQ! interviews, as well as a 12 minute podcast with Dave Ramsey, all here: http://outstandingorganization.com/podcasts/

Note: This QuickNote is longer than most, but covers a critical subject matter. So grab a cup of coffee or a Diet Coke and enjoy—and then forward to every manager you know!

I sometimes coach a pastor whose church is thriving. This man has many skills and gifts. He is an outstanding teacher with boundless energy. His passion is evident and there is joy in his heart. He genuinely loves people. His church meets in a terrific facility in an outstanding location. The word has gotten out and his “flock” is growing.

Over coffee he expressed frustration in one area, though. Staff. More specifically, managing staff. After he shared a few specifics, I asked this question: What have you done, in a formal way, to develop your skills and abilities in the area of people management? He looked at me with a face that said, I’ve never thought about that. Then he answered: “Nothing.”

This pastor is not alone. By founding a church in his living room in 2006 and growing it to over 700 people—with God’s grace—he has been placed in a manager-leader role. But, he has yet to purposefully equip himself with the fundamental “how to’s” of managing people. This is no criticism of him. In organizations across the land people who are good at doing stuff get promoted to manager-leader all the time … and receive exactly no training. Back in the day, when I was promoted to branch manager and sent from Montana to Missouri, the entire training program consisted of, “Go east, young man!”

I find almost thirty years later that little has changed in the organizational world.

We at QBQ, Inc. don’t focus on management training, but sometimes we’ll ask clients, “What good, solid people management training have you offered to help managers become managers?”

The common answer: “Nothing.”

Curious, if you were having brain surgery tomorrow would you hope the surgeon has some training?! If you were visiting the dentist because your tooth hurt, would you want her to know what she’s doing? If you invited a contractor to your house to help renovate, wouldn’t you hope that he’s done this before and has the skills and knowledge to do an outstanding job?

Of course.

So then who wants to be managed by an untrained manager? Do you? I don’t. But actually—most people are.

What happens so often is the top salesperson becomes the sales manager, the sharpest technician becomes the manager of technicians, and the best burger flipper becomes the shift supervisor. But very rarely is training provided to help the salesperson, the technician, and the burger flipper make this critical transition. Yet, everybody knows that the most important person in a staff member’s professional life is … their manager.

Furthermore, anyone reading this QBQ! QuickNote understands this:

Nine times out of ten, people do not quit the organization. They quit their manager.

In the Outstanding! book we write:

Managing others is a whole different skill set from developing software or paying invoices or answering questions on an employee hotline or keeping systems running or selling products and services. When managers aren’t trained, and thus don’t understand the management job, there are many consequences—one being that good people go right out the door.

For a decade I sold management training. The firm I represented provided content that helped managers understand their five core obligations to those they managed:

- Define tasks clearly so they know what to do
- Train/coach them to do what is expected
- Confront them when they’re off-track
- Set clear objectives and goals
- Encourage and praise

Though all critical, let’s camp on that last one. In Parenting the QBQ Way Karen and I talk about how words delivered from the lips of Mom or Dad can mean the world to children—or destroy their world. Though the manager-employee relationship should not be parent-child and too often is, the analogy works. A manager’s words can lift up and encourage or cut down and demoralize. When a manager says something mean, sarcastic, arrogant, or shaming, it does nothing to cause the staff member to want to succeed, or to help them succeed.

I am often amazed at the dumb things managers say to people. And because the manager is in a “power position” over the employee, those words can hurt, frustrate, or scare a staff member so much he or she may struggle to sleep that night. But the manager is not awake. Why? Usually because the manager has no idea how those words impacted one of their very own team members.

Managers, some quick tips:

Watch your words. Talk less. Ask more questions. Treat team members as individuals. Discover what drives each person. Don’t argue with employees in an attempt to “be right.” Freely employ the powerful words, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” And when it’s time for a frank conversation, please do not do it over email or text. Truth be told, in this high tech world nothing beats a low tech, old fashioned, totally retro face-to-face, one-on-one conversation—or phone call. Effective manager-leaders know this. You won’t find them confronting over the Internet.

Sometimes, we hear the phrase “raising up leaders.” I believe there is no leadership without good people management. In Outstanding! we suggest:

What most aspiring leaders don’t know is that when people describe their boss as a good leader and then are asked to articulate specifically what that person does to lead, this is what we hear:

– My boss communicates what I should do.
– He talks to me … and listens.
– When I get it right, she praises me.
– He tells me when I am off track.
– I am trained and coached.
– She spends time with me.
– He shows me respect.

Every item listed above is a people management skill. These are the things effective managers do, day in and day out, with and for their people. I have yet to find a boss anywhere who was described as a “great leader” who wasn’t first a terrific manager of his or her staff.

So, a final thought for managers everywhere:

Practice personal accountability by choosing to immerse yourself in quality management training even if you have to pay for it yourself. A manager-leader’s role, scope, influence, and impact on people—and the organization—are WAY TOO BIG for anyone called “boss” to go untrained.

John G. Miller
John@QBQ.com
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Grab past QuickNotes here.

If you believe in Safety and it’s an initiative in your organization, enjoy this message from Chapter Eleven of the Flipping the Switch book. Purchase it at our site or Amazon:

“Owning Safety”

Sometimes a problem or situation can be owned by the wrong people. Ron Pote, an expert on safety in the workplace, told me this story:

“When I was the department manager of a large and inherently dangerous paper mill, I got a call at 5 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Steve, one of my night-shift guys, was hurt. Within thirty minutes I met his terrified wife and three crying children at the hospital. He had a broken arm, fractured skull and numerous lacerations. He was in really bad shape, but would live.

“What happened was this: Steve had removed a metal protective screen from a large piece of equipment so he could reach in to make an adjustment. That’s when his shirtsleeve caught on a rotating shaft and pulled him in. Honestly, he could’ve been killed.

“When I heard what he had done my first thoughts were, Why would Steve do such a thing? Why would he take a chance like that and risk his own safety? I just couldn’t understand why someone would violate the company’s safety policy by removing protective guards. Steve was a model employee and should have known better. What was he thinking?

“And then it hit me: Steve and his family were now suffering because of the culture I—and others in management—had created. We had a safety program in place, but too much of it involved slapping slogans on the wall, disciplining people for violations, purchasing better equipment, or lecturing employees endlessly in meetings. Bluntly put, our problem was that Ownership for safety in the plant belonged more to managers than team members. It was clear that greater responsibility needed to be shifted to the people who would ultimately bear the consequences of an unsafe action. As managers, we would never be able to prevent accidents like Steve’s, because we could not be in all places at all times to make all the decisions. If our safety record was to further improve, individuals needed to watch out for themselves—and their teammates.

“It took about three years to change the safety culture of my department and the plant. Now we all understand that each of us must take Ownership for our personal on-the-job safety—to own our choices and actions. Every moment. No excuses.”

QBQ! QuickNote®

Outstanding! is Different

Since “outstanding” means to stand out—and only a few organizations really do—then it makes sense to say that to be outstanding is to be different.

It’s also true that Outstanding!—the book—is different. That is, it’s different from my other two. Yet there is commonality.

“This book will do for organizations what QBQ! and Flipping the Switch have done for individuals: Make them better.”

John Duff of Penguin/Putnam, publisher of my books (as well as Who Moved My Cheese?) made that remark the day we agreed I’d write Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional. It’s no surprise that an author would agree with a comment like this, right?! And the truth is, our organizations, just like people, can be better. They can even be outstanding.

But this is what it takes:

Effort. Energy. Time. Commitment. Dialogue. Learning. In other words, it takes work.

It also takes content.

Outstanding! has the content. We ask you to do the work. The book is dedicated to “those who care enough to improve the place,” and my hope is … that’s you!

Outstanding! differs from QBQ! and Flipping the Switch (FTS) in that the latter two offer a quickly-applied, life-changing, thought-shifting, behavior-altering, and habit-busting tool that we at QBQ, Inc. call The Question Behind the Question®. (Sorry if that sounds a bit proud, but it’s what we hear from readers!). These books are focused on one core idea (personal accountability) and one person (the reader) and one goal (the reader improving self).

But Outstanding! is focused on many ideas (47 of them, in fact) and the broader goal of improving the organization. This huge difference lends itself not only to more pages (a couple hour read versus 55 minutes for QBQ! and FTS), but requires a different type of engagement with the content. Many individuals read the shorter books and immediately use the material to eliminate Blame, Victim-thinking, and Procrastination from their lives. But with Outstanding! and its goal of making the organization better, collaboration and teamwork are critical.

So, since you and I believe in practicing The Question Behind the Question (QBQ) methodology of asking accountable questions, I pose this friendly challenge to “QBQ! Zealots” everywhere: Ask QBQs such as, “What can I do today to help my organization be outstanding?” and “How can I provide my team the tools to make our organization better?”

These QBQs direct us straight to Outstanding!—a book not to talk about, but to talk through, as a team. A manager emailed saying, “I loved the stories, the bite-size chapters, and the 47 commonsense ideas, but Outstanding! really came to life when my staff and I studied it together as a group.” Perfectly put. Outstanding! is a tool for TEAMS—a book to study, explore, and review, chapter by chapter, page by page, idea by idea.

Here’s our recommendation on how to best put Outstanding! to work:

Since true learning occurs during conversation, discussion, and dialogue, picture your department, work group, or team getting together virtually or face-to-face to work on questions like …

“In what ways can we enhance our focus and ‘keep the mission top of mind’?”
“What can be done to ensure we ‘never forget who pays the bills’?”
“Do we strive to ‘work’ or has entitlement thinking crept into our culture?”
“How does the customer win when we ‘make no excuses’?”
“If we don’t ‘forgive mistakes,’ but rather hold grudges between departments, what are the costs?”
“Do we ‘coach moment to moment’ or just annually on Performance Review Day?”
“What will be gained when we commit to ‘seek no culprits’ and strive only to solve problems?”

There are countless questions a team can work through based on the “47 Ways” in Outstanding! I just provided seven based on seven chapter titles (in single quotes). Go ahead, review those questions and envision your team exploring them after reading the related chapter. I promise you, the experience will range from a fun conversation to a spirited debate—but the result will be the same: Learning.

And as we say around here, when there is learning there is change. And that’s a good thing.

Allow me to be plain spoken: Discussion, dialogue, learning, and change require work. Honestly, it doesn’t take much effort to buy a book, read it, loan it out, or give it away. The real work is done when we get together—investing time and energy, risking our own attitudes and actions being challenged—to delve deeply into the content. Therein lies the value of Outstanding! …

… it’s in the work.

And as I said, the Outstanding! book provides the content. You—because you care enough to improve the place—provide the work.

Bottomline, as Dave Ramsey stated in his front cover endorsement of Outstanding!, your colleagues and you will find a “road map” to becoming exceptional, and exceptional is an outstanding place to be.

So be different—do the work and Be Outstanding!®

So, a special offer: Purchase a carton of 12 Outstanding! books at our store and we will email you 47 FREE discussion questions—one for each chapter—for your team to work through. Believe me, it’ll be outstanding!

Click on this link and type the word “questions” into the order form “comments” box:

http://qbq.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=33&products_id=82

Thanks much!

John G. Miller
Author of …

Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional
QBQ! The Question Behind the Question®
Flipping the Switch … Unleash the Power of Personal Accountability

John, a VP at American Pallet, writes this – and we’re honored!:

Loved the Outstanding! book. Just finished it now plotting which chapters to re-read and begin to implement. Outstanding job. When I saw 47 ways I thought too many, but what I quickly realized was that not all fit each individual and yet there are many things that can be plucked from each chapter. I don’t often re-read books, but this will be one for sure. Thanks 47 times over.

Enjoy this article! We have a chapter on this in the new Outstanding! book too. This online article I wrote was the”germ” for the book chapter.