In this issue...
Ever wonder what makes people perform at their best? Letting them know what is expected! Many times we just do not do that. (See article at right)

Case Study
Try your hand at this conversation just for practice. See how you do before the employee meeting.

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Building Winning Teams by
Setting Behavioral Expectations

What makes for a winning performance? Talent, experience, knowledge, a track record of executing? Yes, all that and more. Coming in to Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots had all of that -- plus destiny -- on their side.  And yet---

Monday-morning quarterbacks are saying that the Giants wanted it more, had more passion, determination, persistence, optimism, confidence. They say in a closely matched game like this one the intangibles can make all the difference. Experts and fans will probably argue for years about this game, about why the Giants won.  

But there’s no argument about what creates winning performance in a work team. Talent, experience, and business knowledge are important. But the winning difference is most often a result of those hard-to-measure human qualities -- passion for serving customers, initiative, persistence, commitment, resilience, dependability, adaptability, empathy, confidence, teamwork, leadership, and many more.  

While we can all agree that these qualities are essential for success, we seldom talk about them until we decide an employee isn’t displaying them. “You need to show more initiative,” we say. Or “You’re not being a team player.”  Giving this kind of feedback without agreeing on the behavioral goal first is like asking someone to play basketball on a court without nets or boundary lines, and telling them, when they shoot at an imaginary hoop, “Too bad. You missed.”     

Employees need to know what the “targets” are before the game starts. Yet in our 30 years experience we’ve met few managers who set clear behavioral targets. “That’s so subjective,” managers often say. “How can you set goals about personality characteristics?”  

Your challenge as a manager is to have conversations about these “winning” behaviors in a way that everybody understands. The words do seem subjective. Just as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” the definition of a quality like initiative seems to depend on who is defining it. So when you say “I expect you to show initiative,” how do you and your employees know you’re on the same page? Furthermore, when it comes time to review performance and give feedback, how will you and your employee agree on whether or not they actually did show initiative?  

The ALT^tm skills can help you and your employees “get on the same page” about exactly where these goals and boundary lines are.  The key is to identify the behaviors that would be evidence of leadership, or teamwork, or initiative, etc. Think of what a camcorder could capture – what a person does or says, and how they do or say it. If a recorder can’t capture it, you can’t communicate it as an expectation and you can’t measure it. For instance, flexibility can mean doing whatever you’re asked to do, or volunteering to take on new challenges, or just smiling and being pleasant when asked to drop one task and pick up another.

P2P (People to People)

The ALT^TM Skills

Conversation is the primary instrument of leadership. Leaders can ensure that important conversations have the desired impact if they thoughtfully use the ALT^tm Skills:

·        A is for ASK

Successful leaders engage others in conversation by asking open-ended questions to draw out the other person, to demonstrate genuine interest in what others are thinking, to explore creative options, to develop mutual understanding of issues, and to encourage others to take a different perspective.

·        L is for LISTEN

Successful leaders genuinely listen to what others say and how they are saying it – they don’t just “reload their guns” while the other person is talking. They listen with their eyes as well as their ears. They listen with their brains, but also with their hearts. Real listening involves focusing attention, repeating back to clarify and confirm, summarizing key points, and expressing empathy.

·        T is for TELL

Most leaders do too much TELLing and not enough ASKing and LISTENing. But there is a proper place for a strong leadership message. Employees need to hear from their leaders where are we going, how are we going to get there, and why does it matter. Leaders need to tell their story, say what they’re passionate about. And employees need to hear direct, honest, specific feedback from their leaders.

Ask, Listen, and Tell – the leader’s toolkit for effective conversations that affect the success of the business. Without careful, deliberate planning and execution, leaders leave the impact of these important business conversations to chance.

Case Study: Behavioral Goals

You are having one-on-ones with all of your direct reports to discuss goals for 2008. You expect the discussion on business goals to be fairly smooth as the targets have already been presented to the team and everyone seems to be on board. While the targets are aggressive, they are achievable and everyone seems to grasp the business necessity.

You are aware that key behaviors also must be demonstrated in order to achieve high levels of performance, and you plan to talk with each team member about what you expect in this area. You are a little anxious about this part of the conversation because in past years you have not discussed these proactively as goals, but rather have dealt with them only when you saw problems caused by lack of collaboration, lack of professionalism, lack of leadership, poor communication, etc.

The conversation you have scheduled for this afternoon is with a person who has steadily met his numerical targets, but whose style is somewhat abrasive at times, especially in dealing with his peers both in his team and in other teams. While you’ve never seen this in his communication with customers or upper management, it clearly comes out in team meetings and in informal conversations. Others have complained to you about him, and some have said they try to avoid him.

You want to set a behavioral goal with him in this area, but are concerned the conversation will turn into a negative critique. He doesn’t take feedback well.

Questions:

1. How will you headline this part of the conversation on setting behavioral goals, since you’ve never done it before?
2. How will you position this behavioral goal? How can you state it as a positive goal to be achieved rather than as a criticism of his past behavior?
3. How can you keep this as a goal-setting conversation and not a performance review?
4. What questions will you ask to explore his view of this goal?
5. What questions will you ask to influence him to understand your expectations in this area?
6. How will you get his commitment to make positive changes in his behavior?