Questions Managers Should Ask Employees About Their Development

Managers, it is important to have regular conversations with your employees about their development.  All staff, not just librarians and LAs, should be working on their skills and abilities.   Here are some questions you can use to start these discussions:

What are one or two areas where your abilities/skills could be stronger?  How can we improve your performance in these areas?

What new skills would you like to learn?  Why did you select these skills?  What types of trainings are available for this skill?

What are your strongest skills/abilities?  How have you gotten to this point?  Could you share your abilities and teach other staff to be stronger in this area?

What new challenges/duties would you like to add to your job?  Why are you interested in these?

Are there positions at the library that you find attractive?  Can you connect your job to that job directly?  If not, what do you need to learn, and what type of experience do you need to add to your resume?

Where would you like to be, professionally, in the next few years?  What skills do you need to acquire or improve to meet this goal?

It is important that you and the employee are both invested in his/her development.  Help your employees strengthen their skills and increase their productivity.

Boss vs. Leader

A boss says "go," but a leader says "let's go."

Team Building Exercises

Are you a horrible supervisor? Take the quiz and find out.

Horrible Supervisor Quiz

How many of these describe you?  Be honest, it's just between us.

1.  I need to have control over everything.  I must know every detail of what my employees are doing.

2.  I am indecisive.  Wait, no I'm not,  Maybe I am.

3.  I don't need to know how to do the jobs that are done by my staff, I'm the supervisor.

4.  I don't need to make any changes in my behavior or my policies.  Any problems that come up must be the fault of my employees.

5. As long as my employees are afraid of me they will do what I want them to do.

6.  I don't need a work plan for my staff, we'll just handle things as they come along.

7.  Of course I have favorite staff members, they motivate the others to work harder.

8.  I don't need to watch my anger around my staff, they should know it's not directed at them.

9.  I should get credit for the hard work of my staff, after all I'm their boss.

10.  Team-building?  That's for superisors who can't control their staff.

11.  Recognition?  If I haven't told them otherwise they should know they are doing a good job.

12.  The most important thing is for my staff to like me.

13.  Transparency?  The staff only needs to know what I decide to tell them.  They should trust that I'm taking care of everything.

14.  Providing training and advancement opportunities will only encourage my staff to leave for other departments.

15.  If I make a mistake there is no need to explain or apologize.  Let's move on.

16.  My staff know not to cross me, or I'll make their jobs unbearable in the future.

17.  If my employees are unhappy they can just quit.

18,  I make a lot of empty promises and never follow through.

19.  Autonomy?  I can't trust my staff do do things on their own.

20.  I don't need any development or training,  I know everything I need to know.

How did you do?  None of these on their own necessarily makes you a bad manager, but if any of these sound familiar then you probably need some improvement.

Consider taking a class/webinar, reading a professional journal, looking online for resources, or borrowing materials from SD&T to help improve your skills.

Do you need to have a meeting? A helpful decision tree.

http://www.tipsographic.com/project-management-should-we-have-this-meeting/

5 Tips for Managing Emotions

If you are having trouble dealing with a situation at work, step back and give your brain time to work on the problem.

     Identify the cause of the problem (what is the real issue?)

     Take 3 deep breaths and/or count to 10 (or 20 or 30)

     Use your words to say how you feel (talk through the issues)

     Ask for help to solve the problem
      (share the responsibility and get a fresh viewpoint)

     Take time to calm down (walk away if necessary)


If you have  difficulty with a customer, ask for help from a colleague.

Remember:  it is never okay to take out your feelings on others (assistants, friends).

If you have on-going issues, seek help from your manager, HR, or your division chief.

You can also contact EAP for some outside help.

What is unconcious bias?

The term unconcious bias refers to a bias of which we are unaware and over which we have no control.  It is unintended, subtle, and completely unconcious, and also made by everyone all of the time.

When we educate ourselves about different types biases it is easy to see them in other people, but we don't often see them in ourselves.  Our brains see things the way it wants to see them, and we really can't do much about that.  Your brain is more active when you speak with someone it sees as being "like you" in some way, equating that person as being "better" than others.  The more people "like you" that are around you, the more comfortable you will feel.  Again, this is your brain making its own decisions, regardless of the choices we might make consciously.

There are several qualifiers our brain uses when it makes these distinctions, but if we want to try and neutralize our unconcious biases (which is extremely difficult) we can use these qualifiers to identify our biases:

• Similarity - a person like me is better than person not like me  You can use this by focusing on the similarities between you and other people when you interact with them.  Find shared traits/goals/characteristics and focus on them.  Physical similarities are the easiest and quickest to see, but job, education, political viewpoint, and other factors can be points of similarity.  Even something small like a shared favorite television show can make this connection.

• Expedience - easy and quick, it feels right to me  We look for evidence to support our impressions and get an answer quickly, but we need to unlearn this because the quick answer is often the wrong answer..  For example, if you tell people that  a bat and a ball together cost $1.10, and that the bat is $1 more than the ball, and then you ask them how much the ball costs they will say 10 cents.  However, the correct answer is that the bat is 1.05 and the ball is 5 cents.  Our brains do the quick division for the answer, but our brains are wrong because they go for the quick answer.

• Experience - my perceptions are accurate so it must be true  This assumes that our perceptions are always accurate, but perceptions are highly subjective and therefore suspect.  An example of this is customer service.  If you have bad service the first time you go into a store then you will expect bad service the next time you go into the same store.  Even if you receive good service the second time, you will be more critical and less satisfied because of your previous experience.  You may also receive bad service because your attitude will be bad and you may be rude or annoying.

• Distance - closer is better, familiar is better  This is one that people have difficulty recognizing, but it can easily be seen in meetings, particularly if some of the participants are attending remotely (either calling in on the phone or by video).  The people in the people focus on each other, even if the person speaking is not in the room.  Those in the room are taken more seriously and given more time to speak then those on the phone or video.  Those attending remotely are often cutoff or not included at the same level, and may be less comfortable speaking up or raising questions of the group.

• Safety - bad is stronger than good   This can certainly be seen by watching any news program.  The stories included are usually tragic or negative in some way because these stories are seen as more "serious."  In the workplace, this creates atmospheres where threats are stronger motivators than rewards.

How can we work against our unconcious biases in the workplace?  The first step is to acknowledge that we have these biases.  It is almost impossible to rid ourselves of them, because our brains do a lot of thinking on their own, but we can create habits and procedures to minimalize the effects of these biases.  This can take some effort, because people like it when others conform/perform to our stereotypes and beliefs, and when this is not true our brains have to work harder.

First, we can try to create new "in-groups" that are more diverse and using our similarities to create a positive bias.  Anyone with whom you feel similar can become a part of your new group.  By making a deliberate effort to expand our "group," our brain finds it easier to make the connections with different types of people.

If possible, create policies and procedures that support this in your workplace.  When forming teams, it is important to remember that diverse teams are smarter and more effective. Limit the size of the teams so that everyone can be heard -- 5 to 7 people allows more inclusion than 30.  When hiring, it is important to remember that organizations diversity generates more profits.  In meetings, the leader of the group can limit the amount of time each person speaks or can ensure that those not in the room, or those who haven't spoken yet get a chance to participate in the discussion.  We can't take the biases out of the people, but we can take them out of the processes.

Once we learn to recognize our own biases, we can create procedures, policies, and practices to mitigate their effects.

Illusion of Knowledge

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance,

 but the illusion of knowledge."

Stephen Hawking

Teach a man to fish - the problem with training and proverbs

At a recent conference I attended, one speaker used the well-known phrase "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."   The speaker was using this to illustrate that successful training is important for all employees, but I found myself thinking about this for some time, and from a training perspective, this is an extremely flawed proverb.  

Training is not a singular event, but an ongoing process.  If we treat training as an isolated event, then we cannot expect a successful result.  Each program/class/webinar/book accessed by our employees is one part of a much larger system of development.  Let's use the proverb to show how this works.

In our story, did we provide one fishing lesson and then expect the man to be successful, or did we stick with him until we were satisfied with his competency?  One single session or class is usually not enough to confirm that the skill has been acquired.  Will we be checking back with him in the future?  Providing refresher classes or upgrading his skills if needed?  It is unlikely that he will continue to be successful without acquiring new skills. 

What types of fish were caught during the training sessions? Were they all the same or different?  Will the man have access to these types of fish in his daily life or were they only available in the area where he was trained?  Can he replicate the training conditions?  If not, his chances of success are small.  It is easy to be successful in class and give the correct answers, but can you replicate this success on the job or in less than ideal conditions?

What type of tools (technology) were used for the fishing class?  Are these tools readily available to the man in the future?  Were the tools specific to the type of fish being caught, or were they suitable to a variety of situations?  Did he use bait or lures?  Does he have the money to purchase these in the future?  What happens if his fishing tools are lost or break (obsolete technology)?  Can he sustain his success as time passes?

Is follow-up training available to the man?  It is one thing to catch a fish, and quite another to clean it and cook it.  Does he know which parts of the fish to eat and which to avoid?  Was his training thorough, or just a small part of a larger need?  If we don't teach him to clean the fish then maybe he'll die from choking on fish bones.  Technically this is feeding him for a lifetime, but I don't think that is what the proverb intended.  It's easy to say "well he should know these things," but when we are introduced to a new skill or idea we need to avoid making assumptions about what our employees do and don't already know.

Did we teach the man to cook the fish?  This is an important part of the process.  Technically you can live on raw fish, but then you run the risks of parasites and Salmonella.  Does he know different ways to cook the fish, and will he have access to fire and utensils?  With training, it is important to consider the next step in the process.  Where can participants go for more information?  Are there other types of training in different formats?  What if they want to take the next step?  One training session is unlikely to contain all the information the participants need, so what is next?

Did we teach the man in our story to cook other things to go with the fish?  He'll need some vegetables and fruit to maintain a healthy diet and limit his intake of mercury.  Likewise, our trainees need to know how the training fits into their overall skill set or abilities.  What educational need is being satisfied by the training?  Are there other skills that can be connected to those covered in this training?  Where does it fit into the abilities needed by the employee?

Finally, and perhaps this should be first, what if the man in the story doesn't want to be a fisherman?  Maybe he doesn't even like fish.  Maybe he doesn't want a physical job outdoors in all weathers.   Maybe he has a physical condition that would prevent him from doing the job.  Maybe he had neither the disposition nor the basic abilities needed to be a successful fisherman. Not every person can do every job, regardless of the amount of training s/he receives, so is there a backup plan for our fisherman?  

Does he have a retirement plan?    Is there a plan to care for him in his old age? What happens when he gets too old to physically do the job?   What happens if the fish population declines and he can't catch enough to feed himself?  Is there a plan to teach him a different skill set if needed?  It is important to keep improving skills throughout your career and planning for changes in your industry.

What happens if he gets tired of fishing, assuming he ever wanted to do it at all?  Once starvation is no longer a threat, he may become dissatisfied with his life as a fisherman and his performance will suffer.  People lose interest in their jobs if they are not given the chance to grow and improve themselves.  Will we be providing training in the future on new fishing techniques and equipment, or will he be obsolete in 5 years’ time?

So perhaps the proverb should be "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day,  teach him to catch and cook fish, grow and prepare vegetables and fruits, give him upgraded fishing lessons as needed, and plan for alternate training in the case of obsolescence,  and you feed him for a lifetime."   Not as catchy, but certainly a more successful training plan.

The importance of planning

Remember to look at your plan from all angles.  Not every idea is a good idea.




https://twitter.com/PeggytheShark/status/851244076351533056/photo/1

A helpful blog for leadership skill development

I found this site, which has a lot of useful information, particularly about leadership skills.  It is very "business"oriented, but the leadership section has a lot of useful informaiton.

https://thoughtleadershipzen.blogspot.com/search/label/Leadership

Here is their description from the "about us" page:

Welcome to The Thought Leadership Zen blog, it is a FREE comprehensive site dedicated to help you keep you updated with the current trends in Management and excel in business and life. On this site we are going to share with you some tips, ideas, strategies and suggestions on how to get the best out of business, Work and personal life. We will also aim to keep you'll updated about the best practices in the world of management and self development around the world.

Do you have "engaged" employees?

Engaged Employees:

take initiative -- advocate for the organization -- interacts with other staff -- motivates others -- concentrates on their tasks -- produces a high quality of work -- loves what they do -- collaborates

Disengaged Employees:

does bare minimum of work -- wouldn't recommend the company to others -- avoids other staff -- complains a lot -- loses focus easily (or doesn't have it in the first place) -- is fine with "good enough" level of work -- always looking for another job -- avoids team participation

70% of U.S. employees are disengaged - are your staff members among them?