Criticism: Give It or “GIFT” It?

Mentors: recall the last time you had to deliver “criticism.” How did you feel? Did you cringe at the thought? Did you feel less-than-adequate to handle the task? Did you avoid it for as long as you could and then deliver the “bad” news quickly and depart just as quickly? Was it effective or only just good enough so you could cross the task off your “to do” list?

What if you could deliver criticism in such a way that those who receive it from you might actually end up craving more criticism from you because of how you delivered it? Would you be interested in changing your approach to delivering criticism? Criticism (or coaching, correction, re-direction, guidance) can be a gift to those who receive it IF it:

Reflects the fact that you, as the “gifter”, know this person very well…you know what that person needs, when they need it, and how much of it they need…in other words, the gift is customized for the receiver, as best you know how.
Is gifted with utmost sincerity…without a hidden agenda…no
“between the lines” messages…no mixed messages…no power plays.
Becomes a conversation between two colleagues, both trying to do the right thing for the workplace and each other as professionals.
Focuses on objective rather than subjective performance standards, mutually established, understood and accepted.

Now, mentors, think again about the last time you had to deliver criticism. Replay that situation in your mind using the “gifting” approach just outlined, thinking carefully about the application of each of these four principles of “gifting” criticism. How would it have made a difference in how you felt about delivering criticism? How would it have made a difference in how the recipient felt about the criticism? How would it have made a difference in the effectiveness of the criticism?

The next time you’re faced with delivering criticism, consider “gifting” it instead. Expect to be delighted with the results.

For more content related to work, talent development, mentors, and mentoring, go here: https://workmatters.blog/

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Looking for a “Sponsor”?

Even with effective mentoring relationships in the workplace, employees can feel “stalled” in their careers. Often, what seems to be missing from their professional life is someone with influence and “clout” within the organization to help them advance to the next level. That someone can be called a “sponsor.” It’s evident from the previous line that a mentor is not necessarily a sponsor. And, more often than not, the sponsor you’re looking for may never have served as your mentor. Before you go looking for a sponsor, consider these three essential requirements for career advancement:

Opportunity: there needs to be a “job opening” for which you meet management’s qualifications in terms of your objective professional and personal attributes.
Timing: you need to be “ready” to step into the new role and achieve success in that role…success as defined by management’s needs for that role.
Sponsorship: there needs to be someone who steps up and sponsors you to be considered for that advancement…someone who, usually by his/her previous success in the workplace and knowledge of the job, has the confidence of management generally and is perceived by management to have good judgment in personnel matters specifically

Now that you know how sponsors fit into career advancement, here is an action plan for you:

Keep your antennae up for specific job openings that to you would represent career advancement
Think honestly about how your professional and personal attributes would qualify (or disqualify!) you for the specific advancement that’s potentially open to you
If you think you are a strong candidate for a specific advancement, talk to your mentor and/or to your direct supervisor about your interest in contributing to the company in that new role and why and how you could be successful in that role. Ask for their advice regarding how to move forward as a candidate.

For more content related to work, talent development, mentors, and mentoring, go here: https://workmatters.blog/

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Putting Hard Numbers on Soft Skills

Which of the following skills helps make your company more profitable? Which of these skills is essential to your career progression?

Communication skills
Team-work skills
Decision-making skills
Time management skills

Qualitatively, most of us would select at least one of these skills as being important to our company’s financial success as well as to our own. Increasingly, companies are focusing on quantifying the extent to which these soft skills add economic value to their enterprise.

On behalf of McDonald’s Corporation, a major employer in the United Kingdom, the firm Development Economics (https://developmenteconomics.co.uk/) prepared and published a report on “The Value of Soft Skills to the UK Economy.” An important objective of this research was to confirm and quantify the economic benefits of soft skills such as those McDonald’s considers core to its business success and which are included in its well-developed employee assessment tools and training systems. Results from this research include:

The value of the contribution of soft skills to the UK economy is worth approximately US$111 billion annually (close to 7% of the total UK economy as a whole)
By 2020, the annual contribution of soft skills is expected to grow to US$137 billion; by 2025, the value is projected to be US$160 billion.
By 2020, deficits in employee soft skills are expected to hold back the advancement of as many as 535,000 UK workers (close to 2% of current number employed in UK labor market).
In 2020, loss of production due to employee soft skills deficits is estimated to be US$11 billion.

The report prepared by Development Economics is comprehensive, quantitative, and well worth reading. Such attention to quantification of the economic impact of soft skills is timely (perhaps just-in-time!) as concerns increase about the effect of automation and artificial intelligence on employment options in the future, particularly in high tech. “High touch” job opportunities will continue to thrive and grow, especially in those companies whose competitive differentiation depends on excelling in delivering exceptional customer service experiences.

Reference:

https://www.allthingsic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/The-Value-of-Soft-Skills-to-the-UK-Economy.pdf

Tactical Mentoring

Whether or not you are formally recognized as a mentor in your organization, you may be a “tactical” mentor. Think of a tactical mentor as one who pro-actively engages with a mentee for a situation-specific need.

Here’s an example of tactical mentoring in a situation that is fairly common in the workplace in many industries: A mentee is about to deliver her first project review presentation to a group of colleagues. The group includes members of the management team with oversight responsibility for the overall program that includes this specific project. It’s no exaggeration to say that this presentation could be “make or break”, not only for the presenter, but for her immediate supervisor and even for the project itself.

In this situation, someone who is experienced in successfully preparing and delivering such project review presentations could offer some critical tactical mentoring. Here are the issues a tactical mentor could help the mentee address:

How much time do I have for my oral presentation?
How long should the written presentation be?
What format do I use for the written presentation? For any handouts accompanying the oral presentation? For an online presentation?
What issues are most important to management regarding my project?
Should I present our findings upfront? Before we discuss how we arrived at them?
How do I handle uncertainties about our project outcomes so far?
Where and how should I address remaining project milestones, schedule, and budget?

For a seasoned team member, experienced in preparing and delivering project review presentations such as this, the answers are usually obvious. For a new team member, however, the answers are usually not at all obvious, and advance attention to all of these issues is essential for a successful presentation, well worth the preparation and mentoring time and effort involved.

The lessons for new mentees and project managers:

Keep your eyes open for those in your company who could serve as tactical mentors in situations that could be “make or break” for your workplace career
Enlist the help of a tactical mentor early and often when such situations arise

Mentor or Role Model? How About Both!

In the workplace, mentors have a powerful influence on those they mentor. The mentor is a role model whose day-to-day behavior shapes the workplace culture. Being a role model involves more than just job competency. It involves mentoring yourself first, before you mentor or manage others. Here are 7 tips to mentor yourself in order to mentor others and together to influence the larger workplace culture:

CHOOSE your words carefully before you speak
CONSIDER the consequences before you act
BE AWARE of your emotions without allowing them to dictate your decisions
LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN
LEARN from others
DEMONSTRATE loyalty
TAKE TIME to check yourself frequently on how you’re doing as a role model and plan corrective action accordingly

If practiced consistently, these 7 tips will help you shape a workplace culture that’s respectful, honest, and mature. How powerful is that!

The Reality About Salary

Think your salary is too low? You may be right. Here are some real world reasons why you might correctly feel that way along with options for improving your salary.

Your company may have adopted a policy to pay at the low end of the salary scale for your experience and grade level.

Given this reality, what are your options for improving your salary? You may want to search out other companies, in your industry or closely related to it, that offer salaries in the mid-to-upper range of the salary scale for a given position. If you do, you’ll find that as a candidate for a position in such a company, you’ll be attractive because the company can offer you a more-than-competitive salary and remain within their standard salary range.

Your industry is a low-paying industry. If you haven’t done so yet, search the internet for “industry salary surveys” and you’ll find numerous relevant and reputable sources for salary information by industry, for all types of positions, education, training, and certification.

What do you do if you find you’re in a low-paying industry? Search the internet for industries and jobs that pay well for your particular education and skills using search terms such as “highest paying industries for X” where “x” is your education and skills, e.g., mechanical engineer, IT professional, web designer, statistician, plumber. You just may find an industry for which you’re qualified and which can offer you a better salary.

You work in a low-paying geographic region. A small number of regions in the U.S. pay more than others for almost every type of job.

What are your options if you are in a low-paying region? Again, do some internet research, this time searching for “geographic regions with high pay.” You’re likely to find the highest paying regions are in cities in the Bay Area of California as well as in the Boston-Washington, DC “corridor”. Especially if you’re in a region of low pay (e.g., southeast U.S.), you may find that a move to a higher paying region could be worth the higher cost of living typically found in these high paying regions. Another internet search can help you decide: search for “where wages are worth the most, the least”.

Thoughts on Work from A to Z

What follows is a compilation of quotes on work, quotes that are attributed to people from Aristotle to Zig Ziglar, including Larry Bird, Confucius, Einstein, Emerson, Gandhi, Gibran, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Margaret Thatcher, and Sam Walton. The quotations are grouped according to themes: Loving Your Work, Recognition, Purpose, When Work Seems Hard, and Work/Life Balance.

A quote is like a verbal Rohrschach test: your response to a given quotation is unique to you. If any of these quotations “grabs” you, please stop, savor that saying, and let it sink in. It’s meaningful to you in some way and for some reason. In reflecting more deeply on it, you may discover more about yourself.

Loving Your Work

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. Aristotle

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. Steve Jobs

Find something you love to do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Harvey Mackay; Confucius

Work is love made visible. Khalil Gibran

Recognition

Workers have three prime needs: Interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company. Zig Ziglar

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune. Sam Walton

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Purpose

Don’t try to be a man of success, try to be a man of value. Albert Einstein

No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Mahatma Gandhi

When Work Seems Hard

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it should get you pretty near. Margaret Thatcher

I’ve got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end. Larry Bird

A hundred times every day, I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. Albert Einstein

Work/Life Balance

And one last selected quotation, perhaps the earliest one recorded that relates to work/life balance:

You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath for the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 5: 13, 14

Happy Labor Day, readers!

What if Your Mentee’s Next Role Requires Skills You Don’t Have?

As a mentor, you likely understand the difference between your mentee’s potential for advancement within the company and her readiness for that advancement. In most organizations, there are three simultaneous prerequisites for formal career advancement: timing, opportunity, and sponsorship. Mentors can be involved in all three, but can be “make or break” in regard to the timing issue. In fact, you may be the only one who can make an objective and persuasive case that your mentee is professionally prepared for promotion or for a new role at the time it becomes available.

But what if your mentee’s next role requires some additional new skills – skills so critical to success that you’re uncertain about her readiness? The solution: ENLIST MODELS. For example, your mentee has been an effective field sales representative but has no significant contract negotiation experience – could you endorse his move up to regional sales manager? Or she’s a bench scientist in R&D but has limited exposure to customers – could you endorse her move out to a full time field technical service representative? Negotiation and customer-interface skills are only two examples of skill sets that can be learned on the job – learned by exposure of your mentee to company colleagues who already successfully practice those skills and who can serve as models. These collaborations can be flexible in form and limited in duration, since the function of these collaborations is focused knowledge and skills transfer from the model to the mentee. Continuing with the above “readiness” examples:

The field sales representative is paired with one or two sales managers engaged in preparation and completion of several face-to-face negotiations over a period of one or two quarters. The field sales rep is essentially part of the company’s negotiation team, led by the experienced sales managers.
The bench scientist is paired with a full time field technical service representative, forming a two-person team dedicated to responding proactively and reactively to field technical service issues over a period of two or more quarters.

A mentor who pairs such a model of skills-in-action with his mentee in a successful working collaboration adds significant value to the business through increasing the likelihood of the mentee’s success in the new role.

For much more on how and why to be a better career mentor, see my full article “How (and Why) to Be a Better Career Mentor to Women” published in AMA Quarterly, Summer 2018, p. 45 https://www.amanet.org/uploaded/amaquarterly-summer-18.pdf

A Checklist for Mentors

Mentors, here is the good news: it’s likely that all elements you need to carry out an effective mentoring program are already available within your company. Whether you’re just beginning a mentoring program or already have one in place, consider the following diagnostic checklist of effective mentoring practices to learn where you may want to make improvements to your process:

Is mentoring a priority?

Mentoring is a management activity, not just a management responsibility. A mentor proactively and directly interacts with staff being mentored. If you are a mentor and your mentoring activities appear at least twice a week on your calendar, you are visibly and actively making mentoring a priority for both you and your mentee.

How visible are your mentee’s assignments to upper management?

Mentored staff should be assigned a “real” project as soon as they join the work unit. The new staff as well as the mentor need to quickly develop a sense of where and how the mentee can contribute to projects that matter. If the mentee’s project is important enough to show up on the monthly or quarterly general management review agenda, it’s a highly visible assignment.

How and how often do you review progress on assignments with your mentee?

Mentors should schedule a weekly review meeting for each project in which the mentored staff participate. Ask that the new staff prepare written weekly summaries in advance of the review meeting. The entire project team, as well as the new staff, benefit from this discipline of preparing written summaries in advance.

What resources are available to your mentee to learn and navigate the workplace culture?

Mentors should introduce the new staff member to established staff members who can serve as resources for questions related to the key support tasks of daily life at the office/lab/shop. If resources are available and in place for the mentee to tap, you’ve effectively and usefully expanded your mentee’s internal network.

How does your mentee learn about external market and industry dynamics that affect your business?

Mentors should schedule regular one-to-one “touch base” meetings not associated with performance evaluation activities. These “touch base” meetings should be office-based but without a formal agenda to allow free-ranging conversations. These more free-ranging conversations provide the opportunity for mentors to introduce forward-looking topics such as changing market or industry dynamics and the company’s planned responses to them.

What are the opportunities to transition a mentor to assignments with greater responsibility/autonomy?

Mentors should treat mentored staff as adults, even if they are “junior” staff based on age or experience. Mentored staff are with your company to contribute and they want to contribute to the real project to which they’ve been assigned.

What access does your mentee have to needed domain or subject matter experts within the company?

Both mentor and mentee should recognize and utilize the good will that usually exists among more experienced staff toward new, less experienced staff members. As the need arises, the mentor should identify other more senior staff who can serve as a resource for project-specific issues that arise during the course of the work. For mentees, senior staff input can help get projects “unstuck.” For senior staff, having a mentee succeed after following the guidance they provided is gratifying.

Do your mentoring processes reflect needs unique to mentees “fresh out of school”?

Employees fresh out of school, with little or no prior experience in a corporate work environment, benefit from mentoring that addresses issues specific to that situation. Aside from all the issues addressed in the previous diagnostic/checklist points, there is the additional issue of these new-to-business employees being unfamiliar with aspects of business that all of your experienced employees take for granted, e.g., company/business vocabulary; firm business and financial objectives; company communications, both top down and horizontal; and ways in which different departments interact with each other. Review the content and format of your orientation sessions, perhaps with the input from a fresh-from-school employee who joined a year or two ago, to identify gaps in your existing onboarding practices and how to fill them.

Do you have a mentoring process that specifically addresses senior level mentees?

A key marker of senior-level employees is strategic thinking. Thinking and acting strategically is a transferable skill – one that enhances a mentee’s prospects for advancement to other roles within the company. Through all of the mentor-led discussions described previously, the mentee herself begins to think and act strategically, strengthening the alignment between her personal professional goals and those of the company. If the mentee is fully engaged in producing outcomes that the company values, she will be noticed – and noticed favorably – by her colleagues. As a mentor, once you see that happening, you know you’ve contributed effectively to your mentee’s career development

The Softer Side of Metrics

To those subject to them, business metrics can seem harsh: annual sales targets are met or they’re not; factory output of first quality goods meets demand or it doesn’t; projects are completed on time, on specification, and on budget or they’re not.

These kinds of pass/fail metrics to evaluate corporate and individual employee performance are not going away. All of us will continue to face them. By themselves, however, they don’t tell the whole story of the value-added by employees. Managers and mentors who view goal-setting strategically can broaden the discussion around metrics to include specific business activities and related time-based milestones that are necessary, even if not sufficient, to achieve ultimate business goals.

Here is a salesforce related example to illustrate the “hard” and “soft” metrics we’re discussing here: (1) Target sales goal: 10% increase in year-over-year sales; (2) business activities to achieve goal: identify and call on “x” specific new customers; reconnect with “y” former customers; survey “z” existing customers for their needs for complementary products and services. Goal (1) is the traditional quantitative sales metric. Goal (2) is the set of specific and measurable value-added activities that relate to and directly support the achievement of Goal (1). Independent of whether Goal (1) is achieved, Goal (2) business activities lay the necessary groundwork for future sales growth. Once successfully completed, these business activity milestones are themselves accomplishments worthy of including in a performance review.

The approach of developing both hard and soft metrics enables not only a broader view of what constitutes job “performance” but also facilitates developing metrics tailored to individual members of a team. Tailoring metrics to individual team members, in turn, makes “real” the concept of “owning” your job – a very powerful motivator.

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