Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER June 15, 2015 12 EXECUTIVE SERIES/NEWS Are you looking to reach occupational health and safety professionals across the country? Get your listing in the Health and Safety section of HR Vendors Guide online and in print. Visit www.hrreporter.com/hr-vendors-guide to enter your firm's information. Visit www.hrreporter.com/hr-vendors-guide HR VENDORS GUIDE HR VENDORS GUIDE Attention OHS vendors and suppliers many will say, "But I'm already too busy just managing this bunch — how am I going to find time to coach them as well?" The answer is: delegate, delegate, delegate. Whenever a new task lands on a manager's desk, the first question to pop into her mind should be "Who else here can do this?" e same is true for existing tasks. Don't own any tasks that someone else can do and don't inherit any. If an employee presents a problem to his manager, this manager must deflect it right back to the employee. ere was a great article in 1999 in the Harvard Business Review titled "Time Management: Who's Got e Monkey?" that explains how. How do managers fall into this habit? Well, many think, "Nobody can do this job as well as I can" and end up taking on the task themselves. Of course they are wrong. ink of a small business. Where do you usually find the owner? Typically in the back room, head down, producing products. And what are all the other workers doing? It conjures up the image of a construction site where the worker wearing the white hard- hat is in the pit dutifully shovelling away while those wearing yellow hard-hats are standing nearby, leaning on their shovels, watching. Harold Geneen's famous quote "Management must manage!" can be updated to "Management must coach!" Once the manager delegates all possible responsibilities and learns to avoid taking on those of others, she will certainly have time to do exactly that. To change these old habits, Michael Bungay Stanier, author of Do More Great Work, and Charles Duhigg, author of e Power of Habit, agree the manager must first identify what is triggering these habits in the first place. What is it that causes a manager to either take on someone else's responsibilities or tell that person how to do it? Instead, why doesn't she simply ask, "What are you going to do about it?" or "How would you go about it?" Once she determines what is triggering these "change of ownership" and these "telling, not asking" behaviours, her next step is to find ways to stop them: "What causes me to immediately tell him my solution before I have even asked him what he thinks should be done?" Engrained habits cannot be replaced overnight. They take time. The best way to achieve change is to break the process down into manageable bites. B.J. Fogg of TinyHabits.com says the secret is to define a first step that takes less than 60 seconds to do. Change this one small aspect of the whole triggering sequence and repeat it until it becomes a habit. Once it does, start changing the next trigger point. Repeat the process as often as necessary until the entirely new behavioural pattern is habitual. Take our example of the "telling versus asking" habit. Here, the person could set a target of asking the members of her team five questions about their work each day. e next week, increase it to six questions. Ask each member about his approach to a task. What results does he expect to achieve? What resources will he require? Once the task is completed, what did he learn from the experience? Is there anything he would do differently next time? And... what else? Get into the habit of asking questions. Pretty soon, the habit of asking replaces the habit of telling. Being mindful of what we say or ask and, more importantly, what we don't say or ask, has a significant impact on our behaviours and our habits. By watching our own conduct, we can change from being the old dictatorial-style manager to become an inspiring coach. If we do, our load will lighten, our sense of accomplishment will increase and our team members will be more productive and emboldened to do their best. Morgan Smyth is an SCNetwork thought leader and a change manage- ment consultant who launched his own IT services company which soared to Profit Magazine's 50 Fastest Grow- ing Companies. He is based in Toron- to and can be reached at msmyth@ braegen.com. Be mindful of what you don't say TRIGGERS < pg. 11 Engrained habits cannot be replaced overnight. ey take time. e best way to achieve change is to break the process down into manageable bites. listening and ensuing ques- tions that inspire action or problem-solving. Speeding up the coaching pro- cess by using a prescriptive tem- plate has its advantages, though it also increases the risk of perpetu- ating the view coaching is reme- dial. Using a quick fix process does not accomplish meaningful and sustainable changes or results. If an organization is committed to making the difference between being a good one and a visionary one, it needs to move beyond a coaching approach and promote mindful, robust conversations. How many times do we find our- selves misinterpreting someone's message, being misunderstood and unaware we have caused misunderstandings? When people learn to com- municate meaningfully with each other, their lives and relationships can be truly transformed. Building relationships is inevitably about gaining mutual understanding. Imagine fostering a culture where people learn how to com- municate in a way that meets both parties' needs, encourages them to express their needs and expectations respectfully, without blame, and be listened to in a way that enables them to feel they have been heard as well as understood. People like to be talked with, not at. Our ability to affect change is proportional to how responsive we are to everyone around us; to making every conversation the most important one we will ever have with another person. It's not what we say, it's about how we say it; it has to start with ourselves and it has to start with the leader. Conversations need to be rich and mindful. ey are about ex- ploring and challenging the sta- tus quo, acknowledging and ap- preciating others' skills, talents and wisdom, being authentic and achieving outstanding results. A mindful conversation means you notice what is happening as it happens. Being mindful creates possibil- ity thinking and that vital pause that allows you to respond atten- tively and not reactively. Start observing and reflecting on the importance of every con- versation you engage in today and, at the end of the day, answer the following questions: How did my conversations inspire people to wholehearted action? What con- versations did I avoid? What con- versations did I miss? Where did I misunderstand or misinterpret the conversation? What do I need to do differently to become more mindful with my conversations? Trish Maguire is a commentator for SCNetwork on leadership in action and founding principal of Synergyx Solutions in Nobleton, Ont., focused on high-potential leadership develop- ment coaching. She has held senior leadership roles in HR and OD in education, manufacturing and entre- preneurial firms. She can be reached at synergyx@sympatico.ca. Take that vital pause FIRST STEP < pg. 11 Start observing and reflecting on the importance of each conversation you have. Alcohol abuse can have an im- pact in several ways. "When people start having to take more time to recover from their drinking, that's one thing that is a problem because you have lost productivity and lost time in the workplace," said Glaser. "But I think one of the biggest things is… the things that can happen when alcohol leads you to do stu- pid things. And all sorts of stu- pid things can happen when you drink too much — you can have sex with a colleague you shouldn't be with, it clouds your judgment, you can send emails that are in- appropriate, you can tweet some- thing that's inappropriate." One way employers can raise awareness of the risks is provid- ing information, such as knowing what your blood alcohol content is after two or three drinks, she said. "Nobody wants to be told what to do…. (it's about) just educating people, 'Here's what's prudent,' not 'Don't do it,' not 'Don't enjoy yourself ' but 'Here's a way to keep yourself without regrets.'" Often social time at school or work is centred around alcohol, and that's all people know, said Rochon Ford. Introducing other activities such as beach volleyball could help break that trend. "It takes somebody setting an example and I think employers can play a role there for sure. Cre- ate events, environments, settings where non-alcohol-related activi- ties are the norm and are fun." On the one hand, people have more fun when alcohol is in- volved, said Glaser. "So you don't want to kind of be patronizing and paternalistic in that regard, but certainly mixing it up a little bit would be beneficial." Employers should definitely provide low-risk drinking guide- lines, whether through newslet- ters or posters, said Paradis, and encourage employees to follow the guidelines at work-related events. "If you come to work with mul- tiple symptoms of being hungov- er — fatigue, depression, distress, tremendous thirst, muscle pain, headaches and so on — you're not a good employee. So it's great for companies to organize those golf tournaments and those din- ners and those Christmas parties but… when an employer says, 'I cannot do anything about my employees drinking,' well, I think they could." Don't patronize ALCOHOL < pg. 6

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