The scene:
This week a case from our business turnaround files. The client: a mid-size restaurant food supplier. Timing: at bottom of a deep recession. Situation: company going under as a number of their restaurant customers failed, cut back or migrated to price-cutting competitors.
Business development game plan:
Identify key issues and opportunities. Engage everyone in brainstorming solutions to obstacles as well as ideas for customer retention and acquisition. Build a turnaround strategy. Create detailed action plans. Get everyone working as a team to execute plans.
No. 1 Challenge:
Getting people working together turned out to be the greatest obstacle to their turnaround. Owners, managers and department teams were at war in all directions – blaming each other for causing the crisis.
Example:
Credit department was at war with Sales. Blamed them for making “bogus sales” and bringing in applications that “they must know” couldn’t be approved. Sales accused Credit of dragging their feet on applications; rejecting good prospective customers; placing holds on orders without advising Sales – and more!!
A classic failure of leadership
First I met with the Credit and Sales managers together. Recorded their issues on whiteboard. Asked if they had spoken to each other personally about the situation. The Credit manager said, “No, I make my feelings known publicly at every management team meeting.” Sales manager said, “No, we’re not on speaking terms.”
Clearly these hardworking, well-intentioned managers – who saw themselves as ‘protecting’ the company from each other – were caught up in a situation where they were speaking ‘about’ instead of ‘to’ each other – not realizing they were literally enabling the actual problem to go on and on by doing so. This is a classic failure of leadership – and in this case both a recipe for disaster and an opportunity to fix something that clearly stood in the way of their recovery. Special note: It’s important to point out that only rarely was this behavior intentional. These leaders, like the great majority I worked with, said they simply had never even thought about it.
An ‘Aha’ moment
When I shared the dynamics and consequences of speaking ‘about’ instead of ‘to’, they got it immediately. One said, “That’s us. That’s exactly what we do,” and the other, clearly embarrassed, agreed. This ‘Aha’ moment enabled us to get unstuck and immediately begin solution-making.
The floodgates opened
Working together in a problem-solving brainstorm session they astonished each other with the number and quality of ideas they came up with. Their initiatives included setting a turnaround time standard on new credit apps… providing basic training for sales reps on credit management…pairing a sales rep with a credit staffer on each application…starting a new-customer onboarding program that featured a tour and meet and greet, in order to personalize the new relationship…and more…much more!
Why didn’t the managers speak to each other in the first place?
- It’s much easier to speak ‘about’ another person than it is to speak ‘to’ them when there’s a problem
- By speaking about instead of to, we can avoid potentially hostile confrontation and conflict. (One leader I worked told me candidly, “I lacked the courage to confront, and I knew it.”)
- We may gain a sympathetic hearing from those we speak to (at least in the short term)
- In a twisted way, blaming the other person can give us an excuse for poor performance, at least in the short term – but sooner or later the consequences of inaction come back to bite us
- Painfully few people are trained in the self-management and interpersonal skills needed to approach safely (i.e. without provoking defense and a potentially hostile reaction) when there are problems between us (you will find numerous tips on how to confront ‘safely’ throughout this series of articles)
- As a result serious problems like this one are allowed to go unsolved, becoming an accepted feature of life in a poisoned environment
Consequences:
- By attacking the person instead of the problem they perpetuated the stalemate
- They drew others into the conflict, wasting time and energy and compounding the conflict
- Combined with similar conflict raging elsewhere (e.g. Sales Dept. vs. Production) they contributed to an atmosphere that I described as a ‘toxic waste field’ throughout the company
- And of course, they (unintentionally) sabotaged the company they sought to protect
Isn’t this just common sense?
As I write this I can imagine you thinking, “Wait a minute. This is just common sense.” And you’re right of course. Once stated it seems obvious, self-evident – just common sense – to speak to instead of about. But beware…as I’ve said before and will repeat again often, we must never confuse common sense with common practice.
To make speaking ‘to’ instead of ‘about’ common practice we first need to bring these dynamics into our conscious awareness…then we need that personal aha moment when we self-confront…and accept that “It’s not someone else we’re talking about…it’s me.” (Hey, if it’s genuinely not you then thank goodness for the training or insight that has helped you avoid this deadly trap). Then, once we have ownership of the problem sorted out…we need to practice.
Your call to action
- Do a reality check. Think of someone you’re unhappy with. Challenge yourself to be brutally honest. Are you speaking to them personally about the issue? Have you spoken to anyone ‘about’ them? Do you ever complain about someone at work to the folks at home? (“You wouldn’t believe what so and so did today…”)
- Be hyper-aware when someone else is talking about a person they have a problem with, or a complaint against. Are they talking ‘to’ the other person as well? Or not?
- If you want to test this idea out in practice, the key to approaching safely is choosing words that pre-empt a negative response.
- For example, “I need your help, Chris…we’ve been blaming each other for the company’s credit problems and it’s not getting us anywhere – and, honestly, I know I’ve been part of the problem. Would you be open to doing some brainstorming with me on how we can speed things up and get you more approvals. The company needs us to work together…and I think there’s a lot we could do…”
- This kind of approach can work because it’s hard to be defensive or hostile when the other person takes responsibility for their part, and asks for our help.
- Look for opportunities to observe these dynamics in action everywhere…at work, at home, in politics, volunteering, teaching, coaching…everywhere effective leadership and responsible citizenship are called for.
- Helpful hint: Use non-combative language. Instead of thinking about how you could ‘confront’ the other person, think about how you could ‘approach’ them. The goal, as always, is to get a collaborative win-win solution; get ourselves unstuck – and get things done.
See you next week.
Neil
Welcome to This Week with Neil Godin – a free coaching service that brings you leadership and communication tips, tricks and tutorials every week – along with a call to action: to put each week’s insight, idea or skill into practice. This program took shape as I began to wrap up my 45-year career as a business development and leadership trainer, speaker and writer. I needed a ‘culmination project’ – a way to share many of the unique insights and skills developed with my clients over the years – particularly in the trial-by-fire of my business turnaround work with companies facing bankruptcy – where people had to learn to work together as never before. I invite you to subscribe and receive an email notice when each new article lands. Subscription is free of charge.
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