Readers, it turns out, prefer frequent, short, clearly written tips. But many small business bloggers especially are stuck for how to keep up with the commitment to do a post every few days, which is what the experts recommend if you’re going to do a blog for serious marketing.

One solution is to engage a service to help. You can still write key pieces related to your business, but to fill in the ‘tip sheets’ readers come back for, a writer like Toronto’s Vera Held is an option. Vera is a professional writer who also writes a monthly column in The Toronto Sun called "Make it Work".  She just let me know she’s begun a new writing service for her clients. This service consists of (a) a weekly blog and (b) a bi-weekly media release for prices ranging from $149 per month for a 12-month contract. Topics are developed to highlight client priorities.  If you’d like further information, she can be reached at (416) 785-3556 or vheld@sympatico.ca.  Please have a peek at the following ‘how to’ blog Vera has just written on why leaders really have to listen—to lead effectively. You may find you appreciate the reminders, just as I did the reminders on clear writing, another of Vera’s advice specialties:     

Why Leaders Need to Listen, Actively

by Vera N. Held

Listening actively maximizes your value to your organization. It’s a key business skill that everyone needs to hone—especially the VP, GM and the CEO.

Contrary to popular belief, listeners are “active” participants. Educator John Dewey said, “The hearer is an indispensable partner” in any conversation. Why? You can only share a mind set, concept and idea, persuade someone or be persuaded when “true” listening occurs. Without the desire to listen to another perspective or point-of-view, little gets accomplished.

Indeed, good communicators listen more than they talk. And it is vital to treat all staff with the respect and appreciation that comes from being paid attention to and listened to. Listening actively is the one sure-fire way to keep staff motivated, and to continually build positive work relationships.

In return, staff will not only carefully listen to you, but generously answer your questions. In fact, staff may even provide you with some terrific unsolicited ideas to allow your business to grow by leaps and bounds.

5 LISTENING TIPS

1. Listen to gather data and gain knowledge. Learn.

2. Ask for clarification to make sure both sides are on the same page. Bond.

3. Always let the other person finish his or her thought. Build a bridge.

4. Show respect and interest—even if you disagree. Be polite.

5. Listen with an appropriate amount of empathy. Be open, confident and share.

Leaders are expert at connecting the 18-inches between head and heart. In the words of French writer and philosopher, Voltaire, “The road to the heart is the ear.”

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What I mean is HR sits in the middle of controversy by its very nature. I was fascinated yesterday to read two seemingly opposing views of using the Internet ‘for fun’ while at work. Richard Proctor of APL Borealis (who sell blocking software) argues it’s a six-hour a week productivity time-waster (seemingly confirmed by articles such as this from a Gallup study) that should be blocked while a study from University of Melbourne finds those using it at work average 9% greater productivity. The truth almost certainly blends the two points of view as you can hear in the Melbourne professor’s comments:

Notice that many of the figures are likely in the ballpark:  14% are addicted and would benefit by having at least some, maybe all, sites blocked, but on average there’s greater productivity overall from allowing people to use the Internet casually at work. Coker cites millions of dollars ‘wasted’ on blocking and appeals for understanding the ‘psychological’ factors that lead to productivity.

If you’re HR, working for a CEO or CFO with a clear point of view on this, you’re likely not going to waste much energy debating beyond tabling both sides of the argument. Many knee-jerk reactions will go one way or the other absolutely and we know which level of the organization chart dictates which way wins.

And yet this, of course, is an HR problem, right? This is about people and productivity. Once decided, no one’s going to argue with the CEO, but they’ll blame “HR” for not standing up for what’s ‘right’ (their opposing view, whichever that is). Both will have ‘numbers’ on their side and accuse HR of being oblivious to facts and incapable with measurement. We’re a convenient whipping boy for frustrated human beings.

HR on the other hand will do its best to mediate, to argue for compromise. and turn the issue back where it belongs – onto managers who are on the spot, who can lead productivity by getting people effectively engaged in getting results and dealing with slackers whatever it takes (and sometimes, yes, it does take offering distractions to clear the mind where in others it requires a strong management hand). Managers alone are in the best position to observe who’s addicted and slipping into a productivity-wasting pattern versus those who are really producing and need the distractions. No HR solution ‘fixes’ this challenge once and for all. It requires day-to-day leadership from every manager at every level.

Is it any wonder HR is criticized by managers who’d rather have an easy solution of blocking rather than have to manage addicted employees and employees who resent big brother cutting them off from Facebook and Twitter? That’s a lot of people who probably realize at some level HR is in an no-win position, but still rationalize their need to blame someone.

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Then I came on this blog post by Paul Herbert: I Love Forced Rankings. Since Jack Welch has recanted on this theory that the bottom 10% should be identified each year… and then fired… forced rankings have lost favor in most operations. But as this article shows, there are always two or more schools of thought about any given HR practice. Human resources isn’t a cut and dried series of principles that you simply apply. It has to be tailored to your culture and situations.

The problem arises when you recognize that managers and cultures aren’t fixed in stone. Let’s say a company follows Herbert’s advice and institutes forced ranking to help encourage judgments between good and unproductive employees. That information can then be used to reward the good and coach or redevelop the unproductive and that may be the original intent, but as surely as grass is green, some manager will take this the opposite way and punish the unproductive while simply taking the top performers for granted.

Either way, we want managers to reward and react to performance. Many don’t. They simply sail on with the status quo and duck managing performance at all. The hardest hurdle seems to be to get them in general to apply judgment case by case rather than use rule of thumb systems like "let’s use forced ranking" as if this alone would solve the problem. It isn’t the process, it’s the assumptions about it, good or bad, which so many apply without the least bit of understanding about what the impact will be on actual people.

Is it any wonder that senior management has trouble buying into any given HR policy when there are such widely varying interpretations and uses of them? If only the core keys were understood, I believe, that problem could be resolved. The fact it hasn’t been in several millennia suggests it isn’t as easy as I think it should be, though.

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The book: Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-In-Class.

Big surprise. Would that be: consistently work at human goodness, flawless execution and being best in class?

Likely there really is more to say. For instance, how would you work at these things and what would your priorities be in relation to the more typical "make the numbers at all costs" approach to managing? Nevertheless the sense of it being so obvious made it easy to ignore.

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It’s all about following the money."

I started to write a return comment and realized it needed to be longer and more people might want to see it…. Thanks for the comment Darren. I think you’ve succinctly captured one point of view. Where can I start to explain more clearly. You can always outsource "hard" HR basics – the transactional systems, record-keeping and benefits. But people absolutely are assets in every company – like the financial minds you mention. Those minds can get balled up in worrying about minor stuff on benefits or they can worry about when their next promotion is coming. While they’re worrying, they aren’t creating as good returns as they could. Often those worries don’t fit in boxes like, "what does the dental plan pay for this?" The real key is continual coaching approach from their direct leader, but who helps the leaders who aren’t naturally good at this?

People are unique in being assets you don’t own or control. Leaders can use them up by hiring for great potential, using them for a while till they feel they’re being used and toss them out as some bosses regularly do or you can have someone who helps develop and coaches bosses who in turn listen and respond to concerns. In a small business (as most are) if you hand pick business leaders and they have good listening skills, see the need and the CEO listen as well, you can get by without a designated HR person for a long time. But as you grow, merge, acquire others and have to expand your ranks, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure enough people who give the continual time to listening that is needed as part of their job, as part of getting the work flowing smoothly and to give the thinking time to make good decisions about every person. And coordinating all this takes time.

In every company someone tends to fall into the role of listener and thinker for resolving HR "soft" issues. That person becomes the de facto HR person, the go to individual when someone has a problem or a manager has a problem with an employee. They may do other things, too, as I did even in a very large corporation, but they need some latitude to help set the tone for how people are treated and to counsel those who behave outside the program, to be a second set of ears and eyes for the CEO to marshal people on track continually to get the best return on those assets. As Colin Powell says in his first book, "every division needs it’s ‘chaplain’ [his description for someone who listens and helps resolve]." You can leave the role informal, but that tends to hide a very important lever in getting things moving and keeping them moving smoothly.

Quite often this person doesn’t carry the title HR and isn’t hired for that alone, but they are in a real sense running the HR program of the organization and it takes a real and usually substantial portion of their time. If you lose that person, your return on human assets tanks fairly quickly. Research shows great HR multiplies financial results by four or more times over the average company. I probably don’t need to say that anything that runs "great" like "great HR" is great because it is run by an effective leader. Who is leading HR in any company is a key question. It’s a daily culture-building influence that you cannot thrive without. Someone organizes that and it almost never can be the entrepreneurial leader who drives the business attack – the roles and the things you have to do and dedicate the majority of your time to are simply incompatible. So do you give the HR role to someone formally (full or part time) or just let it happen by itself, haphazardly? Contractors can’t do this for you unless they’re on site virtually full time and have the ear of the senior leadership continually.

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One of the deluge of consultants’ newsletters recently mentioned a change management acronym I had not heard of previously: ADKAR, but I recognized its similarities immediately. It represents a description of ingredients for change management process: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement – from work by an organization called Prosci.  I was startled to realize this is very similar to the five key principles that I promote as the core of people skills and leadership.

In short it means people must become aware of the need to change, they must have a desire to change, the knowledge to, the ability (which is different from knowledge) and then they need reinforcement while making the change.  All of these are true and actually very insightful, especially the emphasis that is put on these being the core, key and essentially only ingredients to pay attention to.  It’s a dramatic simplification of what’s needed to make individual personal or organizational change.

When you find a potentially competitive theory, you want to analyze it carefully to see whether or not it achieves or fails at the objectives you are trying to achieve. This one has some interesting parallels, but also important differences. Because it’s so close to what I use as the keys to being effective, I will offer some deeper analysis in a series of posts.  Let me just say the theory seems to make a clear distinction between individual change and organizational change. The same principles apply so I’m not sure why that is.  Therein lie some interesting questions, which we will explore.

In any case I think this is an excellent summary of the ingredients that are required for successful change. What I’m trying to achieve that’s a bit different is to show how people actually manage to create these ingredients and get them working together.  How do you help someone become aware of the need, to develop the desire, find the knowledge, build the ability and where will they get the reinforcement?

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You can listen right now by clicking the “play” button” (the triangle) in the player below. (For IE7 there is not need to download Quicktime, but you will need it for Firefox and others.) If you prefer to save it or listen later, you can “right click” on the link above, click “save target as” and make sure to pay attention to where you save it so you can find it later. This group impressed me with their business-like approach and the progress they’re making. The show is about 50 minutes, but the advantage of an archived version is that you can skip around, stop and come back, all without much difficulty.

I was lucky that a friend, John Klotz, has expanded his TorontoTalks.org small business presenters line-up to this i-radio format. I think it really works and have listened to several earlier archived shows. I’ve found Internet radio to be so superior as a medium I find myself listening to far more than I ever expected I would. When you can’t listen live, it’s completely straight forward to download and listen later. That way you can access topics when you need them or even download them to listen to while commuting or working out via iPod or MP3. 

The point I’m trying make both in this blog and on the radio is that the same principles of success apply to every situation – work or personal, front-line worker, family member or executive officer. They also work in any medium and any business or non-profit. Sometimes it helps to read, hear, see and try out things in various ways so you get a complete overview. I wouldn’t try to communicate solely by any one medium because each contributes things you can’t get from the others.

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Case in point: one of the many email newsletters I keep finding myself on the list for is from Lynda Goldman (http://www.impressforsuccess.com/). The first I’ve seen arrived recently with a tip for being more charismatic.

The tip: Stand and walk tall. There’s a lot of truth in this. You’ll project confidence, speak more strongly, seem a bit larger than life and generally send the message that you know what you want, what you’re doing and that you can’t be dissuaded. Confidence is attractive and, to some degree, catching, so people feel better aournd you.

Is this really charisma? Well, probably if you practice it enough to make it your usual style of presenting yourself, it could be. It won’t be if you do it only occasionally or drop the manner suddenly in the middle of something. Then it will appear false, as a facade, a feeble attempt to be something you’re not. Whether you "are" or "aren’t" really depends more on whether this becomes habit. If it does, you’ve raised your charisma level permanently.

Only you can decide if this is something you want. There are trade-offs. Particularly if you begin to believe your own press (very appropriate word here since Goldman is a communications expert) you may become insufferable. But you don’t have to. You can find a balance. You can develop skills to use in appropriate situations and not in others. It takes time either way. Adding a new capability always gives you more options.

Can it ever become "as good as the best natural" charismatics? That depends on how much you puruse the initial stage you reach. You can always go further, add other behaviors that typify charismatic people. Over time you can pretty much go as far as you want. Can you ever catch up with someone who started in their early teens or get ahead of them. That, too, depends – on how hard, how often and how insightfully you practice.

So the tip makes sense. Whether you choose to pursue it depends on your sense of whether you need it, whether it adds something you want to your skill set and how much time you are willing to devote to it in lieu of devoting time to other things. It rarely takes as long as you might think.

Given that we have such choices, the next challenge becomes sorting out which to pursue. It makes little sense to waste a lot of time on something you’re not going to follow up fully.

Now all I need to figure out is why I can’t accept a perfectly good tip without analyzing it to death. The short anwswer is that it doesn’t make as much sense to me if I don’t.

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Here’s a piece on managing barriers to thinking and creativity and what blocks us from seeing things in new ways – a theme that seems to fit with my approach: The Seeing Believing Gap. To make it short, I liked the opening story (a good article feature I haven’t yet learned to do well myself) and I like the paragraph headings (which save us from reading most sections for detail). From the headings I liked two paragraphs: See Past Isolated Concepts, which emphasizes a key point I make – that seeing connections helps – and I liked the last one: See past your usual circle because it mentions another source, a book that might be interesting, and again, a broader view.

Then I glance to the bottom of the page, a Blog World conference link catches my eye and I wonder ‘what’s that; maybe I need it’ and I’m off again on a hunt for more interesting stuff that might be useful. I realize there’s lots I don’t know. I don’t even know if this page I’m reading on Fast Company is really a blog or just how the two relate. It’s all interesting, but not "transparent" or self-explanatory – it’s just stuff at some level.

Human beings are great at processing "stuff." The actual work we accomplish today takes up less and less time. Yet we’re busy with "stuff" – ideas, possibilities and continuous learning. That seems to be working for us although it often leaves us feeling overloaded and perhaps not having accomplished as much as we’d like.

I don’t have the answers for this. If anyone does, I’m always looking for "stuff" to read (and pass on) that might help. Help. Some days I almost want to be back in corporate where constant interruptions demanded that I actually do stuff. But no, I’m happier overall working on my own and deciding when to goof off with "stuff" without feeling like I’m cheating anyone, but me.

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Well, it must surprise you surely since one of the most prestigious business consulting organizations worldwide feels it is a great topic to research and publish. They say the solution is train EQ at the front lines.

What’s wrong with us, people? Why is this news? Why do we need to have them distil four keys: keep people motivated, provide meaning and purpose (genuinely helping those gosh-darn customer-type human beings) and provide leaders who model these approaches and coach their teams to do it better?

Only one answer: because so few organizations and leaders do this properly and effectively. Is it really so hard?

Oh, just checked my email. International consulting giant RHR (www.RHRinternational.com) will shortly host a webinar: Engaged Employees Can Make Difference. And so it goes. Clearly this is a message we all want to hear. Why? Who’s not listening?

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It’s an ultimate leadership question. Leading is pushing toward the right direction when you’re uncertain. The five skills I use are easy to learn and logical once you’ve had a bit of practice. I’m hoping this becomes like Maslow’s model, so well known we all take it more or less for granted… once someone has explained it. It becomes simple, obvious and easy to remember when you need it. Just mention the name and everyone nods.

I’ve started to get this reaction from audiences now that I’ve stopped "teaching my model." Instead I use examples to illustrate not the model, but solutions to some problem an audience is familiar with. I show the model as I talk about how the problem resolves. If I do it well, it’s obvious the model makes it easy to know what to say or do.

In most cases, it’s the five coaching questions, used in order, that help most. In complex situations, it’s useful to understand the principles behind the questions and coaching approach. I literally put the principles "behind the questions" on my handout – when you turn over the card. You can find a sketch of these here on my web site blended together. 

This is a more complicated version than I hand out when I’m there to provide a practical overview of how they work. The coaching questions are numbered 1 to 5 beginning in the center oval. You simply use them more or less word for word in any situation to help find a useful direction and starting point, both for yourself and others who are involved. The other words are "the principles behind the questions" which take more explaining or more thinking time to puzzle through. You can do this on your own, but it helps to have an in-person explanation… once.

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What triggered this observation was reading an article in the Speakers magazine about Dick Richards and his book "Is Your Genius at Work?" He asks four questions:  1. What do you consistently attempt to give others?  2. What do others come seeking from you (maybe ask some)?  3. What’s the common denominator in 1 and 2?  4. Can you distill this to two words: _____________ _____________.

Maybe this arrived just as I’d answered these for myself. People come to me for the right way to say things (and ideas) to deal with challenges with people, to get the results they hope for. And I consistently attempt to deliver exactly that – to make people, as I see it, better at managing, more positive, etc. But the key for me was "what do they come to me for?" That’s the marketable product – what they already want, not something that I have to drum up business for, some intangible "leadership model" or set of skills. Those are just the mechanisms once they’ve asked for what they need.

My only quibble: two words might be "People Solutions," but I can’t resist making it "positive people solutions for high performance."

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