Here’s How to Fix it.
Humans are great at making quick judgements. Discernment may be one of our superpowers as a species. We immediately come to conclusions about what’s going on and what needs to happen next. We say people have good judgement when they’re right and bad judgement when they’re not.
I talk a lot about grandma in the kitchen with no recipe. She makes great food using experience and good judgement not recipes. It’s limited in the ability to scale, but it works. Today I want to talk about how powerful judgements can cause you to misuse that power when dealing with employees.
Let’s take a step back. One of a manager’s main jobs is to support employees to do the best work they can do. That means having an agreement with them about what a good job looks like objectively and what actions or behaviors are needed to produce the outputs we agree constitute a good job. The problem comes when we judge someone’s performance not by visible behaviors (that can be changed) but by conclusions we make about the source or motivations of those behaviors.
The Key Question is “How Does That Show Up?”
I’m often asking questions like that when clients mention a problem. The purpose of the question is to cut through their judgement and uncover the behaviors that caused the judgement. You want to notice the visible, objective actions that cause you to come to the judgement you’ve arrived at. Because it’s much easier to get agreement (and change) about behaviors, than about judgements which can come across as accusations.
Here are some examples:
The “friendly” flight attendants
A couple years ago I had ruptured my Achillies tendon and couldn’t put any weight on my right leg. For several weeks I was walking with a contraption called an iWALK (which I highly recommend). And I had to fly to a conference (
https://www.smbash.com/
which I also highly recommend). So, I was interacting with a number of flight attendants on the different flights and I noticed that I felt some of them were friendly and some of them were grumpy. But those are judgements. I asked myself what behaviors led me to those judgments and started paying attention to what I could actually see. Here’s what I could see: eye contact (or lack of it), smiles (or frowns), proactively asking if they could help me rather than waiting to be asked. Things like that are behaviors and are visible. It’s tempting to say some of those people were friendly and cared more—but honestly, I don’t know what they felt. I just know what they did. As manager you don’t know what your people feel – just what they do.
Lack of Conviction
See if you can detect the judgement in the following paragraph.
A client was working on changing the culture of his leadership team. He felt they were doing good work but were a bit complacent and not moving fast enough. He was especially frustrated when one of his leaders made a presentation that he felt lacked conviction.
For those of you playing along, lack of conviction and complacency are judgements – speed is a measurable behavior.
I asked how did that lack of conviction show up? He gave an example that someone made a presentation about something they believed should be done and it was well thought out. But then at the end of the presentation they said, “But we should really talk about it some more.” That made him feel like the presenter lacked conviction in their decision to move forward. Conviction is hard to change but behavior can be addressed.
I suggested two ways to deal with it. One is to ask what output from further discussion they were expecting. Maybe there’s something that really does need further exploration. Another is to talk with the person about their presentation behavior and say that if they really felt further discussion was needed, they should mention it that at the start of the presentation and say why. If not and they were just being “nice,” they should be more forceful about moving forward.
I’m sure there are other possibilities. The point is you can change behavior more easily if you aren’t caught up in the judgement.
Cold Shoulder
Clients who run a chain of retail stores felt one of their managers was not treating them properly as the bosses. They came to the conclusion that the manager had an “attitude”. I knew my clients were not stuck up or expecting undue deference. The manager had been promoted from working in the store where she’d done a good job. The surprising part was that the culture of the entire organization was one of their strong points. Employees treated each other well and got good marks from customers too.
When we looked into the behaviors that were causing this judgement it all revolved around communication style; things like lack of eye contact and smiles, talking in an abrupt or curt manner, tone of voice. Looking deeper we found that the manager was also behaving this way with her employees and this was very different from how she behaved with customers. Addressing the issue from a behavioral perspective was not successful in changing anything. Good communication style is an important output in retail, and for whatever reason, this person could do that as a worker in the store, but not a manager. So she was moved to a role on the floor where she could do good work communicating with customers and wasn’t managing employees. [Side note – this is an example of how defining outputs leads to people being able to play at the top of their game.]
How to Detect Judgement
Having good judgement allows us to move fast. But when dealing with employees it’s often more useful to slow down. Here are some things to notice about yourself that may indicate you’re judging too fast.
When you think someone has an “attitude.”
When you say (or think) about someone “I just assumed …” or “I expected …”
When you’re frustrated because “I would have though …”
The next step is not to assume you know what’s going on in that person’s brain. People are terrible mind readers. Instead, notice what behavior you see. Then sit with them and tell them what you see. Ask if they notice it too. Discuss what can be done to change it.
Further Reading
Daniel Kahneman was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2002 for being a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics. His book, Thinking Fast & Slow explains how we have two methods of thought. One is quick, intuitive and emotional; what I’ve called judgement. The other is slower, deliberative and more logical. They both have advantages and disadvantages. One key to being a successful manager is knowing when to use each.
Want To Pursue this further?
If you’d like help figuring out the behaviors behind one of your judgements, I offer a free coaching session (even when my coaching schedule is full). Sign up HERE.
I talk a lot about being a better manager by understanding behavior and visible outputs in my book Output Thinking
