I was talking with a journalist from Men's Health today about how bosses can become more aware of how they act and are seen by the people they lead, and how so many bosses (like most human-beings) can be clueless of how they come across to others. This reminded of a method I used some years back with one boss that proved pretty effective for helping him come to grips with his overbearing and "all transmission, no reception" style; here is how it is described in Good Boss, Bad Boss:
A few years ago, I did a workshop with a management team that was suffering from “group dynamics problems.” In particular, team members felt their boss, a senior vice-president, was overbearing, listened poorly, and routinely “ran over” others. The VP denied all this and called his people “thin-skinned wimps.”
I asked the team – the boss and five direct reports -- to do a variation of an exercise I’ve used in the classroom for years. They spent about 20 minutes brainstorming ideas about products their business might bring to market; they then spent 10 minutes narrowing their choices to just three: The most feasible, wildest, and most likely to fail. But as the group brainstormed and made these decisions, I didn’t pay attention to the content of their ideas. Instead, I worked with a couple others from the company to make rough counts of the number of comments made by each member, the number of times each interrupted other members, and the number of times each was interrupted. During this short exercise, the VP made about 65% of the comments, interrupted others at least 20 times, and was never interrupted once. I then had the VP leave the room after the exercise and asked his five underlings to estimate the results; their recollections were quite accurate, especially about their boss’s stifling actions. When we brought the VP back in, he recalled making about 25% of the comments, interrupting others two or three times, and being interrupted three or four times. When we gave the boss the results, and told him that his direct reports made far more accurate estimates, he was flabbergasted and a bit pissed-off at everyone in the room.
As this VP discovered, being a boss is much like being a high status primate in any group: The creatures beneath you in the pecking order watch every move you make – and so they know a lot more about you than you know about them.
My colleague Huggy Rao has a related test he uses to determine if a boss is leading in ways that enables him or her to stay in tune with others. In addition to how much the boss talks, Huggy counts the proportion of statements the boss makes versus the number of questions asked. "Transmit only bosses" make lots of statements and assertions and ask few questions.
What do you think of these assessment methods? What other methods have you used to determine how self-aware and sensitive you are other bosses are -- and to makes things better?
I don't have formal assessment skills or access to a team, but I do have a rough estimate I use to decide if someone is likely to be a transmit only boss in interviews.
I start off by paying attention to what is scripted process and what is not. Than I largely discount the scripted stuff.
I notice who talks, if all of the unscripted stuff is from the highest ranked person, that is a problem flag.
If most of the unscripted stuff is from a person in a role very like the one I am interviewing for, that is a huge plus.
If most of the unscripted stuff is about the person rather than the role or any interest in me, it is a problem flag.
If most of the unscripted stuff is about the role and how the department works and communication and that sort of stuff I know I am likely to be comfortable.
Biggest red flag though? If the highest ranked person keeps using the royal we to talk about the department and does not seem to draw boundaries between what he does and what others do. Which can happen straight up, or most problematically with the gloss of "we are all a team".
Posted by: Melissa | April 02, 2012 at 07:10 AM
Reminds of something I heard Jim Collins say once, that the best piece of advice he ever received was to stop trying to be interesting and start trying to be interested.
Posted by: davidburkus | March 30, 2012 at 03:20 PM
I find it very easy to identify the "transmit only" colleague, but very difficult to figure out how to get them to a point where they see the impact of their behavior and care enough to want to change. Help!
Posted by: Bret Simmons | March 30, 2012 at 12:28 PM
Have you come across "Hardwired Humans" by Andrew O'Keefe? The comment "being a boss is much like being a high status primate in any group" reminded me very much of the books thesis. Namely, how our basic (primitive) drivers and instincts (e.g. clan connections, hierarchy, status displays etc) drive our behaviour in the workplace.
Posted by: Chrisdbarry | March 30, 2012 at 08:48 AM
It is indeed true, when you're in a senior position everyone is aware of every move you make - so if you're not in tune with this yourself, it will cause you problems with how people respond to you.
In the example given, I have to say I'm quite intrigued to know what the influences for the "boss" were - who were his or her role models? What environment had this person worked in previously that had been formative in his/her behavioural style at work...?
I would normally start with the senior person and use psychometric assessment tools to firstly establish just how self aware they are before rolling it out to the wider team. Myers Briggs is one helpful tool that gives insight to people's "type" and preference in how they approach things. I find it works very well in these types of scenarios and helps a team understand their individual and collective strengths and how to get the best from each other.
Posted by: Naheed Mirza | March 30, 2012 at 05:01 AM
Has anyone videotaped a boss and played it back to him/her? Are they still un-aware?
Posted by: Keith Ray | March 29, 2012 at 03:38 PM
The approach we take is to collect say 100 stories in the organisation about good and bad leadership behaviour. The we take the leadership team and ask them to read through the stories together to identify the good and bad behaviours (there is an equal number of good and bad stories). We also ask them to mark the behaviours they do themselves. In the last workshop we did like this the leadership group identified 76 positive behaviours they did and only 7 negative behaviours they owned up to. When we revealed this result to them they were shocked and realised they were in denial.
Posted by: Shawn Callahan | March 29, 2012 at 02:42 PM
Hi Bob -
I love your process for measuring self-awareness ad listening. It meshes with my experience that the boss' ability to ask questions AND be interested in the answers correlates very highly with the willingness of team members to provide meaningful input to any conversation.
There certainly are times when it is appropriate for the boss to make a declaration. These times are few and far between. And, declaring "I'm always open to your comments and feedback" is a signal that the boss really isn't.
Posted by: Michael Ciszewski | March 29, 2012 at 02:05 PM
Very interesting study. It definitely speaks to those persons in the "boss" role. What about the effect of persons within a group that interrupt other group members BUT would never interrupt the boss? This may be enabling the leader in the room to monopolize the time (tranmission) which inevitably allows them to "get on a role" and become a chronic interrupter. I personally know that after I'm interrupted on a few occasions, I tend to keep my transmissions to myself.
Posted by: Walt | March 29, 2012 at 12:11 PM