Oh, Grow Up

For years I’ve noticed that business leaders in many companies think of employees as children who need tight supervision and who can’t be trusted to make good decisions or to handle information appropriately.

Apparently, that attitude has gone mainstream. In his Harvard Business Review blog, MIT research fellow Michael Schrage expresses his astonishment that high-profile business and political leaders recently have come right out and said their employees or colleagues are no better than children needing “adult supervision.” In fact, “adult supervision” seems to be a new buzzword. Great, we needed another buzzword in the business world.

Schrage hits the nail on the head as he explains why using this phrase is a bad idea: “Condescension rarely builds loyalty or trust. Describing — even dismissing — adversaries and colleagues as ‘childish’ and ‘immature’ seems a surefire way to inspire hostility and resentment. You’d think serious leaders and healthy organizations would avoid insultingly corrosive characterizations.”

You’d think, but you’d be wrong.

It’s partly a reflection of this new age of vitriolic communication in which people feel free to say the first thing that comes to mind, disregarding that internal filter of maturity and sophistication that should set us apart from Neanderthals. For an example, look no farther than the U.S. Congress or cable TV talk shows.

But it’s a manifestation of a problem that has been around for many years. There’s a pervasive feeling among business leaders — and among politicians, too, but I don’t work in politics, thank God — that employees are unable to think for themselves, to demonstrate good judgment, to handle sensitive information (especially when it’s bad news), to self-monitor how they use their time, to act responsibly on behalf of themselves and their company, or to do pretty much anything that the guys in the executive suite can do.

To be fair, there is a minority of workers who can’t do any of those things. They are bad eggs and you’ll find a few anywhere you have a large assembly of people.

But in my 23 years of experience working in employee communications for dozens of organizations, I’ve mostly run across employees who do act like adults, who want to do well in their jobs and want their companies to succeed, and who just wish their companies’ leaders would treat them like adults.

The “adult supervision” mindset leads to a host of problems: lack of trust between employees and managers, lack of confidence in business leaders, lack of motivation to take risks or to be innovative, decreased levels of employee engagement, wasting time in CYA mode, wasting time gossiping and complaining, and many others.

A great current example of how the problem plays out is the fact that half of the companies out there still don’t allow employees to access social media from work. This is in spite of the fact that increasing numbers of prospective employees expect their employers to use the technology people use in their personal lives. Social media has tremendous potential to help employees share knowledge and information, to collaborate and to save time finding answers to their work-related problems. Yet many business leaders are afraid their employees will waste company time by using social media in inappropriate ways.

I’ve been working since before email was widely used in business. Let me tell you something: the small percentage of slacker employees will find ways to waste time whether or not social media are allowed at work. It’s a management problem, not an employee problem.

Employees will act like adults when managers and business leaders start treating them like adults. Business leaders can start by embracing a more open communication culture.

 

Five Ways to Rebuild Lost Trust

I recently decried the results of a survey that indicates U.S. workers’ trust in management continues to erode, even as the nation’s economy struggles to regain its footing. If ever there was a time when business leaders need the confidence and engagement of employees, it’s now.

According to the survey, only one in 10 employees trust management to make the right decisions in difficult times. In a telling bit of data, 7 percent believe their leaders’ actions match their words.

Such an alarming lack of trust has serious consequences for business. A workforce that doesn’t trust its management is one that is not very likely to invest itself in the difficult tasks ahead. Distrustful employees are more likely to spend their time griping about how their jobs suck, how the company is headed for disaster and how senior management is a bunch of buffoons. All of this chips away at productivity, morale and reputation. It drains the life right out of the organization.

I seriously doubt that’s what American business leaders want. Yet they are so consumed with digging out of the recession, trying to light a fire under the weak recovery, propping up the financials so that investors don’t lose their confidence, that they fail to recognize what’s happening inside their companies. And they fail to recognize that they have a powerful tool available to help regain the trust they’ve lost among employees: communication.

I don’t believe communication is the cure-all for any business problem, including the erosion of trust. But I do believe that, combined with other activities, communication can help greatly. However, communication is often the first thing business leaders sacrifice during tough times and the last thing they think about as a resource for recovery.

Here are five things business leaders can do to begin to rebuild employees’ trust:

• Be visible. People don’t trust people that they never see and with whom they never interact. Roger D’Aprix, an internal communications icon, once said that trust isn’t built by sending a memo. Face-to-face interaction is necessary for trust to be established. That’s because people assess others by a host of non-verbal signals — body language, tone of voice, inflections, facial expressions.
• Spend quality time with people. When I worked in employee communications at one of AT&T’s manufacturing facilities in the 1990s, the president of our business unit once told me that communication was his most important job as a leader. When he visited our plant, he always took an hour to walk out onto the factory floor and talk with people. He communicated business messages and he asked questions and he listened. That one hour went a long way toward establishing trust with employees. Business leaders must build time into their schedules, no matter how brief, to communicate.
• Demonstrate trustworthiness. As the survey points out, workers today don’t believe management’s words match their actions. Business leaders who find themselves in this predicament must take concrete steps to demonstrate that their “say” matches their “do.” Honor commitments. Keep appointments. It will take time, but employees will begin to have faith that their leader’s word is trustworthy.
• Trust others. Showing others that you trust them goes a long way toward building their trust in you. Business leaders can demonstrate they trust employees by sharing information, delegating responsibility and generally treating employees like adults. Workers who feel their management doesn’t even trust them with work-related information are not very likely to reciprocate.
• Open up. Just as in personal relationships, business leaders must take some risks by opening up, being honest and showing some vulnerability in order to gain employees’ trust. This means sometimes sharing sensitive information, engaging in frank discussions and admitting mistakes.

Trust takes time to build, a moment to destroy and even more time to rebuild. People who feel their trust has been betrayed or at least not honored will try to protect themselves from a similar disappointment by not easily trusting again. Unfortunately, this is where many business leaders find themselves today. It’s not a hopeless place, but escaping it requires time, intention, and a sincere effort.

Join Me for a Twitter Chat

I’ll be doing something on Thursday, July 14 at 10 a.m. EDT that I’ve never done before: guest hosting a Twitter chat.

In fact, I’ve never even participated in a Twitter chat. I’ve live-tweeted presentations, which is somewhat similar, but this will be a new experience for me. I’m looking forward to it and I’d love for you to join me.

The invitation came from Sean Williams, a fellow communication consultant and college professor I’ve never met, but have admired for many years. I’ve virtually run into Sean many times as we’ve commented on the same blogs and participated in the same webinars.

Sean runs a monthly Twitter chat called #icchat (the IC standing for internal communications, a topic near and dear to both of us). He arranges for a guest host to address some aspect of internal communications through a series of Twitter posts ending with the #icchat hashtag. Participants follow the guest host and filter posts using the hashtag, asking questions of the guest host. The end result is a lively, fast-moving virtual conversation.

If you’d like to see an example of the kinds of discussions taking place in the #icchat sessions, read Sean’s blog account of a recent one about how social media are being used internally.

And if you can spare some time next Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT, join the #icchat where I’ll be talking about writing — how to write simply and clearly and how to do it well no matter what medium you’re using. It should be fun! Hope to see you there.