Written by Mitch McCrimmon, Ph.D.
- Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
- Not yourself, but your preferred image of yourself.
- Is that really how others see you?
- How can you improve if you think you are OK already?
The value of 360 degree feedback
- Only feedback from others can reveal the true impact you make on people.
- The thought of feedback can be scary, but is it better to remain in the dark?
- Most managers are surprised by the amount of positive feedback they get.
- This shows how many managers have low self esteem.
- Your negative feedback can often be distilled down to a few manageable themes.
- Negative feedback will show you what to focus on to develop yourself.
- Avoid feedback and you cannot learn - you might as well stick your head in the sand.
- A well designed 360 degree feedback process will help you to get realistic feedback.
- Feedback questionnaires must be filled in anonymously by various colleagues, subordinates & other stakeholders.
- A good questionnaire should include questions that are relevant to your culture and goals rather than off-the-shelf.
- Allowing space for comments is more important than numerical ratings.
- Feedback is essential to improve confidence and self esteem.
- Your management effectiveness will be enhanced by knowing what you are doing well, not so well and how you might improve.
- Being able to handle negative feedback is itself an important management skill - one that depends on your emotional intelligence, listening skills and willingness to learn.
- 360 feedback is too often conducted as a one-off exercise. It is often done to managers when they should manage it themselves, just like a business seeking regular feedback from customers.
|
Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
|
Skills for Managing Effectively
|
|
|
|
|
Influencing Skills
Popular influencing styles:
- Raw emotion - blow my top, make them cringe.
- Rational persuasion - present facts and logic
- Manipulation - pretend to involve them
- Mental torture - pester until they give in
- Inspiration - dramatize everything
|
 |
More influencing styles - all popular!
- Personal appeal -I draw on their loyalty or friendship.
- Ingratiation - I flatter them, pay them compliments, butter them up.
- Exchange - I do something for them in return, bribe them.
- Pressure - I get tough, demand action, use threats, coerce them.
- Legitimacy - I claim my rights, use my authority, cite the rules.
- Coalitions - I gang up on them, get my pals on side, get political.
- Packaging - I get liberal with the truth, exaggerate the upside.
- Sulk - I pretend to be hurt or offended until I get sympathy.
- Withdraw favours - I ignore them, cut them off, until they crack.
- These influence styles reduce to three...
1. Be demanding!
- Push people and you get short term gains and long term losses.
- Pressure gets immediate action but damages your credibility.
- The more fearful you make people the less useful they will be to you.
- Force is just one way of failing.
- Force only works when you are there to ENFORCE.
- Hence your influence is limited to those you can see.
- Force means regressing to childhood tactics.
- Who can look up to a child?
2. Using reason to get your way
- Works with disinterested or neutral parties because they have nothing at stake.
- Reason is still pushy --- you're trying to change someone else's mind.
- The more they have at stake in their position, the more you can be sure that reason will fail.
- Reason is one-way communication, amounting to "telling" or "selling".
- Asking people to "be reasonable" means asking them to see it your way.
- Pure reasoning sticks strictly to facts and logic, stressing organizational benefits.
- Reason becomes a bit more engaging when your arguments point out benefits to the other party.
- Reason, of course, often works but don't limit yourself to this influence tactic only.
3. Involving others
- This is the best approach, time permitting.
- Real involvement means seeking mutual gains.
- Start by trying to understand the other party's needs and interests.
- The key to influencing through involvement is to ask questions. Do more asking than telling and selling.
- Develop joint solutions with people rather than "reasoning" with them.
- Full involvement generates the highest level of commitment.
- Agreements are then negotiated rather than sold or imposed.
- Involvement builds mutual respect and greater trust.
- Involvement is harder work than pushing, telling and selling.
- Full involvement is as rare as full maturity - it takes emotional intelligence.
- More directive approaches only work when commitment is not important (when is that?
|
Add comment
