If you don’t tell ‘em, they’ll make something up.

Has this ever happened to you? A rumor gets started, picking up steam with every passing day until it penetrates the entire organization. It didn’t matter that the rumor was untrue. For employees, perception became reality.

A few months ago, I saw what happened when the employees in a large contact center believed a false rumor. The company is a large outsourcer that takes inbound customer service calls for several U.S. utilities. Word spread among the front-line reps that their biggest client was unhappy and had decided not to renew their contract. Once the rumor mill kicked into gear, it wasn’t long before the reps were spinning multiple worst-case scenarios. Convinced that there was going to be a major lay off, employee morale tanked and so did their performance.

Luckily, the center’s manager was an old hand at dealing with rumor-generated panic. She understood that Nature abhors a vacuum. Absent the facts, it is natural for people to speculate about what could be true. Enter the rumor mill.

The manager also subscribed to my “Rule of Five.”

• If you want a group of employees to really “get” an important message, delivering it once is never enough.

• The same message should be delivered at least five times via five different communication channels.

• If the message is extremely important, make sure you build in one or two live meetings with management so employees can ask questions and get clarification.

• Even if you do deliver your important message multiple times, you’ll be lucky if 70% actually “get it.”

As it turned out, when the employees learned that the client wasn’t going anywhere and had, in fact, just inked a new multi-year contract, they breathed a collective sigh of relief. Confidence was restored. Performance scores shot up and service levels went back to normal.

The Lesson: The best way to prevent damaging rumors is timely, factual information. If the information is important, be on the safe side and follow the Rule of Five.

Be happy. Enjoy your week.

Barbara Burke

2011 © Barbara Burke. All rights reserved.

(Look for the next Monday Aha! on 12/19/11)

 
 “Happy people put out more positive energy. You can’t see it, but other people feel it. When they feel it, they respond to you in a positive way.” From my book, The Napkin, The Melon & The Monkey

When you are feeling overwhelmed by life, take a moment during your day to appreciate what you have. A research (McCollough, Emmons 2003) study proved that an attitude of gratitude had a positive impact on our emotional well-being and overall happiness. In this study, a group of students kept a journal of daily events that were unpleasant. A second group wrote down those things for which they were grateful. They found that the gratitude group had “… higher levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy.”

2011 © Barbara Burke. All rights reserved.

(Look for the next Monday Aha! on 12/5/11.)
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Sometimes it’s the little things that mean the most to your employees.

Over the last few months I’ve had the opportunity to conduct leadership training for a great group of supervisors. I started the training process as I always do, with conducting an employee engagement survey for each supervisor.

The survey results for several of the supervisors revealed that the “command and control” management style they had relied on for years was not working. A significant number of employees complained of being treated like children, not being listened to, and generally feeling devalued. It was clear that if these supervisors were going to improve employee engagement they had to change their approach.

The content of the first Workshop in June focused on training the supervisors to be more flexible, to listen more and talk less, and to deploy a more personalized coaching approach tailored to the needs of each employee. The session ended with practicing applying the participatory style of management in various situations.

Fast forward three months to the second employee engagement survey, the purpose of which was to gauge the supervisors’ progress. I consider a 10% improvement between the first and second survey to be very good. With this group I thought we’d be lucky to see a 5% improvement. That’s why I was astonished when the survey showed a whopping 16% across the board improvement over the first survey.

As you can imagine, when the supervisors got together for our second Workshop in September, they were very proud of themselves. As we went around the room, each supervisor got to brag about how they had used what they learned and the positive impact it had on their employees’ willingness to be fully engaged.

It was Zeke, one of the younger supervisors, who put things in perspective. He reported that his more open approach was well received by his team. But, what really turned their attitudes around was when he finally replaced their old, broken down chairs (they’d been griping about for years) with brand new, ergonomic office chairs. He said, “I guess that sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.”

I wrote those words on the whiteboard. A good reminder for all of us.

2011 © Barbara Burke. All rights reserved.
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(Look for the next Monday Aha! on 11/21/11.)