Managerial tools: 4-phase algorithm for solving problems with people or “What do you want if you are such a crap manager?”
At one of the long-term trainings, we worked out the case “The employee does not send reports on time”. Case is absolutely not tied to real life - after all, the same does not happen, so that people do not send reports on time, right?
And one manager did not get a pair, and I got up to play the role of an employee. Before that, there was enough steam for everyone, so I was not very ready for the role of an employee ...
My interlocutor was a young man, let's call him Egor, technical director of a small company.
')
The purpose of the case - to convey to the employee feedback that the reports must be sent on time. Egor started right off the bat:
- Alexander, how is it that you don’t send me reports?
I stood, thinking, thinking what to say. And then blurted out the first thing that came to mind:
- Egor, and what do you want if you are such a crap manager ?!
I repent, then I was not aware of the heavy manipulations. But their influence could be felt on themselves fully. Yegor turned red, then went stained:
- What does “shitty manager” mean? !!! It is unacceptable to talk to the management like this ...
And then they began to fire me. And that's pretty sad for the manager. Although, on the other hand, it is good that such a situation happened at the training, and not in real life.
And today we’ll just talk about how to convey unpleasant feedback to people and how to receive it correctly. As usual - algorithms, schemes, examples - everything that we love. :) And polybuk, that we do not like, but with details.
In the last article about management tools, we discussed 4 principles of constructive communication that do not give an answer to the question: “How specifically to solve problems with people?” And the answer to this question is provided by a 4-phase algorithm.
I met this algorithm when I was still working at Intel. At that time, I took it as another corporate brainwashing. However, after I left the company, I rethought this algorithm. Together with SlavaPankratov we sat down, took the algorithm apart, supplemented it with plug-ins, and began to test on gullible listeners.
And suddenly it turned out that with the help of this algorithm, the vast majority of work situations can be disassembled and solved.
So, in the 4 phase algorithm. In this case, the discussion takes two phases: the second and third. And everything begins, of course, with preparation.
At the preparation stage, we define several things:
What is the problem in this situation? And is she there? Maybe a person looks at porn, his motivation comes, and then he continues to do something that is very necessary for business. Logic suggests that it is possible, in this case, he needs to buy some unlimited access to a source of inspiration ...
To understand whether to solve a problem, there are two questions:
If the whole team cannot look at the face of an employee who looks, well, you understand that something will have to be resolved.
Periodically, managers come up with weird problems. “I have a problem: people are sitting on VK. So I think now we will close access to social networks ... ”
If in this case to close access to social networks, it will turn out as in a joke:
All engineers will begin to solve an interesting engineering problem, how to get around a stupid ban.
In fact, in the fact that people are sitting on VKontakte, there is no problem. Sit - and thank God. What is bad, then? The bad thing is that the work is not done. And that should be the purpose of the discussion - for the work to be done.
As they say, if it seems to you that you are talking to an idiot, perhaps it seems to him the same thing. There is always a reason for any human behavior. Even for behavior that seems inadequate to you.
When analyzing a point of view, it would be good to think about this:
There are a lot of different things in life that switch people's behavior:
In this case, people act, trying to do something positive (sometimes only for themselves, but nonetheless):
It would be nice to try to clarify for yourself, because this is where the decision is made, where we start the conversation:
(To analyze the point of view of another person, there are a number of tools. But in order not to delay the article, we will refer readers to the free course “Management Tools: System Management on the Fingers . ” There we talk about this in more detail.)
As we wrote in the previous article , people sometimes absolutely honestly do not see what the problem is. “Well, I do not send reports, and God bless them. But I have more work to do! ”
And at the stage of preparation for the conversation, it would be good to think:
If you do not prepare facts in advance, then in a conversation we automatically slide to pressure:
All this leads to the fact that according to the results of the conversation, people put us a minus in karma. Only not on Habré, but in real life.
So, let's say the preparation stage has been passed, and we are ready for discussion.
Starting a discussion of a person, we never know what is in his head. Despite the fact that we are all smart people, we should not forget that we are all different people. And what is there that the man thought himself up, how did he unknow himself, and what conclusions did he come to? Can not be said with the method of Lenin's squint. Therefore, in our conversation, we will apply a powerful communicative trick “Pause”.
The general scheme of the conversation can be:
Our task at this phase of the algorithm is to lead a person to the point of agreement on the problem. So he says something like:
Pause - gives a person a say. You can replace it with clarifying questions:
But anyway, it is important for us to bring a person to an agreement on the problem. If the person agreed on the problem, then we can proceed to discussing the solution. If you did not agree, it is too early to proceed to a decision.
What to do when the facts run out? It so happens that the facts and arguments come to an end, and the person still does not agree. He does not see, such a reptile, a problem! What to do?
Intuitive behavioral model — pressure (by authority, company policies, best practices, strength, ..). Counterintuitive— out of conspiracy.
Out of facts - get out of the conversation. Not with the words: “What are you so stupid for something ?!”, but with the words: “I can't seem to bring the problem.” Think and return to the conversation a little later, with new facts and arguments. Maybe the interviewee will ripen.
It may turn out that in response to your words, a person will begin to voice their problems: “What do you want if you are such a crap manager ?!”
After all, this phrase a person does not say anything except that he is obviously unhappy with some of your actions as a leader. What kind We do not know until we find out. But it is already good that he voiced it. Instead of firing him, the manager now has a unique chance to find out what people have accumulated in his head and take control of the situation. We ask clarifying questions, help a person solve a problem and go back to what they came with.
But suppose, using facts, arguments and pauses, you did lead a person to what he said:
And here we are going to discuss the decision. Is it worth proposing a solution yourself? Certainly yes, if you are discussing a problem with your boss or customer.
Otherwise, it is better to ask the person: “How are we going to decide something?” It is important that the person himself proposes a solution. A person feels more responsible for his decision.
Here, however, it may turn out that a person will offer something that does not suit you. You can offer your solution in response. Or criticize just proposed. But there is a way that works better.
Check the solution for sustainability. Suppose a person offers an architecture that is not extensible and not scalable, or some other one is not. And you understand that in half a year, when the load grows 5 times, your system will receive a kirdyk.
You can say: “Wait, it will not bear the load,” but this may include the communicative formula of the Closed United States: “But you can quickly implement it!”
Therefore, it is better to ask one of the questions:
Statements include in a person the desire to argue. And what does a person have in the brain? That's right, questions.
Testing a solution for sustainability helps the solution to refine, and while this decision is still your interlocutor, and he still feels for him personally responsible.
After the decision is invented, it would be nice to fix it. Otherwise, it turns out as in life:
After a week, it turns out that no one wrote anything, because the idea was discussed, and what exactly to do, everyone understood in his own way.
A good form of recording solutions: WWW = Who, What, When (Who, What, When). There is less chance to understand in their own way. And then we move to the last stage of the algorithm, because, as former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner used to say: “People don’t do what you expect. They do what you inspect. ”(“ People don't do what you expect. They do what you check. ”)
The control stage is quite simple in the description, but surprisingly often it drops out in real life.
If a person began to behave as you agreed with him - this is a reason to say to him: “thank you, I see.” If you don’t say this, then a person might think that you didn’t notice: “Why did my brain come to warm? It seems that the topic is not so important for him ... In short. next time, you can not strain ... "
If a person behaves in the old way or not as you agreed - it is an occasion to ask: “how is that?” And either it turns out that the person has forgotten / hammered (in this case, it will probably be necessary to increase control), or that the solution for it does not work. And you have to go back to the previous stage and refine the decision.
So the algorithm does not work. The last phase of control is just as important as the previous three.
But for solving problems and building long-term relationships with people, this algorithm works well.
It is clear that there are still many things beyond our discussion:
We are now working on these details in our course, which we are going to finish by the end of February.
But even without these details, if you just start to try the algorithm on your working communications - believe me, the effect will exceed expectations. It has been tested repeatedly.
Successes in its use!
PS Friends, if you want to immediately check how it works, then there is nothing easier:
There will be something to share - write in the comments! Good luck!
PPS Blog Stratoplana moved to a separate site: http://blog.stratoplan.ru - see you there!
Alexander Orlov
Stratoplan.Ru
And one manager did not get a pair, and I got up to play the role of an employee. Before that, there was enough steam for everyone, so I was not very ready for the role of an employee ...
My interlocutor was a young man, let's call him Egor, technical director of a small company.
')
The purpose of the case - to convey to the employee feedback that the reports must be sent on time. Egor started right off the bat:
- Alexander, how is it that you don’t send me reports?
I stood, thinking, thinking what to say. And then blurted out the first thing that came to mind:
- Egor, and what do you want if you are such a crap manager ?!
I repent, then I was not aware of the heavy manipulations. But their influence could be felt on themselves fully. Yegor turned red, then went stained:
- What does “shitty manager” mean? !!! It is unacceptable to talk to the management like this ...
And then they began to fire me. And that's pretty sad for the manager. Although, on the other hand, it is good that such a situation happened at the training, and not in real life.
And today we’ll just talk about how to convey unpleasant feedback to people and how to receive it correctly. As usual - algorithms, schemes, examples - everything that we love. :) And polybuk, that we do not like, but with details.
In the last article about management tools, we discussed 4 principles of constructive communication that do not give an answer to the question: “How specifically to solve problems with people?” And the answer to this question is provided by a 4-phase algorithm.
I met this algorithm when I was still working at Intel. At that time, I took it as another corporate brainwashing. However, after I left the company, I rethought this algorithm. Together with SlavaPankratov we sat down, took the algorithm apart, supplemented it with plug-ins, and began to test on gullible listeners.
And suddenly it turned out that with the help of this algorithm, the vast majority of work situations can be disassembled and solved.
So, in the 4 phase algorithm. In this case, the discussion takes two phases: the second and third. And everything begins, of course, with preparation.
I. Preparation.
At the preparation stage, we define several things:
1. What is the specific problem?
An example from life. At one of the trainings the listener gets up:
- No, well, it's all clear. But the situation from real life. I walk along the corridor and see a staff member of a nearby department watching porn. What to do?
- What's the problem?
- Well ...
What is the problem in this situation? And is she there? Maybe a person looks at porn, his motivation comes, and then he continues to do something that is very necessary for business. Logic suggests that it is possible, in this case, he needs to buy some unlimited access to a source of inspiration ...
To understand whether to solve a problem, there are two questions:
- Does it affect work?
- If not to decide, what will be wrong?
If the whole team cannot look at the face of an employee who looks, well, you understand that something will have to be resolved.
2. Purpose - what do we want to achieve by discussion?
Periodically, managers come up with weird problems. “I have a problem: people are sitting on VK. So I think now we will close access to social networks ... ”
If in this case to close access to social networks, it will turn out as in a joke:
Scientists have learned many new things from the life of dogs by attaching a camera to a dog’s head. It turns out that up to 90% of his time the dog spends trying to tear the camera off his head.
All engineers will begin to solve an interesting engineering problem, how to get around a stupid ban.
In fact, in the fact that people are sitting on VKontakte, there is no problem. Sit - and thank God. What is bad, then? The bad thing is that the work is not done. And that should be the purpose of the discussion - for the work to be done.
3. Why does a person behave this way?
As they say, if it seems to you that you are talking to an idiot, perhaps it seems to him the same thing. There is always a reason for any human behavior. Even for behavior that seems inadequate to you.
An example from life. At one of the trainings, managers (training participants) actively complained about their director. A picture of the devil was drawn, who got out of hell, specifically to lead their company:
- Imagine, he programmers when late even for 3 minutes makes writing explanatory by hand! Do you know how to argue? “They get tired of writing and stop being late!” And all ideas are accepted only in the form of memos! ..
In the evening, after a beer, we begin to find out from managers, the director has always been so “inadequate”, or was once a normal person. Managers think:
- No, that's two years ago we went with him to the exhibition in Germany. The normal dude was, we were hanging out on the strip bars together ...
- At what point did he become “inadequate”?
- Hmm ...
Shortly speaking. It turned out that a year and a half ago they had thwarted a very important project. The company got heavy fines. The shareholders called the young director (26 years old at the time) and apparently explained to him that the next time it would be that it was better not to bring it to the next time. After that, the director began to put things in order in the company. How can, and leads.
When analyzing a point of view, it would be good to think about this:
- Has the person always behaved like this or did it start after some moment?
- What is the positive intention in his actions?
There are a lot of different things in life that switch people's behavior:
- Organizational changes: “why was he appointed, not me?”
- Incomprehensible technical solutions: “why do we introduce this fuck here?”
- Geographical distance from the other team: “It’s not just that they wrote to us, it’s them ...”
- ...
In this case, people act, trying to do something positive (sometimes only for themselves, but nonetheless):
- Director tries to clean up the company
- The employee sabotages the introduction of an idiotic, in his opinion, tool, thereby showing that he is an idiotic
- ...
It would be nice to try to clarify for yourself, because this is where the decision is made, where we start the conversation:
- From the discussion of the current wrong behavior or:
- From the discussion of why everything was good before, but now it’s like this
(To analyze the point of view of another person, there are a number of tools. But in order not to delay the article, we will refer readers to the free course “Management Tools: System Management on the Fingers . ” There we talk about this in more detail.)
4. Facts and arguments
As we wrote in the previous article , people sometimes absolutely honestly do not see what the problem is. “Well, I do not send reports, and God bless them. But I have more work to do! ”
And at the stage of preparation for the conversation, it would be good to think:
- What facts and arguments show that this situation is a problem for you?
- What facts and arguments will show that this situation is problematic for the person to whom you came to discuss it?
If you do not prepare facts in advance, then in a conversation we automatically slide to pressure:
- “Why should I explain to your level specialist elementary things ?!”
- “As an engineer with your experience ..?”
- “As a Bauman graduate ...?”
- “You, most importantly, do it now, and there ...”
- ...
All this leads to the fact that according to the results of the conversation, people put us a minus in karma. Only not on Habré, but in real life.
So, let's say the preparation stage has been passed, and we are ready for discussion.
Ii. Discussion of the problem
Starting a discussion of a person, we never know what is in his head. Despite the fact that we are all smart people, we should not forget that we are all different people. And what is there that the man thought himself up, how did he unknow himself, and what conclusions did he come to? Can not be said with the method of Lenin's squint. Therefore, in our conversation, we will apply a powerful communicative trick “Pause”.
The general scheme of the conversation can be:
- I would like to discuss just such a situation ... This is not very cool, because [FACT # 1] + [PAUSE]
- And what?
- So ... [FACT # 2] + [PAUSE]
- And what?
- I therefore came ... [FACT # 2] + [PAUSE]
Our task at this phase of the algorithm is to lead a person to the point of agreement on the problem. So he says something like:
- Yes, somehow all this is wrong ...
Pause - gives a person a say. You can replace it with clarifying questions:
- What do you think about it?
- How does it look on your part?
But anyway, it is important for us to bring a person to an agreement on the problem. If the person agreed on the problem, then we can proceed to discussing the solution. If you did not agree, it is too early to proceed to a decision.
An example from life. Quite often, people return from conferences with a fit of enthusiasm and a bunch of new ideas. And here the person resorts to the team:
- And let's introduce $ NEW_Fashion_TEMA (Kanban, Lean, TDD, FDD,)
And the people in the eyes of the dumb question: "WHY ??? After all, we have worked before somehow without the $ NEW_Fashion_TEMA? Releases released, builds, everything was fine ... WHY ??? ??? ”
What's happening. From the point of view of the algorithm, skipping immediately to the “Solution” phase, bypassing the discussion phase of the problem. And it automatically causes resistance.
What to do when the facts run out? It so happens that the facts and arguments come to an end, and the person still does not agree. He does not see, such a reptile, a problem! What to do?
Intuitive behavioral model — pressure (by authority, company policies, best practices, strength, ..). Counterintuitive— out of conspiracy.
An example from life. A few years ago, my colleague SlavaPankratov and I ended up at a training session by Bliss Brown, an American grandmother of 60 years old and an amazing coach. Maybe someone sees the word “coach” as negative, but I'll tell you something. Bliss Brown is one of the wisest people I was lucky to meet. During our three-day talk, I rethought something in life. Although I am no less skeptic like you.
So, in the course of the training, my colleague had a disagreement on some occasion:
- Bliss, wait a minute, I do not agree!
- Glory, let me explain differently (explains differently).
- Bliss, I still do not agree!
- Come this way (explains the third).
- I still do not agree!
- ... Slav, I now, apparently, can not find the right words. Give me time to think about how to better formulate it and let's discuss this topic with you in a coffee break?
Further from the words of Glory:
- At that moment I felt wildly awkward. Christmas trees, sticks, I think, 40 years old aunt explains this to different people. Am I really so stupid that I can't understand this? .. I only thought about that before the coffee break and I myself got to the point that she had in mind. In the coffee break approach to Bliss Brown: “Bliss, do I understand correctly, what did you mean by this?” - “Exactly.”
Out of facts - get out of the conversation. Not with the words: “What are you so stupid for something ?!”, but with the words: “I can't seem to bring the problem.” Think and return to the conversation a little later, with new facts and arguments. Maybe the interviewee will ripen.
It may turn out that in response to your words, a person will begin to voice their problems: “What do you want if you are such a crap manager ?!”
After all, this phrase a person does not say anything except that he is obviously unhappy with some of your actions as a leader. What kind We do not know until we find out. But it is already good that he voiced it. Instead of firing him, the manager now has a unique chance to find out what people have accumulated in his head and take control of the situation. We ask clarifying questions, help a person solve a problem and go back to what they came with.
But suppose, using facts, arguments and pauses, you did lead a person to what he said:
- Yes, I agree, the situation is awkward ...
Iii. Discussion of the decision.
And here we are going to discuss the decision. Is it worth proposing a solution yourself? Certainly yes, if you are discussing a problem with your boss or customer.
Otherwise, it is better to ask the person: “How are we going to decide something?” It is important that the person himself proposes a solution. A person feels more responsible for his decision.
Here, however, it may turn out that a person will offer something that does not suit you. You can offer your solution in response. Or criticize just proposed. But there is a way that works better.
Check the solution for sustainability. Suppose a person offers an architecture that is not extensible and not scalable, or some other one is not. And you understand that in half a year, when the load grows 5 times, your system will receive a kirdyk.
You can say: “Wait, it will not bear the load,” but this may include the communicative formula of the Closed United States: “But you can quickly implement it!”
Therefore, it is better to ask one of the questions:
- And how would we make it endure the load 5 times more, how do we plan in six months?
- What will happen if our load grows 5 times, how do we plan in six months?
Statements include in a person the desire to argue. And what does a person have in the brain? That's right, questions.
Testing a solution for sustainability helps the solution to refine, and while this decision is still your interlocutor, and he still feels for him personally responsible.
After the decision is invented, it would be nice to fix it. Otherwise, it turns out as in life:
- Colleagues, there is such an idea: let's write unit tests!
- Great idea!
- Here! Well, then go to the next question ...
After a week, it turns out that no one wrote anything, because the idea was discussed, and what exactly to do, everyone understood in his own way.
A good form of recording solutions: WWW = Who, What, When (Who, What, When). There is less chance to understand in their own way. And then we move to the last stage of the algorithm, because, as former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner used to say: “People don’t do what you expect. They do what you inspect. ”(“ People don't do what you expect. They do what you check. ”)
Iv. Control
The control stage is quite simple in the description, but surprisingly often it drops out in real life.
If a person began to behave as you agreed with him - this is a reason to say to him: “thank you, I see.” If you don’t say this, then a person might think that you didn’t notice: “Why did my brain come to warm? It seems that the topic is not so important for him ... In short. next time, you can not strain ... "
If a person behaves in the old way or not as you agreed - it is an occasion to ask: “how is that?” And either it turns out that the person has forgotten / hammered (in this case, it will probably be necessary to increase control), or that the solution for it does not work. And you have to go back to the previous stage and refine the decision.
An example from life. At one of the trainings, project managers raised the following question:
- You see, our customer in the middle of the iteration is pushing through new Wishlist ...
What a surprise! This is not the case for anyone! We start to understand:
- And why is it bad? You implement them, right? Well, thank God, as they say, satisfaction of the customer, and you will be happy ...
- Well, we don’t have time to do what we signed up for ...
- Yes, that's the problem. Did you discuss it with the customer?
- Yes.
- What do you think?
- We decided that he would save his Wishlist before the next iteration, and there we will discuss them.
- Write down the decision?
- Of course.
- And then what happens?
- He again pushes Wishlist in the middle of the iteration ...
- And what are you doing?
- And we implement them ...
So the algorithm does not work. The last phase of control is just as important as the previous three.
Disclaimer about common sense.
Colleagues, I hope everyone understands that common sense we do not cancel? :) As we wrote once, if, God forbid, there was a fire, you should not use thoughtful techniques: “Colleagues, this is something we are burning ... What do you think, what kind of fire extinguisher should be extinguished: powder or carbon dioxide ?. Do not rush to answer ... Or use a hose? .. ”In case of urgent problems, the directive methods work well.But for solving problems and building long-term relationships with people, this algorithm works well.
It is clear that there are still many things beyond our discussion:
- How to avoid non-constructive behaviors that we all tend to
- How to choose the time to talk and 5 situations where people can not listen
- Communicative techniques that cause negative emotions: how to avoid them and how to respond. when applied to you
- Features of the algorithm in conversations with customers and leadership
- How to select working arguments that show that the situation is problematic for a person
- How to understand what a person means when he is not behaving specifically
- How to check that the person really agreed with the problem, and did not say for the mind: “yes, it’s all like-oh wrong”
- How to escalate the solution when it became clear that it is not at your level
- ...
We are now working on these details in our course, which we are going to finish by the end of February.
But even without these details, if you just start to try the algorithm on your working communications - believe me, the effect will exceed expectations. It has been tested repeatedly.
Successes in its use!
PS Friends, if you want to immediately check how it works, then there is nothing easier:
- Remember your last difficult working conversation and try to decompose it according to this algorithm. At what stage did you fail and what would you do differently now?
- Try to prepare for the next difficult conversation and then conduct it using this algorithm. See how it goes.
There will be something to share - write in the comments! Good luck!
PPS Blog Stratoplana moved to a separate site: http://blog.stratoplan.ru - see you there!
Alexander Orlov
Stratoplan.Ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/211106/
All Articles