The Glasers
  • Home
  • About the Glasers
  • What We Offer
    • Products
    • Online Learning
  • Testimonials
    • Testimonials - All
  • Contact
  • Online Learning Testimonials Page
  • 2020 BTC Full Course Descriptions
  • 2021 BreakThrough Communication
  • 2021 The Results Are In

The Six Abilities Google Teaches New Managers

9/22/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
What turns individual contributors into effective new managers? Google spent years finding out by analyzing over 10,000 manager impressions including performance reviews, surveys, and nominations for top-manager awards and recognition. The following are six key attributes that Google instills in its managers:
 
  1. Mindset and Values – a growth mindset that believes skills and abilities can be cultivated
  2. Emotional Intelligence – the ability to leverage self-awareness to manage behavior and relationships
  3. Manager Transition – a willingness to share challenges and vulnerabilities with peers
  4. Coaching – the ability to listen actively and empathically, ask open-ended questions, and be motivational
  5. Feedback – the ability to offer consistent, bias-free feedback, and to be authentic and appreciative
  6. Decision Making – Google has established a routine for making better decisions that includes asking, “What are you solving for?” “Why is it important?” and “When can a decision be expected?”
 
Google reported a statistically significant improvement in 75 percent of its underperforming managers after implementing the program.
 
What do you think is the most challenging part of transitioning to a management role? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

2 Comments

Survival of the Friendliest

9/15/2020

3 Comments

 
Picture
Darwin said the fittest survive, but what kind of fitness counts most? Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, researchers at Duke University’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, believe species that have thrived and successfully reproduced haven’t done it by beating up the competition.

Their new book, “Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity,” posits that species endure — humans, other animals and plants — based on friendliness, partnership and communication.

“Dogs are exhibit A,” Hare says. “They are the extremely friendly descendants of wolves. They were attracted to humans and became friendly to humans, and changed their behavior, appearance and developmental makeup. Sadly, their close relative, the wolf, is threatened and endangered in the few places where they live, whereas there are hundreds of millions of dogs…”

The authors also point to the success of bonobos, apes that are often confused with chimpanzees. Chimps make war, but bonobos are natural sharers. “The most successful bonobo males have more offspring than the most successful alpha male chimpanzees.”

What does all this mean for us? For humans to continue to evolve successfully, Hare says, “friendliness is the winning strategy. Social problems require social solutions. The secret to our species’ success is the same as it is with dogs and bonobos. We are the friendliest human species that ever evolved, which has allowed us to outcompete other human species that are now extinct. When that mechanism is turned off, we can become unbelievably cruel. When it is turned on, it allows us to win. We win by cooperation and teamwork. Our uniquely human skills for cooperative communication can be used to solve the hardest social problems.”

Can you recall a time when friendliness helped you get ahead? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

3 Comments

Breaking Toxic Cycles at Work

9/8/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Caught up in a vicious cycle that starts with frustration, leads to stress, and winds up causing workplace wars? This can engender more frustration, until the whole syndrome starts over. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Annie McKee, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the director of the PennCLO Executive Doctoral Program, offers a three-step process for interrupting such vicious cycles):
 
  1. Develop self-awareness: Understand your triggers. Learning what causes you to feel thwarted, scared, or threatened and what drives you to the battleground can help you get a grip on your reactions.
  2. Employ emotional self-control: Once you’re aware of the emotions that drive your behavior, you can employ emotional self-control, checking and channeling your emotions so that you don’t get stuck in a permanent fight or flight response.
  3. Build friendships at work: To minimize stress and conflict at work, we need to stop seeing each other in terms of what we can get and replace it with what we can give. This shift would result in less stress and fewer negative emotions. It would also lead to warmer, friendlier relationships — something most people need and want at work.
​
“Developing self-awareness, increasing your emotional self-control, and recharging relationships at work takes commitment,” says McKee. To lay the foundation, build mindfulness practices into your daily life, schedule time for self-reflection, and tap into empathy that allows you to see the world through others’ eyes.
 
Have you found that taking more responsibility for your own feelings and actions can help reduce frustration, stress, and conflict? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

Speaking Up When It Matters

9/1/2020

4 Comments

 
Picture
We all like to think we’d speak up if we saw something objectionable happening at our workplace—perhaps something ethically questionable or some evidence of discrimination. In fact, research suggests that most people tend not to act, and rationalize their inaction.
 
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Heidi Grant, Associate Director of Columbia University’s Motivation Science Center and author of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, offers suggestions for those who do want to be diligent employees and lend their voice to the conversation:

  • Recognize it will be difficult, and worthwhile: When people set out to do difficult, personally meaningful things, they’re more likely to follow through if they expect that the task will be challenging. 
  • Make an if/then plan: Identify in advance the kinds of situations that could occur when you speak up. Then decide how you might handle each. Of course, you can never plan for every specific possibility, but feeling prepared will keep you from freezing up or backing out.
  • Work to lessen the social threat that speaking up may create: Especially if you are communicating up the chain of command, make it clear that you’re not out to get anyone, or necessarily attributing ill will to anyone. Provide feedback about impact, without making any assumptions about intent.
 
If you have spoken up at work, what were the results? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

4 Comments

Virtual Presentations  That Captivate

8/25/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Holding audience attention during a presentation is always a challenge, and more so if you are giving it via Zoom. In a virtual setting, you cannot employ or read body language as much as you would in person, and your attendees might well be distracted by other things in their environment (kids, pets, beeping microwaves). 
 
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Carmine Gallo, instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and author of Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get From Good to Great, offers tips for sharpening your presentation skills: 
​
  • Reduce clutter; use fewer slides: Great presenters are great editors. Massive PowerPoint decks do not impress; they put viewers to sleep.
  • Forget bullet points: Augment text with photos, videos, and graphics.
  • Use your voice as a tool: Varying the pace, pitch, and volume of your voice increases your effectiveness.
  • Give your audience something extra: Novelty recognition is a survival skill all of us share. It may be harder to incorporate “wow” moments when your presentation is virtual, but think about what you can do that’s unexpected.
  • Rehearse: The world’s greatest speakers are great because they put in the time.

How have you adapted your presentation style so it can be as captivating virtually as it is in person? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

Edit Your Own Writing

8/18/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
At a time when clear written communication is more important than ever, many of us may have temporarily lost our in-house editors—those co-workers we drop in on when we want a quick assessment of our first drafts. Learning to edit our own writing is a skill that will serve us well now and in the future.
 
Writing in The New York Times prolific freelance journalist Harry Guinness offers practical advice for DIY editors:

  • All first tries can be improved: “Writing offers us one of the rare chances in life at a do-over: to get it right and say what we meant...” The time you put in reworking and refining can turn a “good enough” piece into something genuinely strong.
  • Stay vigilant for common errors: Overuse of jargon, clichés, and “business speak” obscure the points you want to make.
  • Don't ramble: When you’re not sure what you want to say, it’s common to phrase it three or four ways. A single direct sentence is almost always better than four that circle around a point.
  • Give your work some space: If possible, put a draft aside and return later with a fresh eye. Even 10 minutes is better than nothing, although more is better—especially if you can sleep on it.
  • Read your work aloud: You’ll catch more errors and get a feel for flow.
  • Cut and cut some more: It’s more likely you’ve written too much than too little.
  • Spend the most time with the beginning: If you don't capture the reader’s attention, all is lost.
  • Pay attention to structure: For emails and other short pieces, the classic topic sentence followed by supporting paragraphs and a conclusion is hard to beat.
  • Use resources: Nothing beats a good thesaurus. And the “Grammarly” writing assistant can help spot common mistakes.

What mistakes were you glad you found and what improvements were you glad you made the last time you edited your own writing? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

Want to Comfort the Anxious? Try This

8/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
These days, anxiety is pretty widespread—and it’s tempting to want to soothe a co-worker or friend who is experiencing a high level of stress.  But, as you may have noticed, telling an anxiety-ridden person to “calm: down” can backfire. A new study suggests that the most effective way to calm someone down is simply to reflect and validate their feelings.

To figure this out, researchers tested out a variety of approaches to comforting 325 married participants who volunteered to think about a fight with their partners and report on how various attempts by a friend to cheer them up made them feel. 

Some of the approaches were "low person-centered,” meaning messages that minimized the person's distress or suggested they shouldn't feel so upset. Others were "high person-centered," i.e. they validated the person's stress, saying things like "you have every right to feel upset" or "it's understandable you are stressed out." The more empathic approaches were the clear winners. 

The bottom line: Minimizing people’s emotions can come off as controlling and condescending. As columnist Jessica Stillman writes in Inc., “If you're genuinely interested in making someone feel a little better when they're understandably stressed out, give up on cheering them up. You mean well but they'll probably just feel like you're trying to push them around. A far better bet, science shows, is simply listening with empathy.” 

When you’re feeling stressed and anxious, what kinds of interventions do you find helpful or less than helpful? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

Lean Learning

7/28/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.” So says Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup. Unfortunately, the majority of training in today’s companies is ineffective. Although organizations across the globe spend hundreds of billions on training annually, surveys show 75% of managers are dissatisfied with their companies’ learning and development, and only 12% of employees apply newly learned skills to their jobs.
 
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Steve Glaveski, CEO of the startup accelerator Collective Campus and host of the “Future Squared” podcast, points out the biological reality that we quickly forget most of what we learn if we don't use it. To get around the “forgetting curve”, we need to implement “lean learning”: 
  1. Learning the core of what you need to learn: For example, If you want to learn Japanese, focus on the 20% of words and phrases that show up 80% of the time. 
  2. Applying it to real-world situations immediately: Real-world projects should be brought to workshops in order to apply what’s learned in real-time.
  3. Receiving immediate feedback and refining our understanding: This can be achieved by embedding continuous learning into a live application, implementing peer learning, and offering micro (or bite sized) learning opportunities.
  4. Repeating the cycle
Says Glaveski, “Lean learning ensures that employees not only learn the right thing, at the right time, and for the right reasons, but also that they retain what they learn.”

Can you remember a training situation where you remembered much of what you learned, and could apply it? What made that learning stick? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

Are You Hearing Your Team’s Best ideas?

7/21/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
If you’re a leader who encourages people to speak up and contribute ideas, you may assume no one will remain silent when they have an idea you haven’t thought of, or spot a problem you haven’t noticed. That assumption seems reasonable, but research suggests that people are motivated to speak up only if they believe their contribution will have an impact on the organization, and that they will not be punished for their comment. By contrast, people fail to signal a problem or idea to the boss when they think there will be negative repercussions for doing so—like getting shunned or fired.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review Michael Parke, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, offers strategies for managing both the “voice” and “silence” aspects of employee contributions.

To solicit voice:
  • Explicitly encourage people to bring up ideas.
  • Consider those ideas.
  • Follow up and let people know what became of their ideas—not every idea will reach fruition but those who voiced them want to know attention was paid.
 
To manage silence:
  • Monitor how you and others react to new ideas and opinions, especially when they involve raising problems.
  • Protect people who offer ideas that fail.
  • Frame and reframe questions in different ways to evoke new responses…e.g. “What should we do?” instead of “What could we do?”
    ​
Have you ever assumed that people who don’t speak up are purposely holding back? Have you found ways to successfully bring in more voices? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

Addressing Employees’ Fears of Returning to the Workplace

7/14/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Governments and public health pronouncements aside, businesses can only reopen when their employees feel safe returning to work. In a recent survey of 735 U.S. employers conducted by the global human resources consulting firm Mercer, more than 45 percent said they are already struggling with workers who are reluctant to return to their workplaces because of fear of getting sick.

In a recent Inc. article, Peter Newell, a former Army colonel who spent years on wartime frontlines tackling ill-defined challenges in risky situations and who now runs the consulting firm BMNT, offers advice for navigating this unprecedented dilemma:
 
  • Know you can't manage people’s fears; you can only support them: Encourage people to be honest about what they are feeling and listen to them. Communicate transparently about what you know and what you don’t.
  • Map out exactly what returning to work will look like: For example, how will you handle meetings with co-workers and clients, and what types of business travel, if any, will take place?
  • Directly address the stress your employees are going through: The pressures of lockdown have meant many people have taken few breaks, let alone vacations. Newell’s advice: “I'm asking folks, when all this ends, tell me how you're taking time off to get away.”
 
If your team is considering returning to the workplace, what are the greatest concerns and how are you addressing them? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

0 Comments

When Leaders Stress Out Employees

7/7/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Managers and leaders have a direct effect on their employees’ stress levels, but too few leaders are aware of this power. Even well-meaning managers may unwittingly stoke anxiety.
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at Columbia University and an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab, points out five behaviors that can increase people’s anxiety levels. Leaders who can spot these behaviors can start to change them.

  1. Using negative language: Words matter…Even if two leaders are addressing the same issue, impacts vary. Talking about “possibilities,” “improvements,” or “potential” has a different impact than “problems,” “dangers,” or “complications.”
  2. Erratic or unusual actions: Even in unpredictable situations like the current pandemic, leaders should act in consistent and predictable ways. Don't make employees guess what you’ll do next.
  3. Emotional volatility: Work hard to notice your nonverbal communication when you’re feeling stressed. It soothes others when you project calm.
  4. Excessive pessimism: Pessimism can be useful in preventing risks. But keep pessimistic communication in check. During uncertain times, your staff has a right to expect you to notice what they can be optimistic about.
  5. Ignoring people’s emotions: During stressful times, avoid obsessing on your own emotions. Focus on others and exhibit empathy.
As a leader, do you think about how your words and actions impact those you manage? Have you consciously changed any of your behaviors during this stressful time? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.
 
Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning programs .

0 Comments

Zoning Out During Zooms? Here's What to Do

6/30/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
​We’ve all been guilty. Ten minutes after logging in to a Zoom meeting our mind begins to wander. Our attention turns to our in-box, our curious dog, or what time dinner is coming out of the oven. Chalk it up to the Ringelmann Effect. When French architectural engineer Max Ringelmann asked a team of people to pull on a rope, and then asked individuals — separately — to pull on the same rope, he noticed that when people worked as individuals, they put in more effort. The bigger the group, the less responsibility each individual feels. In virtual meetings—especially large ones—the Ringelmann effect is magnified.
 
So, the success of virtual meetings depends on listener participation. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Sarah Gershman, professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and president of Green Room Speakers, offers tips for staying focused:

  • Define your value ahead of time: Identify beforehand what you will contribute and/or learn from the call. For contributions, have your points, reasons, and examples ready.
  • Acknowledge previous speakers: Before raising a topic, reiterate what you just heard—even asking the speaker whether you’ve characterized their point correctly. People are more likely to listen to you if they first feel heard.
  • Connect the dots: Reflect on what you've heard to move the conversation forward. For example, “I’ve heard several people say the client seems impatient. I wonder if anyone has thoughts about why this impatience is occurring now?”
  • Note distracting thoughts: When your mind wanders, try jotting down the distracting thought on a pad. This allows you to put the thought “somewhere” so that you can return to it after.
 
How did you handle the situation the last time your attention wandered during a virtual meeting? Any tips to share? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

2 Comments

Greetings in a Post-Handshake World

6/16/2020

8 Comments

 
Picture
“I don't think we should ever shake hands ever again...”                        
​
-- Dr. Anthony Fauci 


No more handshakes? Stephen Colbert calls it, “bad news for secret societies,” and Jimmy Fallon notes, “[It] will be weird when every job interview starts with an awkward chest bump.” So, what might be appropriate greetings in the hygiene-conscious, post-handshake era?

As per the Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders debate, many are now employing new etiquette in the form of an elbow bump. But there are several alternatives to this gentle arm nudge. Fist bumps have been around for some time, though, they too, involve skin-skin contact. Some have suggested non-contact foot-shakes. Perhaps the most practical and aesthetically pleasing is Asian-influenced “Namaste” hand gesture, which is contact-free and strikes a humble, respectful tone.

For a time, it will surely be hard to battle the deep-rooted instinct to extend a hand. (Tweet it!) German Prime Minister Angela Merkel was left hanging after her interior minister denied her outstretched hand. And the Dutch prime minister announced a no-handshake rule, then turned and shook a health officials’ hand—promptly apologizing. It is fairly certain that salutations will involve a new normal—but what it will be is unclear. 


What would be your preference for a handshake replacement? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

8 Comments

Transitioning to and from Work Time at Home

6/9/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture

​Among the challenges of working from home is creating boundaries between work time and personal time. To keep the lines from blurring, Elizabeth Grace Saunders, time management coach and author of How
To Invest Your Time Like Money, offers these tips:

  • Have a starting ritual: Mr. Rogers changed his sweater and sang a song. You don't need to do that, but you do need to alert your brain that it’s now work time. As a prelude to start of business, you might, for example, turn certain lights on or off, make a cup of coffee, load or unload the dishwasher, or do some stretches or neck rolls. (Tweet it!)
  • Make a work plan and follow it: At the same time each day – perhaps first thing in the morning or when you wrap up the day before—lay out a game plan for your work day, including meeting times, projects you want to progress on, and windows for responding to email. Plans may change, but it’s best to have one.
  • Prioritize your communication: Most of us need to have some personal communication during work hours and some professional communication after hours. But prioritize these communications so they don't encroach and steal time you’ve allocated for each mode. For example, you might answer non-essential personal texts in a block of time each evening. 
  • Set a wrap-up routine: To prepare for being “off the clock”, have a work wrap-up routine that begins about 30 minutes before your workday ends. This could include doing a final check to ensure you’ve replied to all critical emails and looking over your game plan to note what has to be continued the following day.
What strategies do you use to keep yourself more focused and present whether you’re working or enjoying personal time? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.
​

If you would like to learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication, check out our online learning programs.  
0 Comments

Strengthening Virtual Teams

6/2/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
How can you hold teams together when members are physically separated? How can you create virtual teams that are more engaged and more productive than when they worked together? 
​

In our recent Webinar, Communication in a Time of Social Distancing: Strengthening Virtual Teams, we shared 8 research-based strategies:

  1. Start with a meaningful question central to your team’s work: “How can we create more inclusive community engagement?” or “What virtual solutions can we offer our clients?” 
  2. Honor the power of silence before sharing ideas: Two minutes of silence before you ask team members to speak allows them to collect their thoughts and brings quieter people into the discussion. (Tweet It!)
  3. Create a queue of names to guide orderly discussion. This eliminates awkward silences and ensures that everyone participates.
  4. Create a virtual group memory: Have an assigned recorder use Zoom White Board or screen share Microsoft Word to list all ideas as they are contributed.
  5. Use P-R-E-S to energize discussions: Aim for 45 seconds to make a Point; give a Reason; share an Example; offer a Summary. Remember: The power of a personal example is immense.
  6. Invite low-frequency contributors into the conversation: When you use our suggestions there will be fewer silent members, but it’s important to let everyone know their voice matters.
  7. Harvest group agreements: Ask, “What have we agreed to already?” rather than squandering time on small areas of disagreement. Remember: What you look for is what you find. 
  8. End with a final process check: Each participant gets 20 seconds to say, “This is what I’m feeling and thinking as a result of our meeting.”
What have been your biggest challenges in communicating with your virtual team and how are you managing them? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.
0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All
    BreakThrough Conflict
    Children & Young Adult
    Community Of Practice
    Hardwiring Teamwork
    Leadership
    Persuasion And Influence

Advanced Learning
Communication Capsule Blog
Research
Press/Media Resources
Organizational Culture Survey
III Survey
Resources
CoreSkills
Glaser & Associates, Inc.
Executive Offices
1740 Craigmont Avenue, Eugene, OR 97405
541-343-7575 | 800-980-0321
info@theglasers.com
Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions
© 2019 Glaser & Associates.  All Rights Reserved.
  • Home
  • About the Glasers
  • What We Offer
    • Products
    • Online Learning
  • Testimonials
    • Testimonials - All
  • Contact
  • Online Learning Testimonials Page
  • 2020 BTC Full Course Descriptions
  • 2021 BreakThrough Communication
  • 2021 The Results Are In