1. We work in an environment with a lot of assembly line/repetitive/non-technical work. How do you motivate these individuals to recognize that they can learn something everyday? Add value? Contribute to improvements?
2. Do you have some techniques for overcoming the few vocal/negative employees who can overtake the culture of the workplace?
3. In a unionized environment, where there is a firm division between unionized and management employees, within a government agency, how do you implement your techniques?
4. Any insight into this would be helpful.

1. What have you learned today that is really important?
2. What do you know now that you didn’t know when you came to work this morning?
3. What questions arose during the day that will require additional information?
4. Supervisors need to answer these questions for their employees. It’s part of their relationship.

Another way to motivate and help employees understand that they can learn more is to identify the questions they have based either on something that happened that day or occurs on a routine basis. Be observant and deal with the questions employees should be asking. One of the supervisor’s responsibilities is to anticipate the questions employees have (or will have), because people, in general, often don’t ask questions. Even if you go up the line to the top of an organization, people should be asking questions, but they often don’t do it. So it is up to the supervisor to figure out what the most important questions are.

One of the most important things that motivates people, at any level and in any position, is their direct supervisor noticing something they did (even if it was something very tiny, but something incremental and very helpful) and commenting on that task specifically. One of the techniques we talk about is the use of the small hand written note. It may sound old fashioned, but this is one of the most powerful tools human beings have to motivate each other—briefly, positively, and very directly point out something the employee did that benefited others. Throughout my career, people have come up to me after a presentation and shown me handwritten notes people have written to them over years. These little messages have changed attitudes and perceptions of who they are and what they do. Quite often, it is just a simple, “Thank you for calling Mrs. Thompson. She was bugging me to death, but now she seems relieved over the situation.” These notes are specific, meaningful, positive, take just a moment to do, and are in writing.

The burden must be placed on the first-line supervisor. Sometimes we are looking for high-tech ways to empower supervisors in this regard. Personally, I like to slow things down a bit with supervisors, and point out the really simple, sensible things they can do that turn people around or help them move in a more positive direction.

Question 2: Do you have some techniques for overcoming the few vocal/negative employees who can overtake the culture of the workplace?

Answer 2:

You will always have a handful of negative employees. Sometimes they are as much as 25 percent of the workforce. I refer to these people as the D³UV²s (pronounced “Doves”), Disheartened, disgruntled, disoriented, unconvinceable victims who seek a victory over someone, probably you, today). Think of this as a scientific formula. I’m often asked if there are schemes for getting rid of these people. Even if you can identify them (and sometimes you will be surprised who they are) and try to get rid of them, there is a queue of people wanting to take their places. D³UV²s are part of the woodwork.

So what is the answer? You must answer all the questions they raise. There is a kind of arrogance in management that says, “Look, if we answer the questions these people raise, we give them power.” Frankly, they have more power than you could ever possibly confer on them. They are irritating you everyday. That is power. What could you possibly do to change that? You could begin answering the questions they have, which keeps other employees who aren’t a part of this group settled down and focused on their work. The great danger in non-communication is—and this is the most toxic approach to use because you are empowering them by not talking about their questions and issues—you make the vast majority of employees who want to go home on time worry. They worry because you are not responding. And these people—who are good people that want to get home to their families—go to the D³UV²s directly to ask why the boss isn’t responding. The angry D³UV²s will tell them, “Because it’s worse than you can possibly imagine, that’s why. And besides, if management won’t answer my questions, imagine what else they’re withholding and not telling you.” This is why non-communication is toxic.

Answer the questions. The idea that somehow, by answering questions you can make them go away, is bogus, toxic, and dangerous. In fact, if you answer the D³UV²s’ questions as extensively as I advocate, the Work to Live employees will complain to management, “Why do you spend so much time with these boneheads when I have things I need you to focus on?” As a manager, leader, or supervisor, you have to say, “The reality is, by answering their questions, I have a better day at work. That’s why I do it. And I need to spend time doing this. Failure to do this means they irritate all of us. Part of what they give me the big bucks for, as a supervisor, is to answer their questions.” Quite frankly, the reality of what happens is that for every question you answer, six or so of your good people stop caring about the issue and go home on time without worry. That’s the goal—not to win, not to put anyone down, not to demean someone, not to somehow take away their arguments. Simply answer the questions. The reason that good employees, and good people in general, get concerned (in any culture) is because they believe that every question asked has the credibility and the standing to be answered, and that someone should respond.

I know it’s aggravating and the boss will tell you right off the bat, “Hey, you can’t be doing this. You can’t be answering the question because it gives them power.” But actually they do have all the power. It takes only one angry person to destabilize an entire organization. One person can do it. Usually it happens because the questions go unanswered or, even worse, management begins to treat them negatively, treat them disparagingly, and even call them names. If you want to have trouble, this is behavior you want to have. If you want peace moving forward, answer the questions and move on. You’re going to say, “Jim, you tell me that they are unconvincables, so why am I spending all this time answering their questions if they won’t change their minds or behavior.” But again, the answer is because their behavior is going to be the same no matter what you do. The behavior you are trying to change is to make everyone else comfortable that this is the way it is going to be and they can then focus on what they want to get done. It’s counterintuitive, but it does work.

Question 3: In a unionized environment, where there is a firm division between unionized and management employees, within a government agency, how do you implement your techniques?

Answer 3:

My techniques work in any kind of organization because what I believe in is simple, sensible, and helpful. The reason that these techniques may sometimes get out of control is that management in particular, but also unionized workers or the critics, take sides and draw lines in the sand, and become aggressively cynical and contentious with each other. I’m saying that my strategy here reduces contention, even though there will always be contention.

To be in a union you have to get up angry every morning. You just do. I come from a union household. Honest, I have the credentials to say these things. My father was a teacher, he was a shop steward, he made the Board of Education hate him for 30 years, and he died with the sad notion that he was never allowed to lead an illegal teachers’ strike against the School Board of the City of Minneapolis. So, I know what I’m talking about.

The issue for these people is that you cannot change them, but what you can do is to manage your own environment and their environment in such a way that it is constructive, it is sensible, and it is positive. One of the most important things I do, and it goes back to what I fundamentally mentioned a moment ago, is that I answer all the questions. In fact, we put up special Web sites to answer questions so that when questions are asked publically, or even privately, they go on this Web site and the answers are put forth in very positive, declarative language. This is a key ingredient in leadership and a key ingredient in how we behave.

Whatever we do, we have to eradicate the use of negative language in our responses. It is the source of contention. It is what causes our defensiveness. It is what energizes those who oppose us. The goals of answering questions and being constructive are to suck the energy out of the opposition and critics or, if nothing else, make them give up even more energy because we’re not giving energy to them. So, in the context of the question, the division really comes because it’s there. It’s the culture of the unionized organization. Management’s and the supervisor’s obligation is to deal with it appropriately on a legal basis with respect to the contract, but in terms of communication and leadership to observe these behaviors I talked about in the program and to answer the questions while being positive, sensible, and constructive.

In the program, I think I told the story about the guy called Tiny. This is labor related, which is why I’m talking about it and why it comes to mind. I was working with first line supervises at a utility, teaching them a process of positive communications. This one guy in the back of the room stood up and kind of raised his hand, but he didn’t have to because he was six or seven feet tall. He reached up said, “I have a bone to pick with your strategy.” So I said. “Well, you’re big enough to pick a bone with anybody.” Then I said, “Well, my name is Jim, your name is?” He said, “My name is Tiny. I’m a supervisor here and there are two things that I never tolerate when I talk to my employees.” “What are they, Tiny,” I asked. “I never tolerate tears, and I never tolerate emotion.” Of course, the people laughed at that because they all knew him. I said, “Well, how many people come to you each year for help and assistance, Tiny?” He said, “Not many.”

That’s a part of it. We get focused on some of the issues that affect us personally, but we have to be at 20,000 to 50,000 feet above those personal things all the time. This is the way these people live, and I can vouch for this from my first 20 years at home. If you want to be sucked into that, be sucked into it, but as managers and supervisors our goal is to be above these things, recognize the patterns and emotion, and then operate around those in ways that are sensible.

One of the things I talked about is how you deal with tough, touchy, sensitive, emotional questions. In fact, in the handouts and materials for this program, there was a document called “Answering Tough, Touchy, Sensitive Questions.” I refer to that because it is the process for dealing with the emotions that separates us, and in this case intentionally by this union/management division. For supervisors, one of the things that helps them best is when managers recognize that the first-line supervisor is really the, forgive me, the crappiest job on the planet. This is the person who is like 80 percent employee, 20 percent boss, and suddenly management doesn’t talk to him anymore, while he thinks he’s dedicating himself to helping others. It’s a terrifyingly bad job, and those of you above supervisor or in human resources, need to recognize that the help this person actually needs is answers to the question that are out there, and a place to get the answers in a timely fashion; and to get answers that are constructed in this positive, constructive fashion.

So, implementing my techniques for these organizations is to be relentlessly positive, relentlessly constructive, to refuse to be sucked into these battles by irritated and angry people. Let them be angry, let them be irritated. The vast majority of employees just want to go home at night and have a good day at work. They are the people you are really protecting, and helping overall. If you do the things I’ve talked about and some of these good people who really want to have a decent day at work will talk to the DOVES and say “Hey, chill out. Knock it off. I’m trying to have a decent day here. Leave me alone.”

While this isn’t really our goal, it is something that does happen. What I’m advocating from a management standpoint is our responsibility to extract the emotion of it from the issues. The document I handed out called, “Managing Tough, Touchy, Sensitive Questions,” is the very first step in the process and teaches supervisors to deal with the emotional element first rather than what we often do, which is to talk about everything but the thing that is really bugging the person. I give a couple techniques in there to get that done. They are verbal techniques to use when someone is really angry about something and we can’t seem to get to it. I usually advise that you say, “Look, the way we’re going to get through this is if we talk it through. Let’s talk through what’s bothering you, what’s irritating you, what’s making you angry. It needs to start with you. What’s bugging you?” Or the second part of it would be, “Tell me the most important thing that is bugging you, or the two most important things that are bugging you.” I like to use the small numbers and the phrase “talking it through” because it does tend to be a conversation starter, and as we know in leadership, at a minimum it has to be a two-way process. We have to get that other person to talk, communicate, and somehow relate to what is going on. We can’t generally do it as leaders; we have to find a way to do it. To me one of the most successful ways of doing it is to focus on this person and say, “Let’s just talk it through. Shut the door. Sit down. Talk it through.”

I like to post a lot of things on the company Web site. I’m talking now about a Web site, not an Intranet, but a Web site, because one of the things that reduces contention and reduces anger is the exposure of information, and providing the answers to questions publicly. I do know that this is sometimes an anathema to management, but it settles people down. One of the most interesting comments I get when people internalize and use what I was talking about today, is their surprise at the calming effect these positive responses produce.

Contention exists because disagreement exists, and contention reduction means getting to agreement or getting to some state of equilibrium. The way that’s done is the way I’m talking about. It will never happen if we reply in kind, if we reply in anger, if we wage war. My fundamental philosophy is to wage peace at every opportunity, and to test whatever I’m talking about doing, or writing, or planning to advocate, against this question, “Does it wage peace or does it create critics and enemies?” One of the most important goals in managing contention, which is part of what management is about, is reducing the production of critics and those who are upset. The one thing we know about producing critics is that live forever. They never go away, and you never really know who they all are until something adverse happens and suddenly you get put upon by these people.

A long response to this question, but it is a really good question.

Let me make one other suggestion. When people write or publish things that cause contention or management problems, whether it’s letters, flyers, banners, or newspaper articles, I like to put them on the Web and subject them to a format I call Correction and Clarification. Envision a newsletter in one of your facilities written by someone who’s angry about something.

It’s very simple. I draw a line down the center of the page. I insert the newsletter in the left-hand side of the screen. Then I highlight in color or bold the things I disagree with, or that are irritations, or that I just want to comment on. On the right-hand side of the screen I insert what I call my “Correction, Clarification, and Commentary,” my positive, common sense, constructive comments. Or it might be rebuttal, or a direct recitation of something, but it’s done in this very direct, but positive way.

People love this. What happens is that it again takes the energy out of these angry people who are, after all, disheartened, disgruntled, disoriented, unconvinceables. While you won’t be able to change their minds, your obligation is to use the energy that they generate to make sure that everyone else has the answers to the questions they care about.

Hope this is helpful.

Jim Lukaszewski