Leadership Fundamentals

What Your Body Language Says About Your Collaborative Skills

A good team is built on trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. Is your body language giving mixed messages about your commitment to those values?

Here are some of the most common negative body language signs which tend to erode work relationships and create a breakdown in communications:

• At meetings, you’re usually the last person to arrive. You tend to doodle when you’re bored or uninterested in the topic — you’re not participating
• When meeting with an employee, your eyes keep checking your watch
• When someone comes to your office to discuss issues or ideas, instead of letting voice mail messaging take over, you interrupt the discussion and take every phone call
• You’re abrupt and avoid eye contact when you don’t want to consider someone’s ideas. It says you are disinterested.
• You look impatient when a co-worker “drops by” unexpectedly. Yet some great plans and projects have been generated by just such office chat. Most people function at peak levels when the atmosphere is warm and sociable.
• Crossed arms indicates a defensive posture

Be More Effective by Applying the RIGHT body language:

• Arrive as promptly as possible at meetings. Take notes  so you can follow up on tasks and projects. Ask for clarification on comments
• Respect co-workers’ time as well as your own. If you’re meeting a deadline or otherwise tied up, show your willingness to set a time later that day or the next. Get the point across that you really want to meet once you’ve gotten your tasks done. Then give your complete attention during that meeting.
• Make constant eye contact. Be open and involved. If you have a time limit [maybe another meeting coming up], state it up front:”It’s 10:00 now. I have a meeting at 11:00 — if we need more time than that, we can continue at x:xx or we can meet tomorrow when I’m free and hopefully so are you.”

That about sums it up: Use body language to express trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. Read more about the importance of body language in Carol Kinsey Goman’s book.  (Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is an executive coach and international keynote speaker and seminar leader for corporations, associations and government agencies.)

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To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Lao Tzu, 4th Century Chinese Philosopher
Tao – The Way – Special Edition

One of the things managers frequently do is assume that because they are managers, they have all the answers. Frequently, they don’t. Even sadder is that they assume they do, based on the single fact that they are managers. Yet, it should be apparent that those who have the most critical information about a process are the very people who go through the process daily and bump their heads against its inadequacies. Why on earth would you want to change or replace a process if you don’t know why it should be changed in the first place? How would you know that the process that is replacing the original is not worse?

Getting the right information at the beginning of the project, before it is set in stone — especially if it has been outsourced and contracted for with a set of specifications — would seem to be extremely critical if the project is not going to incur cost overrun. Additionally, you can bet the project will probably be late, as review of its functionality [finally!] by those who are going to use the process reveals an alarming inadequacy.

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Americana Diner exterior

Sunday, April 18, 2010, I had Brunch with 6 other great ladies I used to work with. We laughed, we shared stories and told each other what’s going on in our lives [all but 2 people at the table had been laid off from our company]. It was great to catch up with them, to find out how resourceful they are, to hear their plans for the future. It is obvious that all of us had singled out other things that interested us and took us off in other directions from our former corporate life. They were some of the most talented and interesting associates I’ve known in my life. One of them is looking to take over a business as a floral arranger. Another is enjoying the time off to spend time with her new grandchild. One is doing freelance work. I, of course, decided to pursue writing/blogging on the internet.

It was unfortunate that the diner we picked — the Americana Diner in East Windsor, NJ — was incredibly noisy on a late Sunday morning, making it difficult to hear everyone. However, although the coffee was bitter and stale, the food was absolutely great and the surroundings pleasant. A few of us ordered a B.T.O. Omelet — that’s Basil, Tomato, and onions. It was light and fluffy and abundant. One of us ordered Crispy Crunch French Toast, which is rolled in Rice Crispies before frying. The maple syrup smelled heavenly.

The time just flew by, as we reminisced over past get-togethers, funny occurrences from work, and plans for future luncheons. These connections are so important – for mental health as well as an exchange of ideas, and just to find out what’s going on outside yourself. At least 3 of us in the group have been together for lunch half a dozen times in the past year. We all plan to meet again just after Memorial Day.

I would advise everyone to keep up the ties to former associates for a number of reasons.

• Your own mental health and sense of belonging to a group
• A spectrum of ideas about where to go from where you are to a new beginning. Don’t give up! Consider this an opportunity to change your life for the better.
• An insight into how others are dealing with the same type of situation you are in.

Americana Diner Seating

To my delight, when I arrived home, I found that about.com has published an article about my blog, with facts I had given them about my blog beginnings. To a blogger, it’s a win-win situation when a large and well-known website puts your link on their pages. And so, I guess I would have to say that Sunday was a great day for me all around.

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“Inclusion is a sense of belonging: feeling respected, valued for who you are; feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from others so than you can do your best work.”

– Miller, Frederick A. and Katz, Judith H. 2002. The Inclusion Breakthrough: Unleashing the Real Power of Diversity. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

In today’s world, accepting and adapting to change is one of the most important abilities any employee, manager, or team can adopt. A company that stagnates is not a company that will survive in today’s changing world. Yet change is often uncomfortable and threatening, and while some personalities thrive on change, others are intimidated or even annoyed by it. These negative feelings are heightened when the project leaders are not inclusive with the team who will be affected and who, surprisingly, may more closely understand the issues involved and the testing, requirements, and timing needed to avoid breaking the production cycle while these changes happen.

So what can we do as managers/leaders to encourage employees to buy into change? The following are key approaches to getting their trust and engagement:

• Bring them into discussions on the anticipated changes as early in the process as you can, and ask for their input
• Show them how the change will benefit them in their daily workday. If they reply that it will not, ask them why not. Request specifics. If the team doesn’t see clear benefits from completing the project, they won’t buy into it.
• What about the organization? Will the change bring about substantial improvement in the company’s market standing? Will it result in more customer satisfaction? Have you asked a select group of your customers whether this change would be agreeable or even desirable? What is it’s purpose and it’s goals, and can they be achieved, based on the resources available?
• Ask your team to contribute their ideas, questions, or arguments for or against the changes. Be open to their suggestions. Be prepared to really examine if their perspective is something that should be seriously weighed. Have you overlooked something? Don’t let ego stand in the way of rejecting weak or unsustainable projects.

As with so many workplace issues, communication is the key here. There are many types of changes that can happen as a result of long-term strategies, all of which have the possibility of overwhelming the team. When that happens, your team is not functioning at full capacity, because their stress levels are accelerated, and they are unclear about what their future day to day work lives will look like.

Open communication will contribute to the success of a project because the team is encouraged to contribute their ideas and solutions.

Be careful about your timelines, though. If a project that should take 6 months or less drags on for 2 years, something is drastically wrong with the way it is being run. Once the feeling of project failure starts creeping in, it’s too late to rally an enthusiastic team. By now they’re exhausted by missed deadlines, unmet requirements, and the feeling of being on a sinking ship.

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From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary:
1 capitalized : a friend of Odysseus entrusted with the education of Odysseus’ son Telemachus
2 a : a trusted counselor or guide b : tutor, coach

Mary the Mentor and the Horn and Hardart Automat.

Everyone should be lucky enough to have a mentor at work. Someone who shows you the “ropes”, introduces you to associates, tells you the best places to eat and the ones to avoid. In short, someone you can always rely on to give you the truth and to give you a hand.

I remember my first mentor so vividly. Her name was Mary.  She was at least 2 decades older than me, not unusual for me, because during my whole life/career, I realized that those I could learn the most from were the ones who had already made the uphill struggles, my older associates. Here I am, after 46 years of working life, and I still remember Mary. Why the long-lasting memory? Mary had no axe to grind, no office political agenda. She had a strong sense of order and wanted things to go well, including friendships. I wasn’t working there long — only a few months — when Mary urged me to apply for another position in the company — one that I had to be bonded for.

I had started as a file clerk – my first office job. Mary worked in another department — the room reserved for those trusted and respected employees who  would handle cash, checks, and other valuables on a daily basis. It was a non-profit organization which sold rosary beads, small statues, and other religious items. I did get bonded and was hired to work in the room where thousands of envelopes arrived every day — donations and purchases, and sometimes bequeathals.

Mary taught me how to dress like a professional on a small salary, by buying in consignment shops such as 2nd Hand Rose. She introduced me to the Horn and Hardart cafeteria, where I could get a good lunch for very little money, and in very pleasant surroundings. She was a lifeline for me, giving me a connection to my workplace that never would have been as strong without her. May you all be as lucky as I was to have such a mentor. All my life, I attempted to emulate her and to pass it on to others.

Writing this made me wonder if there were pictures around of that historic automat and sure enough, there are. I’ve got to get this book. As an Amazon Affiliate, I suggest the following nostalgic history of Horn and Hardart:

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