Among the long list of demanding responsibilities facing frontline leaders, initiating difficult conversations with staff often is among the most dreaded. It’s also one of the most important skills to develop. In our last blog, we emphasized why developing the will and skills to have these difficult conversations is so critical for leaders. Today, we share eight key steps to make tough discussions a little easier – and a lot more effective. 1. Start with a clear, results-focused purpose for the conversation. Too often, we think about and approach all challenging conversations like our most dreaded scenario: having to fire someone or eliminate their job. The problem is that those encounters usually are not conversations. Rather, they are structured to deliver bad news in the

Among the many challenges facing leaders, hard, uncomfortable conversations with staff, peers, and even bosses are among the most dreaded and often avoided leadership practices. Leaders usually admit that they could be better at having what many call “crucial conversations,” because of the title of the 2002 best-selling book. But in spite of the popularity of the book and recognition that these types of conversations are indeed crucial, we still see significant quantitative and qualitative opportunities in most organizations: direct, honest, difficult conversations should be happening more frequently. And leaders could be better at how they approach them. Are there risks in having these conversations? Sure. But we often ignore the arguably bigger risk of not having them. Following are three of the most significant

When organizations think about improving communication, they often start with grand plans to revamp intranet sites, introduce new digital/print publications, or expand social media strategies. But when you consider that employees’ preferred source of communication is their direct supervisor, doesn’t it make sense to start small and local? A simple yet powerful way to translate broader communication goals into practice is through team huddles. Regular team huddles help staff members support one another, stay connected to immediate priorities, and problem-solve issues real-time. But they only work when they are structured in a way that accomplishes these specific goals. Stronger communication starts with smarter huddles; following are eight straightforward principles to help make huddles truly beneficial to frontline staff. Form and frequency follow function When you

Let’s face it; personal new year’s resolutions are easily professed … and just as easily abandoned. Our ambitions to lose weight or save more money are well intentioned, but a real plan to get there is either nonexistent or poorly executed. If you’re in a leadership role in your company, why not consider a different type of personal resolution: becoming a better boss. Contemporary performance improvement philosophy has taught us that a defining characteristic of great organizations is that they are always working to get better. The same is true of great bosses. They are always looking for ways to better support the employees who work for them. The start of a new year is an ideal time to redouble efforts to be a better

Has there ever been a single management practice that has promised to solve more problems than rounding? Especially in the realm of patient and employee experience, leadership teams often turn to various interpretations of rounding as the silver bullet to turn around lagging staff engagement or CAHPS scores. More often than not, they are disappointed. So, is leadership rounding an ineffective strategy? Hardly. But like so many management principles, the magic is in the why and how we implement the practice. Rounding has been tagged with many different monikers, including LEAN’s “Gemba walk” and Hewlett & Packard’s “management by walking around.” But more important than what we call the practice, all successful leadership rounding approaches have one thing in common: they are about making real

Should you become friends with your boss? It’s a question both employees and leaders ask themselves. One of the first pieces of advice I remember receiving when I became a supervisor was, “Your goal should not be to become their friend.” While that’s sound advice that is well documented in leadership theory, the issue arises when bosses take the I’m-not-their-friend philosophy too far and assume that it isn’t a problem when employees consider them the enemy. This post is the third in a series featuring excerpts from Burl Stamp’s upcoming new book, Becoming a Better Boss, which is scheduled to be published next year. This entry is from the chapter titled “The Better Boss Mindset.” I experienced first-hand how this exaggerated, warped view of leadership

No one argues that the stress you carry when you are in charge can be daunting, and it usually only gets more intense as you rise through the leadership ranks of an organization. In addition to the inherent pressures of the job itself, senior leaders carry a sense of personal responsibility with them 24/7 in ways that often feel like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. This post is the second in a series featuring excerpts from Burl Stamp’s upcoming new book, Becoming a Better Boss, which is scheduled to be published early next year. This entry is from the chapter titled “The Better Boss Mindset.” So, given the pressures and responsibilities that come with leadership, executives must do the most important

How often have you heard an old-school boss say (or at least think), “Hey, they should consider themselves lucky to have a job.” Our next few blog posts will feature excerpts from Burl Stamp’s upcoming new book, Becoming a Better Boss, which is scheduled to be published early next year. This entry is from the chapter titled “The Better Boss Mindset.” This mindset probably traces some of its roots all the way back to the Great Depression, when individuals did indeed feel lucky to have any job at all. I still remember spending time as a kid with my grandparents who spent a good part of their early working life during the Depression. That frightening, discouraging time influenced the way they thought about life and

Another meeting. (Sigh.) In our work with healthcare teams, there are few shared beliefs that are more widely held than, “We have too many meetings!” And healthcare isn’t alone. When you search “meetings” in the Harvard Business Review archive, 381 magazine articles, 1,016 digital articles, and 4,071 case studies show up. Clearly, we know there’s a problem. So, why have most organizations made so little progress in crafting solutions? It’s likely because the core issue is complex and requires meaningful change. When companies jump to the conclusion that “too many” is the only problem with meetings, predictable solutions emerge. Believing that reducing supply will reduce demand, organizations try implementing every imaginable version of “No Meeting Zones,” from blocking one-hour-a-day, to one-day-a-week, to flexible versions that

“I’m not cancelling my gym session to attend your pre-work meeting.”    Not surprisingly, this recent LinkedIn post from Stephanie Brown of Creative Career Lab was met with polarizing responses. Feedback ranged from “Couldn’t agree more!” and “Love this!” to “Nope!” and “Balance doesn’t mean selfishness and inflexibility.”  The desire for a healthy work-life balance has become one of the rallying cries for younger generations.  And while this has been met to some degree with headshaking and questioning of work ethics and laziness, the truth is, something needed to change.   Due to their intrinsic interconnection, the ability to achieve a true “harmonious equilibrium” may be a misconception, as highlighted in a recent Forbes article.1   However, a shift in the way organizational culture supports overall employee well-being