Workplace

By John Bourke

BThis is Part II in our series on Crucial Confrontations in action. In review, the Crucial Confrontation model offers a linear process for holding someone accountable for a high stakes accountability in which there is a failed expectation, broken promise or bad behavior. In the last issue we focused our attention on the skills for selecting the right issue to confront and the associated cost of not holding the confrontation well (or at all). Remember, you are probably stepping up to the wrong confrontation or not managing it well if you find yourself:

• constantly discussing the same issue
• getting increasingly upset
• consistently not getting what you really want

When choosing your battles ask yourself: “Am I acting out my frustrations?” “Is my conscience bothering me?” “Am I choosing the certainty of silence over the risks of speaking up?” “Am I telling myself that I am helpless?” “Am I living with costly consequences that sap performance or motivation?” If you answered yes to these prompts, you should prepare well and conduct the crucial confrontation.

Part II - Making it Motivating
As the Crucial Confrontation shifts into high gear our job becomes one of participant and coach. As we monitor and manage the safety of the conversation our next goal is to respectfully diagnose the potential motivation and/or ability issues that stand in the way of accountability and performance.

The Fundamental Attribution Error
One curious and derailing tendency that consistently sabotages high stakes confrontations is our tendency to jump to a single- source diagnosis of the problem that absolves us from responsibility and casts the other person as the villain. This phenomenon of assuming that people are doing what they are doing solely because of personality factors (attributing it primarily to personal motivation) is known as the “fundamental attribution error.” Psychologists classify this as an error when it biases the individual from considering a more complete spectrum of contributing motivational or ability issues. It is labeled as fundamental because it happens so consistently in typical human interactions.

In the world of Facilities Management and Food Service Management the business-to-business relationships between clients, contractors and the myriad of vendors and suppliers is prime turf for such diagnosis errors. You can imagine how enticing it would be, in the face of diminishing ROI’s (return on investment) for each entity to engage in finger pointing versus holistic problem-solving.

How to motivate?
How do we address a violated expectation and make it motivating for others to take action in a way that adds to the vitality of the relationship? Let’s use an example to teach the process. Clyde, your kitchen manager, is not meeting one of his key performance measures around using new POS software in managing operational costs. You decide to bring it up. You admire Clyde and hence have no reason to assume dastardly motives. You describe the gap between what you both agreed on versus what has actually transpired. You do an effective job. Clyde responds.

How Clyde responds will determine your next steps. Will Clyde surface motivational issues, ability issues or some combination of the two? Your job is to facilitate the correct diagnosis to surface and resolve all underlying causes. Clyde responds:

“What’s the big fuss? I’ve never had to interrupt my work to document every transaction into some lame POS system!”

Here’s the promise:
Although not easy, if you follow these steps you will succeed! Keep in mind that motivation is less about power, charisma and charm and more about clarity, expectations and accountability.

A word about motivation:
People are motivated when they have crystal clarity around the consequences of their actions. Every decision we make carries with it a “consequence bundle.” When motivating others our job is to shine light on the unexplored natural consequences that may be creating short-term gains at the risk of inducing long-term pain.

There is nothing more motivating than the forces of Mother Nature. When we too quickly or single-mindedly depend upon perks and power (imposed consequences) as the motivational driver we run the risk of interfering with the more formidable influence of natural consequences. Organizational psychologists have long preached that extrinsic rewards often kill intrinsic satisfaction. For example, when we buy employees lunch to encourage them to attend an important meeting without focusing on making the “missed learning” the motivator, we teach people to focus on the menu versus the message.

The Solution:
By revealing the natural consequences of choices and actions with our accountability partners we gain leverage in changing their hearts by changing their minds.

The left-side (Motivation – Cells 1, 3 & 5) of the Crucial Confrontations Six Source Model captures the essence of motivational theory by focusing our attention on the three domains of influence: Self, Others and Things. (We will explore the right side of the model [Ability] in our next issue.)

Cell 1: Personal – Feel pleasure and congruence?
This source of influence explores the realm of individual motivation. We look to see how the violated expectation, broken promise or bad behavior connects with the person’s sense of themselves.

“Clyde, when you agree to utilize the new POS software to help us keep an accurate and timely pulse of our overhead and then don’t – calling it “lame” it makes it hard for me to count on you. That’s a hard reputation to shake. What am I missing here?”

Cell 3: Social – What is the impact of/on others?
This source explores how the individual may be unduly influenced by others in a way that competes with the promise or expected behavior. It goes further to assess the chain of impact that the violated expectation may induce on other stakeholders.

“Clyde, when you said that the POS system is lame, are you getting pressured to focus on other ‘more important’ things to the exclusion of consistently using our new system? Also, when you don’t utilize the system the accounting department gets on my case and that’s not the best use of my time. What am I missing here?”

Cell 5: Structural – What things reward?
This source examines the spectrum of systemic incentives that motivate through reward or punishment (carrots and sticks). Are there incentives or imposed consequences that are aimed at the wrong targets?

“Clyde, I understand that you’re willing to try the new POS software and that with some help from IT it can be made to be more user friendly. I still wonder if during our busy season you are likely to allow the pressures of the schedule and other competing demands to win out over using our new system consistently. What do you think?”

In summation, when attempting to make it motivating for others to perform we partner with them in dialogue to help to make the invisible visible by:

• connecting decisions and consequences to their most deeply held core values (Cell 1)
• connecting short-term benefits with long-term pain (Cell 1 and 5)
• placing focus on the long-term benefits (Cell 1, 3 and 5)
• introducing hidden victims (Cell 3)
• holding up a mirror to reveal what their actions look like to others (Cell 1 and 3)

Next issue we will explore the other side of our Six Source Model – the ability side of the performance equation: Making it easy to follow-through on commitments. Tune in next time if you want to learn how to make keeping commitments almost painless!

John Bourke is founder and President of Bourke & Associates, a Dallas-based consulting and training company. In the past decade, Bourke & Associates has helped hundreds of organizations, including many of the Fortune 500; realize quick, hard-hitting results and sustainable competitive advantage. John is adviser and strategist to such influential figures as Bono (named a 2006 'Person of the Year' by www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/ 0,9171,1142278,00.html" Time Magazine) focusing his work on the Millennium Challenge to eradicate poverty and AIDS in Africa. He also designed and facilitated the country’s first community forum for www.americaspromise.org Colin Powell’s America's Promise from the Presidents' Summit for America's Future. John has designed and delivered major organizational improvement and strategic planning initiatives for IAAM World headquarters, Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, Allen County War Memorial Coliseum and corporations wanting to distinguish themselves as “best-in-class”. He has authored numerous articles in the areas of personal, executive, and organizational effectiveness, and is a Master Trainer for Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high and Crucial Confrontations: Tools for resolving broken promises, violated expectations and bad behavior. john@bourkeassociates.com.