According to our recent poll, slacking coworkers cause a quarter of their hard-working colleagues to put in four to six more hours of work each week. Goodwill isn’t the only victim in this situation—productivity, satisfaction, and quality also suffer. In fact, four out of five say the quality of their work declines when they have to pick up their coworkers’ slack—a huge potential blow to the bottom line when you consider that 93 percent have a coworker who doesn’t do his or her fair share. With such a great toll on resources, what do the majority of employees do when faced with slacking coworkers? Unfortunately, not much. The study shows that only 10 percent speak up and hold their underperforming colleagues accountable to their bad behavior. The top five reasons employees list for biting their tongues: 1. They don’t believe what they say will make a difference 2. They don’t want to undermine the working relationship 3. It’s not their place 4. They fear retaliation 5. They don’t know how to approach the conversation Here are five tips for candidly and respectfully holding coworkers accountable for bad behavior: 1. Suspend judgments and get curious. Perhaps your coworker is unaware of the effects of his or her actions. Enter the conversation as a curious friend rather than an angry coworker. 2. Make it safe. Don’t start by diving into the issue. Establish safety by letting your coworker know you respect him or her and reminding him or her of the mutual goals you share. 3. Share facts and describe the gap. Start with the facts of the issue and strip out accusatory, judgmental, and inflammatory language. Then describe the gap between what was expected and what was delivered. 4. Tentatively share concerns. Having laid out the facts, tell your coworker why you’re concerned. Help your coworker see the natural consequences of his or her actions. 5. Invite dialogue. Next, ask if he or she sees the problem differently. If you are open to hearing others’ points of view, they’ll be more open to yours. To view an entertaining video about slacking coworkers and access an online game to test your accountability skills, visit vitalsmarts.com/unaccountables. Related posts: Crucial Applications: How to Talk Politics with Friends—and Still Have Some Left Crucial Applications: Office Haunting—How to Have Scary Conversations at Work Crucial Applications: Overcoming the "Nasty versus Nice" Debate

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, My father is nearing retirement age, and we have strong reason to believe he is in some serious financial trouble. He receives all of his credit card bills electronically (which means my mother doesn’t see them) and he refuses to tell her what the balance is on these cards. We are also aware of two risky "investment" ventures he put on the credit cards that did not pan out. My mom’s debit card was recently rejected for insufficient funds when she tried to purchase groceries, even though their joint salaries are more than enough for them to live comfortably. I am very worried that my father is in a deep financial hole but is too proud to ask for help—or even admit that he needs help. How do I talk to my extremely defensive father about his finances and get him the help he needs? Worried Daughter  Dear Worried Daughter, One of the key principles of Crucial Conversations is to ensure you’re having the right conversation. That means not just that you’re talking about the right thing, but that you’re also talking with the right person. The first conversation you need to have is with your mother. If you are an adult child—unless you are an executor of your parents’ estate—you are not responsible for dealing with your father’s financial mistakes or misbehavior. Your mother is. If he is in financial trouble, she is the one he is affecting, and, therefore, is the one responsible to speak up, set boundaries, and hold him accountable for transparency. In many families, the children get into a pattern of creating what psychologist Martin Seligman calls learned helplessness. They cultivate a family member’s inability to solve their own problems by rescuing them from uncomfortable challenges—like crucial conversations. Let’s face it, none of us relishes crucial conversations of the sort you’re describing. Imagine how ashamed your father might feel when confronted with evidence of his bad judgment or withholding information from your mother. Who would want to have that conversation? What motivates any of us to step up in spite of our discomfort is experiencing the consequences of not having the conversation. When you step between others and their crucial conversations, you separate them from the consequences that would motivate them to develop the strength of character and competence required to build healthy relationships. In other words, we help them learn to be helpless. Your goal should not just be to solve this important problem, but to let it happen in a way that allows your parents to develop a healthier and more honest relationship. If you don’t, you could be part of the problem. I urge you not to talk with your father, but with your mother and your siblings. Refuse to talk with her about problems behind your father’s back. Express your confidence in her ability to address her own problems. Offer to coach her or even practice with her, but avoid having any conversation with her where the intent seems to be to arouse your pity, convince you of her helplessness, or frame the problem as exclusively your father’s. If things are truly bad, they have become so as much through your mother’s passivity as your father’s stubbornness. I know this is a much harder road to take than simply gearing up to talk to your dad. Trust me, I know this from very personal experience. But it’s my honest view of the right road to take. Best wishes,Joseph Related posts: Crucial Applications: Tax Refund Tips to Jump-start Financial Savings Habits Helping a Grieving Brother Helping a Friend Get Help

Estimated reading time:  less than 4 minutes It’s time to banish the myth that you can predict what a user will need on a mobile device. You can’t do it. The closest you can get to predicting the needs of a mobile user is to give them context aware information. Even then you won’t be close most of the time. They need to be able to find what they want on their mobile device, no matter what it is. If it is necessary, it needs to be mobile. If it is not necessary, get rid of it. When developing or designing anything mobile, our assumption needs to be that our audience expects everything, everywhere, anytime. Cut the Fat We don’t throw everything from the desktop onto a mobile device, that isn’t necessary. It means we need to start with mobile. Plan for necessities to go into the mobile version and leave out the rest, from all versions including the desktop version. If it’s not necessary then it doesn’t belong there, or anywhere, get rid of it. The Olden Days When mobile was new, expectations weren’t high, if you could check your flight time from your phone, that was pretty cool. That day is gone, expectations for what can be done on your mobile device are growing every day. The number of people who use their mobile phone as their primary device to access the internet is growing every day. My wife has access to a computer anytime. Her preference, and now primary device, is her mobile phone. It’s becoming my primary device also. I’m sitting at a computer now to write this, but it’s been a while. I get cranky when I have to withhold performing an action for when I’m at a computer, I want to do it wherever I am. Satisfy Your Customer Make your customer’s life easier. Think for a second who your customer is. Do you want them to have to tailor their behavior to your product? Your answer should be no, you want to cater to their needs. Apps are a good solution for things that a user will need on a regular basis, but why make them download an app if they’re performing a once a month activity. A mobile web site is required. Not everybody wants 187 apps like me. They just won’t think to go download an app, and don’t want to even if you throw it in their face. Think of the mobile browser as your primary window to your customer. My wife will visit a web site to look for information. If it’s not mobile friendly, she will suffer the agony, but why make a potential customer suffer? Make it as easy as possible and always look at your user’s experience from a path of least resistance. Don’t make them work for it, and don’t limit their options depending on their device. Making it as easy as possible means never ever, ever, ever trying to predict what your user may need on a mobile device and delivering only that to them. Chances are you’re going to irritate somebody. Deliver the World I no longer expect a different version with watered down features when I’m browsing a web site on my phone. I expect it all and I expect it formatted just for my device, no matter what device I happen to be on. That means when we’re planning a mobile strategy for learning, don’t try to predict what the user will want or need. That doesn’t mean we should throw everything at them. It means we need to plan from the beginning mobile requirements, you might know this as mobile first. In other words, humans first. You are designing something to be accessed by a human, one that’s already overwhelmed and has little time as it is. Don’t add to the stress, deliver the world. By that I mean what’s required, and leave out the rest from ALL devices. If a user might need information, have it available somewhere by search, and always make it work on any device they choose. Sounds Simple Sounds simple enough, but I know better. I keep it in mind every minute and it’s still no easier than when I was first introduced to the concept. We live in an age where we can no longer give the most basic functions to mobile users and full functionality to the desktop. One may never experience the desktop version. Mobile should do everything necessary and that which is not necessary should be cut. Give me this: I want to have the option to do anything from my mobile device, not just the most used stuff. I want to change my preferences, my password, everything via mobile. If I can’t do everything, chances are I’m going to leave disappointed. Don’t leave disappointed customers. You might also enjoy: Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise Mobile Learning in the Enterprise, An Introduction

To help more of our readers with their crucial conversations, confrontations, and behavior change challenges, we recently introduced the Community Q&A column! Please share your answers to this reader’s question in the comments below. Dear Crucial Skills, My husband spends an average of five hours a day playing video games and surfing the internet. I have attempted to confront him about the amount of time he spends on the internet and the effect it is having on our marriage, our children, and on himself. His response to my comments is, "I know I have a problem, but it’s a problem I’m not ready to deal with yet." How can I best address this issue without resorting to divorce or separation? I am tired of trying to "deal with it" until he is ready. A Gamer’s Wife Related posts: Community Q&A: Encouraging Others to Cut Back Community Q&A: Overcoming Cultural Differences with Crucial Conversations Community Q&A: Talking Respectfully to Your Toddler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I lost my job due to a reduction in force and haven’t been able to find another job due to my age. Everyone seems eager to hire me until I show up for the interview and they discover that I am sixty-one years old. How can I prove to potential employers that I have a lot to offer, despite my age? Signed,Overlooked  Dear Overlooked, I have a dear friend who has been going through the same ordeal. It’s not a great time for anyone to be looking for a job. And I know that the repeated feeling of disappointment that comes when one after another hope falls through can lead to awful self-doubt at a time when you need motivation to continue to represent yourself boldly. Before I offer some unconventional advice, let me suggest that you need to know your rights. If you have been overtly discriminated against because you are over forty, there are legal avenues you can pursue. I will not comment on those but suggest you find out what is available to you. The challenge in your situation is not just helping employers know what you have to offer, it’s ensuring you retain a firm view of the value you have to offer as well. If you start doubting yourself, you’ll be more reluctant to stay in the search as well as telegraph your lack of confidence in interviews. First, let’s reframe the problem of a job search. The employer’s central question when searching for a new hire is, "Can I trust you to solve important problems for me?" That’s it. It’s all about trust. Since the only way an employer can truly know if they can trust you to solve their problems is to give you the job, they have to rely on proxies for trust in the hiring process. Giving you and 1,000 candidates the actual job would be too inefficient, so they use proxies—like education, previous job titles, salary levels, and letters of recommendation. They’ll even look for gaps in employment as a way of discerning if you have some hidden issues that made others want to avoid you. As we all know, these are incredibly imperfect proxies. Resumes offer facts and figures that hiring managers hope will reveal truth—but they obscure as much as they reveal. In addition, they aren’t particularly persuasive. Reading that someone worked at Acme, Inc. as a superintendent from 1978-1987 tells me nothing about the kinds of problems I can trust you to solve. So, if you can’t give the employer a direct experience with your ability to solve problems (i.e., by taking the job for a couple of weeks), and the facts and figures approach to building trust is ineffective and fraught with weakness, what can you do? Also, is there anything you can do to retain trust in your own ability to solve important problems so you’ll stay motivated and project confidence during the search? Yes. In fact, I have one suggestion that I believe can help with both. It’s the advice I offered my friend and it seems to be helping—no job yet, but the market is responding much differently. The principle is to stop giving facts and start telling stories. Give potential employers a vicarious experience with you. Throw away the resume or keep it in reserve for when the box-checkers demand that you check their boxes for them. But ensure the experience potential employers have with you engages them in interesting stories about the problems you are uniquely suited to solve. Think about it. If you want to sell a hamburger, you don’t list its ingredients. You show a picture of it. It’s juicy. It’s got a crispy piece of lettuce on it and a dollop of the exact mustard you love. Then you show someone taking a bite of it with eyes drooping in ecstasy. Why do you do this? Because it helps people trust that this hamburger might help them feel the way they want to feel. It’s a vicarious experience—and we trust stories more than we trust facts and figures. We like direct experiences best, but stories are a strong second. My friend (I’ll call him Greg) threw away his resume. He started over by answering the question, "What am I world class at?" He thought about his personal brand. What problems do I want people to feel I can solve for them? He is a world-class HR strategist. He has a way of elevating every conversation he is part of. He brings humor and happiness to a team. And he’s a brilliant teacher and communicator. After clarifying the three or four problems he solves better than most anyone in the world, he designed a document that read like a "movie trailer" rather than a "resume." He created a document that included stories told by others about him that made these points. It includes graphics of logos of companies he solved problems for—sure, as an employee—but the point is not that he worked there—it’s that he solved problems there. He added his own commentary to let them know what he liked about the experiences others told. When you finish this 1,500-word document, you desperately want to meet Greg. Oh, and I didn’t mention, but Greg is sixty-one years old and legally blind. He worries that he gets shrugged off for one or both of these reasons. As he reframed his life story in terms of problems he is brilliant at solving, he found that his age and his disability were natural parts of the unique strengths he ended up describing. He was able to frame his visual impairment, for example, in a story about a complex negotiation and he was able to describe how listening to nuances that led to a breakthrough was a direct result of limited visual distraction. You’ll find that when you prepare your pitch as a story (movie trailer) rather than a eulogy, you’ll rediscover your own special value. You’ll bolster your confidence that you’re representing a product that deserves good representation. You’ll stop letting yourself be a prisoner to HR boxes that make you worry your age is a deficit and make it clear to both yourself and others that this is part of the reason they can trust you to contribute. Good luck telling your story. I hope you find the perfect place to serve and contribute. Warmly,Joseph More from Joseph Grenny on Forbes: Read Joseph’s latest article, "There’s Nothing Like a Financial Crisis to Bring Out The Best In People," to learn about the importance of vulnerability, sacrifice, and integrity during a financial crisis. Related posts: Seeking Accountability Shady Past Seeking a White-Collar Job Seeking an Honest Relationship

Estimated reading time:  less than 2 minutes Search is at the center of learning. What’s the first thing you do when you need to learn something new? Are any of these one of your answer? Look through a list of courses offered on your company LMS. Ask a coworker how to do it. Figure it out on your own. These are a few I thought of, but they’re just the beginning when thinking about how users begin the learning process. One place where the learning process often starts is that big box that runs the way we find most of our information these days. I begin with a quick search to kick off the learning or research process. It’s not always successful in finding information, but I at least figure out where I might need to go next. It’s not only where learning starts, but is useful through the entire learning process. It feels like search is one of the most valuable assets an organization has when it comes to providing routes for employees to learn. If it’s difficult to find what you need because of a lacking search function, you are doing your employees a huge disservice. You have provided them a huge road-block in their journey to providing your enterprise value. A device agnostic approach is vital to give your employees with the power of search from wherever they need to use it. If the information they need to find isn’t turning up in results or is difficult to find, they’re not going to dig therefore you lost them. Nobody is going to go hunting through an LMS for a specific course unless somebody told them about it. Also, nobody wants to search through a dozen different systems. One search should cover all information an employee could want to find. Whether it’s a course, a job aid, a web page, or any other resource, it should be found using one search and be available on any device desired. If it’s not possible to deliver something on any device desired, that should be immediately know before the user wastes time trying to view it. Regardless of the device, a seamless experience from mobile to desktop is what your user deserves. What are some ways you can think of to make your user’s experience even more painless? You might also enjoy: Challenges and Barriers to Mobile Learning in the Enterprise Learning Experience As a User Experience Solutions to Bring Mobile Learning to the Enterprise

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I work as a nurse in the education department of a healthcare institution. I lead unit nurse educators whose role is to maintain the competence and educational skill level of the nursing staff on their units. They sometimes struggle with having a crucial conversation about safety or performance with a colleague who says, "It’s no big deal." How can I teach my nursing staff to hold their "friends" to a high standard without having the friend get defensive or tune them out? Nurse Educator  Dear Educator, Thanks for a great question. The issue you raise is relevant far beyond healthcare. Every organization has groups that are tasked with tracking and supporting best practices. Think of quality and safety departments in manufacturing, or human resources or IT departments in nearly every organization. Here is what happens. Everyone knows that your group owns the issue. In your case, your education department owns competency and skill building. A natural human reaction is to conclude that if you own it, then I don’t. In their minds, you become an enforcer and they act like drivers on the freeway who slow down when they see a cop but then speed again as soon as they’re out of radar range. They don’t take responsibility for their behavior. That’s why you hear them say things like, "It’s no big deal." It has become your issue, not theirs. There is no way that enforcement alone can drive good behavior. Not only does it fail to produce positive change, it makes the enforcers feel ineffective, unwanted, and unappreciated. But there are solutions. I’ll share a few ideas that come from our Influencer approach and have worked with many of our clients. Create an influence plan. Begin by meeting with the unit educators. Describe the problem and get them on board. They can never really succeed as long as they are seen as enforcers. Your team needs to get employees in the units to own the problem. Then they can play a supportive role by coaching, building skills, and getting access to resources. Make sure your team knows how their roles will need to change. Focus on measurable results. Determine a handful of measurable results that you and the units can track. For example, you might focus on infection control, falls, and patient and family experience. Pick the few that will have the greatest impact. If you include too many result areas, units will lose focus. Determine vital behaviors. Vital behaviors are the two to three actions that will drive the results if they are consistently and reliably employed. Some of these behaviors will be unique to the result areas you target. For example, wash in wash out reduces hospital-acquired infections; quick screens reduce falls; and bedside reports improve patient and family experience. Important to your case, a few vital behaviors span nearly every result area. One of these is 200 percent accountability, which means, "I’m 100 percent accountable for my own best practices and I’m also 100 percent accountable for your best practices." Instead of your education team members being the only ones to hold others accountable, everyone on the unit/team will hold everyone else accountable. This is the vital behavior that will fix the problem you describe in your question. But this is a tough behavior to implement. Making it work will require all Six Sources of Influence™. I’ll suggest one idea for each of the Six Sources. Personal Motivation—Create a value frame. Currently, employees in the units/teams are giving you and your nurse educators their compliance, not their commitment. They are focused on the enforcement of the rule, instead of the reasons for the rule. You could even say they are in a moral slumber. They aren’t attending to the very real personal impacts of their actions. For example, let’s say they are taking shortcuts instead of fully gowning up. When one of your staff reminds them, I bet they respond with "no big deal." Your staff needs to make it personal by focusing on the patient, not the rule. For example, "Imagine your daughter was on this unit and you were doing everything possible to keep her safe. Wouldn’t you want people here to gown up to protect her from infections?" Your goal is for employees in the units/teams to see holding each other accountable as watching out for each other. None of them wants to put their patients at risk and yet, we humans are all fallible. Despite our best intentions, we all make slips and errors. Team members need to give permission to (or request) their peers to watch out for them and to speak up when they see them slip. Personal Ability—Use deliberate practice. Team members need to decide how to remind each other. For example, "How would you like to be reminded if I see you forget to wash your hands?" They should compose the phrases they’d like to use to hold each other accountable. For example, "I’ll position the patient while you wash up," or "The dispenser is by the door." Then teams need to practice using these phrases. Talking about holding each other accountable isn’t as powerful as practicing holding each other accountable. A fifteen-minute practice is all it takes to turn good intentions into actual action. Social Motivation—Involve formal and informal leaders. You, as the manager of the education department, will want to meet with the unit managers to get their buy in. They need to understand that making their teams accountable for their own best practices is the best, most efficient way to improve performance. There will be times when someone will object to being held accountable. Maybe it’s a more experienced employee or a high-status professional who doesn’t want to be reminded by a newbie. In these cases, you want to provide easy and immediate support for the newbie. Having the formal leaders (the unit managers) on board is essential, but usually not enough. You’ll also want to reach out to informal leaders (the opinion leaders). Ask the manager, a physician, and a few other opinion leaders to play the champion role. They can explain why the issue (infection control, falls, etc.) is personally important to them. They can also provide that easy and immediate support when it’s needed. Structural Motivation—Reward small gains. This is where it gets fun. Instead of being enforcers, your team members become cheerleaders. Equip them with lots of ways to celebrate the improvements they see as units adopt 200 percent accountability and make progress on their results. You might give them gift certificates to use as recognition or provide funding for a few pizza parties. Structural Ability—Be the bridge to resources. This is another fun part of your new role. Your team members help units identify and bust through obstacles in their environment. For example, a team might complain that they don’t have enough hand-hygiene dispensers or that they aren’t always full and working. Your team takes on these kinds of challenges and gets to bring resources to the units. You are starting in a strong position because you already have nurse educators embedded in the units. The challenge now is to move the enforcement part of their jobs from the nurse educators to the staff members in the unit. Once staff members take responsibility for holding each other accountable, you’ll see rapid improvements in quality of care, safety, patient and family experience, and even staff satisfaction and engagement. David Related posts: How to Influence the Influencers Creating a Culture of Accountability Speaking Up For the Patient

Estimated reading time:  less than 5 minutes I took a much needed mini-vacation this past weekend which somewhat refreshed my mind and body. While I was relaxing, I felt especially receptive to learning and reflecting on information I read. A post I read which resonated with me was a post called alignment requires clarity by Jonathan Kettleborough. I wrote a verbose comment, but still felt I needed to elaborate a bit more, and organize it better. I thought about how I wanted to organize my thoughts a bit better and came up with a story. Not a real story, but one that I visualize in my head for how the direction of an organization is determined. The Fabled Steering Committee Every organization has them in one form or another, how else would a company determine the direction? How would priorities be layer out? A question about the steering committee that continues to eat at me: Is the steering committee effective at disseminating the strategy for the company? Jonathan’s article sparked some thoughts around this. I don’t see the direct work of the steering committee. I’m never completely sure about the direction they determined the organization should go in. Here’s how I see the steering committee: A group of suited up executives head into their closed conference room on the top floor. They work on a different level, separated from everyone else in the organization. Nobody knows what goes on in there, they emerge after several hours with a list of commandments to disseminate. There is now a strategy. The ship has now been steered in the right direction. It’s now time to get the engine room on board to propel the organization forward. The strategy is often disseminated in a top down method. Those that report to the steering committee members get the first hand message. The message then goes down the lines until it reaches the bottom. Here’s what I see happen with the strategy: Rather than the strategy disseminating down through the hierarchy, direct reports make a plan to fulfill the strategy as they see it. A generalized message is shared with everyone else. A message that doesn’t mean much by itself, nor does it have context or meaning to the strategy. In other words, the strategy is kept a secret by vague phrases and a storm of corporate buzzwords. The message is lost at the VP or senior management level, never to be seen by the common employee. Commoners are told what needs to be done to make "it" happen, never mind what the "it" is. I poorly stated in my comment on Jonathan’s post that it’s hard to know exactly what problems to tackle and the direction to point yourself in if the strategy is not available. Unraveling The Hierarchy My story came from an organization that is traditional and hierarchical. Organizations should have, or be moving away from that model. It’s problematic trying to disseminate a message through a hierarchy. The real message always gets lost and often more towards the beginning than the end, so it’s unrecognizable at the end. Jonathan talked about this in his post, "Chinese Whispers" which in my part of the world we call "Telephone." We alter a message slightly as it goes down the line until it’s unrecognizable. I don’t see this as always a problem with those further down the organizational food chain, say in the Learning & Development department. I see it as an organizational problem created by those at the top, the further you go up, the worse it gets. Participation in communicating with regular employees reduces the further up the hierarchy you go. Senior leadership is seen less and less in an enterprise social network as you go higher, but it should be the opposite Working out loud should occur to a greater degree by senior management and those in the C-Suite. Not only would that better disseminate the strategy, it would set an excellent example of how employees should show their work. This practice would rapidly unravel the hierarchy of an organization and put everybody on an even footing. Everyone would be able to move the business forward in a synchronized, agreed upon, effective method. One company working as a web, taking down barriers that stand in its way, meeting all goals set forth by leadership. Learning & Development Needs Alignment Every department needs better alignment to business goals, not just Learning & Development. As with every department, senior leadership must first bring forward better clarity. It’s not a problem with Learning & Development only. It’s an organizational problem for those organizations that subscribe to a hierarchical view. Those at the top are not doing their part in putting themselves on even ground with everyone else. The message is not shared at the start, but rather distributed through a hierarchy of channels that dilutes the original message. How Do You Align? This is an important question to ask yourself for everything you work on. How does it align to the business goals? Sometimes this is a hard question to answer, but it’s important to do your best. It’s most important to align to the business goals first (what good is pushing useless information on  a user if it’s not even important?) It’s also important to align to the user as well.  In fact they are one in the same. If you’re aligning to a user with useless information, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Clarity I urge you to read Jonathan’s post, it’s useful and can put you on a path for better aligning Learning & Development with the business. Business has an important role to disseminate the strategy in a better way to everyone. This will give all employees a better opportunity to align their jobs to the business goal. Employees and leadership have the tools to disseminate information successfully. It’s up to them to use them, from the top of the chain all the way to the bottom, unfiltered and clear. Sorry, no related posts.

This letter was received in response to a question Joseph Grenny answered in the February 29, 2012 Crucial Skills Newsletter titled, "Influencing Unprofessional Dress." Dear Joseph, I am the "CEO" of this company—that is, I am the superintendent of schools of a 5,000-student K-12 district and my challenge was to get the building principals to agree that impressions do matter to our "customers." In public schools, we have a rather unique situation in that one never knows where the parents are on the "dress for success" spectrum. Some (like Joseph and some who responded to his column) do not like ties and suits (very few of us do!) and argued for a relaxed, personal approach to dress. But that doesn’t work when it comes to interacting with parents who are more likely (given that they’re taking the time to actually visit you rather than call or e-mail) to have an issue and are quite possibly mad and ready to draw conclusions of one sort or another. The impression we create for those parents matters, so we have to dress the part. However, my building leaders were often not setting a good example for the teachers in their school, and as a result, the entire building’s level of dress was unacceptable by most peoples’ standards. The occasional spirit day or casual Friday is totally fine and welcome in a school, but this was becoming the norm. So I decided to engage the leaders in a conversation. At our leadership council meetings we first talked about our impressions of the teachers’ dress and then about how we could be role models for them. Addressing the teachers’ dress was a secondary objective—they are unionized and for such "initiatives" we need to get union leadership on board. I decided to first discuss and then decree that leaders start wearing a jacket and tie (or the equivalent for women). Now, school leaders definitely look more professional. I’m not saying they wear three-piece suits, or even a suit, but the norm is now to wear a tie, and that has raised the general level of dress quite appropriately. In fact, I’ve started a conversation with union leadership about teacher dress. We’ll need to define terms such as "business casual" which means different things to different people, but there is consensus that such a term, once better defined, can and will help us get away from the ragged jeans and flip flops. I just cannot help but think how that type of dress harms our profession’s reputation and union leadership agrees, so perhaps we have some mutual purpose and common ground from which to operate when we begin step two of the dress for success campaign in our school district. Thank you once again for the advice and for the ensuing comments from your readers. Very helpful to me indeed! Editor’s Note: If you would like to share similar feedback about how the authors’ advice has helped you, please e-mail us at editor@vitalsmarts.com. Related posts: Influencing Unprofessional Dress Influencing the Education System What Happened: Time to Let People Go

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I have a beautiful, talented twenty-four-year-old daughter who is fifty pounds overweight. She is currently in graduate school and has not been in the job market for the last two years. I worry about her health, and the bias she will face seeking a job as an overweight individual, and I ache for her lack of a social life. I have been trying to serve healthy meals and discuss healthy eating at the dinner table, but I have stopped short of a direct crucial conversation with her. Now, she no longer goes on short walks and is doing even less physical activity than before. How can I open dialogue with my daughter about weight management? Worried Mother  Dear Worried, Crucial conversations with our closest loved ones can be the toughest and most rewarding conversations of our lives. They are challenging because you’re conflicted. You care deeply about your relationship and you worry that speaking up could threaten it. At the same time, you care deeply about your daughter’s health and happiness, so saying nothing isn’t an option. So, how do you speak up in a way that helps your daughter without undermining your relationship? Find Mutual Purpose. You are clearly concerned about her weight, and you’ve identified several potential consequences: health, bias, social life, and physical activity. You’ve also noted that weight is a touchy, unsafe topic for your daughter. I suggest you begin with the safest common ground, the one she is least likely to see as meddling—your fundamental concern for her health. I wouldn’t introduce the issues related to potential bias or her social life. And I would let her steer the discussion to weight. Help your daughter find her own motivation. Do your best to avoid giving advice, making suggestions, or lecturing. Instead, help your daughter explore her situation and decide for herself what she really wants. Begin with a contrasting statement. A contrasting statement is a "don’t/do" statement that is designed to fix misunderstandings. You can already anticipate that your daughter is likely to misunderstand your intent. She may think you intend to tell her how to live her life. Fix this misunderstanding before it has a chance to grow. The "don’t" statement explains what you don’t intend. It anticipates and addresses your daughter’s concerns: "I’d like to hear your point of view on a sensitive topic. I don’t want to intrude on your personal life or tell you what to do." The "do" statement explains what you do intend: "I just want to hear your perspective. I’ll respect your choices." Encourage your daughter to explore both sides of the issue. "Please tell me how you see your health—what’s working for you, and what’s not." Then stop talking and let your daughter respond. Don’t push your perspective. A mistake we often make is to state our position in a way that forces the other person to take the other side. Here’s an example of what that would sound like. Parent: "If you don’t begin exercising and eating right, it could have long-term impacts on your health and happiness." Daughter: "Not necessarily. I’m happy the way I am. Besides, with my school schedule, I don’t have time to cook food and go to the gym." You have advocated for one side and forced your daughter to advocate for the other side. And guess who’s going to win this argument? Focus on Mutual Purpose. Listen for what is working, rather than for what is not. Your daughter is likely to focus on the challenges that prevent her from living a healthy lifestyle. A good response from you would be, "Are you saying that you’re motivated to work on your health, but you’re struggling with how to do it?" If your daughter says she is motivated but unable, then you can offer your support and she might accept it. Know your limits and be willing to step back. There is a good chance your daughter won’t want to have this discussion with you. Even if she is concerned about her health, she might not want you to be involved. If that is the case, then I think you will be more successful if you respect her decision and back off. To you, this might feel like rejection when you are only trying to help, but please don’t take it that way. Even when your daughter shuts down the conversation, she is listening. Back off, give her some space, and allow her to think about her situation. Earn her trust by respecting her limits, and she might invite you to help her when she is ready. Other suggestions. Are there ways you can improve your own health behaviors? For example, are you eating fruits and vegetables, watching your weight, and getting plenty of exercise? Be a modest model. Don’t talk about it, but change your own behavior. Trust that your daughter will take notice. Change your home to make healthy eating and activities easier and more convenient. Keep fruit and vegetables visible, and make them appealing. Stop buying fatty, salty, and sugary foods. Consider replacing your plates with smaller ones and moving your TV to a less comfortable area. Introduce new, fun, muscle-powered toys. As you prepare for this crucial conversation, please remember that all the research confirms that parents are the most influential people in their children’s lives. You can have a real and positive impact in your daughter’s life. Take the chance and make a difference. Best wishes, David Related posts: Confronting a Child’s Drug Abuse Addressing Your Child’s Teacher Crucial Conversations for Kids