BMTFed Newsletter – No. 33
www.bmtfed.com
June 2013
BMTFedNewsletter
Behavioural Management Techniques (BMT) is a blend of applied behavioural science tools and project management skills. BMT is used to improve business and safety performance.
Check out our blog at – www.reachingresults.com/blog
When Being Right May Be Wrong
Photographs by Kirstie Edwards, taken at the BMT for Leaders conference, May 2013
By Lisa Kazbour
Sometimes what you want to say isn’t the best thing to say. We all have the urge to say things that would feel good to us in
conversations, especially when we are coaching or giving advice & feedback. We all want to be right. We enjoy being right. It
feels so good to be right. But is it the best thing to do?
In pointing out our “right-ness” we are also, in turn, pointing out someone else’s “wrong-ness”. By indicating to someone that
they are wrong, their very natural, immediate reaction is to be defensive and/or embarrassed. The result of someone feeling
insulted and embarrassed? They shut down, stop trusting your advice, and definitely stop listening to what you’re trying to
say. This kind of interaction can ruin a relationship quickly – business or personal.
My advice? Try to approach every conversation you have with a goal in mind – what do you want to achieve as a result of this
discussion? After having a goal, you can make sure that everything you’re saying within the conversation will help you to get to
that goal. If it’s not going to help, it’s not worth saying – even if it would “feel” good to say. If your goal is to offer advice, coaching, or support, pointing out how right you are (even though it feels oh-so-great) probably
isn’t a good move. In fact, it will probably mean that the person you’re trying to give advice to won’t be listening at all.
Good Fences Make Good Neighbours
By Lynn Dunlop
I heard the phrase ‘good fences make good neighbours’ for the first time recently. I was confused by the context, as it
had been quoted to demonstrate that if you don’t speak to your neighbour (work colleague, family member etc), the
relationship will suffer accordingly. “That seems wrong”, I thought. “Surely, the phrase implies that if you have appropriate
boundaries between yourself and others, your relationship will be better.”
The line turned out to be a quote from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Mending Wall’. The narrator of the poem has approached his
neighbour, as he does every year, to repair the wall between their properties. The narrator cannot see why there needs to
be a wall if there is no wandering livestock to worry about. Whilst they are carrying out the repairs, he tries to persuade his
neighbour that they don’t need the wall, but the neighbour stubbornly repeats that “good fences make good neighbours”.
I eventually realised, though, that it was the narrator who approached his neighbour when he could have simply left the
wall to crumble, or waited until the neighbour came to see him. In fact, it was the act of working together every year to
repair the wall that made them good neighbours.
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© Copyright 2013 Hollin Consulting Ltd
BMTFed Newsletter – No. 33
www.bmtfed.com
June 2013
BMTFedNewsletter
Behavioural Management Techniques (BMT) is a blend of applied behavioural science tools and project management skills. BMT is used to improve business and safety performance.
Check out our blog at – www.reachingresults.com/blog
Like us on Facebook
The Here and Now
Join the BMT Fed on Linkedin
Money Well Spent?
By Howard Lees
By Richard Kazbour
A lot of leaders are stuck in the here and now of ‘corporate’
and ‘client’ demands on their time. They are not taking care
of the major part of their job at all, i.e. the pastoral care of
the people below them in their organisation. It is shocking
the things some people are getting up to. For example, last
week I had two meetings cancelled on me, one 10 minutes
and the other 20 minutes before they were due to start. This hasn’t happened to me for about twenty years. These
leaders are not stupid or malicious people, they are just
consumed with the day to day of the here and now. They
start thinking about what’s next when their smart phone tells
them what’s next. One day I will remind them of what they
did and they will be penitent – after all, they did not intend
to cause offense. They are just caught up in the moments
of excitement and are disorganised. Of course, this leads to
much uncertainty for the rest of us. According to the American Society for Training and
Development, organizations in the United States spent a
combined $134.7 billion on training and development in
2008. At a cost of $1,000 and 36 hours spent on training per
employee per year, the impact is substantial. Assuming the
content itself is worthy of the time and money, what about
the likelihood that people will use the training? Research
shows that, on average, employees only use between 5-20%
of the training they receive. It led me to muse… What if someone went for an interview
and described themselves to the interview panel using an
accurate description of what they get up to, day to day,
right now? It would go like this – “Well, I get about 200
emails a day, I answer the ones to the people above me in
the company, delete the rest. I listen to my voicemails and
respond to the people above me or clients. I regularly cancel
appointments but I get my PA to do it for me. I am really bad
at getting to meetings on time, but at least when I do get to
the meetings I can check my blackberry. My people love me,
although I always have to cancel on them, especially one to
one’s. I promise all kinds of things to people, but I have no
recollection if I deliver on them. I am great at fire-fighting
and I get irritable and shout at people, but it’s only because
I am passionate about the business… Have I got the job?”
Organizations are successful when their leaders understand
behavior and are constantly scanning for opportunities to
coach others; more of an “in house” training if you will. The
catalyst to behavior change isn’t a 4 hour workshop (no
matter how many
acronyms,
pillars,
glossy postcards or
copyrighted material
you get to take
home). The catalyst
to successful training
runs through great
leadership.
Google dictionary defines training as ‘the action of teaching a
person a particular skill or type of behavior’. Thus, successful
training means behavior change is happening. At an average
of 5%-20% occurrence in organizations, it’s not happening
enough. Your leaders are responsible for the day to day
actions and behaviors of the people in your organization.
Save the Date:
BMT for Leadership, Chicago IL
September 11th & 12th, 2013
Early Bird Tickets On Sale Now!
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© Copyright 2013 Hollin Consulting Ltd