Use the “Frustration Technique” to Help Employees Understand Change

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

One factor that regularly gets in the way of successful change initiatives is when organizations fail to provide employees with any real reason as to “why” a change is happening in the first place. This is especially prevalent in companies operating from a top-down organizational structure, and it can result in employees that catastrophize the message of change they hear, jumping to conclusions and making irrational interpretations about the impact the change will have on them.

When it comes to communicating the “why” of change, we need to create a deep sense of understanding so everyone involved is clear on: “why the status quo is no longer acceptable and we have no choice but to leave it behind.” This means not only do we need to give our people a legitimate reason why the change is happening, we also need to clearly communicate that we didn’t just come up with this change initiative because we didn’t have anything better to do. And especially if the organization has a history of stalled or abandoned change efforts, we have to let employees know that this time it’s not some “new flavor of the month” syndrome; that there is a good reason for this change and that it absolutely is going to happen.

To further add to the challenge, grasping the “why” is the hardest part of change. The good news is that it’s a message you can get employees to help self-deliver, which is a big plus because people tend to react better to ideas they come up with on their own versus ideas that are forced on them. That’s why we teach the “Frustration Technique” that gets people to set their own platform on fire and create their own sense of why there is no other choice but to make the leap to change.

Here’s how the “Frustration Technique” works

Before you pitch a change, start asking people, “Hey, is there anything frustrating you about where we’re at right now? They might answer, “Well, the process takes too long. It’s sort of irritating. And these things are getting in my way.” And the minute that light bulb comes on, you are in a much better position to turn around and say, “You know what, that’s wonderful insight. Based on that let me throw something out to you. This is a change, a solution to the ideas you just came up with.”

The Frustration Technique works because it highly eliminates the nostalgia that can set in when employees hear the announcement “We’re leaving this safe place you already know, and going someplace new.” Once you’ve pitched where you’re going, and you’ve said, “Folks, here it is. We’re going over here and we’re leaving that. Forget about it. It’s never coming back” people start to eulogize the past. They’ll say, “Do you remember back when? Remember before we had computers how great it used to be? How easy life was? We didn’t have these systems that were always crashing and it wasn’t so complicated?” Even if they didn’t like the paper systems, even if it took too long and was painful and arduous, the minute you insist that folks leave it, they turn back around and eulogize the “good old days” or “the way it used to be.” Once that happens it is very difficult to undo. So, if you can, catch it before it even starts.

Change is always going to be hard, but with techniques like this that invite employees to take an active role in finding their own acceptance and willingness to embrace the change, it gets much easier.

For more tips on managing change, join us for our webinar “Change Management that Lasts“.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.

Motivate Employees at Review Time by Asking “What Are Your Proudest Moments?”

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Employee performance reviews are notoriously painful, but they don’t have to be. Reviews can actually be useful, productive, meaningful conversations that do what they’re intended to do: improve employee performance. Some of the changes leaders need to make to have more effective reviews are pretty easy, like knowing which to talk about first: performance, goals or money. (It’s money). Another key tip is to start every review by asking “What are your proudest moments?”

Some of you may be wondering: how does asking for their proudest moments differ from a self-appraisal? When you ask for a self-appraisal you ask for the proudest moments, but you also ask for the biggest failures. And while it might not be a bad thing for your low performers to have to bring you an honest evaluation of their biggest failures, it’s actually quite harmful to your top performers.

Psychological dynamic different for high and low performers

There’s a different psychological dynamic that happens when high and low performers experience failure. Low performers might not know about the failure, they might not care, or they may have even intended for the failure to happen. High performers, on the other hand, have a high degree of critical self-awareness. This is wonderful, because most of the time these valuable employees already know they messed up—even before you tell them. And they get right to work on fixing the problem and making self-corrections so they never mess up like that again. However, most high performers are also prone to beating themselves up pretty hard when they mess up. And that can quickly turn the focus of the review back onto stuff they’ve already corrected and moved past. Plus you might get swayed listening to a high performer beat himself up and give lower marks than are deserved.

Proudest moments also ensures you don’t miss the greatest thing your employees did that year

Keeping things focused and balanced for high performers is only one reason to ask about proudest moments. Starting reviews with this simple question also helps leaders avoid the biggest employee de-motivator: missing the greatest things your people did that year. What you learn by asking this question gives you great information to work from during the review. Let’s face it, it’s nearly impossible to remember what every one of your employees did 12 months ago, so have your people make the list and tell you their proudest moments. It makes a big difference to them if the two great things they did get remembered and talked about a bit.

Another benefit is that by asking about proudest moments, you get clued in to the kind of meeting you’re in for. If an employee tells you, “I am just so proud of myself because I made it on time for work 70% of the time this past year which is a huge improvement over the 50% I managed the year before,” it tells you what kind of conversation you’re in for.

So before your next performance review period starts, simply ask your people to make a list of their proudest moments. If your organization conducts 12-month reviews, ask employees for their proudest moments from the past year. Or if you do six-month reviews, have them look back on the past six months and answer the question in writing. And just like self-appraisals, always do your own evaluation of the employee before you read their proudest moments. This allows you to avoid neurological biases that can skew your evaluation and make the review less objective.

Learn more about how to make employee reviews less painful including why talking about money should be done in a separate conversation by attending our webinar Taking the Pain Out of Performance Reviews.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.

Use the “Frustration Technique” to Help Employees Understand Change

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

One factor that regularly gets in the way of successful change initiatives is when organizations fail to provide employees with any real reason as to “why” a change is happening in the first place. This is especially prevalent in companies operating from a top-down organizational structure, and it can result in employees that catastrophize the message of change they hear, jumping to conclusions and making irrational interpretations about the impact the change will have on them.

When it comes to communicating the “why” of change, we need to create a deep sense of understanding so everyone involved is clear on: “why the status quo is no longer acceptable and we have no choice but to leave it behind.” This means not only do we need to give our people a legitimate reason why the change is happening, we also need to clearly communicate that we didn’t just come up with this change initiative because we didn’t have anything better to do. And especially if the organization has a history of stalled or abandoned change efforts, we have to let employees know that this time it’s not some “new flavor of the month” syndrome; that there is a good reason for this change and that it absolutely is going to happen.

To further add to the challenge, grasping the “why” is the hardest part of change. The good news is that it’s a message you can get employees to help self-deliver, which is a big plus because people tend to react better to ideas they come up with on their own versus ideas that are forced on them. That’s why we teach the “Frustration Technique” that gets people to set their own platform on fire and create their own sense of why there is no other choice but to make the leap to change.

Here’s how the “Frustration Technique” works

Before you pitch a change, start asking people, “Hey, is there anything frustrating you about where we’re at right now? They might answer, “Well, the process takes too long. It’s sort of irritating. And these things are getting in my way.” And the minute that light bulb comes on, you are in a much better position to turn around and say, “You know what, that’s wonderful insight. Based on that let me throw something out to you. This is a change, a solution to the ideas you just came up with.”

The Frustration Technique works because it highly eliminates the nostalgia that can set in when employees hear the announcement “We’re leaving this safe place you already know, and going someplace new.” Once you’ve pitched where you’re going, and you’ve said, “Folks, here it is. We’re going over here and we’re leaving that. Forget about it. It’s never coming back” people start to eulogize the past. They’ll say, “Do you remember back when? Remember before we had computers how great it used to be? How easy life was? We didn’t have these systems that were always crashing and it wasn’t so complicated?” Even if they didn’t like the paper systems, even if it took too long and was painful and arduous, the minute you insist that folks leave it, they turn back around and eulogize the “good old days” or “the way it used to be.” Once that happens it is very difficult to undo. So, if you can, catch it before it even starts.

Change is always going to be hard, but with techniques like this that invite employees to take an active role in finding their own acceptance and willingness to embrace the change, it gets much easier.

For more tips on managing change, join us for our webinar “Change Management that Lasts“.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.

Motivate Employees at Review Time by Asking “What Are Your Proudest Moments?”

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Employee performance reviews are notoriously painful, but they don’t have to be. Reviews can actually be useful, productive, meaningful conversations that do what they’re intended to do: improve employee performance. Some of the changes leaders need to make to have more effective reviews are pretty easy, like knowing which to talk about first: performance, goals or money. (It’s money). Another key tip is to start every review by asking “What are your proudest moments?”

Some of you may be wondering: how does asking for their proudest moments differ from a self-appraisal? When you ask for a self-appraisal you ask for the proudest moments, but you also ask for the biggest failures. And while it might not be a bad thing for your low performers to have to bring you an honest evaluation of their biggest failures, it’s actually quite harmful to your top performers.

Psychological dynamic different for high and low performers

There’s a different psychological dynamic that happens when high and low performers experience failure. Low performers might not know about the failure, they might not care, or they may have even intended for the failure to happen. High performers, on the other hand, have a high degree of critical self-awareness. This is wonderful, because most of the time these valuable employees already know they messed up—even before you tell them. And they get right to work on fixing the problem and making self-corrections so they never mess up like that again. However, most high performers are also prone to beating themselves up pretty hard when they mess up. And that can quickly turn the focus of the review back onto stuff they’ve already corrected and moved past. Plus you might get swayed listening to a high performer beat himself up and give lower marks than are deserved.

Proudest moments also ensures you don’t miss the greatest thing your employees did that year

Keeping things focused and balanced for high performers is only one reason to ask about proudest moments. Starting reviews with this simple question also helps leaders avoid the biggest employee de-motivator: missing the greatest things your people did that year. What you learn by asking this question gives you great information to work from during the review. Let’s face it, it’s nearly impossible to remember what every one of your employees did 12 months ago, so have your people make the list and tell you their proudest moments. It makes a big difference to them if the two great things they did get remembered and talked about a bit.

Another benefit is that by asking about proudest moments, you get clued in to the kind of meeting you’re in for. If an employee tells you, “I am just so proud of myself because I made it on time for work 70% of the time this past year which is a huge improvement over the 50% I managed the year before,” it tells you what kind of conversation you’re in for.

So before your next performance review period starts, simply ask your people to make a list of their proudest moments. If your organization conducts 12-month reviews, ask employees for their proudest moments from the past year. Or if you do six-month reviews, have them look back on the past six months and answer the question in writing. And just like self-appraisals, always do your own evaluation of the employee before you read their proudest moments. This allows you to avoid neurological biases that can skew your evaluation and make the review less objective.

Learn more about how to make employee reviews less painful including why talking about money should be done in a separate conversation by attending our webinar Taking the Pain Out of Performance Reviews.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.

Use the “Frustration Technique” to Help Employees Understand Change

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

One factor that regularly gets in the way of successful change initiatives is when organizations fail to provide employees with any real reason as to “why” a change is happening in the first place. This is especially prevalent in companies operating from a top-down organizational structure, and it can result in employees that catastrophize the message of change they hear, jumping to conclusions and making irrational interpretations about the impact the change will have on them.

When it comes to communicating the “why” of change, we need to create a deep sense of understanding so everyone involved is clear on: “why the status quo is no longer acceptable and we have no choice but to leave it behind.” This means not only do we need to give our people a legitimate reason why the change is happening, we also need to clearly communicate that we didn’t just come up with this change initiative because we didn’t have anything better to do. And especially if the organization has a history of stalled or abandoned change efforts, we have to let employees know that this time it’s not some “new flavor of the month” syndrome; that there is a good reason for this change and that it absolutely is going to happen.

To further add to the challenge, grasping the “why” is the hardest part of change. The good news is that it’s a message you can get employees to help self-deliver, which is a big plus because people tend to react better to ideas they come up with on their own versus ideas that are forced on them. That’s why we teach the “Frustration Technique” that gets people to set their own platform on fire and create their own sense of why there is no other choice but to make the leap to change.

Here’s how the “Frustration Technique” works

Before you pitch a change, start asking people, “Hey, is there anything frustrating you about where we’re at right now? They might answer, “Well, the process takes too long. It’s sort of irritating. And these things are getting in my way.” And the minute that light bulb comes on, you are in a much better position to turn around and say, “You know what, that’s wonderful insight. Based on that let me throw something out to you. This is a change, a solution to the ideas you just came up with.”

The Frustration Technique works because it highly eliminates the nostalgia that can set in when employees hear the announcement “We’re leaving this safe place you already know, and going someplace new.” Once you’ve pitched where you’re going, and you’ve said, “Folks, here it is. We’re going over here and we’re leaving that. Forget about it. It’s never coming back” people start to eulogize the past. They’ll say, “Do you remember back when? Remember before we had computers how great it used to be? How easy life was? We didn’t have these systems that were always crashing and it wasn’t so complicated?” Even if they didn’t like the paper systems, even if it took too long and was painful and arduous, the minute you insist that folks leave it, they turn back around and eulogize the “good old days” or “the way it used to be.” Once that happens it is very difficult to undo. So, if you can, catch it before it even starts.

Change is always going to be hard, but with techniques like this that invite employees to take an active role in finding their own acceptance and willingness to embrace the change, it gets much easier.

For more tips on managing change, join us for our webinar “Change Management that Lasts“.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.

Motivate Employees at Review Time by Asking “What Are Your Proudest Moments?”

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Employee performance reviews are notoriously painful, but they don’t have to be. Reviews can actually be useful, productive, meaningful conversations that do what they’re intended to do: improve employee performance. Some of the changes leaders need to make to have more effective reviews are pretty easy, like knowing which to talk about first: performance, goals or money. (It’s money). Another key tip is to start every review by asking “What are your proudest moments?”

Some of you may be wondering: how does asking for their proudest moments differ from a self-appraisal? When you ask for a self-appraisal you ask for the proudest moments, but you also ask for the biggest failures. And while it might not be a bad thing for your low performers to have to bring you an honest evaluation of their biggest failures, it’s actually quite harmful to your top performers.

Psychological dynamic different for high and low performers

There’s a different psychological dynamic that happens when high and low performers experience failure. Low performers might not know about the failure, they might not care, or they may have even intended for the failure to happen. High performers, on the other hand, have a high degree of critical self-awareness. This is wonderful, because most of the time these valuable employees already know they messed up—even before you tell them. And they get right to work on fixing the problem and making self-corrections so they never mess up like that again. However, most high performers are also prone to beating themselves up pretty hard when they mess up. And that can quickly turn the focus of the review back onto stuff they’ve already corrected and moved past. Plus you might get swayed listening to a high performer beat himself up and give lower marks than are deserved.

Proudest moments also ensures you don’t miss the greatest thing your employees did that year

Keeping things focused and balanced for high performers is only one reason to ask about proudest moments. Starting reviews with this simple question also helps leaders avoid the biggest employee de-motivator: missing the greatest things your people did that year. What you learn by asking this question gives you great information to work from during the review. Let’s face it, it’s nearly impossible to remember what every one of your employees did 12 months ago, so have your people make the list and tell you their proudest moments. It makes a big difference to them if the two great things they did get remembered and talked about a bit.

Another benefit is that by asking about proudest moments, you get clued in to the kind of meeting you’re in for. If an employee tells you, “I am just so proud of myself because I made it on time for work 70% of the time this past year which is a huge improvement over the 50% I managed the year before,” it tells you what kind of conversation you’re in for.

So before your next performance review period starts, simply ask your people to make a list of their proudest moments. If your organization conducts 12-month reviews, ask employees for their proudest moments from the past year. Or if you do six-month reviews, have them look back on the past six months and answer the question in writing. And just like self-appraisals, always do your own evaluation of the employee before you read their proudest moments. This allows you to avoid neurological biases that can skew your evaluation and make the review less objective.

Learn more about how to make employee reviews less painful including why talking about money should be done in a separate conversation by attending our webinar Taking the Pain Out of Performance Reviews.

An expert in aligning goals and people to create thriving organizations, Mark leads one of the world’s largest studies on leadership and employee engagement.

Mark’s award-winning work has been featured numerous times in publications including The Wall St. Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Washington Post. His media appearances include CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC’s 20/20, Fox Business News and NPR. Mark has lectured at Harvard Business School, Yale University, University of Rochester and University of Florida. Mark is the author of five books including the McGraw-Hill international bestsellers, Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your People to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More and Hard Goals. Mark’s most recent book, Hiring for Attitude, reflects the team’s latest research and insight into how hiring decisions can align with engagement goals and culture characteristics.

Leadership IQ’s turnaround, culture change, and performance enhancement through employee engagement work has been recognized in a diverse set of industries including healthcare, financial services, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. From his roots as a turnaround specialist, Mark created Leadership IQ to address problems in performance before they hit the bottom line.