Dear Crucial Skills,

I have a manager who seems to be missing in action. In all fairness to my manager, my work is independent and in a different location. Nonetheless, his communication is superficial, and he doesn’t act as if he’s genuinely interested in my performance. He’s difficult to find (always in meetings), fails to provide me with crucial information, and continually misses deadlines on information or decisions that I depend upon to do my job effectively. I decided to call him every other week to brief him on my work outlook, issues, successes, etc., but when I do he acts as though he’s in a hurry and I’m taking up his time. I truly find my work rewarding, but working for this unengaged manager is frustrating.

Signed,

Cut off

Dear Cut Off,

You face an interesting decision. Do you talk to someone who doesn’t appear to care about your job, your results, or your relationship–and by extension might not care about any of your concerns? You weigh the possibilities and wonder if the odds favor you or not. He might suddenly “feel your pain” and take corrective action of some sort. He might smile politely and do nothing. He might act upset and say it’s not his fault that you’re located in a different building and then resent you for attacking his leadership style. Hmmm. What will happen?

So the real question is: What can you do to increase the odds that the outcome will be beneficial?

Before I offer any suggestions, let me say that our own research has revealed that the single best predictor of satisfaction with leadership is frequency of interaction. The more two people interact, the greater the satisfaction. People who are directed and reviewed by individuals in different buildings, or even different states, universally dislike the arrangement. You’re not alone. People rightfully wonder: How can my boss evaluate my performance, coach me, provide me with career advice, mentor me, and sponsor me to a better position without ever seeing me in action?

Within a corporate context, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. The more accurate expression would be: out of sight, out of mind. I mention this because you may want to take a job where you won’t constantly be facing such a large barrier. No matter what you do, the distance can be daunting.

If you love the job itself and really want to stick with it, here are few things you might consider.

First, ask what’s in it for your manager to correct the problems you mentioned. He is causing you grief by not providing you with essential information, meeting deadlines, or making timely decisions. You feel your pain, but if you can’t link his relatively insensitive and unprofessional behavior to something he cares about, you’re dependent on him caring about your pain–something that currently doesn’t seem to affect him.

So, here’s what you have to ask. In what way does his poor performance affect you–and then affect him? For instance, when he doesn’t give you time-sensitive information, you have to track him down, interrupt him in meetings, leave notes with secretaries, call his boss to see if he or she can find him etc. This can’t be pleasant for him. When he doesn’t provide you with X, harming your performance in Y, this is how it affects the department–which in turn causes problem Z for him. The point here is that if you only enter the conversation with the idea of his changing for the sole purpose of making your life better, it’s harder to achieve the results you want. Link his existing bad behavior to the existing negative consequences he’s already experiencing.

Second, ask what can be done that doesn’t call for him to change his behavior. How can you manipulate the environment? The idea of talking on the phone to update him may indeed interrupt him. How about e-mail that he can read at his leisure? There are some fairly decent video conferencing solutions out there. Maybe an electronic face-to-face will work for him. How can you get his support staff to be cued to send you critical information the minute he gets it? The point here is that it’s far easier to manipulate processes and *things* than it is to change human behavior. Look at environmental solutions.

Third, if you do choose to talk to him directly about the problem, bring your best skills into play. In our book Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior, we teach a step-by-step process for dealing with crucial confrontations. Here are a few tips from the book.

Be careful with your conclusions. You may believe that your boss is uncaring and unreliable (you didn’t say this, however you could easily conclude this), but this should never be your starting position. Pick one of the behaviors that has you concerned and deal with that behavior only. Don’t pile on a bunch of problems. In a similar vein, take special care not to pile on inflammatory conclusions. Trade “You’re unreliable, insensitive, and uncaring” for “Yesterday I was expecting the O’Malley workup but it didn’t come. I was wondering what happened.” Then stick to the problem of not delivering on his promises. Deal with untimely information, lack of support, and the other problems at a different time. Start small. Stick to behaviors.

Once you’ve decided which issue to deal with, carefully unbundle it. Even though you think you’ve picked one problem, it could easily have several component parts. For instance, if the problem you pick is a pattern, focus on the repeated nature of the behavior. Talk about the pattern, not a single instance. If the problem is now harming your relationship (and it sounds as if it is), then this may be the problem you want to address. Talk about the problem (say, not meeting deadlines) from the point of view of how it’s affecting how you work together. “When I don’t get what I need from you, I end up trying to track you down and I don’t want it to feel like I’m hounding you. I can see that you don’t like it and I’m starting to feel reluctant to follow up. And yet, if I don’t find a quick resolution, it affects my performance.” Pick one problem, unbundle it, and then pick the issue that matters the most. Ask: “What is the one thing I really want to see change?” and then focus on this.

Good luck as you step up to a tough situation. Prepare carefully, be on your best behavior, and hopefully you’ll start to resolve some of the problems that have you rightfully frustrated, one at a time.

Kerry Patterson

  Dear Crucial Skills,

During monthly “Church Council” meetings, the norm has been for one or more outbursts to occur. More often than that not, the issue surrounds church finances or something our senior pastor has or has not done. As chairperson of the meeting, how can I best defuse volatile outbursts during meetings while still maintaining an atmosphere where church members feel safe to appropriately express concerns?

Sincerely,

Frustrated

Dear Frustrated,

Whether at home, at work, or at a church meeting, sometimes we run into behaviors that we know are counterproductive. These behaviors, like “volatile outbursts,” cause the positive feelings in the room to dissipate and people to shut down. When they shut down, they don’t contribute their questions or ideas and, perhaps more importantly, their level of commitment and engagement decreases. So planning and taking action both suffer. Certainly those are outcomes that no team leader, chairperson, manager, colleague, parent, family member, etc., wants to have happen.

So, the problem is clear and unfortunately widespread. What are some solutions?

Here are some tips and skills that we learned and then shared in our book “Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behaviors.” Wow—even the title seems to promise some solutions! So here we go.

Step 1: Give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

In training we encourage people not to jump to conclusions about others. We don’t know why they are acting the way they are. It’s easy to mentally categorize them as “insensitive,” “bullies,” or “the last living Neanderthal relics.” We ask, “How come they don’t get it? Can’t they see the problems they are causing?” The cure for labeling other people or for telling ourselves stories that allow us to dismiss them is to ask the humanizing question: “Why would a reasonable, rational, decent human being act like that?” Could there be reasons that you don’t know? Often we tell ourselves that the other person is acting this way because he or she just doesn’t care about others’ feelings or is being selfish—interested only in his or her own agenda. This question helps us suspend our judgments, be more patient, and seek to understand or diagnose before we act. When we ask these kinds of questions, we don’t vilify the other person. We also don’t oversimplify. Maybe the person has stress at home, or has a constituency that is influencing him or her to “win, and accept nothing else,” or maybe, and this is pretty common, the person doesn’t have the interpersonal skills required when topics get emotional.

Step 2: Safely Describe the Gap.

By “Describing the Gap” we mean describing the difference between what was expected and what was observed. You expected productive dialogue, but you instead witnessed emotional outbursts. You can make describing the gap safe by inviting the person to talk in a private setting. You can make it safe by showing in your attitude, your facial expressions, and your tone of voice that you are not frustrated or angry. You have not prejudged the person. Your intentions are to share what you’ve observed, seek to understand, and then to find a solution. It might sound like this, “In our church council meetings, we’d like a very positive climate that is candid and respectful. Last night, you raised your voice, called the decision ‘one of the most miserable in history,’ and then said, ‘Why can’t we do something smart once in a while.’ I believe that affected climate of the meeting and the involvement of the people there. Can we talk about this? I’d like to understand why you acted that way.”

Step 3: Diagnose.

Now you pause and listen to diagnose the real cause behind this behavior. You’ll hear reasons why the person is acting the way he or she is acting. The reasons you hear will help you understand whether this person is being influence by motivation issues, ability barriers, or a combination of both. Here is a brief list of some of the possible responses with some annotation.

• “Oh chill out, it’s not a big deal.” (Motivation)
• “I know, but it’s so hard for me to control my temper around an issue I care so much about.” (Ability)
• “Come on, that was just healthy debate.” (Motivation)
• “John started it . . . did you see how he disregarded my data?” (Motivation)
• “My leader told me to make sure I didn’t give an inch on this budget.” (Motivation)
• “I know I have a problem. I’ve offended my spouse and my brother by yelling just this week. I don’t know what to do about it.” (Ability)

Step 4: Seek a solution.

Without getting into the details of how to solve them (we have whole chapters devoted to this in “Crucial Confrontations”), let me suggest that you solve motivation and ability problems very differently. For motivation, you help the other person understand the consequences of the problem to self, to others, and to your organization. To solve ability problems, ask for ideas and jointly explore ability barriers.

Step 5: Get an agreement.

This last bit of advice is surprisingly easy and often the core issue. Excellent performance begins with clear agreements. There are two points on this: 1) If you get a solution, determine specific steps—we teach who, does what, by when, and follow-up in the book. 2) Determine some ground rules. Often teams have clear goals on technical or business issues like due dates, budgets, and quality standards. They often don’t have agreements that are specific and clear around the more intangible aspects of working together—like cooperation, communication, initiative, or style. I think getting an agreement about what appropriate behavior means in your church council would help the individuals involved. It might sound like this: “Each of us will be respectful and candid in our communications in the meeting. If we feel ourselves getting emotional, particularly if we get angry and raise our voices, we will pause and ask questions of the other person to get more perspective.” And so on. Another agreement or ground rule that might help is this: “If someone loses his or her temper in the meeting, we will privately talk to the person to help coach.”

These steps can help you deal with an issue that won’t go away unless it is honestly and safely addressed. This is, by the way, what a crucial confrontation is—a face-to-face accountability talk conducted with safety, respect, and candor.

Best wishes

Al Switzler

Dear Crucial Skills,

I just found out that another manager in the same profession but with less qualifications and a smaller job is making $14,000 more than I am. If I confront my boss, I’m afraid she will ask where I received the information, but I’m not willing to answer that question. It shouldn’t matter. What to do?

Underpaid and uncertain

Dear Underpaid and Uncertain,

This is tricky because the answer is very situational. So let me throw a few things at you and invite you to grab any that are relevant.

First, I’m curious about why you can’t share your source. The purpose of dialogue during crucial conversations is to fill the “shared pool of meaning.” This means that you find a way to reduce defenses enough that you and your boss can speak freely about your salary concerns. If you want your boss to understand how you feel, she’ll need to have access to the data behind your current thoughts and feelings of inequity. You’ve got to be able to “share the facts.”

I try to avoid getting into the trap of having information in my head that I can’t admit to having by cautioning those who want to share “gossip”—or even hard data—with me but don’t want me to attribute it to them. When they’re about to open their mouths, I say something like, “Please don’t put anything in my head about someone that I can’t candidly discuss with them.” This lets the speaker know that I expect him or her to take responsibility for what he or she is about to say. There are times when I’ll agree to keep names anonymous—but I want at least to have the freedom to acknowledge that this data is in my head when it affects my feelings, thoughts, and behavior toward another person or group. It keeps me from being the source of my own mistrust and political behavior.

With that said, here are some situations you may face as your share your facts.

- Your boss may want to appropriately change the conversation. If the person who shared this information with you violated a company policy by doing so, your boss will rightfully try to divert the conversation to a discussion of that point. And you can’t avoid it because that is an equally important issue to your concern about pay equity. If this is your situation, you have an ethical responsibility to return to the person who shared the information with you and confront his or her dishonesty.

- Your boss may want to inappropriately change the conversation. If there is no policy against sharing salary information, then you should head off the change of conversation at the outset. Begin with your boss by saying “Some information has come to my attention that I’d like to share. I don’t think it’s right for me to say who shared it because they don’t want to be involved. Also, the source isn’t the real issue in my view.” Having taken this stand, you’re more likely to be able to stay focused on your salary concern.

- Your boss may ignore your attempt to focus the conversation. If even after you frame the topic your boss tries to change the topic to discovering your source, ask her to justify the change of topic. For example, “Earlier I suggested the source wasn’t relevant to my concerns about pay equity. The real issue is whether or not this is true and fair. And you’re now asking for the source. May I ask why that is important?” If she has a legitimate reason, you’ll be obligated to respond. If she is simply irritated that this issue is in the open, she’ll be less capable of convincing you that you need to disclose.

Now, once you’ve teed up the topic, you need to be open to dialogue. That means you need to be open to changing your mind.

It could be, for example, that your “story” about the pay differential is wrong. For example, any difference could be smaller than you heard. Or, there may be legitimate reasons for the pay differential. Or, there could be reasons—but not reasons that you accept. Be open to listening and be open to being influenced. If you aren’t, you’ll create a more defensive climate where your boss will be less open as well. Listen a lot. Ask a lot of questions. When you fully understand, then respond from a position of knowledge.

Finally, be sure to focus on what you REALLY want. I watch many people provoke resistance in salary discussions because their goal is “more money for me!” This violates safety and mutual purpose and drives your boss to silence or violence. Your goal must be to gain fairness, not just get more money. “Fairness” is a higher value that most people are motivated to achieve—and one you’re likely to get your bosses’ agreement to address.

Best Wishes,

Joseph