Late last year, Marshall Goldsmith reported on a study that found a majority of employees spend 10 or more hours each month complaining — or listening to others complain. Furthermore, the study finds that almost 30% of your employees will engage in the practice of complaining for around 20 hours per month. That’s half a week each month.
So, say your company has 1000 employees, then at the rates described in the study, your business will have absorbed around 72,000 hours of unproductive time each year. Even at a conservative rate of $100 per hour, that leaves your business with a $7 million deficit each and every year. What can you do about this?
Marshall Goldsmith suggests working with your direct reports, colleagues and peers and encouraging them to ask four simple questions before publicly making comment:
- Will this comment help our company?
- Will this comment help our customers?
- Will this comment help the person that I am talking to?
- Will this comment help the person that I am talking about?
And while this is a great starting point, I would go further. I would suggest that the person who is making the complaint needs to make a mental pivot and begin to redefine the problem that is at the heart of the situation. After all, no-one wants to live in comfortable misery.
However, leaders can also address this situation and have a clear impact on the productivity (and the bottom line) of their business unit. The secret (which is no secret), is to encourage a combination of listening and action. Complaints, when not addressed, tend to fester in your organization — sometimes even a simple acknowledgment of a problem can see it disappear altogether. Take hold of the issue by the horns — run through the four questions above; if warranted ask the hard questions, deal with the answers and move on. Encourage your executives to do the same. But if you take no action, you certainly will have something to complain about!
Nina Nets It Out: Most organizations mask a culture of complaint that has a real cost to your business. Leaders need to set an agenda that can focus their teams, colleagues and peers around delivering value. Start with a “mental pivot.”
Nina
Straight away in going through what you have outlined two statements come to mind:
1. Misery loves company.
2. In a team what doesnt get said usually gets worse.
Nina:
very interesting facts and stats shared by you in this post. Bill has also pointed out 2 great points. The organization that i am associated with is actually scheduled to do a free talk show with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. Any one can ask questions. Telecon will be live and any one can register Free of cost at http://www.learnfrommylife.com/MarshallGoldsmith . Please do not consider this as spam. Commenting is one way we can promote this event and hope your Blog readers get a great opportunity to interact with Dr. Marshall directly.
Every one is Invited!!!!
Bill,
Thanks for your comments. How true they are. And while misery may love company, no misery is loved by all!! Regarding your second point, as I like to say, if one person is thinking it, it’s highly likely that others are too….so put it out there and deal with it for the overall good of the company! In fact, there is a communication concept called “foreground-background communication” that I will write about in a future entry which deals a bit with that dynamic.
Meetu,
I appreciate you making readers of my blog aware of Marshall Goldsmith’s appearance on your show. I for one greatly benefit from his writings on the Harvard discussion blogs and encourage readers to listen in!
Nina,
Same with me and many of my colleagues have been benefited from teachings of Dr. Marshall. The fact that these are experiential sets it apart. Another source just in case many do not know, almost all of Dr. Marshall’s material is available on his website absolutely free of cost for people to download. check here http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/html/marshall/resources.html
Meetu,
Thanks for this link. I encourage those interested in leadership writing to check it out.
Fine commentary, Nina. Exerting responsibility for self is essential to leadership. And thanks for your kind comments.
Thanks Nina. I look forward to your insight to foreground-background communication.
I think one of the key concepts to effective teamwork is the quality of the communication.
If everyone in the team realises that team members are saying things for the benefit of the team as opposed to vested self interest then there is a greater level of preparedness to pusue difficult topics and to openly discuss them.
Hey Bill,
I have just posted the background-foreground piece here:
http://ninasimosko.com/blog/2008/07/18/background-foreground-communication/
I personally find this concept/approach quite useful and hope you enjoy it as well.
Hey John,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. If leaders can’t own up to their responsibility, how can they expect those around them to do so?
Hi Nina
Thank you for the insight to background-foreground communication. It is a process that would help anyone in a variety of situations.
Following on with this thread and how do we improve the levels and type of communication I look at this in regard to communication within teams:
As with everything else within the team, team communication goes through an evolutionary process. I believe there are three basic levels of talk and five basic levels of listening in the evolution of the communication process within a team.
The three levels of talk are:
Rubbish
Safe
Real
Let’s look at these levels in detail so we get an understanding of each of them before we go into some of the advantages of effective communication within a team.
1.Rubbish
Exactly what the name implies. The communication process is ordinary to say the least: Not in terms of the amount of communication, but more in terms of its quality.
At this level, the content has very little to do with anything that is going to help the team get closer to their prescribed outcomes. There is very little communication and mostly nothing that will rock the boat of the team.
The communication at the ‘rubbish’ level is more socially orientated than purpose or performance orientated.
Yes the team does communicate and yes communication does, to some degree, allow the team to find out more about each other; but the advantages in regard to true performance are minimal to say the least.
2.Safe
Individually and in combination, the team has to start finding things out about itself. Where is it heading? Why is it not getting there? What needs to be done? etc.
Once this is realised by the team, both individually and collectively, the communication process moves from the ‘rubbish’ level to a more formalised and structured process to gather and disseminate information.
However, this process is still done in a very safe manner.
The majority of information is passed through covert type questions and peripheral issue discussions. Very rarely does anyone make a direct comment or give their opinion, or take a stand in front of the team on behalf of the team or anyone within it.
Rarely, if at all, does any one comment directly to anyone what he or she thinks of their performance in carrying out their role in front of the team.
Views are not going to cause friction as the people who probably need to hear what has to be said, never will. When the team operates at this level, the information is being exchanged but the team a long way from where they really need to be. No one wants to say anything that is going to upset anyone.
The team has evolved past the ‘rubbish’ stage and it realises the need for information, and relevant information to get the job done and to evolve. But the communication continues to be done in the safest possible manner.
In many cases, the true need for and point of communication gets lost in the overabundance of ‘safe’ communication.
3.Real
This is where things that need to get said, start to get said. Opinions are aired, concepts discussed and arguments or heated discussions evolve. But the bottom line is that the things that need to be aired, discussed, heard and understood, are because of the introduction of ‘real’ communication within the team and for the team.
First and foremost, this freedom of speech doesn’t mean that the team is constantly going after one another, or that the team is constantly in turmoil and that things just get said whenever and however.
It is necessary that a well-understood process is introduced and instigated so that effective ‘real’ communication can be developed and pursued.
All team members need to understand how the process of real communication takes place, as well as an understanding of the advantages to all of having this open type of communication taking place.
The team then structures communication so that everyone is understanding of each other and of the needs of the team and therefore, understands the need for an open communication philosophy.
So — three levels of communication that every team has at one stage or another worked through.
Bill, WOW! What a comment! Thanks so much for sharing your “3 levels of talk” overview. It brings to mind a time when I worked with a consultant years ago who said to me and the others on our team that “in order to be as effective and efficient as possible, we have to flip normal team paradigms on their head.” If I am to relate this comment to your three levels, this consultant would say, “we have no time for ‘rubbish’ and little time for ‘safe’ communication styles.” In fact, he went as far as to say that “rather than earning trust from one another,” [this was stated during an introductory session wherein the new team members were establishing their team principles], “let’s switch it up and make trust the default foundation wherein we have to ‘unearn’ one’s trust.” This was certainly counter-intuitive and we all tilted out heads in contemplation of this notion [kind of like a dog when it gets that inquisitive look on its face]. But, what this approach did allow for was ‘real’ communication much earlier in our team’s existence than would have occurred on its own, natural course. Combine this with the “background – foreground” communication style they introduced us to and the team was really off to a fast pace start. In reality, we achieved great things faster than anyone would have guessed. Was it purely due to these communication styles and new-age team principles? I can’t say for sure, but I certainly still recall the power that these methods seemed to offer at that time and relish the fact that they have become so ingrained in me and resulted in great success.
Nina
The insight to the approach by the consultant reminded me of the movie Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer. Where as a new teacher to the school she informed the class that they were al starting with a 100% grade and the only way it would change is if they did something to reduce it.
I think the interesting thing with the approach by the consultant would be to act like there is trust and trust wil be created.
Bill,
I haven’t seen that movie, but I like the concept of initially having full credit and losing it based on performance, or lack thereof. I can speak from firsthand experience that the project completed with the consultant worked quite well. Not without some folks reverting to more conventional approaches to granting trust, but overall it resulted in the desired outcomes.