Now, reconsider these questions with regard to this person.

- What specifically did they do?

- How did they behave towards you and others to create this feeling in you?

- How much fear did you feel associated with working for them?

- Did you feel controlled or influenced by them? In other words, did they have an indirect effect on your behavior, or did they directly regulate your behavior?

We’ll call this person Worst Supervisor.

Most people say that Best Supervisor got more voluntary effort and better long-term performance and relationship results from their team. I have yet to meet person who says Worst Supervisor got great performance from their team.

Now consider this question for a moment: Who do you think these two people thought/think about first? Most people say that Best Supervisor tends to keep their focus on others. Most people also say that Worst Supervisor tends to think only of themselves and their interests.

The question for leaders becomes – How do I want people on my team to view me?

The answer lies in how we, leaders, think.

Our thoughts become words or actions that influence behavior of people around us. When I focus on my personal desires, I act in selfish ways. When I act in selfish ways, I inspire mediocre performance in my team. When I focus on team, I act in team’s best interest. When I act in team’s best interest, I inspire high-level performance in my team.

As I close this article, my mind is racing with possible questions and qualifying statements. Due to space and time constraints, I haven’t even begun to address some of issues that come to mind:

- How does this apply to team members who don’t want to play nice?

- How do you preserve integrity of your vision while working with people who see things differently? etc.

These issues are too big to consider all at once. I'll address these related issues at a different time. So for now, I encourage you to remember this one tip . . . Develop a “we” focus and not a “me” focus.

For example, we enter a dark room and flip light switch to “On”. We do this because we expect light to be result. Darkness is antecedent. Light is consequence. If we enter a room and consistently get no light by flipping switch, we resort to some other behavior (light a candle, carry a flashlight, etc).

While this sounds simple enough in example, in practice, it is often more difficult when we apply it in workplace.

The key is to identify behaviors that produce desired business results; then create consequences for employees that will reinforce those behaviors. Any consequence that encourages a behavior to repeat is a positive reinforcement. But there is a subtlety that is very important. We can encourage behaviors, but we cannot enforce them. Many companies try to enforce appropriate behaviors rather than encourage them.

Enforcing requires a high degree of supervisory input and nets only minimal standard performance from employees, but encouraging requires minimal supervisory input once system is in place, and it usually results in superior performance.

One way to achieve a consistent pairing of results (consequences) and behaviors is accomplished through a targeted improvement process much like processes advocated by ISO, QS, and TQM management systems. The steps in this process are:

- Identify behaviors that create desired results

- Measure results of behaviors

- Provide feedback to employees

- Positively reinforce effective behaviors

- Evaluate choice of behaviors and measurements – iterate to improve selection

As business people, we should all know that human behavior drives business results. Our daily behaviors create results that either help or hurt our businesses. Learning to encourage behaviors that grow business can make difference between success and failure.   Copyright 2005, Guy Harris

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