Note: John’s website can be found here: RiteSite.com

Note: John’s website can be found here: RiteSite.com

If you aren’t familiar with John’s work, you’re missing something special. John Lucht, the author of Rites of Passage, has been an executive recruiter for the past three decades. And when it comes to advice on the ins and outs of job searching, there is none better. Mark and Mike have been huge fans of John’s work for over a decade — listen in to find out why!

Note: John’s website can be found here: RiteSite.com

You have a meeting coming up. Not only do you need to make a presentation, you need to make the presentation to your bosses boss. Perhaps you need to present to your bosses boss, but also all her directs at her next staff meeting. How do you prepare for that? How do you ensure that you don’t walk across any land-mines during the presentation? What can you do NOW to make that presentation a slam-dunk?

Listen up … in this members-only cast, with obvious links to our weekly podcast discussion on persuasion, we’re going to show you!

This is perhaps the third most important interviewing question, after, “Tell me about yourself,” and behavioral questions. It can be a tough one if you haven’t done some thinking about how you lead and motivate others, and why others perform well when you are leading them.

In this cast, we walk through how to prepare to answer, and how to deliver an impressive answer. Finally, at the end of the show, we share a crucial test that your answer must pass. While you already know the answer to the test, it still catches most people off guard.

Your interviews stink!

Most managers simply don’t have a good way to always ensure that they are conducting an effective interview. Some managers routinely create false positives with shallow questions, little probing, and a lack of understanding about the role. Other managers routinely create false negatives…and usually, for the very same reasons on the surface.

Conducting Effective Interviews is too big a topic to cover all at once..unless you wanted a 30 hour cast! So, in this cast, we’ll talk about the steps effective managers take to get ready for an interview.

Mark gets asked all the time to lead “Team Building” sessions for clients. He steadfastly refuses.

Because “Team Building” does NOT work.

There are plenty of exercises and efforts and courses and energizers and outdoor experiential programs. And none of them work.

None of them work.

Team building doesn’t happen somewhere else. People don’t have a BFO to become members of a team. Teams really aren’t built the way houses or structures are built. Great teams HAPPEN, and great managers help them happen…but it’s not because somebody catches you in a trust fall.

Oh, they worry. Trust us.

The thing is, if you ask around, some people (and more than some in HR) will recommend you “do a three-sixty!”

That’s when you really SHOULD worry. 360-degree feedback is very powerful, and almost always inappropriate for managers as a way to learn how they’re doing. (We spend some time talking about 360 in the cast, as background.)

This cast teaches you a basic, simple, easy, low investment, low (zero) cost, easily repeatable, hard to mess up, gets-better-when-you-repeat it every-once-in-awhile technique for beginning to learn how you’re doing as a manager.

Yeah right.

In this cast, we share one of the best interviewing answer templates you’ll ever hear. It’s simple, elegant, easy to deliver, and surprise, surprise: it directly answers the question.

So, what to do? In this cast, we share with you The Manager Tools Quick and Dirty Interview: a few simple questions that always work. There’s a lot more to handling such situations, and those will be in our How to Interview series. But for now, when “No, I don’t have time” doesn’t get you off the hook, this is what to do.

In this cast, we recur to DiSC, and cover something we’ve alluded to a thousand times: how does one get a quick read on someone else’s behavioral tendencies? What can we DO to improve our communication (and therefore relationship, trust, and ultimate results) with someone about whom we don’t know their profile? It’s easy to learn, and once you practice, you can get very good very fast.

And there’s an important note in this cast also: you don’t need to know anything about Disc to benefit from what we’re recommending - it works for EVERYONE, all the time.

In this cast, you’ll learn how to handle the crucial first five to ten minutes of any interview - Introductions. It is absolutely true that this is a critical part of the interview - first impressions are being formed, and I’d bet 75% of interviewers have a strong indication of how it’s going to go by the time this portion is done. That translates into our gut feeling that this is where 75% of technical interviewees fail. It’s THAT important.

There are essentially four parts to the Introduction:

• Immediate Preparation
• Entering the Room
• Your Greeting
• The Introductory Conversation

In our Resume Cast, we talked about the PURPOSE of resumes: to create an interview. Now just imagine…wouldn’t it be great if its value didn’t end there? It doesn’t! yes, the resume itself gets you the chance to sell yourself, but buried in the resume are the PERFECT seeds of success, if you’ve followed our guidance.

Listen in to an interesting cast about how your resume and your interviews can be perfectly connected.

Like last month, it isn’t necessary that you have listened to all the previous detailed DiSC shows, but you should listen to the “Improve Your Feedback” show from Feb 17, 2006 show where we first introduced the DiSC model. This will give you a high-level overview of the DiSC model that will make this particular cast more effective.

Also, remember about the “How To Use The DiSC To Be More Effective Every Day” cheat sheet (available in the members section on the website). Print it out and have it next to you for reference during the podcast.

If you are interested in learning in detail about YOUR profile, you may purchase the online version of the DiSC Profile here.

A couple of notes …

1. Although it isn’t necessary that you have listened to the previous High I and High D podcasts, you should listen to the “Improve Your Feedback” show from Feb 17, 2006 show where we first introduced the DiSC model. Without the high level overview, today’s podcast won’t be nearly as effective for you.
2. If you’ve been following these DiSC podcasts, you’ll be aware of the “How To Use The DiSC To Be More Effective Every Day” cheat sheet available in the members section on the website. For those of you trying to get the most out of this cast, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have printed the cheat sheet and have it next to you for reference during the podcast.

If you are interested in learning in detail about YOUR profile, you may purchase the online version of the DiSC Profile here.

If you’re looking for a quick review of the DiSC Model, you can find it here.

04/09/2006 Update: In addition to the DiSC Summary document, we’ve also added the How To Use The DiSC To Be More Effective Every Day cheat sheet. You’ll really like this one … be sure to check it out here.

If you are interested in learning in detail about YOUR profile, you may purchase the online version of the DiSC Profile here.

After listening to the show, print and use the information below to serve as a quick reminder of some of the key characteristics of the high “D”.

Dominant Director Business Characteristics

• Prefer time frames
• Seek personal control
• Get to the point
• Strive to feel important and be noteworthy in their jobs
• Demonstrate persistence and single-mindedness to reach goal
• Express high ego strength
• Prefer to downplay feelings and relationships
• Focus on task actions that lead to achieving tangible outcomes
• Implement changes in the workplace
• Tend to freely delegate duties, enabling them to take on more projects

Dominant Director: Preferred Business Situations

• Like to call the shots and tell others what to do
• Like to challenging workloads which fuel their energy levels
• Tend to personally oversee, or at least know about, their employees’ or co-workers’ business activities
• Like to say what’s on their minds without being concerned about hurting anybody’s feelings
• Enjoy taking risks and being involved in changes
• Prefer to interpret the rules and answer to themselves alone
• Interested in the answers to what questions, not how ones
• Like to see a logical road toward increasing and ongoing advancement, since bigger is better to them

Discussion Forums

As we discuss at the end of the podcast, we’ve noted that although many of our listeners really would like to engage in more meaningful discussions on management topics, the blog doesn’t lend itself too well to the task. We’ve attempted to improve the situation by implementing discussion forums on our website. You can find the discussion forums here. We’d very much appreciate it if you would direct your questions and comments to the discussion forums vs. leaving them here on the blog or sending them to us via email. There are an awful lot of good conversations happening, particularly on email, that we would like to share with the broader Manager Tools community. If you have a particular challenge or question for us, it’s very likely that others do so as well … sharing your problems/questions on the discussion forum will allow all of us to benefit and learn!

If you are interested in learning in detail about YOUR profile, you may purchase the online version of the DiSC Profile here.

DiSC is a registered trademark of Inscape Publishing, Inc.

Once we explain it, you’ll get it, and you’ll be able to do it. It blows away two of our favorite tool criteria, effectiveness and efficiency. It works; that is, you’ll get notable change out of this tool. So that makes it effective. And, it’s terribly fast, without ANY fanfare or paperwork or staffing, so that makes it efficient as well. We like ANYTHING that is both effective and efficient.

The tool’s nickname is “The Hot Wash”. Its more formal name is Running an After Action Session.

Before we get into it, a note about nomenclature. We’re going to call this tool the Hot Wash, and here’s why. First, it’s catchy. It has some emotional power that “Running An After Action Session” just doesn’t. Hot Wash sounds cool, folks, and we’re all about cool here. Okay, we’re not really all about cool, but the point is, names matter. One on ones as a title works because people long to connect on a personal level, one to one. We’re looking for a better name for the feedback model, in fact, just for this reason. We used to like the IMPERSONALITY of it, frankly, but we’re re-thinking that. Hot Wash will excite your people a bit.

What’s more, it will reinforce that the tool you’re using will be relatively painless, short and sweet. No graphs, no charts, no dog and pony. “We’re gonna meet, talk about how things went, and see what to keep and what to make better next time. Nothing fancy. Hot Wash.”

As well, After Action processes can be a LOT more complicated. We’ll do a show at some point about a really in depth effort that will impress the heck out of you, and we may ask some professional colleagues to be involved. Basically, we’re stealing a core part of the larger and revered After Action Process. We know most of you won’t ever use the larger process… but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a ton out of a Hot Wash. A Ton!

One final point about the name. I haven’t been able to verify this. I believe the reason it’s called Hot Wash comes from the Army. I think it’s because a quick way to clean a rifle or other small weapon is to douse it in boiling hot water. It’s not a complete cleaning — a soldier still has to break down the weapon and get into the details. But it serves a valuable, immediate purpose by getting at the big stuff in a split second.

And how many other things do you do at work that get at the big stuff in a split second (besides some of the rest of Manager Tools?) One more thing: You’re gonna love it.

We also promised during the show that we’d share a sample email you can use to invite folks to your first Hot Wash. As promised, here it is …

Sample Email “Say It” Text

Team Member:

Manager.

The Meeting Introduction

If you’re leading a meeting where a team is being formed, or a project group is meeting for the first time, I recommend you use this tool to start off well. In fact, it is so effective, it is my all-time favorite manager tool. I’ve been leading meetings as a manager, leader and now consultant and facilitator for 20+ years. I’ve seen hundreds of ways to do this, and used many of them myself. This tool is by far the simplest to understand and the easiest to remember for everyone.

There are many consultants and “experienced” managers who will pooh-pooh this approach. They will moan when you introduce it, and say they’ve seen it before, and, “it’s so corny”. Most of them will argue with your choice of icebreaker when in fact they are making a statement that spending time on people stuff is a waste. They are dead wrong. Ignore them.

I’m an engineer – I like things to be short and sweet, and despite my love for every human being, I am intellectually inclined to avoid folks who don’t do things the way I think they ought to. I am fine with it emotionally – I love diversity, and often am moved to tears by watching someone do something I simply could not do. Here’s an engineer example. Mike and I love it when one of us calls the other, who answers his cell phone and says, “heymancallyouback.” He knows it’s me (or vice versa), and is telling me he can’t talk, but wanted me to know that even though he couldn’t, he saw it was me and am glad I called. That’s engineer respect for you. I once exchanged emails with a good friend of mine, a gifted manager at a hospital client of mine. “Lunch?” “When?” “Noon tomorrow Pasta Bella.” “Done.” Seven words, four mails (3 of them one word long), and a great meal was had by all. So, in all my years of introducing people this way, I’ve been pushed a hundred times to cut it out to save time. I’ve despaired often that ‘we’re never gonna get through this agenda if we spend all this time on the intro thing!’ Clients have deleted it from draft agendas, and I put it back in.

Because every single time, when I ask for feedback after a session, the introductions get the most frequent and most powerful positive response. I don’t argue with large numbers.

I’ve come to understand that the group knows. No individual necessarily knows, but the group does. They know that they’re not comfortable yet. They know that all the great memories they have of teams and projects that worked were of human connection, great interpersonal communication, trust and openness.

And you can’t have that if you don’t know each others’ names.

Here, then, is how to conduct an introductory meeting. May it serve you well. - Mark

You can use this technique as a meeting entirely unto itself, or as the kickoff for an all day meeting or half day session. It should be the first significant item on the agenda for the day/meeting, after your welcome, purpose, agenda and groundrules (all of which shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes total.)

I know what you might be thinking here. ‘Gosh! I have 4 hours – eight to noon. You’re saying I’m supposed to spend 20 minutes on the admin stuff, and then spend even more time on the introductions?’

Yes.

As a general rule, I determine the amount of time needed on the agenda by taking the number of attendees and multiplying by 3. That’s the number of minutes you need to do this intro/icebreaker* well.

[* - A note about icebreakers: I never call this an icebreaker. I have grown to dislike the term. Too many facilitators and HR people call anything fun or energetic that may not do a good job of introducing people an ‘icebreaker’. It may be right that they’re breaking the ice by having someone do something silly, but it’s a subversion of the real reason to break the ice: to get to know each other. If you don’t know others’ names and a little about them, it may be an ‘icebreaker’, but you’re not meeting your team’s needs for inclusion.]

So, if you have 15 people, you need 45 minutes. It is meeting suicide to try to do it in less time. If you try it, don’t tell anyone you learned the process from me. If you have 6 people, 20 minutes (always round up) is good. You get the idea. Just to be clear, the underlying principle here is that you must have time for this introductory technique on the agenda.

Yes, you can use this with 4 or even 3 people. I urge you to do so! It is a lovely nod of your head that you’re not assuming that just because the group is small, it is somehow magically going to gel. However, never schedule less than 15 minutes for it on the agenda. Don’t schedule 10 minutes for 3 people – it takes a few minutes to set up.

You can use this on groups as large as 25. I have used it with that many, and yes, I scheduled 75 minutes for it. You might think that it would get boring, or folks would get fidgety about starting the training. Nope. If I only have a 4 hour initial meeting for a project kickoff, I would absolutely use an hour plus of that for this exercise.

So, now you’ve got the time on the agenda, and you’re ready to start. Not exactly. First, you have to get your materials in order. You’re going to need enough flipchart paper for everyone to have one sheet, enough markers (not counting the yellow ones) for everybody to have at least one, and tape to be able to tape their sheets up to a flip chart easel or a wall.

It’s actually a helpful device to have the markers and paper piled in the middle of the floor when the session starts! Also, I like to rip the tape in advance, in 3 inch long strips, 2 strips for each person who will introduce themselves (and you WILL be introducing yourself, whether you’re a part of the group or just facilitating.)

What’s more, you’ll want to have a sample sheet prepared, to show everyone what theirs will look like. I don’t recommend you show them yours – make one that looks like the one at the bottom of this document,

Now it’s time to start!

After you learn the most important rule of all introductions.

Whatever you do, once you start this exercise, under no circumstances EVER are you to hurry the process along. Never encourage people to rush. Never manage to a time deadline at all. If you get behind*, DO NOTHING. The people you rush will feel like second class citizens. In the big scheme of things, one meeting running over is not the end of the world.

* - If you get ahead, it is okay to slow things down a little if 3-4 folks go really quickly and you feel like you’re going to finish way early. It’s not a problem finishing early – the problem is the group doesn’t bond if they rush.

To begin, introduce this introductory exercise this way:

“It’s time to get to know one another better. We have an excellent tool, where each one of you gets to introduce yourself to the group. It’s simple and fun. In just a moment, when I say “GO”, each of you is going to come up and grab a marker and a piece of flip chart paper. Then you’re going to have about 3 minutes to prepare a sheet of your own, like this one on the easel (or on the wall).” You’ll write your name on top – first and last. Below that, you’ll write your role – however you define it. Then, in the middle of the sheet, draw a picture that represents your life in some way. It could be a house, a flower, pictures of mountains you love to visit, or a drawing showing your family. Look, as you can see from the example, you needn’t be a good artist. Being a bad artist does not exempt you from this exercise! I’ve drawn stick figures for my family, and that’s as good as I can get… and that is absolutely FINE.”

Then, at the bottom, below your picture, you’ll write something – sort of a note to yourself – so that when you tell us about your sheet, you’ll remember Something No One Here Knows About You (SNOHKAY). You might write down “mascot” if you want to tell us that you were your high school’s mascot. You might write “crochet”, and tell us, “none of you know it, but I love to crochet and have been to a couple of conventions on it. I love it!”

What you share needn’t be earth-shattering, or impressive, at all. It should just be something fun, or different about you. For those of you who want to say, “everyone knows everything about me,” well, just think a bit harder. “Please, we’re not asking for secrets. That’s why we have down ATIPA: And That Is Professionally Appropriate. Nothing private.

“Share with us something that will help us know you a little bit better. “After everybody’s had 3-4 minutes, we’ll start having each of you introduce yourself. If you’re nervous about getting in front of the group, well, start now! Because each of you IS going to get in front of the group and walk us through your sheet.

“It’ll go like this. You’ll bring your sheet to the front of the room – random order, other than I will go first to remind you how – and you and I will tape up your sheet to the wall/easel. Please note I don’t want to tape your sheet to the paper… I’m going to tape it to the metal/plastic on the easel. You’ll face the group, and say, ‘Hi, I’m Mark.; You’ll pause, because the group will say back, ‘HI, MARK!’ You’ll then tell us your role – help us understand it a little if it’s different than anyone else’s in the room. Then, describe your picture to us. If there are stick figures, tell us who or what they are. Elaborate a little for us.

“Then, tell us about the something nobody knows. As an example of that, I wrote the number 37. When I came up, I would say, “I have broken 37 bones in my body. Fingers, toes, ribs, arm, leg, head, nose, face, etc.

“When you’re done, give us a second to show you some appreciation – we’re all going to clap for you. For some of us, speaking to a group is hard, and we want you to know you did well, and we’re glad you’re here.

“Then, I will help you take it down, and you will use the tape still on it to tape it somewhere to one of the walls in the room, and they’ll stay up the rest of the day today (or meeting). We’ll be able to admire our artwork the entire time. “That’s what we’re going to do. Everybody comes up, one at a time, and we get to know each other a bit.

“Any questions? GREAT. You can work anywhere you want, the tables, the floor, tape it to the wall to do it, whatever.” Okay…GO!!!!”

Now, you give them 3-4 minutes to work on their sheets. If you haven’t done yours, you can do it now, but I usually already have mine prepared so I can walk around and compliment participants on what they’re doing. Nice! Can’t wait to hear about THAT! GREAT artist over here…

Give them a 30 second warning. “THIRTY SECONDS!”

Then ask them to wrap it up. “Okay, time’s about up. Finish up, and I will tape mine up and get us started.”

It is absolutely critical that you go first. You will want to set a tone of enthusiasm, smiling and engaging the group, and not taking only 5 seconds to speed through it, but not talking for 5 minutes either. It’s okay to tell a story during the “SNOHKAY” portion…just don’t enjoy talking to the group too much. Make sure you pause to allow them to say “HI” and wait at the end, prompting them if necessary to applaud.

Now your job switches to facilitating them coming up one at a time. You’ll be busy, first helping each person put up their sheet, and then standing away from the presenter to allow them to be center stage.

You play a key role in keeping the group positive and energetic during this time. You certainly should be the loudest person clapping, and you will have to, for the first couple of folks, lead/remind everyone to say, “Hi, _____!”

To maintain some energy, move with energy to assist each person. Don’t saunter – the right move is much closer to a hop or skip. Show the group that you are serving them, that you are willing to work hard for their experience to be a good one. Once each person has presented, wrap up the exercise this way: “Thanks to each of you for sharing yourself with the group. That was time well spent. Let’s take a ____ minute break; be back at ______.”

That’s how you facilitate the most effective introduction exercise I’ve ever used.

We do have one caveat as we start. While both of us have been overseas to many places, our business careers have been decidedly American. We can’t make solid recommendations for our overseas subscribers, other than we think highly of the Economist. On the other hand, we would be happy to hear from our community about THEIR recommendations. if you’re wondering why your favorite isn’t on our list, let us know - we’ll tell you or read it and evaluate it.

We’ll start with periodicals, and then talk about some books we feel strongly about. Lastly, we’ll recommend some steps you can take to help you find the time for these important developmental efforts.

You’ll find a list of the books we discuss (and couple other of our favorites), and links to Amazon, on our Favorite Books page. Be warned, if you purchase through the Amazon link, we’ll actually get a few pennies for your trouble. First one to purchase a book and send us an email that you did so, get’s a special prize for helping make us our first 5 cents at podcasting! Woo-hooo!