JFA Hire & Fly

12/04/2023

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lessons-ive-learnt-embrace-difficult-conversations-cathy-stewart

Difficult conversations are often uncomfortable and almost always unpleasant. I’m referring to conversations where you have to provide feedback to a colleague on poor performance or when they have delivered something below par.

30/03/2023

Lessons I've learnt... the value of checklists in business and aviation.

As a student private pilot, I learnt to use various checklists at various stages of flight and before certain manoeuvres. Most pilots will tell you that they continue to use them long after training has been completed and will continue to do so for as long as they fly.

01/03/2023

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lessons-ive-learnt-dont-part-drama-triangle-cathy-stewart

There were conflicts and disputes that arose from time to time in our office and it took a while for me to understand that these conversations were often a rerun of previous conversations. The words may have been different and unique to the situation but the mindset and characterization of roles wer

26/01/2023

Lessons I’ve learnt … Do not let boxes on to your team.
After a four-week hiatus, I am back with a lesson learnt that was not a once off lesson but rather an accumulation of small lessons that spanned most of my career.
There is an Afrikaans word for box that I will not use in the interests of avoiding profanity but you all know what that word is. If you do not, you can Google when Ernie Else pulled his tee-shot on a par 3 hole during an event in Dubai and you can hear it said out loud. But I digress, I am not a golfer and today I shall be telling you a bit about what I think about boxes and why you should avoid having any of these boxes on your team and what you can do about it.
You get different types of boxes. You get the “Jack in the box” box, who is the team member that needs to be micromanaged to get anything done because they spend their day jumping between different tasks and not completing anything productive. This requires that you direct their activities and give them one task to complete at a time You also get the “Out of the box thinker” box. They spend meetings throwing out wild and wonderful ideas which cannot be implemented but makes them feel that they have added value simply by participating. You need to temper these ideas by asking them to do the research, the budget and the formal proposal. Most will wither away.
You also get the “Black box” box, the one that has so much going on in their heads that they just cannot articulate but have recorded every word you said that will be brought up when the plane has crashed. To circumvent this, you need to ask them a lot of questions which forces them to participate and leads to them to forget about recording you verbatim in their large memory bank.
Another one is the box that just “Ticks all the boxes”. They go through the motions, contribute little of significance and it’s difficult to find fault because they have followed the process mindlessly. If you know how to deal with this one, please let me know as I still haven’t fathomed how to get them properly engaged. One of my favourites is the “Tinder box” box, someone that lights a fire and for all intents and purposes gets everyone excited about an idea but will derail it in the same manner by playing the game of them and us and turns into a rabble rouser when the opportunity presents itself. You need to bring this box into check by isolating them from others except in meetings where you are present.
You also get the box that doesn’t want to be “Boxed in”, you’ll hear something like “Don’t label me” and they will have an opposing opinion for the hell of it. These are best dealt with by throwing theme parties regularly so they can demonstrate their bohemian hippy ways and unleash their creativity. Then there is the “Christmas box” box, the individual that spends 10 months of the year lolling about and underachieving but come November over delivers and sets all new records with a December bonus in mind. Easiest way to fix this box is to base bonus incentives on monthly performance.
The “Shadow box” box, is the passive aggressive box, doesn’t argue outright but makes sarcastic comments or snide remarks rather than presenting a valid argument or counter proposal. Counter this by asking them to vote on something and then get them to present their reasoning behind their vote.
There is “Hot box” box, who spends an entire meeting blowing smoke up management’s backside and wasting time with a lot of hot air. Counter them by having them present facts and ban any adverbs and adjectives.
The “Money or the box” box has no loyalty whatsoever and will leave at the drop of a hat if someone offers them a 2% increase in income. Let them go.
And finally you get the “Drop box” box, the one who collects volumes of information but actually does nothing with it, basically a data collector. Send them off to work at Stats SA.
Now the above represent my complaints about various team members over a period of thirty years and you would normally not be that unfortunate to have them all in the same room at the same time but if you cast your mind back, you will see that you have encountered at least a couple of these boxes in your working career. If you do find that you have all these boxes in your life at the same time you will have to seriously consider that you may have gotten inside Pandora’s box, I suggest that you make a hell of an effort to get out, quickly.
Moral of the rambling story is that make sure you don’t have too many boxes on your team or you may be going home in a box. Be selective about who you employ and engage with because you don’t want to find yourself living in a box filled with boxes, that have rubbed off on you and where you may well realise that you too have indeed become a box yourself.
If there are any boxes I missed or haven’t encountered, please let me know as I am curious to know just how many different types of boxes you get.

13/12/2022

Lessons I’ve learnt … Do not flog dead horses and you can’t make them drink.

There is a saying, “You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” and another one, “Don’t flog a dead horse.” I have seen both play out in business and neither had anything to do with horses but rather people and the effort required to engage with and motivate them. I did not heed either, to my own detriment and learnt valuable lessons.

The first time I saw this play out was around an internal training initiative that I played a pivotal role in driving. The training was designed for our industry, product related and offered to all staff but with a specific focus on the design office. It was at no cost, except for a time sacrifice in that you had to remain at the office (Pre-Covid times) for an hour after work. The training initiative although well attended, was an utter flop. The one thing I had forgotten was to ask whether the people involved, actually wanted to be trained. They showed up, did the exercises and appeared to listen but there was zero engagement and as a result, not much knowledge was retained, and it ended up being a complete waste of time.

And again, I made the same mistake when I promoted an individual, assuming that they wanted the promotion. They may have said all the right things, but their behaviour demonstrated that they in fact were quite happy in their previous position and did not want the added responsibility. In addition, I did nothing to prepare them for the new position, again assuming that they would emulate their predecessor and handle the team in the same way. Epic fail from me in making assumptions, not taking note of their behaviour and not asking first. Moral of the story goes back to the horses, do not assume that the horse wants a drink, in fact, assume nothing.

Flogging a dead horse, cost me yet more school fees when we formulated a productivity measure for design and installation. For months, we tried to get the management team to buy into it and provide feedback. There were numerous meetings where we discussed various scenarios and the variables that could play out but month on month nobody hit the proposed benchmark, the data received was not comprehensive and no ideas were forthcoming on how the benchmark should be adjusted. After two years of hearing all the reasons why the data couldn’t be used or hadn’t been correctly collated, we realised that we were flogging a horse that had been dead for a while and decided to can it.

Yet again I had assumed that after some time, everyone would settle down and buy into it. The problem was around that word “assumption”. They never bought into it, they never had input into the formulation and therefore never utilised the system. I also underestimated how hard it is to break the mindset of “but we have always done it like this”. Resistance to change can derail any new initiative unless it is handled much better than I did. I have subsequently learnt that one of the easiest ways around this is to get the most resistant people to be part of the process, get their ideas and input and let them do the convincing., but that is another topic completely.

I’d be interested to know what dead horses you have flogged.

07/12/2022

Lessons I’ve learnt … When things go wrong, opportunity knocks.

The dreaded client complaint is most often viewed with an element of negativity. In my time as Operations Officer and later MD, I was normally the last point of call when a client was irate about something we did not deliver as promised. This normally meant that they had already pursued other avenues of complaints, their problem had not been resolved, they were now exceptionally frustrated and harboured a great deal of anger, all of which is understandable under those circumstances.

Client complaints are a part of doing business. As much as we aim for achieving 100% on client satisfaction, things do go wrong from time to time. I am not advocating that it is okay nor should you be happy with too many client complaints but human error will inevitably play out and you will need to face an infuriated client.
What I found, is that most times if you approach the client in a humble and apologetic manner, they will calm down or at least use fewer expletives. First and foremost, you need to acknowledge that there is a problem. Most people want to be seen and heard and the best way to achieve that is to acknowledge that you have failed in some way and that they do have a valid complaint. The second most important thing is to apologise, again validating their frustration. The next step is to let them know that you care about their business and would appreciate the opportunity to rectify the problem. Believe it or not, most people I have dealt with are pretty open to giving you a second chance, provided you have been authentic in your apology. The other crowd pleaser is keeping them informed. If you promise something will be done tomorrow, over communicate to ensure that they know, you consider them a priority and that you are making a concerted effort to repair the broken trust.

A colleague of mine once said, “This is an opportunity to blow their socks off” and he was spot-on. If you are given a second chance, you need to over deliver on what you initially promised. Whether it is performing a service in half the normal time, delivering the product with additional features or taking the time out to go and apologise in person. Just do whatever it takes to blow their socks off. They will remember how you delivered in the end and in my experience most clients will be willing to continue to do business with you in the future.

If you fail to deliver again there are very few people that would give you a third chance. So, when you do have a customer complaint use the opportunity to develop a stronger relationship and ensure that there are no further mishaps.

Moral of the story is that you do have to acknowledge the mistake, apologise, fix the problem in super quick time and keep the customer informed so that they know you have taken it seriously.

29/11/2022

Lessons I’ve learnt … Endless Emails:
Following on from my post last week regarding unnecessary meetings, I thought I would share another pet hate, the endless emails.
Email was originally used as an efficient platform for quick communication. Sadly, over time, this has become a source of stress and anxiety for many in the workplace. There are various studies that indicate higher levels of stress when employees note incoming emails which is further exacerbated when clients and colleagues email after hours.
Many articles I’ve read advocate checking mail at specific times, batching mails, creating rules, sorting mails or deleting mails but the problem is all of these contribute to wasted productivity and yet more attention given to mails.
In my mind, communication is about conveying a message and ensuring that it is understood but instead many mails are sent to cover your butt (when the manager is copied), to show everyone on the team that you have responded (when you hit “Reply all”), when you have not supplied adequate information in the first place (the follow-up mail) or my all-time personal favourite when people decide to make their disagreement a crowd pleaser (the office tiff). I am also well aware that there are times when a message needs to be sent to an entire team and there are times when multiple people need to be kept in the loop of ongoing progress but in my experience, it frequently becomes habitual to reply to everyone and load up others’ mailboxes.
I once sent out a mail to our staff, which at the time comprised about 75 people. The mail was regarding a simple change in a procedure that affected all. I received 30 odd replies “Noted”. Those 30 odd replies went to everyone that I had originally mailed.
I have received and ashamedly sent mails that read “see below” or “FYI” and it a messy thread of mails that requires you to piece the story together like a jigsaw puzzle. I had a colleague who would not leave the office until he had gotten his unread mail to 50. He designated mail as a separate activity whilst I saw it as something you had to do on the go. As a result, I was constantly checking whether I needed to respond to mails I had received. This was the first thing I did in the morning, the last thing I did before I went to bed, in meetings, whilst I was on the phone, at lunch, at dinner, on holiday, at family functions, you get the picture.
The above situations lead to what I call email fatigue and can result in important mails being lost in the mountain of mail that is received daily. In addition, you lose the ability to distinguish what is important and what is trivial. I frequently skimmed mails and missed important information or worse still deleted by accident, purely through a need to get through the volume. It often felt like I was looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
The instant communication that email provides also leads to expectations that the receiver will or should respond immediately. Having email on your phone gives everyone access to you 24/7 and this is further aggravated by SMS messages, social media and spam which makes life even more jampacked with irrelevant data.
This costs you productivity and adds to the likelihood of burnout. I do not have all the answers but I do know that companies should be communicating with employees around what is deemed a relevant mail, who should be copied and what falls into the category of unnecessary communication.
Communication should be done with an objective and in the workplace normally covers a few areas such as conveying important information, progress updates, notifications regarding a calendar event or a specific request for something to be attended to. Under almost all conditions, person to person email will suffice.

22/11/2022

15/11/2022

Lessons I’ve learnt … The Blame Game is destructive
The first step in deteriorating behaviours in a team is playing the blame game. When finger pointing starts, you give away your ownership of playing any part in the mess and demoralise all involved. This doesn’t mean that there is no criticism warranted or that there shouldn’t be repercussions but naming and shaming does not build a team, it destroys it. The situation deteriorates even further when it is done publicly.
Individuals see themselves as being targeted and move into defensive mode. This may lead to people hiding mistakes in the future, being paralysed and not making decisions out of fear and ultimately victim mentality.
A good team understands that when a ball is dropped, it is everyone’s responsibility to investigate the underlying cause and find a solution. This will ensure better team cohesion, a willingness to participate in resolving problems and by default a stronger team.
As leaders we need to ask ourselves, if we are always clear on the expected outcomes and whether the team involved has the resources, skills and will to deliver. If any of those criteria are missing, it is mission impossible. In addition, if you do not own mistakes, you are setting a poor example and will erode any trust that may have existed.
The role of a leader is to build relationships and create conditions that inspire, empower and develop people to achieve a common goal.

01/11/2022

Lessons I’ve learnt… sarcasm is not a good option.
I am guilty of making this mistake and regretfully admit that I have utilized sarcasm to convey my dissatisfaction with someone’s work in the past. I can vouch wholeheartedly that it is not the answer to dealing with poor performance or below par results.

On a site visit with a colleague many years back, we noticed piping that had been poorly painted. My colleague, who was extremely stressed due to a myriad of other issues, promptly had a melt-down and told the painter to use a toothbrush to paint the large-bore piping and a large brush to paint the small-bore piping. Whilst it was humorous at the time, the outcome was exactly what my colleague had not wanted to achieve. The painter took his instructions literally, painted the large piping with a toothbrush which left very visible, small, rigid brush marks and in his attempt to comply fully had subsequently messed very red enamel paint on the newly finished white wall behind the small-bore piping. The Main Contractor was unimpressed to say the least and there were inevitable contra charges for the mess, shouting and cursing as well as the additional time and money that went into rectifying it.

Moral of the story is that the use of sarcasm should be avoided, not only to obviate the above situation but because it demonstrates a lack of leadership skills. When people use sarcasm, it indicates that they lack the ability to resolve conflict in a health way and that they may have passive aggressive tendencies. It is not constructive, prohibits open and honest feedback and moves you no closer to finding a solution. It also demonstrates a lack of self-esteem and is demeaning. This all contributes to elements of a toxic environment.

In South Africa, we have the challenges of 11 official languages, a multitude of cultural differences, our history and diverse ethnicities to contend with. Sarcasm does not help our already complex working environment; it undermines meaningful communication and drives us further apart.

Whilst you may get a few laughs at the expense of someone else, it is not worth destroying relationships. Rather take the time to provide straightforward feedback and assist with finding a workable solution.

Avoid making the same mistakes, I've made and let me assist in providing your small business with a strong foundation for growth.

25/10/2022