BUILDING WORKPLACE CONFIDENCE
©Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.

The personality trait most responsible for an individual's ability to deal well with change is confidence. Confident people are self-motivated, have high self-esteem, and are willing to take risks. But even the most confident of employees may suffer a crisis of self-doubt in times of accelerating change, and it is here that leadership awareness and assistance becomes a critical strategy issue.

Key leadership strategy : Acknowledge weaknesses, but play to people’s strengths

Lee Strasberg, the famous acting coach said, I can train you in anything except that for which you have no talent. Everyone has areas of lesser and greater talents, and while it can be helpful to acknowledge weaknesses and seek guidance or training to develop those areas, there is nothing more frustrating than to strive vainly to excel in areas of endeavor where one has little or no natural ability.

We know intuitively that Mr. Strasberg's reasoning is sound, but leaders seldom apply it in the workplace. Instead, most workers report that they are singled out for notice only when there is a problem with their performance. Here is a question I often ask my audiences: If your boss told you that she noticed something about your performance and wanted you to come to her office to discuss it, would you assume that she had noticed an area of your special competence and wanted to bring it to your attention? Among the majority of audience members who respond with nervous laughter, only a few hands raise.

Bosses tend to notice and comment on weaknesses and mistakes more than they comment on talents and strengths. While continuous learning and self-improvement are valid concepts for future success, focusing solely on what is lacking leads to an unbalanced evaluation of employees worth and potential. It is no wonder then that most workers have problems taking risks and confronting uncertain situations.

Focusing on employee strengths takes a management strategy that includes the following:

Don't assume people know how good they are.

I gave a speech for the top management team of a software company in Northern California that was relocating out of state. A few days later the president of the company telephoned me to say, After your presentation last week, I began thinking. I have an administrative assistant who is probably the brightest, most creative person I've worked with. The problem is, she's married and can't move her family out of the Bay Area. I was wondering if you would see her for a private counseling session, so that when she applies for a new job, she will come across just as terrific as she really is. I'll even pay for the session.

Of course, I agreed, and looked forward to meeting this talented woman. When she came into my office I said, This is a real pleasure. I've heard so many nice things about you. Tell me about yourself. What is it that you do exceptionally well? What would you most want a prospective employer to know about you? The woman was silent for several seconds. Finally she sighed and said, I really don't know. I do a lot of things well, but when I do them, I don't notice.

When employees do something very well, acknowledge it immediately.

Timing is everything when it comes to building talent and strengths. Get in the habit of commenting on outstanding employee behavior as soon as you notice it. When managers at El Torito Restaurants in Irvine, California, catch a worker doing something exceptional, they immediately give the employee a Star Buck. Each restaurant has a monthly drawing from the pool of stars for prizes (cash, TV, etc.), and each region has a drawing for $1000 cash.

Encourage employees to recognize their own achievements and then to go public.

One manager I know came up with a creative solution to her employees lament that, although she did a pretty good job overall, there were many times when she seemed too preoccupied to notice accomplishments. She put a hand-painted sign in her office and jokingly encouraged employees to display it whenever they had a significant achievement. What started out as an office gag is now a favorite employee ritual. The sign reads, I just did something wonderful. Ask me about it!

Help employees identify strengths and then find ways to capitalize on them.

Everyone has unique talents and abilities which are not always used in their present jobs. Todd Mansfield, the Executive Vice President of Disney Development Company found that his company had been spending too much time on employee weaknesses: When we'd sit down to evaluate associates, we'd spend 20 percent of our time talking about the things they did well, and 80 percent on what needed to be improved. That is just not effective. We ought to spend and energy helping people determine what they are gifted at doing and get their responsibilities aligned with those capabilities.

Paula Banks, a former Human Resources Director at Sears, did just that when dealing with a secretary who was doing an adequate, but mediocre job. Paula talked to the woman and found out that, in her spare time, she was a top salesperson for Mary Kay Cosmetics. In Paula's words: I found out she had great sales skills, so I changed her duties to include more of what she was really good at -- organizing, follow-through, and closing deals. She had this tremendous ability. My job was to figure out how to use it.

Set "stretch" goals that pull employees beyond previous levels of achievement.

A former director of recruitment for the United States Coast Guard said that the branch of the service best known for building confidence in its members is the Marine Corps. In his opinion, the reason is that boot camp training constantly challenges Marine recruits to perform beyond their previous physical limits. As a result, there is tremendous pride in passing tests of rigorous standards and being found capable.

Most managers I spoke to agreed: The more you challenge people, the more they'll pull up for it. And when they do -- when they actually accomplish the impossible -- they begin to realize they are capable of achieving more than they'd ever thought.

Create small victories.

To encourage people on the way to achieving goals of exceptional performance, mangers need to design "small wins." One manager put it this way, A stretch goal can scare people to death. I always begin with a mini-goal that I know my staff can achieve, and then I use that victory as a confidence-builder for reaching the larger objective.

Give all employees the opportunity to discover their abilities.

The Office Support Network (OSN) is an inner-company organization of office and clerical workers at S.C. Johnson Wax. Reporting to the head of Human Resources, it has a ten-member steering committee and nine subcommittees that address the growth and development of office staff. When I addressed the OSN at their annual dinner meeting, the chairwoman of the steering committee (also a library clerk) hired me and made all the financial and travel arrangements for my engagement. Her experience with the OSN greatly enhanced her opinion of her abilities: This program has given me a whole new view of myself. I now know that I can conduct meetings and give speeches. For the first time, I’m confident that I'm a true professional with a lot to offer.

At every level of the organization, address weakness but focus on strengths.

It isn't just mid-level managers and front-line employees who benefit from having their strengths reinforced. Ivan Seidenberg, president and COO of Nynex talks about what he values in his relationship with Bill Ferguson, the chairman and CEO: Bill acts as my coach. He tells me what I need to improve, but he focuses on what I'm doing right. Like everyone else, I need to know what I'm doing right in order to have confidence, take risks, and know that my ideas are of value.

Leadership Strategy -- Reward Failure

Some individuals and enterprises would rather run from uncertainty, but they cannot. In a chaotic world, many of the best routes to success require great risks:

Companies attempt radical work reform which can boost productivity and cut costs but have a high failure rate: they pursue cutting edge technological innovations that may or may not take hold; they invest in deregulated industries which offer potentially good profits, but with the certainty of intense competition; and they expand into fast-growing developing countries that offer the most lucrative opportunities coupled with the greatest risks.

Individuals who would prefer security are betting on jobs in high-technology industries that offer top salaries today and the serious risk of being swallowed up by the competition tomorrow. Employees who invest their retirement money in hot stocks do so hoping for high returns, but face the chance of losing everything.

Change requires gambling and risk, and with risk comes failure. Tom Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM was often quoted as saying, The way to accelerate your rate of success is to double your failure rate. Bob Metcalfe, president of 3COM, says, We tell our folks to make at least 10 mistakes a day. If they're not making 10 mistakes a day, they're not trying hard enough.

When people make mistakes or fail in their attempts, self-doubt can become overwhelming. That's human nature. It isn't that change-adept professionals are never afraid or doubtful, it is just that they don't let their fears stop them from taking action. Part of their resilience is a philosophy that views failure in a unique way. The change-adept impressed me with their refusal to consider mistakes as defeats. A typical point of view was: The word failure is not in my vocabulary. When I make a mistake, it is just a breakdown showing me exactly what needs to be looked at before I continue along the path -- but I am always on the path.

Failure is not a crime. Failure to learn from failure is, said Walter Wriston, the former chairman of CitiCorp. Leaders can begin to develop a work force of confident risk-takers by encouraging and even rewarding failure.

One way to encourage risk-taking in others is to use your personal failures as examples. Talk openly and honestly about your errors and setbacks -- and what you learned as a result. Let people know that you took risks when you were afraid and unsure of the results.

The general manager of an insurance company, concerned that her salespeople were so afraid of failure that they hesitated to take even well-calculated risks, took action at a sales meeting. She put two $100 bills on the table and related her most recent failure, along with the lesson she had learned from it, then she challenged anyone else at the meeting to relate a bigger failure and "win" the $200. When no one spoke up, she scooped up he money and said that she would repeat her offer at each monthly sales meeting. From the second month on, the manager never again got to keep the $200, and as people began to discuss their failures, the sales department became more successful, quadrupling their earnings in one year.

DuPont's Textile Fibers Division actually rewards failure with with a quarterly failure trophy. The failed efforts must have been ethically sound, recognized as failures quickly, and learned from thoroughly.

Leadership strategy -- Build an unlearning Organization

Employees can become psychologically attached to the status quo because it is familiar and comfortable. But even more difficult than fighting off the inertia of comfort, people find it hard to let go of the past because it is there that they experienced personal success -- and most people are addicted to feeling competent. Almost everyone likes the experience of mastery -- of knowing they are doing a good job. That's understandable, that's basic human psychology -- it's just not an attitude that helps companies move forward. Although it might have been a valid assumption in the past, when companies valued employees for their entrenched knowledge, the reality of a high-speed future is that current knowledge quickly becomes outdated. In the future, employees will be valued less for what they know and more for how quickly they can learn. In fact, leaders tell me that one of the greatest challenges of a learning organization is to help employees identify those practices that they need to unlearn in order to more quickly adopt new behaviors. Leaders must help employees use past competencies, not as a reason to stop learning, but as a springboard to future success.

Business leaders help employees to unlearn by addressing the issue directly. They talk about their own problems with unlearning, they empathize with the feelings of awkwardness that people have when leaving their comfort zone, and they massage damaged egos by applauding the efforts that are being made.

Building a style of corporate behavior that is comfortable with -- even aggressive about -- new ideas, risk, change, and failure, means that workers need to change their attitudes about incompetence. Unlearning -- and doing it quickly -- is the key to rapid advancement. Instead of labeling incompetence as something to avoid, it should be embraced for what it really is -- a positive sign of unlearning. Here are a few questions about learning and unlearning that all employees should be asked to consider:

What do I do best? (What skills and abilities am I most proud of?)

How does feeling competent stop me from doing things differently? (Where are the comfort zones that I'm most reluctant to leave?)

What do I need to unlearn? (Which skills are becoming obsolete? What practices -- attitudes, behaviors, work routines, etc. -- that worked for me in the past are no longer valid?)

What new skills do I need to learn to stay valuable to the organization?

What have I learned in the past six months?

What do I expect to learn in the next six months?

Leadership Strategy -- Build Employees Work Security

Marketplace realities dictate that employees become their own career managers -- assessing their strengths and weaknesses, developing personal goals, benchmarking proficiencies, tracking industry and market trends, planning for retirement, and building a portfolio of skills that is transferable to other work situations. As people build career resilience, they develop an inner security that provides the resources to take care of themselves, even if the company doesn't, or can't.

In developing career resilience, employees need the assurance that they'll be told the criteria for success in the future -- that the skills, attitudes, etc. they will need will be clearly communicated -- and that assistance in preparing will be available. Leaders endeavoring to foster career resilience have come up with a variety of constructive programs in response:

USS-POSCO, a joint venture with South Korea and U.S. Steel located in northern California, has a Learning Center offering a free night school to all employees. Some of the courses are directly job-related; others, like stress-reduction and pre-retirement planning help employees take control of their future.

The Regional Municipality of Ottawa offers employees the opportunity to try out short-term assignments in areas of interest at levels higher than the ones they presently occupy, or perhaps even in totally different fields where they can explore and apply transferable skills. The Development Assignment for Regional Employees (DARE) program allows employees to work for a period of up to six months in other parts of the organization at their same salaries and without fear of penalty if failure occurs.

Intel Corporate Staffing is a strategic redeployment process that allows talented employees to move quickly from one business within the organization to another. Intel informs employees about which businesses are declining and which are emerging, so that employees have adequate time and information to plan for their redeployment. Intel utilizes information systems to provide employees with direct input about access to job opportunities and skill requirements, and offers resources to assess their existing competencies, identify gaps, hone skills, deepen knowledge, or even retrain completely.

Leadership Strategy --Give Employees Exit Power

A few years ago, I spoke at a convention for the American Society of Association Executives in Dallas, Texas. I arrived early to see how the meeting room was set up and to observe the audience reaction as they listened to the speaker on the program ahead of me. I don't recall the speaker's name, but I remember his closing comments: My topic this afternoon has been power, and I've spoken about several kinds of power, including positional power which has to do with your title and level in the organization, and information power which comes from your knowledge or access to information. However, there is one kind of power I haven't addressed, yet, and without it you will never enjoy any other kind of power in your organization. It is exit power. If you haven't thought through and developed a plan of action for what you would do if you were fired -- written an up-to-date draft of your resume, developed a solid network of business contacts, saved enough money to survive unemployment for several months -- then you don't have exit power.

Leaders build work force confidence and loyalty by helping employees develop exit power. I consulted for an oil company at the beginning of their reengineering effort, and during a meeting with the change task force, we began to discuss the drop in confidence the work force was experiencing. One of the managers shook her head. Not my staff,î she said. Everyone in my department is doing just fine. When we asked her why they were doing so well, the manager said that every week she brought her team together and spent an hour or more going over strategy for various organizational contingencies. We look at the current changes going on in the business and the changes we anticipate in the future, and then we plan how best to position ourselves for all outcomes. We plan our personal financial and career strategies, we share information and leads about open positions throughout the company, we've even planned a response if our entire function is eliminated. We've decided to stay intact as a department and to sell our services back to the organization.

One leader I know took a novel approach to building employee confidence during a time of organizational upheaval. As a senior vice president of a national bank during a takeover bid by another bank, Norm's department was more productive, and his employee retention rate higher than that of other departments. Norm said to me, I know how unnerving it is not to know what will happen in the future. I understand how confidence levels drop under these conditions. One thing that works for me personally is to give my resume to corporate headhunting firms. It's not that I'm looking to change companies, its just that I need the confidence that comes only with knowing how desirable I am in the marketplace. He continued, You know what else I've done? I've told all my managers to circulate their resumes as well.

Carol Kinsey Goman is an international speaker, author, and consultant who specializes in human capital issues. She presents keynote addresses and seminars for management conferences and major trade associations. Corporate clients include over 90 organizations in 18 countries -- corporate giants such as Consolidated Edison, Royal Bank of Canada, and PepsiCo, major non-profit organizations such as the American Institute of Banking and the American Society of Training and Development, high-tech firms such as Hewlett-Packard and Tektronix, government agencies such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Library of Congress, and international firms such as Petroleos de Venezuela, Dairy Farm in Hong Kong, SCA Hygiene in Germany, and Wartsilla Diesel in Finland. www.ckg.com