Hello, everybody. Welcome to the seven habits of highly effective supervisors. This is the first topic in the 2022 Deer Oaks Supervisor Excellence webinar series. This is a long running series. We've actually been providing this series since 2013. And so have a great turnout today, excited for another year of programming.

This again, is a quarterly series provided for supervisors, managers, and leaders on lots of different topics that are relevant to becoming an effective leader, improving our management skills. And so again, looking forward to having many of you join us for these quarterly programs again here in 2022.

I do want to let you this is the first topic, the seven habits of highly effective supervisors. In May, we will be coming back with the keys to effectively managing employee performance. And then in August, we will be presenting strengthening the team. And then last but not least, the final presentation of the year will happen in November. It's entitled, transitioning from staff member to supervisor.

If you'd like to register for any of those future presentations and you need the link to register, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar software. I'm sorry, hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today or reminder for today.

Those emails go directly to our team. And just let them that you would like to have the registration links for the rest of the 2022 Supervisor Excellence GoToWebinar series programs, and they would be happy to send you that information. All right, folks.

And so I also want to make sure our technology is working for us today. If you can please find the Raise Hand icon in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. And if you can see my slides clearly and hear my voice clearly, can you please click on the Raise Hand icon now?

That's great, folks. Looks like we're good to go technology wise. I do want to remind you that you have two options during these GoToWebinar platform presentations to access audio. Most of us nowadays, especially with the last couple of years during the pandemic and so many of us working remotely, we've been on, probably all of us, dozens and dozens of different remote or virtual calls, right? Virtual meetings, Microsoft Teams, Zoom or GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar like this program today.

And nowadays, it's pretty common when you log on to a virtual platform presentation to just automatically accept the computer audio for your audio. But I want to remind us that the quality of computer audio can be impacted by a local weather condition like a thunderstorm or even an intermittent Wi-Fi signal at your current location.

So if you are having any difficulty today with the audio, you have a second option. Please click on the Audio button in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. And you can switch over from computer audio to phone call. Once you click on phone call, you'll get a dial in number and an access code. And you can dial in and receive the audio that way. I've done that many times, the audio quality is really good over the telephone.

And then last but not least, I want to remind you during these educational presentations here in 2022, participants are in listen-only mode. What I mean by that is you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the content portion of the presentation, which should probably last about 30 minutes today, give or take. But your questions are important to me.

So we get to the end of the content portion of the presentation, the formal presentation, I will open it up for questions at that point. If you want to submit a question, please click on the Question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right hand corner of your screen and type your question in there.

I do want to let you that we do have several hundreds people on the call today. It's a great turnout. Really appreciate everyone's time. And so we may not be able to get to everyone's questions, but we will get to as many questions here this afternoon during that Q&A session as time allows.

All right, folks. Let's go ahead and get started. So with today's presentation, many of you probably are recognizing I'm loosely following The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People title and book written by the famous author Dr. Stephen Covey.

Many of you have probably heard of that book or even own that book, or read that book in the past. It was a wonderful book. And so this isn't exactly the same content, of course, but I'm using that theme, the seven habits and putting it in the context of best practices in being a highly effective supervisor.

And I've got three objectives for our time together today in the webinar. Number one is I really want to help us all really connect more with the core skills used in today's world by successful leaders, managers, and supervisors. Some of this will be review for many of us of course, today.

So some will just be a good reminder of things that work or best practices that we could apply more consistently. But for a few of us, I'm hoping that we'll learn maybe an additional technique or tip that we could utilize in the way we lead and supervise our teams to be as effective as possible.

And then next, I want to talk about the importance of, and this is a core paradigm shift that I'm going to talk about multiple times during the call today, moving from a more highly directive management approach. Like someone who gives a lot of commands, tells people what to do and how to do it a lot, to management approach or a leadership approach that's more collaborative and supportive that be better received by employees. I'll go into detail about that here in a moment.

And then last but not least today, we're going to talk about several crucial interpersonal skills that can help supervisors and managers to maximize employee engagement and productivity.

Because obviously for all of us that are in a leadership role, whether your title is supervisor, manager, lead, director, whatever your title is, our goal at the end of the day is to have a highly motivated and productive team. And so we're going to talk about the interpersonal skills that we need to practice on a consistent basis that'll maximize employee engagement and productivity.

All right, folks. Let me give you an overview of the seven habits and then I'll drill down into each one. So habit number one is to be a positive leader. Obviously, every leader, every effective leader sets the tone for their team.

Just like a parent sets the tone in the household for the kids, a leader in the workplace sets the tone. And we'll talk more about that and how to do that here in a moment. Habit number two is the importance of getting to our employees.

Gallup, the polling company that most of us are pretty familiar with here in America, with all of their workplace research, and they've done a ton, they've talked to over a million US employees, so it's a great sample size, that the quality of the relationship between a supervisor and their employee is the difference maker in terms of employee motivation, employee retention, and employee productivity. So we'll talk about the importance and some how-tos around building great relationships and really getting to our employees better.

Habit number three is to engage our team, the whole issue of employee engagement that I know so much of us have read and heard a lot about. There's such great research around how much more effective and how much longer people stay and how productive they are when they're engaged. So we'll talk about how to create that environment here in a little bit.

We're also going to talk about using a more collaborative communication approach. So this was one of my objectives at the outset. I want us to be thinking to really interact effectively with employees and in a way that's comfortable and motivating for them.

We really need to be less directive. Less about telling people what to do and more about talking with people, collaborating with them, showing interest in their ideas. And we'll get more into how to do that here in a moment.

Then habit number five is becoming more of a coach. Coaching really at the end of the day, is a collaborative conversation with an employee that's focused on an outcome. Like creating a work plan and giving the employee input into that, correcting performance and giving an employee input into that. We'll talk more about that here in a moment.

Then habit number six again, is interacting effectively. As I mentioned, the theme of my conversation with you all today really is about the quality of our relationships and our communication with our team members.

When those interactions day to day are supportive and respectful and engaging. I mean, typically employees they're going to enjoy their jobs more. They're going to be more motivated and more engaged and do their best work.

And then last but not least, we're going to talk about handling conflict with care. As I think most of us are probably well aware, even supervisors and employees sometimes don't agree. And we sometimes aren't on the same page. We sometimes can get into a conflict. And so I want to talk about the importance of having good conflict management skills so that we can carefully and skillfully handle difficult conversations with employees.

All right. Let's go back to number one, folks. Let's talk again about setting a positive tone. I have to tell you, I have very seldom ever seen, and I've been in different leadership roles now for 28 years. I've been with Deer Oaks for the last 10 years. I'm a director at Deer Oaks and a department head.

So in these roles, what I've rarely ever seen like in job descriptions for leaders, I've rarely ever seen the term set a positive tone. It's almost like it's assumed that if you're in a leadership role or you're in a supervisory or management role, it's almost assume that you have to establish a positive tone or you have to have a positive attitude.

But the truth is many of us could probably if we were having a dialogue right now, many of us would probably give examples quickly of supervisors or managers we work for in the past that were not very positive. That were highly critical, maybe even were micromanagers, didn't smile a lot, real serious. Kind of negative, complained a lot.

And so I think we could all cite examples like that. But the truth is when we go to the office every day, and I know a lot of us are still working virtually. But when we log on for work that day, the mood that we're in, putting a smile on her face, being friendly, greeting people showing interest in them, encouraging people, supporting people. Being positive during difficult times.

Giving people the hope that we're going to get through this together and I've got your back. That approach is so important to establishing a really great workplace culture for a team. And if you think about culture, culture sometimes is one of those big terms that I've had a hard time getting my arms around in the past.

But I've come to realize that culture or environment or workplace environment, or the environment within your team or department, is created by in part the energy. The energy by the leader, the energy by the participants. And then it's fostered and continued by how we interact with each other every day.

But that energy is so important. And when the leaders and the colleagues come to work in a good mood, putting a smile on their face. And I know we're not always going to be our best. We're going to have tough days and sometimes we're going to be preoccupied by personal issues. We're all human.

But when we intentionally go to work wanting to set a positive tone, one of the best stories I've ever heard about this, about taking seriously the part of my role as a supervisor is to set a positive tone for the team.

A colleague of mine that worked for a local municipality-- I've been in the workforce now for 40 years, so she was close to my age. I've been around for a while. And she said how she handles reinforcing a positive environment for her team. And taking this topic seriously of setting a positive tone. She says, I realize I'm a human being.

I'm going to have nights when I don't sleep very well, so I won't have a lot of energy the next day. She goes, I'm as human as the rest of us. I'm going to have good moods and bad moods. I'm going to have days where I'm feeling overwhelmed by what's going on in my life or in my personal life, or a problem that is kind of hanging over me.

She said, but when I get to the front door of City Hall, I love the way she described this. She says, I put my hand on the Welcome to City Hall sign. And I say to myself in my mind, and this is her speaking. She says, I say to myself in my mind, it's show time. And I check my baggage at the door and I walk in and put a smile on my face and I do my best to set a great tone for the team.

I love that. That's really helped me throughout my career. She gave me a really nice mantra and a really nice approach to making sure that when I do have my own concerns, my own worries, my own problems, I do need to set them aside while I'm in the workplace because I need to be there for my team.

Folks, when you sign on and into a supervisory or leadership role, it's a responsibility to be our best, to create a positive environment for the team, or at least set the tone for that and encourage the team to do likewise.

And so I want us to think about that. I want us to think about the importance of what creates positive energy when you work with the team. It's the smile on your face. It's encouragement. It's showing an interest in people. It's having some excitement about what we're doing together, generating some positive energy. There's a little bit of cheerleader that goes into an effective leadership role.

I really do. I really believe leaders obviously have to be competent and the technical parts of what they do or the functions that they lead or that they supervise. But we also need to have that people side, that encouraging side, that giving recognition side, that supportive side. I love that.

I'm very fortunate at Deer Oaks I've got a really good boss. And she's very positive, very supportive. Shows an interest in me all the time. She values my opinion. When I worked for someone like her, and I've worked for her for a long time, it's one of the reasons why I've been at Deer Oaks so long. I've got a great boss. It makes all the difference in the world. It just creates this great positive vibe or positive environment that people look forward to coming to work.

I mean, I'm a TGIM guy. We've all talked about TGIF, thank God it's Friday. I'm a TGIM guy. I thank God it's Monday. I look forward to coming back to work on Monday. I enjoy working. And a lot of it is we have a really, really, really positive environment here at Deer Oaks. And my boss gets a lot of credit for that. She sets a really positive tone for all of us.

And then likewise, I try to do that for my team. And so I try to pass that down on into the organization. I've got three direct reports and I try to do the same thing she does for me for my team. But it has to be intentional, folks. Because again like my colleagues said from that local municipality, some days you're not going to feel like it. Some days you're not going to be at your best. Some days you're going to be tired. Some days you're going to be in a bad mood.

Some days you're going to be preoccupied. But when you sign on to be a leader, we really do have to go into the office or jump on a call if you're working virtually or a Zoom call or a Teams call, or whatever the case may be and put a smile on your face and be positive. That sets that tone for the team.

When there's problems and things going on, a lot of times positivity is best communicated by saying to folks, and I'm not saying being pie in the sky. We need to be honest about mistakes and deal with them constructively. But to say to people you know what, I know this is a tough time but you know what, we're going to get through this. And we're in this together and I've got your back. We're going to get through this. It's going to be OK.

And I'm honest with people. I'm transparent. I'll say to someone, I'm not happy about the situation either. I'm not enjoying it. But you know what, we'll get through this together. We've got a good team, we support each other. We'll get through this together.

And a lot of times, that's positivity for a supervisor to say to an employee during a difficult time is I got your back, I'm going to help you get through this. We're going to get through this together.

So folks, let's just remember just like again, when the parents come home for work in the evening and mom or dad or whatever the case may be. When they put a smile on their face, when they act excited to see the kids at the end of the day, it's like when the supervisor is excited to say good morning to the staff. How are you doing? How was your weekend? That matters, folks. That really sets that positive tone.

And then of course, as you're dealing with issues throughout the day, be as encouraging and helpful and supportive as you can. You want to avoid getting all caught up in the weeds of negativity because that can really bog us down.

Yeah again, we do need to address issues and be constructive and come up with solutions for sure. But you need to remember that we can't get too down into the negativity because that can pull a team down. We need to encourage people that we're going to get through this. We'll figure something out. Let's just roll our sleeves up and brainstorm solutions.

All right. Habit number two is getting to know your employees well. I mentioned what the Gallup folks said. I really said this was a tipping point. What I mean by a tipping point is they said that in their research when they talked to over a million US employees, and the research was really around employee engagement. Like, what has to happen for an employee to want to get engaged in their work and give 100% every day?

And what they were talking about is the number one reason is their relationship with their boss. That if it's a good relationship, when that boss shows interest in them and is supportive and is there for them. Gets to them, shows and interest in their world, not just in what they can do for them at work, that employee is much more likely to get engaged and do their best work and much less likely to look for another job and leave.

And so we need to make sure we're investing time spending with our employees. A problem I had earlier in my career is I was to task-oriented. Oftentimes I would interact with team members usually only to, or mostly as a means to an end to get something done, to get a task completed. And certainly, that's a part of every supervisor's responsibility.

But I've come to realize over the years and after getting better training and through trial and error, it works better when I slow down and show interest in people. And an interesting thing is I enjoy my job more when I do that, when I'm not just all business.

Now naturally, none of us has the time to spend 15 minutes doing small talk with people before every business conversation, but we can all take a minute, right? We can all, hey, how was your weekend? How's your child? As we get to know people. People tell us about themselves. The longer we work with people, the more we get to about them and the more we have information to ask them about in subsequent conversations.

And so I think it's really important to take an interest in people. Ask them about their background, ask them about their families, ask them about their interests. And I'm not talking about prying into personal issues. No. I'm talking about just general taking interest in people's lives, conversations we'd have with any colleague.

I never pry into any area someone looks uncomfortable. If I ask someone, do you have children and they don't seem interested in talking about it, I won't bring that up again. But most people want to talk about their kids. I love to know about the families of the people that I work with.

I love to be able to say, hey how's your son doing in football? How's your daughter doing in ballet? How's your mom? I know she had that difficult situation you told me about. Is that getting better for her? I hope everything's OK.

Those are the kinds of things people really care about, make them feel cared about when their boss takes an interest like that. And really drill down and get to their professional. I want to their professional interests. What kind of projects and tasks do they enjoy? What kinds do they not enjoy? What are their career goals? How can I help them get there?

So really make spending time with your employees on a day to day basis. And make it a priority and see it as an investment. So I just think it's a great idea. And as you build those relationships, people then are going to be more motivated to do good work on the tasks.

I wish I had taken this more seriously and realized this 20 years ago. It took me a while to figure this out, but it's really made a difference in the quality of my relationships with the staff since I've really focused more on just those connections and those relationships.

All right. The next piece is engaging your team. Now part of it is the relationship. That's the beginning of engagement. The Carnegie Training company they had a wonderful study and they basically said that the number one determining factor in an employee giving 100% or not, for an employee to say, I'm totally engaged, I'm all in and I really love working here is if they know their boss cares about them as a person.

And a lot of that comes from that relationship, and you taking an interest in them. And so let's make sure that we're showing people that we care about them. And then when we work with people on projects, on problems that need to be solved, on performance that needs to be improved, let's do it collaboratively.

If you're always telling people what to do and how to do it, people are going to feel like you're micromanaging them. That won't feel necessarily respectful. So we want to make sure that when we're assigning work, we're talking to the employee, I love the third bullet here. I think it's a good rule of thumb. So whenever possible, assign the what and maybe describe the why. Here's what it is I need you to do and here's why we need this done and why it's important.

But give the employees input into the how. Some supervisors, and this was another problem I had early on in my management career. Some supervisors get way down into the weeds and they start telling people not only what to do and why to do it, but how to do it.

Your step one. Here's step two, step three. That can feel to an employee like micromanagement. So you've got to be careful of that. They're the subject matter experts. We hire them to do the job. Our role is of course, to provide support, certainly guide and train and make sure everything is working the way it needs to work. Provide oversight. But really it's the support. We really need to give people room to figure out how things need to get done. That's their job.

And when you do that, people will feel more empowered. They'll buy in, they'll take more ownership when they have more input into how they're doing things. Let's make sure folks that we're being as collaborative as possible when we assign work. And then sort of rolling that into habit number four, use a collaborative approach.

If when you're assigning work, you're too directive. So you're more of a boss telling people what to do than a collaborative and supportive leader. If you're always telling people what to do. So when there's an assignment, you're always the one telling them how to do it. When there's a problem, you're always the one telling people how to solve it.

When there's performance that needs to be improved you're the one always making the recommendation for what needs to change or what needs to be improved. I want us to recognize when we are too directive like that, people won't necessarily feel respected. There's been a lot of research around what do people want to work every day.

SHRM, the Society for Human Resources Management did a research study a while ago that identified the number one thing people want when they go to work every day is to be respected. So if their boss is talking at them all the time or talking down to them or micromanaging them all the time, people are not going to feel particularly respected. They're going to feel bossed around.

But if the supervisor is collaborative, shows interest in people's ideas, regularly is asking them for their input. When that happens, people naturally are going to feel more respected and they're going to be more apt to get engaged because their supervisor cares about them and is interested in their capabilities and values their opinion. That's important stuff, folks.

And so I need us to be thinking about that. Think about how do you interact with people day to day. Now of course, you're not going to have a conversation about every little thing. Sometimes you can be direct. You can send a quick email on a small issue. That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about just by and large in general, if many to most of your conversations with your employees are collaborative, where you're talking with someone instead of talking at them. You're showing an interest. You're being respectful and valuing their input and their ideas, soliciting their suggestions. That makes people feel like they're a part of it. It makes them feel really valued.

I'll never forget the last example I'll share was I was talking to someone at a local municipality, a different municipality from my first example. And I was talking to this one employee and I asked them to tell me about his relationship with his boss. And he went on to tell me, he says, I've worked here for two years. And had a very negative look on his face.

But he said, I've worked here for two years. And he said, I don't like my boss. He says, this man has never asked me for my opinion about anything. He says, all he does is tell me what to do and he just bosses me around. I feel like a tool. Those were his exact words. He says, dude I have a master's degree. He says, I've got a brain. He says, but this guy doesn't seem interested in what I'm thinking or my ideas at all.

He says, and honestly, I don't how long I'm going to continue to work here. That would really reinforce for me the importance of making sure that at least many to most of our conversations with our employees are more respectful and collaborative, where we're showing an interest in people's ideas and capabilities and valuing their opinion. When you do that, again, people are going to be more motivated to do their best work.

And the perfect follow on to that is how to become more of a coach. So coaching if you think about it, coaching really is a collaborative conversation that's focused with an employee, between a supervisor and an employee that's focused on something specific like assigning a task.

Whereby if I call someone and say, here's the task I need for you to do, here's why it's important and here's why I think you're going to do a great job with it. Here's the scope of it. And what do you think we should do to get this done? Have you ever done anything like this before? How did you guys handle it last time?

And I'm bringing the employee into, showing interest in their ideas about how the work is going to get done. That's a coaching conversation. Coaching is about creating an environment and having interactions with people that welcome them to give input.

So to get their ideas, give them an opportunity to have ideas about how the work is going to get done. Or if it's a problem to be solved, you're going to the employees asking for their advice how to solve this problem. What do you guys think? Have you dealt with a problem like this before? What did you guys do last time?

Coaching conversations again, just create an environment and an opportunity for employees to share. Now you can turn any conversation from directive to a collaborative coaching conversation by asking more questions. So if you're someone that's the way I was earlier in my career and I, again, was way too directive earlier in my career and I needed to get additional training. And fortunately, I was able to get it and I was able to change some of those habits.

I would say probably 20 years ago, I did 80% of the talking when I would interact with a staff member. I was always the one again, telling people what to do and how to do it. I was the one telling people how to correct performance issues. Rather than asking employees for their input, I was dictating all of that.

And it's interesting because those early team's morale wasn't great at times and I had turnover. And I know part of it now in retrospect was I wasn't very effective in the way I communicated with the team. It wasn't that I was a mean-spirited, but I just wasn't using good communication skill. I had to learn more. I had to get additional training.

And so over the years, I've learned how to talk a little less, give less direction, give fewer commands. Make fewer suggestions and ask people for their input more. For example, what do you think we should do to correct this situation? Do you have any ideas for how we could move forward here? What are your thoughts about why this isn't working?

I mean, I try to practice nowadays on a regular basis in almost every conversation asking people what they think. And it makes all the difference in the world. It turns a conversation into a coaching conversation. Coaching is when a supervisor again, gives an employee an opportunity to have input, to make suggestions, to develop plans.

I mean, there's research that says that when a supervisor has good coaching skills like that, employees grow more, they get more engaged and they end up becoming better leaders because they're thinking for themselves. They're not being told what to do all the time, they're an active part of the process.

All right. Habit number six is a reinforcement of everything we've talked about so far. And so it's interacting effectively. And so this was another turning point for me. I went from again, 15, 20 years ago thinking that my job every day was to get as many things done at work as possible.

I was really task-oriented as I mentioned a little while ago. And so too task-oriented. Certainly tasks need to be completed, but I was overly concerned with tasks and not paying enough attention to the quality of my interactions with the staff.

And so as I've learned to do a better job there, as I've learned how to be more courteous. Like when I walk up to someone now or I jump on a Zoom call with someone, I will again, usually take a few minutes and ask them about their world.

And most of these folks I've known for a while, and so I know areas to ask people about. Because as you get to know people, you have more of an understanding of what's important to them and what to engage them around in future conversations. And so I practice having good conversations before getting down to business.

And then I try really hard not to micromanage like I used to. I used to be way too hands-on. I used to tell people way too often how to do things. If I was correcting someone's performance, I would 80% of the time, maybe 90% of the time I would tell them, here's what I need you to do to fix this.

And I didn't even realize that when I was doing that, it would make people not only feel like they weren't valued or their opinion didn't matter but it actually could make people feel uncomfortable like they were being called to the principal's office if I was always correcting them.

And think about this, people are much more likely to take ownership of making improvements if they have input into how it's going to be improved. People support what they help to create. I really changed my thinking that my number one focus when I go to work every day now is to have good conversations, good respectful interactions with the team. And so when I do that, again, the team then is more motivated typically to do great work and to take care of the tasks.

All right. Last but not least folks, I want to talk about handling conflict with care. I learned this the hard way. Probably one of the worst conversations I had professionally happened about 20 years ago with a colleague.

I heard that this person had said some negative things about me in a meeting and I ended up getting really angry about it. But instead of calming myself down and going in and having a calm respectful conversation, and really choosing the right time to have that conversation. When you're really upset, it's probably not a great time to jump into a conversation because you might say or do something you regret later.

I just went and confronted this person in an escalated way. And we had a very negative conversation, probably the worst workplace conversation I ever had in my career. And thankfully, I learned from it. I mean, I needed to talk to this person. When I heard what they had said about me, it was disrespectful. I definitely needed to have the conversation.

But I needed to choose the right time and place. I needed to go into that conversation calm so I could just say, here's what I heard. Did you say that? And if you did, why? And give the person the benefit of the doubt. But I didn't choose the right time and place. I just jumped into the conversation in an escalated angry way.

When we're really stressed, when we're really upset, it's probably not the best time to jump into a difficult conversation. And so it would have been better for me to wait until I was calmer so I could have gone in a more caring and respectful way.

And again, difficult conversations need to be had but we need to pick our spots. And we need to have that conversation in a respectful way. Folks, the bottom line about conflict, disagreement, difficult conversations is if both parties will go into those interactions-- they're stressful because sometimes people are not on the same page or they're at odds with each other or there's some sort of a conflict between them.

But if they go into the conversation with a respectful attitude-- remember, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Like you can say to someone, I disagree with you. You're wrong. Or you can go in and say, thank you for sharing your opinion. I have a different opinion, but I respect that you think the way that you do. I'm glad you shared that with me. That's saying the same thing only more respectfully.

But if you go in respectfully, at the end of that conversation even if you can't get on the wrong page-- excuse me, even if you can't get on the same page together. Sometimes agreements are not possible because we're all different people. We all have a different way of seeing things and we're all entitled to our own opinion.

But if you go in respectfully and listen to the other person and you're respectful of that person, again, even if you don't agree, at the end of the conversation, the relationship will still be in a pretty good place. Because again, when people come apart from those difficult relationships, the most important part is how well they treated each other.

It's not ultimately most important who wins or who gets their point across or puts the other person in their place, or who's right. It's most important that we treat each other respectfully. And in some cases, we may just have to agree to disagree because we see the situation so differently.

All right, folks. I know we've covered a lot of information in a very short time today. I want to open it up for questions. Here are some additional resources. There's the Stephen Covey book I mentioned at the beginning. Now, Consider Your Strengths is a good book from the Gallup research people. Employee Engagement 2.0 is another really good book that I really enjoy that I use a lot of principles from today in our conversation.

But folks, I want to take a moment and I want to open it up for questions. Remember, we do have several hundred people here on the call today, which I really appreciate so many people being interested in this topic in the series. We probably may not get to all of the questions because we have so many people here but I do want to get to as many as we can.

So if you do have questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. One quick question I can address is, are you going to share your PowerPoint? Yes, you can have access to the PowerPoint. All you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation or reminder for today and just ask our staff. Our staff opens those emails. Just ask our staff, please send me the PowerPoint for today's presentation. We'd be happy to send that to you.

Folks, again, when you're thinking about questions to ask, I do want to remind you that probably just about everyone here, there may be some guests that were invited by folks today, but probably everyone or most of the people on the webinar today work for an organization that has Deer Oaks as your Employee Assistance Program, your EAP.

So I want to remind you all that we're available for you and your direct dependents and your household members 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We answer that phone live around the clock, 24/7 365. If you need support, whether you're dealing with a stressful employee situation or you're dealing with a personal or family issue, feel free to reach out to Deer Oaks 24 hours a day. We'd be happy to help you.

If you don't the toll free number for Deer Oaks, and many of our client organizations do have different toll free numbers that's why I'm not going to give you one today. But reach out to your respective human resources office and they'll be happy to give you the toll free number to reach Deer Oaks. So we're here for you when you need us.

All right, folks we're getting a lot of questions coming in. All right. Here's a really, really good question. These are very thoughtful questions as I'm scrolling through here. Here's one. There are some responsibilities that have guidelines, step by step processes. Is this considered micromanaging? No. No, it wouldn't be at all.

And when I'm talking about giving people input, it's not 100% of the time. There are times when we need to be more direct and we need to get down into the details. Like if there's a safety issue, you're going to have to be more direct to keep the participants safe or the people involved safe.

If there's only one way to do something, if it's a municipality or a county or an organizational policy that can't be done any other way, then you're going to have to lay that out for people.

And that's not a problem at all as long as that's not the way you always address people. My problem 20 years ago is 80% of the time, I was telling people what to do and how to do it. I was very prescriptive. I gave a lot of commands, a lot of directions. And so it's fine to do that when it's appropriate, when the situation warrants it and there's only one way to do something or you have to follow it a certain way. And that's fine. But as long as you're not doing that all the time, people won't feel micromanaged.

If you're always telling people what to do and how to do it, at least 80% of the time like I used to do back in the past, people will feel like you micromanage them. You'll be uncomfortable. But just giving direction once in a while when it's appropriate for the circumstance, people are not going to think you're a micromanager, especially if many of the other conversations you have with them are very collaborative and respectful. Thank you for that.

All right. Someone's asking for the book list again. So let me go back to that. Let me leave that up there on the screen folks, for a moment. Someone else is recommending Crucial Conversations as a great book, as well. I have that book too. I agree, Crucial Conversations is a great book as well.

Here's another good one. Can you give more different ways to say on number seven? Number seven was how to-- Let me go back to that for a minute. I will come back to the book list here in a moment, folks. But number seven was handle conflict with care. So the question is, can you give more different ways to say on number seven to effectively communicate that you don't agree, but value their opinion?

Sure. If I'm talking with someone who sees things differently-- I had a conversation with someone that I'm close to last night and it was a tense conversation because we didn't see eye to eye about something important.

And so what I said to that person last night was, I want you to I appreciate having this conversation. I know we see this very differently and I'm OK with that. But I'm glad we're talking it out and you're taking the time to explain why you think the way you do. That's helping me understand your perspective better. So thank you for doing that.

That's another example of thanking someone for taking the time to talk through the issue because we're not seeing eye to eye because I want to understand better where you're coming from with your thinking so I can better understand it. It's another talking point that you can make.

And so I just feel like it's important to communicate to people that even though we don't see eye to eye on this one or even though we disagree, that's OK. We're two different people. I respect that you see it differently.

And so a lot of times if I'm not understanding why they're not seeing it differently, I'll respectfully ask. Could you do me a favor and share just a little bit more about why you feel so strongly about the way you do it?

This is the caution I would give all of us during a difficult conversation is sometimes when we get into a difficult conversation we'll get emotional. So you've got to be careful to keep your emotions under control because you could be going back and forth with someone saying, well, why do you feel that way, with intensity and that person could feel like you're putting them on the spot or they could feel like that's not respectful, that it's more argumentative.

So you want to be polite and how you're asking. Remember, it's not what you say, it's how you say it to say, thank you for sharing your point of view. I'm not quite understanding why you see it that way and I want to be respectful.

So if you don't mind, would you share a little bit more about why that's your point of view here? Why do you feel so strongly about that? I just want to understand so I can be-- I'm trying to figure out some language here. But to say something along the lines of if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit more about why you feel the way you do. It's important to me to understand where you're coming from.