Ask the Coach

Each quarter we answer questions emailed to us by our colleagues, clients and web users. To ask a question, use the form below. To contact us about our services, see our contact page.

Q. I am finding it difficult to motivate my team members these days. Everyone is polite and appears interested at meetings, but the fire seems to have gone out. Any ideas on how to put some passion back in our process?

A. One of the most common reasons for apathy in a team is confusion as to goals. So you need to ask yourself 'how clear are we about what we're doing?' How is business really being pursued at this moment? Are we in the process of downsizing? Is the direction that our company or department is pursuing murky? Have you, as the leader, been giving ambiguous messages, not asking for or valuing input, or making decisions away from, rather than with, the team? Is your company dealing with political infighting?

Whatever is causing the shutdown and lack of energy and creativity, you need to pull this team together, preferably off-site, and promote an honest discussion of what's going on. Be prepared to listen and respond candidly. Have the team develop solutions and a timetable, and commit to implementing it. Finally, let your team know that everyone is being evaluated for creative participation. You will personally commit to fight for necessary change as long as they will acknowledge that you can't always win. You state clearly that in exchange you expect them to keep the creative energy high and the morale positive.

Q. I'm running a planning group in a large company and we hire very high-potential MBAs from the best schools. My problem is with their attitude. They are often perceived by others in the company as condescending and unable to work within the corporate system to gain cooperation across functional lines. I am being pressured to straighten them out without demotivating or losing them. How can I do this without causing them to lose their cutting edge, which is why we hired them in the first place?

A. Congratulations on a superior recruiting effort. Interestingly enough, you are not alone in struggling with this problem. One effect of corporate downsizing has been a kind of wisdom gap as older professionals are given early retirement. Consequently, the mentoring of young, avid professionals by older, seasoned workers is getting more difficult to put together.

I have two suggestions. The first is to work with your current crop of MBAs to find out what they perceive as the barriers within the company to being influential. When you pull them together to problem-solve, include the feedback that you've gotten concerning them so that it can be incorporated as part of the solution. This moves you away from blame and the necessity of singling anyone out and also gives them a chance to do what they like to do best, namely strategize. Second, I would cooperate with HR in setting up a formal mentoring system to pair up your MBAs, when hired, with senior people. This will involve the entire company and help these young professionals to avoid making those initial foolish errors in judgment that can damage their reputations, and by extension the reputations of your planning group and yourself.

Q. I have a very gifted engineer on my staff who, even in today's relaxed corporate environment, has some serious grooming problems. On a given day she looks fine, but other days she looks like she rolled out of bed, grabbed anything from her closet and showed up. Sometimes her hair doesn't even look combed. I feel very uncomfortable discussing this kind of thing, but my boss has mentioned the problem to me and says he wants me to fix it, since he feels he can no longer use her to make presentations to senior management. She is the most gifted player I have. How do I initiate a discussion with her and solve the problem? To complicate things, I am a male manager and I don't want to get sued.

A. Issues like these require both honesty and kindness. Let me suggest a possible solution. Call her into your office, close the door and tell her you have something to discuss which you believe is an easily fixable area but which makes you personally uncomfortable. Pause and give her time to adjust to what you've just said. Then say something like the following: "I know we've relaxed our dress standards around here and most days you look just fine, but on some days I get the feeling that you've dressed in rather a hurry. I was wondering if either a lack of time or a lengthy commute is giving you a problem on some mornings?"

Now her answer could be all over the map, so be prepared. Be sympathetic to whatever she comes up with. Be flexible if it's a time issue and be patient if it's something in her life right now that's putting her under pressure. Discuss some solutions and then put the rules in the room: hair and clothing clean and groomed, casual clothes should be business casual not garage sale casual, etc. Have her come up with the solutions. Keep it very pleasant. If you have a funny anecdote about yourself in this regard, tell it. If appropriate, point out someone in your department who has it all together in this area. Finish with a plan and part friends. Follow up if there is any slippage in the future. Gently praise improvement. Hard as these issues are to address, I have found that good managers are unafraid to go into sticky territory because they know that it is in everybody's best interest to do so.

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