How do you articulate high level behaviors?

Yeah, I ponder this a lot. Many people, once they start thinking in behaviors, ponder this as well.

To get more at the specific behaviors, ask what would you see someone do or hear them say.

If that doesn't get you there, it's probably something that needs to be learned to fluency so that the person does not use visible aids or strategies to perform.

For example, "being strategic"

I know a bunch of people I work with who perform behaviors I would label as "strategic" and they do so without many of the supporting behaviors someone just learning to be strategic would have to do.

The "strategic" people I work with will make suggestions for next steps in meetings, talk about the effects of their (and the team's) actions on others, state decisions and ideas including organizational context, and many other behaviors.

They did not get this way overnight, and these are hard behaviors to pull out and visualize. To coach people to be more strategic, you need to find a behavior they can do now. Just stating the desired end behavior of "suggest next steps in meetings" won't get you anywhere because the person might not be confident in his ideas of next steps.

If he blurts out crappy ideas of next steps in the meeting, it will be a punishing experience for him and he is not likely to do better in the future.

What people can do now to learn to be more strategic is to gather their thoughts before meetings, communications, etc. and write out what they think about how things are going so far, what challenges they see, where they would like to go, what steps are necessary to get there.

Then run what they thought/wrote down by their coaching manager. This is finding some visible behaviors for preparing thoughts so that you can be more "strategic." It's the visible behaviors that help provide necessary requirements for performing "strategic" behaviors on the spot.

To me, "being strategic" and "business accumen" both mean "think big-picture" and virtually ALL behaviours can be tied back to the big picture.

"When you take the team off-track in meetings, the entire group gets lost in the details and is unable to move forward on the big picture goals. What could you do differently?"

"When you make unilateral decisions to advance your particular project, the entire company is impacted because resources are reallocated without taking into account the overall severity of the other projects. What could you do differently?"

*two cents*

Devil's Advocate:

"I don't take the team off-track during meetings. I bring up important details that it seems I am the only one who notices."

What would you see him/her do or hear him/her say?

- "When you say things like...... it takes the entire team off-track.... What could you do differently?"

I would even push you on "unilateral decisions." His/her understanding of "unilateral" or even "decision" may not be the same as yours.

Maybe "When you send emails out detailing how your project will be advanced, without first talking to other project managers resources are allocated without taking into account the overall severity of the other projects. What could you do differently?"

Again, what would you see him/her do or hear him/her say?

Objective behaviors are visible, measurable actions where most people observing can agree they did/did not happen. Adding context like "without first talking to other project managers" or "when in a meeting while other people are talking" helps too.

MadMatt, yes, you're absolutely right to get into the specifics on the feedback model. My apologies for not being more specific in my post. I was multi-tasking and didn't have the bandwidth at the time to do anything beyond just use the generic stuff - crappy ideas, business needs, etc.

Kima,

Behaviors are things that you can record on tape or take a picture of. Does that help?

I have directs come to me complaining that their peers are being lazy. So I laugh inside and tell that person to go tell his peer to stop being lazy. He does that and comes back to me and I ask, "So how'd that work for you?" .....they just shake their head. I love it. This is a teachable moment. You can't record on tape or take a picture of "laziness". However, leaning on store shelving or standing with arms folded and the weight on one hip is a behavior that identifies laziness. Make sense?

"When you lean on the table as customers walk in, it communicates that you do not want to engage with them"
"55% of the meaning of our message comes from body-language."
"What are some ideas you have around communicating, "Hey, I'm glad to see you."
"Thank you.... now go get me more coffee." ;-)

-Davis

@ASH

I get it and thanks for posting. Take heart that you provided a good example. I think the important thing here is to always second guess that what you or I assume to be behavior descriptions that we understand completely, others may not agree. In the heat of the moment we don't always do this and we can always work on getting better.

But then people might agree even though you were not all that specific. Occam's razor--as simple as possible without being to simple.

If the person you are communicating with gets it and agrees with you completely, no need for further refinement.

Kima,

I agree with Davis about behaviors being recordable.  Since the behavior you wanted wasn't there, what would have been there representing that desired trait.  Looking at business acumen, might mean being able to understand the customers motives and buy preferences.  Which means that when they bring up an idea in a meeting, that they have or are thinging about the custormers, parterns, suppliers perspectives.  For feedback this would look like:

"When you bring up an idea like "blank" and have not thought about how this will effect our current customers, people wonder about your business acumen and understanding of how our business work.  What can you do differenly? 

Of course this feedback would work best with an S or I, no surprise coming from a high S/I.