Dear Intern,

 I’ve appreciated watching the interns in our company work on different projects in different departments. I’m always amazed by how fast the interns work, how well they collaborate as a team, and the high quality of the work they deliver. 

 My question is this: How do we, the current employees, look to them? Do we look slow, with poor teaming skills, for example? I hope not. How would interns compare the culture in their workplace with what they experience at school and in other areas of their life?

 Curious Employee

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Curious Employee,

Let me first say that in my experience as an intern, I ask myself the question “How do they see me?” all the time! I think it’s a fairly universal question across generations in the workplace.

Although I don’t speak on behalf of all of Gen Z—I’m only one person, limited to my own experience—I can confidently say that I don’t perceive other generations as having poor teamwork skills or working at a slow pace. However, I have noticed that each generation in the workplace carries with them a defining skillset. For this reason, I think it’s essential for companies to strive for generational diversity. It’s the key to bringing in talented people with diverse sets of skills and perspectives that build off one another.

As an example, many emerging Gen Z workers are highly skilled in digital writing or creating digital content such as texts, images, videos, social media posts, etc. We are the “tech savvy” generation, aka “digital natives.” So, when a project calls for those skills, we might be able to naturally get the job done more quickly and efficiently than our team members who represent older generations. At the same time, I’d say Gen X and Boomer workers are often naturally gifted at face-to-face communication, which is arguably just as important as being tech savvy in the workplace. In other words, we all need, and can learn from, each other.

Going back to your initial question, it can feel equally tempting to dismiss the contributions of other generations (whether older or younger) as inadequate, irrelevant, or unnecessary in the workplace. I’ve interned for multiple organizations and have had plenty of experiences where I would present what I thought were new and exciting ideas to my former manager, only for my ideas to be shot down and altogether disregarded. And while I could blame the manager’s reaction on their bias against me as a Gen Z worker, I recognize that feeling unheard at work isn’t all that uncommon, unfortunately. And it hurts, regardless of the generation you grew up in.

I tried to reframe the rejection I experienced to make it feel less personal, with the understanding that we each grow up around one specific generation during our formative years of development. We naturally will think “It’s my way or the highway” until we’re prompted to think otherwise. However, considering that you’re asking these important questions, it seems that you’ve already begun to challenge this narrative, so I’d say that puts you ahead of the curve!

All this to say, as a Gen Z intern, here’s my advice in answering this question of “How do they perceive me?” You’re actually already doing it. Ask us! Openly communicate with us and encourage us to do the same with you. You asked about ties between the culture we experience at work compared to what we experience at school. I think it comes down to this: we all want to feel seen and heard by our manager at work in the same way that we feel seen and heard by our instructors in the classroom. Fostering an open channel of communication is the first step.

And that’s it! I’ll be the first to admit that the generational communication gap can be incredibly difficult to traverse at times. It may feel like walking on eggshells at first. For instance, I can have incredible anxiety when talking with a manager or employee of an older generation. I find myself wondering “Did I do something wrong? Am I supposed to say something? Am I being too quiet?” But I truly believe that an established line of communication can make all the difference in quieting these self-doubts and fostering a safe space with Gen Z interns like me. I know this because I’ve experienced it firsthand with my current manager, who validates me when I perform well and supports me when I have room to grow.

Many of us have brilliant ideas, insightful questions, or important feedback that we want to share, but often lack the confidence or sense of belonging to share them. Sometimes all we need is a gentle nudge (or perhaps a kind push) in the right direction, even if it’s simply saying, “Okay intern, what are your thoughts on this?”

I hope this helps! Best of luck!

Cas the Intern

Editor’s Note: While Madeleine has enjoyed a well-deserved summer break, “Ask Madeleine” has become “Ask the Intern” where we have presented your questions to several of our Blanchard interns and their peers in other companies.

This week’s response is from Cas Podgorski, Podcast Intern at ifyouaskbetty, LLC.

Madeleine will return next week.

–If I do it alone, I can make decisions quicker. I don’t have to sort through alternative ideas. I don’t have to persuade people to change their opinions. I don’t have to wait for others to do their part before I can do mine. Besides, chances are it will be a pretty good result—even if I do work on it by myself. But on the other hand … 

–If I do it with others, there could be a better output because more ideas are on the table. A debate over issues will identify potential blind spots. The more involved people are in a decision, the more likely they are to support the final decision, even if it didn’t go the way they would have preferred. 

To summarize, going it alone is probably quicker, but doesn’t consider as many alternatives. Doing it in a group probably results in a better outcome, but has the potential challenges of dealing with people.

The good news is that you don’t have to make it an either/or decision.  Here are three strategies that combine the best parts of both approaches:

1. Keep everyone focused by addressing bystander effect. When people are working in groups, they are less likely to feel the same sense of responsibility for results than if they were acting alone. They are less inclined to take action. For example, if a group of people sees an individual struggling to carry a heavy load, each of those people is less likely to jump in and help than if it were only one person making the same observation. “When all are responsible, no one is responsible.” Focus responsibility. Don’t say, “Everyone should be more present at our meetings.” Instead, say, “We need each one of you to increase your level of involvement on this agenda.”
2. Replace competition with collaboration. Competition is not as big a problem within groups as it is among groups.  The same individuals can act very different in the two settings. Specifically, research indicates that people are 50 percent more competitive when on a team. Rarely do you hear someone say “it’s him or me”; but you do hear “it’s us or them.” The root cause seems to be trust. People are suspicious of other groups, reasoning that the individual members may be okay but the group can’t be trusted.
3. Reduce inattentional blindness. Minimize outside distractions during discussions. You’ve probably seen the Simons and Chabris video of the gorilla that walks through a basketball scrimmage and isn’t noticed by most observers because they are watching the ball. People are already overloaded with stimuli. Put them in a meeting, and it turns into chaos. That chaos ends the focus on results. 

Teams need great performers, but great performers need teams. Those teams need leadership. When leaders hold teams and individuals accountable, foster collaboration instead of competition, and maintain team as well as individual focus, they bring out the best in both.

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

We all know leaders aren’t perfect. But why do they continue to hold those interminable, aggravating, and results-free “walks in the park”? One theory is that leaders use meetings to provide confirmation of decisions they’ve already made. Consciously or subconsciously, they push conformance to their decisions and plans—and that occupies a lot of meeting time.

So attendees, wanting to “get this thing over with,” learn to become members of the dutiful herd. They go along with whatever seems to be the politically safe outcome.

A Brief History of Herd Behavior

Let’s recount a summary of Dr. Solomon Asch’s research on conformity and herd behavior, starring you. (Asch was a social psychology pioneer in the mid- to late twentieth century.) Dr. Asch puts eight people, including you, around a table in a meeting room. You think all attendees are just like you, but actually the other seven are actors. Asch has scripted their roles. So you’re the only real subject.

Photo by Nyenyec Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Asch walks to the front of the room and says he wants to find out about visual perceptions. He puts two posters in front of the group: a benchmark poster depicting a single vertical line, and a selection poster showing three lines of different lengths that are labeled A, B, and C.

Then Asch asks all eight attendees, individually, to select which of the three lines (A, B, or C) on the selection poster match the length of the benchmark line. He repeats this through several trials, with different posters. You are positioned so you hear most of the actors’ answers before you choose. Sometimes the others unanimously select what is clearly the wrong answer, all of them choosing the same distractor.

What would you predict happens in this experiment?

One-third of the “lone” subjects select the same wrong answers the actors choose. They cave in and join the herd.

Three-quarters of the lone subjects conform with the wrong answer at least once.

Separate research at New York University comparing “yes-sayers” to “straight-shooters” corroborates Dr. Asch’s findings.

Remember that in Asch’s research, the wrong answers were obviously incorrect. Most topics at meetings are nowhere near as tangible. Imagine how much easier it would be to go with the herd on issues that were more vague, particularly when the leader has taken a firm position. If the meeting were addressing strategies or mission accomplishment or similar topics, it would be much easier to abandon one’s position and elect a compromised solution.

Three Tips for Better Meetings

Here are three steps to counteract the tendency toward herd behavior at meetings:

1. Concentrate. There must be a focused clarity on the real issue. This should begin with pre-meeting agendas as much as possible, so people can start objectively thinking about potential positions to take. At the meeting, keep the focus on the agenda item under discussion.
2. Collaborate. Communication and idea sharing need to occupy a major part of the meeting. Leaders should encourage people to stand up and be counted. Add transparency to your team’s group norms. Hold each other accountable for candor. Anything else is unethical. Fraudulent. Unacceptable.
3. Initiate. Meetings ultimately should result in an action plan for the team—a roadmap that includes who, what, and when. If you employ laser clarity on post-meeting behavior, chances are high that the team will deliver to the meeting’s expectations.

When describing the attributes of an outstanding team member, we frequently include the word loyalty. Some well meaning leaders see candor and honesty as potential indicators of disloyalty—but actually, it’s the other way around. Pioneers should be honored, but frequently they are punished. Leaders should be informed, but frequently they are shielded. High performing teams are willing to tell it the way it is. This may be uncomfortable initially, but the long term payoffs are priceless.

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Oomph! Those words feel like a punch to the gut of the employee on the receiving end, and for the leader delivering the bad news, those words create anxiety and many sleepless nights leading up to that difficult conversation.

No leader likes to see an employee fail on the job. From the moment we start the recruitment process, through interviewing, hiring, and training, our goal is to set up our employees for success. It takes a tremendous amount of time, energy, and expense to bring new people into the organization and ramp them up to full productivity so it’s in everyone’s vested interest to see an employee succeed. Yet we all know there are situations that, for whatever reason, an employee struggles on the job and there isn’t much hope of turning it around.

I recently met with a group of HR professionals and line managers to debrief employee termination situations. As we reviewed the cases at hand, the following nine signs emerged as warning signals, that had they been heeded early on in the employee’s career, a termination decision could have been made much earlier in the process that would have saved everyone a lot of heartache and the company a lot of money. Any one of these signs is alarming in and of itself, but when you combine all of them together…KABOOM! You’ve got an employee meltdown waiting to happen.

Nine Warning Signs of a Failing Employee

1. Things don’t improve with a change of scenery – Maybe it’s the relationship with their boss, certain peers, or the nature of the work has changed and the employee is struggling to perform at her best. Whatever the reason, moving the employee to another role or department can get her back on track. I’ve done it myself and have seen it work. But if you’ve given someone another chance by giving them a change of scenery and it’s still not working out, you should be concerned. The scenery probably isn’t the problem.

2. You feel like you have to walk on eggshells around the employee – We all have personality quirks and some people are more difficult to work with than others, but when an employee becomes cancerous to the morale and productivity of the team and everyone feels like they have to walk on eggshells around the person for fear of incurring their wrath, you’ve got a serious problem. Don’t underestimate the destructive power of a toxic, unpredictable employee.

3. Emotional instability – Part of being a mature adult is being able to manage your emotions and it’s critically important in a professional workplace. If you have an employee that demonstrates severe emotional mood swings on the job and in their relationships with others, you need to pursue the proper legal and ethical guidelines in dealing with the employee and getting them the support they need. Don’t ignore the behavior by chalking it up to the heat of the moment, the stress of the job, or excusing it by saying “Oh, that’s just Joe being Joe.”

4. Trouble fitting into the company culture – Perhaps one of the earliest signs that you have a failing employee is noticing she is having significant trouble adapting to the culture of the organization. There is a natural transition time for any new employee, but if you’re constantly hearing the employee make negative comments about how the company operates and criticizing leadership, or not developing solid relationships with others and becoming part of the team, warning alarms should be going off in your head.

5. Blames others, makes excuses, and challenges authority – You know the incredibly loud sound of air raid sirens used in civil defense situations? That’s the sound you should be hearing if you have an employee with a track record of blaming others and making excuses for her poor performance. Failing employees will often challenge authority by trying to lay the blame at the boss’ feet by saying things like “You should have done this…” or “You didn’t address that problem…” or whatever the case may be. If you have an employee who always seems to be involved in drama, ask yourself “What (or more appropriately ‘who’) is the common denominator in these situations?”

6. Distorts or manipulates the truth – I’ve dealt with employees who were very skilled at manipulating or distorting the truth. In whatever difficult situation they were in, they would find a kernel of truth to justify and excuse their involvement to the point that I would feel compelled to side with them. I learned you have to be discerning and consistent in your approach to dealing with manipulative people and make sure you document your interactions so you have sufficient data to support your termination decision.

7. Unseen gaps in performance – One of the most challenging situations is when an employee seems to be performing well by outside appearances, but when you explore behind the scenes you discover there are gaps in her performance. Maybe it’s sloppy work, not following correct procedures, or even worse, being intentionally deceptive or unethical. Be careful, things may not always be as they seem.

8. A trail of broken relationships – Employees don’t have to be BFF’s with all of their coworkers, but they do need to respect others and be able to work together. A person may be a high-performer in the tasks of her job, but if she can’t get along with other people and has a history of damaging relationships with colleagues, eventually there will come a point where her contributions are outweighed by the damage and drama she creates.

9. Passive-aggressive behavior – You know those smiley-face emoticons at the end of slightly sarcastic and critical emails? A classic example of passive-aggressive behavior where the sender is trying to couch her criticism in feigned-humor. This is toxic and can be hard to manage because it manifests itself is so many ways that appear to be innocuous in and of themselves. Veiled jokes, procrastination, sullenness, resentment, and deliberate or repeated failure to follow-through on tasks are all signs of passive-aggressive behavior. Be careful…very careful.

The number one job for a leader is to help his or her employees succeed. Before an employee is terminated, a leader needs to be able to look in the mirror and honestly admit that everything possible has been done to help the employee succeed. These nine warning signs should serve as critical guideposts in helping any leader be alert to a failing employee.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

The more that virtual teams become our normal way of working, the more we realize how difficult it is to build the positive relationships so critical for team success.   A face-to-face meeting for team building is best, yet most teams can’t afford that luxury.

So how do you build team spirit when you can’t have a retreat or even just meet for coffee at the end of the day?   The key is tapping into the creativity and lighthearted nature buried within our business minds.   Here are three enjoyable activities to build relationships and team spirit.

How do you celebrate?

• If you search world holidays on the web you’ll find that almost every day is a holiday somewhere in the world. Holidays are culturally important, and how we celebrate reveals a lot about us as individuals.
• Ask one or two team members to share a few photographs and chat for five minutes in your next team meeting about how they celebrated their latest holiday.  What foods did they eat, what were the activities, what was being celebrated?

Guess the desk. 

• Ask team members to send in a photograph of their office (or home office) desk.  Show the photo and discuss what the desk reveals about its owner.
  • Does a bowl of fruit mean the person is health conscious?
  • Are there family photos?
  • How many technological gadgets are on the desk?
• After the discussion, ask team members to guess the desk owner’s name.   The owner then gets an opportunity to reveal him/herself and to clarify or explain anything noticed by the team.   

The most unusual thing …

• Use this as a conversation starter for the team.  When you send out the meeting agenda ask them to be prepared to answer a question. For example:
  • The most unusual thing I ever ate …
  • The most unusual place I ever visited …
  • The most unusual event I witnessed …

When building a virtual team, encourage that fun-loving side of you to emerge. Relaxed creativity can provide just the lift needed to build the positive relationships and esprit de corps that are the keys to successful virtual teams.

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

The world is indeed getting flatter. Like many organizations, at The Ken Blanchard Companies we regularly interact with coworkers and clients around the globe. In my workshops, cross-cultural communication is frequently cited as a significant challenge for leaders who have teams spread throughout the world.

Communication involves an exchange of meaning through sending and receiving of verbal and nonverbal messages, either consciously or unconsciously. For a message to be understood correctly, there needs to be a vast amount of common ground between the sender and receiver. This makes cross-cultural communication difficult, because two culturally different individuals tend to have less in common than two people who are part of the same culture.

Many variable factors get in the way of mutual understanding within cross-cultural communication—differences in language, in communication styles, and in the interpretation of nonverbal behaviors. Within each of these differences are numerous subcategories that add further difficulty.

However, effective cross-cultural communication is possible. I suggest four approaches to increase understanding:

1. Start with the assumption that you may not understand the situation or message and that cultural differences may get in the way.
2. The most accurate way to gather information is to observe and describe what is actually said and done, not to evaluate or interpret words or actions. Evaluation and interpretation are influenced by each person’s own culture and background.
3. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes, boots, or sandals. Try to see the situation from the other person’s cultural perspective.
4. Treat your explanation or interpretation as a best guess. Then, when you think you understand, check with the other person to see whether you’re on the right path or whether you need additional clarity.

What other suggestions do you have to increase understanding in cross-cultural communication?

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in performance and self-leadership.  You can read John’s posts on the second Thursday of each month.

One thing is certain – trust is at the heart of a successful work from home policy. If your work from home policy isn’t based on the premise that your employees are trustworthy, and if the boundaries of the policy don’t nurture and protect trust, you’ll find that allowing employees to work from home will be an ongoing source of suspicion, resentment, and irritation.

Working from home can provide tremendous benefits to both the employer and the employee. Studies have shown that working from home can increase motivation, productivity, efficiency, and allow for better work/life balance. I know that when I work from home I often work longer, harder, and accomplish more than when I’m in the office.

Based on my experience in managing a large team composed of a mixture of office-based and home-based associates, here are some tips I’d pass along:

1. Have a written policy. The policy should include who is eligible to work from home, technology requirements, communication norms, etc.

2. Be clear on performance expectations. It’s easy for people to fly under the radar when working from home. Make sure goals are clear, regular one-on-one meetings are scheduled to stay in touch, and performance evaluation standards are clear.

3. Deal with performance issues. Don’t let poor performance slide. It’s easy to adopt the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy with remote workers but you should treat them the same as you do associates in the office. If you noticed an employee arriving to work 40 minutes late every day you’d have a discussion with him/her, right? Do the same with your telecommuters.

4. Evaluate people on results. It’s critical to have some sort of performance metrics in place to gauge an employee’s effectiveness. Whether you adopt a Results Oriented Work Environment philosophy, have employees keep time sheets, or audit work samples, it’s important that you have a method of evaluating a remote worker’s productivity and effectiveness.

5. Be transparent and fair. Publish your policy. Talk about it with your team. Let everyone know exactly where they stand when it comes to working from home. Vague or inconsistent telecommuting policies breed suspicion and resentment in teams.

6. Set people up to succeed. Make sure your remote workers have all the tools they need to succeed such as the right training, technology, and equipment. Remote workers need to be high performers in their role and be technologically savvy in order to operate independently.

Working from home isn’t for everyone. Not every employee has the home work environment, personality type, or work ethic to be a successful telecommuter. Working from home can provide just as many distractions as those found in the office so it’s important to have clear boundaries in place and be consistent in how you apply the policy within your team or organization.

What is your experience in working from home or managing those who do? Feel free to share your expertise by posting a comment.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

As a virtual team member, unequal access to information and a feeling of being left out can erode your trust and lower your emotional commitment—two critical factors for overall team success.

Yet when you are a dial-in participant, pushing for inclusion without sounding like a whiner usually isn’t worth the effort. As a result, unless they are called on to participate, many virtual team members give up and simply listen to the meeting while they read and answer their email.

Don’t let this happen to the virtual members of your team. Here are three ways to keep your virtual teammates engaged:

1. Go completely virtual. Meetings where everyone is virtual will force better habits such as “around the room” input and sending reports in advance so everyone has access. Make sure each meeting agenda deliberately includes time for everyone to participate in the lively chat necessary for this social team approach.
2. Use a buddy system. If you must have some in the room and some out, assign every virtual team member a “buddy” in the room. Set up additional communication modes such as instant messaging or chatting between buddies. This way, the virtual team member can ask questions without disturbing the whole group and each person calling in has an advocate who can send last-minute documents, describe what is happening, or intervene when necessary for clarification.
3. Consider creating a cardboard Carl/Caroline. One creative team leader I worked with created large, cardboard-backed photos of each virtual team member. The visibility of a cardboard Carl or Caroline in each meeting provided great humor and increased engagement. “Caroline looks like she has a question.” “Let’s ask Carl what he thinks!” These are fun and natural ways to ensure all team members stay visibly engaged and emotionally committed to the team. Other teams use an empty chair with a name, or a name tent—but there is something about a photo that adds life to the meeting. Be aware, though, that your virtual team member may ask for a cardboard photo of you and the rest of the team—that’s a good thing!

We all have attended deadly team meetings, and most of us probably have neglected a virtual team member, inadvertently, at least once. Keep your virtual team members engaged. Try one or more of these strategies and bring life and energy to your next virtual engagement!

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

1. I am not really here. (Well, maybe my body is, but my mind is elsewhere.)
2. I am being paid to be here. (And if I wasn’t being paid—or receiving some other type of reward—I wouldn’t be here.)
3. I have to be here; I’d be afraid of what might happen if I wasn’t.
4. Being here aligns with my values and will help me and my organization reach important goals.
5. Being here resonates with me; I feel it could make an important difference to others in my organization and/or help me fulfill a meaningful purpose.
6. I am inherently interested in being here; it is fun for me.

A quick survey found that people were attending for a variety of reasons including all six of the possible choices above. Fowler went on to explain that the first three choices were all “Sub Optimal” motivational outlooks that generated poor results. She also shared that outlooks 4, 5 and 6 were the “Optimal” motivational outlooks that most closely correlated with intentions to perform at a high level, apply discretionary effort, and be a good corporate citizen.

What motivates you?

What’s motivating you on your tasks at work?  Is it a “carrot” (External #2) or a “stick” (Imposed #3) approach?  If so, what’s the impact been on your motivation and performance?  Chances are that you’re not performing at your best.  Even worse, you could find yourself feeling somewhat manipulated and controlled, which rarely brings out the best in people.

For better results, think about what it might mean to employ a more Aligned, Integrated, or Inherent approach.  Find ways to connect the dots for yourself to create a more intrinsically satisfying strategy.

3 ways to enhance motivation

Fowler suggests beginning by evaluating the quality of A-R-C in your life.  Looking back at over 40 years of motivation research, Fowler shared that the answer to creating a more motivating environment is a combination of increased Autonomy (control of your experiences), Relatedness (working together with others), and Competence (developing and refining new skills).  The good news is that anyone can change their motivational outlook with some self-awareness and self-regulation.

Could you use a little more motivation in your life?   Most of us could.  To find out more about Fowler’s thinking on motivation and bringing out the best in yourself and others, be sure to check out Fowler’s free, on-demand webinar recording, A Closer Look at the New Science of Motivation.  You’ll discover some of the common mistakes people make when it comes to motivation and what you can do to improve your outlook.  Recorded on October 3 for an audience of 700 participants, the download is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Innovation also requires collaboration.  Very few ideas can be successfully implemented without the cooperation and buy-in of others.  Unfortunately, innovators often struggle in this area–especially if they fall in love with their idea and become defensive about feedback.

In an upcoming Leadership Livecast on Un-Leaderlike Moments I share a story about the way this sneaks up on unsuspecting innovators.  See if this has ever happened to you.

The birth of an idea

You come up with an idea—it’s one of your best ideas—and you can’t wait to share it with the other people on your team. So you do. And you know what? They’re just as excited about it as you are. You decide to go in together and make this idea a reality.

But soon after, something you didn’t plan on starts to occur. Your teammates like your original concept, but they have some thoughts for making it better.  They begin to share their thinking and give you some feedback.  How do you react?

Dealing with feedback–two typical paths

If you are an experienced innovator, you take some time to really listen to what your team is sharing with you.  You explore what they are saying, you ask for details, and you draw out the essence of their ideas.  You realize that no matter how good your original idea may be, it’s always smart to treat feedback as a gift and to listen closely with the intention of being influenced.

If you are a relatively new innovator—and you are really attached to your idea—you may see feedback from your team in a completely different light.  Ego can often get in the way and now you become defensive when others suggest changes.  You dismiss their feedback as uninformed, uninspired, or just plain limiting. Instead of listening with the intent of being influenced, you listen just long enough to respond and remind everyone why the team should stay on course with your original concept.  You become so focused on leading change that you don’t notice the energy, enthusiasm and participation of team members falling off as you march to the finish line.

It’s not until you get there and turn around for a group high-five that you see their weary exasperation with your leadership style.  They congratulate you on your project.

A better way

Don’t let that happen to your next idea. Here are three ways to innovate and collaborate more effectively:

• Create space for other people to contribute. Take advantage of everything that people bring to a team.  Utilize their head and heart as well as their hands.
• Listen to feedback.  Explore and acknowledge what people are suggesting.  Listen in a special way—with the intent of being influenced.
• Recognize that no matter how good your idea is, it can always be made better through the input of others. As Ken Blanchard likes to say, “None of us is as smart as all of us.”

True innovation requires passion and collaboration.  Create some space for others. It will make your ideas stronger, give you a better chance for success, and create needed buy-in along the way.

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PS: You can learn more about the 40 different thought leaders presenting in the October 10 Un-Leaderlike Moments Livecast here.  It’s a free online event hosted by Ken Blanchard.

Learn more.

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Current research points to the benefit of employing people’s hearts as well as their hands. But to do that skillfully, managers and team leaders have to be prepared for all of the situations that occur when you truly engage people.  If you want everything that people can offer, you have to deal with everything that people will bring.

Eryn Kalish, a professional mediator and relationship expert believes that there are two keys to successfully negotiating the emotional workplace.  In an article for Blanchard’s Ignite! newsletter, Kalish identifies staying centered and open as the key skills.  But what she has been seeing more commonly is an unbalanced approach where managers and organizations go to extremes.

As she explains, “Organizations are either taking a ‘confront everything, address it, and do it now’ overly intense approach, where there is no time or space to reflect, or they are taking a ‘let’s wait and see’ tactic, in hopes that the situation resolves itself, but in reality not dealing with difficult issues until it’s way too late.”

The wait and see strategy works occasionally, according to Kalish, although most of the time things get worse. “Plus, when something is left unaddressed, there is a cumulative organizational effect where everyone starts shutting down, living in a place of fear and contraction.”

That is a huge loss, from Kalish’s perspective, because most issues in companies are resolvable.

“If issues are handled directly, clearly, and in a timely manner, something new can emerge. That’s what I see that is so exciting,” she shares. “When people normalize these types of conversations, it is amazing to see the transformations that can occur.”

Next steps for leaders

For leaders looking to get started in improving their abilities, Kalish recommends assessing where you are currently at.

“It all depends on whether you have the skills to conduct a sensitive conversation. If you have the skills, take a cue from Nike and ‘Just do it!’ See what happens. If you do not have the skills, then it is important to get additional coaching or training.

“In any case, openness and transparency is the key. Many times it helps to just be candid with staff and saying, ‘I think that we have been avoiding this and I’d like that to change’ will help.

To learn more about Kalish’s thoughts on dealing effectively with emotion in the workplace, check out Dealing effectively with emotion-filled work environments in the August issue of Ignite.  Also be sure to check out a free webinar Kalish is conducting on August 22, A Manager’s Guide to the Emotional Workplace: How to stay focused and balanced when dealing with sensitive issues.  It’s a free event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Here’s an exercise from a team building class I attended that I wanted to share with you.

It uses questions from a Mensa quiz to illustrate the point that a team’s collective wisdom is always greater than any individual team member’s.

To get started, see how many of these questions you can answer individually. According to Mensa, if you can figure out 23 of these, you qualify for “genius” status.

(I’ve filled in the first one for you—check the bottom of this post for the complete answer key when you are done.)

Now, gather your team together (or send them a link to this page).  How many of these phrases can your team correctly identify as a group?

When we conducted this exercise in class, results varied widely.  Some people scored high, some people scored low. Some people came up with the more obscure answers, while others missed the easy ones.  The point of course was that no matter what, the group as a whole always outscored the individual members—even the really smart ones who got many of the answers all by themselves.  In every case the team was smarter than the individual members and had a greater capacity to answer the questions that were put in front of it.

What gets in the way of sharing?

So why don’t teams share information more freely and use this to their advantage?  There are a lot of reasons ranging from, “I like to be the smart one,” and “I like to be unique,” to “As long as I have this specialized knowledge, I have some leverage, etc.”

Now ask yourself two more important questions.  1. What can we do as a team to break down individual silos and share information more freely?   2. What individual or organizational barriers are getting in our way?

Teams perform best when they operate as a collective unit instead of as a collection of individuals. But that takes work—it doesn’t happen by itself.  As a leader or senior team member, consider what you can do this week to help your team share more freely.  It’s good for you, your team, and your customers!

Answers

1. 24 hours in a day; 2. 26 letters of the alphabet; 3. 7 days of the week; 4. 12 signs of the Zodiac; 5. 66 books of Bible; 6. 52 cards in a pack (without jokers); 7. 13 stripes in the US flag; 8. 18 holes on a golf course; 9. 39 books of the Old Testament; 10. 5 tines on a fork/5 toes on a foot; 11. 90 degrees in a right angle; 12. 3 blind mice (see how they run); 13. 32 is the temperature in degrees F at which water freezes; 14. 15 players on a rugby team; 15. 3 wheels on a tricycle; 16. 100 Cents in a Rand; 17. 11 players in a football (soccer) team; 18. 12 months in a year; 19. 13 is unlucky for some; 20. 8 tentacles on an octopus; 21. 29 days in Feb. in a leap year; 22. 27 books in the New Testament; 23. 365 days in a year; 24. 13 loaves in a baker’s dozen; 25. 52 weeks in a year; 26. 9 lives of a cat; 27. 60 minutes in an hour; 28. 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body; 29. 64 squares on a chess board; 30. 9 provinces in South Africa; 31. 6 balls to an over in cricket; 32. 1000 years in a millennium; 33. 15 men on a dead man’s chest

As Blanchard explains, “When people get caught up in their ego, it erodes their effectiveness. That’s because the combination of false pride and self-doubt created by an overactive ego gives people a distorted image of their own importance. When that happens, people see themselves as the center of the universe and they begin to put their own agenda, safety, status, and gratification ahead of those affected by their thoughts and actions.”

That’s a deadly combination in today’s business environment where organizations need people to work together collaboratively.  If you think that ego might be taking up a seat on your team and holding back everyone’s effectiveness, here are three ways to recalibrate:

• Be a learner: The first way to recalibrate an overactive ego is by becoming a continual learner. Whether you’re a leader or an individual contributor, you need to be open to learn from other people and to listen to them. As Blanchard explains, “If people think they’ve got all the answers and don’t need any help, they’re not likely to be interested in collaborating.” That’s why having an attitude that you don’t have all the answers and you’re open to learning is so important. “None of us is as smart as all of us,” explains Blanchard. “This really means that one plus one is a lot bigger than two.”
• Be courageous in your selection of team members:  Seek out people who have skills and energy that are different—and preferably superior— to your own.   So often people are afraid to work with teammates who possess superior skills.  Resist the urge to be the smartest person in the room.
• Build a shared purpose: Finally, the third key to achieving healthy organizational collaboration and minimizing individual ego is to rally people around a shared vision—something bigger than themselves. When everyone shares a clear sense of purpose, process, and practice, it’s amazing what can be accomplished.

Don’t let egos get in the way of your team’s success. Your ability to overcome these self-serving tendencies will determine to a large degree your ability to work effectively with others toward a common goal.

Would you like to learn more about working together collaboratively and creating teams that work?  Here are a couple of additional resources:

Why Teams Fail—and What to Do About It (new article by Dr. Eunice Parisi-Carew in latest edition of Human Resource Executive Online)

Ken Blanchard on the Power of Collaboration (a free, one-hour, on-demand webinar recording featuring Ken Blanchard)

]]> https://leaderchat.org/2011/11/21/got-room-on-your-team-not-if-this-person-already-has-a-seat/feed/ 2 2364 https://leaderchat.org/2011/11/03/60-of-work-teams-fail%e2%80%94top-10-reasons-why/ https://leaderchat.org/2011/11/03/60-of-work-teams-fail%e2%80%94top-10-reasons-why/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:18:45 +0000 http://leaderchat.org/?p=2294 About 60 percent of the time, work teams fail to accomplish their goals, according to Dr. Eunice Parisi-Carew, a Founding Associate at The Ken Blanchard Companies. To make matters worse, the experience will create lingering hard feelings among team members,

In a new article for Human Resource Executive Online, Parisi-Carew identifies the top ten reasons why this occurs. See if any of these common missteps are holding back the teams in your organization.

1. Lack of planning. Teams are often formed with little planning or forethought. When people come together on a team, they have questions that must be addressed: Why are we together? What are the goals? What role will each of us play? What is expected of me?
2. Lack of support for a team culture. This shows up in various ways, all of which are damaging. For example, management “empowers” the team, but still demands that everything be cleared through senior leadership, or management refuses to decrease other responsibilities for people participating on the team.
3. Lack of resources. An inadequate budget, training or time to do the job right.
4. Lack of clarity. No agreement on how team members are expected to behave toward one another.
5. Lack of mutual accountability. This means holding people accountable to agreements. Not confronting a broken agreement can lead to poor results, lack of commitment and lack of trust.
6. Lack of effective or shared leadership. A high-performing team is one in which leadership is shared, and each and every member is responsible for team functioning.
7. Lack of focus on creativity and excellence. This lack of focus negatively impacts the quality of team interaction and the quality of the final product.
8. Inability to deal with conflict. Poor training or strategies for dealing with conflict—especially conflict that is caused by personal, political, or power issues and agendas.
9. Lack of training. This applies not only to the leader but to all members. For example, just knowing that teams go through predictable stages—including conflict—can depersonalize and diffuse some of the natural tensions that are felt in a group.
10. Poor use of teams. Not all organizational challenges require a team; some are better handled by individuals. A team is appropriate when multiple skills and perspectives are needed to accomplish the goal.

To ensure success with your next team, Parisi-Carew recommends three key strategies to have in place.

Set a Solid Foundation—Many teams are brought together with no more thought than a general idea of “we need a team to do this.” As a result, these teams get formed sloppily with no clear purpose or goal.

Deal with Differences—Provide training and guidance for effectively dealing with differences. This includes reminding the team that differences are inevitable when passionate people work together. It’s important that teams view friction and disagreement as a healthy stage of team development instead of something to avoid.

Approach Team Leadership from a Servant Leader Mind-set—A team is a living, breathing entity. A team leader needs to see himself or herself as a servant and a guide for the group, not as the hub or ultimate decision maker. You will never have a truly high-performing team unless leadership is shared, so that everyone on the team, and the team as a whole, develops

To read more about Parisi-Carew’s advice for team success, be sure to check out the complete article, Why Teams Fail—and What to Do About It at Human Resource Executive Online.

Jesse Lyn Stoner, a leading expert on the topic of visioning, and coauthor with Ken Blanchard of Full Steam Ahead!: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life believes that when team members set these foundational pieces in place, there is less wasted time, less conflicting priorities, and less interpersonal conflict because team members trust they are all moving in the same direction, guided by the same values.

In a recent article for Ignite!, Stoner recommends a three step approach to getting people aligned and working together effectively.

Be specific in setting values that will guide the way the team works together. All new groups need a set of common rules that will define expected behaviors. Identifying common values can be a challenge for teams when they first come together because the words alone can mean different things to different people. The key is to define the words with specific examples. For example, what does transparent, responsible, and “good team player” mean to you?  More importantly, what exactly does it mean to others in the group?

Keep your customer in mind. It’s easy to fall into the trap of defining your group’s work in terms of what you produce in the way of products or services.  Effective leaders define their team’s purpose from the viewpoint of those who benefit from their services and products.  For example, a marketing team shouldn’t define their work as creating brochures, staging events, and promoting consistent branding.  Instead, the team should see its work as “providing a steady stream of new leads for Sales associates.”

Focus on accountability to bring your vision to life. Once a team has identified its purpose, values, and picture of the future, Stoner recommends that the team publish their vision.  And probably more importantly, check in with internal and external customers on a regular basis to see how you are doing in achieving your team’s stated purpose.

The vast majority of work teams never live up to their potential.  Don’t waste the opportunity to get the best from the people you bring together.  Taking a little extra time up front to define and publish expectations can make a huge difference in the long run.

Click here to read more about Stoner’s thoughts on Unify Your Team through a Common Vision or learn more about a free webinar that Stoner will be conducting on Purpose, Passion, and Meaningful Work—how to get where you want to go

This occurs in the “dissatisfaction” stage of team development when the team recognizes the discrepancy between what is expected of them and the reality of getting it done.   

It is not a pleasant stage.

As a leader it’s important to differentiate between the different types of conflict teams experience and to have a plan for helping the team move forward.  Here are four examples of team conflict and some advice on how a leader can intervene properly from Dr. Eunice Parisi-Carew of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Conflict over positions, strategies or opinions

If two or three strong, but differing, positions are being argued in the group and it is getting nowhere, a leader might stop the group and ask each member to take a turn talking with no interruption or debate.  The rest are just to listen and try to understand where they are coming from and why they are posing the solution that they are.  It may go something like this. 

Leader: “Let’s stop for a minute. I want each of you state what is underneath your argument.  What is your desire, your concern, your goal, your fear or your need that leads you to that conclusion?”

In this instance, the leader’s job is to make sure everyone is heard. When the exercise is completed the leader should look for concerns or goals that people have in common. Once all are uncovered, the leader can build on any interests that are shared.  In most cases this becomes the new focus and it turns the situation from conflict to problem solving.

Mistrust or uneven communication

If some people on the team are dominating the conversation while others sit silent or appear to have dropped out, a leader might stop the process and ask each person what they need from others to feel effective in the group and how others can help. 

Another simple practice is to appoint a process observer whose job it is to focus on how the team is interacting.  If the teams gets out of kilter—it might be tempers are rising or communication is not flowing—the process observer is allowed to call time and point out their observations.  For example, “In the last five minutes we have interrupted the speaker 10 times,” or, “We keep talking over each other.”  Just knowing this fact can alter the team’s interaction.  Soon the team will catch itself.  It is harder to misbehave once you know what the impact of your behavior is.

Personality clashes

If personal styles are very different and causing conflict among team members, a team leader might administer the DISC, MBTI, or another behavioral assessment tool to help people better understand each other and learn to work together.  These tools help people understand what the other person needs.  They can also provide a common frame of reference for dealing with individual differences.

Power issues and personal agendas

Conflict that involves power issues, or strong personal agendas must sometimes be dealt with also.  The reality is that some people just do not fit on a team and a leader needs to be willing to remove them or offer them another role. This doesn’t happen often, but occasionally it is needed.  The good news is that once it is dealt with, the team usually takes a leap forward.  This should be an option only when other attempts to work with the person have failed. 

Conflict can be healthy for a team when it is channeled properly.  The challenge for leaders is knowing how and when to intervene. 

PS: To learn more about Dr. Parisi-Carew’s approach to successfully resolving conflict on teams be sure to check out her thinking in the article Don’t Leave Collaboration to Chance or in the recording of her recent webinar on Why Teams Fail—Dealing with Friction and Dissension

As a team leader this means seeing conflict as a natural part of the team development process and using conflict situations as a way to help your team grow.  Here are four common scenarios and some tips for getting started. 

–If two or three differing positions are being argued in the group without any progress toward agreement , stop the group and ask each member to take a turn talking with no interruption or debate. Have the rest of the group listen and try to understand the differing points of view and look for commonalities.

–If the team is struggling with trusting one another and people are not feeling heard, stop the process and ask each person what they need from others to feel effective in the group.

–If personality styles are causing problems consider using a DISC, MBTI, or other behavioral assessment to help people understand each other better and learn to work together. These assessments can provide insight into your own style but more importantly, they help team members understand what the other person needs.

–Conflict that involves power issues, or strong personal agendas, must be dealt with differently. The reality is some people just do not fit on a team and you need to be willing to remove them–or offer them another role. This should only be an option when other attempts to work with the person have failed.

In all cases, the main thing is to embrace conflict. Dissension is a natural and healthy part of team development. To learn more about Parisi-Carew’s approach to team development, be sure to check out the on-demand recording of her presentation on Why Teams Fail—Dealing with Friction and Dissension.

For leaders looking to improve their ability to bring people together to work collaboratively, Parisi-Carew recommends focusing on three key areas.

1. Lay a strong foundation. You’ve got to know where you’re going. As Parisi-Carew explains, “Many teams are brought together with no more thought than ‘We need a team to do this.’ So teams get formed rather sloppily many times, with only a vague charge. That typically translates into a team that doesn’t have a clear purpose or goal.”

2. Deal with conflict effectively. Avoiding differences of opinion will usually blow a team apart, or turn it into an apathetic group. When there is a difference of opinion, the group has to have a plan for how to decide on a course of action for moving forward. The good news is that when this is done right, conflict can lead to higher levels of trust, creativity, and accountability.

3. See yourself as a servant. Being a team leader includes a willingness to see yourself as a servant who guides the development of the team. This means remembering that the team leader’s role is to grow the team to self-sufficiency—not accomplish the task personally.

“That is a huge attitude change and that is why a lot of people struggle. They want to hold onto the power, but as long as they do, you’ll never have a high performing team.

“For example, if someone on the team is misbehaving, rather than allowing the team deal with it, the leader feels compelled to go in, take that person out, and deal with the disruptive behavior. And while that action may be expedient, it deprives the team of the opportunity to work through that experience, benefit from it, and move forward as a group.”

Get Started Today

The most successful companies use teams effectively. Good teaming and collaboration impacts productivity, morale, and creativity. To read more about Parisi-Carew’s thoughts on how to improve collaborative work in your organization read Don’t Leave Collaboration to Chance in the March issue of Ignite!  Also check out a free webinar Parisi-Carew is conducting on March 23, Why Teams Fail—Dealing with Friction and Dissension.  It’s a complimentary event hosted by Cisco WebEx.

•  Lack of a sufficient charter
•  Unsure of what requires team effort
•  Lack of mutual accountability
•  Lack of resources
•  Lack of effective and/or shared leadership
•  Lack of planning
•  Lack of management support
•  Inability to deal with conflict
•  Lack of focus on creativity and excellence
•  Lack of training

How do you avoid these pitfalls? Make sure that your next team identifies and monitors the group’s performance in seven key areas. To help you remember the seven characteristics of a high performing team, you can use the acronym PERFORM.

Purpose and values. Does the new team have a compelling vision, strong sense of purpose, and a common set of values?

Empowerment. Does the team have the authority to act and make decisions? Have clear boundaries been set?

Relationships and communication. Do team members feel they can take risks and share their thoughts, opinions, and feelings without fear?

Flexibility. Are team members adaptable to changing conditions—including both the outside environment and within the team itself?

Optimal productivity. Is there a commitment to high standards and quality? Do team members hold each other accountable and strive for continual improvement?

Recognition and appreciation. Do team members give and receive positive feedback and recognition that reinforces behavior, builds esteem, and enhances a feeling of value and accomplishment?

Morale. Are team members enthusiastic about their work, proud of their results, and feel pride in belonging to the team?

The Journey to High Performance

All teams are unique and complex living systems. High performance is a journey—a predictable progression from a collection of individuals to team members who begin to think in terms of “we” rather than “you” and “me.” Identify and monitor these seven characteristics to get the most out of your next team.

For individuals looking to improve their ability to work successfully with others, Fowler recommends a 3-step process.

• Identify the relationships you are currently involved in at work. Are the people in your immediate circle of influence helping you achieve your goals at work? What is the nature of your relationships? If those relationships are superficial, negative, or nonexistent, then there is a very real chance that you are not going to achieve your goals—at least not in a way that is going to leave you with a sense of vitality, or joy in your accomplishment.
• Determine if the conflict issues in your relationships are caused by a values conflict—where you see things differently, or a dispositional conflict—where your preferred style of responding is different.
• Take action. If you are experiencing a values difference with another person, look for areas where you have values in common. Some common examples are a dedication to helping customers, or a common commitment to high quality work. If the strained relationship is being caused by differences in disposition, take a minute to explore and understand the different ways people respond to work situations. Fowler prefers a behavioral model, such as DISC, as a way to understand dispositional differences including whether a person is more introverted or extraverted, or more controlling or accepting in typical situations.

The basic human need for relatedness or meaningful relationships at work tends to get diminished in many organizations according to Fowler. Don’t let that happen in your organization.

“Managers are often taught that it is not inside the scope of a manager’s role or appropriate to deal with personal issues. But the research is clear that to ignore a person’s need for meaningful relationships in the workplace is to ignore an essential ingredient for basic motivation, vitality, and the sense of well-being that results in a person’s good intentions at work.

Check out the full text of Why Relationships at Work Are So Important here.  Also, don’t miss Fowler’s October 20 complimentary webinar on Creating Effective Work Relationships.

That’s a deadly combination in today’s business environment where organization’s need people to work together collaboratively to meet the ever increasing expectations of customers.

The good news is that there is an antidote according to Ken Blanchard, best-selling business author and co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Here are four tips from Ken to help you identify an overactive ego and put it back in its place if it has been getting out of hand.

• Recognize that it’s not about you. The first way to recalibrate an overactive ego is through humility. In organizations, humility means recognizing that work is not all about you; it’s about the people you serve and what they need. For leaders, this means seeing your job as creating and maintaining a motivating work environment that engages employees so they can engage customers.
• Be a learner. The second way to rebalance ego is by becoming a continual learner. Whether you’re a leader or an individual contributor, you need to be open to learn from other people and to listen to them. If people think they’ve got all the answers and don’t need any help, they’re not likely to be interested in collaborating. That’s why having an attitude that you don’t have all the answers and you’re open to learning is so important.
• Find a partner. Next, find somebody to work with. Find somebody who has the skills and energy in doing what you don’t know how to do yet. So often people are afraid to share because they feel they are going to be competing with each other.
• Build a shared purpose. Finally, the fourth key to achieving healthy organizational collaboration and minimizing individual ego is to rally people around a shared vision—something bigger than themselves. When everyone shares a clear sense of purpose, process, and practice, it’s amazing what can be accomplished.

There are many benefits to collaboration. The most noticeable is better customer service inside and outside the organization. In today’s fast-paced business environment you can’t afford the time to develop all of the competencies required to keep customers satisfied and business growing. Today, you have to collaborate with people both inside and outside your organization who have the skills and capacities that you don’t. The result is a one-plus-one synergy that equals a lot more than two, and provides the competitive advantage needed to serve customers, grow, and prosper.

The story of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and its devastating impact on the city of New Orleans has been well chronicled. In March 2006, Drew Brees joined the Saints football team having just come off major shoulder surgery that threatened his playing career. Brees has been quoted as saying that he felt his decision to join the Saints was a “calling” – a higher purpose that he needed to fulfill, not only to resurrect his own career, but also to help the people of New Orleans resurrect their city. This deep connection to his own personal purpose and that of the city at large created a culture change within the Saints organization which ultimately led them to achieving the greatest prize in their profession.

After the game Brees was quoted as saying, “We played for our city. We played for the entire Gulf Coast region. We played for the entire Who Dat nation that has been behind us every step of the way.”

Teams of all kinds, whether in the sports world, corporate America, or the non-profit sector, can take a lesson from the Saints and the power of purpose. When chartering a team, one of the first priorities is to establish a clear purpose. “Why do we exist?” and “What are we trying to achieve?” are key questions that need to be answered.

Once a team is clear on its purpose, it can establish the values that will guide team members’ behaviors and decisions and in turn establish goals that will help them achieve their purpose. Finding a way to connect each team members’ personal purpose to that of the team will exponentially increase the productivity and morale of the team, allowing the team to achieve more than any one individual possibly could. When the team faces adversity, it will be their firm belief and commitment to their purpose that will carry them through.

“Just to think of the road we’ve all traveled, the adversity we’ve all faced,” Brees said.

“It’s unbelievable. I mean, are you kidding me? Four years ago, whoever thought this would be happening? Eighty-five percent of the city was under water. Most people left not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back, or if the organization would ever come back.

“We just all looked at one another and said, ‘We’re going to rebuild together. We are going to lean on each other.’ That’s what we’ve done the last four years and this is the culmination in all that belief.”

That sounds like the power of purpose to me.

1. Team members must develop a learning attitude. Everything that happens in the team is “grist for the mill.” There are no failures–only learning opportunities. 
2. The team must build a trust-based environment. Trust is built by sharing information, ideas, and skills. Building trust requires that team members cooperate rather than compete, judge, or blame. Trust is also built when team members follow through on their commitments. It is critical that team members communicate openly and honestly and demonstrate respect for others. 
3. The team must value differences. Team members should encourage and honor differences. Different viewpoints are the heart of creativity. 
4. People must view the team as a whole. By seeing the team as a living system rather than a collection of individuals, team members begin to think in terms of “we” rather than “you” and “me.”  
5. Team members must become participant observers. To work well in a team environment, members should develop the skill of participating and, at the same time, observing. This practice, akin to being in a movie at the same time you are watching the movie, can give team members valuable perspective.  

How’s your team doing in these areas? Knowing the characteristics and needs of a high performing work group is critical. It gives people a target to shoot for as they progress from a collection of individuals to a smoothly functioning, high performing team.

For organizations considering open collaboration, Gabor recommends a clear-headed look at the challenges associated with the change and she identifies seven essential strategies to making it work including:

1. Creating a clear leadership message
2. Collaborating with customers
3. Building a culture of trust and open communication
4. Cultivating continuous improvement
5. Building a flexible innovation infrastructure
6. Preparing your organization for new skill sets
7. Aligning evaluations and rewards

The article points out that “open collaboration is a complex, all-embracing process, requiring genuine commitment from corporate leaders, a willingness to abandon many venerable corporate customs, and an appetite for unleashing and managing disruptive change across the organization.”  But Gabor also encourages organizations to move forward and continue to develop their approach to open collaboration, because for those that do there are great benefits as well.

Sometime today or tomorrow, be sure to read—or save, this article—it’s one of the best on collaboration that we’ve seen. 

And if you are looking for a little additional inspiration and insight on the subject, check out the on-demand webcast of Pass the Ball: The Power of Collaboration.  This is a presentation Ken Blanchard did together with Cisco WebEx in June as a part of their Pass the Ball initiative. Ken shares his thoughts on getting others involved, how a philosophy of “none of us is as smart as all of us” helps everyone accomplish more, and the difference between serving and self-serving behavior.

1. Lack of a sufficient charter
2. Unsure of what requires team effort
3. Lack of mutual accountability
4. Lack of resources
5. Lack of effective and/or shared leadership
6. Lack of planning
7. Lack of management support
8. Inability to deal with conflict
9. Lack of focus on creativity and excellence
10. Lack of training

How do you avoid these pitfalls? Here’s a checklist of seven key elements (represented by the acronym PERFORM) that can help you remember the components of a high performing team: 

• Purpose and values. A high performing team needs both a clear sense of what the desired  goal is, combined with a common set of values that will serve as the ground rules for how the group will work together.
• Empowerment. The team needs to have the authority to act and make decisions and choices with clear boundaries. Groups that are limited in their ability to carry out recommendations suffer.
• Relationships and communication. A high performing team is committed to open communication. People need to feel that they can take risks and share their thoughts, opinions, and feelings without fear.
• Flexibility. Successful teams prepare for shifting conditions by making sure that everyone has responsibility for team performance, development, and leadership.
• Optimal productivity. This includes a commitment to high standards and quality. Team members hold each other accountable and strive for continual improvement.
• Recognition and appreciation. High performing teams take the time to provide feedback and recognition. Recognition reinforces behavior, builds esteem, and enhances a feeling of value and accomplishment.
• Morale. Finally, high performing teams monitor morale to make sure that team members are enthusiastic about their work, proud of their results, and feel pride in belonging to the team. 

How’s your team doing when it comes to these seven elements?  To learn more about the ways you can improve your current—or planned team projects—be sure to check out the teams resources available in the Outcomes section of the Blanchard website.

Lencioni points out that the key to being a more effective virtual leader begins with acknowledging the fact that working remotely posing serious challenges. As Lencioni observes, “E-mail and voice mail and texting and instant messaging have all become so second-nature that we too often assume that a team member’s physical location makes little difference to the team’s effectiveness.

That doesn’t make sense to Lencioni who uses a family-based analogy to make his point. “After all, no family would say, “Well, Dad lives in New York, Mom lives in San Francisco, and the kids are spread around the country, but thanks to my iPhone and computer, it’s no different from living under the same roof.”

Lencioni observes that simple, daily interactions help build the bonds that people need to “thrive during good times and survive during challenging ones.”

For teams that don’t have the opportunity for daily interactions at the jobsite, Lencioni recommends that team leaders:

• Build relationships within the context of work
• Revisit their purpose, values and mission
• Develop trust and determine methods for hashing out differences remotely

To read the complete article visit: http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/16/virtual-meetings-conferencing-leadership-managing-lencioni.html

The first hat of leadership is self leadership. This is a hat for all seasons! Self leadership involves developing the skills and abilities to set goals for yourself, to recognize the points of power you have to help you accomplish your goals and influence others, and to recognize and move beyond the assumed constraints, or self-limiting beliefs, that you’ve created for yourself over the years. Self leadership is independent of any formal position of leadership. If you can breathe, you can be a self leader!

The second hat of leadership is leading others. This hat utilizes various styles of leadership to influence others in order to help them accomplish their individual goals or the goals of the organization. This hat is often used when a leader is in a formal position of authority with direct reports, but it can also be worn by an individual contributor who has to collaborate with and accomplish work through others. A leader in this context needs to flex his or her style to meet the developmental needs of the followers. A second hat leader uses a combination of directive and supportive behaviors to bring out the best in his or her people.

Leading teams is the third hat of leadership. When two or more people are mutually dependent and accountable for achieving a particular goal, you have a team. Wearing the hat of team leadership involves not only using second hat leadership in your 1 to 1 interactions with team members, it involves managing the productivity and morale of the team as a whole. The team leader has to monitor team dynamics and modify his or her leadership style to keep the team moving to higher levels of performance.

The fourth hat is leading organizations. Leaders in this context have to be acutely aware of their own leadership points of view, setting the vision/mission of the organization, the nuances of managing other leaders, and how to implement and manage change within the organization. Competencies of fourth hat leadership involve strategic thinking, innovation, creativity, and having a global mindset.

Any one particular type of hat isn’t appropriate for every social situation. Nor is any one particular type of leadership appropriate for every organizational context. You wouldn’t wear a top hat to a baseball game would you? No! A baseball cap would be much more appropriate. The same is true with the hats of leadership in organizations. You have to develop the skills and abilities of each of the leadership hats so that you can quickly switch between them as the situation demands.

So which hat are you wearing? Is it the right one?

You also solve a problem along the way. 

That’s why we have included real work action learning projects into the leadership development programs we have been building for our clients looking to develop their high potential executives.  By incorporating a real work issue into the process, we’ve found that it increases learning, promotes camaraderie and collaboration, and yields cost-effective results. 

You can get a feel for how this might work in your organization by checking out a recent article in Chief Learning Officer magazine.  The article describes how Dr. Bea Carson led three action learning teams and the results they achieved. 

You can learn more about Blanchard’s approach to leadership development and how we build real work scenarios into the curriculum by checking out the work being done at Skanska, where action learning helped a group of high potential executives grow together while simultaneously solving real work issues that saved their company money and increased revenue along the way.

Part of the reason may be that people see trust as a “nice to have” cultural issue to work on once you have everything else in place. This is a fundamental mistake because the level of trust in your organization is a hard-edged economic driver that will impact just about every aspect of your organizations performance. 

Author Stephen M. R. Covey, in his book The Speed of Trust  describes this impact as either a high trust dividend that can add 40% to your organization’s performance or a low trust tax that can subtract up to 80% by adding to your costs. .

This dividend or tax impact occurs because trust is the ultimate determining factor whether individuals will be good team players, will make the commitment to change, and will work beyond minimum requirements to achieve desired outcomes.  

What’s the trust level in your organization? 

All relationships, personal and professional, are based upon trust. And there is a big difference between the way people work together when they trust each other versus how they work when trust is low or nonexistent. When employees who work together trust each other, they exert more effort in their jobs and expend less effort monitoring each other. This leads to increased productivity, lower costs, and greater satisfaction for workers as well as shareholders.

When people are not aligned behind a compelling vision there is a risk that people will “check out” or end up “spinning their wheels.” Checking out occurs when people do not see how their work contributes to anything larger. When work is perceived as having little significance, it is common for people to disengage and resign themselves to low impact work that requires just enough effort to get by.

Spinning your wheels happens when people double their effort but don’t get any traction. These people are working hard but it is unclear how their work is contributing to the direction the group is heading. When this occurs, people experience false starts, have to redo work, or discover that others have already done the same work.

A clear vision and goal setting helps in both of these cases. When people can see where the larger group is heading and why heading that way is important, they can begin to work in the same direction. Instead of wasting their time on low impact projects—or redoing work that misses the mark—they can focus on high impact areas that directly contribute to shared goals and subsequently improve the company’s bottom line.

A couple of us are doing presentations (including yours truly.)  I’ll be talking about engageable moments and specifically what rank and file employees can do to help maintain commitment and productivity during a down economic cycle.

My focus will be on what each of us can do individually to keep ourselves and others upbeat, focused, and positive.  That’s because all plans, no matter how well thought out, eventually work down to an individual level—to you and me.  And to a large extent, how you and I respond—and act on the initiatives that have been proposed will determine our company’s overall success.

Here’s the three points I’ll be making.  See what you think and how this matches up with your own experience.

Get clear on what you need to do

Today, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by bad economic news, become distracted, and lose focus. There are so many things that each of us want to do, what we need to do, and that the organization wants us to do. You need to sort through these competing priorities to create one list that you can focus on.

Ask for help

Don’t try to go it alone.  You don’t have to, no one expects you to, and it’s not going to generate the best results.  All of us are being asked to stretch ourselves, either in terms of doing more with less, or generating new and innovative ideas to help increase sales. Do you have the information, tools, equipment and resources to get the job done? You need to be able to ask for help.

Cheer each other on

Especially in tough times, we have to make sure that we take the time to pat each other on the back.  And don’t wait for big results before you praise.  Remember to recognize the small stuff too.

It all depends on how you look at it.

Findings from the 2008/2009 WorkUSA Survey Report recommend that employers capitalize on “engageable moments” to increase engagement and productivity.

An engageable moment is a critical juncture for maintaining and building engagement. It might occur during such programs as new employee orientation, feedback during a one-on-one or when the organization goes through particularly challenging economic times.

Let me give you an example.

I had the opportunity to work together with some long time employees in our company on a wonderful project to try and capture the heart and soul of our company.  We asked everyone in the company to contribute a story that best defined our corporate culture.  All of the stories would be compiled into a book that will be distributed at our 30-year anniversary celebration later this week. Over 200 people, out of the 300 who work here, contributed stories.  Do you know what people pointed to time and again as our defining moment?  Our response to 9/11. 

Why?  It was during that difficult time that we best pulled together to achieve a common goal. We have that opportunity again.

You have a choice.  We all have a choice.  How will we enter the day?  How will we respond to the world going on around us?  Will we remain hopeful, optimistic, confident, and resilient when things look tough?

What about you?  What are the strategies that you have in place for yourself to remain strong, confident, and hopeful going forward? 

It is not the events of the day that define us; it is how we react to them.

Ben had spoken at our company a couple of years ago at our annual Week of Excellence all-company meeting and encouraged all of us to replace “downward spiral thinking” with “possibility thinking” instead.  Ben also cautioned us not to fall into the trap of thinking that leadership is just for those people at the top of the organization.  For an organization to truly move forward together, everyone has to be involved and feel that they play a role.

To illustrate his point, Ben told the story of an accomplished cellist who joined the Boston Philharmonic but who was disappointed when she found herself ranked as the 11th cellist among the twelve seats available.  Still, she persevered and at Ben’s urging, she volunteered an idea of how to play a certain section of a symphony the Boston Philharmonic was scheduled to perform.

The piece was performed the following week to rave reviews.  After the performance, the cellist came up to Zander excitedly and asked, “You played the piece the way I suggested, didn’t you.”  Ben nodded in agreement and saw the woman’s whole attitude change. 

“From then on,” he continued, “this cellist who sat in the 11th seat played like a completely different person.”  Instead of just being technically correct, her playing took on an added dimension that she hadn’t displayed before.  When Ben asked her about this, she explained that ever since that night when she first saw the possibility that she could influence the orchestra from her modest position in the 11th chair, she felt like she had been leading the orchestra every night since then.

But can a person sitting in the 11th chair of your organization really make a difference?  You bet.

I found this out for myself when I talked with a co-worker who said Ben Zander touched her heart and reminded her that each one of us is important to the bigger goal.

“It creates a feeling in me of my worth in the workplace,” she said. “What I like about this idea is that it makes me feel like I might have an idea that would contribute and that I have value to the company,”

The most fascinating thing that I found in watching Kitchen Nightmares is all of the different human resource issues that are being addressed.  It’s almost like a series of Harvard business school case studies presented in a fun, entertaining format.  For example, in the first episode Ramsay works with a family-owned Italian restaurant.  The question?  How do you tell the manager of the restaurant, who also happens to be the son’s owner, that he is the biggest problem holding back the business?

In another episode Ramsay works with a downtown Manhattan restaurant that is absolutely filthy.  The problem here?  Apathetic employees and incompetent managers.  Ramsay’s solution?  Fire the general manager and instead turn to the floor manager to run the restaurant while he simultaneously brings in a new chef.

In all of the episodes you have the opportunity to watch a wide variety of real life human resource problems solved on a practical basis.  I was struck by the complicated nature of the problems that each of these businesses faced and how it ultimately fell back to a people problem in all cases.  Certainly, in some of the episodes the issue also turns out to be poor promotion, a too-complicated menu, or an unfocused business plan, but in the end you can always trace the problem back to an individual. An egotistical owner, an incompetent manager, or apathetic employees who just don’t care anymore.  The result?  A poor experience for the customer, and of course, poor results at the cash register.

The series gives you a chance to see the subtle people issues that managers have to deal with on a daily basis and how, if neglected, ultimately cause the business to suffer. 

If you have ever wondered whether good people management matters, tune in. You’ll see real life examples of the difference that good leadership makes. Look for it under popular TV shows at www.hulu.com.   

First, talk to your frontline employees. People will come up with all sorts of innovative ways to cut costs and increase revenues beyond what can be dreamed up in the corner office.  That’s not a knock on senior leadership, but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that the people closest to the work can see things that escape the eye of those farther removed.  

Second, people who have a say in determining what should be cut and what new plans should be implemented have a higher degree of buy-in when it comes time to actually implement those plans.  In other words, “People who plan the battle, rarely battle the plan.”

Don’t go it alone.  You’ll get better ideas and more cooperation when you involve others in the process.