Dear Madeleine,

I work for a global company that had a very flexible work-from-home policy before Covid happened. I have been managing hybrid teams for more than 20 years and have never had trouble with performance.

We got a new CEO last fall, and he has a very strong belief (despite all the research that says otherwise) that people simply don’t work as hard when they work from home. One of his opening moves was to institute a full-time return-to-office plan that started in January.

I’m lucky. I have always come in three days a week, and I have a short commute. But about half my people had just enough time to move back, or simply move, so they could keep their job. I had to replace people who didn’t want to move, or couldn’t, and we lost some excellent talent in the process. The disruption has been epic. It all feels like a waste of time, energy, and focus.

Now that everyone is getting into the groove of coming into the office, there is a new problem no one seems to have anticipated: We don’t have enough room for everyone! People are sharing offices and cubicles, which is tricky since almost everyone is on conference calls all day. There weren’t enough headsets to go around and people had to bring their personal ones from home. There aren’t nearly enough conference rooms, and if you have one reserved and someone else gets there before you, it is a standoff. People can’t hear themselves think.

There aren’t enough parking spaces, so people are late because they must drive around looking for a spot. There aren’t enough restrooms—people have mere minutes between meetings only to encounter a line, so many are forced to step out in the middle of meetings. The cafeteria was not remotely prepared to manage the volume, so lunch hours had to be staggered and regular meetings moved. Not only are we not more productive, we are way less so.

My boss has assured me that all of these issues are being worked on—but in the meantime, no flexibility has been offered to help alleviate them. Everyone, myself included, is in a constant state of annoyance. The whole policy has been an unmitigated disaster.

I just don’t know what to do. I hate inefficiency. I hate policies that are out of touch with reality. I hate to see my smart, hardworking people struggling with stupid rules. As a senior-level manager, I have taken great pride in walking the fine line between taking care of my people and supporting senior leadership, but I am really struggling to do that at this point. I have completely lost respect for the CEO, who is oblivious to reality and blathers on about how great it is to have everyone together. He thinks he appears tough, while everyone who works for the company seems to agree that he is just stupid. More to the point, my team’s morale has nosedived and I can’t do anything about it.

I have run out of the energy needed to hold the company line and not betray that I am 100% opposed to the way things are being handled. I feel like I can’t support my boss, who is cowardly and keeps acting like everything is fine, or the executive team he reports to—and it makes me feel like a traitor. I have headhunters calling me constantly and am starting to take their calls, but I feel like I would be letting my team down. Can you think of anything I could do to turn this around?

Done

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Dear Done,

There is nothing quite as dispiriting as a new CEO who imposes new rules based on opinion versus facts and causes needless chaos for their people. It sounds like you had a good thing going and it has all been blown up. I do wonder how the whole company is doing, and if the new CEO is doing enough good things to offset this one really stupid thing.

Do I have any bright ideas for you? I wish I did. I read your letter several times, trying to spot a silver lining or creative ways you might approach the situation. You might check with your team and see what viable tactics come up—carpooling, bringing lunch from home, ways to share space that make sense. The bathroom situation is way beyond me. But I don’t think this is what you are looking for.

My suggestion is that you read what you wrote and ask yourself these questions: Whose permission do I need to find a better leader to work for? What is keeping me from finding a better situation—and taking my best people with me?

The principle here is that a leader is only a leader if people follow them. You feel like a traitor, but it doesn’t sound like your CEO has done anything to earn your loyalty. So, really—what is keeping you from voting with your feet?

Your team will be fine. One of them will probably be delighted to take your job. You won’t be betraying anyone or letting anyone down by remembering that the only people you owe anything to are yourself and a leader worthy of your respect that you choose to follow.

I could be totally off base here. If that is the case, it will probably have the effect of helping you see the silver lining and find the wherewithal to stay the course where you are. The key is that it will be a conscious choice and you won’t feel like a victim.

I wish you effective and efficient policies that make going to work and doing work fulfilling again.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I have been managing people for decades. With the advent of Covid, I put a lot of focus on getting better at managing hybrid teams. (This blog really helped me.) I have some people who come to the office and about half the group works remotely. I go in four days a week.

I have developed a reputation for being fair, working with individuals to find challenging opportunities and being flexible with work preferences. But lately I have begun to wonder if I am being too flexible, at the expense of the functioning of my team. For example, I have one direct report who has informed me that he intends to move to Australia. He just assumed I would be okay with it. I am not.

I really wish he had approached me with this as a request and not presented it as a fait accompli. I never would have approved this move. But now all the plans have been made—and if I were to say no at this point, it would cause a lot of turbulence. My biggest issue is that we already work with multiple time zones, and adding another one on the opposite side of the world is going to increase complexity. I haven’t even begun the process of talking to HR about the laws governing employment in Australia, and that worries me. This person is a good employee, but there have been some issues with accountability and entitlement. I wouldn’t mind letting him go and hiring someone new for the job.

What I really want to do is ask him if we can roll back this decision, but I worry that he only behaved the way he did because I sent mixed messages. How much of this is my fault? What can I do now?

Not OK

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Dear Not OK,

Wow, this is so relatable. As a manager, I often have erred on the side of giving people too much freedom (which is crucial to me) and have suffered similar mix-ups. I applaud your willingness to consider the part you might have played in creating the situation and your desire to take responsibility for it. But, at least from the information you provided, it does seem like your employee took some liberties.

In the blog post you mention, Real Talk About Leading Hybrid Teams, Randy Conley points out that with hybrid teams, it is even more critical to make the implicit explicit. I think that point might be the one to focus on now.

Blanchard just sent out an updated employee handbook that outlines very clearly how employees should proceed if they wish to relocate. It begins with a conversation with one’s manager to obtain explicit permission. I can only imagine that your company has something similar. So there might be a chance that your direct report ignored precise direction.

Even if you don’t have such a handbook, you are within your rights as a manager to have a serious conversation with your world traveler. It is completely fair for you to point out that you would have preferred that he consult you, rather than inform you, before making such a huge decision. It is also fair to tell him that you need to do your homework—both with HR to see if it is feasible, and with your team to see if the time difference will correspond with the team’s workflow. Finally, assuming you have talked about accountability issues already, it is fair to express your concerns about how the distance and time difference will affect this person’s ability to stay on top of his deliverables.

I appreciate your worry that your flexibility has led to a misunderstanding, but I think a line was crossed here, and you can push back. You would need to do so even if the employee were a superstar performer. It is never too late to be explicit when needed. It really is not your fault that your employee jumped the gun. And if you can’t make it work, he will reap the consequences.

Do your due diligence. Decide one way or the other if you can make this work for you and the team. Share your thinking. You can own your part in this situation but you can also insist that your employee own his. If it can work, outline the parameters of how. If it can’t—well, it might be a hard conversation.

Be clear, be direct, and be kind.

You can use this as an opportunity to get ahead of any other non-negotiables you haven’t shared with your team. Examine additional assumptions your direct reports might be making, and make the implicit explicit.

Most people crave certainty, so the more you can give them, the better.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I work on a team where I am the only member who is remote. Pre-Covid we all worked together at the office, but during the shutdown I took advantage of my company’s remote-work option and moved back to my hometown to be closer to my parents who need help.

Many of our meetings are still on Zoom because several team members still work from home a couple of days a week. But other times, everyone is together in a room and I am the only one on Zoom. There are often several side conversations going on at once, as happens when people are together in person. I have trouble hearing everything, and the group often forgets I am there. This past week, two people left the room and had a conversation about a situation that I should have been a part of. I know it wasn’t intentional, but it still doesn’t feel good.

What can I do about this? I am worried I am going to start missing more important things and my contribution may start to seem less important as time goes on.

Feeling Left Out

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Feeling Left Out,

Well, this sounds like no fun. You are suffering a bit from a collection of natural human unconscious biases. Primacy or recency bias, in-group favoritism, and others can easily add up to an effect that might be summed up as “out of sight, out of mind”. It isn’t personal, so the first thing you can do is try to not take it personally.

There are two specific avenues for you to consider. The first is to discuss your experience with your manager and enroll them in helping you to change this dynamic. It is incumbent on your manager to arrange things so that you feel included; but of course, they may not see it that way. So you may need to make it easy for them to help you.

To do that, you need to let your manager know that you frequently feel excluded during the meetings where everyone is face to face except you. You will want to be prepared with ideas about how the manager, the team, and you can all navigate these meetings differently. Any changes will require discipline—and your manager will need to role model any behaviors that will make a difference. If it is feasible given the situation with your parents, you might also propose coming to the office for a few days every month or every six weeks. The company may be willing to pay the cost of travel or split the cost with you.

The other thought is that it wouldn’t hurt if you could engage in regular one-on-ones with everyone on the team. The thing that happens when people are together in person is a natural water cooler-type informal connection. All the human stuff: “How are you doing? How are the kids? Is the puppy house-trained yet? Did you complete the marathon? Hey, is that a new car I saw you getting out of?” You know—just the small talk that results in people bonding. Even a 15-minute coffee break with each of your team members on a regular basis would make a difference. This practice helped virtual teams get through Covid and was naturally dropped when people felt the one-on-ones were no longer needed. But you do still need that connection, so you will need to be proactive to nurture your relationships in this “new normal” time.

You might consider asking someone on your team to be your in-room partner, who can take responsibility for actively including you in the meeting. Having an active advocate for you will always help. If that isn’t feasible, you will have to do it yourself. Don’t be shy about reminding people that you are still in the meeting when it becomes apparent that they have forgotten. This used to happen back in the days before video meetings, when there was one lone person on the speaker phone.

I can’t imagine you are alone in dealing with this situation. There are more hybrid teams today than ever before—and managers need to up their game to make sure everyone feels like part of the team. But you can also rise to the challenge by getting help, making requests, and piping up even when it might be uncomfortable.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am at the end of my rope with all of the new software platforms my company expects me to use as part of my job. Every time I turn around, there is a new app introduced but never any training. Or, if the app itself does provide training, it takes time to watch the videos and learn—which means doing it on weekends or at night because I still have my job which takes up all of my workday.

The other problem is that some people I work with never bother to learn the new systems and continue to use the old processes. So instead of being proficient with the same amount of platforms, the number just keeps growing. My organization recently rolled out a new platform for one process only to realize it didn’t do everything they needed it to do, so they scrapped it and brought in another one. Those of us who took the time to sign up, get the lay of land, and start using it were literally punished for being good organizational citizens.

I feel like my brain is going to explode. I imagine this is true everywhere. How are people putting up with this in other organizations? I should note that I am a Millennial, so this isn’t a technophobe Boomer talking.

I can’t imagine you have any wisdom here except for “suck it up buttercup,” but at least I got to vent.

Can you help me to…

Manage the Madness?

_______________________________________________________________________

Dear Manage the Madness,

Considering I am suffering from the same systems whiplash, and I am a “technophobe Boomer,” you are right: I don’t have much for you on this. (Just for the record, I prefer the term digital immigrant to technophobe Boomer as a label. But don’t worry, I am smiling as I mention that.)

You are right, I haven’t talked to a single person who isn’t bedeviled by the overwhelming number of new systems and technologies to master. And, at least in my case, every one of them requires email and cell phone authentication and my company’s firewall makes that an adventure in total frustration.

I brought your topic to a couple of folks to get some ideas for you—although, again, you are right, there are precious few. But here is what I have for you:

• Maybe stop being such a good organizational citizen, and let others be early adopters when possible. Why can’t you be one of the people who stick with the old system until the company gets rid of it? If your experience is one of being punished, maybe take better care of yourself and lag with the rest of the laggers.
• Escalate your frustration to your boss or the executive team. If you are lucky, your organization has a CTO or a VP of Technology who might listen if enough people beg for some relief. Or maybe your organization will provide some kind of recognition for early adopters and possibly some training during the workday so that keeping up is seen as part of the job and not extracurricular.
• Lobby the powers that be to work with vendors of new platforms to go the extra mile and build in a single sign-on so all of the platforms are more easily accessible. (You didn’t mention this as one of your issues, but it sure is one of mine!)
• If you continue to be an early adopter, provide early feedback on the system to whoever is requiring you to use it. That way you might at least get recognized for your efforts.
• I have no problem with your venting, but consider venting to someone who can do something about it—like a senior executive who can insist that everyone get on board with new systems at the same time so you don’t have to wrestle with the old and the new.

Finally, much to my chagrin, I am pretty sure this type of thing is here to stay and is just another new fact of life. As I write this, there are developers madly coding new (“improved” haha!) platforms for us to have to learn. The only silver lining I can see—and, believe me, I remind myself of it often—is that all of this constant learning is good for our brains. As a millennial, that isn’t something you are concerned about yet. But if you are lucky, you will be soon enough.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Reading about how tired we are is fatiguing. So let’s try something different.

We’re built to want to be part of something that’s meaningful. We’re eager to learn. We love wrestling with a challenge. It’s in our nature and we can’t help it. So instead of focusing on how everyone is depleted, why not appeal to our better selves?

Here are things you can do to re-energize yourself and your team.

Make Meetings Energizing

Here’s an all-too-typical meeting: a leader doggedly works through a PowerPoint deck while a restless audience scrolls through social media, checks email, or stares vacantly at the slides.

How do you avoid this and make your meetings more dynamic? Make sure everyone participates!

• Invite people to ask questions, and then elaborate on their answers.
• Ask attendees to call on other participants to share insights.
• Compliment people when they make an insightful observation.
• Have designated people share best practices, then open it up for others to contribute their brilliance.
• Put people in break-out rooms where they work on and create solutions to a current problem (Called Highly Paid Experts Activity.)

If you really want to engage people, ask, “What can we do that will put us out of business?” The purpose of this provocative question is to identify a real-work problem that perpetually pops up. Then have your team fix it. You can end the meeting by having all team members share their inspired ideas and then piloting the best solution.

Beat Meeting Fatigue

What to do if your team is inattentive?

Here’s an obvious solution: Hold shorter meetings. Schedule meetings of 20 instead of 30 minutes or 50 instead of 60 minutes. This will reduce cognitive overload and meeting fatigue.

You could also assign a different team member each week to run the meeting. They would be responsible for gathering agenda items and creating interactive exercises.

Here’s a different suggestion: stop the meeting and ask, “Is there anything we should start doing so we aren’t so drained? What should we continue doing? How can we make sure we’re serving customers and each other at the highest level? If you were running this meeting, what would you do to keep everyone engaged?”

You want to spark a courageous conversation. Your goal is to discover why your people are frustrated. Listen to their answers and weave their solutions into the fabric the workplace.

Hold Short, Weekly One-on-Ones

What? We are recommending another meeting?! One-on-ones are something different. Hear me out.

One-on-one meetings with your people are one of the most powerful tools a leader has to re-engage a fatigued workforce. They’re also one of the greatest gifts you can give someone—you are creating a reliable space where they set the agenda and share what’s on their mind. Another benefit? Since your people know they have this time coming up, they’ll contact you less often about the little things.

Your first job is to just listen. That’s easy to say—but hard to do. Our minds are so busy planning the next big thing that we often listen halfheartedly. What are people’s favorite three words to hear from you? Tell me more.

Here’s a common example of halfhearted listening: instead of focusing on what you were saying, your manager was scrolling through their phone. Now think of a time when you talked with a boss who leaned in, heard what you had to say, and even confided their frustrations and hopes. As the direct report, how much effort would you want to give to the manager who was preoccupied versus the one who genuinely cared?

Make one-on-ones with your people meaningful by asking these questions:

• What’s most important for you to discuss today?
• What would make your life easier here?
• What is energizing to you? What would you like to do more of? What consistently drains you?
• What can we do to make our team more effective?
• What about your job makes you want to take the day off?

Foster Connectedness

Fostering connectedness is a great antidote for fatigue. We can get energy from being around other people. Leaders can create connection by building a culture where people get to know each other, celebrate successes, recognize accomplishments, and generously give praise.

One idea is do a round robin where people share the goals they are working on and you share why they are so important to the team and organization.  This not only builds community, but fosters interdependence.

The business world has historically been a conservative place. But we are living through a unique time. We all need to be inclusive and welcome one another with open arms. People will thrive when you make them feel that they truly belong and introduce them to the amazing talents on their team.

Be Caring

Show others you care. Everyone has been affected by the pandemic—and everyone needs some compassion and support.

If someone looks frustrated, request they stay after the meeting and ask: “What’s going on with you? How can I help you? Do you need more direction on anything? How would you like me to support your ideas?”

Leaders can forget to do this when they’re under pressure—or worry they may create additional stress. But that’s not true. As a leader, your caring words will energize and engage.

Take Advantage of Emotional Contagiousness

Emotions are contagious. Here’s an example that proves it.

We all know what it’s like when that certain person walks into a room. You’re laughing with your colleagues, and all of a sudden, the energy is sucked right out of everyone. The part of the brain that recognizes and reacts to these kind of signals moves incredibly quickly and is observing all the time. So how we present ourselves is extremely important.

Each of us has to decide whether we want to be an energy vampire or an energizer. If you’ve read this far, I know you want to be an energizer.

Think about what energizes you. If you’re not sure, look for things that excite you when you talk, when you share, or when you hear an idea that piques your interest.

We need to acknowledge negative emotions so people can let them go, and also embed positive emotions by calling them out and “catching” their positivity. Energy follows focus: to create a high performing, energized team, be sure you are helping your people pay attention to what’s important.

Engage Online Audiences

Online meetings are a breeding ground for disengagement. People easily get bored staring at a screen, so they start multitasking or don’t pay attention. The fact is, people who are online need interactivity every two to three minutes to keep them focused.

Your challenge is to inspire your people to participate so they feel energized when they leave the meeting. A great way to generate interest is to ask “What was your biggest success this week?” After someone shares, ask them how they achieved it. By doing this, you are engaging and empowering speakers.

Chats, breakout rooms, and polls are other effective tactics for engaging virtual learners. A game/contest at the end of a meeting can add spice. You can create a crossword puzzle or hold an impromptu quiz show where your audience tries to stump top performers/leaders. And remember: repetition and engagement are needed if people are to transfer what they learned to the workplace.

Give the Spotlight to Your Top Performers

Have an employee who’s knocking it out of the park? Ask them to share with the team what they’re doing that helps them be so incredibly successful. Let them share their secret sauce.

When you do this, you’ll energize the person who gets to teach. You’ll also give your team a huge gift because they’ll learn how one of their peers is successfully tackling a challenge. Now all of your people will be energized because you have painted a picture of what a good job looks like and had someone show what to do to achieve it.

So there you have it: Lots of tips to fight pandemic fatigue.

We’re passing through extraordinarily difficult times, but we can still bring energy and vitality to the workplace. When you share the gift of connection and engagement with your people, you’ll inspire them and help them thrive.

About the author:

Vicki Halsey is Vice President of Applied Learning for The Ken Blanchard Companies. She is the author of Brilliance by Design, Legendary Service: The Key is to CARE, and Leading at a Higher Level. Vicki is the co-developer of Blanchard’s Legendary Service, and SLII® training programs.

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a small group of what we call WMS professionals—Website Marketing Specialists. They all work remotely, and the group has developed into an extremely effective team.

I am very proud of our work; together we have found a way to really add value to sales and to the company. Taken individually, each woman (the team is all female, totally randomly) is delightful, professional, and easy to work with.

My problem is that, together, they fan the flames of their worst instincts, and—there is no other way to say it—they are a group of “mean girls.”  I have gotten several complaints; from other marketing teams, from salespeople, even from our service representatives, who are responsible for serving the contracts when we land them.

On our weekly team calls, the WMS women talk smack about other people in the company. They have nothing nice to say about anyone. As a group, they send out rude emails when colleagues don’t do things the way they think things should be done. Several have been forwarded to me with “WTH” and multiple question marks.

On a recent call with our head of sales—who is my boss—they were goofing around in the chat and paying no attention at all to the presentation. I was amazed—this was their boss’s boss. He mentioned that he noticed it and was put off.  It was just straight up bad behavior that none of these women would tolerate from their children, let alone colleagues.

I don’t want to de-motivate anyone by criticizing, but the reputation of the team is starting to suffer and undermine our excellent work. I need to do something; I just don’t know what. Where would you start?

Mean Girls Running Amok

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Dear Mean Girls Running Amok,

Although the Mean Girl reference made me laugh, I would argue that you have a slightly different problem. A little research on the Mean Girl phenomenon revealed that the term defines the behavior as “relational aggression” or using friendship as weapon. So, if a couple of bullies on the team were terrorizing one of its members, that would technically be a Mean Girl situation. The good news here is that you have a powerful intact team versus a potentially trickier situation, where some of the women on the team are ganging up on other team members. The bad news, of course, is that your team has closed ranks against other teams. I would describe your phenomenon as one where a team has formed such a strong, even tribal bond and feels so great about itself that it sets itself apart, above and beyond other teams and others in the organization. This is the dark side of strong team bonding. You may think I am splitting hairs here, but I believe the distinction is important. Plus, most adult women would object to being called girls, regardless of the context.

You are right not to criticize—the last thing you want is for your team to gang up on you, which is a very real risk.  But you must have the hard conversation—with the whole team. If there is clear ringleader, you might be tempted to start with her. But that could backfire by undermining the cohesion of the group—which you want to continue to maximize. So that means having the conversation with the whole group. For that you will want a model for how to have a challenging conversation, and my favorite one comes from Conversational Capacity by Craig Webber.

Blanchard’s Conversational Capacity program defines conversational capacity as the ability of an individual or a team to engage in open, balanced, non-defensive dialogue about difficult subjects and in challenging circumstances. It is also the sweet spot where innovation happens.

Craig says that to get yourself into the right mindset, you need to find the sweet spot between minimizing behaviors and winning behaviors. Minimizing in your case might sound like: “Hey team, I think we have a pattern that might be hurting us,” while winning might sound like: “Team, you are all behaving badly, and you need to fix it or else.” You are going to want to find that sweet spot between the two that might sound something like: “Team, I have observed some behaviors—and have gotten feedback from others—that some things being done are tarnishing our reputation and undermining our great work. I want to share those with you and think through together what we might do differently.”

You will want to strike a balance between candor and curiosity. You can rely on candor to outline the problem as you see it and the potential negative consequences you all face. Then, you can apply your curiosity to understand the underlying reasons for the damaging behaviors and really hear all points of view on the topic. Craig says we can achieve this balance by:

• Stating our clear position
• Explaining the underlying thinking that informs our position
• Testing our perspective
• Inquiring into the perspective of others. (pg. 78)

Some sample inquiries might be:

• How do you guys see this situation?
• What is your take on this?
• What is your reaction to what I have just laid out?
• Does what you are hearing sound like the way you want to be perceived as a team?

There is a good chance that some members of your team will be appalled and embarrassed, and you will need to be okay with that. You will also need to be okay with the person who minimizes by getting defensive and claiming that people are too sensitive and should get over themselves.

Once you have gotten some input and allowed your team reflect a little, you will have to make an official request for a change in behavior. You may be able to lean on the company values, if they exist. In our company we have a value we call Kenship (I know, isn’t it adorable?), which is defined as: “We value Ken [Blanchard]’s spirit of compassion, humility, and abundance. Kenship describes a sense of connectedness, a commitment to serve others, and a desire to have fun.” We also have the value Trustworthiness, which is described as: “We do the right thing. We are fair and ethical and do what we say we’re going to do.” Values like these make it easy to call out behaviors that are not aligned and help to keep the conversation objective. If your company doesn’t have stated values, now might be the time to craft a team charter, working together to define team values that will serve to guide everyone’s conduct moving forward. You obviously have a lot going for you already, so this could be a great way to develop the team into something even better.

Trashing everyone outside of the team is a way for the team to build connection; it is a habit the group has formed together. It is also a form of unhealthy entertainment. The key will be to help them shape new, good habits to replace the old bad habits, while continuing to nurture their connection.

What you can’t do is nothing. It is up to you to work with your team to repair the damage that has been done and lead them to become a team whose success is celebrated across the whole organization. It sounds like your team members are all fundamentally good and decent people. Once they see their dysfunctional behaviors reflected back to them, they will probably be willing to change. Lead on!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Hybrid teams are nothing new. Pre-COVID, many hybrid virtual teams existed. Some team members worked from the office full time, some worked from home or from the road full time, and others did a mix of the two. So what’s so different as we look ahead to work in the future?

What’s different is the sheer volume of people who are looking to work either full time or part time from home. One of the lessons we’ve learned from the grand global experiment is that both individuals and organizations can be far more productive when people work from home at least part time.

To be effective hybrid team leaders in today’s world, we need to adopt three fresh mind shifts and four skills to guide our team members as we embrace the new future of work.

The 3 Mind Shifts

1. Remote first. Whatever we do as leaders, we must think about the potential impact on remote team members. Among other things, this means all meetings should be virtual. No more having some of the team in a conference room while others dial in. Make everyone connect remotely.
2. Recognize and mitigate proximity bias. We naturally favor those team members who are physically around us on a regular basis. This issue existed before the pandemic. Remote team members often felt left out of new projects or growth opportunities.
3. Continually experiment and learn. We saw this happening in abundance throughout the last year and a half. Let’s keep trying new things and learn from the experience.

The 4 Skills

1. Make the implicit explicit. Leaders must express their expectations to their people clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt. What are the core hours the leader expects everyone to be available? What are the expectations if the leader will be away from their computer during core hours? What are the expected response times for chat and email? These are just a few of the things that need to be made explicit.
2. Foster community. Many teams did this well during the pandemic. Pre pandemic you rarely saw remote team members on camera and things like virtual coffees and happy hours were unheard of. Teams have learned to be creative in the way they have fun and celebrate virtually. We need to learn from those experiences and continue to make this a priority.
3. Promote well-being. Well-being was and will continue to be an important issue in our hybrid teams. As leaders, we need to pay attention to our own well-being and promote activities that will encourage others to do the same.
4. Ensure hybrid meetings are effective and engaging. We are meeting way too much and many of these meetings are an ineffective use of our time. As leaders, we need to plan our hybrid meetings so that they are engaging. We should meet to discuss, collaborate, and do the work of the team—not just present information. Every meeting should have a clear purpose and agenda. Keep them short and end at least 10 minutes before the hour or half hour to provide time for employees to have a break between meetings.

We have learned a lot from the worldwide work-from-home experiment that is COVID. Now we need to take these lessons and apply them to our work. The future won’t wait!

Editor’s Note: Would you like to learn more about successfully leading in a hybrid work environment? Join The Ken Blanchard Companies for a free webinar series designed for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals looking to upskill their leaders for a new world of work. Learn more here.

A misnomer is floating around—the concept of return-to-work. This phrase conjures up images of coming back from a sabbatical, a leave of absence, or maternity/paternity leave. But today, return-to-work is used to describe how employees should return to the location where they did most of their work prior to the pandemic.

We have to be clear: this term is not about returning to work. Employees have been working—hard.

The issue employers are struggling with is the decision to return-to-office—and to what degree they should accommodate employee preference. Just as important is the question of what employees can do when they are not aligned with their employer’s desires—and subsequent policies—about returning to the office full time. How do organizations develop a strategy that both addresses safety and shapes policy? How do leaders flex and have conversations with their employees when preference and policy aren’t aligned?

Balancing Safety and Increased Flexibility

Most organizations today are trying to determine if formal policies should dictate an employee’s work environment. Prior to the pandemic, work-from-home policies existed but weren’t widely adopted.

Now, as requirements begin to relax, organizations find themselves at a crossroads. What policy updates should be made, if any? Should organizations mandate that employees be vaccinated and return to the office? When should organizations encourage working remotely vs. working from the office? How should organizations accommodate employee preference?

For instance, Microsoft has prioritized physical, mental, and emotional well-being to guide decision making. The office is a place where employees and teams can choose to come together to innovate and collaborate. The focus isn’t on return-to-office, but on flexibility in the environments where employees and teams prefer to do their best work.

Enabling People to Do Their Best Work

Leaders have an opportunity to interpret evolved policies and navigate their people’s anxiety, uncertainty, and preferences in a way that is a win-win for both employer and employee. Keeping an open mind and flexing leadership styles based on each employee’s individual needs is leading in a way that allows for a hybrid approach to management.

To lead employees through continued change and evolution, leaders must:

• Adopt a learning-focused mindset. Employees are going to have concerns about returning to the office. Leaders need to explore the views of each employee and realize the leader’s and the organization’s views may contrast with those of the employee. Even though many employees are ready to return to the office, not all are.
• Identify blind spots. Organizations and leaders are making assumptions about what employees want right now. Some employees have strong feelings about continuing to work remotely rather than returning to the office five days a week. How might leaders partner with their employees to develop a plan that honors organizational policy as well as individual employee preferences?
• Be curious. Leaders must ask what employees want—genuinely ask, and listen to the answer. Leaders also need to ask if they see themselves remaining with the organization if there is a mandate either for continuing to work from home or for returning to the office. When leaders are sincere and humbly inquisitive, employees are more apt to share and less likely to minimize their needs and feelings.

This is a time to be transparent and direct about the direction of the organization and the strategy for whether to return-to-office. It’s also a time to listen attentively to employee preferences and desires—consider it a temperature check of your team. Otherwise, all the productivity gains made with remote work will reverse and employees will look for new ways to do their best work—at a different organization.

Editor’s Note: Would you like to learn more about successfully navigating the future of the work environment? Join us for a free webinar. Over the next five weeks, The Ken Blanchard Companies® is hosting weekly webinars focused on the different aspects of work post-COVID. Join us for one, two, or all five events. The series is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here.

About the Author

Britney Cole is Associate Vice President, Solutions Architecture and Innovation Strategy at The Ken Blanchard Companies. With more than 15 years’ experience in organization development, performance improvement, and corporate training across all roles, Britney brings a pragmatic and diverse perspective to the way adults desire to learn on the job.

Dear Madeleine,

Ever since the beginning of this work-from-home situation, our entire department feels like it is on hold. The reason? Our seriously old school boss is not at all comfortable with meeting via phone or web conferencing. He was always a stickler for meeting in person, and has just kind of fallen apart. I can’t even get him to return calls or respond to emails.

I have serious questions about how to prioritize work—about 50% of our department has been laid off and the workload is staggering. I have no insight into what is going on in our organization and I am having a hard time concentrating.

On My Own

Dear On My Own,

Things are unsettled enough without your boss going radio silent. That must feel scary. Now is the time for managers to be spending more time with their people, not less! Here are some ideas for you.

• Ask for feedback on your communication style. Maybe you are annoying. Maybe just ask, “Is there something I should know?”

• Make your communications easy to answer, with clear subject lines and questions that can be answered with either yes or no. When people get “wall of words” emails with lots of ideas in them, they sometimes leave them for later because they require focus and time to respond. Relieve your boss of the need to think, and you might just get a response.

• If you really need your boss to think, make your emails super succinct and easy to read. One of my favorite tools is the ABC method from The Hamster Revolution. The ABC method splits your message into three parts: Action, Background and Close. A – Action summarizes exactly what you want. B – Background provides key context; why you want it. C – Close proposes next steps and how/when you expect follow-up.

• In terms of priorities, use your own judgment to lay out what you think they should be. Put your work/task list in priority order and make clear what will not get done in a normal work week. Make your subject line: My Priorities Unless I Hear Otherwise. (Well, that’s what I would say—that might feel aggressive to you. Soften if you must.)

• I have no sense of what your work life was like before the Covid crazy. Did you and your boss have a decent relationship? If so, you might ask him if he is okay and if there is anything you can do for him. Maybe tell him you are worried about him.

• If you don’t hear anything in the next seven days, go to HR or your boss’s boss. Maybe he was fired, or has gone on leave of some sort, and they forgot to tell you. Crazier things have happened—and goodness knows, these are certainly off times.

• It sounds like you are awfully isolated. Get in touch with peers and friends you have in the organization to see what you can find out, and make some connections.

Breathe deeply—and remember, before all of this you were capable, competent, and able to concentrate. Now use your best judgment about how to spend your work time and go to it. Do your best. That’s all you can do.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

“So many of us are dealing with changes to our work routines. It’s generating a mountain of new requests and tasks that require us to get things done using new guidelines, practices, and procedures,” says bestselling business author Dr. Vicki Halsey, VP of Applied Learning at The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“Leaders need to: (1) be sure direct reports are clear on what they have to do; (2) work with each of them to diagnose where they are on each task; and (3) get them the resources they need to succeed,” explains Halsey. “Managers need to be as clear as possible about what a good job looks like.

This can be more difficult than it seems on the surface—for example, when there are conflicting priorities. Managers are often asked to hit output quotas at a high level of quality but under a certain budget. In a call center, this might translate to workers being urged to solve every customer’s problem the first time they call while also maintaining a call volume of more than 20 calls answered per hour. That’s a huge challenge. The best organizations get clear on what is most important and set specific, trackable, and attainable goals while striving to maintain motivation and avoid burnout.”

Once goals are set, leaders need to be attentive to each individual’s level of competence and commitment for the new task or new way of doing things. Diagnosing development level is key, says Halsey.

“Help people see where they are on a specific task in terms of ability and motivation, which we describe as competence and commitment. A person can be high or low on either scale. When these measurements are combined, the person will end up at one of four development levels such as Disillusioned Learner (low on commitment, low on competence) and Self-Reliant Achiever (high on commitment, high on competence).

“As a leader, you need to listen and observe very carefully. If the person is a learner, you help solve the problem for them. If they’ve had some demonstrable success but they’re a little hesitant, you flip the conversation and ask them how they think they should solve the problem.”

Halsey says in all cases, the leader must stay involved.

“If you leave people alone, that’s when they will move the task to the next day’s to-do list. If you want to keep accelerating their performance, you have to stay with them. Are they letting you know their status on a task, or have they gone silent? Go and check with them. If you notice you’re not seeing the person as much as you used to, you need to connect with them, figure out where they’re stuck, and get them back on track.

“Your goal as a leader is to keep the conversations flowing. That’s the secret to productivity—clear goals, people aligned on performance, and being able to diagnose and then give what is needed to ensure they get the job done. When you accomplish that, you are working in a highly productive, aligned manner,” says Halsey. “That’s good for you, your people, and your organization!”

Would you like to learn more about helping the leaders in your organization have effective conversations in a changing work environment? Join us for a free webinar!

3 Performance Conversation Skills All Leaders Need to Master
Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Join Dr. Vicki Halsey for an in-depth look at the three skills today’s leaders need to master in our changing world—goal setting, diagnosing, and matching. Halsey will show you how to help your leaders diagnose people’s development levels on new tasks and goals and how to provide the proper amounts of direction and support to get people up to speed quickly. You’ll explore how leaders can:

• Structure new goals, tasks, and processes for team members
• Diagnose a direct report’s current development level for mastering a new skill
• Provide a matching leadership style with the right amount of direction and support

Don’t miss this opportunity to get people performing at a high level quickly in a changing world.

Register today!

Dear Madeleine,

My team is losing it. I have eleven employees, all of whom are used to coming into the office daily with the occasional WFH day for doctor appointments, big deliveries, that kind of thing. When we all were told to WFH a few weeks ago, I thought getting everyone set up with the technology would be the biggest hurdle. I was wrong.

It. Is. Not. Going. Well.

• Two employees have young children who are supposed to be doing school at home. The kids are running amok.

• A few people have high school or college kids who are out there running around, doing God-knows-what and making their parents sick with worry.

• Two employees are taking care of elderly parents because the regular caregivers stopped showing up. They are trying to figure out how to keep the folks safe and in groceries.

• One person is quarantined with a new boyfriend who, it turns out, is not a nice guy.

• Two people live alone and are so lonely, I can feel the loneliness vibrating through the phone. They IM me in the middle of the day and ask what I am doing.

• I am almost 100% certain that one person is day drinking. Others have talked about problems with eating junk food while they are stuck at home and have gained weight and feel cruddy about it.

How do I know all of this? Because they all tell me. Everything. I’m not sure how it happened, but suddenly I feel like a full-time therapist. This has not always been the case. I’ve always maintained proper boundaries when we were all at work. But now life and work are all scrunched together and it is messy. I feel like my historically very solid team is made up of a bunch of lunatics who can’t get a hold of themselves.

We are all sick of conference calls where everyone is on camera. I am tired of looking at people’s messy hair and sweatshirts. I am tired of hearing cats, dogs and screaming children in the background of every call. BOY, am I sick of people’s children.

Frankly, I am sick of people’s lives interfering with their work. What can I do to stop the madness?

Sick of It All

Dear Sick of It All,

All of life is certainly being thrown into the blender right now, all on camera, and messy is right.

I worked from home for many years, and people would always ask me how I stayed focused and managed to not just watch TV all day. I always just treated my working hours like working hours—and it never crossed my mind to not just work during my working hours. My kids were trained, literally from birth, that when Mommy was working, she was not to be disturbed. My team was made up of professionals who behaved the same way. I never realized until this new WFH explosion how much most people rely on the structure of coming to work to manage themselves as human beings in relation to all of their other commitments.

But it makes sense. We create daily routines, practices, habits, and boundaries to be successful at work. When all of those get blown up in one fell swoop, well, you get what you’ve got—which is a 3-ring circus.

You’re already doing something very right, which is listening. People will tell you stuff only if you listen—so if you feel like your group’s therapist, at least you know you have their trust. This is not nothing. It is a really good thing to have going for you. Well done.

Now you need to step up as a leader and rise to this occasion. It’s time for you to stop judging and blaming your people—who, to be fair, have no prior experience in how to handle themselves in this new environment. It’s time for you to put yourself in service to your people. It’s time, Sick of It All, for you to suck it up and lead.

Stop complaining about the chaos. It’s your job to create order. You’ve allowed your team to drop their professionalism and default to just scraping by. It’s your job to call on your people to get a grip and step up to meet this new challenge. It’s time for you to step into the ring and be the ring master. Put on the top hat; pick up the megaphone. And keep the whip and chair handy. You may need them.

Here are some ideas for how to tackle this situation:

• Call a mandatory team meeting as soon as possible. Make the entire meeting about chartering the team to function at its best under the current circumstances. Share your observations about the reality you’re observing; i.e., how messy things have become. Say that you need to call a time out, get a re-do, and start over with some new rules. Share that you have some ideas for some possible rules but that you want the team to create them together. Have everyone on the team share their biggest challenges and brainstorm as a group how you might help each other overcome each one. No blame, no judgment, just reality. Discuss what would work best as norms that each team member can adhere to. The more you can agree as a team, the more likely everyone will make the effort to comply with the team standards.

• Reduce the number of group meetings to a bare minimum. The fewer meetings you all have, the easier it will be to be on best behavior for each one. Here’s an article you can share with your folks about how to best manage the home situation to meet the needs of working parents.

• Request that every team member come to any and all required meetings dressed for work. You can be a role model for looking like you are at work. My own boss—who is easily putting in 12-to-14-hour days—showed up on a 6:30 am call this morning in full makeup, superb hair and her usual elegant professional outfit, complete with jewelry. I guarantee that all 127 employees on the call noticed and sat up a little straighter. It makes a difference.

• Try experimenting with shifting work hours. Some of your people may find it easier to go back to work after the kids have gone to bed. It might help to give some of your employees the flexibility they need to meet all of their responsibilities.

• Have one meeting a week that’s just for connection and fun. Presumably, you are all in the same time zone, so you could do a coffee hour, lunch time, or maybe a happy hour where everyone comes dressed as their favorite rock star, animal, etc. And everyone gets to introduce their significant others, kids, or pets. One of our sales leaders recently showed up to a web conference as Britney Spears before her famous meltdown. It will be talked about forever and become part of company lore.

• Work with each individual to tackle their more private challenges. Be in touch with your HR leader to get details on your company’s Employee Assistance Program—it almost certainly has one. EAPs can address a broad and complex body of issues affecting mental and emotional well-being, such as stress, grief, family problems, psychological disorders, or alcohol/other substance abuse. As a lifelong addict (cigarettes—I’m not proud of it and have used the AA system to manage it my entire adult life), I can attest that addictions are skulking in the corner waiting for just the right crisis to pounce. I’m grateful to have an addiction, because it has given me a lot more compassion than I would otherwise have. I think it would be nearly impossible for someone to understand just what a struggle addiction can be if they’ve never experienced it themselves. If you don’t have any experience with managing one of your own, I encourage you to dig deep to find some compassion. I think it’s fair to share your suspicions with your day drinking employee and simply request that they wait until the end of the workday to indulge. Maybe it would be as simple as saying “I notice the work you do toward the end of the day tends to have more errors. I wonder if you might think about taking a stretch break in the afternoon?” It’s easy to rationalize behavior when we think no one notices, so just making the person aware that someone is paying attention might do the trick. Of course, if you’re worried that bringing it up may damage the relationship, don’t do it. You’ll use your best judgment. The thing that matters most is the quality of the work, so stay focused on that.

• Be clear with each of your people that if there’s ever a time for them to call in the cavalry, it’s now. There’s no shame in asking for help. I just saw an interesting article today about the dangers of extreme loneliness. Combined with the toxic effects of anxiety and depression, it’s no joke and should be taken very seriously. Don’t be the only one that your lonesome, stressed employees lean on—it’s too much for one person.

The fundamental requirement for being successful at work is that your people be:

1. Crystal clear on expectations and deliverables; and
2. Constantly reminded how vital they are and how valuable their contribution is.

Your job is to make sure that each team member stays focused on their daily tasks and is clear about how they add value. This will keep them more engaged and also set the stage for you to re-charter the way your team operates under these new, extremely challenging conditions.

A fun e-book about the qualities of High Performance Teams can be found here—and any practices you glean from it will help you under any circumstance. But for now, you need immediate help on how to rally your troops, right this minute. Here is a useful article on leading in a virtual environment—and there is a free webinar on the topic coming up on April 16.

I really do hear your frustration. It’s hard. You’re probably reading all these suggestions and thinking “OMG, this is so much more work for me.” Yes. Yes, it is. Leadership is figuring out what to do when there’s no one to tell you what or how to do it. Leadership is going the extra mile (or ten) to help your people thrive and shine. No one is going to fix this for you. You’ve got yourself and your team and you’re going to have to muddle through it together. It’s up to you to call the reality as you see it and extend the invitation to your team to pull it together and re-group. You can be firm with your expectations as long as you are also patient, kind, and generous.

Remember to do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself so that you can be the leader your people need right now. The good news is that by the end of this experience, you’ll be a stronger leader in general and you’ll have a whole new set of skills. This is your chance to become the leader you were truly meant to be.

Love, Madeleine

PS: I know, children are annoying. And Other People’s Children (referred to as OPCs in our household, along with OPDs—Other People’s Dogs) are even more so. Just remember that they are the future. Somebody’s ten-year-old is going to do your hip replacement in 30 years, or will be your dependable plumber, mayor, or dentist. And your employees or someone just like them had to raise her. So when you hear one in the background sounding like a howler monkey, you can console yourself with that thought.

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I got a new boss about six months ago and I have been watching and waiting to see how he is going to pan out. So far, so good, I think—except for one thing that is really burning my toast. Literally the first thing he did was to put a stop to all telecommuting in our entire department.

For me personally, it isn’t an issue, as I have a short commute and prefer to come in to the office. But it has thrown quite a few people in my department into chaos, as many have made plans around their work-from-home schedules.

Our company is in a huge metropolitan area and the commute times are insane—two hours each way for some people. I know that my employees are productive when they WFH—often more so, because they are less stressed and have more time to actually work.

The worst part is that the new boss isn’t following the rule himself! In fact, on a recent conference call, he talked about how great it was that he was working from home that day! We were all appalled. He lost so much of my respect in that moment.

How can I “manage up” here? What can I say to get the new boss to reverse the policy—or at the very least, understand that the rule has to apply to everyone?

I really hate it when superiors pull the “Do as I say, not as I do” thing.

Losing Respect

Dear Losing Respect,

I hate that, too. I share your belief that leaders should be role models for the behaviors they seek in their people.

There are two issues here. One is the sudden radical change in work-from-home policy. Hopefully, you have had enough time to observe your new boss to get a sense of the best way to approach him to give him feedback. You can run a little informal analysis: Is your boss an analytical thinker who will be moved by data? Or a more emotional type who will respond to a story? You can plan your tactical move here by shaping your arguments so that he can hear them.

You don’t state the why behind the change in the policy. Possibly he hasn’t shared it. You might start there and ask what prompted the change. Perhaps your boss thinks people watch daytime TV all day when they WFH. I spent over a decade as a virtual employee and I now manage a partially virtual team, and I can assure you that most people do get more done when they WFH.

Your boss may be data driven and able to be moved by actual information you have about how much your people get done when they WFH vs. coming into the office. Maybe your boss feels that face-to-face interactions are more effective. This may be true for some types of meetings, and you may find a good compromise. When you know what drives your boss’s thinking, you can mount a well-reasoned argument.

One client I worked with argued for her team members who had a regular WFH schedule, saying that she had given her word—in some cases as part of the hiring agreement—and that she felt strongly about keeping her promises. That made a big impact.

Now for the second issue: your boss’s stunning lack of self-awareness, revealed in his crowing about the luxury of working from home to people whom he has restricted from doing so themselves. Do you feel that you have enough of a relationship to say something yet? I know a lot of bosses really appreciate it when a direct report points out something they are doing that is decreasing their effectiveness. I know I sure do—we can all be a little oblivious sometimes. So, you might risk going straight at it: “Hey, may I share an observation? People are very cranky about not being able to WFH—so when you are doing so yourself, you might want to keep it on the QT.” Some people would appreciate your candid directness, but, of course, many wouldn’t.

You are going to have to trust your gut here. You may decide you don’t want to work for someone (a) who is such a numbskull and (b) with whom you can’t be honest. That would be a good data point on which to build a job search. You did say it was the only thing burning your toast. You can probably tolerate one thing. Even two things. My opinion, based on observation and absolutely no scientific research whatsoever, is that it takes five intolerable things before a person starts thinking about leaving—and the seventh one is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

So, all in all, you are in pretty good shape. And now you know that one of your leadership non-negotiables is “Do as I do.” It will help you be clear about your own standards for yourself as a leader.

Love,

Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

This got me thinking. What makes us want to work with certain people? If we could choose our dream team, what would we look for? It would most likely depend on the task at hand—and, most likely, everyone’s team would be a bit different. That being said, I made a list of what I would look for if I were forming a team.

Each person I choose would:

• Have respect for one another and for me.
• Get on with things and think outside the box.
• Feel free to ask for help if needed.
• Have a solution in mind when coming to me with a problem.
• Be organized and adhere to timelines.
• Have a skill set that matches the tasks at hand.

Now I’d like you to have a think about who would be on your dream team and what qualities they would possess.  Is your list of qualities the same as mine or a little different?

In reality, of course, very rarely do we get to choose our teams. More often, teams are chartered and we learn about team dynamics as well as individual qualities of each team member after the fact. The entire team then begins the important work of understanding one another and building on each other’s strengths—which leads to the trust and confidence Ron Howard described.

Taking a minute to understand what we value, and to ask new teammates about their values, can be a great way to begin opening up to the contributions we need from others.

Practice this little exercise.  It helped me get clearer on what I want from the teams I work on. I think it will help you, too.

Traditionally, this term refers to those who choose to work while sick or unwell. But this definition has now widened to encompass a generation of young people who feel they are forced to fake the extent of their workloads in order to win favor with their superiors, according to research conducted by Ricoh with office workers in the UK.

A new report entitled Overhauling a Culture of ‘Presenteeism’ at Work points to the belief among many employees that working long hours at their desk is the best way to secure career progression and positive endorsements from senior stakeholders at work.

Additionally, the report reveals that 39 percent of currently employed 18- to 26-year-olds believe working away from the office could damage their career progression, while nearly half (41 percent) feel their bosses favor staff that work in the office longer than their contracted hours. Perhaps as a result of these perceptions, more than two-thirds (67 percent) of the 18- to 26-year-olds admitted to faking the extent of their workload by staying late at the office.

The study recommends that employers consider different attendance standards based on changing work styles.  I agree.  We are experiencing a changing of the guard when it comes to the work style of a group I call the inbetweeners (millennials).

As the report concludes, “By embracing a culture in which the onus is placed on outputs and delivery of work, rather than being present in the office, young professionals would be happier, more motivated and would benefit from an improved work / life balance.”

If you are skeptical about the less-is-more work style theory, here’s a story from my home town of San Diego that may convince to at least take a second look.

One good way to measure productivity is revenue per FTE (Full Time Employee). This year, Tower Paddle Boards in San Diego will generate $9 million in revenue with just ten employees—a small sample, but still very impressive at $900K per FTE! Did I mention that Tower employees work only five hours a day? This is a staggering metric when you put it into perspective.

If some employers are able do more with less time, what can the rest of us do to move in that direction? Remember, the goal always must be efficiency and output. Neither of these should be sacrificed in exchange for a person simply being present.

A new working generation of Americans is seeking a new level of flexibility. If you are a manager, which do you think is more important: quantity of hours put in or quality of work?  Both have impact. Only you can decide which one has a more positive and productive outcome for your organization.

Using the acronym UNITE, the authors explained that the creation of a collaborative work environment rests on five foundational principles.

Utilize differences. Organizations need to appreciate and be open to people and ideas that may seem at first to be outside of the mainstream. The best companies seek out creative thinking from all corners of the organization. The focus for leaders is to make sure that all ideas are surfaced for consideration.

Nurture safety and trust. New ideas will flourish when people feel safe to share them freely without fear of judgment. Leaders need to give people space to experiment and innovate, view mistakes as learning opportunities, and encourage risk taking. Trust is also generated through transparency—when leaders share knowledge about themselves and are clear about expectations.

Involve others in crafting a clear purpose, values, and goals. Instead of seeing purpose, values, and goals as something always originated by senior leaders, the authors recommend that everyone be involved in the process. Doing it this way encourages a sense of camaraderie and ownership in the group. Leaders follow through by reinforcing what was agreed upon, demonstrating supportive behaviors, and walking the talk.

Talk openly. Underlining the importance of utilizing differences and creating an environment of safety and trust, the authors shared the benefits of people talking openly without worrying about upsetting the status quo. There are benefits to creative conflict—but only when people can vigorously debate ideas without getting personal.

Empower yourself and others. Some leaders need to learn how to let go. True collaboration can never exist if people constantly look to the leader to solve problems. So don’t wait for someone else to decide it’s time to collaborate—everyone is responsible for creating a collaborative environment.

When people are busy, it’s normal to want to focus on getting individual work done. To combat this urge, the authors remind us of an old adage: “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Collaboration Begins with You: Be a Silo Buster shows the way. The book is now available online and in bookstores. You can learn more on the book’s website—or, if you’d like to listen to the author webinar I attended, be sure to access the full recording.

Interested in getting your team together for a live event? The authors will be conducting a second live webinar on October 21 as a part of the monthly webinar series from The Ken Blanchard Companies. The event is free. You can learn more or register using this link.

Can’t we just get to work? Why do we have to spend time getting all touchy-feely about how we will work together?

The most effective virtual teams have a clear agreement—often called a charter—that spells out how they will work together on a project. Will Felps, senior lecturer and associate head of the school of management at University of New South Wales Business School, along with recent postgraduate Virginia Kane, have clarified in new research that a team without a charter wastes time and energy and produces lower quality results. Depending on the work of the team, a charter can be brief or extensive—but all good charters address a team’s purpose, goals, team norms, roles, and decision making.

Despite what we know about the value of chartering, taking time at the beginning of a project to talk about how the team will work together often meets with tremendous resistance. So how do you get experts to charter? The secret to effective chartering is to take advantage of what scientists, engineers, programmers, and technical experts all have in common—the love of problem solving.

Consider positioning the chartering process as a series of problems to solve. Here are some examples:

Problem: On my last team we had a problem with team members duplicating each other’s work. Solution: Let’s make some agreements about roles and responsibilities.

Problem: I had an experience where team members were not sharing all their information, so we made a bad decision. Solution: Let’s create some practices to ensure everyone gets the information they need before we make a decision.

Problem: Our team wasted a lot of time because people had different ideas about the goal and deliverables. Solution: Let’s talk freely and decide goals and preferred outcomes together.

Problem: A previous team I was on spent way too much time on conference calls that were disorganized and boring. Solution: Let’s decide together via email about creating an efficient standardized agenda for our calls.

Problem: I was on a team once where we couldn’t find the most up-to-date documents because there were no naming conventions—and no one ever deleted old versions from the shared drive. Solution: Let’s agree on a document sharing system at our first meeting.

At the beginning of a new project, establish the need for a team charter by acknowledging a few of the typical problems new teams encounter. Then say, “In everyone’s experience, what problems do you think we might need to solve before they happen?”

Don’t feel you have to use the word charter. Feel free to call the team agreement anything you want—internal service level agreement, way of working, problem solving strategy, action agreement—anything that appeals to the team. The goal is to get each team member fully engaged in problem solving and norm creation.

Smart, ambitious experts are motivated by competence and accomplishment. Use this technique to leverage the team’s love of problem solving toward creating a powerful team agreement for success.

About the author

Carmela Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world.

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, teams expert, and coauthor of the upcoming book, Collaboration Begins With You.

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.

Editor’s Note: This post previously appeared in LeaderChat as The Challenge of Working In Teams—Dealing With Conflict.

This is a simple form of teamwork that is well suited for routine projects. But this team structure will not create innovation, the sharing of best practices, or the competitive advantage that can occur when you bring people together to work toward a common goal.

The best teams don’t quilt, they weave. Each individual’s contribution is woven together with the contributions of others, strand by strand. The end result doesn’t resemble any one individual but instead creates a new pattern—a tapestry of innovation.

Quilting and weaving are both valuable ways to create results—but if you want to innovate or implement best practices, weaving is what you need.  Here are five tips to move your team in that direction.

1. Be clear about the group’s vision. Clarify which aspects of project work are independent and which require the collaboration and innovation unleashed through teamwork. Set clear expectations so individuals know how to be successful.
2. Stop rewarding solo acts. Individuals naturally align to the measures of performance they are held accountable for. If you want people to innovate or implement process improvements, measure and reward collaboration and innovation.
3. Build a safe place to share incomplete ideas. Build team time for brainstorming, the sharing of ideas, and “what if” thinking, safe from criticism or sarcasm. If you push for quantity of initial ideas, quality usually improves as well. Implement team practices to encourage healthy conflict.
4. Partner team members based on diversity. Ask individuals with diverse backgrounds, expertise, and cultures to work together to pressure-test ideas or work on small tasks together. This reinforces respect for diversity and pushes everyone to think differently. Diversity raises the collective intelligence of teams.
5. Help team members get to know each other. Innovative teams usually know and like each other. Use team directories to facilitate the sharing of personal photos and ideas for hobbies and holiday practices to foster trusting relationships built on personal knowledge and shared experiences.

Make the move from quilting to weaving

For routine, low-impact projects, quilting can be a good enough structure for getting the job done. Just don’t fall into the habit of using a quilting technique when you need something more. If you want innovation, process improvement, or new creative solutions, you must move beyond the limitations inherent in a quilting approach to virtual teamwork. Instead, weave ideas, skills, and talents together with a truly collaborative and co-designed approach. Quilts are nice and comfortable, but for truly innovative solutions, weave a collaborative tapestry instead!

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world.