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.

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.

Last week I was with a client teaching a session on the topic of Legendary Service.  There were people in the room from six different countries and we were beaming out to three more. The participants represented a rich blend of values, generations, depth of knowledge of technology, and history with customer service content.  It was an amazing opportunity to see what service looks and feels like given different life views.  The dialogue was frequent, fiery, and focused.  Below are a few pearls of wisdom I captured from the group’s spontaneous suggestions—with important morals for interacting with anyone.

• Some of the women felt that a mentality exists that women are not as technologically savvy as men. These very smart women feel talked down to when a product or process is being explained to them. They are left feeling insulted, irritated, and humiliated rather than cared for.  Moral: When explaining a new product or process, treat every customer as if they were the smartest person you know who is simply learning something new.

• Some of the men felt that women take too long to get to the point when sharing their thoughts. These men want to know up front what women want—their specific, targeted needs or ideas—as opposed to spending time reflecting on whys, hows, and back stories. This reminded me of a football metaphor regarding the difference in men’s and women’s communication styles. Picture the players on the line of scrimmage: “64, 56, 72, HIKE!” Like football players, these men are eagerly waiting to get the ball and run with it.  Moral: Do your work ahead of time so you can speed up the focus and desired actions from conversations.

• From an international participant:  People don’t seem to listen anymore. Most attendees agreed that people have lost the talent of listening. Many act as if they have heard every question a thousand times. They don’t focus on finding out specific details, but rush to generalize the question and dive into their prepared spiel.  We had a rich discussion on the cost of NOT listening to people—it causes rework, doesn’t solve the problem, and leaves the other person feeling uncared for.  Moral: Give people the gift of listening. Listen to learn. See each interaction as the first you’ve had with that person and clarify what you heard before you share your thoughts.

• From a brilliant Latin American woman: Many people think they are being efficient with others’ time by diving right into the task—but they forget that some people need to know that there is deep appreciation for their time, ideas, and culture before they can truly listen.  Others in the room agreed that in many Latin, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries it is crucial to build a relationship BEFORE transacting business.  Moral: Build the relationship and show respect before addressing the task.

It’s exciting to live in a generation where we can learn so much about the different ways people solve problems, leverage their history, and stay energized.  Customers expect us to know their needs.  We can learn about and leverage the rich diversity of their values, ages, and ethnicities and their competence at using our products, services and processes. Let’s deliver value to all customers by listening to their voice and communicating with them in a way that ensures they feel heard.

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About the author:

Vicki Halsey is one of the principal authors—together with Kathy Cuff—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Legendary Service training program.  Their “others-focused” posts appear on the first and third Thursday of each month.

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.

****

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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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

One of the strategies you can use to map out all of the important relationships present in your work environment is to create a relationship map.  To get started, take a large piece of paper, find a white board (though you want to be sure to keep this work private) or use mind-mapping software.

Begin by identifying your “prime objective.”  What exactly are you trying to accomplish?  What is the goal?  (You may have several, so do a map for each objective.)

Now, draw a space for each person who might be affected by what you are doing.  Include senior leaders, colleagues in your industry, peers in other departments, direct reports, functional reports, and dotted line team leads—anyone who might matter.  Don’t worry about going overboard—you can always scale back—but you might be surprised at what you find when you get the big picture perspective.

Ask yourself some key questions

Once you have exhausted all of the possibilities, think about each person in turn and identify the following:

• What are their main goals/objectives?  How will it serve them for to you succeed?  Fail?
• What do you need from them?  How can they help you?  Hurt you?
• What is their style?  How will you need to communicate with them to influence them?  Are they visual, kinesthetic, auditory?  Do they like a lot of detail or do they want the executive summary?
• What regard do they have for you?  Do they like, respect, trust you?
• How do you feel about them?  Do you harbor judgments about this person that they might be picking up on? What assumptions might you be making about them that you haven’t checked out?

Next, create a mini-action plan around each person.  What are some of the things you can do to build relationships and better understand the people who are crucial to your success?

Action plans can include spending time together, going to the person to ask for advice, or pick up the phone simply to get their opinion about something.  You can also plan to go to lunch, drop by cubicles that are not on your regular path, or include key people in relevant emails.

If there are some past misunderstandings, and you are comfortable with addressing it, you can even consider going to lunch with others to “name it and claim it.”

Your action plan should also pay attention to how people use language.  It allows you to understand better what is important to others, what they focus on, how they think, and how they approach things.

Take the time

Thinking things through in this much detail requires a great deal of discipline, but the kind of discoveries you can make by thinking things through with this kind of specificity are rich and useful.  Even though no one likes to think of himself or herself as a political animal, I have yet to meet a leader who can afford to be politically naïve about work relationships.

Many have been sabotaged by the move from the left that they never saw coming.  Taking the time to map relationships and understand how these may or may not be serving your aims allows you to maximize your potential and the potential of others.

About the author:

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of executive development by Madeleine Homan Blanchard, co-founder of Blanchard Certified, For more of her insights , visit the Blanchard Certified blog or via Twitter @BlanchardCert

In my mind, that is the ultimate service one can give—dedicating one’s life to serve and defend others.  And behind every serviceman or servicewoman is (hopefully) a strong servant leader who is guiding them.

I recently attended a good friend’s change of command from the position he has held for the last three years as Command of the Tactical Training Group, Pacific in the Unites States Navy.  I had never been to something like this before and thought it would be fun to see what it was all about!  I will tell you, it was an honor to attend this event, not only because I was so proud of my friend and his accomplishments, but also to be reminded of the sacrifices that all of the men and woman who volunteer to serve their country make for the sake of others.

My friend, Captain John S. Mitchell, III, held numerous leadership positions during his Navy career, most involving high level operations that required strong leadership to ensure the safety of his team. Although his resume impressed me very much, what inspired me to write this article about him was what his colleagues, peers, and his “manager” had to say about him.  One of his colleagues said that Mitchell’s biggest accomplishment was building a strong team. He said that, “Captain Mitchell never had an us vs. them mentality—it was always WE.”

I couldn’t help but compare this to leaders in organizations around the world, and wonder if they truly understand how important it is to create a strong team and to get team members to feel like we are all in this together.  It is pretty clear to understand the importance of teamwork when lives are in danger, but what about in our daily interactions with our own teams?  Would your team say those same things about YOU and YOUR leadership?

Achievement and humility

What was also very telling to me, after all of the accolades my friend received from his peers and leader, was how humble he was about his accomplishments.  He made a point of passing the credit on to his co-workers, team members, and leaders that helped make his job “easy” and made him “look good.” Mitchell said, “I was just doing my job.”

Humility and praise for others—great qualities of a leader who believe their job is to serve their team so that the team is able to do their jobs better.  How I wish that leaders in organizations understood the importance of their role as a leader and their ability to make or break someone’s self esteem, confidence and even career.

I left reminded that there are so many lessons we can learn from the military service and this day was no exception.   I left the event feeling very proud of men and women in uniform, and the work that they do.  I was also proud of my friend who so modestly impacted the lives of so many in a very positive way.  He made me want to be a better leader…how about you?

About the author:

Kathy Cuff is one of the principal authors—together  with Vicki Halsey—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Legendary Service training program.  Their customer service focused posts appear on the first and third Thursday of each month.

You may not be a CEO yet, but what can you do now to start building some of those qualities into your own leadership style and the way you are managing your current team?  Here are three places to get started.

Help your team discover its larger purpose.  The goal here is to have people pursuing a goal that is bigger than themselves.  Self-centered behavior is a normal condition.  Without something greater to serve, people naturally drift toward self-interest.  As a leader, your job is to lift people beyond self-interest into serving something larger.  What is the bigger mission of your team, department, or organization?  How does each individual position contribute to the overall goal?  Make this connection explicit.

Be careful with rewards and recognition.  Even well-meaning organizations have trouble with this one. How do you strike the right balance between personal and group recognition?  What types of behavior do you want to reward and encourage?  Leaders get in trouble two ways with reward and recognition. The first is when they inadvertently emphasize individual accomplishment over group accomplishment.  The second is when they use reward and recognition as the reason for doing the task.  You want to recognize individuals, but not at the expense of promoting team behaviors and results. Both of these common mistakes strip away at true motivation and collaboration. Structure reward and recognition in a way that makes it easy for people to “high five” each other and feel a sense of shared accomplishment.

Keep an eye on your personal behavior.  Actions speak louder than words.  Are you focused on individual accomplishment or team accomplishment?  If you are like most people, the answer is probably a little of both.  How does that affect your subsequent behavior?  As a leader, your actions are the single greatest teaching tool you have.  People watch your behavior for clues of what you truly believe.  What would people see if they watched you?  Consider where your own personal focus is.  Are you a serving leader—or more of a self-serving leader?  What do you personally believe about individual versus group recognition?  How does that play out in your work environment?

With a little bit of focus and some practice you can make important changes in your work environment.  Recognizing where you are is the first step.  Take that step and start making a difference in your life and the lives of the people around you.

This passive-aggressive behavior is popularly known as “quitting and staying” and it happens anytime you combine a large number of employees with limited opportunities together with unresponsive management. On the surface, everything seems to be going along okay, but underneath, tensions and emotions are anything but tranquil. It’s a difficult situation for leaders because it is hard to get a handle on. People are not overtly working against company goals and initiatives—they just aren’t working as hard toward them.

It’s a normal reaction, but that doesn’t mean it can be left unaddressed, says Scott Blanchard, consultant, author, and EVP at The Ken Blanchard Companies.  In an interview for Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter, he explains that it’s not healthy to have people working just for a paycheck. Leaders need to take direct action to identify where people are feeling disaffected and work hard to reenergize the passion and motivation that still exists.

Otherwise, the impact on the work environment can be predicted almost every time.

As an example, Blanchard points back to an experience he had working as a consultant to a client in the automotive industry.

“When I used to work in the automotive industry there was a principle that said, ‘You get the union that you deserve.’ And what that basically meant was that if you had a respectful relationship with the union and you didn’t break promises and you sat at the table together and shared what was happening in the business, relationships improved and things got better. And the same is true with your company—you get the environment that you deserve.

“If you do not make any attempts to make lemonade out of lemons and if you’re not working to bring people together and engage in good practices, you’ll get what you deserve as a result of that.

“One of the things that the late, great management consultant Peter Drucker said years ago, that is still true today, is that the only things that happen naturally in organizations are the creation of fear, frustration, inefficiency, friction, and political mayhem.

“And what Drucker went on to say is that positive things  happen in a company only when leaders identify  a purposeful, unified direction, shared operating rules that everyone holds sacred, and a tenacity to make good things happen.”

Take a proactive approach

It may seem like a large problem to tackle, explains Blanchard, especially if these issues haven’t been addressed in a long time. Still, Blanchard recommends getting started as soon as possible.

“It may feel hard to do at this point, but the best companies are the ones that are making efforts to work together,” says Blanchard. “Everyone is in the same boat. If you don’t create a positive environment where people are encouraged to work together productively, you are going to end up with a lot of people thinking only of themselves.

To address the situation, Blanchard recommends that leaders look at 12 employee work passion factors that impact employee perceptions of their work environment.  By addressing what can be done on an individual, managerial, and organizational level, leaders can positively impact the work environment going forward.

As he explains, “You have to be proactive. Taking the approach of, ‘There’s nothing we can do!’ and throwing your hands up is a strategy that will predict a marginalized workforce, guaranteed! If you are just doing nothing, it’s not going to get the results that you want.”

To read more about Blanchard’s thinking, check out the January issue of Ignite.  Also, be sure to see the information about a special Leadership Livecast coming up on January 25.  Over 40 different business thought leaders will be addressing the phenomenon of “quitting and staying” in today’s organizations.  It’s a free event and over 3,000 people are currently registered.

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.

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.

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.

Last week I had a conversation with Ken Blanchard to get his thoughts on John Wooden’s passing and his contributions to the field of leadership. Blanchard first met Wooden in 1995 when they shared the speaking platform at a leadership breakfast at Long Beach State University. “My friend Bob Buford had recently written his book ‘Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance’ in which he posed the question of whether people at midlife felt their best years were behind them or ahead of them. I posed that same question to Coach Wooden, who was 85 years old at the time. He told me ‘Ken, I have so much to look forward to.’ I think he probably had more of an impact in his ‘retirement’ than he did coaching basketball.”

“Wooden was a gentle, humble man, but he was also a stickler for principles that he considered important” recounted Blanchard. “I remember him telling the story of Bill Walton showing up one day with a full beard, knowing full well that Coach Wooden had a team policy prohibiting facial hair. Walton explained that it was his right to have as much facial hair as he wanted and he wasn’t going to shave. Coach Wooden told him ‘Bill, I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them. We’re all going to miss you!’”

“In my viewpoint, John Wooden personified what it means to ‘lead at a higher level’”, Blanchard said. “Leading at a higher level means that you focus on the greater good. Too many leaders think leadership is all about them and their own self interests. People who lead at a higher level want to achieve worthwhile results while acting with care, respect, and fairness for the well-being of all who are involved.”

In mourning Wooden’s death last week, words like “love,” “service,” “sacrifice,” “role model,” “leader,” “mentor,” and “father figure” were used by the people who knew him best. The focus was not on all the wins, championships, or players he sent to the NBA. It was on the impact he had as a leader who clearly demonstrated the values of servant leadership and what it means to lead at a higher level.

Thanks for showing us the way, Coach. We’re going to miss you.

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. 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.