Posted by Kaitlin King on Mon, Aug 02, 2010 @ 07:10 PM
By Jennifer Porcher, Vice President of Educational Services
“Is your team in conflict?” would be better stated, “Are you creating an environment of healthy debates?”
So often we find companies are more concerned with keeping their team in harmony than challenging one another’s decisions. It sounds right to not have people in disagreement, and it seems like the perfect situation to have constant harmony in the workplace. Isn’t that what we work towards, having a compatible team? We hire different personalities to balance out our strengths and weaknesses, but we don’t always take the time to listen to all perspectives or create an environment where people feel valued and heard.
As Dee W. Hock of Fast Company says, “Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.” The point is that we need to see different perspectives to be successful.
Then there are the companies who hire right, but don’t know how to maximize their resources by allowing discord. Why work so hard to create a diverse team if you are not allowing them to voice their individual views? Leaders can break this pattern, and encourage an environment of healthy debate by understanding and applying the following:
- First, know your people. You should have a good idea of how each member of your team makes decisions. You should know each member’s motivation and what drives them to succeed. The better you know your people, the more effectively you can manage the debate.
- Second, develop trust amongst your team. People will not expose themselves if they do not feel they can trust those around them. The best way to gain trust in any situation is to start by exposing vulnerabilities, to encourage team members to let down their guard. This is the most important action a leader can take, but they must lead by example and demonstrate their own vulnerability first. This takes time and consistency to establish, and once it is in place teammates must be given a safe place to reveal their true opinion and feel heard.
- Third, invest in a tool that helps team members understand one another. A personality profile like Myers-Briggs, DISC, or Worktraits™ is an excellent exercise to help with the process of understanding personalities and temperaments. Knowing these differences helps to honor individual uniqueness rather than allowing differences to be a source of irritation. It is not only important for you to know your people, but for your people to know one another.
- Finally, be a leader who is not afraid to “put it out there.” This process requires courage to look at an issue with a genuine desire to work through it. Willingness to hear everyone’s opinion and proof that the opinion is truly heard are vital. Leaders must demonstrate patience, and not take things personally. It’s not always about getting everyone to agree—the process of agreeing to disagree can even be a solution. It’s about hearing all perspectives.
Most people aren’t willing to challenge a thought process because they don’t have all the answers. However, creating a safe environment for healthy debate can encourage your team to express their opinions. By engaging in productive conflict and revealing individual perspectives and opinions, a team can increase a company’s capabilities.
Take the time to know your people, encourage your team members to share their vulnerabilities, invite them to build a strong level of trust with one another, and invest in a resource that provides further understanding of personality differences. Ultimately, allowing your team to feel heard by engaging in healthy debate will inspire a united front of individuals who are determined to see their group succeed. Their determination to collaborate for the greater good will sustain accountability and become your most powerful source of profitability.
Posted by Eric Hubbs on Mon, Jul 19, 2010 @ 03:43 PM
By Michael Gunther
*Gunther family photo for editorial purposes only, and does not reflect the cousins referred to in this article.
You know how the story goes. A leader is having performance problems with an employee and is struggling to figure out how to ‘fix’ the employee. For a quick fix, he or she sends the individual off to a training program to learn new knowledge and specific skills that will surely improve the issues at hand. The employee comes back from the training program, after the leader has spent time and money to ‘fix’ the issues, and the performance continues to lag. At this point, it’s time for the leader to realize that the issue may not just be the employee’s competency level, but an organizational or management issue as well.
I have seen this situation unfold numerous times both in my personal and work life. The leader sends a subordinate to get professional business training without also addressing and changing some of the fundamental issues causing the problems.
This process was present in my family household growing up. My parents ran a pretty tight ship – how could they not when they were responsible for so many people. With strict rules and guidelines that had to be followed, we had a fairly high functioning and productive family unit. Because of this, we had aunts and uncles who would send their kids to our house during the summers so that my parents could ‘fix’ their children’s discipline and performance issues. Our cousins would come to visit and fall right in line with the rest of the family; they were good kids and just needed a different type of parenting (or management). By the end of the summer, they seemed ‘fixed’.
Our cousins would go home and lo and behold their old ‘undesirable’ behaviors would appear once again. This showed me that part of the issue wasn’t just a competency issue but a system or management issue. Since their household or family structure hadn’t changed and the parenting skills of my aunts or uncles stayed the same, my cousins fell back into the only way they knew how to operate in that environment. In the end, the summer program at the Gunther household didn’t ‘fix’ the issues.
At Collaboration, we see this often in our consulting practice. We offer management and sales training programs where business leaders send their key team members to attend, learn new skills, and gain strategies to become higher performing leaders and managers. Throughout the training, we sometimes have participants who struggle to implement the suggested changes within their organizations – which is precisely the thing the business owners sent them there to do. What we discovered is that the existing management systems were hindering the employee from implementing the necessary changes. The employees becomes frustrated, their performance stalls, and the business owners wonder why the person is not improving.
This experience taught us that it’s essential for the direct manager of the employee who is sent to training also be actively involved in the training process. We have actually modified our leadership training program so that the direct managers go through simultaneous training (okay, not as intense of training) as their employees go through their training program. The direct managers also receive updates on course topics and employee homework assignments. This has not only increased the success of the implementation of the knowledge being learned but also has improved the communication within the organization since the leaders are learning that their management style or structure has to be adjusted as well.
The lesson here is that the key to ‘fixing’ an underperforming employee is to not only provide competency training but also to evaluate internal management systems and structures. As a business owner, if you expect change from your team then your systems, structure, and processes also need to change to reflect just that.
The Bottom Line
If you plan to send your employees to a training course to develop their skills, take a closer look to determine if there is a system, leadership, or management issue that can also be improved to increase performance and productivity. Leaders need to understand that their roles and behaviors directly affect performance – for the better and sometimes for the worse.
This is the seventh in a series of articles on Michael’s entrepreneurial story and how being raised in a large family has influenced his career. To read the previous articles in this series, visit his blog at www.Collaboration-llc.com.
Michael Gunther is Founder and President of Collaboration LLC, a team of highly skilled business professionals who are dedicated to assisting proactive business owners to build profitable, sustainable businesses through results-oriented education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more at www.Collaboration-llc.com.
Posted by Kaitlin King on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 12:05 PM
By Michael Gunther
When you hear the word diversity, what comes to mind? For many people, diversity equates to a group of people of various nationalities and cultural backgrounds. But for me, it goes beyond ethnicity and background. Over the years, I've gained the perspective that diversity encompasses differences in thoughts, opinions, management styles, education, etc.
I'm sure you've known an organization in which everyone is cut from the same cloth; their thoughts, opinions, management styles, etc. are homogeneous and/or people with different beliefs or experiences are seen as outsiders or trouble makers. In these organizations, managers typically hire people like themselves. And why shouldn't they? Their team members will all agree and everyone will get along, right?
Well, I believe that creating an environment in which diversity of thought, expression, or opinion is discouraged hinders an organization's growth and potential. This belief is as much a part of me as my memories of growing up with 10 brothers and 6 sisters - which is exactly where it originated. In a household with so many people, I had to work with many different personalities just to survive. Imagine having to negotiate everything from what chores to do to what games to play - with so many different people! In the Gunther household, we had no choice but to listen to all different perspectives in order to generate an end result; sometimes a win-win for everyone, sometimes not. As the old saying goes, you can't please everyone all of the time. Whatever the end result, we certainly did learn to value diversity.
I learned another side of diversity - in the workplace - from my Dad, who championed differences amongst his team as a manager at RCA in the 1960's. I remember him telling me a story about his peers giving him a hard time because of the team he assembled; RCA's most ethnically diverse team at the time. He believed in hiring for the right skill and attitude for the position, regardless of background and nationality (not a common belief at the time). Ultimately, those were the traits that made his team strong and successful.
Accepting diversity of thought and opinions can be challenging for many managers and leaders, particularly those who believe it's their personal role to have all the answers. In reality, it is collective participation that creates strong solutions and opportunities within an organization.
My business partner, Lee Johnson, spent 18 years with the Maersk Line - the shipping arm of AP Moller-Maersk (Maersk). Now the #1 largest shipping company in the world, Maersk was ranked #10 when Lee began his career there. Ask Lee and he'll tell you that the diversity within Maersk was a key factor that led to the organization's growth and success. Methodologies to promote diversity were infused throughout the company's management and human resource processes. Leaders were measured each year on the diversity of their teams as well as the leader's ability to be open to and encourage differing thoughts and opinions. In addition, managers used a communication assessment tool to better understand the different communication styles of their employees in order to improve and enhance the communication of the overall team. It was this constant focus on welcoming diversity, understanding others, and encouraging opinions that set Maersk apart both as a great place to work and as an industry leader.
When is the last time you analyzed the diversity of your team? Does each team member offer different opinions, viewpoints, and skill sets that in the end will provide for a collaborative team?
The Bottom Line
Whether your organization employs 2 or 2,000, a team that embraces and encourages diversity will offer value to your organization, your employees, and your clients. Look around at your team and ask yourself if you have the diversity needed to grow as a leader and as an organization.
This is the sixth in a series of articles on Michael's entrepreneurial story and how being raised in a large family has influenced his career. To read the previous articles in this series, visit his blog at www.Collaboration-llc.com.
Michael Gunther is Founder and President of Collaboration LLC, a team of highly skilled business professionals who are dedicated to assisting proactive business owners to build profitable, sustainable businesses through results-oriented education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more at www.Collaboration-llc.com.
Posted by Jennifer Porcher on Wed, Sep 23, 2009 @ 01:01 PM
by Jennifer Porcher
We've all heard the saying "there is no I in team," and yet I see so many managers overwhelmed and taking too much on their own plate, when they could be utilizing their Team to get work done. They may want to show that they can do the job and do it right, or they may be nervous that someone else might mess it up or someone might even do it better. Whatever their reasoning, they need to be taught the meaning of a Team and how to build a lasting one. If you teach the Managers within your organization how to delegate, empower others, and build loyalty, your Team will be much more productive and happier.
Delegate
Delegation is not about balancing out the workload, but an opportunity to bring others up through the organization. It is an opportunity to coach and mentor and to see who is capable and interested in stepping up and handling more. If delegation is done properly, it is one of the easiest ways to develop teamwork and to build stronger relationships among managers and their team members.
Empower Others
It has been my experience that one of the roadblocks to empowering organizations and establishing teams is management's belief that they have to give up control. In reality, control has nothing to do with it. Managers need to identify other leaders within their Team and empower them to make a difference.
Build Loyalty
Employees look for fulfillment in the workplace in many more areas than just compensation. They want to have a future; they want to feel needed. They need to know that their ideas matter and that they are being heard. A recent Society for Human Resource Management survey showed that 80% of employees don't leave a company, they leave a manager. The solution? Build loyalty between managers and their Teams.
Does your Manager act like there's an "I" in team?
Begin with a good assessment. How is your manager interacting with others? Is there loyalty among the team? Are your teams reaching their goals and reaching the right outcomes? A good manager has loyal team members; you will know this by the team's interaction and the department's turnover rate. It will also be evident in the general happiness of team members at work.
Then, explain the rewards they will reap if they embrace their team:
1. Absenteeism is reduced
2. Customer satisfaction improves
3. Decisions are made much more quickly
4. Problems are resolved at the source
5. Tasks are completed in a harmonious manner
6. Morale remains high
Invest in your manager if your manager is worth investing in. The outcomes of the team will be far more rewarding than to keep looking for the next great new hire that will turn it all around. Chances are, that person is with you already; they don't have the training or tools to make it happen.