First I want to address how to identify healthy conflict. If conflict is mislabeled it will be costly to everyone. So what makes for healthy conflict? Here it is in a nutshell. Healthy team conflict is when two or more members disagree about a relevant element of their assigned project. And it does not digress into a diatribe; nor, does it result in one or more members concentrating on stonewalling other members with objection after objection. If you ever been through one of the foregoing you know how easy it is to stir the pot by using one of these ploys. Typically this is done when a person or small group of people have an agenda (something they want to guard or something they want to acquire). This is not saying emotional appeals or wrong - not at all. What I am getting at is when a slant is taken to manipulate the process by the drive to dominate reasoning then the conflict is unhealthy.
If you find the conflict is unhealthy in that it reeks of bias, private agendas, or it is being cloaked (suspected but difficult to identify) here are further steps you can take in addition to the ones I gave in an earlier post. Our goal is to make to make it hard for anything to fly below the radar.
Two rules that help keep things on the table where everyone can see what is going on is:
1. Subgroups (or individuals) can only take action when they check with the whole group.
2. Subgroups (or individuals) must report research findings, test results, etc. to the whole group.
Note: As a last ditch strategy restructure the team with different members.
The idea here is to prevent people from obligating the group in a manner that from which they cannot easily wiggle out or to blindside other members by dumping a lot of finding and results out and pushing for a decision based on time.
Of course the best prevention is early defense. Some of the ideas I presented before, but they are worth repeating. Signs of a secret hostility to a public agenda are:
One or more aspects of contributions are askew. Only evidence in favor is being presented without due diligence being given to contrary evidence.
Noting a given individual (or subgroup) consistently seems to be highly critical of another person’s or group’s input.
An individual (or subgroup) seems to only support a certain individual or a select set of individuals’ proposals.
Any combination of the above.
I want to back track a little and give a few more ideas about selecting team members in order to minimize the probability of private agendas interfering with group process. The ideas are:
Note whether or not:
The team came together as a result of a merger or take over.
There are potential conflicts of interests between members or subgroups?
Cultural differences (this can be between departments or even in the case of international corporations nationally cultural differences).
There is a perceived or real difference in power among the participants.
Certain members are feeling underprivileged in the organization.
It is important to pay heed to the statement I am about to make so my position about conflict is not misunderstood. It is completely within game rules of a team to careful prepare a presentation by framing arguments, presenting vivid supporting evidence, and trying to fire up the group. There is nothing wrong with using emotional appeals to influence a group. However guileless appeals speak to the values of the team, division, and organization at large. What makes an emotional appeal wrong is when it is done underhanded manner meant to subvert the agenda of the organization or the team (providing the team’s organization is in line with the organization’s). Of course there are cases where the team and organization is wrong, but then the burden of proof lies on the dissenters to give real evidence that the larger community is wrong.
As a last bit, I will very briefly address a tactic to take with a team stuck in group think. It is likely that they can be shaken out of it by being challenged to find flaws in the idea they formed and further challenged to propose alternatives. You can even put a number on the amount of flaws or proposals they are to find. Doing this can prevent the next step which is to determine what members need to be rotated out, and identifying potential candidates to replace them. The reason you want to prevent this step is simply because it is time consuming.
Stay tuned for more bits and pieces tomorrow.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Team Work: The Art of Selecting Team Members
In life we do not always get to select the team we will oversee or be working on. However, when the chance presents itself we ought to. Of course one only needs to look at the world of sports to see that even careful selection does not guarantee a great team. Or look at the institution of marriage and its divorce rates to see how difficult it is to pick a person who will work well with you. In both choosing a mate and choosing a teammate usually a lot of introspection goes on. Part of the problem is in both pools it is very competitive, and in business it is the same story. Another part of the problem is people do not always end up being what is promised by past performance or recommendations. There is a reason for all the jokes about dating one person and waking up married to another. And who has not heard of a pro team drafting a player or trading to get a player another only to have that player fall way short of expectations.
As I read articles on this subject they ranged from what is completely crazy, but well meaning, to good sense. One of the key factors of creating a great deal of corporate senior executive and upper level management teams is diversity. Just like in baseball we don’t want everyone to have the same specialty we want team members to bring different strengths. Often with the different strengths come diverse views. Ask a pitcher how he thinks the game will be won and compare that to one of the fielders. It is likely you will get different answers, and the coach will still have a different answer. Moreover it is likely they are all correct. Most likely you will be getting a view of what they need to bring to the game and what kind of support they need to get the job done. Based on the reasoning just presented, my studies and experience say get the people on the team who possess the best available talent and experience.
Now I will quickly address a couple of other ways to select team members that do not make any sense. One remedy suggested was to assess individuals on how they defined their identity; than assigning people to teams based on their perceived identity. This is basically like a bunch of weekend athletes getting together to play baseball and everyone asking so what position do you think you are good at? Yet another group of “experts” suggested using an assessment to sort out members who were external motivated (works to please others and believes the environment to a large extent influences success) or internally motivated (works to meet personal standards and believes that the major influence of success is personal skill and effort) and mixing the people based on motivation. Here is the problem with both types one a person is assuming a person will volunteer for the correct position. Hey this is a competitive world there will be people jockeying for the most visible job if they are motivated to succeed, and others may be motivated to take menial positions so they won’t be asked to contribute as much, so they can attend to other priorities. Looking for external and internally motivated people suggests of drawing from a decent pool of people. Motivation is great for understanding how to craft goals for a group, but it simply does not make sense to use that and not skill as a primary consideration.
Prudence suggests appointing or asking for volunteers based on skills and talents, as I pointed out earlier. This can ten be bolstered by assessing candidates values, assets and getting their opinion as what positive things will result from their being a part of the team, and very importantly looking at their work and other public history to spot experience and behaviors that will be assets or liabilities to the team. These can often be determined by looking at employment records; speaking with supervisors, along with coworkers; and interviewing the potential member. In essence two things are being looked at:
Does the person have the competency?
Is the person able to maintain healthy relationships with others?
Beyond the two primary factors thought should also go into considering what factors may be influencing an individual’s decision (e.g., will the person be strongly influenced to favor a department over the organization? Stated differently will the person have a preset bias?), will candidates have extremely similar views or backgrounds, goals, procedures, and so on? If so it is more likely they would engage in groupthink (a fancy way of saying there will be little to no diversity of thought). The just presented considerations will help form a strong team if heeded.
As I read articles on this subject they ranged from what is completely crazy, but well meaning, to good sense. One of the key factors of creating a great deal of corporate senior executive and upper level management teams is diversity. Just like in baseball we don’t want everyone to have the same specialty we want team members to bring different strengths. Often with the different strengths come diverse views. Ask a pitcher how he thinks the game will be won and compare that to one of the fielders. It is likely you will get different answers, and the coach will still have a different answer. Moreover it is likely they are all correct. Most likely you will be getting a view of what they need to bring to the game and what kind of support they need to get the job done. Based on the reasoning just presented, my studies and experience say get the people on the team who possess the best available talent and experience.
Now I will quickly address a couple of other ways to select team members that do not make any sense. One remedy suggested was to assess individuals on how they defined their identity; than assigning people to teams based on their perceived identity. This is basically like a bunch of weekend athletes getting together to play baseball and everyone asking so what position do you think you are good at? Yet another group of “experts” suggested using an assessment to sort out members who were external motivated (works to please others and believes the environment to a large extent influences success) or internally motivated (works to meet personal standards and believes that the major influence of success is personal skill and effort) and mixing the people based on motivation. Here is the problem with both types one a person is assuming a person will volunteer for the correct position. Hey this is a competitive world there will be people jockeying for the most visible job if they are motivated to succeed, and others may be motivated to take menial positions so they won’t be asked to contribute as much, so they can attend to other priorities. Looking for external and internally motivated people suggests of drawing from a decent pool of people. Motivation is great for understanding how to craft goals for a group, but it simply does not make sense to use that and not skill as a primary consideration.
Prudence suggests appointing or asking for volunteers based on skills and talents, as I pointed out earlier. This can ten be bolstered by assessing candidates values, assets and getting their opinion as what positive things will result from their being a part of the team, and very importantly looking at their work and other public history to spot experience and behaviors that will be assets or liabilities to the team. These can often be determined by looking at employment records; speaking with supervisors, along with coworkers; and interviewing the potential member. In essence two things are being looked at:
Does the person have the competency?
Is the person able to maintain healthy relationships with others?
Beyond the two primary factors thought should also go into considering what factors may be influencing an individual’s decision (e.g., will the person be strongly influenced to favor a department over the organization? Stated differently will the person have a preset bias?), will candidates have extremely similar views or backgrounds, goals, procedures, and so on? If so it is more likely they would engage in groupthink (a fancy way of saying there will be little to no diversity of thought). The just presented considerations will help form a strong team if heeded.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Team Work: Getting a Team Out of the Ditch
Over the last series of articles I put out ideas gleaned from psychology that identify things that help a team become high performing. The last article gave ideas of what to do when a great team starts to stumble. Today’s article is centering in on a systematic process to bring a team out of a ditch. I learned years ago that if a ditch collapse around a worker even if it is only knee deep those digging the person out have to be systematic and careful. One wrong move and the worker dies. What happens is, when the ditch collapse it restricts blood flow to the part of the body that is buried. If you restore the blood flow too quickly the person goes into shock and dies. Nothing that drastic will happen to the members of a team that gets stuck. However metaphorically you can snuff a team by being to hasty in moving to a remedy so below is a process that has proven successful.
A psychologist and researcher Kurt Lewin developed a three process model. Terms were given to each part of the process. The first is called unfreezing, the second moving and the third refreezing. Sounds like Lewin grew up in the North in coming up with those metaphors.
When “unfreezing” the members identify according to their impressions what forces are impeding or facilitating progress (i.e., what is really going on is getting them to see what is causing the stink). Then like good learners they simultaneously put their impressions to the test to see if their perceptions match what can be observed from historical qualitative and quantitative evidence. As a part of the “unfreezing” the team reexamines its vision and redefining it if necessary in order to clarify the vision. Lastly, goals and objectives are reviewed and perhaps made easier so the team can experience success and be motivated to continue on to other. In real daily life we do this constantly. We start something get into the project see that our vision is fine, but our goals a bit to ambitious so we break the goals down into smaller chunks. Where we have difficulty managing this is in the work place or academia. The push into these areas is for immediacy. Currently corporations owned by stock holders are pushed to improve quarterly returns; schools now are allowing politicians and talking heads push them into similar straights. More privately owned business think if the big boys are doing it then we ought to do it to. They do this without looking at whether the results justify it or not. Happily we are more sensible at home where doing it right is better than doing faster and more profitably than the last four months. I will bet you can guess my feelings about focusing on better investor results rather than on creating a better services and products. Or even better on aligning the mission, goals, and objectives so they express the visions and values of the business. This is more than my personal bias. Many of the businesses known for their longevity and profitability are family owned and focus first on their visions and values.
After “unfreezing” team leaders are to turn their attention to motivating the team to change, this is termed by Lewin as “moving.” Moving is accomplished primarily by the group seeing that the current behavior is not leading them to their goal. Like Dr. Phil asking them, “How is it working for you?” A catalyst he uses and others use to awake people up to considering a new way of acting will bring them to their desired end. Like Dr. Phil’s program prior to the question being posed there is a review of the poor results that have been common place and presenting of new behaviors that have a track record of lead to better results.
Step one and step two hopefully lead to “refreezing” where people are given evidence that indeed the new behavior are working. Having evidence increases the likelihood of the team then agreeing via consensus to adopt the new behaviors as their norms and values. As a recap the team is shown where the stink is, then they are shown means to neutralize the stink, they are then given evidence the stink is replaced with the sweet smell of success which leads to a culture that is no longer supportive of the behaviors that create stink. Once a team is “smelling like a rose” and liking the behaviors that got them there they are well on the way to high performance, if they are not already there, and so as before the leader should fade into a supportive role acting as a consultant or facilitator.
A psychologist and researcher Kurt Lewin developed a three process model. Terms were given to each part of the process. The first is called unfreezing, the second moving and the third refreezing. Sounds like Lewin grew up in the North in coming up with those metaphors.
When “unfreezing” the members identify according to their impressions what forces are impeding or facilitating progress (i.e., what is really going on is getting them to see what is causing the stink). Then like good learners they simultaneously put their impressions to the test to see if their perceptions match what can be observed from historical qualitative and quantitative evidence. As a part of the “unfreezing” the team reexamines its vision and redefining it if necessary in order to clarify the vision. Lastly, goals and objectives are reviewed and perhaps made easier so the team can experience success and be motivated to continue on to other. In real daily life we do this constantly. We start something get into the project see that our vision is fine, but our goals a bit to ambitious so we break the goals down into smaller chunks. Where we have difficulty managing this is in the work place or academia. The push into these areas is for immediacy. Currently corporations owned by stock holders are pushed to improve quarterly returns; schools now are allowing politicians and talking heads push them into similar straights. More privately owned business think if the big boys are doing it then we ought to do it to. They do this without looking at whether the results justify it or not. Happily we are more sensible at home where doing it right is better than doing faster and more profitably than the last four months. I will bet you can guess my feelings about focusing on better investor results rather than on creating a better services and products. Or even better on aligning the mission, goals, and objectives so they express the visions and values of the business. This is more than my personal bias. Many of the businesses known for their longevity and profitability are family owned and focus first on their visions and values.
After “unfreezing” team leaders are to turn their attention to motivating the team to change, this is termed by Lewin as “moving.” Moving is accomplished primarily by the group seeing that the current behavior is not leading them to their goal. Like Dr. Phil asking them, “How is it working for you?” A catalyst he uses and others use to awake people up to considering a new way of acting will bring them to their desired end. Like Dr. Phil’s program prior to the question being posed there is a review of the poor results that have been common place and presenting of new behaviors that have a track record of lead to better results.
Step one and step two hopefully lead to “refreezing” where people are given evidence that indeed the new behavior are working. Having evidence increases the likelihood of the team then agreeing via consensus to adopt the new behaviors as their norms and values. As a recap the team is shown where the stink is, then they are shown means to neutralize the stink, they are then given evidence the stink is replaced with the sweet smell of success which leads to a culture that is no longer supportive of the behaviors that create stink. Once a team is “smelling like a rose” and liking the behaviors that got them there they are well on the way to high performance, if they are not already there, and so as before the leader should fade into a supportive role acting as a consultant or facilitator.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Team Work:Keeping the Ball Rolling
Today’s blog is a short overview of the high stage teams can reach to according to studies done in psychology. If you find my articles interesting and know people who may seek the knowledge that I present please recommend them to my website rightmovesnow.com. Or my blog, Remember you can comment on the articles at my blog. If you have ways to improve my web page, my articles, topics to suggest, or whatever then please email me at alexdail@rightmovesnow.com. Now off to the article I promised about high performing teams.
The last stage for groups is when teams become synergistic. This is called high performing teams. Just like in athletics or competitive games that rely on skill this stage is difficult to maintain. There are so many things that can “throw a team, or person, off their game.” High performance on a team is best described as flow (a state where concentration and progress seem effortless). In sports reach high performance is so rare perfection for a season has only been accomplished in the NFL by one team the Miami Dolphins. In the AFC the Browns according to a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_season) hit a perfect season in 1948. In the same article the Calgary Stampeders had a perfect season in 1948. Other sports have too long a season or too many games to have a realistic chance (possible not probable in our life span) of attaining a perfect season. In business I propose it is even harder for a upper level management or senior executive team to develop a long streak of wins. There are simply too many factors. Human memory can retain on average seven discrete items. My guess is the limit of what we can attend to at a time is somewhere near there. Conversely there are many more things that can occur during a team project. Information can get stalled due to anything from office politics to technological issues. Heck a team can even be derailed out rightly by a person providing false information. Add to this sickness, natural disasters, misunderstandings, changes in leadership, and changes in team members - well you get the picture.
When the group is functioning optimally those who started in leadership and facilitation roles will move to assuming a role more equal to the other members. Tony Dungy a winning super bowl coach said it right. A paraphrase of it is, when a team is well prepared the coach does not need to be very directive. As I mentioned before the person consulting or facilitating will need to keep an eye on the team. It is easy for a team to drift into behavior normal for the earlier stages, especially when new members come in and/or veteran members leave. Dangers of faltering are at the highest after a team has been in the high performance range for 18-24 months. This is another time when consultants or team leaders will want to show increased vigilance to team performance.
When a change seems to be the cause of a break down in performance this is the time for the person overseeing the team to review the importance of deflecting criticism away from individuals. Along with this the overseer needs get the team centered on resolving conflict by means of members reaching consensus about the issue in question. Other important things for a leader or facilitator to ask at the review times are: is the group on task; on schedule; do all feel like they are being heard; is there a need for clarification; is there actions that need to be taken to improve the team process or progress, are the goals too challenging or not challenging enough (Wheelan, 2005)?
Additional ways to revitalize high performing teams is holding a retreat (to refocus the team), have members switch to other roles they can fulfill competently (or with cross training), rotate in new members while exiting members in need of a rest, change the meeting structure, go to a new meeting time or place, and anything else that injects a little creative into the process (Wheelan, 2005).
Hopefully this gives you good information about how to manage teams at home, in organizations, or corporations. Remember your comments are appreciated. These articles are for you and need to be delivered in a format
The last stage for groups is when teams become synergistic. This is called high performing teams. Just like in athletics or competitive games that rely on skill this stage is difficult to maintain. There are so many things that can “throw a team, or person, off their game.” High performance on a team is best described as flow (a state where concentration and progress seem effortless). In sports reach high performance is so rare perfection for a season has only been accomplished in the NFL by one team the Miami Dolphins. In the AFC the Browns according to a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_season) hit a perfect season in 1948. In the same article the Calgary Stampeders had a perfect season in 1948. Other sports have too long a season or too many games to have a realistic chance (possible not probable in our life span) of attaining a perfect season. In business I propose it is even harder for a upper level management or senior executive team to develop a long streak of wins. There are simply too many factors. Human memory can retain on average seven discrete items. My guess is the limit of what we can attend to at a time is somewhere near there. Conversely there are many more things that can occur during a team project. Information can get stalled due to anything from office politics to technological issues. Heck a team can even be derailed out rightly by a person providing false information. Add to this sickness, natural disasters, misunderstandings, changes in leadership, and changes in team members - well you get the picture.
When the group is functioning optimally those who started in leadership and facilitation roles will move to assuming a role more equal to the other members. Tony Dungy a winning super bowl coach said it right. A paraphrase of it is, when a team is well prepared the coach does not need to be very directive. As I mentioned before the person consulting or facilitating will need to keep an eye on the team. It is easy for a team to drift into behavior normal for the earlier stages, especially when new members come in and/or veteran members leave. Dangers of faltering are at the highest after a team has been in the high performance range for 18-24 months. This is another time when consultants or team leaders will want to show increased vigilance to team performance.
When a change seems to be the cause of a break down in performance this is the time for the person overseeing the team to review the importance of deflecting criticism away from individuals. Along with this the overseer needs get the team centered on resolving conflict by means of members reaching consensus about the issue in question. Other important things for a leader or facilitator to ask at the review times are: is the group on task; on schedule; do all feel like they are being heard; is there a need for clarification; is there actions that need to be taken to improve the team process or progress, are the goals too challenging or not challenging enough (Wheelan, 2005)?
Additional ways to revitalize high performing teams is holding a retreat (to refocus the team), have members switch to other roles they can fulfill competently (or with cross training), rotate in new members while exiting members in need of a rest, change the meeting structure, go to a new meeting time or place, and anything else that injects a little creative into the process (Wheelan, 2005).
Hopefully this gives you good information about how to manage teams at home, in organizations, or corporations. Remember your comments are appreciated. These articles are for you and need to be delivered in a format
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Team Work: Reaching for the Stars
The teams that made it to the norming stage (where things are going along fine) and the teams that are at the high performing stage will for the most part be self-governing. When there are problems there will be specific things to address. Sometimes it may be taking the team backward a step to review what they learned in the newbie and rebellion stage. It is important to keep in mind team maturity is not a ladder like progression. Teams can be strong or weak at certain times or on certain tasks.
Team Maturity is Not a Ladder like Progression.
Teams will be up and down the ladder. Teams are a lot like character. There are people who are known as honest, others known for being hardworking etc. However they are not always that way. Everyone has lazy moments; even liars take a break and tell the truth now and then. It is the same on teams. A high performing team is a designation of how they generally perform.
What the rest of my blogs will more or less be about is handling special situations that may come up with teams that have been around for awhile. Typically these are teams that are generally at the functional or high performing level. Even so an old team can become new again. Think how the Supreme Court swings when let say two Chief Justices have been replaced. What was a court with a liberal bent becomes conservative or the other way around. I will bet you dollars to boat straps that how well they are functioning as a team varies with the induction of a new member, especially when a couple of new members come on about the same time.
Things change even on high performing teams for one reason or another they may be doing less.
Teams in business like sport teams need a “coach” to look in on them now and then see how they are doing. One of the most difficult things to do in a sport is be an athlete without a coach. Not because the athlete is not intelligent, not because the athlete would make a great coach. It is just extremely difficult to see how things are shaping up if you are the only one observing. You cannot see yourself slipping. I hear it is the same with musicians. Most people need someone to look at them show them something new or point out something that changed that is better or worse and so on. These are reasons why people like me, consultants, have a job. Outsiders can come in and see what a team does not (like everyone starts thinking the same); or say what needs to be said but no one wants to say it (the teams purpose is outlived).
A related subject to the aforementioned is motivation. It is important not to just be motivated, but to be motivated about the right things. Most motivation is around goal setting and the value to simply do your best because it is right. Not everyone or every group is great at goal setting. Ideally the goal is one that is challenging, but not brutal. The ideal person to gage what is a decent goal is an individual experienced with the project; this may need to be done piece meal. That is, one person will understand how long phase “A” should take, but not how long phase “B” will take. Another person will understand how long “B” will take. At other times a person will have a good idea for the entire project because they have it done enough times. Even so, they will want to listen to the specialists as a double check because things do change. What psychological research as shown is the most powerful motivators do seem to be letting the team have control over their work that includes determining the measurable quality of it based on quantitative and qualitative information. What they may be measuring besides overall progress towards the goal is:
· How well conflicts are being resolved
o Are they resolved by intimidation (No one is going to listen anyhow)?
o Are they resolved by laziness (This is getting to be too much let’s just make a decision)?
o Are they resolved by rebellion (We don’t want to be here so let’s just pick)?
· Is input spread around or are one or two people dominating the conversation.
o If one or more people who are contributing less is it because they are burned out, rebellious, don’t understand, or simply at the time have no expertise to offer.
o In short, determine what the cause of the low input by some and high input of others?
· Identifying issues that may be thwarting success
o Not having sufficient resources
o Key people missing too often or at important times
o Outside people are being uncooperative
o Technology issues
· How well is the group communicating
o Is it accessible”
o Is it attended to by those receiving it?
o What can make communication more efficient and effective?
Once groups are at the functional stage or high performing stage it is good for them to have a consultant periodically look at the group. This can be someone from the inside or a outside consultant. They like the beginning team still need to conduct periodic reviews. However unlike the beginning team will look at not only relation issues, values and goal setting but they will spend more time looking at functional concerns that are holding back team success.
Team Maturity is Not a Ladder like Progression.
Teams will be up and down the ladder. Teams are a lot like character. There are people who are known as honest, others known for being hardworking etc. However they are not always that way. Everyone has lazy moments; even liars take a break and tell the truth now and then. It is the same on teams. A high performing team is a designation of how they generally perform.
What the rest of my blogs will more or less be about is handling special situations that may come up with teams that have been around for awhile. Typically these are teams that are generally at the functional or high performing level. Even so an old team can become new again. Think how the Supreme Court swings when let say two Chief Justices have been replaced. What was a court with a liberal bent becomes conservative or the other way around. I will bet you dollars to boat straps that how well they are functioning as a team varies with the induction of a new member, especially when a couple of new members come on about the same time.
Things change even on high performing teams for one reason or another they may be doing less.
Teams in business like sport teams need a “coach” to look in on them now and then see how they are doing. One of the most difficult things to do in a sport is be an athlete without a coach. Not because the athlete is not intelligent, not because the athlete would make a great coach. It is just extremely difficult to see how things are shaping up if you are the only one observing. You cannot see yourself slipping. I hear it is the same with musicians. Most people need someone to look at them show them something new or point out something that changed that is better or worse and so on. These are reasons why people like me, consultants, have a job. Outsiders can come in and see what a team does not (like everyone starts thinking the same); or say what needs to be said but no one wants to say it (the teams purpose is outlived).
A related subject to the aforementioned is motivation. It is important not to just be motivated, but to be motivated about the right things. Most motivation is around goal setting and the value to simply do your best because it is right. Not everyone or every group is great at goal setting. Ideally the goal is one that is challenging, but not brutal. The ideal person to gage what is a decent goal is an individual experienced with the project; this may need to be done piece meal. That is, one person will understand how long phase “A” should take, but not how long phase “B” will take. Another person will understand how long “B” will take. At other times a person will have a good idea for the entire project because they have it done enough times. Even so, they will want to listen to the specialists as a double check because things do change. What psychological research as shown is the most powerful motivators do seem to be letting the team have control over their work that includes determining the measurable quality of it based on quantitative and qualitative information. What they may be measuring besides overall progress towards the goal is:
· How well conflicts are being resolved
o Are they resolved by intimidation (No one is going to listen anyhow)?
o Are they resolved by laziness (This is getting to be too much let’s just make a decision)?
o Are they resolved by rebellion (We don’t want to be here so let’s just pick)?
· Is input spread around or are one or two people dominating the conversation.
o If one or more people who are contributing less is it because they are burned out, rebellious, don’t understand, or simply at the time have no expertise to offer.
o In short, determine what the cause of the low input by some and high input of others?
· Identifying issues that may be thwarting success
o Not having sufficient resources
o Key people missing too often or at important times
o Outside people are being uncooperative
o Technology issues
· How well is the group communicating
o Is it accessible”
o Is it attended to by those receiving it?
o What can make communication more efficient and effective?
Once groups are at the functional stage or high performing stage it is good for them to have a consultant periodically look at the group. This can be someone from the inside or a outside consultant. They like the beginning team still need to conduct periodic reviews. However unlike the beginning team will look at not only relation issues, values and goal setting but they will spend more time looking at functional concerns that are holding back team success.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Team Work: Changing from Smurfs to Gremlins
So the smurf stage is behind us. The team is now comfortable saying what is on their mind. This is a time where the leader (facilitator) must solidify trust. People trust enough to open up now. This is what is wanted, but it must be done in a manner that does not step on the rest of the members. Here is where the facilitator really earns the money. Take an incident where John says, “If Elijah was here in 1984 he would have known that we tried something similar and it didn’t work.” Or something along the line of, “If Elijah bothered to read up he would have known we tried that in “84” and it didn’t work.” Variations of these types of comments can shut members in a group down. This is especially true if the person making them has influence, whether it is formal or informal power (informal meaning John may not be a director or senior executive but he has a lot of support within the company or union). When person like John brings out a verbal hammer the best way to handle it is to say something akin to:
· I am glad John brought that up. Let’s pause though for a minute and make sure that the idea and not Elijah is being questioned. What is a way that John may have phrased his statement to minimize the chance Elijah will not feel attacked?
o John could have said, Elijah that is a good idea we tried it in “84” and it didn’t work.
§ This will help people to see what is expected and what they can expect from the person facilitating the meeting. What should be communicated is security. A person should feel safe on two fronts. One putting an idea out there and two making critical comments about an idea.
· Let’s consider Elijah’s proposal from the perspective of what has been tried before.
o What are the reasons it did not work?
o Is there something about that did work?
o Have things changed so that what did not work in 1984 can work today?
§ This protects Elijah’s dignity.
The outline I gave is not to be followed in a canned fashion. It is just tossed out to give a rough idea of how to handle an objection that was stated on a personal level. This gets people thinking about the feelings of others. Additionally it gets people thinking more exactly about the task at hand.
As a side note: It is always important during a brainstorming session to point out that censoring of ideas will be done later, after the brainstorming finishes. Important too is kicking off the round of censoring with a reminder and an example of how to disagree with an idea so the person offering the idea dignity is left in tact.
The rules decide on in the “smurf “stage is often first on the plate of critique. A prudent leader knows to really cover all that was agreed on during the time when the group was more smurfy. Other things to go over are how often feedback should occur (regarding group functioning), how ought conflicts be resolved, how resources will be obtained, who will negotiate for the group, identifying a spokesperson, determining what groups outside the team will receive communication and how often, settling on who will bring communication from outside the team to the team (this person ought to know how to buffer feedback if it is especially harsh.).
Other things to look at when dealing with the group at what has been termed the storming stage (I call them gremlins with water added) is when people do vary from the norm (behavior wise) point out how they are making positive contributions and show support for those whose participation or behavior may strike the group as odd.
Lastly, this is the time where increasing responsibility is going to the group. As a result it is important for the leader (facilitator) to praise and compliment the group for its efforts at self-management. The goal for the person that began leading the group is to pull back so the group is entirely self-managing with its own chosen leader(s). This, at the latest, ought to be accomplished by the end of the gremlin stage.
· I am glad John brought that up. Let’s pause though for a minute and make sure that the idea and not Elijah is being questioned. What is a way that John may have phrased his statement to minimize the chance Elijah will not feel attacked?
o John could have said, Elijah that is a good idea we tried it in “84” and it didn’t work.
§ This will help people to see what is expected and what they can expect from the person facilitating the meeting. What should be communicated is security. A person should feel safe on two fronts. One putting an idea out there and two making critical comments about an idea.
· Let’s consider Elijah’s proposal from the perspective of what has been tried before.
o What are the reasons it did not work?
o Is there something about that did work?
o Have things changed so that what did not work in 1984 can work today?
§ This protects Elijah’s dignity.
The outline I gave is not to be followed in a canned fashion. It is just tossed out to give a rough idea of how to handle an objection that was stated on a personal level. This gets people thinking about the feelings of others. Additionally it gets people thinking more exactly about the task at hand.
As a side note: It is always important during a brainstorming session to point out that censoring of ideas will be done later, after the brainstorming finishes. Important too is kicking off the round of censoring with a reminder and an example of how to disagree with an idea so the person offering the idea dignity is left in tact.
The rules decide on in the “smurf “stage is often first on the plate of critique. A prudent leader knows to really cover all that was agreed on during the time when the group was more smurfy. Other things to go over are how often feedback should occur (regarding group functioning), how ought conflicts be resolved, how resources will be obtained, who will negotiate for the group, identifying a spokesperson, determining what groups outside the team will receive communication and how often, settling on who will bring communication from outside the team to the team (this person ought to know how to buffer feedback if it is especially harsh.).
Other things to look at when dealing with the group at what has been termed the storming stage (I call them gremlins with water added) is when people do vary from the norm (behavior wise) point out how they are making positive contributions and show support for those whose participation or behavior may strike the group as odd.
Lastly, this is the time where increasing responsibility is going to the group. As a result it is important for the leader (facilitator) to praise and compliment the group for its efforts at self-management. The goal for the person that began leading the group is to pull back so the group is entirely self-managing with its own chosen leader(s). This, at the latest, ought to be accomplished by the end of the gremlin stage.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Team Work: Managing the First Weeks
Well the pedestrian stuff is out of the way, and now the group is getting down to the nitty gritty of the team work. They will be entering the initial stage of function as a team. This can be a complex stage. Generally, they are on their best manners. To explain this stage by way of analogy I will tell you a little about myself. I am a foster parent. One of the things they teach new foster parents is when a new child comes to your home that child will initially behave like an angel. After the child feels safe and is willing to risk then you will start seeing challenging behaviors. Opinions start being expressed. Emotions are not always positive. At the present you have a room full of angels. Later in the next stage you will see the more challenging behaviors.
One of the problems with the polite stage is people will agree to practically anything as long as it does not involve blood or losing body parts. You get the picture. However in the next stage they more or less come to their senses. Look at their values and say, “This has to change. What Did I agree to?” One reason they are initially so agreeable is due to they do not want to offend. Yet another is they cannot see around the bend. Here is another story about me. Just this week my plan was to get a house pressure washed and painted. Then down the street came reality knocking on my door. The idea looked good on paper, but life showed up and kicked over my apple cart and my plans were rearranged. The wife figured she needed the only vehicle capable of hauling the stuff I needed – all week. This week the kitchen faucet went “south” So here I am again readjusting my schedule. Also no one, I do mean no one, thinks your plans are as important as you do. Everyone’s priorities are more important than yours – to them. Your plan is to get the proposal to a committee by Wednesday; the boss comes in and dumps something new in your lap; and the person you need to do whatever decides he needs a wellness break takes off on Tuesday and won’t be back until Friday. In the mean time you still have your deadline. Life is messy at stage one no matter how many times we have been there we tend to forget that fact. It is a lot like when a woman gives birth. Nearly none say, “Wow that was fabulous I cannot wait to do this again.” Most swear off giving birth. Then a form of amnesia sets in and 12 or 14 months later having another baby sounds like a good idea. Still another factor that makes us so agreeable in the beginning is we stop thinking about the fact that meaning of words is different from person to person. We fail to remember that “On time,” “late” “right away,” “staying on budget” are invariable going to mean something different to the other members. A married couple I know both claim money is unimportant. What one means is money is no obstacle, if it takes the last dime than that’s okay. Who needs money if we are happy, and I have what I want? The other half is somewhat frugal; her tastes are simple and she generally does not buy anything unless it is replacing something that is broke. Think there is some tension between them? You are right. They both see money and handle it very differently. In fact, they both do value money. One values what it can buy, while the other values saving it. Alas another story to nail the point home. So there you are happily working away on your part of the project. The agreement is the members would share their part of the project on Friday. To most members it means in its completed form. However, two people show up and while they have all the essentials it is not put together in a meaningful way. All of these troubles have their inception in the happy stage. Again they are going to come up as misunderstandings and unhappiness later.
Some of what I talked about can be headed off in the first stage of groups coming together. Obviously the clearer people can be about things upfront the better it will be down the line. So it may not be a bad idea to talk about what it means to be on time, to have something finished, to have something presentable, to be ready, and so on. Similarly, it is good to make an honest as possible appraisal about what can be committed to as a group. Will it really work for everyone to meet at 2 pm Thursdays. Is meeting room number 2 really going to work out for everyone? Will the meeting place and time generally work and if there are times it will not where should the alternate place be? Will there need to be other accommodations (air conditioning, different furniture, windows, etc)? Taking these steps ought to eliminate a lot of trifling stuff, but it will not eliminate everything. There are too many bends in the road, life is too complex to see and account for all the problems that will come up in the next stage. Some things will just need to wait until life makes it obvious something was missed.
One of the problems with the polite stage is people will agree to practically anything as long as it does not involve blood or losing body parts. You get the picture. However in the next stage they more or less come to their senses. Look at their values and say, “This has to change. What Did I agree to?” One reason they are initially so agreeable is due to they do not want to offend. Yet another is they cannot see around the bend. Here is another story about me. Just this week my plan was to get a house pressure washed and painted. Then down the street came reality knocking on my door. The idea looked good on paper, but life showed up and kicked over my apple cart and my plans were rearranged. The wife figured she needed the only vehicle capable of hauling the stuff I needed – all week. This week the kitchen faucet went “south” So here I am again readjusting my schedule. Also no one, I do mean no one, thinks your plans are as important as you do. Everyone’s priorities are more important than yours – to them. Your plan is to get the proposal to a committee by Wednesday; the boss comes in and dumps something new in your lap; and the person you need to do whatever decides he needs a wellness break takes off on Tuesday and won’t be back until Friday. In the mean time you still have your deadline. Life is messy at stage one no matter how many times we have been there we tend to forget that fact. It is a lot like when a woman gives birth. Nearly none say, “Wow that was fabulous I cannot wait to do this again.” Most swear off giving birth. Then a form of amnesia sets in and 12 or 14 months later having another baby sounds like a good idea. Still another factor that makes us so agreeable in the beginning is we stop thinking about the fact that meaning of words is different from person to person. We fail to remember that “On time,” “late” “right away,” “staying on budget” are invariable going to mean something different to the other members. A married couple I know both claim money is unimportant. What one means is money is no obstacle, if it takes the last dime than that’s okay. Who needs money if we are happy, and I have what I want? The other half is somewhat frugal; her tastes are simple and she generally does not buy anything unless it is replacing something that is broke. Think there is some tension between them? You are right. They both see money and handle it very differently. In fact, they both do value money. One values what it can buy, while the other values saving it. Alas another story to nail the point home. So there you are happily working away on your part of the project. The agreement is the members would share their part of the project on Friday. To most members it means in its completed form. However, two people show up and while they have all the essentials it is not put together in a meaningful way. All of these troubles have their inception in the happy stage. Again they are going to come up as misunderstandings and unhappiness later.
Some of what I talked about can be headed off in the first stage of groups coming together. Obviously the clearer people can be about things upfront the better it will be down the line. So it may not be a bad idea to talk about what it means to be on time, to have something finished, to have something presentable, to be ready, and so on. Similarly, it is good to make an honest as possible appraisal about what can be committed to as a group. Will it really work for everyone to meet at 2 pm Thursdays. Is meeting room number 2 really going to work out for everyone? Will the meeting place and time generally work and if there are times it will not where should the alternate place be? Will there need to be other accommodations (air conditioning, different furniture, windows, etc)? Taking these steps ought to eliminate a lot of trifling stuff, but it will not eliminate everything. There are too many bends in the road, life is too complex to see and account for all the problems that will come up in the next stage. Some things will just need to wait until life makes it obvious something was missed.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Team Meetings: Side Stepping Intellectual Cow Pies
At least one group of researchers, Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, and Jundt (2005), recommends that teams function better if the leaders are rotated. My own feeling is that it really depends on the team’s purpose. The purpose will define whether it is best to have one leader; rotate leaders based on expertise; or rotate leaders on a timeline. One of the great things about this is if an organization has an executive development strategy in place this gives the up and coming executive a means to increase her visibility as a leader to others. This in turn can help credibility as she may later be assigned a position within a department represented by one of the team members.
There is yet another sane reason behind Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, and Jundt recommendation. If one person is leading the group then the group is more subject to the influence of that one person. This is especially if that one person has power. By power I am thinking of executive power, expert power (that is the person is extremely knowledgeable), or influential power (people trust or fear a person). The influence of a leader can take derail the team. I remember being with friends and thinking this is a stupid idea, but the person leading the group possessed too much influence. So we ended up bulleting down the road like we were on a luge driven by a mad man. Obviously I survived peer pressure where the group was willing to allow teenage desperado to drive a car 70 to 100 miles an hour on a 35 mile hour backwoods road. We were one small missed turn from a very negative outcome.
So how does an event I just described happen? When people believe or accept a perception of an individual they may ignore the likelihood of adverse outcomes or unforeseen conditions. My cousins and friends ignored the fact that this guy really was a convict and one that had little regard for his or anyone else’s life. If they choose to look at what they knew they would have known he was the last person any of use ought to allow behind the wheel. A great book was written about our tendency to do this called, The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The foregoing, a negative black swan (one where the unforeseen is not good) can be stumbled into by ignoring data or selecting a method of analysis that will support presuppositions.
Ever talk to an idiot, in the old meaning, a person who sees things only one way. No matter what you present to such a person it will be discounted. I remember engaging in a conversation with a person into government and wealthy people conspiracies. It is a type of lunacy. Reality means little to a person sold on a narrow perspective grounded on a presupposition. This person’s theory revolved around fast food. The premise was the rich were trying to make a better future for each other by getting people in the middle and lower economic class hooked on junk food. The rosier future was to be arrived at by a high mortality rate among junk food consumers. This theory ignores several facts. If people are dying they need to be dying somewhere – hospitals. Second, it is unlike they will die out right, but burden the medical system with heart patients. Third, manipulating society is near impossible. How come? There are so many variables and sources of those variables that it is way too easy to miss something crucial to the plan’s success. There are too many variable to know about let alone control. Fourth it ignores the fact that not all food that is bad for people is served at fast food joints. Aristocracy eats calorie dense food high in fats and sugars too. Every time I would present a rational reason refuting the person’s theory his eyes would glaze over and more drivel would spew out. People if not monitored can lock into a single idea and reject other ideas that may be more rational. It is something we are all subject to. It is easier to do in groups.
The caveat here is: whether it is one leader or five there must be a conscious effort by the group to avoid forming an opinion before all the confirming or disconfirming data or information is in. It is bad reasoning to start with an opinion and see if you can prove it unless you are toying with an idea and work as hard to disprove the idea as to prove it.
I am tentatively writing about team goals in my next post.
Ilgen, D. R., Hollenbeck, J. R., Johnson, M., & Jundt, D. (2005). Teams In Organizations: From Input-Process-Output Models to IMOI Models. Annual Review of Psychology, 56(1), 517-543. Retrieved May 10, 2006 from Business Source Premier.
There is yet another sane reason behind Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, and Jundt recommendation. If one person is leading the group then the group is more subject to the influence of that one person. This is especially if that one person has power. By power I am thinking of executive power, expert power (that is the person is extremely knowledgeable), or influential power (people trust or fear a person). The influence of a leader can take derail the team. I remember being with friends and thinking this is a stupid idea, but the person leading the group possessed too much influence. So we ended up bulleting down the road like we were on a luge driven by a mad man. Obviously I survived peer pressure where the group was willing to allow teenage desperado to drive a car 70 to 100 miles an hour on a 35 mile hour backwoods road. We were one small missed turn from a very negative outcome.
So how does an event I just described happen? When people believe or accept a perception of an individual they may ignore the likelihood of adverse outcomes or unforeseen conditions. My cousins and friends ignored the fact that this guy really was a convict and one that had little regard for his or anyone else’s life. If they choose to look at what they knew they would have known he was the last person any of use ought to allow behind the wheel. A great book was written about our tendency to do this called, The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The foregoing, a negative black swan (one where the unforeseen is not good) can be stumbled into by ignoring data or selecting a method of analysis that will support presuppositions.
Ever talk to an idiot, in the old meaning, a person who sees things only one way. No matter what you present to such a person it will be discounted. I remember engaging in a conversation with a person into government and wealthy people conspiracies. It is a type of lunacy. Reality means little to a person sold on a narrow perspective grounded on a presupposition. This person’s theory revolved around fast food. The premise was the rich were trying to make a better future for each other by getting people in the middle and lower economic class hooked on junk food. The rosier future was to be arrived at by a high mortality rate among junk food consumers. This theory ignores several facts. If people are dying they need to be dying somewhere – hospitals. Second, it is unlike they will die out right, but burden the medical system with heart patients. Third, manipulating society is near impossible. How come? There are so many variables and sources of those variables that it is way too easy to miss something crucial to the plan’s success. There are too many variable to know about let alone control. Fourth it ignores the fact that not all food that is bad for people is served at fast food joints. Aristocracy eats calorie dense food high in fats and sugars too. Every time I would present a rational reason refuting the person’s theory his eyes would glaze over and more drivel would spew out. People if not monitored can lock into a single idea and reject other ideas that may be more rational. It is something we are all subject to. It is easier to do in groups.
The caveat here is: whether it is one leader or five there must be a conscious effort by the group to avoid forming an opinion before all the confirming or disconfirming data or information is in. It is bad reasoning to start with an opinion and see if you can prove it unless you are toying with an idea and work as hard to disprove the idea as to prove it.
I am tentatively writing about team goals in my next post.
Ilgen, D. R., Hollenbeck, J. R., Johnson, M., & Jundt, D. (2005). Teams In Organizations: From Input-Process-Output Models to IMOI Models. Annual Review of Psychology, 56(1), 517-543. Retrieved May 10, 2006 from Business Source Premier.
Team Meetings More Nuts and Bolts
First I want to apologize to all of you who signed up to receive my articles via email. Second I want to apologize for following behind in my posts. I am currently at war with Microsoft figuring out things that ought to be straightforward. Such as importing subscribers to my email folders so I can email you as a group. Prior to this latest problem, I was not receiving, to my knowledge, your requests as subscribers. I am getting this all worked out. This brings me to another point. Let me know how to improve service to you. Give me feedback whether it is about the site, the article, what subject you would like me to cover whatever. I really want my site and my articles to be useful to you. My desire is to take what I learned by getting my Masters in Industrial Organizational Psychology and use it to provide you with valuable psychological insights about teamwork, leading, problem solving and decision making.
You can also read my articles as blogs and comment on them at Blogger. I provide the links on my complimentary articles web page. Let your friends know about my blog, web site, and free article subscription. As you can see from my articles I am not about articles that are basically sales. I give straightforward information not hype. There are a lot of people out there that promise newsletters and articles and it is just hype to buy their services or products. I give the content I promise. Speaking of that lets get started.
Well so far we covered some of the basics of getting a first time executive or managerial team started. Today we will spend a little bit of time expanding on yesterday’s topic. Mostly what I talked about in the last post was housekeeping stuff that will help the group function effectively and with civility. Today I will write a bit more about civility. One of the main cultural aspects of a team must be a climate that allows individuals to challenge the majority’s conclusion without fear of pressure. By pressure I mean everything from eye rolls to reprisal. I know we all fear the windbag. I sat through 1000’s of meetings where one person dominates by having something to say about everything, which is usually of no consequence. I call them empty wagons. They make a lot of noise, but they bring nothing of value. They can be effectively managed. But here is the important part, note well; it must be done by the person acting as leader or facilitator. Not by the group.
There are several strategies that a facilitator can use. They never involve putting the “frequent” contributor down. An example of how to direct the conversation to others is, “Thanks Peggy for sharing your views. This is an important point. It would be great if we hear from the experts (or everyone) on this issue.” Another strategy is to lay out ground rules. I found these in a book titled, The Secrets of Facilitation, by Michael Wilkinson.
Members must address the root causes of what is on the table, speak to the core issue, avoiding symptoms or peripheral issues.
Members can only comment on the strengths or make specific suggestions that directly relate to the issue.
Deliver the conclusion, important point, first rather than prefacing the point with a story.
Other actions that can help is the leader can stand near the verbose person and subtly as possible give a sign the comment should be wrapped up quickly. In more extreme cases an informal meeting can be held during a break with anyone who is acting in a dysfunctional way.
Part of maintaining a healthy productive climate is stressing that team members are not competing. The idea is for the members to help one another effectively and efficiently attain the purpose. Fear may also be used to keep individuals and the team on track. This is sort of the carrot and the stick. A reward exists if the team does a commendable job or a penalty if they fail. Now I am not advocating casting a Darth Vader shadow over the team. Everyone ought to have the expectation that the purpose of the team is attainable. The purpose and the timeline must be reasonable, and being reasonable it ought to be attended with penalties if not reasonably fulfilled.
Most likely if the ideas presented in this post and in the last post are enacted a lot will be done to keep one person or group from dominating meetings. In a nutshell, a friendly atmosphere where people are held accountable for how they use their time and what they end up producing is the aim. In my next article I will write more about how to get teams to function better.
You can also read my articles as blogs and comment on them at Blogger. I provide the links on my complimentary articles web page. Let your friends know about my blog, web site, and free article subscription. As you can see from my articles I am not about articles that are basically sales. I give straightforward information not hype. There are a lot of people out there that promise newsletters and articles and it is just hype to buy their services or products. I give the content I promise. Speaking of that lets get started.
Well so far we covered some of the basics of getting a first time executive or managerial team started. Today we will spend a little bit of time expanding on yesterday’s topic. Mostly what I talked about in the last post was housekeeping stuff that will help the group function effectively and with civility. Today I will write a bit more about civility. One of the main cultural aspects of a team must be a climate that allows individuals to challenge the majority’s conclusion without fear of pressure. By pressure I mean everything from eye rolls to reprisal. I know we all fear the windbag. I sat through 1000’s of meetings where one person dominates by having something to say about everything, which is usually of no consequence. I call them empty wagons. They make a lot of noise, but they bring nothing of value. They can be effectively managed. But here is the important part, note well; it must be done by the person acting as leader or facilitator. Not by the group.
There are several strategies that a facilitator can use. They never involve putting the “frequent” contributor down. An example of how to direct the conversation to others is, “Thanks Peggy for sharing your views. This is an important point. It would be great if we hear from the experts (or everyone) on this issue.” Another strategy is to lay out ground rules. I found these in a book titled, The Secrets of Facilitation, by Michael Wilkinson.
Members must address the root causes of what is on the table, speak to the core issue, avoiding symptoms or peripheral issues.
Members can only comment on the strengths or make specific suggestions that directly relate to the issue.
Deliver the conclusion, important point, first rather than prefacing the point with a story.
Other actions that can help is the leader can stand near the verbose person and subtly as possible give a sign the comment should be wrapped up quickly. In more extreme cases an informal meeting can be held during a break with anyone who is acting in a dysfunctional way.
Part of maintaining a healthy productive climate is stressing that team members are not competing. The idea is for the members to help one another effectively and efficiently attain the purpose. Fear may also be used to keep individuals and the team on track. This is sort of the carrot and the stick. A reward exists if the team does a commendable job or a penalty if they fail. Now I am not advocating casting a Darth Vader shadow over the team. Everyone ought to have the expectation that the purpose of the team is attainable. The purpose and the timeline must be reasonable, and being reasonable it ought to be attended with penalties if not reasonably fulfilled.
Most likely if the ideas presented in this post and in the last post are enacted a lot will be done to keep one person or group from dominating meetings. In a nutshell, a friendly atmosphere where people are held accountable for how they use their time and what they end up producing is the aim. In my next article I will write more about how to get teams to function better.
Team Meeting Nuts and Bolts
In the last post I wrote of the importance of the facilitator taking charge for awhile until the group showed it was able to well autonomously. Today I will speak a little bit about what should be on the first day’s agenda. This of course will vary depending upon how many people are experienced serving on a team, how functional the social skills are and so on. In general the first item on the agenda ought to be introductions (if the participants are not familiar with one another). The greeting ought to include each person gives their name, job title and expertise. None of the touchy feely stuff like what is your favorite animal or tells us something exciting you did. I do not know about you guys, but I have always been a good sport about answering the “touchy feely stuff” but it always seemed weird. Too artificial too intrusive for a first day, I prefer a more organic way of getting to know one another. Once basic introductions have been met the second item on the agenda is for the group to address cultural norms covering topics like behavior and participation expectations.
Other bookkeeping type stuff that will need to be covered is how group will organize for tasks (need for subgroups will participants volunteer for aspects of team work or be appointed based on ability?); and the various participant’s identifying roles will feel comfortable in filling (I am talking about roles like facilitator, secretary, etc.). In short this is the time to get the basic mechanics of the team together. At times this may happen very quickly, as in the case of an emergency like when the astronauts were stuck in space with a non-functioning computer that was suppose to bring them back into our atmosphere.
When identifying the culture and role expectations of the group Wheelan in his 2005 book Creating Effective Teams recommends doing these anonymously at first. You know the drill a handout is given and the facilitator spurs things along like asking questions similar to:
· What were the characteristics of the worse group you ever served on? Write down the top three or five.
· What were the traits of the best group you ever were a part of? Write down three or five of those.
· What makes for an effective group? What makes a group ineffective?
· What makes for a valuable team member? What things can a member do that would make it a burden for the group?
· Why did you come to be on this team?
· What do you perceive your role being on the team?
· Should there be one person leading the team?
· Should the role of leader be rotated?
· If the role of leader ought to be rotated should it be done by time? Should it be done by where the group is in its process?
Once the pertinent questions have been answered anonymously then they can be recorded on a whiteboard or flip chart and discussed by the group. The purpose is of course to settle on what should be the shared expectations. These expectations will likely be revised as people become more familiar with the project, as technology makes other options available, as schedules outside the group change and so on. The idea is flexibility is needed and expected. Don’t worry if this takes two meetings. It is important to get the foundation laid well.
Other bookkeeping type stuff that will need to be covered is how group will organize for tasks (need for subgroups will participants volunteer for aspects of team work or be appointed based on ability?); and the various participant’s identifying roles will feel comfortable in filling (I am talking about roles like facilitator, secretary, etc.). In short this is the time to get the basic mechanics of the team together. At times this may happen very quickly, as in the case of an emergency like when the astronauts were stuck in space with a non-functioning computer that was suppose to bring them back into our atmosphere.
When identifying the culture and role expectations of the group Wheelan in his 2005 book Creating Effective Teams recommends doing these anonymously at first. You know the drill a handout is given and the facilitator spurs things along like asking questions similar to:
· What were the characteristics of the worse group you ever served on? Write down the top three or five.
· What were the traits of the best group you ever were a part of? Write down three or five of those.
· What makes for an effective group? What makes a group ineffective?
· What makes for a valuable team member? What things can a member do that would make it a burden for the group?
· Why did you come to be on this team?
· What do you perceive your role being on the team?
· Should there be one person leading the team?
· Should the role of leader be rotated?
· If the role of leader ought to be rotated should it be done by time? Should it be done by where the group is in its process?
Once the pertinent questions have been answered anonymously then they can be recorded on a whiteboard or flip chart and discussed by the group. The purpose is of course to settle on what should be the shared expectations. These expectations will likely be revised as people become more familiar with the project, as technology makes other options available, as schedules outside the group change and so on. The idea is flexibility is needed and expected. Don’t worry if this takes two meetings. It is important to get the foundation laid well.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Developing New Teams
Here are the basic steps from day one to get a group functioning as a team. What I am writing about here is a new team. Recall that a team is a group of people with dissimilar expertise and talents who cooperatively work together to achieve an objective or goal. Part of cooperating is members voicing their unique expertise so the best means will be applied to get the best outcome.
It is probable that the team will be incapable self-government in the formation stage. So an expert facilitator or group leader will need initially to lead in a directive manner. Obviously the leader must be capable of delegating increasing responsibility to the group. The goal is, of course, to bring the team to functional maturity (they can govern themselves, but are not yet a high performing team) as a team. Therefore it is necessary to pass responsibility on to them as they demonstrate ability to govern themselves.
It can be difficult to let go. Most of you are familiar with kids. We all know stories, and they may be about us, about moms or dads that do everything for their infant and wonder why their infant does not show development. Obviously, they babies lack a reason and hence motivation. Why? They already got mom and dad doing everything for them.
Here is a case in point. My dad had me help him with a lot of electrical repairs and simple carpentry. However, to this day I still struggle as a handyman. Why? I was a human clamp, goose neck lamp, and procurer of whatever tool dad needed. He never trained me to me go beyond the tasks that I was competent. I just attended to dad’s needs as he did the job. He was not a teacher. Dad was a doer. The person who initially leads the group must be a teacher who will facilitate the group getting the skills to become self-governing.
The process of teaching begins with present to the group the goals and objectives of becoming functional mature as a team. First the team will see the agenda for the meeting and cover what makes for a clear and reasonable agenda. The facilitator will then model keeping the group on task in a way that is supportive. Notice the word “supportive.” In my experience I have seen two extremes of leaders. One I worked for called me into her office and asked me to justify the way I was fulfilling my job. The overtone was she wanted me to do it in a different way. At the opposite end I’ve seen bosses be a doormat for their employees. Neither method worked very well to bring out the best in people. As an aside the first boss once she understood I really was competent and her lack of understanding lead to unreasonable expectations she was fine. It was a situation akin to an electrician trying to tell an architect how to design a building. One of the things I noticed is people often do not give people with a different vision, values, and knowledge a decent break. I am not just talking about myself. I have seen it with other competent people moving into a new job. There is always a group of people that liked the way Jack did things better. That is until they get use to the way Charity does things, and then her successor has to pay for her success. This aside is important because some teams due to nature of their project must switch leaders, or they may decide to for political reasons. They must learn to put up with differences between leaders with graciousness.
My favorite bosses are those who expect a great performance from me, and (the “and” is extremely important) demonstrate a desire and ability to get me what I need to deliver excellence. They follow this with constructive feedback concerning my performance. Other than that they get out of the way. If a leader feels the need to micromanage somebody screwed up on the hiring or did not properly develop the subordinate for the responsibility. So a great leader of a new team is one who sets an ambitious but achievable standard for individuals and the group as a whole. Who having set the goals gives the people the tools, freedom and feedback they need to accomplish the goal.
Tomorrow I will deal with more of the nuts and bolts of running the first meeting.
It is probable that the team will be incapable self-government in the formation stage. So an expert facilitator or group leader will need initially to lead in a directive manner. Obviously the leader must be capable of delegating increasing responsibility to the group. The goal is, of course, to bring the team to functional maturity (they can govern themselves, but are not yet a high performing team) as a team. Therefore it is necessary to pass responsibility on to them as they demonstrate ability to govern themselves.
It can be difficult to let go. Most of you are familiar with kids. We all know stories, and they may be about us, about moms or dads that do everything for their infant and wonder why their infant does not show development. Obviously, they babies lack a reason and hence motivation. Why? They already got mom and dad doing everything for them.
Here is a case in point. My dad had me help him with a lot of electrical repairs and simple carpentry. However, to this day I still struggle as a handyman. Why? I was a human clamp, goose neck lamp, and procurer of whatever tool dad needed. He never trained me to me go beyond the tasks that I was competent. I just attended to dad’s needs as he did the job. He was not a teacher. Dad was a doer. The person who initially leads the group must be a teacher who will facilitate the group getting the skills to become self-governing.
The process of teaching begins with present to the group the goals and objectives of becoming functional mature as a team. First the team will see the agenda for the meeting and cover what makes for a clear and reasonable agenda. The facilitator will then model keeping the group on task in a way that is supportive. Notice the word “supportive.” In my experience I have seen two extremes of leaders. One I worked for called me into her office and asked me to justify the way I was fulfilling my job. The overtone was she wanted me to do it in a different way. At the opposite end I’ve seen bosses be a doormat for their employees. Neither method worked very well to bring out the best in people. As an aside the first boss once she understood I really was competent and her lack of understanding lead to unreasonable expectations she was fine. It was a situation akin to an electrician trying to tell an architect how to design a building. One of the things I noticed is people often do not give people with a different vision, values, and knowledge a decent break. I am not just talking about myself. I have seen it with other competent people moving into a new job. There is always a group of people that liked the way Jack did things better. That is until they get use to the way Charity does things, and then her successor has to pay for her success. This aside is important because some teams due to nature of their project must switch leaders, or they may decide to for political reasons. They must learn to put up with differences between leaders with graciousness.
My favorite bosses are those who expect a great performance from me, and (the “and” is extremely important) demonstrate a desire and ability to get me what I need to deliver excellence. They follow this with constructive feedback concerning my performance. Other than that they get out of the way. If a leader feels the need to micromanage somebody screwed up on the hiring or did not properly develop the subordinate for the responsibility. So a great leader of a new team is one who sets an ambitious but achievable standard for individuals and the group as a whole. Who having set the goals gives the people the tools, freedom and feedback they need to accomplish the goal.
Tomorrow I will deal with more of the nuts and bolts of running the first meeting.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Keeping it Together While Backing Up
Here are a few more ideas on how to keep teams from fracturing, individuals from defecting or worse devitalize a team. I had a friend and we were fortunate to get a great deal with the now defunct Eastern Airlines. I believe it was 8 days of unlimited mileage for 800.00. If I remember correctly I wanted to go to Mexico to see the pyramids. He was not to hype on it but willing to give it a go. Later on it looked like it might be a hassle coming and going with a passport that was foreign to the country I was residing. I was a German citizen but residing in the U.S. So we then changed our travel schedule to identify shared priorities. We also looked at the time we would spend. In places where one of us did not have an especially strong interest we weakened our personal goals so the travel plans that meant a lot to both of us could be strengthened. Essentially we lowered expectations on a goal we both liked, visiting places where we would have the most fun, to visiting places so we would enjoy. We choose to use less of our resource, money and time, on attaining a goal that would not give us as a group the same overall bang. Stated differently there were places I would have enjoyed more than the ones we visited, and the same was true for my travel partner. We choose to visit places less enjoyable to us as individuals so we could have a trip holistically enjoyable to us. The end result was we had a great time.
Teaching members on a team to do the same can reduce the chances of individuals or groups of being dissatisfied. Additionally the team may accomplish more in less time by allowing a tweaking of goals, rules, and priorities. How? As a project moves on more information comes forward. That information may make it plain that the current priority would not have the same wide-ranging beneficial impact as another goal deemed early on as less important. Being able to revamp plans takes some maturity. It can be difficult to be comfortable backing up to go forward. It can only be done in a positive way through consensus. A majority vote, or a pulling of rank, will simply leave some members feeling like they have been rode over rough shod (I believe the origin of roughshod is when the nails holding a shoe on a horse are not driven all the ways in, akin to studded tires.) Ouch!
Today’s post was short tomorrow’s will deal with properly breaking a new team in.
Teaching members on a team to do the same can reduce the chances of individuals or groups of being dissatisfied. Additionally the team may accomplish more in less time by allowing a tweaking of goals, rules, and priorities. How? As a project moves on more information comes forward. That information may make it plain that the current priority would not have the same wide-ranging beneficial impact as another goal deemed early on as less important. Being able to revamp plans takes some maturity. It can be difficult to be comfortable backing up to go forward. It can only be done in a positive way through consensus. A majority vote, or a pulling of rank, will simply leave some members feeling like they have been rode over rough shod (I believe the origin of roughshod is when the nails holding a shoe on a horse are not driven all the ways in, akin to studded tires.) Ouch!
Today’s post was short tomorrow’s will deal with properly breaking a new team in.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Keeping Teams Cohesive
Here are a few more ideas on how to keep teams from fracturing, individuals from defecting or worse devitalize a team. I had a friend and we were fortunate to get a great deal with the now defunct Eastern Airlines. I believe it was 8 days of unlimited mileage for 800.00. If I remember correctly I wanted to go to Mexico to see the pyramids. He was not to hype on it but willing to give it a go. Later on it looked like it might be a hassle coming and going with a passport that was foreign to the country I was residing. I was a German citizen but residing in the U.S. So we then changed our travel schedule to identify shared priorities. We also looked at the time we would spend. In places where one of us did not have an especially strong interest we weakened our personal goals so the travel plans that meant a lot to both of us could be strengthened. Essentially we lowered expectations on a goal we both liked, visiting places where we would have the most fun, to visiting places so we would enjoy together. We choose to use less of our resource, money and time, on attaining a goal that would not give us as a group the same overall bang. Stated differently there were places I would have enjoyed more than the ones we visited, and the same was true for my travel partner. We choose to visit places less enjoyable to us as individuals so we could have a trip holistically enjoyable to us. The end result was we had a great time.
Teaching members on a team to do the same can reduce the chances of individuals or groups of being dissatisfied.
It does necessitate that individuals possess the necessary maturity to see goals or rules relaxed temporarily or permanently for the group to move ahead. In fact, it may become plain that a goal that was a priority would be seen to not have the same wide-ranging helpful impact as a goal that originally deemed less important. Accordingly the group would be justified in rearranging one or more goals. It is particularly important that like my friend and I consensus is reached about the change. A majority will simply leave group members feeling like they have been rode over rough shod (I believe the origin of roughshod is when the nails holding a shoe on a horse are not driven all the ways in, akin to studded tires.) Ouch!
Today’s post was short tomorrows will deal with properly breaking a new team in.
Teaching members on a team to do the same can reduce the chances of individuals or groups of being dissatisfied.
It does necessitate that individuals possess the necessary maturity to see goals or rules relaxed temporarily or permanently for the group to move ahead. In fact, it may become plain that a goal that was a priority would be seen to not have the same wide-ranging helpful impact as a goal that originally deemed less important. Accordingly the group would be justified in rearranging one or more goals. It is particularly important that like my friend and I consensus is reached about the change. A majority will simply leave group members feeling like they have been rode over rough shod (I believe the origin of roughshod is when the nails holding a shoe on a horse are not driven all the ways in, akin to studded tires.) Ouch!
Today’s post was short tomorrows will deal with properly breaking a new team in.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Manipulation and Dissension on Teams
Yesterday I wrote about how to manage differences. Today I am going to continue on that line. When I taught I noticed one of the things that frustrated students the most is when they were upset with each other and the teacher did not do a good job of listening to both sides. The students simply want to know their point was duly considered. It the same with everyone, how many times have you heard, “You are not listening to me.” Most likely you even said these words yourself. We know the person is hearing us. What we are really saying is, “I don’t believe you are not giving my thoughts due consideration.”
When people on a team feel like they are not being listened to several things can happen. They may shut down because they figure they are not really a part of the team, so they stop acting like a part of the team. They resort to subterfuge determining if people won’t listen then I will need to manipulate the process. They become disruptive feeling if I am not respected why respect the others. They start creating factions if one or two others who also feel disenfranchised. None of these situations are good nor are they easily identifiable.
When people feel they are being used they generally will start gaming the system. I remember one job I held for a number of years. Being a team member their meant taking it in the shorts all the time – of course it was for the team. Ever been on a “team” where you quickly learn some never feel the pain? Where it is you, or your division, that must make the cuts, do things quicker, take on the extra duty for the “team?” One of three things usually occurs. You become a doormat. You look for a way out of the “team.” You find legitimate sounding reasons to stop cooperating. Coming up with excuses like, “I would love to do that Amy, but I already promised Bob that I would _________. I have a medical appointment.
Great manipulators can be difficult to spot, and even if you catch them they can be difficult to stop. Here is why they know how to dissent and dodge in ways that appear reasonable and legitimate. They know how to drag their feet too, so it looks like they are trying to be diligent rather than hasty. The best way to handle this is to make sure it does not become a problem. This is done by showing respect towards all participants namely by listening, and making sure the group is paying attention to any minority. Beyond that it is important to keep people to the agenda; watch for those who appear to be manipulating the discussion; keep an eye on the hypercritical individuals, look out for groups monopolizing the discussion or consistently directing the discussion towards certain topics.
When people on a team feel like they are not being listened to several things can happen. They may shut down because they figure they are not really a part of the team, so they stop acting like a part of the team. They resort to subterfuge determining if people won’t listen then I will need to manipulate the process. They become disruptive feeling if I am not respected why respect the others. They start creating factions if one or two others who also feel disenfranchised. None of these situations are good nor are they easily identifiable.
When people feel they are being used they generally will start gaming the system. I remember one job I held for a number of years. Being a team member their meant taking it in the shorts all the time – of course it was for the team. Ever been on a “team” where you quickly learn some never feel the pain? Where it is you, or your division, that must make the cuts, do things quicker, take on the extra duty for the “team?” One of three things usually occurs. You become a doormat. You look for a way out of the “team.” You find legitimate sounding reasons to stop cooperating. Coming up with excuses like, “I would love to do that Amy, but I already promised Bob that I would _________. I have a medical appointment.
Great manipulators can be difficult to spot, and even if you catch them they can be difficult to stop. Here is why they know how to dissent and dodge in ways that appear reasonable and legitimate. They know how to drag their feet too, so it looks like they are trying to be diligent rather than hasty. The best way to handle this is to make sure it does not become a problem. This is done by showing respect towards all participants namely by listening, and making sure the group is paying attention to any minority. Beyond that it is important to keep people to the agenda; watch for those who appear to be manipulating the discussion; keep an eye on the hypercritical individuals, look out for groups monopolizing the discussion or consistently directing the discussion towards certain topics.
Managing the Team I
Once a group has come to consensus regarding rules and worked on controlling their emotions than it is just about the facilitator or leader monitoring the team. As an aside a consensus is different than a majority. Consensus means that the group as a whole agrees to something. The process is something like choosing a restaurant in my family. There is a variety of preferences but what it usually ends up is the middle of road choice for some and a high favorite choice for others. My dad would not care where he ate as long as seafood was available. Mom simply did not care. I loved shrimp, cod, and halibut. My sister loved seafood. If we were on a budget time or money wise than we went to Skippers. If we had more money and time we went to Ivar’s, usually off of Lake Union. In a nutshell, we reached consensus. Now if it was up to a majority dad might have got stuck at an Italian joint. Mom, June and I all loved pizza and spaghetti – dad would eat it out of hunger only. If a majority voted happened to often you could see how dad may not want to eat out anymore or may even pull rank. This is why a majority decision making process usually does not work well in group or team situations. Eventually one or more people will start feeling like they are not being listened to.
Having in place training and rules does not insure by any means that the conflict will be civil. It may on the surface have the appearance of civility: and, individuals or groups within the team may avoid overtly expressing anger or fear. However they may stonewall ideas or pick at every idea another person or group presents. It is these types of behavior a team leader or facilitator must be vigilantly about discerning.
A leader can head off an individual or group fractionalizing is by taking five minutes or so at the beginning of the meeting and review the positives. Each meeting should also involve at least ten minutes of feedback on the topic of what was discussed at the last meeting. The first five minutes would be bringing to light perceptions about the discussion followed by five minutes of evaluating and discussing the observations. When there surfaces areas of conflict than perceptional issues need to be ironed out and so the team is cohesive regarding the definition of the issue and what the next step ought to be. Time may also be taken every so often to cover how effective the team is accomplishing its task. On long standing or permanent teams Wheelan, in his book Creating Effective Teams, recommends doing this every two months or so.
It is important for the team members to be kept to substantive statements. If you ever been in the meeting where people say, “Oh, that is a great idea.” or, “It will never work.” These are not substantive. Two examples of how a substantive statement can begin are, “Here is what I like (or dislike) . . . “or “That is a good idea except . . . “The opening of course is followed by something specific that is issued based rather than personal.
Part two of this topic will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.
Having in place training and rules does not insure by any means that the conflict will be civil. It may on the surface have the appearance of civility: and, individuals or groups within the team may avoid overtly expressing anger or fear. However they may stonewall ideas or pick at every idea another person or group presents. It is these types of behavior a team leader or facilitator must be vigilantly about discerning.
A leader can head off an individual or group fractionalizing is by taking five minutes or so at the beginning of the meeting and review the positives. Each meeting should also involve at least ten minutes of feedback on the topic of what was discussed at the last meeting. The first five minutes would be bringing to light perceptions about the discussion followed by five minutes of evaluating and discussing the observations. When there surfaces areas of conflict than perceptional issues need to be ironed out and so the team is cohesive regarding the definition of the issue and what the next step ought to be. Time may also be taken every so often to cover how effective the team is accomplishing its task. On long standing or permanent teams Wheelan, in his book Creating Effective Teams, recommends doing this every two months or so.
It is important for the team members to be kept to substantive statements. If you ever been in the meeting where people say, “Oh, that is a great idea.” or, “It will never work.” These are not substantive. Two examples of how a substantive statement can begin are, “Here is what I like (or dislike) . . . “or “That is a good idea except . . . “The opening of course is followed by something specific that is issued based rather than personal.
Part two of this topic will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Conflict and Managing Personal Emotions
Yesterday my blog centered on managing conflict by establishing ground rules that help people work well together. Beyond that I did not go into strategies that individuals can be taught to use. To help you understand how the strategy I am about to present can work I will give a little personal background. I worked for a fitness company a number of years ago. Cocaine was a problem from the top down. Those who were not using coke were taking steroids. It was like working for Lex Luther. These folks were demanding moody and thought they were equal to superman.
One of the employees had a problem managing his temper. During one of his temper tantrums an old biker, I am talking the desperado kind, was working as a salesman for the fitness center. He watched the temper tantrum then walked over to his fellow employee and said, "If you ever do that again I will beat the crap out of you." These were not quite his exact words. Interestingly enough the person never displayed the loss of temper again. He became self aware after that. He was able to monitor his emotions, and decompress before losing control. In essence what the employee got was a crash course in something called biofeedback. He learned to be aware of the building up of negative emotions, thus he was able to modify the end product by calming down when he first noticed tension, thoughts of aggression, breathing picking up, and other signs of growing anger. The result was anger became a choice. He still expressed anger from time to time, but he was aware of the choice. Therefore, he controlled when he expressed anger.
Another strategy that is successful is to consider perception. There is program by Morty Lefko that centers on perception. The idea is the meaning that is given to events also forms our opinions and effects our emotions. See an event one way and a person can experience anger, another way and fear is the dominate emotion, or yet another and be unruffled by the event. This can be done quickly and with practice it can occur pretty much at the subconscious level.Imagine this scenerio, Joe at every team meeting notices Quincy is the first to speak and everyone goes along with his ideas. At first Joe feels inferior to Quincy. Later though Joe learns that perception is something that is under his control. Or as Morty would say, He gives the event meaning. Joe comes to see there can be a variety of reasons Quincy is vocal and people go along with him. It may be that he actually is keyed in on the project, and the others know it. It may also be that Quincy is insecure and so he is simply more vocal about his ideas and objections to others. It may also be that Quincy has an private agenda so he really is not more dialed in than anyone else he just knows what he wants. It could be that Quincy is better at verbalizing what is on his mind and the others out of laziness or intimidation going along with Quincy. None of these means Quincy has all the answers. There is a lot unknown about Quincy. The only thing that is known is he is vocal and people are going along with his ideas. The rest is assigned meanings. Meanings we give to the event. Morty has shown that we choose our perceptions and as we do we make decisions about how an event effects us. He has also demonstrated through his work with people that people can control their perception. The end result is an event does not have to make anyone feel inferior, angry, or afraid. Thus we can related better to others.
Tomorrow I will write about how we express ourselves can affect how well we and others work together.
One of the employees had a problem managing his temper. During one of his temper tantrums an old biker, I am talking the desperado kind, was working as a salesman for the fitness center. He watched the temper tantrum then walked over to his fellow employee and said, "If you ever do that again I will beat the crap out of you." These were not quite his exact words. Interestingly enough the person never displayed the loss of temper again. He became self aware after that. He was able to monitor his emotions, and decompress before losing control. In essence what the employee got was a crash course in something called biofeedback. He learned to be aware of the building up of negative emotions, thus he was able to modify the end product by calming down when he first noticed tension, thoughts of aggression, breathing picking up, and other signs of growing anger. The result was anger became a choice. He still expressed anger from time to time, but he was aware of the choice. Therefore, he controlled when he expressed anger.
Another strategy that is successful is to consider perception. There is program by Morty Lefko that centers on perception. The idea is the meaning that is given to events also forms our opinions and effects our emotions. See an event one way and a person can experience anger, another way and fear is the dominate emotion, or yet another and be unruffled by the event. This can be done quickly and with practice it can occur pretty much at the subconscious level.Imagine this scenerio, Joe at every team meeting notices Quincy is the first to speak and everyone goes along with his ideas. At first Joe feels inferior to Quincy. Later though Joe learns that perception is something that is under his control. Or as Morty would say, He gives the event meaning. Joe comes to see there can be a variety of reasons Quincy is vocal and people go along with him. It may be that he actually is keyed in on the project, and the others know it. It may also be that Quincy is insecure and so he is simply more vocal about his ideas and objections to others. It may also be that Quincy has an private agenda so he really is not more dialed in than anyone else he just knows what he wants. It could be that Quincy is better at verbalizing what is on his mind and the others out of laziness or intimidation going along with Quincy. None of these means Quincy has all the answers. There is a lot unknown about Quincy. The only thing that is known is he is vocal and people are going along with his ideas. The rest is assigned meanings. Meanings we give to the event. Morty has shown that we choose our perceptions and as we do we make decisions about how an event effects us. He has also demonstrated through his work with people that people can control their perception. The end result is an event does not have to make anyone feel inferior, angry, or afraid. Thus we can related better to others.
Tomorrow I will write about how we express ourselves can affect how well we and others work together.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Managing Teams
How can diversity be managed? According to my last several posts I’ve extolled the virtues of throwing experts together who are not afraid to express their opinions. It’s kind of like I recommended throwing a bunch of territorial fish in a tank and extolled how good everything will turn out. In team sports, basketball especially comes to mind, there is someone who always wants the ball. What I recommended is pretty much putting five of these types in one room together. It is a coach’s nightmare. However, you really do want it. And it is important to you that it is done. If my past posts were not clear on this point here it is again. Diversity fosters all kind of good things various perceptions, multiplicity of possibilities, and all of this if done right ends up with a great outcome. In short, while dealing with all the strong personalities the result is good for business whether your business is an organization or corporation.
One way to keep people who have strong and at times differing opinions from declaring war is get them to common ground early. In short, show them what they have in common. Here I am talking about non-work related stuff; especially if the work related thing they have in common is wanting to stuff you in a garbage can for putting them in a group together. People like all kind of related things that have nothing to do with work. They like sports, or hate sports (or perhaps they share a hate of a team); they like food; they like to travel; read books; and they may have teenage kids. The more people can see they are like each other the less hostile they want to be. Who usually makes the wars? Polarizing politicians right? People who have an axe to grind because it will get them power, solidify power and so on. The common people generally get along. That is because we are all in the same plane. We have jobs. We got mouths to feed. We’re trying to make ends meet. There never is enough sleep. The more team members see mutual interests than the more affinity they have for one another, and this will go along ways to keeping verbal and written exchanges at a manageable level. In short, unless your in the mafia, or government (in some cases there is very little difference), people find it hard to do in a friend.
Second the quality of the professional relationship is important. This is something that is taught. Hopefully they catch some of this in school, but because you can not depend on it rules of engagement are important. I played sports for years and we even made up our own games. One thing we always had was rules to keep people from going to far. You will need to have in place a set of rules. Who makes these rules? It ought to be the team. I once had a class that was always in trouble. One of the recommended things is to have the class then help make the rules. Why? When people help establish the environment then they also have ownership. Ownership leads to feelings of responsibility. I am not saying this always works or it is a magic potent. I know of at least one individual who helped draft the bylaws of an organization and later when they did not work to his favor he renounced them all. That happens. Even so, the rest of the people did feel the ownership and this kept the situation from degenerating into anarchy. The end result was the person who didn’t want to adhere to them left.
So what should the rules focus on? In basketball they focus on areas that people would give people an unfair advantage. Take for instance stealing a basketball, other players, coaches, and referees frown on a person manhandling another to get the ball. So they make a rule that says you cannot hit a person while stealing a ball. A similar rule in team meetings is not talking above another person. Some norms that have been used in the past are: quality of work expected, to disagree with an idea not attack a person or group, focusing on changing what can be improved, being innovative, and paying attention to group developments. Each group may come up with slightly or completely different ones. The point is the work gets done on time, and people leave feeling like they would not mind working with the people again. If this happens then the group did a good job of developing rules that will help them function as a team.
One way to keep people who have strong and at times differing opinions from declaring war is get them to common ground early. In short, show them what they have in common. Here I am talking about non-work related stuff; especially if the work related thing they have in common is wanting to stuff you in a garbage can for putting them in a group together. People like all kind of related things that have nothing to do with work. They like sports, or hate sports (or perhaps they share a hate of a team); they like food; they like to travel; read books; and they may have teenage kids. The more people can see they are like each other the less hostile they want to be. Who usually makes the wars? Polarizing politicians right? People who have an axe to grind because it will get them power, solidify power and so on. The common people generally get along. That is because we are all in the same plane. We have jobs. We got mouths to feed. We’re trying to make ends meet. There never is enough sleep. The more team members see mutual interests than the more affinity they have for one another, and this will go along ways to keeping verbal and written exchanges at a manageable level. In short, unless your in the mafia, or government (in some cases there is very little difference), people find it hard to do in a friend.
Second the quality of the professional relationship is important. This is something that is taught. Hopefully they catch some of this in school, but because you can not depend on it rules of engagement are important. I played sports for years and we even made up our own games. One thing we always had was rules to keep people from going to far. You will need to have in place a set of rules. Who makes these rules? It ought to be the team. I once had a class that was always in trouble. One of the recommended things is to have the class then help make the rules. Why? When people help establish the environment then they also have ownership. Ownership leads to feelings of responsibility. I am not saying this always works or it is a magic potent. I know of at least one individual who helped draft the bylaws of an organization and later when they did not work to his favor he renounced them all. That happens. Even so, the rest of the people did feel the ownership and this kept the situation from degenerating into anarchy. The end result was the person who didn’t want to adhere to them left.
So what should the rules focus on? In basketball they focus on areas that people would give people an unfair advantage. Take for instance stealing a basketball, other players, coaches, and referees frown on a person manhandling another to get the ball. So they make a rule that says you cannot hit a person while stealing a ball. A similar rule in team meetings is not talking above another person. Some norms that have been used in the past are: quality of work expected, to disagree with an idea not attack a person or group, focusing on changing what can be improved, being innovative, and paying attention to group developments. Each group may come up with slightly or completely different ones. The point is the work gets done on time, and people leave feeling like they would not mind working with the people again. If this happens then the group did a good job of developing rules that will help them function as a team.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Bringing Out Diverse Expertise
How do you select diverse people? It is not too different from planning a party. First you need to understand what type of diversity you want. Is it cultural or cognitive? Unless you are doing marketing or you are a multinational company most likely a cognitively diverse team is what you want. Cognitive diversity is just a scholastic way of saying get people who think differently. This can be due to their expertise or simply different ways of viewing information. The idea here is for it to be moderately to significantly different ways of thinking.
Next in fostering diversity it is important that there is no hierarchy on the team or an autocratic leader. Otherwise people will just defer, and then the potential of the diversity will not be realized. When I was in my teens I knew a guy who was tough. He was in and out of prison several times before the age of 20. He was also an ego manic. As a result everyone did what he wanted. Now I am not implying that there are ego maniacs out there in the corporate world. What I am saying is if people perceive a power structure they will not go against the perceived source of power.
On the flip side you want to avoid homogeneous groups where everyone is nice to each other and they agree not to disagree. Besides the group not producing much itself any new comer who disagrees with the prevailing opinion will likely be disregarded. In the public school settings we call this a “click.” A click may or may not have a hierarchy, but they are definitely homogeneous they talk and act alike the idea is to fit in rather than be different. Groups that act like clicks generally do not produce as well as teams where diversity is honored.
Like with all groups the person should be interested in joining rather than assigned or coerced in someway. When a person who has a keen interest in a project is appointed it allows that person to bring his best game to the table. Conversely, when a person is appointed to a team as a punishment or simply because she drew the short straw then most likely the person will turn in less than an optimal performance. I remember being told I was going to do x, y, and z. I did do x, y, and z but not happily and not with real commitment. The result was my performance was marginal. Not enough to get me in trouble, but not highly satisfactory either. You would not have wanted me on your team if you were hoping I would do a good or great job. Appoint people to a team they don’t want to be on and you will for sure get a marginal (fair: that is one step above poor) job.
Once a team has been formed it ought to be up to the team to determine what role each person will play. An example if this would be one person is facilitating, or facilitating is rotated depending on the talent necessary at different phases of the project, another may be the secretary, who will communicate the results, and so on. Allowing the group to choose does three things. It allows the members to create organization without developing a hierarchy. Secondly, it gives them a task where they can began learning to work together. Lastly, it creates the first step towards ownership of the task.
Next in fostering diversity it is important that there is no hierarchy on the team or an autocratic leader. Otherwise people will just defer, and then the potential of the diversity will not be realized. When I was in my teens I knew a guy who was tough. He was in and out of prison several times before the age of 20. He was also an ego manic. As a result everyone did what he wanted. Now I am not implying that there are ego maniacs out there in the corporate world. What I am saying is if people perceive a power structure they will not go against the perceived source of power.
On the flip side you want to avoid homogeneous groups where everyone is nice to each other and they agree not to disagree. Besides the group not producing much itself any new comer who disagrees with the prevailing opinion will likely be disregarded. In the public school settings we call this a “click.” A click may or may not have a hierarchy, but they are definitely homogeneous they talk and act alike the idea is to fit in rather than be different. Groups that act like clicks generally do not produce as well as teams where diversity is honored.
Like with all groups the person should be interested in joining rather than assigned or coerced in someway. When a person who has a keen interest in a project is appointed it allows that person to bring his best game to the table. Conversely, when a person is appointed to a team as a punishment or simply because she drew the short straw then most likely the person will turn in less than an optimal performance. I remember being told I was going to do x, y, and z. I did do x, y, and z but not happily and not with real commitment. The result was my performance was marginal. Not enough to get me in trouble, but not highly satisfactory either. You would not have wanted me on your team if you were hoping I would do a good or great job. Appoint people to a team they don’t want to be on and you will for sure get a marginal (fair: that is one step above poor) job.
Once a team has been formed it ought to be up to the team to determine what role each person will play. An example if this would be one person is facilitating, or facilitating is rotated depending on the talent necessary at different phases of the project, another may be the secretary, who will communicate the results, and so on. Allowing the group to choose does three things. It allows the members to create organization without developing a hierarchy. Secondly, it gives them a task where they can began learning to work together. Lastly, it creates the first step towards ownership of the task.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
So You Got Diversity
A lot of teams can do well without outside help. However one that comes to mind that likely needs a facilitator is a cross functional team. The reason why is everyone is coming with their own set of concerns. So goals will be conflicting. In college and high school there is competition among the coaches for funding for their particular sport. So when the coaches get together to decide how to split the money for athletics it is necessary to have the athletic director there otherwise it could get ugly. It is the same with different divisions within a business everyone wants to get their share of the pie and they want the piece of pie cut to the right size. Now human nature being what it is most will look at another person’s pie, or another groups, and think the other’s is way too large a slice. In situations like this an excellent facilitator is necessary.
Another good instance for a facilitator or mediator is when two companies are merging, especially if one bought the other out. There are likely to be feelings of resentment, desires to protect turf, and so on. This could mire all future meetings in disputes due to cultural and procedural clashes.
Properly managed the conflicts that arise out of a merger could be good. Why? It is brings diversity to the table. Diversity is an important part of teams because the effect generally is varying perceptions. Old things are looked at in a new way. However each side must be willing to listen and learn from the other side. If not then it will just digress into a blood feud.
In my next blog I will talk cover managing diversity and conflict in more detail.
Another good instance for a facilitator or mediator is when two companies are merging, especially if one bought the other out. There are likely to be feelings of resentment, desires to protect turf, and so on. This could mire all future meetings in disputes due to cultural and procedural clashes.
Properly managed the conflicts that arise out of a merger could be good. Why? It is brings diversity to the table. Diversity is an important part of teams because the effect generally is varying perceptions. Old things are looked at in a new way. However each side must be willing to listen and learn from the other side. If not then it will just digress into a blood feud.
In my next blog I will talk cover managing diversity and conflict in more detail.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Getting to Conflict
On teams conflict is not necessary a bad thing. I know of a family down the street and it is the most productive way they have of getting things done. They are loud, but they get things sorted out. If all the team members agreed as to what needs to be done why appoint a team? Isn’t this right? You could save yourself time and money by figuring out whose idea everyone likes for what type of project the team is being called together. So conflict is good what are some of the types of conflict are you likely to see?
Thompson and Hrebec focus on two types of conflict. They say conflict is outcome or information based. Children often have outcome based conflict. This is where John cuts Sally a piece of pie and Sally expresses concern that maybe John wasn’t fair in the size of the slices. It never leaves us. Dividing work, recognition, and resources in a way that is sensible often takes negotiation. Another type of conflict that they talk about is informational conflict. Here each side has the same information but each side disagrees as to what it means. I witnessed a car accident awhile back and you can have ten people all see the same accident I saw and have ten different opinions of what happened. The only high probability argument is between the drivers; it will always be the other drivers fault. Similarly in business you can have two people look at an event or data, and have two very different definitions of what is being observed.
Here are some tricks to managing groups so effectually positive conflict occurs. One is the conflict must not be excessive. By excessive I mean either too present or very absent. The latter is called group think, or there is a person pulling all the strings. The former means people get so ticked at one another nothing can get done. The goal here is to get different perspectives without it turning into a feud.
So we know that conflict is best some where quite close to moderate. How is it kept near this range? It has to be based on perceptual differences where a specific function or issue is under consideration. Industrial Organizational psychologists called this task oriented conflict. The other type is personal. First is good, the second is bad. We want a unified body, but diverse perspectives. It sort of like this war that can goes on in my brain, “Do I want to do this or do that.” Despite the conflict one side of my brain does not try to annihilate the other side. My mind will either differ to my heart or one side will come up with an argument the other side buys.
One of the reasons one side of my brain does not do in the other side is the brain recognizes that the troublesome side is still necessary to the health of the whole brain. Individuals on a team must recognize this too. Members must feel that each other is essential. If this is not done then trust between members will quickly erode. And as you know without trust nothing gets done.
The short version is get people who respect one another on a team, but not so much they see “eye to eye.” Each member must bring expertise to the project that will enlighten the others. This can be formal knowledge (the stuff you get out of reading professional journals or attending a college) or tacit (first hand experience). This way things that the others may be overlooking can be brought to the front of the decision making process. The goal is as this occurs the end product will be better than any of the individuals could have achieved alone.
Thompson and Hrebec focus on two types of conflict. They say conflict is outcome or information based. Children often have outcome based conflict. This is where John cuts Sally a piece of pie and Sally expresses concern that maybe John wasn’t fair in the size of the slices. It never leaves us. Dividing work, recognition, and resources in a way that is sensible often takes negotiation. Another type of conflict that they talk about is informational conflict. Here each side has the same information but each side disagrees as to what it means. I witnessed a car accident awhile back and you can have ten people all see the same accident I saw and have ten different opinions of what happened. The only high probability argument is between the drivers; it will always be the other drivers fault. Similarly in business you can have two people look at an event or data, and have two very different definitions of what is being observed.
Here are some tricks to managing groups so effectually positive conflict occurs. One is the conflict must not be excessive. By excessive I mean either too present or very absent. The latter is called group think, or there is a person pulling all the strings. The former means people get so ticked at one another nothing can get done. The goal here is to get different perspectives without it turning into a feud.
So we know that conflict is best some where quite close to moderate. How is it kept near this range? It has to be based on perceptual differences where a specific function or issue is under consideration. Industrial Organizational psychologists called this task oriented conflict. The other type is personal. First is good, the second is bad. We want a unified body, but diverse perspectives. It sort of like this war that can goes on in my brain, “Do I want to do this or do that.” Despite the conflict one side of my brain does not try to annihilate the other side. My mind will either differ to my heart or one side will come up with an argument the other side buys.
One of the reasons one side of my brain does not do in the other side is the brain recognizes that the troublesome side is still necessary to the health of the whole brain. Individuals on a team must recognize this too. Members must feel that each other is essential. If this is not done then trust between members will quickly erode. And as you know without trust nothing gets done.
The short version is get people who respect one another on a team, but not so much they see “eye to eye.” Each member must bring expertise to the project that will enlighten the others. This can be formal knowledge (the stuff you get out of reading professional journals or attending a college) or tacit (first hand experience). This way things that the others may be overlooking can be brought to the front of the decision making process. The goal is as this occurs the end product will be better than any of the individuals could have achieved alone.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
What Kind of Team
In my last post I wrote about how to think about electing or appointing members to a team. Today I will get a bit more specific. I love the kitchen, hey I am a guy, so I will return to the kitchen for an example. Sometimes my mom would have specific projects like canning. She loved to can strawberry jam, plum jam, and zucchini relish. Now the jams always involved us. We all had a specific talent we brought. Dad crunched the numbers according to how much jam we needed to make. Mom mixed the ingredients and my sister and I were the appointed stirrers. As you saw in my example about a thanksgiving dinner different members were present and our duties were slightly different. It is the same way with teams in businesses and organizations.
When the space capsule was returning from space but the computer system went down with and it had to be guided in manually. A project team was appointed. There job was to solve the problems necessary to maximize the astronaut’s chances of getting back alive. Generally problem solving teams are kept between three and seven members. Remember my analogy in my last post about too many cooks in the kitchen? On some projects especially emergency ones there is not a lot of time for mediating compromises so the fewer the numbers to do the job the better. In other words, this is not the time for political appointments.
A second type of team is called a standing committee. These are the people who determine policies, corporate culture and so on. Think of standing committees like when the relatives get together to determine a family trip or reunion. Now when planning something like this it is important to get feedback (opinions) of all the decision makers and then come to a consensus. Otherwise feelings will get hurt. Uncle Ernie will be frosted if reunion only involves trips to art museums and there is no beer, fishing or hunting. Policies and corporate culture issues usually call for larger teams to decide these issues: therefore, standing teams include anywhere from six to fifteen members. These usually involve all the key stakeholders. That would be union officials, human resources, and ought to include the senior people in the organization.
Your organization will likely have all different kind of teams. The important thing to remember is each member of a team should be clear about their personal role, performance expectations, and what process is acceptable for accomplishing the task (Van Wart, 2005). As mentioned in the prior post it is also important that each person on a team has the necessary competency to fulfill the role. You don’t want to put indecisive cousin Martha, who gets her shorts in a knot easily to be a part of the decision process of the trip just because she wants to feel a part of the plan. Putting people on a team ought not to be a favor or punishment. The best qualified people need to be elected to the team.
When the space capsule was returning from space but the computer system went down with and it had to be guided in manually. A project team was appointed. There job was to solve the problems necessary to maximize the astronaut’s chances of getting back alive. Generally problem solving teams are kept between three and seven members. Remember my analogy in my last post about too many cooks in the kitchen? On some projects especially emergency ones there is not a lot of time for mediating compromises so the fewer the numbers to do the job the better. In other words, this is not the time for political appointments.
A second type of team is called a standing committee. These are the people who determine policies, corporate culture and so on. Think of standing committees like when the relatives get together to determine a family trip or reunion. Now when planning something like this it is important to get feedback (opinions) of all the decision makers and then come to a consensus. Otherwise feelings will get hurt. Uncle Ernie will be frosted if reunion only involves trips to art museums and there is no beer, fishing or hunting. Policies and corporate culture issues usually call for larger teams to decide these issues: therefore, standing teams include anywhere from six to fifteen members. These usually involve all the key stakeholders. That would be union officials, human resources, and ought to include the senior people in the organization.
Your organization will likely have all different kind of teams. The important thing to remember is each member of a team should be clear about their personal role, performance expectations, and what process is acceptable for accomplishing the task (Van Wart, 2005). As mentioned in the prior post it is also important that each person on a team has the necessary competency to fulfill the role. You don’t want to put indecisive cousin Martha, who gets her shorts in a knot easily to be a part of the decision process of the trip just because she wants to feel a part of the plan. Putting people on a team ought not to be a favor or punishment. The best qualified people need to be elected to the team.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Forming teams
Forming a Team
It may seem a little backwards, to present forming a team after the other articles, but they were necessary for the foundation of the rest of what is to come including this article.
I grew up in an interesting house. My sister and I were German, and had learned something of the German culture before we were adopted. Also my adopted parents reinforced some of our German heritage because they did not want us to lose that cultural identity. My dad was a third or fourth generation American originally from a Celt clan in Ireland, who family at some point after coming to the States raised tobacco. Most likely the potato blight in Ireland, gave them new ideas about a cash crop. My mother was a naturalized American originally a Canadian and a third generation Pole. As a result we had a lot of interesting sayings. One was, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Having cooked I know what she means. Not only do the people start getting in the way, but everyone has an idea about how the job ought to be done. Mom soon learned, especially with have kids, who she wanted doing what, and who she didn’t. Sometimes she felt the job was best done by her, other times it was us and her, and periodically it was her and an aunt. The men had to stay outside the kitchen. Booze simply made them too creative.
Similarly when make decisions, solving problems, or whatever else a team may be working on it is wise to think who necessary. Sometimes a single individual can make the best decision or do the best job. At other times two to seven people may be necessary. Each person on the team must be needed for a particular talent or influence they possess. Additionally the task must be challenging to the team; if it is a slam dunk they will wonder what they have to meet.
Before selecting the team the job must be defined, for my mom if it was a fish fry it meant involving a least one beer drinking person, my dad. If it was a barbeque it was again my dad and anyone else who brought meat; if they wanted to cook it themselves. It was thanksgiving dinner it was mom and maybe an aunt. Earlier on in the meal preparation it was my sister and I doing the prep work. Prep work is kitchen lingo for peeling potatoes etc. So she knew her goal, she knew who she wanted on the project; she knew when to put the turkey in, the pies in, the cabbage rolls, etc. In business lingo, she knew the time frame for it portion of the meal and the overall meal. Mom also knew where to draw the line on the scope of authority; in general Mom was the general of the kitchen, the aunt was the colonel, and everyone else was a corporal – just there to follow orders.
Beyond my mom’s team, business teams have a few other things to sort out.
· Leadership: will the position be appointed, elected by the group, or rotated?
· How will the team be held accountable?
· Will the team need a name and logo (this may seem dumb, but in certain businesses given teams can be a permanent fixture)?
· Where will the team meet?
· Will there be alternative means for the team to communicate when they are not together etc.
We all want team members to not feel their time spent on a team could be better spent on another project. Even worse we do not want team members feeling that the project was a complete waste of their time. Either of these scenarios usually causes the members to feel that the senior people do not really care about them. This in turn leads to people not trust bosses. Once that happens it is easy for the people to generalize it to the rest of the organizational structure. Then it becomes each person or click doing just enough to keep the boss’ happy, and the rest of their time focusing on their job and personal priorities. Just like a team of draft horses, (I am not equating employees to working animals here; I am just trying to draw a parallel in function) if all are not pulling in the same direction progress will be slow if at all.
It may seem a little backwards, to present forming a team after the other articles, but they were necessary for the foundation of the rest of what is to come including this article.
I grew up in an interesting house. My sister and I were German, and had learned something of the German culture before we were adopted. Also my adopted parents reinforced some of our German heritage because they did not want us to lose that cultural identity. My dad was a third or fourth generation American originally from a Celt clan in Ireland, who family at some point after coming to the States raised tobacco. Most likely the potato blight in Ireland, gave them new ideas about a cash crop. My mother was a naturalized American originally a Canadian and a third generation Pole. As a result we had a lot of interesting sayings. One was, there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Having cooked I know what she means. Not only do the people start getting in the way, but everyone has an idea about how the job ought to be done. Mom soon learned, especially with have kids, who she wanted doing what, and who she didn’t. Sometimes she felt the job was best done by her, other times it was us and her, and periodically it was her and an aunt. The men had to stay outside the kitchen. Booze simply made them too creative.
Similarly when make decisions, solving problems, or whatever else a team may be working on it is wise to think who necessary. Sometimes a single individual can make the best decision or do the best job. At other times two to seven people may be necessary. Each person on the team must be needed for a particular talent or influence they possess. Additionally the task must be challenging to the team; if it is a slam dunk they will wonder what they have to meet.
Before selecting the team the job must be defined, for my mom if it was a fish fry it meant involving a least one beer drinking person, my dad. If it was a barbeque it was again my dad and anyone else who brought meat; if they wanted to cook it themselves. It was thanksgiving dinner it was mom and maybe an aunt. Earlier on in the meal preparation it was my sister and I doing the prep work. Prep work is kitchen lingo for peeling potatoes etc. So she knew her goal, she knew who she wanted on the project; she knew when to put the turkey in, the pies in, the cabbage rolls, etc. In business lingo, she knew the time frame for it portion of the meal and the overall meal. Mom also knew where to draw the line on the scope of authority; in general Mom was the general of the kitchen, the aunt was the colonel, and everyone else was a corporal – just there to follow orders.
Beyond my mom’s team, business teams have a few other things to sort out.
· Leadership: will the position be appointed, elected by the group, or rotated?
· How will the team be held accountable?
· Will the team need a name and logo (this may seem dumb, but in certain businesses given teams can be a permanent fixture)?
· Where will the team meet?
· Will there be alternative means for the team to communicate when they are not together etc.
We all want team members to not feel their time spent on a team could be better spent on another project. Even worse we do not want team members feeling that the project was a complete waste of their time. Either of these scenarios usually causes the members to feel that the senior people do not really care about them. This in turn leads to people not trust bosses. Once that happens it is easy for the people to generalize it to the rest of the organizational structure. Then it becomes each person or click doing just enough to keep the boss’ happy, and the rest of their time focusing on their job and personal priorities. Just like a team of draft horses, (I am not equating employees to working animals here; I am just trying to draw a parallel in function) if all are not pulling in the same direction progress will be slow if at all.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Formation of Teams
Much has been said about what a team is. But it is important to come to a shared understanding of what I mean when I say, “Team.” Understanding how teams in businesses and organizations differ from sport teams is important to successfully managing them.
I’ve seen numerous different coaches over the years. Heard a number of locker room talks. Some are more tactical than others, all are meant to jack us up a bit. Not only that but they are in essence war like. Competitive sports are often war like in the mentality. You have crushing serves in tennis; a punishing pace in track; hockey players annihilate one another; and baseball teams pound one another. You get the idea the verbiage is brutal, and that brutality teaches us to aggressively attack our opponent – no mercy.
In business winding people up emotionally to enhance chances of winning is not as effective as other tactics; often people from competing departments must work together. Businesses fall apart if the point is to protect turf within a company. When divisions or individuals priorities take precedent over the business’s eventually that train will run off the rails. I never have had cancer, but I have been sick before, real sick, and the body starts competing for resources it weakens the whole. It is seldom good to have a situation where one part of a body is competing with another in a way that causes the other to have less than what it needs. The only time this may be acceptable is when the competition is meant to pick the strongest of the competitors. An example may be whoever completes this design first gets the project. In sports pitting teammates against one another is common. Players on teams measure their value by statistics. In track you get points for how well you finish (3 pts – win; 2 pts. second; 1 pt. for third), basketball your value increases based on scores, assists, or steals; baseball you can pump up your value by earn run averages, batting averages etc.
At the senior level in organizations teams are generally composed of people with diverse abilities and perspectives believed necessary to successfully accomplishing their assignment. The belief behind doing so is diversity in talent and points of view will reap a better end result than an individual making a decision. The end result being looked for is generally four things an improvement in processes, product, service, or acceptance. In fact, sometimes teams are formed for the sole purpose of generating acceptance of an idea. In other words, the idea is to get competing political factions to work together. This is something rare in sports unless you are talking tennis where two competing players join forces to play doubles, or when basketball players from different teans unite to play on the Olympic team.
Despite significant differences there are some similarities between sport teams and executive/management teams. Like in sports, team members in organizations are unified by a code of behavior, task orientation, a goal to achieve, and frequently they are rewarded for obtaining the goal.
Here is what I am saying distilled down. Teams need to be formed with a definite purpose in mind, and they need to be governed in the way that best helps them achieve that goal. Often it is not by allowing or fostering competition among the members, but by drawing out the abilities of each member in order to help them achieve as a group a result that is better than an individual could.
I’ve seen numerous different coaches over the years. Heard a number of locker room talks. Some are more tactical than others, all are meant to jack us up a bit. Not only that but they are in essence war like. Competitive sports are often war like in the mentality. You have crushing serves in tennis; a punishing pace in track; hockey players annihilate one another; and baseball teams pound one another. You get the idea the verbiage is brutal, and that brutality teaches us to aggressively attack our opponent – no mercy.
In business winding people up emotionally to enhance chances of winning is not as effective as other tactics; often people from competing departments must work together. Businesses fall apart if the point is to protect turf within a company. When divisions or individuals priorities take precedent over the business’s eventually that train will run off the rails. I never have had cancer, but I have been sick before, real sick, and the body starts competing for resources it weakens the whole. It is seldom good to have a situation where one part of a body is competing with another in a way that causes the other to have less than what it needs. The only time this may be acceptable is when the competition is meant to pick the strongest of the competitors. An example may be whoever completes this design first gets the project. In sports pitting teammates against one another is common. Players on teams measure their value by statistics. In track you get points for how well you finish (3 pts – win; 2 pts. second; 1 pt. for third), basketball your value increases based on scores, assists, or steals; baseball you can pump up your value by earn run averages, batting averages etc.
At the senior level in organizations teams are generally composed of people with diverse abilities and perspectives believed necessary to successfully accomplishing their assignment. The belief behind doing so is diversity in talent and points of view will reap a better end result than an individual making a decision. The end result being looked for is generally four things an improvement in processes, product, service, or acceptance. In fact, sometimes teams are formed for the sole purpose of generating acceptance of an idea. In other words, the idea is to get competing political factions to work together. This is something rare in sports unless you are talking tennis where two competing players join forces to play doubles, or when basketball players from different teans unite to play on the Olympic team.
Despite significant differences there are some similarities between sport teams and executive/management teams. Like in sports, team members in organizations are unified by a code of behavior, task orientation, a goal to achieve, and frequently they are rewarded for obtaining the goal.
Here is what I am saying distilled down. Teams need to be formed with a definite purpose in mind, and they need to be governed in the way that best helps them achieve that goal. Often it is not by allowing or fostering competition among the members, but by drawing out the abilities of each member in order to help them achieve as a group a result that is better than an individual could.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Creating a Culture of Cooperation and Teamwork
Bruce Lawler noted that one of the reasons a shift to team emphasis within an organization fails is due to lack of supporting structure. Supporting structure goes way beyond a positive leader or environment.
We see lack of supporting structure when executives are out of the loop. Ideas get shelved. I talked with someone from a major aerospace company who retired from the business. He mentioned that there was a great deal of talk about being a team, group synergy and the like. Reality was the company perhaps on an emotional level wanted to think of itself that way. However it did nothing to support it. Nor did it reward cost saving measures or creativity.
As we spoke it became clear that creativity, learning environments, economical solutions, and team work were not rewarded because of competing structures. Engineers who and found ways to adapt existing inventions were penalized. How the aerospace corporation only rewarded engineers for developing solutions – even if the solution already existed. Promotions came from how many solutions an engineer could originate. If the engineer was not the originator of the idea, than that engineer received no credit. This not saying the engineers were stealing the work of others and with a few adaptations calling it their own. No, they would give credit to the person who came up with the invention or solution, but they also wanted recognition for finding the solution and adapting it. It is easy to see how those gifted in adapting the solutions of others would soon stop doing so? According to the person I spoke with this policy cost the aerospace company millions of dollars in wasted man hours.
Similarly, cooperation among project teams was not encouraged because the larger teams or the team that had the higher profile project would get the brunt of the reward. Some departments by their very nature have less to contribute to a project, but that does not negate the importance of what they contributed. This too went unaddressed.
The climate at the aerospace company was also quite competitive due to the pushing for developing solutions. This led Executives to push for speed of product development rather than rewarding the best solutions. Why because the more products their division produced the more likely it was that the executive would be considered for promotion or at least a horizontal transfer to a more visible and rewarded position.
Hopefully from this you can see how schizophrenia a company can be if the leaders desires one outcome but do not have in place the pieces that support it. When making changes of this magnitude the company must be looked at as an organic whole. Edward Lawler offers a five star model that can be an aid. A lot of the needed changes HR will initiate like structure, hiring and rewards. However, such things as strategies and processes will need to be looked at to see if they support a new culture like creating a team approach.
We see lack of supporting structure when executives are out of the loop. Ideas get shelved. I talked with someone from a major aerospace company who retired from the business. He mentioned that there was a great deal of talk about being a team, group synergy and the like. Reality was the company perhaps on an emotional level wanted to think of itself that way. However it did nothing to support it. Nor did it reward cost saving measures or creativity.
As we spoke it became clear that creativity, learning environments, economical solutions, and team work were not rewarded because of competing structures. Engineers who and found ways to adapt existing inventions were penalized. How the aerospace corporation only rewarded engineers for developing solutions – even if the solution already existed. Promotions came from how many solutions an engineer could originate. If the engineer was not the originator of the idea, than that engineer received no credit. This not saying the engineers were stealing the work of others and with a few adaptations calling it their own. No, they would give credit to the person who came up with the invention or solution, but they also wanted recognition for finding the solution and adapting it. It is easy to see how those gifted in adapting the solutions of others would soon stop doing so? According to the person I spoke with this policy cost the aerospace company millions of dollars in wasted man hours.
Similarly, cooperation among project teams was not encouraged because the larger teams or the team that had the higher profile project would get the brunt of the reward. Some departments by their very nature have less to contribute to a project, but that does not negate the importance of what they contributed. This too went unaddressed.
The climate at the aerospace company was also quite competitive due to the pushing for developing solutions. This led Executives to push for speed of product development rather than rewarding the best solutions. Why because the more products their division produced the more likely it was that the executive would be considered for promotion or at least a horizontal transfer to a more visible and rewarded position.
Hopefully from this you can see how schizophrenia a company can be if the leaders desires one outcome but do not have in place the pieces that support it. When making changes of this magnitude the company must be looked at as an organic whole. Edward Lawler offers a five star model that can be an aid. A lot of the needed changes HR will initiate like structure, hiring and rewards. However, such things as strategies and processes will need to be looked at to see if they support a new culture like creating a team approach.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Great Teams Part II
I neglected to introduce myself. My name is Alex Dail and I spent numerous years informally studying success and three years in graduate school learning what makes individuals and teams successful. Over the past 25 years I have put these principles to use. I helped many people become successful or more successful in their various endeavors. It is what I enjoy doing.
In my last post I told a story of how I enrolled in a course that was supposed to teach us how to work well together. The class failed to learn anything for the first half of the quarter mainly because we were not given any direction. I mentioned how both groups taking the class were used to being told what to do and when to do it. Personal initiative was not encouraged.
Along the same line I recently read a book about survivors. These are not average survivors, but people who ought to have died or failed. They beat the odds one of the main reasons they did is they wanted to – their mission was to survive. Their drive to overcome the odds centered on what I wrote on yesterday. They envisioned what they still wanted to do in life, and they valued something, often family, enough to preserver despite the fact that they were enduring extreme discomfort. It is important not to underestimate the power of providing a vision and touching on values that are important to people when assigning them a project. It can help them preserver even when the task itself is distasteful. A caveat is the vision given to them must be real. If it is a half-truth, out right lie, or a pie in the sky promise it will do two things you just don’t want. It will suck the life out of them. It will destroy trust. Give them a realistic vision that causes them to stretch that is in line with their values and they will attack the project with drive and desire.
On the subject of values I know a person who believes that if she values something it must be a shared value. This is not so; nor is it so that when I share a value it negates another value. Similarly, even though I value something like creativity I may not value it to the same extent she does. This is especially true if it competes with another one of my values like order. She has not learned that values are very subjective.
Speaking of subject and values, I learned a lesson too. How we defines words are subjective, and values are words. I know of a person who does not value money, except that he feels secure when he has a growing sum in the bank. However, he is generous towards others and leans towards frugal on spending. Another person professes also to not value money. However what this person means is that money is no object in obtaining wants. You can see how this effect can be seen in how all kinds of words and agreements we have in people and create misunderstandings.
I am sure you caught on by now what I have been writing about is creating meaning. People need to feel that what they are doing has meaning to them, to the business, and even better to society in the future.
In my last post I told a story of how I enrolled in a course that was supposed to teach us how to work well together. The class failed to learn anything for the first half of the quarter mainly because we were not given any direction. I mentioned how both groups taking the class were used to being told what to do and when to do it. Personal initiative was not encouraged.
Along the same line I recently read a book about survivors. These are not average survivors, but people who ought to have died or failed. They beat the odds one of the main reasons they did is they wanted to – their mission was to survive. Their drive to overcome the odds centered on what I wrote on yesterday. They envisioned what they still wanted to do in life, and they valued something, often family, enough to preserver despite the fact that they were enduring extreme discomfort. It is important not to underestimate the power of providing a vision and touching on values that are important to people when assigning them a project. It can help them preserver even when the task itself is distasteful. A caveat is the vision given to them must be real. If it is a half-truth, out right lie, or a pie in the sky promise it will do two things you just don’t want. It will suck the life out of them. It will destroy trust. Give them a realistic vision that causes them to stretch that is in line with their values and they will attack the project with drive and desire.
On the subject of values I know a person who believes that if she values something it must be a shared value. This is not so; nor is it so that when I share a value it negates another value. Similarly, even though I value something like creativity I may not value it to the same extent she does. This is especially true if it competes with another one of my values like order. She has not learned that values are very subjective.
Speaking of subject and values, I learned a lesson too. How we defines words are subjective, and values are words. I know of a person who does not value money, except that he feels secure when he has a growing sum in the bank. However, he is generous towards others and leans towards frugal on spending. Another person professes also to not value money. However what this person means is that money is no object in obtaining wants. You can see how this effect can be seen in how all kinds of words and agreements we have in people and create misunderstandings.
I am sure you caught on by now what I have been writing about is creating meaning. People need to feel that what they are doing has meaning to them, to the business, and even better to society in the future.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Great Teams
Key to Effective Teams and Leadership
One of the problems I hear often from both teams and leaders is that team meetings seem less productive than other tasks. In fact, there are team meetings where a superior will delegate attending it to a subordinate because the senior executive simply wants to avoid being there. Then the subordinate will report back to the more senior member the pertinent details of the meeting.
Obviously business and organizations do not want to turn people off to attending meetings. Meetings are called because business and organizations want to get things done that will require heads of various groups to meet because input is important of an expert nature and of a political nature. They can very productive ways to get things done related both the official agenda and informal agendas of the attendees. Stated differently the business of the larger group can get done while allowing for networks to be established.
Over the next several posts I will review ways that an organization can increase the chances of people wanting to be a part of a team’s meeting.
When I was in Junior College I signed up for a course in group dynamics. The class started with the instructor coming in and having us introduce ourselves. That was it for the next several weeks. Indeed, sometimes the professor was absent from a portion of the class if not the entire class.
Later we learned that the instructor was observing us. He was waiting to see one or more leaders emerge in the group. Much to his disappointment none did. Something he expressed quite a bit of angry about.
Why did we fail as a class to rise to expectations? The class was made up of students either fresh out of High School, who were the majority, and individuals recently out of the military. None of us either in high school or the military was taught to think for ourselves or to take the initiative. We all were taught to follow directions, orders. Neither the public schools nor the military wants young people to challenge or assume control without it being delegated. Any person who spent time in either institution knows why – anarchy.
What could have he done that would of given better results? First we needed to understand he valued. The value was that we would demonstrate an ability to function independently as a group. Next we needed to know his vision. It was that we be a group of individuals that demonstrated positive and effective group dynamics by following the chapters in the books, discussing their relevance to us, and adopting guidelines for group dynamics from our studies and discussions. Lastly, we needed to understand his mission to get us to independently function as a mature group.
Here is the point of today’s blog. If there is a reluctance to serve on teams within your business is it because an overall vision, value, and mission are missing? Next are they stated so clearly that if you asked the various members of the team what the vision, mission and values were and how their assignment related to them they would be able to give similar answers? Would their answers match the actual mission, vision, and values? If you do find that your mission, vision and values are unclear to subordinates then you may want to look to see if you understand the larger mission, vision and values. It could be that the department, division or corporation as a whole does not have these clearly stated. It may also be that there is a formal statement of the foregoing, but that there is an informal set the corporation operates under.
In review, you can not expect to get much out of a group unless they understand what is wanted, and how it relates to the bigger picture. Good teams regardless of their area of function generally have a good grasp of what the values, mission, and vision are. They are able to clear communicate them to others. Lastly, how they state them is fairly consistent from one person to the next. Getting these in place is one big bite of the elephant called, effective and positive teams.
One of the problems I hear often from both teams and leaders is that team meetings seem less productive than other tasks. In fact, there are team meetings where a superior will delegate attending it to a subordinate because the senior executive simply wants to avoid being there. Then the subordinate will report back to the more senior member the pertinent details of the meeting.
Obviously business and organizations do not want to turn people off to attending meetings. Meetings are called because business and organizations want to get things done that will require heads of various groups to meet because input is important of an expert nature and of a political nature. They can very productive ways to get things done related both the official agenda and informal agendas of the attendees. Stated differently the business of the larger group can get done while allowing for networks to be established.
Over the next several posts I will review ways that an organization can increase the chances of people wanting to be a part of a team’s meeting.
When I was in Junior College I signed up for a course in group dynamics. The class started with the instructor coming in and having us introduce ourselves. That was it for the next several weeks. Indeed, sometimes the professor was absent from a portion of the class if not the entire class.
Later we learned that the instructor was observing us. He was waiting to see one or more leaders emerge in the group. Much to his disappointment none did. Something he expressed quite a bit of angry about.
Why did we fail as a class to rise to expectations? The class was made up of students either fresh out of High School, who were the majority, and individuals recently out of the military. None of us either in high school or the military was taught to think for ourselves or to take the initiative. We all were taught to follow directions, orders. Neither the public schools nor the military wants young people to challenge or assume control without it being delegated. Any person who spent time in either institution knows why – anarchy.
What could have he done that would of given better results? First we needed to understand he valued. The value was that we would demonstrate an ability to function independently as a group. Next we needed to know his vision. It was that we be a group of individuals that demonstrated positive and effective group dynamics by following the chapters in the books, discussing their relevance to us, and adopting guidelines for group dynamics from our studies and discussions. Lastly, we needed to understand his mission to get us to independently function as a mature group.
Here is the point of today’s blog. If there is a reluctance to serve on teams within your business is it because an overall vision, value, and mission are missing? Next are they stated so clearly that if you asked the various members of the team what the vision, mission and values were and how their assignment related to them they would be able to give similar answers? Would their answers match the actual mission, vision, and values? If you do find that your mission, vision and values are unclear to subordinates then you may want to look to see if you understand the larger mission, vision and values. It could be that the department, division or corporation as a whole does not have these clearly stated. It may also be that there is a formal statement of the foregoing, but that there is an informal set the corporation operates under.
In review, you can not expect to get much out of a group unless they understand what is wanted, and how it relates to the bigger picture. Good teams regardless of their area of function generally have a good grasp of what the values, mission, and vision are. They are able to clear communicate them to others. Lastly, how they state them is fairly consistent from one person to the next. Getting these in place is one big bite of the elephant called, effective and positive teams.
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