BUILDING HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS-Part Two

Creating your team is important to ensuring whether or not it is a high performing team.  Teams are often formed by geography or calendars.  Those chosen are based on close proximity of/in the office and who can get together at the same time.  Leaders need to recognize that while high-performing teams share certain characteristics, there are some important distinctions between them.  To ignore these distinctions can lead to poor performance, frustration over difficulty of working together productively, and disillusionment with the team because relationships grow difficult.

Again, go back to your mission.  What do you want the team to accomplish?  Teams should be formed based on the need for coordination and specialization of tasks.  Your mission of the team (your final product envisioned) drives this.  Some teams will need to be made of members with different disciplines and high specialization in different areas.  Some teams need to be made of members who are highly coordinated and cross-trained.

Tweet

Read more

Motivation-Part Two

There are many things that motivate us in our lives.   It is what drives our behaviors.  It is what helps us make the decision to do something that is scary or hard.  It is what helps us modify our natural behaviors, so we can fit in better or work in a group more productively.  Our motivators (or values) are formed through repeated experiences and multiple exposures in our world.  This determines our beliefs about what is valuable or good.

Research we follow indicates there are seven motivators:  aesthetic, economic, individualistic, political (leadership), altruistic, regulatory, and theoretical.  Furthering defining these scales of motivators:  aesthetic—form, harmony, balance; economic—bottom line results, competition; individualistic—control own fate, be unique; political—influence, leadership: altruistic—compassion, unselfishness; regulatory—standards, routine, order; and theoretical—knowledge, reasoning, learning.

Tweet

Read more

Strengthening Our Relationships-Part One

How strong are your relationships?  Do you have someone you can count on….no matter what?   Are you a person that another can count on….no matter what?  Strong relationships share some common elements:  accepting responsibility for oneself, respecting the other person, sharing common interests, and a promise to create cooperative communication.

To accept responsibility for yourself means you recognize you have choices.  When something goes wrong or is misinterpreted, you can accept the part you played and correct the issue.  To respect another person means you accept them for who they are…..not what you’d like them to become.  Sharing common interests may bring people together at first, but if not nurtured, it can become just a laundry list of activities or beliefs.   There is no meat in it.  A promise to create cooperative communication can slip off our tongues easily, but can be hard to maintain.  This requires us to attempt to understand the other’s point of view, before we express our own…..even before we think about our own.  It is a willingness to be open to another person’s ideas, even though starkly different from ours.

Tweet

Read more

Embrace Reality-Part Two

Remember the old movie Reality Bites?  I’m not sure I ever saw it, but I was always intrigued by the title.  Yes, reality does bite at times.  But to admit that means we have embraced it.  We have acknowledged reality for what it is…..not for what we’d like it to be.

We have many options for viewing reality.  We can think of it as an enemy, something from which to escape.  We can view it as a requirement, something we have to endure.  Reality can be a challenge for us, something to defeat.  Or we can look at it as an opportunity to learn, and then embrace it.  To embrace reality means we are living with integrity.  Instead of banging our head against the wall, we step back and ask what we can learn from our situation….our reality.

Tweet

Read more

Team Decision Making-Part One

Excellent team decisions are based on communication, respect, and group dynamic skills.  Teams that are high performing know that collaboration leads to better decisions and the ability to solve problems more effectively. But put people together for the first few times, and difficulties will arise.  There are generally acknowledged stages of team development.  B. W. Tuckman identified these four as being:  forming, storming, norming, and performing.

In the forming stage, people are learning about each other.  Rules of the team may be laid out, and the goal to be achieved is clarified.  In the storming phase, activity abounds.  People are vying for “lead” of the team.  While it may look like chaos from the outside, this phase is very important to the team’s future functioning. The norming phase demonstrates that rules have been plied, then defined and agreed upon.  Assignments have been made according to people’s strengths.  In the final phase, performing, the team moves forward.   The goal of the team is achieved, with members acknowledging that it took a group effort.

Tweet

Read more

Conquer Your Key Moments-Part Two

A key moment is an event or situation which presents a challenge to us and demands a response.  The key moment occurs; we interpret it according to our paradigms; we assign meaning to the moment; we experience feelings about the moment; we behave following the key moment; we move down a positive or negative pathway.  Wow!  That’s a lot of absorb, and the whole thing must take minutes upon minutes to go through….right?   No, the response chain can happen very quickly.

The beginning parts to the response chain (interpretation according to paradigm, assignment of meaning, experience of feelings) can take only a matter of seconds.  The interpretation part can be almost natural, as it is based on our paradigms (core beliefs).  It is a “go to” thought for us, almost automatic.  The interpretation is the “spin” we put on an event.  The spin is driven by our core beliefs.

Tweet

Read more

Time Management-Part One

“I would like to take a class on French cooking, but I don’t have the time.”  “I know I should practice meditation daily, but I don’t have the time.”  “I’d like to spend more time with my kids, partner, pets, parents, garden, reading books……”.  You can fill in the blank with something that is important to you.  Do any of these statements sound like you?

Some of you reading this are at an age that you grew up watching a certain show on television:  The Floppy Show.   Duane Ellett was a talented man who brought his dog puppet to life, for 30 years.  Every show was shot live, with a studio audience filled with squealing children.  A favorite part of the show was when kids were able to come up to Floppy and Duane to tell a joke.  A common and frequently (very frequently!!) repeated joke told was “Why did the man throw the car out the window?”  Floppy would feign ignorance.  The joke teller would gleefully laugh, clap hands together, and shout, “Because he wanted to see time fly”.

Tweet

Read more

Performance Expectations

RESULTS!

One of the ways a leader demonstrates competence is through the achievement of results.  In his book Leading at the Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey says that credibility is composed of four cores:  integrity and intent (part of “character”); capabilities and results (part of “competence”).

Achievement of results is one of the cores of competence, which is part of credibility, which provides the foundation for trust.  Without trust, a leader is just taking a walk.  There are no followers.

So to improve leadership skills and the influence you have on people, check your “results record”.  What are your “numbers”?  What outcomes have you achieved through people?

Notice that I said “achieved through people”.  Good leaders achieve results through people.   Leaders don’t meet that production deadline all by themselves.  Leaders don’t develop a new program which nets hundreds of thousands of dollars all by themselves.

Tweet

Read more

Empowering Others For Success

Leadership is influence.  Leaders have the opportunity to positively influence people every day, through any type of interaction.  Everyone is a leader.  You don’t have to have the title to lead.  People are leaders with their families, co-workers, direct reports, neighbors, co-volunteers, co-members of a place of worship, etc.

Influence means that you are guiding people toward a way of acting that demonstrates integrity and concern for others.  Influence means that you have inspired others how to meet their professional and personal goals.  Influence occurs through the modeling of your behaviors (how you choose to handle key moments) and by empowering others for success.

Tweet

Read more

CONFLICT RESOLUTION- Part Three

When determining which management style to use in order to successfully navigate conflict, we need to be aware of our goal in the situation.  Our perception of the situation leads to our (unconsciously) setting a goal for that situation….an outcome we want to achieve.  Certain situations do call for certain styles of management.  Our choice of style can be overused or underused, depending on our skills and history.

The style of avoidance can be used to reduce tensions, to buy time, and to leave unimportant issues alone.  Overuse of this style can happen if people are uncomfortable with conflict in general, or if they are in a position where they can’t afford to take a risk.  Results are that decisions are made by default, and issues are allowed to fester.  Underuse of this style can occur when people like problem solving, or when they perceive this style as one of avoiding responsibility.  Results are a lack of prioritization/delegation and potential hurt feelings.

The style of accommodation can be used to develop performance, create goodwill, and maintain perspective.  Overuse of this style can happen when people have a strong desire to please others, or when they have difficulty identifying their own needs.  Results are that ideas get overlooked, and the person creates an image of restricted influence.  Underuse of this style can occur when people are just used to getting their way, or they don’t recognize opportunities to use this style.  Results are a lack of rapport and potential low morale.

Tweet

Read more