Every team has what I like to call “vital signs” which the Manager of the team needs to keep an eye on every day. If we use our medical analogy, the nurse checks the vital signs of the patient in order to ascertain if there are any problems that might need attention. If the patient’s blood pressure, temperature or pulse rate are either too high or too low, these are indications that the doctor may need to obtain more information (perhaps in the form of tests) in order to diagnose and treat the problem.

So too does a team have vital signs. These are indicators that the team is doing what it should be doing in order to ensure that it delivers the results by which its performance is measured. The principle is as follows:
If the team does enough of the right things at the right time and in the right way, then it will achieve the results it seeks.

In the book “Great by Choice” (Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen) – which I highly recommend – the authors talk about the 20 Mile March. We live in an economic environment that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA), and one of the 3 habits that sets the outstanding performers apart from the businesses who fail or only just survive is that of “Obsessive Discipline”. This means that there is absolute clarity on what must be done in good times and in bad times. Achieving the daily 20 Mile March requires “hitting specific performance markers with great consistency over a long period of time.” These performance markers drive the results that the team is looking for.

Let me give you a really simple example from the world of truck sales to illustrate the point:
You have to see enough customers every day, in order to write enough quotations
every week, in order to sign up enough offers to purchase every month, in order to
deliver enough vehicles in order to achieve your monthly target.
So the vital signs in truck sales are:

• Customer contacts
• Quotations
• Offers to Purchase
• Deliveries

This means that on at least a weekly basis, a Sales Manager needs to actively monitor what is happening with each Sales Executive in order to know where and how to support them. If your Sales Executives are reaching or exceeding their targets, then they will need little from their Manager other than being available on request and checking in with them in a periodic one-on-one. However, if a Sales Executive is struggling, then looking at their vital signs will give you an indication of what support they need:

• Are they seeing enough prospects? If not, what will assist them to see more prospective buyers?
• Are they seeing enough prospects but not writing enough quotations? If so, how are they conducting their contact conversations and what can they do differently to increase the number of quotations they are asked for?
• Are they seeing enough prospects and submitting enough quotations, but still not getting enough signed Offers to Purchase? In which case, how can they improve their closing skills?
• And finally, are they getting enough signed Offers to Purchase, but still losing some of these sales? What might be happening that is getting in the way of Offers to Purchase resulting in Deliveries?

Tracking these vital signs closely and often with Sales Executives who are not achieving their targets puts their Sales Manager in a position to do some remedial coaching early on, resulting in greater success – which ultimately impacts on the overall success of the team.

I’ve used a commercial vehicle sales example because it provides really tangible drivers of performance – anyone can identify with these even if they are not in the same field.
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So think about your own area of the business:

1. What are the KPIs in your part of the business? These are the Output Goals.
2. For each KPI, identify the behaviours, actions or targets that comprise the Input Goals – that is, the achievement of the Input Goals is what will deliver the Output goals.
3. How can you track and monitor the Input Goals? Come up with some tentative ideas for a dashboard that focuses on the Input Goals.
4. For each of the Input Goals, identify what could be going wrong in the event that those goals are not tracking.

In the next article, I’ll write about how you could get the team on board so that they are excited about a Scoreboard – rather than resistant. You don’t want them to treat any of this as admin! So process is everything.

Leadership is exercised one conversation at a time. The video speaks more about my views on that. In this article, I share a specific conversation that all leaders should have.
Teams and their leader need to have explicit agreements about how they will work together. The term, Rules of Engagement, was originally a military term outlining the circumstances under which opposing forces might engage with each other. It has been extended to include intimate relationships, and their purpose is to create safety so that difficult topics and conflict can be addressed without fear because both partners agree to adhere to certain rules.
Rules of engagement (ROE) also create psychological safety in a team. The ROE outline how team members will deal with each other and with specific topics, and the purpose is to create clarity. Psychological safety is always prejudiced when team members don't know how things should be handled. It is further prejudiced when they (or the team leader) don't like the way things currently tend to be handled.
When you take on a new leadership role, this is a time for you and the team to discuss and reach agreement on how you will work together. If you were previously a member of the team and now you are the manager of that team, it is also an opportunity to talk frankly about the change to the relationship – “Yesterday I was one of you. Today I am your manager. Let’s talk about what that means.”
Rules of engagement would touch on such topics as:

• communication: what to communicate, how to communicate, meetings, sharing of information, etc.;
• decision-making: how decisions should be made, who should be involved, who has the final say, etc.;
• conflict: what does this team regard as conflict; how to we expect it to be handled; how robustly do we expect to debate issues; how do we intend to resolve conflict; what will we do if we get stuck; what do we share with the team.

This is not an exhaustive list. Furthermore, no matter how comprehensively you think you have covered the discussion, something you didn't think of will come up at a later time. This implies that Rules of Engagement is never a "once and done" discussion. Periodically, you will need to pick up the discussion again in order to find agreement on something new that hadn't been anticipated. Relationships are dynamic, so these topics need to be revisited as circumstances change.
Here is a starter agenda for such a discussion:

1. Meetings: How often shall we meet? What will we discuss? How will meetings be led and by whom? What preparation is required? What participation is expected? Whose responsibility is it to make sure our meetings stay on track?
2. What do we believe and expect regarding action items, deliverables and deadlines?
3. How will we make decisions? Do we favour consensus, majority rule or “managerial edict”?
4. How will we resolve conflict? At what stage do you want to be involved? What do you want to know about conflict that has been resolved without your input (if anything)?
5. What are the team’s views and expectations around timekeeping, working from home, taking personal time, leave, after hours contact, etc.?

Experiment with this. You will find it incredibly liberating for both you and the team to have some explicit boundaries that help you navigate some of the more tricky discussions.

The next article will deal with a different type of ROE conversation - that between a manager and a team member to agree on how they individually will work together.

We have all heard it said that “assumptions are the mother of all stuff ups” (or some variation of the same). Yet we all make assumptions every day. Making assumptions is necessary – it short-cuts many thought processes and human interactions that would otherwise be unnecessarily time-consuming. The types of assumptions we make are based on some core beliefs:

• Whether we believe the world is basically a safe place OR that the world is full of danger;
• Whether we believe that people are basically good and well-intentioned OR basically bad and self-serving;
• Whether we believe that we are deserving OR that we are not deserving.

Assumptions tend to be most problematic when they drive our most unhelpful behaviours. When we find ourselves triggered or upset by the behaviour of others, it is often as a result of the assumptions we have made – and often our assumptions are related to their intentions.

What happens is that we tell ourselves stories about what another person’s behaviour might mean -and sometimes these stories can be quite elaborate!

Let’s understand what an assumption is:
it is accepting as the truth a belief for which you have no proof.

Can you see how your choice of assumption is determined by the core beliefs I’ve listed above? If you believe that people are basically good and that the universe is basically supportive, your assumptions about other people and their intentions will tend to be either innocuous or generous. If you believe that people are basically bad, or that the universe is out to get you, your assumptions will be negative.

How can you tell when your reactions are being driven by your negative assumptions? The most common indicator for me is when a client uses the word “obviously” and then tells me something that they believe about another person’s intentions. That is a cue for me to ask “What is obvious about your interpretation”? You will know that your reactions are being driven by negative assumptions when you ruminate about a situation and the players in that situation.

Let me use an example:
You were recently appointed as head of your division. You presented your divisional budget in the executive meeting last week. In that meeting was a colleague who also applied for your position – unsuccessfully. She asked you some challenging questions about your budget that you were not prepared for, and you felt embarrassed. You have spent the last week ruminating about the fact that she intended to embarrass you; that she only asked these questions because her nose is out of joint for not being appointed. You need to present your budget again because her questions necessitated some rework. You are anxious that she will find some other way to make you look bad when you do so this afternoon.
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What aspects of the scenario I have described are facts, and which are assumptions for which you have no proof?

Once you have separated facts from assumptions, it is useful to remind yourself that, no matter how strongly you hold your assumptions, they are just beliefs for which you have no proof. They might be true but, then again, they might not. You have a few options for dealing with your negative assumptions:

1. You can do NOTHING and carry on getting yourself bent out of shape;
2. You can test your assumptions with the person about whom you are making assumptions. You could say to them “When you questioned my budget in the way that you did, I felt embarrassed. The story I told myself is that you were trying to make me look bad because I got the job that you wanted. Is that what was happening?” And then you will need to listen and have a constructive conversation.
3. You can remind yourself that you are probably telling yourself a story, and then you can attribute more generous assumptions to your colleague: she has the interests of the business at heart; she was sincere in asking those questions and she was right because I hadn’t thought about those things; she has always been a good colleague and I don’t see any reason why that would change.

Option 1 is a bit of a loser’s game – it is a choice to be the victim of your story. Option 2 is great, but might turn out to be a completely unnecessary conversation – which you may find out if you just exercise Option 3. While there is no proof of the more positive and generous assumptions I’ve offered in 3 above, they simply lead to more productive engagements with your colleague than the original negative assumptions. Just assuming the best of people leads to positive outcomes (even if they themselves were not being as generous in their behaviour as you have assumed).

The way to test your assumptions is to ask yourself the following:

1. Is it logical based on what you know about yourself, the other person or the situation?
2. Is it a fact? Do you have evidence for it?
3. Is it based on a positive philosophical choice? Positive philosophical choices are that the universe is supportive, people are basically good, and you are deserving of all good.

If your assumption is not logical (makes no sense), change it to an assumption that does make sense. If you have no evidence for your assumption, replace it with a positive assumption. If your assumption is based on a negative philosophical choice, replace it with something that is based on a positive philosophical choice.

The key to any change starts with self-awareness. Pay attention to yourself when you get upset or triggered. Are you telling yourself a story based on negative assumptions? If so, the attached downloadable document will take you through a process that will enable you to test your negative assumptions and replace them with more constructive and positive assumptions that not only make you feel happier, but also foster productive engagements with your colleagues, family and friends.
 
The pdf below will take you through a guided process of testing your unhelpful assumptions. Give it a try!
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Reference:
Kline, Nancy. Time to Think. Octopus Books. United Kingdom. 1999

Effective working relationships have a great deal to do with mutual understanding - life is so much easier when we understand what makes our boss or our colleagues tick. If you are in a leadership role, it is easy to underestimate the amount of headspace you occupy on the part of your team members. They seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to approach you interpreting what your behaviour might mean - and all of these machinations are based on assumptions.

Some years ago I came across the notion of compiling a personal user manual as a way of making everyone's life  whole lot easier. It is a great self-reflection exercise too, as you think about how to complete each aspect of the manual. Here is what might go into your User Manual:

1. My Style: here you can talk about the kind of person you are; your personality style; your leadership style; how formal or informal you like things.
2. What I Value: you can talk about your values; what you appreciate in others; your views on the work/life balance question.
3. What I Don't Have Patience For: these might be things that irritate or annoy you; it could be about behaviour you regard as childish; taboos that apply in your life.
4. How to Communicate with Me: What do you like people to lead with; do you want detail or just the headlines; do you want a heads-up before a discussion; do you like conversation or do you prefer to read something; do you want background or should people get to the point. It may also include your approach to decision-making: what do you expect from your team members; when do you want to be involved; how you make decisions yourself. If you are aware of not being a great listener, you can also tell team members how to bring to your attention that you need to LISTEN.
5. How You Can Help Me: this might include what team members can do to make your life easier; your own weaknesses and how team members can complement you on these; what team members can do to make their own lives easier in terms of working with you.
6. What People Misunderstand About Me: these are the quirks and foibles that people think mean one thing but actually mean another.

You can mess around with these headings and come up with something that is more you - they offer you a starting point.

It can be a really fun exercise to encourage your team members to prepare their own User Manuals, and then for the team to have a series of conversations that makes each of you a whole lot more knowable. You could use a process like this:

1. Tell your team that you want to have a session where you can each get to know and understand one another better, and agree on a date and time. This will take a couple of hours, so maybe arrange an afternoon where you can all be relaxed and take your time.
2. Share the template (see below) with them and discuss what might go under each heading. Modify the headings if it seems appropriate to do so.
3. As the team leader, you go first. You could present your user manual as a document or as a video, or you could simply speak to each heading and then share your document afterwards.
4. Invite team members to ask any questions that may not have been addressed in your user manual. Answer them and then perhaps add some FAQs to your user manual, which you can then share.
5. Give each team member the opportunity to present their own user manuals, and answer any questions including questions from you.
6. End with each person having the opportunity to offer their personal reflection on any important insights they have gained and the benefits of the conversation. (I'm a big fan of end-of-meeting reflections.)

I facilitated such a discussion with a team that really wasn't clicking - and the misconceptions and inaccurate assumptions that were set straight was unbelievable. It is a great way to start off your time with a new team. It is also a great way to integrate new team members. It is also a useful tool to use when you are some way along your journey with your team and, perhaps you have a sense that you do not understand each other as well as you need to.
Have fun with it. Laugh at yourself and invite others to do so too. Notice when your colleagues deal with you in the way you have outlined. Be aware of doing the same for them. A couple of weeks later, have another reflection with your team - what is working, what has improved, what still needs to change?
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​Here is a template that you are welcome to use.

I have huge compassion for really good managers who take over the leadership of a team from a “manager from hell”. You know the person I mean – he is aggressive and rude; he gets off on humiliating people; he uses threats to get what he wants; he uses gaslighting to manipulate people; and he has left behind him a team that is anxious and has gotten into the habit of making fear-based decisions. So now this chapter is behind them – thank goodness! And a new manager, with great people skills, has been brought in to rebuild the team and turn things around.

It is enormously frustrating when you are a leader who has a genuine open door policy, who genuinely wants people to make decisions, and who genuinely wants people to take the initiative, to receive feedback that his or her people are not doing these things because they still fear the consequences.

Fear is an insidious thing. It is easy to instil and difficult to dispel. It is just not enough for a leader to be an all-round good person. It is just not enough for a leader to know that he or she did not create the fear. The challenge to the new leader is to deliberately create an environment in which fear becomes a thing of the past, everyone has gotten over it and people are taking decisions and risks that are appropriate to their level of responsibility and authority.

I had a client who was battling with the residue of fear that was created more than four years ago – and people were still behaving as though the cause of the fear were present! It was as though fear had been woven into the very fabric of the business. The challenge to the current leadership was to create something different, and this cannot be done through good intentions alone.

So what would it take?
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1. The entire team needs to be on board. Let’s assume that you lead the management team of a business – they all need to be committed to creating a high-performance, empowering, fear-free environment. The best way to do this is to workshop the following:
a. What is the current truth about the climate in this team/business? Get into detail. Drag all the dirty laundry out into the open. Name the elephants in the living room. Also identify what is good about the current truth because you don’t want to lose that.
b. How do we want things to be? Describe the climate, the relationships, how people will work, how people will make decisions, how people will innovate and initiate change.
c. What is creating the gap between the current truth and how we want things to be?
d. What do we (as leaders) need to change or do differently in order to realise our desired situation?
e. How (and how often) will we review our progress? 

If you are the manager of a team of non-managers, the same process applies – the team is reaching agreement on how we will do things around here, and you are receiving input on how your team would like to be managed in order to bring out their best.

2. Ensure that your plan of action (d above) addresses the following:

1. How will we clarify the parameters within which people at each level should be making decisions? What decisions should be made at what levels?
2. How will we develop the decision-making skills of team members? Will we provide training? Coaching? Some combination of the two?
3. How will we handle it if a team member takes the initiative or takes a decision and it is a mistake? How will we resolve the mistake? How will we support the team member? How will we make it safe for the team member to make decisions/take the initiative in future even though a mistake has been made on this occasion?
4. How will we create the habit of having learning conversations in which we review our performance? The After Action Review (AAR) is a useful format:
   1. What did we set out to do/achieve?
   2. What actually happened?
   3. What worked well?
   4. What didn’t work well?
   5. What have we learned?
   6. What will we do/change going forward/in future?
      
      ​It is helpful if you make one of your own gaffs the subject of the first AAR as it demonstrates to the team that you are fallible and that you are not afraid to hold your own actions up to scrutiny. This will show the team that if you are not afraid there is no reason for them to be afraid.
5. When team members bring a decision to a manager, how will that manager coach the team member so that, ultimately, the team member makes the decision and learns in the process?
6. How will we give recognition to people when they take the initiative or decisions that they were previously reluctant to take? Will we acknowledge this publicly? Will we send an email acknowledging it? Will we make a point of going to their desk to acknowledge them?
7. How will we handle it when a manager is taking decisions that should be taken at the level below him/her? Will we remind him to push the decision back down? Will we hold her accountable for empowering her team members?
8. Take every opportunity to demonstrate that you are as good as your word:
   1. Ensure that your responses are controlled and supportive when people mess up – and they will.
   2. Don’t be afraid to hold your own mistakes up to scrutiny – it makes it safer for everyone else to do so.
   3. Defend your team from outside criticism.
   4. Share praise with your team and celebrate success.
9. Make your workplace a fun place to be. Make laughter a feature of your environment. People think better when they laugh. They enjoy themselves when they laugh. People work harder when they are having fun and are more inclined to put in extra effort. People who are having fun are not paralysed by fear – they are energised.

​There has been some interest in the notion that fear is a notorious performance inhibitor, and I have had some interesting questions about how one can bring about improvements to the performance of underperforming managers without invoking fear.
Let’s look at some background. If you are noticing that a manager is underperforming, chances are this is because you have noticed that she is not delivering on a performance expectation that is perfectly clear in your mind – in other words, what she is delivering falls short of your expectations.
It has been my experience that managers have the greatest difficulty handling such issues with the managers who report to them. I think there may be some ego issues – it is difficult to acknowledge that you may have put the wrong person into the job. They may have difficulty defining what it is a manager should be doing in order to deliver on expectations. I think they may also have difficulty having these difficult conversations. They are stressful and they make you anxious. But consider this: will yelling and losing your temper change anything? No – in fact, it will probably make things worse. Will leaving well enough alone and hoping for the best work? No – and you will have the further impact of disillusioning the rest of the team with your failure to take action.
The ability to correct underperformance without using threat or fear depends on the following:

1. The performance expectation must be clear in your own mind. You need to be able to describe it in clear, specific, measurable or observable terms.
2. The performance expectation must be as clear in your team member’s mind as it is in yours. You must have articulated your expectations in a series of discussions with your team member, and your team member must be able to describe the following accurately:
   1. What must be done / what must be delivered?
   2. How it must be done?
   3. When, how often and by when it must be done?
   4. What must be done when it goes wrong?
   5. How is performance measured?
   6. What is the impact of falling short of expectations, and what will be expected if this happens?

If you have not heard these expectations from your team member’s own lips you do not know if she has the same picture of the expectations in her mind as you do in yours.

1. The performance expectation must be monitored regularly and the team member must be given regular feedback on her performance in comparison with the expectation.
   1. She needs to know where she is meeting expectations and where she is falling short.
   2. She needs to have the opportunity to think through and discuss the possible reasons why she is falling short.
   3. She needs to have the opportunity to think through and discuss what she needs/needs to do in order to bring performance back up to expectations.
   4. She needs to know what may happen if she continues to fall short of expectations.
   5. She needs to be encouraged to keep trying and be reminded that she has your support.
2. You need to be sure that you have done all that can reasonably be expected in order to enable her to reach the required levels of performance:
   1. Have you ensured that she has the necessary skill? Have you provided training/coaching in the event that there is a skills problem?
   2. Have you made sure that performance to the standard is recognised and acknowledged (or is it ignored or even punished in some way)?
   3. Have you ensured that there are no obstacles to performance – everything that is required to do the job is in place and works (equipment and technology works and is suitable for the job, the information required is available timeously, the necessary people and other resources are available to do the work, etc.)?
   4. Have you given regular feedback on progress – including noticing when progress is made and saying something when there is insufficient progress?

If you have done all of the above and are still not happy with the performance of your team member it is appropriate to have a conversation that clarifies that meeting the performance expectation is not negotiable.
There are some steps to follow:

1. Get your mind right – do not have this conversation if you are angry and uptight. Do your preparation.
2. Articulate the performance that is expected and describe how it continues to fall short.
3. Remind the team member of the things you have done in order to give her the best chance to succeed.
4. Ask if she thinks there is anything else you should be doing in order to enable her to succeed. Discuss this and agree if this is reasonable or not. If it is a reasonable request, agree to the action. If it is not a reasonable request, say so and give a reason.
5. Clearly state that meeting the required standard of performance is non-negotiable, and the deadline by which such performance must have been achieved. Also describe what you will have to do in the event that the team member continues to fall short of expectations. This may include taking disciplinary action. Indicate your reluctance to go this route and that you hope it will not be necessary.
6. Make yourself available in the event that the team member requires any further support from you.

In your dealings with the team member, make sure that you remain calm and that you never threaten. Advising someone of the consequences of continued underperformance is not a threat – and there should be no threat in your tone. It is a statement of fact – that no manager can be expected to tolerate prolonged underperformance from any team member. Be sure that you are prepared to follow through.
In all of this, it is so important to remember that we are dealing with people, and compassion is key. We are living in tough times, and people are struggling with all sorts of things that we know nothing about. Discussions relating to the possibility that someone may lose their job are not to be taken lightly. While it is never a good idea to allow underperformance to run too long, it is important that you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you have done everything you can, and more, to help this person perform as required.
A word to the wise – it is preferable to have the first of these conversations as early as possible. The longer underperformance is allowed to persist, the greater the difficulty in correcting it – after all, your silence and inaction implies that the performance is okay.

In recent months, one of my clients invited their employees to complete an online and confidential survey that captured how they think and feel about working for the company. First off, conducting such a survey is brave for any organisation. After all, they are setting themselves up to be told things they might not want to hear. It is also a very scary prospect for managers in the organisation because whatever employees say is going to reflect on them. Furthermore, it is scary for the respondents. What if it turns out that their responses are not so confidential after all? What if their managers don’t like what they say? Any anyway, is there any point? Will what they say have any impact whatsoever?
It has been my experience that the first time an organisation conducts such a survey it has been catalysed by a sense (at senior levels in the business) that the organisational climate or leadership culture is not what they want it to be. Embarking on such a survey then has the objective of setting the baseline – the starting point that will form the basis of whatever work will be done to get the climate or culture aligned with their vision for the organisation. From my perspective, this is exciting – but then I am not inside the organisation, and the survey makes no comments about my own leadership style!
For many, in fact MOST, managers in such an organisation, the delivery of the results of such a survey is very stressful and threatening – especially if the results are critical of the climate or leadership culture. It is particularly stressful and threatening if there is a strong theme of fear and blame within the organisation. Do you remember the THREAT – ANXIETY – DEFENSE response I have described in previous articles? The results of the survey create a THREAT of appearing incompetent (as a leader); this provokes immense ANXIETY and the resulting response is likely to be DEFENSIVE.
This DEFENSIVE behaviour could take the form of:

• Dismissing the feedback and criticising the instrument as being poorly worded or misleading;
• Dismissing the feedback and criticising the respondents or blaming the timing;
• Trying to figure out who said what and going after them.

All of these responses are going to destroy whatever fragile trust there was that made so many employees respond to the survey in the first place. Their reaction is likely to be something like: “Well you asked for the feedback. You said you really wanted it. You said it would be safe to be honest. Now look what you do. I will never fall for this again.” And they all go back beneath the parapet and seethe with resentment – the exact opposite of what the survey was intended to achieve.
I’d like to offer another perspective. What if we accept that there is nothing to be gained by debating the merits of the feedback? There is nothing to be gained by hunting down whoever said what. Whatever flaws the instrument may have, the feedback is the feedback. It is telling us how people think and feel about working here. We wanted to know, and now we know. We may not like it – but at least we know.
The next questions are:

• How do we want people to think and feel about working here?
• What do we leaders need to change or do differently to make sure that happens?
• What is our action plan?
• When will we run the instrument again to see how we are doing?

Imagine how your teams would respond if they saw you responding in this way. I would anticipate the following:

• Huge relief that there is not going to be a backlash;
• Increased trust;
• Admiration and respect for the leader who is able to take it on the chin non-defensively;
• A willingness to work together to create a climate that is in alignment with the vision;
• Greater transparency and openness;
• A real improvement in organisational climate and leadership culture.

If you do not believe your organisation will do something constructive with the results of an employee survey, it may be better not to do it at all. Handling the results badly will obviously do damage, but don't underestimate the damage that ensues when NOTHING useful is done with the information. Doing nothing is the best way to get employees to disengage - it indicates that management just doesn't care. It is a real gesture of contempt towards employees.
John Gottman, the world-renowned expert on relationships, calls contempt one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (along with defensiveness, flooding and stonewalling) - it absolutely ALWAYS results in relationship breakdowns - whether it is in personal relationships or working relationships.
Employee surveys should really be seen as integral to the organisation's approach to organisational and leadership development, with the intention being to grow and develop the organisation and its people towards ever greater alignment with the vision and values. In this sense it can be a really growthful experience for everyone.
So what is to be done if you are about to embark on an employee survey, and you are concerned about ensuring that managers ALL handle the feedback well and respond to it appropriately? I have found coaching to be a profoundly valuable resource to managers in the following senses:
1. It helps managers to process and make sense of feedback that they might be disappointed, upset or confused about;
2. It is a forum in which they can think through and decide how to discuss the results of the feedback with their teams;
3. It is a developmental environment in which they can attend to their own growth areas so that they can become the leaders they need to become - if the feedback was not what they would have wished;
4. It is a place where they can decide how to regularly check in with their teams on how they are progressing.

So if this resonates with you and you'd like to consider how to rollout your next employee survey, drop me a mail on belinda@leadershipsolutions.co.za and let's talk about it.

Does this sound like you? There is a leadership paradox which says that leaders need to manage the tension between trusting their team members and keeping an eye on things. Many leaders step way over the line on this one. Instead of collaborating with their team members and checking in with them regularly, they spend much of their time checking up on their people, and the balance of the time holding themselves aloof from the team. There is a distinct difference between checking in and checking on.
Managers who check on their team members make four kinds of mistakes:

• The first is that they fail to allow team members autonomy in carrying out their work. Micromanagers dictate chapter and verse of what must be done and how it must be done.
  The more empowering version of checking in would involve giving the team a clear strategic goal, and respecting their ideas on how to meet that goal.
• The second mistake that micromanagers make is to frequently ask team members about how the work is progressing, but fail to provide any real help when problems arise.
• Their third mistake is to look for someone to blame when mistakes happen or things go wrong.
  They would be far more empowering if they guided team members through an open exploration of causes and possible solutions. The consequence of this is that team members end up trying to look good (or at least not look bad) rather than honestly discussing problems and how to overcome them. They live in a permanent Threat (of appearing incompetent) → Anxiety → Defensiveness pattern, and team members’ perceptions of their manager settle into a permanent low place.
• The fourth mistake of micromanagers is that they rarely share information about their own work with their team members. This often includes withholding information that would help them in their work – and this feels remarkably like an over-controlling parent, which causes team members to feel infantilized, and their motivation and effectiveness plummets.

When you micromanage your people, it poisons their perceptions of you and the organisation, causes them to feel resentful and frustrated, and saps them of their energy and motivation. Furthermore, it stifles creativity and productivity – the consequence is a team whose output is lacklustre and whose ideas are nothing better than ordinary. This naturally causes managers to panic, with the consequence that they breathe down their team members’ necks even more obtrusively and criticise them even more harshly. The result of this is that team members hide problems from their managers, causing problems to become crises.
 
So what is the solution? The following guidelines will help:

1. Give the team/team member clear strategic goals that clearly describe the outputs required, any specific standards that the output must meet and any deadlines that must be met.
2. Check in regularly to establish how the team (or team member) is progressing and to ask what support they need in order to continue to make progress. Then provide that support.
3. Use your systems and management processes to monitor output. When it appears that there are problems with output, check in with the team/team member with a view to understanding what is getting in the way. Establish where your support is needed (information; clearing systemic blockages; skill; tangible assistance) and provide it.
4. When problems arise, explore what may have caused them (not who) and possible solutions. Use a problem solving process such as GROW in a disciplined way (see http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GROW_model ).
5. Share information generously – all information that will help with the work, as well as information about your own work. The less people know about their work, their manager’s work and the company, the lower their perceptions of their manager and their company.

 
Given that we are now working in a world where teams will increasingly be working remotely from each other and from their manager, this is the perfect time for micromanagers to learn to let go of the need to constantly know what is going on (which is all about you and your insecurities) and focus on two really important things:

1. Care for your people - they are all having a VERY stressful time (this article being written during the time of Covid-19) in both their personal AND their professional lives. They need to know you are in their corner and that you genuinely care.
2. Satisfactory output and NOT perfect input - are they getting the work out well enough? This is not a time for constantly insisting on excellence - as honourable as that may be. This is a time for people to ask themselves "when is good enough good enough?"

If this article speaks to you and you’d like to make some personal changes in order to better lead your team and your business, look at this great offer: http://www.leadershipsolutions.co.za/coaching-offer.html​

Of course, many new managers make the mistake of micro-managing their new teams in their zeal to demonstrate that they have it all under control. If you have a newly appointed manager in your team, check out this great online self-study programme that will help them to set things up right with their new teams: https://bit.ly/2NE1AqH 

This article is based on the ideas of Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer as contained in their book “The Progress Principle”, published in 2011, Harvard Business Review Press).

I've called this a myth because if you think you can get away with this you are in for a nasty surprise. If this is you, I am pretty sure you are experiencing immense frustration with some or all of the following:

1. The performance of the team (or individuals in the team) is inconsistent and not where you would like it to be.
2. People are not making decisions and not solving problems effectively;
3. People are pulling in opposite directions, not supporting one another or even getting in each other’s way;
4. There is gossip, dissatisfaction and grumbling;
5. People are disengaged and appear uncommitted.

 
We simply cannot get work done effectively through our teams if we never meet with them. I wonder if we never meet with them because our meetings have seemed so pointless in the past. Meetings must be purposeful and effective if they are to have the desired effect. The purpose of regular meetings includes the following:

1. To set direction and ensure the team is clear on what it is trying to achieve – in other words to discuss and reach agreement on where we are going and how we are going to get there.
2. To review progress – to reflect on what we are trying to achieve and what we are actually achieving;
3. To learn – what are we doing well; what are we not doing so well; what can we learn from this;
4. To correct course – what do we need to do differently or pay attention to going forward;
5. To collaborate in finding solutions to problems affecting the team and making decisions that require the engagement and commitment of the team.

 
So how can you make sure your meetings are effective? Here are some ideas:

1. Have a clear agenda with items phrased as questions to be answered or decisions to be made (e.g. How is our actual performance tracking against our targets?) Invite input from the team for the agenda. Assign a specific amount of time to each agenda item. Circulate the agenda with any documents team members must read in preparation for the meeting.
2. Have a clear starting and finishing time. Start on time. End on time. Manage the amount of time spent on each agenda item. If you don’t finish your agenda by the end of the allotted time, schedule another meeting. Do not run over time. It is inconsideration. Team members have other commitments and plans for their time.
3. Get the team to agree on some meeting ground rules, such as:
   • Stay on track. If we go off track we all share the responsibility to bring things back on track – even if the boss is the one who has taken it off track.
   • Everybody must speak once before anyone may speak twice. (It is a good idea to go around the table from person to person giving each person an opportunity and a responsibility to give input on the agenda item. This ensures that everyone contributes and makes sure your meetings don’t turn into a talking competition. This will make the discussions shorter as well.)
   • Don’t indulge stories – once we get the picture move on.
   • Keep your contributions relevant to the agenda item.
   • Agree on what you will do with topics that need discussion even though they are not on the agenda. Will you set another meeting or have time for “Other business”?
4. Make sure the agenda item is dealt with – the question must be answered or the decision made. Ask the questions:
   1. Who will do what?
   2. How?
   3. By when?
   4. What could get in the way?
   5. What will you do about that?
   6. How and when will we get feedback on progress/completion?
5. Make it possible and necessary for everyone to participate. If they have no contribution to make, why are they there?
6. Make sure the team finds the meeting effective. End meetings by asking the team:
   1. What did we do well in this meeting?
   2. What did we not do well in this meeting?
   3. What must we do differently next time?

If this is a challenge you experience and would like to consider working with me as your coach, email me: belinda@leadershipsolutions.co.za. We will set up a time to talk about your challenges. If the chemistry works, we can get started within a week!

Do skilled people really underperform because they lack commitment? I don't believe this is true at all. All human beings have some innate drives:

1. We all want our lives and our work to matter and mean something;
2. We all want to belong to a family, tribe or team;
3. We all want the respect that comes from being effective and competent;
4. We all want the self-respect that comes from performing well and the mastery of a skill or discipline.

This is not some esoteric fantasy about people. These are facts based on research that has been replicated over and over again (see Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”). Furthermore it simply defies logic to assume that entire population groups don’t care about their work (they’re just here for the pay-cheque); have no interest in what is good for the team; and don’t care if they are competent or not. What arrogance to assume that we are special in this regard and that we are surrounded by low-lifes who just don’t care!
Skilled people underperform because they have become disengaged. Why do they disengage?
Primarily people become disengaged when:

1. They are not working at something that interests them, are good at and which makes a difference in the organisation, and they are not having the experience of achieving mastery in their field.
2. They feel irrelevant and unimportant – their work doesn’t matter to their manager, the team or the organisation;
3. They receive no or minimal recognition when they do well or improve;
4. They experience constant obstacles and getting the work done is an endless uphill battle;
5. There is no sense of team – the team doesn’t meet, talk, pull together, problem solve together. In fact, people probably work against each other in the competition for their own survival;

Most disengaged people did not start out that way. How many new employees have you come across who made no effort in the beginning? They become disengaged over time. So what does a manager need to do to get people engaged again?

1. Make sure they are doing work that interests them, in which they can gain some mastery and which matters to the business.
2. Give them regular feedback about what they are doing well, how they are improving and the positive impact that is having on the business.
3. Take responsibility for removing obstacles that are above their pay grade. There are some things that only you can do - and you must do them.
4. Pull the team together. Make sure the team meets regularly to talk about: 

• What are we trying to achieve?
• What have we actually achieved?
• What are we doing well?
• What are we not doing so well?
• What have we learned?
• What do we still need to do / do differently?

    5. Give team members challenging work that requires them to learn constantly in order to achieve mastery. Provide
        learning opportunities. Know their strengths and make sure that a meaningful proportion of their work plays to
        their strengths.
This keeps the team focused on its deliverables, keeps individuals focused on their own contribution, and ensures that the team is constantly learning.
After 5 years of research The Gallup Organisation were able to offer twelve key questions that you should ask your team members to ascertain how engaged or disengaged they are and why:

1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
10. Do you have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

What is fantastic about these questions is that the solutions are in the questions. These are all factors that enhance the likelihood of people being engaged.
When you’ve gathered the information, summarise the conclusions and decide what changes you need to make or catalyze in order to address the issues that you have uncovered.

If these circumstances resonate with you and you would like to influence change in your team by developing as a leader, go here to find out more about how I work and what you will achieve from working with me.