I’m going to be writing and speaking about inspiring others over the next little while. I have an abiding interest in what causes people to be inspired by and follow leaders. I am most impressed when that is based on a solid value system, of course. We are surrounded by “leaders” who seem to grab the attention of large numbers of people and influence them in all sorts of destructive ways – especially politicians. While their tactics might interesting and worth studying, I find them distasteful because they are manipulative and appeal to baser human characteristics.
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Every month-end in nearly every department in every organisation I have worked in and across industries you will witness what I call "Month-end Madness".
My observation is that this is usually at least in part because we have allowed bad habits to prevail and now tell ourselves that this is just how it is in our industry. I don't think you should just accept this as normal. I know that some clients only want to be invoiced at month end, but this is not an overwhelming majority by any means. During this last week of the month, I invite you to go through it mindfully.
Once your month-end madness is done, meet with your team and plan for next month:
My bet is that you can definitely have greater month-end sanity - which is positive for everyone. It reduces stress and contributes to the resilience of the team. After all, the more organised and disciplined your team, the greater its resilience! I've been banging on about issues that are often handled via email but which should be handled in a conversation. Here is another example: Dear So-and-So You have arrived late for work 3 times in the last 2 weeks. May I remind you etc. You know where this is going. Whether it is timekeeping, a pattern of defensiveness that is not helpful, withholding crucial information from colleagues or any other unhelpful behaviour, you should address this in a structured conversation. Here is one of my preferred structures, which I often share with clients:
Try this. Let me know how it works.  It is my very firm belief that we lead one conversation at a time – because leadership is relational. Everything we do in the working environment is with or through people – so via our relationships - and relationships are built one conversation at a time There are dozens of occasions every day that are an opportunity to exercise leadership – and they are often squandered by sending an email! So often I find myself astounded at the mindless way in which many people work. They talk about the frustrations that they have with their team members’ lack of progress or disappointing execution despite the fact that they have emailed them numerous times! I am always concerned when I hear about complex work being delegated by email, so my standard question is “Where are these team members located?” Of course, I’m a bit of a smartass, so I know the answer to this question – “Oh, in the open plan outside my office.” That is when silence is my best friend. Let’s be clear. We are all vulnerable to working on autopilot. We receive an email about some important initiative, and we delegate this on by email. In fact, how much of our day do we spend reading and responding to emails? There is just too much that is done by email that really should be done via the medium of conversation. If you are frustrated by team members who send emails to each other from adjoining desks, then you have the opportunity to model the way in terms of how you exercise leadership and build relationships yourself. How many times a day do you leave your desk just in order to check in with the people around you? How many times a day do you pick up the phone to team members working remotely from you just to see how it's going? Are you too busy for this? If you are too busy to care, then you will find that your leadership team is probably also too busy to care. And then the whole organisation is too busy to care. That's how toxic cultures are created - not through malice, but through lack of care. But let's not see this as a purely altruistic thing. Leaders connect with their people and teams as much for themselves as they do for other people! According to Steve Siegle, quoted in an article on the Mayo Clinic Health System "Being kind boosts serotonin and dopamine, which are neurotransmitters in the brain that give you feelings of satisfaction and well-being, and cause the pleasure/reward centers in your brain to light up. Endorphins, which are your body's natural pain killer, also can be released." Serotonin impacts on our ability to focus, and focus is critical to the quality of our work - so caring and kindness boost output! It's in the interests of organisational performance to create a culture of care and kindness - it just makes good business sense.  This article is a follow-on to my previous article: http://www.leadershipsolutions.co.za/articles/how-to-decide-what-to-track-and-monitor-focus-on-the-field-of-play, which you should read before this one.
Too often, with my coaching clients, we have to address the problem that the team is resistant to the way their activities are measured. Perhaps they see their weekly activity report as admin – so they “tick the boxes”, telling their managers what they think they want to hear (or, in this case, read). Perhaps they just don’t agree with it, so they don’t bother to do it at all – or they have to be nagged 90 times before they do it. And, again, they do a shoddy job. They may or may not also tell you that they find it a waste of time. Or they may say nothing, and just give you the teenage eye roll! The reasons for the resistance are some combination of:
What you really want is the following:
Agreeing on What to Watch You will need to have one or more discussions in your team with a view to answering the following questions: 1. What are the behaviours or activities that drive each one of our KPIs? This can be quite a rich discussion. There may be many drivers of your KPIs, but your objective here is to identify the clear performance markers that deliver achievement against the KPIs for your team. You must be able to set lower and upper limits for performance. These performance markers must be within the team’s control to achieve. They must have an appropriate timeframe – long enough to be able to manage them, and short enough to have an impact. Settle on no more than 4 performance markers per KPI. It must not be a shopping list or tracking it will become a burden. 2. Set the lower and upper range of acceptable performance. The key here is consistency. You do not want people to shoot the lights out on good days and do nothing on bad days (or weeks or months). You want them to do between the low mark and the high mark every day, week or month (or whatever time frame you choose). Using the language of the 20 mile march, you want them to march between 14 and 20 miles every single day, no matter the weather. You do not want them marching 40 miles on one day, then collapsing with exhaustion for the next 2 days, and being unable to go out on the 3rd day because of bad weather. 14 to 20 miles every day. 3. Design a Scoreboard The team should decide on what the scoreboard should look like. It must be fun to update and use. You should be able to update it as close to real time as possible. It should also connect input measures (the behavioural drivers) with the KPIs. That means you should be able to see how performance against the behavioural drivers actually contributes to performance against the KPI. I did an internet search using “how to put team metrics on a scoreboard” and came up with some exceptional guidelines. Your team’s scoreboard may no doubt undergo a few iterations before the team is completely satisfied – and that is fine. The scoreboard you settle on will meet the following criteria:
All of this speaks to the power of instant feedback. The best example of this I have ever seen is in the advertisement for bottled water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GimoLDYI_JE. 4. Agree on the Rituals and Routines Rituals and routines are those things that are done regularly and in a disciplined way in order to ensure that you and your team are paying attention to the important issues regularly enough. Rituals tend to be interpersonal exchanges – meetings; coffee sessions; tele- or videoconferences. Examples of rituals include:
Routines are activities that take place consistently. Examples of routines include:
The team needs to agree on the appropriate rituals and routines that will keep them on track as both a team and as individuals. What will they do? What will you do? How will the scoreboard be updated? How often will you meet as a team to review progress and troubleshoot any issues? What is your agenda for that meeting? So think about this: What will you do with your team in order to reach agreement on the behavioural drivers, the targets for each one, the design of a scoreboard, and rituals and routines to be implemented? Managing the Rituals and Routines The Manager of the team us ultimately responsible for ensuring that the team is absolutely consistent in taking the 20 mile march. This means that you need to monitor whether the routines are being observed – is everyone consistently taking the agreed actions and inputting their own information? You also need to ensure that rituals are consistently observed – that the weekly meeting takes place every week at the same time regardless of who may be absent; that the meeting is short, lively and forward moving; that there is agreement on who will lead the meeting when you can’t be there. It is also important to review the effectiveness of your rituals and routines every so often with your team. Here is a review agenda which you can modify to suit the situation:
Those hours of walking gave me pause to think about 2020 and to review what happened and how effective I have been. My personal review is not the topic for this article. Believe me! It is a mixed bag! This is more about the art of the review.
I call it art in the same sense as my previous article "The Art of Conversation". A review is also a kind of conversation, even if you are doing a personal review. The best and most flexible process for a review is one I came across in a book called "On Being a Supervisee: Creating Learning Partnerships". The authors, Michael Carroll and Maria C. Gilbert, quote a review process used by the American military called the After Action Review - or AAR. After any military operation, small groups of soldiers gather with their commanders. The basic ground rules are that: 1. Nobody will be penalised in any way for anything they contribute to the discussion; 2. No blame or fault is acceptable. The discussion has 6 questions: 1. What did we set out to do? 2. What happened? 3. What worked/went well? 4. What didn't work/went badly? 5. What have we learned? 6. What will we do differently next time? These 6 questions can be used in slightly different wording across a wide range of situations. Here are some examples: A. Project/Strategic Review 1. What were our goals? 2. What did we achieve? What actually happened? 3. What worked/went well? 4. What didn't? 5. What have we learned? 6. What do we need to do now? B. Progress Review (on a Project or Strategy) 1. What are we trying to achieve? 2. What is actually happening? What progress have we made? 3. What have we done well? 4. What have we not done well? 5. What lessons must be learned? 6. What do we need to do now (to get things back on track)? C. Personal Review 1. What were my goals for this year? 2. What have I achieved? (And what have I not achieved?) 3. What did I do well? 4. What did I not do well? 5. What have I learned? 6. What am I going to do now/What are my new goals? D. Performance Review No matter what the admin process is around formal performance reviews, the actual conversation is along the same lines: 1. What did you set out to achieve in the last x months? 2. What did you actually do? 3. What went well? 4. What did not go well? 5. What have you learned? 6. What do you want to do now? PLUS And how can I support you? I have used this process in various contexts many many times and have never failed to be enthused by how inspiring and rewarding it has been for the participants. I love that the questions are asked in a way that does not brook blame or fault. When people know that the purpose of the review is to learn rather than to apportion blame, they are willing to be quite frank about their experiences - and this is how one creates a learning organisation. Simple! Not necessarily easy though. 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:
Here is a starter agenda for such a discussion:
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. 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:
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? Here is a template that you are welcome to use. 
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:
So what is the solution? The following guidelines will help:
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:
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:
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:
So how can you make sure your meetings are effective? Here are some ideas:
If this is a challenge you experience and would like to consider working with me as your coach, email me: [email protected]. We will set up a time to talk about your challenges. If the chemistry works, we can get started within a week! |
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