Category Archives: team dynamics

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics

Adventures in Miscommunication

Leave a comment

In my work in science, there is often pressure to achieve “breakthrough” results in order to continue to receive grant funding and to publish in high impact journals.  As a consequence, there is sometimes the tendency to not directly falsify, but to prune data so as to cast experiments in the most favorable light.  Minimizing this kind of data manipulation requires effective communication of core scientific principles at all levels of a research team; however, team leaders need to be especially careful that they are sending the right message.  In “Business Adventures” by John Brooks, a book I discovered through an interesting review article by Bill Gates in the Wall Street Journal, there is an example of miscommunication of business ethics throughout General Electric’s entire hierarchy that seemed particularly relevant.  Although the book is several decades old, the series of articles on which it was based appeared from 1959-1969, it is “as much about the strengths and weaknesses of leaders in challenging circumstances as it is about the particulars of one business or another,” as Bill Gates writes in his review.  In the case of GE, the communication of the company policy regarding price-fixing with competitors began to be accompanied by an unmistakable wink from some executives and this eventually became so engrained in corporate culture that even a direct order by an upper-level executive to not engage in price-fixing was ignored.  In his conclusions, Brooks offers the following scenario, where he describes how effective communication requires you to consider not only what you are saying, but precisely how you are conveying it to your audience:

Suppose, purely as hypothesis, that the owner of a company who orders his subordinates to obey the antitrust laws has such poor communication with himself that he does not really know whether he wants the order to be complied with or not.  If his order is disobeyed, the resulting price-fixing may benefit his company’s coffers; if it is obeyed, then he has done the right thing.  In the first instance, he is not personally implicated in any wrongdoing, while in the second he is positively implicated in rightdoing.  What, after all, can he lose?  It is perhaps reasonable to suppose that such an executive might communicate his uncertainty more forcefully than his order.

The review is available here: http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures, and the book is available either from the Emory library or Amazon.

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

Effective Delegation

Leave a comment

At work I am often tasked with ensuring that younger engineers are  billable on my projects. I find this task much more difficult than the project itself, probably because of my ineffectiveness at delegation. Carl Selinger, in The Art of Delegating, discusses 4 ways engineers can be better delegators:

  • “Clearly describe what needs to be done and by when”: Here Mr. Selinger discusses creating the proper framework to allow the delegate to be successful and communicating this framework to them. I have experienced where a misinterpretation by the person helping me results in them progressing down the wrong path. However, it is also important to not construct a framework that is too restrictive as it limits the delegate’s creativity. Mr. Selinger’s next point also speaks to this.
  • “Accept that the work will not be done exactly as you would have done it”: Provide the delegate with some freedom in making decisions – this may result in them making mistakes, but in my experience the feedback they receive from those mistakes is their best learning tool.
  • “Keep track of delegated work”: It is up to the delegator to keep track of all delegated work. I think it’s important to let the delegate concentrate on the details of tasks they have been assigned and leave the tracking of their progress to me.
  • “Give constructive feedback and criticism”: As I mention above, the feedback engineers receive on their work is the best way to learn. Mr. Selinger calls for “good, substantive points”. I think all feedback should first discuss the project at hand and also include a more generalized version so that the younger engineer can apply it to future tasks.
03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

Managing [Remote] Teams

4 Comments

Remote work is a passion of mine. Since 2007 I’ve worked remotely in multiple jobs and in multiple capacities. Yikes — that’s 7 years of self-discipline, Skype calls, and lunchtime showers.

While I do not have any direct reports, I’m a Senior Project Manager, which means for every one of my 33 projects, I manage a copy writer, designer, data manager, implementation specialist, and client team — none of whom are in the same state as I am, let alone down the hall.

I’m always looking for ways to improve team work, manage better, and communicate clearly. All of these skills need to be at a different level when there’s no face-to-face, but some of them can translate to an office environment.

Jana Rhyu wrote a blog post on LoopUp that hits several familiar points on managing remotely that I’d like to share with you.

1. Hire the right people
Jana gives some tips on what “the right people” are. You can probably guess “autonomous self-starters” lead the list of good remote employees, but did you know that introverts are some of the best remote employees? Extroverts tend to shrivel without that face-to-face and introverts shine.

Our method of hiring the right people includes a company favorite interview, affectionately called the “Why You Don’t Want to Work Here” call. People think that working from home will be a cakewalk, until they get on this call with a random five people from across the various departments of Fire Engine RED. We tell them things like “your home will be your workplace, so some days you might hate your house,” “your friends will not understand/believe you’re working when they have a day off and try to swing by,” “your spouse will try to ask you to do errands because you don’t have a commute,” “you’ll check your email before you eat breakfast and later realize you’re starving and it’s suddenly 2pm,” and “your boss will still give you work because s/he can’t see your full plate.” It’s a relatively fun call, but a sobering one at the same time.

What would you have on your WYDWTWH call?

2. Get the right tools
Tools for telecommuters are tools for everyone. If you don’t have an IM program in your office, you might consider bringing one in. Shoot a message to a colleague when she’s on the phone and get a response, or ping someone on another floor to see if they got your file.

Google Docs is something I can’t live without. Even in an office it just makes sense to have certain documents shared and thus have the newest version accessible (and editable) on the go.

The list in the article is longer and I definitely use every one and a few more. Ask any MP team member of mine who had a long commute spared for a group project.

3. Communicate regularly
The curse of telecommuting isn’t a lack of communication, but rather an over abundance of communication. Christine Shealy wrote about The Communication Loop and I can tell you that with all your team members able to reach you on your IM, your cell, your home phone, your email, Skype, and by text, that loop gets closed! You can be on a client call but you’ll still be expected to respond to an urgent message about another client.

I’m not sure I’d recommend all the regular meetings in the blog post (what’s the point of a bi-weekly call if you already have a weekly meeting?) but regular meetings to go over progress, outstanding items, and potential problems is a must.

Meeting just to meet, however, is a pet peeve of mine. In very busy seasons with dozens of projects going at once, I understand meeting every other day to keep each ball in the air. Still, it’s great practice to cut unnecessary meetings to once a week so as to not negatively impact productivity.

4. Set the tone
“Be willing to get and give feedback” is the most important on this list, followed closely by “be direct”. I’ll let you read through these points and comment below on what’s most important in a remote or office environment.

Link to the original blog post: http://loopup.com/blog/communicating-effectively/managing-remote-teams-top-4-tips/

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles

Listen, Learn and then Lead

2 Comments

2) Planning the Work of a Team, 3) Managing a Project Team

http://www.ted.com/speakers/stanley_mcchrystal

So I openly admit bias on my inspirational and informative reference (but in fairness most of my other Military Officer vets have incredible admiration for the guy). The former commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, General Stanly McChrystal, gave an incredible lecture via TED that is applicable to anyone wishing to take on a leadership role in a not just challenging environment but seek to implement transformational changes to said organization. As with many of my peers, I too have been in (and will seek post-MBA) leadership positions that have entirely different duties and responsibilities than my previous roles. From the transition from a Platoon Leader as a Second Lieutenant in a Sapper Platoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5LqGCtzYI ) to my other less interesting (and more plans-oriented) positions I realized that there are certain traits that make leaders excel in any field or organization that they are placed in.

One of the common themes at the US Army Officer Candidate School is leadership is leadership: irrespective of your specialty or organizational level responsibility. It has taken years for me to develop (and am still learning in the corporate world now) but the key traits I have observed and am now especially cognizant of are best summed up by General McChrystal:

Listen, Learn and then Lead.

Reflecting on all the skills one learns during his or her MBA experience I believe it to be equally important to understand how to implement your ideas to fully utilize lessons learned from classes such as Management Practice. In the course of leading often skeptical clients or coworkers (or Soldiers and civilians in the General’s case), McChrystal suggests to first listen. Listening is quite possibly the most difficult task leaders have, particularly as we are prone to defaulting to preconceived notions on how the role and responsibilities should play out before we even arrive; this is especially difficult when compounded with issues such as generational differences, prior experiences and job diversity. Throughout the learning phase (continuous) the main goal is to build trust and rapport; people tend to work harder and with more conviction when they believe someone has their best interest in mind; this is particularly true when it comes to leading higher risk maneuvers or actions where the natural tendency is risk-aversion to prevent failure / negative performance reviews. Finally there is learning when to fully lead. “When in charge be in charge” is one of the idioms always taught to military officers; when you have demonstrated the listening and learning traits to your group this becomes significantly easier to execute. I have found these leadership maxims to be of extreme value regardless of leading Soldiers in warzones or my peers when implementing a new sales strategy as a novice to seasoned sales representatives.

The “Listen, learn and lead” design is paramount to a leader’s success, particularly of importance when leading teams with informational and generational differences.

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, work plans

Making the Move into a Management Position

3 Comments

I just read an article that discusses the issue of wanting to transition into a management role, but needing management experience in order to qualify. How do you gain experience if you need experience to get the position. This is a tricky situation that many people face as they try to climb the corporate ladder.

The article suggests some ideas for making yourself more visible at your firm and forming the opinions of your superiors so that they see you as someone with management potential. The author states that your focus should be doing your current job very well. Nobody will consider you for a management position if you cannot perform your current job well. Presumably this is because a management role will have much more responsibilities than your current role as you will now also be responsible for other people.
He then lists 4 steps you should take:
1) Do your homework. He suggests observing managers at your firm and what they do. Another great suggestion that he made was to read books on leadership. These books can give you a great insight into skills that you may need to develop. One book that he suggested that I plan to read is ‘The One Minute Manager’ by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.
2) Develop people skills. This may seem as a given, but people skills are truly important to be an effective manager. You need to be able to relate, speak to and influence people. You also need to realize that the same techniques may not work for different people. I think that one good way to enhance your people skills is through group work that you may do at work and school. Pay particular attention to how you handle group dynamics. Pay attention to how you handle situations of disagreement and conflict. These are opportunities for you to learn and grow.
3) Show initiative. Volunteer to do things that may not be specifically required of you. Showing that you are willing to go above and beyond what is required of you puts you in a favorable light with your superiors. Volunteer for planning committees. Again, this shows that you are willing to go above and beyond, but it is also a great opportunity to showcase your planning and people skills. Both of which are very important skills for a manager to possess.
4) Ask. The author suggests asking for a management position if this is what you want. This is something that I find particularly difficult as you do not want to come across as aggressive, especially for a female. However, my career has taught me that you cannot wait for anything to be handed to you. There will be other people willing to stand up and ask for what they want and they will be seen and heard more than the person who quietly sits back, working away. Voicing what I want is out of my comfort zone, but I have some to realize that it is necessary to achieve what you want.
I believe that these simple suggestions could produce a meaningful difference in your career. As someone who wants to move into a management position, these are steps that I can easily implement in my every day work life.

http://management.about.com/cs/begintomanage/a/FirstMgtJob.htm
feedback, team dynamics, team roles, work plans

Effective Leadership & Knowing Your Team

1 Comment

I’ve been able to work in a small office over the past 5 years, and one of the things I’ve really come to appreciate is the flexibility provided to our employees in terms of their work roles and job descriptions. Oftentimes, we hire someone with the intent they’ll complete a specific job or task in our office but then find their skill-set or personality lends itself better to a completely different role. We’ve had the ability to frequently re-organize and assign people to new areas with their specific strengths in mind, oftentimes leading to an increase of quality work output.

This seems to support the phrase “you should hire for personality and train for skill,” which I’ve heard on occasion. Given my experience, and within reason, this seems to make sense. If your employee fits into the office culture and has the basic intelligence level needed to succeed after a period of training, how can you go wrong? To effectively do this, a manager undoubtedly needs to know their team well. Good leaders need to understand their employee’s strengths and weaknesses, their goals and professional aspirations, as well as how each member interacts with the others.

I’ve copied two excerpts below that highlight these points. You have to know your employees well and then help them assume the role that not only makes them most happy at work, but will ultimately benefit the organization as whole:

2. Know Their Stories – Take time to get to know the people you work with, especially your direct reports. Have coffee or a meal with them. Ask questions to learn about their lives and what’s important to them. Questions unrelated to work might include “so you were born and then what happened?”; “what are your interests outside of work?”; and “where did you grow up?” These questions typically open the door for you to ask follow-up questions. This will give you insights into how the people you work with are wired, including what they value at work and in their lives outside of work.

3. Help People Get Into the “Right Role” – Help your direct reports get into the right role that fits their interests and strengths, and provides the right degree of challenge. If you are not able to get them a role that is a good fit, consider responsibilities or projects you can assign them that fit well with their wiring.

 

What I’m most curious about, is whether the flexibility and real-world practice of these two traits carry over into larger corporations or organizational structures. Do those of you who work in larger environments experience this type of management style and job responsibility flexibility?

See the full article here: http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2014/07/10/7-best-practices-to-boost-employee-engagement/

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles, Uncategorized

What Makes a Great Manager?

2 Comments

The article “What Great Managers Do” by Marcus Buckingham uses the old aphorism “he’s playing chess while the rest are playing checkers”, but in a different light.

Here the phrase doesn’t represent managers who are simply more strategic in their style, but likens a checkers approach to management as one that treats all employees as uniform pieces toward a success goal. Meanwhile, chess is a more apt comparison, since employees are never homogeneous.

Some employees excel in types of projects, but struggle endlessly in others. A great manager exploits the strengths of each employee and can work outside the framework of an original plan by recognizing who should be working on what.

How many have seen people fired for failing in one aspect of their job when you’ve seen them excel elsewhere? I’m thinking about the “A for effort gets generous severance” from our Netflix recruitment slide deck in particular. Would a great manager be able to save that human capital and repurpose the employee where their strengths lie? Or is that kind of effort a waste of time and resources?

Article: http://hbr.org/2005/03/what-great-managers-do/ar/1

Edit: Here’s more on the topic, including info behind the research and the book by Marcus Buckingham. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-be-a-great-manager-2013-8

feedback, team dynamics

Stages of Skill Acquisition

Leave a comment

My career path in the last few years has been in workforce development. As a Program Manager for a graduate school work-study program, I work to find meaningful applied work experiences for students. 

For many of them, these positions provide them with the opportunity to be mentored by their supervisors or by another worksite colleague in the field of public health.  As a result, I am always working to find the ways in which we can teach students to search for valuable mentorship experiences and engage in those opportunities.

A former mentor of mine introduced me to a what’s known as the Dreyfus Model (often used in field such as education) to demonstrate how students can gain skills through application, instruction, and practice.
The model consists of 5 stages— how a student goes from “novice” to “expert” in the acquisition of these skills:
  1. Entry-level (novice)
  2. Capable (advanced beginner)
  3. Competent 
  4. Proficient
  5. Expert
In summary, think about how each of these stages relates to your career progression thus far. I leave you with the following questions to think about when considering how this framework relates to your professional experiences:
  • Where are you in Dreyfus Model?
  • What experiences did you have previously that lead you to where you are now
  • Did you have a mentor at any of those stages?
  • Did you serve as a mentor to someone else at those stages?
  • How have you been able to implement change in your department or organization at those various stages?
  • How have you used the “stage” you’re in to work effectively in a team?
  • Have you been able to accept and provide different levels of feedback based on what stage of the model you’ve been in?

As career paths change and at times we may enter an entirely new industry, it is very possible that we enter the Dreyfus Model at a lower (or higher) stage than we were before.

Sources:
Miner, Kathleen. “The Mentor’s Virtue.” Mentorship Training, Emory Public Health Training Center. Emory Conference Center, Atlanta. 24 July 2014. Oral presentation.
Lester, Stan. “Novice to Expert: the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition .” Stan Lester Developments 2005 . Web. 30 June 2014. <http://www.sld.demon.co.uk/dreyfus.pdf
04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

The Communication Loop

9 Comments

Throughout my professional years, I have found myself in working situations where the majority of the people that I interact with are not in the same office as me. I imagine several of you have experienced a work relationship like this as well. Satellite environments have made me a huge proponent of closed loop communication.

Steve Adubato describes the impact of this tool in an article entitled Great Communicators Close The Loop. Proactively closing the conversation eliminates confusion as to what the next steps are for each party. While I know some people hate to receive “Thank you.” emails, I am not one of those. Those simple emails say so much. I read those two words as, “I received the document that you have provided, and it fulfills my needs perfectly. I will contact you back should I need anything further.”

When I receive no communication back, I am left in a state of confusion. Did my file go through? Are they too busy to respond? Is that all they needed?

Sometimes I imagine how this interaction would play out in person:

Christine: “Hi John. Here is the file you requested. Please let me know if you need anything further.”

John: (Grabs paper and walks away without responding)

Not an entirely beneficial exchange, but I know we all witness these types of passive conversations daily via email.

Steve also describes the importance of proactive communication. Don’t always force people to remind you that they are waiting on a deliverable. Bringing the topic up, explaining your work to date, and acknowledging a completion date all provide confirmation that you are hard at work on their task. People like to feel that their work is important to you, and these simple behaviors will reinforce that feeling.

Am I the only one that saves “Thank you.” emails as a sign of confirmed receipt? Do you all find yourselves frequently in email limbo, wondering if your document was received or if anything further is required of you?

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics

Did Netflix reinvent HR?

2 Comments

“Candor is not just a leader’s responsibility, and you should periodically ask your manager: “If I told you I were leaving, how hard would you work to change my mind?”

This is just one of several unusual or surprising policies or questions posed in a Powerpoint presentation shared by Netflix CEO and Chief Talent Officer. I find it interesting and relevant to share with all of you because I think these notions of being consistently honest with ourselves and our colleagues goes against what we inherently believe, which is that good things will come to good people.

Netflix encourages speaking up both as an employee and a manager. If you don’t feel you are getting the most out of your team, it is encouraged that you find new team members who will outperform the ones you have, even if they are doing just fine. As an employee, you are rewarded for “sustained A-level performance, despite minimal effort,” which I find a little infuriating. Imagine a scenario where a coworker rarely came into the office and rarely contributed in meetings, while you worked long hours and coordinated large meetings, but due to some arbitrary scale of success you were terminated and your colleague was not. Or, even worse, imagine watching that happen from afar. I would feel paralyzed, unclear how I should behave or react.

Netflix also promotes a process-free (or limited) environment where employees are authorized to spend within their budget, make decisions on assignments for which they are ultimately responsible, and cut much of the red tape that paralyzes other businesses. How does this continue to work for Netflix? Are there employees just that much better at communication, following the prescribed guidelines or role descriptions, or is it something else? I think empowering employees is huge and can have massive implications for eliminating much of the red tape  we have all experienced.

The rest of the presentation, along with a Harvard Business article, can be found here. I could spend all day detailing the rest of the Netflix value system, but instead look to you for your thoughts on what Netflix is doing, how sustainable it is for the long-term, and if any of these policies or lack-of-policies are things you would adopt or wish your organization would adhere to?