Tag Archives: Team Management

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

Why We Don’t Speak Up at Work

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Why do so many people choose not to speak up at work? Interestingly, it’s not always because we fear retribution or other negative consequences. In fact, the biggest reason people do not speak to their managers concerning feedback or suggestions is that they feel nothing would change even if they did speak up. According to a survey from the Cornel University Survey Research Institute, respondents chose not to speak up to their managers because they think it is “a waste of time.” This feeling of futility can have far reaching effects on employees and the work environment as a whole.

The problem reminds me of the psychological theory of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is the idea that depression and other negative mental states and illnesses “result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of the situation.” Although the theory was originally studied in animals, it has applications in people too, particularly in the workplace. When employees feel like they have no control, they begin to feel helpless; and when they feel helpless or like all of their feedback ‘falls on deaf ears,’ why would they speak up at work?

So how do we fix this problem? Claire Lew, the CEO of Know Your Company, provides some suggestions:

  1. Treat people that do speak up with dignity and respect. Ensure that they know they are being heard.
  2. Explain why you are not doing something. If there’s no explanation for not following their suggestions, employees will assume that the new ideas brought to the table are simply being ignored.
  3. Act on your employees’ suggestions. Claire states that the best way to encourage employees to speak up more and create a positive workplace is to act on the feedback offered – no matter how small.

These changes are relatively small and very easy to implement, but they have a huge impact on the company culture and on the employees working there. The next hurdle might be actually getting managers to listen to feedback about feedback…

04-Managing a project team, feedback

How to Give Meaningful Feedback

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Coinciding with much of what Professor Smith taught us Fall semester, Michael J. Maubossin, an investment strategist and author of The Success Equation,  was featured in a video on hbr.org in which he suggests 4 tips to provide meaningful feedback to employees.

  1. Ignore the factors your employees can’t control

    Companies that incent employees with stock prices ignore the fact that stock prices often follow market trends, so it can be an inaccurate measure of a company’s or employee’s success.  Consulting firms  sometimes reward based on days of utilization — a metric dependent not upon performance of the consultant, but upon how many consulting engagements sold by the firm’s salespeople.

  2. Understand the difference between luck and skill

    The author presents a basic rule of thumb: if the person can perform a task poorly on purpose, then the result is likely based on skill. If not, then the result is based on luck. “You can’t lose the lottery on purpose, but you can lose the big sale.”

  3. Pick a metric that is persistent and predictive

    In this context, persistent means that you get the same results time after time, i.e., accountants completing reports accurately and on time. Predictive means if employees do well with that metric, they serve the goal the company is trying to achieve. For example, timely financials correlate with building company value.

  4. Focus on employee behavior and process

    A focus on process ensures the best odds for long term success of the employee and the company and is most conducive to identifying and correcting performance decreasing behavior.

In my experience,  picking a predictive and persistent metric is the most important concept to keep in mind when developing a feedback program. Giving employees clear expectations provides them a means to guide and measure their behavior and allows management to more easily hold employees to the company standard.

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

Exerting Influence Without Authority

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In the business environment today the “I leader, you follower” mentality may not always be the most appropriate approach anymore.

With so many business structures relying on partnerships and working with teams inside and outside the company, the traditional leader tactic will not always work. Many managers and executives need to be able to adopt a more lateral style of leadership in order to coordinate, communicate, and complete work with these interwoven relationships.

The article explains lateral leadership as the ability to combine multiple essential skills. The article explains 4 essential capabilities to assist you with understanding how to use lateral leadership to your benefit.

1) Networking – “Cultivate a broad network of relationships with the people inside and outside your company whose support you need to carry out your initiatives.”

2) Constructive persuasion and negotiation – Look at persuasion and negotiation as a way to  heighten your influence not as way to manipulate.

3) Consultation – “Take time to visit the people whose buy-in you need. Ask their opinions about the initiative you’re championing. Get their ideas as well as their reactions to your ideas.”

4) Coalition building – “It’s a fact of human nature that several people who are collectively advocating an idea exert more influence than a lone proponent.”

A few more take aways:

  •  Lateral leadership can be challenging for managers to execute. It is difficult to master many of the capabilities that go into achieving lateral leadership. It may take time.
  • It is important to find the people in your company that have a lot of influence. Take the time to meet these people and get to know them before jumping into a project with them.
  •  A natural positive environment can help bring relationships together. A company should encourage opportunities for people to meet, but let the relationships form on their own and not be forced.

Exerting Influence Without Authority

 

team dynamics, team roles

What makes great boards great

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This article from HBR applies to almost everything we’ve been doing in MP from a group standpoint, and yet at one of the highest levels of business responsibility.

In today’s corporate society, it seems that Boards of Directors are sometimes viewed or regarded as just “guys sitting around a table”.  But this article deals specifically with the fact of how boards need to work, because there were lots of “smart people” in some of the most successful companies, while at the same time some of the most disastrous and unethical ones.

This article closely reminds me of the colored hat activity we had in class.  Who’s a black hat, causing all the trouble… It reminds me of a couple of conversations we had in our fall and spring MP groups, since in the first meetings we had, we all discussed who was strong in certain areas, who was the black hat, etc, and what other hats we purposely wanted to try on.  Instead of being complacent individuals to go with the flow and not challenge major initiatives, board members need to be engaged, involved, and asking the questions, the real ones, not just agreeing or disagreeing to a topic.

The article also noted that even though fierce discussion and disagreement is necessary and just, once the group decision has been made, the most successful boards also put up a united front on the action.  There is no “I told you so”, or private dissention if a decision was good or bad.  The board unanimously backs the forward motion of the decisions of the company.

http://archive.excellencegateway.org.uk/media/FE%20Governance/What_makes_great_boards_great.pdf

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 99-Applying business intelligence, team dynamics, team roles

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

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I took a class in undergrad about “Servant Leadership” by Robert Greenleaf. I started questioning the difference between a manager and a leader, and have been intrigued by the concept ever since. As I was interviewing for my current position, I was questioned as to what type of leader I would be in the organization.

I pondered, and proceeded to explain the type of manager I would be and the skills that I would bring to the table. I described that I did not feel that someone could place me in the role of “leader”. It was a position that others saw me as based on how they felt about my abilities. They would make the decision to follow, I could not decide that for them.

I stumbled upon this article in the Wall Street Journal regarding this very topic. It discusses the importance of differentiating between a manager and a leader as the concept of the knowledge worker becomes more profound in our society.

“The leader originates, the leader challenges, the leader is an individual, the leader focuses on people.”

Take a look at the article and see how your natural characteristics fall into the spectrum. I believe that leadership is a way of life. It’s a characteristic that exudes from you, both in the professional world and your personal life. Leaders are the people that I select as mentors. The fact that I have placed them in that position in my life re-iterates how I feel about their ability to lead and challenge me.

My father is a mouthy, Italian businessman with salt and pepper hair. He has drowned me in the business world from a very young age. Along the way, I have gathered a few Tony-isms from him about this matter:

“You can promote people and make them managers, but you cannot make them leaders. That trait is who you are. When it comes out, people will know.”

“The person who knows how and why will always have a leg up on the person who only knows how or why.”

He’s a deep fellow.

Decide the type of position you want to hold in the lives of your co-workers, and work towards being looked at in that light. These abilities will alter the way you present, the way you communicate, and the way you analyze situations.

I leave you with one final Tony-ism: “Be cautious not to take too much advice.”

Christine

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

Keeping Your Team Engaged

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If there is anything that I have learned during my career thus far it is that change is constant. Over the past ten months, my team has undergone two monumental restructures. Although I believe that both of these changes have been for the best, the change itself was not easy.

While recently reviewing “Leadership Sustainability” by Dave Ulrich, I came across several key takeaways that are simple yet very powerful. Even though I didn’t have this content as I went in to the recent restructures, I realized that the process that my team was following was very similar to several of the key principles identified in the book. However, there is one that we haven’t quite mastered as well as the others.

The book identifies five rules of the Leadership Code:

  1. Shape the future
  2. Make things happen
  3. Engage today’s talent
  4. Build the next generation
  5. Invest in yourself

They sound simple enough, right? I thought so, too.

Throughout the organizational changes that we’ve recently undergone, I’ve found that keeping my team engaged is proving to be harder than I initially anticipated. Through a series of meetings, surveys and conversations, I have identified a few areas that I believe are at the root of the issue.

The first area that I’ve identified is a strong sense of community. Even though the majority of my team does have a strong sense of community, for some, that community factor is missing. For these few individuals, they remain distant and do not take initiative to interact with other members of the team besides the required interactions for various projects that they are working on.

The second area that stands out is recognition. Each individual craves different forms of recognition and several members of my team were looking for additional recognition. I’ve found that complements and encouragement is one of the easiest ways to boost a team member’s confidence. However, for some, they feel most rewarded when they are recognized for their work in front of others. Therefore, I’ve been intentional lately to try to recognize people using a combination of the two. I’ve noticed that team members really appreciate this and will take action to try to remain in the spotlight when they know that they will be recognizing for their efforts.

The third area that my team struggles with from time to time is cultural differences. Our company has a very strong corporate culture that is conservative in nature. However, many members of our team have beliefs that differ from the cultural norms. I highly value these differences in thought and encourage members to always be themselves. However, that is much easier said than done and team members can easily become disengaged when the culture doesn’t align well with their own views.

I’m curious to know if other organizations struggle with keeping their teams engaged in the company and the work that they’re doing. If so, is it for similar reasons that I’ve described and what ways have you discovered that work well for keeping them better engaged?

team dynamics

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

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Business success can be defined in many ways – achievement of a firm’s goals and vision, cost reduction, successful strategy implementation, meeting revenue goals, etc. Firm-wide, team based, or individual, not matter your goals or desired outcome, a key success factor is one’s ability to build strong relationships with colleagues, managers, clients and often competitors.

Ed Wallace’s Business Relationships that Last: 5 Steps for Transforming Contacts into High-Performing Relationships proposes that every relationship is built on a foundation of three essential qualities – Credibility, Integrity, and Authenticity.

  • Credibility – the quality that makes other believe in you, your words, and your actions
  • Integrity – being trustworthy in our actions and character
  • Authenticity – being truly genuine and honest with our clients about who we are and what we know

Each aligns with a core tenant and value of the EvMBA program – each difficult to teach or develop in any student (or employee). Each quality requires a level of self-awareness and reflection that can be easily lost in the core or elective MBA curriculum of finance, statistical modeling or product and brand management.

Wallace provides a framework for developing high-impact relationships and introduces a number of activities to spark your thinking about who your key relationships are, what “blockers” are currently holding you back, and actions to take to strengthen your key relationships in a proactive way.

It’s a good and quick read. (Maybe a good one for August, as it’s ~200 pages cover to cover)

Would love to hear your ideas (and actions) on how you build and develop relationships with key stakeholders, colleagues and acquaintances.

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach

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In a recent blog post on hbr.org, Professor Monique Valcour presents a powerful suggestion for managers to connect with and get the most out of employees. She argues that “if your job involves leading others, the implications are clear: the most important thing you can do each day is to help your team members experience progress at meaningful work.”

So how do you know what is meaningful to them? By developing a coaching relationship and having coaching conversations. These conversations will allow managers to understand what drives each person, help build connections between each person’s work and the organization’s mission and strategic objectives, provide timely feedback, and help each person learn and grow on an ongoing basis. The goal is to develop the employee, just as the goal of a pitching coach is to develop his pitchers.

To do so, she lays out 5 tactics for managers.

  1. Listen deeply. Listen with your full attention, and create a high-quality connection that invites your team member to open up and to think creatively.
  2. Ask, don’t tell. In a coaching conversation, it’s essential to restrain your impulse to provide the answers. Your path is not your employee’s path.   Similar to the Socratic method,  open-ended questions, not answers, are the tools of coaching.
  3. Create and sustain a developmental alliance.  Follow-up is critical to build trust and to make your coaching more effective. The more you follow through on supporting your employees’ developmental plans, the more productive your coaching becomes, the greater your employees’ trust in you, and the more engaged you all become. It’s a virtuous cycle.
  4. Focus on moving forward positively. Similar to Professor Smith’s recommendation to have a 5:1 positive to negative feedback ratio, the reverse is true here — when an employee focuses on the negatives during coaching conversations, it’s the job of the manager to end the venting session and steer the discussion into a positive, solution-based dialogue.  You might ask, “Which of the activities you mention offer the greatest potential for building your knowledge and adding value to the company?” “Could you schedule two hours of time for developmental activities each week as a recurring appointment?” “Are there skills or relationships that would increase your ability to meet your primary deliverables?” “How could we work more efficiently within the team to free up and protect time for development?”
  5. Build accountability.  In addition to making sure you follow through on any commitments you make to employees in coaching conversations, it’s also useful to build accountability for the employee’s side of formulating and implementing developmental plans. Accountability increases the positive impact of coaching conversations and solidifies their rightful place as keys to organizational effectiveness.

I wanted to share this article because viewing management through a coaching lens resonates with me. To this day, I deeply appreciate and have nothing but fond thoughts towards my high school athletic coaches — they took a genuine interest in developing me as an athlete and as a person. I’ve yet to have a manager take this same kind of interest my own development, but I imagine my response to that kind of attention would be to make my time at work more meaningful and encourage me to do more meaningful work.

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics

5 tips on how to be an effective manager

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When I came across this article on Linked-In, I was surprised by the jarring title, but appreciated the simplicity of it. Many of us have been there—had a manager that we couldn’t believe was allowed to be in a position of leading a team and thought to ourselves that if we were in their position, we would handle things so differently. Ken Sanderson, a management consultant at Swift Wind Knowledge group, recently  took a close look a management skills and identified 5 elements that we should consider in order to be a good manager.
I thought these were all pretty spot-on, but would offer up a few others as well. For example, I think it’s very important for managers to be strong communicators and  not be afraid to engage in conflict resolution. Additionally, I think it’s also very important to  establish creditability with their employees. Although managers might have the illustrious title, it’s important for them to show that they can deliver results and actually execute projects.
Do you agree with Ken’s list below? What are some other skills that you would include?

1. First and foremost – don’t be a jerk.
Treat Everyone, from cleaning staff through to executives, with utmost respect. Too many people get a position of “authority” and suddenly look down on other staff who are “lower” in the hierarchy. Not only is this wrong on a human level, it is also a serious strategic error. You have no idea what there connections may be, what influence they may have, or where they may end up being in the next year.

It also means that you should not sabotage “rivals”, step on people’s heads to advance, steal credit (or even worry about who gets credit at all), or stab people in the back. Unless you are a pirate, none of these tactics are helpful to a career or a healthy workplace.

2. Be present

You expect your employees to show up for work and put their time and energy in – so should you. Managers that demand 100% from their employees, but then turn around and take extended lunches or go “networking” on the golf course are not only insulting, they are grossly underproductive to their own organization.

Employees are not stupid. When they see this type of inconsistency, they become disengaged. Suddenly, their own contributions to the organization mandate begins to lose its meaning as well as their sense of being appreciated.

Being present is also more than just being in the office. It means being there for your employees. My office door is never closed except for when an employee needs to have a private discussion. A manager’s primary responsibility is to guide and support their staff; thus, the manager must be available to them.

3. Lead by Inspiration, not fear

Antiquated notions of an aggressive leader striking fear and awe into his/her employees are just that… antiquated. They never achieved anything more than obedience and compliance. Staff under that type of leadership did their hours and the minimum required to comply with their duties. Such workplaces never achieve greatness, nor any true productivity.

A good manager leads, instead, by inspiration. To do this a manager needs to include staff in planning, sincerely consider staff ideas and opinions, and help staff see how their contributions connect to the greater picture of the organization’s mandate and directions. They need to see how they are meaningful to the organization.

Might there be performance issues at some point? perhaps, but then that is what performance management systems are for. However, in my experience, engaged employees tend to put in extra time rather than sluff off.

4. Be Open

Managers often think that they are doing staff a favour by holding back certain information (for example, there may be contemplation by senior management about reorganizing a specific team of staff). This could not be further from the truth. Staff ALWAYS find out about considerations or plans – but without you discussing it with them, they are left with wild speculation and fear.

A good manager understands that he/she has a TEAM he/she is managing, not children to coddle. When they know that you communicate with them and that you are there to support them in whatever way possible, you drive up engagement and the true sense of a team.

5. Manage, don’t micromanage!

Far too many managers think they are geniuses. Let’s face the facts here, if you are a manager, you are NOT a genius. You are no smarter than the people you are managing – you just have a different set of skills.

It is the mistaken belief by a poor manager, that they are smarter than their staff. This belief causes many to interfere with the work that should be assigned to their staff. Even worse are those who may have been the best widget maker previously. They have a tendency to interfere all the time – believing that everyone should operate exactly how they did and achieve exactly the same level of results they did.

All of these notions are wrong. First, it is no longer the role of a manager to do all the work. They are supposed to be guiding their staff, supporting them and taking on the tasks of planning. If they are busy doing their staff’s work, they have no time for the actual work they are hired for.

Furthermore, many of these managers have no trust in their employees and so they either criticize unceasingly their staff’s work or do it themselves. To be a good manager, you need to trust your employees and their skills. Give them the tasks to do, let them find their own most productive way of doing it and support them training or whatever else they may need help them gain more and better skill sets.

One caveat to all of this is that you need to get to know your employees and their characters. Some will thrive better under slightly more supervision while others may thrive better under minimal supervision. You need to understand these character differences in order to provide the best management possible for staff to succeed.

Regardless of how much or how little supervision an employee will thrive under, manager’s should not be taking over their work. Nor should managers pretend to know everything their staff knows. Seek out their opinions on issues, involve them in planning or decision making – let them know that you value their expertise. You may not always opt for their recommended decision, but at least you are showing them that you value them enough to seriously consider it.

Link to article

 

01-Structuring a problem, 05-Creating & constructing good solutions, creativity methods

The Art and Science of Problem Solving in Any Business

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Many of you have been encountering any type of problems to solve for your workplace. I have been dealing with different types of problems over last 15 years, mostly should provide engineering solution to clients. As one of team members or project lead to work together with other colleagues to confront complex issues, I should sometimes develop the solid and comprehensive methodology to overcome internal conflicts. In order to do that, I should have adapted particular skills and processes to achieve team objective, valued business and engineering solution to clients.

I am always seeking and researching for tips and techniques for problem solving – from structuring problems to delivering solutions. I found two short articles which I think useful to share with my MP cohort.

The first article is “Art and Science of Problem Solving in Any Business” and second one is “the most 4 effective ways leaders solve problems” Two authors made two valid points for problem solving skills. The first is “People & Management” and second is “Strategy and Opportunities”.  The People & Management is that a great many problems are actually due to policies and processes being reinterpreted by management as they’re being implemented, which in turn causes confusion about how and when things are supposed to be done. The Strategy and Opportunities is that  defining the problem, as well as in dealing with it in such a way that you not only resolve the immediate issue but use the opportunity to improve your business as strategy. They are very simple and straight-forward thoughts. But, I have overlooked them in the process of establishing the project team and scope as well as delivering final solution to management team.

The Art and Science of Problem Solving in Any Business

The 4 most effective ways leaders solve problems