Team-Based Leader Development: Why together is better…

by | Jan 17, 2023 | Brazen Leader, Executive Improvement, Kevin Berchelmann, Miscellaneous Business Topics, Organizational Effectiveness

Team-Based Leader Development

Educating executives, managers, supervisors and other leaders remains a major concern for companies eager to keep their organizations afloat or even thriving in a challenging economic environment. Frankly, the limiting factor for most organizations continues to be leadership.

Leader development is not a new concept.  It continues, however, to be practiced in ways that – at best – do little to develop successful leaders and – at worst – damage functional relationships by allowing learning to exist in silos and independent “vacuums.”

The problem is not content. Adequate topical content is a dime-a-dozen and represents time-tested applications and concepts that have not changed much in a couple of millennia. Any of several firms create and publish reasonably valid content.

The principal challenge around effective development is relevancy. The content mentioned above is generic and must be made relevant for a specific functional or hierarchical group, within a specific organization. Then, when properly facilitated, we can at least hope to successfully develop a group of leaders.

The biggest issue, though, in effectively developing a group, team, gaggle, or flock of leaders is making sure they all learn the same things, the same way, and in the same context. Further, they should be able to test relevant applications and concepts together, for best learning and application.

Enter Team-Based Leader Development.

Now, I’m not speaking of team-building, per se, nor am I talking about campfires, challenge/ropes courses, falling-backward trust exercises, or other hardly-effective methods of development.

Those have value in team-bonding, but not real team development. And no, bonding and development are not the same things… in fact, it’s not actually a team just because you call it a team. See our article on The First rule of the Leadership Team.

I’m simply talking about developing a team or group of leaders at the same time, together. At our firm, we see more and more organizations wanting – needing – content specific for their groups; you just can’t get there when sending people out to some public session or seminar trying to be all things to all people.

You need your leaders developed together, learning applications and concepts relevant to your organization. By using team-based leader development, all leaders of a particular level or function learn these things at the same time, in the same room, using each other as learning tools.

The advantages of this approach should be obvious, and include demonstrated successes in:

  1. Improving communication flow within the team and out to the organization. This can occur naturally, and in a less stressful, facilitated environment. Conversations like this…
  • …benefit the organization, by providing calm discussions among leaders of similar hierarchical or functional levels, about just about anything important occurring in the organization today, and
  • …benefit the specific leaders involved, as they not only are discussing new learnings and applications, but they now have the opportunity to discuss things not normally discussed.

For example, without a safer venue, how many mid or senior-level managers would ask a peer “Hey, John, what’s the best way for me to resolve a conflict in my department?”  Or “Say, Susan, I’m having some issues in driving empowerment to my hourly employees – any suggestions?”

I’m guessing those conversations/questions, in the midst of our brutally hectic workdays, would be damned rare.

  1. Fostering mutual accountability for behaviors and results. One of the biggest advantages in having all these leaders in one location discussing the same things is that accountabilities can become institutionalized. It’s one thing to make a casual mention in the hallway; another thing altogether to commit to a group today, then speak with them a month or so later about your progress.

Also, this close-in work environment creates team ground rules that foster cohesion; if we agree in a group that behind-the-back caucusing is not something we’ll do, then having those back-stabbing conversations later just doesn’t feel right. Further, open communications in a facilitated setting inevitably translate to more open conversations in the open workplace.

  1. Faster assimilation, shared accountabilities, and increased understanding. This is the financial “why?” answered. Homogeneous participants learn faster, and the learning is more relevant. Therefore, an organization’s return on those development dollars is quicker, and the skills are more appropriate for the organization’s needs.

Understanding is accelerated; participants can discuss/explain with each other on various points and concepts, making sure that the meaning is the same for all, and that more realize how they can actually be used for leader success.

Participants in team-based development are able to identify their primary strengths quicker, and better understand how building on those contributes to higher levels of personal satisfaction and team success.

In short, all win. And the organization is better for it, all the time.

For additional insight, see the incredibly old-but-still-relevant Houston Business Journal’s feature article, Many companies now leaning toward team-oriented training.

(If link above doesn’t work, you can download pdf version at https://triangleperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/HBJ-4-24-09.pdf.)

Leading in the New Year — Let’s do it right!

by | Dec 13, 2022 | Brazen Leader, Human Resources, Organizational Effectiveness

Leading in the New Year

It’s December. The current year is almost in the can, finished. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.

A new day has dawned. The new year is upon us.

Soon, we’ll be discussing how fast January flew by, then Q1. The great hamster wheel of life.

Have you made plans? Personal goals are great. Business objectives are super. But do you have specific plans to “do” leadership better in the upcoming year?

No? Why not?

Many of us create detailed plans for the new year. We spreadsheet various categories like personal, family, business, spiritual, health, etc. But we need to add one: Leading. What can you do differently this year to improve your personal impact? “Get better at it” sounds great but is woefully unactionable.

How about I suggest a few things for you to consider?

  1. Address a specific people problem. Take that toxic employee or the just-barely performer into a private office and have that tough, courageous conversation.

Advise them, coach them, counsel them. See brief excerpt of a recent workshop we facilitated on Courageous Conversations.

But it’s get better or get lost.

You’ll be potentially helping someone otherwise unaware of the negative impact or poor performance they demonstrate. And trust me, those around that person will sing your praises.

  1. Mentor someone. I mean really mentor them. Take them under your wing and help them grow.
    • Be present, and pay attention. Listen closely, make sure you hear what that mentee means, not just what they say. Take notes so you can follow up when appropriate.
    • Deliver genuine feedback. Tell them what’s working, and what isn’t. You need to be the truth-teller in their life, don’t let them down. Direct feedback is essential to effective mentoring.
    • Inspire and motivate. Mentoring is not coaching, and it’s not therapy. You should advise based on your experience. That’s the real value of mentoring, answering WWYD… What Would YOU Do?
  1. One-on-ones. Start having them if you don’t and make them better if you do. Some things to consider:
    • Regular, consistent scheduling with all of your direct reports. Weekly is great, but consistent, recurring biweekly is better than often-cancelled weekly.
    • If you schedule it, be there. No exceptions. Reread that sentence. 30 minutes is the right duration, though many have been successful with an hour.
    • Ask for a brief email update a day in advance. It allows you to be prepared to ask a few quick questions on daily operational/functional stuff (10 minutes, tops), then spend the remaining time on being a human.
    • Employee drives the agenda, not you. This is their one-on-one, for them. “So, how are things going?” and let it develop from there (I have a more thorough checklist with sample questions available—just ask and I’ll send it).
    • End with, “What can I do to help you?” Prepare to be surprised.
  1. Get some feedback from others. We’ve been doing a lot of 360 surveys lately, with pretty astonishing results. You can somewhat DIY with our Start-Stop-Accelerate worksheet.

Get off your butt and do something. Leading is not a passive activity, and if you aren’t growing up you’re falling back. Remember too that employees’ expectations increase as your ability and impact increases. Such is life. Plan on leadership success as much as you do everything else.

Besides, do you really want to run a marathon in this upcoming year? Hell, I get tired driving 26.2 miles…

But that’s just me…

Elon Musk, Twitter and Culture

by | Nov 23, 2022 | Brazen Leader, Human Resources, Organizational Effectiveness

Elon Musk, Twitter and Culture

Culture is driven 100% top-down.

No matter what BS you hear to the contrary, culture begins – and is perpetuated and maintained – by what occurs at the top of the heap.

Any ideas about driving culture “from below” is an amalgam of wishful thinking and consultant crockery. And only shared by someone trying to sell you something that sounds easier than the real work.

Take Elon Musk, for example.

Now, you can argue that Twitter is an appropriately regulated social media outlet, accurately praised for preventing ne’er-do-wells from propagating hateful messaging and disinformation.

Or, you can see Twitter as moving too far out of its lane, censoring freedom of speech that should promote differences of thought, ideas and opinion.

I’m cool with either. You do you. (See what I did there?)

Musk, if we are to believe media reports, seems to fiercely believe the latter, further contending that the root cause of the problem is the fabric – the very culture – of Twitter today. And he wants that culture changed.

His first official act then? He whacked a bevy of senior-most execs, including the CEO, within hours of closing the long-awaited purchase.

Again, argue whichever current state for Twitter you choose. Float your own boat, amigo. But if Musk wants a radically different culture, he’s going about it in the most expeditious, if not dubiously effective, manner.

What would clearly not work is a conflict or tension at the top of the organization regarding culture direction or emphasis.

Culture, like any major change initiative, is driven (again, from the top for those skimming) most quickly by simple a simple performance approach:

    1. Setting clear expectations,
    2. Managing to those expectations, and
    3. Consequences or rewards for not meeting, meeting, or exceeding those expectations.

Clear expectations are a must. It’s hard enough for folks to follow our vision when everything remains constant; when changing, they have no hope to follow us if they can’t see it, and see it plainly.

Be clear. Give examples of success. Be explicit about what failure looks like. Use English, and small words. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough (nod to Einstein).

Managing to those expectations is next. Here, we have metrics to help measure success and failure, based on the clear expectations outlined earlier.

Frequent calibrations allow empowered people the opportunity to align their efforts with our desired direction(s).

Specific targets here are again a must. Downrange visibility cannot be cluttered with a lot of bureaucratic bullshit.

Finally, consequences – both positive and negative – must exist so others can personally feel the effects of success and failure. Rewards and penalties. Carrots and sticks. Call ‘em whatever. Just know they are essential, as culture change and reinforcement are driven most quickly via consequences and rewards.

That actionable piece, often skimmed over quickly in glossy culture tomes, is where things really change.

If rewarded for bad behavior, that behavior will continue.

If penalized for positive efforts, future efforts will be less positive.

This is where things can get really interesting, as the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head.

Rewarding individual performance sounds great but can work against the larger good of a successfully working team.

Rewarding cost savings or cuts can lead to a reticence in appropriate investments, allowing needed positions to go unfilled, terminations without sufficient forethought, or really idiotic spending restrictions.

Unintended consequences.

There will always be some instances of these unintended consequences. The key, then, is to set opposing rewards and consequences to allow for and balance the effects.

Example: Individual performance can be rewarded, but only after team performance triggers and award.

Cost-savings can be rewarded, but only within specific, agreed parameters (profitability, headcount, average SG&A, etc.).

Just a couple of examples – the devil is in the details, and your mileage may vary.

Bottom line for us… whether you or Elon Musk, $54B company or $100M, culture begins and is reinforced from the top of any specific organization.  Ergo (my favorite useless word), Musk whacking the top of the Twitter food chain was a necessity if he firmly believed that the culture needed to be changed drastically. And quickly.

There’s a lesson there for all on top of their pyramid, so read it closely.

Now, it gets a bit complicated when we start discussing where the organization hierarchy actually starts and stops, but that’s for another article.

If Musk can do it, you can too.

Just stay focused, like Elon Musk. Assuming you can call electric cars, boring, brain chips, rockets and social media “focused.”

When does the guy sleep??

Quiet Quitting– and more leadership malarkey

by | Nov 15, 2022 | Executive Improvement, Human Resources, Organizational Effectiveness

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: this “Quiet Quitting” stuff is just a load of crap. Nothing more.

Don’t fall for it, thinking you now have some incredibly useful excuse for why people aren’t performing as you think they should. Sorry – no cigar.

It’s a made-up phrase to describe an age-old problem. Likely invented by some consultant or academic trying to sell you something. (wasn’t me, promise)

First, employees playing hide and seek with their efforts and attention is nothing new. It’s likely gone on since we had employers and employees.

Quiet Quitting Think common phrases like “whack a mole,” “duck and cover,” “keep your head down” and “staying off the radar.”

When I was in the USAF, we had a phrase we would use with people, especially as they were nearing a change in station, or were nearing their separation or retirement. We called it ROAD – Retired On Active Duty.

In other words, they had quit working for the most part, and doing just enough to make sure they didn’t get whacked.

Now we say, “he quit some time ago, just hasn’t stopped getting paid.”

This didn’t begin in 2022, so don’t pretend like it’s this newfangled, pandemic-apocalypse-WFH-related shenanigan.

if you’re just now hearing about stuff like this. Well, that’s on you. You’re likely easily bamboozled and equally confused.

Next, that whole “do more than required” has a name. It’s called discretionary effort.

Discretionary effort is that effort exerted or offered by the employee, beyond that which is required to keep their job.

Discretionary effort. I refer to it as the holy grail of leadership. You know you’re doing something right when those whom you lead offer you this added degree of ownership and effort. (Bad news – if you aren’t getting discretionary effort, well, that’s on you too!).

Here’s the rub; since we’re so incredibly bad (global leadership) at setting clear expectations, including written job descriptions, we may not realize… do you know what you call an employee who gives you no discretionary effort, only doing what is specifically required by the organization?

Quiet Quitting We call them a fully satisfactory performer.

That’s right, a fully satisfactory performer. A 2 out of a 3-point scale, or 3 out of 5.

You set the requirements. You set the expectations. You set the minimum qualifications.

And they did exactly as you asked.

So don’t act like they’re doing less than is necessary, or less than what we actually required, because it’s neither of those. In fact, it’s exactly what we asked for.

The reality is that we aren’t very good at setting clear expectations for others, so our expectation has become that employees would always “do the right thing,” even if we weren’t clear on what that right thing is. Even if we didn’t know what it was at the outset.

So don’t blame the employee for “just doing their job.”

If you insist they do something, spell it out. Put it in English. Then manage to those expectations.

Wait a minute… that sounds eerily like typical performance management.

Finally discretionary effort is given in only three circumstances, reasons or events:

  1. The employee is hardwired to do it. Some folks just can’t help themselves and will do a little bit more than expected of them regardless of their environment or for whom they work. They do it because that’s what they need personally to be satisfied when they go home at night.

The upside is, even with crappy leadership, you get the extra, discretionary effort from the hardwired crew. The bad news is, when they decide that that discretionary effort is not valued appropriately, they don’t just lower their effort.

No, they leave.

  1. Leadership trust. People will give us the discretionary effort if they trust that will do good things with it; they have to believe that that we won’t abuse the added input, nor them for providing it.In other words, they want to make sure that they can trust us to not take advantage of them, or take them for granted.
  2. Leadership influence – our ability to help people understand our vision, know the value of helping us pursue that vision, and then personally want to be part of wherever it is that were headed.This leadership influence is critical to the discretionary effort equation.

So, to put a bow on it:  if we hire the right person (#1 above), and we provide a reasonably successful vision to follow, and are capable of positively influencing others to go with us on our journey, the odds are stacked in our favor that we’ll get that coveted discretionary effort.

If not, we can always just blame it on the Quiet Quitting, or Great Resignation, or some other made-up fad of the day to excuse our own lack of discretionary effort.

Oops, did I say that out loud?

Remember, Grace and Accountability can coexist.

Teams, Gaggles, Flocks and Org Charts–The first rule of the leadership team is…

by | Aug 1, 2022 | Executive Improvement

Just because we lump a bunch of people together at work and call them a “team,” doesn’t make it so. A group, gaggle, bunch, or flock just requires box similarities on an org chart.

Most identified teams, simply put, aren’t.

A couple of decent authors have stated “teams are a group of people that trust each other.” That doesn’t go far enough.

Teams are a group of people that trust each other to do their jobs even when absent. In other words, I know you’ll do what’s best by me, even if I’m not in the room.

Teams aren’t created, they’re formed. Even better, they’re forged.

So, as the leader of this heretofore mislabeled enterprise, how do you know if you are forging this team, as opposed to just creating it? Ah, young Jedi… the perfect question.

There are a few things to look for, both good and not-so-good.

Good:

  1. Do team members ask questions/offer opinions (in meetings) on other team members’ responsibilities?
    In other words, are they capable (and willing) to offer their opinion based on non-technical judgment or experience, in areas where they are not a subject-matter-expert?
  2. Do team members disagree (in meetings), and then LISTEN to the responses?
    Can they ask questions of each other without getting a perfunctory “jeeez,” and an eye roll from the owner of the topic?Well-intentioned devil’s advocates can sometimes be helpful.
  3. Are most decisions made by team members OUTSIDE of team meetings?
    Meetings should NOT be the place for a ton of brand-new information-sharing. It should be the place for actions and decisions that cannot be made between one or multiple members outside of a boardroom, on discussion items that have already been mostly hashed before the meeting.
  4. Do they regularly engage outside of required operational discussions?
    Are their routine drive-by conversations about kids, football scores and home remodeling (sorry, just can’t let that one go)? Periodic lunches, maybe even a dinner or other mostly social gatherings?
    People are forever trying and tell me that outside interactions are unnecessary for a high-performing team – to that, I say bullshit. It is
  5. Does the team keep team conflicts strictly within the team?
    If I can go to your subordinate and find out what you really think of your teammates, you aren’t doing your job.The first rule of the leadership team is that you don’t talk about the leadership team outside of the leadership team. No exceptions, unless you want to say fantastically complimentary things about someone, or perhaps praise the dickens out of the teams executive and leadership coach (Oops! How’d that get in there?).

Not-so-good:

  1. Do team members disagree silently in meetings, then caucus with the Grand Poobah afterwards?
    A sure sign of a dysfunctional team is the inability to offer contrary opinions, and the need to convince the boss outside the arena where decisions should be made, and actions agreed on.This ain’t a political primary – it’s a business and you’re a leader within it. Act like one. Have the guts to offer your opinion, even if not fully developed, where others can hear it and react.
  2. Do team members routinely speak to you about other members’ shortcomings or challenges?
    If the only way you, as team lead or senior-most leader, know that a subordinate is underperforming is for another subordinate to come and tell you… both you and that tattle-tale subordinate are key parts of the problem.If a colleague is performing sub-optimally, tell him or her directly. “Use your words,” as many parents tell their kids. Be respectful and direct, and come armed with specific examples. Ask me about our “Difficult and Courageous Conversations” for leaders. It’s a necessary skill.Or drop it and don’t mention it at all to anyone. Telling the boss first, however, is not option #3.
  3. Do others in the organization know about specific team conflicts?
    An extension of #2. When disagreements exist – when the consensus (including you) is to make Decision “A,” but you still fundamentally disagree – do you shuttle around your subordinates having “keep this between you and me” conversations with each of them about how yours is the best way?Stop that.
  4. Do next-level employees know which team members are “liked” or not by their boss?

    They shouldn’t.There is zero reason for someone who works with you or for you to know that you think less of teammate Brian in HR than of Lynn in Operations. The organization is hurt when this occurs, since those subordinates then carry some of that baggage with them, collaborating less, sharing less, and developing unfounded heartburn for someone merely because of their tribe.And that is because of you.

    Don’t do that.

There’s not an absolute litmus test for high-performing and high-functioning teams, as much as a continuum. One of the highest performing exec teams I’ve ever worked with continues to “work on” being better as a team. It’s a continuous process, requiring proactive efforts by all.

The team leader sets the tone and basic non-negotiables (CPA — condone, permit, allow). All else is done by the team at large and can’t be delegated.

Other than that – easy-peasy.

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