team development posts

Reflect & Renew. Your Strategic Plan is Calling…

December 24th, 2009

With 2010 right around the corner, executive leadership teams and entrepreneurs pull up their sleeves to renew their vision for the future.  In order to engage your teams and create increased buy-in and alignment, consider a meeting with the sole purpose to ‘reflect and renew’. Break out the post-it notes and sharpie pens and ask team members to brainstorm on the following questions.

THE BIG PICTURE – Reflecting on the Last Year

1. What successful strategic decisions did we make? And how did I measure success? eg. $ or non-financial reward?
2. What strategic decisions did we make that were not successful? And why?
3. What strategic move did we make that surprised me with its outcome? eg. professional ease, profit, customer experience?
4. What strategic decisions do we need to consider going into this upcoming year?
5. What strategic decision am I holding back from making? Why?

THE BIG PICTURE – Looking Inward. Looking Forward.

1. What do I want to continue doing in our business?
2. What do I want to stop doing in our business?
3. How am I holding the development/growth of our business back?
4. How am I promoting the development/growth of our business?
5. What is one personal bad habit that I have that I need to stop?
6. A year from now – what will our business look like?

Let me know how it goes! All the best in 2010 to you and your teams.
Renée

CEO leaves executive team adrift

October 06th, 2009

I’d like to share a story that doesn’t have a happy ending. It’s a story about what happens when a high-functioning executive team with well-defined roles, strengths, and dynamics suddenly loses a member and fails to adjust. If you’re a CEO or senior executive, don’t let this happen in your organization.

I recently worked with a company that had offices across Canada and an executive management team that had been together for over 10 years. They communicated well, were willing to give direct and corrective feedback, shared an understanding of the strategic and tactical goals of the company, and reviewed their metrics with regular monthly strategic meetings.

The company was lead by a female CEO, whose father had passed the company to her 10 years prior. She had stepped into the role with no previous experience and decided to bring in outside resources to establish norms of effective teaming, help the team articulate the strategic plan and understand how to review it on a regular basis. (This is where I came in – facilitating the annual strategic planning process and monthly management meetings.)

She had a consensus building leadership style; she put issues on the table for discussion with her trusted team and then, if necessary made the final decision after weighing all of the viewpoints. A key role at the table and, definitely her primary strength.

As profits soared and the executive management team dynamic flowed effortlessly, she decided to have her first child. I was excited to see how this team would now step up and take on strategic and tactical decisions in her absence. What a possibility for the team to grow to new heights, to function with a deeper level of commitment. It’s interesting how her decision to have a child, could also birth the next level of possibility within her executive team.

Before she left, this CEO needed to pass her authority to another member of the team, but, unfortunately, she didn’t let go of her role. She chose not to do so. Instead she simply left to have her child. She assumed the team would continue to function in her absence.

Instead the team floundered because a  primary leadership strength – building consensus and making the final decision was no longer at the table. Not one of the executives had the ability to make final decisions when needed. Their once dynamic meetings became meetings of discussion after discussion without decision making and actions of how to move forward.

I sometimes wonder whether this CEO recognized her primary strength and role on this team. Why didn’t she assign responsibility for decision making while she was gone? Was she paralyzed with fear that the executive team would function in a different way in her absence. making it difficult for her to find her place on the team when she returned? Watching the team flounder was extremely difficult – I was saddened by the lost opportunity for the CEO to birth both a child and a more highly functioning team.

Email Noise? Create Team Norms.

September 24th, 2009

When I’m working with teams to improve communication, the issue of email generally produces stressed faces, furrowed brows, and sweaty foreheads. It’s astounding how depressing and chaotic our inboxes have become. But it doesn’t need to be that way.

When I sense stress around the issue of email communication, I ask teams “Have you ever sat down together to discuss how you will send and receive messages to one another?”.  Most teams respond with a clear “No, we haven’t done that and we don’t have a clue of how to start that type of conversation.” Fortunately, it’s not a difficult conversation to start.

We just roll up our sleeves and discuss these issues:

1. Subject lines norms– Create agreements within your team regarding what goes in subject lines. For example, if the message concerns a client, start the subject with that client’s name – that simple step will help recipients identify the purpose of the message and effectively catalog it.
2. Set up mailbox rules -  Set up rules and filters to organize your inbox. (See my Tuesday post for more on rules and sorting.)
3. Establish team norms around who’s taking an action, who is supporting an action who is to be informed on an action. The team should clearly identify an owner’ to respond and handle the issue.

• TO: if I ‘own’ a particular task and somebody wants to send me an email notifying me of an action that I need to take, my name will be in the TO: area. I will immediately know that I am responsible for taking action.
• CC: means that I am “supporting” someone else’s action and,
• BCC: means that all I need to be is keep myself “informed”.

4. More Rules Emails that have my name is in the TO: area – those emails can be sorted as action emails. Really really helpful!!
5. Discuss the use of high priority, moderate priority and low priority.
If you set aside to have these types of email norm conversations, you’ll help your team become more productive and save them from inbox stress!

Manage Multitasking & Interruptions for Increased Productivity

September 03rd, 2009

Managing workplace interruptions can be done effectively when leaders, managers and executives have the courage to assert themselves by articulating clear boundaries and communicating them to their co-workers. Clear boundaries establish personal and professional work parameters so that individuals can focus on priorities and get results.

Recently a client asked me how to manage multiple interruptions at work.

Sue, the Vice-President of Marketing & Communications spent the first 2 hours of her morning in a meeting, drinking coffee, and plenty of water (can you see where this is going?). When the meeting ended all she could think about was getting to the washroom. Opening the boardroom door, she noticed her direct report.

Without even a  “Hi” or “How are you” the report chimed  “Did you get my email?”

Sue looked at her and immediately responded – “Just a sec”.

She continued to race to the washroom door, all the while, sensing her direct report was still following directly behind. Approaching the washroom door, and getting closer to her own office – she hears her desktop phone ringing. Her mind floods with reminders of the chaos of emails she left behind prior to the meeting. As she reaches for the handle of the washroom door, she feels the vibration of her PDA…

Can you imagine the sense of overwhelm that Sue must be feeling? I can. Leaders, managers and executives are challenged with multi-tasking each day.

Sue could have been more effective by asserting herself:

• In the moment the direct report said – “Did you get my email?” Sue could have kicked into the depth of her self awareness – sensing the feeling of overwhelm and chaos to set a clear boundary.
  Simple solution: “give me 20 minutes”, not 2 secs but 20 minutes.

Why does she need 20 minutes?

Because, it is not possible to be effective in the midst of overwhelm. As a leader, it is Sue’s responsibility to manage herself effectively so that she can guide her direct reports to increase productivity and ensure team results. Sue needed to give herself 20 minutes. Get back to her office, read the direct reports email, ‘land’ after her first meeting and get ready for the second.

Leaders, managers and executives need to become more aware of how they get knocked off course with multi-tasking and other workplace interruptions. Use the skill of setting clear personal and professional boundaries to be more productive.

Are you willing to share your lastest story of how multitasking has thrown you off track? Please enter your story in the comment section – let’s learn from one another.

Own your side of the dialogue!

September 01st, 2009

There are incredible benefits to leveraging diversity in organizations. Broad expertise, knowledge and judgment can create major communication challenges or outstanding opportunities!. To benefit from diversity, we need to work together and be effective in navigating our differences.  We can do this by taking more ownership of our side of the communication, our side of the two-way dialogue.

I recently worked with an extremely talented CEO who was visually impaired.  To improve communication and team effectiveness within his organization, I facilitated a number of teaming experiences in which his associates were blind-folded. Once they experienced what “visually impaired” truly meant, they started to utilize different ways of communicating to complete the task at hand. They also started to recognize how their CEO had to work differently to get things done.  They had more empathy for him. End result, they became more aware of how they could increase their communication with him by being more responsible to their side of the dialogue.

I’m now working on a team with a deaf woman, and it has been a most incredible learning experience for me. I’ve learned to adjust my own communication style, to apply different techniques in an effort to respect the wonderful diversity she brings to the group.

• I have realized our ‘communication loop’ reflective listening competence; in which the receiver of the communication re-phases what they heard from the sender, is as effective when she re-types as when we re-phase,
• I have learned how ‘instant chat’ can trump email for effective communication,
• I have learned to write more in my blog posts as opposed to simply uploading a video,

The most important thing I’ve learned is that I have to be responsible for my part of the communication, for my part in this relationship.  So I’ve started to learn expressions in sign language. Even though I am not great, not perfect, she can still understand when I say, “Good morning, how are you?” She can understand when I say, “Can you repeat, I don’t understand.” She starts to be able to communicate with me because I am working to improve my side of the dialogue.  As a manager, leader and co-worker I have to draw people out and help them understand the message I’m delivering.

For me, diversity just means we are different. We’re different because we have limitations. We’re different because we have strengths. We’re different because we come from different places and we have been brought up with different norms.

It takes self-awareness and initiative to recognize these kinds of communication challenges and courage to make them opportunities. When you consider the diversity in your teams, can you see opportunities to improve the way you communicate? Can you take more ownership of your side of the dialogue and become more effective in the process?

Emotional Intelligence – What the heck is it??

April 21st, 2009

Emotional Intelligence is smart!
It is key to the success of highly developed and functioning teams. When individuals are aware of the five elements of emotional intelligence they have a deeper ability to navigate individual and team effectiveness.

There has been lots of buzz about Emotional Intelligence for years, as well as lots of confusion about what it is.

In this video, I discuss the five core elements of Emotional Intelligence that we use when working with teams:

1. Self awareness: the ability to connect with my emotions and articulate the source,
2. Self management: the ability to manage what I do in the midst of that awareness,
3. Empathy: once I experience self awareness I can increase my empathy for others,
4. Social skills: I can navigate my relationships using my self awareness, management and empathy,
5. Leadership assertiveness: not to be confused with ‘leadership aggressiveness’. With assertiveness I can competently come forward with my viewpoint and opinion to influence others and to promote effective decision making.

Consider the impact that elevated emotional intelligence may have within your core team. Willing to share a comment?

How to Develop Your Team’s Emotional Intelligence

April 20th, 2009

Why is emotional intelligence such an important subject today?  Because emotional intelligence today wins the race.  When teams can communicate together on a very interpersonal level, results can absolutely soar.

There are five components to address:

1. Self awareness
2. Self management
3. Social skills
4. Empathy
5. Leadership assertiveness

What I’d like to encourage you to do is to think about the emotional intelligence in your teams.  In this video, I’ll share a few quick tips to get you started.

People Sustainability – Measure Your Most Important Footprint!

April 19th, 2009

Today I’d like to share a few thoughts about people, values, time and sustainability.

Now, more than ever, we’re talking with companies about “people sustainability.”  How do people live their personal life and their professional life wisely?

This idea leads us into the importance of life choices.  What is our most valuable resource?  Time.  And each day, we can choose how to spend that time.

In this video, I’ll share a story about a CEO who is passionately clear about his values and the importance of the people who work in and with his organization.  He’s a fervent believer in developing relationships, and he has a great tip for balancing his personal and professional life with his value of relationships and the limiting factor of time.

Enjoy!