10 Signs that Your Organization Could Use a Collaboration Tune Up
Many organizations lose productivity, quality, morale, and customer satisfaction due to poor collaboration among teams, units, and employees. It can stifle decision making when their is a belief that everyone has a right to have input and they have to agree. When trust is low, collaboration isn’t able to penetrate the silos and the belief systems leading to discontent and frustration.
Teams don’t form naturally. Add to this that many teams today don’t work out of the same building let alone the same state. Our hierarchical organisation structures define functional boundaries and our comfort zones. We become protective of our turf. All these things work against effective cross functional collaboration.
To find out whether your organization might be suffering from the consequences of poor collaboration, take this simple assessment.
Circle any of the following statements that seem even a little bit true….
- There is a general sense that it is hard to get things done in your organization.
- Decisions are frequently delayed by the friction of working across units or silos.
- Projects are frequently over budget due to the friction of working across units or silos.
- Projects frequently don’t achieve their desired level of quality due to the friction of working across units or silos.
- Products or services sometimes do not go out with the desired level of quality, and this may be due to the way that teams or different units work together (or don’t).
- Managers and employees seem to lack the skills required to collaborate effectively.
- When a project misses a milestone, people point the finger at other teams or units.
- There is resentment or a dysfunctional working relationship among two or more business units/teams in your organization.
- There is resentment or a dysfunctional working relationship among two or more high-level executives in your organization, and this dysfunction ripples through the organization.
- Employees spend too much of their time on unproductive activities related to coping with the stress and hassle of pushing things forward, instead of the productive activities of creating things, making things, selling things, and serving customers.
If you circled even one of the above statements, we should have a 30 minute phone conversation. Remember: You get what you tolerate. Why tolerate the kind of hassles related to poor collaboration? Believe Achieve Coaching & Consulting might be able to help. Contact us today at success@nullbelieveachievecoach.com.au.
Many years ago I came to a realisation that some companies create the monsters in their employees. These are the difficult employees who have performance issues, &/or hold several warnings on their files, &/or cause others to walk on egg shells around them. They are seemingly unmanageable yet remain in the company year on year. Even more concerning is that some of these people manage to be promoted!
I am sure that these people did not apply for these jobs with the express intent of causing problems. I believe that they applied and accepted these jobs to earn a fair pay for a fair day’s work. There are many out there who go to work for the same reason. The only difference being that these people become a significant issue for their teams and their manager. What changed for them? What didn’t work for them?
When you have a difficult employee in your team how often have you, as the leader taken the time to step in their shoes and see their reality? How many times have you sought to understand and see things from their perspective without judgement? What has their experience been like?
As a leader you probably dislike having to manage a difficult employee. The situation makes you feel anxious and stressed. You know that the meeting will be tense and the employee is likely to be defensive and blame everything and everybody for their situation. The situation will be triggering your brain’s defensive mechanisms of fight or flight. It is uncomfortable for everyone involved.
What if you didn’t have to get to this point? What would that look like for you?
When we interact others, be they family, colleagues, customers, or employees, we do one of two things. We can cause them to become protective and defensive, or we can cause them to see us as trusting and empathetic. And this happens in 0.07 seconds! When we trust someone we are operating in our pre frontal cortex. We are open to understanding, sharing our ideas and bonding with others. All of which strengthens our relationships. If we feel threatened or fearful we shut down the pre frontal cortex and operate in our old brain where memories and past experience reside. We focus only on our own protection and will strongly defend and reconfirm our beliefs and perceptions. If you were having a performance management conversation with an employee with this occurring in their brain, you can now appreciate why nothing will change for them.
When someone approaches us our natural and first instinct is to decide if they are friend or foe, to be trusted or not. We pick up this information from the other person’s facial expression, body position, stance, & presence. (When we are on the phone the same reaction occurs but the message comes through our facial expression, tone, and pitch). There is an energy that connects us and it triggers neurochemical reactions in our brains when we stand within 3 metres of each other.
Are you aware of the energy you are emitting when you approach others? We are very highly tuned to picking up the energy of others. As an activity this week be aware of your thoughts and feelings when you are interacting with a range of people. See what emotions are triggered and try to figure out why. Who do you feel open and safe with and why. What does this feel like for you? Who is capable of triggeing your old brain? What is it that they do that triggers your reaction?
Remember learning that what we communicate consists of 7% words, 38% tone and 55% body language? It is the body language that we use to decide whether we open up to the conversation or shut down. When you are meeting with a difficult employee are you opening them or shutting them down? What about your own mind set? Are you open or closed?
If you want to experience a different outcome with a difficult employee you must gain their trust. You do this by genuinely respecting them, empathising with them, and understanding them. For this reason you cannot lead people you don’t like. There is no place for pretending or being inauthentic. In the face of incongruity, our brains will default to protection and close down the mind.
Here are some questions you can use for reflection. They will help you prepare how you present yourself to others.
- What is my intention? Do I want to be right or do I want to work with this person to get a great outcome?
- Am I fully present? Am i prepared to listen without judging?
- How is the other person feeling? What needs do they want met?
- What can I do to move us into trusting space?
- If we can have an open trusting conversation what will be possible?
I am running a free webinar on how to deal with a difficult employee on Wednesday 14 December 2016. You will gain a greater understanding of how you can improve the outcomes of these difficult conversations. To join the webinar please send me an email and I will send you an invitation. You can email me on success@nullbelieveachievecoach.com.au
Are you aware of your leadership profile? Are you a leader that has earned the trust and respect of others? If you are then you are to be congratulated. The truth is that having the title of leader does not mean that you are one. People may respect the role of leader but not you personally. They may have allegiance to the person at the helm of the organisation but have little faith in what they say.
Your leadership profile is about how you present. Its not about what you say as much as who you are. Its a judgement made by others and it goes deep into your beliefs and values. How you present on the outside is about what goes on unconsciously in your mind. People can read this through your actions and your words. if there is congruence between what they see and hear and what they feel they are likely to trust you and be open to you. Likewise if your leadership profile is incongruent then you present a threat and you are not to be trusted. This all happens at the unconscious level in both people.
Great leaders have a congruent leadership profile but to develop this would have been a long and sometimes tough ride. Research still confirms today that it takes about 10,000 hours of development to create a good leader. That’s about 5 years of full time effort. What conscious and planned development have you embarked on to be the best lead?
The business world today is a very different place then when you thinking about becoming a leader. Leadership used to be about knowledge, experience and clear strategic direction. It was about power, direction and a planned strategic path. Today there are no right answers. Your past experience and knowledge may not assist in resolving an issue. Leadership today is more about collaborating with others to find solutions that haven’t existed before, experimenting and taking calculated risks, being prepared to fail. Employees today expect to be developed, challenged and provide input. Leadership is less about power and presence and more about adapting and developing the team to deal with the changes.
Leader behaviours can limit their ability to perform effectively in times of high pressure and change. Our natural response is to revert back to what we know and how we acted before. They say that our true colours show under pressure. How do you react under pressure? Do you need to develop a better way to respond that is not impulsive? Below are a five ways for leaders to take on board and focus on in order to improve their leadership profile from the inside out.
1 – Take a look in the cupboard
Are you comfortable to trust others to work as well as you? Do you need perfection? Do you avoid conflict?
Knowing what is holding you back or making you act is imperative to becoming better. Deep beliefs and habits are enormously difficult to overcome but you must find ways to overcome these especially when they impact your effectiveness or that of others in your team. You cannot hold onto beliefs that cause frustration. I know of a manager who is well aware of the impact his need to be 110% perfect has on himself and others. Unfortunately he is not yet ready to change and so he will continue to work crazy hours and suffer high turnover in his team. When he speaks of his high need for perfection he seems proud to wear this badge. Crazy stuff
2 – What is your movie?
Have you ever suffered a brain fade, a blow up, or an out of character response? Do you sometimes wish you could just curl up in a ball and hide? Have you reached a point where you just want to give up? When we are highly stressed it is likely that our responses are going to be impulsive rather than considered. Our memories and our fears drive our behaviours. Its like watching a movie in our head and we know the ending before we’ve even got half way through.
Real or perceived threats cause the release cortisol and adrenaline which fires up our amygdala and our fight/ flight/ freeze/ appease reaction. We lose our ability to be rational and open to new ideas. Instead our negative self talk and our memories (always bad!!) take over.
A better response is to control our urge to trigger the amygdala through conscious awareness of what is going on. Through reflection of your emotions and feelings at various times of the day and during various situations you become aware of the signs and can put in place mitigating actions that stop the movie starting.
Great leaders suffer the same reactions as the rest of us. The difference is that they have learnt what their triggers are and have trained themselves to react in a certain way to ward off the impulsive response. They have learnt to breathe, to pause, and to seek to understand more, They also come into a situation as prepared as they can be. If they know that there is a chance the conversation is going to go bad, they prepare by thinking up effective responses before they have the conversation. All these actions can help you become more measured and relaxed in a tough situation. It takes awareness, insight and practice to change and become better. What would the impact be if you changed your responses?
3 – How’s your ego?
The ego gets a fair bit of bad press. Some of it is deserved. We have all had the experience of a leader with an ego the size of Mac Truck. You spend so much of your time stroking the ego becoming a servant to this master. If you don’t what your ego to get the better of you, you need to understand how you are perceived by others. Gaining honest feedback is the best way to assess how big your ego is and what impact it is having on you and others. You would not have gotten to where you are today without your ego so it does have a lot of benefit. The problem is when your ego becomes bigger than you.
What feedback is worthwhile? Finding out how you are perceived by your direct reports, your peers and your manager through skillful questioning. For example are you perceived as someone who takes the credit for other people’s work? Do you spend a lot of time in self promoting conversations? Are you someone who interrupts and takes over the conversation? Do you become sensitive to challenges to your opinions and seek to defend them?
An ego is a healthy part of us however you need to ensure that it isn’t turning you into a poor leader with a poor leadership profile. It is fine to enjoy the benefits of your role providing that you get a great sense of satisfaction from your achievements that better other people and the organisation. You can be proud of your achievements providing you are devoted to developing and recognising the efforts of others. If your ego is balanced with a passion for others you are worthy of recognition of your achievement.
4 – Learn and keep learning.
A few years back I spoke to the individual members of the leadership team at an organisation I once worked at. I was developing a leadership program and asked about their learning & development needs. To my surprise all these leaders felt that they had learnt all they needed to know about leadership and didn’t need any further opportunities to develop in this area. Unfortunately the people who worked for the company were very concerned about the disconnect between the leadership team and the realities in the organisation. They wanted the leaders to change and help the organisation progress and were frustrated by the reluctance to do so.
The rate of change in the business world is unprecedented. The levels of complexity will only continue to challenge even the brightest and most visionary. Leaders cannot accept that the learning and development that got them where they are today is going to enough to be effective into the future. Closing your mind and believing you know enough is the equivalent of closing your organisation down. Never stop learning.
5 – What is at your core?
What are your core values and how do you demonstrate these in your day to day work? Living and acting as close to your values is the best way to show up authentically in all situations. People are able to trust you because they understand the limits or boundaries of your operating style. Your ability to mentor others and create a vision rests on how deeply your hold your values. We all have heard that people are the organisations’ best asset. How many of us actually believe that this is the case where we work. If we don’t hold a core value about people being an asset then all you are doing is spruiking an empty saying and people quickly see through this. Your leadership profile will hold little substance.
Research has shown that people pass judgement on another person in less than 1 second. That is not a lot of time to speak so our judgments are based on other things that show up before we open our mouths. This is our profile and it is what we project for others to see and feel. When we are aware of our presence and its impact we can ensure that in that one second a person perceives us as a leader instead of a person who has a title of a leader. Which one are you?
As a leader focused on improving your skills in relationship development, I would like you to do one thing this week.
I want you to only open your mouth to ask a question.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? Unfortunately it is much harder than you think.
Why would a leader only ask questions? How could that possibly be an effective leadership style that helps develop relationships?
It is still common today that people are promoted into leadership roles based on their technical ability, their understanding of the business and / or their demonstration to the leaders above that they have the potential.
So when these leaders begin to communicate with their teams and their peers, they like to tell people what they know. There’s plenty of talk going on but who is really listening? Relationship development is a skill and it has communication as its foundation. Good communication starts with listening genuinely to the other person.
A good listener opens their eyes, ears, and mind, and they close their mouth. If you are busy talking and telling others what they need to do, how to do it, and why they should do it, then you aren’t listening. The person is likely to respond with feelings of frustration, disappointment, and confusion. Not a good basis to develop trusting relationships.
When people come to you as a leader, they want to listened to. They want to feel that you respect them and understand them. This is where my request for you comes in. You will have to hold off telling them what you think they need to know.
So next week when someone comes to speak to you about a problem, concern, or your advice on something ask them questions instead and see what happens. Here’s some great questions to consider using
- What have you done so far?
- What do you believe is a likely cause?
- What do you believe will work?
- What do you need?
- What is holding you back?
- How can you find out?
- What is your gut feeling on this?
- What is stopping you taking action?
- If you weren’t scared, what would you do?
- What are you willing to do / stop doing, in order to improve this situation?
- How can you learn what you need to know about this?
Notice that there are no questions starting with “why”. This is deliberate. Many questions starting with a “why” will be perceived as judging, condoning, or questioning the person’s own views and that’s not good.
You may not intend for this to occur but our minds are really sensitive to “why” questions and react quickly. You need to keep the discussion open and trusting in order for the magic to happen. So learn to reframe your “why” questions to “what” or “how” questions because these won’t be perceived in a negative manner and causing the conversation to close down.
Asking questions rather than giving answers allows the person to think deeply and discover knowledge and solutions they may not have previously considered. It shows that you are listening and you are open to their input. Don’t forget to probe and to paraphrase to ensure that you understand the meaning. You will be surprised with how different the interaction will feel for you both. This is a great skill all leaders should master.
Try using it with a sales call, a formal one to one, or in a meeting. There are so many areas where good questioning will radically change the nature of the conversation
See how you go. I would love to hear about your conversations and what changed.
