Succesvol samenwerken als team
door Muriel Schrikkema,mede oprichter Direction
26 mei 2010


Ja, dat willen we allemaal wel, maar...
hoe zorg je nou dat er écht wordt samengewerkt?

Effectief samenwerken in een team vraagt twee zaken:

1. Van alle teamleden dat zij zich openstellen voor de verschillen tussen de teamleden. Juist die verschillen binnen een ‘divers’ team leveren op lange termijn meer resultaat op. Tegelijkertijd vragen deze verschillen ook meer aandacht. Of het nu om een nieuw samengesteld team gaat of om een team dat al wat langer samenwerkt; elk team dient de individuele teamleden goed te kennen om ook daadwerkelijk van elkaars krachten gebruik te kunnen maken.
   
   
2. Inzicht in de codes van het team en de organisatie. Mensen gedragen mensen zich in teams en organisaties volgens bepaalde codes/patronen, die individueel misschien niet bij hen passen, maar die binnen het systeem van het team of de organisatie ‘normaal’ of ‘ onontkoombaar’ zijn. Een dergelijk patroon overstijgt dus de individuele patronen van de teamleden en vormt het teampatroon. "Zo doen we dat hier nu eenmaal", "dat is typisch voor ons team" zijn opmerkingen waaruit dat blijkt.

 Lees verder »

Succesvol samenwerken als team

door Muriel Schrikkema,mede oprichter Direction
26 mei 2010


Ja, dat willen we allemaal wel, maar... 
hoe zorg je nou dat er écht wordt samengewerkt?

Effectief samenwerken in een team vraagt twee zaken:

1. Van alle teamleden dat zij zich openstellen voor de verschillen tussen de teamleden. Juist die verschillen binnen een ‘divers’ team leveren op lange termijn meer resultaat op. Tegelijkertijd vragen deze verschillen ook meer aandacht. Of het nu om een nieuw samengesteld team gaat of om een team dat al wat langer samenwerkt; elk team dient de individuele teamleden goed te kennen om ook daadwerkelijk van elkaars krachten gebruik te kunnen maken.
   
   
2. Inzicht in de codes van het team en de organisatie. Mensen gedragen mensen zich in teams en organisaties volgens bepaalde codes/patronen, die individueel misschien niet bij hen passen, maar die binnen het systeem van het team of de organisatie ‘normaal’ of ‘ onontkoombaar’ zijn. Een dergelijk patroon overstijgt dus de individuele patronen van de teamleden en vormt het teampatroon. "Zo doen we dat hier nu eenmaal", "dat is typisch voor ons team" zijn opmerkingen waaruit dat blijkt.
   
   Deze patronen bepalen in sterke mate óf we bijvoorbeeld afspraken met elkaar maken en of we er ons ook aan houden; óf we elkaar aanspreken op gedrag en of we daar ook iets mee doen; en ook of we bijvoorbeeld eigen verantwoordelijkheid nemen of niet...
   
   Individuele gedragspatronen en/of teampatronen maken het dus soms lastig om effectief met elkaar samen te werken, zowel binnen het team als daarbuiten.

Hoe werk je daar nou aan?
Wanneer je zaken echt wilt veranderen en effectiever wil samenwerken, moet je als team inbreken in de gedragspatronen die er zijn. Daarvoor moet het team zich van die patronen bewust zijn en ze kunnen waarnemen. Vervolgens kijk je wat nodig is om, in dit specifieke team, een passende gedragsverandering te realiseren (wat is het ‘oude ongewenste gedrag’, wat maakt dat de teamleden dat gedrag laten zien en hoe ziet het ‘gewenste gedrag’ er uit en willen en kunnen we dat?).

Hierop kan een team het beste begeleid worden door een deskundige van buiten het team. Deze persoon maakt namelijk geen deel uit van het team, het bestaande systeem met bijbehorende patronen waarnaar juist gekeken en op ingegrepen moet worden.

Hoe lang duurt een traject van teambegeleiding?
Afhankelijk van de vraag kan een teambegeleiding kortstondig zijn, bijvoorbeeld 1 tot 3 dagdelen, maar soms kan het traject ook enkele maanden nodig hebben. De duur wordt altijd in overleg met u bepaald.

Waar kijkt de deskundige/begeleider naar?

Fase waarin een team zich bevindt
Veelal kijk ik eerst naar de fase waarin het team zich bevindt. Elke fase vraagt een andere focus van de teamleden en de teamleider.

In de beginfase (forming) kennen de teamleden elkaar nog niet goed, er is dan nog geen of weinig onderlinge verbondenheid. Het team richt zich vaak op de teamleider of manager. Elkaar beter leren kennen is hier, evenals in de volgende fases, een zeer belangrijk uitgangspunt voor de verdere ontwikkeling van het team. Ook voor de teamleider is het van belang inzicht te krijgen in welke aandacht het team nodig heeft in welke fase.

Om hier inzicht in te geven werk ik vaak met een instrument dat drijfveren/gedragspatronen van de teamleden individueel en van het team als groep meet (keuze uit drie instrumenten). De teamleden leren elkaar hierdoor beter kennen en er ontstaat onderling meer begrip voor de verschillende zienswijzen. Vanuit dit begrip voor elkaar ontstaat een team dat veel krachtiger samenwerkt.

Visie/missie/doelen
In de volgende fase (storming) komen vaak de verschillen, irritaties en conflicten tussen teamleden aan de oppervlakte. Het ‘wij-gevoel’ ontbreekt, ieder zet zich neer vanuit zijn of haar eigen kracht. De nadruk leggen op wat het gezamenlijk doel is, is in deze fase onder andere belangrijk. ‘Zie ik mijn individuele doelen terug in het gemeenschappelijke doel’ is een belangrijk uitgangspunt voor professionals waarin men zich zeer herkent. Een professional moet iets van zichzelf terugzien in de teammissie wil hij/zij zich eraan committeren met hart en ziel.

Teamrollen/taken, procedures en afspraken
Een volgende stap is het kijken naar de verschillende rollen binnen het team, die nodig zijn om de teammissie te kunnen realiseren. Om als team doelgerichter samen te werken dienen taken, rollen, werkafspraken en procedures duidelijk te zijn voor alle teamleden. Teamleden worden zich er zo van bewust dat zij de andere teamleden nodig hebben om resultaten te bereiken. In deze fase (norming) worden met elkaar procedures en afspraken benoemd en geformuleerd, namelijk de manier waarop wordt samengewerkt (‘zo doen we dat hier’).

Onderlinge verhoudingen en relaties
80% van de tijd houden we ons bezig met de ‘harde kant van de zaak’ (visie/ missie/ taken/ rollen/ procedures en afspraken) en 20% met de ‘zachte kant’ (wie zijn we en wat vinden we van elkaar, hoe zien de onderlinge verhoudingen en relaties eruit en welke gevoelens krijgen aandacht?). Terwijl het succes van de samenwerking voor 80% door de ‘zachte kant’ bepaald wordt! Hier wordt dan ook specifiek op geïntervenieerd tijdens teamsessies die wij begeleiden.

Samenwerken als team / een succesvol team
Wanneer de doelen en verschillende rollen duidelijk zijn en het bewustzijn is gecreëerd dat diversiteit (ieder teamlid heeft zijn kwaliteiten en know how die daartoe bijdraagt) een team juist succesvoller en sterker maakt, is de basis gelegd voor een succesvol team.

Wanneer daarnaast onderlinge gevoelens worden benoemd en uitgesproken naar en met elkaar, men elkaar constructieve feedback op gedrag geeft, staat een team niets meer in de weg om succesvol te presteren en bevindt men zich in de vierde fase, die van ‘performing’ (grote betrokkenheid bij elkaar en de teamdoelen). Er wordt optimaal samengewerkt!

Wij helpen graag
Ik kan me voorstellen dat bovenstaande nogal veel informatie bevat en vragen bij u oproept. ‘Hoe vertaal ik dit succesvol naar mijn eigen team?’ Wanneer u hierover vrijblijvend van gedachten wilt wisselen maak ik graag een afspraak met u. Zowel voor kortstondige sessies of voor langdurige trajecten denken wij graag met u mee. U kunt mij bereiken via 035 - 603 79 79 of een e-mail sturen naar schrikkema@dir.nl 
 Sluiten   |    Print

7 aandachtspunten voor beter presterende teams
door Esther Mollema, mei 2008

Organisaties presteren beter wanneer op alle niveaus mensen in diverse en complementaire teams werken. Het 5 jaar durende onderzoek van Dr. Andre de Waal naar High Performing Organizations toont ook weer aan dat dit soort teams de basis zijn van organisaties, die beter presteren dan de rest.
 Lees verder »

7 aandachtspunten voor beter presterende teams
door Esther Mollema, mei 2008

Organisaties presteren beter wanneer op alle niveaus mensen in diverse en complementaire teams werken. Het 5 jaar durende onderzoek van Dr. Andre de Waal naar High Performing Organizations toont ook weer aan dat dit soort teams de basis zijn van organisaties, die beter presteren dan de rest. Diversiteit in teams zorgt voor meer meningen en meer gezichtspunten. De besluiten die dit soort teams nemen hebben een hogere kwaliteit en leveren de organisatie aanzienlijk meer op.

Voor organisaties die dit willen zijn er wel veel uitdagingen. Diversiteit is meer dan gewoon verschillende mensen in teams zetten. Vaak werkt dat zelfs averechts. In zo'n team zit meer spanning en conflict. Zonder wat begeleiding lukt het deze teams vaak niet om de diversiteit om te zetten in betere besluitvorming.

Organisaties die diverse en complementaire teams willen bouwen raden wij aan dit te doen met de volgende 7 aandachtspunten in hun achterhoofd. Deze lessen hebben wij geleerd tijdens onze samenwerking met zo'n 15 organisaties omtrent diversiteit en teams.

1. Begin klein
   Wellicht zelfs maar met 1 team. Zoek mensen die open staan voor het idee. Reserveer een dag om met dit team de voordelen en uitdagingen van het werken in diverse teams te bespreken. Laat ze, aan de hand van een case of simulatie, ervaren wat de kracht van een divers en complementair team kan zijn. Bespreek gezamenlijk wat ieder teamlid moet "los" laten, wat ze bij moeten leren en waar en wanneer ze hun kracht kunnen inzetten.
   
   
2. Begeleid het team in de eerste 100 dagen intensief
   Zorg voor een begeleider die de groep helpt op te starten, door bijvoorbeeld de rollen en afspraken rond de voortgang en besluitvorming helder te maken. In de eerste 100 dagen helpt deze begeleider alle leden van het team tot hun recht te laten komen.
   
   
3. Vier het conflict
   Grijp het eerste conflict aan om opnieuw aan te geven hoe het team een conflict kan ombuigen naar kracht. Help ze via de dialoog om het conflict helemaal te begrijpen en elkaars inzichten echt te delen. Stimuleer de groep om juist tijdens deze conflicten elkaar op te zoeken.
   
   
4. Voorkom de vorming van subgroepen
   De natuurlijke neiging van veel mensen is om gelijken op te zoeken. Als de druk in een team toeneemt, neigen veel mensen naar het vormen van subgroepjes met gelijken. Deze subgroepjes delen minder informatie met de rest. Programmeer de rollen van het team zo dat subgroepjes zich niet volgens deze natuurlijke weg kunnen vormen.
   
   
5. Ga voor de lange termijn samenwerking
   Laat deze teams langere tijd met elkaar samenwerken. Relationele conflicten frustreren vooral in het begin de samenwerking in deze teams. Bij diverse teams die langer met elkaar samenwerken, verdwijnen de verschillen langzaam en wordt de groep echt complementair. En daarin zit het grote voordeel van deze teams voor de organisatie.
   
   
6. Documenteer om te leren
   Zorg voor een goede leergeschiedenis. Neem de tijd om de uitdagingen, de oplossingen en de resultaten samen goed op te schrijven, zodat nieuwe teams  hiervan kunnen leren. Neem voldoende tijd voor deze investering. Dit betaalt zich altijd terug én helpt een organisatie zich verder te ontwikkelen.
   
   
7. Vier en verkoop het succes
   Besteed veel tijd aan het expliciet maken van de voordelen van deze teams. Maak het succes zichtbaar, door middel van de extra behaalde financiële of strategische doelstellingen. Ga voor stevige PR om zo weer anderen in je organisatie te stimuleren hun teams meer divers en complementair te maken.
   
   Voor meer informatie over passende programma's kunt u contact opnemen met Tilly Kesting (035 - 603 79 79 of kesting@dir.nl ). Esther Mollema is bereikbaar via mollema@dir.nl.

 Sluiten   |    Print

Hoe teamcoaching de performance van uw organisatie kan verbeteren
Sommige teams of besturen ontwikkelen zich tot een hecht samenwerkingsverband dat topprestaties neerzet, andere groepen vallen ruziënd uiteen voordat de eindstreep - het teamresultaat- zelfs maar in zicht is. Teamcoaching is dan vaak een goede interventie. Een mooi artikel hierover vonden wij op de site van Harvard.
 Lees verder »

Hoe teamcoaching de performance van uw organisatie kan verbeteren
Sommige teams of besturen ontwikkelen zich tot een hecht samenwerkingsverband dat topprestaties neerzet, andere groepen vallen ruziënd uiteen voordat de eindstreep - het teamresultaat- zelfs maar in zicht is. Teamcoaching is dan vaak een goede interventie.

Hoe teamcoaching conflicten kan reduceren, samenwerking kan verbeteren en bijdraagt aan de productiviteit van het team.

Teams are the workhorses of today’s businesses,but they’re workhorses prone to many ailments,from open bickering and sabotage on one end of the spectrum to resolute conflict avoidance on the other. And even teams that generally plow ahead productively can be improved.

One method more managers today are using is team coaching, says Joseph Weintraub, codirector of the Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program at Babson College (Wellesley, Mass.).

This article looks at three companies in which team coaching ramped up performance and off ers expert advice on helping squabbling groups manage conflict constructively, encouraging reticent team members to speak up, and deepening a group’s understanding of the dynamics that may be limiting its eff ectiveness. Keep in mind that coaching a team doesn’t always require hiring outside help; an insider who has received some training can play the role of a coach, and individual managers can apply many of these techniques themselves.

A TEAM IN CRISIS
One true believer in team coaching’s value is Tom Posey,the senior VP of organizational capability at Wells’ Dairy, a privately held ice cream maker in LeMars, Iowa. Family run since its founding in 1913, the 3,000-employee company now sells its Blue Bunny ice cream worldwide.

Recent industry consolidation has posed significant challenges to the fi rm. By 2002, many of its biggest retail customers said they would carry products only from the largest manufacturers in the industry. Company executives had already recognized that “to be viable long-term, we needed to be one of the big three in the business,” says Posey, which meant increasing sales, developing a more efficient supply chain, and getting tighter control of the financials. Doing all this, realized CEO Gary Wells, required bringing in new expertise, as difficult as that would be for the familyfirm. The  company soon hired seven newcomers, including a CFO, a senior VP of logistics, and a VP of sales.

One of the biggest challenges the newly reconstituted executive team faced was conflict avoidance. Posey says that family executives weren’t used to openlyairing conflicts. “They knew they would see each other at the next Thanksgiving dinner,” he says. As a result, the executive team had difficulty fully resolving issues. For example, in an eff ort to make the supply chain more effi cient, the company introduced a new warehouse-management system and redesigned the procedures for storing and loading product. But the executive team’s avoidance of conflict meant that critical details never got hammered out, such as how to train personnel. The end result was that drivers couldn’t fi nd the products they needed and oft en had to make multiple trips to load their trucks.

Realizing the team needed professional help, Posey brought in a coach from the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C. Over six months, the coach helped team members learn to manage
conflict effectively, leading to better and faster decision making. Today, Posey says, sales are up,the company has gained market share, and team members challenge one another’s ideas forthrightly.

GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF GROUP DYNAMICS
As the Wells’ Dairy team learned firsthand, team coaching emphasizes behaviors and communication patterns within the team, says Candice Frankovelgia, coaching practice leader at the Center for Creative Leadership.“The focus of team coaching is on interactions more than individual development—using ongoing work challenges as grist for the learning mill.”

Often people don’t understand why their colleagues react the way they do. To close that knowledge gap, coaches typically give team members several assessments, such as the Team Development Survey, a 360-degree-style evaluation designed specifi cally for teams, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Then, with every member’s consent, the coach shares the fi ndings with the group, highlighting how each person’s natural approach to confl ict or change can both help and hinder the group process. “You introduce them to each other through a lens they aren’t used to looking through,” says Frankovelgia. “It helps them to reinterpret behavior that may have been causing them diffi culty and to see benefits they may not have seen before.”

This is exactly what happened at Wells’ Dairy. After everyone on the executive team took several assessments and the results were shared, the team coach facilitated a discussion about the day-to-day impacton of different personality styles. Th  team learned, for instance, that one manager’s natural reaction to stress was to withdraw when interactions grew too heated, while another typically went on the attack. If the two dealt directly with each other, the results could be disastrous. “We could clearly see how differently we all viewed confl ict and the problems that that created,” Posey says.

With this understanding came greater trust and cohesiveness. The insights the team members gained through this exercise allowed them to interact with one another more empathetically and productively. Healthy debate now informed their decisions.

ESTABLISH GROUND RULES FOR BEHAVIOR
Soon after Michael Detlefsen became EVP of Maple Leaf Foods (MLF), a Toronto-based food processing company,he was determined to change how the members of his executive team interacted with one another. The group,which consisted of 14 managers of shared services, such as finance and HR, tended to bicker during meetings and snipe at one another aft erward.

To help him get their behavior in line, he hired a coach. One of the coach’s first suggestions was that Detlefsen lay out his expectations for the group: Detlefsen clarified their goals, laid down the law about uncooperative behavior, and insisted that everyone speak up. Then, he and the team developed a list of nine ground rules for behavior, among them: “We always treat each other and our MLF colleagues with complete respect” and “We celebrate our successes.”

Having these explicit guidelines put a stop to the most problematic behaviors among the team, such as outright sabotage and an almost tribal cliquishness. For instance, one executive instructed his staff not to help anyone on another executive’s team, to the point where he actually told them to withhold information that was critical to that team’s success. And buddies would support buddies regardless of an issue’s merit and refuse to recognize the validity of initiatives proposed by someone they personally disliked. The guidelines reminded team members that they were a team and needed to focus their energies where they belonged: on solving problems and creating value for the organization.

Setting ground rules is especially important when team members hail from diff erent cultures. A few years aft er his first team coaching experience, Detlefsen—now president of MLF—went through a similar eff ort with a multicultural team from the company’s global division.

Each team member ran operations in a different country. Once per quarter, the team members traveled to corporate headquarters and spent a week working intensively on issuesthat affected them all. Because of the different cultural norms governing communication, especially around sensitive topics, some team members had trouble working eff ectively with their team counterparts, and vice versa. For the Western members of the team, their Eastern colleagues were too reticent in expressing their honest opinions. For the Eastern team members, the bluntness of their Western counterparts was confrontational and disrespectful.

To facilitate communication that would inform and illuminate yet not off end, the group created a communications template that invited people to describe three things they liked about a proposal as well as three weaknesses they saw in it. The idea behind the template, says Detlefsen, was to allow team members to point out potential fl aws in a way that would not be perceived by anyone on the team as harshly critical.

SUPPLEMENT TEAM WORK WITH ONE-ON-ONE COACHING
Team coaching may need to be complemented by one-onone coaching, especially where particularly intimidating or abrasive personalities are concerned. Babson’s Weintraub once worked with a team of eight senior managers at a large manufacturing fi rm charged with developing growth strategies. Two members dominated the discussions, insulting people they disagreed with and fighting with each other.

In individual conversations, Weintraub asked each team member: “What do you and each member of this team need to (1) ‘start doing’ to be more eff ective? (2) ‘stop doing’ to be more eff ective? and (3) ‘continue doing’ to be more eff ective?” Not surprisingly, the destructive behavior of the two bullies emerged as a major theme.

Although Weintraub reviewed his findings with each member individually, he spent considerably more time in one-on-one discussions with the problem executives, highlighting how their behavior was holding the team back from achieving its goal. To drive this message home, Weintraub brought the company president into some of the discussions. His message to the problem executives: “Work together—or else.”

DO THE TEAM’S PROBLEMS ORIGINATE OUTSIDE?
Not every problem evident in a team’s interactions originates within the team. Organizational issues such as fi erce competition between two business units or misguided compensation and rewards programs can play out in the micro environment of a team.

Weintraub, for instance, discovered during his oneon-one discussions with the members of the eight-person senior management team that the company’s performancemanagement system had the unintended eff ect of pitting departments—and hence department heads—against one another. “The two executives were at each other’s throats partly because they were rewarded for how much money they could make on their own and how big of an empire they could build,” he says.

The company decided to alter its performancemanagement system so that individuals and business units were assessed on how well they collaborated. By rewarding cooperation, the change not only improved the performance of the executive team but also produced a valuable side benefi t: it increased collaboration throughout the larger team—the enterprise as a whole.

Bron: HARVARD MANAGEMENT UPDATE | NOVEMBER 2007 
door Anne Field
 Sluiten   |    Print

Next Generation Leaders: Competency Deficits and the Bridge to Succes
By Judy Chartrand, Ph.D. & Bonnie Hagemann

Remember those pesky word problems in Math class? Well, here’s the math:

• Baby Boomers are retiring at the rate of one every eight seconds
• The vast majority of organizational leaders are Baby Boomers with the most typical age being 58 years old.
• There are 11% fewer Gen Xers than Baby Boomers
• Generation Y (twenty-five and under) will not be management/leadership material for years to come

See the problem?
Bron: The Linkage Leader, september 2009

lees het hele artikel in pdf
 Lees verder »

Next Generation Leaders: Competency Deficits and the Bridge to Succes
By Judy Chartrand, Ph.D. & Bonnie Hagemann

Remember those pesky word problems in Math class? Well, here’s the math:

• Baby Boomers are retiring at the rate of one every eight seconds
• The vast majority of organizational leaders are Baby Boomers with the most typical age being 58 years old.
• There are 11% fewer Gen Xers than Baby Boomers
• Generation Y (twenty-five and under) will not be management/leadership material for years to come

See the problem? That’s right; the math tells us that we will not have enough people prepared to fill the impressive number of executive seats that will open over the next decade. And, because of the sheer number of seats changing, the incoming group could have a greater impact on business than any other in recent history. Of course the issue really isn’t that we can’t find people to put in the empty seats. The real issue is that we can’t find enough people who are PREPARED to fill the seats. This is a problem worth digging into, so we decided to do some research. To gauge the readiness of the next generation of leadership talent, we asked senior executive development professionals to share their view on where the incoming leadership group - the people who are most likely to fill executive level positions in the next 3-5 years -are strong and where they are weak. Their responses were part of a broader trends and best practice survey.  (2009 EDA Trends in Executive Development: A Benchmark Report).

lees het hele artikel in pdf
 Sluiten   |    Print

How Leaders Get Their Teams To ’Click’
By Philip J. Harkins

Well-integrated, high-performing teams - those that ‘click’ - never lose sight of their goals and are largely self-sustaining. In fact, they seem to take on a life of their own. And it’s all down to leadership. In every case that has been studied at the Europe-based Centre for Organisational Research, teams that ‘click’ always have a leader who creates the environment and establishes the operating principles and values that are conducive to high performance. The evidence for this is clearly seen in organizations where a manager who creates high performance moves to another part of the organization, or a different organization, and within 18 months they once again establish a high performing team.

Lees het hele artikel in pdf
 Lees verder »

How Leaders Get Their Teams To ’Click’

Well-integrated, high-performing teams - those that ‘click’ - never lose sight of their goals and are largely self-sustaining. In fact, they seem to take on a life of their own. And it’s all down to leadership. In every case that has been studied at the Europe-based Centre for Organisational Research, teams that ‘click’ always have a leader who creates the environment and establishes the operating principles and values that are conducive to high performance. The evidence for this is clearly seen in organizations where a manager who creates high performance moves to another part of the organization, or a different organization, and within 18 months they once again establish a high performing team.

We believe these leaders operate in an organized, systematic way to build successful teams, and that the formula not only involves what leaders should say and do, but also what they should not say and do. It also involves working backwards - leaders should envisage the future before dealing with the present.

The four most significant behaviors consistently demonstrated by high-impact leaders are:

• defining clear goals or a vision of the future in accordance with overall organizational aims (the ‘big picture’)
• creating blueprints for action to achieve those goals
• using language to build trust, encourage forward thinking and create energy within the team (‘powerful conversations’)
• getting the right people involved (‘passionate champions’)

Imparting a clear vision of where the team should be headed, and inspiring its members to make it a reality, is fundamental to team success. The great American tennis player Arthur Ashe had a wonderful phrase: "I never worried about winning or losing. I just went for it every time." Leaders who get teams to click consistently have their members tied together and "going for it".

This takes considerable effort on the part of a leader, so it’s useful to reflect on why it’s
worthwhile. As the English manager in a large aerospace company explained to me, "It’s a lot of work to get a team to click. It’s a lot more work to live with a team that isn’t clicking." It’s as if successful team leaders calculate the up-front investment and then adopt a process to get the team to pull together to maximize the return on that investment.

Here is what high-impact leaders do. They create a clear vision and describe it in simple
language. They take the time to get people to subscribe, or buy in, to that vision. Next, they assess the current situation, then work through the courses of action which are likely to yield results. It is the up-front work in getting to a clear end state that makes the process work.

This foundation-laying aspect of leadership is a determining factor in why some teams seem to grasp and then do their utmost to achieve organizational goals. It’s all about how the leader continually visualizes a positive end result. So, when things get tough for the team (as they always do), these extraordinary leaders reintroduce the big picture with phrases like: "Remember our objectives," and "Let’s keep our eye on the ball". This consistent single strategy of starting with the future and then moving back to the present allows leaders to make the tough decisions which enable the team to recognize and articulate problems("What’s really up?" or, "What’s really so?"), sort through possible solutions, and then take action.

Teams that consistently don’t ‘get it together’ over a long period of time can put up tough opposition for leaders who want to move forward. We like to say that such teams get ‘caught in the swamp’. Unfortunately, what they also do is pull others into the swamp with them.

From extensive research, we conclude that extraordinary leaders employ distinctive forms of verbal communication. It is what these leaders say and what they don’t say that gives them an advantage in getting teams to high-performance levels. These leaders truly mean what they say. They don’t mix their messages, fudge meanings or use ambiguous words. Their conversations are always candid, clear, and followed by committed action.

We call them ‘powerful conversations’, because they make blueprints come alive and create positive attitudes and energy on the part of team members. They also encourage mutual understanding between team members and the leader; use language to make a vision seem real and worth attaining. A ‘powerful conversation’ typically progresses in four stages.

Stage 1: Before getting into the specific details of goals and objectives, high-impact leaders spend all the time that’s needed on forming a clear vision (e.g., the general shape of a desired outcome or future state) which makes possible complete, undisputed acceptance of its attainability.

Stage 2: This entails a very candid and clear discussion of what people are thinking and feeling. The high impact leader makes sure that everyone’s agenda is heard and explored. He or she carefully asks questions to make sure there is a genuine expression of beliefs, expectations and even fears, while also patiently ensuring that the conversation remains relevant to the big picture. This keeps all those involved out of the swamp, and enables them to set up a useful and realistic agenda. Once this is done, the high-impact leader assesses the agenda.

Stage 3: The high-impact leader now skillfully discusses with team members the issues
enmeshed in their proposed agenda. In this way, the leader can deepen his or her understanding of the team’s goals and bring to the surface any hidden agendas. The high-impact leader describes scenarios linking future outcomes with the current situation, then proceeds to refine them. He or she continues to keep the process focused on the target future state, and helps the team to see how far it has moved and what progress it has made.

Stage 4: The leader makes sure participants know exactly what steps need to be taken next, and that they are open about what they will do to turn their commitments into reality - making the team ‘alive’. The closing of a powerful conversation is also the time when a leader makes sure there is absolute buy-in, or belief in what the team is setting out to do, that team members’ commitments are clear and accepted, that all action steps are well-defined and understood. In this way, the high-impact leader ensures that the powerful conversation will produce results.

These are the four most significant behaviors consistently demonstrated by high-impact leaders. But they are not the only such behaviors. What follows is a less detailed but fuller list of what leaders should do to get people to work together to attain organizational goals.

Top Ten Leadership Techniques for Building High-Performing Teams

1. Define a very clear picture of the future-a vision for the team. This is crucial, because teams search desperately for specific targets. Consider the old expression: "If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there." Journeys without a clear destination leave groups feeling flat and lost. Keeping teams informed on where they’re headed and how best to get there means leaders must be prepared to acknowledge and adapt to changes in operational conditions and even objectives. Leaders cannot sit back and watch, but instead must create and recreate the vision and team spirit that stops people losing heart and becoming lost.

2. Be genuine, even if it means lowering your guard. Leaders who create ‘click’ have an uncanny sense about how and when to express their inner selves. They will even reveal their own vulnerabilities at the right time to gain the respect of those around them. They are not so concerned about projecting a perfect image: they know that high-impact leaders get results by laughing at their own flaws. They don’t play make-believe, knowing it’s more important ‘to be’ than to ‘seem to be’.

3. Ask good questions. They use enquiry and advocacy in such a way as to keep them abreast of what is really going on. They seem to use a simple formula of the 70-20-10 rule in conversations: 70 per cent listening, 20 per cent enquiring with just the right amount of advocacy, and 10 per cent tracking (i.e., summarizing and synthesizing information, and providing possible courses of action).

4. Talk about things-even the hard things. A leader who gets their team to click is not afraid to talk about the tough stuff. They find ways to have the difficult conversations in the knowledge that burying problems doesn’t make them go away. They also know that if they, as leader, don’t talk about things, no one will and, pretty soon, a culture will develop in which too many things are left unsaid. (I can always tell when teams are dysfunctional by measuring the amount of stuff not talked about, or what I call the "let’s not go there" issues.)

5. Follow through on commitments. Leaders of high-performing teams find ways to build trust and maintain it, especially by making teams hold to their commitments and keeping the team’s view of its goals clear. However, they also know how to distinguish professional trust from blind loyalty.

6. Let others speak first. In high-performing teams, members see themselves as equal in terms of communication. Leaders should therefore encourage this by putting the other person’s need to express their agenda ahead of their own.

7. Listen. High-performing teams comprise people who have mastered the art of listening without fear, of allowing others to speak without reacting strongly or negatively to what is being said, or what they anticipate will be said. The leader fosters and honors this attribute within the team by quickly putting a stop to bad conversational behavior that cuts other people off and implies that their ideas are not valued. The leader knows that achieving higher levels of innovation requires team members to be unafraid to express unusual ideas and advocate experimental processes. They emphasize this by publicly thanking those who take risks - and by making sure that sharp-shooters put their guns away.

8. Face up to non-performing players. This brings us to a very important characteristic of high-performing teams, which is that their leaders do not tolerate players who pull the team apart. Interestingly, experienced leaders frequently maintain unity and discipline through third parties in the form of people we call ‘passionate champions’. A leader may surround his or herself with several passionate champions, who have established an understanding and close working relationship with one another, and who are totally focused on, and committed to, the team’s objectives. They are capable of getting the job done - and not afraid to remove people who are failing to help them do so.

9. Have fun, but never at others’ expense. High-impact leaders steer clear of sarcasm: they always take the high road. If they do make fun of someone, it’s usually themselves. They have learned the lesson that reckless humor can be misinterpreted and backfire. They know that critics of the organization can turn inappropriate remarks back on a leader who makes them.

10. Be confident and dependable. Somehow, over and above the daily struggle, leaders who get teams to click project confidence. They do this by preparing their conversations and not backing away from, or skimming over, real issues and problems, even difficult or confronting ones. They always address ‘What’s up?’ and ‘What’s so?’ in the organization. They don’t try to be spin doctors because they know that, ultimately, this doesn’t work. Rather, they are known as straight shooters - people who play hard, fight fair, and never, never give up. At the end of the day, team members know that, whatever happens, their leader will be left standing. This gives them confidence that they will be standing, too. They also know that, should things get really bad, their leader will not desert them or try to shift the blame, but seek to protect them, even if it means standing in the line of fire.
Bron: The Linkage Leader, juni 2009
 Sluiten   |    Print

Ernest Shackleton - de HPO leider?

Tijdens veel van onze trainingen rond leiderschap gebruiken wij het voorbeeld van ontdekkingsreiziger Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton heeft in onze ogen veel eigenschappen van een echte High Performance Leider.
 Lees verder »

Ernest Shackleton - de HPO leider?
Tijdens veel van onze trainingen rond leiderschap gebruiken wij het voorbeeld van ontdekkingsreiziger Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton heeft in onze ogen veel eigenschappen van een echte High Performance Leider. In onderstaand artikel, van Wharton University, zijn enkele van deze eigenschappen beschreven.

On December 5, 1914, Sir Ernest H. Shackleton and 27 men under his command sailed from South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic aboard the barque Endurance. Their goal was to land on the Antarctic continent and become the first to cross it. The North Pole had been reached in 1909; the South Pole, in 1911. Shackleton, a veteran of Antarctic exploration who had been knighted for his earlier expeditions, felt that crossing Antarctica was "the last great Polar journey that can be made." He named his endeavor the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Shackleton and his men failed utterly at the expedition's stated goal; they never even set foot on Antarctica. Yet the courage and determination they displayed have become legendary. lees het hele artikel in PDF.
 Sluiten   |    Print

Celebrate Failure

by Richard Watson
Why do successful companies need to fail? As someone once said, there's magic in the wake of a fiasco.
 Lees verder »

Celebrate Failure

by Richard Watson

Why do successful companies need to fail? As someone once said, there's magic in the wake of a fiasco.

You don't read about failure very often. And I'm not just talking about ideas that don't see the light of day. I'm talking about people too. Why is this? What are we afraid of? After all, it's not as if it's unknown. Most companies -- indeed, most people -- fail more often than they succeed. It is the proverbial elephant-in-the-boardroom. And yet by being scared of failure, we are missing a great opportunity.

The point about failure is not that it happens but what we do when it happens. Most people flee. Or they find a way to be "economical with the actualite" as a former British Government so elegantly described it.

"We launched too late." "Consumers weren't ready for it."

No. You failed. Own up to it. Own it. This is a beginning, not the end.

The problem is this: Most people believe that success breeds success and they believe that the converse is true too, that failure breeds failure. Says who? There are plenty of people who fail before they succeed, some of whom are serial failures. Indeed, there is rumoured to be a venture capital firm in California that will only invest in you if you've gone bankrupt twice.

Take James Dyson, the inventor of the bag-less vacuum cleaner. He built 5,127 prototypes before he found a design that worked. He looked at his failures and learned. He then looked at his next failure and learned some more. Each adaptation led him closer to his goal. As someone once said, there's magic in the wake of a fiasco. It gives you the opportunity to second guess.

None of this is to be confused with the mantra of most motivational speakers who urge you not to give up. Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration they say, and if you just keep on trying, it will eventually happen. And if it doesn't, you're just not trying hard enough. This is a big fat lie. Doing the same thing over and over again in the hope that something will change is almost the definition of madness. What you need to do is learn from your failure and try again differently.

All of which brings me to my first point. It is what you do when you fail that counts. Remember Apple's message pad, the Newton? This was a commercial flop, but the failure was glorious. Indeed, who is to say that the tolerance of failure that is embedded in Apple's DNA is not one of the reasons for Apple's success with the iPod and iTunes?

Does this mean you abandon your failures? Yes and no. Your idea could be right but your timing, delivery, or execution could be wrong. Who could have guessed that the one-time AIDS wonder drug AZT had been a failed treatment for cancer or that Viagra was a failed heart medication that Pfzer stopped studying in 1992?

As Alberto Alessi once said, anything very new often falls into the realm of the not possible, but you should still sail as close to the edge as you can, because it is only through failure that you will know where the edge really is. The edge is also where real genius resides.

So what I'm interested in promoting are the people whose ideas never get off the ground or rather get somewhere other than where they intended. These are the people who fail on our behalf. The unknown innovators that push things so far to the edge that they fall off. The unlucky or naïve few who open up a new trail -- and get scalped -- before someone else can see a way through with the wagons. (How's that for a new historical definition of second-mover advantage?)

There's a great quote by the English sculptor Henry Moore that sums this up pretty well: "The secret of life is to have a task, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do."

So here's my idea. Rather than putting up statues to people who did something that was successful, let's build a monument to the people who didn't. Let's celebrate the lives of people who invented things that didn't work or tried to do something that was just plain crazy. A monument to the unknown innovator in pursuit of an impossible dream. The people we watch with perverse envy when we are too scared, too self-conscious, or too constrained to fail ourselves. Because without these wonderful people, there would be no progress or success.

Here are my top five tips for failing with greater frequency and style:

- Try to fail as often as possible but never make the same mistake twice.
- Set a failure target as part of each employee's annual review.
- If projects are a failure, kill them quickly and move on.
- Create a failure database as part of knowledge management.
- Set up annual failure awards. If this gets too successful, stop it. (Stephen Pile's Book of Heroic Failures spawned the Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain. Unfortunately the club received 30,000 membership applications and had to be closed down because it was a failure at being a failure.)

Bron: Fastcompany.com
 Sluiten   |    Print

The Beatles Principles

by Andrew Sobel
Lessons about teamwork and creativity from the most successful band in history.
Entrepreneur Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, is known for building creative, motivated teams. He insists on "fun" as a key element of any new enterprise.
 Lees verder »

The Beatles Principles

Lessons about teamwork and creativity from the most successful band in history.

Entrepreneur Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, is known for building creative, motivated teams. He insists on "fun" as a key element of any new enterprise. When I mentioned this to a senior executive at a large investment bank, he shook his head and told me, with a mixture of remorse and bravado, that his company had once been fun, too: "We're a bit more like the military now, and too big for that stuff. We marshal the people and grind out the deals pretty mechanically." He glanced at his beeping BlackBerry, mumbled an apology, and shot off somewhere, leaving behind a last remark: "There's not a lot of fun left."

Too many people in business feel that way. And the more they lose sight of the fun and camaraderie in their business, the harder it is to deliver performance.

But there is an example of a team that learned to deliver the highest level of performance while having fun on a legendary scale. Not coincidentally, it's the most successful team of our time: the Beatles. Richard Branson has fun, but his outsized personality and high-stakes gambles make it hard to follow his example. The Beatles were great artists and entertainers, but in many respects they were four ordinary guys who, as a team, found a way to achieve extraordinary artistic and financial success and have a great time together while doing it. Every business team can learn from their story.

If we want to understand the Beatles' relevance to management teams, the place to start is February 9, 1964. On that night, the group made its American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in front of what was then the largest television audience in history. The black-and-white clip of that performance is now a pop-culture classic. Before a theater full of screaming teenagers, the four young musicians - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr - are relaxed and confident as they kick into "All My Loving." Ringo's drum kit is elevated above the stage - then an unusual arrangement - so that he is as much the center of attention as the other three Beatles. It's an ensemble of four equal players, not a flamboyant lead singer with his backing musicians. They're all smiling. They're having the time of their lives. If ever there was an antidote to the malaise of "grinding it out mechanically," it was visible on the stage that night.

The Beatles are a noteworthy example because the whole of their accomplishment was so much greater than the sum of its parts. The reasons are evident in the way they worked together as a team; how they collaborated to write their songs; the techniques they used to enhance their innate creativity; and the approaches they used, for most of their time together, to defuse the inevitable tensions that arose among them.

The magic was far more than just the music. There are, in fact, specific strategies - I call them "the Beatles Principles" - that you can use to re-create a bit of the Fab Four's juju. If you have to field teams of high-performing professionals, or if you're trying to improve your organization's teamwork, creativity, and capacity to connect with customers, here are four principles to work and play by.

"Eight Days a Week"
When the young Beatles first hit the top of the U.K. charts in 1963, with "Please Please Me," they seemed like an overnight sensation, but they weren't. Behind their seemingly effortless playing were thousands of hours logged performing together in the clubs of Liverpool and Hamburg. This face time forged the individual Beatles into a cohesive, tightly knit team that Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger called, enviously, "the four-headed hydra."

Today, we have almost forgotten about the importance of face time in building familiarity and mutual trust - the requisites for teaming seamlessly under pressure. Some companies have gone so far as to promote the concept of "virtual teams," whose members have never met one another, and never will. This approach can work for engineering and other technical projects, but if you have to perform for clients and customers, forget it. As the CFO of a Fortune 500 company told me recently, "All of the big banks and professional firms tell you they are ‘global.' But most of them cannot field a team of people, drawn from these far-flung operations, who know and trust each other and who have worked together before. You really notice when the individuals on the team are relaxed, communicating, and having fun together - or, as the case may be, introducing themselves to each other for the first time outside your office door."

That behavior is a tip-off, says the CFO: "I notice how they are getting on with each other because this tells me what a long-term relationship with me and my organization might look like."

The Beatles demonstrated that true esprit de corps comes from intense, shared experiences.

Beatles Principle Number 1: Invest in and build face time between team members long before they are required to appear together.

"Getting Better"
Most rock groups produce essentially the same types of songs, over and over again. The Beatles' secret to retaining and growing their audience over time was the breathtaking and continual evolution of their music, from album to album, along many dimensions. Their musical explorations took them into new and unfamiliar themes, musical styles, arrangements, instruments, and recording techniques. With songs as varied as "Yesterday" and "Revolution," they sold more than 1 billion records in not much more than a decade.

Like many eclectic innovators, the Beatles borrowed extensively from other genres and combined these ideas into something new. Starting from a base of rock and roll, they added touches of Indian music, country and western, rhythm and blues, classical, music hall pop, acoustic folk, and jazz. They turned record covers into works of art (Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and virtually created the rock video. The Beatles did not actually invent most of these musical ideas, but they reached out and dared to combine them in new ways that vastly expanded the vocabulary of rock and roll.

No subject was too mundane or outlandish. A newspaper article about the death of a Guinness brewing heir spurred John Lennon to compose "A Day in the Life." A parking ticket became "Lovely Rita." Paul McCartney's sheepdog inspired "Martha My Dear," and an offhand comment from an overworked chauffeur turned into "Eight Days a Week." The Beatles had profound powers of observation. They absorbed the world around them, framed it musically, and gave it back to us.

Complacency - being content to sing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" over and over again - is the enemy of sustainable success. The way to keep clients and customers for life is to evolve your songs with them - to constantly expand your repertoire. Amazon has done this by slowly adding merchandise categories to its original core of books, Porsche through its successful Boxster sports car and Cayenne SUV lines, and Apple Computer with its popular lineup of iPod music players and related software.

Beatles Principle Number 2: Evolve your "songs" and bring the same level of ideas, new perspectives, excitement, and enthusiasm to your hundredth meeting with a client that you brought to the first.

"With a Little Help from My Friends"
The Beatles' early success was driven mostly by Lennon and McCartney's songwriting prowess, but the pair quickly had to accommodate what turned out to be four star personalities in their own right. The band used a number of strategies to manage these tensions. For example, drummers always feel underappreciated in rock groups, and Ringo Starr was no exception. So Lennon and McCartney would write a song for him to sing on almost every album (e.g., "With a Little Help from My Friends" on Sgt. Pepper), giving him a special platform with the public. As George Harrison's compositional talents developed, the other members of the group began ceding song tracks to him. Famous Harrison songs include "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something" on the Abbey Road album.

As the Beatles matured as a team, they worked even harder to recognize and embrace each player. It worked: The individual Beatles became brands within the brand.

Keeping stars together is not easy, and younger professionals, especially, often feel underappreciated on teams. It's great to feel part of a whole, but in the end everyone needs a sense of personal importance as well. Why not give team members a project that makes them look good in their own right?

Beatles Principle Number 3: Help team members become brands-within-a-brand by giving them a song - an idea or proposal - that will help them to shine.

"I Need You"
Research shows that most managers hire individuals who are like themselves, in effect assembling homogeneous teams in their own image. The most successful songwriting duo in history, in contrast, was composed of two individuals - John Lennon and Paul McCartney - who were dissimilar in almost every respect. When they first met, in July 1957, Lennon was a cynical, angry, sarcastic young man of 16 who was constantly getting into trouble. Ultimately, he came to loathe the Beatles' fame. McCartney, on the other hand, was optimistic and hardworking. He liked to please, and would later adore celebrity. Despite their differences, they were drawn together by a shared love of American rock and roll and their powerful musical ambitions.

As McCartney would sing, "I've got to admit it's getting better," Lennon would chime in with a dour counterpoint, "Can't get much worse." They complemented each other's musical ideas, and pushed each other to come up with better songs. They balanced each other's temperaments, and each curtailed the other's excesses. Lennon's lyrics made you think, while McCartney's haunting melodies could send a tingle up your spine.

The Beatles showed that differences and friendly competition fuel team creativity. So does a blend of specialist and generalist abilities. McCartney and Lennon were the deep generalists of the band. Each had broad musical and artistic talents - both could play a range of instruments, compose music, and write varied lyrics - and this breadth fueled many of the Beatles' innovations. George Harrison and Ringo Starr, in contrast, were the branded experts. Harrison played lead guitar and Starr played drums, and they stuck to their knitting. As a result, the lead guitar solos grew ever more inventive, melodic, and moving. Starr developed a highly idiosyncratic and recognizable drumming style.

The art of creating effective teams lies in how you blend together branded experts and deep generalists. Unfortunately, many corporate teams are overloaded with specialists who fail to put their products and services into the broader business context of their customer's or client's needs - they save the leg but let the patient die. The harder person to develop is the deep generalist. That takes a mix of careful hiring, creative career management, and broad-based skill development. Sprinkle your teams of branded experts with a few deep generalists, and the result will be powerful.

Beatles Principle Number 4: Put exceedingly diverse professionals on the same team, mix specialists with generalists, and foster friendly competition to produce the best ideas.

"And in the End"
The Beatles' breakup in 1970 raises a big question: How do you keep a superstar team together after it has reached the top? How do you keep the creativity, drive, and motivation going once you've vanquished all enemies? Bill Gates, no doubt, has had a few sleepless nights thinking about that one.

At the core of the Beatles was their great music - but they had more than that. We cannot imitate the Beatles' native genius as songwriters and musicians, but we can borrow from the other parts of their success and apply what we've learned. The Beatles remind us that the essence of any successful organization is small teams of individuals who do things they love, have fun together, and feel part of a greater whole while maintaining their individual identities.

The cure for "grinding it out" is available; the principles are there for the taking. Put on Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road, sit back, listen, and relax. Watch a few of those old clips of the Beatles' raucous press conferences, or their exultant performances on The Ed Sullivan Show. I'm betting you'll see what I mean.

by Andrew Sobel

Bron: strategy-business.com
 Sluiten   |    Print

Six Coaching Strategies You Can Apply in the Workplace
By Jamie Walters
Coaches of all kinds use similar tools to teach and motivate. Here are six key tools you can use to teach and motivate employees.
Whether on the gridiron, in the boardroom, as part of a project team, or as a personal or professional counselor, all coaches use similar tenets and tools to help others excel. Coaches might implement these tools in different ways, but the common denominators present in most coaching relationships can have lasting effects on employees' performance, as well as on your own.
 Lees verder »

Six Coaching Strategies You Can Apply in the Workplace

Coaches of all kinds use similar tools to teach and motivate. Here are six key tools you can use to teach and motivate employees.

By Jamie Walters

Whether on the gridiron, in the boardroom, as part of a project team, or as a personal or professional counselor, all coaches use similar tenets and tools to help others excel. Coaches might implement these tools in different ways, but the common denominators present in most coaching relationships can have lasting effects on employees' performance, as well as on your own.

Apply these six strategies to boost the effectiveness of your workplace coaching:

Have a game-plan: A clear vision and action plan ensure that all " players" are focused on the same end-result. As the coach, this will help you more quickly see when the group is off-course and needs to re-calibrate its efforts. What happens if you lack a vision and action plan? Just imagine a football coach trying to coordinate each player' s movements without a predetermined play.

Associate the gameplan with individuals' goals: A personal coach is only as effective as the client is motivated. A coach can recommend approaches and tools until she is blue in the face, but if the client isn' t genuinely focused on attaining the expressed goals (rather, his boss told him to go to the coach), little change will be made.

Do drills: Isolate the key skills required to succeed, and develop exercises that hone those specific skills through practice. For example: Rarely (if ever!) will someone give a presentation in front of a mirror. And yet, isolating the skill to " wear" a comfortable expression and posture, and practicing in front of a mirror, builds those talents for real presentations.

Put people in roles that suit their aptitude: Discuss natural propensities with your employees. Learn what they like to do and why. Suggest new or modified roles for individuals. Fill talent voids in your organization, as opposed to filling an open job title. Don' t be afraid to give someone new responsibilities or roles if his demonstrated traits suit what' s needed. A vocal coach, for example, will shift a student with a low singing voice out of the soprano section and into the alto section. Singing out of range damages the student' s voice and reduces the quality of the chorus' sound.

Use appropriate communication modes and content: The best coaches in any arena know how to mold their communication style and content to befit the person they are coaching -- leading to greater understanding, better rapport, and longer retention. This applies to word choice, voice tone, personal space boundaries, and the way you explain required actions and expectations. For example: When explaining how to cup your hands properly when swimming, a coach might toss out all explanations and visuals directly relating to swimming and instead say, " Pretend you' re petting a cat." Since they have stroked a cat before, the person will better understand how to use the correct swimming form.

Celebrate: Achieving goals and surpassing milestones deserve credit. Celebrating these accomplishments underscores the value that each person brings to the table and confirms expected behaviors -- all while serving as motivators for future learning.

Remember, this information is food-for-thought, not customized counsel. The most effective interpersonal and organizational communication program is one that's been tailored to meet the unique needs of your group.

Bron: inc.com
 Sluiten   |    Print

The top 10 trends for career development and employee engagement

Happiness Counts... Big Time!
The new catchword in organizations is "engagement." All the research organizations are publishing similar stats: Workers aren't happy, and they will vote with their feet if things don't change!
 Lees verder »

The top 10 trends for career development and employee engagement

Happiness Counts... Big Time!

The new catchword in organizations is "engagement." All the research organizations are publishing similar stats: Workers aren't happy, and they will vote with their feet if things don't change! The Society of Human Resource Planners said 8 out of 10 of your employees will jump ship when the economy lights come back on. Ouch! Savvy organizations will spend time, money, and resources on this issue. And the savviest of the savvy will hold managers accountable. Companies that can increase engagement will gain a competitive edge over those who can't.

Boomers are Bailing.

Warning: Baby Boomers are getting ready to retire, and there aren't enough people to replace them. Can you keep them a little while longer? Get creative and find ways to hang on to your senior workers. Give them new learning opportunities, exciting projects, and mentoring responsibilities. Offer phased retirement. And remember to mine their knowledge before they go.

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go.

The mantra of the emerging workforce is, "Develop me or I'm history." They're building their portfolios and beefing up their resumes. It may seem counterintuitive, but helping them grow will help you keep them. Teach your managers to hold development conversations with their employees and teach employees how to hold up their end of those conversations.

Flex It or Fergit It!

Workers want more freedom and flexibility, and they expect their managers to link arm in arm with them to find ways of making work, well, work. The degree to which you can give them elbow room and flexibility will predict how long you'll keep them.

How "Gen-Friendly" Are You?

Close those generation gaps. Never before have you had four generations sharing your workspace. It's time to devote a little attention to the unique challenges and wants of each group. Help them understand each other and you'll increase satisfaction and productivity at work.

New Possibilities Lure Your Talent.

New employment options will again attract your best people. It's not just your competitors who will go after your top talent. Free agency calls. CNN Money said 1.1 million people are working for themselves since 2003. If you can't offer what they want, they'll look for contract, temporary, consulting, or freelance work -- or they'll start their own businesses.

Employee-Centric Workplaces Return.

It's a supply/demand issue, and the supply is rapidly diminishing. You won't be able to say, "Quit whining and be glad you have a job." Instead, you'll once again be stealing talent from your neighbors and asking your stars, "What will it take to keep you here?" Start now. Use "stay interviews" instead of exit interviews.

It's More Than Pay That Makes Them Stay.

Reward is more than a paycheck. OK, so this isn't really new. But it is more pronounced. Total reward systems will expand, and your creativity will be tested. The key will be mass customization. Find out what each talented employee wants. What does reward mean to each person on your team? Then find a way to give it.

Managing Multitudes.

Manager's span of control will increase. If the demographics are right, managerial positions will increase by 25% over the next decade, but there will be a 15% decline in 25-44 year olds in the market. And you thought 10 direct reports was a heavy load? We heard of one manager who has 57 direct reports! To succeed you'll have to empower employees (yes, the old "e" word again) to take care of their own workplace satisfaction. Beware, many don't know how! Be ready to teach 'em!

Kinder, Gentler Workplaces Win.

Sounds soft, huh? Well, it's a reality. Your workers want you to care about them, not just as workers, but as human beings. They expect you to respect their time, their skills, and their unique talents -- and to use them well. They want that now, and they will demand it tomorrow.

Sharon Jordan-Evans and Beverly Kaye

co-wrote Love 'Em or Lose 'Em and contribute

Bron: FastCompany.com
 Sluiten   |    Print