The 4 things successful leaders never do at 7:30 in the morning

Well, sorry to have tricked you with the title. I don't have a clue what successful leaders do, or not do, at 7:30 in the morning. Or at any time during the day for that matter. Yet I see about a dozen blogs or postings left and right every day that seem to promise instant gratification if only we mere mortals could copy this or that habit that successful leaders apparently have. And guess who writes these blogs and postings ... Do you think it is the successful leaders who sit down and share their secrets to success ? Hmm ... most often it is not.

I have studied the history of leadership extensively for an executive leadership program. Over the years, a lot of interesting models and views about leadership have been developed. Yet none of these leadership models have been universally validated as holding the secrets to sustained and successful leadership.

For those who are interested in developing their leadership and who are in search of the holy grail, the following reality check is the best advice I can share:

"The search for the universally correct leadership style is doomed to failure because of cultural variation by country, by industry, by occupation, by the particular history of a given organization, and, most importantly, by the actual task to be performed." from Edgar Schein in Organizational Culture and Leadership (4th edition), page 166.

So rather than try and find out what you are supposed to do or not to do at 7:30 in the morning, work with what you have: yourself and the people surrounding you. Try and improve something you do every day. Ask for feedback and reflect honestly on how you are doing. That is probably going to take you further than digging for secret leadership formulas will !

Meetings that work !

I was lucky to be able to deliver the first public workshop on Action Learning in Vietnam last week. At the end of the session, all participants confirmed they really saw the value of the approach and they would apply it in their organizations. As a facilitator, it feels good to get this kind of feedback but I am also aware that very often, reality (with deadlines, emails, presentations to do ...) sucks us up very quickly.

So I was really excited to receive an email from one of the participants of the Vietnam branch of a global FMCG company sharing his very first - and innovative - application of the principles of Action Learning !

His sales team had scheduled the annual Joint Business Meeting with a key customer the day after the workshop. In the past, this Business Meeting was a full day of Powerpoints where each team shared their views, their objectives, results and challenges. And the hours were spent in discussing, explaining, debating, resulting in some agreements and some disagreements. Pretty much a long day for everybody involved, with hours of time spent up front to create the Powerpoint slides.

So my participant, in charge of the sales team for the global FMCG in Vietnam, decided to try and apply the principles of Action Learning in this annual Joint Business Meeting. Out with the laptops, and out with the Powerpoints. The sales manager adapted the standard WIAL Action Learning script to fit his need for this meeting, maintaining the core ground rule of "Statements are only made in response to questions". Participants asked questions to one another to dive into the challenges their respective businesses were facing. Quite a difference from stating your point and trying to convince the other side yours is the right view. Both teams followed the Action Learning approach and achieved a high level of consensus on the key challenges they faced. At the end of the meeting, next steps were jointly identified to work towards and solve the challenges. Participants rated the session 8.5 out of 10 !

Next step: do the same with 2 other major customer teams.

Now that's what I call Action Learning ... in action !

What does Google see as the MAIN characteristic of an effective team ?

I am sure that if you ask leaders what the key characteristics of an effective team are, they would come up with a list of great and noble words. Trust. Diversity. Shared goals. Appreciation. Focus. And many more like this. Team psychological safety will probably not be on that list. And yet that is what Google says contributes most to the effectiveness of a team, click here for the original article. Google lists 4 more characteristics, but Team Psychological Safety beats the other 4 by a long way !


In my discussions with leaders in Asia, I found out it is a description that scares people to some degree. Psychological and safety are words with a lot of interpretations. Amy Edmondson's definition of Team Psychological Safety is "a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking". Not just risk taking, but interpersonal risk taking. This means telling others when you made a mistake. Or asking for help from one of your peers. Or speaking up when someone else has made a mistake. Doing this means taking a risk with respect to your peers. It requires some courage to do this. But when you create a climate where people can take this can of interpersonal risks with one another - in a safe way - the foundation for a great team is laid. And all the other characteristics will grow on that fertile foundation.



You don't develop Team Psychological Safety over night. It grows over time. And it can also disappear over time. But the reward of a team that continues to grow is really worth the effort. So think about how you work with your team, and what you can do to increase the "shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking".

Nobody's perfect ... but a team can be !

I first thought this was a generic quote close to common sense. But I realized it was in fact the title of an article written by Dr. Meredith Belbin some time ago introducing his Belbin Team Roles (www.belbin.com). I agree with this statement and I believe most business leaders to as well. But I am also astounded that, although this sounds like common sense, it is so far from how many leaders I meet go about leading their teams.

Indeed, I often meet leaders who explain that they have a great team except for the marketing manager. Or the HR manager. Or whichever manager. And so - their thinking goes - if only they could get rid of that particular manager, and replace him or her with the perfect marketing, HR or whatever manager .... if only that could be done, then all would be well. Yet finding someone new takes time, is costly, and however great someone's CV/resume/Linkedin profile looks, the reality sometimes is not really that glamorous. And if all the above turns out positive, there is no guarantee that this new manager will fit into the culture and work well with the other managers on the team.

When I meet leaders and ask them how they work on the development of their team, they mention an annual retreat, or a monthly team meeting. These events are often reduced to a series of presentations about each department with their priorities and results. And once in a while they throw in a team building day, which is great fun for sure. Is this how you build a team ?

There is so much more potential that can be developed when you focus on the connections between your team members. What happens when the quality manager is adversely impacted by a new process the finance manager is proposing ? Are they sitting together to find the best solution for the organization ? Or do each stay within their silo complaining about the other ? Or maybe even worse ... does nothing happen until you - the boss - decide ? Working on the connections between your people and the reactions to events that impact them is the real way to develop a team. It takes time, there is no 1-2-3 solution. But from what I see around me, this is an area that most teams simply do not work on.

Building the wrong kind of trust

A lot has been written about developing trust with your team members. Trust takes time to build and can be destroyed in a minute with a careless remark. In Asia, trust is maybe even more critical when leading a team. We know all that. Nothing new here. But I have seen senior leaders attempting to build trust with their team yet at the same time destroying the very foundation of that team.

Here is what I have observed more than once. The leader sits down with Tom, one of his direct reports, to review an important project. "Great job Tom, I am really happy I asked you to be in charge of this project. We are on track and the client is really satisfied. You have definitely confirmed your capabilities". So far so good ... great expression of trust in what Tom has done so far. And then the conversation continues ... "Now, for the next step, you will need to work with the marketing manager Susan. You know she can sometimes be a bit reluctant about launching under the circumstances we are in. You may want to spend some extra time to convince her. But at the same time, I trust Susan that she will lead the marketing campaign successfully."

What has happened here ? The leader has created great trust between him or herself and Tom. Tom probably walks out of this meeting really pumped and motivated. But what about Tom and Susan ? The leader gave some advice about how to approach Susan, and also added that he or she trusted Susan with her part of the project. So all should be set and done between Tom and Susan, right ? Unfortunately, trust does not work that way. Trust is dyadic, a difficult word to indicate it can only exist between two people. I can trust A and I can trust B, but that does not mean that A trusts B or that B trusts A.

Developing a team requires not just trust between the leader and the direct reports. There is much more potential for value - as well as downside - in the trust relations between the team members. If the leader talks to Tom about Susan, when Susan is not there (and doesn't this happen all the time ?), then what does this do to the relationship of trust between Tom and Susan ?

Trust between your team members is as important as trust between you and each of them. As a leader, you cannot "manage" this trust, but what you say - and what you don't say - to each of your team members influences these trust relationships to a large extent. Something to think about for your next one-on-one.

Learning ... one KISS at a time

KISS Keep It Simple Stupid was originally coined by the US Navy to emphasize the importance of keeping things as simple as possible. The target the navy commander had given to his mechanical design team was to ensure that a ship's engine system could be repaired by a mechanic with limited experience or specific training. The idea was never to refer to that mechanic as stupid. In fact, the original KISS was written without a comma, meaning that things needs to be kept simple AND stupid (without writing the 'and'). Since then, many have changed the original meaning and added a comma to read Keep It Simple, Stupid ... Written that way, the 'stupid' becomes an insult to whoever the message is addressed to.

I recently came across another meaning of KISS I had never heard before. A business leader told me his team always ended their meetings and working sessions with a "KISS" ! KISS in this context stands for:

Keep: what did we do well in this meeting that we should keep doing ?
Improve: what did we do that was so-so and we should think about improving next time ?
Stop: what did we do that didn't work and we should commit to not doing again ?
Start: what was missing and we should add or start doing for our next meeting ?

A simple way to remind yourself and your team that learning happens all the time. There is no need to make things complicated. The only requirement is to spend a very small amount of time to reflect together on a key number of questions and create a shared commitment on making sure the next meeting, project, session or retreat is better than the last one.

So what really happens when you're not around ?

The real test of a team is to observe what happens when the boss is not around. At worst, bickering and territory-defending starts. Sub-cliques get together to gossip and point out whose fault this or that latest issue is.


But let's be positive. Let's assume yours is not a dysfunctional team. When I ask leaders what happens when they are not around, they tell me that things are just working fine, that work moves along and gets done as it should be. Thank God (or rather, thank you !) for that. But is that really where our expectations for our team should end ? That the usual stuff gets done ? That managers stay in their comfort zone and stick to the established routines ? What happens when something important (not routine) comes up ? How does your team deal with that ?

Team Psychological Safety is a concept that describes how team members feel and interact when the boss is not there. Originally developed by Professor Edmondson from Harvard University, it refers to “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking".

What does this mean ? Let's say an important challenge arises, where people have conflicting opinions and the boss is not around to decide. What do your team members do ? Do they get together and look for the best solution for the organization ? Or do they wait it out for you to come back ? Do they develop work-arounds (duplicate work) to deal with the issue without addressing the root cause ? Do they stay in their comfort zone (comfort zone = job title, department or small circle of buddies) or do they take the risk to step out of the comfort zone and find a solution, even if this is maybe "not their job" ?

We all know what we think should happen. But the question is what really happens ?

You can measure the Team Psychological Safety that exists in your team. Team Psychological Safety does not emerge after a beach-side team building or after the annual retreat. It takes effort, and time, to build it up. But the rewards are very significant: a team that grows and takes responsibility, also when you are not there !

Innovation by deletion

I recently came across an interesting idea in the Dialogue magazine from Duke EC. It is simple yet we often do not think about innovation in this way. Full credit to the author Lisa Bodell.

When we think of innovation or read about it, the focus is nearly always about doing something new, creative, different, something nobody else has thought about. But the authors of this article turn things upside down: very often, innovation can be (indirectly) increased by STOPPING to do stupid things that take up time and energy. They call this the Kill A Stupid Rule tool. I think this is especially true in large organizations.

So here is the approach. Bring your team, department, division together and have them brainstorm or think about "stupid things we do". Stupid rules. Stupid reports, meetings or practices. Stupid processes that were put in place at some point by somebody, but where nobody remembers the purpose or benefit. There are no limits to what can be brought up. Anybody who thinks there is something stupid going on can list this as something the team should consider.

The team will then organize all these "stupid ideas" in the traditional 2x2 matrix, along the axes of "easy versus difficult to implement" and "low or high impact on the organization". The obvious priority is to focus on the quadrant with the easy to remove/high impact topics. The team can vote to pick one stupid rule they all agree to kill right here and now, and evaluate the following weeks that canceling this rule is indeed  feasible.

Asking teams to do something new, something innovative on top of everything else that fills their working days is often a challenge. Change in this direction is hard. But the opposite can be very liberating and invigorating. Removing a "stupid" rule or process or way of doing things can free up time, energy and focus ... and open the possibilities for innovation. It empowers team members to be able to redesign the way they do their current work.

What if they have no idea ... ?

A key principle in coaching is to let the coachee - quite often the subordinate - come up with ideas for making progress on a particular issue him or herself. This goes a long way towards ownership and accountability: acting on one's own ideas and suggestions is more meaningful than doing what the coach or boss suggests. In workshops where young managers are practicing their coaching or feedback giving skills, they often share "Well, I tried to ask them for their ideas, but they said they don't have any."

Well, thinking and developing ideas is one thing that separates humans from animals, so when someone says they "cannot think" or they "don't have any idea", they are looking for a quick way out of what is for them an uncomfortable situation ! In some countries in Asia, in Thailand in particular, many people have not been brought up in family or educational circles with a focus on developing their own ideas. You will need to help them learn again ... or rather learn for the first time. Here are three tips I have found to work rather well.

1. Give them some time. Don't stare them down or have them sit in front of you "until an idea comes out". Give them anything from five minutes ("I am going for a break and will be back in five minutes to give you some time to think") to one day ("Let's talk about your ideas again tomorrow at 9 AM"). This releases the pressure of having to come up with something right now or else ....

2. Ask them for three. If you ask for one idea, this is often interpreted as if there is somewhere one correct answer, that you expect them to come up with. This increases the pressure and often blocks people from sharing anything. Asking for three or five sends the message that there is no single perfect answer. 

3. Approve right then and there. Experienced managers often have the tendency to take someone's idea or suggestion and modify/improve/complete it. This sends the message that the manager anyway knows better or more. Refrain from this temptation. Approve their idea, or part of their idea, and encourage them to implement it and get back to you in x days to discuss the result. The ownership and learning will be far more powerful.

We all know how to think but sometimes, a bit of help is needed !

Is Action Learning the secret key to self-management ?

In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes the way Buurtzorg (Netherlands, nursing home care, total 7000 employees) functions on the basis of self-managed teams of 10-12 nurses. On page 70, the author lists the key principles around which teams in Buurtzorg are organized:

- it's okay for tams to struggle: from struggle comes learning, and teams that have gone through difficult moments build resilience and a deep sense of community;

- the coach's role is to let teams make their own choices, even if she believes she knows a better solution;

- the coach supports the team mostly by asking insightful questions and mirroring what she sees;

- the starting point is always to look for enthusiasm, strengths and existing capabilities within the team; the coach projects trust that the team has all it takes to solve the problems it faces.

Anyone who has ever participated in an Action Learning set immediately recognizes these principles: this is exactly what develops when a team embraces Action Learning as a way to collaboratively solve problems. Asking questions to one another creates powerful connections. Team members take actions and share the results and their learning with their peers. The team learns and moves from strength to strength. Engagement and ownership is guaranteed when teams can create and put in place their own solutions.  

Buurtzorg is a fascinating organization: there are no managers, no quality departments, no central structures. Teams of nurses manage everything related to their profession. And the results are extraordinary. 

Leaders often feel the need to thoroughly change their organization's culture (the way things are done), but are not sure about how to get started. You cannot dictate a culture change and we all know the probability of a corporate change initiative being successful ! Getting teams to use Action Learning to solve their own problems is definitely a solid start.

What's your focus ?

Jae Jong (auntie Jong) has been making fried pork for many years. From 6 AM until closing at 4 PM, there is a line in front of the shop. Around noon time, the line is 3 times as long as in the picture taken at 8 AM. 

The food shop next to that of Jae Jong makes "anything you want" (made-to-order). There are plenty of empty seats available at all times.

Jae Jong only does fried pork. Not fried chicken, beef or fish. She sells tens of kilos of it every day. She has a single shop and never opened any branch, although her reputation would undoubtedly make other branches successful. Her shop has no air-conditioning and hasn't changed for ages. She never innovated on her fried pork. There is only one kind of fried pork; no sugar-coated friend pork, no chill-dipped fried pork and no 'design-your-own' fried pork.  There's only Jae Jong's fried pork.

Jae Jong has remained focused on making the best fried pork, believing that people would come and come back for it. And they do, standing in line in the sun and heat every day (the shop does not have a day off). 

I see many entrepreneurs struggling with focus. It is very tempting to add something interesting onto your portfolio, if it brings an immediate opportunity (a new client !). It is hard to say no when you are in need of business. So one client asks something, and they think "Why not, I could do this and I can always refocus later on." And then another client comes up with something else again. Or they see or read something and think that this could be cool as a new product or service. Quickly, they become average at doing many things, rather than excellent in doing one thing. Very hard to get your focus back once you've given it up.

Staying focused works. Yes, it takes time. But people will come back for your product or service if they know yours is the best around.

 

Learning by doing is not enough

We all know the saying that we learn by doing, not by sitting to listen to a lecture. And it's not just a saying, research has confirmed this (see the picture). Real learning happens only when we do stuff.\

Have you ever spent a full day doing plenty of stuff ... ? For sure you have. Meetings, reviews, phone calls, discussions, preparing a presentation, dealing with all the emails that pop up without interruption. So much doing, the whole day long ! With hardly time to breathe in between these events. Lunch lasts about 20 minutes, or happens at your desk, doing some more email stuff. So on your way home, at then end of that busy day where you did so much, what was playing in your mind ? Were you telling yourself "Wow, so a great day full of learning by doing !". Probably not. It was more something like "Thank God this day is over and done with !". So there was all that doing, but apparently no learning ? What is missing to turn doing into real learning ?

Doing requires an external focus. And thinking or reflecting brings an internal focus. Recent research lead by HBR has shown that the internal focus, of thinking or reflecting, increases the learning retention by up to 22%. How do you bring this internal focus into a busy day of doing ? The key trick is to use questions ! Spending some time at the end of a day, or better still, at different times during the day, to ask yourself a few questions, makes all the difference. Questions such as ... How was this meeting ? Did we achieve the objectives ? How was the team dynamic ? What was the quality of the decisions we took ? How was this meeting different from the one before ? These simple questions and the reflection that follows them, are where the doing gets transformed into learning. Reflecting on what we did, why things happened they way they happened, is where the learning happens, not just in the doing part.

Now all this thinking and reflecting does not need to take more than 5 minutes, so "We are really so busy" is not a valid excuse ! And if you skip the reflection part, you will just move from doing lots of stuff one day, to doing even more stuff the next day. Train yourself to reflect and help yourself learn on how to grow. Even on a busy day.

It's about the linkages, not the links !

The "weakest link" is a popular metaphor. The origin is in mechanics: a chain used to lift stuff can only lift something that matches the strength of the weakest of the links in the chain. Anything heavier will break this link, and therefore the chain. This nice image is used to think about teams, where the overall performance of the team is constrained or defined by the strength (or weakness) of the weakest team member.

Well, I disagree. First of all, what do we do with the weakest link once it is identified ? Train it ? Coach it ? Fire and replace it ... ? Whatever you do, once the weakest link is no longer the weakest ... another one has become the new weakest. And so we repeat at nauseam.

No, I don't think this way of looking at your team is all that helpful. What is helpful, is not to think how you can change this or that link (team member), but to work on the LINKAGES between these links (team members). You can have a team with super-powerful and highly efficient links (team members), but if link A doesn't communicate with link B, or shortcuts link B, or undoes what link B has done, or demotivates B, you have a group with strong links but no overall performance. If on the other hand, the different links (team members), despite their respective and individual strengths, support each other, motivate each other, step in when someone is struggling, your overall team performance will by far exceed the strength of its weakest, or even of its strongest member !

So work on the linkages. On how people communicate with each other. How they motivate and challenge each other. How they step up to help when someone's overloaded or absent. How they share and learn together. As a leader of a team, continuously working on these linkages is how you will strengthen your overall team, not by looking for which link is the weakest and then focusing your energy there.

Where's your heart at ?

I am very luck that I speak Thai rather well. When I deliver a workshop with a team in Thailand, I make sure that some English jargon or particular expressions that are used in the slides, are well understood by the audience.

Just last week, I had an interesting experience. I

wanted to make sure that the group thoroughly understood the expressions "Putting yourself in their shoes" and "Coming from your gut", two idioms we use in English and easily understand the figurative meaning. When I asked the group for the Thai equivalent, they translated as something that translates back into English as "Putting their heart in our heart" and "Coming from the heart". Very interesting how these expressions - with shoes and guts in English - both come back to the heart.

And I again came to realize that this is one of the keys of working with teams in Thailand. There is no secret formula, but too often I see foreigners struggling with finding a connection with their team. They say all the right things, try to motivate, do fun stuff, communicate, communicate, communicate, and learn a bit of Thai language. Yet despite all this, many still say that they are not getting the performance or engagement that they want out of their team.

So maybe the secret is in adding a bit of "heart" to things. Sharing your feelings. Asking others about theirs. These things are often looked upon in the West as personal, private and not really belonging in the workplace (or at least, they are not things for the manager/boss to bring into the workplace context or conversations). Yet, in Thailand, with so many things going to and coming from the "heart", getting comfortable and adapting your style by adding in a bit more "heart" will definitely go a long way.

Getting feedback ... 2 tales ...

There is no doubt that feedback helps organizations progress. But your approach to how you obtain feedback can in itself send a powerful message. In the same day in Singapore, I had 2 very different experiences, on the subject of getting feedback.

In Changi airport, I walked through check-in, immigration and got to the gate in 6 minutes. But that's kind of standard there. In these 6 minutes, I got 2 times the chance to give feedback: on the service of the immigration officer, and on the guy who keeps the restrooms clean (see one of the touch-screen images). One tap of the finger, each time. While I was sitting at the gate using the free WIFI that is everywhere available, an elderly lady approached me and asked if she could ask a few things about my satisfaction with the airport. In about 8 minutes, we cruised through probably 60 questions. Using her iPad, sweeping through different screens, she very deftly noted my answers with her iPad notetaker. I discovered questions about things I didn't know existed at the airport. When we were all done, she gave me a free pen.

A global organization I worked with that same day told me about the mega-employee-satisfaction-project that was going on. It looked like this was the single and only priority for the HR folks I met. It also seemed to be seen as a pain for everyone else. The previous satisfaction survey had been done 4 years ago. There seemed a lot of stress, hour-long phone calls with global teams, tight schedules and deadlines. Each country seemed to say that they needed something different than the global team was imposing. Strangely, nobody expressed interest or anticipation for the actual result, either from 4 years ago, or for the same for this survey. In fact, the focus and energy all turned towards the only KPI the management has fixed to the project team: a 100% employee participation. There was a sense of dread for those country managers who would not be able to get feedback from each employee, and therefore not show a 100% score !

When I finished with the old lady at Changi airport, I jokingly told her: "Don't change anything, everything is perfect already !" She replied: "That's why keep on asking you ...". Changi airport is ranked #1 in the world. I have a suspicion that their approach to getting feedback ... constant, simple, friendly, smooth ... is part of the reason.

Do you relate ?

The Mindgym (www.themindgym.com) just this year issued a very interesting white paper on leadership. Now, there are hundreds of articles on leadership ... every day ! So what is special about this one ? The first key difference is that this list of 7 key talents of exceptional managers is based on a  review of the literature in the field, so it is rooted in research and not just about someone coming up with a nice thought in the shower.

The 7 key talents of exceptional managers (the Mindgym)

Secondly, the analysis looked for the link of these leadership qualities and actual financial performance of the companies these managers work for. The result ? These are not just 7 nice 'soft skills' to have ... Companies where the majority of managers are evaluated as demonstrating these 7 skills (through 360 degree reviews) have a financial performance that is on average 25% higher than those where managers do not demonstrate these skills.

The reason "relate" is in the middle of the visual is powerful. "Relate" is the ability to develop, maintain and - where needed - repair relationships with colleagues and team members. Not just being friendly or friends with everyone, but having relationships of mutual respect that are the foundation of delivering what is best for the organization. Of all the 7 key talents, "relate" has a multiplier effect. Those managers that possess all the 6 skills on the circle, as well as relate, will do great and be respected by peers and team members at the same time. However, the opposite is true as well: a manager can excel in the skills of execute, innovate, coach and so forth ... yet when he or she cannot "relate", the effect is equally destructive.

So is the capability to relate to others the golden grail of being a successful manager ... ? Something to think about when you plan for your team's training program !

Chinese ears

The Chinese symbol for listening is pretty powerful. As shown in the picture, it is composed of several sub-symbols. Of course there is the symbol for the ears, which is what we associate with listening at the first level. But the real interest lies in the other symbols that complete the symbol that represents listening:

- mind (to think): what are you thinking about when you are listening ? Are your ears listening but is your mind wondering off, thinking about something completely different ? Are you thinking about what you can say next to show you know better ? Or are you really immersed in the story, its context and the different angles ?

- eyes (to see): what are you looking at when you are listening to someone ? Are you glancing at your cell phone for the latest email, or at the clock on the wall ? Or are you looking at the person in front of you, their body language, the way they look at you ? Looking people straight in the eyes ...

- undivided attention (to focus): do you focus completely on the person you are listening to ? To their words, their posture, the actual words they are using, the sentences that are being spoken ? Or are you preparing in your head that email you want to send, or the difficult meeting yesterday with your boss ?

- heart (to feel): are you feeling what the other person is feeling ? Do you "hear" what is not being said, or about maybe the underlying message that is being shared hesitantly ? Or are you filtering out that information that is not aligned with your views or values ?

Listening or hearing are words we use easily ... "Yes yes, I am listening ... I am hearing you". Yet to what extent do we use not only our ears, but also minds, eyes, heart and give the exchange our undivided focus ? Fully listening is not easy: it requires a bit of practice, but is very rewarding, not only for the listener, but even more so for the person who is sharing his story.

Is your team complete ?

You know a great team when you are part of one. You can feel it. And you also know when you are in a team where people prefer to be somewhere else. Managers who inherit a team often conclude, after a few months, that Mr X or Mrs Y would better be replaced. Sometimes it's not just one person, but a few, or even a handful. The temptation is great to think that, if only I could replace these people, then all the rest will be great, and my team will perform fabulously.

This judgment is often based on differences. Those who are direct, aggressive or pushy will likely appreciate those in the team who are similar. And they will think that those that are keeping to themselves or are more concerned about what others are thinking, are weak and unfit for a tough business environment.

Yet research has shown that the most effective teams are those with a balance of 'types' of team members. Just imagine a bunch of pushy and aggressive managers trying to work together ! You'd probably spend your time fighting fires and atoning conflicts. 

So where to start ? Belbin Team Roles is a simple tool that identifies team members' preferred roles, as well as those that are far out of their comfort zone. It does not pretend to figure out "who you are" but rather looks at what you do (behavior), and what others see you do at work. The profile is based on a combination of self-assessment and observer assessments. Since the observations are about behaviors (and not values, personalities, or motivations), they are 'safer' as a feedback approach.

There are a total of 9 Belbin Team Roles. None is better than another, and everybody embodies these 9 roles in a different way: some roles are the top preferred roles (strengths) and others are very much out of the comfort zone (weak team roles). Belbin Team Roles allows team members to have meaningful discussions about their own and others' profiles, and these dialogues go a long way in seeing the strengths of each member, however different they may seem.

So who is insane ?

I always get chuckles when I show Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Most executives in the room get it immediately and can think of a boss/peer/team member who indeed keeps on doing the same thing and expects or hopes for a different outcome. The executives don't really think about themselves ... and understandably so because to identify yourself as insane does sound a bit extreme.

But then we go into a bit more detail. And we analyse that boss who keeps on doing the same thing that drives us crazy. And of course it is so clear that the boss should stop doing that and do something different. "I don't understand he/she just keeps doing that while it is clear for everybody it does not work !". Substitute boss with peer/team member as you wish. So we declare the boss/peer/team member completely insane based on Einstein's definition !

Once those others have been declared insane, the conversation goes

Me "OK, so the boss (peer/team member) is crazy for doing this or that. And what about you ?"
Them "Me ? What do you mean me ? The problem is not with me, the problem is that he/she (boss/peer/team member) doesn't change !"
Me "OK sure, he needs to change what he is doing ... But what are YOU doing differently when it comes to interacting/challenging/motivating/talking with him ?"
Them "Well, I have told him 100s of times that he needs to stop doing what he is doing, and change what he is doing !"
Me "And does it work ?"
Them "Well no, obviously he doesn't get it !"
Me "So you keeping on telling him the same thing over and over again ..."
Them "Yes, yes I do !!"
Me "... and you expect a different result ?"
Them "Euh ... but ..."

It's easy to pinpoint where others need to change. We can talk about them until the cows come home (most often when they are not around). Think rather what YOU can do relative to that person to help them: whatever you have been doing, or something different ? You might in the end help two people from becoming insane !

Why brainstorming won't get your team out of the box

Brainstorming is a very popular tool to address a problem or challenge with a team. The logic is that the ideas of a handful of people will be more creative or powerful than those of an individual. No issue here. In a brainstorming session, each participant takes turns to come up with an idea, and all are listed on a flipchart, without evaluating, judging or even reacting. The long list of ideas is then reduced, ideas are voted on, or combined.

Brainstorming is very intense. Energy is high. Participants think hard to come up with a brilliant idea waiting their turn ... and hoping that nobody else will have the same idea ! Nothing worse in a brainstorming session than to have your neighbor steal the idea you were about to share !

Neuroscience has demonstrated the limits of brainstorming when it comes to finding real breakthrough ideas. Because of the high level of energy and the dynamics of a brainstorming session, participants come up with those ideas or solutions that require the least thinking effort. The brain is forced to work hard: while others shout their ideas, the brain works overtime to come up with something - anything - by the time it's its turn. After a second of relaxation once the idea has been added to the list, it's back to thinking hard to come up with something - again, anything - before the next turn.

Research by David Rock (Mr. Neuroleadership) has shown that forcing the brain to think under time pressure does not mean great ideas will pop out. It is quite the opposite. Real breakthrough ideas occur when the brain is at rest. When some question or riddle jumps around in our unconscious brain, the weaker connections between neurons are activated: those are the things we know but we don't use them routinely. And that's where new solutions are found. So David Rock recommends the following process. When you are faced with a really complex challenge, spend some time with your team to agree on what the key question is the team should answer in order to solve this challenge. Let the team disperse, and go back to what they regularly do. Then bring them together, one or two days later. The brain has been allowed to rest, and the question has been playing around in team members' brains over this period. Doing a brainstorming at that moment will deliver far superior ideas than the immediate brainstorming.

Need urgent and great new ideas ? Slow down first !

Walls in the open space

I recently worked with a group who were all working in an open space office layout. This was an ideal open office layout in the sense that each single work station was identical. That is not always the case in Thailand ... In another group I work with, there are 3 'grades' of open space working areas: the higher someone is up in the organization chart, the higher the partitions separating his particular work space from the one next to it !

So in the first group, the situation was really ideal. Open space. Frequent exchanges and interactions. A habit of asking one another if any help was needed. But when we started an Action Learning session to find a solution for an important shared challenge the team is facing, members very quickly realized that although they were sitting next to one another, and chatting all the time ... none of them really understood what the others were doing, or what challenges they were facing, or what help they really needed. The open space creates part of the context. This context can be conducive for collaboration, but it is not enough just to put people next to each other, and then assume (or hope) that they will collaborate.

This reminded me of a recent quote from Stefan Lindegaard, the Open Innovation guru. When it comes to getting innovative ideas from your team, Lindegaard says "People First, Processes Next. Then Ideas". In other words, ideas will come when you focus on your teams and put in place processes to allow them to share their ideas. I extrapolate this to my open space situation. You cannot create collaboration by putting people in a certain environment, however colorful and encouraging these surroundings might seem. Collaboration happens when people WORK together, share challenges, share successes and help each other to learn from failures. That is built through developing a mindset of really helping each other out, and establishing processes where cross-functional teams work on shared tasks. A nice open space is cool, but that is not the end of the job !

Trust ... between others !

I recently had an interesting conversation with a business leader about the importance of creating trust with the people working with you. This director has a real coaching mindset, and sees it as his job to help his direct reports with their professional development. He always comes back to the issue of trust, how you create it by what you say and do with your team members ... or how you lose it by doing the opposite.

This exchange made me think ... This expat manager will be the leader of the team for maybe 4 years, and will then be posted at another assignment. His successor could be very similar, or very different from him. So what will happen with all that trust that he has built up, over 4 years, with each of his direct reports ? Will the team transfer all this trust to the successor ? Probably not. At best, the successor will start with a blank page and maybe some credit based on his or her experience. At worst, the successor could start with a handicap. And what happens next depends on what the successor does with the team. 

Should a team start from scratch every time a new leader shows up ? Obviously not ! So what is missing ? What is missing is the extent to which trust has been built up BETWEEN team members, and that is not something you can dictate. This level of trust depends obviously a lot on how the leader works with each team member, individually and collectively. But it is not sufficient. Trust is not something that by capillarity or osmosis affects everybody that comes in touch with it. Trust exists between 2 people: A can trust B and B can trust C, but that does not mean that A trusts C automatically.

Developing trust with your team is great. Developing and nurturing trust BETWEEN team members is what ensures that the investment pays off even after the leader has moved on. Action Learning is one method that creates this level of trust: team members build on others' ideas, ask questions and collaborate to put in place the solutions they created. The level of trust that is built up within a team working like this, remains for a very long time !

Hesitant to praise

In a recent workshop, a few participants shared that they were hesitant to give praise or positive feedback because doing so would send a message to the recipient that no further improvement is needed. “If I tell them they are great, they will think they have nothing more to develop.”  So positive feedback often turns into “you did great on this aspect of the project but you should also try to …” and the feedback is in fact turning corrective. Or positive feedback is left unsaid. That is the problem when feedback is kept too general. Giving comments that judge the entire person is not effective, whether it is about negative or positive feedback.

You don’t tell someone they “are not a team player”, since this describes the whole person and gives the impression the situation is beyond repair. Similarly with positive feedback, keep the feedback concrete and specific. “You did a great job on the project XYZ because you …”. Encourage the person to repeat what he did. Don’t tell him that he “Is a fantastic asset to have”. By being explicit about what exactly deserves praise, you leave the door open to further development in other areas or at other occasions.

Imagine a culture where people are afraid to praise because they are afraid it will mean the end of improvement! The benefit of getting a smile and lit up face go a long way when you want to keep your folks engaged ! So keep it short and stick to the specific facts.

Looking for a-ha's ?

In a recent HBR article (November 2014), Mohanbir Sawhney and Sanjay Khosla indicate 7 areas where people or organizations can look for new insights and new ideas for products or processes or improvements in general. They define insight as an “imaginative understanding of an internal or external opportunity that can be tapped into to improve efficiency, generate revenue, or boost engagement.” A more simple term is “the a-ha moment” that we have all experienced at some point. The authors list different areas where individuals or teams should be looking for such insights, like  anomalies in customer data or evaluating the frustrations customers (internal or external) have with your organization’s services. They explain clearly WHERE to look, but the key of HOW to look is a bit buried and not made really explicit. They end each of their 7 sections by giving examples of how to actually find these insights, and the how in this case is ... the question ! The authors each time highlight the potential discovery by examples such as “ask yourself … is this or that possible ? what would happen if … ?” And this part ... the HOW ... is really the key to creating insights, because you can apply this to any situation, way beyond the 7 proposed by the authors.

Asking questions to yourself, and hoping that some of them will generate an insight, is possible but limited by our own mental models. It is difficult to pull yourself out of your comfort zone and questions that you ask yourself would probably be limited in depth or degree of innovativeness. So that’s why it is useful to put a group of people around a table, and instead of brainstorming for solutions or answers to a given problem, ask each to come up with questions. The rule is that people can only state questions, and nobody will be answering them. The questions are there to stir up ideas. Just like in brainstorming, no questions are off limits, and nobody can react and judge what others are saying.  At first it will be a bit awkward, and some of the questions will be very basic. But keeping the practice up for some time, you will create a dynamic where certain questions trigger other questions. Don’t be discouraged by sometimes long periods of silence. Thinking is not a bad thing when it happens !

You can hope for a-ha moments while in the shower or doing your favorite sport. Or you can teach your team to create them by asking each other questions … Give it a try !