Accountability Is Key For Remote Working (Remote Series 5/11 )

For remote work to be successful, it is vital to ensure your team is aligned on accountability.  Many people shy away from these conversations, but when you can bubble them up and are clear on how you want to handle the topic, you will save yourself a lot of headaches in the long run.

Here are some factors to consider with accountability:

1. Hire the right people.  When you hire doers eager to get great work done, you are set up for success.  Once you provide direction and guidance around important things to be executed, doers will make things happen.  One of Zapier's core values is "default to action," and one of Amazon’s principles is “bias for action.”  For these organizations, recruiting people with these tendencies who have a deep appreciation for getting things done is vital.

2. Focus on goals and outcomes over activities.  It would help if you did not try to manage every aspect of your team’s work or focus on activities completed and hours logged, instead measuring your team’s effectiveness on their accomplishments and KPIs.  If they are meeting their goals, great.  If not, you can investigate further to learn why and realign expectations.  Your job as a leader is to help define what the work is to be done and allow them to figure out how they plan to approach the project for success, and then follow up to discuss progress.

3. Offer flexibility and trust.  The mentality of ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) allows workers flexibility to decide how they want to arrange their day for maximum output.  If that means starting work later so they can take their kids to school or arranging a quick tennis match during their lunch break to get a 2nd wind to produce high-quality work, so be it.  Give them the autonomy to decide how they want to get the job done that suits their needs and situation, especially if it is not negatively impacting the team.

4. Align expectations and promote self-accountability.   At NASA, they use a fire-and-forget approach.  Once somebody has shared the work to be done and had the conversation around expectations, they can dismiss the task from their mind because they know that they can rely on their teammate to manage and monitor themselves without reminders.  It’s an enjoyable atmosphere to trust your coworkers that the work will get done without having to send constant follow-ups or check-ins on status.  If unforeseen circumstances occur, you can trust that they will be proactive, bring the matter to your attention, and renegotiate the agreement because there is always the consideration of how the actions of one will impact the entire team.

5. Address incomplete work early on.  Often, leaders dread hard conversations when deadlines are missed.  Be sure to follow up early to understand what’s behind this behavior and have commitment-based actions and plans to move forward differently and more productively.  If you do not say anything, you are offering a tacit agreement that their behavior works, and you are willing to put up with more of it.  The responsibility is more on you to determine what you will and will not allow than on them pushing the envelope.

6. Do check-ins, not check-ups.  As a manager, you can check in with your teammates to see how things are, and if they need support to unblock their path or help them think through their challenges.  This is different from check-ups with a more monitoring feeling; where it seems like you are trying to catch them doing something wrong.  Being clear about your check-ins from the outset and the reason why can build a trusting relationship.  For example, if somebody does not have a lot of experience with a project, you can share that you will do more frequent early check-ins to make sure there is alignment and they are set up for success rather than them getting far in a project only to have some of it rolled back because it is not meeting the target.  Once the work is moving along well, you can share that you plan to change the check-in cadence.

Getting accountability right will save your team a tremendous amount of time and energy.  It begins by defining whom we want to be as a team and putting in the processes that support those goals.  It also involves having the right conversations to raise awareness, and so people have ample opportunity to course correct.  When accountability is done well, it is an extraordinary component of a successful team.

Quote of the day: “Creating a culture of integrity and accountability not only improves effectiveness, but it also generates a respectful, enjoyable, and life-giving setting in which to work.” -Tom Hanson

Q:  What accountability approaches have you found work the best for remote working?  What is the trickiest part?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 6/11 will focus on optimizing your remote 1:1s.  For a deeper dive into accountability, you can also check out this 3-part series.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you offer supportive accountability?

Make Recognition Routine (Remote series 4/11 )

Recognition is a big part of building community and a culture of appreciation.  It can help retain top talent because a prime reason why people leave their jobs is because of poor managers, usually ones that overlook the excellent work of others and fail to provide praise. 

While it is a fundamental human need to receive recognition, it is not a universal practice.  More than 80% of supervisors say they express appreciation to their employees, yet less than 20% of their employees say their supervisors give appreciation more than occasionally.  There is a disconnect, and it is contributing to a hemorrhaging of great talent.

Some traditional recognition programs such as employee of the month or the annual banquet recognizing star performers have problems.  To acknowledge only one employee for the month is not enough, it should be a daily and weekly practice.  Another problem is that they are often not judged fairly, otherwise, your best employee would win every month, but it seems awkward to give it to the same person so you start concocting reasons to spread the benefit around to the point where everybody gets it. This means your best and average workers are treated equally, which is unfair if they provide different outputs.  Worse yet, if 1-2 people on your team have not gotten it, that can become an issue.  

Effective recognition makes the employee feel noticed for what they have done.  Managers who say, “I saw what you did, and I appreciate it” means a lot.  Both individual and team recognitions are essential, and they can range from formal to informal. 

Here are some recognition practices you may want to consider:

1. Saying thank you in a public way.   You can do this via slack channel or at a standup meeting for peers to see that you appreciate them.  You can also send a physical note or card to tell them how much you value their work beyond the requirements.  It can be helpful to keep track of those you recognize so you can challenge yourself to praise new people regularly if you feel it is genuine and well-deserved 

2. Send an email to your teammate and CC others.  You can be specific about what they did to do a great job and CC your boss and your boss’s boss to make their contributions more visible.

3. Create a kudos board or gratitude channel.  Some companies have a dedicated spot where you can see all the thanks.  There are programs like Assembly where you can give kudos to people and the ones that get the most every week will get rewards like gift cards, show tickets, or other benefits.

4. Spot bonuses.  Some managers have a spot bonus budget that they can give an individual or a team for a specific behavior, action, or result for an extraordinary job.  They can range from a couple of hundred to a few thousand, and it is nice to give a monetary reward when you can.

5. Have a forum to share your good work.  Google’s “I Am Remarkable” initiative empowers women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.  It is done because many people struggle to talk about their accomplishments due to culture, gender modesty norms, or imposter syndrome, so the goal is to challenge the social perception around self-promotion. 

6. Make connections to mentors and sponsors.  In addition to recognizing their good work, you can make connections to potential mentors or sponsors for them to receive support to further their excellent work.

It is essential to take time to shine a light on people’s good work, and the benefits extend to both the receiver and the giver.  For the receiver, it can be a moment stamped in their memory for years.  The boomerang effect for the giver is that it elevates their spirits because they create a positive experience for another. 

Quote of the day: “Recognition is not a scarce resource.  You can’t use it up or run out of it.” -Susan Heathfield, HR Expert

Q:  How do you like to give and receive recognition? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 5/11 will focus on accountability in the remote environment.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you recognize others?

Clear Expectations Are the Foundation for Remote Work Success (remote series 2/11)

Clear expectations can make or break a remote team.  Anytime there are changes to the work, or the context has shifted, there will always be an initial lack of clarity followed by unclear or unmet expectations.  This can cause a lot of stress as people are not realizing what they have to do and may even be duplicating efforts.  Clear expectations lead to greater confidence and trust in your work and less conflict, rework, wasted energy, and micromanagement; it is the fertile ground for successful remote work.

As a manager, you can do many things to create an incredible remote work environment for your team.   Here are some categories to cover for setting clear expectations:

1. Define the team.  If you’re starting a new team from the ground, or if you have inherited a team, be clear from the beginning about who is on the team and who is not, as well as the adjacent and dependent teams.  All good teams have a purpose and vision so there is alignment and a compelling reason to unite and rally around.  Additionally, you need to define the OKRs, goals, outcomes, tasks, the rationale for why the work matters, the big picture behind the work, and co-create team values that will guide the work.  When team members can answer why they are here to do what they do and the impact they will have, they will be more engaged. 

2. Define clear roles and responsibilities.  Now that you’ve all agreed on your team’s purpose and vision, ensure you are all on the same page regarding everybody’s roles and responsibilities.  For example, what specific tasks or perspectives do you expect each team member to contribute?  Because team members may not understand why they’ve been chosen, schedule a meeting to share why each member was named to the team, each person’s unique background and valuable skillset, and clarify each member’s role.  Share a game plan for how your team should interact with each other.  Creating a team charter can help bring organization and introspection to your team, especially when geographically dispersed, so they always know the direction and can remain on track with their high performance. 

3. Establish team norms or ways of working.  In different companies and cultures, routine processes often differ widely, which confuses team members.  How will you work together?  What are the ways you will interact with each other?  What are the values and behaviors that we all can expect?  Team leaders should establish norms and provide training for best practices such as meeting formats, use of technologies and communication, and processes for decision-making and conflict.

4. Set Communication Norms.  This is essential to make sure we are collaborating effectively and getting the work done.  What is your communication strategy to keep everybody connected and doing great work?  How many weekly formal or informal connections will you have?  What are the guidelines around daily needs?  How do team members set commitment-based deadlines so there is no need for follow-ups?  What kinds of digital tools will you use and for what purposes?  Teams often amass tools but no discussion on how those tools are used.  Sometimes zoom becomes the de facto for everything, even when sharing an update can better be done over email.  Remote working offers a great opportunity to co-create which tools will work best based on their purposes. 

You can develop a communication charter and gain agreement on how communication will happen, what kind of messages will be exchanged, and what channels will be utilized with examples and non-examples   After establishing those processes, you can gently remind the person who may be using the right tool in the right way based on the charter.  So much conflict happens due to unclear expectations around communication.   

Here is a list of tools with some possible purposes that might be helpful for your team for the communication component of the charter.

4A. Instant messenger.  Slack is a popular remote tool, especially for direct messaging.  This is best done for rapid communication and iteration without a glut of unwieldy threads like in email.  Some channels can be set up to relate to specific topics or projects.  There can also be non-work-related channels as a way to connect with others.  For example, you can have a water cooler challenge to learn about when it is people’s birthdays or what they did over the weekend. You can have a channel for introductions for when new teams join, and they can offer a video intro so you can quickly learn people’s stories.

4B. Email.  It can be used to provide more extensive information and have a record of the communication and share weekly updates or summaries of what everyone is working on to ensure alignment.  Most teams do not talk about the guidelines around emails.  For example, in the TO line will be those who need to respond, and in the CC line are those who need to be updated.  Instruct others not to reply all when it is not necessary, so it keeps people focused on their productivity unless there are important exceptions like a decision needs to be made and you want all voices included.  In that case, share that information and give them a window to weigh in before you move forward with the decision.  When an email chain gets too long, start by summarizing critical points before weighing in and creating a new thread when the topic has evolved with a different focus.   These may sound like trivial things, but being on the same page around communication norms and creating a frictionless experience will make the work much easier and faster.

4C. Video meetings.  Zoom is a popular tool for getting people together in real-time to discuss projects and have a back-and-forth to hash out details.  Other tools include Microsoft Team, Google Duo, and Webex.  In your charter, you can specify how and when you use video and the guidelines for success, such as when the cameras are on and the best ways to interact.  At GitHub, they do not have presentations in their meetings because they are only for interaction.  When a new team member tries to present, another team member jumps in to enforce the norm, and that’s how their meeting purpose remains intact.   If there is no discussion on these norms, you cannot expect people to be great team members.

4D. Phone calls.  If there are a few back and forth on instant messenger or emailing and still more to hash out, it can be best to jump on the phone to discuss the issue in real-time.

4E. Document hub.  Where do you store critical documents and project information?  Who is responsible for keeping that information organized and updated?  How can it be accessed outside the firewalls?  This allows people to quickly complete their work when there is a centralized location to get what they need.

4F. Define synchronous and asynchronous work.  Maybe you have organized your tools into broader categories of synchronous and asynchronous work based on the purpose.  For example, some teams will use asynchronous tools when work needs to be done in real-time such as brainstorming and problem-solving.  Using asynchronous work can be used for sharing info, giving status updates, adding ideas to a document, or chiming in on a proposal with a more extended deadline.  The advantage of this approach is that you can catch those people who either cannot attend a meeting or do not have an invite.  You can make it more inclusive and open it up to many voices to contribute their ideas and gain more visibility and possibly recognition.  It also leverages flexibility for times that best serve them depending on their energy levels and personal commitments.  The early risers can add comments at the beginning of the day when they do their best work, and the night owls can contribute at the end of the day for their ideal time. 

5. Define response time and deadlines.  What are the expectations around response times, should emails be answered within 24 hours or three days?  Should people respond when they have received a message by saying, “messaged received, thanks,” or is no response necessary to reduce clutter? How about the word quickly, what does it mean?  We could all have different ideas.  It could mean 2 hours, 1 day, within a couple of days, or sometime this week, depending on who is interpreting the message and their position in the company.  When you stay away from vague terms, it offers more clarity.  A great way to do that is to include deadlines, “please respond by tomorrow 5 pm est. so the client can have their answer in the morning as promised.” 

6. Define work availability and standard meeting hours.  For some, the work-from-home experience has blurred boundaries between personal and professional obligations, so as a manager, it is essential to discuss work schedules with each team member to respect their time.  If you know the morning time is for your family, and you will not be logging on until a specific time, share that upfront.  If you know you do your best work in the evening and will be sending emails after 11:00 pm or on weekends, share that just because you are sending a message that is convenient for you, your expectation is that they do not respond until their work hours.  These clear boundaries help maintain positive relationships and a healthy culture where people can comfortably focus on their work and not have to work around the clock, not have their performance measured by how quickly they respond, not get burned out, and not have to expend unnecessary energy thinking about their communication.  Clear boundaries can help teams work together better and especially overcome time zone differences.  For meetings, provide optimal times to overlap early and late time zones and have a predictable window.  If there is no convenient time, you can have a rotation system, one month that favors one coast and another month that favors the other.

Great teams can be set up to thrive when there are clear expectations on the ways of work, including a communication strategy.  It will enable people to spend more time on the work and less on figuring out the best approaches to navigate interpersonal dynamics.   As a leader, the best thing you can do for your people is to take the time to set this foundation for masterful work to be built.

Quote of the day: “Treat a person as they are, and they will remain as is. Treat a person as they can and should be, and they will become as they can and should be.”  -Author Stephen Covey 

Q:  How do you set clear and high expectations?   Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 3/11 will focus on building community remotely.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you set clear expectations?

Successful Remote Work Hinges On Great Managers (remote series 1/11)

The Pandemic has caused many people to shift their operations to hybrid and remote models for the first time.  Some people successfully adjusted to remote work, while many have not.  As an Executive Coach working with many leaders dealing with this issue, there are many lessons I’ve collected on how to improve the building and managing of remote and hybrid teams.

It is clear that not having a strategy to organize people around the globe to work together successfully and build something amazing will lead to failure.  But being intentional about a placeless mindset – an integrated way of thinking, living, and working so we can work from anywhere can be a differentiator.  And just because we have seen many early examples of remote work not being done right, does not mean it is a flawed model; it is constantly evolving and can be beneficial when leveraged correctly.

Here are some common challenges in thinking through remote work:

1. Low-performing managers. The managers who struggled in person have continued their challenges.   Some leaders got the position because they were good at the technical parts of their job and not necessarily because they were extraordinary people managers.  Being a manager is not simply a great individual contributor plus one additional skill in their familiar domain, it draws from a different bucket.  You have to have a mindset of really caring for your team and aiming to make them better than they thought possible. The reality is some people pursue that route for the promotion and title, not because they love the people side of the job or are particularly good at it.  So, you end up with a pool of people who dislike managing and do it anyway.   Their poor performance was exacerbated when they had to do it remotely because the stakes were even higher to do this aspect of their job well and with enjoyment.   Previously, some of these people leaders relied on an older management practice called “managing by walking around,” where they gathered information through their interactions, and some could rest on their presence and charisma.  Now, that they have to be more intentional about building rapport and in some cases, modeling vulnerability, they feel challenged because it is different and harder.

2. Managers not adapting their approach.  Leading a high-performing team can be hard work even in the best of circumstances.  But when team members are working from home and scattered geographically and culturally, the task of managing remote employees is even greater.  Managers trying to replicate the same approaches online as they did in person are struggling.  For example, if you used to give status updates in your meetings and now do it on zoom, it may not have the same impact because of all the additional environmental distractions.  There is a real opportunity to take advantage of the tech tools for a more significant impact and to enhance meetings, such as the breakout rooms to encourage small group discussion or the chat to include diverse perspectives.  It is not exciting for people to show up, stare at a screen and passively hear somebody talk the whole time.  Some of the zoom fatigue is that we are trying to make the online work feel like in-person work, but it is not.  There can be copious benefits to remote work when managers appropriately leverage unique opportunities to better utilize the time together.

3. Managers who do not lead with trust and know how to hold others accountable.   Some managers who do not trust their workers or fear losing control have turned to micromanaging or overmanaging.  If they are not skilled enough to control work and performance, they look to increase surveillance, e.g programs that count your keystrokes; this is never a motivating or inspiring strategy, resulting in rebellion and disengagement from workers.  With a lack of visibility, managers are struggling with how to keep accountability.  Instead of co-creating the goals, metrics of success, checkpoints, and implications for missed work and allowing people the freedom and autonomy to do their job, they are skipping these steps and doing more telling and less collaborating.  Employees who follow managers due to positional power is never a sustainable model, you want to manage where people choose to follow you because they find it to be a valuable, even inspiring experience.

4. Lack of clear expectations.  Communicating clear expectations is something we are constantly working on, but with remote work, there is even more of a need to do this extraordinarily well.  Do people know their roles, tasks, top 3 priorities, how they will be evaluated, and the specific ways they can excel?  Do they know the best methods for interacting with each other?  Using more intention in designing those processes will save a lot of time.  While you were In person, you may have been able to go up to somebody and request a task, but with remote, you have to be more thoughtful in how you approach people.  Email is a terrible way to communicate anything that involves a lot of back-and-forth discussion or emotional topics.  If coordination is not effectively done, it will lead to poorly organized projects from start to finish.

5. Lack of intention in building team cohesion and culture.  While some culture-building efforts could happen naturally in the office, especially before, during, and after team meetings, remote work requires more planning.  Some overlook this essential step which contributes to the overall enjoyment and engagement that can make people feel included, connected, and recognized.   

6. Lack of investment in employee career advancement and well-being.   A big part of being a leader is to care for those you lead and work to make them successful.  That entails having somewhat regular career conversations to ensure they are growing in the organization and investing in their well-being.  It is responsibility #1 of a manager to care for and develop others; If you are not doing that you are failing as a manager, regardless of the results you might be getting.

Surely, there can be a lot of advantages with remote work when the model is designed well.  Two enormous benefits include increases in productivity and job satisfaction, among others.  

1. Increase in productivity.  According to a survey from ConnectSolutions, 30% of workers say they accomplish more in less time.  While remote work is new for some people, many have been doing it for a while.  Cisco started with remote and hybrid work in 1993 and saw a rise in productivity.  Sun Microsystems experimented with it early on and saw productivity increase and costs drop significantly; they ended up reducing $500 million in real estate.  CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg said. “People are more productive working at home than people would have expected.  Some people thought everything was just going to fall apart, and it hasn’t.  And a lot of people are saying that they’re more productive now.”  When done right, with a strategy in place, remote work can be a boon to business.

2. Increase in job satisfaction.  Global Workplace Analytics shows that many people prefer to work at least part of the time remotely.  People value their autonomy and flexibility, and when they’re empowered to segment their day in ways that make sense for their personal needs, they are happier.  For many, stress levels can decrease when they can spend more time with their families and less time commuting. 

The great resignation has been coined to capture the phenomenon of employees voluntarily resigning in mass, and the causes have been multifaceted.  This period can also be known as the great reputation of the suboptimal work arrangements we have tolerated for far too long.  Power has shifted from the employer to the workers who are demanding how they want to work and where they want to work.  People want more from their jobs, they want good managers and will leave mediocre ones.  Companies intentionally providing better cultures and offering more remote opportunities are winning. 

Quote of the day: Micromanagement is the destroyer of momentum.” -Author Miles Anthony Smith

Q:  What’s the biggest remote challenge you are facing right now?   Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/11 will focus on setting clear expectations for remote work success.                                          

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to create enjoyable remote work experiences for themselves and their teams, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you manage remotely for the greatest results?

Common Pitfalls To Avoid When Managing Up (Manage Up Series 6/6 )

The last article explored the type of leader you want to be while you are managing up.  This article will cover some approaches you might be tempted to take but are more helpful to avoid.

Let’s explore what not to do:

1. Don’t bad mouth your boss.  While your frustrations may be valid, you will lose credibility when you complain to others.   Plus, by talking poorly about your boss to your Direct Reports, you normalize that negative dynamic on your team and that gossip contributes to a toxic culture.  Be a proactive leader who aims to improve the situation and not just a complainer who passes responsibility onto others.

2. Don’t criticize publicly.  Do not aim to embarrass your boss in front of others.  Disagree with your boss privately and in a calm voice.  Your job is to make your boss look good and build credibility for them that will ultimately enhance your department, not to score points at their expense.

3. Do not cast blame.  Upper management is just as human as you and can make bad decisions.  Instead of blaming and focusing on the past, address the issue and be intentional about what you want to be different in the future to avoid this from happening again.

4. Do not share when angry.  When you operate from this place of anger and resentment, your reptile brain takes over and clouds your judgment from making smart and strategic choices.  Take a reset and aim to take time to see different perspectives and replace the anger with empathy.  Stephen Covey would urge, “seek first to understand then be understood.” Put yourself in your boss’ shoes.  What are their biggest challenges, and how would they like to be treated?  This perspective will enable you to make stronger decisions for the best win-win outcomes.

5. Do not assume your boss knows all the details.  You may know the ins and outs of your team and your work, but if your boss is overseeing a few teams and is in charge of 100+ people, it could be hard to have all the specifics at their fingertips.  Instead, if you could get good at communicating at the conceptual level and build stories around crucial points, your message will resonate more strongly.   

6. Do not take it personally.  Just because your boss has not adopted your solutions does not mean they dislike you.  The same movies can get glowing reviews by the New York Times and slammed by the LA Times due to their subjective nature.  If your boss denies your request to handle the budget even though you have overseen much bigger budgets previously, you may think it is a personal attack.  When you take a step back, do you notice that they operate like that with other people, not just you?   Zoom out to see the bigger picture before rushing to conclusions.

When all else fails, decide to make peace

If you feel like you have tried everything, that your manager is aware and not making any changes or getting better, that can be a stifling experience.  Many organizations still promote people because of their technical success rather than people management skills.  To compound the problem, many new managers receive little or no training before jumping into their new roles.  The main reason why people leave companies is because of their manager.  One sign that it might be time to make peace with the situation and exit is if your manager is harming your health.  A study by the American Psychological Association found that 75% of Americans say their “boss is the most stressful part of their workday.”  If you are experiencing mental unrest by losing sleep, having chronic stress, or spending more time thinking about your boss, it’s time to go.  If you are struggling emotionally and seeing your self-esteem plummet and determine it is a toxic environment, that’s an unmistakable sign that it’s time to move on to the next role or job.

Give yourself the permission to make a career change and fight your fear of quitting.  Some people might not have the option to have a gap in their work, but there is no need to suffer indefinitely.  You usually have more options than you initially realize, you can have informational interviews with your peers and aim to transfer internally to a better team, or line up a role outside the company.  When you make a change, be sure to capture the learnings and what you would do differently next time, so you do not recreate the circumstances you were escaping.  If nothing else, by managing up, you will learn what type of manager you want to be and what kind you want to avoid.

Getting good at managing up takes time.  While it can be tempting to react by blaming and criticizing to get short-term wins, it is more helpful to take a step back and play the long game by focusing on who you want to be as a leader regardless of the circumstances. 

Quote of the day: “We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.” -Stephen King

Q:  What is one approach to managing up that you have taken that was an utter failure?  What would you do differently next time?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further.

How not to manage up

Your Leadership Style of Managing Up Matters (Manage Up Series 5/6)

Many things may be out of your control when managing up, but what is in your purview is the type of leader you want to be while aiming to make positive changes. In the book, Influence Without Authority, Dan Olsen talks about when communicating up, success depends on 60% substance and 40% style, so controlling your content and delivery will go a long way to achieving your outcome.

Here are some aspects to think about to manage up successfully:

1. Focus on what you can influence, and accept what you can’t.  It can be helpful to accept that sometimes we cannot change senior leadership, we can only change our behavior and be the leaders we wish we had.  Embrace the practices that you espouse.  For example, if you feel like your manager’s team purpose is non-existent and already pointed out that observation, you can offer your interpretation of the team’s purpose and operate on that view until otherwise told. 

2. Acknowledge their authority.  Ultimately, the person in power will probably make the final decision, so recognize that. You might say, “I know you’ll make the call here, would you be open to hearing some of my thoughts?”  This approach can show respect and offer a reminder of the choices available.  

3. Avoid judgments, share facts. When you express concerns, stay away from judgmental words such as “short-sighted” or “hasty” that might set off your manager and has the potential to be taken personally.  Sharing facts and examples will help you make your case much better.  For example, instead of saying, “I think that first-quarter deadline is naïve,” you can say, “We’ve tried four projects like this in the past, and we were able to do two in a similar time, but those were special circumstances.  What has changed or needs to change to deliver this work in the same time period?” You can call attention to the reality of the situation and be future-focused in thinking through how we can make this happen.

 4. Share disagreements humbly.  Even though your opinion might be well-informed and well-researched, it is still an opinion so talk tentatively where you leave room for the other person to weigh in.  Instead of saying “If we set an end-of-quarter deadline, we’ll never make it,” you might offer, “In my opinion, based on where we are now, I do not see how we will make that deadline.” You can also use phrases like, “I’m thinking aloud here.” This will leave room for dialogue, and it shows your curiosity about other perspectives.   You can even ask for permission to share your disagreements.  “I know we seem to be moving toward a first-quarter commitment here, I have reasons to think that it will not work. I’d like to lay out my reasoning.  Would that be OK?”  This gives the person choices and allows them to opt out.  You can further invite them to respond by asking them, “what might be missing from this assessment?”

5. Approach with inquiry.  If your manager has made a decision that has impacted your work, you can lead with open-ended questions such as, “I would love to understand the rationale for this decision, can you tell me what went into this?  Assumptions are counterproductive, share your thinking and genuinely seek to understand their perspective and what they are trying to get done.  It is helpful to assume positive intent because you only see one piece of the picture, meanwhile they have a more expansive view based on their leadership team meetings and discussions on what is coming down the pike.  They could also have stressors that you do not see or fully understand based on where you sit in the company.  

6. Pick your battles.  If it comes to stylistic differences, give your boss what they want.  If they prefer PowerPoint, but you prefer google slides, instead of spending energy arguing on small things, defer to their preferences.  Strive to win the big ones and not waste energy and psychological capital on the more minor points.

7. View your boss as your customer.  You may feel frustrated that you cannot get your job done because you are working on your boss’ items.  It is good to check in with yourself because your priority is your boss.’  How would your mindset be different if you saw your boss as your customer and you were working on satisfying their plans? 

8. Ask for their advice.  If you have determined that your boss has a “closed mind” about something, you can signal your openness by asking for their advice.  Adam Grant offers this example. “Let’s say you want your leader to take mental health seriously, you can use this phrasing, ‘I heard from many people that they are struggling with mental health, which can affect their well-being and I know you care about building a community here.  I want people to feel that they are cared about so I’m trying to think about how to do a better job supporting people, I’m not sure what to do next, but I know you are brilliant at getting things done and driving change.  Would you be willing to help with these cultural changes?’”  People like to feel included and genuine flattery can go a long way.  Plus, it is less threatening when you approach your comments not trying to make the person wrong and show that you have a superior way but are open to learning from the leader or co-creating something better together. You come across as an advocate and not an adversary.

Managing up involves both art and science to be successful.  You want to have the right content to share, as well as an effective delivery.  Using facts and inquiry, approaching disagreements humbly, and seeking true partnership can get you off to a great start.

Quote of the day: “One of the best ways to influence people is to make them feel important. Most people enjoy those rare moments when others make them feel important.  It is one of the deepest human desires.” -Roy T. Bennett.

Q:  What style do others use to manage up that you see as most effective?  Which is the least effective?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 6/6 will focus on pitfalls to avoid when managing up]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further.

What is your leadership style when managing up?

Common Scenarios Where Managing Up Is Needed (Manage Up Series 4/6 )

In the last article, we covered managing up to pitch a project.  This blog will focus on many other situations where managing up can come in handy.

Let’s jump into a few common scenarios and approaches for managing up:

1. If you receive additional work unaligned with the priorities.  If you have been given an assignment that you cannot see the value in or the connection to the bigger strategic vision, you can ask questions to get clarity.  How do you see this new idea fitting in with our current goals?  If we take on this new initiative, our capacity will be reduced, we may need to drop or delay another, in that case; which one would you be willing to deprioritize?  Depending on your boss’ style, if you think it is overloading to have them select from open-ended options, you can suggest one to deprioritize to make it easier.  If you prefer to delay, you can say, “Is this idea something we need to implement now, or could it be considered for the next quarter/year?  By laying out how pursuing a new idea will impact other priorities, you can help your boss assess what makes the most sense from a strategic perspective.

2. If you receive vague work.  You can take steps to elicit more thoughtful contributions by asking questions to prompt more critical thinking.  Tell me how you see that working?  What would you like the outcomes to be so we can get the best results possible?  What does success look like?  Are there examples of things you have seen that you like and want to include?  These prompts encourage the leader to expand on their ideas to add more definition to make your work easier.

3. If you disagree with your boss on a topic.  You can be forward-thinking and ask, how would you prefer me to handle this the next time this comes up?  If no answer is provided, you can offer your thought process of how you would handle it and invite your boss to comment on your plan so you can test to see that you are on the same wavelength and make the necessary adjustments. This way, you can create predictable and effective ways of working.

4. If your manager is acting as a bottleneck to your work.   If your work process is slowed because you are waiting on your boss’ approval for the next project, you can say, “I know hitting the deadline on this project is a priority for you, in order not to delay the release of this work, here are the two things I would need from you by this date.  Do you see any obstacles with that timeline?”  Let me know how I can make any adjustments to keep us on track with achieving this priority. 

5. If your manager is doing things that hurt their reputation.  You can say, “I don’t know if you’re intending to come off like this, but here’s how you’re being perceived, I have some thoughts on how I can help with that if you are interested.”  Most leaders want to hear this news especially if it is broached in a respectful and trusting manner.

6. If you suspect incompetence.  Try and diagnose the issue and figure out exactly how the incompetence shows up.  Do they lack experience?  Do they have poor emotional intelligence?  Is their decision-making shaky?  Do they not hold people accountable?  Is it incompetence or just a different approach?  If you can pinpoint and categorize the problem, you and your team can create targeted strategies to address the deficiency and better manage up. 

7. If your manager is micromanaging.  Learn to see if it is just happening with you or is common with other members.  Suppose it is prevalent and causing delays in getting the work done and negatively impacting the organization.  In that case, it is worth speaking up to make changes at a more systematic level rather than changing the style with just you.  You can share your understanding of the expectations and see if they are on the same page this way you can focus more on the outcomes rather than the activities and methods used to achieve those results.

8. If your role is ambiguous.  Be proactive.  Many Directs want their boss to define their job for them, but you are missing out on the opportunity to craft your job.  If you have the chance to create your scope and how it advances the mission and purpose, lay the first stake, and then ask what they would add.  You can say, “Here is what I think success looks like, what is your version, and what would you contribute”?  Here are the skillsets and capabilities I am honing for this job and my development plan, what else should I consider if my goal is to get to the Director level so I can set more of the creative strategic direction? Communicate what you need to be successful in terms of timely information, access, guidance, and resources.  You can use “If-Then Statements,” If I am going to do this, then I need these three things in place to be successful, how do you see this best working? 

9. If your one-on-ones are not useful.  Instead of merely providing status updates, include strategic issues. Suggest ideas on promoting your team for more visibility within your company or discuss process improvements.   Be sure you prepare an agenda to make the best use of your time together.  They will access your thoughtfulness and be more inclined to hear your suggestions.

10. If you feel like your manager is not giving you valuable feedback on your performance.  You can ask, what can I do or stop doing that would improve my performance?  What would make it easier for you to work with me?  Embrace the discomfort, after you ask that question, pause and do not be the next person to respond.  Listen with the intent to understand, not to respond.  You do not have to agree with the feedback, but it can be helpful to hear it.  Check for understanding by saying, “This is what I hear you saying, if I were to change x, y, and z, it would impact the team in a, b, or c ways?  What have I gotten right and what am I missing?” To ensure the alignment, you can even follow up with an email with the key takeaways and next steps.

11. If you are not getting feedback on a project.  If your boss always says, everything is great, go you.  You can say, can I get your advice on X, if you were driving my research, what would be top of mind for you?  Here is my goal for the next week or two to advance this project, I would love your guidance on whether I identified the right goals and how best to achieve them.  What obstacles should I be looking out for?  Annie McKee founder of Teleos Leadership Institute offers to say something like, “I want to do a good job and achieve my goals, and I need your help to do that.”  Be specific about what you want: their input on a particular piece of work, an introduction to another colleague, their permission to reach out to a client, etc.  If they cannot help, suggest an alternative and help them solve the problem, you can ask them if they can ask one of your peers for input or an introduction.  When you change your questions, you can more likely change the responses you are getting.

12. If you want your manager’s feedback on your overall development. You can share what you are doing to work on your growth goals, “What I am struggling with personally is how to make sure all people have a voice in the room and are heard, sometimes I get excited, and that enthusiasm makes it hard for others to get their voice in.  I want to run a flip meeting where I listen instead of sharing.  Do you think people would like that, or would it be a deer in headlights situation?  What suggestions do you have to ensure this is done well or that I succeed?”  You make it much easier for your leader to weigh in on areas that matter to you when you through out a statement or idea in which to react.

13. Take time to signal what works for you.  When you share with your leader what they do well or what works for you, you set them up to repeat that behavior.  For example, you might say, “I really liked when you made that email introduction, it made my work go so much faster, and I would welcome additional opportunities like that to advance future work.”  Formulating clarity in your requests will yield much better results.

Learning the skill of managing up in a variety of situations is critical to maintaining a great relationship with your boss and in the advancement of the goals of the organization. It is a muscle that we can all build with the right intention.

Quote of the day:  “Request, don't complain. Inside every complaint is a request. Find it and make it.” -Mary Abbajay, 

Q:  What is the hardest situation for you to manage up?  What makes it so hard? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 5/6 will focus on your style of managing up]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further.

The Art of Managing Up

Approaches to managing up for a project (Manage Up Series 3/6 )

How often have you had a great idea that you wanted to pitch to your manager but pulled the plug because you believed it would get rejected?  Perhaps your idea could have brought massive benefits to the team and the organization, but you were convinced that your boss would miss the value.  Great managers provide forums for you to share and disagree.  But we do not always get to choose the people we work for.  When we can strengthen our skills of managing up, we can better lead for impact.

To increase your effectiveness in pitching a project, here are aspects to consider:

1. Bring a first draft plan and co-create.  When you are pitching a project idea, talk about the challenge being addressed, possible solutions, pros and cons of each, your recommendation, and how that solution ties into the bigger picture and the company goals and vision.  Co-create by asking your boss what they would add to your idea to improve its value.  If you are sensing they are opposed to it, you can ask – do you see any reasons why this may not work?  You can ask for their biggest objections they or another might have and if those were addressed, do they see any reason why the project should not go forward then?

2. Tackle the costs head on.  Having a handle on the costs will help you anticipate their possible rejections and prepare for them.  If you do not share them, they will likely be presented for you, instead, you can say, “here are the costs, and here is why I see them worth the benefit.”  Every organization has limited resources, time, and energy; accepting your idea may mean the rejection of another idea that someone else believes is wonderful so having that broader view will be important to making your case.

3. Share potential risks.  When you can brainstorm and analyze potential risks for new projects, categorize whether it is high or low, and share your analysis, you show your boss that you are thinking strategically, especially when you include recommended risk mitigation strategies and backup plans.  They will know that you put in considerable thought and will be more receptive to hearing your approach.   

4. Depict the positive impact beyond your team.  When presenting an idea, be sure to tie it to a positive impact.  Peter Drucker said, “ideas that make no positive impact are meaningless data.”  You are a small piece in the mosaic that your boss is weaving.  When influencing up, focus on the impact of the decision on the overall corporation.  In most cases, the needs of the department are clearly aligned with the company directly, and in other cases, this connection is not so obvious.  Be clear on making that link and do not assume it is automatically seen. Your best wins will relate to a larger goal and not just be about achieving your objectives because if your boss is helping just you, they may be disadvantaging another teammate and the resources they may need. 

5. Show success examples.  Point to examples used by other teams and how you mimic those efforts and processes for the best results.  You can even factor in the customizations you have made to better fit with the intricacies of your team.

6. Reduce workload.  The best recommendations take work off people’s plates.  If you happen to put work on, what can you do to minimize it?  Can you own the scheduling and logistics or volunteer to present the work at the meeting? How can you make it easy for your boss to say yes and show that it will not add extensive work?

There is an art to managing up.  When you can utilize critical thinking skills in presenting your idea, explaining pros and cons, and offering your recommendation, you make it easy for your manager to join you as a collaborative partner to endorse your project. 

Quote of the day: “Real control is influencing someone to the point that [they] believe [their] choices are [their] own.” – G.R. Morris

Q:  How do you pitch your projects for the greatest success?  What has worked and what hasn’t? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 4/6 will focus on numerous managing up scenarios and the best approaches to take]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further. 

What works for you in managing up?

The Pre-Work You Need to Manage Up (Manage Up Series 2/6)

Managing up is a required skill in every job.  Doing this well will allow you to advance your career and bring benefits to your team and the organization.   

Before jumping into best practices for managing up, it is helpful to think about the prework you want to complete so you are in the best position to succeed. 

Here are some critical aspects to uncover:

1. Know your leader’s communication style.  Executive Coach Julie Kantor says, “some bosses readily explain to subordinates how and when they want to communicate.  Others do better when offered multiple-choice questions.  If your boss has not willingly told you, seek agreements on methods and cadence for updates.  You can ask, how often do you want updates: daily, weekly, or only when I have something to report?  Do you prefer phone, instant messaging, email, or face-to-face?”  Getting this information clear will contribute to an excellent relationship, allowing for managing up to occur more easily.  Also, maybe your boss prizes unstructured chat time before diving into the work, whereas you prefer having work updates first and chat time at the end if there is time because it is how you operate with your direct reports.  It is better to adjust your style to fit your boss’ preference rather than impose your will.

1A. Understand their listener/reader style.  You can adjust your style in response to your boss’ preferred method of receiving information.  Peter Drucker, often described as the founder of modern management, divided bosses into “readers” and “listeners.”  If your boss is a reader, they like to get information in report form so they can read and study it.  In that case, you want to include important points in your memo and then discuss them.   Others are listeners, they work better with hearing information presented and being able to ask questions immediately in real time.  In this case, you may want to verbally share to have that back and forth and then follow up with notes of what has been discussed.  This contributes to creating fertile ground for managing up to occur.

1B. Understand their preference for updates.  Some bosses prefer to be involved in decisions and problems as they arise.  These are high-involvement managers who like to keep their hands on the pulse of the operation during critical moments, so it is best to be proactive in including them.  Other bosses prefer to delegate and be less involved.  They expect you to come to them with major problems and inform them about any significant changes.  When keeping these bosses in the loop, be clear on what you are doing and if there is anything you should be doing differently, let them know you welcome their input.  This critical information will allow you to move to the next stage and not waste weeks of work because you did not allow your boss an opportunity to weigh in earlier.  Managing up will be easier when these processes are established.

1C. Have the expectations discussion.  Many people assume the boss will magically know what information to give their subordinates.  Some are naturally good at this, and some are not.  Be proactive at the outset and ask.  What are your expectations from me?  What is a good way to exchange feedback?  Do not assume that just because you like to receive feedback in a particular way from your direct reports, it will be the same style as what your boss will want from you.  Be proactive in uncovering expectations that will set you up for managing up success. 

2. Understand their decision-making style.  Do they make decisions intuitively and change their mind a lot, or do they prefer a more fact-based approach and need lots of data and time to arrive at an action slowly, or any combination of the two?  When you are trying to influence, you can use their style to shape your approach.  Maybe they want to be in control, so you would give them information about what you are doing and offer choices about the next steps so they can make the ultimate decision.

3. Understand your manager's strengths, weaknesses, and motivations.  When you can go to them on a topic that utilizes one of their strengths, they can help more efficiently.  When you go to them in an area of weakness, you may be disappointed.  In that case, it can be a good opportunity for you to be proactive in taking more of a leadership role.  For example, maybe your boss is not strong at creating team bonding events, you can volunteer to take the lead on that.  Furthermore, knowing what they care about and advancing that interest can be helpful.  Dr. Julie Kantor, Executive Coach says, “It pays to figure out what motivates your boss, do they need to look important? Find ways to help them talk about their successes.”  If your boss’ boss cares about retention and building community, you can link the team bonding event to a larger and more critical initiative that would bode well for your leader.

4. Know your leader’s realities.  What numbers are your boss being measured on?  How is their boss defining success?  What are their goals and pressures?  How does your work fit into this bigger picture?  You can exhibit upward empathy and learn about what the specific work is like for your boss, what makes it hard, and what might you be unintentionally contributing to the difficulty level.  Without this information, you might be flying blind so your efforts to manage up would likely be fruitless.

5. Know the organization.  Some organizations are more hierarchical so it can feel threatening to have direct reports speak up.  Find out the informal rules so you can be more clued in on how to operate within the existing structures before you aim to make changes.

This kind of preparation can be used to develop and manage a healthy working relationship - one that is compatible with both work styles and strengths so you can do great work together.

Quote of the day: “Think twice before you speak because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.”  -Napoleon Hill

Q:  What is one way to learn your boss’ key stated and unstated priorities?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 3/6 will focus on managing up for project work]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further.

What do you know about your leader’s style?

We All Need to Manage Up (Manage Up Series 1/6)

It is quite common to have a different perspective from our managers and want to find effective ways to speak up to alter outcomes.  Toeing the line between skillfully influencing regardless of your position and not overstepping in a way that disrespects your leader and damages your reputation can be tricky. When we can hone the skill of managing up, we can make a positive difference in our teams and in our organizations.

Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter defines managing up as the process of consciously working with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and the company.  It is a way of customizing your work style to best suit your managers for optimum collective success.  It can also refer to your tactics to build a strong relationship with your boss to make work easier.  Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal writes, "Managing up, or building smooth, productive relationships with higher-ups, requires understanding and adapting to your boss’s communication and decision-making style.”  Clearly, the approach you take to manage up matters.

Mastering this skill has copious benefits.  You can effectively shape the agenda by better advocating for what you want, asking for resources, and promoting your team’s successes.  The organization benefits as well.  When you have a strong relationship with your manager and know a good method to be heard, you can achieve more win-wins.  Instead of contributing to a culture of silence where people do not voice their views, you can create a conduit for great ideas to see the light of day.  Organizations want people who can vigorously campaign on behalf of their team with excellent intentions to impact productivity, morale, and retention positively.

Choosing when to speak up is not always easy and straightforward.  Here are some situations that could be helpful to chime in:

1. When it is at the cost of the company’s mission and integrity.  If something is happening that is damaging the company’s reputation internally or externally, it can be essential to get involved.  If you know that corners are being cut and there is a negative impact on customers or other stakeholders, your manager will want to know this.

2. When your motives are genuine.  If you have already checked in with yourself and ruled out jealousy or other less envious motives, and it is really about the benefit to the team, organization, or stakeholders, it is a good time to manage up to share constructive concerns collaboratively.

3. When you have established trust and credibility.  When you have shown yourself to be a dependable person that delivers consistent, timely, and excellent quality work, you will be in a good position to manage up.  If you are not a model of what you seek, your message will be harder to convey and be heard. This reminds me of Jordan Peterson’s rule 6: set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.  While I disagree with the word perfect, the underlining sentiment of being an example of what you are trying to change is powerful.   Nobody wants to listen to somebody who cannot do the thing they are advocating.

4. When there are massive communication gaps.  You may have assumptions that your boss has a view of you that is inaccurate.  You may want to check in, clear the air, and frame the perception that more precisely depicts who you are instead of them filling in the gaps so you can speak up and align on a shared reality. I had a client who was working on a massive project, culminating in a pivotal stakeholder meeting where a decision had to be made. When the boss viewed the invite list, she said the list looked random and did not understand why some attendees were present.  My client wanted to take a moment to zoom out and inform her leader of the broader picture, that she had been talking to all those stakeholders regularly and had an excellent explanation for each person’s attendance.  Having that conversation to loop her boss in was essential because while they may have initially thought my client was careless in their selection, they were, in fact, deliberate. 

5. When it is for the leader’s benefit.  Business management expert Patrick Lencioni advocates managing up to benefit the leader.  He said, “do not expect that the manager is leading exactly the way they want.”  He shared a story of when a direct report came to him as a great example of managing up.  Lencioni promoted somebody who was not team-oriented, which violated one of the company values.  So, the direct report went to Lencioni and said, I know you have a lot on your plate, but I noticed an inconsistency that I wanted to share and learn more about the reasoning behind the decision. You talk about teamwork being important but just promoted the least teamwork-focused person, so I think to address the disconnection, we either should change what we believe or move him to another place where he would be a better fit.  Lencioni shared that he was happy to have that blind spot bought to his attention and believed that if you only hear about frustrations when your team hands you a resignation letter, it is unfair because it does not give the leader a chance to course correct.  

Another client of mine had a similar situation speaking up regarding their boss’ blind spot.  The boss would think out loud at meetings and share fleeting comments to the team about possibly doing more research.  Some team members would interpret those passing thoughts as requests, and a couple of people would work on the same project and waste time and resources.  Others would view those thoughts as just verballing processing and would not do anything and the boss would wonder why no action was taken.  So, my client shared this observation with their boss, “I noticed this phenomenon happening where your verbal brainstorming is creating confusion and might be wasting time, I’m wondering what if, at the end of a meeting, we share one thing to investigate and one person to do that so there is clarity and no overlap?  How would that work for you, or what would you add to reduce the confusion?”  Before sharing your idea, you can even invite your boss to share possible solutions before you offer yours.  This is a great topic to manage up because you are proposing a process change to improve the business and inviting a co-creating experience.

When NOT to manage up:

1. Personality difference with no business benefit.  If you simply do not like your manager’s style and changing it would make your life easier but have no positive impact on the business or other team members, then it is misusing the spirit of managing up.  For example, if you want your manager to be more optimistic and less realistic because that is your preference, you may be unable to change that.  It is good to ask yourself, how is my request impacting the business other than it’s annoying me?  If their approach is leading to hours wasted, unnecessary confusion, and a lack of direction for you and the team, that’s different.  Tapping into the bigger reason we are here and how we can align to make the business successful is a good guide to managing up.

2. You think you can be leading better.  You may believe you can do the job better than your manager, many of us feel that way from time to time and that can be ok, but when you take action to undermine your boss or try to win or be right at your boss’s expense, that is crossing the line.  To be successful at your job, it is helpful to support your leader publicly and make them look good rather than asserting your will.  And if you believe you can do a better job, great, do your best to get promoted based on the quality of your work and your integrity and when you get that promotion, you will get a chance to lead in the way you want, and your direct reports will follow you based on your style and the benefits that you deliver.

When you can learn the skill of managing up, it will make you a more effective contributor.  The best indicator of managing up is when there is a triple win – you win, your manager/team wins, and the company wins. 

Quote of the day: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer. 

Q:  When was the last time you had to manage up?  What worked that you would want to repeat?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 2/6 will focus on helpful prework to do to manage up.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to sharpen their managing up skills, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you manage up?

Strategic Thinking Requires Time (Strategy Series 3/3)

How much of your time in your calendar is dedicated to strategy and long-term planning?  In one survey of 10,000 senior leaders, 97% said that being strategic was the most important leadership behavior to their organization’s success.  Yet, it is not being done. 

Common challenges leaders have in finding time for strategic planning:

1. Short-term focused.  Most leaders want to spend more time on strategy but one challenge that keeps them from the practice is being too enmeshed in the near term.   Rich Horwath, CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute, found that 96% of leaders surveyed claimed they lacked time for strategic thinking because they were too busy putting out fires.  Some leaders do not know how to step away from the whirlwind.  For example, Lisa, an HR Vice President, explained how she approached her job in a transactional manner, simply aiming to get the next hire and not recognizing that she needed an entirely new approach to recruitment and retention for a fast-growing company.  To do the latter effectively, she needed to step away from her workload and short-term hiring goals to create the think time to rework defective processes and devise a more scalable system that will allow her to streamline the hiring process that will eventually save significant time in the long run.

2. Poor email management.  The volume of emails keeps leaders focused on immediate and sometimes low-priority concerns.  According to a Radicati Group analysis, we receive an average of 126 emails per day.  I have some executive clients who receive 400+ emails.  If you were to categorize your emails, which ones are truly valuable and which ones are time sucks?  How much time do you spend on emails?  How much time do you want to spend?  How is your time on emails serving your long-term goals?  What’s your plan to free yourself from this time-consuming activity? 

3. Failure to prioritize and delegate.  When you create a jam-packed schedule and are running from meeting to meeting, you cannot contribute strategically without adequate time to reflect on the issues and consider all the options.  What meetings do you need to deprioritize?  How can you delegate so you do not have to be at all places at all times?  Our routine can put a damper on strategy time, so how can you reallocate your time to prioritize the unfamiliar and non-routine activities to increase your capacity to act more strategically?  In a ten-year longitudinal study of over 2,700 newly appointed executives, 67% of them said they struggled with letting go of work from previous roles.  Trying to do everything yourself is a sure path to limiting your leadership and that of others because they do not have the chance to grow.

4. Falling into the competency trap.  This is when you continue to do a previous task related to execution because you do it well, enjoy it, and get a confidence boost because you are accumulating expertise in that one task. The problem is that while you are doing that work, you might be neglecting the other activities such as strategic planning and setting vision and direction, which are skills more needed by the business. What produced your past successes likely will be different than the future wins you will need to succeed. Indeed, you can deliver amazing work on the wrong things and it will go unnoticed.  If you are in stage 3 of your leadership but still doing stage 2 work, it is time to depart from your comfort zone and exercise new strategic muscles.

To avoid some of these challenges, create space in your schedule:

Strategic thinking does not necessarily mean numerous sabbaticals or extensive leadership retreats but is more about carving out consistent space.  As productivity expert David Allen shared in an interview with Dorie Clark for her book Stand Out, “You don’t need time to have a good idea, you need space…. It takes zero time to have an innovative idea or to make a decision, but if you don’t have psychic space, those things are not necessarily impossible, but they’re suboptimal.”

Once you find that calendar time, some executives may not know how to begin their strategic thinking time.  I find that some of my clients put too much pressure on themselves believing they must begin with states of enlightenment that yield novel insights, but it can start much smaller.

Here are some things you can do during your protected strategetic and think time sessions:

1. You can distinguish the urgent from the important.  Stephen Covey’s 2 x 2 matrix is helpful for this in separating more immediate needs from longer and more meaningful work.  Where do you want to have an impact?  What will it take to achieve success?  How will the organization evolve to meet challenges on the horizon?  These are the kinds of deep, foundational questions that are best addressed with long-term planning.

2. Think with others to get an outside perspective.  Reach out to other departments or build rapport with leaders, managers, front-line team members, and customers to listen and understand their roles, concerns, and ideas.  This will add to your knowledge bank of all parts of the organization to better utilize those insights in your projects to ensure alignment with the corporate strategy from the outstart.  You can also think about how to use other partners for new initiatives and create win-win experiences.  As you develop these relationships, you will learn more elements of the business and know which key individuals to call when you want to brainstorm or move past an obstacle.  It would help if you also were proactive about connecting with peers outside your organization and in your industry to understand their observations.  You can share your ideas across your network for greater meaning-making.

3. Expand your cross-functional learning.  When you understand more about all areas of the organization and know who all the key players are, each project you work on becomes a puzzle.  When you move pieces, you can see how it affects others either directly or indirectly.  When you consider the impacts of your decisions on all company domains, you see the big picture more clearly.  That is strategy.

4. Ask other strategic thinkers about their processes.  Turn to people who have skills you admire and find out what their process is as a prime learning opportunity.  You can start the conversation with, “I noticed you offer really valuable contributions in the meetings; I would love to know your process for strategic thinking?  Where do you get your insights from?”  You’ll be surprised how quickly others engage and what you can discover.

5. Learn.  Read books and articles, listen to podcasts and interviews, and watch instructive videos and webinars to expand your thinking and learn new approaches relevant to your specific situation.  There are many valuable conversations happening in your industry, especially among futurists who have spent much time thinking about these topics.  How do you receive regular doses of information that can spark your own?  Are there classes, industry conferences, professional gatherings, or associations that you can attend?  Can you form a book group with your coworkers to have dedicated space for this type of learning? It doesn’t need to be time-intensive, even just 10 minutes of reading and 30-minute discussions can yield significant returns.

6. Take a break.  It can be common to think that to accomplish your work, you must increase your hours.  In fact, research by Bob Sullivan reveals that productivity decreases for those who work more than 50 hours per week.  When you can let your mind wander, you can come up with great strategic ideas.  Lin Manuel Miranda came up with the idea for his award-winning play Hamilton when he was on vacation with his wife fishing.  You can check out my other blog on the importance of taking breaks for breakthroughs.

7. Reflect.  Do you regularly ask, what’s working and what’s not?  How can you chronicle your successes and failures to rethink your approach to make it even more strategic?  You can develop a reflective practice that can be as little as one or five minutes that will engender tremendous value because you will be more intentional about your actions and contributions.

8. Pick a small project to experiment.  Is there one project you can work on regularly to develop some of your strategic skills?  You can test a hypothesis and run an experiment and once you take action, reflect on your progress and learnings and then iterate to improve even more.  If you just stay in your head without taking action, you will rob yourself of the best learnings, which usually come when you try something and get immediate feedback.

9. Engage in meaning-making activities.  Developing great strategic thinking skills requires you to gain exposure to key roles, synthesize broad information, participate in a culture of curiosity, and gather experiences that allow you to identify patterns and connect the dots in novel ways. That’s why leadership development programs often include job rotations, cross-functional projects, and face time with senior leadership - they accelerate your critical thinking.  You can take that 30-foot view to better understand those issues that get raised over and over in different parts of the organization.  Why hasn’t anybody solved them yet?  What’s been the dominant approach? What’s a different approach to take?

Leaders know the value of spending time on strategic thinking, yet they are not doing it because of the challenges of short-term thinking and the urgency of trivial tasks. Start by fostering a practice for thinking and reflecting that will help you develop strategies that can bring significant benefits to you and your organization.

Quote of the day: “Get off of the dance floor and look at your operation from the balcony.” - Ron Heifetz, Harvard Professor

Q: What is your thinking and reflecting practice?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

 As a Leadership Coach, I partner with leaders to engage in strategic thinking for them and their teams, contact me to learn more.

How do you create space to strategize?

Top 11 Ways to Think Strategically (Strategy series 2/3)

Have you ever been told that you need to be more strategic without giving any concrete guidance on how to do that?  If this is a top visible skill that helps you climb the organizational chart, it is worth the effort to grow the ability, regardless of your current position. 

Being a strategic thinker can involve the big-picture, where you are not making decisions in a vacuum.  You consider the future direction, how other departments might be affected, and how the outside world could respond to your choices.

Here are some specific approaches you can take to be a more strategic or a big picture thinker:

1. Take a stakeholder-centered approach.  Step outside of your silo and stand in the shoes of all those connected to and impacted by your company.  Consider these perspectives:

·      Go vertical (up and down).  Step back and survey the landscape to see the system.   You can think about the customer, direct reports, manager, skip manager, CEO, shareholders, and community – both locally and globally.  Ask the question – what do these people want and need?  Where are the common denominators?

·      Go horizontal (left and right).  How are you considering other departments in your strategy?  How is it aligned with the company’s domestic and international vision?  Look across to your direct competitors or beyond to other industries to collect some of the best ideas and trends to make sense of the data in terms of what it means for your team and your company.

·      Use an impact lens.  What will be the result of your strategy on your organization and these various stakeholders?  Do the outcomes support the broader goals of the organization?  What could negatively impact the results?  What do business partners need to understand to ensure its success?  Having some answers to these questions can help you be more thoughtful and strategic. 

2. Consider the timeframe.  What are you trying to do in the short-term v. long-term?  What does success look like in 6 months?  1 year?  3 years?  What are the early signs of success/failure?  What skills and talent will it take to succeed in the long term?  If you were to create a basic road map to navigate to success, what would that look like? How will you know when you have arrived? Whom do you need to support your journey?

3. Think about challenges and ask key questions.  Anticipating problems and trends within your organization and industry can be immensely powerful. You may want to ask: What are the three most important challenges today?  How about the most significant future challenges?  How does today’s work fit into future work?  This is how a commander approaches their work, they seek to understand how each battle plays a part in the larger war.   What challenge would be the hardest to tackle that you cannot see right now? What challenge would be the most important or lead domino that would knock over several other dominos?

4. To be a strategic thinker, develop problem-solving skills.  Most people want to offer a solution to the problem before adequately defining it.  Quick fixes may seem convenient, but they often solve only the surface issues and waste resources that could otherwise be used to tackle the real cause.  The 5 WHYs technique is great for getting at the root cause and preventing stubborn or recurrent problems as they are symptoms of deeper causes.  It was developed and fine-tuned within the Toyota Motor Corporation as a critical component of its problem-solving training.  Sakichi Toyoda, the Japanese Thomas Edison and architect of the Toyota Production System in the 1950s, describes the method in his book as “the basis of Toyota’s scientific approach . . . by repeating the word why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.”  Today, the method is used far beyond Toyota and is popular in lean development. 

Here is an example from Buffer:

1. Why did the system go down?  [Because the database became locked.]

2. Why did it become locked?   [Because there were too many database writes]

3. Why were we doing too many database writes?  [Because this was not foreseen, and it was not load tested]

4. Why wasn’t this change load tested? [Because we don’t have a development process set up for when we should load test changes]

5. Why don’t we have a development process for when to load test?  [We’ve never done too much load testing and are hitting new levels of scale.]

It is going beyond the presenting issue and symptoms to treat the root cause.

5. You can question basic assumptions.  If you are discussing a long-term company strategy upon which years of effort and expense will be based, you can ask basic questions about your beliefs.  How do you know that business will increase?  What does the research say about your expectations about the future of the market?  Have you taken the time to step into the figurative shoes of your customers as a “secret shopper?”  Another way to question your assumptions is to consider alternatives.  You might ask: what if our clients changed?  What if our suppliers went out of business?  These sorts of questions help you gain new and vital perspectives that help hone your thinking.

6. Use First principles thinking.   It is the best way to reverse-engineer complicated problems and reveal creative possibilities. The idea is to break down complex problems into fundamental elements and then reassemble them from the ground up.  It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.  This approach was used by the philosopher Aristotle who defined it as the first basis from which a thing is known, and now by Elon Musk and Charlie Munger.  It is about thinking like a scientist and not assuming anything; What is true and what has been proven?

Musk gave an example of how Space X uses first principles to innovate at low prices.  People thought battery packs were expensive because that’s the way they have been in the past.  Musk responded,

“Well, no, that’s pretty dumb… Because if you applied that reasoning to anything new, then you wouldn’t be able to ever get to that new thing…. you can’t say, … oh, nobody wants a car because horses are great, and we’re used to them and they can eat grass and there’s lots of grass all over the place and … there’s no gasoline that people can buy.   Historically, battery packs cost $600 per kilowatt-hour… So the first principles would be, … what are the material constituents of the batteries?  What is the spot market value of the material constituents? … It’s got cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, some polymers for separation, and a steel can.  So break that down on a material basis; if we bought that on a London Metal Exchange, what would each of these things cost?  Oh, jeez, it’s … $80 per kilowatt-hour.  So, clearly, you just need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell, and you can have batteries that are much, much cheaper than anyone realizes.”

First principles thinking allows you to see problems from multiple angles and interpret complex and conflicting information with curiosity and open-mindedness, and that’s what strategic thinking is all about.

7. See the rich interconnectivity.  Agents can sometimes interact in ways where they fundamentally change each other and something entirely different and unpredictable emerges from the contact.  Paul Cilliers used the following analogy: “a jumbo jet is complicated (it is equal to the sum of its parts), and if you had to take it apart or reverse actions, you could, mayonnaise is complex (once mixed, you can’t separate the parts again; the Interaction fundamentally changes them).”  In other words, complex systems are subject to co-evolution, and once it happens, it’s irreversible.  How can you factor this idea into your strategy or big-picture thinking?  Which steps you choose to take will be easily reversible, and which ones are permanent?  How will that impact your experiments? Knowing this information will help you thrive in a VUCA world.

8. Use Polarity Thinking.  In Adam Grant’s Think Again, he talks about polarity thinking.  For example, how can two great thought leaders have two different perspectives?  Daniel Goleman would argue that EQ matters more than IQ as it can determine 90% of a leader’s success.  In contrast, Jordan Peterson would maintain that EQ is a corporate marketing scheme; he downplays its importance.  How can these two PhD holders be right if they have opposite views?  Polarity thinking can allow both of them to be right, especially when thinking about context.  Instead of talking about why it is important, you want to talk about WHEN it is important.  EQ is beneficial with jobs that deal with perceiving and understanding emotions (customer service, counseling) but less relevant and even detrimental where emotions are less essential (mechanics, accountants).  How can you apply polarity thinking or both/and approach to your business as a creative exercise? 

9. Consider the 4 Cs analytical framework.  Adam Brandenburger writes about contrast, combination, constraint, and context to get creative with your strategy:

·      Contrast.  Challenge the assumptions undergirding the status quo.

·      Combination.  Steve Jobs famously said that creativity is “just connecting things”; what products or services seem independent from or even in tension with one another can you link?

·      Constraint.  A good strategist looks at an organization’s limitations and considers how they might become strengths.  A lack of resources can be a fertilizer for innovation.  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was staying near Lake Geneva during an unusually cold and stormy summer and found herself trapped indoors with nothing to do but exercise her imagination.  Artists are pretty familiar with limitations, from setbacks to structural ones like writing a 14-line poem.  How can you take a no and turn it into a yes?  A client I was coaching was trying to get a budget for a new hire and when she was told no, she remained undeterred.  She came up with an internal rotation idea as a way of repurposing talent to help on other teams.  This solution helped with another goal of reducing burnout and attrition because it gave other people an option of doing different work, exercising their passion, and staying engaged.

·      Context.  If you reflect on how a problem which is similar to yours was solved in an entirely different context, surprising insights may emerge.

10. Scenario planning.  How can you lay out 3 likely scenarios, a least likely one, and a crazy one so you are prepared for as much as you can?  What redundancies can you put into place so that there is support in place if one path fails? How can you anticipate what other people want and are likely to do so you can craft your response? Art Kleiner, Editor-in-Chief of PwC Global promotes the habit of mentalizing - which is thinking about what other people are thinking and instead of sharing what they want or what you want, going a step beyond to articulate what they are likely to do next.

11. Toggle.  Move between the big-picture and day-to-day execution to broaden your view.  As you are completing the day-to-day work, can you easily connect the work to the mission and vision?  Do you know the why behind the small decisions?  Similarly, in those conceptual meetings, can you move from the 1,000 feet view to the 100 to understand the next steps and road map that will allow you to ascend?  Can you take a broad idea and create a plan with metrics and benchmarks while keeping the WHY top of mind?

Once you have engaged in strategic thinking, it is important to have time for reflection so you can consolidate the learnings, get clear on your point of view, and communicate your strategy so your boss knows you are a strategic thinker.   Here are two helpful steps for perception management:

1. Get clear on your point of view.  When you have considered and implemented the above approaches, bring a perspective to the table.  Do people know where you stand?  Your leaders want to know what you think, so when you show that you are considering the big-picture and can articulate your views, you can stand out for a promotion.  Beyond just coming up with ideas, it’s even more powerful when you can take the initiative and show you have thought a few steps ahead of how you would implement something and put your ideas into action.  Having good ideas and strategies are only the first step; you also must communicate them and bring people along.

2. Carve out prep time before your meetings.  It can be too easy for us to feel like we will wing the meeting, but it is more powerful when we are deliberate.  Block out 30 minutes on your calendar before essential meetings so you have time to collect your thoughts, and arrange and package your ideas into a coherent vision and direction.  That shows strategic thinking when you are capable of synthesizing information and articulating knowledge concisely and compellingly.  You can take the same approach in emails, when you are talking about completing work, you can offer the WHY behind the work and connect it to the mission and vision. 

Having strategic thinking skills is essential for all people in the organization to develop because you can better deal with uncertainty and complexity.   A common mistake for leaders as they rise through the ranks is that they stay in operational or execution mode and are not doing enough of the strategy work to get to the next phase of their careers.  Using any of these frameworks can not only help you advance but also strengthen your contributions to your team and organization. 

Quote of the day: “Always start at the end before you begin.” Author Robert Kiyosaki

Q: How do you develop your strategic thinking skills?  What are your best practices for being strategic? Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series (3 of 3) will focus on thinking and reflecting practices to strengthen your strategic thinking skills

 As a Leadership Coach, I partner with leaders to engage in strategic thinking for them and their teams, contact me to learn more.

How do you like to think strategically?

What is your company strategy? (Strategy series 1/3)

Having a solid strategy can mean the difference between winning and losing, failing and succeeding.  Knowing the stakes, how do you create a good strategy?  What does strategy even mean anyway?

At the company level, Harvard Business Professor Michael Porter defines strategy as a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities than your competitors or the same activities done in different ways. The Management theorist Henry Mintzberg famously defined strategy as 5 Ps: plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective. He explains:

·      The plan helps you attain your objectives to achieve your intended position.

·      The ploy is a new offering that is usually a surprise tactic that competitors would not expect.

·      The pattern is understanding what was implemented before and pulling out useful aspects going forward.

·      The position is your market location and the role you play in relation to your main competitors.

·      The perspective is how your organization sees itself and how various target audiences perceive you.

Generally speaking, strategy is about your intention or the way you pursue the work to further the mission and creatively grow the business in various facets – employee health, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth.   Let’s break down some strategy components:

1. Strategy is about choices.  To do well, a company must choose to do some things great and not others.  So, how do you choose?  Many people like to begin broadly in these four categories to be industry leaders:

·      Product leader - Nike and Apple are product leaders.  They constantly change their designs or shoe technology to be the coolest and most innovative in the market.  It is hard to outdo them in this category.

·      Customer intimacy – This is about creating an incredible experience for the customers where they are entirely taken care of.  You are prepared to jump through hoops for them.  Most big companies can find this challenging, but Nordstrom is an example that offers excellence in this department.  It is easier for smaller companies to do this like coffee shops, where workers know your name and have your order ready for you upon arrival.  Zappos is known for exceptional customer service.  Tony Hsieh shared a story about taking clients out one evening and when they all returned to their rooms, one of them craved a pizza, but room service was closed. Tony suggested they call Zappos and they came through on the request! Although they didn’t deliver themselves, they found a nearby pizza parlor that would.

·      Operational excellence – This is about performing efficiently at scale.  Starbucks and Chipotle have standardized their processes and have a model that can be exported seamlessly.   

·      Low Prices – Cost-effectiveness can be a powerful strategy.  It is part of IKEA’s competitive advantage.  They target young furniture buyers who want style cheaply. 

Roger Martin, named #1 by Thinkers 50 says to know if you have picked a good strategy, follow this rule – “If the opposite of your choice is stupid on its face, you have not chosen.  For example, if you say, our strategy is to be customer-centric or operationally effective or to value our talent, you can perform this test by stating the opposite - Our strategy is to ignore customers entirely.”  If it does not make sense, it cannot work as a strategy because it would be hard to do that and succeed, let alone stay in business.  Maybe regulated monopolies like the DMV can get away with this, but they do not engender much love.  If the opposite of operational effectiveness is inefficiency, then that’s not a choice because it is not a profitable route.

2. Strategy is about trade-offs.  Michael Porter says, “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do” because you do not have the bandwidth to do it all.  Focusing on 1-2 things per quarter and adding the rest to your future list. Leaders need to know how to say no often.  As Peter Drucker says, “strategy is saying no to the things that you would like to say yes to.”  We can have many good ideas but only so much capacity to execute.  The key is to choose a couple of priorities because when you have too many, your team spins their wheels, and there is no organizing framework since they all need your attention.  Southwest Airlines is an example of a company that makes these strategic tradeoffs.  They offer short-haul, low-cost, point-to-point service between midsize cities and secondary airports in large cities.  They avoid large airports and do not fly great distances. Their frequent departures and low fares attract price-sensitive customers who otherwise travel by bus or car and convenience-oriented travelers who would choose a full-service airline.  They empower their employees at the front desk to make decisions aligned with their priorities (e.g., planes landing on time, cheap prices, and treating customers well).  It’s the reason they do not have milk on their flights because they do not have refrigerators since they have to be repaired when there are breakdowns, and that can lead to late departures. 

3. Strategy is about problem-solving.  What’s the space between the outcomes you're currently achieving and your aspirations?  If you think about the biggest challenge in reducing client churn from 35-15%, what are the fewest battles necessary to win that war?  How do you go about getting to the root of the problem to make sure you are solving the right one?  How do you frame the question for the best solution?

4. Strategy is about simplicity.  There is a myth that strategy needs to be complicated but to be most effective, you want to make it simple - understandable, memorable, and actionable.  Research by Roger Martin supports this point.  He says, “43 percent of managers cannot state their strategy.  When executives are not clear on their strategy, they have to work harder to see their impact on the organization’s direction.”  Moreover, execution does not like complexity.  Leaders who talk about strategy in concepts and cannot make it simple to move it to a specific goal with the fewest number of executable targets will struggle.  As Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” You can start with these simple questions - where are you?  Where do you need to go?  What resources do you need?  What are your options?  Which one is best to prioritize?  What is the easiest workflow process? What’s your timeframe?  What’s your process to reflect and reevaluate?

5. Strategy is about flexibility. You can be clear on your vision and flexible in your strategy. You do not want a strategy that will handcuff you when a pivot is in order so it is important to check in on your strategy. Pay attention to the context and as variables and circumstances require you to update your strategy, be ready. You also may not have gotten it right the first time and that’s ok, you can alter it after your strategy has been tested.

Strategy is an important part of any business and while some people try to make it complicated, it does not have to be.  As Jack Welch said, “In reality, strategy is actually very straightforward.  You pick a general direction and implement like hell.” 

Quote of the day: “A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.” -Author Lee Bolman

Q: What’s your favorite strategy?  What’s your process for formulating your strategy? Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series (2/3) will focus on how to develop strategic thinking skills.

 As a Leadership Coach, I partner with leaders to engage in strategic thinking for them and their teams, contact me to learn more.

What does strategy mean to you?

What stage is your team in? ( Team Composition Series 3/3)

Teams go through different phases and stages.  Dr. Bruce Tuckman published his 4-stage model in 1965 – Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing and added a fifth stage, Adjourning in the 1970s. The theory explains the predictable and evolving formative periods most teams experience.  As a leader, your job is to recognize what stage your team is at and think about the right interventions to move them along the team development continuum to reach peak performance and achieve more than they thought possible.  

Let’s jump into Tuckman’s five stages:

Stage 1: Forming.  When a team first assembles, there can be excitement, they may not be sure how things will turn out but some know it can be a great experience.  People spend time getting to know each other and understanding each other’s best attributes.  Respect is granted where you listen to others and share your thoughts, some may offer some goodwill and trust.

There should be a high dependence on the leader for guidance and direction during this phase.  Instead of being reactive to problems that come your way, the leader has the responsibility to be proactive and help their team think about what systems and processes are needed to build a foundation for their best performance.   

Here are some crucial questions the leader should reflect on and be able to answer to some degree before getting input from the team and co-creating the collective culture and structure:

·      What is the team’s purpose?  Why are we here and what are we meant to do? What is the vision that inspires people to jump out of bed every day to partake? What have our stakeholders commissioned us to do? What value are we depositing into the world?

·      What are the team goals, objectives, and KPIs? How can we turn the purpose and vision into a quarterly roadmap?

·      What are everybody’s roles and responsibilities, and how can we best contribute?  How can we share that information so everybody knows other people’s job descriptions and so they know who to turn to for assistance?

·      What are the expectations and agreements that will govern our best work?  What are the ways to weigh in and offer best practices and processes to enhance communication and coordination? How do we want to create psychological safety so we can take risks and reach peak innovation? You can lay out the best way to handle conflict and the process for decision-making get feedback and collectively agree on what would be best for the team.

·      What are the style differences?   How can we improve our understanding of individual preferences, strengths, and weaknesses, and increase our knowledge of working with different types of people?  This one does not need to be fully developed and can unfold as the team moves through the stages.

Stage 2: Storming.  In this phase, team members begin to show their entire colors, and conflict typically arises as there are clashes between work styles, beliefs, values, relationships, and personalities.  Decision-making is more complicated as people become more comfortable challenging each other and the leader.  As team members vie for positions to establish themselves in relation to other team members, they second guess coworkers and wonder, "I thought I trusted you, but now I'm not so sure."  If progress is not being made, they have more questions and concerns, assert their opinions and compete for power and attention.  If the team is too big, subgroups and cliques form, and there may be power struggles and blaming of others.   If not handled well, many teams do not move beyond this stage; they stay underperforming, and it turns out to be a relatively disappointing experience.

Leaders can play an essential role in pushing the team forward.  They can normalize conflict and seek to resolve it productively instead of shying away from it.   For example, when a co-worker says or does something that's not aligned with the team culture, step in and ask them to explain their approach and how it matches with the team’s purpose or culture.  You can revisit the original agreements about having an open and safe forum to exchange and pressure test ideas, even if not in alignment with others. Leaders can then allow team members the space to express different opinions and “clear the air.”  If you do not put ideas on the table, you cannot do anything about them.  They can establish and reinforce processes for effective communication, efficient meetings, solving team issues, and building trust to get teams to see that solving these interpersonal challenges is worth the investment.  Leaders can coach members to take ownership of the success of the team and help them design the changes they want to see. Leaders can ask how each member wants to be a resource for others’ development.  They can reconfirm the vision and get people excited to focus on critical collective goals where the intensity of the emotional and relationship issues is overshadowed by something way more meaningful that will have a substantial impact.

Stage 3: Norming.  When you understand that conflicts can arise and resolve issues amicably, you get rewarded with a genuinely healthy working relationship in the norming stage.  Roles and responsibilities are clear, accepted, and appreciated.  The team builds on processes and understands effective working styles.  Big decisions are made by group consensus or another more effective method agreed upon by the group. More minor decisions may be delegated to individuals or small, self-organizing teams within the larger group as responsibility and ownership are distributed.  There is a rhythm of addressing issues and appreciating differences and strengths as people work toward a common goal.  The impact is that morale and productivity increase, trust builds, commitment and unity strengthen and care for each other, and the work grows.  There is general respect for each other and the leader.  The team may engage in fun social activities and people are generally set up to do the work that everybody agreed upon.

Leaders can create success in this stage by empowering behaviors that allow people to be on the same page, giving and receiving feedback for development, sharing leadership responsibilities, and managing change collaboratively.  At this stage, groupthink can seep in; there could be the temptation that members could feel that they need to get along to go along because there is the fear of going back to the conflict stage when things were not fabulous.  The leader can be on the lookout for this unhelpful development and invoke processes to draw out multiple perspectives and normalize productive disagreement, leverage the strengths of each, take quick action, settle conflicts, and maintain a positive, productive climate.

Stage 4: Performing.  This is an incredible work experience where you are thriving on multiple levels producing excellent results, and having great relationships; it is a 1 + 1 = 3 type of equation; it's an intoxicating feeling.  The team is more strategically aware; knows clearly why it is doing what it is doing.  They have a high degree of autonomy as they go after the shared vision; they tend to overachieve and collaboratively make decisions with the leader.  Even with a high degree of freedom, they know they can depend on each other at any point.  Disagreements are resolved within the team positively, and necessary changes to processes and structures are made by the team regularly to serve the evolving needs best. They are comfortable asking for help and offering it because it is about the team-first approach, and there is a level of safety where people can bring their authentic selves, both their successes and struggles.

A leader can foster this successful stage by allowing even more flexibility in team roles, so people feel like they are being challenged. Leaders can create future leadership opportunities, offer development and support to help people achieve their career aspirations.  Leaders can leverage the learning and spark additional team creativity to attain new heights as they collectively advance. Leaders can also pay attention to momentum building and stalling moments. Daniel Pink also offers some interesting research about midpoints, which is the phenomenon of how teams tend to lose steam mid-project.  With this knowledge, leaders can offer galvanizing interventions to work with this dynamic to keep the momentum unbroken.

Stage 5: Adjourning.  This was added by Tuckman two years after his initial research.  Adjourning is the team’s break-up, hopefully when the task is completed successfully, its purpose fulfilled; everyone can move on to new things, feeling good about what's been achieved and ready to contribute elevated skills to their next body of work.  From an organizational perspective, recognition of and sensitivity to people's vulnerabilities is helpful, particularly if members have been closely bonded and feel a sense of insecurity or threat from this change.

Leaders can mark the occasion and adequately reflect on all the excellent work capturing each person’s contributions and making them feel proud for being a part of a memorable experience.  They can create hope for the future that they have skills and abilities and effective work practices that they can transfer to their next project.

 As a leader joining a new team, it is useful to find out what stage your team is in because if you enter their high-performing stage and treat them like they are in the forming or storming stage, they will be unhappy. It’s helpful to begin with a lot of listening and observation so you can spot where they are.  You can ask questions such as - what’s happening on the team, where is everybody, what are the best aspects of this team that you want to leverage going forward, what tweaks would you like to make, if any, to do even better work, how can I be most helpful to advance the team?  Instead of thinking you have the right diagnosis, they can tell you what they want without knowing the details and history.  Once having a deeper understanding, you can co-create the work together so all parties have a stake.

These five stages can progress and regress depending on team makeup, leadership, and client work changes.  When that happens, it is helpful to revisit the forming stage, even briefly, so you can put together a clear roadmap that will add eventual speed to the process. Knowing where your team is and how to support them will allow them to do their best work.

Quotes of the day:  Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is a success." – Henry Ford

Q: What stage is your team in?  As a leader, how would you like to support your team?  As a team member, how would you like to contribute? Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

 As a Leadership and Team Coach, I partner with leaders and teams to cultivate a flourishing team culture, contact me to learn more.

Bruce Tuckman’s Team Model

What Is A Team? (Team Composition Series 1/3)

The word team is frequently used to describe any group of people loosely working together. The term is often evoked even when there are divergent agendas and little reliance on each other.  There are leadership teams, management teams, work teams, cross-functional teams, and more. Depending on the kind of team you are, you can make decisions to determine how to run it for maximum success and to meet the complex business demands in the modern workplace.

A team is not a bunch – a group of people who coexist.  If we find ourselves on the subway with a bunch of people, we are merely occupying the same space; each person is independent of everybody else, some traveling in the same direction and some not, but there is no kind of coordination.  We may not have much in common and are just in the same place at the same time using the same resource.  Of course, if the subway broke down in between platforms for an extensive period, there could be the potential for a team to form as more coordination would have to occur for all people to reach the same goal of getting out safely. 

A team is not a group – a collection of people who can have some common interests but are not aligned toward the same goal.  For example, maybe a leadership coach is working with a group of lawyers in different industries or companies, which can have many overlaps in their practice such as in their experiences, skills, and challenges.  Still, they are not working together to achieve an outcome so there is no need to align.

A team is not a pseudo team, described by Michael West and Joanne Lyubovnikova as “A group of people working in an organization who call themselves or are called by others a team; who have differing accounts of team objectives; whose typical tasks require team members to work alone or in separate dyads towards disparate goals.” There is usually an inability to collaborate effectively and the sum of the team is less than the parts; they could be performing even better independently.

A team, defined by Jon Katzenback, a recognized expert on teams is “A small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals and shared approach for which they hold each other mutually accountable.” Peter Hawkins, author and expert on teams adds “and which has ways of effectively meeting and communicating that raise morale and alignment, effectively engaging with all the team’s key stakeholder groups and ways that individuals and the team can continually learn and develop.” In other words, real teams consist of a group of people working toward a common purpose and have a degree of interdependence in a shared context.  There is defined membership where they combine resources, competencies, and bandwidth as they carry out their collective mission and achieve outcomes.  They accomplish tasks that are too large or complex to be done by anyone.  A team only forms in response to a purpose and to stakeholder needs and usually operates within a system.

The best teams synergize; they know that the output of a team will be greater than the sum of individual contributions.  They complement each other, collaborate, coordinate, communicate effectively, have team spirit, and subordinate their personal goals to the larger objectives if they are at odds.  There are clear roles, well-defined outcomes, and norms or working agreements for peak performance.  They know why the team exists and have aligned that purpose with the organization, and to a degree, their own.  Ideally, they can connect that mission with having a meaningful and positive impact on others.  Author David Burkus argues that the definition of a great team has three qualities – intellectual diversity (diverse thinkers), psychological safety (the comfort in expressing your ideas), and a purpose or noble cause.  While each team includes different ingredients that make up their success, there are underlining commonalities.  To read more about successful team ingredients, feel free to read my blog on the topic.

Leaders play a tremendous part in the success of a team.  While they have their vision, they know how to collect meaningful input from the members to shape it collectively.  Great teams do not just happen; there has to be a degree of intentionality and thought in the design, purpose, values, and contribution of individual strengths.  Doc Rivers, NBA championship-winning coach and recipient of the NBA Coach of the Year award uses the South African concept Ubuntu to drive and define his team, which means “I am because we are.”   It is the idea that there are no solitary humans because a person is who they are as a result of their interactions with others.  He says, “the better you are, the better I am.”   The best leaders strike a balance in coaching teams for who they are today and who they will be someday and extracting the best from each to advance the team unit as a whole.

When you are building a team, there are many considerations to design the best kinds of teams, which look very different than groups and bunches.  What type of team do you intend to build?  What will be the philosophy that governs your team?  How will you learn the stakeholders’ needs for you to be successful? How will you incentivize your team to collaborate?  These are the kinds of questions that pop up in the formative stages of a team.

Quote of the day: "None of us is as smart as all of us." -Ken Blanchard

Q: What does a team mean to you?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on the types of teams]

 As a Leadership and Team Coach, I partner with leaders and teams to cultivate a flourishing team culture, contact me to learn more.

What’s distinct about your team?

Consistency is the secret to changing habits (Habit Series 6/7)

The best way for your habit change to take root is to be consistent with your behaviors.  Even when you cannot see the benefits, big dividends will be eventually paid when you put a system in place to follow. 

When you make the slightest adjustments to your daily routine, it can alter your life.  Let’s say you want to exercise more, and you start with 10 minutes a day, it does not sound like a lot, but it adds up.  Jerry Seinfeld, one of the most successful comedians of all time, brought a level of consistency to his daily work that most of us would envy. He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes, and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.  He used a wall calendar that had a whole year on one page hung in a prominent spot.  For each day he writes, he puts a big red X over the day.  After a few days, he would have a chain that would keep growing, the goal is not to break the chain. This method of daily tracking is hugely beneficial for many, but it doesn’t work for all because if you find yourself staring at blank spots that you missed, you can begin to feel bad about your inability to follow a plan and start to get demoralized and give up. Decide if tracking works for you.

Consistency is a competitive advantage.  None of us get where we want to overnight, it is a disciplined process, over time of small intentional steps.  Jim Rohn says, “what simple to do is also simple not to do.”  Successful people are willing to do what others are not.  They schedule time in their calendar every day for their habits.  Practice allows you to rewire your brain and create new mental maps on how to think and behave.  As Tony Robbins says, “Knowledge is not power… it’s potential power.  Execution will trump knowledge any day.”  It is like a light switch, we have to turn it on to enjoy the effects.

Here are two tips to help with consistency:

1. Control your mornings and evenings.  An excellent way to have more control over your day is to have a non-negotiable morning and evening routine so your most important habits are done at the beginning or end of the day, depending on the time that matches your best energy.  A million things can spring up during the day that you may have to react to, but designing the beginning or the end of your day will allow for that protected habit time and fewer if any interruptions.

2. Log your progress. The most effective form of motivation for habit change is progress.  Each small win feeds your desire, and even if the results take longer to see, you can visualize the work you put in. At age 20, Ben Franklin carried a small booklet and used it to track 13 personal virtues and goals such as avoiding wasting time and trifling conversation and would open his book and record his progress.  Following the habit creates a satisfying feeling and a desire to repeat the behavior.  Research shows that those who kept a daily food log were twice as likely to lose weight. It keeps us honest because sometimes we have a distorted view of what we do until we see the paper that puts things into a more realistic light.  The key is to focus on the process and the progress of whom you are becoming as you move toward your destination.  Measurement is useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you and stresses you out.

Progress leads to momentum,  one of the most influential and enigmatic forces of success.  Newton’s first law states that objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless impacted by an outside force and objects in motion stay in motion unless something stops the momentum.  It’s why couch potatoes can feel like they are in a rut for a while and why the rich get richer, and the happy people get happier.

These steps will lead to the compound effect.  When you are consistent, control your time, and log your progress, you ignite the miracle of the compound effect.  In the book by the same title, Darren Hardy defines the compound effect as “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first, but will compound into remarkable results if you are willing to stick with them for years.”

Even when you do not see the changes, the benefits are delayed.  James Clear offers a striking ice cube metaphor.  He says, “Imagine an ice cube as a room heats up in 1-degree increments. 26... 27...28... to 31 and still nothing has happened. Then at 32, the ice begins to melt.  A 1-degree shift, seemingly no different from the previous ones, but this one unlocked a huge shift.”  The hard work you do is never being wasted, just stored. It’s natural to get frustrated with running for a month and not seeing results, but like all things, you need to give it time and the amount of time can vary from one person to the next.

Habits can compound for or against you.  When you are consistently doing your disciplines and tracking your progress, you will be on a growth path, even if it is not noticeable at first, it will yield massive long-term results.  If you choose the status quo or feed negative behaviors, you will accrue a deficit.  It’s a multiplying effect in whichever direction - and, you get to choose.

Quotes of the day: “ I will win, not immediately but definitely.” -Anonymous 

“The secret to success is found in your daily routine.” -Author John Maxwell

Q:  How do you support your best habits?  How do you log your progress?   Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog 7/7 will focus on maintaining systems for habit change]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you track your progress on habit change?

What’s The Best Way To Address Accountability? (Accountability Series 3/3)

Having an accountability conversation to let somebody know where they stand is essential for an excellent culture.  It should not just happen in one conversation where all your stored information comes out at once, but it should be communicated through multiple interactions. And, as the recipient, while it may not feel good at the time, it is a gift to have that valuable information to know exactly where your performance stands.

Here are some steps to consider when thinking about an accountability conversation:

1. Check in with yourself.  When a work issue is causing you stress, a typical first instinct is to point outward and blame others.  But if you want to have a productive conversation with someone who appears not to get it, first consider if you may be contributing to the problem (even unintentionally).  Instead of asking, “Why aren’t they doing your part,” you can ask a series of questions to look internally first, such as “Is there anything I can do differently to help? Have I been clear about my expectations?  Have I asked what I can do to help?  Have I taken time to brainstorm and review processes?  Have I built an accountability plan with them?”  Self-awareness is a leadership superpower and reflecting on this may help you recognize any unhelpful patterns. 

2. Use the Accountability Dial.  Author Jonathan Raymond offers the accountability dial as a helpful framework to keep others accountable.  There are five steps: mention, invitation, conversation, boundary, and limit.

A. Mention. A brief comment or piece of feedback that you noticed that you want to check in and get more information.  It can be something that might be counterproductive.  For example, “I noticed that the proposal that went out today had aspects that were a little unclear.  If I was the customer, I think they would have had a hard time figuring out what we meant based on our previous meeting.”  The mention can also be empowering – I loved how you kept that meeting on track; I know how distracting it was to keep pace with the conversation going on in the chatbox or off to the side.  It is best to mention right after the event and not wait for the quarterly or yearly meeting.  The mention is about offering a piece of data you notice that is either helpful or hurtful to the person to have timely feedback so they know what to do more of or what to do less of. 

B. Invitation.  This is about asking the person to connect a few mentions and get their take to put things into context and learn about that fuller picture.  Three different isolated mentions on the same topic can help them see a pattern.  For example, if your team member is constantly missing deadlines, you could begin by saying, “I’ve noticed that you seem to need a little more time to get the work done lately (or insert another behavior).   What’s the pattern here?”  They may not have been aware that they have been late in different aspects of the project; let them make that connection and give any additional context that can get at the root challenge.  To test to see if there is alignment on expectations, you can have them provide a self-assessment of what quality of work would look like and what standards would need to be met.

C. Conversation.  It is a one-on-one discussion to learn even more about what’s going on.  You brought information to their attention in your mentions, and in the invitation, you welcomed them to think about their behavior in the big picture.  The goal of a conversation is to listen, remain genuinely open to their take on things, and restore the work instead of casting blame.  It helps to assume positive intent and come from a place of curiosity and support and not a mindset of hostility where there are unhelpful and untrue assumptions being tossed around.  You can start with any of the following:

· The expectation was X and Y was delivered, what is behind this misalignment?  

·  There is a conclusion I have drawn based on your behavior, but I know I only have a snapshot and that there is crucial information I may be missing, so would love to learn more from you.

· Your performance fell short of the goals we set together. I would love to know the barriers that got in the way and what we can do differently going forward.

· Help me understand the disconnect of where we set the goals and where we fell short so we can do things better next time.

You may discover that they are not “lazy,” “incapable,” or “unreliable,” but rather, that they are unclear on organizational goals, and therefore, are not properly prioritizing projects.  You may discover that they need more feedback to do their best or that other obstacles hold them back.  In Crucial Accountability, Kerry Patterson et al note that 70% of project managers admitted that they would be late because deadlines were initially unrealistic.  While none of these factors entirely excuse a broken commitment, lack of initiative, or follow-through, acknowledging what they have said, understanding the underlying issues, and noting where they are coming from can give you a clear idea about how to move forward, even if it means you disagree.  This is an excellent opportunity for you to be supportive and offer positive reinforcement.

If you do not learn anything valuable and they are just slacking for some reason, you need to deliver the truth.  Talk about how their behavior is impacting the company.  You may say, “I know you do not intend to take the team sideways, but when you do not return emails on time that have action items in them, it makes life harder for the rest of the team and more difficult for the customers and stakeholders.” Pointing out their specific behavior always works best when you have built trust and demonstrated that you care.  Maybe they did not have any idea of their impact or did not think it was a big deal, but now understand, and do not want to be the person everybody chases, so they are ready to make some adjustments.  You can also use the contrasting approach, which shares what you are not intending before the feedback.  For example, “I’m not saying it was wrong for you to disagree with me in the meeting, we need to hear everyone’s view to make the best choice, but I think the team listened to your tone as attacking, and it would be better to address your concerns with me privately or in the meeting with a curious and positive manner, how do you see it?”

It’s essential to leave the conversation where you both understand what the underlying issue is, how to address it, what success looks like, what needs to be done, by who, and by which date to achieve it.  Having that type of clarity and mutual agreement on how to move forward can be a game-changer.  You can also have them suggest that they are planning to make changes and even ask them if they are open to trying some new strategies.  You can reassure them that you want them to be set up for success and get one last confirmation – “does this all seem doable given other things on your plate?”

D. The Boundary.  If the conversation and feedback did not change their behavior, you need to have another conversation, and talk about the boundary or the limit.  The boundary is the idea that even though they have been working on something and made some change, it is not enough or not to the desired standard.  I know this can be uncomfortable, but you are providing feedback in the spirit of helping them grow.  Not addressing the behavior would send a message that you approve of their behavior which can continue to harm the team.  The outcome could be that you monitor a specific behavior change you want them to show in a reasonable time frame.   

E. The limit.  A clear consequence and the last step before the person is dismissed. In the conversation, you tell the person you have tried everything you could – coaching, mentoring, feedback, and other supports.  Where we go from here is on them.  They can take the weekend and tell you if they want to stay and present their plan of what they are prepared to do that has not been tried or if they want to go because it is not the right fit for them now and they want to move on.  Two things can likely happen – they can reflect or talk to others to have that wake-up call to realize they can be better and move into another gear and come back and show this newfound initiative, or they will select out.  When you have determined that the person cannot meet the expectations, don’t delay, let them find another place where they can thrive.  As a leader, it is not about keeping everybody happy, it is about keeping the organization humming along where people can achieve their best, and a crucial part of that is emphasizing accountability and maintaining standards of excellence; that’s part of what keeps morale high. 

Raymond stresses that the Dial is not a linear process – it can be turned up and down depending on the situation.  For serious issues, you may jump immediately to the conversation or even the limit.

You can also use a more simplified 3-step framework for accountability which would be to communicate the expectations and observations, follow-up to make sure the expectations are communicated right and are being met, and make the consequences clear. The consequence can be positive or negative, if they are exceeding an expectation, they could get certain recognitions. A common pitfall is that most managers do not do step 1 or 2 well but then go heavy on the consequential in an annual review because they have 6-12 months of stored feedback.

When one team member’s behavior and work performance negatively impacts another, you need to hold the person accountable.  An excellent tool to use is the Accountability Dial, which starts with mentioning the behavior, inviting them to see patterns, having a conversation to learn more, showing the boundary, and utilizing the limit.  Keeping people accountable is the kind thing to do because not addressing their unacceptable behavior would be perpetuating the cycle of failure and wreak havoc on all those involved. 

Q: How do you initiate your accountability conversation for maximum results?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

Quote of the day: "When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice." ― Brené Brown

"When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else." David Brin, Author 

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help with all kinds of accountability, contact me to learn more.

The best cultures embrace accountability conversations

What’s Your Accountability System? (Accountability Series 2/3)

Now that we talked about the importance of accountability and why it is not happening, let’s jump into creating a process that fosters excellent accountability.

When leaders can put some of these structures in place, they can nurture an accountable culture.  Here are some steps to consider:

1. Clear Expectations.  The first step is to have a meeting to be crystal clear about your expectations — the desired results you’re seeking, the capabilities needed for the job, how you’ll measure success, and what standard you seek.  It does not all have to come from you. The more skilled your people are, the more ideas and strategies they can contribute.  They should have the autonomy to determine the HOW in achieving their objectives. When you have a genuine two-way conversation about ways to contribute and tactics that they are considering, you will create the necessary buy-in and build confidence in tackling the project.   Before the meeting’s end, you can learn if you are on the same page by asking the other person to summarize the critical pieces - results, capabilities to be successful, metrics, and approaches to reinforce that alignment.

A. Clear outcomes.  What are the outcomes to be produced?  While the employee has the autonomy to figure out how they will achieve results, it is vital to specify a general destination and set the standard of excellence so they have the example.  If I tell you to put together a presentation and do not explain some requirements such as length of time and critical aspects, your understanding of a presentation can be vastly different from the other mine. Let’s talk about the parameters to mitigate any confusion.

B. Clear capability.  Be sure that the person you are holding accountable has the skills and resources they will need otherwise they might be set up for failure.   You can ask yourself, what do they need to meet the expectations?  If the person does not have what’s necessary, can they acquire what’s missing?  If so, what’s the plan?  If not, how can they delegate parts of the work?

Here are some helpful questions to ask to create active effort (certainty on how to move forward) rather than anxious effort (uncertainty which morphs into procrastination).

·       What do you see yourself needing to do to be able to achieve the result?

·       What could get in the way?  Excuses can be helpful signs; once surfaced, they can now be included in the roadmap.  You can offer a follow-up – “Given what's in the way, what’s possible or what else can be done?”

·       Where are the first 1-3 places to begin?

C. Clear measurement.  During the expectation conversation, you should agree on weekly (or whatever cadence works best) milestones with clear, measurable, objective targets.  If any of these targets slip, jump on it immediately, brainstorm a solution, identify a fix, redesign the timeline, or respond in other productive ways that get the person back on track.  Nothing frustrates leaders more than being surprised by failure to meet expectations in the 11th hour.  Sometimes this failure is due to premature optimism on both sides, or the direct report is reluctant to ask for help. Either way, it can be avoided or mitigated with clear and transparent communication.

2. Clear feedback.  In one of your first feedback meetings, you can ask them how they like to receive feedback and consider their preferences.  Honest, open, ongoing feedback is critical to their development, and just because you have said something once, does not mean you are done; good feedback should be continuous and reinforced.   People should know where they stand.  You can ask yourself, is the person delivering on their commitments?  Are they working well with other stakeholders?  If they need to increase their capability, are they on track? When you have clear expectations, capabilities, and measurements, your input will most likely be fact-based and easier to deliver. The feedback can also go both ways — is there something you can be doing to be more helpful?  

Co-Founder of Pixar Ed Catmull said feedback should always leave an employee inspired.  Ask questions that start with what or how, such as:

·      What will you have to do to have this done on time (rather than, do you expect to have this done on time)?

·      What ideas do you have (rather than do you have any ideas)?  

·      What do you want to do next regarding your objective? 

·      When this happens, what do you want to happen next?

·      How will you keep yourself and the project accountable for what you want?

·      How will we accomplish X by this date with only Z resources available to us? (instead of jumping in and helping, let them take a first crack at solving the problem).

·      I need your help, when you miss meetings frequently [insert behavior], I feel/think/wonder that you are not committed to the position.  Could I have some clarity on this?  What would it take for you to be at the meetings?  In the future, I expect you to be at the meetings because your input is essential.  What do you see getting in the way of this expectation? What’s needed to meet it?

Undergirding all these questions is genuine care, trust, and support. You should let the person know that feedback is about providing supportive accountability, not in remediating problematic behaviors or surveillance.  It is meant to accelerate their behavior through continued conversations so they can do hard work, think, learn, grow, and contribute.  When employees believe their bosses are interested in their success, they feel less guarded and less inclined to hide their underperformance.  If you have not built that trust or if the feedback is not sincere, it will not work. When the trust is there, people will be open to sharing failures that can be addressed at the moment because they are learning opportunities and not mistakes to be covered up.  When people feel criticized or attack or when there is fear, they will shut down and it will be a culture of psychological danger.

When the job is done, you can ask them to walk you through how they did their work to engender pride.  You can learn about the parts they struggled with and the parts in which they were incredibly satisfied.  Other good questions to ask:

·       What did you learn? 

·       What are you most proud of?  

·       What aspect do you want to carry forward to your next project?

3. Clear consequences.  How would they like to be held accountable so you can cater to their style within limits?  This is important because you can use the same approach with different people, and one person could be embarrassed while the other empowered.  When you know your people’s preferences, you can better support them.

4. Model accountability by going first.  A great way to create a culture of accountability and enhance psychological safety is to share that accountability travels both ways.  While you will hold your direct report accountable for their work, you expect that they will hold you to it as well.  If we want to be the best we can be, we have to have high standards and when they are not reached, we want to address them, so we know what to do better and differently next time.  You can share the standards you have for yourself and when they notice you have not met them, your expectation is that they are going to tell you where you have fallen short so you can learn and grow together.  It is not about criticizing in public, but constructively addressing the issue in private.  When the leader goes first it emphasizes the importance of promoting a culture of ownership. 

5.  Address challenges that could surface at the beginning.  You can share that when a promise of delivery is made, there is an expectation that it will be done.  If something comes up that compromises the timeline, it is essential to bring it up.  I’d rather know about a situation days or weeks before the big meeting so there is enough time to come up with creative solutions or workarounds or bring in support than to learn 5 minutes before the meeting with no opportunity to remedy the situation.   The damage to the relationship is most severe when people wait too long to bring up an issue because they do not want to disappoint the person or they have a hard time with tough conversations. Delays do happen, Author Kim Scott shared that when writing her book Radical Candor, she thought it would take 3 months, but it ended up taking 4 years but she was able to keep the trust in line because she was always upfront about shifting timelines.

If you are reasonably sure that you were clear with expectations and did what was necessary to support their performance, and they still have not proven to be accountable, in that case, they may not be a good fit for the role and could lead to a change (in position, teams, or in the company) that would create more of a win-win.

Setting up a process of accountability, including clear expectations, feedback, and consequences can empower others to take responsibility.

Q: What is your system for holding others accountable?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

Quotes of the day: "Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame." ― Courtney Lynch

"Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership.  And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have." -Pat Summitt

[The next blog in this series 3/3 will focus on having an effective accountability conversation]

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help with all kinds of accountability, contact me to learn more.

It all begins with clear expectations

Why Accountability Matters And Why It Fails (Accountability Series 1/3)

We all want to work in an environment where people deliver on their commitments.  In fact, the presence of accountability is a key reason why companies have a high belonging score.  When an organization stands for a noble purpose, has a compelling mission and vision, and noteworthy values, it is important for leaders to create a culture of accountability where people hold themselves and each other responsible for delivering on these promises.

Accountability can often get a bad rap.  Traditional accountability might have been viewed as more punitive; when people did not hit their targets, there were consequences.   This often conjures up feelings of blame, shame, and guilt which triggered them to shut down and feel discouraged.  While accountability can be a little bit of an uncomfortable process at times, when it is done right, it looks more like a supportive rather than a disciplinary process and can be a morale booster.  Founder & CEO Peter Bregman says, “Accountability is not simply taking the blame when something goes wrong.  It’s not a confession; it is about delivering on a commitment.  It’s a responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks.  It’s taking the initiative with thoughtful, strategic follow-through.”  People can learn to love accountability when it is about helping to achieve better results, improve their performance, and get recognition for their tremendous efforts.

Accountability is necessary at all levels of the organization.  Executives at the top of the org chart cannot be accountable unless the people who report to them also follow through on their commitments.  Leaders play an essential role in inspiring others to advance the organizational goals without micromanaging or using a pure command-and-control approach since it is an ineffective relic that does not promote people’s greatest work.  The best accountability can address the WHAT and WHY of the work by providing a framework with expectations, boundaries, and consequences. It can also handle the HOW by granting autonomy to people to pursue what they think is best to achieve the agreed-upon results. For example, a person should know what exactly they are building and why they are building it through co-creating the broad strokes with their leaders but can make numerous mini decisions in executing the work.

Some of the best managers support, mentor, and coach people for self-accountability; they are interested in providing maximum effort and engagement to achieve desired results, are receptive to feedback and improvement, and remain resourceful as they aim to achieve solutions.  Even more than keeping commitments, self-accountability is a considerable driver of happiness and engagement.  In Dan Harris’s 10% Happier, he explains how well-being and happiness are correlated to the level of accountability people take for their lives; it is a prime motivator for their evolution.

Why Accountability Fails:

Research shows that many managers, even senior ones, are surprisingly weak in this area.  According to one study in the Harvard Business Review, 46% of high-level managers were rated poorly on the measure "holds people accountable for when they don't deliver."  Data offered by Tom Starner in HR Dive shows that 82% of managers acknowledge they have limited to no ability to hold others accountable successfully and 91% of employees would say that effectively holding others accountable is one of their company’s top leadership-development needs. 

It’s not working from an employee perspective either.  Gallup found that only 14% of employees feel their performance is managed in a way that motivates them, 26% get feedback less than once per year, 21% feel their performance metrics are within their control, and 40% feel as if their manager holds them accountable for goals they set.  

Let’s explore the top reasons for the lack of accountability:

1. Organizational challenges.  A lack of accountability can sometimes be unintentional if it results from underlying issues, such as unclear roles and responsibilities, limited resources, poor strategy, or unrealistic goals.  This is why some leaders report not knowing exactly how to get people to be more accountable for results if they have a lack of organizational clarity or if the goalpost is constantly shifting.

2. Leadership challenges.  Before pointing fingers elsewhere, you want to check in with yourself to ensure you are not part of the problem.  Have you set the person up for success?  Have you defined clear goals and provided an accountability plan from the beginning of who will do what by when?  Have you given feedback along the way and monitored metrics?  Have you addressed issues and not let them balloon by ignoring them?  If the answer is no to these questions, it will be hard to hold people accountable when some of the responsibility may lie with you.

3. System Changes.  Leaders sometimes find system changes impacting accountability.  Maybe the norm was to grant leniency and look the other way on small things.  Now, if the message is to impose stricter standards, your direct reports could be dismayed if you do not communicate the recalibrated expectations.  How could they be rated a 3 / 5 when their whole career, they have been a 4 or at the top?  They may wonder if they are suddenly a 3 because only a certain amount of 4s can be granted.   These are painful conclusions that the person can draw about themselves and their boss, so a manager may be nervous about turning the dial up on accountability if they do not have good reasoning behind the system changes and how they will improve the culture.

Most companies would admit that they have an accountability problem.  Leaders in particular struggle with it because there are underlying organizational issues or a lack of confidence and experience in their leadership.  Accountability does not have to be complicated; it can be a positive and productive experience that builds morale and excitement and contributes to an incredible culture when it is done right.

Quotes of the day: "Understanding the true meaning of accountability makes us strong and enables us to learn" -Sameh Elsayed

"On good teams, coaches hold players accountable, on great teams players hold players accountable." ― Joe Dumars

Q: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to accountability?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on setting up a system for accountability] 

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help with all kinds of accountability systems, contact me to learn more.

How do you maintain a culture of accountability that inspires people’s best?

How Is Your Executive Presence?

The term executive presence can be vague and mean different things to different people, like the concept of leadership.  Is it about how you show up by what you wear, how concise and convincing you are in meetings, how great you present, how much credibility you have, or how strong your decision-making and strategic thinking skills are?

When you ask a group of managers who aspire to the C-suite what it takes to get there, they invariably mention executive presence, even if they may not be clear on what it means.  In a survey conducted by Coach Source, Dr. Brian Underhill shares that from a manager’s perspective, 42% of people who seek a coach want to develop their executive presence.

So, what are these “make or break” factors in considering whether to promote somebody into the upper leadership rank?  Executive presence is not just about one or two factors, such as how you look or dress, but about the whole person.  It may seem like some people either have it or not, but they likely worked hard to achieve it, and it can be developed with intention.  Executive presence, or I would extend the concept to also include leadership presence is about inspiring confidence in others because of character, capabilities, and reliability.  These leaders can handle complex and unpredictable situations, make tough decisions quickly, and hold their own with talented and strong-willed team members.

The Bates Executive Presence Index, a research-based, scientifically validated assessment measures executive presence according to 3 big categories: character, substance, and style.  I’m going to borrow aspects of that framework and include my categories based on commonalities from clients I’ve coached on this topic.

Components of Executive/Leadership Presence:

1. Character.  Arguably one of the most important is about the personal traits and values that define you.  Two key components include:

·      Integrity - Acting authentically, transparently, sincerely, and in accordance with your actions and beliefs.  You live up to ethical standards because you care about doing the right thing for yourself and others, even when it is unpopular.  You are credible, trustworthy, professional, dependable, and know how to keep your promises.

·      Humility - Part of being humble is being self-aware – you have a good sense of your strengths, weaknesses, and the impact that you want to make.  At the same time, you know you do not know it all, so you seek out diverse perspectives and feedback, you listen inclusively to others, and you believe that all people have worth regardless of title or position.

2. Substance.  This relates to depth and overall maturity and can be split into practical wisdom and emotional intelligence.

·      Practical Wisdom – Having those hard skills and competencies in getting the job done.  You also exercise good insight, judgment, vision, strategic thinking, and collaborative skills in bringing teams and stakeholders aligned and along with you as you achieve results.   

·      Emotional Intelligence – You show calm and balance when under pressure because you know how to manage your own emotions.  You do not have erratic and unpredictable outbursts or become emotionally unhinged when you clash with others or receive pushback on your ideas; instead, you use your emotional strength to understand the situation better.  You are also attuned to others’ emotions because you listen, ask questions, factor in other perspectives.   You show care and build great relationships because you can read the room, receive data, and make pivots to fit the moment better.

3. Style – This is about how you present yourself and how others see and experience you quickly, if not immediately.  It is the first impression.  Two critical aspects include presence and effective communication.

·      Presence – This is more than the right clothes, firm handshake, eye contact, or voice projection; it is about exuding confidence, being calm in hectic times, and adapting your demeanor to serve the situation better.

·      Effective Communication – Relates to talking with intentionality.  You are clear, brief, direct, and speak with authority.  You do not bog others down with the details or open the floodgates and blast them with information; you know how to get to the bottom line swiftly.  You use your communication to empower, inspire, and bring out your best.  That may entail providing a forum where others feel safe, expressing themselves, asking questions, and feeling stretched in their growth because of your high expectations in their development and support. 

Like many intangible leadership traits, these skills can be grown, especially if you have a baseline level of self-confidence and a willingness to deal with unpredictable situations that come with the territory at the executive level.

Let’s jump into some things you can do to develop executive presence:

1. Skill build.  Understand where you want to go, assess your starting point with your current skill set, determine the new proficiencies you will need, and pick one capability to grow.  You can raise your awareness by reading about it and then practicing the skill.  Perhaps, you want to begin with style and specifically your public speaking.  You want to stand and deliver confidently, clearly, and concisely to large groups, answer questions effectively by maintaining curiosity and not becoming defensives, and handle pressure calmly.  You can start with the headline, provide some more details, and hold space for others to jump in with questions, then go deeper on topics that interest them.  Being comfortable with releasing some control means that they can drive the conversation, and you can handle whatever comes your way.  Speaking in shorter bursts is helpful because it is more of an exchange and not a lecture.

2. Get support from others. You can work with a coach to get clear on who you are, what you want to work on, what it will take to work on it, and be held accountable along the way.  You can also work with advocates, managers, peers, colleagues, mentors to let them know that you are actively focusing on this one thing.  If they have tips or suggestions and can be mindful of sharing feedback when they see you doing the behavior, you can gain their support for your growth.  Receiving helpful feedback from them can allow you to adjust along the way.

Expressing your executive presence is unique to each person.  You make an impression through the values you bring to the organization, the results you deliver, the way you connect, and how you communicate your points.  It is a worthy skill to invest in because it can lead to more career advancements and opportunities.  When you lead with character, substance, and style, you can positively influence and inspire greatness in others. 

Quote of the day: “How you act (gravitas), how you speak (communication), and how you look (appearance) count for a lot in determining your leadership presence.” -CEO Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Q: How do you define executive presence?  What’s one essential feature of it?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help develop their executive and leadership presence, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you show up? Is it the way you want to?