Tag:

Teamwork

Learning in Chaos

by Ron Potter April 15, 2019

As Peter Senge defines it, a learning organization is an organizational structure in which “people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.”

In this sense, a learning organization is an organization that is continually expanding its ability to create and re-create the very patterns and structures by which it operates.

At least that is the goal.

Quick-Deciding Creates Chaos, Learning Order

Unfortunately, what I have found in my work is that quick decision making has won. In many cases, leaders have abandoned the learning organization in favor of the quick-deciding organization.

In times of chaos, confusion, and change, peacemaking leaders need to focus attention on making sure their organizations are quick learning rather than quick deciding.

The fast-paced environment of product development, competition, and shareholder expectations has forced many organizations to adopt a quick-deciding mentality. In this model, a team (much like a football team needing to score before time expires in the fourth quarter) is in a hurry-up offense. The goal is to make decisions. But as Tom Peters correctly observes, “As competition around the world boils over as never before, firms caught with bloated staffs and dissipating strengths—from Silicon Valley to the Ruhr Valley in Germany—are looking for quick fixes. There are none.”

Leading Toward Learning

So how would a two-pillar, peacemaking leader respond?

The goal of the quick-learning team is to seek out and develop opinion rather than steamrolling over it or quickly mustering forces against it. Feedback is highly desired rather than feared.

In contrast, feedback is offensive when you are a quick-deciding team. You develop “sides” on all issues. The competition heats up. Winning at all costs is what counts.

Members of a quick-learning team are all on the same side of the fence, looking at an issue with differing opinions, experiences, and ideas.

Meeting Agendas

Meeting agendas are often a surprising enemy. Leaders, staring at an agenda, feel compelled to make decisions within the time allotted. In most cases, true discussion of the issues and everyone’s opinions (the rooting-out process) is bypassed in favor of table talk that centers on implementation.

We suggest a meeting agenda that maps out what the team wants to learn about an issue. Learning should be the goal with good decisions the result. Remember that the goal is learning quickly and then making good decisions, not just deciding quickly.

Patience is Key

“Patience,” said Saint Augustine, “is the companion of wisdom.” Problems and day-to-day crises test our wisdom and our ability to make decisions under pressure. Great leaders are people of patience and constant learning.

It is the leader’s job to pull everything together into a quick-learning rather than a quick-deciding environment. The leader holds the dialogue together and asks questions that are designed to help team members clearly communicate their information and thoughts about the agenda item. In this way, the meeting’s goal is met: quick learning—rather than quick deciding—for the purpose of making good decisions.

The leader needs to develop not only an inclusive mind-set but also one that honors people for who they are and what they bring to the process. Each person brings unique strengths and outlooks to the table.

0 comments

Managing Conflict

by Ron Potter April 1, 2019

In his book The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in the series The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien describes the camaraderie of a diverse group banded together by a common cause. Called “the fellowship of the ring,” their quest is to destroy the power of the Dark Lord by destroying the ring in which that power resides. Though they differ in nearly every way—racially, physically, temperamentally—the fellowship is united in its opposition of the Dark Lord.

In a section omitted in the movie, a heated conflict breaks out among the crusaders. Axes are drawn. Bows are bent. Harsh words are spoken. Disaster nearly strikes the small band. When peace finally prevails, a wise counselor observes, “Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”

Conflict causes estrangement within teams, even the best teams. Therefore, managing conflict is at the heart of the dilemma of the leader who has good relations with individual team members but cannot get the group to work together.

Rivalry causes division. Debate causes hurt feelings or a sense of not being heard or understood. How does a leader keep an aggressive person and a person who easily withdraws engaged?

Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann created the Conflict Mode Instrument, which is “designed to assess an individual’s behavior in conflict situations.” It measures people’s behavior along two basic dimensions: “(1) assertiveness—the extent to which an individual attempts to satisfy his or her concerns, and (2) cooperativeness—the extent to which an individual attempts to satisfy the other person’s concerns. These two dimensions of behavior can be used to identify five specific methods of dealing with conflicts.” The methods are described as follows:

Avoiding—Low assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The goal is to delay.
Competing—High assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The goal is to win.
Accommodating—Low assertiveness and high cooperativeness. The goal is to yield.
Compromising—Moderate assertiveness and moderate cooperativeness. The goal is to find a middle ground.
Collaborating—High assertiveness and high cooperativeness. The goal is to find a win-win situation.⁸

Leaders need to use the peacemaking qualities defined by the two pillars of humility and endurance to bring conflict to the highest level of resolution: collaboration. The cooperative environment means “I need to be humble.” The assertive environment means “I need to endure.” The two pillars, taken together, cause people to listen, yet hold firm in solving conflict through collaboration. When collaborating, individuals seek to work with others to find a solution that satisfies all parties. It involves digging into hidden concerns, learning, and listening but not competing.

0 comments

Blog Trust Me

Humility and Endurance: The Two Pillars of Leadership

by Ron Potter March 25, 2019

My book Trust Me is centered on eight principles of successful leadership. What we call the “two pillars”—the key principles that support and are intertwined with the others—are humility and endurance. A leader who desires to build a great team must first become a leader of humility and endurance. Pride and despair always force leaders to choose incorrect methods and solutions.

It is difficult to build a team when you need to be the center of attention, the only voice, the only one with an idea, and the only one who can make a decision. It is also difficult to build a team when, at every sour turn, the team stumbles and fails or doesn’t learn from failure. Endurance means pushing through struggles together until the results are positive. Leaders, by the way they respond to crisis and chaos, often cause teams to quit sooner than necessary.

Understand, Accept, and Communicate Change

Since the 1980s—or earlier—the business world has begun to see the need for entirely new models of management in order to succeed in regaining and defending competitiveness in today’s world economy. The old paradigm of management that had guided the U.S. economy since the rise of the railroads and the large corporations of the Industrial Revolution no longer seemed to work. Firms struggled to remake themselves in order to be competitive. They followed the advice of many writers and consultants to become organizations that stepped away from Management by Objective and adopted a strategy of learning.

Today we live in a rapidly changing postindustrial society that is becoming increasingly complex and fluid. It is an environment that requires decision making and sometimes rapid change within organizations. Surviving and thriving in this rapidly changing landscape becomes a function of an organization’s ability to learn, grow, and break down institutional structures within the organization that impede growth. Organizations that are ideologically committed to growth and change will be at an advantage in the postindustrial era.

In his book Leading Change, John Kotter explains how leaders can effectively communicate change in their organizations. All of us at one time or another fully understand the confusion caused by change. Kotter writes,

Because the communication of vision [change] is often such a difficult activity, it can easily turn into a screeching, one-way broadcast in which useful feedback is ignored and employees are inadvertently made to feel unimportant. In highly successful change efforts, this rarely happens, because communication always becomes a two-way endeavor.

Even more important than two-way discussion are methods used to help people answer all the questions that occur during times of change and chaos. Clear, simple, often-repeated communication that comes from multiple sources and is inclusive of people’s opinions and fears is extremely helpful and productive.

Humility and endurance guide a ship experiencing change and chaos. A leader who builds a team, but their leadership style, upon the foundation of humility and endurance will see their team through difficult days.

0 comments

Blog Trust Me

Working Together, Not Against

by Ron Potter March 11, 2019

Leaders at all levels grapple with the challenge of getting people to pool their talents and work with, not against, one another.

Often frustrating to leaders is a team that consists entirely of “stars” who can’t or won’t play together as a team to “win the championship.” In an era of knowledge workers, leaders find themselves with nonfunctioning teams of all-stars who can easily undermine them. (Peter Drucker defines knowledge workers as those who “know more about their job than their boss does and in fact know more about their job than anybody else in the organization.”)

Chuck Daly, the first coach of America’s Dream Team, found himself needing to take basketball players like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird and build a team of champions, not just a group of incredible superstars. Coach Daly used all his coaching experience, leadership ability, and basketball knowledge to mold this group of all-stars into a team.

The team dominated headlines as well as the competition. Everywhere they went, the media followed. And the animated, trash-talking practices were sometimes bigger news than the games. In their first Olympic game together, the Dream Team trounced Angola 116-48 and never looked back, going 8-0 en route to the gold.

They were the only undefeated team in the tournament, averaging an Olympic record of 117.3 points a game. They won their games by an average of 43.8 points, and the closest any opponent could come was 32 points (Croatia in the gold-medal final).

“You will see a team of professionals in the Olympics again,” said Daly. “But I don’t think you’ll see another team quite like this. This was a majestic team.”

Coach Daly could not mold these incredibly talented basketball stars into the successful team they became by keeping the focus on himself. On the other hand, he could not surrender the basic basketball concepts he knew would help the team win a gold medal. He was a builder and a success at developing teams.

Teamwork doesn’t just happen. A winning team is not formed by a miracle of nature. You cannot just throw people together (even knowledge workers or pro basketball stars) and expect them to function as a high-performance team. It takes work. And at the core of team building is the desire to develop people and create a calm environment in which productive growth and seasoning can occur.

When leaders tolerate poor teams or even promote them through their own leadership style, organizations find themselves misaligned. Employees use this out-of-plumb structure just like children who play off each quibbling parent to get their own way. Leaders need to stop this behavior and get teams realigned. Leaders sometimes empower direct-reports to perform tasks or projects that are actually opposed to each other.

When team members come to us, they also have questions. Typically the questions team members ask are about themselves: “How do I deal with difficult team members?” or “How do I get heard?” These are self-directed questions. The team members are concerned about themselves—getting heard, getting ahead, getting along, and getting their jobs done.

In most cases the leader has not developed the team to the point of understanding the full value of synergy. The team members do not understand that the sum of their collective output will be greater than the work they could do individually.

Worse, many executive teams are not convinced that synergy can happen at the leadership level. “Authors Robert Lefton and V. R. Buzzotta, long-time counselors to top management, systematically examined 26 top-level teams, ranging in size from six to 20 people (usually a CEO or president and vice presidents); 20 of the firms are in the Fortune 500 club. In a nutshell, the authors found little teamwork, virtually no ‘synergy’ from these collections of wise heads, and a lot of wasted time and childish behavior.”

It falls on leaders to get teams excited about working together—about creating synergy. Many of the team members’ questions and wants can be overcome when they feel the power of working together and achieving the goals of the team.

0 comments

Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Respect: Psychological Safety

by Ron Potter March 7, 2019

Resect

We continue our series on teams and the elements that make up great ones. Teams are at the heart of great performance, greatest happiness, and the best memories. These blog posts are built on the 4 Levels of Happiness by Aristotle. In his framework, Aristotle says that the highest level of happiness will be achieved at Level 4. In describing Level 4 Happiness, Aristotle used five words:

Truth
Love
Purpose
Beauty
Unity

In this series of posts, I’ve concentrated on the four words of Truth, Love, Beauty, and Unity. Purpose is the word right in the middle of all five. I don’t spend a lot of time concentrating on Purpose because it is so essential and obvious. Without a purpose, there is no team.

I also try to use words that more directly apply to the business environment. Words like love and beauty are words you don’t often hear in corporate meetings. Using words that essentially mean the same thing as the original words and yet seem appropriate in the corporate world, I’ve modified the last three words to make them immediately identifiable and to help you remember them. The four words I’ve used are:

Truth
Respect
Elegance
Commitment

The Greeks had several words that all get translated into the English word Love. The Greek word for Love that Aristotle used had nothing to do with emotions or the feeling of love that we have for another person. This word referred to treating the other person with respect. As human beings, we seem to have an innate sense that someone respects us or not. Great teams require great respect (love) for each other.

In unpacking the concept of Respect (or Love), we will look at:

At least three elements of building Trust: Humility, Development, Compassion
Patience
Kindness
Lack of Envy
Anger directed at issues or situations, not people
No grudges

Psychological Safety

If we look at these first two (Truth – Respect) together, a very powerful concept of psychological safety begins to emerge. Psychological Safety is present every time a team achieves greatness and can even become a predictor of greatness.

Amy Edmondson at Harvard is one of the more visible proponents of psychological safety. Once Google built in a psychological safety measurement into their team assessment, there was a correlation between high performing teams and psychological safety.

Psychological Safety on Teams

Having psychological safety on a team means that the truth is spoken, not holding back anything and at the same time, there is so much respect for each person, people feel safe in stating or hearing the truth. These are the first two elements of the highest level of happiness. Teams that can speak the truth with complete respect not only perform at a high level, but they are also a joy to be a part of.

I think that one reason holding teams back in accomplishing complete psychological safety is that people assume truth and respect are at the opposite ends of the same spectrum. I can either speak the total truth, even if it means that I hold people accountable for their failures or shortcoming (one end of the spectrum) or I can show total respect to someone, therefore I must hold back the complete truth (opposite end of the spectrum). But this is a false understanding. We need to think of these two elements as two different dimensions on a chart.

For instance:

The vertical dimension may be labeled “Truth” with complete truth at the top and lack of truth at the bottom.
The horizontal dimension may be labeled “Respect” with total respect to the right (at the end) and lack of respect to the left.

This leaves us with a two x two grid (which consultants love).

Lower Left – Low Truth and Low Respect = Insensitive and Manipulative
Upper Left – High Truth but Low Respect = Aggressive and Obnoxious
Lower Right – Low Truth but High Respect = Empathy but no accountability
Upper Right – High Truth and High Respect = Psychological Safety

Great teams express great truth and have total respect for team members.

Elements of Respect

We’ve pointed out the value of both Truth and Respect here in this blog. In the next few blogs, we’ll explore the elements of great respect including:

Humility, Development, and Compassion
Patience
Kindness
The benefit of the Doubt
No Envy, Anger or Grudges

0 comments

Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Respect

by Ron Potter February 28, 2019

We started this blog series about teams in early January of this year. Teams are at the heart of great performance, greatest happiness, and the best memories. These blog posts are built on the 4 Levels of Happiness by Aristotle. In his framework, Aristotle says that the highest level of happiness will be achieved at Level 4. In describing Level 4 Happiness, Aristotle used five words:

Truth
Love
Purpose
Beauty
Unity

Truth
Respect
Elegance
Commitment

In unpacking the concept of Respect (or Love), we will look at:

At least three elements of building Trust: Humility, Development, Compassion
Patience
Kindness
Lack of Envy
Anger directed at issues or situations, not people
No grudges

Psychological Safety

Google thought it would look at many of their teams around the company and see if they could figure out what made a high performing team. I believe they looked at 340 teams and in the end, could not find any pattern that predicted high achievement. Or more accurately, they found too many patterns to reach any conclusion until they found the concept of psychological safety. Amy Edmondson at Harvard is one of the more visible proponents of psychological safety. Once Google built in a psychological safety measurement into their team assessment, there was a correlation between high performing teams and psychological safety.

Psychological Safety

I think that one reason holding teams back in accomplishing complete psychological safety is that people assume truth and respect are at the opposite ends of the same spectrum. I can either speak the total truth, even if it means that I hold people accountable for their failures or shortcoming (one end of the spectrum) or I can show total respect to someone. Therefore I must hold back the complete truth (opposite end of the spectrum). But this is a false understanding. We need to think of these two elements as two different dimensions on a chart.

For instance:

The vertical dimension may be labeled “Truth” with complete truth at the top and lack of truth at the bottom.
The horizontal dimension may be labeled “Respect” with total respect to the right (at the end) and lack of respect to the left.

This leaves us with a two x two grid (which consultants love).

Lower Left – Low Truth and Low Respect = Insensitive and Manipulative
Upper Left – High Truth but Low Respect = Aggressive and Obnoxious
Lower Right – Low Truth but High Respect = Empathy but no accountability
Upper Right – High Truth and High Respect = Psychological Safety

Great teams express great truth and have total respect for team members.

Elements of Respect

We’ve pointed out the value of both Truth and Respect here in this blog. In the next few blogs, we’ll explore the elements of great respect including:

Humility, Development, and Compassion
Patience
Kindness
The benefit of the Doubt
No Envy, Anger or Grudges

0 comments

Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Truth: Summary

by Ron Potter February 21, 2019

Over the last several blog posts we’ve been on a TREC to discover the elements of highly effective and happy teams. The reason I use the word “happy” here is because this is the highest level of Aristotle’s four levels of Happiness. Being a part of a highly effective team will provide some of your greatest moments of happiness.

TREC comes from:

Truth
Respect
Elegance
Commitment

The acronym TREC sounds the same as the word TREK. The definition of a TREK is “A trip or movement especially when involving difficulties or complex organization: an arduous journey.”

Building a great team in a complex organization during difficult times is an arduous journey.

We have spent several posts unpacking our understanding of the complex issues of Truth. Highly effective teams can share the “truth,” but the concept of truth can become very complex.

There are three concepts that must be understood to share the “truth.”

Develop and maintain Trust
Be able to share Beliefs and Assumptions openly, without recrimination
Believe that every member of the team has a Valid Perception of the issue.

To get at the truth, a team must TAP into the underlying issues:

Trust
Assumptions
Perceptions

Trust

Building trust is part of the long, arduous journey. It requires humility, development, focus, commitment, compassion, integrity, peacemaking and endurance.

Without these elements in place with each member of the team, you’ll never be able to build the trust required to tell the truth to each other. You must talk about these elements. You must hold each other accountable. It’s the first step required to make it through an arduous journey of building great teams.

Assumptions

The second step in TAPPING into the underlying issues of building a great team based on Truth is Beliefs and Assumptions. A team at MIT developed the concept of Triple Loop Learning. Unless you start with understand everyone’s beliefs and assumptions, you can’t provide useful systems, processes, procedures, policies, to guide and direct complex organizations on their arduous journey. Beliefs and Assumptions will always win the day over systems. They’ll win the day either overtly or covertly. And usually, the covert path is the chosen. Therefore, if your systems, processes, procedures, policies don’t seem to be solving your problems, you haven’t brought all the Beliefs and Assumptions to the surface. They are covertly sabotaging your efforts.

Perceptions

We each have different perceptions. Perceptions are modified by events and experiences over time. If you, as a team leader or a team member assume that you have the “truth” and don’t realize that you have one of many perceptions, just like everyone else, an effective team will never materialize. Just like Beliefs and Assumptions, you must honor and respect everyone’s perspectives as valid before you can get at the Team Truth that is required to build great teams.

TAP into Greatness

To experience the sweetness of wonderful maple syrup, you must TAP into the trunk of the tree. Oak trees have deep TAP roots to withstand the ravages of nature. Whatever analogy you want to use, you must TAP into the core of your team to build the foundation of Truth.

Trust
Assumptions
Perceptions

0 comments

Blog Team Team Series

Team Elements – Truth: Truth Depends on Beliefs

by Ron Potter January 24, 2019

We’ve been introducing and preparing ourselves to walk through the elements that make great teams. The first of these is Truth. Great teams can tell each other the truth. But Truth needs some special understanding.

To create a truthful and dynamic atmosphere, teams must:

Develop and maintain Trust
Be able to share their Beliefs and Assumptions openly and without recrimination
Believe that every member of the team has a Valid Perception of the issue.

In the last post, we talked about building the trust required to share the truth. In this post, we’ll talk about how our beliefs and assumptions shape our truth.

Beliefs and Assumptions

Years ago, Peter Senge wrote a book titled The Fifth Discipline that was a deep book but had a profound effect on the corporate world. This book about systems thinking was based on work by Gregory Bateson and extended by Chris Argyris and Peter Senge. It known as Systems Thinking or Learning Organizations. I had never seen a concept penetrate the halls of corporations as much as these ideas.

It seemed that I couldn’t walk into any of my client companies without them wanting to show me how they were adapting system thinking or becoming a learning organization or both. It was an amazing tidal wave.

But much of this impact was related with the second loop of what Senge and company referred to as triple loop learning. In brief, let me describe the three loops.

The first loop says that you do some work, you observe the results. If you’re not satisfied, you put in a fix, and you do the work again. I’ve seen this first loop referred to as “Following the Rules” or “Are we doing the right thing.” I started to think of it as a “do loop” from my early computer days. We would talk about a computer program that was hung up as being in a “do loop.” That meant the program was running in circles and couldn’t get out. The first loop of triple loop learning is much like that do loop. Do some work, check the results, put in a fix, do some work, check the results, put in a fix, etc.

Senge and team began to talk about the second loop as a longer, more sustainable loop. In this loop that wanted you to think about an issue as not needing a fix but as part of an entire system. Check your policies, procedures, systems, and processes to see what is directing the work. If you put the proper system in place that guides the work you’ll get better, more sustainable results. But it required system redesigns and re-engineering. These are the words that my clients were using. They wanted to show me their re-engineering work and their systems redesign and the improved results. And indeed, they were getting improved results. But maybe not the best results possible. The third loop of triple-loop learning was required. Unfortunately, I didn’t see many of my clients looking at the third loop. Why?

The third loop examines the team’s Beliefs and Assumptions about an issue before the redesign or re-engineering takes place. If your personal beliefs don’t agree with the redesigned system, beliefs will override or ignore the system. If the system was redesigned based on an issue or observation that doesn’t match your assumptions, there is no true belief that the new system will produce the desired results. Beliefs and Assumptions rule the day!

Senge and company believed that by fully sharing and understanding Beliefs and Assumptions you would improve the quality of thinking and interactions and in doing so would experience more sustainable improvements. They also believed this would not be a one-time fix but would result in continued improvement of thinking, interactions, and results. Now you would become a Learning Organization.

Working Out Beliefs

Sharing of Beliefs and Assumptions is the second part of building a high-quality team that provides the highest level of happiness for the team members. But, this is a muscle or discipline that develops through training just like going to the gym to improve any part of your body.

I’m assuming here that you’ve successfully created an atmosphere of trust that will allow for the sharing of Beliefs and Assumptions. But, the first time you engage a new muscle group the results are painful. And the rest of the body must adapt to the higher performing muscle group before all of the pain and awkwardness ceases.

The first time teams practice sharing Beliefs and Assumptions there is hesitancy, holding back, embarrassing moments and even shock and disbelief from others on the team as you get used to sharing at this deep level. But even with this first awkward attempt, teams find that the solution they reach as a team is often better than most past experiences. And, as teams get better at this level of sharing at the beginning of problem-solving, it becomes almost addictive. If you’ve become comfortable with starting the process by sharing Beliefs and Assumptions, and then you walk into a team that has not developed this same muscle, you can hardly stand to face the amateur approach to problem-solving. That becomes painful.

Develop the Beliefs and Assumptions muscle. You’ll become a much more Truthful team, and you’ll become a powerful problem-solving team. And that will make you happy.

0 comments

Blog Team Team Series

Team: Introduction

by Ron Potter January 3, 2019

A new year, a new series. Ready to talk teams?

When Wayne Hastings and I began writing our first book, Trust Me, I assumed we would cover all three areas that I focus on, building Teams, Growing Leaders, and creating Cultures—TLC. As we began to work with the publisher, it became obvious that the first book was going to focus on the leadership area. The team and cultures would have to wait their turn to be covered in future books. The good news is that over the years I’ve learned more about what makes great teams work.

A few of the things that I’ve learned about teams include:

Hitting the sweet spot of TLC
Team is the leading element
Being a great leader, functioning as part of a great team and creating great cultures makes you happy!

Hitting the Sweet Spot

When I formed my company in 2000 (I had been in the business for ten years at that point), I wanted to give it a name that described what we did. Reflecting on the previous ten years, one pattern that emerged was that new clients hired me at one of three entry points:

Leadership

I was being asked to help improve the leadership skills of existing or up-and-coming leaders.

Or a slight variation was the young hotshot contributor that the company thought would make a great leader someday but was currently advancing based on some great competency and had not learned the role of being a leader.

Or sometimes I was being asked to help save a derailed leader who had been in the organization for a long time but had gotten off track.

Team building

Team building was the second point of entry into a client. The work wasn’t necessarily related to a leader (at least in their mind), but the team wasn’t performing well.

Many times, these were existing teams where:

Productivity had fallen off or never existed.
There was a conflict or rift in the team that they couldn’t get past.
The team was facing dramatic change they weren’t handling well.

Sometimes they were ad hoc teams where:

They were pulled together for a short-term project that needed a quick launch to get productivity levels high as soon as possible.

A side story to that scenario was my first taste of team building when I was a young engineer. My company brought in a consulting firm (HRDA—Human Resource Development Association) to help facilitate communication, understanding, and decision making between ourselves (the constructor) and the design engineers. The process was called “Face-to-Face.”

Both companies had good people. We were all good engineers but weren’t communicating or more importantly, understanding each other. I began to realize that understanding relied more on good relationships and character than it did on competency.

Corporate Culture

My third possible entry point is corporate culture. When I started in the business in the early 1990s, the idea that you had to understand, pay attention to, and mold corporate cultures wasn’t well known, understood, or accepted. By the early 2000s, it had become an accepted fact.

Those seemed to be the solid entry points for me to provide services and add value to all the companies I worked with in those early years of my consulting work—leadership, team building, corporate culture.

Team is the leading element

After ten years I could see that my three entry points were leaders, teams, and cultures. The challenge was what do I name my new company that reflected those points?

Leaders—Teams—Cultures LTC

Culture—Leaders—Team CLT

Teams—Culture—Leaders TCL

Teams—Leaders—Culture TLC!!

TLC, that was it. Team Leadership Culture, LLC. That was my new company, TLC!

I must admit that I still thought of leadership being at the core and many of my presentations still reflected that belief. But how could I pass on TLC, so that became the name of my company, Team Leadership Culture, LLC.

What’s interesting is that over time, I’ve come to believe that great teams are the essential lead element. I’ve seen more corporate failures caused by the lack of teamwork than either of the other two elements. Great teamwork can overcome mediocre leadership and lack of a good culture, but neither leadership or great culture can overcome a bad team.

TLC is indeed the right sequence.

Happiness

One of my friends is Jim Berlucchi, who is the executive director for The Spitzer Center. Jim introduced me to the four levels of happiness that were described by Aristotle and greatly expanded into a mental model of leadership by Dr. Spitzer.

Aristotle concluded that what makes us uniquely human is our pursuit of happiness. That is why our forefathers included it in the Declaration of Independence.

It seems even more visible when we see the opposite. Despair and depression seem to occur when there is a loss of hope or happiness. If the ability to pursue happiness is lost, depression fills the void.

The pursuit of Happiness has Four Levels

Level 1 drives our basic needs for food, money, and sustenance — anything that relates to the senses. Without level 1, we don’t survive.

Level 2 drives us to win, improve, get better, achieve, grow. Without level 2, we don’t thrive.

Level 3 is focused on providing blessings to others. These are the elements of our book “Trust Me” which provide great leadership.

Humility – “I don’t have all the ”
Development – “I want us to grow through the ”
Focus – “Let’s not get ”
Commitment – “We’re looking for the greater ”
Compassion – “I care about what you think and who you ”
Integrity – “I will not hold back, I will share who I am and what I ”
Peacemaking – “We want divergent perceptions leading to ”
Endurance – “We will endure to a committed ”

Level 4 is described by Aristotle as

Truth
Love
Purpose
Beauty
Unity

These become the elements of great teams and deliver the greatest level of happiness.

Over the next several blog posts, we will be exploring each of these “Team” elements in more detail.

The team is the sweet spot. The team is what makes you happier. The team is what provides the greatest value to your organization. A great team will provide the greatest of memories when you think back over your career and lifetime.

0 comments

Blog Culture Organizational Integrity

Integrity-Based Leadership

by Ron Potter November 19, 2018

To have a great organization, integrity must be widespread.

So what does this look like?

As leader, you are the key. Integrity and trust are inseparable; one cannot exist without the other. According to Charles O’Reilly and Karlene Roberts,

Leaders who build trusting relationships within their team are willing to consider alternative viewpoints and to make use of other people’s expertise and abilities. They feel comfortable with the group and are willing to let others exercise influence over group decisions. In contrast, managers in a distrustful environment often take a self-protective posture. They’re directive and hold tight the reins of power. Those who work for such managers are likely to pass the distrust on by withholding and distorting information.

How does integrity-based leadership work?

In a research study, several groups of business executives were asked to be involved in a role-playing exercise. The groups were given identical factual information about a difficult policy decision, and then they were asked to solve a problem related to that decision. Half of the groups were briefed to expect trusting behavior from the members of their group; the other half were told to expect untrusting behavior (“You cannot openly express feelings or differences with members of your group”).

After thirty minutes of discussion, each group member as well as those who had observed the role playing completed a questionnaire. The responses were in harmony with each other: The discussions among members in the high-trust group were significantly more positive than the discussions among members of the low-trust group. In fact, people in the low-trust group who tried to be open and honest were virtually ignored. Hostility was caused by a mere suggestion, and it quickly spread throughout the group. The people in the low-trust groups realized that the lack of trust kept them from high achievement. They did not feel free to be vulnerable due to the actions and rejection of other group members.

Here are some findings on the high-trust group:

Members were more open about their feelings.
Members experienced greater clarity of thinking.
Members searched for more alternative courses of action.
Members reported greater levels of mutual influence on outcomes.

The high-trust group opened the gate of personal vulnerability, and the result was a better team and a model of integrity-based leadership.

When people do not trust one another, it is difficult for the organization to succeed and for the people within the organization to feel completely fulfilled. People who feel trusted and who trust their leaders are more satisfied, and their work environment is less stressful. There exists a feeling of openness and confidence and a greater ability for people to believe they can take risks.

0 comments

Blog Trust Me

What Difference Does Trust Make

by Ron Potter November 5, 2018

In a research study several groups of business executives were asked to be involved in a role-playing exercise. The groups were given identical factual information about a difficult policy decision, and then they were asked to solve a problem related to that decision. Half of the groups were briefed to expect trustworthy behavior from the members of their group; the other half were told to expect untrusting behavior (“You cannot openly express feelings or differences with members of your group”).

Here are some findings on the high-trust group:

Members were more open about their feelings.
Members experienced greater clarity of thinking.
Members searched for more alternative courses of action.
Members reported greater levels of mutual influence on outcomes.

The high-trust group opened the gate of personal vulnerability, and the result was a better team and a model of integrity-based leadership.

When people do not trust one another, it is difficult for the organization to succeed and for the people within the organization to feel completely fulfilled. People who feel trusted and who find their leaders trustworthy are more satisfied, and their work environment is less stressful. There exists a feeling of openness and confidence and a greater ability for people to believe they can take risks.

0 comments

Blog Culture

When trying to help isn’t helpful

by Ron Potter October 25, 2018

How many times have you used the following phrases? I should probably ask, “How many times have you heard the following phrases?” We often don’t hear our own words, but we sure hear others words.

Don’t do it that way.
This will work better.
I see your problem.
Have you thought of…
I’ll correct that for you.
I can help.

These words and phrases are often used under the guise of trying to help. But, are they helpful?

What’s your reaction when someone says, “Don’t do it that way.”

Fine, do it yourself.
I’ll wait for you to tell me specifically what to do. (And I won’t do anything else)

Reaction to any of the other statements will be similar.

This will work better. (Not if you understood the entire issue)
I see your problem. (It’s not my problem, it’s our problem and you don’t see all the issues)
Have you thought of.. (We’ve had a team working on this and thought about every possible angle you can think of)
I’ll correct that for you. (Fine, then the problem is yours)
I can help. (Not by second guessing everything we’ve done)

So how does someone truly help?

First by genuinely asking if help is wanted.
If the answer is yes. Then by asking what form of help might be useful or desired.

Notice that so far, no specific “help” have been offered. But by asking what type of help would be useful, there may be multiple answers.

If you could cover this other project while we grapple with this one, that would be great.
Would you simply listen to the issues as we’ve framed them and see if anything else comes to mind?
Would you mind compiling some of this data for us? I think if we could see it all together it might be useful.

Usually, the best form of help you can offer is simply asking what type of help would be useful. Once the person or team is confident that you really want to help in any way you can, multiple ways of helping will become evident.

Don’t express what you think will help. Simply offer to help in any way needed. People really appreciate it.

1 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts