The Top 100 Management Secrets

Introduction

What do today's employees want?

COMMUNICATION

What is Management Communication

How to be a Good Communicator

What is Open Communication?

What are Genuine Conversations?

What is Good Communication?

What is Active Listening?

How to improve your Management Communication

What is Psychological Safety?

How to introduce Psychological Safety

What is Team Communication?

How to improve Team Communication

GOALS

What are Personal Goals?

What are Professional Goals?

What are Performance Goals?

What are Team Goals?

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

How to gain Respect

How to build Trust

How to use your Body Language

How to use Persuasion

How to increase your Emotional Intelligence (EI)

MANAGEMENT

What is Traditional Management?

What are Traditional Management Theories?

What are Traditional Management Behaviours?

What are Traditional Management Disadvantages?

What is a Good Manager?

What is your First Management Position?

What are Traps for New Managers?

What is Intuition - trusting your gut?

What is Shared Leadership?

MANAGEMENT STYLES

What are Traditional Management Styles?

What are Contemporary Management Styles?

What is the High-Performance Management Style?

What is the Transformational Management Style?

What is High-Performance Leadership?

What are High-Performance Leadership Behaviours?

What is your current Management Style?

How to change your Management Style

MEETINGS

How to hold a Meeting people want to attend

TEAMS

What are Traditional Teams?

What are Contemporary Teams?

What is a High-Performance Team?

What are Team Dysfunctions?

What are Lencioni Team Dysfunctions?

What is the team Development Process?

What are Reasons for improving your team?

TEAM BUILDING

How to Organize your Team

How to Evaluate your Team

How to develop Charisma

How to do Planning and Time Management

What is a Team Common Goal?

What are Team Roles and Responsibilities?

What is Team Bonding?

What is Creativity?

What is Innovation?

What is a Supportive Environment?

What are Team Roles?

What is Mutual Accountability?

What is Selfless Collaboration?

How to Recruit

How to provide Autonomy and Empowerment

How to Motivate

How to manage Discipline

What are Team Rules?

How to create a shared Team Vision

TEAM MANAGEMENT

What is Delegation?

What is Performance Management?

How to Delegate

What is Motivation?

What is Autonomy and Empowerment?

How to terminate someone’s Employment

TEAM MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

What is an Open-Door Policy?

Who are Remote Team Members?

What are Check-Ins?

How to do Mentoring

How to Engage your Team

WORK PRACTICES

What are Work Practices?

What is Email?

What is Process?

What is CMM Level 2?

What is Intranet?

What is Timeboxing?

What is Workload Management?

What is Gating?

What is Work Management?

What is a High Workload?

What is the 80/20 Principle?

What is the Half Pager?

How to do Problem Solving

How to create a self-conscious Team

How to make Decisions

How to manage Conflict

Introduction

The Toolkit you need to support your management, leadership, and team.

Whether you are a new or experienced manager or one preparing for a leadership role, this toolkit of the Top 100 Management Secrets has been written for you. Becoming a manager, moving into leadership, or developing your team are all significant events that can also be daunting experiences, this toolkit aims to help you make such transitions successfully.

This toolkit contains the very latest management, leadership, and high-performance teams’ best practices from some of the world's leading organizations including Google, Microsoft, Deloittes and Adobe.

The toolkit trains you in high-performance management and leadership practices.

What do today's employees want?

Today's millennial generation unlike the baby boomers before them are vocal about what they want their workplace to look like, they will not accept old-style methods of traditional management which they view as managing, administering, stifling, unreasonable and unwarranted. They want managers and workplaces that recognize them for their efforts, that are collaborative and supportive.

Millennials place "my job" equally or even ahead of "my family" as their dream. So, because their life is more focused on work, they need to draw more from their work environment. They have their best friends at work - including best friends who are customers. They want to stay with an organization that helps them grow and develop.

Millennials want meaningful work, a job that isn’t just about paying the bills, but is connected to purpose, that makes them feel fulfilled and valuable. Today’s employees care deeply about diversity and do not want to be treated as an employee but rather as colleagues, or partners. They believe that they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance and want to feel like that they have an open and honest relationship with their manager and co-workers. They want to know that their opinion is valued and receive a good deal of feedback.

The more their manager creates shared goals, the more they will feel a sense of being part of an ‘in group’. That’s important to today’s employees because they believe it creates more accurate sharing of information, better collaboration, and motivation. They are passionate about autonomy, they love it when they have choices, for them it creates a sense of having more meaningful work making them feel more in control.

They will not accept toxic behaviours from their bosses such as playing favourites, bullying or managers who abuse their position to gain monetary or sexual rewards, these are deeply disliked.

Managers need to be better listeners, coaches, and collaborators. They need to help employees learn and grow, recognize them for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about. In environments like this, workers become totally engaged. Businesses with engaged workers report 23% higher profits when compared to businesses with disengaged workers. Engaged workers are less likely to be absent at work, leave their jobs, or experience an accident at work. And, tellingly, engaged workers also experience higher levels of customer loyalty and job satisfaction. 

Unfair treatment at work is the leading source of employee disengagement, followed by an unmanageable workload, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support, and unreasonable time pressures.

The root of this disengagement lies with managers, who must focus on "making work more rewarding and more meaningful for their people".

Employees everywhere don't necessarily hate the company or organization they work for as much as they do their boss. Employees, especially the stars, join a company and then quit their manager. It may not be the manager's fault so much as these managers have not been prepared to coach the new workforce.

Finally, today’s employees want a combination of a progressive management style and being a member of a high-performance self-managing team. These fulfil their willingness and desire to work across teams, as well as their constant need for feedback, reinforcement, and praise for being tech-savvy. No matter how they are viewed, the simple truth is that today’s employees look at work dramatically differently from the baby boomer generation that preceded them.

Finally, I hope you enjoy using the toolkit, I have no doubt you will benefit greatly from its use.

COMMUNICATION

What is Management Communication

It’s important to take notice of how you communicate. Here is how to have a professional conversation without wasting your time, without getting bored, and without offending somebody.

We've all had really great conversations. We've had them before. We know what it's like. The kind of conversation where you walk away feeling engaged and inspired, or where you feel like you've made a real connection, or you've been perfectly understood. There is no reason why most of your conversations can't be like that.

Don't multitask. And I don't mean just set down your cell phone or your tablet or your car keys or whatever is in your hand. I mean, be present. Be in that moment. Don't think about your argument you had with your boss. Don't think about what you're going to have for dinner. If you want to get out of the conversation, get out of the conversation, but don't be half in it and half out of it.

Use open-ended questions. Start your questions with who, what, when, where why or how. If you put in a complicated question, you're going to get a simple answer. If I ask you, "Were you terrified?" you're going to respond to the most powerful word in that sentence, which is "terrified," and the answer is "Yes, I was" or "No, I wasn't." "Were you angry?" "Yes, I was very angry." Let them describe it. They're the ones that know. Try asking them things like, "What was that like?" "How did that feel?" Because then they might have to stop for a moment and think about it, and you're going to get a much more interesting response.

Go with the flow. That means thoughts will come into your mind and you need to let them go out of your mind. 

Don't equate your experience with theirs. If they're talking about having lost a family member, don't start talking about the time you lost a family member. If they're talking about the trouble they're having at work, don't tell them about how much you hate your job. It's not the same. It is never the same. All experiences are individual. And, more importantly, it is not about you. You don't need to take that moment to prove how amazing you are or how much you've suffered. 

Try not to repeat yourself. It's condescending, and it's really boring, and we tend to do it a lot. Especially in work conversations or in conversations with our kids, we have a point to make, so we just keep rephrasing it over and over. Don't do that.

Stay out of the weeds. Frankly, people don't care about the years, the names, the dates, all those details that you're struggling to come up with in your mind. They don't care. What they care about is you. They care about what you're like, what you have in common. So, forget the details. Leave them out.

Listen. I cannot tell you how many really important people have said that listening is perhaps the most, the number one most important skill that you can develop. 

How to be a Good Communicator

Communication is not a one-person show and high-performance leadership means being an excellent communicator, ensuring that the right message reaches the right person in the right way at the right time. Here are tips on being a good communicator:

Before speaking, consider

-         Rehearsing in your head the message you want to tell.

-         Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, how will they interpret the message?

-         Is the message clear, concise, and unlikely to be misinterpreted?

-         If it is misinterpreted, how can you rephrase it?

-         Practice active listening, that is, concentrate on what you are hearing. What is it the other person is trying to tell you?

-         Often if someone has a difficult thing to say to you, they will disguise it, not be clear or concise, be on the lookout for this.

-         If the message (such as an employee’s termination) is sensitive or unpleasant, prepare a bulleted script for yourself to follow and stick to it.

-         Be frank, direct, open, and honest; the other person will pick this up and be reassured by it. It’s a matter of not what you have to say, but rather how you say it.

-         Check that your messages have been received by asking the team member to playback to you their understanding of what you have said.

-         Look directly at the team member in the eyes. To do this and maintain a stare, look just above the bridge of their nose, between their eyes. This allows you to maintain a direct look for as long as you want. To the team member it appears as if you are looking directly into their eyes. This is an especially effective tactic for negotiations and when delivering bad news, it gives you the upper hand.

What is Open Communication?

Excellent communication ability is essential for success in any role, but there are skills and techniques that, as a manager, you need to use more so than when you were a worker. These are communicating with team members and communicating with people outside your team. Active listening is essential if you are to be an excellent communicator. But unfortunately, when you are a manager, it can be easy to think that you know all the answers and that listening is less critical because you've thought of a solution already – that, of course, would be a huge mistake.

The best form of communication is when it is transparent and open, creating a framework of honesty, directness, and frankness, characterized by sharing of experiences, trust and a willingness to embrace conflict and collaborative problem-solving. It engages team members to discover newer or improved ways of reaching goals and prevents groupthink whilst spurning innovation.

Communication is the basis of all healthy relationships, including the one between a team member and a manager. For example, team members whose managers hold regular meetings with them are almost three times as likely to be engaged as team members whose managers do not hold regular meetings with them. Engagement is highest among team members who have some form (face to face, phone or digital) of daily communication with their managers. And when team members attempt to contact their manager, engaged team members report their manager returns their calls or messages within 24 hours.

Team members need to be encouraged to accept critical feedback and provide constructive input to others. Feedback should answer questions, provide solutions, or help strengthen the task or project at hand. You cannot have a high-performance team without strong relationships and genuine communication. The two traits are closely linked.  

These traits are essential for high performance teams because without honest communication and the strength of the relationships that follow, it becomes near impossible to fix problems with performance. Strong and open relationships allow team members to talk honestly about successes and failures, areas for improvements and without fear of animosity. Open communication requires a free flow of information, a shared agreement that no subject is off-limits, and frequent and respectful interactions among team members and other individuals in the organization.

What are Genuine Conversations?

Genuine conversations are conversations about performance, with the intent of helping team members to improve. It takes time and much effort to develop an environment of mutual trust and respect that creates a safe environment for genuine conversations. This can be a daunting process for some, but once you are comfortable with genuine conversations, you will never regret it helped by shifting your perception to a view that the conversation is about caring for your team member and helping them to improve, the process becomes second nature. The ability to have genuine conversations is what builds strong relationships, and the stronger your relationships the more open communication becomes. This is important as high-performance teams seek more outside connections which enhances their creativity and innovation satisfying their need for fresh perspectives and information.

What is Good Communication?

Being a good manager means being an excellent communicator, ensuring that the right message reaches the right person in the right way at the right time. Communication is not a one-way interaction; it is two-way, like listening. Just doing the talking does not help; you need to concentrate on listening as well, which takes mental effort.

Actions

First, actively listen to what the other person is saying. (Focus hard on the words they are saying, do not interrupt or frame an answer in your mind until they have finished speaking.)

Rehearsing in your head the message you want to tell.

Putting yourself in the other person's shoes, how will they interpret the message?

Is the message clear, concise, and unlikely to be misinterpreted?

If it is misinterpreted, how will you back out?

Often if someone has a difficult thing to say to you, they will disguise it, it will not be obvious, or they will not be concise; you need to be on the lookout for this.

If the message (such as an employee's termination) is sensitive or unpleasant, prepare a bulleted script for yourself to follow and stick to it.

Be frank, direct, open, and honest; the other person will pick this up and be reassured by it. It's a matter of not what you have to say but rather how you say it.

Check that your messages have been received by asking the team member to playback to you their understanding of what you have said.

Look directly at the other person that is, into their eyes. To do this and maintain a stare, look just above the bridge of their nose, between their eyes. This allows you to maintain a direct look for as long as you want. To the other person, it appears as if you are looking directly into their eyes. This is an especially effective tactic for negotiations, and when delivering bad news, it gives you the upper hand.

What is Active Listening?

One of the most important things you need to learn and do is what is called Active Listening. If you learn to do just one thing well, make it this. The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding. Active listening is a particular form of listening that requires the listener to provide feedback on what he or she hears.

Types of listening

Competitive

This type of listening is when people (sometimes aggressively) push their own views or opinions rather than listen to someone else's. When we listen this way, we are mainly waiting to jump in and say something or point out a flaw in what the other person is saying. Thus, we pretend that we are listening when we are thinking about and formulating our thoughts and ideas and are just waiting for an opportunity to blurt them out. Unfortunately, there are two significant downsides here, the first is that we fail to take in what the other person is saying, having closed our minds, and the second is that when we interrupt, it is nearly always the case that the most important thing the other person is about to say, gets cut off.

Passive

With this type of listening, we are genuinely interested in what the other person is trying to say. We are listening intently, not responding or being involved, but we understand the points that the other person is trying to make. We may agree with what is being said, but we are doing so in a passive manner rather than in a competitive one.

Active

This is the ideal type of listening that you need to use. When you actively listen, you understand what the other person is saying. Here, we listen to what the other person says before we interrupt and share our thoughts. When you actively listen, you paraphrase what the other person is speaking as a way of playing it back to them to show that you have heard them. You’re restating or playing back what the other person has said shows that you are actively engaged.

Active listening means not engaging in unhelpful listening habits such as:

Not showing respect for the speaker.

Not hearing underlying meaning.

Interrupting.

Not making eye contact.

Rushing the other person.

Becoming distracted.

Forgetting what was said in the past.

Asking about unimportant details.

Focusing too much on details and missing the big picture.

      Ignoring what you don't understand.

      Only pretending to pay attention.

How to practice active listening

Make eye contact while the other person speaks. If you find this difficult, look at the space between a person's eyes just above the top of their nose; to them, it appears that you are looking directly into their eyes.

Lean toward the other person and nod your head occasionally. Avoid folding your arms as this signals that you are not listening.

Paraphrase what has been said, rather than offering unsolicited advice or opinions. For example, you might start this off by saying, "In other words, what you are saying is...".

Don't interrupt while the other person is speaking. Likewise, do not prepare your reply while the other person speaks; the last thing that he or she says may change the meaning of what has already been saying.

Watch for nonverbal behaviour to pick up on any hidden meanings. For example, facial expressions, tone of voice, and other behaviours can sometimes tell you more than words alone.

Shut down your internal dialogue while listening. Avoid daydreaming. It is impossible to attentively listen to someone else and your inner voice at the same time.

Show interest by asking questions to clarify what is said. Ask open-ended questions to encourage the speaker. Avoid closed yes-or-no questions that tend to shut down the conversation.

Avoid abruptly changing the subject; it will appear that you were not listening to the other person.

Be open, neutral, and withhold judgment while listening.

      Be patient while you listen. We can listen much faster than others can speak.

How to improve your Management Communication

It’s important to take notice of how you communicate. Here is how to have a professional conversation without wasting your time, without getting bored, and without offending somebody.

We've all had really great conversations. We've had them before. We know what it's like. The kind of conversation where you walk away feeling engaged and inspired, or where you feel like you've made a real connection, or you've been perfectly understood. There is no reason why most of your conversations can't be like that.

Don't multitask. And I don't mean just set down your cell phone or your tablet or your car keys or whatever is in your hand. I mean, be present. Be in that moment. Don't think about your argument you had with your boss. Don't think about what you're going to have for dinner. If you want to get out of the conversation, get out of the conversation, but don't be half in it and half out of it.

Use open-ended questions. Start your questions with who, what, when, where why or how. If you put in a complicated question, you're going to get a simple answer. If I ask you, "Were you terrified?" you're going to respond to the most powerful word in that sentence, which is "terrified," and the answer is "Yes, I was" or "No, I wasn't." "Were you angry?" "Yes, I was very angry." Let them describe it. They're the ones that know. Try asking them things like, "What was that like?" "How did that feel?" Because then they might have to stop for a moment and think about it, and you're going to get a much more interesting response.

      Go with the flow. That means thoughts will come into your mind and you need to let them go out of your mind. 

      Don't equate your experience with theirs. If they're talking about having lost a family member, don't start talking about the time you lost a family member. If they're talking about the trouble they're having at work, don't tell them about how much you hate your job. It's not the same. It is never the same. All experiences are individual. And, more importantly, it is not about you. You don't need to take that moment to prove how amazing you are or how much you've suffered. 

      Try not to repeat yourself. It's condescending, and it's really boring, and we tend to do it a lot. Especially in work conversations or in conversations with our kids, we have a point to make, so we just keep rephrasing it over and over. Don't do that.

      Stay out of the weeds. Frankly, people don't care about the years, the names, the dates, all those details that you're struggling to come up with in your mind. They don't care. What they care about is you. They care about what you're like, what you have in common. So, forget the details. Leave them out.

      Listen. I cannot tell you how many really important people have said that listening is perhaps the most, the number one most important skill that you can develop. 

What is Psychological Safety?

We are all reluctant to engage in behaviours that could negatively influence how others perceive our competence, awareness, and positivity. Although this kind of self-protection is a natural strategy in the workplace, it is detrimental to effective teamwork. On the flip side, the safer team members feel with one another, the more likely they are to admit mistakes, to partner, and to take on new roles.

Being able to speak your mind is not as easy as it might sound. Many of us, especially depending on our workplace situations, feel that we cannot speak up about what we truly think. We do not speak up for fear or ridicule, humiliation, not being respected, not being taken seriously, being held back by our position or status and a feeling that we will not be listened to. All of these things hold us back. They are aspects of workplace culture barriers, meaning that these are the things that need to change if we are to feel confident about speaking our mind.

To overcome these barriers, a team must adopt what is known as psychological safety – “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking". It is the ability to present oneself and act without fear of negative consequences for self-image, status, or career. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected.

Low psychological safety equates to a foot on the brakes when someone wants to say something controversial resulting in the apathy or anxiety. High psychological safety equates to taking your foot off the brakes and putting your foot on the accelerator allowing everyone to speak their mind in safety. This puts teams into a learning zone where workplace wellbeing is high, and performance is high.

Psychological safety has been identified as a critical factor in team learning and high-performance team development. It is a workplace, an environment where team members feel a sense of inclusion which creates conditions that enable individuals to speak their mind, take moderate risks and stick their necks out without fear of having it cut off. An all-inclusive and understanding environment is a breeding ground for new ideas where team members feel they can put forward risky or innovative concepts because they know they will be taken seriously. Hostile business environments lead to the stagnation of creativity, poor work ethics, dogmatic policies, and low retention. It is particularly relevant in the modern business world, which counts on teams to innovate and perform in a chaotic environment. Team members who have no sense of psychological safety are unlikely to collaborate efficiently and effectively, and productivity will be hampered as a result.

An atmosphere of psychological safety means that people are content and able to admit and discuss mistakes; a healthy, positive learning and high-performance environment is created with team members more likely to ask questions and speak up to express issues and concerns, leading to the quicker identification of problems and search for solutions.

When a team creates a sense of psychological safety it will see higher levels of engagement, increased motivation, more learning and development opportunities, and substantially better performance. Team members become more energised because they feel they can be truthful and take risks. These types of behaviour lead to market breakthroughs without fear of judgment or reprisal and facilitate effective collaboration and creativity. In simple terms, psychological safety supports a belief that you won't be punished when you make a mistake or make an honest comment.

The research is now abundantly clear that psychological safety is a powerful differentiator of teams. The best teams are the ones that have trust and belief in each other. Team members who don't feel safe will keep their problems to themselves and be unwilling to share information. This lack of openness may slow a business down, preventing it from responding as agilely as it might, as collaboration and communication become impaired, and individuals are reluctant to share the problems and opportunities they see. At its worst, senior managers can be left unaware of problems until they become so serious that an external regulator or government body is forced to step in.

High-performance teams do not allow grudges to build up and destroy team morale, they also replace blame with curiosity and autopsy. If team members sense that blame or criticism is being assigned, this leads to defensiveness and then to disengagement. High-performance is about having team members settling and deciding between competing ideas noting that no team can progress until all team members believe they have a voice that is heard. Conflict arises from differences when individuals come together in teams, their differences in power, values and attitudes contribute to the creation of conflict.

How to practice Psychological Safety

Allow everyone to speak their mind in safety.

Never ridicule, humiliate, or show a lack of respect to anyone.

Take seriously what someone is saying.

Never assign blame, only criticise a lack of process or a bad procedure.

Make everyone feel that it is safe for personal risk-taking.

Make everyone feel that there are no negative consequences for self-image, status, or career based on what they say.

How to introduce Psychological Safety

This involves making changes to the way your team members behave, how they communicate and how they operate. It comprises understanding what psychological safety is, its introduction to the team, how it changes behaviours and team member communication and the role of team rules.

Professor Amy Edmondson coined the term 'Psychological Safety' in 1999 (Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School) as a "shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking". It was identified as a critical factor in team learning and High-Performance Team development and performance. An all-inclusive and understanding environment is a breeding ground for new ideas where team members feel they can put forward risky or innovative concepts because they know they will be taken seriously. Hostile business environments lead to the stagnation of creativity, poor work ethics, dogmatic policies, and low retention.

The concept of Psychological Safety is particularly relevant in the modern business world, which counts on teams to innovate and perform in a chaotic environment. Team members who have no sense of Psychological Safety are unlikely to collaborate efficiently and effectively, and productivity will be hampered as a result. An atmosphere of Psychological Safety means that people are content and able to admit and discuss mistakes; a healthy, positive learning and high-performance environment is created.

Research confirms that higher levels of Psychological Safety led to more effective team learning and, in turn, higher team performance. Professor Edmondson demonstrated that in an environment of Psychological Safety, a cycle of learning is created; team members are more likely to ask questions and speak up to express issues and concerns, leading to the quicker identification of problems and search for solutions.

Over time, this cycle leads to improved team performance. "In an internal study by Google (Project Aristotle), researchers concluded from quantitative and qualitative data that psychological safety had the biggest positive impact on team performance and was four times more significant than other factors such as individual performance, structure, and clarity, or meaning. It turns out that it matters much less who is on a team, and much more how those people interact" Source: Google 2015. Simply put, psychological safety is much the same as trust.

In a workplace that can be volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous - creating and maintaining a psychologically safe environment must become a managerial priority for those who want to keep up in the global competitive race.

If you create this sense of psychological safety within your team, you will see higher levels of engagement, increased motivation, more learning and development opportunities, and substantially better performance. You create an environment where team members are energised because they feel they can speak their minds, be truthful and take risks.

Team Communication

"We are all reluctant to engage in behaviours that could negatively influence how others perceive our competence, awareness, and positivity. Although this kind of self-protection is a natural strategy in the workplace, it is detrimental to effective teamwork. On the flip side, the safer team members feel with one another, the more likely they are to admit mistakes, to partner, and to take on new roles." Source: Google 2015.

Psychological safety is a workplace, an environment where team members feel a sense of inclusion which creates conditions that enable individuals to speak their mind, take moderate risks and stick their necks out without fear of having it cut off. These types of behaviour lead to market breakthroughs without fear of judgment or reprisal and facilitate effective collaboration and creativity. In simple terms, psychological safety supports a belief that you won't be punished when you make a mistake or make an honest comment.

"A team must have a culture of trust, cohesion, and psychological safety if it is to succeed. The absence of psychological safety can result in problems and conflict being hidden and going unreported, as team members don't feel that they can speak up. A team's ability to take risks, something that is particularly important for some kinds of teams (such as those with an objective to innovate), relies particularly on team members' need for psychological safety being met. It is only after a level of trust and inclusion is established that a team can engage in constructive conflict—essential if a team hopes to be honest and bold and hold each other accountable to their commitment to the team's objectives." Source: Deloitte Insights.

"It's not about being nice to each other or reducing performance standards, but rather about creating a culture of openness where teammates can share learnings, be direct, take risks, admitting you "screwed up" and be willing to ask for help when you're in over your head. Unsurprisingly, in Google's top performing teams' people feel safe to speak up, collaborate and experiment together." Source: Google 2015.

"The research is now abundantly clear that psychological safety is a powerful differentiator of effective teams. The best teams are the ones that have trust and belief in each other," says Googles -Tom Brannan. "Team members who don't feel safe will keep their problems to themselves and be unwilling to share information. This lack of openness may slow a business down, preventing it from responding as agilely as it might, as collaboration and communication become impaired, and individuals are reluctant to share the problems and opportunities they see. At its worst, senior managers can be left unaware of problems until they become so serious that an external regulator or government body is forced to step in." Source: Deloitte Insights.

Team rules

The establishment of clear ground rules gives a team its cultural and psychologically safe baseline. It is a fundamental step in team development. In the case of a new team, rules also help remove the inevitable confusion and anxiety that usually exists as new team members get to know each other.

Establishing team rules is a simple way to negotiate and establish team behaviours and practices, both in general and temporarily say for a project. Team rules increase psychological safety and reduce potential conflict among team members by:

Aligning relationships on appropriate and inappropriate behaviours.

Making team values explicit.

Creating a cultural baseline.

Not assigning blame.

Allowing legitimate measures in case of non-compliance.

Preventing a sense of inequity and injustice to develop within the team.

Team rules are a behavioural framework, an agreement a team makes around the behaviours it will or will not accept. It includes team behaviours and values, decision-making rules, coordinating and communicating, framing expectations such as no assignment of blame in case of failure, dealing with issues, accepting diversity, taking risks, asking for help, mutual support, and accepting diversity appreciation. For example, if you agree upon honesty as a behaviour in a team rules framework, you prioritise being honest above most other things. If everyone agrees with each other that the team will be 'supportive', then it's much easier to reward supportive behaviour. At the same time, if someone in the team isn't being supportive, it's much easier for anyone to say, "we said we were going to be supportive, and I felt you weren't when you did XYZ". This removes the personal attack and is much easier to manage and deliver.

Summary

Psychological Safety. – A shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. An atmosphere of Psychological Safety means that people are content and able to admit and discuss mistakes; a healthy, positive learning and high-performance environment is created. Arrange a team Workshop to introduce Psychological Safety as a team practice.

Team Communication. - We are all reluctant to engage in behaviours that could negatively influence how others perceive our competence, awareness, and positivity. Psychological safety is a workplace, an environment where team members feel a sense of inclusion which creates conditions that enable individuals to speak their mind, take moderate risks and stick their necks out without fear of having it cut off.

Team rules. - The establishment of clear ground rules gives a team its cultural baseline. It is a fundamental step in team development. Establishing team rules is a simple way to negotiate and establish team behaviours and practices, both in general and temporarily say for a project. Team rules increase psychological safety and reduce potential conflict among team members by. Establishing team rules is a simple way to negotiate and establish team behaviours and practices.

What is Team Communication?

"We are all reluctant to engage in behaviours that could negatively influence how others perceive our competence, awareness, and positivity. Although this kind of self-protection is a natural strategy in the workplace, it is detrimental to effective teamwork. On the flip side, the safer team members feel with one another, the more likely they are to admit mistakes, to partner, and to take on new roles." Source: Google 2015.

Psychological safety is a workplace, an environment where team members feel a sense of inclusion which creates conditions that enable individuals to speak their mind, take moderate risks and stick their necks out without fear of having it cut off. These types of behaviour lead to market breakthroughs without fear of judgment or reprisal and facilitate effective collaboration and creativity. In simple terms, psychological safety supports a belief that you won't be punished when you make a mistake or make an honest comment.

"A team must have a culture of trust, cohesion, and psychological safety if it is to succeed. The absence of psychological safety can result in problems and conflict being hidden and going unreported, as team members don't feel that they can speak up. A team's ability to take risks, something that is particularly important for some kinds of teams (such as those with an objective to innovate), relies particularly on team members' need for psychological safety being met. It is only after a level of trust and inclusion is established that a team can engage in constructive conflict—essential if a team hopes to be honest and bold and hold each other accountable to their commitment to the team's objectives." Source: Deloitte Insights.

"It's not about being nice to each other or reducing performance standards, but rather about creating a culture of openness where teammates can share learnings, be direct, take risks, admitting you "screwed up" and be willing to ask for help when you're in over your head. Unsurprisingly, in Google's top performing teams' people feel safe to speak up, collaborate and experiment together." Source: Google 2015.

"The research is now abundantly clear that psychological safety is a powerful differentiator of effective teams. The best teams are the ones that have trust and belief in each other," says Googles -Tom Brannan. "Team members who don't feel safe will keep their problems to themselves and be unwilling to share information. This lack of openness may slow a business down, preventing it from responding as agilely as it might, as collaboration and communication become impaired, and individuals are reluctant to share the problems and opportunities they see. At its worst, senior managers can be left unaware of problems until they become so serious that an external regulator or government body is forced to step in." Source: Deloitte Insights.

How to improve Team Communication

This involves making changes to the way team members communicate. It is based upon Psychological Safety, something that fundamentally changes communication behaviours.

Open Communication

If you want to create chaos where confusion runs rampant and production is low, have a team that does not know how to communicate. We all know that poor communication is at the root of all problems.

What is required is open communication which means practicing mutually beneficial and honest discussions. This doesn't just refer to discussions during a meeting or other work activities, but also to keeping others appraised on important matters, sharing fears, and seeking counselling from others.

Open communication is a higher form of communication-based on trust, and mutual respect. Team members need to be able to voice gripes, complaints, praises, predictions, concerns and especially fears as long as they do so in a positive manner. Team members should never refer to an individual team member as the cause of a problem (the concept of never laying blame) but rather only refer to a broken process or function, which is nearly always the actual cause of any problem. Teams need encouragement to indulge in communication for discovering improved ways of reaching the team's vision, resolving differences by collaborative problem-solving and sharing of experiences. It is also important to know that misunderstandings can be a good thing because they prevent groupthink and spurn innovation.

All meetings must have open and honest communication where team members explain progress or setbacks and frustrations and disappointments and suggestions for improvements in the way the team works. When there is tension in the team -bad air – this must be allowed to escape, which only happens through sponsored dialogue. Team members need to openly communicate everything—good and bad—if there is to be open and honest communication. It is a matter of not what you say but how you say it.

Team members need to accept critical feedback and provide constructive input to others. Feedback should answer questions, provide solutions, or help strengthen the task or project at hand. You cannot have a high-performance team without strong relationships and genuine communication. These traits are essential for high performance teams because without honest communication and the strength of the relationships that follow, it becomes near impossible to fix problems with performance. Strong and open relationships allow team members to talk honestly about successes and failures, areas for improvements and without fear of animosity.

How to practice Open Communication

It is a matter of not what you say but how you say it.

Accept critical feedback and provide constructive input to others.

Allow everyone to voice gripes, complaints, praises, predictions, concerns and especially fears as long as they do so in a positive manner.

Never refer to an individual team member as the cause of a problem - never lay blame. Refer only to a broken process or function, which is nearly always the actual cause of any problem.

Accept that misunderstandings can be a good thing because they prevent groupthink and spurn innovation.

Allow everyone to explain setbacks and frustrations and disappointments and suggestions for improvements in the way the team works.

GOALS

What are Personal Goals?

To have a better career.

To reduce my stress levels despite working harder.

To have a better work/life balance.

To increase my job satisfaction level.

To become a true professional.

Attainment of something rare - the building of a high-performance team.

Working with people who are loyal, supportive, and trustworthy.

Professional development, acquiring new skills, knowledge, and leadership behaviours, and over time becoming increasingly better at whatever is being done.

The ability to standout and overachieve in comparison to others.

      Being respected and being liked.

      Wanting a promotion.

      To improve job satisfaction.

What are Professional Goals?

To upskill management competency and capability.

To move away from a Traditional or High-Performance management style.

To prepare for a future leadership position.

To address management or departmental issues.

To prepare for a major strategic business initiative.

To manage increasing workloads.

To do more with fewer resources.

To have a faster start-up/reaction time to new and unplanned business needs.

Staying motivated.

      Improving team member engagement.

      Establishing a team’s purpose.

      Dealing with a lack of preparation to successfully lead.

      Addressing a lack of confidence.

      To stop micromanaging.

      Dealing with the pressure to succeed immediately.

      Communicating objectives to a team.

      Managing team talent.

      Leveraging team norms to drive performance.

      Mastering team conflict.

      Managing difficult team members.

      Letting someone go.

      Delivering bad news.

      Dealing with culture issues.

      Empowering team members.

      Engaging introverts.

      Fostering collaboration.

      Solving work performance and productivity issues.

      Fostering an environment of trust through recognition and feedback.

Measures

Next, looking at the list of goals you have prepared, against each goal, write down a measure that you can use as evidence that the goal has been achieved. Here are some example goals with measures:

Lack of preparation to successfully lead. (Feeling more confident about managing and understanding my team.)

Lack of promotion. (Received a promotion, increased responsibilities and managing more staff.)

Need a better work/life balance. (Now have more personal time and getting to the gym more often.)

An enjoyable lifestyle because of higher remuneration. (Increased remuneration, added a new hobby.)

Developing managerial effectiveness. (Greater respect for myself, the team is working better together, productivity has increased.)

Team member engagement. (Good and regular team member relations, improved retention, loyalty. and performance.)

Micro-managing. (Have stopped micro-managing.)

Leverage team norms to drive performance. (Team has direction.)

Master team conflict. (Less conflict occurring, and conflict management is in place.)

How to do it

Create a list of personal and professional goals.

Against each goal assign a measure as evidence that it has been achieved.

Make an entry in your calendar to review progress in three months’ time.

Add the list of goals and measures to your High-Performance Leadership document.

What are Performance Goals?

Team members cannot be inspired if they don’t know what they’re working toward and don’t have explicit goals. Performance goals are individual work goals based on the team members position and their position accountabilities. Team members must care about achieving their goals, whether because they stand to gain extrinsic rewards, like recognition, pay, and promotions, or intrinsic rewards, such as satisfaction and a sense of meaning.

As team members are motivated to pursue individual initiatives with your support, there should be an expectation that they will deliver excellence and be more passionate. Goals should be stretch goals creating an internal drive to accomplish the difficult.

Performance goals need to

Work towards achieving your strategic goals by being clear with reasoning to allow team members to easily understand how and why their goals are necessary and how they fit in.

Relate to the position responsibilities.

Support achievement of improved team performance.

Act as individual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Be measurable so that a goals achievement is easily identifiable.

Have beginning and endpoints, so team members can work to reach the finish line.

Examples

Improve communication skills over the next quarter.

Implement new quality assurance methods within three months.

Increase team productivity by 30% over the next 12 months.

Support, manage and achieve change targets within the allocated time when it occurs.

Increase your team’s staff retention rate to 80% over the next 12 months.

Clear all high-priority work requests within two months.

Meet monthly budget revenue targets.

Actions

Have copies of the organization vision, your own strategic needs, and each team members position responsibilities.

Using these documents, identify the team member goals, aiming for goals that support your business and management goals. Try to make them challenging by making them outside of the team members ordinary knowledge and comfort zone.

Ensure that each goal is measurable.

Complete your performance goals documentation and schedule a meeting with each team member to discuss.

Do not assume that the team member always knows how to accomplish their goals. Be prepared to discuss approaches with them but only if a team member raises the question of ‘how’.

Summary

Performance goals. - Team members cannot be inspired if they don’t know what they’re working toward and don’t have explicit goals. Performance goals are individual work goals based on the team members position and their position accountabilities. Team members must care about achieving their goals, whether because they stand to gain extrinsic rewards, like recognition, pay, and promotions, or intrinsic rewards, such as satisfaction and a sense of meaning.

Performance goals need to. - Work towards achieving your strategic goals by being clear with reasoning to allow team members to easily understand how and why their goals are necessary and how they fit in. Relate to the position responsibilities. Support achievement of improved team performance. Be measurable so that a goals achievement is easily identifiable.

What are Team Goals?

There must be concrete benefits and goals for doing the training. The benefits have already been outlined. In addition to these, the training works best when the team decides on specific goals.

Break into groups and discuss the following team goals, selecting those that you think should relate to your team.

GOAL | ✓
Upskill our management competency and capability. |
Improve our performance, meet our targets. |
Prepare for a strategic business initiative. |
Better manage increasing workloads. |
Do more with fewer resources. |
Have a faster start-up/reaction time to new and unplanned business needs. |
Keep the team motivated. |
Communicate objectives to the team. |
Resolve team conflict. |
Manage difficult team members. |
Empower team members. |
Solve work performance and productivity issues. |

Now add your own team goals.

Goal | ✓

INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

How to gain Respect

High-performance managers know that respect isn't an entitlement linked to a job title, rather it is earned. To increase team members, trust in you, act as follows.

Lead by example. Demonstrate the qualities and characteristics you expect from the team members you manage. It is essential to exhibit the traits you want team members to adopt, such as honesty, creativity, being forthright, and industriousness.

Be humble. No one cares about where you went to school or past successes. Egotists are boring and turn people off, they need to get over themselves and do it quickly. Avoid conversations that entail self-promotion; they are obvious and do damage to your reputation.

Know when to initiate communication and respond. In a team setting, allowing team members to speak without interruption means you are being professional and respectful. Communicating respectfully means using your time and someone else’s time wisely, asking clear questions, and responding fully to any questions you’ve been asked.

Show commitment every single day. Get into the trenches with your team members and get your hands dirty as often as you can. Work longer and harder than they do. Get out of your office and visit their workplaces. Talk to them, get to know their names so you can address them personally, ask them how things are going, ask what their top three issues are and follow-up.

Share your expectations. Team members want to know what your expectations are of them; that way, they can work to meet or exceed them.

Help people succeed and advance. Help team members gain exposure and give them opportunities for development and advancement. Be a mentor, focus on those team members who are bright, hardworking, dedicated, reliable and creative, and have skill sets that you don’t or those who show potential. Mentor team members by delegating them work that uses their strengths and initiate support programs that allow them to learn a new skill or certification.

Compromise. This is not a weakness; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. A manager who can compromise comes across as caring and someone who puts others before themselves and who appreciates understanding a differing point of view.

How to build Trust

The definition of trust is confidence in one another's reliability, commitment, and dependability. Do not underestimate the importance of trust in being a high-performance manager. The moment team members start to doubt you, or each other, is the moment that “all is lost.” This is another reason why psychological safety is so critical as it ensures that team members feel comfortable enough to express their point of view, resulting in a collaborative environment that doesn’t punish them for expressing ideas.

Think about how to build trust and commitment in a team -- first, you must model trust by delivering on your commitments and building trust through individualization. To build trust, the approach is to strike a balance between appearing as warm and competent so that you come across as credible and human. Team members are generally aware of your background, namely, the credentials that gained you your current position. With credibility established, it’s now time to demonstrate some vulnerability and show that you are indeed a fallible human being. The combination of competence and warmth makes you seem more trustworthy.

Trust means being transparent to be open and honest in the way you speak and act. To encourage these qualities in your team, you must demonstrate them yourself. Transparent leadership means you have nothing to hide, this builds trust with your team members. Team members know what direction you’re leading them in and what your intentions are, therefore, you need to be honest about the risks and potential issues attached to each task or project. Share the full scale of risks, issues and challenges and encourage team members to come up with their own ideas. Listen to the ideas they contribute and over time, you’ll develop their trust. Trust and commitment mean team members will collaborate effectively on difficult projects:

Commitment is the flip side of trust. (You give me a commitment; I trust you will do it).

To earn trust, you must demonstrate trust.

Trust means making yourself vulnerable.

Trust must be accompanied by accountability.

Trust someone until such time as you have evidence that you can’t.

Set your expectations of someone based on trust.

Learn to trust your intuition. (If something doesn’t sound or feel right it probably isn’t).

Counsellors often employ one of three tactics when meeting a new client, they spill their coffee, drop their pad, or embarrass themselves somehow to show they are fallible. By making yourself vulnerable, it is possible to build trust quickly. You must demonstrate your credibility first before you exhibit vulnerability; otherwise, it doesn’t work.

At your next team member check-In, embarrass yourself slightly; forget where you put your pad, spill your coffee, or simply drop your pen and have a hard time finding it. When you do this, make the comment “It’s a dreadful thing to be human”, showing that your just like everyone else.

Sometimes we accidentally say or do the wrong thing and can lose the trust we have built up; here is a quick solution for recovering lost trust:

Act quickly.

Be candid.

Accept responsibility.

Apologise.

Outline a remedy.

Don’t blame.

How to use your Body Language

A great deal of our communication happens through nonverbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and eye contact. So, you need to think about these as a form of communication. Your everyday body language is often what determines whether people like you or not, and when someone has made up their mind about you it’s all but impossible to change, therefore, body language must be made to work for you. Here are some body language tips:

When you’re listening to someone. You should be actively listening and be paying attention to their body language. You should also be conscious of your own to ensure you’re sending appropriate cues to others.

A firm handshake. A firm handshake makes an essential first impression. A firm grip displays confidence and establishes you as someone to be taken seriously.

Not meeting someone’s eyes. A failure to look a team member directly in the eyes makes you seem shifty and untrustworthy. But too much eye contact can put some people off. If you want to hold someone’s gaze, look at the point just above their nose between their eyes. To the other person, it appears as if you are looking directly into their eyes, and you can maintain the gaze for as long as you want. (A good negotiation tactic).

Fussy hand gestures. Your hands can be used to enhance words. But don’t fuss as this can make you look nervous, distracted, bored or rude.

Crossing your arms. This says you are on the defensive, it’s a sign of disinterest, being closed off and unapproachable.

Nodding too much. You can’t be taken seriously if you nod too much. Even when agreeing with what’s being said, nodding can be off-putting. It is, however, a very good active listening cue, but you need to be subtle.

“If you struggle to meet new people or join in the conversation at social gatherings, it might be that your body language is sending the message for others to stay away. Here is how to improve your body language to appear more approachable:

Smile. Although it is possible to overdo smiling, generally it is better to smile versus frown. Try to find things that genuinely make you happy or laugh and your smile will come across as natural rather than forced.

Be accessible. If you are constantly on your phone or buried in a newspaper, people will feel like they are interrupting you. Make sure that you are accessible and open to communication from others.

Avoid blocks. In the same vein, make sure that you aren't using objects to shield yourself from team members. At a party, hold your drink at your side instead of close to your chest. Keeping objects between you and others makes you appear guarded and closed.

Keep your head up. It is hard for others to know how to approach you if your head is constantly down; they need to see your face to feel like you want to get to know them. Keep your head level when walking, meeting people, and during social situations.

Use eye contact. When you do end up talking with someone, be sure to maintain eye contact. A good rule is about 60% of the time you should be looking in the other person's eyes. Avoiding eye contact makes you appear untrustworthy or disinterested. If direct eye contact feels hard, try looking at the spot between their eyes. They won't be able to tell the difference.

Avoid nervous habits. Even though you might be nervous, avoid the habits that go along with the feeling. Stop touching your face or playing with your hair. Don't fidget with your pen or the change in your pocket. Keep your hands relaxed at your sides or use them to gesture when making conversation.

Mirror the other person. Use this technique sparingly when appropriate. If you are in conversation with another person, mirror their body language to make them feel more comfortable; make some of the same movements as they do. Don't overdo this strategy or it will become obvious what you are doing.

Nod during conversations. When listening to team members, nod to show that you are paying attention and that you are interested. Doing so reinforces for the team members that you want to be involved in the conversation. One way to take the focus off yourself during a conversation is to plan to share what you've heard with someone else afterward. This will cause you to stay focused, ask questions, and summarize to make sure you understand.

Be Positive. Beyond body language, always be positive. Say nice things about team members instead of mean things. Approach team members and include those who seem to be left out. Be a positive person and you will attract other positive people to you.” Source: Arlin Cuncic, VeryWell Mind, 2020.

How to use Persuasion

Persuasion is an art, not a science. We all know someone who can get us to do anything, an ability we all crave. Having had a career in Change Management, I have had to, on many occasions, convince people and teams of wholesale and often dramatic changes that need to be made. Over the years, based on pure experience and trial and error, I arrived at a set of principles that have always worked well for me and can work well for you. 

As a Change Manager I had to learn how to persuade people to do things they both did and absolutely did not want to do, these were changes in techniques, behaviours and even the knowledge they used. The strongest influencer I found is a reasoned argument or pitch that is based on facts or experience (your experience is hard to argue with, if you have credibility people will accept what your experience has to say). But I also learned that there were other factors that were also important like my use of language (not what I said but how I said it, the tone of my voice and the emphasis and pauses I used). I was lucky to have had six years doing talk back radio, which taught me how to use my voice to great effect and how to use it to persuade and influence listeners.

Mastering effective influencing skills or the art of persuasion increases your self-esteem gained through self-expression and being persuasive is an important professional skill of high-performance leadership.

A high-performance leadership activity is the ability to easily persuade people to do things they either don’t want to, have an unreasonable fear of, or think they will fail at. The key to persuasion is motivation, when delegating a task consider for example, telling the team member that if you were doing the task this is how you would do it. Below are equally effective different methods to motivate team members and others, consider each and find the method that best suits you or mix and match from each to form your own method.

1.  Use motivation.

Telling a team member that if you were doing the task this is how you would do it.

Telling them that you are not interested in the outcome of the task but only that they have a go.

Talking about what they’ll lose if they don’t do the task.

Drawing on their past actions as examples of their ability to do the task.

Telling them that nearly everyone is doing it or soon will be.

Asking for a 100 when you only want 10.

Talking about the counterargument before they do, that is, the pros and cons of doing the task.

2.  Use positivity.

Make your words powerful. Your pitch needs to be full of words that elicit a response. You can do this easily by framing your statements around key phrases. For example, "car accident" is a phrase that makes you think of many different types of vehicle collisions. But if you're trying to persuade someone to buy car insurance, you won't say that there are thousands of car accidents each day. Instead, you'll say that there are thousands of car-related deaths every day.

Dress up, but don't talk down. Nice clothes go a long way in helping you maintain confidence, even if no one is around to see you. Be careful, though, that being well-dressed can result in you looking better than people who are above you.

Focus on the future. Speaking in a future tense establishes confidence best done by using the word will. Phrases like "We will" and "Then we'll do this" will get the team member used to the idea that this will happen.

Speak their language. Finishing a team members sentence is bad. This is because you're inserting your own "speak" into their independent thoughts. So instead, listen closely to how the person talks and watch how they carry themselves.

Be a master of timing. This goes along with getting to know the team member you're pitching to. Study them and find out the best time to talk to them. For example, some busy people are swamped during the beginning of the week and check out mentally on Friday. This means that Thursday may be the best time to approach a team member you need to persuade.

Repeat what they say. Prove that you are listening to and acknowledging the thoughts and feelings of the team member you're talking to. You can affirm their stance by simply saying, "If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that you find this important because of XY and Z. I understand that and think AB and C."

Preferred communication. Study the team member and determine how they prefer to communicate. Simply asking them if they like to talk on the phone instead of email goes a long way, just as long as you give them some options.

Individual thinking vs. Group thinking. To quickly identify if someone thinks better individually or in a group, ask: Do you prefer studying by yourself or in a group? Then ask, how do you like to relax – by reading a book by yourself or meeting friends?

Auditory vs. Visual thinking. Does the team member think primarily in words or images? For example, draw them a picture or just explain. Auditory thinkers will tend to use verbs such hear, listen, explain. Visual thinkers are much more likely to describe a situation using see, look, watch.

3.  Use Roger Dooley’s adaptation method.

Talk about needs they didn't know they had.

Share a story.

Learn to adapt to their personalities.

Establish common ground with your manager and team members

Use a personal note.

Be upfront with your request.

Use guilt to your advantage.

Use the right words.

Focus on what the manager and team members will gain.

Remind them they can always say no.

4.  Use Robert Cialdini's six principles of persuasion.

Reciprocity. A common social norm, reciprocity, involves our obligation to return favours done by others. Thus, when I do something for you, you feel compelled to do something for me. 

Authority. Something as simple as informing your audience of your credentials before you speak, for example, increases the odds you will persuade the audience.

Social proof. Manager and team members are more likely to say yes when they see others doing the same thing - social proof is not all bad.

Consistency. If you ask your manager and team members to state their priorities and goals and then align your proposals with that in mind, you make it harder for them to say no.

Scarcity. Have you noticed that Amazon tells people there are only a certain number of products left? That's scarcity at play. You want what is in short supply. This desire increases as you anticipate the regret you might have if you miss out by not acting fast enough. So, if you want somebody to want what you have, you must make that object scarce, even if that object is yourself.

5.  Use Dale Carnegie (the persuasion guru) method.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid one.

Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."

If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

Begin in a friendly way.

Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.

Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.

Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.

Appeal to the nobler motives.

Dramatize your ideas.

Throwdown a challenge.    

6.  Use my 7 principles of persuasion.

Over the years, based on experience and trial and error, I arrived at this set of principles that have always worked well for me, here they are:

Use clear language. If you can't explain your point of view to a 10-year-old, such that they can explain it to another adult, then it's too complicated. The art of persuasion lies in simplifying something down to its core and speaking slowly, constantly pausing every 30 seconds.

Base your argument on facts or your experience. Base your argument on facts or your experience, this makes it easy to explain your reasoning for things which is critical.

Match the other person’s voice and body language with your own. The way they talk (softly, loudly) even body language should be matched effectively. If they like to talk with their hands, that means their ideal form of communication is active, so it is helpful for you to do the same.

Express your opinion reluctantly and use persuasive words. You want the other person to believe in you. You have all the answers, but how did you get there? Talk about what you used to believe and what you believe in now; by doing this, you control the conversation and convince the other person that this will work for them. Use the five most persuasive words in the English language: You, Because, Free, Instantly, and New.

Get your timing right and be persistent. Everyone can be persuaded, given your timing and context is right. Keep selling your message, do not let up. The person who keeps asking for what they want, and keeps demonstrating value, is ultimately the most persuasive.    

Pay genuine compliments. Compliment people sincerely and often for things they aren't typically complimented for; it's the easiest thing you can do to persuade others.

Be honest and energetic. Sometimes the most effective way to persuade somebody is by telling them the truth about something, especially if others are reluctant. Some people drain our energy, while others increase it. The most persuasive people know how to transfer their energy to others; they know how to motivate. Sometimes all it takes is eye contact, laughter, excitement in verbal responses, or active listening.

Use this shortlist.

The next time you feel you need to persuade a manager or team member or delegate a difficult task, prepare what you are going to say and how you are going to say it by remembering these points:

Clear language and speak slowly.

Use facts or your experience.

Match the other person’s voice.

Express your opinion reluctantly.

Get your timing right.

Pay genuine compliments.

Be honest and energetic.

How to increase your Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of yourself and others. It is the ability to be able to identify and express feelings, perceive and evaluate others’ emotions and use emotions to facilitate thinking. It is extremely difficult to be a good communicator, to inspire others, coach, be a role model, and know yourself if you aren’t emotionally intelligent. Daniel Goleman, the author of ‘Emotional Intelligence,’ researched people from 181 different job roles from 121 companies and discovered that 67 percent of the competencies deemed essential for effective performance were ‘emotional’ competencies. We learn, develop, and practice our emotional intelligence skills through real experiences. 

“Emotional intelligence is how well a manager connects to their team members and is an often-overlooked management skill. Psychology Today defines emotional intelligence as the ability to spot and manage your own emotions while still understanding others’ feelings. In the past, the ability to empathize with team members wasn’t seen as a prerequisite to being a good manager. Progressive management styles have since realized that a team members mental well-being is as important as their physical well-being. "Managers who display emotional intelligence also display high levels of self-awareness, a trait that helps them to understand how their emotions impact those around them. They also show self-regulation. The human mind can handle several emotions at once but separating one from another is a skill not many have. This trait makes a manager able to handle challenging situations more confidently." Source: Top 15 Management Skills, Lifehack.org.

All these trait’s stem from empathy, and that’s a skill that you can practice. Listening and talking with your team members can help you to develop a deep compassion for their individual conditions. Moreover, research has found that emotional intelligence is very important for effective, progressive leadership. "Emotional Intelligence involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide ones’ thinking and actions." Source: Emotions and Interpersonal communication, Open.lib.

High-performance managers can easily make a difference by taking decisions according to team members emotions. Inspirational, motivation and individualized consideration are components of high-performance leadership correlated with the ability to monitor emotions and the ability to manage emotions. So, it is important to improve emotional intelligence to be an effective High-Performance Manager. Findings suggest that managers higher on EI are more likely to achieve business outcomes and be considered as effective leaders by their team members.

High-performance managers make use of EI as follows.

Not being afraid of expressing feelings clearly and directly. Letting their feelings lead to positive choices that benefit the whole team.

Having thoughts that are not dominated by negative emotions like fear, worry, hopelessness, and victimization. Instead of asking "why me?" they develop self-awareness by asking, "Why does this issue keep coming up over and over?"

By being great at communicating not just through words, but by being able to listen intently and read body language.

Balancing emotions and decisions with reason, logic, and reality. Assessing a situation from all angles before making a final call. 

Not being motivated by power, wealth, status, fame, or approval. Instead by being humble and acting with moral authority.

Do not internalize failure. Rather speaking about the good, the bad, and the ugly openly, because everything is a learning opportunity.

Probing team members emotions in any given situation to understand what they're feeling and why. This is key for understanding how to appropriately respond, rather than just impulsively reacting.

To develop or improve your EI, this is what you need to do.

Become more self-aware by paying attention to how your emotions are affecting your decisions and actions. Pay attention to managing strong emotions such as excitement, anger, frustration, and distress.

Improve your social skills by being ‘curious’, start a conversation by asking benign questions like: “That’s an amazing tie, where did you get it?”, “Those are fabulous shoes, where did you buy them?”

Focus on being more empathetic by using active listening to look for ‘emotional’ cues and words.

Work on motivating yourself to do things you don’t like such as starting difficult tasks as early as possible. It’s most often a lack of confidence and self-doubt that stops you from doing such things. Breaking a difficult task into smaller chunks and just doing a bit at a time builds confidence and lessons your resistance.

Have empathy, meaning that you understand and share in the emotions of others. This communication skill is important in both team and one-on-one settings. In both cases, you will need to understand team members emotions and select an appropriate response. For example, if a team member is angry, empathy can help you diffuse their emotion. At the same time, being able to understand when a team member is feeling positive and enthusiastic can help you get support for your ideas and projects. Put yourself in your team members shoes. People are drawn to empathy, it's an attractive quality to have in building successful relationships at work. Empathy is something any manager can develop. It is all about thinking of other people's circumstances, understanding their current state of mental health, and knowing that their emotions are every bit as real as your own. This helps you develop perspective and opens you up to helping others.

Manage your emotions better than most. Reasonable people, the ones who maintain control over their emotions are the people who can sustain psychologically safe workplaces. In these settings, productivity is high and top performers flock to these organizations and rarely leave them. Self-control is a skill high-performance managers must learn so they can be present, calm, and focused during times of stress.

Respond instead of reacting. So often we react when faced with an emotionally charged situation. We get defensive or act out in fear about something that triggers us. High-EI managers understand the root cause of their negative emotions and reactions, in this way they can respond, not react, with confidence and self-control. By modelling an appropriate and effective response rather than let emotions get the best of them, managers with EI set the example for others to follow as a cultural trait.

Being open to feedback. High-performance managers ask peers and respected team members, "How am I doing?" then they listen to the feedback so they can become more self-aware. The key is acting on the feedback you receive. This shows team members you are listening to what they have to say. This sets the tone that if they come to you with issues, questions, or concerns, they will be heard and taken seriously.

Summary

How to increase respect. - High-performance managers know that respect isn't an entitlement linked to a job title, rather it is earned.

How to build trust. - Trust means being transparent to be open and honest in the way you speak and act. To encourage these qualities in your team, you must demonstrate them yourself. Transparent leadership means you have nothing to hide, this builds trust with your team members.

How to use your body language. - A great deal of our communication happens through nonverbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and eye contact. So, you need to think about it as a form of communication. Your everyday body language is often what determines whether people like you or not, and when someone has made up their mind about you it’s all but impossible to change, therefore, body language must be made to work for you.

How to use persuasion. - Persuasion is an art, not a science. We all know someone who can get us to do anything, an ability we all crave. Having had a career in Change Management, I have had to, on many occasions, convince people and teams of wholesale and often dramatic changes that need to be made. A high-performance leadership activity is the ability to easily persuade people to do things they either don’t want to, have an unreasonable fear of, or think they will fail at. The key to persuasion is motivation, when delegating a task consider for example, telling the team member that if you were doing the task this is how you would do it.

How to develop charisma. - Charisma was once believed to be an innate personality trait, a gift that certain individuals possess that gives them the capacity to do extraordinary things. Thinking was that it could not be learned, you either have it, or you don’t, however this is not true. When a high-performance leader displays gusto and alacrity, is curious and always upbeat, this makes them charismatic. Doing these four things puts forward a positive attitude which infects team members thinking and feelings and can extend to the whole workplace. By communicating high expectations to team members and exhibiting confidence in their abilities to meet the expectations, this in turn increases your charisma.

How to increase your emotional intelligence (EI). - Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of yourself and others. It is the ability to be able to identify and express feelings, perceive and evaluate others’ emotions and use emotions to facilitate thinking.

MANAGEMENT

What is Traditional Management?

Traditional management is the forerunner of today’s management that originated from the Industrial Revolution, (late 1700s through to the 1800s), a period of great change in the way people worked. Before this time, most people survived by farming or working in rural communities. In the early 1880s the British cotton mills enforced a type of control called the command-and-control structure, a term referring to keeping subordinates in line. This approach based on the hierarchical and often brutal British military and naval traditions typically involved the development and implementation of strict rules of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour with harsh consequences for breaking the rules.

The new factories needed workers who needed to be organized and controlled. As these factories became more commonplace, substantial, and productive, the need for managing workers became essential. Out of these factories came Traditional management styles, which we still see in use today in the corporate world as well as strict hierarchical organisations such as the military and police. As management styles in these types of professions, they have proven to be enormously successful just as they have been in the commercial sector contributing substantially to global economic growth and the employment of millions. Just like their origins, they are good at making profits, but this has come at a high cost. The Traditional management styles vests a lot of power in individual managers, allowing them to impose their own form of control, rules, and regulations just as long as they achieve business goals imposed on them from above. If not kept in check, this power can lead to abuse. 

"Think of Henry Ford, the man who developed a moving assembly line to produce his automobiles. In the early 1900s, cars were put together by craftsmen who would modify components to fit their product. With the advent of standardized parts in 1908, followed by Ford’s revolutionary assembly line introduced in 1913, the time required to build a Model T fell from days to just a few hours. From a managerial standpoint, skilled craftsmen were no longer necessary to build automobiles. The use of lower-cost labour and the increased production yielded by moving production lines called for the need to guide and manage these massive operations. To take advantage of new technologies, a different approach to organizational structure and management was required.” Source: The Four Functions of Management, Dr. Robert Lloyd and Dr. Wayne.

According to the author and organisational development expert, Peter Block, Traditional-style managers are the senior managers who command respect through seniority and years of service, often viewed as tyrannical and intimidating. Their job is to plan, organise employees, and direct and control. They set expectations for the employees below them who need to meet certain goals, but the manager receives the reward for achieving those goals. These managers also tend to experience a frequent turnover of employees. 

Having gone virtually unchanged now for almost 100 years, Traditional management styles are typically structured like this: A senior executive or board holds all the power; they are in command and use their power and influence to lead. They appear at the top of the organisation chart. Below them are senior managers, then middle managers, with employees at the bottom. We call this an organisational hierarchy. The Traditional management styles are the most pervasive, they are still in use in the majority of the world’s organizations.” Source: The Four Functions of Management, Dr. Robert Lloyd and Dr. Wayne.

What are Traditional Management Theories?

There are many theories that form the foundation of Traditional management, the following are the most notable. Source: Managers and Leaders: Are they different? Abraham Zaleznik.

Max Weber – Bureaucratic Management Theory – 1905

One of the earliest examples of evolution in the history of management. Weber believed that all managers must build chains of command. He also argued for standardisation. Weber believed that the rise of technology could lead to a toxic workplace culture. He differs from many management theorists because of this focus on the negatives. Too much change can affect morale. Weber’s bureaucratic theory argues for the following:

Detailed record-keeping at all levels of an organisation.

Employees must have clear job roles, so they maintain their focus.

All organisations should have clear hierarchies.

The standardisation of common procedures.

Organisations must only hire employees who are fit for the job in question.

With this last point, Weber touched on an important aspect of modern business. Hiring for fit, he believed, involved searching for employees with the correct skills. We now know much more about hiring practices. Hiring based on skill alone does not account for a company’s culture. If a new employee’s personality does not fit your culture, they rarely succeed. As such, modern management theory has taken Weber’s ideas a step further. Still, his work created another important steppingstone to today’s management principles.

Frederick Winslow Taylor – Scientific Management Theory – 1909

Frederick Winslow Taylor was one of the earliest proponents of management theory. A mechanical engineer, he authored The Principles of Scientific Management in 1909. At its most basic, his theory proposed the simplification of jobs. By keeping things simple, he argued, productivity would improve. He also argued that managers and employees must work together. This was a new idea in the history of management. In the early-20th century, most companies still operated like dictatorships. The manager assigned the work, and the employee did it.

This was especially the case in the factories that rose out of the industrial revolution. Managers had almost no contact with employees. Instead, they issued orders and expected employees to get on with the work. There was no standardisation or science behind it. This, Taylor argued, led to unproductive workers. He espoused fair pay for a fair day’s work. This mantra focused on employee productivity. If one worker produced less than another, they did not deserve equal pay. Taylor argued for the creation of scientific methods. These would make production as efficient as possible. This gave more responsibility to employees. They all had the same methods available, so the less productive had nothing to hide behind. Taylor also created four principles of management as part of his work, these are.

Use scientific methods to determine the most efficient way to complete a task.

Monitor employees to determine performance. This involves offering guidance to those that aren’t as efficient as needed.

Assign employees to work that suits their skills and motivation levels. Then, coach them to reach maximum efficiency.

Managers must focus on planning and professional improvement. Employees must focus on the tasks given to them.

Some of these principles haven’t survived the test of time. The fourth offers no way for employees to improve professionally. Yet, they do tackle common problems in the modern workplace. Most managers search for more efficient processes. Monitoring employee performance is a common practice. Still, these were different concepts of management than those practiced at the time. He argued that many managers didn’t interact well with their employees. 

Professor Elton Mayo – Human Relations Management Theory – 1920’s

Despite their importance, the previous concepts of management didn’t account for people. Specifically, they all held firm that money was the main influencer of employee performance. Elton Mayo’s Studies added a new wrinkle. For five years, Mayo studied employees at Chicago’s Western Electric Hawthorne Works. He placed his focus on workplace conditions, and how they affected productivity. His study found that relationships work as a key motivator for employees. When working as part of a team, people become more productive. The improvement was so marked that it became known as “The Hawthorne Effect”.

Mayo’s work laid the foundations for the focus on teamwork that today’s management theories have. He was the first to prove that the right people in the right teams leads to higher productivity. His work led to the founding of the Human Relations Management Theory. Other theorists adopted his research. These efforts still had the same aims of previous theories. They aimed for greater efficiency and better results. But Mayo’s work emphasised the importance of the human factor. As a result, the Hawthorne Studies are a major benchmark in the history of management.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy – General System Theory – 1928

A biologist, Ludwig von Bertalanffy wasn’t a management theorist. In fact, his general theory related more to biology than management. He argued that all systems are the sums of their parts. In biology, you can look at your own body for an example of this. Your organs, muscles, and bones all combine, along with everything else in your body, to make a whole. One organ or muscle on its own is not productive. But the right combination leads to an efficient body.

You may already see how this applies to management theory. Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General System has relevance in the workplace too. Most organisations contain several departments. Each of these departments has people, all of whom have their own jobs. If one department doesn’t carry its weight, the organisation suffers. In some cases, even one person failing to do their job properly can have widespread ramifications.

Beyond this, he also argued that each element in a system reacts to its environment. Outside influences can affect how a system operates. You could argue that this relates to toxicity in the workplace. It also places an emphasis on how personal issues can affect an employee’s motivation levels. Though a biological theory at first, general system theory applies to so much more. In fact, it’s at the root of many modern managerial theories.

Henri Fayol – Administrative Management Theory – 1949

Having started his career at a French mining company at the age of 19, Fayol rose up the ranks. In time, he became the company’s director, managing over 1,000 people. Henri Fayol went ten better than those before him when he published Administration Industrielle et Générale. He created 14 principles of management. However, most of these focused on the administrative side of management. Fayol developed his 14 principles while working in his directorship. As a result, they came from the direct experience of a man who had been there and done it all.

Douglas McGregor – X & Y Management Theory – 1960

In 1960, Douglas McGregor built on the teamwork-related ideas in the Hawthorne Studies. He published The Human Side of Enterprise to make his points. In that book, McGregor presents two types of management: 

Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X relates to authoritarianism. Such managers take a negative view of their employers. They assume their people are not motivated and won’t work well unless pushed. This leads to the leader taking too much control, often micromanaging projects. In such an organisation, productivity plays a huge role. If an employee doesn’t reach a certain “quota”, they don’t receive their rewards. It also assumes that employees have no ambition of their own. Theory X managers believe they must drag employees along to get results.

Theory Y built more directly from Mayo’s studies. Such managers take a much more positive approach to their people. They believe that teamwork leads to better results. Furthermore, Theory Y managers encourage professional development and give employees more responsibilities. They want to see initiative, which builds a positive workplace culture. McGregor argued that Theory Y is the better choice of the two. Modern management bears his claims out as well. Though authoritarianism still exists, most don’t see it as the way to develop a healthy organisation. Theory Y forms the basis of most modern management theories.”

Frederick Herzberg - 1960’s

In the 1960’s Frederick Herzberg added considerably to management thinking on employee behaviour with his theory of worker motivation. Herzberg contended that most management driven motivational efforts, including increased wages, better benefits, and more vacation time, ultimately failed because while they may reduce certain factors of job dissatisfaction (the things workers disliked about their jobs), they did not increase job satisfaction. Herzberg felt that these were two distinctly different management problems. Job satisfaction flowed from a sense of achievement, the work itself, a feeling of accomplishment, a chance for growth, and additional responsibility. One enduring outcome of Herzberg’s work was the idea that management could have a positive influence on employee job satisfaction, which, in turn, helped to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives.

The concept behind McGregor, Herzberg, and a host of other management theorists was to achieve managerial effectiveness by utilizing people more effectively. Previous management theories regarding employee motivation (thought to be directly correlated to increased productivity) emphasized control, specialized jobs, and gave little thought to employees’ intrinsic needs. Insights that considered the human factor by utilizing theories from psychology now became part of management thinking. Organizational changes suggested by management thinkers who saw a direct connection between improved work design, self-actualization, and challenging work began to take hold in more enlightened management theory.

Management theories continued to evolve with additional concepts being put forth by other innovative thinkers. Henry Mintzberg is remembered for blowing holes in the idea that managers were iconic individuals lounging in their offices, sitting back, and contemplating big-picture ideas. Mintzberg observed that management was hard work. Managers were on the move attending meetings, managing crises, and interacting with internal and external contacts. Further, depending on the exact nature of their role, managers fulfilled multiple duties including that of spokesperson, leader, resource allocator, and negotiator.

Tom Peters and Robert Waterman – 1970’s

In the 1970s, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman travelled the globe exploring the current best management practices of the time. Their book, In Search of Excellence, spelled out what worked in terms of managing organizations. Perhaps the most relevant finding was their assertion that culture counts. They found that the best managed companies had a culture that promoted transparency, openly shared information, and effectively managed communication up and down the organizational hierarchy. The well managed companies Peterson and Waterman found were built in large part on the earlier managerial ideas of McGregor and Herzberg. Top-notch organizations succeeded by providing meaningful work and positive affirmation of their employees’ worth.

Abraham Zaleznik – 1977

In 1977 the Traditional view of management as viewed by Abraham Zaleznik, centred on organizational structure and processes. Managerial development at the time focused exclusively on building competence, control, and the appropriate balance of power. That view, Zaleznik argued, omitted the essential leadership elements of inspiration, vision, and human passion which drive corporate success.

The difference between managers and leaders, he wrote, “lies in the conceptions they hold, deep in their psyches, of chaos and order. Managers embrace process, seek stability, and control, and instinctively try to resolve problems quickly -sometimes before they fully understand a problem’s significance. Leaders, in contrast, tolerate chaos and lack of structure and are willing to delay closure to understand the issues more fully”. In this way, Zaleznik argued, business leaders have much more in common with artists, scientists, and other creative thinkers than they do with managers. Organizations need both managers and leaders to succeed but developing both requires a reduced focus on logic and strategic exercises in favour of an environment where creativity and imagination are permitted to flourish.

What are Traditional Management Behaviours?

Traditional management behaviours are aimed at producing a degree of predictability and order to consistently produce the short-term results expected by various parties and stakeholders. (e.g., For customers always being on time, for stakeholders always being on budget.) At its most basic, management consists of five functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. These functions form part of the body of practices on how to be a successful Traditional manager.

Planning.

Responding to direction set from above.

Establishing purpose.

Setting goals, objectives, and strategies.

Executing plans, improving the present.

Establishing a budget.

Managing around constraints.

Organizing.

Exercising control through authority and formal influence.

Establishing or changing team activities.

Making decisions.

Solving problems.

Scheduling.

Designing the organization.

Staffing.

Organizing and recruiting staff, providing structure.

Controlling subordinates, directing, and coordinating.

Managing discipline.

Setting roles and responsibilities.

Obtaining, allocating or releasing resources to deliver objectives (People, equipment, facilities).

Performance management and appraisals.

Succession planning.

Leading.

Focusing on things, looking inward.

Doing things right, managing change.

Using authority, avoiding conflict, acting responsibly.

Reactive, minimizes risk, maintains stability.

Maintains the status quo.

Time management.

Delegates.

Controlling.

Collecting, analysing, and reporting performance information.

Identifying issues and taking corrective actions.

Designing controls.

Establishing procedures.

What are Traditional Management Disadvantages?

The structure of the Traditional organization is like the military system, which is hierarchical, organized, and disciplined. The power flows vertically and downward, the employees are organized by department and are managed according to a chain of command. Each department has its own rules, the manager of the department is responsible and reports to the senior manager above. Every employee strictly follows the business strategies, has their own job description and accountability to their superior making Traditional organizational structures fixed and rigid.

The hierarchy of decision makers, executives, managers, and employees worked well when the companies operated in relative isolation from the rest of the world and simply manufactured physical products. By contrast, today increasingly companies have become globalized, they not only produce physical products but also sell ideas, which encounters disadvantages when using Traditional management approaches.

Because the Traditional organization has many layers of management, many people need time to weigh up and coordinate issues, it takes a long time to make decisions, therefore many managers may feel their opinions are being ignored. Moreover, in terms of interpersonal communication, senior management messages easily get distorted as directives move through the traditional hierarchy. This is because each manger may interpret the words in different ways, by the time the message reaches employees, the message may be different from the original intention. 

Furthermore, in terms of manager competence, in Traditional management models, authority is assigned to the position rather than the individual, which requires constant checking of the effectiveness of individuals in various positions to see if they have the actual ability to fulfill the job. In addition, Traditional management pays most of its attention to a company’s goals and objectives, emphasising increasing sales or profits to please the shareholders, which can lead the company to neglect social responsibilities and business sustainable development. 

Traditional management is about control, rules, regulations, boundaries and the source of all new business and ways of working. Traditional managers can be blind to work and employment issues and slow to react to change. Regrettably, employees have learned that the way their manager’s act is what the path to success looks like, so they model it. Traditional management does not individualize the needs of subordinates or focus on their personal development. Traditional managers exchange things of value with subordinates to advance their own and their subordinates’ agendas. Traditional managers are influential because it is in the best interest of subordinates for them to do what the manager wants.

What is a Good Manager?

People who are not in a management position simply do not understand how much effort, skill and knowledge are required to do the job and be a good manager at the same time. Whilst being a manager is by and large highly satisfying, it is not easy, it is filled with a huge variety of daily challenges and stresses and takes a particular type of person to do it well.

What it takes

These are the things that a manager needs to possess, think about, and do.

Organizational awareness

Understands and interprets the purpose of the business.

Knows who the customers are.

Knows the stakeholders.

Understands and develops various, different relationships.

Is a chosen field subject matter expert.

People management skills

Understands that employees are the greatest asset and how you lead, motivate, and inspire them has a huge impact on the success of the business.

Leads followers by example.

Inspires others.

Supports and motivates.

Shows commitment and passion.

Is accountable.

Sets individual performance goals/KPIs, develops a plan to achieve the goals/KPIs.

Empowers team members so that they can achieve their goals.

Mentors, assesses performance, and adjusts.

Provides feedback and always give a reason why.

Has honesty and integrity.

Exudes positivity.

Knows how to effectively delegate.

Manages one or more teams

Talks to and gets to know team members.

Manages team members as individuals and accepts differences.

Works with team members to set a common goal.

Knows which people are needed and those that are not.

Understands an individual’s team roles and strengths.

Has excellent listening and communication skills.

Builds good working relationships.

Brings people together to solve problems.

Builds trust within the team.

Collaborates bringing people together to do a range of activities.

Runs meetings.

Mentors and develops team members.

Manages, Organizes and Plans

Thinks tactically and strategically.

Is at least a month ahead of their team in terms of planning.

Has good time management skills, can effectively manage time, and prioritize tasks.

Is a problem solver.

Uses various Work management tools like Email, Scheduler, Diary, Team and Project Management.

Organises own and others work.

Understands budgeting, basic accounting and financial management.

Is a good decision maker, knows the value of sleeping on it.

Arranges files and has a clean desk policy.

Manages unplanned work and surprises.

Uses various management techniques.

Establishes work procedures and processes.

Knows that you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Establishes guidelines.

Management Style

Traditional, Progressive, or Transformational – always aiming to do better.

Knows about managing upwards, downwards, and sideways.

Has leadership skills.

Is consistent.

Is intelligent.

Is patient.

Is part psychologist.

Is an influencer, persuader, and a parent.

Common descriptions of good managers:

They provide leadership.

Is supportive and forgiving.

Motivates and has a positive attitude.

Has an open-door policy.

Is easy to talk to.

Provides challenging work.

Common descriptions of poor managers:

Incompetent.

Poor communicator.

Poor listener.

Rude, abrupt, arrogant, humiliating.

Shows no interest.

Common reasons why people resign:

Poor management.

Lack of advancement.

Insufficient remuneration.

Boredom, low job satisfaction.

Poor workplace culture, lack of respect.

Better opportunity.

Common attributes of poor organizations:

See their employees as units of labour, easily replaceable and not worth investing in.

Inferior at training their mid-level managers, preferring instead to invest in leadership training for senior executives.

Vests a lot of power in individual managers, allowing them to impose their form of control, rules, and regulations just if they achieve business goals imposed on them from above.

Managers are intimidating people in positions of power who are coercive, dictatorial, and distrusting.

What is your First Management Position?

Becoming a manager for the first time is a significant life and professional event. It is also a daunting experience taking on your first management position and having a degree of natural anxiety is expected. However, somehow you have earned the position of manager, a senior manager has appointed you to the position, and they have faith that you can do it.

Despite any misgivings you may have, they can see that you possess the attributes the position demands, like your personal qualities, strengths, and the requisite skills. It is worth reflecting on what these things are as they will boost your self-confidence. As a new manager, you may feel that you need to have answers to everything, don't fall into this trap; ask your team members for help; it is the right thing to do and shows your humility.

If they haven't already, you should expect your manager to explain their expectations of your position. These are vital to know as it is these that your performance will be judged on. Whatever the reasons are that got you the job, you are expected to deliver, so make sure you are very clear about what that is.

You may have gained your management position at a new company meaning that it is a more difficult way to start as you may not know how the business works, and you won't know the culture (the way people behave and speak). Take your time; there is no rush.

Honeymoon period.

You are not expected to perform miracles or deliver much in your first month; sometimes known as the honeymoon period, which, for senior managers, can last as long as three months or the first 100 days. For junior managers, you can relax a bit for the first month. This is because it is accepted that it takes time for you to understand your new position, its requirements, and people's expectations of you.

Have a plan.

The most successful managers have a clear plan of what that first month, two months, and three months will look like. You cannot manage anything successfully if you don't have a plan covering your work and that of your team. Talking with your team and your business stakeholders is a way of finding out what's currently working, what isn't, what the current priorities are and identifying potential issues and solutions.

Get to know your team.

Stepping into a management position for the first time isn't just a change of task; it's a fundamental shift in thinking and approach to work. To be successful, you must transition from getting the job done to get the work done through other people. This requires a new level of self-awareness, a different range of skills, and a new perspective that redefines success. Meet your staff, explain a little about your background, but only a little, a couple of sentences, people aren't interested in what you have done. Talk mainly about them, ask what their job is, what they do, ask what their top 3 issues are.

Always avoid any discussion about personalities, that is, people as causes of problems. Always bring any conversations about people back to focus on work processes and functions as potential issues, but never the people. You can make your judgements about people later. For now, observe how people behave, how they talk, whether they are positive or negative in their views, what seems to bother them, and what they like and dislike about the team and the company.

For the first few weeks, spend 50% of your time listening and 50% doing. Listen to the needs of others, ask about things like: Do they have the tools they need to do their jobs, have they been trained? Do they understand their roles and responsibilities? Do they have performance goals, do they enjoy teamwork? Don't change anything; listen and observe. Record your notes about issues, things you might change, improvements that can be made and especially things that might boost staff morale.

Start doing check-Ins.

When you first start, set up one-on-one meetings with each team member to discuss their role, goals, and any work challenges, they may currently be facing. Also, try to join team lunches and Friday after-work drinks to get to know everyone in a more relaxed environment. The better you know your team, the better you're able to determine how they work.

Meet your peers.

That is, managers who are on the same organisational level as you. Introduce yourself, have a two-sentence description of your work experience ready to tell them, ask them what their job is, what they expect from you and if they have any issues with your team. Finally, give them a copy of the organisation chart and ask them if it is correct or add their teams.

Learn as much as possible.

First off, make it your mission to learn everything you can. Investigate if your organisation offers formal supervisor, project management or management training, and take advantage of it if they do. Review team member personnel files and past performance reviews.

Do not make many, if indeed any, changes after you arrive; resist this temptation, and instead, take plenty of time to understand your organisation and team fully. Make lots of notes for review later, don't rely on your memory. Use a pad and pen, not a laptop or tablet. (You remember more by writing than typing). Understand the business structure, get a copy of the company's organisational chart, or, if need be, create your own, including your position and team.

Change your focus.

A critical mindset to adopt is that you are now a manager and not a team member or work mate; you must think about controlling, planning, and organising against just doing. This shift can be difficult at first, but it's crucial as it is tied to your team's performance. This means, if your team fails, you fail. And if they succeed? You can take credit, but you must share it with the rest of the team, or they won't be willing to do a great job for you again.

Be on model behaviour.

You are now a role model for your team members and others to copy. You must set a good example with everything you do and say. Team members will only do their best at work if they see you are doing the same. This means meeting commitments, meeting deadlines, doing what you say and keeping your personal thoughts to yourself.

Manage upwards.

Being the boss doesn't mean you can ignore your manager. It's more important than ever to keep them in the loop since you'll be reporting the progress of an entire team of people. It's also essential to ensure that the goals you outline for your team are tied to your manager's priorities. Ask to set up regular meetings to discuss your goals, progress, issues, and how they relate to the organisation. You can only impress your boss with your team's progress if you're moving in the right direction. Ask your boss about being a mentor for you or if they can recommend someone who can.

Focus on relationships.

It is very important to build trust, influence, and agree on mutual expectations with everyone you work with. The best way to do this is by establishing productive personal relationships. Simply focusing only on one-on-one relationships with team members is not enough to guarantee success.

Focus on team building.

During their first six months, new managers tend to fail to recognise and address their team-building responsibilities. You may be tempted to exclusively focus on your team member relationships only as against a view of the team. Individual team member performance is one thing; team performance is quite another. Working with your team to solve problems, make decisions, set direction, and review progress are just some of the things you need to do.

"When new managers focus solely on one-on-one relationships, they neglect a fundamental aspect of effective leadership: harnessing the collective power of the group to improve individual performance and commitment. By shaping team culture, the teams' norms and values, a manager can unleash the problem-solving abilities of the diverse talents that make up the team." Source: Linda A. Hill, Becoming A Manager, 1992.

Pay attention to detail.

“Micro-managing and paying attention to detail are not the same thing. Paying attention to detail is what good managers must do to ensure that work is done correctly. It involves assigning work, allowing staff to do it their way, and ensuring it gets done according to agreed standards.

Checking-in during team members work progress to see if assistance is needed and to ensure that work will be completed on time is not micromanaging; it is paying attention to detail.

Hold staff accountable for quality work and deadlines but give them the freedom to determine how to do their job. Tell them what you want, but not how to do it.

Encourage team members to try new ideas.

Allocate enough time and create reasonable deadlines that allow for innovation and creativity to take place. Check on progress using your Weekly Check-Ins and as an opportunity to offer help and resources; this should also be a learning opportunity for you.

Delegate.

Doing all the work by yourself is no longer the goal. Productive managers drive team results by delegating tasks to their team members (team members or subordinates are known as direct reports). It's not possible to do all the work yourself anymore. If you try to, your team members will stagnate, and productivity will slow. Plus, delegating shows trust in your team.

Shift your skillset.

Many new managers struggle because they rely too much on technical skills that aren't as necessary in a manager position. So, shift your mindset and your skillset and work on managing others.

Continue with your team member Weekly Check-Ins.

Develop team member skills by assigning challenging tasks.

Provide constant and consistent feedback.

What are Traps for New Managers?

Relying on the same skills that got you promoted.

It's easy to assume that the skills that made you a good mobile phone salesperson will make you a good mobile phone sales manager; however, this is not the case. Thinking that you can rely on your existing job knowledge and technical skills only to succeed as a manager is a mistake. You must take the time to develop good management and people skills; these are more important than your technical skills. While having knowledge (being a subject matter expert) is important, management requires an entirely different skill set. This is the most common mistake first-time managers make, not focussing on managing their team members or peers. Most people are promoted to the position of manager based on their previous excellent performance - but aren't given adequate management training.

Not managing upwards, downwards, and sideways.

As the name suggests, this means managing in three directions. Before you were a manager, you only had to concern yourself with satisfying your manager's needs - managing upwards. Now that you have staff, you also need to concern yourself with their needs - managing downwards. And because you have other managers as peers, you need to manage sideways.

Managing upwards means satisfying your manager's needs, responding to your manager's directions, and prioritising completing your manager's work requests ahead of your own. Be careful of the following:

Failing to speak regularly with your manager.

Approaching your manager with a problem when you have not considered how the problem may be solved.

Giving your manager a nasty surprise. (The no-surprises rule.)

Doing anything that requires your manager to defend you.

Managing downwards means giving direction to your team members, allocating tasks to them, prioritising their jobs, and responding to their needs ahead of your own. Managing sideways means being attentive to the needs of your peers.

Not asking for help.

Not asking for help from your manager, team members, or indeed others is a mistake. Some new managers falsely believe that as a new manager, they should have all the answers and that if they don't, they are weak. Experienced managers know that no one has all the answers all the time. Knowledge, skills, and experience are only gained over time; it is easier to learn on the job if you can draw on the support and assistance of others.

Another reason new managers don't ask for help is that they believe it may damage or dilute their relationships with others. Sharing the fact that you don't know something, admitting to a mistake is in some new managers minds a risk that the information shared will be used against them. Take your manager as an example; as a new manager, you can develop a good, strong relationship with them simply by admitting your mistakes and by asking for help and advice.

Micromanaging.

Many people confuse micro-management with attention to detail. Micro-managing has a negative connotation, and for a good reason. When a manager assigns work, tells capable team members exactly how to do it, monitors the work excessively, and takes over when the work is not done exactly as they wanted – that is micromanaging. The result is that team members never learn how to do their job or utilise their skills and creativity. Micromanaging discourages team members who will quickly lose interest, feeling that they have no sense of ownership in their work.

Micromanaging tells your team members that you do not trust them to do the job. When you constantly step in or second-guess their decisions, you're telling them that you know better than they do. Make sure to give your team members some latitude and let go of your desire to control every outcome.

Being an autocrat.

A new manager can feel pressured by their team members to be a strong manager and get results. It is a mistake to push your team too hard by being unreasonable or demanding instead of supporting them. If you focus on being there for your team and giving them the guidance and support, they need, they will perform better.

Not establishing crystal clear objectives.

Which is a better objective?

Example 1: Increase sales.

Example 2: Increase sales by 20% and generate 10% more revenue.

Example 1: Reduce the number of default loans.

Example 2: Reduce the number of default loans by 10%.

Managers do and do not wield significant authority.

New managers often believe that their new position gives them more authority and, with that, the freedom and autonomy to do what they like. They find that they are now a part of a network of similar people, who are making relentless and often conflicting demands on them and instead of feeling free, they feel constrained.

The people who present the most difficulties don't fall under your control – peer managers, outside suppliers or managers in another business unit. A common mistake is ignoring these relationships, focussing too much on team members only. When you finally accept your network role, you can feel overwhelmed by its demands.

Authority flows from the manager's position.

New managers do have some authority despite the interdependencies that constrain them; the secret is how to best use it. The biggest mistake is becoming an autocrat, believing that doing this will get better and faster results which you will not. The best way forward is by realising that your new team members are the secret to your success. Just telling a team member to do something does not make it happen - in fact, the more talented the team member, the less likely they are to follow your orders. Fairly quickly, the realisation comes that the source of your power is not your formal authority. Authority emerges only as you establish credibility with team members, peers, and your manager.

New managers need to demonstrate their management competence over and above everything else. This can be a problem because many new managers believe their technical knowledge and competence is the most important thing they have to offer, and they rely on it far too much.

Managers must control their team members.

Because of insecurity in their new role, most new managers can become too controlling to get compliance from their team members. They fear that their team members will walk all over them if they don't establish control early on. To gain this control, they often rely too much on their formal authority.

Even if they achieve some measure of compliance, whether through formal authority or authority earned over time, compliance does not equal commitment, and if team members are not committed, they won't be happy or produce good work. Sharing your power with their team members is the right approach. In this way, you command more influence that allows your people to take the initiative.

What is Intuition - trusting your gut?

The old saying "trust your gut" refers to trusting your feelings, your intuition. The expression means to trust your inner voice; the "gut reaction" or "gut feeling" is more profound than your conscious mind. Gut feeling is intuition, which can be a valuable tool in some circumstances. It seems gut feelings do mean something, and they can often help you make good decisions if you know how they work. Trusting your gut takes practice to get good at it. When people talk about having great intuition or being good decision-makers, it's because they've worked at honing their gut feeling skills.

What is your Gut?

Your brain is delicately linked to other body parts through your nervous system and through chemical signals such as hormones and neurotransmitters. Some neuroscientists assert that the mind is this intertwined system of brain and body. This, then, helps explain why intuitive feelings are frequently accompanied by physical reactions.

You may sometimes get an unusual feeling in the stomach, other times in the throat, and other times on the skin. The sensation can be like looking at a great piece of art for the first time or a feeling that seems deeper and wiser than the surface-level conscious mind. Intuitive decision-making or 'gut instinct' is your ability to instantly get an understanding of something without needing to consider other people's opinions about it or take time to think it over. It is your inner feeling about something.

Gut feelings arise within your body, and it's hard to explain to others the exact source or meaning of them. Intuitions are personal, and no one else can understand the full extent of your gut feeling. You have to deal with it alone. Trusting your gut or intuition is an act of trusting yourself.

How does a gut feel work?

Gut feelings or intuitions come from patterns we've identified in our past experiences. Your subconscious mind continuously processes information that you are not consciously aware of, not only when you're asleep but also when you're awake. This helps explain the "aha" moments you experience when you see, feel, hear, or learn something that you already knew. The revelation of the obvious occurs when your conscious mind finally learns something that your subconscious mind had already known.

Gut feelings or intuitions occur when your brain makes a substantial match or mismatch between past experiences and current experiences. What we are noticing are patterns based on past experiences, we store these patterns and associated information as long-term memory, and then retrieve the information when we see these patterns again in our everyday experience. These patterns we can envisage as rows of data being populated in a never-ending spreadsheet. In the left-hand columns are the patterns, the bits of information that we notice across similar situations. And in the right-hand columns are other various bits of information - outcomes, expectancies, reasonable goals, and expected actions, things that we have learned to associate with those patterns. The next time we detect one of these patterns (or something similar), our brain finds it in the spreadsheet and delivers the corresponding outcome information to us.

Current research suggests that a brain is a predictive machine constantly comparing new experiences and against previously stored earlier experiences and, as a result, can predict what will happen next. If you have enough experience in a particular field, the mind's intuitions or information are more reliable. Gut feelings or intuitions, therefore, improve with experience, especially breadth and depth. Being experienced in your field allows you to rely on your gut feelings more. If you have years of experience under your belt or you've performed extensive research to deal with a problem, the solution will automatically materialize before you. You don't have to question how you came to a particular conclusion; you just know. You have enough facts, and you know what is right, so don't overthink it: trust your gut.

Experience improves your gut feelings

To use and trust your gut feelings, you need practice. Our gut feelings are only as good as the patterns we draw them from. So, you need to have had sufficient experience noticing and changing patterns in order to have built up a spreadsheet that is accurate and extensive. A poker player with years of experience and an amount of trial and error will have built up patterns as to what a winning hand looks like. When they peek at their cards and are struck by a feeling of joy, they would be wise to take that intuition seriously.

But while the quantity of practice is important for establishing patterns and therefore reliable intuitions, their quality is just as important. The best form of practice, the one that most reliably leads to accurate intuitions, is known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice isn't just repetition, it involves constant refinement based on feedback. It means noticing your gut feelings, thinking about them and the situation that has prompted them.

Truly inspired decisions, however, seem to require an even more sophisticated mechanism: cross-indexing, the ability to see similar patterns in unconnected fields is what elevates a person's intuitive skills from good to brilliant. Obviously, the power of cross-indexing increases with the amount of material that can be cross-indexed. In general management, people with varied and diverse backgrounds are going to probably be more valuable and will learn faster because they'll recognize more patterns.

This means we're likely to have reliable gut feelings in certain situations and unreliable ones in others. Think of your gut feelings as a compass and the world as a vast land dotted with areas of high magnetic resonance. The compass is invaluable in certain areas and, corrupted by the magnetic field, misleading in others. One of the most important tasks of professionals is to draw a map for ourselves, so we know when to trust the compass and when to put it away.

Benefits of trusting your gut

When making business decisions.

It's a way for you to make fast and effective decisions in unfamiliar, changing, and complex situations.

You can align your decisions with your sense of purpose and core values.

Intuitions help you retain energy otherwise spent trying to make decisions consciously.

You make choices that utilize higher intelligence and deeper wisdom.

You become more comfortable with trusting yourself intrinsically.

Executives routinely rely on their intuitions to solve complex problems when logical methods won't do. In fact, the consensus is that the higher up on the corporate ladder you climb, the more you will need well-honed business instincts.

When you distrust someone.

If you're looking for cues that someone is untruthful, you'll rarely find them in their conscious actions and their words. You can get cues from the vibes they're giving off and their body language – the latter of which can't be consciously picked up but will be by those deeper animal parts of your brain that evolved to quickly judge character under duress.

Although lying – or bending the truth – seems to come naturally to some people, it's actually pretty difficult for most of us. The body often betrays the words it speaks by giving off micro-expressions revealing the underlying truth. When we spot these subtle cues, we don't always immediately know we've spotted them, but our gut does.  

Logic and systematic thinking aren't enough to tell you that the person is telling the truth. If you have a gut feeling that a person is deceptive or lying, there is a good chance that you are right.

When something feels right.

Intuition isn't just useful for dealing with problems. It's highly useful for driving creativity and bringing a bit of magic to otherwise prosaic business procedures.

You might interview a candidate who doesn't quite fit the bill for what you were looking for but just feels like a great fit for the team. Or you could be sizing up a purchase – new software or office space, for example – that might have a few flaws on paper but just feels right.

More intangible things like brand design or marketing copy can be a mix of science and art; you'll often need to start work guided by data and then use creative imagination to come up with ideas that really sparkle. In cases like these, the gut can be the best guide to what works and what doesn't.

Again, be ready to back yourself up with explanations if you're doing things that leave a paper trail or influence someone else.

Why should you trust your gut?

In the age of analytical and rational thinking, intuition or gut feelings have fallen out of favour, but your emotional responses towards certain things are not something to be ignored. 

It's difficult to imagine the owners or CEOs of prominent companies making important decisions purely based on their intuition. Big decisions usually must be made deliberately, carefully, and rationally. However, your emotions are not useless responses that must either be corrected by logic or ignored altogether. Your emotions are evaluations of what you've been thinking or experiencing. They're a crucial part of your information processing system.

But when relying only on a rational mind and logical data in decision making, you can be unintentionally blinkering yourself. Sometimes, you are so data-driven that you can't see the forest for the trees and fail to exercise wisdom and insight where it's really needed. If you're confused over which option to choose and cannot decide, the only way you can move forward is often to just trust your gut.

Problem-solving is a creative skill that we often get wrong. The issue is that as children, we were taught how to solve problems, to systematically break something down into bits or chunks, analyse them, look for things, patterns, themes, find options, think of solutions, evaluate, and select one.

Yet, when you have worked in a developing country as I have where schooling is mostly absent or basic at best, people are not taught a way to solve problems, yet they do it every day and more effectively than we do. Over the years, I have dealt with many problems. I have noticed that despite living in a first world country, we have been taught to make problems worse by the act of trying to fix them the way we have been taught.

Our brains do it to us. When our brains hear the word ‘problem,’ they automatically switch into problem-solving mode. This mode begins by reminding us that problems are largely negative or are something to be avoided, problems are bad. Our brain goes on to tell us that problems can have professional and personal repercussions. This is the frame of mind in which our problem-solving process begins, a negative state that kicks in different cognitive processes to a positive one. Hardly a good state of mind to start with.

Classic problem solving creates confusion and a lot of background noise generated by the commencing negative state and too many options, potential solutions, and often overriding thoughts about how to protect ourselves from adverse effects. To help matters along, we then produce high levels of anxiety and stress hormones that weaken the whole process. Now we are in a bad state, yet we have what could be a major problem to solve and possibly – rapidly.

The solution to nearly every problem is the solution that subconsciously comes first to mind. Its correct 90% of the time, because there is a very high probability that you already know the answer, or you instinctively know it. Your brain is good at remembering trivia and things that you have read, but otherwise forgotten about.

What is Shared Leadership?

Shared leadership is when the manager shares their decision-making rights with all team members by promoting the interests of the team members and by practising social equality. Sharing leadership calls for a great deal of personal initiative from individual team members and is a vital quality of high-performance leadership. Shared leadership invigorates the team members to deliver exceptional outcomes in the workplace and achieve synergies in their results by working collaboratively with all team members.

During the meeting the manager remains as silent as possible, allowing the team members to jointly make decisions and agree on actions thereby sharing the team leadership. Another aspect of shared leadership is when the team leadership role is taken up by various team members, according to need at the time. An example of this is the leadership of a major or strategic activity where one team member is a subject matter expert and will lead the team (including the manager) much as a project manager would.

Shared leadership is mostly practiced in team meetings. It is when decision-making rights are shared with all team members by practicing social equality. Sharing leadership calls for a great deal of personal initiative from individual team members and it invigorates the team to deliver exceptional outcomes and achieve synergies in their results by working collaboratively.

As a result of this specific thinking style there are some interesting changes in team leadership. Even though there might be a titular leader, everyone on the team starts to take responsibility for ‘leading the team’. In this sense, the leadership is concerned with ensuring that everyone wants to provide honest, open, critical and performance focused feedback that is designed on moving the performance of the team forward. However junior or senior, however involved in the performance, the mutual accountability characteristic really does ensure that everyone is sharing knowledge, ideas, experiences, and perspectives with a view to making the team a better performing whole.

Best Practices

Do not wait for all team members to arrive before starting the meeting, always start exactly on time.

Do not allow war stories or discussions that don’t add value.

Ban the use of laptops, they are distracting and severely limit the amount of information that the laptop user takes in. Multiple studies have proven that manual notetaking is far more effective in terms of remembering and analysing new information compared to the laptop user due to different cognitive processes being used between the two.

For a short, sharp meeting, consider standing rather than sitting. Psychologically this makes team members more focussed and more spartan with their involvement and saves considerable time. This approach works equally well for face to face and virtual meetings.

MANAGEMENT STYLES

What are Traditional Management Styles?

(1880’s to 1970’s)

Commanding style.

A commanding manager makes all the decisions and gives orders to his or her team. Tight control and follow-up combined with high clarity in rules, roles, and expectations are key elements of commanding leadership. This style can be efficient in low-skilled teams and when decisions must be made very quickly. This style can lead to micromanagement, which is detrimental to employee engagement, especially in highly skilled teams in complex environments. The commanding style is also known as coercive or directive leadership. This style is like autocratic leadership but with a foundational difference: it is meant to be applied rarely and in a controlled fashion, whereas autocratic leadership is more of a permanent state and behaviour.

Advantages of the Commanding Leadership Style:

Increased clarity on roles, expectations, and rules, beneficial for low skill teams.

Confidence and decisiveness, especially useful in times of crisis.

Disadvantages of the Commanding Management Style:

High dependency on the leader, who also need to know how to perform all jobs and tasks in detail.

Morale, motivation, and engagement are low, and work climates can become toxic.

Creativity and participation are minimal.

Autocratic style.

Autocratic is when the leader holds all the decision power and rarely consults others. Autocratic is unpopular, has many disadvantages, and leads to low engagement and sometimes to a toxic environment. Autocratic is useful in a crisis when control and fast decisions are crucial.

Advantages of the Autocratic Style:

High clarity on structure, roles, and expectations.

Quick decision making and improved crisis handling.

Can lead to increased productivity in low-skilled environments, at least temporarily.

Disadvantages of the Autocratic Style:

There is a lack of empowerment in the team, which leads to low engagement and accountability.

Too strong dependency on the leader; after all, if only the leader can make decisions, not much happens without the leader’s involvement.

Intimidation, punishment, or threats are common ways of ensuring obedience. This is, of course, not sustainable and can lead to a toxic work climate.

Transactional style.

Transactional is built on a clear structure of reward and punishment for different levels of performance. It is focused on results, efficiency, and performance rather than people and relationships. Transactional is often seen as the opposite of Transformational.

Advantages of the Transactional Style:

There is a clear connection between performance and rewards.

It can be very productive, especially when it comes to short-term results.

Clear order, structure, and rules, enabling repetition and swift onboarding of new team members.

Disadvantages of the Transactional Style:

The sole focus on performance can be demotivating and disengaging.

Rewards have a limited impact on people’s performance; at some point, other factors start to matter more.

The strict structure hampers creativity and innovation.

What are Contemporary Management Styles?

(1970’s to date)

Servant style.

Servant focuses on improving people, society, and organizations. In Servant, the leader serves others, which leads to strong ethics, and engaged, motivated employees. However, a Servant manager with too much focus on serving others can lose track of organizational goals and purpose. Servant was first defined in 1970 by Robert K. Greenleaf in an essay where he outlined that there were two types of leaders: Servant-First and Leader-First. The first type focuses on the success of others, and the second type cares more about themselves and their personal success. Servant stands out and is difficult to compare with the other styles.

Advantages of the Servant Style:

Participation and a common cause led to high engagement.

Strong ethical behaviour.

Disadvantages of the Servant Style:

It does not work for all companies and organizations since an overarching cause is at the core of servant leadership.

True servant leaders are challenging to find since they need to have a complete lack of ego.

Business and organizational goals might be lost in the struggle for the long-term cause.

Democratic style.

Democratic builds on empowering team members to participate in decision-making, with a strive toward consensus. The engaging climate welcomes everyone’s opinions, leading to robust solutions. However, the democratic manager still has the final say on any decisions. This style is sometimes slow but generally very effective. The Democratic style was introduced in the 1930s as one of the three leadership behaviours used in the Kurt Lewin experiments in 1938. The Lewin model assumes a leader has one of the three behaviours, and there is no push for leaders switching styles depending on circumstances. (Laissez-faire and autocratic leadership) were the other two in the Lewin model.) Democratic is also included in the modern framework based on Emotional Intelligence, also referred to as the Goleman leadership styles.

Advantages of the Democratic Style:

Creativity and innovation are encouraged.

Collaboration creates solid solutions for complex problems.

Employee engagement is high.

Team visions lead to high accountability.

Disadvantages of the Democratic Style:

Collaborative decision-making is time-consuming.

Productivity can temporarily decline when awaiting decisions.

It does not work well in low skilled, inexperienced teams.

Coaching style.

Coaching focuses on improving employees to become better individuals and professionals with the leader as a coach. A Coaching manager can sacrifice initial performance for learning opportunities. Coaching is very effective in the long term but can be difficult and time-consuming.

Advantages of the Coaching Style:

It leads to high engagement and low turnover within the team.

It develops people to perform more and better in the future.

Coaching builds empowerment and confidence in people.

Disadvantages of the Coaching Style:

Coaching is difficult and time-consuming.

Coaching requires commitment from both parties.

What is the High-Performance Management Style?

High-Performance Management has been around since the 1980s, it is simply a step up from Traditional management that has changed with the incorporation of some modern management practices. In other words, the Traditional management styles - Commanding, Autocratic and Transactional have morphed into High-Performance Management styles, like Servant, Democratic and Coaching. This change has largely been due to the influence of Human Resources Management and the adoption of team management behaviours such as motivation, persuasion, and job support. The scope of High-Performance Management has also been extended because of globalisation.

High-Performance Management styles differ

They provide leadership.

They are people orientated, placing people’s needs first.

They are supportive and forgiving.

They motivate and have a positive attitude.

They have an open-door policy.

They are easy to talk with.

They provide more challenging work.

High-Performance Management Behaviours

Organisational awareness.

Understands and interprets the purpose of the business.

Knows who the customers and stakeholders are.

Is a subject matter expert.

Sets individual performance goals.

Assesses performance.

Delegates effectively.

Manages one or more teams.

Knows which team members are needed and those that are not.

Brings team members together to solve problems.

Runs meetings.

Manages, Organizes and Plans.

Thinks tactically and strategically.

Can effectively manage time and prioritise tasks.

Is a problem solver.

Uses various work management tools like Email, Scheduler and Project Management.

Understands budgeting, basic accounting, and financial management.

Is a good decision-maker.

Establishes work procedures and processes.

Establishes guidelines.

Knows about managing upwards, downwards, and sideways.

What is the Transformational Management Style?

Managers motivate staff to do more than they originally intended, and more than they thought possible.

Set more challenging expectations.

Typically achieve higher performance.

Inspire their staff with challenge and persuasion.

Are intellectually stimulating, expanding staff’s use of their abilities.

Are individually considerate, supporting staff, mentoring, and coaching.

Are admired, respected, and trusted.

Encourage creativity.

Create new learning opportunities with a supportive climate.

      Recognise individual differences in terms of needs and desires.

      Accept individual differences (e.g., some staff receive more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure).

      Delegate tasks as a means of developing staff.

Management qualities

Are action-oriented, are the allocation and control of resources (human, material and financial) to achieve objectives.

Exist to plan, organise, and coordinate.

Execute specific areas within their responsibilities and accountabilities.

Achieve business goals.

Formulate and enforce policies to achieve business goals.

Set individual performance goals.

Focus on the short term.

People Leadership qualities

The leader is motivated by improving the well-being of people.

The leadership style is marked by transparency, telling employees about organisational changes. (In an employee survey, management transparency was the number one factor contributing to employee job satisfaction.)

Shares information with employees, empowers everyone and increases collaboration. In that same survey, teams and collaboration were placed as the top attributes that employees felt about their peers.

Facilitates open information, ensuring that ideas flow more freely across all levels of an organisation.

Values sharing and service over the old values of exclusion, control, and self-interest. (In another survey it was found that employee trust greatly impacts engagement, workplace happiness, work quality, and employee retention.)

More People Leadership qualities

Managers motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often, even more than they thought possible. They set more challenging expectations.

Staff seek to identify with and emulate their manager.

The manager inspires team members with challenge and persuasion, providing meaning and understanding. The leader is intellectually stimulating, expanding staff members use of their abilities. The leader is individually considerate, supporting staff, mentoring, and coaching.

Admired, respected, and trusted and have high standards of ethical and moral conduct.

Managers who stimulate their staff’s efforts to be innovative and creative by questioning assumptions, reframing problems, and approaching old situations in new ways. Creativity is encouraged.

There is no public criticism of individual staff members mistakes.

They pay special attention to everyone’s needs for achievement.

Manager’s behaviour demonstrates acceptance of individual differences (e.g., some employees receive more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure.)

Managers who delegate tasks as a means of developing their staff. Delegated tasks are monitored to see if the staff need additional direction or support and to assess progress; ideally, staff members do not feel they are being checked upon.

      Managers who create clearly communicated expectations that staff members want to meet and demonstrates a commitment to goals and the shared vision or common goal.

      Managers who solicit new ideas and creative problem solutions from staff members, who are included in the process of addressing problems and finding solutions. Staff members are encouraged to try new approaches, and their ideas are not criticised because they differ from the leaders’ ideas.

      Managers who develop staff members to successively higher levels of potential. New learning opportunities are created, along with a supportive climate.

      Managers who practise ‘management by walking around’ their workplaces. Interactions with staff members are personalised (e.g., the manager remembers previous conversations, is aware of individual concerns, and sees the individual as a whole person rather than as just an employee). The individually considerate leader listens effectively.

      They build self-organising, great teams.

Your Management Style is contagious

The central finding of EI (Emotional Intelligence) research is that emotions are contagious, attitude and energy ‘infect’ a workplace for better or worse. Accordingly, your team members will emulate your management style and, staff will be influenced by it. I was often described as having ‘energy’ that infected everyone around me, it was only because even in the face of adversity, my management style made me remain positive and confident and as a result so did my team members.

Team members will copy the pace you set, the sense of urgency you create, your work habits and arrival and departure times. They will copy your behaviours, your ways of thinking, the way you delegate, how you deliver on commitments and the trust you give.

Example of a great Management Style

“I am an enthusiastic manager who is open and honest, fair and reasonable, someone who mentors, motivates and develops people to become professional in their chosen field.”

This could be explained to team members and colleagues as.

An enthusiastic manager - I am optimistic, inspire teamwork and organise, plan, delegate and set goals.

Open - I am approachable, always available, and receptive to new ideas and ways of thinking.

Honest - I am truthful, direct and believe it’s not what I say but rather how I say it.

Fair and reasonable - I consider both sides of a debate or argument and aim to make a decision that is best suited to the majority view or organisational aspirations.

Mentors motivate and develop - I mentor people to become professional, I am supportive, I like to motivate people and develop their talents.

What is High-Performance Leadership?

High-performance leadership is a newer, progressive management style that is a step up from Contemporary management. Under this style, leadership and management are similarly defined as transposable concepts that are not just integral; they are the same and inseparable. Together, leading (visionary) and managing (activity-orientation) form a high-performance framework necessary for leading and building high-performance teams.

High-performance leadership is all about creating a safe workplace to have conversations and freely voice ideas. It is a process that changes and transforms individuals. In other words, it is the ability to get people to want to change, improve, and be led. It involves assessing team members motives and strengths, satisfying their needs, and valuing them. It places team members; first, it creates high levels of mutual trust, accountability, and collaboration. Open communication is a crucial feature, as is the concept of shared leadership. Creativity is encouraged with no room for public criticism of individual team members' mistakes. High-performance managers pay special attention to everyone's needs for achievement and growth, and their behaviour demonstrates acceptance of individual differences.

High-performance leadership supports agile environments, especially where failure carries a higher risk. You want the development of a product to be error-free, but you don't want that to hold back the progress and growth of future improvements. High-Performance management maintains a consistent development process, while high-performance leadership facilitates creativity and innovation, leaving people free to come up with new ideas.

High-performance leadership is where a manager works with their team to identify change, create a direction to guide the change through a shared vision. High-performance leadership behaviours influence team members and inspire them to perform beyond their perceived capabilities and to achieve unexpected or remarkable results. It gives team members autonomy over specific jobs, as well as the authority to make decisions. This induces a positive change in team members attitudes and the organisation, transforming team member expectations, aspirations, perceptions, and values are into something better.

High-performance leaders are focused on their people; they are a role model who set high targets and expectations. Team members look to this style for strong values, courage, and a sense of ethics. To succeed with this style, a manager needs to be emotionally mature - not going off the handle, being erratic or inconsistent.

Three types of organisations usually need a high-performance leader. The first is an organisation that is stuck in the past and needs modernisation before it becomes outdated. The second type is an organisation that needs restructuring or improvement to produce good results, such as a company turnaround. The third type is technology-based organisations, where rapid business and technology change is the norm. Essentially, a high-performance leader is often needed in organisations where radical or rapid change is constant or necessary.

What are High-Performance Leadership Behaviours?

Goals.

The manager uses high-performance leadership as a vehicle to achieve a clear set of personal and professional goals against which measures are assigned to act as evidence of achievement of the goals. 

Introduction of psychological safety.

The high-performance leader creates a workplace where team members feel a sense of inclusion, which creates conditions for higher team performance by enabling individuals to take moderate risks, speak their minds without fear of judgment or reprisal, and therefore, effectively collaborate and encourage creativity.

Meetings.

The high-performance leader promotes active listening and shared leadership. They make a point of speaking last, encouraging team members to discuss and resolve issues and make decisions as a team.

Team engagement.

Team member engagement is established via weekly check-ins for review of operational performance and quarterly mentoring sessions for professional development. The high-performance leader recognises that team members want purpose and meaning from their work. They want to be known for what they're good at and what makes them unique. This is what drives team member engagement; they want relationships with a manager who can coach them.

Interpersonal skills.

High-performance managers are aware of the need to understand and practice their interpersonal skills. Building trust, developing respect, using emotional intelligence, body language, persuasion and charisma all help establish healthy relationships, which are critical to their success.

Leadership style.

The high-performance leader Is fair and reasonable, open, and honest, has charisma, uses emotional intelligence and is s a good influencer. They are collaborative, get team members to do more than they originally intended by delegating work based on team member strengths. They create a culture of clear accountability with no public criticism of individual team member mistakes. Finally, they build self-organising, high-performance teams.

The effects this management style has on team members are far more significant than any previous management style which is why this style is capable of building high-performance teams.

Team members feel more empowered.

High-performance managers encourage autonomy and empowerment in all team members making team members feel strongly that their work is esteemed and self-congruent. Team members are usually self-motivated, intellectually stimulated and constantly challenged to be open-minded. Various studies have demonstrated relationships between team member autonomy and empowerment and job satisfaction, decreased anger and frustration, and a sense of organisational attachment.

Team members are self-motivated.

Team members have a set of personal and professional drivers that internally motivate them against non-self-motivated team members who do not possess these same drivers and therefore require external motivation. Self-motivation means that team members do more than they originally intended and often, even more than they thought possible.

Team members are encouraged, inspired, and motivated.

High-performance managers encourage their team members to innovate and create change that will help grow and shape the organisation's future success. This is accomplished by setting an example at the top through a strong sense of corporate culture, team member ownership and independence in the workplace. They do this without micromanaging - they trust trained team members to assume authority over their decisions in their jobs. Team members are given more room to be creative, look to the future and find new solutions to old problems. Team members on the leadership track will also be prepared to become high-performance managers and leaders themselves through mentorship and training.

Imbue leadership qualities.

High-performance leadership enhances commitment, involvement, loyalty, and performance of team members who exert extra effort to show their support; they emulate their manager to emotionally identify with the manager and maintain obedience without losing any sense of self-esteem. High-performance managers are strong in adapting to different situations, sharing a collective consciousness, self-manage, and being inspirational while leading a group of highly motivated team members.

More challenging expectations.

High-performance managers set challenging expectations and typically achieve higher performance outcomes as a result. They manage team members as valuable individuals, identifying and developing their talents. They are supportive, encouraging, and motivational. The high-performance leadership style also positively influences the behaviours of Traditional and Contemporary managers to be more open, collaborative, and far more considerate towards the needs and development of their team members. 

Delegate for development.

High-performance managers delegate tasks as a means of developing team members. Delegated tasks are monitored to see if the team members need additional direction or support and to assess progress. High-performance managers expect higher performance outcomes from their team members by giving them stretched goals and setting more challenging expectations outside of a team members normal comfort zone. They create a culture of clear accountability.

Managing team members according to their strengths.

Team members are both managed and deployed according to their strengths. Team members are also paired in the same way. Strength-based assignments substantially increase job satisfaction, professional growth, and positive outcomes.

What is your current Management Style?

Imagine that your team members are completing the survey below – how do you think you would rate? “Each statement is based on one of the ten behaviours of successful managers at Google. Your answers to these questions are a reflection or mirror of your current management style.

I would recommend my manager to others.

My manager assigns stretch opportunities to help me develop in my career.

My manager communicates clear goals for our team.

My manager gives me actionable feedback on a regular basis.

My manager provides the autonomy I need to do my job (i.e., does not "micro-manage" by getting involved in detail that should be handled at other levels).

My manager consistently shows consideration for me as a person.

My manager keeps the team focused on priorities, even when it’s difficult (e.g., declining or deprioritizing other projects).

My manager regularly shares relevant information from their manager and senior leadership.

My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about my career development in the past six months.

My manager has the technical expertise (e.g., technical judgment in Tech, selling in Sales, accounting in Finance) required to effectively manage me.

The actions of my manager show they value the perspective I bring to the team, even if it is different from their own.

My manager makes tough decisions effectively (e.g., decisions involving multiple teams, competing priorities).

My manager effectively collaborates across boundaries (e.g., team, organizational). Source: Google Project Oxygen.

Your current management style dictates things like

How successful you are and how much you achieve.

Your stress levels.

If you are admired and respected.

If your team members want to be like you.

How you respond in a crisis.

How you relate to your team members.

Always being on time.

Never being late for meetings.

Arriving early for work.

Staying back late.

      How you give presentations.

      How you run a meeting.

      Your approach to mentoring and counselling.

      How your email is managed.

      If you are aggressive or assertive.

      Being controlling.

      Being an authoritarian.

      Being organised.

By default, your current management style is simply a copy of your first or a previous manager, which you typically copy for better or for worse. Most often it is the latter, as the style will almost certainly be a Traditional style, meaning it has more negative consequences than positive.

How to change your Management Style

It’s important to understand how your current management style influences the way you think, feel, speak, and act. Your management style has a significant impact on the way you and your team operate, the right management style promotes team member engagement and makes your team members feel more comfortable approaching you with questions, suggestions, and ideas. The right management style substantially increases your management confidence and lowers your stress levels. When you have a management style that fits your personality, your objectives, your team, and your business, not only can you focus more on exercising your strengths and achieving your goals but doing so becomes far easier.

Your Current Management Style

Imagine that your team members are completing the survey below – how do you think you would rate? Your answers to these questions are a direct reflection of your current management style.

I would recommend my manager to others.

My manager assigns stretch opportunities to help me develop in my career.

My manager communicates clear goals for our team.

My manager gives me actionable feedback on a regular basis.

My manager provides the autonomy I need to do my job (i.e., does not "micro-manage" by getting involved in detail that should be handled at other levels).

My manager consistently shows consideration for me as a person.

My manager keeps the team focused on priorities, even when it’s difficult (e.g., declining, or deprioritizing other projects).

My manager regularly shares relevant information from their manager and senior leadership.

My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about my career development in the past six months.

      My manager has the technical expertise (e.g., technical judgment in Tech, selling in Sales, accounting in Finance) required to effectively manage me.

      The actions of my manager show they value the perspective I bring to the team, even if it is different from their own.

      My manager makes tough decisions effectively (e.g., decisions involving multiple teams, competing priorities).

      My manager effectively collaborates across boundaries (e.g., team, organizational).

Source: Google Oxygen Project.

Your Management Style dictates things like:

How successful you are and how much you achieve.

Your approach to others.

Your stress levels.

If you are admired and respected.

If your team members want to be like you.

How you respond in a crisis.

How you relate to your team members.

Always being on time.

Arriving early for work.

      Staying back late.

      How you give presentations.

      How you run a meeting.

      Being organised.

      Your approach to mentoring and counselling.

      How your email is managed.

      Being controlling, authoritarian.

By default, your current management style is a copy of your first or a previous manager which you typically copy for better or for worse. Most often it is the latter, as the style will almost certainly be traditional, meaning it has many negative consequences.

The High-Performance Management Style

A high-performance management style is a progressive style, it is a personalised statement of the work persona you want to project. High-performance managers develop teamwork, they know they need to spend time with their teams, talk to them, and understand them and what they care for individually. A high-performance management style motivates others to do more than they thought possible. Managers using this style set challenging expectations for their team members who are managed as individuals, identifying, and developing their strengths. High-performance managers are supportive, provide mentoring and are role models who are respected and trusted. Team members emulate this style, a style that aims to radiate positivity, charisma and an energy that infects team members. These are the key advantages of the high-performance management style:

It is excellent for rapidly changing business environments.

It promotes growth.

It builds and manages high-performance teams.

It suits a both a management and leadership position.

It significantly boosts self-confidence, team productivity and innovation.

Self-esteem, ability, skills, strengths, and innate intelligence all impact how your team works. You can have the best team in the world but if your management style is poor, it will reflect in your team’s performance. A high-performance management style needs to achieve what you want, empowering you and your team members and creating greater job satisfaction for all.

It is important to create a style that suits you and gets the best out of your team because after all, how you manage them can make or break your business. Your style influences how your team maintains itself and how it performs in reaching its goals. When creating a new management style, how others will perceive it and react to you is what is important.

List your Behaviours

Have a look again at the survey questions above and make a list of current management behaviours where you are falling down, that is things that are negative about your current style. Also identify good behaviours, your strengths, things you are just good at and list these as well.

To develop a high-performance management style, the secret is to minimize your current negative behaviours and substitute them with high-performance behaviours.

Next, look at the high-performance behaviours listed below, select those that are ‘most important’ to you, the ones you would like to adopt.

High-Performance Behaviours

Considerate towards the needs and development of team members.

Develop team members to successively higher levels of potential.

Practise 'management by walking around’.

Expect higher performance outcomes.

Establish open communication.

Being fair and reasonable, open, and honest.

Being respected, ethical and trusted.

Accepting individual differences.

Inspiring.

Actively listen.

Share information.

Manage conflict.

Promote innovation.

Have charisma.

Use emotional intelligence.

A good influencer and collaborative.

Empower team members and not micromanage.

Supportive, providing tools, training, and advice.

Have an open-door policy.

Create a new Style

Using the lists of behaviours, construct a string of keywords, then turn that string into a series of sentences that describe how you ‘want to manage’. Next merge the sentences into one paragraph that describes a new style. Keep reworking the paragraph until you arrive at something you feel comfortable with. The trick is to create a short paragraph or one or two sentences that you can easily memorise.

Example Style

“I am an enthusiastic CIO who is open and honest, fair, and reasonable, someone who mentors, motivates, empowers, and provides feedback. I develop my people to achieve more than they thought possible and to become professional in their chosen field.”

Practice, Practice, Practice

The secret to getting your new management style to take root and change the way you think, feel, speak and act is repetition and the timing of the repetition. As with learning anything new, repetition is the key as it psychologically changes your subconscious which in turn influences how your conscious mind works. It will take a few weeks for your new way of thinking, speaking, and acting to take root and take over, but it will happen, and you will change. Perseverance is required. Continually practising and reciting your new style to yourself will influence the way you lead. Here are the best times to practice reciting your new style:

In the shower.

On your way to and from work.

Before you answer an email.

Before you have a 1:1 conversation.

On your way to a meeting or waiting for one to start.

During meetings and conversations before speaking.

Before giving a presentation.

You can test if your new style is working by noticing people’s reactions to your conversations and the observations and comments they make. Look at people’s faces and eyes for a reaction and listen to their words in response to what you have said. If you are doing well, when a team member is asked to come and see you, they will run to your office - in a positive way.

Your management style is contagious, the central finding of EI research is that emotions are contagious, attitude and energy ‘infect’ a workplace for better or worse. Accordingly, your team members will emulate your style and they will in turn be influenced by it. I was often described as having ‘energy’ that radiated and infected everyone around me, it was only because even in the face of adversity, my management style made me remain positive and confident and as a result so did my team members making them feel supported.

Team members will copy the pace you set, the sense of urgency you create, even your work habits like arrival and departure times. They will copy your behaviours, your ways of thinking, the way you delegate, how you deliver on commitments and the trust you give.

Your management style directly affects your confidence, performance, productivity, and respect. It improves your team’s morale and retention. Engaged team members are motivated and supported making them more productive. Disengaged team members are more likely to be unsupported, causing frustration and disruption.

MEETINGS

How to hold a Meeting people want to attend

This is about how to run high-performance team meetings, their format, protocols, sharing leadership, and how to tell if the meetings are being effective.

Let’s face it, one of the things that takes up most of your time is meetings. High-performance teams hold meetings that team members want to attend because they are productive, and efficiently make use of the team members’ time. Every meeting is focused, timely, and necessary, and is used to solve problems, make decisions, disseminate information, and enhance team member skills. These things make for a much better meeting experience.

One of the most common complaints voiced by members of low-performing teams is that too much time is spent in meetings. The real issue is not the time but the content of meetings. High-performance meetings on the other hand address only those topics that need the team’s collective, cross-boundary expertise, such as corporate strategy, enterprise-resource allocation, or how to capture synergies across business units. They need to steer clear of anything that can be handled by individual businesses or functions, not only to use the team’s

time well but to also foster a sense of purpose.

Every meeting must be focused, timely, and necessary, and used to solve problems, make decisions, disseminate information, and enhance team member skills. These things make for a much better meeting experience. 

Meeting Content

Contributions need to be focussed on specific content, for example this content suits most situations:

Corporate strategy.

Enterprise-resource allocation.

Business unit synergies.

Customer satisfaction pains and gains.

Staff satisfaction levels.

Service Delivery.

Strategic initiatives such as major projects.

Resolution of disagreements.

Meeting Format

Each team member talks in turn to their items but only telling other team members things they ‘need to know’.

Questions are asked.

Actions are agreed and are noted by the team member who has taken the action.

The next team member now talks until everyone has had a turn.

The last person to talk is the manager, who delegates tasks they have noted down.

-         Unless a task must be given to a specific team member, the manager asks for volunteers to take on a task. (High-performance team members do not just action or take on tasks that relate to their discipline or field of expertise, they take on any task. Doing this extends management abilities, subject matter knowledge and helps to understand the management accountabilities of their peers. It also goes a long way towards preparing for more generalised management roles and future leadership positions.)

-         Team members understand that the manager's tasks have a high priority and are to be actioned asap.

Meeting Protocols

High-performance meetings are largely unstructured, meaning that they do not use an Agenda or Minutes. (A high-performance team does not need to minute or track an individual’s actions as accepting an action is the same as making a commitment; therefore, there is no need for follow up.) Contributions need to be focussed on specific content, for example, this content suits most situations: 

Encourage quiet or introverted team members to give an opinion.

Ensure team members do not speak over or interrupt others.

Expect that team members will be truthful.

Encourage views on the team’s effectiveness.

Encourage team members to critique each other’s ideas and comments, rather than criticise the individual. (This is the approach of never criticising a team member but rather critiquing an idea, comment, process, or method they are using or are proposing. This is best done during meetings where ideas are being flown around by team members by having them comment on the relevance and likely success or failure of an idea.)

      When a negative event (problem, error, or failure) occurs, blame is never assigned to an individual, rather an autopsy of the event is discussed/carried out to work out how it happened and more importantly, how to avoid it happening again. The same applies to successes, there should be a discussion/autopsy about the actions that led to the success along with follow-up steps on how to repeat those actions in the future. e.g., By updating a process document.

Shared Leadership

Shared leadership is when the manager shares their decision-making rights with all team members by promoting the interests of the team members and by practising social equality. Sharing leadership calls for a great deal of personal initiative from individual team members and is a vital quality of high-performance leadership. Shared leadership invigorates the team members to deliver exceptional outcomes in the workplace and achieve synergies in their results by working collaboratively with all team members.

During the meeting the manager remains as silent as possible, allowing the team members to jointly make decisions and agree on actions thereby sharing the team leadership. Another aspect of shared leadership is when the team leadership role is taken up by various team members, according to need at the time. An example of this is the leadership of a major or strategic activity where one team member is a subject matter expert and will lead the team (including the manager) much as a project manager would.

Shared leadership is mostly practiced in team meetings. It is when decision-making rights are shared with all team members by practicing social equality. Sharing leadership calls for a great deal of personal initiative from individual team members and it invigorates the team to deliver exceptional outcomes and achieve synergies in their results by working collaboratively.

As a result of this specific thinking style there are some interesting changes in team leadership. Even though there might be a titular leader, everyone on the team starts to take responsibility for ‘leading the team’. In this sense, the leadership is concerned with ensuring that everyone wants to provide honest, open, critical and performance focused feedback that is designed on moving the performance of the team forward. However junior or senior, however involved in the performance, the mutual accountability characteristic really does ensure that everyone is sharing knowledge, ideas, experiences, and perspectives with a view to making the team a better performing whole.

Best Practices

Do not wait for all team members to arrive before starting the meeting, always start exactly on time.

Do not allow war stories or discussions that don’t add value.

Ban the use of laptops, they are distracting and severely limit the amount of information that the laptop user takes in. Multiple studies have proven that manual notetaking is far more effective in terms of remembering and analysing new information compared to the laptop user due to different cognitive processes being used between the two.

      For a short, sharp meeting, consider standing rather than sitting. Psychologically this makes team members more focussed and more spartan with their involvement and saves considerable time. This approach works equally well for face to face and virtual meetings.

How to tell if the Meetings are Working

If the meetings are working well, and a collective consciousness is developing, then team members will exhibit several defining characteristics.

There is a sense of real energy being released during the meeting.

Everyone on the team talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short and sweet.

Team members face one another, and their conversations and gestures are energetic.

Team members connect directly with one another, not just with the manager.

Team members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team.

Team members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back.

Team Meetings Exercise

Agree how often team meetings will be held.

Discuss and agree the meetings content.

Confirm or modify the meetings format.

TEAMS

What are Traditional Teams?

The concept of teams first emerged in the late 1920s and early 1930s with the Hawthorne Studies. These involved a series of research experiments designed to examine workers under various conditions. The outcome of these studies was that researchers found the most significant factor was a sense of group identity, a feeling of social support and cohesion that came with increased worker interaction. Elton Mayo in 1933, one of the researchers, pointed out critical conditions which were needed for developing an effective work team.

The manager had a personal interest in each person’s achievements.

He took pride in the record of the group.

He helped the group work together to set its own conditions of work.

He faithfully posted feedback on performance.

The group took pride in its own achievement and had the satisfaction of outsiders showing interest in what they did.

The group did not feel they were being pressured to change.

Before changes were made, the group was consulted.

The group developed a sense of confidence and candour.

These outcomes prompted organizations to consider the idea of grouping their employees into working teams. Later, the realization came about that teams consist of interdependent members working on a shared goal, that a team is distinct from a workgroup which consists of members whose work is not interdependent.

The basics of team effectiveness were later identified by J. Richard Hackman, a pioneer in the field of organizational behaviour who began studying teams in the 1970s. In his 40 years of research, he uncovered a ground-breaking insight: “What matters most to collaboration is not the personalities, attitudes, or behavioural styles of team members. Instead, what teams need to thrive are certain “enabling conditions - a compelling team vision, a strong structure, and a supportive context, these continue to be particularly critical to team success today.”

Traditional management teams consist of team members from the same business unit, with those working in other units working for other teams. These teams work under a strict hierarchy and lines of authority to control their operation and are built on highly efficient (and difficult-to-change) processes designed for scalable production. This is business as mass production where objectives are broken down into tasks, each assigned to a task specialist who has authority and autonomy within their field.

Traditional management teams organisational structures have not changed for over 100 years. They have and maintain severe limitations, tending to be silo-based, hierarchical, facilitating only existing skill sets, are almost exclusively project-driven, are sometimes chaotic and use static or non-self-correcting processes. They do not employ modern management behaviours, methods, or techniques, and they largely just reinvent as against genuinely innovate. Today most Traditional teams are manager-led. Within such a team, the manager is the team leader responsible for defining the team goals, methods, and functions. The remaining team members are responsible for carrying out their assigned work under the monitoring of the manager. While Traditional teams have served organizations well in the past, they are not suited to the rapidly changing and technology-based business environments of today. Their internal focus and hierarchical nature make them resistant to change, they cannot manage things like customer-centricity, cross-functional collaboration, diversity of thinking, rapid scaling, and agile ways of working.

What are Contemporary Teams?

Today’s organizations are different from those of the past, they are more diverse, technology based and dynamic. Despite this they remain essentially Traditionally rooted, and their team structures remain the same, hierarchical, rigid, and manager led.

Some contemporary organizations are changing the team landscape by creating cross-silo and cross-organization teams, breaking down fixed organizational structures by breaking up functional domains and separating teams from Traditional management structures. This allows the pulling together of diverse skill sets and deploying team members according to their strengths. Specialist teams are being created to address innovation demands and to better make use of scarce technical resources. It is also now more common for organizations to have ‘resource pools’ who work on an endless series of projects. A 2019 ADP Research Institute study of 1,000 workers from 19 countries found that of employees who worked on more than one team, “three-quarters said their additional teams didn’t show up in the directory,” suggesting that a significant volume of work and worker relationships aren’t visible on organization charts.

Contemporary team types

Management teams.

Management teams provide structure and direction and are responsible for the overall performance of an organization. The management team's authority is based on the hierarchal ranking of its members. At the top of the organizational tree is the executive management team that establishes the organizational vision and strategic direction.

Work teams.

Work teams are work units that produce goods or services. Team members are stable, normally full time and have well-defined job descriptions. Work teams are found across all manufacturing and service sectors and are traditionally managed by supervisors who make the decisions about what is done, how it is done and who does it.

Project teams.

Project teams are time-limited or time-fixed. They produce a specific deliverable such as a new product or service or information system. Project-team tasks are typically non repetitive requiring the application of knowledge, skills, and expertise. As a result, membership is usually diverse, drawing from different disciplines and functional units.

Advisory teams.

Advisory teams evaluate and make suggestions about a final product or service, a Quality Assurance team is an example where suggestions are made about how to improve quality.

Command teams.

The function of a command team is to distribute instructions, to serve as a middleman. An example is messengers on a construction site, conveying instructions from the project management team to the builders.

What is a High-Performance Team?

A high-performance team can be defined as a group of people with specific roles, skills, and complementary strengths, aligned with and committed to a team vision. The team practices open communication, high levels of collaboration, interpersonal skills, and a personalised high-performance leadership style. The team is innovative, produces superior results and is regarded as tight knit. These characteristics enable any team member to surmount any barriers in achieving the team's goals.

"First described in detail by the Tavistock Institute, UK, in the 1950s, high-performance teams gained widespread acceptance in the US by the 1980s, with adoption by organisations such as General Electric, Boeing, Hewlett Packard and others. In each of these cases, a significant change was created by shifting organisational culture, merging the organisation's business goals with the social needs of the individuals. Often in less than a year, high-performance teams achieved a quantum leap in business results in all vital success dimensions, including customer, employee, shareholder, and other value add dimensions.

High-performing teams can provide an undeniable business advantage. The benefits of a high-performing team have long been recognised, which is why 90 per cent of potential investors believe that the structure and makeup of a management team are perhaps the single most important nonfinancial factor when evaluating an IPO. Having a cohesive, high-performing team can set your business apart within your industry and ensure the success of your organization in the long run.

Over the past 20 years, organisations have been restructuring themselves to make better use of high-performance teams. More and more organisations are moving away from Traditional/Contemporary hierarchical work-based structures and toward flat, self-managing team-based approaches. These teams offer many new benefits, including increased business knowledge, team member empowerment, more effective work practices and far better use of team member talents, skills, and capabilities. They employ formal problem solving and decision making; they are more creative and innovative and use improved work practices. 

High-performance teams are an evolution of Traditional and Contemporary teams having a higher sense of who they are, why they exist and how they operate. There is a strong commitment towards the objectives or mutual purpose, which defines the existence of a team. In a high-performance team, each team member plays the role of a partner in achieving outstanding and measurable outcomes.

Due to its initial success, many organisations attempted to copy the high-performance team’s model. However, most of these attempts failed because there was a lack of understanding about the underlying dynamics that create them. With this failure, high-performance teams fell out of general favour by 1995, and the term high-performance began to be used in a promotional context rather than a performance-based one.

Recently, some private and government sector organisations have placed a new focus on high-performance teams, as further studies and understandings have identified the key processes and team dynamics necessary to create all-around high-performance teams.

Within the high-performance team, people are highly skilled and can interchange their roles. Also, leadership within the team is not vested in a single individual. Instead, the leadership role is taken up by various team members according to the need at that moment in time. High-performance teams have robust methods of resolving conflict efficiently so that conflict does not become a roadblock to achieving the team's goals. There is a sense of clear focus and intense energy within a high-performance team. Collectively, the team has its own consciousness, indicating shared norms and values within the team. The team feels a strong sense of accountability for achieving their goals. Team members display high levels of mutual trust towards each other." Source: Wikipedia.

High-performance teams comprise a group of highly talented and motivated individual professionals aiming to achieve a team vision. Ordinary teams do not leverage business resources or use their best talent, whereas high-performance teams do, assuring the highest levels of performance and productivity. Such teams drive business excellence, grow profits, and achieve business outcomes due to cohesiveness, single-mindedness, and a collective consciousness.

High-performance teams are critical in helping organizations thrive and survive in today's intensely competitive business landscape. But building them is an art and not a science. Firstly, a manager must be trained in High-Performance or Transformational Management, creating the conditions necessary to develop a high-performance team. Secondly, a full assessment of a team's capabilities, identifying its strengths, understanding its roles, and determining how to exploit its diversity is necessary. Thirdly, a team can then be trained on high-performance producing a team that collaborates well and complements each other with differing talents, skills, and attributes to create a holistic team solely focused on business strategy and objectives.

High-performance teams are driven by the need to be more competitive and by changes in business technology. Team members have complementary skills. In a high-performance team, the manager acts as the role model who aligns commitment with a team vision and individual performance goals. There are clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and behaviours and team members are fully empowered and held accountable.

What are Team Dysfunctions?

Traditional and contemporary teams suffer from up to 14 common dysfunctions.

They are unable to move projects across team lines quickly without sacrificing quality for speed.

They are unable to rapidly respond to changing business needs and technologies or the need to be more competitive.

Due to their inability to constructively harness conflict they are largely incapable of genuine innovation, and they do not practice advanced communication methods.

They are poor at creativity and their contribution to corporate growth is rarely defined and is therefore difficult to measure.

Team members do not use a democratic leadership style.

Team members do not use a formal decision-making process.

There exist poor communication lines with only low value information being exchanged. 

Diversity is not factored into the team composition.

There is a lack of mutual trust. 

      Conflict is not managed nor is it used as a source of innovation and new ideas.

      Team member roles and responsibilities are unclear, accountabilities may overlap or conflict.

      There is no team vision.

      Team member bonds are weak, and relationships are immature.

      The overall team culture is not open or transparent.

What are Lencioni Team Dysfunctions?

T. Patrick Lencioni (2002) added to the list of common dysfunctions stating that teams suffer from five dysfunctional factors. “This is inevitable because they are made up of fallible, imperfect human beings. From the basketball court to the executive suite, politics and confusion are more the rule than the exception. These are: an absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results.” Whilst these five factors may seem to be distinct issues, Lencioni argues that they are heavily interrelated.

Absence of trust.

In team settings, trust refers to team member confidence, positive team intentions and the willingness to be vulnerable amongst members. When an absence of trust is evident in a team, there are numerous consequences. These can include:

Limited constructive feedback.

Concealed mistakes and weaknesses.

Negative relationships and grudges being commonly held.

Fear of conflict.

The second factor of team dysfunction is a fear of conflict. Whilst an absence of conflict in team settings may sound seemingly ideological, conflict is necessary for producing healthy debate and critically evaluating ideas. Typically, teams that have an absence of trust are likely to also fear conflict as team members are less willing and confident to share different ideas or provide feedback.

Lack of commitment.

Another factor that undermines the effective functioning of teams is a lack of commitment. A lack of commitment is a common consequence of a lack of trust and conflict in team settings as team members have less passionately expressed their ideas. By feeling uncomfortable to present ideas that they are passionate about, team members are likely to be less committed to the course of action.

Avoidance of accountability.

When there is a lack of commitment towards a course of action, team members typically feel less accountable for the risk of failure. This leads to counterproductive behaviours that undermine the success of the team project.

Inattention to results.

The final factor of team dysfunction is an inattention to results. This factor refers to the tendency of members to care about something other than the shared goals of the team. This dysfunction thrives in organisational environments where team members are assessed individually rather than being assessed on their overall group performance. Source: Patrick Lencioni. © Copyright 2014 The Table Group, Inc.

What is the team Development Process?

Irrespective of the team type (Traditional, Contemporary or High-Performance) all teams follow a developmental process. The two best known and most widely recognized are the Tuckman team cycle and the Kubler-Ross change curve. Knowing how these developmental processes work helps to understand how teams form, their internal dynamics, and the role that the manager plays.

The Tuckman team cycle

The Tuckman team cycle is a view of change specific to new teams or new team members showing how new behaviours emerge. Bruce Tuckman first published his model of group dynamics in 1965 comprising the four stages: forming, storming, norming and performing.

Forming. The main difference between a random group of people and a team is the team’s team vision. When individuals are first brought together, they do not have a team vision. They may be anxious about why they have been brought into this team; will be hesitant about their new environment, unsure of what they have in common with other team members and confused as to the purpose of a project or program. Typically, the individuals will indulge in some superficial questioning of colleagues to look for more information, common ground, and possible allegiances. Forming is successfully transitioned with completion of the Team Vision training step.

Storming. Different individuals will behave in very different ways during the storming stage with outbreaks of conflict being frequent between individuals or small sub-groups within the team. The more assertive individuals will try to impose some order by defining their own rules, resulting in leadership being challenged while a ‘pecking order’ is established. Assuming a team vision has been identified, very different views will arise as to how that goal should be achieved. Storming is reached and is successfully transitioned with completion of the Team Vision, Psychological Safety and Team Member Engagement training steps.

Norming. As the issues and conflicts of the storming stage are resolved, the team members start to settle down and concentrate on tasks and problems rather than personalities. An acceptance of shared values and behaviours develops with open communication that promotes constructive review and suggestions for alternatives. Team members are starting to become a cohesive unit, genuinely working as a team with its capabilities being greater than the sum of its parts. The norming stage is reached and accomplished with completion of the Team Vision and Psychological Safety training steps.

Performing. By this stage, the team is working as a focused unit. There is a collaboration between team members to solve problems with a visible change in mentality. There is a shared responsibility for the team vision, and individuals are confident enough to innovate and provide insights into problems. Team members demonstrate flexibility, with job titles becoming transparent and delegation of authority working efficiently.

All teams move through the stages of forming, storming, norming and performing, as with other teams. However, with the right training, a team uses the storming and norming phase effectively to define who they are and what their overall goal is, and how to interact together and resolve conflicts. Therefore, when a team reaches the performing phase, they have highly effective behaviours that allow them to overachieve in comparison to regular teams.

During High-Performance Team Building, the team reaches and accomplishes the performing stage with the completion of the Team Vision, Psychological Safety, Open Commination, Mutual Accountability and Effective Work Practices training steps.

The Kubler-Ross change curve

The Kubler-Ross Change Curve has been adopted into the world of organisational change from an unlikely source. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was a Swiss psychiatrist who developed it in response to working with terminally ill patients.

The Kubler Ross change curve works as a rough map to position employees on a change curve. Plus, it provides some simple steps for managing change and helping a team to move forward. One useful tool for leading change is the change curve. It provides a framework for mapping the emotions people are likely to be experiencing during different stages of the change management process.

The stages of the Kubler-Ross curve. It is essential to understand that we do not always move along the stages step by step. People tend to move into stages in random order and may sometimes even return to a previous stage. Each stage can last for a different period, and someone can get stuck in a stage and not move on.

Shock. Surprise at the announcement of impending change. This can occur during the Team Discussion training step.

Denial. This stage is mostly short-lived. Team members may not be able to digest the fact that they are being asked to undergo a change. It can cause a reduction in productivity and a focus on the past. As manager, your role is to help employees understand why this is occurring and how it will be helpful. This stage requires communication with all questions answered. This can occur during and after the Team Discussion training step and can also show up in initial Team Member Engagement Weekly Check-Ins.

Anger. When reality sets in team members may begin to fear what lies ahead, turning into anger. This stage must be managed very carefully as some employees may tend to vent their anger. Open and honest communication and support should be the focus. Given time this will pass away and make way for acceptance. Expressions of anger usually turn up during Team Member Engagement Weekly Check-Ins. (Note, it is extremely rare for a team member to become angry at the prospect of becoming a high-performance team member.)

Bargaining. When team members and staff finally understand the change and realise how they must adapt, they may try to bargain their way out, so that little is compromised. People cannot be rushed into learning quickly or adapting to changes rapidly. Do not expect 100% productivity during this stage. Bargaining tends to turn up during the Team Vision training step and during initial Team Member Engagement Weekly Check-Ins.

Depression. This stage may not be a happy one for some team members. This stage results in low morale and enthusiasm. It is important to appreciate that this stage is not easy for everyone affected. Training has an important role to play here, the more that is provided, the better it enables everyone to move forward. This tends to turn up during the decision to move forward with a culture of Psychological Safety.

Acceptance. At this stage, people begin to accept change, accept the situation, and start moving forward. They accept and understand the need for the change. It’s at this stage that benefits of the hard work put in by them so far start to materialise. The team is showing improvements now, and productivity begins to improve. It’s now time to celebrate. This stage is reached and is successfully transitioned with the completion of the Team Vision, Open Commination, Mutual Accountability, Psychological Safety and Effective Work Practices training steps.

Dead car battery example

One of the best examples of the Kubler-Ross Change Curve is the Dead Car Battery example. The following example demonstrates the transition process from one stage to another. It’s a chilly winter morning, and it is dark outdoors. There is a thin layer of frost on the ground, but you are late for work and hence must rush out to the car parked outside. As you place the key in the ignition and turn the car on, you realise that the battery is dead.

What follows is a clear demonstration of a version of the Kubler-Ross stages.

Denial. Your first reaction is of absolute shock and denial. You cannot believe this is happening to you when you are already running late, and you, therefore, try to start the car again and again.

Anger. Now that you realise the car cannot be started, you begin to feel angry and very mad at the situation.

Bargaining. Even knowing it won’t help, you start asking the car to start, just for once. You promise it in your mind that you will keep it maintained and get the battery charged as soon as possible.

Depression. All the negative thoughts start rushing to your mind. You begin to feel depressed, sad, and hopeless. You fear your job will be taken away and see no way out of the situation.

Acceptance. Now you figure out what you should do next. You can catch a cab and decide to deal with the situation later.

Taking the change curve into consideration can significantly boost the chances of success of change because it addresses the critical thing that makes change happen people. If you can’t bring people along for the ride, the efforts for managing change will fail.

The Tuckman and Kubler-Ross change models are the dominant two, the one that I have observed most often in practice is the Kubler-Ross curve. Each time you introduce something new, the team will move through or jump between these stages until a new skill or behaviour becomes the norm. As the rate of change increases, so will the speed of moving through the stages until the curve becomes normalised.

What are Reasons for improving your team?

Lack of respect for me as a manager.

Being told that I don’t listen.

Low team morale and job satisfaction.

Lack of team direction.

Repetitive, non-challenging teamwork, boredom in the team.

Little opportunity for my team members professional growth.

The number of mistakes being made.

The level of team member turnover.

To uplift the skills, knowledge, and competencies of the team in preparation for:

      Downsizing.

      A corporate merger/acquisition.

      Outsourcing.

      Team mergers.

Developing Your Team

Teams are comprised of individuals who have different skills, knowledge, and abilities, and who are at various stages of their careers. When you allocate tasks to them, some will find them challenging, and they may need support. Others may be experienced and maybe looking for opportunities to stretch their skills. Either way, as a manager, it's your responsibility to grow and develop your team.

Your ability to effectively delegate and develop your team members will directly affect your success as a manager. People are also attracted to managers who challenge them and put them in situations where they can professionally learn and grow.

The best way of developing your people is to ensure that they receive professional team training on a range of team-related subjects. Also, providing regular motivation, support, feedback, and mentoring. Feedback is extremely important, be it negative or positive. It's often better to make 'observations' to people rather than criticisms.

TEAM BUILDING

How to Organize your Team

Why teams fail

Team organization has not changed much since the 1960s, with teams continuing to fail due to common dysfunctions – with the most common dysfunction being traditional team management which still dominates today's organisations. Research by Deloittes confirms that managers who move from a traditional hierarchical mindset to a transformational one, achieve substantially greater results including things like greater productivity, increased team member job satisfaction and less stress for everyone. How you as manager see and relate to your team is the single most significant determinant of how well team training works.

There are six other common team dysfunctions that cause teams to fail. The first is that team members do not fully understand each other. The second is a lack of open communication characterized by team members not understanding how to conduct a conversation or resolve conflict. The third is lack of a common team vision, a common goal to direct all of the teams’ activities. The fourth is a lack of team level planning, a team master plan. The fifth is no clearly defined roles and accountabilities, and the sixth is that teams fail when there is an absence of mutual accountability.

This training program addresses each of these dysfunctions.

Ordinary Teams

Ordinary teams are structured as a traditional team, that is hierarchical and grouped by skillsets. Some hierarchy is needed to identify who is in charge, who is the team leader who is senior, rank and, in some cases, privilege but these also impose inequality on the team. These concepts are now outdated and have no place in contemporary settings, todays workforce (made up primarily of Millennials) resent these concepts and are refusing to accept them.

Traditional or ordinary teams tend to operate as silos: -1. Individual team members do not share their experience or knowledge with others and 2. The team does not integrate or cooperate well with other teams. Ordinary teams respond to a mandate from outside their team making them entirely internally focused with managers being the ones who provide clarity and direction. In an ordinary team the manager is the backbone of the team, and functions as the support system for teamwork and collaboration. In a ship analogy, managers are the people with their eyes on the horizon, managers are the ones reading the map. As a manager of an ordinary team, you are the one plotting the course and showing your team members how you’re going to get there.

The High-Performance Team

In high-performance teams all team members are considered to be equal, there are no distinctions about seniority or privilege. A way of describing this to team members is to say that everyone is of equal value, everyone simply has a different job which is based upon different experience and knowledge. In this respect a high-performance team is flat, non-hierarchal. A team leader is still in charge but shares the team leadership. Using the ship analogy again, in a high-performance team the whole team would be reading the map and determining the ships direction.

You do not need to change the team’s hierarchy, after all you still need to show who is in charge. What is important, however, from this point on is how you think about your team. High-performance team members need to have complete autonomy and empowerment, they need to feel that they can express their views without fear of retribution or ridicule, they need to decide rules of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, overall, they need to rise up to a higher level of professionalism.

Try to think of your team as a high-performance team where everyone is equal in status and value. Think of team members as simply having different jobs, different backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, skills, and strengths. Thinking this way will make the lessons that follow easier to understand and put into practice.

How to Evaluate your Team

Team members show how they contribute to the team.

When a team knows each other’s working styles, backgrounds, diversity, strengths, and skills this adds to the team’s overall consciousness in terms of what assets the team possesses and how the team can best use them. For example, when team members value each other's strengths (a team members natural talents) they more effectively relate to one another and avoid potential conflicts.

What follows are five questionnaires for you to complete. These cover your Position Attributes, Strengths, and Diversity characteristics as well as your Working Style and Roles.

After the questionnaires are completed, each team member then presents their answers to the rest of the team. Finally, new behaviours are discussed and agreed.

Questionnaire 1 – Position Attributes

This questionnaire captures basic team member position information. Each team member needs to be very clear about exactly what their position entails as other team members need to know this.

Name Team members name. |
Title Position title such as Infrastructure Manager, Sales Manager. |
Second in charge When the team member manages their own team, this is the name of the staff member who is second in charge. This may be identified as ‘next in-line’ - succession planning. |
Responsibilities List your shared Responsibilities, that is things that that you share with other team members. Shared responsibilities are things such as server monitoring, capacity management, desktop repair, router installations, loan approvals, customer accounts maintenance, sales. |

Accountabilities

List the names of your Accountabilities, that is the things that apply only to you. Accountabilities are not shared; they can only apply to one person. An accountable team member is the owner of an item, they are the person who has decision making authority about the item, they are the person who has the final say about it. Accountabilities examples are things such as, staff retention, back-ups, managed services contracts, loan approvals over a certain amount or customer refunds. Accountabilities include being the owner of processes, how-to guidelines, other documentation, applications, and systems for which you are the decision-maker.

Complimentary skills

List the skills (things you have learnt) that make you stand out from your other team members, that is, what makes you unique in the team. Examples – Excel, Scheduling, Server builds, Router configuration, writing Scripts, developing Presentations, Call centre operator, Mobile sales, Customer service. Also list industry specific knowledge (including industry standards). E.g.: ITIL, BAA.

Training List the training courses this position should undertake, and against each indicate if you have completed it. |

Questionnaire 2 – Strengths

This questionnaire captures each team members strengths, their natural way of thinking, feeling, and behaving, that is their natural talents, the things they are just good at. Unlike skills, strengths are not learned (although training may be used to enhance them). Team member strengths provide the ability to deliver consistent, near-perfect performance in a specific task, simply by using innate talents. Strengths when multiplied by the investment in time spent practicing and developing them, result in a personal and unique knowledge base.

Name Team members name. |
Title Position title such as Infrastructure Manager, Sales Manager. |

Strengths

List your strengths, that is your natural talents, things that you are just naturally good at. These are things that you have basically received no training in. Take your time to self-reflect and consider what you do best. Strengths are not skills. Skills are learned, involving specific techniques and knowledge. Examples of strengths are, leading, planning, scheduling, organizing, presenting, writing, technology, giving presentations, being sociable, creativity, courage, persistence, teamwork, training, teaching, and motivating people.

CliftonStrengths

Cliftonstrengths are four types of very specific strengths. Read the four types and list the one or more, that apply to you.

Analytical.

People talented in the Analytical theme search for reasons and causes. They can think about all the factors that might affect a situation. "Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is true." In the face of this kind of questioning, some will find that their brilliant theories wither and die. For you, this is precisely the point.

Achiever.

Every team has goals to achieve, work to accomplish and tasks to complete. These are people that make things happen, they can take an idea and make it a reality and they'll work tirelessly to accomplish the goal. They work hard and possess a great deal of stamina; they take immense satisfaction in being busy and productive.

Activator.

Every team needs to communicate, both inside and outside the team, effective communication is essential to the team achieving its goals. These people take charge, speak up and make sure others are heard, they sell the teams ideas and persuade others. These people show team members how to reach a much broader audience and convince others to aid in accomplishing the teams’ goals. These people make things happen by turning thoughts into action, they want to do things now, rather than simply talk about them.

Adaptability.

Every team is nothing more than a group of unique individuals. A team's power comes from each person being empowered to use their distinctive talents and appreciate others'. High-performing teams rely on people with strong Relationship Building themes to bring individuals together and make the team greater than the sum of its parts. These people unite the team and galvanize it to achieve shared success. They are the bond that hold the team together. They prefer to go with the flow, and they tend to be "now" people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.

Copyright © 2018 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.

Questionnaire 3 – Diversity

Diversity is the level of difference or heterogeneity within the team, it is an important differentiator between successful and unsuccessful teams. It provides teams with access to the different capabilities and points of view a successful team requires. Diversity in knowledge, views, and perspectives, as well as in age, gender, and race, help teams be more creative and avoid groupthink.

Diversity within a team operates at several levels. The first is the different roles within the team, the specialization, the second is based on identity such as gender, age, and ethnicity giving the team the ability to tap into different viewpoints and lived experiences. The third level is cognitive. This refers to the diverse ways that individuals can approach and think about problems. In business, cognitive diversity is often tied to the business area or discipline in which a person has the most experience. Such experience is of high value to a team, as team members high in leadership can mentor other team members and quickly take on shared leadership responsibilities.

Name Team members name. |
Title Position title such as Infrastructure Manager, Sales Manager. |
Age (Diversity of identity) Enter your age |
Gender (Diversity of identity) Enter your gender. |
Sexuality (Diversity of identity) Enter your identity. (Straight, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Asexual.) |
Roles (Diversity of specialization) List the roles you carryout, record each role by its title, such as Change Advisory Board chair, Business Liaison Officer, Security Officer, Disaster Recovery Coordinator, Loan Quality Checker, Floor Fire Warden. |
Ethnicity (Diversity of background) Enter your ethnic background. |
Cognition (Diversity of thinking) Enter any unique thinking styles. E.g.: Philosophic, religious, logical, rational, formal. Also enter any business areas or disciplines in which you have the most experience. |
Leadership (Diversity of experience) Enter your supervisory, project management, management, general management, and leadership experience by entering position titles previously held. |

Questionnaire 4 - Working Style

We often work with people who have very different working styles which are made up of particular attributes — think extroverts, decision makers and cautious introverts. A person’s working style is significant in that it can bring about a normalization of behaviours within a team, this is especially true for the manager. For example, if most people are extroverts, especially the manager, a team may default to large meetings and more collaborative sessions. Working styles cover more than just introverts and extroverts, they demonstrate mental attitude and how that attitude infects other team members for better or for worse. Team members therefore need to understand each other’s dominant working style.

Name Team members name. |
Working Style | ✓ which are applicable
Attitude: I possess a ‘give it a go’ approach to work. |
I gets things done: I am someone who gets a job done, and despite how busy I am I will complete it in the agreed timeframe. |
I possess gusto: I show great energy, enthusiasm, and enjoyment that is experienced by me taking part in an activity. |
I possess alacrity: I perform all tasks with speed and eagerness. I am curious and I am a good listener. |
Emails. I only send an email when its important, I only copy people who ‘need to know’. |
I respect meeting protocols: I turn up on time and abide by meeting rules. |
Outlook: I am driven and career-oriented and exude positivity and care about others. |
Extrovert: I am talkative, sociable, action-oriented, enthusiastic, friendly, higher risk taker with an outgoing personality. |
Introvert: I am focused, observant, a lower risk-taker, I carry out a more detailed analysis of available information than my extrovert partners, I bring a conservatism and balance to decision making. |
Extraordinary: I pull my sleeves up when the going gets tough, I am self-motivated, and process driven. |
I ignore my job description: Well, not completely, but I think and act outside my job description or fixed roles. When I encounter situations that require action, I act irrespective of my role or position. |
Eccentric: I am someone with a somewhat unusual personality, someone who is very comfortable in their own skin. I may seem odd at first, but pleasantly so. I tend to be very creative; a good debater and I make an excellent team member. |
Appraise others in public: I effortlessly appraise my fellow team members and I do it publicly. |
Self-motivated: I come to work firstly for its enjoyment, to satisfy my passion and secondly for pay. I am often possessed of an overwhelming need to be successful and work hard to achieve it. |
Process driven: Off my own back I work to make process better.  |
Senior Management potential: I think about others first, I believe I am no better than anyone else, I am personable, non-judgmental and hold myself accountable. |

Questionnaire 5 - Belbin Team Roles

Belbin’s team roles are another way of understanding a team members position in the team and the contribution they make. They are an effective way to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of a team and help the team to understand ways in which it could improve performance. Developed by Meredith Belbin in 1981, it has become one of the most accessible and widely used tools to support team building. The roles are a guide only to each team members dominant role in the team. Matching each team member to a Belbin role shows how well balanced the team is.

Name Team members name. |
Belbin Team Roles | ✓ which are applicable
Shaper. Challenging, thrives on pressure, has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles. Enjoys directing attention to the setting of priorities and objectives to shape the way team effort is applied.              |
Implementer. Disciplined, reliable, conservative, and efficient. Turns ideas into practical solutions and procedures.              |
Completer-Finisher. Painstaking conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time. Makes sure a sense of urgency is maintained and that the job in hand is completed effectively and efficiently.              |
Co-ordinator. Mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies goals promotes decision making, delegates well. Will recognise the team’s strengths and weaknesses ensuring that they play to everyone’s strengths and makes the most of the team’s resources.              |
Team Worker. Co-operative, mild, perceptive, and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction. Supports others by improving communication between members, highlights and builds on others’ strengths and underpinning of any shortcomings.              |
Resource Investigator. Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative. Explores opportunities, develops contacts. Relishes exploring investigating and reporting on resources, ideas or developments outside the group and is good at dealing with external forces and negotiation.              |
Plant. Creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems.              |
Monitor-Evaluator. Sober, strategic, and discerning. Sees all options and judges accurately. Is an analyser of problems and evaluator of ideas and suggestions              |
Specialist. Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge, puts forward ideas or new methods or applications and looks for possible breakthroughs to problems.              |

Present Questionnaire Responses

After each team member has completed the questionnaires, have everyone present their questionnaire responses by standing up and walking the team through their questionnaires. This allows team members to be clear as to who has what responsibilities, accountabilities, roles, skills, strengths and so on. This helps the team to better understand each other, what everyone brings to the team, its professional makeup, its capabilities, and its potential.

For example, when you have team members in roles that fit their strengths, this fuels better performance and inspires the same from colleagues, it gives team members the opportunity to do what they do best, based on their natural talents.

How to develop Charisma

Charisma was once believed to be an innate personality trait, a gift that certain individuals possess that gives them the capacity to do extraordinary things. Thinking was that it could not be learned, you either have it, or you don’t, however this is not true. When a high-performance leader displays gusto and alacrity, is curious and always upbeat, this makes them charismatic. Doing these four things puts forward a positive attitude which infects team members thinking and feelings and can extend to the whole workplace. By communicating high expectations to team members and exhibiting confidence in their abilities to meet the expectations, this in turn increases your charisma.

Being viewed as charismatic is a powerful management tool, it encourages team members to trust in your ideology and your beliefs. It brings about unquestioning acceptance and affection of you as a leader, it promotes team member obedience and emotional involvement with your goals helping to create a shared vision of the future.

You can become charismatic by:

Demonstrating gusto (showing great energy, enthusiasm and enjoyment when taking part in an activity)

Demonstrating alacrity (doing an activity with speed and eagerness).

Being curious.

Being positive and upbeat.

Communicating high expectations.

Showing confidence in team member abilities.

Using active listening.

Sparingly giving praise.

Taking responsibility for when things go wrong.

Providing constructive criticism to team members.

Your whiteboard is always covered in something new.

You can test if your charisma is working by:

-         Team members feel energised, motivated, feel good after speaking with or just being near you.

-         Your speech or presence creates a sense of positivity in others.

-         A team member runs to your office.

How to do Planning and Time Management

Planning and time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific tasks. It enables you to work smarter, not harder - so that you get more done in less time, especially when your time is tight, and pressures or stresses are high. Good planning and time management enables you to complete more in a shorter period, makes you more productive and efficient, lowers your stress and anxiety, and helps you procrastinate less and produce a higher quality of work, getting more of your important work done in a day.

Make a task list

This stops you from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work you must do. It stops you from missing deadlines or forgetting something important. A task list is a prioritized list of all the tasks you need to carry out, it lists everything you have to do, with the most critical tasks at the top and the least important at the bottom. This means all your tasks are written down in one place, so you don't forget anything. 

A task list is essential if you're going to control your workload; using a task list effectively, you'll be much better organized and more reliable, and you will experience less stress. Prioritizing means spending your time on high-value or the most critical tasks first; helping you to meet your deadlines making you more productive and a better manager.

Write down all the tasks that you need to complete. Break down larger tasks into smaller steps or sub-tasks. (Ideally, these should take no longer than 1-2 hours to complete each.)

Run through all the tasks and allocate a priority. (Use High, Medium, and Low or Mandatory, Highly Desirable, Nice to have) based on when the task is due.

If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important ones. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order again.

Always spend 30 minutes at the end of the day organizing tasks on your list for the next day. It is fastest to use a simple pad and pen to make your list; otherwise, use a word processor, spreadsheet, scheduling, or teamwork software.

Use for small projects

Task lists can help you get and stay on top of important projects and piles of tasks or decisions. When working on a project, there are many tasks to do and many people to do them - staying on top of this can seem daunting.

For a project, structure your list by team member, writing out tasks and deadlines for every person on the project. As you write out your tasks, check your team task list to see what's due that day. Task lists are for when you have a small number of tasks (say 10- 20) that you need to complete. When you have more extensive tasks lists, you need to move to a task scheduling App like MS Project, designed to manage larger and more complex task lists and projects.

Create a daily schedule—and stick with it

Don't start your day without a task list. Putting everything on paper will prevent you from lying awake at night tossing and turning over the tasks running through your head. Instead, your subconscious goes to work on your plans while you are asleep, which means you can wake up in the morning with new insights for the workday. If you can't do it the day before, make sure you write out your task list first thing in the morning. You'll find that the time you spend creating a task list (a clear plan) is nothing compared to the time you'll lose jumping between tasks when you lack such a plan. 

Prioritize wisely

As you organize your task list, prioritization is critical for successful time management at work. Start by eliminating tasks that you shouldn't be performing in the first place. Then identify the three or four most important tasks and do those first—that way, you make sure you finish the essentials. Evaluate your task list and make sure you have organized it based on the importance of a task rather than its urgency. Important responsibilities support the achievement of your goals, whereas urgent responsibilities require immediate attention and are associated with the achievement of someone else's goals. We tend to let the urgent dominate when we should focus on activities that support our business goals.

Group similar tasks together

Save yourself time and mental energy by completing all of one type of task before moving on to the next. For example, create separate chunks of time for answering emails, making phone calls, filing, and so on. Don't answer emails and messages as they come in, as doing so is a distraction - which is an inefficient use of time. Turn off your phone and email notifications to eliminate the temptation to check at unappointed times.

Multi-task a maximum of three tasks

When working alone, aim to focus on the task at hand and no more than two other tasks or projects simultaneously. You will need to keep some time available for when team members come to see you. It can be tempting to multi-task more than three tasks at a time, but you're just shooting yourself in the foot when you attempt to do so. You lose time and decrease productivity when switching tasks.

Learn to say no

You cannot manage your work if you can't say No. Only you know how much work you must do and how much time you have available. Declining a request to focus on more important tasks is exactly what you should be doing. And if you take on a task that is going nowhere, consider letting it go. Rather than doing a lot of tasks that yield little or no value, complete fewer tasks that create more value. Use the 80/20 rule—80% of your output comes from 20% of your inputs and focus on those tasks that produce the most value. Finally, if you can't say no, delegate it.

Actions

Start your day with a clear intention of what you want to do.

Set specific goals (What needs to be done.)

Focus on high-value tasks.

Make a task list.

Prioritize and regularly review your task list.

Plan for tomorrow and use deadlines.

Keep a weekly and monthly calendar.

Try to minimize interruptions, but at the same time allow for distractions.

Aim not to multi-task.

                  Review your day at the end of your day.

Summary

Make a task list. - This stops you from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work you must do. It stops you from missing deadlines or forgetting something important. Always spend 30 minutes at the end of the day organizing tasks on your list for the next day.

Use for small projects. - Task lists can help you get and stay on top of important projects and piles of tasks or decisions. When working on a project, there are many tasks to do and many people to do them - staying on top of this can seem daunting.

Create a daily schedule—and stick with it. - You'll find that the time you spend creating a clear plan is nothing compared to the time you'll lose jumping between tasks when you lack such a plan. 

Prioritize wisely. - As you organize your task list, prioritization is critical for successful time management at work. Start by eliminating tasks that you shouldn't be performing in the first place. Then identify the three or four most important tasks and do those first.

Group similar tasks together. - Save yourself time and mental energy by completing all of one type of task before moving on to the next.

Multi-task a maximum of three tasks. - When working alone, aim to focus on the task at hand and no more than two other tasks or projects simultaneously.

Learn to say no. - You cannot manage your work if you can't say No. Only you know how much work you must do and how much time you have available. Declining a request to focus on more important tasks is exactly what you should be doing.

What is a Team Common Goal?

Ordinary teams respond to a mandate from outside the team. But to be successful, a team needs a meaningful and measurable team common goal.

Creating a common goal is important as it acts as a target to direct and motivate team members and their staff. It gives direction to all actions and can also act as a measure of success after a task is completed. Ideally the team common goal needs to consider likely changes in the organisation’s business environment, competitors’ movements, and the future behaviours of consumers, combined with the team’s aspirations. Creating a common goal as a team, aside from creating the goal itself, has several important team building aspects, they are.

The team subconsciously works together, sharing honest views, feelings, and opinions that they may not otherwise share. This is because the conversation around setting a common goal allows team members to express what they like about the team, what they do not like and what they are prepared to let go.

It also forces the team members to answer questions like “what is the purpose of the team?”, “why does the team exist?”, “what would be missing if the team did not exist?”

The common goal creation process is physcologically important in that the team is agreeing on shared values and targets. They are giving meaning to their existence, and this has a significant and positive impact on job satisfaction and personal feelings of being a contributor, not just a worker.

Achieving the common goal should benefit everyone, especially financially as the business grows and profits increase. The best common goals merge organizational and team aspirations into one. The team common goal must be a goal the whole team will embrace and work towards in everything they do.

An example of a good, measurable team common goal.

“Our objective is to transform IT into an agile and responsive customer-focused team, delivering quality solutions which meet the strategic needs of our business, in a timely and efficient manner.” – Colonial Mutual Life.

Or this one, “We are best when we fix the things you hate.”

Everyone on the team knowing the common goal becomes committed to it and has a stake in it. When each team member and their staff buy into the common goal and how their specific role contributes to it, productivity goes up.

Consider the following:

Every action that the team takes, (a task, an activity, a project) must be consistent with or be moving the team towards achievement of the common goal.

Try to limit the description of the common goal to one or two sentences, anymore, and it tends to lose effectiveness.

The common goal which is supported by individual performance goals for each team member.

In Great Teams, all team members are individually and jointly accountable for the achievement of the common goal. Team members accept mutual accountability for the team outcomes, whether success or failures. (one for all, all for one).

Great Teams focus on the broader organisational mission and objectives. Ordinary teams are entirely internally focused.

What is it the business does?

How does the team serve the business?

Does the common goal merge team and business aspirations?

How can the achievement of the common goal be measured?

Is the common goal something that staff will be able to relate to?

What are Team Roles and Responsibilities?

Defining team member roles and responsibilities looks for and removes overlaps, identifies, and fills in gaps and makes it clear as to who is responsible and accountable for what.

When team members know what their roles and responsibilities are and how they support the team, and how they contribute to the success and results of the team, this produces greater job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity. It removes the possibility of conflicts, disputes over ownership, helps avoid mistakes being made and assigns ownership of all items that the team manages. Everything then has an owner. It also identifies who has a responsibility for an item and who has accountability for an item.

Responsibilities are shared, several team members can be responsible for the same item. Accountabilities on the other hand are not shared, only one team member can be accountable for an item. An accountable team member is the owner of the item, they are the person who has decision making authority about the item, they are the person who has the final say about it.

The completion of a roles and responsibilities template is sometimes viewed as unnecessary or irrelevant. However, of all the team characteristics, it is by far the most significant and beneficial. If I could only pick one characteristic to train a team on, it would be this one. Why?

It identifies ownership of all ‘things’ that the team manages.

It identifies who the decision maker is for all ‘things’ the team manages.

It gives clarity to everyone as to whom to speak to about any problem or issue.

It clearly separates a team members responsibility from their accountabilities.

It dramatically reduces the amount of inter-team email traffic, as emails are sent to other team members on a ‘need to know’ basis only.

What is Team Bonding?

The training workshops (Chapter 4) by their nature facilitate a high degree of team bonding, but this is mainly at the professional level. Team members need to do some left-field team bonding exercises to get them to think outside the box, to learn more about each other as people and to start to move towards a team attitude of ‘one for all and all for one.’

At least three team bonding events need to be forward planned and scheduled during the first three months to run in parallel with and post the course completion.

Exercises where humans’ share’ an activity releases oxytocin, which reinforces long-term bonding.

Team get togethers

Holding regular, say monthly team dinners or lunches are incredibly important for recognising successes and the team’s cohesion. Also celebrate ‘Wins,’ doing so is very important for team recognition and motivation.

Outdoors

These can be as simple as a one to two-day nature trail hike, a water park experience, or an adrenaline adventure. Do not do these on weekends as this interferes with the team members family or personal life activities and commitments.

Personality Tests

Fun workshops to help each team member better understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They provide an opportunity for team members to open about themselves and learn about their respective work styles. They give insight into team member psychological profiles, management styles and work preferences. The easiest and no doubt, the most popular test to undertake is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire. It is all about working styles. The personality test is best run by an external provider.

After the Myers Briggs, three other tests are recommended.

The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire.

The Occupational Personality Questionnaire.

The Hogan Personality Inventory.

These indicate the ‘working style’ favoured by a team member and how they interact with their environment and fellow workers.

5-minute communication exercise

Team members often know little about each other. This little exercise is very powerful at socialising team members. In pairs, one person speaks for 5 minutes continuously about anything they like except for work. The other person listens intently and does not interrupt. Then reverse and continue until all team members have spoken to each other.

Advanced Communication exercise

The gold standard in high-impact exercises is from Beechwood International.  It is very potent in teaching advanced, high-value communication skills and doing so in incredibly fast. Explain that you are building a High-Performance Team and let them take it from there. Their solution will be in-house. I have no financial interests in Beechwood; I recommend them as I have been the recipient of their exercises. They are brilliant and straightforward and the most amazing fun.

What is Creativity?

High-performance teams work at being creative and innovative by practicing four common behaviours.

-         They are intensely curious. Curiosity means being able to ask any and every question. Especially the why, where, and what about any subject. This curiosity encourages people to investigate and look for new, out there, ideas.

-         They connect the dots. Steve Jobs once said creativity is all about connecting the dots.  Creative people know how to bounce an idea around and how to bounce ideas off each other until arriving at something new.

-         They ask the big questions. Only by asking big questions can you get big answers. They think well outside the square; they are not constrained by what has been done before.

-         They indulge in daydreaming. They use their imagination, particularly to think about ideas that may seem at first too wild for contemplation. Daydreaming lets loose the power of the mind, to indulge in fantasy and to be innovative.

Creativity is just about generating enough ideas to solve a problem or create something new.

We all have different skills, knowledge, and personal characteristics (Diversity). By utilising all these various aspects as a team, more ideas can be generated. As more ideas are generated, more creative solutions are generated, leading to better results.

Pick a subject and then brainstorm or better timebox the brainstorming it to get as many solutions and approaches that can be thought of some will be quite whacky, but these are often the important ones as they prompt ideas in others and can also relate to other ideas.

What is Innovation?

One of the reasons high-performance teams are so successful at creativity and innovation is that they allow and foster different points of view, promoting healthy discussion (Open Communication). They do this through the careful and mature use of conflict. It works like this.

Imagine a meeting with all team members present and two team members are having a vigorous debate (high-performance teams do not argue, they vigorously debate), for example, if someone makes a statement or claim, they are expected to back it up with evidence or withdraw it.

The other team members who are listening to the exchange, have an important role to play. They need to carefully listen for words and comments that the two people debating are using and are skipping over. It is these words and comments that hold the clues to innovative ideas. Managed conflict spurs innovation. They also need to listen out for whacky ideas or comments, things that are a bit out there, as they too spur innovative ideas and thoughts in others. Finally, they must ask the people debating to expand on an idea that they think might have merit. Innovation happens when you start at point A, expecting to only go to point D, but arrive at point Z.

What is a Supportive Environment?

The workplace environment is the where the team operates, it is the social and physical context of its work that forms the team’s ecosystem. Creating a supportive environment is one of the high-performance manager’s most important responsibilities, for this reason it was covered early under Psychological Safety and Team Engagement. While it might be tempting to first focus on factors within the team as determinants of its effectiveness, the environment that a team operates within is the key to its success. The environment is the team’s foundation, and shoddy foundations result in a poorly performing team.

It is particularly important that the team’s environment be compatible with the team vision, and work practices, for example, some teams must navigate the tension between improving value for customers while also cutting costs. Similarly, a team focused on innovation must navigate the tension between prescriptive processes and creating new practices. A cross-functional team will also struggle if the performance metrics of team members are aligned to their home function and misaligned with the team’s objective.

Having the right support is a vital condition that enables team effectiveness. This includes maintaining a reward system that reinforces good performance and celebration of success. Typical examples of support include an information system that provides access to the data needed for work, and an education system (such as an Intranet) that offers training, knowledge, and access to skills. Finally securing the material resources required to do the job, such as equipment, tools, utilities, and technological assistance is essential. While no team ever gets everything it wants, managers can head off a lot of problems by taking the time to get the essential pieces in place from the start.

It is up to the team manager to create the cultural environment in the first place and then to commit to holding team members accountable for maintaining its cultural elements. Regular feedback, especially for the first three months helps keep team members aligned and displays the managers commitment to the high-performance model. The manager needs to be on the lookout that agreed new behaviours and effective work practices are being consistently applied. The teams’ activities need to be policed for at least the first three months, this requires the manager to commit to holding team members accountable for their successes and failures on the journey to high performance. Constant feedback is essential to keep the team aligned with everything it has learned. It also shows your commitment to a high-performance model.

What are Team Roles?

Belbin’s team roles are a way of understanding your team members. The roles are best used as a guide only to each team members preferred working style. It is worthwhile trying to match each team member to a Belbin role just to see how well balanced the team is. The nine-team roles are shown below.

The shaper. Challenging thrives on pressure, has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles. Enjoy directing attention to the setting of priorities and objectives to shape the way team effort is applied.

The implementer. Disciplined, reliable, conservative, and efficient. Turns ideas into practical solutions and procedures.

The completer-finisher. Painstaking, conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time. They make sure a sense of urgency is maintained, and that the job in hand is completed effectively and efficiently.

The co-ordinator. Mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies goals promote decision making, delegates well. They will recognise the team’s strengths and weaknesses, ensure that they play to everyone’s strengths, and make the most of the team’s resources.

The team worker. Co-operative, mild, perceptive, and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction. This person supports others by improving communication between members, highlighting, and building on others’ strengths, and underpinning any shortcomings.

The resource investigator. Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative. Explores opportunities, develops contacts. This person relishes exploring, investigating, and reporting on resources, ideas, or developments outside the group, and is good at dealing with external forces and negotiation.

Plant. Creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems.

The monitor-evaluator. Sober, strategic, and discerning. Sees all options, judges accurately. They are the analyser of problems and evaluator of ideas and suggestions.

Specialist. Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply—someone who puts forward ideas of new methods or applications and who looks for possible breakthroughs to problems.

What is Mutual Accountability?

Mutual accountability is one of the key foundation stones of a great team. It means that team members must accept that they are accountable ‘to each other’, which guarantees better performance and excellence in teamwork.

Mutual accountability is a process by which two or more people agree to be held responsible for the commitments that they have voluntarily made to each other.

Individual accountability is the belief that everyone will be accountable for their performance and. learning. Individual accountability occurs when the performance of everyone is assessed, and the results are given back to.

Being accountable ‘to each other’ means team members accept that the team’s successes or failures fall on all their shoulders. (one for all, all for one). If one team member fails at something, delivers a poor project outcome, or badly upsets a customer, for example, then all team members are equally accountable for that outcome, not just the team member concerned.

If a team member has a failure, then the whole team shares that failure. All would share the blame and embarrassment. Successes are similarly shared. When a team member has a success, the whole team can celebrate and be proud of that success. Mutual accountability implies that each team member’s work activities effectively belong to the entire team. Everything is shared.

Each team member cannot be held accountable for other team member’s primary work duties, but everyone does share responsibility for each team member’s work duties outcomes. This means that all team members need to take an active interest in how well everyone is doing. For example, a new team member needs training. Everyone should lend a hand, and mentor the new person whenever they can. If an existing team member is underperforming, then again, everyone should be trying to assist that person.

All team members are expected to volunteer their time and effort to assist for the sake of the common good. Accordingly, all team members need to take a constructive interest and participate in all the team’s activities as and when required.

All individuals need to take responsibility for the overall team goal. Each team member then holds themselves and then each other, accountable for delivering the specific actions, attitudes, and behaviours that the team requires of the individuals.

“Members of groups using the team discipline hold themselves individually and mutually accountable. With groups applying the team discipline, it is very difficult (if not impossible) for any one member to fail – only the team can succeed or fail. Team members are not easy on one another in this respect. Yet, they are extremely flexible and adaptable in helping each other to contribute to the fullest extent possible and to develop new skill levels in the process. Indeed, mutual accountability for shared purpose and goals may be the hallmark of the team discipline.” (Katzenbach and Smith. The Discipline of Teams)

The objective is to get the team to think “Team performance first” and “Individual success second”. Individuals become focused on creating a memorable collective performance, rather than thinking simply about personal achievements.

Team leadership is affected by this specific thinking style. Even though there might be an identifiable leader, everyone on the team at different times takes responsibility for “leading the team”. This is supported by everyone wanting to provide open, honest, critical and performance focused feedback that is designed to increase the team’s performance. The mutual accountability attribute reinforces everyone’s role in sharing knowledge, ideas, experiences, and perspectives with a view to making the team a better performing unit.

Mutual accountability brings about increased effectiveness in working

together.

Team members recognise that collective performance is dependent on the effective collaboration of themselves with other team members resulting in increased collaborative efforts. Rather than working and thinking individually and trying to protect their own space, a team high in mutual accountability has team members who regularly asking themselves and each other, “how can we better work together to get the most out of each other and the whole team?

A test you can apply to see how much mutual accountability exists in your team is to observe how often the following types of comments are made, that is an observation about the team’s language:

Our targets.

The Common goal.

How are we performing.

What are the implications of this for us?

Language is important and shows up how the team is thinking and operating. It is good practice to monitor the language of team meetings to get a true sense of how the team is working together. Is it “Personal performance first, team performance second” or vice versa?

What is the language saying? How can we perform better together? Or is it focussed on individual issues and problems? A simple evaluation of the language gives insight into how mutually accountable your team is and how tolerant team members are of each other.

Another way to measure how mutually accountable your team is when they want to be rewards or praised collectively, because everyone has exploited the collective expertise around them. Teams low in mutual accountability always focus on and want to take an individual reward option.

What is Selfless Collaboration?

This is the finest quality of a great team where people work together to achieve any task, each other's performance goals, and the common goal. In Great Teams, there is a very high level of initiative, sharing of ideas and cohesiveness amongst the team members. The members of a great team act like business partners and enjoy a higher degree of flexibility to achieve work goals. Planning and coordination are done by the team members collectively instead of being undertaken by a manager exclusively.

The definition of selfless is being concerned with the needs of others more than with your own needs.

Gives credit to others when they do well.

Offers to help someone who is struggling with a task.

Volunteers to do something nobody else wants to do.

Takes time to mentor others.

Selfless collaboration means, in practice, that each team member will assist other team members in completing their work. Each team member has an obligation to fulfil their responsibilities and accountabilities, be accountable for their actions and complete their allocated work. After completing their work, each team member should be willing to assist others with the completion of their work.

The best way to get team members to accept selfless collaboration is to:

But, first, advise them that they are expected to volunteer their time to assist others after they have completed their work.

They are expected to assist others even when their work is not complete because if another team member is struggling or needs help.

When a team member has an individual success, they are expected to acknowledge or celebrate that person's success and the team as a whole's success.

This has a significant secondary outcome. It facilitates the learning of another business discipline or field of work. It is the opportunity to extend each team member's knowledge and understanding. In mature teams, team member's positions are transposable; that is, they are swapped around. This provides an opportunity to add new skills and knowledge and to learn about a new area, type of work or professional field. A Sales Manager might be swapped with an Operations manager, for example, and vice versa. Titles become transparent, only the positions individual responsibilities and accountabilities matter

Selfless people:

They are humble and put others first.

Selfless people always think of other people's needs; they are both sympathetic and empathetic.

They always consider how their actions affect others

They think about how their actions and decisions may affect others. For example, one attribute of a good decision-making process is a consideration of the possible repercussions on others. Selfless people are also empathetic, and so they do not hurt others through their actions or inactions.

They are excellent Active Listeners

Do not interrupt or hog conversations by going on about their situation or examples about them. Instead, they carefully focus and listen to the other person.

"To lead is to serve; nothing more, nothing less."

Being selfless is one of the hardest things team members can do. This is because selfish people generally fear that they may be exposed as incompetent or unwilling to make the same sacrifices as their fellow team members may show them to be an imposter and not a team player.

How to Recruit

I always look for people whom I consider are better, more skilled, or more knowledgeable than myself. Interviews are supposed to be a two-way affair. Still, unfortunately, most job interviews become a one-sided interrogation, I ask the important job description questions and then have a casual conversation with the candidate.

The best practice I have found is to have the best team members do the recruitment, let the most talented find the talent. I do ask team members to have an open conversation with the candidate. I always learnt more about someone by just chatting about the job, the company, the work, their expectations, and aspirations.

Ask the routine questions that you need to cover off.

Tell them you are recruiting for High-Performance team membership.

Do they have a happy outlook and look genuinely excited to be there?

Does their demeanour yell “I will give it a go”?

Ask them what the worst mistake is they ever made.

Ask that if you don’t employ them, what are you going to miss out on?

Ask them what the consequences of a failed commitment are?

Ask them to ask you a question you have never heard before.

Say something obscure and see if they question you about it.

      Ask them what their plan is to become a professional?

      Ask them what they think of the job description?

When doing a reference check, there’s only one question to ask: “would you employ this person again?”

How to provide Autonomy and Empowerment

Team members who do not have autonomy or empowerment require external motivation, whereas team members who do possess autonomy and empowerment do not. Autonomy and empowerment are critical attributes of high-performing teams; without them, you have frustrated team members who are constantly reminded that they're not trusted to make even small decisions let alone the bigger ones; this saps motivation and leads to resentment. 

Do your team members make decisions on their own? Or do you have the final say on every or most decisions? If you fall into the latter, you're hindering your team's ability to get results. If every decision must go through you, this slows workflow often with your team's work grinding to a halt. Furthermore, not allowing team members to make decisions demonstrates a lack of trust. You're telling them that you doubt their abilities to make the right choices. 

Remove as many barriers and constraints as possible imposed on your team members. Then tell them “You have my permission and support to do as you need”. You can then tell if they are feeling and acting in an autonomous and empowered manner, because if they are, they will reduce how often they email you, because there is simply no need.

How to Motivate

Managers who actively support and motivate their team members feel closer to them. By showing a sincere interest in your team members, you build trust and inspire others to achieve higher performance. A good team is not just a healthy team, but it is a team where team members are supported, motivated, and recognised for their achievements. A good manager understands that every time they speak to a team member, they can appraise and provide feedback. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback to know that they are important, are a contributor, team player and believe they are receiving an honest assessment of their performance. 

Team members fall into two motivation categories

Self-motivated. These are self-motivated team members who have a set of internal personal and professional drivers that motivate them. These are usually your star performers, which you are always at risk of losing if you do not provide them with appropriate autonomy, feedback, and empowerment to do their job.

Non-self-motivated. Some team members need external motivation. These team members do not possess these same drivers as their self-motivated colleagues and require you to actively motivate them.

The role of the manager

Good managers communicate high expectations to team members, inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and a part of the organisation's shared vision. They also encourage team members to be creative and innovative and to challenge their beliefs and those of the manager and the organisation. Exceptional managers are curious about the inner motivations of their team members because it's the key to higher performance.

1.  Set High standards.

The standards that you set for yourself are one of your biggest motivation tools. Working to the best of your abilities shows team members what you expect from them. They will only work as hard as you do, that is, to the standard that you are setting. That's why a motivational manager will always push themselves to reach a higher standard. This simple act inspires others to do the same. Team members follow the lead, which creates highly motivated and productive teams.

2.  Communicate often.

Feedback is crucial to your team members motivation levels. Your team members need to know what they're doing well and what they could improve on. They need feedback and recognition of their efforts and successes. Unfortunately, 69% of managers don't feel comfortable talking to their team members, meaning they are disconnected from their team. This leads to them avoiding opportunities for communication, much like not listening; failing to communicate leads to team members disengaging. They feel like their manager does not care, which means they don't care either.

Motivational managers go in the opposite direction. They often communicate and with confidence. They articulate clearly, which helps their team members to understand the direction they need to go in. Providing direction is an essential team member motivation tool at your disposal. Use your feedback sessions to ensure your team members know what you need from them.

3.  Listen to team members.

Every team member needs to know and feel that their manager listens to what they are saying and respects their ideas. They want to be confident that some action may be taken based upon what they have said. Despite this, many managers don't listen to their team members. They may ask questions, but they do not hear the answers, believing that their ideas are the only ones that matter. This tells team members that their opinions and ideas have little value and is a great way to demotivate them. This results in missing out on many great ideas and suggestions.

4.  How to quickly demotivate people.

Do not give feedback or recognition.

Micromanage.

Make decisions without consulting team members.

Allow team members to miss commitments without a negative consequence.

Not making allowance for personal factors and their effects on work.

How to deal with the fear of failure

There is a significant and insidious cause of failure, and that's our self-defeating thoughts brought on by fear of not meeting expectations. You can see it in a team members eye when you give them a task that they do not feel confident about. They have learned that failure, not meeting what's expected, can have negative consequences or, in extreme cases, be punished.

These consequences can be humiliation, no further work allocation of the type just tried, no promotion or not being given a second chance to take on something new. Only negative, resounding thoughts about their lack of ability and possibly their job being at risk resounds in their head.

Fear of failure is probably one of the main reasons we prefer to numb ourselves through inaction rather than move forward. Sometimes we are so afraid of letting ourselves down or letting others down or disappointing them that the opinions of others dominate us to the point of paralysis. Other times it is a deep-seated feeling of unworthiness that makes us question our abilities.

Succeeding or failing is not the issue; what is the issue is 'having a go'. When used with people you are getting to know or to whom you are giving a complex task that they have no experience or knowledge of, the following technique works well. It is the 'hand' technique.

Hand Technique.

It works like this; explain the task, what you think the outcome may look like and then deliberately place your hand about 10 centimetres above your desk and say, "what's important here is having a go. I don't care if you only achieve this much (then raise your hand a bit higher) or achieve this much; what I care about is you agree to have a go at this task please, I am not interested in what you achieve."

The hand technique is very good at removing anxiety about their ability to do the task and your expectation of the outcome.

Finish up by saying, "please come back at any time if you need help." Tell them it's your job to help. This technique is remarkably successful, especially as people get to know you and what you expect of them.

Just having a go, giving it a try is what it's all about and most people succeed the first time.

Motivation and troubled team members

For managing team members that are.

Troubled.

Underperforming have dropped the ball.

Not engaging in change like their colleagues.

At some stage in our careers, this tends to happen to us all; most of the time, however, we pull out of it on our own. Team members under one of these three conditions usually have underlying personal or professional problems. Here is a technique for handling these situations.

Call the team member in and have a conversation as follows.

"Come in, please sit down; I have something to say to you, and I would appreciate you hearing me out before you make any comment. I have noticed that you are unhappy, and that is bothering me greatly. You are dissatisfied with work just now, and I can see that your morale is low. I don't know the cause, but my approach to situations like this is that I am the cause; the problem is me. I have failed to sufficiently support and motivate you in some way, perhaps the work I have asked you to do is not challenging enough, or I have been unable to adequately explain what it is I would like you to undertake.

You don't have to make any comment about this just now unless you want to. I would prefer you didn't, but instead, come back and see me tomorrow and let me know what you think. Tomorrow, I want to talk about what I can do, let's talk about training, a new job, different work, let's talk about how you see things, what your needs are. If the issue is a personal one, let's talk about that. Whatever happens, please accept that the real problem as I see it is that I am failing to support you in some way."

Let's catch up at 10.00a tomorrow morning."

Digesting what you have said.

Next, the team member concerned digests that you see the problem as being you; this is a surprise to them. However, it nearly always allows them to come back and be very open and honest about what is really troubling them, be it a personal or professional issue. This creates a context for an honest conversation about what is troubling them - the usual causes being.

Their job role is a square peg in a round hole; their current job does not match their job aspirations or use their strengths.

They are not handling change well - they see their peers doing well, which is creating anxiety for them as they don't think they can change.

There is a personal problem.

They are having difficulty understanding what it is you want from them.

Follow-up meeting.

At the beginning of the follow-up meeting, start by saying that you have been thinking about the next catch-up, and you believe the issue could be one of the four causes outlined. Then pass the conversation over to them. You need to correct whatever the issue is; you can't brush it aside. So, the approach is that you are the problem, not the team member. As a manager, you are responsible for the health and well-being of your team members; this includes their job satisfaction and morale.

Actions

Give effective recognition for a job well done by doing it in front of others. Be sparing in your praise; recognition must be deserved.

Look for opportunities to improve communication between team members by highlighting someone's strengths and by underpinning any shortcomings.

Every time you speak with one of your team members, it is an opportunity to provide feedback on their performance and offer support and motivation. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback so that they understand that they are important, are a contributor a team player and believe they receive an honest assessment of their performance.

Comment on a recent email or report you received.

Comment on customer feedback you received that concerns their area.

A comment that you think things are going well.

Equally, make 'observations', not criticisms about things you don't like. ("I noticed that last email you sent me was very long.”)

Implement programs to recognise the performance and efforts of all team members. (E.g., Employee of the month).

When you give someone a difficult task or one outside of their skillset, remove the fear of failure by telling them that what you expect is that they 'have a go,' not what they achieve, and offer to help. 

                  Accept mistakes, but not when the same one is made three times.

Summary

Managers who motivate. - Actively support their team members and feel closer to them. By showing a sincere interest in your team members, you build trust and inspire others to achieve higher performance. A good team is not just a healthy team, but it is a team where team members are supported, motivated, and recognised for their achievements. A good manager understands that every time they speak to a team member, they can appraise and provide feedback. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback to know that they are important, are a contributor, team player and believe they are receiving an honest assessment of their performance. 

Team members fall into two motivation categories. - Self-motivated. These are self-motivated team members who have a set of internal personal and professional drivers that motivate them. These are usually your star performers, which you are always at risk of losing if you do not provide them with appropriate autonomy, feedback, and empowerment to do their job. Non-self-motivated. Some team members need external motivation. These team members do not possess these same drivers as their self-motivated colleagues and require you to actively motivate them.

The role of the manager. - Good managers communicate high expectations to team members, inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and a part of the organisation's shared vision. They also encourage team members to be creative and innovative and to challenge their beliefs and those of the manager and the organisation. Good managers: - Set High standards. Communicate often. Listen to team members.

How to quickly demotivate people. - Do not give feedback or recognition. Micro-manage. Make decisions without consulting team members. Allow team members to miss commitments without a negative consequence.

How to deal with the fear of failure. -There is a significant and insidious cause of failure, and that's our self-defeating thoughts brought on by fear of not meeting expectations. For a team member, the consequences can be humiliation, no further work allocation of the type just tried, no promotion or not being given a second chance to take on something new. Only negative, resounding thoughts about their lack of ability and possibly their job being at risk resounds in their head.

Motivation and troubled team members. - For managing team members that are troubled, underperforming has dropped the ball or are not engaging in change like their colleagues.

How to manage Discipline

As unpleasant as it is, eventually, one day, you will need to discipline a team member about their behaviour, language, appearance, or many other things. Discipline is different to giving feedback because it doesn't always relate to a team members work. For example, you can provide feedback on how someone answers the phone but handling problems with timekeeping or personal grooming needs a different approach.

Managing discipline means setting minimum acceptable standards of behaviour as laid out in policies and guidelines. It is all about following a fair and reasonable process to deal with poor performance or misconduct. A disciplinary process needs to be carefully carried out as a team member may lose their job. Disciplinary actions usually result due to underperformance.

What is underperformance?

Team member underperformance describes a team members unsatisfactory performance, behaviour, attitude, or misconduct that is inconsistent with or contrary to organisational expectations, policies, or procedures.

Underperformance can be exhibited in numerous ways (behaviour, language, appearance) and can range in severity. Accordingly, the approach taken when handling underperformance can vary and must be determined on a case-by-case basis. For example, if a salesperson were underperforming, you would need to prove that targets were set, that they were communicated, and that performance has fallen short of the mark. Common types of underperformances.

Attitude problems (rudeness, arrogance) and non-compliance. Disregard for organisational policies, procedures, rules, and regulations.

Unsatisfactory work performance. A failure to achieve performance standards required of a job.

Unacceptable relations with other team members. Behaviour is hostile or inappropriate, use of offensive language, being dishonest, intimidating other team members, and harassment.

Establish clear rules for team members

Having clear, documented employment policies is imperative; team members need to know what is expected of them, what is acceptable and unacceptable.

Presentation and dress codes are a common problem, especially when your team members are younger. Be clear about what is acceptable.

Behaviour rules include how everyone integrates, how customers are treated and appropriate use of language. Put in writing what is acceptable.

Productivity and work ethic involves how much you expect a team member to do and specific duties and standards for a job, including laziness and tardiness.

Mobile phone usage deserves noting on its own. Be specific about what is acceptable usage and what is unacceptable.

Illegal behaviour, such as theft, illicit drug use, intoxication, or violence, is grounds for immediate termination, whether you use a progressive discipline process or not.

Don't assume people know that they should sweep the floors if there's no work to do. Don't assume they know they can't turn up to work late every day. Document it all and have them read it, have them sign the document so that you have proof that they have understood what is expected of them.

Progressive disciplinary process

Discipline methods are based on achieving a goal or standard, and that not meeting it puts disciplinary actions into effect. You can approach that in a punitive or rehabilitative way. It comes down to what you think will work best for your business and what you are comfortable doing.

Progressive discipline is when you increase the severity of your actions when someone fails to correct an issue. It's a common approach because it protects employers from legal action. This generally takes a punitive approach, but it can also be rehabilitative. Training and performance improvement actions are less about fixating on the problem and using the threat of termination as an outcome but are more about viewing the team member as valuable and worth investing in.

Step 1 - Verbal warning. A meeting is held with the team member, the unacceptable behaviour is outlined, and a verbal warning is given.

Step 2 - Written warning. If the behaviour continues, then a second meeting is held. The team member is provided with a written description of the unacceptable behaviour and what they are to stop doing. The written warning also describes what will happen next if the behaviour does not change. This warning is signed by the manager and the team member concerned. A copy is given to the team member, and a copy is placed onto their HR file. You may choose to issue more than one written warning before moving to the next step.

Step 3 - Performance Management Plan. If the unacceptable behaviour continues you may move straight to the next step. This is a rehabilitative approach. A Performance Management Plan (PMP) is documented with things the team member must do. This time, however, the actions are about training, learning, and education against changes in behaviour. The plan also includes check-in points, measurable goals, and steps to help the team member achieve the goals.

Step 4 - Final warning. Another meeting is held, and the team member is told all the instances that the unacceptable behaviour has occurred, including verbal and written warnings. The manager informs the team member that this is now a final warning, and if changes do not happen as outlined in the last document provided, the team member's employment will be terminated. At this meeting, a third party, usually a Human Resource representative is present to witness the meeting; this is essential.

Step 5 - Termination. If the problem continues, the team member is invited to a meeting with the manager and the third-party witness. The team member is informed that as their behaviour has not sufficiently changed that their employment is being terminated.

Summary

Managing discipline. - Eventually, one day, you will need to discipline a team member about their behaviour, language, appearance, or many other things. Discipline is different to giving feedback because it doesn't always relate to a team members work.  Managing discipline means setting minimum acceptable standards of behaviour as laid out in policies and guidelines.

What is underperformance? Team member underperformance describes a team members unsatisfactory performance, behaviour, attitude, or misconduct that is inconsistent with or contrary to organisational expectations, policies, or procedures.

Establish clear rules for team members. - Having clear, documented employment policies is imperative; team members need to know what is expected of them, acceptable and unacceptable.

Presentation and dress codes are a common problem, especially when your team members are younger. Be clear about what is acceptable. Behaviour rules include how everyone integrates, how customers are treated and appropriate use of language. Put in writing what is acceptable.

Progressive disciplinary process. -Discipline methods are based on achieving a goal or standard, and that not meeting it puts disciplinary actions into effect. You can approach that in a punitive or rehabilitative way. It comes down to what you think will work best for your business and are comfortable doing.

What are Team Rules?

The establishment of clear ground rules gives a team its cultural and psychologically safe baseline. It is a fundamental step in team development. In the case of a new team, rules also help remove the inevitable confusion and anxiety that usually exists as new team members get to know each other. Establishing team rules is a simple way to negotiate and establish team behaviours and practices, both in general and temporarily say for a project. Team rules increase psychological safety and reduce potential conflict among team members by:

Aligning relationships on appropriate and inappropriate behaviours.

Making team values explicit.

Creating a cultural baseline.

Not assigning blame.

Allowing legitimate measures in case of non-compliance.

Preventing a sense of inequity and injustice to develop within the team.

Team rules are a behavioural framework, an agreement a team makes around the behaviours it will or will not accept. It includes team behaviours and values, decision-making rules, coordinating and communicating, framing expectations such as no assignment of blame in case of failure, dealing with issues, accepting diversity, taking risks, asking for help, mutual support, and accepting diversity appreciation.

For example, if you agree upon honesty as a behaviour in a team rules framework, you prioritise being honest above most other things. If everyone agrees with each other that the team will be 'supportive', then it's much easier to reward supportive behaviour. At the same time, if someone in the team isn't being supportive, it's much easier for anyone to say, "we said we were going to be supportive, and I felt you weren't when you did XYZ". This removes the personal attack and is much easier to manage and deliver.

Why have Team Rules?

The establishment of clear ground rules gives a team its cultural baseline.

Team rules are a behavioural framework, an agreement a team makes around the behaviours it will or will not accept. It includes topics such as team behaviours and values, decision-making rules, how to coordinate and communicate, how to frame expectations such as no assignment of blame in case of failure, how to deal with issues, accepting diversity, taking risks, asking for help, mutual support, and appreciation.

Establishing team rules is a simple way to negotiate and establish team behaviours and practices, both in general and temporarily say for a project.

We want team rules because it is a simple way to describe team behaviours and practices, both in general and temporarily say for a project. Team rules increase psychological safety and reduce potential conflict.

Example Team Rules | ✓
Neglecting your family is unacceptable.​ |
We actively support our staff. |
Everyone has a voice. |
If it's not written down, it doesn't exist. |
Problems are fixed once. |
Team members do not speak over or interrupt others. |
Be prepared to present evidence. |
Never assign blame, only criticise a lack of process or a bad procedure. |
Make everyone feel that there are no negative consequences for self-image, status, or career based on what they say. |
Never ridicule, humiliate, or show a lack of respect to anyone. |
Always conduct yourself professionally. |
Asking for and offering help is expected. |
Failure is ok; having a go is what's important. |
Management submissions are restricted to one page. |
Our team is non-hierarchical, and we are non-competitive. |
It's not what you say, but how you say it. |
Sometimes it's ok to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.              |

Team Rules Exercise

Break into groups and answer these two questions:

What is acceptable? What are the behaviours we want to abide by in our team?

What is IN. e.g., Being on time, have no meetings on Friday, be open to new ideas, complete work as agreed, informing on progress, doing it right the first-time.

What is unacceptable? What are the behaviours we do not want in our team?

What is OUT. e.g., Being disengaged, a one-fits-all solution, being late, applying procedures blindly.

Next, share the results with each group presenting their answers.

Using a whiteboard or flipchart, list what is IN and what is OUT: - creating a draft set of team rules. Continue discussing until a final list of rules is agreed upon.

How to create a shared Team Vision

Ordinary teams respond to a mandate from outside their team making them entirely internally focused, whereas high-performance teams define their own team vision.

In an ordinary team the manager is the backbone and functions as the support system for teamwork and collaboration. In a ship analogy, managers are the people with their eyes on the horizon, managers are the ones reading the map. The manager of an ordinary team plots the course and shows team members how to get there. However, this does not apply to high-performance teams where the whole team reads the map and determines the team’s direction. Without a clear purpose or team vision, a team will wander, uncertain about what is important. The team vision exercise allows you to work together, sharing honest views, feelings, and opinions that you may not otherwise share. This is because the conversation around setting a team vision allows you to express what you like about the team, what you do not like.

Common problems experienced by ordinary teams:

No common goal or purpose.

Mixed understanding of why the team exists.

Different views as to what success looks like.

No sharing of views, opinions, fears, gripes, and frustrations.

Most teams exist with little understanding of why they exist, what their actual purpose is in terms of how they contribute to the larger organization. Therefore, a team needs to define a meaningful, measurable goal or team vision, something that acts as a target and gives direction to all the team’s activities. Such a vision needs to consider likely changes in the organisation’s business environment, competitors’ movements, and the future behaviours of consumers, combined with the team’s aspirations. It needs to answer the question of why the team exists. People can’t work at their highest standard if they are unsure of what they are working towards.

The absence of a clear and well-communicated team vision means a team will fail to align itself for mutual success. Without a common vision team members may go off in different directions, not knowing why they are working together. This leads to everyone forming different views as to what success looks like. A common team vision on the other hand acts as an initiator to discussing and developing common ways of working, like adopting new processes and developing guidelines.

High-performance teams define their own team vision, they always have a clear view of where they’re going and their purpose - clarity on why they exist. Reasons why a team vision is necessary:

It’s crucial to the success of a team. One highly rated manager at Google explained that “having a compelling team vision is crucial to the success of your team, as it allows all of you to stay focused and move forward in the same direction. Conversely, not having a vision can dramatically hurt your team through lack of focus and a commensurate lack of momentum.”

A clear team vision means that everyone on the team knows where they’re going, if they’re on track, and what success looks like.

It helps teams decide what to work on. A clear team vision helps teams make trade-offs and prioritize. Managers should tie back to the team vision when communicating decisions.

A team is made up of individuals with individual motivations, a team vision unifies these varying agendas giving the team a single, shared purpose. This is one of the key steps in creating high-performing teams. It’s about taking a group of talented people and turning them into a team that works for each other and the organization. The team members become individually and jointly accountable for the achievement of the team vision, they accept mutual accountability for the team outcomes, whether success or failures. It becomes a matter of one for all, all for one.

When the team sets a clear team vision, it communicates what role each team members plays in achieving this objective. When the vision the team is aiming to reach is not defined, it leads to confusion and wasted effort and time.

The team vision needs to be strong enough to inspire, and it needs to be realistic enough so team members believe it can be achieved.  A compelling team vision describes ‘This is what we’ll achieve, and this is how we’ll achieve it’. The team vision is the reason the team exists, its own vision, mission, goals, or aspirations. It provides a purpose for the team members to rally around, and shapes both the team’s strategy and tactics. A clear team vision provides team members with an anchor for their commitment to the team. Consequently, it should be framed in such a way that encourages team member buy-in. It has long been accepted that an effective team vision must be clear and challenging but achievable. Recent thinking also highlights the importance of the team vision being ethically aligned.

A team should understand and be able to articulate the team vision, they should frequently refer to it, define it vigorously with stakeholders and explore its implications. It is important to make the team vision short, meaningful, and memorable to reinforce its importance.

Most organizations have a mission statement which is the corporate objective. The mission is usually set by a Chief Executive Officer - the team vision is a subset of this. The team vision should clearly state what a department, business unit or team does to help the organization achieve the mission, it should highlight the work goals which inherently imply their reason for the team’s existence. The measure of the team vision is that all work contributes to the team vision achievement. The team vision creation process is physcologically important in that the team is agreeing on shared values and targets. They are giving meaning to their existence, and this has a significant and positive impact on job satisfaction and personal feelings of being a contributor, not just a worker.

Creating a team vision allows each of you to subconsciously work together, sharing honest views, feelings, and opinions that you may not otherwise share. This is because the conversation around setting a team vision allows you to express what you like about the team; what you do not like. It also helps start the process of open and honest communication. It allows you to agree on shared values and targets and give meaning to the team’s existence, which has a significant and positive impact on job satisfaction and personal feelings of being a contributor, not just a worker.

The team vision is important as it acts as a target to direct and motivate team members and their staff. It gives direction to all actions and acts as a measure of success after a task is completed. Creating a team vision as a team, aside from creating the goal itself, also has several important team building aspects:

Everyone on the team knowing the team vision becomes committed to it and has a stake in it. When each team member and their staff buy into the team vision and how their specific role contributes to it, productivity goes up.

If team members understand and believe in the team vision, the team achieves better results as it gives team members extra motivation to push that little bit more when dealing with difficult situations. They’ll also put their own interests aside to achieve the organization’s goals.

A good team vision stimulates teams on both the emotional and intellectual levels. It challenges and excites them, which inspires them to work towards it.

Team Vision Exercise

Break into groups and answer these questions:

What is the purpose of the team?

Why does the team exist?

What would be missing if the team did not exist?

Who are the beneficiaries of the teams' activities, and who are its stakeholders?

Where does the money come from to pay the teams salaries?

Using the answers from the questions:

Create a list of keywords that describe the team's operation, purpose, and outputs.

Add keywords that describe the teams’ stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Next merge all of the keywords into one or two sentences that describe a team common goal - the team vision. A test of the vision is that all teamwork is consistent with it.

Examples.

Alphabet Mission: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

-         A team within Alphabet could have a team vision of “We provide quality and timely information.”

Southwest Airlines Mission: “Dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.”

-         A team vision could be” Our friendly and supportive customer service will exceed your expectations.”

IKEA Mission: “Offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

-         A department within IKEA might have a team vision statement of “We build low-cost home furnishings that you will love.”

Come back together as a team.

Present the Team Vision that you have created.

Discuss what has been presented and merge the suggestions into one Team Vision the whole team will support.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

What is Delegation?

Delegation is defined as shifting authority and responsibility for specific functions, tasks, or decisions from one person (usually a manager) to another person – a team member. It provides autonomy and training to team members and allows you to load share your work as there's only so much that you can achieve working on your own. You can achieve much more using your team; that's why it's so important to delegate and do it well.

Delegating the right tasks to the right team members can be tough. Delegating, or giving authority, responsibility, and decision-making control to a team member or a team, is a behaviour of good managers with - follow through to ensure completion and recognition.

To start with, you need to identify what tasks you will delegate and to who. This means that you need to understand what your team is all about; you need individual performance goals. Only then will you think about your team's skills, experience, and competencies and start matching people to tasks that help you and your team members goals.

When delegating, you must explain your reasonings' for delegating a task to a team member; just telling someone that you trust them without giving them all the details of what a task requires sends mixed signals. Show team members that you trust them to do what's right by sharing all relevant information with them. You must also provide feedback to the team member in the form of a constructive observation (not a criticism) or praise. This will make the process of delegating in the future easier.

Some managers resent the idea that a team member may get the credit for completing a task or a project. In contrast, a good manager does their utmost to make certain that team members always receive credit and publicly appraises them accordingly. They also load up their team members with a heavy workload as this makes the team member perform at their best (busy people achieve more).

When you're deciding how to delegate work, ask yourself the following questions.

Do I need to monitor this task?

Will this work help the team member develop their skills, and will it employ their strengths?

Do I have time to teach the team member how to do the task?

Do I expect tasks of this nature to reoccur?

Benefits of delegation

It frees up your time so you can achieve more. By delegating, you will free yourself to focus on more critical projects and tasks; you will also help grow and develop your team members.

If you keep saying, "I'll just do it myself", your work will pile up and make you less efficient. Successful managers know delegating increases everyone's productivity.

When done correctly, team members are motivated, feel involved, and grow professionally. 

When team members challenge their skill sets, their productivity increases.

When a manager uses delegation to develop their team members, they are better placed to know who has the skills and strengths to take on other tasks.

When team members collaborate on a project, this allows for ideas being shared, for people to have a voice and for team ideas to grow.

What prevents good delegation?

Managers who are stressed and are in constant firefighting mode, that is, they go from crisis to crisis, will almost certainly fail to delegate as firefighting is reactive and not proactive. Managers won't delegate due to the following.

Ego: If I do it, it will be better.

Time: It will take too long to explain what's required.

Accountability: Am I accountable if it goes wrong?

Skills Gaps: My team members don't possess the necessary skills.

Authority Threat: Delegation reduces my authority.

Fear: The assigned task will not be carried out accurately, or the team member will fail.

Trust: I don't trust my team enough.

How to do it

What is the goal? What is the final objective and what results are needed to achieve it? What parts can be delegated?

Who is the right person for the task? Who has the right skills to do the work? How might this task help them develop? Will the task use their strengths?

Delegate. Have a conversation with the team member.

Give an overview of the task. Include the importance of the task, the resources available, and why you have chosen the team member.

Describe the details of the new responsibility. Define the scope of the role and set performance standards and intended results. Set clear expectations but do not say how the task should be completed.

Have a conversation. Solicit questions, reactions, and ask for suggestions.

Listen to the team members comments. Make sure they understand what is expected of them.

Share how this impacts the team. Help establish priorities and relieve some of the pressure by getting someone else to share some of the team members routine tasks for the duration of the work. Make sure to notify others who are affected by the team member’s new task.

Be encouraging. Express confidence in the team members ability.

Establish checkpoints, results, deadlines, and ways to monitor progress. The entire discussion should be a collaborative process.

      Stay in touch. Keep in contact with the team member and observe the checkpoints you agreed to at the outset. Remember, delegating means letting go.

      Recognize and reward. Acknowledge the team member for successful completion of the task. Source: Google. Project Oxygen.

What is Performance Management?

There will come a time when you need to remove a team member for poor performance or poor behaviours or something similar, this is known as ‘Managing people out’. This is a difficult thing to do, in fact it is an unpleasant thing to do, but it is something you need to be prepared for.

When you do need to remove a team member, I have found this is made easier due to the person concerned often recognising that they are not keeping up with or performing like their colleagues. Sometimes they may be having trouble adapting to a changing environment. Very often, it is a relief for these people when they are removed from the current situation as it relieves anxiety and stress. But it is not always a relief, in fact it can be a shock.

Approach - Do you want to become a professional?

This is a useful technique for managing people out by asking them if they want to become a professional and describing what that entails so they can make an informed decision. If they say Yes, I give them a second chance, document the discussion, and copy them and Human Resources. If it doesn’t work out, you may need to provide them with one final opportunity else you have what you need to terminate their employment.

Professional Standards

Having a professional attitude. Being upwardly supportive. Not participating in secret or negative conversations. Arriving at work on time and staying until the day’s work is complete. Putting in extra time when required.

Demonstrating professional maturity. Producing quality work. Acknowledging mistakes without shifting blame. Owning up to issues and presenting solutions. Being predictive about problems, acting before they occur to avoid them.

Managing time and workspace. Maintaining a diary for appointments and deadlines, regularly checking to stay on schedule with meetings and tasks. Using smart email management techniques. Organising your workspace so that it’s clean and that files are organised.

Practising leadership skills. Making presentations, chairing the CAB, being a business liaison contact, joining a professional society. Being up to date with industry changes by attending seminars and reading professional publications.

Communicating professionally. Being aware of body language, eye contact and your handshake. Speaking clearly and matching the tone and speed of your voice to match the other persons.  Practising active listening.

You can decide on your definition of professional standards and use that to manage someone out. But it gives you specific criteria against which you can assess the person and explain your reasoning for letting them go.

Steps

How to Delegate

Delegation is defined as shifting authority and responsibility for specific functions, tasks, or decisions from one person (usually a manager) to another person – a team member. It provides autonomy and training to team members and allows you to load share your work as there's only so much that you can achieve working on your own. You can achieve much more using your team; that's why it's so important to delegate and do it well.

Delegating the right tasks to the right team members can be tough. Delegating, or giving authority, responsibility, and decision-making control to a team member or a team, is a behaviour of good managers with - follow through to ensure completion and recognition.

To start with, you need to identify what tasks you will delegate and to who. This means that you need to understand what your team is all about; you need individual performance goals. Only then will you think about your team's skills, experience, and competencies and start matching people to tasks that help you and your team members goals.

When delegating, you must explain your reasonings' for delegating a task to a team member; just telling someone that you trust them without giving them all the details of what a task requires sends mixed signals. Show team members that you trust them to do what's right by sharing all relevant information with them. You must also provide feedback to the team member in the form of a constructive observation (not a criticism) or praise. This will make the process of delegating in the future easier.

Some managers resent the idea that a team member may get the credit for completing a task or a project. In contrast, a good manager does their utmost to make certain that team members always receive credit and publicly appraises them accordingly. They also load up their team members with a heavy workload as this makes the team member perform at their best (busy people achieve more).

Delegate for development

High-performance managers delegate tasks as a means of developing team members. Delegated tasks are monitored to see if the team members need additional direction or support and to assess progress. High-performance managers expect higher performance outcomes from their team members by giving them stretched goals and setting more challenging expectations outside of a team members normal comfort zone. They create a culture of clear accountability.

When you're deciding how to delegate work, ask yourself the following questions.

Do I need to monitor this task?

Will this work help the team member develop their skills, and will it employ their strengths?

Do I have time to teach the team member how to do the task?

Do I expect tasks of this nature to reoccur?

Benefits of delegation

It frees up your time so you can achieve more. By delegating, you will free yourself to focus on more critical projects and tasks; you will also help grow and develop your team members.

If you keep saying, "I'll just do it myself", your work will pile up and make you less efficient. Successful managers know delegating increases everyone's productivity.

When done correctly, team members are motivated, feel involved, and grow professionally. 

When team members challenge their skill sets, their productivity increases.

When a manager uses delegation to develop their team members, they are better placed to know who has the skills and strengths to take on other tasks.

When team members collaborate on a project, this allows for ideas being shared, for people to have a voice and for team ideas to grow.

What prevents good delegation?

Managers who are stressed and are in constant firefighting mode, that is, they go from crisis to crisis, will almost certainly fail to delegate as firefighting is reactive and not proactive. Managers won't delegate due to the following.

Ego: If I do it, it will be better.

Time: It will take too long to explain what's required.

Accountability: Am I accountable if it goes wrong?

Skills Gaps: My team members don't possess the necessary skills.

Authority Threat: Delegation reduces my authority.

Fear: The assigned task will not be carried out accurately, or the team member will fail.

Trust: I don't trust my team enough.

Actions

What is the goal? What is the final objective and what results are needed to achieve it? What parts can be delegated?

Who is the right person for the task? Who has the right skills to do the work? How might this task help them develop? Will the task use their strengths?

Delegate. Have a conversation with the team member.

Give an overview of the task. Include the importance of the task, the resources available, and why you have chosen the team member.

Describe the details of the new responsibility. Define the scope of the role and set performance standards and intended results. Set clear expectations but do not say how the task should be completed.

Have a conversation. Solicit questions, reactions, and ask for suggestions.

Listen to the team members comments. Make sure they understand what is expected of them.

Share how this impacts the team. Help establish priorities and relieve some of the pressure by getting someone else to share some of the team members routine tasks for the duration of the work. Make sure to notify others who are affected by the team member’s new task.

Be encouraging. Express confidence in the team members ability.

Establish checkpoints, results, deadlines, and ways to monitor progress. The entire discussion should be a collaborative process.

Stay in touch. Keep in contact with the team member and observe the checkpoints you agreed to at the outset. Remember, delegating means letting go.

Recognize and reward. Acknowledge the team member for successful completion of the task. Source: Google. Project Oxygen.

What is Motivation?

Managers who actively support and motivate their team members feel closer to them. By showing a sincere interest in your team members, you build trust and inspire others to achieve higher performance. A good team is not just a healthy team, but it is a team where team members are supported, motivated, and recognised for their achievements. A good manager understands that every time they speak to a team member, they can appraise and provide feedback. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback to know that they are important, are a contributor, team player and believe they are receiving an honest assessment of their performance. 

Team members fall into two motivation categories

Self-motivated. These are self-motivated team members who have a set of internal personal and professional drivers that motivate them. These are usually your star performers, which you are always at risk of losing if you do not provide them with appropriate autonomy, feedback, and empowerment to do their job.

Non-self-motivated. Some team members need external motivation. These team members do not possess these same drivers as their self-motivated colleagues and require you to actively motivate them.

The role of the manager

Good managers communicate high expectations to team members, inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and a part of the organisation's shared vision. They also encourage team members to be creative and innovative and to challenge their beliefs and those of the manager and the organisation. Exceptional managers are curious about the inner motivations of their team members because it's the key to higher performance. Does your team member enjoy meeting new people? Mastering new skills? Bonding with a team? Working in the background? How much do you know about your team members?

Set High standards.

The standards that you set for yourself are one of your biggest motivation tools. Working to the best of your abilities shows team members what you expect from them. They will only work as hard as you do, that is, to the standard that you are setting. That's why a motivational manager will always push themselves to reach a higher standard. This simple act inspires others to do the same. Team members follow the lead, which creates highly motivated and productive teams.

Communicate often.

Feedback is crucial to your team members motivation levels. Your team members need to know what they're doing well and what they could improve on. They need feedback and recognition of their efforts and successes. Unfortunately, 69% of managers don't feel comfortable talking to their team members, meaning they are disconnected from their team. This leads to them avoiding opportunities for communication, much like not listening; failing to communicate leads to team members disengaging. They feel like their manager does not care, which means they don't care either.

Motivational managers go in the opposite direction. They often communicate and with confidence. They articulate clearly, which helps their team members to understand the direction they need to go in. Providing direction is an essential team member motivation tool at your disposal. Use your feedback sessions to ensure your team members know what you need from them.

Listen to team members.

Every team member needs to know and feel that their manager listens to what they are saying and respects their ideas. They want to be confident that some action may be taken based upon what they have said. Despite this, many managers don't listen to their team members. They may ask questions, but they do not hear the answers, believing that their ideas are the only ones that matter.

This tells team members that their opinions and ideas have little value and is a great way to demotivate them. This results in missing out on many great ideas and suggestions.

How to quickly demotivate people.

Do not give feedback or recognition.

Micromanage.

Make decisions without consulting team members.

Allow team members to miss commitments without a negative consequence.

Not making allowance for personal factors and their effects on work.

Fear of Failure

There is a significant and insidious cause of failure, and that's our self-defeating thoughts brought on by fear of not meeting expectations. You can see it in a team members eye when you give them a task that they do not feel confident about. They have learned that failure, not meeting what's expected, can have negative consequences or, in extreme cases, be punished.

These consequences can be humiliation, no further work allocation of the type just tried, no promotion or not being given a second chance to take on something new. Only negative, resounding thoughts about their lack of ability and possibly their job being at risk resounds in their head.

Fear of failure is probably one of the main reasons we prefer to numb ourselves through inaction rather than move forward. Sometimes we are so afraid of letting ourselves down or letting others down or disappointing them that the opinions of others dominate us to the point of paralysis. Other times it is a deep-seated feeling of unworthiness that makes us question our abilities.

Succeeding or failing is not the issue; what is the issue is 'having a go'. When used with people you are getting to know or to whom you are giving a complex task that they have no experience or knowledge of, the following technique works well. It is the 'hand' technique.

Hand Technique.

It works like this; explain the task, what you think the outcome may look like and then deliberately place your hand about 10 centimetres above your desk and say, "what's important here is having a go. I don't care if you only achieve this much (then raise your hand a bit higher) or achieve this much; what I care about is you agree to have a go at this task please, I am not interested in what you achieve."

The hand technique is very good at removing anxiety about their ability to do the task and your expectation of the outcome.

Finish up by saying, "please come back at any time if you need help." Tell them it's your job to help. This technique is remarkably successful, especially as people get to know you and what you expect of them.

Just having a go, giving it a try is what it's all about and most people succeed the first time.

Call the team member in and have a conversation as follows.

"Come in, please sit down; I have something to say to you, and I would appreciate you hearing me out before you make any comment. I have noticed that you are unhappy, and that is bothering me greatly. You are dissatisfied with work just now, and I can see that your morale is low. I don't know the cause, but my approach to situations like this is that I am the cause; the problem is me. I have failed to sufficiently support and motivate you in some way, perhaps the work I have asked you to do is not challenging enough, or I have been unable to adequately explain what it is I would like you to undertake.

You don't have to make any comment about this just now unless you want to. I would prefer you didn't, but instead, come back and see me tomorrow and let me know what you think. Tomorrow, I want to talk about what I can do, let's talk about training, a new job, different work, let's talk about how you see things, what your needs are. If the issue is a personal one, let's talk about that. Whatever happens, please accept that the real problem as I see it is that I am failing to support you in some way."

Let's catch up at 10.00a tomorrow morning."

Digesting what you have said.

Next, the team member concerned digests that you see the problem as being you; this is a surprise to them. However, it nearly always allows them to come back and be very open and honest about what is really troubling them, be it a personal or professional issue. This creates a context for an honest conversation about what is troubling them - the usual causes being.

Their job role is a square peg in a round hole; their current job does not match their job aspirations or use their strengths.

They are not handling change well - they see their peers doing well, which is creating anxiety for them as they don't think they can change.

There is a personal problem.

They are having difficulty understanding what it is you want from them.

Follow-up meeting.

At the beginning of the follow-up meeting, start by saying that you have been thinking about the next catch-up, and you believe the issue could be one of the four causes outlined. Then pass the conversation over to them. You need to correct whatever the issue is; you can't brush it aside. So, the approach is that you are the problem, not the team member. As a manager, you are responsible for the health and well-being of your team members; this includes their job satisfaction and morale.

How to do it

Give effective recognition for a job well done by doing it in front of others. Be sparing in your praise; recognition must be deserved.

Look for opportunities to improve communication between team members by highlighting someone's strengths and by underpinning any shortcomings.

Every time you speak with one of your team members, it is an opportunity to provide feedback on their performance and offer support and motivation. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback so that they understand that they are important, are a contributor a team player and believe they receive an honest assessment of their performance.

Comment on a recent email or report you received.

Comment on customer feedback you received that concerns their area.

A comment that you think things are going well.

Equally, make 'observations', not criticisms about things you don't like. ("I noticed that last email you sent me was very long.”)

Implement programs to recognise the performance and efforts of all team members. (E.g., Employee of the month).

When you give someone a difficult task or one outside of their skillset, remove the fear of failure by telling them that what you expect is that they 'have a go,' not what they achieve, and offer to help. 

Accept mistakes, but not when the same one is made three times.

What is Autonomy and Empowerment?

Team members who do not have autonomy or empowerment require external motivation, whereas team members who do possess autonomy and empowerment do not. Autonomy and empowerment are critical attributes of high-performing teams; without them, you have frustrated team members who are constantly reminded that they're not trusted to make even small decisions let alone the bigger ones; this saps motivation and leads to resentment. 

Worst scenario.

Do your team members make decisions on their own? Or do you have the final say on every or most decisions? If you fall into the latter, you're hindering your team's ability to get results. If every decision must go through you, this slows workflow often with your team's work grinding to a halt. Furthermore, not allowing team members to make decisions demonstrates a lack of trust. You're telling them that you doubt their abilities to make the right choices. 

Strengths-based autonomy and empowerment.

Providing autonomy and empowerment means understanding the strengths and skills that each team member has. For example, it means recognising that somebody in the team may understand risk analysis better than you. As a result, they're best placed to make decisions related to project risk, and it follows that you should implement this line of thinking throughout the team. If somebody has the skills needed to make decisions, allow them to do so. This extra accountability acts as a motivator and confidence builder. You're letting people do the jobs you pay them to do, which always leads to better results.

You will never have achieved high-performance leadership if you do not give up some control. As your team formation changes due to the introduction of high-performance practices, then according to the Tuckman model of team development, team behaviour is at first leadership determined. However, as it reaches the high-performance stage, behaviour is self-determined, and leadership is increasingly shared. Managers must be willing to relinquish power as the team seeks to exercise self-determination; otherwise, their strengths and skills are squandered, and they become disempowered and disengaged. 

How to terminate someone’s Employment

There will come a time when you need to remove a team member for unacceptable performance or behaviour; this is a difficult thing to do; it is an unpleasant thing to do, but it is something you need to be prepared for.

When you do need to remove a team member, it is sometimes easier than you may think because the person concerned often recognises that they are not keeping up with or performing like their colleagues. Sometimes they may be having trouble adapting to a changing environment. It is usually a relief for these people when they are removed from their current situation as it relieves anxiety and stress. But it is not always a relief; in fact, it can be a shock.

Approach - Do you want to become a professional?

Do you want to become a professional? It is a valuable technique for managing people out by telling a team member that you expect them to act professionally and then asking them if they want to become a professional and describing what that entails to make an informed decision. If they say Yes, you give them a second chance, document the discussion, and copy them and Human Resources. If it doesn’t work out, you may need to provide them with one final opportunity; else, you have what you need to terminate their employment. Being a professional means subscribing to professional standards, for example.

Having a professional attitude. Being upwardly supportive. Not participating in secret or negative conversations. Arriving at work on time and staying until the day’s work is complete. Putting in extra time when required.

Demonstrating professional maturity. Producing quality work. Acknowledging mistakes without shifting blame. Owning up to issues and presenting solutions. Being predictive about problems, acting before they occur to avoid them.

Managing time and workspace. Maintaining a diary for appointments and deadlines, regularly checking to stay on schedule with meetings and tasks. Using smart email management techniques. Organising a workspace so that it’s clean and files are organised.

Practising leadership skills. Making presentations, being a business liaison contact, joining a professional society. Being up to date with industry changes by attending seminars and reading professional publications.

Communicating professionally. Being aware of body language, eye contact and a handshake. Speaking clearly and practising active listening.

You can decide on your definition of professional standards and use that to manage your team and to manage someone out. This gives you specific criteria against which you can assess the team member and explain your reasoning for letting them go.

The people you don’t want

These team members are not comfortable with the concept of being a professional. They are usually the cowboys who ignore instructions and things like process and do as they please. Then there are terrorists; they actively look for situations they can make worse for the pure warped pleasure of it. As a word of caution, you need to ask yourself, “Do some people behave in a certain way because of the current workplace culture?” If you suspect this might be the case, you need to assume that they can change. Only you can judge. Then there are team members who are just plain lazy and disinterested no matter what the culture. Don’t waste your time with these people; manage them out as fast as you can.

1.  Unprofessional.

Some people are not interested in becoming a professional; they choose not to change their behaviours. There is no room for this attitude in your team. Team members need to decide upfront if they are interested in being developed into professionals. Personal biases and prejudices, for example, cannot be part of a professional persona, nor is there room for personal issues.

2.  Job perks.

These people are more interested in the job’s perks than they are in the job. These people, believing they are highly valuable, come to you demanding or strongly suggesting at least that it’s in everyone’s best interest to expand their remuneration package. They want to receive more flexible working hours, paid overtime, a personal use Uber account, to bring their dog to work, want company paid life insurance, and the list goes on. What is good about these people is they declare their real agenda to you, which makes them easily identified as people you don’t want. The best team members are in it for the job, work, and experience, not just perks.

3.  Hostage takers.

A staff member that holds you hostage: These are team members who, due to their many years of service, are the only team members left with specific business knowledge making them a highly valuable resource, and they know it. Steps need to be taken in these situations to document what they know (which is extremely difficult) and train others. Often team members of this type believe that they are indispensable and, therefore, can do as they please. They ignore management directions, carry out unauthorised work, are often lazy and even go as far as to turn up for work when it suits them.

Discuss with these team members what your expectations are and what specific behaviour of theirs is unprofessional and that there is no room for them in your team. Then document the discussion and copy them and Human Resources as part of a potential ‘Performance Management plan’ to manage them out. Be warned that often, these team members call your bluff, believing you won’t do it.

Actions

No matter how sound the reasoning, terminating a team members employment is an unpleasant experience; try following these points.

Write out in bullet point form the professionalism points the team member is not meeting, that is, the reasons for letting them go.

Write a bullet point script that you will follow as your discussion points. This makes the conversation easier to execute, keeps you on point and not distracted from the duty you need to perform.

Sample script.

We are meeting today to discuss your ongoing unacceptable performance.

I am not happy with your performance as it is not meeting the professional standards, I have outlined to you.

Specifically, these are the professional standards you are not meeting.

This is a first (or final) warning that you need to meet these standards or terminate your employment.

This discussion today will be documented, and a copy will be sent to yourself and Human Resources.

We will meet again in two weeks to discuss the situation then or; I am terminating your employment as of now and require you to collect your personal belongings and leave the premises. A final salary payment will be paid to you within x days.

                  Do not answer any questions if you have terminated their employment.

                  Do discuss questions only if you are giving a warning.

                  Stick to your bullet point script, remembering that it is not a negotiation.

                  Do not accept interruptions or questions; if this happens, reply that you will discuss questions when you have finished.

Always have a Human Resource or another third-party present to witness the discussion; they do not participate in the discussion; they only listen.               

TEAM MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

What is an Open-Door Policy?

There are only three reasons to have your office door closed:

To tell team members to keep away from you, which you never want to do.

To do urgent work to the extent that you cannot handle an interruption.

To have a private conversation.

I consider options 2 and 3 as the only valid options, and I am somewhat averse to option 3, as there should be no need for private conversations in a high-performance work environment.

Leaving your office door open always is a way of publicly and privately stating that you want people to approach you, give you unsolicited feedback or drop in for a chat. You must always be approachable; any barrier you put up is a roadblock to communicating with you; a closed-door also is a way of telling team members that they are less than you, that is, they do not command the same value as you.

Even an open-door policy is no guarantee that team members and others will come to see you; many will not come due to various reasons such as shyness, busyness, intimidation of your office and so on. 

Your office is a barrier, with the typical office layout involving your desk being in the middle of your office and a chair close to the doorway for guests. Your chair is a seat of power between the wall and the desk. This layout creates a physical barrier between you and your team members. A person's office is often viewed as personal or even hostile territory, creating a psychological aversion to crossing through the door. The office setup supports lines of authority which usually flows downwards from the manager to the team member and not freely back.

You need to consider how you use your office:

When feasible, I positioned my desk sideways, or so it faced a wall; this way, any team member or guest that entered to talk with me was sitting in front of me with no barriers in-between.

If you can, have a separate side table, immediately move to it as someone enters, inviting them to join you there.

If you do not have a side table, push your chair backwards and towards the end of your desk, removing yourself from the centre of power.

Do not use oversized executive style chairs (despite their imposing look, they are usually the most uncomfortable and harmful for your back); instead, use a simple, small, typist chair – they are designed for comfort, are great for your back and promote good posture, plus they are on wheels and are quick and easy to move.

A typist chair also sends out a loud message that you do not see yourself as the 'big boss'; instead, you are just like whoever has come to see you – you are on their level.

Who are Remote Team Members?

Consider communication with team members who work remotely; the best way to keep in touch is about having frequent face time meetings (and six-monthly in-person meetings). When managers understand the importance of their relationship with their remote team members, they begin to individualise their approach to helping these team members achieve higher performance and encourage collaboration and teamwork.

High-performance managers need to understand that remote team members' expectations are different from office workers' expectations, especially if remote team members feel isolated, which can result in as much as a 21% drop in performance. High-performance managers can't manage the modern remote workforce using a traditional management approach. Here are three ways to defeat isolation and increase engagement.

Defeat negative misperceptions of remote team members.

A negative misperception of remote team members is that they are less productive and collaborative than office employees. High-performance managers recognise that most remote team members are mostly 25% more productive than their in-office colleagues.

Know your team members.

High-performance managers need to take the time to understand their remote team members, especially how they prefer to communicate and to discover how they think and respond to specific kinds of workplace situations.

How to manage remote team members

Identify your remote team members strengths (natural talents), so you know how they work best.

Who do they prefer to work with most often?

Which of their working partnerships produces the best results?

Make sure the remote team member understands your expectations of them and their work. Set clear expectations indicating your attention to, understanding of and respect for their job role. 

Provide support, equipment, and information. It is extremely frustrating when held back by inadequate resources and support. You must ensure that remote team members have the materials, equipment, and information they need to do their job. Connect remote team members to colleagues doing similar work and ensure that remote team members are a part of team meetings to foster a sense of connectedness and belonging.

What are Check-Ins?

Weekly check-in sessions are a vital part of the team member-manager relationship. It's where team members get individualised attention, and the manager can provide mentoring. It provides you with a management tool to develop your team members to their fullest potential. This is a free-form meeting for all the pressing work issues, ideas and frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email, and other less personal and intimate mechanisms. It means weekly status or progress reports can be dispensed with.

Regular Check-Ins help you stay in the loop, alerting you to potential problems at an early stage so that you can step, correct, or influence events before things go out of control. A general aim is to understand each other's work and personal situation and out of work stresses and obligations. The overall objective is to build a supportive and trusted relationship and discuss and influence your team members toward improved 'work performance' with positive outcomes. It is also the opportunity to:

Motivate team members to continue a behaviour that increases their effectiveness.

Stop a behaviour that reduces their effectiveness, especially if it turns them into a problem team member.

Giving this kind of feedback consistently and well establishes and strengthens trust. The more trust and rapport you can build, the more readily your team members will accept and act on future feedback, creating a pattern of learning and growth. It is important to have genuine conversations about performance, with the intent of getting a team member to improve, whatever their role or level of responsibility. All feedback is an opportunity to improve.

How to do Mentoring

You need to establish a weekly, or fortnightly, team member mentoring session. Mentoring Is not just an important success factor for team building outcomes, but it is highly recommended as a regular management practice.

The Mentoring session

The purpose of the mentoring sessions is twofold. Firstly, it assists with the rollout of the team building process and secondly it creates a working relationship that is positive and supportive that provides you with a management tool to develop your team members to their fullest potential. The scope of the sessions should change and evolve as the needs of the team member being mentored changes.

At the start of your mentoring sessions, explain why the sessions are being held, their twofold purpose, then try to exchange background information about yourself and the mentee before you talk about anything else, take the time to get to know each other. Try to understand the team members personal situation and out of work stresses and obligations. Use your own situation as an example. Being as frank and honest as you can helps build repour and encourages the mentee to do the same. You are building a working relationship here and you want to be able to quickly and easily, openly, and honestly, discuss any subject, no matter how contentious or troublesome, in the future.

At subsequent sessions, the team member being mentored should be encouraged to share information about his or her career path aspirations and be given guidance, motivation, emotional support, and assistance with problems. If you have a new team or new team member; at the first session, talk about becoming a High-Performance Team and the benefits.

Without a mutually understood agreement to speak freely, the relationship is unlikely to reach its full potential. Commit to honesty. Both parties should be prepared to offer frank feedback as appropriate, even if the feedback is critical. Listen and learn. Mentors, especially, need to remember that the relationship is not primarily about them. These sessions should reveal team members preferred working styles and as mentioned, professional aspirations. You are their role model, you must lead by example, remembering that your words and actions will create a lasting impression and will be copied.

Be careful of language; for example, never criticise anyone even when the situation warrants it. Instead, I strongly suggest that you tell them that you have an observation to make, albeit negative. The word ‘criticism’ or being perceived as being critical is negative; it turns people off; they stop listening and are unlikely to take on board what you have to say. If for example, you have made the same mistake yourself at some time or exhibited the same poor behaviour that you have ‘observed’ say so, its builds trust and reiterates that we all learn from our mistakes. Language is important. Always try to follow a negative observation with a positive one.

As the team building process progresses, use this time to explore how the team member is adjusting, any concerns they may have and any suggestions for improvement. Work to get them to take on increased ownership of the team building process, its outcomes and especially making new ways of working, new habits. After all, it’s for their benefit. It is important to impress on each team member how important it is to adopt, practice and make permanent the new team building ways of working. It is strongly recommended that you repeat this message every time.

Recognise that team members have individual differences in terms of needs and desires, aim to exploit their strengths and challenge them with new tasks to address weaknesses. Accept that there will be individual differences between team members, (e.g., some team members require more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure). Aim to understand their preferred working style and be prepared to address failings.

At my regular weekly mentoring sessions, I always discussed:

Team building progress.

Current major projects.

Any work issues.

Staff training.

Team members strengths and weaknesses and professional development needs.

Make it a priority

Try to diary at least an hour with each team member per week, especially during the team building process. As each team member takes on more of the team building characteristics, these sessions may become shorter or be spaced further apart. Use this time with team building and your own agenda in mind, namely that you are developing a team of professionals.

At your Mentoring sessions, you must impress on each team member how important it is to adopt, practice and make permanent the new team building methods. It is strongly recommended that you repeat this message every time.

Recognise that team members have individual differences in terms of needs and desires.

Accept individual differences (e.g., some team members receive more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure).

How to Engage your Team

Team member engagement is the degree to which a team member feels connected to their job. Engaged team members are far more productive than disengaged team members. (Disengaged team members feel no real connection to their jobs and tend to do the bare minimum.) The objective is to have a team of highly engaged team members, and that is what this step is all about. Team member engagement is accomplished by giving feedback, providing autonomy and empowerment, by doing Weekly Check-Ins and Quarterly Mentoring.

Engaged team members produce superior results, are more productive, loyal and stay at an organisation longer, and team member engagement links to better business outcomes. Based on over 50 years of team member engagement research, Gallup has shown that engaged team members produce better business outcomes than others - across industry, company size and nationality, and in good economic times and bad.

Engaged team members are highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace. They are psychological "owners" who drive high performance and innovation and move the organisation forward.

Non-engaged team members are psychologically unattached to their work and their company because their engagement needs are not being met; they're putting in time but not energy or passion - into their work.

Actively disengaged team members are unhappy at work; they are resentful that their needs aren't being met and act out their unhappiness accordingly. Every day, these team members potentially undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish.

Gallup research has shown that engagement creates a positive feedback loop. People who are engaged are more successful, and success helps people engage in their work. Strengths-oriented teams improve engagement and team cohesion; thus, they have less turnover -creating conditions that will enhance the likelihood of success. Researchers have developed various definitions of team member engagement; they have also created categories to describe and distinguish its differing levels.

Team members' emotional commitment means engaged team members care about their work and their organisation, identify with its vision and purpose, use discretionary effort, and are enthusiastic about it. They are committed to their work and workplace. Their level of psychological investment is a measure of the strength and mental and emotional connection they feel toward their workplace. This means an engaged supervisor works overtime when needed, and an engaged clerk keeps the store clean.

Engaged employees lead to better business outcomes. In fact, according to Towers Perrin research, companies with engaged team members have 6% higher net profit margins, and according to Kenexa research, engaged companies have five times higher shareholder returns over five years.

Engaged and disengaged team members

Gallup distinguishes between employees who are "actively engaged" (loyal and productive), "not engaged" (average performers) and "actively disengaged" (ROAD warriors, or "retired on active duty").

Disengaged team members feel no real connection to their jobs and tend to do the bare minimum. Disengagement can show in several ways, a 9-to-5 clock mentality or a tendency to seal oneself off from other team members. It becomes most noticeable when someone who's ordinarily outgoing and enthusiastic seems to fall by the wayside and has nothing positive to contribute. They may resent their jobs, tend to gripe to co-workers and drag down office morale.

Engaged team members are highly focused and intensely involved in their work. They are enthusiastic with a sense of urgency. Engaged behaviour is persistent, proactive, and adaptive in ways that expand the job roles as necessary. Engaged team members go beyond job descriptions in, for example, service delivery or innovation, they feel focused with a sense of urgency and concentrate on how they approach what they do, satisfied team members, in contrast, feel pleasant, content, and gratified.

Engagement levels are significantly influenced by the team members manager (through job assignments, trust, recognition, day-to-day communications, and so on.)

Effect on productivity

Most managers understand that team member engagement directly affects an organisation's profitability. According to Gallup, just 33 per cent of American workers are engaged by their jobs. Fifty-two per cent say they're "just showing up," and 17 per cent describe themselves as "actively disengaged" therefore, most managers have a lot of work to do to unlock the full potential of their teams. 

Engagement can be affected by social cohesion, feeling supported by one's manager, information sharing, a team vision, communication, and trust. Team members want to feel valued and respected; they want to know that their work is meaningful, and their ideas are heard. Highly engaged team members are more productive and committed to the organisations in which they work.

The role of managers

"Google manager research revealed that one of the most important behaviours of their best managers was that they were effective coaches. This is seen in other professions, as well. For example, in sports, many former athletes can tell stories about how a coach changed their life by identifying strengths, unlocking their potential, and encouraging them to persevere. Managers can be effective coaches by focussing on the individual needs of each team member. It is also important for managers to be able to flex their coaching styles - for example, the needs of individual team members may require them to be a "teaching" coach where the manager passes along an expertise to achieve something, or a "facilitating coach" where the manager asks questions and listens instead of telling or giving answers." Source: Google Project Oxygen.

"Have regular 1:1s with your team members and be fully present and focused on the team member.

Be aware of your mindset and that of the team member.

Practice active listening and ask open-ended questions to facilitate the team member's insight (questions that start with "what" and "how" encourage expansive thinking).

Provide specific and timely feedback.

Balance positive (motivational) and negative (constructive) feedback and understand the unique strengths and development areas of each team member." Source: Google Project Oxygen.

Team member engagement increases dramatically when the daily experiences of team members include positive relationships with their manager. Team members want relationships, particularly with a manager who can coach them to the next level. Managers drive team member engagement. Between regular meetings, weekly check-ins and touch bases, managers see the full spectrum of work their team is working on. The manager is the one who sets expectations, highlights opportunities, improves collaboration, and often distributes the workload. This can only happen successfully when the manager is involved in and engaged with their team.

People want purpose and meaning from their jobs. They want to be recognised for what they are good at and what makes them unique. This is what drives employee engagement.

If you have the materials and equipment you need to do your job right; you'll care more about the fate of your organisation. You are naturally inclined toward success at some things, and by adding skills, knowledge, and practice, you'll be much better at them. High-performance managers need to build genuine relationships with their team members. The best managers understand that each team member is different, that each has various successes and challenges. Knowing their team members as people first, these managers accommodate their team members uniqueness while managing them toward high performance.

High-performance managers try to get to know their team members and help them feel comfortable talking about any subject, work-related or not. They trust trained team members to take authority over decisions in their assigned jobs. High-performance leadership is designed to give team members room to be creative, look to the future, and find new, creative solutions to old problems. Team members on the leadership track will also be prepared to become high-performance managers through mentorship and training.

How much of your time do you spend working on your team member relationships? Building strong professional relationships and an environment of trust and respect takes time and effort, but it pays huge dividends in performance.

Most managers don't know how to make their team member conversations meaningful, so sometimes their actions may be interpreted as micromanaging without providing the right tools and direction.

The goal of engagement is the professional and personal growth and development of the team member.

People who are engaged are more successful, and success helps people engage in their work.

But mere transactions between managers and team members are not enough to maximise engagement. Team members need communication from their manager about their roles and responsibilities and what happens outside of work. An effective workplace is psychologically safe enough to experiment in, question, share information, and support one another - but none of this can happen if team members do not feel engaged.

Middle managers play a crucial role in team member engagement, creating a respectful and trusting relationship with their direct reports, communicating organisational values, and setting expectations for the organisation's day-to-day business. Studies show that people leave managers, not companies, and ensuring managers actively participate in and managing team member engagement is essential. According to a 2017 Dale Carnegie study, "Just 26% of managers surveyed say that team member engagement is a very important part of what they think about, plan, and do every day. Another 42% say they work on it frequently, and the rest only occasionally, rarely or never."

Engagement replaces annual performance appraisals

The key reason for dropping annual appraisals is that engagement more closely follows the natural cycle of work. When rapid innovation is a source of competitive advantage, as it is now in many companies and industries, that means future needs are continually changing. Because organisations won't necessarily want employees to keep doing the same things, it doesn't make sense to hang on to a system built mainly to assess and hold people accountable for past or current practices.

As Susan Peters, GE's head of human resources has pointed out, businesses no longer have clear annual cycles. Instead, projects are short-term and tend to change along the way, so employees' goals and tasks can't be plotted out a year in advance with much accuracy. In the words of one Deloitte manager: "The conversations are more holistic. They're about goals and strengths, not just about past performance." Trust people, not policies. Reward candour and throw away the standard playbook.

While team members need to be held accountable for their results, most people perform best when given tools to succeed and coaching to improve performance. Companies that have reengineered their performance review processes and have eliminated ratings, have found substantial improvements in engagement and performance as a result.

Shifting away from annual performance appraisals toward a process of continuous coaching and development (Weekly check-ins and Quarterly coaching) requires a new role for managers. Ideally, conversations between managers and team members occur when projects finish, milestones are reached, challenges pop up, and so forth, allowing people to solve problems in current performance while also developing skills for the future.

At most companies, managers take the lead in setting near-term goals, and employees drive career conversations throughout the year.

Regular conversations about performance and development change the focus to building the workforce your organisation needs to be competitive today and years from now. Business researcher Josh Bersin estimates that about 70% of multinational companies are moving toward this model, even if they haven't arrived quite yet.

Moving away from the traditional focus on individual accountability (the annual appraisal) makes it easier to foster and evaluate teamwork especially given that the move toward team-based work often conflicted with individual appraisals and rewards. Now that the labour market has tightened and keeping good people is once again critical, many companies have been trying to eliminate "dissatisfiers" that drive team members away. Naturally, annual reviews are on that list since the process is widely reviled, and the focus on numerical ratings interferes with people's learning. Replacing this system with feedback delivered right after client engagements and project completions helps managers do better coaching and allows subordinates to process and apply the advice more effectively.

Engagement promotes feedback

A key reason team members feel disengaged is because of a lack of a manager's feedback. Team members are usually eager to share feedback with their managers and do so in the hopes of driving positive change in their workplace. However, team members feel that all too often, their feedback goes unheard and does not result in meaningful change. The bottom line? Managers aren't listening, and team members are taking notice.

Team members want to share feedback to improve the workplace.

Most team members (78 per cent) say they're eager to take company surveys, and more than a third (38 per cent) say company surveys are the preferred method for sharing feedback.

And yet, 50 per cent of respondents said they received no surveys from their manager in the past year.

Failure to act leads to employee dissatisfaction.

Nearly half of respondents (45 per cent) and 40 per cent of executives don't believe their feedback leads to meaningful change.

Forty-one per cent of all poll respondents, and 53 per cent of Millennials, say they are looking for a new job.

Employers lack the tools to analyse the data and drive change.

Ninety-eight per cent of respondents say they always, usually, or sometimes provide responses to open-ended survey questions.

When companies receive thousands of team members responses, it invites the question, what's being done with the data?

These are the most time-consuming parts of surveys for team members to complete and are challenging for HR leaders to analyse, especially at an enterprise scale. Yet, the responses to these open-ended questions have the greatest potential to reveal insights that can drive meaningful change.

Engagement means giving autonomy and empowerment

Team members who do not have autonomy or empowerment require external motivation, whereas team members who do possess autonomy and empowerment do not. Autonomy and empowerment are critical attributes of high-performing teams; without them, you have frustrated team members who are constantly reminded that they're not trusted to make even small decisions let alone the bigger ones; this saps motivation and leads to resentment. 

1.  Worst scenario.

Do your team members make decisions on their own? Or do you have the final say on every or most decisions? If you fall into the latter, you're hindering your team's ability to get results. If every decision must go through you, this slows workflow often with your team's work grinding to a halt. Furthermore, not allowing team members to make decisions demonstrates a lack of trust. You're telling them that you doubt their abilities to make the right choices. 

2.  Strengths-based autonomy and empowerment.

Providing autonomy and empowerment means understanding the strengths and skills that each team member has. For example, it means recognising that somebody in the team may understand risk analysis better than you. As a result, they're best placed to make decisions related to project risk, and it follows that you should implement this line of thinking throughout the team. If somebody has the skills needed to make decisions, allow them to do so. This extra accountability acts as a motivator and confidence builder. You're letting people do the jobs you pay them to do, which always leads to better results.

You will never have achieved high-performance leadership if you do not give up some control. As your team formation changes due to the introduction of high-performance practices, then according to the Tuckman model of team development, team behaviour is at first leadership determined. However, as it reaches the high-performance stage, behaviour is self-determined, and leadership is increasingly shared. Managers must be willing to relinquish power as the team seeks to exercise self-determination; otherwise, their strengths and skills are squandered, and they become disempowered and disengaged. 

Engagement means having an open-door policy

There are only three reasons to have your office door closed:

To tell team members to keep away from you, which you never want to do.

To do urgent work to the extent that you cannot handle an interruption.

To have a private conversation.

I consider options 2 and 3 as the only valid options, and I am somewhat averse to option 3, as there should be no need for private conversations in a high-performance work environment.

Leaving your office door open always is a way of publicly and privately stating that you want people to approach you, give you unsolicited feedback or drop in for a chat. You must always be approachable; any barrier you put up is a roadblock to communicating with you; a closed-door also is a way of telling team members that they are less than you, that is, they do not command the same value as you.

Even an open-door policy is no guarantee that team members and others will come to see you; many will not come due to various reasons such as shyness, busyness, intimidation of your office and so on. 

Your office is a barrier, with the typical office layout involving your desk being in the middle of your office and a chair close to the doorway for guests. Your chair is a seat of power between the wall and the desk. This layout creates a physical barrier between you and your team members. A person's office is often viewed as personal or even hostile territory, creating a psychological aversion to crossing through the door. The office setup supports lines of authority which usually flows downwards from the manager to the team member and not freely back.

You need to consider how you use your office:

When feasible, I positioned my desk sideways, or so it faced a wall; this way, any team member or guest that entered to talk with me was sitting in front of me with no barriers in-between.

If you can, have a separate side table, immediately move to it as someone enters, inviting them to join you there.

If you do not have a side table, push your chair backwards and towards the end of your desk, removing yourself from the centre of power.

Do not use oversized executive style chairs (despite their imposing look, they are usually the most uncomfortable and harmful for your back); instead, use a simple, small, typist chair – they are designed for comfort, are great for your back and promote good posture, plus they are on wheels and are quick and easy to move.

A typist chair also sends out a loud message that you do not see yourself as the 'big boss'; instead, you are just like whoever has come to see you – you are on their level.

Engagement means being in contact with remote team members

Consider communication with team members who work remotely; the best way to keep in touch is about having frequent face time meetings (and six-monthly in-person meetings). When managers understand the importance of their relationship with their remote team members, they begin to individualise their approach to helping these team members achieve higher performance and encourage collaboration and teamwork.

High-performance managers need to understand that remote team members' expectations are different from office workers' expectations, especially if remote team members feel isolated, which can result in as much as a 21% drop in performance. High-performance managers can't manage the modern remote workforce using a traditional management approach. Here are three ways to defeat isolation and increase engagement.

1.  Defeat negative misperceptions of remote team members.

A negative misperception of remote team members is that they are less productive and collaborative than office employees. High-performance managers recognise that most remote team members are mostly 25% more productive than their in-office colleagues.

2.  Know your team members.

High-performance managers need to take the time to understand their remote team members, especially how they prefer to communicate and to discover how they think and respond to specific kinds of workplace situations.

3.  How to manage remote team members

Identify your remote team members strengths (natural talents), so you know how they work best.

Who do they prefer to work with most often?

Which of their working partnerships produces the best results?

Most important of all, however, is that in general remote team members require a higher level of trust with their manager, the best way to do this is to.

Make sure the remote team member understands your expectations of them and their work. Set clear expectations indicating your attention to, understanding of and respect for their job role. 

Provide support, equipment, and information. It is extremely frustrating when held back by inadequate resources and support. You must ensure that remote team members have the materials, equipment, and information they need to do their job. Connect remote team members to colleagues doing similar work and ensure that remote team members are a part of team meetings to foster a sense of connectedness and belonging.

Weekly check-ins

Weekly check-in sessions are a vital part of the team member-manager relationship. It's where team members get individualised attention, and the manager can provide mentoring. It provides you with a management tool to develop your team members to their fullest potential. This is a free-form meeting for all the pressing work issues, ideas and frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email, and other less personal and intimate mechanisms. It means weekly status or progress reports can be dispensed with.

Regular Check-Ins help you stay in the loop, alerting you to potential problems at an early stage so that you can step, correct, or influence events before things go out of control. A general aim is to understand each other's work and personal situation and out of work stresses and obligations. The overall objective is to build a supportive and trusted relationship and discuss and influence your team members toward improved 'work performance' with positive outcomes. It is also the opportunity to:

Motivate team members to continue a behaviour that increases their effectiveness.

Stop a behaviour that reduces their effectiveness, especially if it turns them into a problem team member.

Giving this kind of feedback consistently and well establishes and strengthens trust. The more trust and rapport you can build, the more readily your team members will accept and act on future feedback, creating a pattern of learning and growth. It is important to have genuine conversations about performance, with the intent of getting a team member to improve, whatever their role or level of responsibility. All feedback is an opportunity to improve.

Summary

Feedback - provide feedback, actively listen to team members, and give positive recognition, especially when taking on a leadership role.

Autonomy and Empowerment - provide team members with complete autonomy over their work and empower them to make decisions. Give them the amount of authority they need to complete the task without checking back with you on every detail.

Open Door policy - have an open-door policy making yourself 100% available to team members.

Remote team members – have regular check-ins with them and get to know their preferred working style.

Weekly Check-In meetings - start weekly team member check-ins, have a standing agenda focussing on current activities and issues. Establish an environment where team members are comfortable expressing their ideas. 

WORK PRACTICES

What are Work Practices?

A high-performance team can only produce consistently high output and quality when team members share a set of effective work practices. The best of these include email, decision making, intuition, process, and intranet, timeboxing, creativity, innovation, and workload management.

Effective work practices are the actions that glue a team together and are another contributor to high performance. They are the actions, large or small, that teams undertake regularly and consistently (habits or rituals) or occasionally. They can also be unspoken norms (intangible) that team members default to both consciously and unconsciously to regulate their behaviour. In many cases, a team’s practices might be unremarkable, but as a whole and applied consistently by all team members, their influence on the way that the team performs is significant.

Successful teams develop work practices that allow them to effectively interact with their environment, including collaboration with other teams. The work practices are effective because they are active, compelling, forceful, practical, and potent. They might involve for example, regularly showcasing work to other teams, giving team members the opportunity to spend time with and learn from other teams or building stakeholder confidence with regular communication of risks, issues, and progress. This step calls for a 2-hour Workshop.

Intangible work practices

These are observed as a team’s ‘collective consciousness’ in action. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) defined collective consciousness as “the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society” the same applies to members of a high-performing team. Team members instinctively know what to say, what to do and how to do it – these are an example of intangible work practices.

When a team can crack this aspect of teamwork and successfully integrate various aspects of its functioning, it paves the way for a far better team performance than a team that struggles to find mutually acceptable methods to move the team work forward. For example, better work approaches can ensure better planning and scheduling of activities, quicker decisions, rapid response to customers, meeting deadlines and so on.

While successful teams have effective work practices, there are no objective rights or wrongs when it comes to what these practices are. A practice that is effective and enables success for one team might not be appropriate for another. For example, a regular sales conference call at 8 a.m. on Monday might help a team organize itself at the start of a busy week but could disenfranchise team members who have family responsibilities such as school drop-off. Similarly, a daily stand-up meeting can be effective for a cycling team (or a project team) preparing to head off for the day but might cause problems for a leadership team dealing with significant business travel. Even for similar types of teams, a practice that is effective for one team may not suit the working styles or cultural preferences of individuals in another.

Tangible work practices

Tangible work practices are work approaches, procedures, and processes that ensure the team accomplishes tasks efficiently and effectively. They give the team a common performance base. Using effective work practices are another determinant for realising superior performance providing work approach clarity. Here are seven, highly effective work practices:

What is Email?

High-performance teams recognize that most email they receive is simply noise, often because of this realization they agree on a method for handling emails.

Procedure.

Open your Inbox.

Now decide within 10 seconds what needs to be done with each email by using the ‘Delete, Delegate, Deal with or Decision required’ approach. This is an excellent method for quickly getting through large amounts of email, especially if done in a scheduled, fixed block of time. (Timeboxing it for example is perfect).

Next decide ‘Where to file it’ (if not deleting it), for example create an email folder called ‘Wait’ for when you're waiting on someone. You can also create a folder called ‘Weekly Meeting’ and move emails there that can wait to be answered or addressed at that meeting.

For emails that contain important business information that you want to preserve create a folder called ‘Business memory’. Periodically delegate a task to have the information appropriately dispersed and recorded.

Every day aim to leave the office with an inbox of five or less emails.

Stop replying to some emails, only answer the important ones. Once team members understand that you will not automatically respond to every email, they will either come and see you or ring you if it’s that important.

Move on to the next email.

What is Process?

You cannot have a high-performance team without it being supported by excellent process and process management. Team members need to accept the need for all work to be process-driven as this is essential for high-performance attainment. Process brings consistency, increased quality, cost-effectiveness, reduced task and project timeframes and fewer errors. It also locks down the operational environment and reduces the number of operational resources required (by reducing the incidence of rework). It provides repeatable consistent outcomes, reduces the incidence of failures which reduces cost. Process is necessary because it describes how things are done and then provides the focus for making them better.

Good process also releases team members (who manage staff) from many operational activities, decisions and tasks allowing them to focus more on strategic matters. The other benefits of process are increased productivity, improved compliance, measurability, better employee satisfaction, risk mitigation and lower costs due to reduced rework.

In a high-performance environment all work is described and supported by process, how-to guidelines, and other documentation. The high-performance team members work together to discover new work approaches and methods for attaining the best possible performance standards and benchmarks and memorize and implement these in process. They understand that ineffective processes and procedures prevent the team from being efficient.

Usual process problems.

Multiple templates in use.

Broken or incomplete processes in use.

Poor staff training.

No Document Management System.

Work standards and compliance requirements not being met.

Increased risk.

Low staff satisfaction levels.

Inconsistent work quality.

Decreased productivity.

Process rules.

-         Rule 1, If it is not baselined then it does not exist. All process, how-to guidelines and other documentation must be formally documented and baselined (finalised, ready for use).

-         Rule 2, The use of baselined process, how-to guidelines and other documentation is mandatory.

-         Rule 3, Only baselined documents are held on the Intranet.

What is CMM Level 2?

The use of a common documentation template and approach based on Capability Maturity Model Level 2 is the high-performance standard. The model describes a five-level evolutionary path of increasingly organized and systematically more mature processes.

-         Initial level: - processes are disorganized, even chaotic. Success is likely to depend on individual efforts, and is not considered to be repeatable, because processes would not be sufficiently defined and documented to allow them to be replicated.

-         Repeatable level: - basic project management techniques are established, and successes could be repeated, because the requisite processes would have been made established, defined, and documented.

-         Defined level: - an organization has developed its own standard software process through greater attention to documentation, standardization, and integration.

-         Managed level: - an organization monitors and controls its own processes through data collection and analysis.

-         Optimizing level: - processes are constantly being improved through monitoring feedback from current processes and introducing innovative processes to better serve the organization's needs.

One of the most significant benefits of using CMM level 2 is that a standard template is used for all process, how-to guidelines, and other documentation. The template has a common look and feel, includes completion instructions for the user and complies with documentation management principles. Accordingly, all staff and especially new staff quickly learn how to use process and other documentation in the most optimum fashion. It brings a consistency of approach, improves project quality, reduces cost by reducing the need for rework, improves estimates, scheduling, and business outcomes. Here is the best procedure:

Audit all processes, record on a spreadsheet.

Processes in use.

How-to guidelines or similar in use.

Methodologies in use.

Scripts in use.

Technical processes in use.

Project processes in use.

Gating processes in use.

Work management processes in use.

Reporting processes in use.

      All other IT related documentation.

Determine which process are.

Duplicated.

Redundant, old, or dead.

Ad-hoc, not formalised.

Incomplete.

Drafts.

Not baselined. (Not finalised, not ready for use.)

Candidates for automation. (Manual process that could be automated).

Next, determine actions to be taken against each process.

Create a task list suitable for loading into a project schedule.

Manage a project to bring all process up to date.

What is Intranet?

It is not possible to have a high-performance team without a fully functioning and managed intranet. The intranet is the repository of the teams’ work practices and acts as the team’s work memory or ‘single source of truth’. Most intranets fall into disrepair, they become full of outdated processes and other working documents and often have an unfriendly user interface. For example, for process to work well it must be quick and easy to find, be based on a common template, be up to date and be the only version available.

Usual problems

Multiple sources of documentation.

Multiple versions of documentation.

Lack of a full-time Intranet appointed owner.

Lack of a Document Management System.

Redundant process, how-to guidelines, and other documentation in use.

Audit all documentation stored on an intranet.

Processes in use.

Guidelines or similar in use.

Methodologies in use.

Scripts in use.

Technical processes in use.

Project processes in use.

Gating processes.

Work management processes.

Technical processes.

      IT Policies.

      IT Other.

Determine which documentation is:

-         Duplicated.

-         Redundant, old, or dead.

-         Ad-hoc, not formalised.

-         Incomplete.

-         Drafts.

-         Not baselined. (Not finalised, not ready for use.)

-         Candidates for automation. (Manual process that could be automated).

Determine actions to be taken against each document.

Create a task list suitable for loading into a project schedule.

Manage a project to bring all process up to date.

What is Timeboxing?

Timeboxing is an effective time management technique to speed through work. Timeboxing focusses your attention on a task because mentally you know you only have a fixed amount of time to do it in, here are some examples:

Email.

Let’s say you are doing your email.

Your goal is to do as many as you can.

You allocate 20 minutes to do it.

You look at the time and work out when 20 minutes will be up, and you may set an alarm.

You then get as many emails done as is possible in the time allowed.

When the time is up, you move on to a new task.

High-performance teams use Timeboxing - because it is great for doing annoying things or for when there is a stack of work to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

A Report.

Let’s say you are writing a Business Case and are having trouble getting started.

Your goal is to make a start, do an outline.

You allocate just 30 minutes and do as much as you can in that time.

You produce an outline and maybe one or two paragraphs, but at least you have made a start.

Tomorrow, you will allocate an hour.

Projects.

Timeboxing is an excellent way of doing project planning. The schedule is divided into several separate time periods (timeboxes), with each part having its deliverables, deadline, and budget. Without timeboxing, projects usually work to a fixed scope, such that when some deliverables cannot be completed, either the deadline slips (to allow more time) or more people are involved (to do more at the same time). Usually, both happen, delivery is late, costs go up, and often quality suffers.

With timeboxing, the deadline is fixed, but the scope may be reduced. This focuses work on the most important deliverables. For this reason, timeboxing depends on the prioritisation of deliverables, to ensure that it is the project stakeholders who determine the important deliverables rather than software developers.

So, Timeboxing is simply fixing a set period of time to work on a task or group of tasks. Instead of working on a task until it’s done, you commit to working on the task for a specific amount of time instead.

Meetings.

Timeboxing is also perfect for meetings such as project reviews or where you want to get through as much work as possible, in the time available. It also works for weekly team meetings.

How to do it

Have a watch, clock, phone, computer, anything that has a clock or timer. Select a task or something that you are having trouble getting the motivation to start.

Consider your goals. Take a few minutes to think about what you want to complete.

Set a time. How much time you set is going to depend largely on what your goals are.

Set a short time. 15 to 30 minutes maybe, that you know won’t be too painful or difficult to commit to.

Set a longer time. An hour or maybe even two hours if you’re feeling motivated, don’t go too overboard and burn yourself out.

Execute and remember that practice makes perfect.

What is Workload Management?

A major mistake ordinary teams make is lack of team level planning, high-performance teams on the other hand build a macro view of all the team’s work (this also supports their mutual accountability for all work). High-performance teams do not rely on individual team member plans, that is left to activity and project owners.

Individual team member plans do not take resource sharing into account, meaning that resource allocations and utilisation are often over or underutilised leading to poor delivery performance. Team member level planning also promotes team member success over the whole of the team’s success. Relying on team member level planning is also wholly inefficient when multiple teams are involved (as is often the case) as intra team communication, process integration and handoffs are usually informal or at best poorly defined.

In most teams, it is common practice for team members to plan out their activities, usually by way of a task list with prioritised tasks. Best practice is to review this list daily, adding, deleting, finishing, and commenting on the tasks. Some people because of the way they plan or because of projects use scheduling software like MS-Project which allows a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to be used (Phases, Activities and Tasks). This method of planning provides for detailed plans, tracking, resource allocation and utilisation and better execution, meaning more tasks are delivered on time. Team members that manage their own teams usually find this method best for controlling their teams work as it is an easy way to see and manage all the work.

The same approach needs to apply to the team’s work. Every team needs a Team Master Plan of the entire teams’ work activities and tasks, that is all work being undertaken by all team members expressed in one place. Every team needs to plan out its activities, to know what its priorities are and how its resources can best be used. Scheduling software is perfect for this as it is designed to handle different types of work by different owners.

A Team Master Plan is simply a high-level Project Schedule in the form of a Gantt Chart. It needs to show just enough information about the whole teams work activities to allow for the planning, prioritising, and monitoring of all work. The team should regularly (weekly) review the Team Master Plan, reviewing priorities, resource allocations, ownership, due dates, and deliverables. A best practice Team Master Plan has for example a WBS consisting of a top-level of Project Names, Business Units or Departments with the next level of detail being Activities which lists Deliverables and Scare Resources against them. Tasks are not shown on the Team Master Plan, these are only shown on detailed plans (tasks, non-scarce resources) managed by each team member or their team. Here is the best procedure:

Scheduling software.

Use a scheduling package like MS-Project or a spreadsheet to produce a master plan Gantt Chart. Have each team member audit all of their work that is currently underway and that is planned for the next month and enter it onto the master plan. Critical information to capture is Work Type (e.g.: Project names, Activity names), Priority (1,2 or 3), Owner, Due Date and Deliverable. Ensure that.

All work activities are present.

Priorities are agreed.

Due Dates can be met.

Enough scarce and regular resources are available to meet the due dates.

-         Then update the plan weekly.

-         Hold a weekly review session.

What is Gating?

Gating is the process of registering and accepting work. An essential element of the Gating process is the mandatory rule that ‘all work is registered before work can commence’. The benefits of this are it stops work coming in through back door networks, it stops the business bypassing priority setting rules, all work is made visible and is accounted for, work is not lost, all work is trackable, and all work is charged to correct cost centres. Gating supports good resource management and helps to identify resource savings; it also facilitates accurate management reporting. Gating also improves staff morale by helping to bring order to areas that are often chaotic, have high rates of rework and are subject to backlogs.

What is Work Management?

Work Management is the process of efficiently assigning work to resources, completing, and tracking the work through to completion and advising a customer interface when work is complete. The Work Management objectives are to ensure there are no work request backlogs, that work turnaround times are being met (e.g., OLAs and SLAs) and that customer satisfaction levels are not compromised. Having enough scare, regular and skilled resources available helps achieve work completion times. Resource shortfalls cause work queues to become backed up with old, dead, and outstanding work requests that then result in poor service delivery and lower customer satisfaction levels. Priority 1 and 2 work requests tend to get resolved, but priority 3’s do not, they become buried in backlogs. Priority 3 work requests by their nature often contain issues to do with business functionality, more so than urgent issues. This in turn affects the businesses’ ability to be efficient and provide their own high levels of customer service.

What is a High Workload?

As we know, busy people do more and do it in less time. The secret to an ordinary team transitioning to high-performance is the application of a high workload in conjunction with the use of high-performance behaviours and effective work practices

As more work is processed and as more successes and fewer failures are realised, the team's confidence increases, and the ability to manage an ever-increasing workload result. Things start to change. Morale and job satisfaction go up, quality improves, fewer errors and failures occur, innovation emerges, and a feeling of being a contributor to business growth becomes tangible. The team is no-longer ordinary, and its members know it.

We know from our own experience that when we have a lot to do and are pushed for time, we focus on the essential elements of the task at hand. We often accept that having completed 80% of the work (80/20 principle) that this is usually enough to finish, and we then quickly move on to the next task. Take a well-planned and managed project as an example; 20% of the expended project effort can produce 80% of the project deliverables.

High-performance teams work this way. A high workload motivates a team member to identify and focus their efforts on the 20% of their workload that can produce 80% of their results, meaning greater efficiency and higher productivity. When the 80/20 approach to work and effective work practices are combined, this causes all of those involved to become more reliant on each other, more trusting, more committed, and mutually accountable for the whole of the team's workload. The higher the workload, the more these elements come into play, resulting in actual high-performance outcomes.

This approach enforces adherence to due process, facilitates true collaboration, gets more people involved with a task, when necessary, each of whom is committed to its success, and it forges closer work bonds and a prevailing attitude of 'all for one and one for all' (Mutual Accountability). As more work is undertaken, the new behaviours and effective work practices become normalised and new levels of performance emerge. Performance and productivity receive an added boost when multiple team members or whole teams are focused on the same activities which works exceptionally well for businesses that require more than one team to be involved with the same activity such as IT or Engineering.

What is the 80/20 Principle?

The Pareto Principle can be used as a time management technique that is all about working smarter and not harder. It is designed to make you think about your work, determine what is essential and how much time you allocate to different tasks.

The 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, asserts that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes (or inputs) for any given event. In business, a goal of the 80-20 rule is to identify inputs that are potentially the most productive and make them the priority. The principle makes it clear that it's possible to get the same amount of work done in less time than envisaged.

There are only so many minutes in an hour, hours in a day, and days in a week. Pareto can help you better manage your time, saving you from being a slave to a never-ending list of things to do.

Examples

You can take Pareto's 80/20 Principle and apply it to almost any situation, for example:

20% of criminals commit 80% of crimes.

20% of drivers cause 80% of all traffic accidents.

80% of the pollution originates from 20% of all factories.

20% of a company's products represent 80% of sales.

80% of the results come from 20% of the actions.

80% of the results come from 20% of employees.

20% of time spent on an activity creates 80% of the productivity.

20% of software development effort accounts for 80% of program functionality.

20% of project planning accounts for 80% of the project results.

20% of project planning time accounts for 80% of the project scope.

20% of project execution accounts for 80% of the project's deliverables.

20% of the sales reps generate 80% of total sales.

20% of customers account for 80% of total profits.

20% of the most reported software bugs cause 80% of software crashes.

20% of patients account for 80% of healthcare spending.

I own five suits, but 80% of the time, I grab the same one.

Ladies, how many shoes do you own, and how often do you grab the same 20%?

80% of my time is spent with the same 20% of my friends.

On my smartphone, I have 48 different mobile apps pinned to the tiles, but 80% of the time, I'm only using the eight on my home screen.

How you can use it

At work it can be best used to work out your resource usage and improve your resource allocation. It's not just your own time you need to maximize, but your entire team's. Taking a Pareto approach is to honestly work out which projects, activities and tasks are the most important. Which specific tasks do you need to focus on, once you have worked this else, you can delegate or drop the rest?

What 20% of your work drives 80% of your outcomes?

Take care of your 20% first

If you've found that 20% of your effort is resulting in 80% of your results, you'll want to prioritize and improve that 20% margin. This means taking care of the 20% first when you begin your day. Plan to schedule your (20%) most results-driven tasks early in the day to ensure greater success.

Don't waste too much time on the other 80%

So, we know that the 80/20 productivity rule is straightforward. We know we'll have to do tasks that will fill up the remaining 80% of our time and effort. Still, it's important not to spend way too much time on these tasks because they may produce minimal results at best.

So, what is technically considered too much time? It depends on how your workday is structured. If you're simply performing daily short routine tasks you can efficiently distribute your work based on the 80/20 productivity rule.

What is the Half Pager?

The Half-Pager is a time-saving method for reading and writing management submissions. This technique restricts all (non-form/template) management submissions for things such as expenditure approvals or draft project proposals, to be limited to a half a page or one page as an exception.

There is no matter or issue that requires more than half a page to explain it. When you only have a half-page to use, it focuses your mind, you only say the salient things which are the things the reader wants to know, it keeps you on point. They are faster to write, read, analyse, decide upon, and you can provide a quicker turnaround.

Inexperienced staff often feel the more they write, the stronger their argument will be, when in fact, the opposite is true. Teaching yourself and your team members to be short and concise helps everyone. It’s a fact that the more senior a manager or executive is, the less information they expect to receive. They want to know only the key points of a matter. Make it a Team Rule and advise team members that you won’t read anything longer than a half-page.

Don’t accept long explanations

I had a talented team member once who could not write anything in under four to five pages. It became a source of annoyance to nearly everyone with whom he communicated. Despite mentoring and even the offer of counselling, I had to let him go. It’s not uncommon for people to write long diatribes on even the most trivial of matters as a way of disguising that they do not understand what they are writing about or that they lack confidence. These people need compassion and understanding.

Email example

Consider applying a similar rule to emails as well but specify a two-paragraph limit, or preferably just one or two lines.

A request from an experienced Project Manager for a new Server needed quickly. The project team had undersized their server requirements and the impact to the project if not resolved in 24 hours would be a several weeks delay. The email simply covered off that there were no spares available, nothing second hand either, that it had to be a new server. Request made for approval, the total capital cost shown, maintenance agreement cost shown, a note that information will be sent to the CFO for next year’s budget entries. Action. “Approved.”

How to do Problem Solving

From planning last-minute meetings, to addressing unexpected customer queries, there is no end to the problem solving you do day in, day out. You want to be confident in the decisions that you make.

Problem-solving is a creative skill that we often get wrong. The issue is that as children, we are taught how to solve problems by systematically breaking something down into bits or chunks, analyse them, look for patterns or themes, find options and alternatives, think of solutions, evaluate them, and finally select one.

Yet, when you have worked in a developing country as I have where schooling is mostly absent or basic at best, people are not taught how to solve problems, yet they do it every day and more effectively than we do. Over the years, I have dealt with many problems. I have noticed that despite living in a first world country, we have been taught to make problems worse by the act of trying to fix them the way we have been taught.

Our brains do it to us. When our brains hear the word ‘problem,’ they automatically switch into problem-solving mode. This mode begins by reminding us that problems are largely negative or are something to be avoided, problems are bad. Our brain goes on to tell us that problems can have professional and personal repercussions or consequences. This is the frame of mind in which our problem-solving process begins, a negative state of mind that kicks in negative cognitive processes as opposed to positive ones. Hardly a great way to start.

Classic problem solving creates confusion and a lot of background noise generated by the commencing in a negative state and with too many options, potential solutions, and often overriding thoughts about how to protect ourselves from adverse effects. To make matters worse, we then produce high levels of anxiety and stress hormones that weaken the whole process. Now we are in a really bad state, yet we have what could be a major problem to solve and possibly – rapidly.

In my experience, the answer to nearly every problem is the solution that subconsciously comes to mind first. (Trust your hunches, they are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level). Your subconscious mind is correct 90% of the time, because there is a very high probability that you already know the answer, or you instinctively know it. Your brain is really good at remembering trivia and things that you have seen and read, but otherwise forgotten about.

You need to think of problems as events. You need to avoid saying the word problem to yourself and you don’t want others around you to say it either. Use ‘event’.  Using the word ‘event’ stops the error-prone problem-solving process kicking in. In other words, you stay in a positive state of mind.

Events, which have passed by the time you start thinking about them, are mostly opportunities. I train team members that there are no problems, only events and that there are only opportunities.

For example, you’re an IT Manager, and you lose half of your entire communications network, its crashed, that’s a major event, (a very big problem if you must). But once it’s happened, it’s over, and it’s pointless thinking of it as a problem. What caused this situation was a problem and what you are left with is best thought of as an event. To fix it, you need to identify the event cause, fix it and produce a 99.9% (Uptime) guarantee that it won’t happen again. That presents an opportunity. The upside of the event is that the opportunity it presents is the ability to do something new, either immediately or soon after. An ability you may not have had before the event occurred.

The network crash I just described is from an actual event. The problem was that a major router failed and took out half the network because poor network design had too many links going through the router. To add salt to the wound, the router had been flagged for replacement in the last budget submission but was knocked back by a business representative who said they would wear the risk (“Until it happens of course, because then it’s your fault.”).

A quick OS patch and upgrade fixed the router and restored service. The opportunity realised was an immediate network redesign with new equipment funded by the business with a reminder that equipment gets flagged for replacement for a reason.

When you’re in problem-solving mode, you run the very high risk of not identifying opportunities because you are focussed only on the underlying cause of the problem and not focussed on preventing the cause from reoccurring.

How to create a self-conscious Team

This introduces the concept and practice of Mutual Accountability. It is a higher form of high-performance team behaviour.

Mutual Accountability

When teams apply this discipline, it is near impossible for any one team member to fail.

Mutual accountability is another foundation stone of a high-performance team. It means that team members accept that they are accountable 'to each other', which guarantees better performance and teamwork. The objective is for the team to think "team performance first" and "individual success second". As a result, individuals become focused on creating a memorable collective performance rather than thinking simply about personal achievements. All team members are expected to volunteer their time and effort to assist others for the sake of the common good. Accordingly, all team members need to take a constructive interest and participate in all team's activities as and when required (Master Plan).

Mutual accountability reinforces everyone's role in sharing knowledge, ideas, experiences, and perspectives to make the team a better performing unit. Mutual accountability brings about increased effectiveness in working together. Team members recognise that collective performance is dependent on the effective collaboration of themselves with other team members. Rather than working and thinking individually and trying to protect their own space, a team-high in mutual accountability has team members who are regularly asking themselves and each other, "how can we better work together to get the most out of each other and the whole team?”

Mutual accountability means team members equally share in the teams’ outcomes, when the collective responsibility of the team works towards generating collective results, achieving success, or suffering a failure. This is irrespective of whether a single team member was responsible for a success or a failure. Mutual accountability implies an implicit acknowledgement of the joint accountability of all team members towards achieving the Team Vision or some other initiative such as a task or a project, in addition to their individual obligations in their specific roles. An important measure is how accountable team members are to each other, meaning that team members accept that everyone’s successes or failures fall on all their shoulders.

Team Consciousness Exercise

Discuss these questions:

Is "team performance first" and "individual success second" a true statement?

In what areas are commitments given to each other?

Should the team hold everyone accountable for their commitments?

Will the team create a Master Plan?

Do team members share concerns and risks.

Does the team celebrate successes?

Discuss adopting these behaviours:

We place the teams needs before our own.

We give commitments to each other, and we honour them.

We use a Master Plan.

We celebrate successes.

How to make Decisions

Decision-making is one of the most important things a team must do. It plays a very important part in the planning process because when team members plan, they decide what goals they will pursue, what resources they will use, and who will perform each task. A good decision-maker chooses actions that give the best outcome for the team. Team members enter the decision-making process with an open mind and do not let their own biases sway them, they make decisions rationally, after researching alternatives and understanding the consequences. Decision making is the process of making choices by gathering information, assessing alternatives, and deciding on which way to go. Using a decision-making process helps a team make more deliberate, carefully thought-out decisions by organizing relevant information and defining alternatives.  Here is the best Decision-Making procedure:

Identify the decision.

Ordinary teams can suffer indecision or, worse, ignorance of what the problem requiring their decisive attention is, causing a problem to fester, increasing its damage and influence on the team. High-performance teams define the issue and the decision that must be made as quickly as possible or immediately as soon as it is realised that a decision is required. They define the problem as specifically as possible, knowing that if they are too broad in its definition, then the decision is going to swing wide and likely miss its mark.

Gather relevant information.

Consider what the relevant information you need is to make a well-informed decision? That includes establishing where to gather the best information. 

Look at the decision from as many angles as possible. Get input from your team and those who will be affected by the decision. Also, seek guidance from outside sources, whether that be online, or from other people who have experience and skill solving similar problems.

Identify alternatives.

As you collect information, identify the possible paths of action or alternatives. You can also use your imagination and additional information to construct new alternatives. List all possible options.

As you research, you’ll likely have many avenues in which to address the problem, you want to have as many alternatives as possible. Think of this as a fact-gathering mission. List all the decisions that meet the criteria of the research you’ve done.

Weigh the evidence.

Consider each option and think through what is required to carry it out. Next, evaluate whether the need identified would be met or resolved using each option. What does your intuition say? Think about what acting on that decision would look like for you and your team. Run each alternative through your head. See how they play out. Then list them in order of priority to get a sense of which one you favour. 

Choose among alternatives.

Once you have considered all the evidence, you can select the best alternative that seems to fit best with the desired goal. You can merge options together to form the best alternative. It’s time for a decision. 

Act.

Now do the planning to implement the chosen alternative. The compass of your gut will be pointing towards one decision. Implement it. Whatever you do, don’t implement your decision blindly. Watch what happens at the onset carefully, as you’ll want to collect data and results to review later.

Review your decision and its consequences.

Finally consider the results and outcomes of your decision and evaluate whether it has resolved the need you identified. If not, you might want to gather more detailed information or explore additional alternatives.

Look at the results of your decision. Did the decision go as you proposed it would? Evaluate whether you made the right choices throughout the previous decision-making steps. If your decision proved ineffectual, then maybe you didn’t clearly define the problem.

There are three types of decisions in business

Strategic. Long term decision making.

Tactical. Short-term decision making.

Operational. Immediate decision making.

5 Decision making skills

Identify critical factors which will affect the outcome of a decision.

Evaluate options accurately and establish priorities.

Anticipate outcomes and see logical consequences.

Think about potential risks and uncertainties – what you do not know.

Reason well in contexts requiring quantitative analysis.

Skills related to decision making

Active Listening. To hear what is being said to you.

Interpersonal Skills. To encourage others to speak with you.

Collaboration. To get several people to share ideas.

Communication. Encouraging people to be open and honest.

Logic. Expecting that what is being said is rational and stands up to review.

Problem Solving. That a problem-solving method is being used.

Critical Thinking. That thinking processes are ordered and rational.

Time Management. That decisions are made in a timely manner.

Decision making roles and responsibilities

Advocate. The decision-making advocate handles most of the work required to make high quality, efficient, and practical decisions.

Stakeholder. A person who is affected by the decision.

Approver. The person who approves the decision.

Implementer. The person who puts the decision into effect.

How to manage Conflict

“Conflict is inevitable ... in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict.” Susan Gerke, IBM, Leadership Development.

Conflict needs to be managed constructively and professionally as when appropriately harnessed it is a very positive thing. Did you know that a clash of ideas can be the beginning of innovative thinking whilst being overly dominant with your ideas; is being selfish and diminishes creative thinking. You must learn how to settle and decide between competing ideas by using both conflict and competitive thinking to your advantage. When you find yourself in a position of conflict or competitive ideas, try this:

Practice active listening to hear exactly what is being said, it doesn’t matter if you agree with it or not, what matters is that you understand as fully as possible what is being said to you.

The act of active listening on your part and using cues give you a more dominant position during the discussion as you have demonstrated that you are prepared to listen and without interruption.

When you do finally talk, insisting if necessary that you be given equal time without interruption (even the most hostile people find this hard to refuse) and at first aim to summarise the other persons point of view. Doing this shows that you did in fact listen and that you understand their point of view. (Many people get angry simply because they are used to not being listened to).

After the summary state your own viewpoint and try to do this as if you were reading out bullet points. This makes what you are saying easier to understand and remember.

Finally, merge the good points from the other person with your own to form a new point of view. Try to stress that the answer to the dilemma is somewhere in the middle, or a merger of both of your ideas, in other words, a compromise solution.

The compromise solution is often the start of innovative thinking that you can both share as your own idea.

Also, it is worth remembering that often it is not what you say but how you say it.

“In surveys of European and American executives, fully 85 per cent of them acknowledged that they had issues or concerns at work that they were afraid to raise. Afraid of the conflict that would provoke, afraid to get embroiled in arguments that they did not know how to manage and felt that they were bound to lose. So how do we develop the skills that we need? Because it does take skill and practice, too. If we aren't going to be afraid of conflict, we have to see it as thinking, and then we have to get really good at it”. Margaret Heffernan.

Copyright © 2022 Russell W Futcher. All rights reserved. 6/11/23