Strengths-based Organization @ End of Jobs - Rethinking Work, Talent and the Future

Pic Credit - Canva

Some moons ago, I was asked by Sheena Rajan from SR Global HR solutions if I would give a short talk on Strengths for an HR event she was organization..  The context - it was to a seminar titled "End of Jobs - Rethinking Work,  Talent & the Future".  Panel discussions and other speakers were also scheduled to cover different aspects of the topic.  

I'm India's First Strengths Strategy Coach and have an organization called "The Strengths Decoder". We help my clients leverage their strengths for success at work and in life. Strengths has been consciously been a strong part of my personal and professional life since the past 10 years.  So I readily agreed.  While the title was interesting, the sub-title of the event intrigued me further, and after a short discussion with Sheena, I decided to speak on "Strengths-based Organizations".  I don't really have a clip of my talk to share, so I'll get into a little more detail about the how and what of my presentation.

Why I chose that topic? Organizations face challenges in finding the right talent, engaging them, grooming them and retaining them.  This is happening at all levels.  With AI being used to replace jobs in every function, is it really the end of jobs? What then, is to become of the organization and it's people. Those left behind will definitely be apprehensive (if not unhappy) about the future.  When a person is unhappy at work, particularly if their strengths are not leveraged in their role, they will not be able to deliver optimum results. In fact, no amount of training can improve this performance.  This will negatively impact the growth and existence of the organization, if it doesn't act quickly.

Peter Drucker said "Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at... and yet, a person can perform only from strengths."

If an organization focuses on leveraging the strengths of its employees to achieve it's goals, it will have happier engaged employees who willingly give of their best, are more productive and are likely to stay longer since they see a strong alignment between their strengths (competencies) and the organizations goals / vision.  Of course, leadership buy-in is a must at all levels, and especially at the top.

Why are Strengths-based organizations important? An organization that works on a foundation of strengths tends to be solution - oriented. The employees are happier since they are getting to do what they enjoy doing. We know that happy and engaged employees are a joy to work with, and that improves collaboration along with ensuring that conflicts get resolved more quickly than otherwise.  This impacts the Organization Culture and Employer Brand positively.  Word of this work culture  and brand spreads, in the same way as it happens for organizations that have a toxic culture. This turns the organization that leverages its people's strength into a Key Talent Attractor.

What's in it for the individual employee (at any level)?  Knowing your strengths (what you're good at) and a clear awareness of your weaknesses (which activities drain you), along with knowing your values, will give you opportunities to explore and reject.  Hiring a Strengths-Strategy Coach helps a lot here.

Some stats that I shared during my presentation: Gallup Research has found that individuals and teams that lead with their strengths are:

• 6 times more engaged
• 3 times more likely to report having excellent quality of life
• 8.9% more profitable

It was a pleasure to meet old friends like Nikhil Gadodia and Milind Rane at this event and share the stage with HR stalwarts like Dr. Brillian S.K., Gauri Das, Govind Sharma and others. It was great to make new friends too.   Here are some pics of the action:

Sheena Rajan delivering the Keynote Speech

With Dr Brillian S.K., Gauri Das and Milind Rane

Panel members being felicitated by Sheena Rajan

Curious about finding out and leveraging yours and your employee's strengths? 

Step 1 - Get management buy-in for this systemic intervention.  This is extremely important since theis impact will be seen after a year or so. 

Step 2 - Use a validated psychometric assessment such as CliftonStrengths, PRISM Brainmapping Inventory, OPQ . Hire a Strengths-based Consultant and Coach (hint: me - call +919820155778) to work with you on this.

Step 3 - Be ready to communicate this intervention, and reconfigure your organization processes to incorporate strengths as a philosophy.

Do get in touch with me on +919820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com to understand how knowing and applying one's strengths can help one's career and the organization.

The Key Quality of a High Performance Team

In Teamwork, silence isn't golden - it's deadly!

- Mark Sanborn

The importance of getting teams aligned and running smoothly is a key differentiator for an organization's success and tends to give leaders a headache especially when deadlines are missed or quality is less than desired.  

I put out this poll on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.  See the screenshot below on what the poll contained and what people chose.

Some background - Through the past few decades, the most popular models in conflict management were the Thomas Kilmann model and Patrick Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.  The first model describes clearly one's possible behaviours during a conflict, and the second model identifies what are causes of poor performance in teams.

So when I have covered the topic of 'Conflict Resolution' or 'Conflict Management' during my Leadership / Managerial Development (or as a stand-alone topic) workshops, both these models have helped the participants get a better grasp on managing and resolving conflicts.

As you may have seen from the poll, the respondents felt that 'Trusting each other' was the key factor for high performing teams, followed by 'Clear Goals'.  Some also shared their perspectives in the comments. Click here to view the interesting comments by some of the respondents in this poll.

The fact is that all four options are important for teams to deliver performance.  Some of my musings on these options: 

Trusting Each Other - What exactly are we trusting each other person to do?  Also trust is built over time, and is quite a fragile thing.  It needs constant repetition, like breathing, if it's going to be of use for a team.

Knowing Each Others Strengths - It's important, no doubt.  How are the strengths being appropriately leveraged by the individual and the team to deliver success.

Clear Goals are Defined - An extremely critical point that speaks of alignment of the team members to the goals.  What's needed post this is actual performance, guidance and flexibility to enable the team to reach the goal - while leveraging strengths, building trust, managing errors and so on.

Manage conflicts effectively - For high performance, the teams will have to work and resolve conflicts quickly.  Why?  because any conflict can consume humungous amounts of time.  A conflict doesn't start out as a conflict, but  mostly as a disagreement or a difference of opinion or a personality clash. So it's actually consuming time from a previous date.  Now we also know (but often forget), time is our most precious resource. Added to this is the amount of emotional energy invested from the initial disagreement to the conflict in progress, by all parties trying to convince the others that they are right.  These tend to become crucial or difficult conversations, which will consume further time and energy to getting the parties to agree to a particular course of action or thought.  

If team members are busy proving that they're right, they don't have time to build trust, get aligned to clear goals, or take the time to know each other's strengths.  As a result, performance will suffer.

The above quote is a reality throughout life, whether personal or professional (irrespective of the industry / organization culture).  Not every disagreement deserves a battle or a war.

Therefore, the faster the team is able to resolve their conflicts effectively, the quicker they are on their way to delivering high performance.  You definitely wouldn't want silence, no matter how golden, coming from your team.

Please get in touch with me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or +919820155778 for workshops and coaching on enabling your teams to work effectively together.

 

Pics from Conflict Management workshop

 Here are the pics from my recent workshop "Growth Through Conflict Management" for an organization in the BFSI sector.

Due to situational reasons, the start was delayed, so I had to adjust time for some of the activities. Some of the topics covered were the Thomas Kilmann model, Patrick Lencioni's Conflict Continuum and Conflict Circles models, how emotions impact conflict, and the Ladder of Inference. The topics were  partly facilitated and covered through self-reflection exercises, facilitator-led discussions, group discussions, and role plays.

The participants were enthusiastic and fully involved in the group discussions, asking me questions wherever they needed to, during the day.  Here's how it looked:

Expectations

Strategies for Managing conflict

Qualities of an Effective and Ineffective Listener

Participants summarized what they learnt during the day

Do get in touch with me on +919820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com if your teams want to resolve some conflicts and collaborate effectively for success. Or any other topic you have in mind.

Reconcile Arguments and Move On

Here's an interesting article on how to resolve arguments and conflicts:

Disagreement and reconciliation sit at the heart of democracy and are fundamental features of our social and professional lives. For relationships to flourish and organizational endeavors to succeed people must reconcile diametrically opposing beliefs.

Polarization has become an inescapable aspect of today’s political debate, fueled by issues such as abortion rights, migration, and foreign policy. This can be intergenerational, it is said to be driven by social media, and is arguably worse today than ever—though participants in the revolutions of past centuries might disagree. Failure to thoughtfully engage with opposing views in order to reach compromise can severely hamper any human activity. In the workplace, where teamwork and collaboration are essential, it can stymie progress at many levels.

An intriguing study, from Harvard Business School, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the University of British Columbia, looks for an antidote to polarization in debate. It considers how the linguistic behavior that people exhibit in discussion can powerfully affect their co-conversationalists’ perceptions, engagement, and willingness to cooperate with them. Developing the construct ‘conversational receptiveness,’ the researchers show how this can lead to more effective communication between people who disagree with each other.

Using a machine-learning algorithm to identify the linguistic profile of receptiveness, the study found that those surveyed who were rated as more receptive by the algorithm and their co-conversationalists—though not themselves—were considered better teammates, advisors, and workplace representatives. The researchers established that conversational receptiveness at the beginning of a conversation forestalls conflict escalation at the end, and has positive relational consequences. Conversational receptiveness can be reliably measured and crucially can be consciously improved.

Encountering opposing viewpoints is part of life, but despite this people do not seem to handle disagreement well, their contradictory opinions giving rise to avoidance, biased information processing, conflict spirals, and damaged relationships. On the other hand, argument and debate are the way ideas, plans, and innovations are developed into effective considered action. The concept of ‘integrated thinking’—a key to creativity—that combines opposing viewpoints to achieve a third way forward, only works if opposite views are aired and heard respectfully.

Read the rest of the article here.

Pics from Conflict Anticipation and Resolution Workshop

Here are some images of the action of a recent workshop on Conflict Management that I conducted for an organization in the cosmetics industry.

The participants were willing and enthusiastically took part in the activities.  Their keen questions made the workshop more interesting for me as the trainer.

Thanks to Skalent India for the opportunity.

Expectations and ways of working

What they learnt on Day 1

Below are images of how the participants summarized the session.

Connect with me for similar workshops that will enable your teams to work through conflict, productively.

 

Managing Anger

 In a recent webinar, during a group discussion on leadership behaviours, I articulated this thought -

"A Leader must be carefully angry."

What do you think? From the list in the image, which is most easy and most difficult to do? Please comment.

Problem Solving Tip

 

Problem solving starts from here and here alone.

Do you agree?

Improving Team Performance

 

Pics from my session at IAF India Facilitators Conference 2019

Here are a few pics of participant learning from my session on hashtag#conflictmanagement at the hashtag#iafindia19 hashtag#facilitators Conference in Delhi last week. Thanks to all the participants who enriched it with their experiences. Special thanks to Rajkumar Perumal, Tamanna Naik and Varsha Chitnis for all the support to make the session a success.

Of course, I'd like to also say that this day would have been difficult to reach if not for the wholehearted support I received from Sekhar Chandrasekhar, Yateen Gharat CPF, Ajit Kamath, Varsha Chitnis, Semira Khaleeli and others whose facilitation sessions I've attended and learned from over the past three years. My deepest gratitude to all of you.

IAF 2019 Annual India Conference session - Building a Conflict Competent Organization

Here's a short clip where I talk about my upcoming session at the #iafindia2019 annual India conference.  The topic is Conflict Management and is titled "Into the whirlpool of conflict - Creating a Conflict Competent Organization". I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm totally thrilled about this - IAF India Conference 2019

Happy to announce that my proposal for the IAF India Conference 2019 has been selected.  This is the first time I'm running a process at this prestigious conference. 

My process is on managing conflict in organizations and is titled "Inside the Whirlpool of Conflict - Creating a Conflict Competent Organisation".

Write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call on +919820155778 if you would like me to run a customized workshop on Conflict Management and Collaboration for your organization.

Collaborating Using your Strengths in Conflict Situations

Leaders have become painfully aware that one man can't do it all.  In today's scenario of VUCA,  IoT, AI and AR, a single employee / manager or leader can't make the organization succeed and thrive.  There's no superman, just employees.  A well-molded team can help things move faster.  Teams that collaborate effectively across the organization, end up winning more for that organization, than those who don't.

And yet, in every organization that tries to encourage collaboration, conflict inevitably occurs, and most people have an instant dislike to conflict.  Conflicts arise primarily because people come from different backgrounds with different learning experiences which are not yet shared.  Also, few people can easily accept that there can be accurate perspectives which are different from the one they hold.  Some people shy from conflict, hoping it will go away. This extends the duration of the problem - similar to continuing to walk when there's a stone in your shoe.  

I am one of those who don't prefer conflict.  Over time I have realized it is necessary else we, as a species, will not progress.  This quote helped me realize that conflict is actually a manifestation of some awareness of a mismatch / dissonance / something that doesn't sit right in one's mind.  It may be real or imagined, but if not surfaced and explored, will cause bitterness, resentment, frustration and so on.

Conflict can be addressed through a workshop training or coaching.

Managing conflict as a Facilitator or Trainer
Many times as a trainer, particularly, during workshops on Teamworking, Building Trust or Collaboration, I have sensed that some participants in the room are not comfortable with each other, and it shows in the manner they interact.  Others are aware of the tensions between them, and modify their behaviour so as to not make things worse.  What actually happens is that no one is able to participate genuinely during the program, and interactions are painfully polite.

As a facilitator or trainer, it's now my task to get them to interact authentically during the program, without forcing them to resolve the conflict.  So I do this with carefully crafted questions or statements, which I ask them to discuss.  Being clear about the outcome of the workshop is extremely important, else such participants will provide lip service at best or derail your schedule at worst.  Occasionally, I get a heads-up about such participants during the diagnosis stage, and so I am able to plan a process or activity that will help them to work together despite differences.  

Understanding conflict from a Strengths Strategy Coach perspective
From a Clifton #strengthsfinder perspective, conflicts can be looked at from the Four Domains of strengths, viz. Strategic Thinking, Relationship Building, Executing and Influencing domains.  Very few people, when looking at their Top 10 Strengths, have an equal distribution of strengths across each domain.  So the chances are high that the strengths can be concentrated across one or two domains more than others. These strengths will cause people to see things differently, even if two people have the same strengths in their top 10 (see below).

If the needs of the strengths from the dominant domains are not permitted to express themselves, dissatisfaction and conflicts can arise.  Also, if the situation demands the use of strengths which are the bottom 10 of the 34 Strengths Report, then this too will cause uneasiness, dissatisfaction and conflict.

For eg. a person who is high (meaning - his/ her strengths are in the Top 10) on moving to action, getting things done (Activator, Achiever, Discipline - Executing Domain), is going to feel some irritation if invited to a meeting where people are brainstorming (using Analytical, Ideation, Learner, Futuristic - Strategic Thinking Domain), if they are in his bottom 10 strengths.  Unless facilitated well, brainstorming meetings, as we know, can take up a whole lot of time. This may probably escalate into frustration or anger for that person, if he was not informed about the purpose of the meeting.

As a Strengths coach, I ensure my coachees take time to understand their strengths, how they manifest in behaviours, by correlating what they enjoy doing and not doing through different exercises.  I ask them to reflect on what this conflict might be trying to bring into their consciousness. I allow them some time to identify whats going on, identifying which of the needs of their strengths are not being fulfilled.  Then ask them to create a plan of how to call on other strengths to help not only to manage the current situation, but also be a helpful contributor.  This of course, is how people collaborate when they come from different parts of the organization.

The point is, don't shy away from conflict.  Here are the gifts of a conflict - 

• It helps realization of dissonance, thus reducing stress and emotional waste.
• If reflected upon, it provides a starting point to working towards a dialogue, which can lead to a solution.
• It can create an opportunity to grow a strength, experiment new things. 
• It's a chance to have fruitful discussions with those who disagree with you - and now you get to learn another person's perspective.
• Surfacing a conflict sooner means that you save the most valuable resource of an organization - TIME.

Contact me on +91-9820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or leave me a message here, if you want to run a Collaboration or a Conflict Management intervention for your organization.