Conversations that matter

When we are unable to talk about issues that matter, but everything and everyone seems ok, we're on the border of the undiscussables. If we're attentive, we may sense some words not being said, or topics just ignored or parked for later, unnecessarily.

Saying hello to the elephant in the room means acknowledging these realities.

If this is a regular occurance, it means that it's now become a part of the culture.  The organization will have difficulty reaching its goals, and the employees will find it difficult to work together at all levels - a sure recipe for failure. Also, employees will reduce their engagement and top performers will leave sooner rather than later.  The organization will be left with people good at saying 'yes'  and doing the absolute minimum, along with the blame-game and siloed working.

Having worked with a few leadership teams on articulating and transforming their culture, do get in touch with me on +919820155778

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.

 

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.

How to have candid conversations at work

Most conversations at work are compartmentalized into what I can reveal and what I shouldn't reveal.  This applies to conversations with your team, as well as your boss and peers.  This calls for Confident Vulnerability and can be quite testing and stressful.

From the article: "Transparency goes hand-in-hand with a positive employee experience. #Leaders must make an effort to be accountable to employees and work harder to surface the negative, even if it may be uncomfortable."

Read the rest of the article here

3 steps to confront your Boss

 https://fierceinc.com/blog/3-steps-to-help-you-confront-your-boss/?utm_campaign=22_Promotions&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=217781268&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-87Mv7qiMlTn0EgUBGif78JTIZeMKPXyWhidDQk8pFNoHp6Bq2a80q7QpN_tuKi1vZSRD21SJjColGjZBpBUI0aSbOIJPPT3xUj42jB1jMLdY1FOoE&utm_content=217782024&utm_source=hs_email

Super article on how to have #toughconversations with your #boss

From the article - "Confrontation conversations aren’t meant to be versations. The latin root word “con” means “with,” and this is not a one-sided speech. In other words, this is not an opportunity to go in and rail against your #leader and expect them to just sit there and listen."

Read the rest here

7 steps to successful stay interviews – and ongoing conversations

Superb article on #stayinterviews

In my experience, the stay interview proved very effective in understanding what is going on within various functions of the organization, and getting suggestions for improvement. It's great for reducing grievances and at times, #resignations , because the employee feels heard.

Get the steps to conduct stay interviews here

A truth about organization culture

 This is an #OrganizationCulture fact that I learnt quite early in my career.

Researching your potential reporting manager before interviewing or joining would be most insightful.

#strengthsdecoder #training #learninganddevelopment #strengthscoaching

Facweek feedback - Difficult Conversations

 As I mentioned in my earlier post that I had done Four sessions during #facweek.

Here's the feedback from the second topic I covered for two corporate organizations in two sessions of 90 minutes duration.

Feedback from Belden Technologies

Feedback from DXC Technologies