Talk Opportunity not Recession
By Bernard Chanliau, Tuesday 19 August, 2008
Talk Opportunity not Recession
The winners through the current economic climate will be those who seize the opportunity to turn around disengaged company cultures and create financial and brand advantage through behavioural excellence and emotionally intelligent optimised teamwork. Assess your team culture with Xenergie's 10-point checklist.
Now is the time for optimism, not pessimism. Everywhere in the news we see talk and headlines about credit crunch, rising inflation, property slump, fuel costs and potential job losses. Even the newsreaders act out their glum reports with slow and deep serious voices and crestfallen body language. This is not helpful; moreover it misses the point and disengages people because it freezes them in fear and despondency. Good leadership is what we need and people who spread the word of excellence by simply being inspirationally excellent.
The core of the issue is that we create what we see, so until fill our minds with what we want to create, rather than what we fear happening, disaster will continue to spread. Despondent leaders disengage staff who disengage customers. I'm not talking about denial of economic challenge, I'm talking about seeing opportunities and the dawn of a new cycle - to see with fresh eyes. What if you are leaking potential by poor team performance? What if what you are doing now is no longer the right at all?
But if your eyes aren't attuned to looking from new perspectives, or seeing what is yet to come or cannot be seen, then you will fail to see any direction other than the one you are already on. You will create what you have already created.
Now is the time to reflect upon this.
The Rules of the Game are Changing at Lightning Speed
Behind the talk about the economy, lies a shapeshifting reality that most of us struggle to grasp and articulate: the extent to which the internet has totally changed the way we do business. Way beyond email, 24hr working and on-line purchasing, it has changed how we fundamentally conduct relationships and interactions, how we make decisions, what we expect and how we use our minds. Yet impact of this is only just beginning to be acknowledged and expectations of people behaviour are, in the main, still very much stuck in the 20th century. Teamwork is rarely taught, most people just fumble along.
With the internet the power base is becoming more personalised and individual - I believe people are becoming much more introverted in the workplace as a result. Individuals no longer need to sit in a team environment and can select who, when and how they interact with others, from convenient locations at convenient times. This is leading to breakdown and disengagement in many teams, who rely too heavily on electronic means to build relationships, resulting in a communications malaise and without due care, leading to apathy and absence of the essential human exchange which can light up someone's day. We have also become more demanding as individuals and expect instant response and gratification and if we don't get it, we go elsewhere in a flash. The result is that today we have to work much harder to be in teams, to commit to and share with others than we have ever done! And for leaders, it means learning to engage and motivate staff is becoming a more skilled task, as many of our natural human community skills are in decline, yet individual self awareness and expectation of others is on the up.
Today it is inexcusable to have un-inspirational leadership.
The way employees want to be communicated with, managed and motivated is also so very different to 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. Employees are customers, not chess pieces and they expect, as a minimum, a charismatic leader they can put their trust in. Business leaders and entrepreneurs are the new pop-stars of the 21st century and business, not religion, is the new powerhouse.
So if that is the case, why is it that news reports NEVER focus on the losses caused by dysfunctional teams and poor leaders in organisations? According to Harvard Business Review, companies that don't optimise teams reduce performance potential by 300% Surely this has to be one of the biggest leaks in organisational plumbing? Yet it is an area that is largely ignored or dismissed as 'soft'. Ignore it at your peril in the forthcoming climate, and watch the water continue to flood through your dyke.
Here is Xenergie's 10 Point Checklist for Optimising Teams and Culture
- Objectively acknowledge and articulate your culture: Can you objectively articulate your company's cultural profile ... without making assumptions? In other words, have you consciously studied your culture, has it been objectively reviewed by people outside the organisation and can you verify and articulate it through psychometric profiles. If so, what are the implications of this cultural profile on your business plan and the financial implications of this? And do you have a plan of action to re-align behaviours to desired business results?
- Demand that your leaders inspire and model excellence. Are your leaders truly inspirational, self aware and all emotionally intelligent, rating at least 9 out of 10 if a 'vox-pop' was to be held? Have they been assessed and coached 1-1 for a minimum of 1 year and in continuous reflective practice with a coach/supervisor? Have they worked on their impact, influencing skills, personal brand? If not, they are unlikely to be mentally fit for leading the future. Accept nothing less than emotionally intelligent behavioural excellence from your leadership team and ensure that every new manager is coached for at least the first 90 days of their tenure - otherwise they are unlikely to be mentally and emotionally fit to be on a management team.
- Optimise the top team. Has the top team been strategically chosen according to behavioural skills and has the sum of the team's psychometric profiles been taken into account? Is the team balanced or is it a group of clones with different functional roles? Has the team been coached and observed in how they work together? Do they continually make excuses for lack of follow through because they're too busy being busy? Can they handle conflict and is there more than one person in the team that will challenge effectively? What subjects are collusively avoided by all?
- Strategy begins with reflection not more fire fighting. Getting leaders to reflect strategically and not constantly get into the heroic adventures of doing deals is a constant battle for many management teams. Learning to think and reflect about the future, rather than always dealing with today's emergencies is essential. Does strategy planning begin with open reflection, brainstorming and visualisation of future possibilities.. on a regular basis or just once every year or less?
- Reward and clarify the behaviour you expect. Do you formally use behaviours as a performance metric? Do different roles have as many behavioural requirements as they do skills/technical requirements? Create behavioural specifications for each job as well as a job description, so you can match personality type to job.
- Identify, motivate and train the successors. Have you identified your high potential staff who can take the line of succession and are they being coached and incentivised in preparation? Have you created an exciting learning environment or them where ideas are exchanged, learning is shared and already they are investing part of their own intellectual and emotional capital into designing the company's and their own future.
- Assess team working abilities of all functional and cross-functional project teams in your organisation and integrate and collaborate right across the organisation - lose silo mentality!. This is far more than a teambuilding day that ends up in the pub – this entails having an outside party observe and coach the team to perform and collaborate on their projects, such that they are able to surface issues easily and recognise and resolve un-useful personal tendencies and habits. Silos should be broken down by as much cross-functional project teams as possible, or generating innovation opportunities for everyone to participate in.
- Manage your internal brand communication as well as you manage your customer brand communication. Do you see your culture as a tangible part of your company brand? If you're spending millions on marketing and skimping on communication internally, the chances are that you will have problems and inconsistencies at customer touch-points and employees are emotionally disengaged because their work has lost its meaning/value for them. Brands are inspirational and emotive. Whether you're selling services or products, the brand internal brand culture of the company can make or break the success of the perceived external brand - you want to win their hearts.
- Get the technology working and understand what's out there to help, but don't let it rule the roost. Use technology to build community but don't use it out of laziness or avoidance of the human touch. Rather than banning social networking or certain technology, look at how it can help build your culture and spread your messages in a way that is meaningful to the "Y generation".
- Ask yourself; is this an exceptionally good place to work? If it is then you're probably doing a lot right and only need to keep on the right track. If there is any hesitation, you have pointed to a block that needs unblocking. Everyone has influence and when many 'ones' take action, cultures begin to change. Do not avoid, collude or contribute to dysfunction. Be an agent of change yourself. Get a coach if you need support!
Finally add up the cost of what not doing the above might be to the organisation and you personally. How much is lost though sickness and absenteeism, law suits, missed deadlines, slowness and reticence to embrace change, fuddled communication etc, and what is the opportunity cost on top of that from all that is being missed out on?
At Xenergie, our own research tells us that until optimised teams tend to operate at about 20% of their potential, and those companies who take part in Great Companies to Work For consistently outperform those that don't.
We create what we see. It's time to wake up and not sleepwalk through the same old routines.
Here is some food for thought:
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86% of the world workforce is moderately engaged or disengaged and 14% highly engaged
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84% of highly engaged employees believe they can positively impact the quality of their work
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31% of disengaged employees believe they can positive impact the quality of their work (Source: Talent Management in the 21st Century. World at Work Journal 2006.)
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67% of companies with stronger financial performance cover all managers and some levels below with behavioural performance management systems. Only 28% of the weaker performers do
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38% of strong performers have a succession-planning programme in place. 0% of the weak performers do. (Source: Success Factors Research CA 2007)
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Companies optimising talent management are 3.4x more effective than those who don't. (Source: Harvard Business Review: manage your human sigma. Fleming & Harter )
Autumn offers from Xenergie:
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FREE team reports and culture assessment with Xenergie Belbin psychometric profiling & half day team feedback session.
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"Innovation Cafe" - 2-hour facilitated innovation brainstorm: change your next lunchtime or Monday morning meeting into a new beginning, not a doom and gloom session.
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First 100 days coaching for new managers - 10% off coaching booked during September and October 08 - please quote "First 100 days offer_eZine"
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Xenergie Breakfast Seminar (Dublin 9/10/08): Belbin and Leadership: how to use Belbin Team Roles to optimise leadership succession and management teamwork in your organisation. 50euro per head.
For more information call Lorna McDowell in Ireland on 087 919 0622 or Adam Farrell in the UK on Mob: +44 (0)7792 577764
