Reducing Conflict 96 Document Behaviors

June 11, 2023

One simple way to reduce conflicts is to have your group document expected behaviors in advance. I have used this technique in the past, and it has saved a lot of grief over the years.

The trick is to get your team to agree upon a set of rules that they intend to follow. Write down the rules and agree upon some form of consequence for people who violate them. The rules act as a preventive. Everyone in the group has signed up for the consequence if they violate them.

Example of an actual list of team behaviors

The following list of behaviors was taken from a group I supervised several years ago. 

  • When in conflict we will try to see from the other person’s perspective.
  • If we disagree, we will do it without being disagreeable.
  • We will not leave meetings with “silent no’s.”
  • Everyone will act like an adult.
  • The team will build an environment of respect and trust.
  • Commitments are always honored.
  • Individuals stay positive, even in difficult times.
  • Members seek to understand before seeking to be understood.
  • We help and support one another.

Why this list helps reduce conflict

Daily operations are sometimes intense and confusing. It is easy to get flustered and forget to live by the rules. Having them written down and agreed to prevents problems from surfacing.  People know they will be reminded if they overlook one of the rules.  If a pattern arises where the rules are broken multiple times, then disciplinary actions are required. 

Accountability is vital

If you have established rules for deportment, then you must enforce them or they will lose their power. If people recognize that you often excuse lapses from the standard, they will test the limits often. It becomes a game of “Gotcha” where leaders sometimes enforce the rules, but not always.

Recognize good behavior

It is also important that you reinforce people when they model the rules. It is not enough to hold a hammer over people’s heads with a negative consequence.  Instead, catch people in the act of modeling the documented behaviors and thank them.  That reinforcement is vital because other people will be reminded of the agreements often.

Conclusion

Having a set of documented behaviors can reduce the conflict between people daily.  Just remember to hold people accountable if they violate a rule and reinforce them when they follow the rules.

 

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust.  He is the author of The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change.  Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. 

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Reducing Conflict 79 Document Behaviors

February 5, 2023

At the start of all my leadership classes, I test for agreement and document behaviors for the class. The exercise is not that profound, but it does help to document behaviors expected at the start of every class.

Here is how I document behaviors for all my classes

I have a slide with six icons and a short phrase associated with each one. I ask the class if we are all willing to abide by the behaviors. I call these behaviors the “ground rules” for the class. 

A positive attitude

Everyone in the class is investing something in this training. It makes sense to have all participants fully invested in getting the most out of the experience. I always ask what each person expects to gain from the course. I want to know why they are here. 

If someone says “I am here because my boss told me to come,” that is cause for a side conversation.

Psychological Safety

This behavior is that I expect each person in the class to share their true feelings without having to worry about any retribution. In some groups, that principle is easy to adopt.  In others, people are fearful that when they say something that seems contrary, they will pay for it.

Since psychological safety is a precursor for real trust, this behavior is key to all my leadership training.

No jokes at the expense of others

This principle is very important, and it is often left out of standard documented behaviors. It seems simple enough; no person likes to be the butt of jokes. However, in the flow of conversation, sometimes the temptation is so strong people forget the rule. 

Let’s share an example from an online class to illustrate. Margaret has just shared an insightful comment about the benefits program in her organization.  Instead of hearing praise for her point, Margaret hears a different message from Jake.  “Good point, Margaret, too bad we always get the message first from your cat.”

The barb was meant in jest, and Jake can apologize later, but the damage has been done.

Keep confidential information protected

If people feel their remarks are going to get back to superiors, they will clam up. It is like the old Las Vegas Rule; what happens in the classroom stays in the classroom.

People can say they agree with the rule. Unless the facilitator reinforces the behavior appropriately, people will doubt it is actually true.

Be punctual

This is a difficult behavior to reinforce unless you have made a specific point about it.  Time spent in the classroom is an investment. If some people do not respect the time of others, then the value of the invested time decreases.

I always remind the group a couple of times along the way that they have committed to punctuality. That is generally enough reinforcement to discourage people from abusing time.

I do not chastise people for arriving late from a break or something. That practice would violate the prior behavior of no jokes. Life happens for all of us, and you need to support people.  If there is flagrant abuse, then a side discussion may help. People are people, and they are not exempt from personal emergencies just because they are in a class.

Remain alert

This behavior is a shared responsibility. As the facilitator, I need to keep the program lively and engaging. I try to have my content interspersed with experiential activities so people do not check out. My goal is to have something engaging and experiential at least every 15 minutes.

I use a number of techniques to keep people alert.  Here are a few of the ones that I use most often.

  1. Role plays – where people work in small groups on a problem where they are put in a difficult situation.
  2. Videos – some humorous, but all insightful that break up the time.
  3. Polls – where people vote on how they think about an issue.
  4. Magic illusions – that reflect the content we are reviewing, but that engage the mind in a very different way. People often comment that they just cannot figure out how I am doing that.
  5. Tug of wars – where one group argues for one side of the issue and the other argues for the opposite view. I often reverse the roles, mid-stream, to make things more fun.

The key to these experiential activities is to have some brief time to reflect on any observations or learning that occurred. Then, people are alert and ready to go back to the content.

Summary

This paper described the process I use to keep my leadership classes fun and light. It also optimizes the learning experience for each participant.

 

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust.  He is the author of The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind.  Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. 

 

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Building Higher Trust 93 Reinforce Trust Behaviors

October 7, 2022

Reinforce the behaviors that enhance trust within your organization. You need to encourage people to use these behaviors more often. Doing so will cause more people to practice them, and you will move your entire organization toward higher trust.

Reinforcement lesson from literature

In his book “Whale Done,”  Ken Blanchard stresses an idea about reinforcement. If you want more of a certain behavior, you need to reinforce the people who do it.  The idea is to catch someone doing something right and make them feel good about it.

Application to trust behaviors

The positive reinforcement technique is particularly effective at enhancing trust within organizations.  Leaders should preach and model the technique to shift the culture toward higher trust.

Examples of trust behaviors for clarity

Let’s focus on some examples that help illustrate how powerful this technique is at shaping the culture of a group. Here are six behaviors to reinforce:

  1. Admit mistakes – When people humbly admit a mistake, it usually enhances trust rather than reduces it. The reason is that many people try to hide their mistakes to avoid embarrassment. Exceptions include if the same mistake has been made before or if the mistake has a sinister intent.
  2. Do what you say – Consistency between words and actions is a way to enhance trust.
  3. Tell the truth – People recognize when they get straight facts, even if the news isn’t good. They appreciate the honesty.
  4. Be transparent – People appreciate knowing what is going on. If managers try to hide things, trust goes down.
  5. Demonstrate care – When managers show they truly care about their people, it goes a long way toward enhancing trust.
  6. Adhere to the values – If people see the values modeled in everyday interactions, it helps entrench their validity.

There are hundreds of other examples I could cite, but I kept the list short for brevity. The point is that when leaders reinforce people when they do things that enhance trust, it tends to strengthen it.

Trust behaviors form the basis of your culture

Do not overlook this method of enhancing trust within your group. Look for opportunities to model the technique.  Don’t forget to thank other people when they take the time to praise others who are reinforcing trust behaviors.  The whole concept becomes a circle of support that really matters in the long run. It is the best method of building a high trust culture.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust.  He is the author of The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind.  Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations

 

 

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Building Higher Trust 75 Team Behaviors

June 10, 2022

Each group of leaders should establish a list of team behaviors they intend to follow as a group. Vaporware and wishy-washy concepts are inadequate. They make it impossible for the team to hold each other accountable for abiding by the rules. 

Avoid a long shopping list of 20-30 rules because it becomes too complicated to remember them all.  I think 5-7 behavioral rules work well for a management team. One rule I wish every group would adopt is the “Keep it real” rule.

Keeping it Real

The idea is that we are all on the same team here. We are not here to play games with each other. Trying to impress the other team members is a common tactic of low-performing management groups.  Disruptive team members bring down the effectiveness of the entire group by orders of magnitude. I have seen it happen numerous times.

Example of a Team Behavior

If a team adopts a “Keep it real” rule, then stick to it. One technique is to have a signal to be used when someone forgets to follow the rule.  Perhaps it might be a raised index finger or some other recognizable sign that the team has agreed to. The team needs to agree there will be no negative repercussions for anyone giving the sign. This is especially important when it is the boss who is causing the problem.

Having a pre-selected safe signal allows the whole team to police the behaviors. That permission quickly extinguishes the wrong behavior. 

 Example of Team Behavior in Action

I was once with a team that was world-class at making jokes at the expense of each other. The jokes were digs intended to be in jest and were taken that way on the surface. Unfortunately, there was damage done under the surface when people picked on each other. 

They invented a signal to use when someone made a joke at the expense of another person. This was the third item on their list of rules. They elected to use three extended fingers to indicate someone had violated the rule.

Result of the Policy

The results were simply amazing. In less than an hour, the behavior that was ingrained in the team’s makeup was totally extinguished. It only took a couple of times of one member giving the sign to another for people to catch on.

The results in this group were transformational. The little barbs stopped, and from that point on, the tone of the group was much more supportive. They still had fun and made jokes; they just did not do it at the expense of others.

Conclusion

Take the time with your team to invent some behavioral rules. Also, invent some kind of signal to give if people ignore the rules. You will find that it can make a big difference in the culture of the entire team.

 

 

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust.  He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind.  Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. 

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Body Language 96 Lasting Relationships

October 13, 2020

For the final few articles in this series on body language, I am highlighting some of the excellent content in a program entitled “Advanced Body Language” by Bill Acheson of the University of Pittsburgh.

In this article, I will summarize his research on Forming Lasting Relationships quickly. I dealt with this topic from my own observations in an earlier article entitled “Planting a Seed of Trust in the First 10 Seconds.”  Bill’s take on the subject parallels my remarks and goes deeper in some areas.

 

First of all, Bill says that we form a first impression of another person extremely fast, and it is based on three factors that we judge very quickly: 1) Trustworthiness, 2) Competence, and 3) Likability.

Trustworthiness

The first observation is that you cannot project trustworthiness verbally. It must be done with some form of action or gesture where you are demonstrating that you will do exactly what you say. You will not spin the truth and will be transparent with information.

That is kind of a difficult thing to do when first meeting an individual, so let me share an example from my own background.  I once met a person who said he was interested in the topic of trust.

I was a speaker at a conference, and this individual approached me. I told him that I had an article I would send to him that had great content to answer one of his questions. I asked him for his card, and he saw me write down a message to myself on the back to send him that particular article.

This little gesture let him know he could count on me to follow through, so I suspect my trustworthiness level likely went up in his mind.

Competence

Here, Bill quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.” Another way to say that is, “Actions speak louder than words.”

He makes the observation that men have the ability to project personal power in a business setting with greater accuracy than women. He describes several male behaviors that signal personal power.  For example, if a man sits with noticeably relaxed muscle tone, it demonstrates absence of fear. Lack of fear is coupled with trust, so it is a gesture that connotes power and security.

A backward body lean is another indication of being relaxed, which translates into a gesture associated with personal power. This is also true for body asymmetry with one hand up and the other hand down.

Another example is expansiveness; he takes up a lot of room.  He spreads things out on the table in front of himself or sits in a meeting with his arm on an adjacent chair.

A third give away is sitting with legs crossed in what is known as the “aristocratic leg cross” with one leg on top of the other rather than an ankle to the knee, which is how the majority of men sit. Bill cites that for men over the age of 45, only 12% of them will sit with one leg atop the other. Bill says it is the single most accurate predictor of high social status and high net worth.

For women to project personal power, Bill makes three observations. The first is that hair and power are inversely proportional. As women move into positions of higher power, they tend to cut their hair shorter and closer to the head.

A second observation is that women, when projecting personal power, often do what is called a “reverse steeple” with their hands.  Men will often steeple with finger tips together pointing upward and palms apart. The female power position is with fingers together pointing downward and palms apart.

He says the dichotomy between attractiveness and power means that to increase one, you tend to reduce the other; “It’s a zero-sum game.” The implication here is that for a woman to project personal power she will often sacrifice some femininity.

Likability

Here, the issue revolves around communication style.  Bill notes that in study after study the highest rated communicator says the fewest number of words.  He makes a very strong statement that “You are now, and you will continue to be paid based on your ability to LISTEN.”

He suggests that the most important behavior for a listener is silence.  It is so obvious that we tend to forget.

He said that in order to generate instant rapport with an individual you are just meeting, just walk up and give a four-word command: “Tell me about yourself.” Then shut up and listen.

Bill also points out that when meeting another person, you want to maintain roughly 70-80% eye contact.  Less than 70% eye contact and the other person will not trust you. He stresses that it important to break eye contact at least once a minute.  To stare at another person for more than a minute, it is creepy and actually can destroy trust.

These points are quite similar to the ones I have anecdotally observed myself, but Bill has done enough research to back up the theory with data.

Not all of the points mentioned here apply in all situations. As with all body language, there is room for individual differences, and the magnitude of the gestures will depend on the specific situation.

 

 

This is a part in a series of articles on “Body Language” by Bob Whipple “The Trust Ambassador.”

 

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Leadership Barometer 65 How People Treat Each Other

September 20, 2020

There are hundreds of assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership.

There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.

How People Treat Each Other

You can tell the caliber of a leader instantly when you view how people in the organization treat each other. A good leader insists on constructive and helpful behaviors that model high trust and even affection.

Some people believe the word affection is too strong for the working world. I disagree. Groups that work for a great leader learn to really appreciate each other for their good qualities. That does not mean that everyone always gets along with no quarrels; that would be a phony environment.

Just like a family, people will eventually find some things to cause friction, but there is sincere affection behind any tension that shows trough as people work to resolve differences without doing emotional damage.

Good leaders teach their people to, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested, “Disagree Without Being Disagreeable.”

Where leadership is weak, squabbles between people lead to childish behaviors that can cause permanent damage to relationships. It is easy to witness this in most organizations.

As Lou Holtz observed, “you can find a thousand things to not like about somebody but you need to look for the things that you do like, that support the team effort.” In an environment of support and affection it is easy to become a close knit team that is hard to beat.

Good leaders insist that their group generates a set of specific behaviors. It is important to be able to point at these things and call each other when the behaviors are not being modeled. The leader always works to model the behaviors and actually verbalizes them frequently.

It may sound like this, “Thanks for your comment Frank, I appreciate how your words supported Mary’s effort because that is a value and behavior we cherish in our group.

Watch for the signs of a group that, while there are differences, handle those disconnects in a mature and loving way. A group like that is being guided by an excellent leader.

Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations.

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Leadership Barometer 46 Addition by Subtraction

April 16, 2020

The title of this article came from a student in one of my online classes on Team Dynamics. He got the phrase from an “extraordinary” Chief Master Sergeant named Jim, currently serving at the Pentagon. I really love the phrase because it is so simple, yet so profound.

We are all familiar with some of the problems that occur when working in teams. In this article, I want to focus on the impact that can be made by a single person who is a misfit in the group and slows down all team progress.

I need to be careful to describe the phenomenon correctly. Normally, I am an advocate of having diversity of opinion and styles within a team. Reason: respectful differences in outlook or opinion are healthy because they usually lead to more creative and robust solutions.

If you have a team of clones who all think alike on most issues, you have a mono-culture that may seem to work well, but it will probably lead to myopic solutions. In general, having “different” people on a team is a good thing.

Unfortunately, we have all had the experience of being on a team where one individual simply stops forward progress on a regular basis. The root cause may be a personality deficiency or some kind of chemistry problem between members.

The person may become moody or bellicose and derail group processes at every opportunity. In rare cases there is an intent to stop the efforts of a team, sort of like a sport.

I am not writing about a person on the team who fills a Devil’s advocate role from time to time in order to prevent the group from slipping into a dangerous group think. Nor am I referring to the person with a concern or observation who voices it in a polite way.

The person I am describing is one who habitually takes a contrarian view and refuses to accept the fact that he or she is derailing conversation rather than fostering a balanced discussion.

I advocate that any team should have a written and agreed-upon set of expected behaviors. These statements indicate our agreement on how we will treat each other along with specific consequences for members who do not comply.

If peer pressure and body language fail to convince the person to stop the disruptive behavior, then it is time for the person’s manager to do some private coaching. Sometimes that can make at least a temporary improvement

However, some individuals just cannot or will not change. Stronger measures are required. The solution is rather obvious. The person needs to find some other way to get entertainment, and should be excused from the team.

This surgery is really “addition by subtraction.” Reason: once the problem person is removed, the entire team will breathe a sigh of relief, because now decisions and progress can occur more easily.

I recall removing a disruptive member of a team years ago. Grateful team members came to me with tears of gratitude in their eyes saying, “Oh thank you! Removing Frank from the team took some courage, but we are so grateful to have the ability to navigate without him. Life will be so much better for all of us because of your action.”

Removing a problem person from a team is often a painful process. Egos can get bruised or there may be an ugly scene. My advice is to take the action, but only after you have exhausted all remedial efforts.




Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations

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Leadership Barometer 5 How People Treat Each Other

July 2, 2019

Here is another quick measure of the skill of a leader.

How People Treat Each Other

You can tell the caliber of a leader instantly when you view how people in the organization treat each other.

A good leader insists on constructive and helpful behaviors that model high trust and even affection.

Some people believe the word affection is too strong for the working world. I disagree. Groups that work for a great leader learn to really appreciate each other for their good qualities.

Affection does not mean that everyone always gets along with no quarrels; that would be a phony environment.

Just like a family, people will eventually find some things that cause friction, but there is sincere affection behind any tension that shows trough as people work to resolve differences without doing emotional damage.

At home, people can irritate each other while still embracing a mutual love that transcends the petty annoyances. The same concept should apply at work.

Left to their own devices, people working in close proximity to each other have a remarkable ability to drive each other crazy. Great leaders teach their people the skill of disagreeing without being disagreeable. This vital skill is often overlooked in organizations.

Where leadership is weak, squabbles between people lead to childish behaviors that can cause permanent damage to relationships. It is easy to witness this in most organizations.

As Lou Holtz observed, “you can find a thousand things to not like about somebody but you need to look for the things that you do like, that support the team effort.” In an environment of support and affection is is easy to become a close knit team that is hard to beat.

Great leaders insist that their group generates a set of specific behaviors. It is important to be able to point at these things and call each other when the behaviors are not being modeled.

The leader always works to model the behaviors and actually verbalizes them frequently. It may sound like this, “Thanks for your comment Frank, I appreciate how your words supported Mary’s effort because that is a value and behavior we cherish in our group.”

Here is an example of a list of behaviors from a team I managed several decades ago.

Team Behaviors:

  • When in conflict, we will try to see from the other person’s perspective
  • We will not leave our meetings with “silent no’s”
  • We will act like adults
  • We will build an environment of trust

I am not suggesting that other groups adopt this set of behaviors. Rather, I am encouraging leaders to work with their group to identify some key behaviors they intend to follow and will hold each other accountable for following. The team must own the behaviors, and it is a leadership function to ensure that happens.

Watch for the signs of a group that, while there are differences, handle those disconnects in a mature and loving way. A group like that is being guided by an excellent leader.

Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations. He can be reached at bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585-392-7763.

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Successful Supervosir 97 The Myth of Needing More People

October 13, 2018

This article will contain a philosophy that some people will reject out of hand, yet I believe it is generally true, with perhaps a handful of exceptions.

The myth starts when workers and their supervisors are convinced they are being overtaxed and need the assistance of more workers in order to get the work done. This complaint is present in the majority of organizations in which I have worked over the past 30 years.

The irony is that when you listen to supervisors and managers describe conditions for the workers, they readily admit there is a lot of lost time that could be available if conditions were changed.

My own personal estimate is that in the average organization today, companies are getting between 30-50% of the potential that is there in the current workforce. If that estimate is true, then in many organizations the output could be roughly doubled with the current workforce.

The problem is that people are working around the cultural problems and conflicts that exist in any group of people. I contrast this condition with some of the benchmark organizations I have seen where leaders have built a culture of respect and trust.

In those organizations, I believe workers freely contribute nearly 80% of what they can possibly do. That is about the maximum amount people can sustain without experiencing health problems due to burn out.

The antidote for supervisors is to not accept when people complain that they need more bodies around. Instead, seek to engage the existing workforce to a higher degree.

If you build the right kind of culture, there will be a lot less internal friction causing loss of productivity. People will enjoy a higher quality of work life as well, which will make your days (or nights) at work so much more pleasant.

Ask yourself if a better culture in your organization would make for a happier and more productive experience for all levels. Don’t be quick to buy into the notion that we need to dump more bodies into a sick system in order to get the work done. It is just not true in the vast majority of cases.

If you dump more bodies in without resolving the underlying cause of malcontent, then the problem gets worse, not better.

Instead, seek to energize the people you already have by reducing the friction or fighting between people. This action will result in better utilization of current resources and obviate the need to hire more people. Try the following techniques:

Create a common goal

Teams who have a lot of acrimony usually act that way because they lack a common goal that everyone wants. Seek to clarify your vision and paint a picture that is clear enough for all employees to grasp.

Show them how each one of them will be much better off when the vision is achieved. Remind them that they are really on the same team and not in opposing silos.

Get rid of the “we versus they” feelings and create a powerful group that think in terms of “us.” If you are not an expert at making this kind of change, then seek a consultant that can help you.

Document expected behaviors

Work with your employees to establish a set of agreed-upon behaviors that remove the vast majority of acrimony between people. Make sure everyone buys into these behaviors.

Then praise people when they follow the right behaviors. Do not tolerate it when people violate the behaviors. This action may result in actually removing some players from the team.

I have written elsewhere (Addition by Subtraction) about how removing some of the combative people who refuse to cooperate actually makes the work easier for everyone else, and you get a double whammy. You get more work accomplished with fewer people!

In this environment everyone celebrates. The group will recognize that you did not need more people; rather you needed fewer people who are mucking up the works.

Celebrate the Successes

Getting to improved engagement and empowerment can be a long road. Be sure to take time to celebrate the small wins along the way. Let the team marvel in their ability to actually be more productive without killing themselves.

Celebrate creative ideas that pan out to improve the process. Consider failures as learning experiences that help the team move forward. Remind people that they learned to walk only by a lot of falling down and then making corrections.

Mark Joyner teaches a technique he calls “High Impact Minimal Effort or HIME” that encourages people to find ways to improve productivity while minimizing the effort it takes. The idea is to create a mindset that always looks at jobs this way; it becomes a habit that leads to individual and corporate success.

Once you create a culture where people get jazzed about making their own improvements, then you can simply fall into a coaching mode where their own power and ideas will supply the fuel to the engine of productivity.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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Successful Supervisor 88 Better Team Building

August 11, 2018

Much has been written about the various Team Building methods. Different consultants have their favorite exercises for helping groups of people work better together.

A common technique is to take a group off their normal site to do some outdoor experiential activities, like rock climbing or zip lining. These event-based team building exercises do get the attention of people, but I believe there is a better experiential activity that does a better job of knitting a team together.

Carve out some time to work on a strategic framework as a team. I had a whole section in my first book, “The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals,” where I described the process of taking a group of people through a strategy process so everyone on the team had a hand in designing the future.

For this short blog article, I will not describe the entire process, but I will outline and define the major parts of a strategy process and give some tips I have learned from facilitating numerous groups through the process of developing a strategy. Note, the order of the parts is important. The exercise has a kind of flow to it that helps the team bond.

Values – Start the process by documenting a set of values for the group. Everyone can suggest a few key values, so use an affinity process to distill down a list of 4-6 key values for the entire group.

Vision – Identify where the group intends to end up. As Stephen Covey stated, you need to begin with the end in mind to have a workable plan.

Mission – This is a short and very specific statement of what the group is trying to achieve right now. Avoid long lists of items, or management speak; keep it to the central idea of the group.

Behaviors – This step is frequently left out, and that is a big mistake. Identify specific behaviors that the team agrees to abide by. This helps when holding people accountable if they fail to live by the behaviors. Two examples of team behaviors might be 1) We will act like adults at all times, and 2) When we disagree, we will do it without being disagreeable.

SWOT – Brainstorm a list of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for the group. The first two items are like looking at the group through a microscope, and the last two are like looking at the environment the group is operating in through a telescope.

Identify Needed Changes – What must change in order for the group to actually achieve the vision?

Identify the Strategies – How is the group going to achieve the needed changes in a timely manner? Here it is important to avoid having too many strategies. I believe five strategies at any one time is optimal. What you are doing is trying to focus the effort of the group on a few key drivers.

Specify the Tactics – Identify the specific actions that are required to accomplish the strategies. Who is going to do what and by when? Make sure the tactics are reasonable so people are not overloaded.

Identify measures – How is the group going to identify progress toward the vision? The measures must be expressed as SMART Goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

It is critical to get this work done quickly or the team will become frustrated by a long, drawn-out process over a number of months. I like to facilitate groups to develop their strategic plan in less than 8 hours duration. That may seem unrealistic, but I have developed a process that is actually quite doable with the proper preparation done ahead of time.

Creating a solid Strategic Framework is the best team building activity a team can do, because it engages everyone in creating an exciting future for the group.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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