From a sight perspective 2020 vision is about visual acuity. Visual acuity is determined by the sharpness, clearness and focus of a person’s vision.
So maybe for businesses 2020 is the year of acuity - about the sharpness and focus of your organisation's vision?
One of the basic building blocks of any business is to be able to articulate your vision. It’s your sense of future state, what you hope to become. It sets the scene in determining and communicating the purpose of your business to your team.
This then provides the motivation and inspiration for your team to achieve that purpose.
Vision statements give direction for employee behaviour and help provide inspiration. A vision statement is a view into the future with hope and a positive outlook. It describes a company's inspirational, long-term plan for what they'll be able to accomplish, who they will help, and how the company will then be perceived. It's often out of reach for now, but not so far out of reach as to be unattainable. The vision statement gives everyone a description of what they're working towards, they will often be aspirational.
If your business vision is then combined with strong company values that your team are aligned behind then you have the beginnings of a really good culture. Vision and values together create alignment and purpose, and everyone needs a sense of purpose (proven by many scientific studies).
Maybe your aim for 2020 is to review or create a vision along with some values that inspire, motivate, and drive the right day-to-day behaviours in your team. This will not only drive engagement but also assist in talent retention.
Are your team living the values of your organisation? Do they align with your 2020 vision?
What’s your 2020 vision for your organisation looking like? Is it time to refresh, re-plot?
Written by Julie Baxendine, General Manager
Guest Post from Suzi McAlpine of The Leader's Digest, an award-winning leadership blog.
Building trust is now one of the major concerns keeping CEOs awake at night. That’s according to the recently released World Economic Forum 20th annual CEO survey.
“As we become more interconnected and interdependent, concern about a business trust gap has grown: 58% of CEOs worry that lack of trust in business could harm their company’s growth, up significantly from 37% in 2013.”
CEO’s are worrying, and with good reason. If you don’t have trust – with your team, your customers and other stakeholders – you’re in for a very bumpy ride.
Despite this ‘burning platform’ around the power of trust, I’m often surprised at how many leaders are coming unstuck when it comes to building trust – especially with the team they lead.
Here are five ways you could be BREAKING TRUST with your team as quickly as you can say “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” These pointers will allow you to recognise these faults in yourself, and hopefully help you remedy them.
One of the quickest ways you’ll erode trust is to NOT model what you expect from your team. If you stridently pronounce that everyone’s got to be on time - and then always turn up late to meetings yourself, your people will doubt your sincerity (as well as think you’re a bit of a plonker). Ditto with more important things like ethics and company values. If the thought of anything you’ve said or done being made public makes you squirmy, then take the hint and shift your behaviour in the right direction. The best leaders don’t expect anything from their own team that they’re not willing to do themselves.
What is one specific way you can model what you want within your team, starting today?
‘Transparency is the new black’. Some things need to remain confidential of course, but always be as transparent and upfront as you can. This transparency applies to information, your intent, performance and the challenges facing the team. Things can change in a nanosecond, so let your team know as much as you can, as soon as you can.
What information are you not currently sharing with your team which you can be more transparent about? (It’s always smart to check what’s confidential first, so share your ideas with your boss first)
This behaviour not only erodes trust, it builds apathy and a lack of confidence in your team. Be careful about what you promise – people have memories like elephants when it comes to what you say you’ll do, especially in times of strife or change. If you don’t know, say so. If you’re not sure, fess up. As with customers, you’re better to under promise and over deliver than go back on your word.
Where are you currently delivering on your promises to your direct reports? Where are you delivering on your promises to your direct manager or peers? Where might you be overpromising? Take a nonjudgmental but honest look at your own practice around delivering on your promises in your work environment.
Want a surefire way to botch people’s trust in yourself? See any of your team member’s vulnerabilities or weaknesses as career ending. As Patrick Lencioni says in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “trust is all about vulnerability.” Research shows us that expressing vulnerability in an appropriate manner is an important leadership component when it comes to connecting with others at a basic human level. Leaders who show a bit of vulnerability can build trust with their teams far more quickly than those who don’t.
Often the best and most useful areas that a leader can show vulnerability are if they are in the context of lessons learnt. Where have you struggled before in the areas that your current team members are also struggling? What did you learn? What were your insights? Where have you made mistakes in your career and what did they teach you? What are your current weaknesses that you are working on? Can you share some of these with your team members?
A charge in and task mode approach towards ‘doing the work’ will guarantee poor results. Instead a ‘how we are going to work together’ attitude will ensure success. Building a high-performing team means making group dynamics and team creation a priority. People have questions that need to be answered before they can turn their attention to the work at hand. Questions such as:
How would you rate yourself currently on the balance of building trust and focusing on the task at hand? What steps could you take to ensure that these questions are sufficiently answered for all the members of your team?
Think this blog has some useful tips for building trust within your team? Then check out The Leader’s Map, an online accelerator programme for emerging leaders. In it you’ll find many more video lessons, exercises, resources and tools to build trust and a high performing team.
A high performance team is your organisation's ultimate secret weapon. Imagine if you could get all the people in your organisation rowing in the same direction - you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time!
Patrick Lencioni is a well-known business management author, who has coached thousands of management teams and CEOs. His 'Five Dysfunctions of a Team' framework is very relevant for understanding how to build a high-performing team. By looking at what makes a dysfunctional team, we can understand how each behaviour leverages off the next and that by doing the opposite, we can build a world-dominating team.
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team. Vulnerability-based trust is characterised by such things as saying ‘I need help,’ ‘I screwed up' or 'I made an error.’
Solution: Build trust into your team culture by creating an environment of being open and honest, sharing problems, admitting mistakes and assisting each other in a collaborative manner.
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles productive, ideological conflict. This creates two problems. Firstly, stifling conflict actually increases the likelihood of destructive, back channel sniping. Secondly, it leads to sub-optimal decision-making because the team is not benefitting from the true ideas and perspectives of its members.
Solution: Welcome productive conflict in your team. Challenge paradigms, encourage others to speak up or out, get input from the team and confront issues quickly. But remember, productive and constructive conflict cannot happen without trust!
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to. People give up or check out because either artificial harmony on one extreme, or destructive harmony at the other extreme leads to an environment of either fear or fantasy.
Solution: With trust and healthy conflict built into your team culture, engage your team by ensuring you are aligned on common objectives and being clear on direction and priorities.
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable for their behaviours and performance. It’s too hard and emotionally draining to be constructively direct with a peer.
Solution: By now, you should have trust, productive conflict and commitment in your team. Accountability is the natural next step. Implementing the same standard for everyone and having clarity over these standards is essential. Team members should be made to feel comfortable to take accountability and to hold each other accountable, even if it is difficult. Likewise, a high performing team also recognises each others' performance with praise or rewards.
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success. By not focussing on results, you're more likely to see poor performance and higher team turnover.
Solution: With a team now built on trust, healthy conflict, commitment and accountability, the final tip of the pyramid is focussing on results. Results-focussed teams are more highly motivated. Of course, there are a multitude of benefits to having a highly motivated team - one being that you'll be likely to see reduced staff turnover.
So now, if we step back and look at the flip side of each of these five dysfunctions, we can see the characteristics of a High Performance Team:
If you're a leader of a team, commit to addressing the five dysfunctions and see what an enduring difference it makes to your team's culture, performance and motivation.
For more information, ask us about how we can help improve or boost your team culture.
Guest Post from Suzi McAlpine of The Leader's Digest, an award-winning leadership blog.
I like acronyms. They’re handy. Where would we be without RSVP, ETA and FYI? And having to remember the colours of the rainbow in correct order is made easier by ROYGBIV. This is required far more often than you’d think when you have a ten year old daughter.
Then, there’s the ‘too weird to believe’ acronyms. Like WISEASS: Weizmann Institute of Science Experimental Astrophysics Spectroscopy System. Yep, it’s a thing.
But here’s an acronym you SHOULD remember when you're leading change. This will be often, BTW, given you’re in a leadership role.
It’s called SARAH, and like my best friend of the same name, it’s helpful, handy to have around and hard to forget.
The acronym SARAH stands for the stages most of us go through as we adapt to change. It might be a restructure, a redundancy, or a change in strategic direction of your company. It might be a torturous IT systems implementation. Or just the fact the boss you love is leaving. Change is inevitable. The SARAH model helps you lead more competently through that change.
Some people zip through the SARAH process as fast as you can say, “hey pronto!” Others amongst us take a little more time to adjust to the new norm. We might even get stuck in the A or R stage. AAARRR indeed.
There’s no right or wrong. But understanding your reactions to change or more importantly, your team members' reactions - is ‘mui importante’!
Feeling heard is always important. It’s even more important during a change process.
This response is often characterised by strong feeling and emotion - or none at all. They might not understand the change. Fear often paralyses. It might show up as denial that the change is even happening at all! Think head in the sands or deer in the headlights.
What to do? Respond gently, empathise, listen. Provide context or historical information that led to the decision. Support is key here. You might ask, “what support do you need?”. Stay close.
Shock can manifest into anger or anxiety once people realise the implications of the change. They might be highly defensive, belligerent or passive aggressive. You might even see downright 'dig your heels in' rage. Resist the temptation to fight anger with insistence or anger. The person in this stage may not agree with the need for change. It’s like the rejection response, but less rational and is heat in the moment behaviour. They may lash out at you, when what they’re really lashing out at is the thing that’s changing.
What to do? Show empathy, ask questions, and let the person talk. Listen, listen some more and paraphrase to check your understanding of their perspective. Restate your points – but only after you’ve done the steps I’ve listed beforehand. Oh, and did I mention listen? Loads of that.
During the rejection phase, they reject the need for change. They might deflect, identify loads of other issues and support their case with logic and reasoning. They may be apathetic, check out or temporarily give up hope. You might see cynicism, self-pity or a sense of injustice.
What to do? Be patient (easier said than done). Listen without diving into collusion, stick to the issues. Agree action plans over clear time frames and with success indicators. The theme for this stage is 'one step at a time'. Ask, “what is the one small thing you can do today or this week that’s within your power here? What support do you need to get it done?” Focus on small wins and low hanging fruit.
This stage occurs when they’re coming to terms with the change and are ready to accept or live with it. When people begin to embrace or accept the change, the benefits start to become visible to them.
What to do? Encourage them to take small, manageable risks. Give them positive feedback and cautious corrective feedback, where they can accept it. “Well done on xyz! That meant (insert positive impact). What could we do next to build momentum?”
Hallelujah! The person is now asking for help. Signs include a lift in energy and motivation. You’ll know it when you see it. You’ll see a shift, a 'lifting' of sorts.
What to do? You can now begin to coach and guide them. This includes setting goals, discussing the current situation, exploring options and agreeing actions. Helping to balance learning and develop new skills. And now more than ever, uphold the vision.
Use the SARAH model the next time you're leading change. Or if you have a boss who’s leading YOU through change and needs to read these tips, drop this article on their desk ASAP. Or "accidentally" email it to them.
Leading change is hard. But it can be easier if you befriend SARAH, just BTW, FYI.
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Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend an evening hosted by by the Institute of Directors in Marlborough where Sheffield and their team of specialised consultants shared the outputs of their recent Leadership Survey.
This year's focus was on the ‘emerging’ leaders group across the South Island, specifically leaders under the age of 50. More than 60 leaders were spoken to as part of this survey, concentrating on the big question, “what are the big issues facing South Island business leaders today?”
There were five clear takeaway areas from the survey and interestingly (thankfully), all focussing on performance and people.
1. The importance of people skills is now a top priority for our leaders and is usually the critical shortage in their leadership teams.
2. While having a strategy in place makes good business sense, making sure your strategic priorities are clear, translated into measurable goals and objectives and regularly reviewing how you’re tracking against achieving your business goals is fundamental.
3. Even if you have the best strategy in the world - if the culture isn’t right, you’re in trouble.
4. Gen Z is here! Employing across five generations in one company is becoming the norm. A key focus moving forward will be how we motivate, reward, support and lead with such diversity.
5. Coaching is in, traditional performance management is out! Looking forward, being flexible, agile and focussing on continuous improvement will drive success.
While I didn’t participate in the 2017 Sheffield Leadership Survey, it is great to see the focus this year is about 'people.' The takeaway challenges for leaders this year are refreshing and good to see.
People are and need to be, the number one priority. How we attract, develop and lead ‘our people’ will impact how successful businesses are moving forward.
Amanda Parish, Intepeople HR & Talent Partner
Over the last few weeks we have witnessed some wonderful examples of strong and considered leadership and conversely some very poor ones as well.
The Black Caps’ captain Brendon McCallum exemplified all the qualities of great leadership. By leading from the front, taking bold decisions, being humble in victory and dignified in defeat he created a team culture that brought the best out in everyone. He was able to galvanise the “Will and Skill” of the team to take them collectively and individually to the edge of their potential. More importantly he galvanised the nation behind them and had previously non- followers of the game converted to an exciting brand of cricket.
Contrast that with the leadership shown by the coaches and senior players in the Australian cricket team and along with the behaviour of some of the parents of the St Bedes’ rowing team. The respective 'win at all cost' tactics deployed by both manifested in arrogance, bully boy behaviours, brashness and seemingly a complete ignorance or disregard to the consequences to their sports and the example it set as leaders and parents. It will be argued by the “get hard or go home” advocates that this is what is necessary to win. History shows the result of this sort of behaviour in business and sport is usually short lived and unsustainable. Indeed the public reaction to both events suggested both were the losers in the way they behaved and undermined the credibility of both sporting codes and particularly in the latter case the role of parents to be role models and set good examples for others.
There is a great quote by Jim Rohn which I believe sums up the difference of the leadership displayed by Brendon and his team and the others mentioned.
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud but not arrogant, have humour, but without folly.”
The Australian cricket team and St Bede’s parents may have thought they won the battle but I think they lost the war. The Principal of St Bedes and The Captain and Coach of the Black Caps are to be commended in their response.
by Paul Bell
