Productive Conflict in Leadership teams

How often do you find leaders talking in the corridor about how a member of their top team should have done this, or why did they say that? This can be so destructive and such an unproductive waste of time. Leadership teams need to indulge in productive conflict to thrive and survive. They need to have a level of trust and understanding that will allow people to challenge each other, not in a personal way, but in an objective way that will be accepted and respected by all.

Teams that do not have a level of productive conflict can live in a state of artificial harmony, where the real tough issues are skirted over and not addressed openly. In Patrick Lencioni’s excellent book, ‘Five Dysfunctions of a team’, he says that the best teams aim for a point just to the left of the mid way point on the Productive to Destructive Conflict Continuum. That way they don’t stray over to the destructive side where it can seem like personal attacks, but at the same time the conversations are challenging enough to keep everyone on their toes.

This constant challenge in team meetings keeps people focused, holds people to account and means that real commitments are made to do things and act behind agreed goals. As with all good teams, the role model needs to be the leader of the team, who will set the standard. She must show the way by challenging her team constantly to deliver on their promises, set clear goals and involve and engage their people in delivering on the business plan. This way the role model is clear for others to follow.

We all want a strong leader, someone we can respect and want to follow. Someone who can be completely honest and objective, who will challenge subordinates and peers equally to perform and who sets the right tone and preaches what they practice. That way we can all be part of challenging and rewarding, high performing teams.

Conflict is vital to teams

Conflict is vital in productive teams, but it must not be personal or destructive. Teams who do not open up and encourage productive conflict often end up with artificial harmony, when the real conversations takes place in the corridor after the meeting.
In order for teams to create an environment where people are comfortable with productive conflict there has to be a basis of trust. People have to get to a stage where they are able to show their vulnerabilities to team members, without fear of personal attack. For more infomational on creating functional teams see Patrick Lencioni’s book ‘Five Dysfunctions of a team’.

10 ways to motivate your employees

Recent research has proven that staff engagement is key to recovery in the recession: The MacLeod Review of Employee Engagement ¹ – an independent report for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – shows that involving employees in the future of their firms could be the key to business success.

Staff who trust their employers and feel they have a stake in their firm’s future will outperform those who feel ignored or taken for granted because of poor employment prospects elsewhere.

Here are some of the best ways to get your staff on side and boost productivity and innovation.

How to involve staff in the running of the business

1. Provide a structure and process that encourages and rewards employees for their loyalty and enhanced contribution.
2. Commit to an ethos and structure that nurtures employee engagement skills development. This must be board-led with support for managers who directly manage the employees on a day to day basis.
3. Ensure all work descriptions include stimulating challenges – and provide investment in training to help staff meet the challenges.
4. Enable employees to understand the valued contribution they make to the business – wherever they are positioned in the hierarchy. Have a clear and well-defined job description for each individual with constant reviews as the employee evolves.
5. Senior management should recognise and appreciate their employees. Be approachable and give employees praise for a specific contribution they have made – whatever level they are. Recognise that employees want the chance to be acknowledged and rewarded in other non-financial ways such as development of skills or promotion opportunities.
6. Maximise day to day employee autonomy in accomplishing the task they have been given to develop mutual trust and respect. Let employees stretch themselves and shine with the potential of being rewarded with further responsibilities.
7. Offer all employees the opportunity to be mentored. This is the most powerful tool that an employer can use to demonstrate the commitment they have for their employees and can be used to identify and develop the potential future stars of the business.
8. Develop and build company reputation. Accolades such as Investors in People give recognised kudos.
9. Respect your employees’ work/life balance and personal time. Take an interest in and support this with family activities and events. Alternatively, support and help with the employee’s commuting.
10. Offer training to improve weak skills or encourage job advancement. Staff can become disengaged and unproductive if they have been doing the same role for a long period of time, or when a new technology or process is introduced without adequate training and support.

Generally, the offer of relevant skills training from basic numeracy and literacy up to professional qualifications is a key motivational factor for staff.

New Leadership workshop – Straight Talking

Responding to client demand we are creating a one day workshop on ‘Straight Talking’. The basis of a great leadership team is trust, which requires personal honesty and the desire to show your own vulnerability. Many leadership teams need to develop their trust and know how to build a team that can really challenge each other in an open, honest and constructive way. More to follow…

Entrepreneurs Board

Just been asked to join The Entrepreneurs Board. A great way to be challenged as a small business by other like minded businessmen. Looking forward to the first meeting http://www.chiefexecutive.com/entrepreneurs_board.asp

Emails “Who still needs them?”

Read a great article in HBR this month on emails and what to think about when using them. So many of my clients complain about emails taking up too much time, “reply to all function”, constantly being “pinged” wherever they are, colleagues being distracted by them in Emails, “Who needs them?”meetings etc. They seem to be out of control!  So I added what I have picked up over the years and attached my thoughts on the subject.

Emails, “Who needs them?”

The problems with email

1. Employees spend 2 hours a day on email
2. 60% of email users check them in the toilet
3. Knowledge workers average 20 hours a week managing email
4. Employees consider 1 in 3 emails unnecessary
5. A typical knowledge worker turns to email 50 to 100 times a day
6. Knowledge workers average 20 hours a week on email
7. Employees visit an average of 40 websites a day
8. 11% of people check emails on the sly
9. Email causes stress for 40% of Knowledge workers
10. 46% of computer users say they are hooked on email
11. 85% of work emails are opened within 2 minutes
12. Interruptions eat up 28% of a workday
13. It takes 24 minutes to get back on task after opening an email

Research from AOL, Basex, EMC, Harris Interactive, HP, Intel, IDC, Microsoft and Rescue-Time.

Establish an email protocol or at least a “hints and tips”

1. When to use “Reply to all” and when not to. Some organisation have disabled the function completely
2. Establish a weekly “email free day” or morning
3. Should people be able to sending and receive emails on the weekend
4. When to use emails v phone calls v face-to-face, v intranet or wiki post etc.
5. Be careful with humor or avoid it entirely. 
With e-mail, we don’t have the advantage of facial expression, tone of voice or a friendly pat on the back.
6. Reprimands don’t belong on email 
Reprimands come across much more harshly in print than when spoken.
7. Email should not replace conversation.
8. Be double sure you send the email to the right person. As a safeguard, check the recipient’s name just before you hit the SEND button.
9. Train your employees on email policies. 
What is allowed or not – games, shopping etc. Prevent these time-wasters by giving training classes and distributing written guidelines.
10. Avoid spamming. Spamming means sending unsolicited, annoying e-mails. I am sure you don’t want to do that.
11. Use your signature to maximum advantage. 
For example, contact information, along with links to blog and Web site.
12. Select your email title carefully. 
The title is the “teaser” that can increase your chances of readership. Keep your title brief enough to fit the title line.

Ways to reduce e-mail overload

a. As a recipient

1. To avoid constant distractions, turn off automatic notifications of incoming e-mail. Then establish specific times during the day when you check and take action on messages.
2. Don’t waste time sorting messages into folders; inbox search engines make that unnecessary. One possible exception: Create an “urgent action” folder – but don’t forget to check it.
3. Don’t highlight messages you intend to deal with later buy marking them as “unread”. In Microsoft Outlook, accidentally typing in the wrong keyboard shortcut will irrevocably designate every item in your inbox as “read”. “Undo isn’t an option, it turns out.
4. If you won’t be able to respond to an email for several days, acknowledge receipt and tell the sender when you’re likely to get to it.

b. As a Sender

1. Make messages easy to digest by writing a clear subject line and starting the body with the key point. Use boldface headings, bullet points, or numbering to highlight action items – and to note who’s responsible for each one.
2. To eliminate the need for recipients to open very short messages, put the entire contents in the subject line, followed by “eom” (end of message).
3. Whenever possible, paste the contents of an attachment into the body of the message
4. Minimize email ping-pong by making suggestions (“should we meet at 10?”) rather than asking open-ended questions (“when should we meet?”)
5. Before you choose “reply to all”, stop and consider the email burden that places on each recipient. If you wouldn’t be able to justify that burden, remove the recipient from the send list.
6. For your own sake, send less email: an outgoing message generates on average, roughly two responses.
7. If you have to think about an email for longer than 5 minutes you should be calling the sender

Emails, “Who needs them”

Read a great article in HBR this month on emails and what to think about when using them. So many of my clients complain about emails taking up too much time, “reply to all function”, constantly being “pinged” wherever they are, colleagues being distracted by them in Emails, “Who needs them?”meetings etc. They seem to be out of control!  So I added what I have picked up over the years and attached my thoughts on the subject.