Often there is discomfort in delegation due to lack of trust which evolves from habitual lack of communication and engagement in the process of obtaining results. In this culture, delegation is more of a piecemeal process meaning ‘as needed’ with mixed results rather than a honed tool used strategically throughout the organization to achieve greater results.

You can accomplish greater engagement with your team(s) today with a quick reconfigure of your team meetings and your individual interviews with your direct reports. Your meetings should be an interactive experience instead of just telling them what is needed. If there is a Strategic Plan for the organization or for the department that your staff has not been involved in creating, then a time for presentation and interactive discussion is an important step to take.

I suggest calling a special team meeting to re-review the priorities for the year followed by a series of priority steps. One of the issues in delegation is that people often do not feel safe asking questions or giving suggestions about implementation. Therefore, it is up to the leader to set the collaborative tone so that engagement in the goals is an ongoing process.

Having coached and consulted with many leaders at the top of organizations, I have had the opportunity to engage with many leaders in the difficulty around delegation because they imagine that results would be better if they had done it themselves.

If you are a leader who lacks trust in your team(s), it is vital that you dedicate time for more extensive and effective communication with them.

Try including the following steps in your next strategic planning meeting to promote trust, team buy-in and empowerment:

• First, include everyone in the presentation of the strategic plan and invite clarifying questions.
• Ask members to think about how they plan to move forward with their piece of the plan.
• Follow up with individual one-on-ones and then conduct a team meeting. The more you can have team members supporting each other in obtaining results the more you are not the only one giving affirmation and clarification.

As your business expands, it will become more and more necessary to empower others to move forward through effective delegation. Time spent in the empowerment phase, beginning with communication, provides the ground work for more effective delegation and guarantees better results.

Click here for the Four Team Focus Meetings I suggest as the beginning steps for greater team collaboration and results. In addition, here is a description of the Collaborative Leadership/Team Alignment Essential Tripod. The points of that tripod are Communication, Accountability and Solution Focus.

If you have any questions on team delegation and empowerment or would like to share a particular challenge or success, please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you!

~Patricia

Because of the technology available to us, information travels at great speed. Truth, misinformation and assumptions also travel quickly. Without clear communication and connection between individuals and groups the misinformation can give impetus to the wrong direction or wrong conclusions about moving forward. Today’s business teams are globally located in different time zones with differing cultural norms. However, I have found it’s not the only situation in which quality communication and connection are difficult. This problem has been present even when teams are located in the same building. What is needed is a change in leadership mindset; the adoption of a different perspective and a reordering of priorities that support quality communication, collaboration and engagement throughout the organization

It is critically important that executives be more than just the boss, they must be a role model for leadership in order to motivate and drive their organization to achieve at a higher level.

Here’s what I mean:

When You’re Just the Boss

The boss is someone who sets the strategic plan and the team does what they can to satisfy and deliver results. Communication goes on without true connection because each person has a hidden agenda that is not approached. The hidden agenda of the team is to maintain their position and to hope that the boss will notice what they do. The agenda of the boss is to have the implementation happen and for the team to do what they are told to do. Communication and follow up does not occur so the team wonders if they are right about the conclusions they make.

This may seem to be an extreme scenario; and most bosses would deny that is their position. However, it is quite often what is experienced by the team, regardless of the boss’s intent.

In my experience working with leadership teams, while the boss is at least somewhat appreciative of the team, they often complain that their team does not own the strategy or are not strategic in their thinking. Yet, it is often the boss who needs to connect in a more meaningful way with the team members to engage them in the strategy, foster ownership, and get them thinking of creative solutions. Team members typically report their boss does not create time for interaction or follow up on decisions.

Most team members want to please the boss, however, they are not informed often enough when they do something well. When issues or concerns arise they may not be approached and resolved in a productive way because blame or a sense of being patronized is what is perceived by the team.

Result: the strategic process misses the creative input of the team who are often vying for position with the boss. Often what needs to be done is seen as a requirement rather than a creative opportunity because the team has not been engaged. Because there is lack of communication regarding issues or completions, the flow of work is interrupted or stalled.

This can occur at high levels in any organization.

When You’re The Leader

Communication and connection with the team is seen as a priority, not a soft skill or something to do at a dinner or a party. Regular connections occur which relate to strategic planning, implementation and individual development. This means that regular 1:1 meetings include the elements that go into a Performance Review, on an ongoing basis, and are tied to specific actions and results within a strategic plan.

The top priority of a leader is to hold the vision and strategy intact, while others bring forward results. If there are issues regarding results, they are addressed with the team as they occur. This allows the leader to attend to their own peer-leader relationships, enhancing the overall business performance of the organization. Delegation is seen as a priority, and there are integral processes set up for Strategic Planning, Accountability, and Solutions that are inclusive in accessing the resources of the entire team.

As a leader, the accountability process becomes a working solution with collaboration and partnership rather than competition. Accountability includes ownership which is established at the beginning of an initiative or set of goals. Leadership includes perceptiveness of the team members so that specific areas are addressed when necessary. This can now be done more effectively because time has been given for the creation of quality connection and trust within the team.

Leading inspires others to achieve more. Being just the boss can actually impair the engagement process of your team which will diminish progress, and sabotage your success.

If you have a leadership question or challenge you’d like to share, be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you!

~Patricia

I can guarantee as you give this more attention, particularly as you move into planning for year ahead, you will find that leadership teamwork, as well as cross functional collaborative leadership conversations, will be more successful.

As you build your listening skills it becomes easier to create a greater connection between you and your colleagues. It is not necessary to inquire about their personal lives to be connected. In fact that can be disconcerting. It is more a matter of being interested in who they are and how they think about what is being discussed. So often in conversation we think about what we are saying without paying attention to the interactive process. The key to engagement is in knowing what the other person thinks and giving the space for them to say that.

Essential communication which includes time for connection is something that has parameters and needs focus. Time is at a premium so intentional conversations are important.

How many of you are using the open-door policy?

This is often seen as the way to create a sense of availability and connection. My opinion is that this is a false premise that can create inefficiency, block high performance and impede effective communication. There are several aspects of the open-door policy that I would like to discuss as a way of introducing more efficiency and effective meeting time.

A few years ago I was asked to coach the COO of a large regional bank. I was coaching the President, CEO, and several senior vice presidents on the leadership team. One of the COO’ s stated goals for our coaching engagement was time management because he was consistently taking work home in the evenings and over the weekend. In addition, and more important, he was quiet at the top leadership meetings and felt unseen and out of communication with the CEO.

As we discussed his view of his job and the important priorities he had developed, he began to talk about his open-door policy. As you might imagine, he was extremely well liked by all and spent his day getting interrupted constantly. This to me is an example of the collaborative leadership premise that states that one of the least successful modes used for communication is the “drop-in meeting.”

In our initial conversations, I became aware of his caring and his expertise. In addition he had some innovative and expansive ideas for the development of the bank that he had not shared with his peers, the President or the CEO of the bank. He had developed a sense of inadequacy because of his lack of time to focus on preparation for the executive leadership meetings.

We all appreciate a sense of control over our lives, but in reality the “drop-in” creates interruption, a lack of preparation, and can lengthen into a long period of time where the person who has dropped in has abdicated her responsibility for reflection, research and decision making.

As I worked with my client we set up a new routine which called for having his available hours posted on the door so that appointments could be made for those times. A positive consequence of this routine was that the members of his team began to talk more to each other and to arrive at his office with more organized thinking and with decisions for approval rather than beginning discussions.

In addition, he was able to organize his day and set aside time on the calendar for thought projects that he wanted to do, which also gave him confidence to discuss his ideas in the Executive Leadership meetings. The latter created a greater sense of executive presence and value for him which served to enhance his presence as a top leader.

If you have been experiencing interruptions and a feeling at the end of the day that you did not drive any of your priorities consider changing the open door. This is just one, easy to change, performance tip that can have many positive consequences for your colleagues, and for your team.

Do you have any questions, challenges, or successes you would like to share? Please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you! – Patricia

In “How Do Core Values and Purpose Create Collaborative Teams and High Performance Results?” I introduced the idea of Core Values as foundational for strategic thinking and execution planning. Today I’m delving deeper into this foundation and providing some suggestions for insuring the values you espouse in the business are truly core and reflected in your business environment and objectives today.Core values can always be strengthened, but it’s important to remember that they are not values to aspire to, but rather values that are already present.

The key to having the Inside Advantage for growth is Engagement. You create greater engagement by regularly evaluating your core values, and by bringing them forward, consistently, to the entire organization. This, in turn, brings forward leaders you may not have been able to identify in the past and overlooked as key contributors. By identifying and spotlighting these leaders you increase the organization’s ability to move forward.

Lately, I have been working with an operations leadership team in a manufacturing unit of a large global business, as well as with a CEO who heads a mid-sized business in Europe. In both cases the exercise of looking at core values increased engagement, and provided them the opportunity to reflect on the leadership qualities of team members who had much to contribute.

It is important to convey the importance of core values, and how they are foundational to success of the organization, from strategic planning, to goal setting and implementation. Show how they are alive in the business now, and communicate the expectation that they are to be reflected in the work of each person in the organization. Make sure the values are clear so they can be easily stated by every employee.

In the large business mentioned above, there have been core values in place for almost a hundred years, that were recently updated by the headquarters leadership team. Yet, as we sat in our team meeting, the leaders present realized they did not see how these values could be owned, and then actioned, by the local team of leaders, managers and front line employees. So I presented them with a Core Value exercise which included time for each leader to think of their team members and managers in the organization, and identify those who reflect the key qualities and actions that are essential and intrinsic to successful performance and teamwork.

The following is the breakdown of the exercise which will help you identify and communicate your Core Values:

• Allow your leaders time to reflect on their team and ask them to identify five people in the organization regardless of their role who contribute and who are effective performers. Do the same yourself.
• As you and your team think of those people, clearly state what it is that they bring to the table or that they contribute on a regular basis.
• Once you have a sense of the contribution, state that in a value sentence. Once each leader has done this process, bring them together to share thoughts. From this you create five values that are dominant and use those as your Core Values.
• As you do this exercise, imagine that language is no longer a way to communicate these values. Instead they can only be communicated through demonstration. Make sure the people you name are truly demonstrating the values through both their actions and communication.
  Some good examples of demonstration given by one of the leaders above were:

1. Taking ownership
2. Being accountable for results
3. Have an agenda for growth

The larger business I mentioned above, felt this was a great exercise because people in the department, no matter what their role, were highlighted and discussed in a new way as demonstrators of important core values to the business.
In the mid-size business in Europe, an awareness of where to place recognition and development was gained, helping the business create a more sustainable structure for growth.

This is a small introduction to a very large and valuable aspect of growing your business, with more to come! In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions or experiences you’d like to share about the important value of recognizing and using core values as the foundation for strategic thinking and scaling up your business. I’d enjoy hearing from you! – Patricia

As many of you know one small change can create ripples that will allow you to see a difference and effect in all areas of the business.

Using the Scaling Up process and the Rockefeller Four Decisions creates those ripples. The following is a recap of the Four Decisions methodology, along with a few suggestions, that you can begin to consider in your review and planning process for 2017:

The People Decision: The first and most important decision is addressing the health of the leadership team which has tremendous influence on company culture.

Give your leadership the chance to recognize that they are part of a team, to acknowledge the connection, to take accountability, and to create a culture of communication. This will lead to:

a. Greater trust
b. Willingness to conflict with honesty in order to make the best choices
c. Commitment to team goals, to create alignment moving forward
d. Accountability to each other as decisions are made and initiatives move forward
e. Attention to the results—willingness to look and measure to see how things are working.

The Strategy Decision is the area where you define the way forward for the organization by clearly establishing and communication the company’s:
a. Purpose
b. Core Values
c. Core Competencies
d. The big goal(BHAG) looking 10 years ahead
e. A 3-5 year plan

The Execution Decision: Plan for the year, quarter, month, by team, department, and individual. This area often causes the greatest frustration, but also has great gain when the three most important aspects are used.
a. Setting priorities
b. Measuring results
c. Meeting Rhythms

The Cash Decision: This is the area that provides you with the oxygen to grow your business:
a. Cash flow
b. Profitability
c. Cash Conversion

This is a brief summary of the Four Decisions to provide you with information that might strike a chord for you. If you are interested in exploring the Scaling Up-Four Decisions content more fully, and the advantage it will give you going into the New Year, please contact me for more information on our workshops and trainings and to see which is right for you. We also have information available on the Bridging Associates website. You might also want to purchase a copy of Scaling Up.

~ Patricia

That article began with these questions:

1. How can I develop a team that will not need to talk to me and still move forward?
2. Why do we have a great strategic plan and then only get a fraction of execution of that plan?
3. Why don’t the functional leaders of this organization work together more effectively?
4. How can we engage people in our vision and make it their own?
5. There is no one who can take my position at this time, and I am not sure the people that are on my team can be the ones.

I would like to postulate that the most important aspect of leadership development in 21st century business is the ability to create leadership at all levels. Top leadership cannot afford to continue to have only a small percentage of people leading a large number who have not learned to express their leadership, nor use information about the vision of the organization to affect their conversations and decisions.

We all know that communication is key, yet how can we define communication so that it affects results? In the Rockefeller Habits the first and most important question is: Is the Leadership Team Healthy?

The first area to look at is the top leadership team to assure that the coming together of that team creates positive changes in the people, strategy, execution and cash position of the business.

When you decide to make meetings a priority, execution improves almost immediately. I was invited into a large Fortune 500 company because one of the top teams was having difficulty due to continuous conflict that was exaggerated by lack of effective communication and collaboration.

The plan that I proposed and delivered included individual confidential interviews with specific questions relating to team effectiveness, leadership and collaboration. I interviewed the Vice President team leader and the direct report leaders who each lead a team of managing leaders within the manufacturing plant. In addition, an initial day-long meeting was scheduled with the leadership team, followed by four monthly meetings over a period of 6 months.

The results have been very positive with the team working together in a new way, with a sense of empowerment, effective communication, and results that have created greater accountability and rhythm in the manufacturing area.

The first meeting consisted of using the Rockefeller Four Decisions Methodology and some communication exercises that began to get past the conflict and focus more on the strategic direction and core values of the team, and of the larger business.

The most effective and important part of this process is to allow team members to go beyond their own personal concerns, and to access their leadership and their contribution to the business as a whole.

In the Execution Module, the most important aspects are: priorities, metrics and meeting rhythms.

Have you struggled with meetings that lose focus and seem to accomplish nothing or less that you planned?

Would you see the advantage in having meeting rhythms that would create better, faster decisions?

The rhythm refers to daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual contacts of the functional teams in the organization, starting with the top leadership. You can start to reshape the effectiveness of your meeting rhythms to conform to the real time of your business.

Daily Huddle-–These serve to Synchronize the Team. They are short, no longer than 15 minutes, and can be shorter. They are designed to bring forward issues that need resolution but do not necessarily need to be solved on the spot. The format is short and allows each person to speak and to talk about the day, what is up, and if there is any place where they feel stuck

Speeds up business, insures teamwork, and heal relationships

Weekly Meeting—Focus and Collaboration: These serve as a status and update session for the leadership team and other departmental teams.

Monthly Meeting— Learn and Solve: This meeting includes the top leadership and the next level to provide information and to review progress. These meetings, along with the huddle and weekly meetings, address the strategy and progress, as well as provide a leadership opportunity for the management staff to give them a sense of progress and of their contribution to the overall strategic plan.

Quarterly Meeting— Full Day: Priorities and Critical Numbers: These serve as directed review, communication and education opportunities, and create the sense of teamwork at all levels.

The four meetings above are the recognition of the 13-week cycle of each quarter for the whole organization.

Annual Meeting—Reviews the year and plans for the upcoming year.

I highly recommend Scaling Up by Verne Harnish where these meetings are discussed more fully. The Rockefeller Habits and Four Decisions are a very effective way to scale up your business and to increase results. I find this way of expanding business and of creating a culture that develops leadership and accountability to be effective and practical.

I hope this month brings great results and connection for you and your team!

As always, if you have a question, challenge, or success story you would like to share, please be sure to leave a comment. Also, if you are interested in an opportunity to experience this methodology, please let me know. I would enjoy hearing from you! – Patricia

Now many see that meetings are the core of successful implementation or execution of strategic planning. Both of these areas can be done more successfully by setting priorities and giving teams the ability to communicate, set up accountability, and problem solve with greater trust.

The essential component of business growth and success is the Health of the Executive Leadership Team which cascades down into the business no matter how large the company. Meeting Rhythms are an effective way to promote a healthy company culture and ongoing awareness of priorities within the organization, which is essential to moving business goals and business growth forward.

Meeting rhythms encompass the course of a full year, and are positioned as an important part of the overall business strategy and flow. Below are the recommended meetings to include in your company rhythm , from daily huddles to the annual meeting. Some may already be a part of your execution culture, some may not. The important thing to remember is that team cohesiveness at all levels is vital to the process.

Daily Huddles: these meetings typically start the day, and are held with everyone standing (who is able), and last 15 minutes or less. Daily huddles must have a specific agenda:

• What’s Up for you related to today
• What is the top priority for the day
• Am I stuck

Weekly Team Meetings for focus and collaboration: The weekly meeting should be held at the same time each week. Most organizations hold them either at the start of the week to set the stage for a productive week ahead, or at the end of the week, to serve as a recap of the week’s activities and performance. This is an opportunity to gather brain power to discuss strategically issues and solutions. This is also an opportunity for the leader to spend time with the team encouraging team relationships.

Monthly Meetings include front-line, middle and senior management and focus on strategic discussion and collaboration on issues and solutions, and further learning. They can be half or full day.

Quarterly Meetings: These are typically held offsite for one day to encourage uninterrupted focus on action planning and review of the yearly strategic plan.

Annual Meeting: This is typically held offsite as well for up to two days and includes review and strategy of the plan for the upcoming year.

The term Meeting Rhythms is used because the successful implementation comes from making the above meeting structure a part of everyday work patterns.

In my last article, Are you Thinking and Planning or Just Doing, I mentioned the basic foundations of strategy; Core Values and Purpose, along with Brand Promise and knowing your Core Customer. In all meetings, except the huddle, it is a good idea to review your organization’ values, purpose and brand promise, or have them visible. This way the foundation of your business is always present in each meeting as the planning and review are done.

Huddles and Weekly meetings provide opportunity to build trust and to correct difficult interaction issues. When things are left unspoken they tend to grow. However, adopting the business practice of regularly scheduled time together can help teams lift above their emotional reactions that stop progress, and bring them back into focus. Meeting rhythm creates consistency, which in turn, creates greater trust, and comfort in accountability.

You can find more information on Meeting Rhythm in Verne Harnish’s book, Scaling Up, How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t.

Do you have a question, challenge, or success you would like to share? Please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you! – Patricia

In my last couple of articles I’ve provided a deeper look into our Four Meeting Model:

The Introductory Meeting sets the stage for the new meeting process, and is used with both leadership teams and leadership peers to create a laboratory for growth, connection, and solution-focus. The outcome is a more strategic leadership team that leads to more unity in the organization and greater cross functional communication.

The First Meeting provides a method for switching from a content-focused meeting to one more focused on the context and process of the interaction among team members, using exercises in communication and building trust.

The Second Meeting focuses on the concept of spending more time creating accountability partnerships with peers so that progress toward connection and greater ownership begins.

Today we continue with the Third and Fourth Meetings:

The Third Meeting:

– Take a few minutes for each team partnership to review their projects separate from the group and to set some accountability agreements for the coming week. This is an opportunity for the leader of the team to model reporting to the entire group on his/her goals and progress over the last weeks, and to request specific support.

– Then give an opportunity for each person to give a brief, 2-3 minute, account of progress in fulfilling the opportunity to make agreements, have the supporting conversations, and to create the results.

– Have Team Partners discuss privately with each other, any implementation details, and take time to set up check-in calls during the week, for 15 minutes.

The Fourth Meeting and Renewal Meetings moving forward:

– Team members report what has gone well and where the challenges are, remaining solution- focused vs. blame-focused.

– From the challenges presented, one can be selected for moving forward into a solution. Often this will involve some inquiry from others to create clarity in the situation, not to look for causative factors.

– As the team moves forward, time should be given to the solution in the next staff meeting so that people have time to think about their offered suggestions. This creates the base for collaboration that is empowering, and accountability that taps into the strengths of each person on the team.

– Devote a part of each meeting moving forward to presenting wins and challenges, and then select one team member at each meeting to receive the input of other team members on their particular challenge.

– It has been found that the usual meeting model of each business leader giving a report of business does not engage everyone in the room; rather it becomes a report to the leader and to those who stay engaged. When engaging the team in shared leadership, it is important to look at what works (the wins) and what is not working (challenges), and most importantly, what engages everyone in the solution. The usual report can be handed out for reading once the important aspects have been said in the meeting.

CALL TO ACTION:

During your next meeting take time to observe communication and to see how much problem solving takes place within the meeting. This meeting model can be instituted as part of your regular meeting schedule, and begins the process of having meetings that truly forward the work of your organization. It also provides an opportunity for each person to develop leadership and communication skills that can move throughout the organization to create a culture of collaboration and trust.

The full Four Meeting Model can be downloaded here.

Do you have a leadership question, challenge, or success you would like to share? Please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you! – Patricia

Conflict is a huge part of creative thinking and is necessary to breaking down old structures that keep us from seeing new patterns or new organization that will bring more success. But many are afraid of conflict and avoid it, particularly in the workplace. Indeed, some organizations have conflict resolution techniques in place which are meant to stop the conflict. But why not use conflict as a tool for building greater connection and accountability, bringing forward new thoughts, perceptions and ideas that create a greater vision.

This is the premise for the Four Meeting model which is a handbook for creating meetings that allow for greater creativity and performance for each person, and for the entire team.

In the First Team Meeting, following the Introductory meeting, have each person:

• Introduce themselves as if it is the first time they are meeting.
• The way they see their function or role in the company.
• How their function relates to the function of each person at the table.
• Then it will be valuable to see if what people have said about their function is actually how others see it. Obviously, if there are differences there is an opportunity created for more clarity to be established.

The focus of this meeting will be to develop alignment so discussion of current business can follow.

Take time to set up the Second Meeting. It will be important to have full attendance, even if it is remote, as these meetings are going to be driving results.

The Second Team Meeting is critical in establishing a system of consistent follow up and accountability, and for opening up communication about each person’s role, and how the functions of each member can be connected to create better department results.

This meeting is ideally scheduled a week, to two weeks after the first:

• Discuss any questions or issues that may have come up in the intervening week.
• Take a few minutes for each person to discuss current projects and challenges they are dealing with.
• Create agreements from each person to move forward or complete their projects.
• Set up partnerships within the group so each person is accountable to one other person for agreements. It can be of value for each person to pick a partner with whom they have not had much contact.
• Set up some action steps toward completion for the coming week with partner.
• Discuss with partner the implementation details, and take time to set up check-in calls during the week, for 15 minutes.
• During these calls it will be important to talk about progress, and any challenges that are getting in the way.
• Discuss the next meeting time and come back together for the close.
• Close meeting.

The first two meetings, along with the Introductory meeting, create a safe place for new ideas and for the discussion of challenges that need solutions. With greater connection and partnership, problem-solving becomes possible with a shorter time frame.

Stay tuned for more on the Four Meeting Model; we’ll be taking a closer look at the elements of the Third and Fourth meetings next time.

Would you like to see the Four Meeting Model in its entirety? Request a copy here: Send me a copy of the Collaborative Leadership Four Meeting Model.

Do you have a leadership question, challenge, or success you would like to share, please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you! – Patricia