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Archive for the ‘Creating Breakthroughs’ Category

What is the importance of trust when building a high performing team?

05 Jun

Trust is the corporate lubricant of success. Trust is the foundation of any relationship and every high performing team or organization. If there is no trust, the rest is much harder to accomplish. Yet, at the same time trust often feels as something that is not tangible and it is nothing you can do something with.

There are two lenses to approach trust. First there is trust as an assessment. It implies that you start with little or no trust, and you assess based on the other’s performance or behavior if they are worthy of your trust. When we look at trust as an assessment, you assess the other’s performance and behavior at four levels:

  1. Are they competent to fulfill their promise? Are they knowledgeable and do they have the skills, can they assess their capacity and not overload themselves, and can they assess duration by accurately timing how long it will take? These are all questions that you can check to see if the other person is competetent.

  2. Have they been reliable in fulfilling their promises in the past?

  3. Do they make sincere promises?

  4. Are we aligned in our ethics and values?

This view will allow you to always trace back where a particular breakdown happens and point out to the other person why you don’t trust their actions in a certain area. However, if you only build trust via assessment, it will always make you wonder, and the moment one of you breaks one promise you often have to start building up trust again from square one. This by itself is no way to build up a high performing team.

That is why if you are interested in building a high performing team, you have to build authentic trust, the second lens to look at trust. For example, just look at a relation you have with a significant other. You don’t constantly look at that person to rebuild trust every time they miss fulfilling a promise. And yes, we all break promises, even you. Why do these instances not break trust with the significant other? Because you know that this person has your best interest at heart, and you trust that they did everything possible to make it happen. In other words you have authentic trust with that person.

This is trust that you give, and you can build it in every relation. This happens in your ability to have authentic conversations, which will allow you to rebuild and recalibrate trust when a promise is broken. In an authentic conversation you create a shared understanding about the concerns and commitments you are pursuing and how current behaviors and broken promises are preventing you from achieving your shared commitment. The basic premise is that trust ultimately lives in our spoken and unspoken conversations. Our ability to break through the unspoken conversations, will allow you to build authentic trust.

There are several blogs on this site that will show you how you can build trust through conversations. The key point is that trust is a major driver for a high performing organization, and it is something that you can create, nurture and maintain.

 

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Posted in Conversational Dynamics, Creating Breakthroughs, General, Leadership, Trust

 

The Conversation: What to do when your management team does not have the capacity to meet new business demands?

22 May

In my previous blog, I noted the frequency in our practice that we deal with this question or issue. As promised, I will guide you through how you can structure an authentic conversation that can make a difference when dealing with this issue.

This is not a conversation you have with the whole team, rather with each individual team member. When preparing for such a conversation you go through the following items:

  1. Start by asking permission, by stating your concern and your commitment. The latter should always be on how you can make you and the other successful; otherwise the conversation will go nowhere. For example, one concern could be that if the executive does not take different actions, the company will cease to exist. Your commitment should be that you are willing to work together to identify those actions that will make the executive, the team and company successful. When you deliver the message this way, it is highly likely that the executive you are speaking with is willing to listen what you have to say.
  2. Then you clearly state the facts that back up your claims and interpretations. It is only a fact if you can instrument, video or audio record the action. If you cannot do any of these three, it is an interpretation. You need facts to ground your interpretations, such as your question. For example, if inventory management is important in your industry, you can measure if your inventory is larger or smaller than the industry average. As you can see, just this one fact can have different, and even opposing interpretations of why this might be good or bad.
  3. Show the executive how these facts bring you to the interpretation: “the management team currently does not have the capacity to meet new business demands.” If you cannot point to any facts to ground this interpretation, then you have to take a moment to see if you are just making up a story (we all do quite a bit of that). Most likely, once you have identified all your facts, there is a good chance that there will be other, and equally powerful, interpretations that would lead to different actions.
  4. As you go through this conversation, it is important that you highlight the mood and emotion that this creates. It is likely that one emotion in this case is fear, the fear of going out of business. The mood it creates might show up, as “we are doomed.” What this means is that although you are still there as an employee, your mind is somewhere else most likely looking for your next opportunity.

 

You should go through this, and then the other person should go through the same four steps. You should do this back and forth as most likely there will be some facts and interpretations that the other has about you, that you didn’t know. In my experience, this very conversation will open up some new interpretations that you both did not think possible ahead of this conversation. It is likely that you would both be surprised by each other’s interpretations, but it will also highlight what was missing.

These are the beginning steps of creating a very powerful and revealing conversation that will lead to creating different results. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or share any similar stories.

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Posted in Authentic Speaking, Conversational Dynamics, Creating Breakthroughs, HR, Leadership, Teamwork

 

What to do when your management team does not have the capacity to meet new business demands?

08 May

This is a question I deal with on a regular basis in our consulting practice. Either it is about the executive team, the marketing team, engineering team or any other team. You see this question often in organization with stronger silos. There is a lot of danger in those broad statements that need to be further clarified for the sake of the organization.

When you are in an organization where this happens, we make these broad statements about other teams often times without fully grounding these statements. Most likely, something happened in the past, and you made a story up about it, and then what happened and the story collapsed and you start living out of that story as it is the truth with a capital T. Once that happens, you most likely start defending that story, and even worse, amongst your team members you all agree on the story, and now this is the foundation for any future action in relation to that team. Do you recognize this happening?

What else has not happened? Chances are is that you, or anyone on your team, have never shared that story with anyone of the team that you are characterizing as not capable. Nobody on that team was able to explore it with you, even more, there is a good chance they are not even aware that this is what you think of them.

It still serves us though! When something goes wrong you can blame the other team for the problems, and because you never checked it out, you get to be right about it too! Let’s explore this for the management team.

This story is only an interpretation! When you are in this situation, what do you think the answers will be to the following questions?

  • Would the people on the management team agree with this interpretation?
  • Is this something that the management team has realized?
  • Does it really apply to every person in the management team?

 

In general, it is highly unlikely that every single executive on such a team does not have the capacity to meet the new business demands. What I could believe, if there are facts, that they are not appreciating the new business reality, and that they are still taking the same actions that worked in their old environment, that no longer work in their new environment. You especially see this with organizations that have been very successful in the past but their environment has changed dramatically in recent times.

This does not mean they don’t have the capacity, it only tells me that certain conversations within the management team are not happening. Although it sounds simple, as seen by many failing companies, it is not. In such situations you are often dealing with blindness, the notion of what they don’t know, they don’t know.

Also, now you also see how quickly I came up with a different interpretation, but similar to the first statement, not a story that I have checked out with anyone yet.

It is part of your leadership skills in the organization, to initiate an authentic conversation based on your concern and your commitment to mutual success. From that perspective you should then mutually explore the facts of what is really happening and all the different interpretations that are possible. From there you can then agree on new actions that will lead to different and better results.

In my next blog, I will describe how you can start this conversation.

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Posted in Authentic Speaking, Conversational Dynamics, Creating Breakthroughs, General, HR, Leadership, Teamwork

 

Is learning a key leadership trait?

25 Apr

The short answer is a forceful YES!

Learning is a never-ending process, and how can you improve or create a breakthrough if you don’t think learning is important. However, unlike an expert, a true leader does not just think about their own learning, they think of the learning that occurs for themselves as well as for those that they are leading.

Everyone has three domains of knowledge and skills. First domain is what I call ‘Knowledge’. This is what the leader knows, excels at, and probably the reason why they were able to rise through the ranks. But as Peter Drucker said, the skills that got you the promotion are often not the skills that you need to be successful in your new position.

That is when awareness of the second domain of knowledge and skills becomes important. The second domain is the leader’s ability to access their ‘Ignorance’. This is what you know you don’t know. An attribute of a great leader knows its own strengths and weaknesses, and their ability to rely on others as they bring those skills to the table you do not have. Similarly, the executive that just received his or her promotion, now knows that they have to invest time and learn a set of new skills to be successful in their new position.

However, deep learning and the ability to lead a high performing team come from the third and under-appreciated domain that I call ‘Blindness’. This is what you don’t know you don’ know. A leader’s ability to access this blindness is only made possible by their ability to engage and interact with their team and other around them in a mood of wonder. An important element of true learning, is your ability to inquire, your ability to live in the question. In my opinion, you only are able to access this through conversations with yourself and others. Deep learning occurs in a conversation where you can look at the argument from the other’s perspective and see how they come to their conclusions, and vice versa.

When you are in a conversation where each of you has your own conclusion, you have an opportunity to create deep learning. Your ability in that conversation to distinguish between the facts and interpretations they have observed, as well as their ability to distinguish between the facts and interpretations you have observed is critical to ongoing learning. Often times, when this happens it will open up new possibilities for you as well as for the other. Rarely will the solution be just yours or theirs. When that is the case, you have now uncovered some of the blindness, and deep learning has occurred.

The true test for learning is listening. Listening skills are often overlooked in organizations and it can easily be its own topic. For this conversation, it is where you fully focus on hearing and understanding what the other said without linking it to how it might fit with your conclusions. I know, it is easier said then done, but once you are aware of this not all that difficult. You know when you listened when you are in a conversation and you hear yourself thinking: “I had never thought of looking at it in that way”, or a derivative thereof.

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Posted in Change, Conversational Dynamics, Creating Breakthroughs, Innovation, Leadership, Teamwork

 

Need to understand the business metrics of the people business!

11 Apr

I recently came across the following question from a global HR executive who has seen that more and more lager global company are placing operations leaders into CKBhief HR roles, and place engineers into lower HR roles for developmental assignments. If this is true, he was wondering if this sends a message to the HR professionals?

Although I have not seen this development myself yet, I am not surprised, and I would applaud the practice. There is strong evidence that when leadership focuses on sincerely and purposely developing their people outperform their peers who do not, not as much or not as consistent. At the end of the day, it is all about people doing business with people!

In my experience, HR has often allowed itself being pushed into a role where they are the caretakers of the compliance side of the business and the gatherers of the performance reviews. Often, their metrics are based on how many people attended a certain training session, not what the business impact is of these training sessions, or more importantly how their work impacts the top or bottom line. Frankly, there are plenty of HR professionals who at this current time are not comfortable with leading such a discussion.

In this global and increasingly complex environment, it will be more and more difficult treat your employees on an accounting base where you acquire, use, depreciate and scrap them. There certainly is already plenty of evidence that separates high performing organizations when the executives have the ability to lead and engage their employees as a strategic asset where you nurture, develop, grow and improve their asset value.

Recognizing this trend, is also recognizing the growing importance of HR and Organizational Development in organization to become functions that are equally driven by business drivers, just like operations, manufacturing, marketing, sales, logistics, etc.

How to better create strong HR leaders by intentionally exposing them to different disciplines as well as developing new HR processes and systems by infusing people with non-HR backgrounds! It is by creating such cross-functional ability, that these companies will thrive in this new environment! I trust that this is the beginning of a new and positive trend that will benefit the successful companies and its shareholders.

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Posted in Change, Creating Breakthroughs, HR, Leadership

 

10 Principles to Optimize Your Business Results: Principle #7 – Mindset Shapes Results

20 Jan

Imagine you’re strapped into the cockpit of an experimental rocket underneath the wing of a bomber tens of thousands of feet in the air. In a few seconds the bomber will drop you, and you’ll fall toward certain death. Your only chance is to fire your jet engine, launching you toward the threshold of space at many times the speed of sound.

If you’re, say, a shoe salesman, it’s sheer terror. If you’re Chuck Yeager, it’s Tuesday.

Principle #7 on our list of Success Principles involves mindset — the mental attitude we apply to a given situation. Mindset primes us for success or failure.

Mindset, our habitual or characteristic mental attitude, determines how we interpret and respond to situations, and shapes how we see the world. We then act in accordance with those perceptions. Like Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can do something or you think you can’t, you’re right.” If we feel that there’s no way we can accomplish a given goal, we will refuse to try. That’s’ human nature.

Mindset also gives us our rules of engagement — the protocols we always use in situations we commonly face or have faced before. Protocols have a huge effect on how teams and individuals collaborate, cooperate and coordinate action together as each person’s rules of engagement allows for some actions while prohibiting others. In other words, our mindset tells us what is possible or impossible, what we can or can’t do, and what we should or should not do.  This is all based on our past experience, and has nothing to do with what is really possible. If we fail to examine the rules we’ve set for ourselves, we have enslaved ourselves to them.

For teams to create breakthroughs they have to be willing to make commitments that they do not know how to accomplish at the time they make the commitment.  They have to be willing to plan from the commitment back and invent what needs to be invented to fulfill the commitment. They have to be willing to suspend their protocols based on the past and make a commitment from the future.  They have to shift their mindset. Once a team does this once, they will have embodied the practice of creating the breakthroughs necessary for long-term, sustainable success.  They will be unstoppable.

When you’ve never flown a supersonic rocket before, you have no idea whether you’ll make it back to earth or become a falling star. If you’re a veteran test pilot, on the other hand, you’ve done it many times before, both live and in simulations. You know the rules. You understand what will work and what won’t. You know you can do it because you’ve done it. And you hit the button and fire that jet.

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Posted in Creating Breakthroughs

 

The Nature of Breakthroughs – What does May 6, 1954; Oxford and Stories have in common?

29 Aug

 

 

May 6, 1954, on a windy spring day, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds in Oxford England. He crossed the finish line with a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, and broke through the “four minute mile” barrier.  He demonstrated that the story about the impossibility of the four minute mile was only a myth, not a reality.

In less than 60 days, John Landy beat Roger Bannister’s record with a finishing time of 3 minutes and 57.9 seconds.  Within the year several other runners managed to run less than a four minute mile.  The current record holder is Hicham El Guerrouj from Morocco, with a time of 3:43.13.

For years, the four minute mile eluded runners, and was thought to be impossible.  I am sure people documented the reasons for why this was impossible.  So, why try?  What lessons can we learn about the nature of breakthroughs?  Remember, in my last blog I said that a breakthrough is an extraordinary and unprecedented result.  Most people believe that breakthroughs are accidental.  This is conventional wisdom.  We believe breakthroughs can be created intentionally, if you know how to do it.  What stops you from creating a breakthrough?  YOU!

How many of us are constrained by our own stories of impossibility. 

Some say seeing is believing – I say, you have to believe to see

As you can see by looking at the video below, we proved this last Wednesday.  Approximately, thirty people came together to experience the power of belief for the purposes of creating a breakthrough.  This was to demonstrate that, properly lead by Eric Best Ph. D., they could bend metal spoons and forks with just the power of their mind.  You might say the demonstration was a trivial example.  However, it was not for the people who overcame their traditional belief system.  For them, it was a potentially life changing experience.  84% of the people were able to bend their spoon or fork. 

 Our belief system defines for us what is possible and impossible. Beliefs or what we call mindset (our rules of engagement) shape our actions because we see them as true.  Or worst, we don’t even see our beliefs, but nonetheless, they shape our behavior like an automatic pilot.  Our mindset shapes what we attempt or do not attempt to do in our everyday personal and professional life.

Success and failure begin and end in what we believe is possible.  Roger Bannister must have held the belief to make it happen.  Once he demonstrated the possibility, it was “easy” for others to make the commitment and to improve on his results.

The first step that a leader must take to create a breakthrough is to change his/her mindset and the mindset of his/her team.  Some time ago Eric changed his mindset.  Last Wednesday he changed the mindset of almost everyone in the room.

Just like the four minute mile many of the barriers that hold us back are self imposed.  They exist only in our mind.  

What are your four minute mile type stories, that you hold as true, but do not really know are true, that are holding you back in your personal and professional life?  If you at the event Wednesday could you have done this.

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Posted in Creating Breakthroughs, Videos

 
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