The 15-Minute Meeting
We’ve all been there — the eternal ineffective meeting. The facilitator labors on and on, agenda lost long, long ago, with no end in sight. But it is possible to hold effective meetings; meetings with focus, attention, participation, and accountability — and it all starts with a collective understanding of the rules of the field. In this episode, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright outline those rules and provide suggestions for all who are plagued with ineffective meeting-itis on how to spark the right team behaviors and get back on track.
Listen now…
The Burning Platform For Change
Every once in a while management wakes up saying “let’s get disciplined”. This is one of those times. In a strong economy, there’s no compelling reason to embrace the idea of “doing more with less”. The irony is if we were more disciplined in good economic times, downturns like we’re experiencing right now would not be as difficult. But that’s water under the bridge and human nature – a topic for a different time.
The burning platform of “doing more will less” has spread to every industry, from corporate to non-profit, and educational institutions. The challenge is not “How do we get through this?” (which we will) but how can we build organizational structures and practices that retain the disciplines we’re putting in place right now? It’s easy to justify building stronger foundations when a tornado sweeps through.
Sustainability is a reminder to focus on the long term, not just the next financial cycle. It is necessary to start by tightening our belts, reducing budgets or institutionalizing temporary hiring freezes. But if we don’t learn how to retain that discipline when the economy stabilizes or improves, we’ve learned very little – except to run from a tornado when it strikes.
A great book that takes this long-term horizon on sustainability in Higher Education is Boldly Sustainable, by Peter Bardaglio and Andrea Putman. I highly recommend this book, both in the context of environmental sustainability but more importantly, how Higher Education needs to reorganize business structures and practices to produce greater coordination across academic and administrative functions. This is critical for sustainability in the broadest sense of the word.
Stop calling it collaboration!
If you’re helping a group work together, collaboration is not what you’re looking for. It’s the behaviors that make up collaboration you want to focus on, most noticeably – coordination.
Coordination can be measured and quantified (who does what, by when and how the work is performed), while collaboration is the spirit these behaviors. It’s the difference between a vision and a goal. A vision is where you want to end up while a goal is how you get there. When someone spouts “let’s collaborate”, trust your instinct and ask them “what do you mean by this?” You’ll quickly discover there is another layer of meaning that gets to the behaviors you’re trying to influence.
There’s nothing wrong with terms not used in everyday language (otherwise called jargon), except when no one, even the speaker knows what they mean. Point out these elephants in the room. It will help everyone get to the intent behind the words spoken.
Raising the Bar on Buy-In!
Asking for “buy-in” to your latest initiative will get you passive indifference at best. Maybe indifference is what you’re looking for – light years improvement from outward dissatisfaction or hostility. But if what you really want is to motivate stakeholders (senior management, administrators, researchers, faculty or staff) to your idea, buy-in often only produces a willingness to not go against the initiative.
Most likely you’re looking for champions or enthusiastic support. Saying to a group “we’re looking for your buy-in” communicates you want to inform, not involve. The way to get enthusiastic support is if you bring them into the circle by asking for help, feedback, ideas and participation. Yes, some stakeholders may ask difficult questions. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that by keeping them at arm’s length with periodic updates that you’ve got their support.
Too often the bar is set too low around what we can ask or expect of others. For a group to be jazzed about an idea, you’ve got to get them involved in the change, not just inform them what’s coming.
If It’s Not Broke…
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place. ~Washington Irving
As part of a larger strategic effort to improve operational performance across your organization, centralizing business functions can be a very useful change. The rationale behind these projects is that by reducing redundancy, the quality of the work can be improved, processes can be made more efficient and cost savings can be realized.
If only it be this easy. Like many initiatives that include structural and people change, solving one problem creates another. Imagine an army of people sitting in their metaphorical chairs for years at a time, comfortable with what they know and their position in the organization. Centralizing work changes all the rules.
Three guiding principles will help when embarking on centralizing work projects:
1. Getting management on the same page
The best way to create positive momentum on these projects is to have leadership speaking with one voice. Once new roles are defined and the model is tested (ex: a Business Center becomes operational) it is critical for staff to know that management will hold people accountable to their new roles. Without a consistent voice from management and regular reminders of people’s roles, staff will push on the boundaries of their shifting responsibilities, making it much more difficult for everyone to adjust to the new model.
2. Building trust by being inclusive
The process your staff will go through getting accustomed to new roles and responsibilities takes time and requires patience from everyone involved. Management should set up check points where people can weigh in how the new process is working. Asking for feedback and genuinely listening to their ideas and concerns will go a long way to helping build trust. The more people feel they have a voice, the more they will take ownership in the change.
3. Attitude is everything
Two primary groups are affected by this change – those who will be inheriting the work of others and those giving up pieces of their job. Although this can be stressful, at some point people need to make a choice – they’re either part of the solution or part of the problem. This doesn’t mean accepting an unworkable process, rather for all players to ask themselves what they can do to help the new process succeed.
By applying these three principles – Leadership speaking with one voice, management listening to staff ideas and concerns and most importantly everyone asking themselves how they can be part of the solution – this is how you get through initiatives that involve changing roles, responsibilities and reporting lines.
The New Normal
You’d be lying to yourself if you weren’t privately hoping for the stock market to stabilize, win back your losses and pick up where you left off last September 15, 2008. It gives me comfort to think this is just another blip in the big picture and all that’s needed is time for the recovery. The prevailing wisdom is “let’s just get through this.”
Although denial is a powerful emotion and an effective way of getting through difficult times, maybe “getting though this” is not what we should be striving for. If a crystal ball could somehow show that the next five years don’t look much different from today, would you navigate your business decisions differently right now?
Management struggles with questions like: Is this the time to invest or be conservative? Retrench or expand? Do we shed more workforce or move forward with what we’ve got? It’s even tougher for those who don’t know what management will choose to do next. Am I being leveled with or should I start looking for work elsewhere?
Regardless of our role, we need to find ways to focus on accepting the challenges ahead without becoming pessimistic.
Step One: Stop fixating on the business section of your newspaper (For those who believe “information is power”, continue reading but remember bad news sells much better than good news!)
Step Two: Consider we’re all adjusting to a “New Normal”, which is the idea that things will never go back to the way they were. Navigating the new normal is the equivalent of hitting the reset button on your computer and starting with an entirely new set of expectations, balancing reality with a positive view of the future.
A Necessary Core Belief
The irony of this very difficult economy is that with so many challenges facing us, including debt issues, job losses and people’s concerns at home, many of us will come out stronger. For those that do come out ahead, a common theme you will find is a view of the world centered around optimism. Not false hope but a sense that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Optimism drives ones sense they can make a difference no matter how bad things get.
Consider the following: Management across all industries are beginning to raise their heads above the fox hole and are asking “Who are the people we want to move forward with”? Today, there is as much an opportunity to stand out as a contributor than ever before. The key question in the face of this culture of pessimism (often driven by the news) is: Can you avoid getting sucked into negativity and remain aware of the challenges, while remaining positive?
Yes, being awake to the challenges surrounding us can be emotionally draining and difficult to deal with as one person. In business, we address this by focusing on teamwork, which is much more than a poster on the wall that offers pithy sayings how to get things done. Businesses in this new economy will fail if they don’t learn how to put real teamwork into practice. Think hospital emergency rooms as the model for effective teamwork. Behave with this sense of urgency and you’re more than halfway there.
If you can find ways to bring optimism and genuine teamwork to your organization (or a business you’re looking to join), you become part of the solution. Wait for things to change and hope for the best – you’ll probably find yourself on the sidelines with a reinforced view why things are so bad.
If you’re interested in learning how we can help with building team, check out our services at Teibel Inc. – People Services.
Visit The Teibel Blog to read more on trust, change, and confronting your organizational challenges today!
The Art Of Delegating
All of us need to delegate at some point. Whether we’re the person in charge or doing front-line work, delegating is a critical skill to be effective in the workplace.
The difficulty is it requires the following four key behaviors:
- Ability to instruct or teach
- Patience
- Allowing the other person to make mistakes
- Letting go of an insatiable desire for control
Many of us have forgotten what’s it’s like to learn something new. Our own skills and competence came from others allowing us to step into new roles or responsibilities. We learn best by doing, and delegating to others gives them that opportunity to grow.
When delegating, keep in mind these three things:
- Does the delegatee understand what’s expected of them? Don’t assume. Ask!
- Are you prepared for the delegatee to make mistakes or come back with questions? If not, don’t delegate the work. You’re only setting them up for failure (in your eyes).
- Are you willing for this person to do the work using their style and method? How one performs the task is only one way it can be accomplished. Focus more on the outcome you’re looking for, not the style or method someone uses to get there.
There Is No “Right Solution”
What makes for a great solution? First, understand that there are real alternatives to solving a problem. Teams at all levels in an organization fall into “analysis paralysis” because they fear making the wrong choices. Instead, focus your team to find the best solution that takes into account the following factors…
1. What is the urgency?
The greater the urgency, the more willing your team should be to act.
2. Are the problems understood sufficiently to make a sound recommendation?
Again, this is not turning over every stone, but making sure there is a consistent enough understanding by the entire group to come to a sound decision.
3. Does the solution address the problem?
Once a decision has been made on how to solve the problem, teams have already spent way too much time discussing the issue. There is a “fatigue factor” that comes into play, with the collective group losing focus whether the solution still lines up with the problem.
To combat this fatigue, get to a solution with as little process and brainstorming as necessary. With a reserve of energy still in people’s battery, validate the solution against the defined issues. Tweak the solution and check again. Treating this as an iterative exercise will yield greater results than spending too much time hashing over the issues. With this approach, you will end up with a better solution in half the time.
Communicating Bad News
Breaking down communication barriers is no easy task, and it opens the classic question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Management is waiting to hear what’s really going on while staff is waiting to hear it’s ok to communicate breakdowns or bad news. (This, by the way, is not the same as complaining, which is communicating bad news with no commitment to action.)
Organizations are often left with the “blame game” being played out over every missed deadline or poorly rolled out deliverable. Here’s what management needs to realize – your staff will not take the step of communicating bad news unless you explicitly demand it of them. For staff – you may never get explicit permission from management to stop filtering bad news. The good and bad news? Regardless of your role, the ball is in your court.
Decision-Making and Leadership
A book that was recently introduced to me by a good friend has validated and deepened my view on leadership, how decisions get made and trust. “Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes For An Answer”, written by Professor Michael Roberto, speaks to the value of a decision-making process that focuses on “deciding how to decide” versus the purely efficient approach of finding the “right solution” to a problem. Focusing on the “decision-making process” has tremendous benefit around building trust in and across organizations. Why?
Senior leaders rightfully see themselves as charged with making the right decisions for their organizations. They have a genetic disposition to seeing a problem and quickly identifying the solution. Isn’t this what we expect from those in charge? But what if being in charge is less about having the right answers and more about using the people around you to come up with the “best solution”? This is one of the premises of Michael Roberto’s book.
It makes perfect sense to solve a problem quickly when the issue is straightforward or lacks complexity. Asking for collaboration when there is no intention to consider alternatives is disingenuous and only serves to diminish trust.
However, there are many more decisions that would benefit from rigorous dialogue before coming to a decision. Cutting work force, expanding to different markets or generating new revenue streams are all examples of decisions that have many layers of complexity. In these cases, bringing the right people together having the right conversations increases the likelihood of a well thought out solution. And with the presence of honest dialogue, a higher level of trust can develop between parties.
If we find ways to encourage participation in problem solving, starting with “deciding how to decide”, our leaders and managers will be jumping out bed to get to work and participate in healthy debates. This is exciting work and gets people powerfully engaged. Not only will you get better results, but you’ll see trust in action.
You can also find Professor Michael Roberto’s blog at
http://michael-roberto.blogspot.com/.
