How to drive strong ownership, commitment, accountability and passion in your team

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As a leader – here are five practical things you can do to deepen the level of ownership, commitment, accountability and passion in your team:

  1. Make sure people are engaged in setting the goals early on. This practice would most likely be applied differently depending on the size of your team, and how dispersed it is. In a small team, it is easy to engage people in the strategy or goal-setting exercise. In a large organization, this principle will have to be implemented in steps. Step one – would be to get your senior team engaged and aligned. Step two – bring the middle managers on board. And step three – update and include the rest of the team. The application may be different, but the principle of engaging everyone in the goals early on is always relevant. This is because the more people feel listened to and engaged in setting the goals the more they will feel a sense of personal ownership and accountability toward them.
  1. Promote a culture of open, honest, authentic and courageous communication. The more your people feel they can speak their mind, especially addressing what is not working the more they will naturally gravitate toward feeling and behaving like loyal owners of the business. Regardless of what senior leaders often think, people will only speak up if they believe their leaders genuinely want them to. If you want to deepen ownership and accountability throughout your organization, you have to start with yourself and your senior leaders. You and your leaders need to show that you are open to honest dialogue, including feedback and criticism about yourselves.
  1. Instil the language of accountability as the norm. The language of accountability sounds and feels very different than the typical language of compliance that permeates throughout most organizations. In an environment of compliance, people tend to tolerate and indulge in excuses, justifications, blame and reasons why things can’t be done, why they didn’t get done or why they aren’t done with excellence. In contrast, the language of accountability is all about clarity and action. People make clear requests and promises. And these get responded to with clear and authentic acceptances, declines or counter-offers. People always know where things stand and they value integrity and honesty over appearances and political gain.
  1. Deal with failures, mistakes and shortfalls in an empowering way. In most organizations when people underperform or fail, senior leadership tends to look for someone or something to blame. The problem is that when people feel there is a witch-hunt going on to find a scape-goat they react by hiding, protecting their behinds, even lying. As a result, teams often don’t get to the source and root-cause of the failure in the first place, so they find themselves repeating the same failures in one way or another over and over again. If you want to create an environment of authentic accountability deal with all failures, mistakes and shortfalls only in an empowering way – don’t entertain the ‘blame game’. In fact, don’t be concerned with ‘whose fault it is’. Instead, be obsessed with learning from past failures and correcting the issues. Ask your team questions like: “What was missing?”, “What was in the way?” and “What can we change, correct and improve?”. You’ll see that your people will be excited to contribute to the investigation and as a result, you’ll come up with new ideas and solutions that will take you to new heights. In addition, you will strengthen your people’s sense of ownership and accountability to your vision.
  1. Highlight, recognize and celebrate displays of accountability. Most leaders don’t do a great job of acknowledging and recognizing their team members for a job well done on any day. I am not referring to the formal corporate human resources recognition programs that occur at best once a quarter or a couple of times a year. I am talking about creating an environment of day-to-day verbal recognition. People respond extremely well to genuine recognition. It makes them feel noticed, appreciated and valued and that causes them to want to do and contribute even more. If you want to create a powerful culture of ownership, commitment, accountability and passion, go out of your way to recognize small, medium or large displays of ownership and accountability. Make it a daily routine and practice. It’s so simple!

While I have directed this list to “leaders” and “managers”, these topics are so universal and basic that anyone in the team, no matter what level or position, could suggest them, promote them and bring about positive change with them…. especially if they are eager to make a difference and are willing to be courageous.

The more you try to control the less control you have

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Most managers who micromanage their employees suppress their spirit and performance.

Employee’s performance is directly tied to their sense of ownership, commitment, and accountability for the success of their organization. Their passion, ownership, commitment and accountability are reduced when they feel distrusted, disrespected and under-valued from a leadership and/or professional standpoint by their manager.

By micromanaging their people, managers generate an environment of compliance and fear. And that typically cause people to play it safe and “cover their behinds” instead of stepping up and going beyond the call of duty to take ownership, risk and initiative.

Managers who micromanage their employees are focused on the wrong things. Instead of trying to control their people they should be providing leadership and confidence to their team by identifying their next strategic objectives, inspiring their employees to take them on, and ensuring that the organization has the wherewithal to execute them.

In fact, micromanagement puts in motion a dynamic of a self-fulfilling prophecy: The manager relates to his people as uncommitted, incompetent and/or unreliable. The people, in turn, play it safe and don’t take ownership, risk and accountability. This confirms the manager’s view and he continues to micromanage.

The issue lies with the manager. Most managers who micromanage and control their people do it because of their own insecurity and fear of failure, and not because their employees are, in fact, incompetent or uncommitted.

In order to strike the appropriate balance between being on top of things while not suppressing their people, managers must put the following building blocks in place and manage them effectively:

  • Build a team that they trust in terms of commitment and competency. And establish a dynamic of authentic, honest and courageous communication within their team.
  • Align their team members around their vision of the future – a clear vision and/or set of objectives that all team members clearly understand and are on the same page about; a future that everyone feels genuinely passionate about, committed to and accountable for, as their own.
  • Orient their team members around results and deliverables rather than tasks and activities in order to build an environment of real accountability (accountability can only exist when there are clear measurable results to manage).
  • Ensure that roles, accountabilities, expectations and processes are completely clear to all team members, in order to eliminate the chance of ambiguity, excuses or mischief in this regard.
  • Lastly, put in place a simple and effective mechanism and process for tracking all key commitments, deliverables and promised results on a monthly and quarterly basis in order to eliminate confusion or lack of accountability.

Managers should be structuring their management team – no matter how senior or junior – as the cabinet accountable for achieving the collective future, not just ‘each to their own’.

If someone is not performing up to an agreed-upon standard or expectation, managers must be willing to have a straight and honest conversation that either elevates the individual to a higher level of performance or makes it clear that someone else needs to be brought in to do the job.

If the manager has built a strong team dynamic of honest communication and authentic ownership toward his future there will be no need to micromanage because his team members will be operating in a very powerful and responsible way toward making results happen.

I once heard someone describe the role of a leader as:

“Hiring the inspired or inspiring the hired.”

Well, I agree with that, and I would add: in the absence of real ownership and honesty, no amount of micromanagement will be effective anyway.

Are you making a difference in making your work environment healthy?

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The blame game is always harmful and destructive. It undermines any team dynamic and creates a stressful work environment. When something goes wrong and people sense there is a witchhunt for fault, people react by hiding, covering their behinds, misrepresenting facts and being increasingly cautious. Nobody engages in a productive conversation to learn from the mistake. This negative dynamic only perpetuates the issues and increases the likelihood they will be repeated.

However, in an environment of ownership and commitment, people only tolerate open, honest discussions that lead to the source of problems and allow for real resolution. In this environment, no one is interested in who’s at fault, but rather in getting to the source of problems. In this environment, people are eager to volunteer their insights, observations, and energy in order to address what was missing, what needs to be corrected, and they take personal ownership for resolving the issues.

Unfortunately, most workplaces are filled with people spending more time trying to avoid blame for something that did – or might – go wrong, than in anticipating and addressing real problems.

In a healthy environment, people are also much more open to receiving feedback including constructive criticism, because the name game is “how to improve and get better,” rather than the common “gotcha” environment where they are consumed by the fear of being caught.

In an environment where everyone looks out for themselves, people tend to compete for credit and be threatened by others getting it.  Credit serves as evidence for being better than others, so the unspoken theme is

“Look how great I am!”

and the mindset is: the better you are the worst I am and vice-versa. Needless to say, in this environment, people can’t genuinely be happy with the accomplishment and success of others, therefore they are far less inclined to recognize and praise others too.

But, in a healthy team environment, where people feel they are working together towards a common aim there is no angst about credit and blame. In this environment, people are much more inclined to view others accomplishments as their own; they are far more generous in providing praise and recognition to colleagues. This produces energy, inspiration, motivation, and a desire to do whatever it takes for the team to be successful. In this environment, the concept of the whole is larger than the sum of its parts – becomes a natural reality.

Which environment are you working in?

 

Agreeing to disagree is always a cop-out

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Too often I see the following scenario: A team meets to discuss issues that are critical to the organization’s success. The conversation goes on and on without resolution, as different people have divergent opinions about the best course of action. When the leader tries to bring it to a conclusion, they are no closer to alignment. They leave the meeting “agreeing to disagree.”

Such meetings are worse than a waste of time, in fact, they can actually damage the organization, which is then no closer to making the necessary decisions and assuming responsibility for them. People compromise and stay within their comfort zones at the expense of moving the organization forward in new and dynamic ways.

Take as an example a successful technology company that was trying to take its game to the next level. One of their biggest challenges – and opportunity – was to get all their business units and functions working together in a more cohesive and aligned way. Instead of interacting with customers with one voice, different sales and services groups were promoting their own agendas, often competing with other internal groups for customers’ mindshare and business. Cross-selling was suffering and a lot of potential revenues was left on the table.

The senior leadership team of this company made many attempts to get on the same page. They scheduled many long and exhausting meetings, but these meetings only perpetuated the vagueness and didn’t create clarity and alignment. Leaders left these meetings with different understandings and expectations and every time issues came up and a leader would say “But, we agreed on this!” a colleague would respond with “We never agreed on this!” Needless to say, this company was not going to the next level any time soon.

Why does this happen?

It is either because leaders lack the courage to drive clarity in the face of controversy, or they lack the understanding of their role as leaders, or they lack the ability to effectively manage conversations.

True leaders know how important it is to have an open debate with honest, respectful listening because there is rarely a single right answer to any dilemma or question. They are able to elevate their people to set aside their personal egos, agendas, and preferences to align with the collective wisdom of the group. They instill in their teams a real commitment to the type of conversation that leads to making choices, aligning behind those choices, and taking responsibility together. This requires courage.

There is never a justification to leave a conversation agreeing to disagree. It is always a cop-out!

Of course, some topics are complex and may need a number of meetings to gather the necessary input and to digest it as a group. But paralysis by analysis is always an excuse to avoid taking a stand. And, the cost of lack of decisiveness, accountability, and follow-through is cynicism, resignation, and stagnation.

Achieving extraordinary results requires the ability to align on goals. Agreeing to disagree precludes that. Organizations that achieve 100 per cent alignment behind a goal that is 80 percent right have a much greater chance of success than those where people are divided behind a perfect goal. Compromise too often means that some of the people are 100 percent behind one point of view and others are zero percent. How motivated are those ‘zero percent people’ to work towards the success of a goal they have not endorsed? They are the ones watching and waiting to say: “I told you so”.

Obviously, it is scary to step up to the plate and take full responsibility for a goal or direction that is uncertain, controversial, difficult to achieve, or politically incorrect. Making choices means eliminating alternatives. But when team members do find the courage to make tough choices, they are immediately more powerful. They are able to apply their energy towards proving their choices right rather than wasting energy on proving that others are wrong.

If an entire team is genuinely behind one direction – even if it is only 80 percent correct – if they truly align, commit to that direction, and backstop each other, it is astounding what can happen.

Is your team ‘energized and inspired’ or ‘cynical and resigned’?

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Some time ago, in a meeting I was facilitating, people were going around introducing themselves. One of the long-time veterans of that organization stood up and introduced himself in the following way: “My name is Bill. I don’t remember how long I’ve been here, but I have 54 months to go!”

You would think that Bill represents a rare minority of cynical people. However, my experience says otherwise. Unfortunately, I find cynical and resigned people at all levels of all organizations.

When I ask senior executives, “How is your leadership team doing?” I often get a stock answer of, “My leaders are excited and in great shape.” However, when I attend their meetings, I often find them to be uninspired and uninspiring. The bar for what passes as ‘inspired and energized‘ in corporations today seems to be low, very low.

Oddly enough, a lot of executives and leaders still don’t seem to view the creation of inspiration as a critical aspect of their roles. Some think it’s nice to have, but many still think it’s not up to them to provide. A few even view inspiration as irrelevant altogether. These executives often believe that what truly motivates people is pay, objectives, compensation and bonuses. I call these the myths of motivation.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not disparaging pay, compensation or bonuses. They are indeed an important part of any motivational strategy. However, I have seen situations where people could double and triple their bonus if they collaborated and worked together, but they still stayed siloed and didn’t work together. On the other hand, I have seen situations where people had no financial incentive to collaborate, but they still did the right and best thing for their company by collaborating with genuine commitment and passion.

My point is that being energized and inspired is something that first comes from within, not from external circumstances. Yes, external circumstances can help, but ultimately they are not the main determiners of how people feel and act. When people feel included, valued, cared for and that they can make a difference, they can’t help themselves but get energized and inspired. And, because any organization is always a reflection of its leaders, inspiration and energy have to start and come from the top.

So, how can today’s overwhelmed and overworked leaders energize their staff on a day-by-day basis and make sure people are not cynical? Here are a few simple tips to start you off:

  1. Show up and listen. I have often heard the complaint in organizations that leaders and managers simply don’t listen. If you want to energize your people spend some dedicated time each day, week or month walking the floors, showing concern, interacting with team members, asking people how they are doing and what you could do for them. And, then follow up with whatever comes out of those interactions and conversations.
  2. Follow up and follow through. So much of the cynicism that people have, especially in organizations, comes from a lack of follow up and follow through. Teams make decisions and then there is no follow-up or follow-through. Leaders and managers promise things and then they leave things vague, they don’t do what they said and they don’t acknowledge or change their promises. When it comes to acknowledging what was promised, following through and doing what you said there is no difference between big strategic promises and small tactical ones. If you don’t follow up and follow through even in the small things, people will become skeptical and cynical around you.
  3. Praise, recognize and thank people. I have written so much about this. It doesn’t cost a penny to say “Thank you!” and it goes a long, long way to engage and motivate people. However, another big complaint in organizations is a lack of recognition. Well if you want to energize your people and avoid cynicism, go out of your way – every day – to praise, recognize and thank them. In fact, always recognize people in public and criticize them in private. This way they’ll feel respected and trusted.
  4. Encourage, promote and reward high ownership and accountability. People who are up to something from time-to-time make mistakes. The only way to avoid that is to play so small that your mistakes are irrelevant. When employees play big the impact of their mistakes tend to be big too. However, responsible people go out of their way to learn from their mistakes and correct them. By showing them that you respect ownership and accountability they’ll play even harder, bigger and with more commitment.
  5. Encourage new ideas. There is always more than one way to get anything done. In addition, different people have different ways ideas and styles about how to effectively make things happen. As long as the objectives and key ethical values are clear and adhered to, it’s actually healthy to allow employees some room to innovate. And, it goes a long way to strengthen ownership and defeat cynicism.

 

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Is your team a high performance team?

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What is a high performance team?

A lot has been written about this topic. I would like to keep it simple.

For me a high performance team is:

  • A team that is truly cohesive, aligned and trusting
  • Everyone has each other’s back and people feel they are “in this together”
  • Team members address and discuss any topic, no matter how difficult – in an open, honest, authentic, courageous and effective way
  • People give feedback, coaching and hold each other to account
  • Everyone is comfortable taking a stand and being explicit about what they are committing to
  • And lastly – there is no tolerance for gossip, blame and negative conversations

So, how do you develop a High Performance team?

Here is a simple and powerful four-step approach for starting the process:

Step One – Choose high performance:

First, you have to make sure your team members genuinely choose to become a high performance team. Becoming a powerful team is no small mission. It requires a huge commitment. You can’t assume that people want it enough that they will do whatever it takes. Also, if you are the leader or manager of a team, you can’t mandate it.

Once you have determined that your team members are genuinely on-board and committed to doing whatever it takes to go the whole way you can begin the forming work.

Step Two – Take stock of your starting point:

In order to reach the next level you have to first take an honest look at your starting point; at your current reality – especially the areas where you and your team members have the biggest high-performance gaps.

It’s not enough to just be honest about the gaps. You have to own them too.

Team members that keep blaming others or circumstances for their lack of team effectiveness will not be able to become a high performance team. Why? Because one of the key characteristics of a high performance team is its members’ ability to always take responsibility.

By owning, I do not mean that you team members have to beat themselves up or feel guilty, you have to be able to see your circumstances at least from the standpoint that you and your team members had something to do with your lack of high performance.

It would be much more powerful if your team members can look beyond and take full responsibility for their misbehaviors. For example: instances where people didn’t communicate or collaborate; they looked out for their own agendas; or they sold out and didn’t act with courage.

Step Three – Create a bold strategy for becoming a high performance team:

A team can only become championship team if its members are aiming for a championship, and they have to rise to the occasion in order to win it.

So, in order to become a high performance team, your team has to create a bold vision and strategy; one that would require you to interact and operate at a significantly higher level than you ever have.

Obviously, your vision has to be desirable. But, it also has to represent a stretch end-result that, even though your team members don’t yet fully know how to achieve it, you all believe it is achievable.

If you do a good job in this step, everyone should feel excited about the aspirational future they created.

Step Four – Align on ground rules for working as a high performance team:

Once the external game is set up you should spend some time on your team’s internal game. You and your team should align on simple and powerful ground rules for how you will work together as a high performance team.

You should think about things like:

  • Addressing issues directly and quickly and not letting issues fester
  • Speaking with one voice
  • Recognizing each other’s efforts and achievements

Team principles and ground rules are a great way to cement commitment and begin to turn commitment into action. Keeping the ground rules simple, clear and plain language – not PPT language – will make them more powerful.

In this step you should also discuss anything else your team members may need in order to feel equipped to stay the course, no matter what, and deal with the inevitable ups and downs of your future journey.

 

In conclusion

I have helped teams reach high performance many times, and to be honest, taking this game on is demanding and challenging. However, it is also very energizing and rewarding. In fact, through this process, I have seen many teams generate amazing spirit that led to extraordinary results.

 

Is the talk in your team creating high performance?

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Have you ever heard someone say: “Talk is cheap”?

Well, nothing is further from the truth!

Talk is one of the most powerful capabilities we have to create and make things happen!

For example, when a Rabbi or Priest says: “I now pronounce you man and wife,” that creates a real new reality. When a judge says: “You have been found guilty!” or “You are innocent!” that pronouncement also changes someone’s life.

For example, when a Rabbi or Priest says: “I now pronounce you man and wife,” that creates a real new reality. When a judge says: “You have been found guilty!” or “You are innocent!” that pronouncement also changes someone’s life.

But, there are so many simple day-to-day examples that show the power of words. When you say something negative like: “This sucks…” or “I’ll never succeed at this…” or “I can’t do this because of them…” this determines your outlook, behaviors and mood too. It makes you smaller than your circumstances.

However, when you say something positive and empowering like: “You can count on me to get this done…” or “Let’s figure out how to overcome this obstacle…” or “Thank you for doing your best to help me…” it creates a much more powerful disposition and makes you bigger than your obstacles.

The great thing about talk is that we all do it all the time, and we have total control over how we express ourselves. We can talk in a constructive way or destructive way.

So, how do you use this powerful capability most effectively to elevate yourself and your team?

At a personal level, you start by paying greater attention to what comes out of your mouth. Most people don’t have strong awareness in this area. They often express negative and undermining opinions and views about areas that are important to them as if these are undisputed facts. The consequence is: loss of possibilities and ability to shape or change their situation and future.

When you consider the effect of conversations in a team setting, the impact and opportunities are so much greater. In fact, you can use team conversations as the lever to elevate your team to higher performance.

How do you do that?

A CEO I am working with asked me once the question:

“Do I need to have all my Leadership Team members 100% aligned and owning the future in order for this team to be a high performance team?”

My answer was clear “If you want High Performance, then Yes!”

Committed and aligned people think and talk differently about their circumstances, challenges and opportunities than uncommitted people. The former quickly take ownership, get energized, step up and rally others to collaborate around the issues. The latter complain, get discouraged and blame others or circumstances for their problems.

Committed people don’t cover their behinds when things don’t work, they don’t let their ego’s get in their way, and they do not indulge in blame, fault or victim-type conversations. No matter how challenging things are, they only tolerate conversations that make a difference and focus on moving their vision forward.

When an entire team is negative you can be sure to have a very toxic, suffocating and unproductive environment.

If half of the team talks in a negative, undermining or ineffective way and the other half in a positive, empowering and effective way the overall effect may be neutral. However, there would be nothing extraordinary or high performing about that team. Status quo leads people to play it safe. People say the right things but avoid rocking the boat and behave in ways that are comfortable but lack power and impact.

In contrast, when everyone talks in the same positive, empowering and effective way you will experience a different level of collective power.

If you keep that focus going over time, you will reach a tipping point of high performance.

So, if you want to create a high performance dynamic in your team make sure everyone talks in the same powerful way. Powerful requires rigor and discipline. Make sure commitments, timelines and expectations are clear. And, make sure people hold each other to account for their commitments.

And, don’t be fooled by appearances. People often say the right politically correct things in public and then they pay lip service to their pronouncements in their actions.

Pay attention to what people actually do and how they speak behind the scenes. The informal chatter is often more reflective of how people really feel. It is also more instrumental in shaping your team culture, for good or bad.

Hold people to account for speaking and acting consistently with their vision and commitment. In fact, encourage everyone to do the same. This way you will be creating a culture of honest, courageous, deliberate and direct communication.

Taking stock of how your team members express themselves is half the battle. Once you have awareness of how people talk about the important things, you can start coaching and influencing them to talk more effectively.

For example: by changing the talk in the team from “why we can’t…” to “how can we…” you will start changing the attitude and culture of your team.

If you take an honest look at your own team environment – what do you see? How do people around you talk about the things that are important to them?

Five Necessary Areas of Improvement for Your Team

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Any organization is a mirror image of its leaders and leadership team. If the leaders operate among themselves with strong and genuine trust, unity, communication and ownership, these characteristics will naturally cascade through the veins of the organization and internalize in its culture and DNA.

However, if the leaders run their organizations and functions as individual silos, rather than a unified team, their people will follow suit.

And, if they have trust issues among themselves or if they are the source of negative, passive aggressive, victimizing or blaming behaviors the same issues will inculcate throughout their teams and the overall organization.

Even if leaders say all the politically correct things in public, their people will watch their behaviors, pick up on subtle remarks and body language, and everyone will line up accordingly.

I often tell the leaders I work with, “Your employees can’t hear what you are saying because they are too busy watching how you are behaving.”

When describing their teams, leaders often make sure to tell me, “We really like each other and enjoy spending time together.” However, when I dig deeper I often find the same dysfunctional dynamics in teams were members like each other that exist in teams that dislike each other. They lack trust, transparency, alignment and courage to have the tough conversations and hold each other to account. In other words, the source of team dysfunctionality is not solely a function of personal likes and dislikes.

There is no doubt that every team is unique and different. The team’s internal culture and dynamic greatly depends on its leaders. It is also influenced by external factors like the type of industry and market conditions.

However, from having coached and worked with hundreds of teams and many thousands of executives, managers and employees, I have seen that there are some fundamental similarities between teams across the board, independent of circumstances.

People often ask me to rate their team’s effectiveness or lack thereof in comparison with the wider universe of teams in their own company, industry and wider Corporate America.

By the nature of the beast, there seem to always be certain areas all teams need to pay attention to if they want to be effective. While some teams have bigger areas of gap in comparison with other teams, there seem to be some common areas that all teams need to improve. I put these areas in five categories:

 

  1. Boldness & Courage – Most teams are not bold, authentic and courageous enough. Instead, they are too cautious and politically correct in their interactions, communications and behaviors.

 

  1. Cohesion & Alignment – Most teams talk a lot about teamwork, cohesion and alignment. However, in reality, leaders, managers and employees think and operate too often in silos, they tend to promote their own priorities and agendas, especially in scarce times and, in reality, people don’t stand in the good of the whole first, even if it is the right thing to do.

 

  1. Ownership & Accountability – Ownership and Accountability are another two of the noble corporate jargons to which people often only pay lip service. Instead of ownership and accountability, people at all levels tend to buy into circumstances a lot, and there is too much excusing, blaming and finger pointing across the board.

 

  1. Creativity & Innovation – In so many teams, people seem to be frustrated about the lack of creativity and innovation. Often, the leaders and managers with the most seniority and experience are the ones most stuck in the past and unwilling to embrace new ideas and ways of doing things. As a result, in most teams, people don’t do a good job challenging the status quo, thinking outside the box and bringing innovation and future-based thinking to the table.

 

  1. Passion & Energy – High energy and passion are missing in most teams. It is not uncommon for team members to struggle to feel inspired and energized. It’s not that people are depressed. However, most people who have been around for a while tend to adopt a more skeptical and resigned outlook. They may think of themselves as “realistic” or “pragmatic”, however, when push comes to shove, most will opt for self-preservation rather than rocking the boat to get things done, even if that is more exciting.

Obviously, not all teams are the same. A few teams stand out because they are strong across the board. Some teams are dysfunctional across all areas. However, most teams are a mix bag of these gaps.

You should self reflect on your own team and determine: How could my team improve?

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Who is creating and owning your strategy?

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Much of management literature on leadership gives executives wrong ideas about how to generate alignment and ownership in their teams. When the leader believes his role is to be lead visionary at the company, he can take that to its logical excess: feeling responsible for coming up with all the key details of the strategy. But that often means the leader will exclude others from shaping the strategy without even noticing it. That will discourage people from embracing the strategy and produce mere compliance.

Leaders often believe that too many participants in the strategy planning process will prolong the process and dilute the clarity, validity, and relevance of the work product. Therefore, they put the creation of the strategy in the hands of a trusted few (often the strategy group or a selected group of confidants), and share the final product with those charged with execution once it is complete or nears completion.

The CEO of one of the firms we worked with, for example, believed the optimal size group should be the heads of his five business lines, and that the heads of the support functions should be excluded. His firm belief was that the HR, IT, Finance and Legal department managers would have little to offer in the strategy conversation, and in fact would impede progress. Over time, however, he became frustrated that these managers were executing the strategy too slowly.

This CEO’s attitude is quite common. Executives who think that way fail to realize the downside of keeping strategy development an exclusive process. The faster the CEO’s chosen leaders generate the content of the strategy, the slower they will generate genuine ownership and accountability within the company’s managers and employees for its fulfillment. In addition, I have seen many times leaders who are excluded from the strategy creation process feeling disrespected, and as a result finding it hard to support their colleagues’ decisions. Even if they don’t express these sentiments they view the strategy as not “their’s.”

Furthermore, a tightly controlled strategy process discounts the experience and expertise these senior professionals could offer to ensure the content of the strategy passes the litmus tests of validity and relevance across the broadest possible spectrum of constituents.

The CEO mentioned above added the heads of the support functions to his strategy-development team after realizing that they could make significant contributions. That sent a message to the organization that people were important and that the strategy development process was becoming more inclusive.

Excluding a number of senior executives from strategy development also undermines the ability of the leadership team as a whole to operate as a cohesive team with a shared purpose. When rallying the troops senior leaders may say the politically-correct things, however people will see through their lack of sincerity and courage. As a result managers and employees will hold back their commitment and play the risk-averse game. In turn, that will slow down the pace of strategy adoption and execution.

When consultants are brought in to create or direct the content of the strategy, no matter how sound they may make it, the probability that people will relate to the strategy as “theirs” and not “ours” is even higher. In fact, I have seen many instances in which, months or even years into the execution of a strategy, it is still referred to as the “X Consulting Firm’s” strategy. We’re not advocating the exclusion of consultants if they are needed. But giving consultants the exclusive task of creating the content will make it difficult for others (be more specific that “others”)  to own it and commit to it.

Any strategy is only as strong as people’s relationship with it. I have seen small leadership teams that created ineffective strategies that people didn’t rally behind and large leadership teams that created powerful strategies that everyone rallied around with passion. The difference was not the number of people participating in the process. It was having the right people around the table who know how to have a robust conversation that resulted in 100% alignment and ownership across the board.

In one of my future blogs I will elaborate more on how to conduct a powerful strategic planning conversation that achieves 100% clarity, alignment and ownership, no matter how many people participate in the discussion.

Stay Tuned…

 

Blunt honesty is the right approach both in business and at home.

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I love working with leaders who are relentless about driving a culture of open, honest and courageous communication around them. These leaders are about high performance and they have zero interest in, or tolerance for, internal drama or politics. They operate at a high level of personal integrity, authenticity and ownership. And they expect and demand the same from people around them.

They make it difficult – if not impossible – for people to get away with doing the things that undermine and weaken the organization: point fingers, adopt a victim mentality, indulge in destructive politics, and “CYA” (cover-your-ass) behaviors that distract from the goals of the organization.

Even if these behaviors are very subtle, they drain energy and waste everyone’s time. Eventually, people begin to feel that they cannot make a difference, and the organization loses focus and cannot achieve the results it seeks. In today’s environment of growing competition and limited resources, what company can afford this?

Any manager can do this – break these undermining patterns, reverse past damage and create a high performance team dynamic – if they are willing to be a courageous leader, role model this behavior, and call his or her people to account for it too. They need to stand for a new code of rigorous honesty, refusing to settle for less than the truth in an environment where people are used to only voicing what they think their leaders want to hear.

No matter which method they use, leaders must make their unconditional commitment to honesty known, and they must convince their people that they mean it. It’s not enough to declare it. They need to demonstrate through action that they are genuinely open to feedback, criticism and input, including about themselves. As one of my clients once admitted: “It takes 10 rights to fix 1 wrong, and 1 wrong to undermine 10 rights.”

This leadership philosophy of open, honest, authentic and courageous communication can be messy, lonely and painful at times. However, time and again, I have seen it lead to significant transformations inside organizations. In fact, clients have repeatedly shared with me that creating a new level of communication at work has even made them a better person in their personal life, changing the way they relate to their children and their spouses. One CEO even told me, “It saved my marriage.”

I am not a marriage counselor, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But one thing I do know is that when organizations have the courage to face the truth every day, a powerful platform of authentic team ownership, commitment and accountability emerges. The team is then equipped and energized to focus on any challenge or opportunity that lies ahead, no matter how unfamiliar, complex, or difficult it may be. In short, the team becomes unstoppable.

Is your Leadership Team making a positive or negative difference?

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Any organization is a reflection of its leaders and leadership team (LT). If the leaders build a strong and genuine team dynamic of trust, unity, communication and ownership among themselves, these characteristics will be cascaded through the veins of the organization and internalized in its culture and DNA. If the leaders operate as individual silos, not a team, their people will follow suit. And, if they have trust issues among themselves, harbor resentments or are the source of negativity or victim behaviors, the same issues, sentiments and behaviors will be inculcated throughout their organization.

And, it doesn’t matter what leaders say in public. Even if it’s all the politically correct things, their people will watch their behaviors, pick up on subtle remarks and body language, and line up accordingly.

The LT is always an amplifier of sentiments, conversations and energy in the organization. Leaders’ behavior either amplifies the constructive, productive conversations that make a difference, or it amplifies and fuels the negative ones, which undermine and weaken; they are either the source of the solution or a big part of the problem.

Unfortunately, in so many cases the senior leaders amplify the negative sentiments and conversations. They initiate, express and participate in negative conversations, and they pass down negative and divisive messages to their people. I have heard managers and employees complain about this so many times, and I have seen this dynamic with my own eyes.

For example, I was working inside a large telecom company who acquired a smaller, more entrepreneurial, startup type company. As with most mergers and acquisitions the integration was done on paper but not in the hearts and minds of the people who had to implement it, especially not the people who joined the larger telecom firm from the smaller acquired company. As I walked the halls of the acquired company’s offices and sat in their meetings I could hear the resentments and negative and toxic feelings about the acquirer voiced in almost every conversation. Many of the complaints were legitimate and correct. However, given the negative environment, no one was collaborating to figure out how to fix the issues. And, even the senior leaders from the acquired company who agreed to, and gained from the acquisition, and now sat on the LT of the acquirer were expressing, engaging in, and fueling the negative and unproductive sentiments, behind the scenes.

Even when the LT members are not the originators of negative sentiments and conversations, they have the power to transform these into constructive conversations that address the issues, change things and make a difference. But, in many cases they avoid their responsibility and opportunity to do so. I guess cynicism is easier and more familiar, even if it is undermining and dysfunctional.

It seems that leaders often just don’t realize the positive or negative impact of their behaviors and conversations on their environment. They don’t focus on this topic hence they don’t see it, or take responsibility for its consequences.

If LT members periodically answered the question “Are we making a positive, neutral or negative impact through our behavior?” and perhaps also asked people around them for honest feedback on this, they would be more inclined to adjust their behaviors and conversations, especially if they realized that the cost associated with negative or neutral is dear.

Agreeing to disagree is always a cop-out!

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How many times have you seen the following scenario?

A team meets to discuss issues that are critical to the organization’s future. The conversation goes on and on without resolution, as different people have divergent opinions about the best course of action. When the leader tries to bring it to a conclusion, they are no closer to alignment. They leave the meeting “agreeing to disagree.”

Such meetings are worse than a waste of time: they actually damage the organization, which is then no closer to making the necessary decisions and assuming responsibility for them. People have stayed within their comfort zones at the expense of moving the organization forward in new and dynamic ways.

This happens because leaders lack one or more of the following attributes: courage, an understanding of their role as leader, and the ability to powerfully manage conversations.

True leaders know how important it is to have an open debate with honest, respectful listening because there is rarely a single right answer to any dilemma or question. They are able to elevate their people to set aside their personal egos, agendas, and preferences to align with the collective wisdom of the group. They instill in their teams a real commitment to the type of conversation that leads to making choices, aligning behind those choices, and taking responsibility together. This requires courage.

There is never a justification to leave a conversation agreeing to disagree. It is always a cop-out. Of course, some topics are complex and may need a number of meetings to gather the necessary input and to digest it as a group. But paralysis by analysis is always an excuse to avoid taking a stand. And, the cost of lack of decisiveness, accountability, and follow-through is cynicism, resignation and stagnation.

Achieving extraordinary results requires the ability to align on goals. Agreeing to disagree precludes that. Organizations that achieve 100 per cent alignment behind a goal that is 80 per cent right have a much greater chance of success than those where people are divided behind a perfect goal. Compromise too often means that some of the people are 100 per cent behind one point of view and others are zero. How motivated are those zero per cent people to work towards the success of a goal they have not endorsed? They are the ones watching and waiting to say: “I told you so.”

Obviously, it is scary to step up to the plate and take full responsibility for a goal or direction that is uncertain, controversial, difficult to achieve, or politically incorrect. Making choices means eliminating alternatives. But when team members do find the courage to make tough choices, they are immediately more powerful. They are able to apply their energy towards proving their choices right rather than wasting energy on proving that others are wrong.

If an entire team is behind one direction – even if it is only 80 per cent correct – if they truly align, commit to a direction, and backstop each other, it is astounding what can happen. Individuals are then free to stake out a much more powerful future – and in my experience, they almost always do.

What has been your experience?