Luisa Carou Ferreiro

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/04/14/management-resistance-to-change/

Management resistance to change

  Management resistance to change

The environment in which most organizations operate has become more dynamic and complex over the last decades. As a reaction to this change in the environment, organizations realized they had to create a culture in which empowered and self-reliant teams took the lead in accomplishing the ultimate goal towards betterment of the organization.

What a lot of organizations missed to take into account, or at least underestimated, is the change-management needed in the management layer. Think about it: who is/are the employee’s most effected by a change that will lead to more power for the ‘common employee’?

If organizations don’t start to pay more attention to their, usually huge, middle-management + line-management layer, change processes that need to be deeply embedded in the organization’s culture will keep failing.

A short-term solution that is often used is to get rid of current middle-managers (and hire new ones immediately after) and assume that the line-managers reporting to them will simply bow and obey.

Two mistakes with that solution:

that short-term solution will need to be re-applied the next time you have a similar change. As change is nowadays an ongoing process (or at least it should be) you are compromising the commitment of your leadership team on the longer term and breaking down core accountability.

line-managers do not simply bow and obey (if you’re lucky). If they do, the mistake will have even larger consequences.

First of all, the new middle-manager has no relation whatsoever with this team of managers, and with such an important change process, having immediately available trust-relationships is key. Secondly, the newly hired manager is not influenced by the current culture (which can be a very positive thing) but he also is unaware of current practices and power-relations among the teams. That gives him less knowledge than an insider, and that gives him a disadvantage. Thirdly, the line-managers is the largest group that will be effected. How are you going to take care of them? Or better: how are you going to give care to them? When you hire the new managers, you better make sure they have the right skills: able to quickly establish relationships and trust, with high emotional intelligence to quickly identify the current power-relations in and between teams and not easily influenced so they don’t surrender to the current culture (the one you want to change). I you don’t hire new managers, you better make sure the ones you keep are real followers and not just ‘ja-knikkers’ which is the Dutch word for folks who say ‘yes’, but mean ‘no’.

A lot of organizations don’t take these things into account, and their change process, directed at making teams self-reliant, fail. They think of the basics they learned or read about, or take the word of a professional organizational change consultant (which they should be able to trust considering the amounts they charge, right?). They might even simply copy-cat the change-process of a similar organization forgetting that each organization has its own cultural blueprint created over time.

What most of them forget is, that managers are also employees, and they are also impacted by the change. I am even willing to argue that it’s the layer where the greatest amount of resistance comes from in any organizational change process.

One other factor that leads to failure is the amount of control that organizations want to have on the operations.

When it comes to control, most of the organizations are stuck in the early 1900’s, where science management was the leading theory for organizational management and where coercive power was the only one used. This is not official. Officially, they are all coaches, they all want the best for their teams, they all have leadership skills and there are no bad bosses. However, behind the scenes ‘in the office’ a complete different set of rules exist that you as CEO are not aware of. Just as the operational basis has its own secrets middle-management is not aware of. Just like the operational layer is ‘in for the change’ during meetings, your middle-layer will state the same in your board-meetings and in the dashboards they show you. The truth is, if the change does not bring them any positive personal gain (economic or otherwise) results, chances are that they will not change anything to their own set of rules and as a result, your cultural change plan will fail. Don’t get me wrong: some will not even be doing this on purpose. It’s an unconscious process resulting from the need to survive in their own environment.

So, there we are, you investigated, you payed (or not) for a consultant, you (or he) diagnosed and planned. You even did a pilot and the results were great. Just before leaving, after a 3 month-period, your consultant evaluated the results and presented them to you in a flashy dashboard presentation. Numbers looked great, so you implemented the plan.

Recently, you discovered that the results are not as good as were expected considering the great pilot results.

You drowned your self-reliant operational layer in the claws of bureaucracy (which is massive, because you are a huge organisation) and the teams are still being controlled by the managers you forgot to prepare for this important change… you changed the rules, they are either following or saying that they are following, but the culture has not changed – it only looks that way. Beneath the surface, everything is just like ‘in good old times’.

Any comments on how the ‘you’ person above could have prevented this? What should he/she do the next time he prepares for a change? What role should the line-managers play in the change-management process? What role should they be taking during and after implementation?

Would it make any difference in the levels of resistance if the middle-management layer consisted of servant leaders?

With passion,

Luisa

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/03/26/do-you-like-power/

Do You Like Power?

The Six Bases of Power

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/03/21/leadership-healthcare/

Servant Leadership in Healthcare - Who cares, serves...

I started looking for a new career opportunity. More specifically, I started to investigate what the current state is of leadership in the healthcare realm. I interviewed a few contacts I have in that area and I am still recovering from the shock. Call me an idiot. Here, I’ll be totally transparent: If you were looking for a place where the value of ‘serving others’ would be carved-out in stone both at the corporate level as well as right in the core of the employee, what would that place be? My guess was healthcare, the non-profit versions of it at least. Less money, more room for moral, right? A place with a high level of equality preferably, since professional titles have also been known to ruin a person’s character and the self-esteem of people surrounding them. A nursing home maybe? A home-care services institute?

A while ago I met with a friend who told me a story about how things were going at work. She works at a nursing home (here in The Netherlands) and supplies the folks there with coffee, a helping hand, some cleaning chores, listens to their worries, etc. She described a picture of a very demotivated team and the mechanisms of action that had caused such an undesirable situation. Although, like usual, there were several external contributing factors (cost-cuts, economic crisis, changing laws and procedures) the team’s manager and her attitude seemed to be the main cause of the team’s dissatisfaction.

Here is the shocking part: it made me angry. It made me angry and I felt like an idiot because I did not expect to encounter the same problems as I did up till now in huge corporations where it is no secret that a lot of people (that includes managers) are in it for the power and the money and will go to great extend to get (more of) it, even if it means doing the ‘wrong’ things.

Call me an idiot, but yes, it made me angry. I mean, in a place where people work caring for others, you have the intrinsic motivation of your team members S P E L L E D out for you – so how can a manager in such a place get to the point where the team gets in a chronic demotivated state??!

The answer is simple, and I guess my initial emotion was coming from the idealistic personality that sometimes tries to overrule my logic. Bad leaders can simply destroy any team for whatever reason they see fit, or they are simply the wrong person in the wrong place picked by some manager in the same circumstances. It does not only lead to destruction of the team structure: in a team of caregivers, a bad leader can destroy even more. Those caregivers will go to such an extend in staying on the job, that the chances are very high they will actually be burned-out before the bad leadership is discovered.

Another chat with a different contact and some research of my own revealed that healthcare has been submitted in the last decades to something that is very familiar to me coming from the big pharma industry: spreadsheet and dashboard management. Later, ‘Lean’ management was discovered which resulted in process-optimization and lower costs. Most currently, this realm has discovered the benefits of putting the team at center, and are literally reorganizing their processes and teams, centralizing them geographically as sub-teams where they are most needed: in their clients’ neighborhoods. Very lean. This new approach is taking into account functional and multidisciplinary diversity. It’s the start of an answer to all the problems this part of healthcare has been collecting in the past decades. All the problems?

No, there’s still the ‘good leadership’ issue unfortunately. Bad leaders (in managerial and non-managerial positions!) can simply destroy any team for whatever reason they see fit.

How are we going to solve this? Through Servant Leadership, if we manage to get the right person in the right place for the right reason. We really should not be settling for less…we should take responsibility.

While we solve the problem together, don’t forget to take away the free copy of the Change Management Guide below!

With Passion,

Luisa

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/03/10/cultural-change-dream-or-reality/

Cultural Change: dream or reality?

What most of the guides and other resources often forget to mention is, that a cultural change does not happen overnight. We are not born with the same talent as chameleons, quickly adapting to a new environment. There are so many reasons things can go wrong during the process, so many parameters that need to be in place to make an effective change in culture. It’s a slow process.

Nowadays, most companies don’t have ‘slow but steady’ in their corporate dictionary. A long-term goal is usually the completion of a new product, the near-future revenue for share holders, the % of costs they have to cut by a certain date. You get the idea right? Still, it’s becoming more and more important to spend time on the real long-term goals, because the number of companies that have transformed into an empty shell are getting noticed for their inappropriate leadership. Slowly but surely, they are becoming less popular.

The new generation of leaders want the same as the older generations, but this time, they will be speaking up and walking the talk: they will not work for an employer whom they can’t identify with in terms of values and believes: the true colors behind your corporate culture. Millennials have the future, because if you think about it: they are not only tomorrow’s customers, they are also our future leaders. Born in today’s society, change, speed, multi-cultural impressions, and multi-focus are the ingredients they grew up with. It will become more and more clear in the next decades that if you want to be a great leader, you will have to become more like a chameleon: learn how to balance all different leadership styles, know when and when NOT to apply them, showing your true colors and being transparent to your environment on why they change.

I like chameleons. They provide an analogy to leaders who target their objectives fast and efficiently, adapt their colors to effectively deal with situations, while their eyes never lose their stereoscopic scanning of their environment, always seeking new objectives, new opportunities, while keeping the team safe.

Are you showing your true colors?

With Passion,

Luisa

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/02/01/adjourning-good-things-come-end/

Adjourning: Because all good things come to an end

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/01/11/handy-tool-build-trust/

A handy tool to build trust

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2015/01/08/split-second-builds-or-destroys-trust/

That Split Second that either builds or destroys trust

  Nobody will argue that trust is key in any relationship. What keeps amazing me is, considering how easily it can be destroyed, how underestimated that effect is.

Let’s look at just a few examples of daily situations that you might be struggling with yourself.

Managers’ daily struggle; should I be strict or should I be nice?

Get the work done! vs. Sure, I understand you can’t finish it, let’s look together for other possibilities Be more autonomous! vs. Let me help you, I understand you need help to gain experience and stand on your own feet We are not there yet, keep moving! vs. You guys have done a great job, let’s look together at the next steps Don’t be late! vs. It’s okay if you arrive a bit later for a good reason. Is there anything you want to talk about? Do it like this, now! vs. Let me know your thoughts, I appreciate your input. You need to improve or else…! vs. It’s okay to make mistakes. Let’s see how we can learn from them.

Now, don’t tell me you have never encountered these types of situations where you can’t make up your mind which way to go with a conversation or a situation.

We get them all the time, and the choices are not always easy to make (although I admit the examples above are rather clear on which way is the right one). However, in reality the situation may not be that clear.

In a split second, and influenced by emotions [don’t switch them off!] we know, we FEEL that we are about to either get the chance to increase trust and solve the situation while doing that… or mess it all up… having to start all over again.

There are folks who choose to be either ‘the boss’ or ‘the coach’. Neither of them work stand-alone if you are supposed to be doing things that belong to both job descriptions. Now, do you believe that the one and only right decision is to include parts of both job descriptions? Good, then we agree; read on. If you don’t agree, don’t worry – you still have the choice to read on.

First of all, for the managers out there:

Have regular 1:1 meetings with your team members (if you don’t have time, you should be thinking about taking a time management course first. You need the routine contact. Ad-hoc routine moments, called only when there is bad news to bring, create a culture of fear. Your employees will become afraid of that moment.

Secondly, for both teams and managers:

Be clear, don’t ‘dance around it’.

Be clear, be genuine, be yourself, be open, share backgrounds, be discrete, etc. you know the deal; check out my resources section – and take action.

Make sure everyone understands what the expectations are and what their part in the game is.

Make sure everyone understands what they can expect from you, and what your part in the game is.

Make sure you know each other – open up! I promise it won’t kill you.

Thirdly, mainly for managers:

If they need to start ‘guessing’ whether you’re in the boss mood or in the coach mood you’ll both be dancing around it and you will become ‘unpredictable’ – which translates to ‘unreliable’. That’s bad news.

Clear? Good, back to the situation of that ‘split second’ moment…

Why would you even start to choose whether to go right or go left? Why not just SAY that you are standing in the middle and share that thought? Be YOU.

Make time, room and emotional space, set the ‘tone’

Call out the facts (without judging)

Explain why this is important for you and how it makes YOU feel (involve the trust part, it’s basic, always)

Explain your role (every time? yes, every time)

Call out the expectations

Ask what the other thinks AND feels

Make MUTUAL agreements

It could go something like this: [note: one of the heavier performance issues as example]

Let’s chat for a moment, I need your thoughts on something, do you have time for me?

I saw that the assigned work was not complete last week, and this is not the first time.

This topic is important for me because the value of each team member adds up to a winning team. An important part of being a healthy team is trusting each other.

Besides keeping you guys a healthy team (link winning to healthy), it is important for me to let you know that I am worried thinking that something might not be okay with you and I want to know if there is anything I can do to help you.

We need to figure out a way to get your performance up to speed, and I am willing to go step by step with you to look TOGETHER for ways how WE can make this happen. It’s not only about the expected performance, it’s about you not feeling well if you are not getting the chance to perform well.

What do you think? Tell me your part of the facts, and tell me how you feel about them.

Okay, so let’s summarize and make a few promises to each other by setting a few objectives for both of us.

You know, at this point, if you are worried about a mixed audience of this blog, smile; if you both read this blog you are one step ahead of others: talk together about what you read, and how you can use it… TOGETHER. You just might have pulled something from the ‘blind spot’ to the ‘public spot’ – congrats!

With passion,

Luisa

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2014/12/18/5-questions-ask-future-manager-during-job-interview/

5 Questions you should ask your future new manager during the job interview

“Employees leave managers not companies”.

Google says: About 2,160,000 results.

So, let’s see how you can (try) to avoid becoming one of those employees.

It starts… at the beginning. When you are in your job interview, usually in the end of the conversation, the future manager will ask you if you have any questions.

Of course you do! Most of the interviewees will come prepared and will ask a question to show-off they have done some research on the company or specific job position. Well done!

One other possible question might be related to HR arrangements (full-time, salary, working hours, etc). Also important, but save it for a little bit later in the job interview process.

Do ask those if you want to, by all means – but don’t forget to ask at least one or two that are directed at exploring your future manager’s skills. It takes two to tango – you are being interviewed for your skills, but how about their’s? Do they deserve you?

Make your selection of the examples below and be fearless during your job interview – you won’t regret it!

When there are signs of conflict-avoidance in your team, what is your approach? Were you ever in a situation like that? How did it make you feel?

How would you describe your performance rating system? How do you avoid unpleasant surprises at the end-year-review?

What is your philosophy regarding employee development? How does it work in daily practice in your team?

How would you describe your leadership style? Can you give me an example in daily practice to illustrate it?

Teams have their ups and downs. Could you give me an example from the recent past on how you celebrated a team success, and one other example of how you handled a team failure?

What should I definitely do and what should I definitely not do when interacting with you as my direct manager?

Do you think they sound very ‘bold’? Are you afraid to ask them and crash your opportunity for the position?

Think of ways you could still ask them without sounding too direct if you prefer. Give an introduction before you pop the question(s). It could go something like this:

“I value trustful relationships, not only with my direct colleagues but also very much with my future boss. If you don’t mind, I would like to ask some questions related to your leadership methods, is that okay with you?”.

Whatever your approach is, do ask them – or you might be sorry that you didn’t later on.

A good leader will recognize what you are trying to do – and will value you for it!

Maybe it goes without saying, but just in case: if you don’t agree with the manager’s answers, don’t start a discussion on what you think a better approach or method should be…unless you are literally asked to give your opinion on the matter… stay neutral.

You are not there to develop your future boss – the answers will simply give you valuable information you can add to your decision process: to take or not to take the position: that’s the question.

Feel free to add any good ones you have up your own sleeve!

With passion,

Luisa

  I just released a couple of sneak previews (audio podcasts) on my upcoming book ‘Homemade Leadership Soup’. I would be honored if you’d listen to them on Soundcloud or iTunes and leave a comment on whether you liked it or not. It will help me stay focused :-). You can also leave a comment on topics you would like to have covered in the book. I will try to get them all in a special daily recipe to help others become a true leader. Thanks!

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PassionAtCentre on SoundCloud

It's nice to simply do stuff because you LIKE it :-). Sneak previews on my upcoming book 'Homemade Leadership Soup'. Daily knowledge recipes for today's and tomorrow's leaders.

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2014/12/16/sneak-previews-leadership-soup/

Sneak Previews on my upcoming book 'Homemade Leadership Soup'

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2014/12/14/stop-wasting-time-leave-unproductive-meetings/

Stop wasting time: leave those unproductive meetings

  Do you invest more time in meetings or in your team?

Read on, and when you’re ready, look in the mirror and answer that question.

We waste a lot of time in meetings. Not because meetings are not useful, but because a lot of them are unproductive meetings.

They are often lead by persons who are not able to lead a meeting (and leading a meeting is more than just following an agenda and being a good time keeper). Let’s see if this sounds familiar:

Five minutes past the official start: are we complete? Let’s give person X a couple of more minutes.

When finally started: the meeting becomes a monologue of person Y.

Meetings where people are afraid to speak up or speak up inappropriately because they did not prepare. Meetings where information that was already shared and presented in other groups with 80% overlapping members, is presented and recycled once more in a broader forum.

Are you in a business culture where it is obviously normal that you do other things on your own laptop while you are ‘attending’ a meeting? Whether you have any questions? No of course you don’t, you were not listening very attentively in the first place. Actually, you were very busy killing your keyboard (or at least it sounded like that). Would you do this in a face 2 face meeting? Yes? Well, let me tell you something: it is not efficient and it is plainly rude.

How about actions? Meetings with too many action steps that are pushed to the next meeting, and to the next meeting, and yet again, to the next meeting.

Meetings with no action steps at all, where the person speaking 90% of the time leaves very satisfied because he/she thinks it all went well…but the message did not get across, did it? When following up via e-mail… the real discussions start right? Suggested solution; let’s have another meeting…

What about quarterly report meetings in which slides that can be easily shared by other means (e-mails) are holding 15 or more managers for at least 2 hours in a virtual prison. Of course they will start doing other things – they feel their time slips away from them as they grow a year older in each of those meetings. Ever tried to calculate how much that 2-hour meeting costs?

Want to stop that train?

Let’s try something bold: if the meeting does not add value, let the person leading the meeting know and provide some suggestions for improvement. If you don’t give feedback, the person might not be conscious of what’s happening. Everyone deserves a real chance to change things.

If the person does not listen or change anything: hop off the train. Simply do not go to the meeting.

Can you even imagine how much time you will get back in your schedule to do things that actually matter?

If you have these types of meetings regularly, you do not have even the most remote right to say: ‘I’m so busy, I don’t have time for xyz’.

Xyz can be a lot of things, but let me summarize a couple of them here:

Team exercises, connecting with them, 1:1 sessions, coaching sessions, reading and learning time for your own personal development, researching and looking in-depth in your team members development opportunities PRO-actively).

You can spend that time with your team, investing time in all those things that you should be doing to get them to (or keep them on) a high performance level.

Stop throwing away valuable time just because you have this mental pattern in your head, this unwritten rule, that you are supposed to attend all meetings, to be informed (there are other ways), and to be visible (oh please, there are enough good meetings to be visible in the right way).

Stop doing that. Leave the meeting, go to your team members.

Stop wasting time, start investing time in the humans around you, and in yourself.

  So, look in the mirror now. Do you invest more time in meetings or in your team? Leave a comment!

Want to learn how to lead productive meetings? The book below is a good start!

  With passion,

Luisa

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2014/12/09/recurring-motivation-s1e4-four-team-activities-will-resurface-motivation/

RECURRING MOTIVATION – S1E4: Four more team activities that will (re)surface motivation

  Previously on ‘Recurring motivation’:

Moral stories are a powerful tool to tap into inspirational thoughts and to use in team exercises to (re)surface motivation. Get out of that vicious circle you are in, where you don’t have time for your people! Use your time wisely and you will see there is plenty of it around being wasted…

  Last time, I promised you more team exercises to (re)surface motivation.

Let’s give you a bunch of them, so you can actually SCHEDULE them to make sure YOU DON’T FORGET.

      Do you know your colleague?

Create a set of questions. Sit with your team wherever you want (a meeting room is not exciting by the way). Pair up folks who you know don’t know each other very well yet. Have them answer the questions for the other person. Examples: how many pets does the other person have? What’s his/her favorite color? What is his biggest strength, what is his weakness? What’s her hobby? etc. Be creative ;-). When done, see how many questions they got right. If your team is able to compete in a positive way (congratulations!) you can turn it into a fun game by giving a nice little present to the couple that gained most points. Where’s the motivation source? Well, simple, it’s getting to know each other and enjoying company which will flare up the motivation needed to be happy at work. Enjoy!

Woolly Wool – who’s talking?

Get your team into a big room. Bring a big ball of wool with you. Present an exciting statement that will trigger a debate. Give the ball of wool to the person who wants to kick-off the debate. When the next person wants to reply/give his statement, the ball is passed on, while the initial person keeps hold of the thread of wool. However, the person speaking may also choose to give the ball of wool to someone he/she chooses. While people talk, you will see how the lines of thread start to trace in certain shapes. Use what you have learned during communication trainings to interpret what you see. As a leader, you need to be the observer by the way… What are you seeing? Are they equally distributed? Are always the same persons talking? Are some persons always granted the ball of wool automatically? Are there people that do not have any thread at the end of the debate? Finally, what you see, is it similar to the interactions that you observe regularly in the work place? Interesting exercise! There might be frustrations in your team that you will be able to surface with this exercise. Guess what happens when you get rid of those frustrations? Pure motivation will poor. Enjoy! Credits: Jan van der Wielen, Commenssens.

What’s cooking?

Each team member brings something to eat to the workplace. All share food. One of the most ancient ways of bonding ;-).

Feedback week!

When asked, everyone will say ‘I’m always open for feedback’. Well, let’s put it nicely: that’s not true.

Being open to feedback requires a tremendous amount of self-knowledge and the will to improve and develop. It requires you to never take things personal and it is difficult – even in the best equipped teams. Even a person that is really open to feedback struggles sometimes with it. No shame there!

If you are having some trouble getting everyone on board…

If those nice rules you all agreed on in the past (we will be open, we will be honest, we will be respectful, we will give and accept feedback, we will not judge, we will retrieve information before forming an opinion…etc…) are more like a memory instead of a daily practice…

It’s feedback-week! Everyone has to give feedback to at least 1 other person that week. At the end of the week, you get together with your team. Each person that received feedback, shares the feedback and provides a small talk of what he received, how he felt about it, what he learned from it and, if already applicable, what he did with it.

The feedback item itself is valuable. The exercise, the total picture, will contain a valuable lesson on showing your team that feedback is okay, that the environment is one where you can be open without feeling threatened. Feeling safe and accepted, will lay a fertile ground for any motivational seeds. Enjoy!

This was the final episode of this season. If you liked this seasonal approach, let me know what other topic you would like to have featured in upcoming Seasons!

With passion,

Luisa

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New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2014/12/07/5-big-feedback-boo-boos/

5 big feedback boo-boos

  There are thousands of resources out there where you can find structured and scientific articles related to the ‘Feedback’ topic. This post is a little different. You all know by now that I like to keep it simple, practical, direct and very close to your daily practice. 

Don’t get me wrong: it’s essential to get training on all these topics – it gives you the basics to work with. But let’s be realistic; you already completed similar training programs. They provide you with all the theory. A couple of different scenarios and role-playing moments drive them if you are lucky. You think it worked. You are all set-up to do it the right way. You get back to your work and suddenly, you are in the world where not everyone received the same training, where emotions can run high, where workload is simply not letting you check-in regularly with the things you learned, and wondering…

WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE NOT FOLLOWING THE SAME SCRIPT I HAD DURING MY TRAINING SESSIONS?!

I could repeat the whole theory for you in this blog. A simple cut-and-paste. I would be done in 5 minutes, and you would have…. no added value whatsoever, and far more important: no FUN at all!

This post is targeting only those that love making boo-boos. So, if you are ready to crash, continue reading.

On the other hand, folks that want to avoid making boo-boos, can simply turn the messages upside down, read between the lines (never do that with feedback!), and maybe it will help you in the near future. So, let’s start boo-booing. Wrong examples are the best teachers!

Feedback Boo-boo #1:

Make sure your feedback is non-specific. It’s so much fun to see how colleagues start guessing what you meant with it! If they ask for more specificity, make sure you don’t know the answers to their questions, and in return ask how they are going to improve.

Feedback Boo-boo #2:

Make sure you have the worst timing ever. Only give feedback when you are absolutely sure the receiver is not open to it. If the person is angry, don’t hesitate, and give the feedback immediately. You could take pictures of their faces (and use it later for some feedback on non-verbal communication). If it is something that could provide the person with a growth opportunity, wait at least until the performance review at the end of the year. Make sure you also adapt their performance rating based on their ability in having discovered (or not) the growth opportunity by themselves. It should give them at least an idea of their own self-awareness. If the person did something good, make sure you don’t tell them, wait until their performance gets worse again, and then apply again all these boo-boos.

Feedback Boo-boo #3:

When you gather feedback from peers, make sure you don’t understand a single $&% of the details and don’t ask any questions (you can rely on boo-boo #1 if the person starts to ask difficult questions). Once you are sure you have no idea what they are talking about, resist any urge you might have for obtaining more information on the topic from others.

Feedback Boo-boo #4:

When someone comes up to you to give you feedback, don’t listen too carefully. Whatever you do, never acknowledge any expressed feelings. Make sure you have some feedback for that person in return so the conversation keeps flowing and then end it abruptly saying that you have a meeting you need to attend. With a bit of luck, you’ll never get feedback again from that person. Problem solved.

Feedback Boo-boo #5:

When you get feedback, don’t listen at all, put on an angry face, and run to your boss (more or less the same strategy as you probably had when you were a kid running to your parents when a play-friend said something bad to you). If your parents indulged you, chances are that this one is pretty easy to execute and well within your comfort zone.

Feedback BBB (Bonus Boo-Boo):

Don’t give any feedback at all and just start giving away surprises in public meetings. There’s nothing that motivates more than some good-old peer-pressure meetings with lots of delicious face-losing moments.

Any feedback boo-boos you want to share? Leave a comment!

With passion,

Luisa

[passionatcentre]

New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/2014/12/06/team-building-exercise/

Team building exercise: get started NOW!

In previous posts I promised you to share my thoughts about team building topics. There are numerous ways to submerge in team building and to ‘do stuff’ together to learn as a team, to enjoy activities as a team, to bond, and the list goes on forever (thank goodness!).

But first things first: How to (re)start this team building?

The foundation of a high performing team is its diversity. One of the things that happen in a group that has been working together for a long time is that they tend to become ‘alike’. It’s your job as a leader to make sure that diversity is cherished and celebrated in the team. Don’t let them become ‘mini-me’s’.

There are a lot of diversity parameters. You will have ethnic and cultural diversity, gender, age, education, background, and experience diversity. These are just a few.

All of these parameters influence how you interact with others. Everyone has a preference. There are a lot of behavioral models that have emerged around this and one of them is the Belbin Team Roles theory. I included an example of a workshop you can use to get started, based on this model. Enjoy!

Belbin

Review the theory on the official web site. I advise you to use their official resources. They also have a lot of valuable free resources. If you want to use this model regularly, I would definitely recommend using their official reports so you can profit from the knowledge of certified instructors on an ongoing basis.

Free start

If you want a sneak preview of what this and similar models can do for you, google provides you with some links where you can do free tests. As example you could use this one: free test. It states to be inspired by Belbin, and although the names of the roles are slightly different, the basic idea will help you get started. It helped me a lot.

Now, how does all this theory translate to a practical way of using it NOW in your team?

Even if your team is already ‘GREAT’ – make it greater and more fun – why settle for less?

Workshop:

Introduction

Get your team together and explain you have something exciting that will help you all understand each other (even better) and will create also a new dimension to understanding each other’s behaviors at work. See ‘doubting’ faces? Tell them that it will even shed some light on their personal lives and it can help getting it more clear ‘why I am always the person at home that is the one making things happen’.

Have hand-outs prepared describing the theory behind the specific roles used in the test of your choice.

Let them do the test and ask them to print-out the results.

Chances are that there will be groups of persons with the same main preferences. Separate them into groups of persons with the same primary preference. For this stage it is okay to have ‘groups’ consisting of only one or two persons.

Give all groups a white sheet of paper from a flip-chart, with the following exercise:

Organize a  team event for next Quarter’s ‘Team Building Day’

You have 15 minutes

In the end, pick a presenter

Ask the presenter from each group to present their project

Get some coffee

When all presentations have been completed, do a round of feedback per group, in which everyone can give a short comment on each project based on the following questions:

What you like about the project, and why

What you are missing in the project, and why

What you would change in the project, and why

Consolidate the team

Based (again) on the test results, create new teams, each including a diversified mix of primary role preferences. If you already have quite some diversity in the team, chances are that for some roles you will only have a few persons. Be creative, and look into the secondary preferences of the person – use those to further decide who goes into which team

Assign them randomly to one of the previously created projects

Give them the following exercise:

Review the project

Generate improvements

Pick a presenter

Repeat steps 4 and 6

Get some coffee (really important)

Unite the team in one room

Start an open discussion with you, as the leader, using these questions:

What happened after the first round of presentations?

What happened after the second round of presentations?

What can we all learn from this?

How can we start using the things we learned in our daily work?

Implement together those shared ideas

Congratulations! You just created a common language in your team, and the amazing things that will happen due to having this common language are going to be AW-SOME!

I hope you liked the exercise!

Golden tip: use the free online test to get an idea of someone’s team role preference….just AFTER the job interview BEFORE you hire them. It can guide you in your selection process, but above all – the new colleague will speak your team’s language…

Dear readers, this one can bring so much value in your teams, I am already excited about the idea of readers executing it. Please, leave a short comment to tell me how it went! Did it work? Did it help you? Any extra insights you want to share with us? Let’s share and learn from each other!

With passion,

Luisa

[passionatcentre]

New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/ongoing-attrition-perfect-storm/

Ongoing Attrition: The Perfect Storm

Hi there!

You probably know something about the phases a team goes through during its development.

Here they are:

Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing

What’s that about? Let’s refresh, because there are teams out there that are Storming as hell, and the reason is not a real brain-cracker.

Let me first summarize, in a short way what each phase is about.

Forming

A team that is completely new or where something significant has changed (be it the job, totally different goals, complete new processes or whatever). Its focus is task-oriented. It’s in an exploring mode: how did we do it in the past, how are we supposed to do it now, what are all the different points of view, feeling of some insecurity and in a great need of structure. Am I part of the team? A question that is often felt by most members. A certain level of non-activity – awaiting orders – what’s the next step I am supposed to take?

It’s usually accompanied by a social re-structuring dividing the group in folks who ‘speak-up’ and folks who don’t (or less).

Role of the Leader: provide structure, support, and active call on engagement (especially of the part that speaks-up less to provide equal opportunity).

Storming

There are now clear pro’s and con’s and everyone’s choice and opinions become more and more clear.

Culture and structuring are more distinguishable and in this phase you’ll see the ‘groups’ form. Who’s the boss of the group? I am not referring to the line manager obviously. Who has the power within that group?

This is the phase where resistance, struggles, frustration, etc begin to appear. A group that is clearly not going to win the cultural ‘war’ in this phase – or ‘an individual’ that can’t keep up: will drop off. You’ll see them go or become very very frustrated leading to ‘real problems’…but that’s a topic for a different post, later on.

Role of the Leader: set clear expectations, make sure you have a very clear understanding of every situation/relation/problem. Use your best communication skills. This is the phase in which bad communication skills can kill you and/or your team. You know the drill: summarize, confrontation methods, pin-pointing, acknowledge emotions, etc.

Norming

Free as a bird we are – everything goes smoothly. There’s no need to have serious talks. That recurrent meeting is not useful anymore right? Why waste time? We’re together, we’re happy, we have thousands of projects. Everything is just fine! We even have different thoughts and ideas, but we trust each other so much, we can pick one in consensus and carry on without problems. Some of us. There is a substantial part of the team though…. that is starting to feel tired, which turns into passiveness, which turns into frustration, anger and demotivation… when a goal is not reached.

Role of the Leader: wake up – this is the phase why you became a Leader. Do not be afraid to speak-up with authority (and respect!), provide clarity, and reset clear expectations.

Performing

Congratulations, you’ve got your team far enough to start performing. They are focused on their tasks but with a feeling of mutual knowledge. The ‘We are in this together’ feeling. These are the months after the first phase in which performance peaks sky-high and your team will do (almost) anything to reach their goal.

Roles are completely clear, people are genuinely nice to each other – we all have our strengths and our weaknesses and it’s ‘good’. It’s PERFECT.

The phase where we occasionally ask ourselves: can we continue like this? Does it come to an end? Isn’t it too good to be true? But there’s this drug running through our veins – ‘We’re in this together and we can take anything’. Super-drug.

Role of the Leader: keep monitoring and SMARTifying the goals. Make sure they are challenging enough, but realistic. Evaluate – Act – you know the drill. Why? Because the next phase is lurking just around the corner!

Once you change anything significant…. you’ll be thrown back into the Storming phase :-).

Now, the title of the blog makes you wonder right?

Where is the attrition she promised in this whole story?

Having people come and go, obviously is one of the ‘significant’ changes that causes a group of people to go wild through all the phases – back and forth and back again. That must be really tiring for the ‘fixed’ set of people, don’t you think?

  So, here’s the lesson for today:

With every new ‘goner’ and every new ‘newbie': KEEP the changes you make in the team structures TO A MINIMUM.

You can do this by first of all changing as less as possible to the reporting lines. There is nothing that makes a team go faster from ‘Performing/Norming’ to ‘Storming’ than having to get used to a new manager. I can tell you: that makes usually the Perfect Storm if you don’t give that enough attention and preparation before you implement it. You better have really really good reasons for it, and you should have excluded any other possible solution to avoid it.

Within the identified groups, don’t change more than 1 person if possible. Before choosing the group, make sure the personalities match (in the sense that they are DIVERSE – not all the same).

You should be able, as a Leader, to anticipate how the mini-storming phase is going to develop and how it will look like. If you do, you will see ‘the signs’ earlier and you’ll be prepared to fulfill your role. This means you have to anticipate on how the new person will behave in the new group, but also how the other’s will behave around the new person.

If you have an organization with over-average attrition, sit down with your management team and brainstorm on how you can structure the groups so that the measures above are easier to implement.

Some ideas:

Sub-groups should be big enough to meet diversity

Basic overall tasks should be able to be covered by that group

Just think about it: if you lose one of the groups suddenly, do you have a huge problem or will all processes continue? If the answer is yes – you might think about restructuring a little bit.

If the answer is no – hey, great job!

What worked for me: explain the phases, discuss these team dynamics openly – don’t treat your management tools as some secret recipe book. It’s so much easier when you don’t.

  I could write a book about all this, but tried to capture the essence in a post. Let me know what you missed in the whole story, and I’ll re-evaluate my priorities on writing that book ;-).

  With passion,

Luisa

[passionatcentre]

New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/give-credit-where-credit-is-due/

A Powerful Tool: give credit where credit is due

Everyone has heard it more than once. Most of us (I hope) already during our education by our parents.

Give credit where credit is due.

As a leader, chances are that mainly other people than you are doing the stuff that matters: new ideas, implementation of a new process, achieving great progress on a project, coming up with an idea to reduce costs, you name it.

If you are not officially managing a group directly – same situation there, no worries: you don’t have to wait (please don’t!) until you get promoted to do so. It might be too late.

Even if you are the main responsible person in a project, or even the initial creator of this ‘new idea’ – let’s face it: you did not do it all by yourself…so stop pretending you did and give credit where credit is due.

I love this commercial from Fed Ex on YouTube: Fed Ex Stolen Idea. Watch it, it’s actually quite funny.

It’s amazing how many hits come up if you search YouTube for ‘credit for work’. People are really scared their ideas will be stolen. I get that, but if the idea was not yours in the first place – get a life… just give the credit to where it is due.

If it was your idea: you’d be amazed to see what happens if you simply do not take the credit and give it away like a little present.

This video is a bit overdone, but let’s face it – it’s not that different from reality, unfortunately.

When I say powerful tool, I mean powerful in 2 ways.

Which way you take is your choice. Always. You can either do it, or take the main credit yourself.

I’ll start with the effects of the power of the dark side:

This one is often spotted in hierarchical, authoritarian organizations. If you are a manager presenting an interesting summary of your team’s project, or simply reporting back to your own boss with some progress results, take a hold of this one. These are some key words for what is going on around you, and if asked if you knew, you would probably answer: I did not have a clue…

Ongoing demotivation of your team and this includes your peers

Frustrations about you are ventilated among team members and peers, without making you directly aware of them

You receive indirect feedback (fear!) or no feedback at all (more fear & killing!)

Less sharing of the really good ideas, holding back growth of your company

Political games are played in multiple ways (not only by you), you will be subject to one, eventually, if you don’t change your ways

Let me at least issue a warning:

Stop doing it, it’s destroying your reputation, your team, your peers’ trust, and in the end, the greatest opportunities in life will vanish in front of you.

For employees suffering the consequences of ‘this way’, make sure to read this article from Forbes: 9 things you can do when the boss takes credit for your work from Jacquelyn Smith.

I’ll finish positively, encouraging everyone to join (or stay on) the bright side of this power:

If you are someone that is already giving credit where credit is due, whether you are doing it purposefully or just because you are simply a natural leader following your intuition, here are some positive things folks are saying about you and probably TO you:

You are an inspiring person

You are always helping others and never taking credit

I believe this idea was actually from you, but it’s totally awesome that you are giving credit to the persons actually carrying out the hard work

What a great project, and so nice to see how many people worked closely and in harmony together to get it achieved

It would be great to have you as my manager

You are the best thing that ever happened to this team

Your people are performing great, and that is a mirror of your leadership

Lot of people smiling in your team – good job!

Having Fun at work I see? – You’re doing something special, can you tell me your secret?

For Star Wars fans: may the good side of the force be with you.

Give credit where credit is due, and good things will come your way! Did someone ever take credit for something you did? How did it make you feel?

Tell us all about it, and add value to this post to help others!

With passion,

Luisa

[passionatcentre]

New Post has been published on http://www.passionatcentre.com/cry-for-servant-leadership/

Are you part of the rat race? A cry for servant leadership

It seems like ages ago, I stumbled on this video by Micheal Kerr. I invite you to take 7 minutes of your time to watch it. You could use that time to continue running in the rat race you are most probably in, but you might feel sorry you did…

Watch the video now.

If you are into this type of humor, you will have enjoyed it. But even if you didn’t laugh out loud, you probably did experience this typical sense of ‘oh my, this sounds and looks familiar indeed’.

Can we avoid it?

So, this rat race… We can’t avoid parts of it, right? Moving slowly and relaxed in today’s society is probably as dangerous as going 50 km/h on the highway while the rest speeds away at 120 or more. If not immediately hazardous, there is at least one fact: you get left behind.

Teams need to take care of their jobs and they need to do it right and fast(er). Always faster. Always short on resources. Always too much work. Always doing overtime, cause not doing overtime means not reaching the targets.Doesn’t sound like the fun we should be having in a place where we are at least 9 hours per day on average. Unless we are okay with being a rat in the end, waiting for the ultimate moment of retirement (or death, watch the video if this sounds harsh to you). No fun at all if you ask me.

If this game, the rat race, is not fun at all to participate in, why are we playing along?

What are the rules of the game?

Society plays by these rules, there is no way to avoid them all, unless you start living off the grid. There’s a big part of the world out there where we breath and eat procedures and laws, where the common bible seems to have mutated into an unwritten book full of perverted “other folks’ expectations, and where choosing your own time to have a lunch break and deciding when to do overtime is already perceived as having autonomy.

We are voluntarily kidnapped on a daily basis, taken to this amazing space called the office, we sit behind our desks, and we believe we are doing things that matter.

That’s because we DO. We do things that matter. We are, no matter in what industry you are working, doing things that make things better for whatever identified customer out there. The problem is, that the same system is taken advantage off by other (non-customers) to get better (much better) themselves too.

That’s when suddenly the minimum requirement to get customer satisfaction turns into a ‘we need more money to keep everyone happy and on board’. Higher targets, cheaper solutions, less resources, more work, more overtime, more rats in the never ending vicious circle.

What if…

What if all the rats would simultaneously speak up and say “enough, I’m not willing to run any longer”?

There would be an immediate stop of the race, theoretically of course. In practice, the only thing that does happen is that some folks wake up (takes a few years), realize that they do have a choice, and run off (hopefully not into the next rat race). Now we are left with a rat race where we can start all over again to see who wins the contest of “who is the quickest rat of them all”. Meanwhile, complaining about a high attrition.

You know the drill: be at all meetings, always be the one with the best idea (specially if it was not your idea in the first place), suck up, beat down, appear always busy, drive the rats by manipulating your whip the right way. For the slower rats: be at all meetings, do not speak up, never challenge the boss even if he asks you too, don’t ask questions as you might get noticed, and focus only on running and avoiding the whip. The most extreme rat races could be marked as being a modern version of slavery. There, I’ve said it.

There is a way to change things for the better. It’s called servant leadership. There are companies out there already practicing it. Where the big bosses step-up and admit openly that the rest of the company is actually doing the work. They agree to care a little bit less about themselves and serve a little bit more to ‘their’ people.

Is your company practicing servant leadership? Tell me why, how, and what were the results that made you a happy ex-rat?

Since there aren’t many out there, let me ask you this: Is your company into rat races? Tell me why, how, and what are the consequences for you? 

With passion, Luisa