Keep your team performing well by quickly identifying and resolving conflicts.
Conflict is inherent in cross-functional team structures. Be vigilant about identifying and resolving conflict before it severely impacts team performance.
To identify conflict, monitor both project milestones as well as team member metrics. Talk with your team members frequently to suss out issues. If a milestone is missed, or a metric is off, get to the root cause quickly. When talking with your team members, ask them directly what conflict or issues they see. Don’t overreact to every little complaint but do look for trends. If everyone on the team is complaining about one individual’s behavior, you have an issue you need to resolve.
I was working as a consultant at one point, and the client had a cross-functional team. The team seemed to be working well, but we sensed a little bit of tension. We sat down with each individual client, and we asked what’s going well and what’s not. Every single one of those conversations involved one person’s name. They were a problem and there was a massive problem boiling underneath the surface. We sat down with that individual and we gave them very clear feedback. We also let them know what needed to change. By getting to that problem quickly and understanding what the conflict was, we were able to resolve it. The team worked much more effectively after that.
Team leaders need to resolve conflict both within the team and between the team and external stakeholders. External stakeholders often have resources the team needs or they have other priorities that team members need to work on. To resolve this type of conflict, go back to the project charter. Go to the conversations you had with that person’s manager or those external stakeholders about how much time and energy that person was going to put on your project. If you have a mismatch there, try and resolve the conflict quickly. Get your resources dedicated to your team and try and mitigate some of the concerns that that stakeholder has.
The more effectively you find what the conflict is, whether it’s internal to your team or with a stakeholder, the more effectively your team is going to function. Instead of focusing on conflict, your team can focus on the work.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220504-Office-Discussion.jpg?fit=1920%2C1267&ssl=112671920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-05-04 06:00:072022-05-04 03:02:45Resolving Team Conflicts
Your biggest challenge as a cross-functional team leader is in identifying, managing, and resolving all the various types of conflict that will arise, making sure the team delivers on its objectives.
Cross-functional team leaders will experience many common forms of conflict.
Conflicting priorities
Conflicting priorities occur when people have their regular full-time jobs and they’re working on tasks on a cross-functional team too. While both sets of tasks have to be completed, prioritization isn’t always clear.
Conflicting ideas
Conflicting ideas are common on a cross-functional team. One of the beauties of these teams is people bringing different perspectives and ideas. What gets problematic is when people disagree on which idea or approach is best. At the very least, people don’t like having their ideas challenged or criticized by colleagues.
Conflicting styles
Conflicting interpersonal styles come up when some people like working from home versus working in the office. Some people like coming in late. Some people like staying late. Some people like sending email on weekends. And some people don’t even want to see their computer. There are a lot of different stylistic differences out there. Given you’re leading people from all different functions, styles are definitely going to clash.
Conflicting personalities
Conflicting personalities are caused by mixes of introverts and extroverts. Or risk-takers and risk-averters. You may have optimists and pessimists. You may have the logical and the emotional. There are all different combinations of personality types. And there’s a lot of potential conflict there.
Conflicting performance
Conflicts over performance crop up when someone is perceived to not be pulling their own weight. When one person fails to deliver, it tends to have knock-on effects that affect other team members. This is especially sensitive if someone’s failure to perform negatively impacts the results of someone whose doing a great job.
Your biggest challenge as a cross-functional team leader is in identifying, managing, and resolving all these various types of conflict while at the same time, making sure the team delivers on its objectives. Learn how to sense when these types of conflict are likely, or even present. Take action quickly to resolve them. And get the team focus back on the cross-functional teams objectives at hand.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Effective communication is crucial when you’re leading a cross-functional team. Here are a few communication vehicles you can use.
A cross-functional team leader has a lot of communication vehicles at their disposal. These need to be used effectively. Here are some of the most common ones and a few suggestions on how you can use them.
Steering committee meetings
There are steering committee meetings. These are the most formal, and usually the least frequent. They involve senior stakeholders from multiple functions. You’ll provide a formal team progress update. You may conduct deep dives into specific areas of concern. Sometimes you’re coming to the steering committee for a major decision. These occur on a monthly, bimonthly, or even quarterly basis, depending on the size of the project.
Team project updates
There are team project updates. These are conducted with the entire cross-functional team. Every team member reviews their progress, shares concerns and needs for assistance, and team decisions are made here. These generally occur biweekly or monthly since they can be big and they’re very involved.
Regular team meetings
There are regular team meetings. Those involve the entire team, but they focus on specific upcoming deliverables or specific issues that need to be resolved. These are usually manage by exception types of meetings. They generally occur every week. Individual or subteam meetings involve a portion of the team. These occur on an as-needed basis. They focus on resolving a particular issue or making decisions that don’t affect the broader team or broader project.
Other communication vehicles
Other communication vehicles you can use to keep the team moving forward are project plans and update emails or calls. Keeping a project plan posted somewhere it’s accessible all the time enables team members and stakeholders to get a quick look at progress. They can see what the upcoming deliverables are. This can be posted either on a bulletin board or shared online. Update emails and calls can be sent to the broader team, or they can be used with specific team members. You can even target specific stakeholders to notify them of progress or issues. Make the update’s purpose clear up front. Is it just an FYI? Do you need a decision made? Is it a request for assistance?
All these means of communicating do take time and effort, but that’s the leader’s job on a cross-functional team. Make sure you invest the time keeping the team informed.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Unproductive meetings waste your team’s time and energy. Here are five ways to make your meetings more effective.
Meetings can be powerful communication tools or a dreadful waste of time. To make cross-functional team meetings productive, specify the meeting purpose, have the right people in the room, but maybe not all the people, manage by exception, identify sources of conflict, and be clear with the accountabilities and next steps.
Specify the meeting’s purpose
The meeting’s purpose can be to update or share information, make a decision, resolve an issue, solve a problem, or celebrate success. Let people know what the meeting is about beforehand and specify if there is any preparation required on their part before the meeting.
Have the right people in the room
Meeting attendees should be driven by the purpose of the meeting. If you’re sharing information, ensure that the people who need that information are invited. If you’re making a decision, have all the decision makers and people providing input into the decision in the room. People have a bias to invite everyone. Be thoughtful about who you invite and let the meeting’s purpose dictate who needs to be there.
Manage by exception
Managing by exception means only covering topics that are outside of expectations. If you have 10 work streams and eight are on track, you should only discuss the two that are off track. It saves time and focuses effort on the most important issues. I worked on one leadership team where we had a 10-hour update meeting. 10 hours. The reason it was so long was we went through every project and every deliverable that everybody was working on even though most of them were on track. Eventually we moved to a manage by exception process. That 10-hour meeting went down to 90 minutes.
Identify sources of conflict
Make sure you identify sources of conflict when you lead a meeting. While you should be listening to the content, look for body language that indicates conflict. Listen to what’s being said or not said. Many times, disagreement comes in the form of silence. When you see this happen, either invite the person to share their thoughts directly in the meeting or approach them after the meeting and ask what’s on their mind.
Be clear with accountabilities
Define accountabilities and next steps coming out of the meeting. Make sure everyone has an open task list and that the owners are clearly identified. Set agreed upon timelines for resolution of those open issues. Document these accountabilities in a follow-up email to the team. Be sure, if you need to, to add these items to your project plan and review them at the next meeting.
Meetings are the most common communication vehicle out there for sharing information. If you lead them poorly, they’re just a big waste of time. If you lead them well, your team is going to be that much more efficient and effective in its communications.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Leading a cross-functional team involves learning what motivates each individual on your team.
Motivating a cross-functional team requires the leader to set goals that inspire people. They have to connect each team member’s work to the project’s success. They also have to understand people from different backgrounds.
Goals need to be ambitious but pragmatic. Consider setting a commit goal and a stretch goal where it’s appropriate. A commit goal is the basic expectation of what somebody’s going to deliver. A stretch goal is if everything goes right and we do all the right stuff, and we get a little bit lucky, here’s what we can achieve. People want to know their work matters. You have to make the linkage from their task to the broader project objectives.
One technique I love for doing this is sitting the team down in front of a whiteboard. We write down all the tasks they’re responsible for on the cross-functional team project. Then, we write the broad project objectives at the top of the board. We spend time linking every single task they’re working on to those broader goals for the project. Once they see that their work is really critical for driving this big project objective, all of a sudden their work is more meaningful.
Everyone on your team is an individual. They all have different things that are going to motivate them. For some people, it’s getting a great review. For other people, it’s about getting a great bonus. Still others just want recognition or they want to overcome a personal challenge. Some people on that cross-functional team see it as a great developmental opportunity to build a new skill. Sit down with each team member. Understand what motivates them. Do your best to connect project work to these motivators.
On one team I ran, we were replacing our phone system. I had somebody from telephony, operations, and project management on the team. The person from telephony was really excited about getting a new phone system. That’s what motivated them. They were tired of fixing the old system and having it break. This was an opportunity to get something cool and new for them to play with. The person from operations was excited about the project because it was a developmental opportunity for them. They normally worked the day-to-day operations. This was going to give them exposure to an area they knew nothing about. They’re working with technology and they thought that was pretty cool. The project manager on the team also saw this as a developmental opportunity. She had never worked on a big cross-functional team across a division. There was great visibility here for her and she was motivated by that.
When a cross-functional project has a crisis occur—and they will—the leader has to pull the team together and motivate them to overcome the challenge rather than playing the blame game and breaking the team apart. It’s easy to blame other people for failing to deliver. Once the blame game starts, the project is at risk and team dynamics can get very unhealthy after that. To resolve this, hold a fact-based review. Focus on what happened instead of saying whose fault it was. Understand why it happened. Look at the impact of the incident to time, cost, or quality for the project. Most importantly, sit down with the team and say, “What’s it going to take to fix this?” Casting blame doesn’t get you any closer to a solution. Instead, by focusing on the solution, you can reassign tasks, adjust deadlines, and change budgets accordingly.
On that same phone system project, we went live with one of our biggest locations. It didn’t work. We flipped switches and the phones didn’t come on. Instantly, everybody was saying, “Oh, it’s his fault. No, it’s her fault. No, it’s your fault.” Everybody was blaming each other. I said, “Team, we need to stop. Let’s understand why isn’t it working. Let’s understand what it’s going to take to get it working and then let’s look at who’s going to do what work to fix this issue.” By seeing that the blame game was starting and immediately cutting it off to get the team focused on moving forward, we were able to resolve the crisis pretty quickly.
The better you understand what motivates people and the more effectively you can avoid the blame game and manage crises, the better your cross-functional team will perform.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Leading a cross-functional team involves learning how to deal with competing demands and conflicts.
Cross-functional teams can be really challenging to lead. There are three major challenges you’ll face when leading these teams. But if you plan for them, you can overcome all of them.
First, team demands compete with the day-to-day demands of the team member’s day job. It’s pressure they’re going to face from their own department. Their daily responsibilities don’t go away. Their project responsibilities on the cross-functional team typically get added to those day-to-day responsibilities. Their reviews, in terms of their end-of-year review, are more about their day job than their participation on your cross-functional team. So the project might not get as much attention or priority from that person.
The second challenge you’ll face is that the team will have natural conflict in its structure due to competing goals, perspectives, styles, and personalities. Some people may be driving one function in their day job while your cross-functional team is trying to drive another. I led a major cost cutting project. On that cross-functional team, we had some people from sales and marketing. They were responsible for driving revenue. We were focused on cutting costs. There was a lot of conflict inherent in that situation. Different perspectives, styles, and personalities are going to be challenging. Any time you get a bunch of people working together, especially in a high-stress environment, there’s going to be conflict. And you’re going to have to resolve it.
Finally, the team leader has to rely on influence more than direct control. Your team members on a cross-functional team typically don’t formally report to you. You don’t write their annual review. You don’t determine their bonus. They have their daily responsibilities that are higher priority and you’ll have to influence them to contribute to the team. Just getting the right people involved, getting their attention and making sure they work well with the rest of the team to achieve your goals is a full-time job. But if you invest time in it and focus on it, you’re going to make that team work well together.
The better you recognize these challenges going into the project, the more effectively you can mitigate them by setting proper expectations at the beginning of the project and getting agreement with the person’s manager in terms of how much time you’re going to get from that person and the relative priorities of the cross-functional teams’ work and their day-to-day responsibilities.
Think about these challenges if you’re asked to set up a cross-functional team. If you think about them, document them, and then actively work to resolve them, that team is going to be that much more successful.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220323-Number-3.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-03-23 06:00:032022-03-23 02:49:10The 3 Challenges of Leading a Cross-Functional Team
Learn about the types of situations that call for a cross-functional team.
Cross-functional teams should be built when a project has a defined scope, the scope impacts multiple functional areas, and when the expertise required to successfully complete the project is not available only in the group leading the project. Scope determines which functions are or are not impacted. Without a clearly defined scope statement, it’s going to be hard to gather resources since people can claim they have higher priorities and their area isn’t in scope. With a well-defined scope, it becomes clear whether or not you need a cross-functional team. If the scope calls for skills your team lacks or requires working with other groups, you’re going to have to build a cross-functional team. It’s rare for a team to have all the support functions and perspectives it needs for every project it works on. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.
I was working on a major technology replacement. This required technology changes. It had telephony impacts. This project was going to change our financial reporting. It would have impacts on our call center, on our associates and their workflows. It was going to change the associate desktops. It was going to fundamentally alter our operations. We needed a big cross-functional team in that situation.
I had another project where I ran a strategy and analysis team. We were going to make changes to the commissions we paid to some of our external agency partners. We own this function. We own the call center. We had the agency management function. The reporting was already built, so there would be no changes there. We didn’t have any technology changes we needed to make. We did not need a cross-functional team in that situation since we had all the resources we needed to make those changes.
The easiest way to determine if you need a cross-functional team or not is to ask if your team has all the resources and expertise required to carry out an initiative. If the answer’s no, you likely need to build a cross-functional team.
Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Learn what a cross-functional team is and why they can be so rewarding to manage.
Imagine an orchestra made up of nothing but trumpets. Imagine a baseball team of all catchers. Imagine a medical team that’s nothing but radiologists. Those aren’t good situations.
A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. It can include people from finance, marketing, operations and HR, and other key functional areas. Employees from different levels usually participate on a cross-functional team. The team might include frontline operators, managers and directors, and you may have analysts and project managers on the team. There may be other job families involved. These teams can also include people from outside the organization like suppliers, customers, or consultants. Read more
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Whether it’s knowing what you need and what you don’t on a project or knowing how to manage conflict effectively, a long 500 mile stroll can help you build these skills.
A few summers ago, I hiked the ancient Camino de Santiago trail across Spain. It was the best month of my life for many reasons. Along with a lot of other great things I got by walking almost 500 miles, it also taught me some valuable project management lessons that I can use at work.
Less is More
When you are carrying everything you need for a month on your back, you learn to be very smart with differentiating what you need versus what you want. Variety in clothing colors and styles drives complexity and weight in packing a backpack. By the end of the trip, I found that I used 20% of the clothes I packed 80% of the time, and the rest was dead weight. I ended up throwing away a lot of the “I want” clothes and just washing and wearing the “I need” clothes more.
LESSON – As I scope future projects at work, I will ruthlessly force myself to differentiate between what is essential to deliver well, and strip out all the “nice to have” parts of the project that aren’t absolutely required.
Someone Has Probably Done this Before
An amazing thing about the Camino de Santiago is that people have been walking that same trail for over a thousand years as part of a Christian pilgrimage. Whenever I got a blister or a twisted ankle, I realized that hundreds of people probably had that exact same problem at the exact same place and got through it somehow. When I walked by the 800 year-old ruin of a hostel for medieval pilgrims, I realized they probably dealt with the same loud snoring and other problems that today’s pilgrims face. My guide book had the following quote from the journal of a German peregrino in the 1400s that could still be written today – “The women (nuns) in the hostel yell at the pilgrims a lot. But the food is good.”
LESSON – Whenever I start a new project at work, I will seek to learn from the experience of others who have done similar projects in the past.
It’s easy to neglect your core responsibilities as a leader when it involves having uncomfortable conversations. Learn how to develop a maxim to overcome uncomfortable situations.
As a leader, one of your chief responsibilities is developing the members of your team. Great leaders build more leaders. You have to commit to their growth and create new opportunities for them to expand and learn new skills. That’s hard to do because for somebody to learn a new skill, you’re going to have to create an opportunity for them to do something they may not have done before. In doing that, you create risk because that individual might fail. And if they fail, that failure reflects on you. So a lot of times we’re afraid to take those risks on people to create growth opportunities.
That’s why you need a maxim to remind yourself that one of your chief responsibilities is doing that development work for the members of your team. My maxim to remind me that my chief responsibility is to develop people is, “It’s easier to correct course 100 yards into the journey than 100 miles.” I had a member of my team who was having some problems. One day he gave me some numbers and a report, and the numbers were off. I said, “Well, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.” I did this because I knew it was going to be a slightly uncomfortable conversation to have with him. A few days later, I heard about an interaction between this individual and a member of his team that hadn’t gone very well. I said, “I’m gonna need to talk to him about that. I’m not happy with what I’m hearing, but I’m not gonna do it today. Maybe I’ll do it next week.” The following week, I went past his office and he was berating a member of his team. He was speaking to them in a very condescending tone. I said, “I’m really gonna have to talk to him about this, but I’m not gonna do it today because he’s not in a good mood. The feedback won’t be well received.” I put off that more difficult conversation. I kept avoiding times when I should have given this individual some feedback.
Well, one day he came to me and said he was resigning. He had found another job and he was going to go work elsewhere. I was so excited because my problem was now gone. On the way home, I called one of my colleagues and I was relaying the good news, saying, “Hey, he quit—the guy who’s been giving me all the trouble. I don’t have to deliver the feedback now. He’s leaving the organization.” My colleague called me on it. He said, “Mike, you failed.” And I said, “What do you mean? How did I fail? He left. The problem is gone.” And my colleague said, “You failed every member of his team because your job as a leader isn’t just leading that individual. It’s leading the entire organization. Those people were getting beaten up on a regular basis. He was hurting their morale. And they were probably looking to you to solve that issue. You failed every member of that team. You have to remember that correcting course is easier 100 yards into the journey than 100 miles. You should have had the difficult conversation sooner because you could have either corrected performance or taken appropriate disciplinary action if he didn’t change the way he was operating.”
My colleague was right. I had failed the members of that team. So this maxim reminds me that when development conversations need to happen, I need to get over the fact that it’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation. I need to just have the discussion. It’s hard to do, but this maxim has changed my behavior on several occasions. There have been times when other members of my team since then have done something that I wasn’t exactly happy with. And my initial instinct was, “Well, I’ll just wait. It’ll fix itself.” And I said, “No. My maxim says I need to go have that conversation right now.” When I’ve done that, I’ve been very happy with the result because we correct behavior, get people pointed in the right direction, and do so before the problem gets bigger.
As you think about your team and about your responsibility to build leaders, to develop and challenge people, how are you going to remind yourself to take those kinds of risks? How are you going to remind yourself to have those difficult conversations when they need to happen? Has there been a time in your past where you created a growth opportunity for somebody and they succeeded well beyond your wildest dreams? Or a time where you avoided giving some tough feedback and there were bad consequences that occurred because you didn’t step up to the plate as a leader? Within those situations is where you’re going to find your maxims. Find that trigger. Find those words that were used in that conversation or the name of the project where the person succeeded. That phrase, that trigger, is what’s going to bring you back to that situation. It’s what is going to remind you of those feelings and get you to behave in a different way.
I know my maxim does that for me. When I have that difficult situation and I think of my maxim, I remember how uncomfortable that conversation was with my colleague when he told me I had failed. I remember how embarrassed I was of my failure as a leader. Those feelings drive me to change my behavior now because I never want to be that disappointed in myself again or that embarrassed. So you know what? I’m going to take action today. That’s how having a maxim based on something in the past can drive your performance in the future.
Want to learn more about developing your leadership philosophy? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to develop your leadership philosophy. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Staying in touch with your team’s day-to-day challenges is important. It shows you’re willing to get out there, get dirty, and understand their jobs.
One of the worst types of leaders to work for is the one who’s checked out—the one who has no basis in reality or understanding of what their team does. These individuals don’t always appreciate the hard work that the team does. They also don’t understand the challenges and constraints that the team faces, which can lead that leader to put unreasonable expectations on the team. You need a reminder to stay in touch with your team’s reality. To get out there, get dirty, and understand their jobs. Getting dirty can also get you respect.
My reminder and my maxim for staying in touch with my team’s reality is a very simple statement: “He’s under the tank, sir.” When I was in the army as a young platoon leader, there was a field problem. We were out in the field, and we were pulling maintenance on the vehicles. The colonel, who was a very senior officer, came looking for me, probably to yell at me. He was always yelling at me for one reason or another. He came up to my tank and walked up to my driver who was an 18-year-old buck private. My driver saluted and the colonel saluted him. The colonel asked my driver, “Where’s Lieutenant Figliolo?” My driver pointed to a pair of boots sticking out from under the tank. The colonel looked at my driver quizzically and replied, “No, where’s Lieutenant Figliolo?” I was an officer, and in the colonel’s mind, officers are not under tanks. So my driver again pointed to the pair of boots sticking out from under the tank. He said, “He’s under the tank, sir.”
The colonel bent over and yelled my name. I sat up under the tank, smacked my head, and crawled out from under the vehicle. The colonel said, “What are you doing under the tank?” I said, “I’m fixing the track, sir.” He looked confused and asked me why I was fixing the track. Again, the colonel had a view that officers don’t fix track. Officers give orders and read maps. He said, “Why are you fixing the track?” I said, “‘Cause it’s broken.” He got very confused and stormed off. He forgot why he was even there to talk to me.
Well, the reason I was under that tank and my driver wasn’t was because my driver had been at it all night. He was exhausted. I saw he needed a break, so I told him, “You know what? My work is done, I’m done with the map, and I’m done with the orders. Give me the wrench and let me go work on it for a little bit.” I crawled under that tank and I turned a wrench. That story got around the unit before lunch time. I had soldiers from other units coming to me and saying, “Hey sir, do you have any room in your platoon? I think I’d like to come work for you.”
I did it because it was the right thing. I had a member of my team who was tired. I went in and did the same work that they did. But that choice, that decision to crawl in the mud and turn a wrench, sent a very strong and clear message to the members of the entire unit. It said, “I’m not above any work that I ask you to do.” It built a great deal of respect for me. It also helped me understand the challenges that the members of my organization face on a daily basis. I learned that you bang your knuckles up a lot under that tank, that it gets cold under there. I had a better appreciation for all the hard work that they do for me.
So as you think about staying in touch with your team’s reality, how are you going to remind yourself to step away from the computer, to get out of your office, and get out there to see what your team does? How are you going to demonstrate that you can do their job just as well as they can and that you’re not above anything you ask them to do? Has there been a leader in your past who rolled up their sleeves and got dirty side by side with you? Think about how you felt about that leader. Think about how much respect you gave them after that.
Conversely, have there been leaders that you worked with who tended to sit in their office? Have there been leaders who weren’t willing to get dirty and believed that the rest of the organization should work hard while they do something else? Think about how little respect you had for that individual. These stories are the basis for your maxim. Think about the trigger, whether it’s something somebody said, the name of the project that you were on, or the particular piece of work that was being done. Use that trigger to transport you back to that story so you can feel those feelings again, whether they’re good ones or they’re frustrated ones.
That trigger becomes your maxim. You can share the maxim and the entire story with the members of your team, and say, “He’s under the tank, sir.” Here’s the story behind it and here’s what you can expect from me as your leader. That maxim will be your reminder to make sure you stay connected to your team’s reality, build respect, and understand the challenges that your team faces.
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/20211020-Tank.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=110801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2021-10-20 06:30:182021-10-20 00:32:19Stay Connected to Your Team’s Reality
Over the past two decades, the practice of gathering employee feedback on the performance of their managers has grown. And why not? Subordinates have the most knowledge about their manager’s performance, and they are the ones most affected by their behavior. Leading organizational scientists argue that the ratings of managers provided by employees are the most valid. Indeed, research shows that subordinate ratings of a manager’s performance correlate with ratings provided by the manager’s own boss.
So, as a manager, what does it take to achieve great performance reviews from your employees? I asked a representative and systematically selected sample of 10,000 workers in the United States to rate the overall performance of their manager. I also asked these employees to rate their managers on the eight attributes of the employee-centric manager (or ECM), which are: (1) show support and understanding; (2) provide recognition; (3) treat employees with dignity and respect; (4) communicate clear performance expectations; (5) reward performance contributions with fair compensation and development opportunities; (6) demonstrate skill in decision-making and problem-solving; (7) be fair and just; and (8) be honest and trustworthy.
I learned that 67% of a manager’s overall performance rating is explained by their ratings on the attributes that define the employee-centric manager. This means that how employees rate their manager on these eight attributes determines two-thirds of their overall effectiveness rating. There is still another 33% of a manager’s rating that is accounted for by other factors, but the implication is clear: if you rate highly on the ECM attributes, you will also rate highly on overall performance. The reverse is also true – if you rate poorly on the ECM attributes, you will also rate poorly on overall performance.
Let’s dig a little deeper. Which of the eight attributes are most impactful? Statistical regression analysis reveals that these three attributes most influence employees’ views of their manager’s overall performance:
LISTEN: As in, “My manager is an effective listener.”
MAKE GOOD DECISIONS: As in, “My manager displays competence in making day-to-day work decisions.”
RECOGNIZE: As in, “My manager provides me with praise or recognition for doing good work.”
So, what do employees really want when it comes to listening (a subset of the support and understanding attribute)? They want their manager to be available and accessible. They want them to listen to their concerns with the energy and attention needed to genuinely identify with where they are coming from. They want their manager to follow through on concerns brought to their attention and seek employee input on important decisions affecting their work or how to solve a work-related problem. And they want their manager to get to know them – sufficiently well so that they understand their current capabilities, training and development needs, and goals, including their career goals.
This example of effective listening comes from an employee in the healthcare industry.
“I brought a problem to my manager’s attention, and she let me explain what I think would work best moving forward. She understood that I was the one out there doing the job, and I would have the best understanding of the situation. She got back to me quickly and trusted me to make the decision.”
When it comes to making good decisions, what do employees really want? They want their manager to make decisions in a timely way and not drag their feet. They want their manager to make decisions based on a rational, data-based approach. They want their manager to involve them in decision-making and problem-solving. They also want their manager to think through the implications of their decisions so that the team doesn’t end up dealing with blow-back. And finally, they want their manager to be flexible and learn from experience.
Here is an example of a manager being skilled in problem-solving and decision-making from the experience of a financial services employee.
“My manager had to clean up a project that a former employee had messed up before leaving the company, and it was very stressful; she needed our help. She was very helpful in trying to get us all to understand what the project was and what it needed to look like in the end. She didn’t rush or get us overwhelmed. This made me see she is a great leader and that I can count on her to help me remain calm in stressful situations.”
Finally, when it comes to recognition, what do employees really want from their manager? They want an honest and sincere “thank you” for working hard, staying late, busting through obstacles, or going the extra mile to get the job done. They want real-time recognition when their performance is worthy of praise – employees want to receive it in the here-and-now. They also want recognition that fits them, their style, and their personality. And they want recognition that is specific to the behavior or performance under consideration; this helps employees understand how the boss defines good performance.
An employee in the retail sales industry provides this example of a boss effective at providing recognition.
“My manager hired me at the seasonal time, and not everyone hired then gets to stay on and become a regular employee. But she watched me, gave me pointers, and did my reviews. She’s so great and has helped me in all kinds of situations; she saw the determination in me to strive to just keep going. She nominated me as employee of the month in front of everyone.”
Becoming an A+ Manager is relatively straightforward: think seriously about how you like to be treated by your manager and consistently do the same toward your employees. Be especially good at listening, making good decisions, and recognizing worthy performance.
DR. JACK WILEY has more than 30 years of experience studying what employees most want and what organizational design factors best promote employee engagement, performance confidence and business success. He is the president & CEO of Jack Wiley Consulting, LLC, and Employee Centricity LLC. In addition to his business ventures, he’s the chief scientific officer at Engage2Excel. He is the author of The Employee Centric Manager and RESPECT: Delivering Results by Giving Employees What They Really Want. In 2014, Dr. Wiley was awarded the prestigious Professional Practice award by the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, a lifetime achievement award for outstanding contributions to the practice of industrial-organizational psychology. In addition to being elected to Fellow status in SIOP, he is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.
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