Category Archives: Management

Posts that relate to merely managing rather than leading.

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Leading a Team of Different Personalities

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Leading a Team of Different Personalities - 2I have recently been struggling with different personality types, and how to lead them. I am talking about friends, children, employees etc. I realize you are rarely going to get to lead a team of people exactly like you, so I set out to discover what personalities I could expect and how to recognize them.

If people were all the same, being a leader would be easy. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work, though, in the real world, where the world is filled with a wide variety of personalities, not all of them are compatible. What motivates one team mate to give his best effort might cause another to zone out. Good leaders will tailor their approach to the specific personality types of the people they seek to motivate. It all starts with being observant of individual differences.

Test or observe team members to become more familiar with their personalities. Some organizations use tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to assess personality types. If this isn’t possible in your organization,

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Leadership: Keep it simple. Then simplify some more.

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Keep it Simple - 1

I recently received an email asking me to compare and pick the best logo for our organization.  I replied in a way that would have some on the team scratching or shaking their head.  Candidly, I have never been accused of being a team player.

Now before I get started.  Please understand…I know a lot of effort and painstaking thought and creativity went into making the logos.  I greatly value the person, talent, and hard work our leadership member donated to create multiple logos for us to choose from.  So please don’t take this post as a criticism of that work.  I just didn’t like the process in which was presented for us to choose the logo.  So I dissented and chose a logo without following the rules. Hopefully, this will help my team understand me as a member of the team.

As I was saying, I recently received an email asking me to compare and pick the best logo for our organization.  I confess I wasn’t being a team player.  But the process seemed too drawn out.  My inbox had already been filled with five emails with valid questions and concerns.  I didn’t have time for this.  Now with less time on my plate…I am hating the computer screen time even more.  So I was testy. Not being a visionary and having a very small attention span, I just replied with one answer.  I liked all the logos but one more than others.  So I picked it.  Ultimately that was the goal.  To me…it was simple.  Just pick one.

I had the unfortunate privilege of attending a kid’s soccer game many years ago.  The four- and five-year olds were in this small mob surrounding the ball…just kicking the ball into each other.  Yoga pant wearing, latte sipping, plastic enhanced mothers were screaming at the players-“Kick the ball.”  Fathers were off away on their cell phones.  The chorus of “kick the ball” filled the air as this mass of children bludgeoned the Nike ball between themselves all over the pitch…trying to please their soccer moms.

I had enough.  I yelled.  “Hey…someone kick the ball into the goal!”  It got quiet.  The goalies stopped picking their noses.  The mass of kids stopped and the relieved soccer ball leaked out of the mass.  A coach actually turned and looked at me stunned by my suggestion.  He began yelling for his team to kick the ball into the net.  Heck…you can’t win unless you kick the ball into the goal.  (I later found out that this was a POSITIVE, NO ONE LOSES, NO ONE KEEPS SCORE, EVERYONE IS SPECIAL SOCCER LEAGUE).  You know the group that settles for mediocrity.

Okay.  Leadership lesson.  Keep it simple.  Then simplify some more.  There will be team members who don’t want all the facts. There are those who don’t like the all the avenues to get from point A to B.   Or in this case, Logo A to Logo E.  Those team members will become distant and have that glazed over look on their face.  They will become ineffective in what they do.  They can become casualties of analysis paralysis.  A major reason why I left Corporate America.  Leaders will begin asking the question-Is that person all right?  Is there something wrong?  No.  Some of us don’t like the details.  Just give us the Executive Summary.  The Cliff Notes.  And make a decision.  When you need us to do something…just call us in.  We will get it done. I’m a hired gun.

As teams, we can get into our huddles, kick around ideas, and never kick the ball into the goal.  We never succeed.  We can pat ourselves on the back and say no one loses.  We met.  Sometimes we get mired in the process and lose sight of the goal, the mission. It’s times like this we need to keep it simple.  Then simplify some more.

By the way, I am not the one you ask to write a Mission Statement and you will never see a kid’s soccer game the same again.  I guarantee it.

Photo credit: kaioshin / Foter / CC BY-NC

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How to Conduct Team Briefings

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How to conduct team briefings - 1Earlier in the week I discussed team briefings and the importance of communications in the process. But I really didn’t address the mechanics of conducting the team briefing. So, today, let’s focus on that.

As the Leader You Must Commit to a Structure and a Process  It doesn’t necessarily be a super-formal process. But, people must understand what to expect when they attend one of your team briefings.

  • Ensure that you understand what is going on in the organization and that you have been properly briefed yourself. Make sure your team leaders know what’s happening at various levels, and with various other teams, throughout the organization.
  • Provide training or coaching on how to conduct effective team briefings.
  • Recognize and reward supervisors and managers for conducting effective team briefings.
  • Brevity is the soul of wit. If you can’t say it in 15 to 30 minutes, then a team briefing is not the right vehicle for a more complex message.

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Do it, ditch it, or delegate it

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Do it, ditch it or delegate it - 1Here is one of those great little maxims that I heard many years ago and I solemnly avowed and affirmed that I would live by it until my dying days.

But, as I look back on it and examine how well I adhered to that little maxim . . .  It seems like not so much.

The principle expressed in this pithy little statement is this.

When presented with a choice, a document, a task or a decision – handle it immediately in one of the following manners.

  1. Do it! — That sounds simple enough.  But procrastination is something that comes naturally to the human species.  This is especially true for those choices or tasks that have particularly unpleasant undertones.
  2. Ditch it! — This also sounds simple.  But many of us suffer from bouts of indecision.  We often times cannot make up our minds that this just isn’t important to the overall goals and therefore should be jettisoned for the more important tasks.
  3. Delegate it! — Another simple sounding thing.  For those of us who have a staff that we can actually delegate something to, we often choose to handle the task ourselves.

Do it, ditch it or delegate it - 3So, what are the leadership implications of this little phrase?

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Elected Leaders vs. Influential Leaders

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Elected vs Influential - 1Here is challenge that you may have to face at some point in your leadership career. You will encounter two types of leaders. Elected leaders and Influential leaders.

Have you ever considered these two types? If not, consider them now.

Elected leaders are the ones that we may be familiar with the most. It is reasonably clear how they became leaders. Someone recognized leadership ability within them. The organization then went on and nominated or appointed them to a position of responsibility and leadership. That is fairly clear cut. Ability was recognized and a position was attained. This is generally a good model and it produces good results.

Elected vs Influential - 2Now consider the second type – the Influential leader. This person generally does not have real leadership skills. Yet they have a position of leadership in spite of it. They generally attain the position through shear force of personality.  That may be just a euphemism for being a bully. But that is not always the case. Sometimes it is because they possess a specialized skill.  Sometimes they attain it through longevity within the organization. Sometime they attain the role of leader through fame, notoriety, family or financial position. These are the leaders that are difficult to work with or work for.

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RANTINGS-Put a value on Your Time

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tracking-time

Time is money. Time is the most precious commodity. We hear that all the time and yet we so willingly give it up.  As a leader, I want to advise you to put a value on your time and teach others to value your time as well.

How? Be unavailable.

As a sales rep, I had to manage my time and clients shrewdly. My goal was to be easily accessible but not always available. I had responsibilities with other clients and I needed to allow myself time to be accessible for them. So I made some hard rules about the way I spent my time during the week.

Meetings
I remember wanting to eat my handgun because of all the worthless internal conference calls/meetings I had to endure. That isn’t going to change. So resign yourself to at least one day a week where you have to adhere to someone else’s timetable. The day of the week for me was every Monday. I gave up my Mondays to administrative work and being handcuffed to the desk or conference line.

I made some hard rules. I would

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Can’t We All Just Get Along?

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Consensus Flow ChartConsensus. Everyone gets their voice heard, all sides of an issue are aired and all potential decisions get vetted, and then the group comes together and agrees on the best solution. The best solution may even be a combination of 2 or more of the ideas. Fair, democratic, inclusive. What could be better?

But what is Consensus, really? While it may be a deliberate choice for a governing method due to the desire to limit the power or control of any one individual, I have often seen it as a sign of weak leaders. It is many times driven by political correctness, fear, or a desire to avoid confrontation and to be liked. And the fuel of Consensus is Compromise.

So what is Compromise? It means that nobody gets what they really want. As the old saying goes, “If nobody’s totally happy with the solution, then it’s probably the right answer.” Really? Why can’t somebody be right and somebody else be wrong? Or why can’t an installed leader be given the authority to make a decision, right or wrong, and then be judged later on the outcome rather than an evaluation of the decision itself?

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I feel the need to lead, but Im not sure I have earned it.

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leadership-horizon-23For those of you who don’t know, I have started a new job in the last 6 months or so. It has been a great opportunity for my family and for me. Although it has been a struggle for me at times because it is a completely new industry.

I feel as though my boss has asked me to do more than just sales. I think he is looking for a fresh set of eyes and ideas from someone who is new to the company but not new to business. So as I undergo the task of not only learning our services and how we deliver them to our customers, I am also learning our internal process of work flows.

I am finding that there are a few people in key positions that struggle with maintaining the correct work flow. This doesn’t hamper our ability to deliver our services to our customers but it does make for inconsistent record keeping and accounting.

So when I discover an error, I get a lot of “it’s not my job” and “he or she did this or that”. I feel a lot like the quote in the picture above. I have been entrusted with much, so much is expected.

Why doesn’t anyone else feel the same way?

At what point is it acceptable for me to

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Courageous Teams

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Courageous TeamsWe recently took a look at the collective courage or cowardice of a team. And we noted that much of the collective courage of a team is drawn from the leader. But we would be incorrect in assuming that courage is inbred. It is a developed over time and through withstanding hardship and challenges.

Unfortunately, many brave leaders convey the impression that this is how they’ve always been. Whether or not they were born brave, bravery seems to come naturally to them. Even if it does not, it appears to be so.

For teams it is no different. Teams, like individuals, have to learn to be brave and to stand strong in tough times. It is imperative that they can communicate with each other about what this developing shared bravery looks like.  And the courage must be communicated in terms of what it looks like within the context of that team’s experience.

What is the leadership principle here?

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Take a Walk to the Gemba

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So that is what the process looks like?

So that is the process?

My company is making a management system change to “Value Stream Management”. VSM’s goal is to align all resources including management into a stream of production. It is not a change that will occur over night and will require patience, open communication and an attitude of staying the course with an open mind.

I was sent to a training session on Value Stream Management and one of the opening directions to those who represent leadership positions in the organization struck a chord with me. The term used was called “Gemba”, which is a Japanese term meaning “the real place” or “the place where truth can be found”. The meaning is interchanged with other terms within the lean manufacturing world, as in “go see” as catch phrases. However the direction given was this when explaining the Gemba to us in training: If someone comes up to you with a problem and you are in your office, get up out of your chair and go see the problem.

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