Strategic Leadership Coaching

Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork

Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork.  This is a great article from Harvard Business Review about working in teams.  Misconception #1 about Harmony helping teams is one that I run into frequently.  The assumption is that if we are all nice and get along with one another we will get more done, but the reality is that artificial harmony keeps teams from succeeding.  Team members hold back their thoughts and opinions which are the critical fuel for good decision making.  Teams need to cultivate productive conflict management skills that will take their performance to the next level.

PAMPI 2011 Education Institute - Cultivating Productive Conflict

If you attended my workshop on Cultivating Productive Conflict today at the PAMPI 2011 Education Institute here are the handouts that I mentioned.

Download Tki-brochure

Download Conflict management handout

I will leave these handouts up for the next few weeks so feel free to share them with friends who may be interested.

Dealing with the office bully

Dealing with the office bully can be a very difficult and stressful situation especially if the bully happens to be your supervisor. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Maintain very clear professional boundaries for you. Maintain your self respect and do not acquiesce to demands made in a bullying fashion clearly state your need to be communicated with in a professional manner.
2. Develop a list of "one-liner" responses to bullying comments that you rehearse for yourself. By "one-liner" I mean a clear short statement that clearly shows up the nature of the bully's request. Avoid sarcasm and personal jabs at the bully your goal should be to reinforce your boundaries.
3. Document every interaction done in a bullying fashion. Keep emails and voice mails and make notes of personal interactions that are distressing so that you can recall them later include dates, times, and possible witnesses.
4. If the bully does not change his behavior in response to your boundaries then you might want to consult with your human resources or employee relations department. This is where your documentation will be useful.

Ultimately, if nothing changes and your organization takes no action to address the bullying behavior you have to question the health of the organizational culture.  Then the decision becomes one of respecting your own boundaries and well being, which means it may be time to consider finding a new position.  I hope these suggestions are helpful in managing a very challenging situation. 

Steering Clear of Emotional Landmines: How to avoid explosive conflict on your team

Emotional Landmines are those unexpected conflicts that come out of nowhere to blow teams off course.  They get planted in the terrain ahead when a team member chooses to bury their ideas, opinions, and feelings instead of sharing them with the team.  The process of withholding genuinely held ideas often creates a sense of frustration in the team member.  Over time that sense of frustration can build increasing the likelihood that the team member will have an emotional explosion. Then before you are even aware of what has happened your team is mired in conflict.  Emotional Landmines often get triggered by what seem to be very minor things a comment, gesture, or behavior that leads to a reaction that seems disproportionate.  The real problem is the emotional pressure that has slowly built up in that team member from all the things they have left unsaid. Suddenly an idea or opinion that may have been harmless if shared in real time becomes supercharged with emotion. 

 So why would a team member leave their ideas, opinions, and feelings unsaid, the reasons are numerous, but it usually boils down to how a team handles conflict.  Have you ever been on a team that was characterized by major explosive conflict?  Did it make it difficult for the team to accomplish its primary task?  Did you just assume that the team had members with strong personalities who liked to defend their turf?  This is a common assumption when teams are defeated by conflict, but may not be the whole truth.  You see it is essential for healthy team functioning that conflict or unfiltered debate of ideas and opinions be allowed.  When teams do not allow for thorough expression of ideas from all the team members they are often laying emotional landmines that they will step on later.    

So how does a team leader avoid these landmines?  The key is to create an atmosphere of real time unfiltered debate that engages each team member.  Every team member needs to be heard on every issue even if they don't see it as their area.  Why is this important, two reasons?  The first is that it engages the wisdom of the team, which is why we work in teams to begin with, the combined experience and knowledge of the team, enhances the content and the outcome.  Second, it creates a space for every person to be heard, which reinvests their emotional energy back into the team instead of into landmines.  A simple way to incorporate this strategy into your team meeting is with the lightening round.  The lightening round is a quick check-in with each team member on the issues discussed in the meeting.  The goal is to encourage the team to not hold back on their honest opinions of the topics discussed.  If the lightening round surfaces items for further examination then spend some time processing those ideas.  The key is that everyone is heard from in the moment even if it is a brief comment.