Category Archives: Team-building

Workplace Power Dynamics: Part 4

Practical Power

By Daniel Robin

The previous article made a distinction between giving power away (never to be seen again) and sharing what power you have. Sharing power inevitably keeps the situation in your sphere of influence – it also provides a lot more fun and satisfaction. This article we’ll get into practical applications of shared power and focus on situations where you’d want to resolve a conflict, influence an outcome, or shift a power dynamic.

Which of these three scenarios sound most familiar to you?

Shared power is most often exercised in joint decision making; however, people with positional power sometimes decide without adequately including input from others.
Although there are times when we underestimate how much decision-making power (authority) we have, often we are given responsibility without authority. I call this “false responsibility.”
A colleague does a covert power move – that is, they act in a way that seems to be more about trying to get their way than about working with the substance of an issue.

1. Decision making Dynamics

Have you ever been in a meeting that was supposedly designed for open discussion and full consideration of the group’s input, but then somebody (usually a manager) makes a quick decision? If that drives you crazy, try asking some of the following questions:

“Are you making a decision or recommending something?”

If they admit to deciding on the group’s behalf, and you’re not sure you can live with either the process or the decision itself, you can inquire “On what [criteria, conditions, rationale] is that decision based?”

Voice tone and body language are everything here. If you can ask calmly, with a come-from of curiosity and interest, it will be disarming, not threatening. Be prepared to listen and verify what you hear. You may want to open it up to others in the group by asking: “What’s your basis for deciding?” And people will explain what their criteria, conditions, or rationale would be for a wise decision. Comparing each other’s “How we will know if the right decision has been made” is a lot easier than debating (or having to swallow) the relative merits of the decision itself.

2. False Responsibility

You’ve been asked to handle a project for your boss, but nobody seems willing to cooperate or help you complete it. This could be a problem, what I would call “false responsibility” . unless . the boss is willing to step in and visibly lend some support. You may need more information, resource assigned, or management backing. If you’ve been feeling like the lone ranger, it may be time to lasso some self-confidence and ask that boss to “clear the path” so you can do your best work.

3. Indirect (covert) Power Plays

A colleague stops including you in meetings. You get shut down at a critical moment during team-building. The parking spots get shuffled around and yours gets painted “Visitor.” Not a good sign.

A covert, positional power grab can be just as counterproductive as a full frontal assault. Usually the person doing the grabbing, however, is actually giving away their own power in the form of negativity or blame. Not only does this make this person look foolish and unprofessional, but it also wastes precious time and energy that could be used to deal with the situation.

What can be done? First off, check your assumptions. Is this person actually trying to undermine you, or are they just being . less than considerate. If you really think they have destructive tendencies, your best offense would be to encourage this person to “tell it you straight.” Then listen with the intent to understand, nothing more. Disarm . then walk away.

The Power of Balance is Impossible to Deter

It is easier to maintain your center than to find it. Without taking another person’s issue personally, what would be the kind of power move that you would want to teach? How can your actions show your true character, not just your reflex?

Reflective Learning: Learning How to Learn

By Daniel Robin

As she thought about the past few days, the CEO surmised, “I’m not sure if we learned anything.” The CEO’s usual charisma seemed strangely subdued, tentative. What could possibly be the value of “not knowing” something … of not being so sure? Navigating with curiosity and interest in what could be learned by every outcome and achievement (from to absolute dismal failures to even the most satisfying successes) helps leaders stay at the top of their game. Learning and teaching are the master skills of the modern workplace, where the only constant is change.

Learning as Mastery of Self

The Chinese characters representing the word “learning” are revealed by combining (a) the verb to study — a symbol that means “to accumulate knowledge,” above a symbol for a child in a doorway — with (b) a symbol meaning to practice constantly that shows a bird developing the ability to leave the nest. Together, these suggest that learning could be the “mastery of the way of self-improvement.”

Individuals and teams learn in a cyclical fashion, naturally flowing from planning an action, taking that action, then noticing the results and planning the next action based on reflecting for a moment. Managers and individuals need to find ways to tap into this rhythm — to create not only time to think and notice results and what they mean in the bigger context, but also for questioning assumptions and brainstorming solutions to what didn’t work the last time around.

If for no other reason, this provides a great rationale for taking a brief vacation, to interrupt the cycles of tension and stress that cloud judgment and tempt struggle.

Many organizational cultures influence people to skip this stage, partly due to assumptions about the way people spend their time. If someone is reflecting, it’s considered perfectly acceptable to interrupt them, because they’re “not doing anything.” And clearly “not doing anything” can’t be good for productivity, achievement and ultimate success? Not so.

Reflective Learning Made Easy

It is most unlikely that we will end up where we want to be unless we have both thought about where that is and directed our actions toward getting there. The key to reflective learning is to become a powerful observer of your own thinking, sensing, and acting.

Reflective learning takes practice. It’s a “process skill” that invites you to direct your attention in a different way, toward a “smarter, more effective” form of productivity. Even if the discoveries are modest, at least this type of focus prevents the insanity of doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

A questioning process for reflection was developed by the Institute for Cultural Affairs, a global social change organization. They use this four step reflection tool and it has equal value in business:

1. Data: Reflect on what happened. What did you do? What caught your attention? What evidence do we have? How did we (or can we) measure results?

2. Associations and Feelings: What worked? What energized you? What were the low points? What frustrated you?

3. Interpretations: What have been your most significant learnings? What are the implications of them? How does this apply to our key results areas?

4. Decision: How will you (we) be different? What will you do differently as a result?

You might actually write down your associations and feelings (Step 2) using two columns labeled

A: What you liked, and B: What you didn’t like.

After celebrating key wins under column A, use column B to decide (Steps 3 & 4) what you or the team will do to get these items into column A in future cycles.

Careful, We Don’t Want to Learn Anything …

Intact work teams and “communities of practice” are the true test of our capacity to learn and grow. If communication barriers and so-called learning opportunities are going to show up, teams and workgroups provide a fertile ground. How often do we take time from daily routines to address divergent thinking and perception, basic differences, untapped strengths? – let alone what we’re going to do about it! Working with others can be a great teacher, just as any relationship can reveal important awareness about ourselves and how we operate. If you can get your ego out of the way (avoid personalizing conflicts, for example), an increased degree of mastery will result.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic?

“When we talk,” said a hospital administrator, “it’s always about a crisis: a financial problem, or a crisis on a unit. We never get to talk about the future.”

As a culture hell bent on speed, we get so busy sawing our way through projects, meeting deadlines and preparing for appointments, we often forget to stop long enough to “sharpen the saw.” Taking time out for reflection and renewal can prevent the irony of “being lost but making good time.” It also prevents the worst kind of burnout and frustration: the type you didn’t see coming.

With practice, a few minutes of reflection after key milestones can save you significant trouble down the road, increase productivity, and will make your worklife much easier to manage.

Building a Workplace Culture Based on Agreement

How to Get There From Here

By Daniel Robin

“Starting today, I promise to be on time for every meeting, no matter what. Really. This time I mean it.” How healthy this sounds, they all thought. Finally … embracing what they’ve been wanting for months. Perhaps it’s time.

Why New Year’s Resolutions (Usually) Don’t Work

A resolution is a decision. A decision on an intention: “I’m definitely going to do that … [unstated subtext] … if I feel like it.” If you simply hold a clear intention, will you get results? Eventually. Resolutions, like goals, serve an important purpose: they help us accept and acknowledge what we don’t yet have. As you know, however, fulfillment of an intention depends on self-knowledge and commitment to effective action.

Why self-knowledge? Because you can be 100% committed, but still not know your strengths and limits — this is the knowledge that will help or hinder you in getting the desired result.

Getting to Change

Some people like to plan out every detail. Others prefer to rely on their intuition. Both approaches are viable for producing change and results. Ever get to work with somebody whose style is the opposite of yours? How did it go? Chances are, if you got anything done together, it was because of a clear agreement, whether explicit or not.

A culture based on agreement is a marvel to watch. People who hate being in the room together unite in a common purpose.

Through the Lens of Agreement

All relationships and results come from some sort of an agreement. Consider your work. What are some of the decisions that have contributed to your success? Likewise, if you’re not consistently getting your desired outcome, check these scenarios to see which one might apply:

(a) False agreement. You’ve laid out a clear, appropriate agreement, but there’s no buy-in or results. This isn’t the same as a disagreement or conflict; a false agreement (like many New Year’s resolutions) looks, sounds, smells … like a plan; but, in this case, chances are good you’ll get the opposite of what’s wanted. Find out why.

(b) Inappropriate agreement. You are operating out of a clear yet inappropriate contract, one you’d be wise to renegotiate. For instance, you and a coworker agreed to write a report that will need your input, but there won’t be time to collaborate. Regroup!

(c) Unclear or incomplete agreement. This scenario is most common. You can tell because living with it produces failures of trust and suffering. For instance, “I think I can get us a better vendor; cancel that order.” Or, “Sure, I’ll hang out here 40+ hours per week for that amount of money, but I sure as hell am not going to work with that maniac!”

Agreements between co-workers, departments, or with that last example, between you and the entire organization, reflect the choices and decisions of the people who make them. The question is: how well informed are those choices and decisions? This is where it pays to accept, understand and include the person who gets to uphold the decision.

Who Decides? Who Can Be Trusted?

When it comes to agreements, who is trustworthy and who isn’t? This notion of “trust” has lots to do with being able to predict the other person’s behavior. You can trust a person to screw up some things just as reliably as they’ll flawlessly perform others. No matter how clear and complete your request, if that person cannot uphold it, save it — ask someone else!

This applies to ourselves. I won’t “set myself up” with an agreement I cannot honor. Similarly, don’t enter into an agreement with someone who isn’t able to come through.

If that person is holding back, careless, or playing a game, establish an agreement that has them demonstrating to you what they do best. True colors will be revealed. Workplace decisions that reflect genuine, mutual interest will last. When they don’t, they won’t. Trust that.

The Culture is the Product

To build a healthy workplace and a company that will last, focus on building an organization you personally would want to work for. (Was it Groucho who said he’d never want to work for a company that would have him as one of its employees?)

It all starts with a clear, mutually-beneficial agreement. Hewlett-Packard grants immense operating freedom within well-defined objectives. People earn this permission as a privilege. Going for a clear, unambiguous agreement will provide the platform for freedom.

A workplace based on agreement is easy to espouse … and in practice? Refer to the next article, “The Art and Practice of Agreement.”

Reigniting Spirit in the Workplace

By Daniel Robin

What you pay attention to, viagra cialis grows. If you happen to notice everything at work that isn’t working, cialis you’d (a) have a long list, decease and (b) probably have a difficult time getting out of bed in the morning. If, by contrast, you decided to look for and highlight everyone’s best intentions, you might notice your morale rising simply to meet the occasion.

And if you’ve made a hobby of cataloging reasons to be dissatisfied, you can either adopt a certain “detached concern” about things ever changing, or find an effective way to speak up about the issues. And if you’re thinking “Why speak up at all? We’d have to knock this workplace down and start over!” … may I suggest, as a friend, that you seek help or look for another job? There are only three paths here (as in life):

Yes (that means take appropriate action),

No (live with it), or

Suffer (remain attached to how things ought to be).

You decide. Now, if you just want to vent, or get people to agree with you, read “Giving Workplace Negativity a Sustainable Lift“, then get outside assistance. Work, like any relationship, needs to be fundamentally worth it.

Feeling Fulfilled at Work (or is it something I ate)?

Compared to our parents, many of us have sharply different views and probably much higher expectations for our work. TQM, participation, mission and purpose, “learning organizations” … all are relatively recent advents. To fulfill these higher expectations – and not fry in the process – work passion or spirit sometimes needs a spark. But re-ignite doesn’t mean burn out.

To affect positive change and raise morale, start by getting some perspective on your own work situation. Rate the following factors on a scale from 1 (yuck) to 10 (yes!):

Eight Tips for Building Higher Morale

The Boss and Co-workers.

Research has shown that the people are a key reason for keeping or leaving a job. How do they rate, from 1-10?

Work that’s a direct expression of your values. Even more influential than payscale or hours, how’s the “fit” between you and the job?

Contribution to a worthy purpose (mission) and sense of shared vision.

Recognition such as salary & benefits, profit sharing, performance-based incentives.

Opportunities for advancement, to gain mastery, to learn.

Participation, inclusion and involvement. Participation also provides a sense of community and teamwork.

360-degree, honest communication; facts about company goals and directions, challenges, and clarification of roles and responsibilities. Tell or ask for it straight.

Job variety / cross training; flexible work processes; multiple ways to reach goals minimize the impact of roadblocks, conflicts, or downtime.

Pick the lowest few factors and consider what actions or resources would help. Even if you’re only mildly dissatisfied with your work, what differentiates you from someone banging their head against the “bathtub of boredom” is your attention and passionate commitment to doing something about it.

Truly raising morale sustainably or by quantum leaps – versus a temporary patch like taking a vacation, or incremental improvements like asking for a raise – requires questioning the mindset and perceived limitations from which morale arises … This is the next topic in our series….