Fomenting transparency

 Leadership  1 Response »
Feb 222011
 

Yesterday’s post was inspired by an article. In today’s blog entry I really just want to share an inspiring anecdote told by Alan Mullaly (CEO Ford Motor Company) to Peter Day in the episode of Peter Day’s World of Business “Back on the Road” broadcast on 30 December 2010. (The link seems to still be live, so click here to access the podcast.)

In “Back on the Road”, Alan Mulally, CEO of the Ford Motor Company, explains how he built a culture of transparency and collaboration which helped him to turn around the company.

He started by pulling everyone together by organising weekly virtual meetings in a room full of TV screens which linked worldwide top managers with the home team in Detroit. Every Thursday at 7am the group still meets to develop project plans, shaping the details and sharing where everyone stands in relation to the plan.

Mulally also created a system of colour-coded charts (red, yellow and green) to show the status of the projects and identify problems, all over the world. As you can imagine, at first it was difficult to get a true picture of what was going on, as nobody seemed to want to report a problem or concern, so the charts tended to be covered in a beautiful green.

The breakthrough came during the launch period of a new model. During one of the meetings, the data was pulled together, pinned up on the walls of two rooms and on tv screens, networked around the world. All covered in green. And yet, losses of 17 billion dollars were reported.

Mulally, could not but stop the meeting and address everyone and, “in the nicest possible way” (his own words) said “Is there anything that’s not going well? We’re about to lose 17 billion dollars, is there anything that’s not going well?”

You can imagine how the floor suddenly became the most interesting place on earth for everyone present in person and virtually, as they avoided eye contact.

The following week, Ford was getting ready for a launch in Canada. The data for the launch came up: all red. The tension could be cut with a knife. To everyone’s surprise, Mulally started clapping and addressed the project leader: “That is fantastic visibility. Is there anything we can do to help you? ‘Cause we know you’re working on it.”

And soon the other managers started to contribute to the solution by pointing out issues they’ve addressed before, similar problems they had solved themselves and offering other  suggestions.

Week by week the project charts became yellow, then green. And then all 320 charts became “like a rainbow” full of reds, yellows and greens. A true picture of what was going on in the company.

This is an inspiring story from a CEO ready to hear both good and bad news.From someone who truly believes that  a culture of transparency and collaboration can only be created by acknowledging that, at some point, things will not go according to plan and from someone who fully understands how to show true support during tough times to make sure the business moves forwards.

Leading by example

 Leadership, Teams  No Responses »
Feb 212011
 

We often talk about building a culture of collaboration, of creativity, at work. We like to feel like our team members are free to raise their concerns, share problems they have spotted and seek help. It is not enough to think this or even to say that this is what we strive for in our team. Leaders have to lead by example. And so do team members, if they want to become collaborators par excellence.

So I wanted to thank strategy+business for their recent interview with Edgar Schein, where he points out some of the pitfalls organisation fall into when trying to change their culture. I have taken the liberty to reproduce a few lines below, as they illustrate my point, but I urge you to read the full article on the s+b website. (You will need to register.) You can follow this link or look for the article “A Corporate Climate of Mutual Help” by Art Kleiner and Rutger von Post.

“Better teamwork requires perpetual mutual helping, within and across hierarchical boundaries. I don’t see how we’re going to get there unless we create cultural “islands” — situations in which people can go outside the organization’s norms and practices and explicitly create this mutual helping relationship. In the cardiac unit, this means the surgeon saying to the nurse, “First of all, let’s get on a first-name basis, and then I’m going to try very hard to listen to you.” The people with the most authority and established knowledge must make the others feel psychologically safe, so that when they’re back in the heat of operations, everyone will speak up freely when something is wrong. The surgeon must know what questions to ask in order to be more helpful. In any helping situation, “humble inquiry” is a key intervention to equilibrate the relationship between the vulnerable person asking for help and the powerful helper.”

Strengthening the Team – BEFORE the meeting

 Leadership, Teams  1 Response »
Feb 172011
 

Meetings can be a very efficient way of checking-in with your team, aligning individual goals and setting the team’s aims and objectives.

Face-to-face interaction seems to be a luxury nowadays as people’s time becomes more stretched and virtual communication has become the norm. In those teams whose members stretch over different locations, meetings have become rare and even more precious.

Making the meetings  worthwhile should be everyone’s responsibility. And if you have the formal authority to call and run (or chair) a meeting, then you should make sure the time together is used wisely and productively.

So, whether you are running staff meetings, forming a sub-committee or project team, preparing team-away days or simply, attending meetings, it is worth investing the time to prepare BEFORE the meeting and to set time aside AFTER the meeting, to make sure that your time together does indeed produce results.

So, in the hope of helping you to get the most out of your time with your team, here is the first post in the series “Meetings – Strengthening your Team”.

We bring together the best ideas – turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies. Jack Welch

IF YOU ARE CALLING THE MEETING

1) Before you call the meeting, think about what you want to achieve. And then make sure having a meeting is the best way of achieving it.

Do you need to get everyone in your team/department/group/project together or do you just need to have a long conversation with different individuals?

If the answer is that you don’t need to talk to everyone but the team could do with getting together, then go for it, but make sure that you work extra hard to let everyone know why they have to attend the meeting.

If you are planning a long session, such as an away-day or team-building event then this first step becomes even more important!

2) Once you have decided to call the meeting, define your objectives. And write them down. You can write them down and distribute them in the form of an agenda later or you can just make some notes for yourself. Then use these notes during the meeting to make sure you achieve your objectives.

Be clear (with yourself) about each item:

- Are you conveying information?

- Do you want to consult your team or obtain buy-in for a new decision?

- Will you be requiring others to share information?

3) When you have your list of items/objectives, calculate how much time each item might need.

BE REALISTIC.

- If your meeting is going to last 20 minutes or less: is it worth calling? If the matter is not urgent, can it be discussed at another, later meeting? If the matter is urgent, make sure that people are not going to have to travel for the meeting (as this will mean that they spend more time travelling than meeting up). If they do, can you add anything else to the agenda to make their meeting worth their while?

- If your meeting might last over an hour:
Make sure everyone knows.
Schedule it to disrupt everyone’s schedules and free time as little as possible. (including your own!)

4) COMMUNICATE

Give information about the meeting  so that people have an idea of what will be required of them. You might want to include:

- Who will be attending.

- How long the meeting will last.
- What will be discussed/ why you’ve called the meeting.
- Do those attending need to prepare anything/bring any information with them?

IF YOU ARE ATTENDING THE MEETING

Time away from your day-to-day to meet with others is precious, so make sure you do as much as you can to make the most out of it. The more people who take responsibility for making a team meeting or away-day a success, the greater the chances of getting results.

- Schedule the meeting in your diary before its starting time – give yourself plenty of time to be completely ready to attend the meeting.

- Don’t schedule any more meetings until at least 20 / 30 minutes after the end of the meeting is due, to avoid having to rush off.

- Find out what will be covered in the meeting and in what ways you will need to contribute. (If the information is not fully available, then use your imagination and common sense to prepare as fully as possible.)

I hope this post helps you and your team to get the most out of your time together.

Tips for facilitating discussion and creativity during the meeting, coming soon.

Subscribe to this blog if you would like to stay connected and of course, feel free to leave your thoughts here.

Structure in Teams

 Book, Leadership, Teams  No Responses »
Feb 162011
 

For those of you who strive to work in a truly collaborative, open manner and who are interested in facilitation (as leaders, trainers, team coaches), I recommend the work of Roger Schawrz.

In particular, you might be interested in the short article in this month’s newsletter, which reminds us of the need of structure in teams. Roger Schawrz refers to structure not as hierarchy, but as “relatively stable elements that have a significant impact on how a team functions.”  He lists these elements as:

- Clear and compelling purpose and vision

- Effective culture

- Motivating tasks

- Clear roles

- Appropriate membership

- Acceptable behaviours.

I invite you to read the full short article on the Roger Schwarz & Associates website.

In anticipation of my next post on team meetings, I also recommend reading The Skilled Facilitator as a guide of how to get the best out of discussion and deal with conflict in teams.

Neuronsqueezing

 Leadership, Wellbeing  No Responses »
Feb 112011
 

Do you ever feel like you have ten-thousand things to do but only ten minutes to do them in?

Not only that, they are ten-thousand things that you REALLY want to do. (This is after you’ve considered all the things you NEED to do, which more often than not, are not the things you WANT to do).

I’m still in the early stages of running Unusual Connections, so you can imagine the amount of stuff that needs to be done: new website, newsletters, creating materials, designing workshops, looking for clients, looking for partners… oh and don’t forget, staying on top of my own learning and remaining creative.

My imagination tends to run wild when deciding what to do next and at certain times, it gets jammed, stuck in a loop of “I have to get done this week” thoughts. As I practice what I preach (most of the time!), as soon as I begin to feel overwhelmed, I make myself STOP and NeuronSqueeze.
brain-neurons

What is neuron-squeezing?

Last Autumn I attended 8fold’s From Apps to Zen mentoring group, led by Sinead MacManus. One of the first things we were asked to do was a “brain dump”: dump on a piece of paper (via a pen, of course!) all the things we needed to do, big and small. I’ve come to call this “neuron-squeezing” as, by the end of the exercise, I found myself trying to force the ideas out of my brain. But “neuron-squeezing” goes beyond the “dumping” stage, requiring even more idea extraction.

In order to advocate for the need to stop and take stock, I have attempted to describe neuron-squeezing in five (easy?) steps. Below is a simplified version of the five steps – for a full guide, visit the Resources page.

1) The Dumping Stage

Dump all those things, big or small, you need to do or want to do, onto a piece of paper.

2) The Visionary Stage

Put your paper away and on another sheet, write down what you want to achieve over the next 12 months.

3) The Connecting Stage

Decide which of those things you identified in stage (1) are going to help you achieve what you thought of in stage (2).

4) The Prioritising Stage

Plan when you will carry everything out. Week by week.

5) The Final Stage: Combating Procrastination

If you keep leaving things until later, it’s time to begin to think: why?

If you think this list has the potential of helping you organise your thoughts, I invite you to download Neurosqueezing in 5 (easy) steps, from our free download area.

Happy squeezing!

[with thanks to Foti Bobolas for his photo]

A Quote for Tuesday afternoon

 Random thoughts  No Responses »
Feb 082011
 

“Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday.”

Anonymous, found in www.quotegarden.com/

Team Meetings

 Teams  No Responses »
Feb 072011
 

When a meeting goes well, it goes REALLY well – the team (or group) that has got together, leaves with a sense of achievement, a renewed energy to drive them forward.

But when they go bad, they can leave you completely diflated for the rest of the day and vowing to be “ill” the next time a meeting is called.

The level of success of meetings depends very much on those attending. And of course, most of this responsibility relies on the person who has called (or is in charge of) the meeting. Having attended many many meetings with diverse groups of people and for a wide range of reasons, I have put together a short guide to ‘Productive Meetings’.

My first tip is this one: don’t think of a meeting as something that happens just at a particular time. It is the middle stage, sandwiched between the period BEFORE the meeting and AFTER the meeting. These two last stages are often ignored but they are the ones which will make the meeting worth having, or a waste of time or anything else within the “usefulness” spectrum.

So, if you are involved in meetings in any capacity or you are thinking of organising a team-away event, watch this space for thoughts on Preparing for the Meeting, During the Event and Post-Mortem.

Tension and Personal Space

 Teams, Wellbeing  No Responses »
Feb 022011
 

I love my Monday evening dance classes – the atmosphere is playful and relaxed and even when I can’t get one step right, I still manage to leave buzzing. Something happened yesterday that I wanted to share with you – it’s not very dramatic, but it was unusual. And it made me think. A little bit.

Holland Dance Festival start morgen!

Maybe we should do as these ladies do.

At the end of the dance class, we always revisit a routine, a simple sequence on which we build every week. For some reason, the movement stayed in my body and I was able to dance (instead of finding myself thinking “What’s next, what’s next?” all the time). The class was split into two and both groups took turns to dance in the space.

I loved it and yet… by the end of the session my chest was more tense than at the beginning of the class. From the title of this post, you will probably guess that it wasn’t a small group and I felt like other people were crowding in, or, to take some responsibility for the overcrowding, I didn’t feel like I could take as much space as I wanted to without smacking someone. (Yes, I love flinging my arms around!)

No wonder everyone in the city ends up with shoulder and neck problems. It’s not just all that time spent at a desk but also the difficulty of not taking up as much space as we would like. Public transport, the pavements, even the physical workspace is not designed for us to expaaaaand. And unless we consciously relax in our confined space, if we don’t expand, we tend to contract.

At the beginning of the dance routine, I felt perfectly relaxed, in control of the space around me, comfortable that I had enough room to move. But I realised that as I became more confident and wanted to take more space, my body didn’t let me.

Because I was self- aware, I managed to do something about it (as simple as making sure that when I walked home I didn’t let my shoulders cave in) – but how many times a day does this happen without us realising it? I would encourage everyone (and make sure that I remind myself too) to expand once a week, if only to remind the body of its most “expansive potential”.

Stand in an empty room, however big or small – think of your head floating up, up, up. Stretch your arms to the side and think of an elastic which starts at the tip of one of your middle fingers and goes through the arm, chest, other arm, right to the other middle finger. And see how much you can stretch that elastic. And relax, remember to relax.

How does it feel?

[photograph by Haags Uitburo]

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