According to a recent poll by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), pay is now the No. 1 contributor to job satisfaction.  This is an important consideration for organizations as it signifies a change in what leads to employee retention...for the past 5 years, job security has topped the list.

Certainly, it's not only about a paycheck.  The value of an organization's benefits package including health care, retirement savings and paid time off are all part of the total rewards picture. 

But beyond that, other contributors to job satisfaction included the employee's relationship with their  immediate supervisors and "the work itself".  Guess it adds to the validity of the statement that employees don't work for the company, they work for their supervisor...plus a paycheck, of course! 

As a follow-up to my last blog post about absence of trust as a characteristic of team dysfunction, today we'll follow up two more:  fear of conflict and lack of commitment.  

Fear of Conflict.  Why does fear of conflict cause team dysfunction?  Because if your workplace is not "safe" for dialog about work situations, especially sticky ones, you are probably missing out on some of the best solutions.  Healthy discussion about the pros and cons of a problem bring out valuable perspectives that can help employees narrow in on the best approaches. 

Some of the symptoms of environments where fear of conflict prevail include:  1)  employees avoid discussion of topics that are crucial to team success, 2)  politics and personal attacks thrive, 3)  there is a lack of open forums where all team members express their thoughts/perspectives.

Overcome fear of conflict by creating an environment where new ideas and differing perspectives are encouraged.  Start by designating a few employees Patrick Lencioni calls, "miners of conflict".  These are stewards that encourage employees to share their thoughts and verbally encourage them as the discussion becomes uncomfortable.  The stewards also follow up with contributing team members after the dialog to remind them that the conflict they just engaged in is healthy for the team in the long run.     

Lack of Commitment.   Commitment is a team dysfunction for obvious reasons - if employees are not committed to your business goals and objectives, progress is stifled. 

Environments that exhibit symptoms of lack of commitment include:  1) employees aren't clear about team direction and priorities, 2) employees revisit discussions and decisions again and again, 3)  team members second-guess each other. 

Overcome a lack of commitment by honing in on clarity and buy-in.  Clarity exists when all parties understand the objectives of the project and their role in achieving the objective.   Buy-in exists when everyone is in agreement of the next step (this does NOT always mean agreement with the decision).   

One easy way to achieve both clarity and buy-in?  At the end of staff meetings, the team should review key decisions that were reached and agree who is doing what by when...and then the team needs to hold each member accountable.   

Sometimes merely "noticing" there are dysfunctions is the first step in eliminating them.  Hopefully by reviewing some of the symptoms of each, you can recognize which ones need work on in your environment!    Next time, we'll cover the last two team dysfunctions:  avoidance of accountability and inattention to results.

Of critical importance in reaching business objectives is making sure your people work well together.  If you haven't read Patrick Lencioni's, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team", you might benefit from picking it up.  It is a fable (and quick read) about a CEO whose business is starting to fail mainly due to a critically dysfunctional team. 

Maybe you recognize that your own team has some struggles, but you're not really sure what is causing the turmoil.  Lencioni professes a kind-of-a Maslow's hierarchy of dysfunction as follows: 

His premise is that a lack of trust is the foundation (and cause) of many other dysfunctions.  Examples of behaviors where a lack of trust pervade include team members who:  1)  conceal their weakness or mistakes; 2) hesitate to ask for, or offer,  help; 3) jump to conclusions about the intentions or aptitudes of others without attempting to clarify them; 4) hold grudges; 5) avoid meetings and find ways to avoid spending time together.

How to overcome a lack of trust?  Certainly not overnight!  It requires shared experiences over time that include understanding and a building of credibility for team members.  One of the suggestions is...oh, no, dare I say it...team building exercises. 

Once the team buys into the vision of building trust, a simple exercise such as sharing personal history can work well.  In the next team gathering, go around the table and ask folks to share some information about themselves such as hometown, favorite hobbies, first job, worst job, etc.  This provides team members with the opportunity to relate to each other in another way and see each other as people with interesting backgrounds.  This encourages greater empathy and understanding, a few main steps in building trust and rapport. 

Next time we'll cover some of the ways to overcome the other dysfunctions of teams.  Stop back soon!

      

While thinking about the subject for a perfect blog, I ran across a Linkedin post from Jack Welch.  The points he made in the article resonated with me and my passion for what HR can do for an organization, so I thought I'd share it (see below). 

One of the key thoughts in the post is, "HR should be every company’s “killer app.”  What could possibly be more important than who gets hired, developed, promoted, or moved out the door?  Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It’s that simple." 

Amen!  But I will add one key point:  HR leaders can only be fully effective if there is a strategic business plan in place.  HR should be involved in the development of the plan and then they should partner with key leaders to help implement it!

Read more below from Jack Welch's article.  It's great stuff.    

In studying any concepts in management, you are likely to come across his name.  Peter Drucker.  He was one of the first management consultants focusing on business improvement and worked with many of our leading corporations.  Heard of Management by Objectives (MBO)?  Mr. Drucker came up with that...and many other concepts businesses use to become more effective.

In his book, "The Effective Executive:  The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done", he summarizes his findings on the practices that effective executives have in common.   They seem pretty straight-forward on the surface, but implementation of them take some effort and focus.  The most effective leaders followed these eight practices: 

1)  They asked, "What needs to be done?"  Constantly.  An effective executive only focuses on one goal, maybe two, at a time.  Additionally, at regular intervals, he is re-evaluating those priorities to make sure they're still on track toward the RIGHT objectives. 

2)  They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?"  Not shareholders, not the Board of Directors, but what will make the business succeed.  Then the profits and pleasing stakeholders falls into place. 

3)  They developed action plans.  They figured out what needed to be done and who should do it...methodically.

4)  They took responsibility for decisions.  The buck stopped with them.  They held people accountable, but in the end, it was their responsibility to be sure everything stayed on track.

5)  They took responsibility for communicating.  They didn't expect people to just "get it".  They arranged meetings and weaved the messages and goals into everyday conversations.

6)  They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.  A problem is seen as a way to meet a need that is currently not being satisfied - either in making a customer for life or in providing a product that is superior to what's currently being offered.

7)  They ran productive meetings.  This often means not having meetings at all.  Discipline is one of the keys here.  Since time is our most valuable commodity, we are best suited to manage it as such.

8)  They thought and said "we" rather than "I".  Enough said - TEAM!

 

Leadership Effectiveness is one of the buzz words of today's generation...and with reason.  Maximizing leadership skills typically translates to business success.  But with so much noise out there, how do you focus on what's really important?

One word: Pause.  We get so wound up in the day to day demands, that we don't stop long enough to think about our next steps or longer range goals.  One way to move your business forward toward your vision is to schedule quarterly reviews of pause.  Pause to consider four things:

1)  What should I be doing more of?  Identify the things that are giving you great results and do more of those types of activities.

2)  What should I be doing less of?  What are the things that are a waste of time or are not effective...if you can't simply stop doing them, is there a way to minimize the time spent doing those tasks?

3)  What do I need to start doing?  There are likely things that leap to mind when you read this question.  Those nagging voices in your head telling you, "I really should be doing...".

4)  What do I need to stop doing? Probably the hardest thing to do is to stop doing what you've always done.  It takes discipline to make sure the highest priority items are always in focus.  The best way to do that is to eliminate time wasters.  Saying "no" is not comfortable, but in the interest of maximum productivity, sometimes it's necessary.

Taking the time to re-focus can bring any leader closer to success.  Use these four questions as a starter to get you on your path...

One of the books on my "To Read" List for January is, "18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done," by Peter Bregman.   A very interesting read and worth the time if you get the chance to pick it up - check it out here.  Strange thing is that all along, and about 65% through the book, I've been wondering, "What's the 18 Minutes About?"  Well, I guess it was a build up...

The 18 Minutes refers to key moments in your day that impact your ability to be effective.  In a nutshell, here they are:

• Your Morning Minutes: 5 Minutes
  Before turning on your computer, sit down with your "to do" list and decide which items, if accomplished, would make it a successful day.  It is critical to only pick the items you can realistically achieve by the end of the day.  Sometimes it helps to under-commit because you always have things come up that are unexpected.  This isn't an excuse to be lazy though!
  
  
• Refocus: 1 Minute Every Hour
  Set your watch to go off every hour and use that one minute after the alarm to take a deep breath and evaluate whether you spent your last hour productively.  Review your daily task list and determine how you're going to spend the next hour.
  
  
• Your Evening Minutes: 5 Minutes
  So how'd you do on your day?  Did you stick with your daily task list?  Did you achieve your most important objectives?  If so, great for you.  If not, use this time to recommit for tomorrow and maybe finish up things you didn't get to...little things like, do you need to quickly follow up with someone, or send someone an email.  A few minutes at the end of your day will alleviate that voice inside your head that nags you of the things you didn't get to!
  
  
  

We all bring unique skills, education and experience to a situation, so what makes one person the "expert"?  

I'm not sure experts even exist.  After all, if you think about one topic that you should know the most about - your own self - there are probably still some things that people could tell you about yourself that you didn't realize.  I think the true value (or benefit) of expertise is the ability to filter the information. 

For example, one of the books I'm reading right now is, "Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works" by A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin.  (You can check it out here).  For anyone looking to develop a strategic plan for their business, this book is a great resource.  In fact, I might even say, it's a great benchmark for any business to use.  However, even with Lafley's wild success as leader of P&G, this book is largely focused on how he made P&G flourish.  If you are not a big corporation like P&G, it's likely that a good number of the concepts will be over the top.  However, if you take the time to filter the information and extract the nuggets of information that apply to your own business, you can reap tremendous value. 

Take another example - the last time you went to the doctor or the last time you took your car in for repairs.  You kinda had an inkling about what was going on, but you relied on the "expert" to share his education and experience to diagnose the problem.  Likely, you took the information and ran it through your own filter and decided on next steps.  Sometimes that means following advice, sometimes that means getting a second opinion, which in itself says no one is the expert!

Filtering.  The point here is that there are many sources of information.  Many "experts" spouting their mantra.  Sometimes that information sheds light on a totally new way of approaching things and that leads you on a new path.  Sometimes you put the information through your filter and realize the current path is the right one.  The key is to remain open to new information or new approaches - just use your filter to determine whether it applies to your unique situation.   In the end, the true value of expertise is not blind trust, it's filtering. 

So who's trying to be an expert now?  Not me, really, just sharing something else for your own filter process!   

BHAG, Big Hairy Audacious Goal  – a term coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, Built to Last:  Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.  Their application of a BHAG is for companies to implement visionary goals that are more strategic and emotionally compelling than a typical goal and they tend to have an outlook of 10 – 30 years. 

What separates BHAGs from what most companies do is their lofty spirit and time frame.  Many businesses set goals that describe what they hope to accomplish over the coming days, months or years.  These goals help align employees of the business to work together more effectively and are often very tactical, for example, to "achieve 10% revenue growth in the next 3 months." 

In contrast,  Collins and Porras state that BHAGs are "...an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future."    A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for employees to champion.  It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines."

For more details on BHAGs, check out the article "How to Achieve Big Hairy Audacious Goals" from Inc. magazine and hopefully you’ll be able to use these thoughts to get you on your path toward a BHAG!  Put a stake in the ground that 2014 is your year to achieve what matters most.

Two of the latest buzzwords...strategic and leader.  It seems that business success is rooted on these two basic platforms - are you strategic and are you a good leader?  What does it take to be a good strategic leader?

According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, there are six main areas that you need to assess to determine your level of leadership acumen... 

• Anticipate - Do you constantly gather information from a wide network of experts and sources in order to stay on top of developments/challenges that may hit your business?

• Challenge - Do you reframe a problem from several angles to understand root causes?  Do you seek out diverse views to see multiple sides of an issue?
• Interpret - Do you test multiple working hypotheses with others before coming to conclusions?
• Decide - Do you thoroughly assess an issue before taking action - evaluate tradeoffs and risks?
• Align - Do you consider key stakeholders best interests before determining your actions?
• Learn - Do you correct the course when you realize the direction you are headed is not the right path?
  

If you spot an area that you had to answer "no", focus on turning that around...and you may soon see an improvement in your business success!