Lots of managers fall in these common traps when trying to increase teamwork and build more effective teams:

• What the Top Orders the Middle to do for the Bottom – one of the key factors determining the skills of supervisors and managers are the team leadership skills of senior management.  Accustomed to using their technical or management system skills, most senior managers’ team skills are — to put it gently — rusty. Numerous organizations have proven that developing the skills of executives in this vital area has a profound and lasting impact on how quickly and effectively the rest of the organization follows suit.
• Confusing Structure and Skills – bringing groups of people together and calling them a team doesn’t make them one. Far too many groups are a loose collection of individuals, not a team. Extensive and continuous team skill development is needed. Form follows function. Teaching people how to make teams work (as leaders or members) is critical to increased effectiveness and teamwork.
• Meeting Madness – far too many organizations accept poorly run meetings as normal. People arrive late, agendas and ground rules don’t exist or are ignored, participants pay more attention to their Blackberries than the meeting, conflicts turn personal or are avoided, a few people hog all the air time, decisions aren’t made, summarized, or documented, or discussions go off track.
• Reverting Under Pressure – the truest test of teamwork, engagement, and empowerment is when the crunch is on. If team leaders revert to command and control management, their credibility – and teamwork – may be shot. That doesn’t mean avoiding the tough decisions that go against popular opinion. People want decisive and strong management — when it’s called for. But how position power is used makes all the difference in the world. As much as possible, strong team leaders gather broad input and give people a chance to have their say. Once they made a tough or unpopular decision, he or she reiterates the reasons for it and solicits the support of others.
• A Weak Management Team – if you’re part of a management team that wants to see stronger team effectiveness from others in your organization – get your own house in order first. It’s amazing how many managers run around spouting off about the need for teamwork when their own team doesn’t pull together. Don’t be hypocritical. Your people aren’t blind. How do you know what the perception of your management team’s effectiveness is?

How are your team member or leadership skills? Are you helping to build stronger teams or allowing teamwork to drift? If you’d like to refocus your team skills, visit our Team Building articles section for tips, techniques, and examples of this vital component of peak performance.

These approaches can be motivating or manipulative depending upon whether they are based on a set of values and assumptions that are traditional management or leadership-based. I’ve just come across a very entertaining and engaging video clip (less than two minutes long) that cleverly illustrates the power of fun to move people toward taking the stairs rather than the escalator. Check out Stairs versus Escalator for a quick bit of fun and inspiration.

Fun is a very powerful motivator that’s vastly undervalued and underutilized by most managers. That’s probably because they aren’t putting enough fun and joy into their own work lives!

Here are some ways to raise your Laughter Index and bring more fun to your team or organization:

• Appoint a Director of Fun, take joke breaks, use humorous video clips, have dress-up theme days, and the like.
• Have a special thanks/congratulations breakfast or lunch BBQ served (or cooked) by management or the project team leader.
• Bring in spontaneous treats (e.g. doughnuts, cake, ice cream, pizza party) for reaching a milestone.
• Give your customers the ability to award certificates, points, or “recognition dollars” to the frontline servers that give them great service.
• Give servers/producers the ability to award certificates, points, or “recognition dollars” to the internal partners supporting their efforts.
• Develop walls of fame or alcoves of excellence on your Intranet site, internal newsletter, or throughout your organization, filled with pictures, awards, performance charts, customer/partner letters, hero stories, and the like.
• Hold “top team” days to recognize high-performing teams. Have them set-up a “trade show” in your lobby, exhibit hall, or a hotel ballroom to show off what they’ve been doing and connect others to their work.
• Get teams presenting accomplishments to executives/managers/ visitors.
• Send hand-written personal thank you or congratulations notes.

What are you doing to add more fun to your workplace? The most powerful and lasting rewards are those that excite and unite everyone toward a shared vision and common goals. How are you making the work itself rewarding? How are you providing that leadership?

The short poem is a palindrome. That means the words read the same backwards as forward. On top of that, Jonathon made the words mean the very opposite when read in reverse. The opening few lines sound very cynical and pessimistic:

“I am part of a lost generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world.
I realize this may be a shock but
‘Happiness comes from within.’
is a lie, and
‘Money will make me happy.’”

If you now read the lines by starting at the bottom and reading upwards you’ll get a hopeful and optimistic message.

Sponsored by the American Association of Retired People (AARP) everyone in the room was awe-struck at the end of the video clip and broke into spontaneous applause. CLICK HERE to watch this powerful 1:45 video.

The video wonderfully illustrates our workshop discussions around perception, what exactly is “reality,” and how we choose our perspective. Here are a few short items from Growing @ the Speed of Change  and previous Leader Letter  articles outlining those points:

Range of Reality: Choosing the Best or the Worst of Times

Lessons in Perspective from the Dung Beetle

Keeping Problems in Perspective  which includes Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm…on Choosing Our Perspective

Grappling with the Science of Reality: Dreams, Illusions, and Perceptions

Leading @ the Speed of Change workshop in Calgary, Vancouver, and Halifax

The only open or public workshops I have booked are set for September 24 in Halifax, September 29 in Calgary, and October 1 in Vancouver. Since our business is built around customized programs and services I do very few public workshops. It will likely be a few years again until I deliver public sessions in these cities. So if you’re in these regions – or want to take a trip to great Canadian cities at a beautiful time of year – I hope to see you in the fall!

We’re seeing a revival of interest in building “magnet organizations” that attract, engage, and retain the best people. In preparing for leadership and culture development work with a U.S. healthcare Client this month, we referenced a research study from The Ken Blanchard Companies on this issue. Building on their previous study “The Leadership-Profit Chain” this new research looked at “the new rules of engagement” by surveying over 2,100 people to determine the core elements that ignite employee passion.

Eight Key Factors Influencing Employee Passion

• Meaningful work – Employees perceive the organization’s larger purpose through products or services produced, consider their work to be worthwhile, and are proud of their individual actions and contributions that help the organization serve its customer.
• Collaboration – Employees perceive an organizational environment and culture that enhances collaboration, cooperation, and encouragement between all organizational members.
• Fairness – Employees perceive an environment where pay, benefits, resources and workload are fair and balanced and equitable, people treat each other with respect, and leaders act in an ethical manner.
• Autonomy – Employees perceive an environment where people have the tools, training, support, and authority to make decisions.
• Recognition – Employees perceive an environment where they are praised, recognized, and appreciated by colleagues and their leader for their accomplishments, where they receive monetary compensation for those accomplishments, and where they are contributing to positive relationships with others.
• Growth – Employees perceive an environment where people have opportunities to learn, grow professionally, and develop skills that lead to advancement and career growth.
• Connectedness with leader – Employees perceive an environment where they trust their leader and where the leader makes an effort to form an interpersonal connection with them.
• Connectedness with Colleagues – Employees perceive an environment where they trust their colleagues and where their colleagues make an effort to form an interpersonal connection with them.

An old Chinese proverb reminds us to dig a well before we’re thirsty. If you’re leading a team or developing supervisors and managers, now’s the time to review the strength of these factors within your team or organization.

To read the full white paper, see Employee Passion on The Ken Blanchard Companies web site. You need to register (no charge) to download the eight page PDF file.

Leading @ the Speed of Change workshop in Calgary, Vancouver,
and Halifax

The only open or public workshops I have booked are set for September 24 in Halifax, September 29 in Calgary, and October 1 in Vancouver. Since our business is built around customized programs and services I do very few public workshops. It will likely be a few years again until I deliver public sessions in these cities. So if you’re in these regions – or want to take a trip to these great Canadian cities at a beautiful time of year – I hope to see you in the fall!

Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown contrast these two types of leadership/management styles as Multipliers and Diminishers. Based on studying 150 leaders in 35 companies with intensive 360 degree analysis (confidential behavior surveys of direct reports, peers, and boss.) Their Harvard Business Review article “Managing Yourself: Bringing Out the Best in Your People” provides an excellent summary of this work.

Wiseman and McKeown identify five types of Diminishers and Multipliers:

Diminishers

•  The Empire Builder – Hoards resources and underutilizes talent;
•  The Tyrant – Creates a tense environment that suppresses people’s thinking and capabilities;
• The Know-It-All – Gives directives that demonstrate how much he or she knows;
• The Decision Maker – Makes centralized, abrupt decisions that confuse the organization;
• The Micro-manager – Drives results through his or her personal involvement.

Multipliers

• The Talent Magnet – Attracts talented people and uses them to their highest potential;
• The Liberator – Creates an intense environment that requires people’s best thinking and work;
• The Challenger – Defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch their thinking and behaviors;
• The Debate Maker – Drives sound decisions by cultivating rigorous debate among team members;
• The Investor – Gives other people ownership of results and invests in their success.

The authors provide a very useful Multipliers web site built around their new book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. An especially practical tool from their study is “Are You an Accidental Diminisher? This 10 item survey helps to cut through the problem so many managers have in recognizing their inconsistencies between talking the talk of coaching, developing, and growing people and actually walking the walk. When visiting the site, click on “Meet the Multipliers” for inspiring profiles of some of the top leaders in their study and the dominant type of Multiplier approach they use.

Take a Day to Multiply Your Multiplier Skills

Coaching, developing, engaging, and energizing individual and team performance is a key theme woven throughout my Leading @ the Speed of Change workshops. This mind and skill set clearly distinguishes managing things and leading people. Many supervisors and managers diminish and stifle people by managing their “human assets” as things.

I am delivering a rare one-day open/public Leading @ the Speed of Change  workshop in Halifax on September 24 and Calgary on September 29 and Vancouver on October 1. If you live in one of these cities come out and join us – and bring your management team. If you’re out of town – or the country – here’s a perfect chance to visit these great Canadian cities at a beautiful time of year! We’ll share our experiences and multiply our skills together!

“Give thy mind more to what thou has than to what thou hast not.”
- Marcus Antonius, 2nd Century Roman Emperor

“It is distressing that the media, and thus much of the public, dwell so heavily on bad news.  If one were to judge the state of humanity solely by the daily headlines and news broadcasts, one would come away convinced that we inhabit a world besieged by poverty, insecurity, conflict, and oppression….people today, on the average, are better fed, better clothed, better housed, and better educated than at any previous time.  Fewer and fewer people live under the weight of tyranny. In most parts of the world, people are enjoying longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives. And yet, unfortunately, these very real triumphs generally pass unnoticed, which is a very great pity.  Why must so many people be so unhappy when in reality humankind is living in the most glorious period in all of history?”
- John Marks Templeton, Is Progress Speeding Up?: Our Multiplying Multitudes of Blessings

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century German author, professor, and philosopher

“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
- Charles Dickens, 19th Century British novelist

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” 
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Turn of 20th Century British writer

“A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.”
- Pearl Bailey 20th Century, American singer and performer

Cultivate Recognition, Celebration, and Appreciation in Yourself and Others

A key habit and skill set woven throughout my Leading @ the Speed of Change workshops is increasing “thanks pay” through recognition, celebration, and appreciation for the people we work with and lead. It’s key to engagement and empowerment, building team spirit, coaching and developing, and energizing and mobilizing others. It’s also a personal habit that’s vital to increasing our own happiness and effectiveness.

I am delivering a rare one day open/public Leading @ the Speed of Change  workshop in Halifax on September 24 and Calgary on September 29 and Vancouver on October 1. If you live in or near one of these cities come out and join us – and bring your management team. If you’re out of town – or the country – here’s a perfect chance to visit one of these great Canadian cities at a beautiful time of year! We’ll all be grateful for growing leadership skills together!

In “20 Weeks to Happiness,” Richard Handler reports on, “…a two-month experimental comparison conducted by psychologists Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis and Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, volunteer subjects who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week than subjects who recorded neutral life events or hassles as I’d done for years.”

Most of us need to keep working at building gratitude skills and habits. Here are a few tips and techniques from Growing @ the Speed of Change:

• On your own or with your spouse, wrap up your day just before going to bed by recounting at least three accomplishments or highlights of that day. This is especially important when you’ve had a bad day. Fall asleep feeling good about yourself and your situation. This can also be a great family exercise around the dinner table.
• Develop and keep expanding your Blessings and Brag list. List every accomplishment, strength, and success you’ve ever had or thing you’re grateful for. Make it as long as possible and keep it growing. Review the list whenever you’re feeling down on yourself, anxious, or a little sour.
• Take a “bliss break” by making a list of all the little things that you really enjoy. It’s a fun exercise. Indulge yourself in activities on your list, which can run to many pages once you get started.
• Make a gratitude visit. Pick a person in your life that you’d like to thank. Write this person a letter outlining how he or she helped you. After you’ve written it, call the person and ask to visit. Read the letter aloud when you are face-to-face.
• Study art, design, or natural wonders. Look with awe at the details, creativity, or beauty.
• Stop and treasure every accomplishment and success for yourself, loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Go out for dinner, take time off, send a personal note, raise a glass, give flowers, or buy the coffees.

Summer holidays are a perfect time to step back from our daily crazy-busy schedules and reflect on our journey. The University of Pennsylvania’s Authentic Happiness web site is filled with questionnaire’s to help your reflections. Once you’re registered (it’s free), take the very short and simple Gratitude Questionnaire to assess how you’re doing.

A McKinsey Quarterly survey sent to me recently reinforces the timeliness – and timelessness – of using recognition, celebration, and appreciation to energize and mobilize performance in these tough times. Go to Motivating people: Getting beyond money to see how “The economic slump offers business leaders a chance to more effectively reward talented employees by emphasizing nonfinancial motivators rather than bonuses.”

If you really want your perspective on this issue twisted in a whole new direction, read Alfie Kohn’s well researched and reasoned book, Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes. Alfie makes important points about the misuse of financial “motivation:”

“….good management, like good teaching, is a matter of solving problems and helping people do their best. This takes time and effort and thought and patience and talent. Dangling a bonus in front of employees does not. In many workplaces, incentive plans are used as a substitute for management: pay is made contingent on performance and everything else is left to take care of itself… if it does makes sense to measure the effectiveness of rewards on the basis of whether they produce lasting change, the research suggests that they fail miserably.”

Alfie’s great at pointing out the problem, but not so good at suggesting alternative approaches. I’ve tried to provide a menu of options and leadership approaches in a series of articles and book excerpts on Recognition, Celebration, and Appreciation.

Inspiring higher performance during challenging times is one of those “soft” skills that is really hard to do. That’s why it’s so rare – and so effective when done well.

A number of studies in the fields of happiness, positive psychology, and depression are showing profound and lasting benefits from teaching people the skills of counting their blessings, savoring things, appreciating beauty or quality, looking for the good in each day, and expressing gratitude.

July also marks the beginning of summer vacations for many people around the world. It’s an excellent time to recharge and embark on our own recreation. If you’re living in Canada or the U.S., Happy Canada Day or Happy Fourth of July!

The movie is a true story based on John Carlinbook’s book, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation. It centers around newly elected President Mandela’s attempts to reconcile the country’s racial divide (and avoid a civil war) through uniting all sides in supporting South Africa’s rugby team as they made their historic drive toward the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship being held in that country. Traditionally, rugby was a white sport with black South African’s cheering for the Springbok’s opponents and rejoicing in their usual defeat.

Mandela very skillfully uses the World Cup event as a galvanizing opportunity to change deeply entrenched views and redirect the clashing sides toward a common goal. In one of the movie’s many powerful leadership scenes, Mandela rushes to a meeting of the new black dominated South Africa Sports Committee and barely convinces them to reverse their decision to change the Springbok name and colors. Later he shows more of the depth of his leadership and drive toward reconciliation in response to his party members bitterly reminding Mandela of the 27 years he spent in prison, and all the crimes and injustices against blacks under Apartheid; “Forgiveness liberates the soul. That’s why it’s such a powerful weapon. We have to prove we are not what they (whites) fear. We have to surprise them with compassion.”

Some of this story’s most powerful leadership lessons come from Mandela’s first meeting with the Springbok’s captain. Responding to Mandela’s question on his leadership philosophy, Pienaar says he believes in leading by example. Mandela agrees that’s critical. Mandela then challenges him; “How do you inspire a people (or a team) to be better than they think they are?” The inspirational leadership theme builds throughout the rest of the film. Mandela’s words, “visible felt leadership,” and his history become powerful rallying points for ever higher performance.

Mandela also recites parts of a poem to Pienaar which he says gave him the inspiration to persevere during his long imprisonment. Phrases from the Victorian lyric poem (four line and four stanzas), Invictus (Latin for unconquered), by William Ernest Henley become a major theme throughout the rest of the movie. The last two lines are; “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” To read the poem and background on how Henley penned it as he overcame his personal challenges click on Invictus. To view a dramatic one minute video of Sir Alan Bates reading the poem CLICK HERE.

Nelson Mandela is one of the greatest leadership examples of our time. Here are a few insights (most are from his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom) to effective leadership and living from this remarkable “change agent:”

“It always seems impossible, until it is done.”

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”

As the 2010 FIFA World Cup wraps up and many of us in Canada and the U.S. get ready to celebrate the birth of our nations this coming weekend, Mandela’s life story provides incredible lessons in personal leadership and nation building.