Author: Jo

Taboo for more than 500 years, a recent news article suggested that the infamous four letter word has become so commonplace that it is no longer obscene and is now acceptable in everyday conversation.

Any Queens reading this who follow the wonderful Constance Hall,  Australian blogger and freedom fighter, will no doubt agree.  The F word has become the one magical word, which just by its sound can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love and it falls into many grammatical categories: adjective, reinforcing adverb, noun, verb….

The first time I heard the word, I was seven. My friend Ruth from 3 houses up the street asked if I wanted to know the worst word in the world. She whispered it to me and, although she was not sure what it meant, we both loved the idea of a word so rude that it could barely be uttered!

I am not sure what happened next, but I remember I was sent to bed early that night.  Obviously, the pleasure of my new knowledge waned without the ability to share it.

So here we are in 2016 and if you are a social media user you are almost certainly immune to the impact of this (apparently previously) obscene word go now.  It appears that Society is changing.

What about in the workplace, does this softening of meaning in popular language make it acceptable? And if not, how would one know?  Should employees intrinsically recognise what is and isn’t acceptable?  Could they argue, as a man fined for swearing at police in Glasgow did, that they were using “the language of their generation”. (The Judge ruled in his favour.)

There is a law of human nature that says: 

Where there are no rules, people will make them up for themselves.  

While this is okay in some instances, it is not okay in others.   Left unchecked, peoples’ made up rules eventually become “the accepted way of doing things around here” and then become difficult to change. 

Most individuals are not as autonomous as we would like to believe.  Many people are not comfortable without a set of rules and directions.  Standards provide the day-to-day guidance for the simple tasks we do with regularity.  They are flexible enough to be changed when needed, though clearly stated so as to provide a concrete direction to employees.

While most organisations have a large manual filled with policies and regulations, it is not usually comprehensive enough to cover the intricate differences found in different departments and locations.  Every location should have its own set of standards that reflect the idiosyncrasies found across a broad spectrum of business channels.

Keep in mind that Standard setting work is never done.  Once the process has begun, there will always be times when another missing standard is discovered and must be created.  This is the best way to maintain a culture that does not “lay blame” or “look for who is at fault”. 

Look first to the system and the standards, and then educate the people.

We can get you started by facilitating a Behavioural Standards Workshop for you and your team. This workshop is about creating behavioural standards that give guidance for both the staff members who are responsible for the behaviours, and also for the Team Leaders who are responsible for managing the performance of the staff .

Contact us to find out more.

At the University of Denver, Greg Giesen and Lauri Osborne developed a model called Tuckman Tweaked: A Revised Model of Group Development.

As you know, the forming–storming–norming–performing model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who stated that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work, and to deliver results

 

We really love this Tuckman Tweaked model – and who wouldn’t, it has a smiley face in it!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is also exciting about the model is that it recognises the behaviours essential for, and detrimental to, team success and highlights that without good leadership group development is not a set of stages leading to high performance.

Simply putting a group of technically proficient people, together, regardless of their IQ scores, does not make a successful team.  We all know that.  Success has less to do with who is in a team, and more with how a team’s members interact with one another.  It is the relationships between team members that affect everyone’s productivity and happiness.  

Daniel Goleman wrote in Emotional Intelligence that three conditions are essential to group effectiveness: trust among members, a sense of group identity and a sense of group efficacy. In teamwork, emotional intelligence is the essential social lubricant providing the capacity to settle disputes well, brainstorm creatively and work harmoniously.  Our recent blog discussed Google’s data-driven research that found that the best teams respect one another’s emotions and are mindful that all members should contribute to the conversation equally. 

OK, what does that look like?

All this is great information if you are studying leadership or writing a blog, but how do you translate that into action every day in the workplace?  Maybe you could time everyone with the talking stick to make sure speaking slots are evenly shared…..but what about respecting emotions?  What does that look like? Is it about acknowledging the emotion or empathising?  Then there is trust – everybody knows you need it, but how do you create it? 

This is where the model and accompanying paper excels.  By ‘tweaking’ Tuckman’s stages to enhance its relevance to groups, teams, and their leaders Giesen and Osborne divided norming into two separate stages: good norming and bad norming.

During the Norming stage the team establishes ‘Norms’ , these are the attitudes and behaviours, that eventually become the habits, that ultimately decide the groups success.

The Good Norming Stage

A team can get to good norming by way of storming; more specifically, by effectively addressing issues and working through conflicts, and emerge as a more synergistic team as a result of their success. Once in good norming, the team quickly gains its balance and enters this tranquil phase as everything begins to settle into place. Team members find standard ways to do routine things, they drop the power plays and grandstanding, and everyone makes a conscious effort to work together. The newly formed norms are constructive in nature and foster teamwork and open communication.

Behaviours associated with Good Norming:

• Each person on the team speaks approximately equally

• Team members have good intuition for sensing how others are feeling based on their tone of voice and body language.

• Members were confident they won’t be judged if they make suggestions.

• Members felt they could take risks because other team members cared about them.

• Members anticipate problems and address them before they happen

• Members focus on what the team can control

• Members  focus on problem solving not blaming

• Members make time to discuss difficult issues and the emotions around them

The Bad Norming Stage

Teams that are unable to address or work through critical issues, conflict, or relationship dynamics, move into bad norming. In bad norming, interpersonal relationships become strained, dysfunctional norms evolve, subgroups and self-protective behaviours emerge, and the team leader’s ability to lead continues to decline. In truth, it is the team leader who is primarily responsible for the team even being in the bad norming stage and it is not unusual to see a widening gap develop between the team leader and his/her team in this stage.

Example behaviours of a team stuck in the Bad Norming Stage

• Team member talks about another team member instead of to that team member

• Team leader refuses to handle a problem within the team and tells the complaining team member to mind his/her own business

• Team is made up of two or three cliques who refuse to cooperate with one-another except on a very minimal level

• Team members are so apprehensive about bringing up an issue that they’d rather avoid it or sweep it under the rug

What teams need in the Bad Norming Stage

Team members in the bad norming stage need to know:

• The problems within their team are either being addressed or will be addressed

• The team leader is accountable for his/her share of the situation

• The organization is aware of the problem and committed to resolving it

• The status quo is viewed as unacceptable by team members

• Team and team leader are willing to do whatever it takes to turn the situation around

When teams enter the bad norming stage, one of two things usually happens: 1) The team stays stuck in that stage and eventually have to be replaced, dissolved or at least dismantled in part; or 2) They fix whatever needs to be fixed by going back to storming and then hopefully on to good norming.

As the model shows, a team in bad norming cannot simply move to good norming without first going back through the storming stage. This means that the team needs to be prepared to address, correct, and resolve the very issues that caused them to move into bad norming in the first place.

Outside intervention at this point can be useful, bringing an unbiased specialist in to facilitate the group development and assist the team work back through storming, giving them the tools they need to move to a better place.

What could prevent a team from moving out of Bad Norming

• Continued fear of conflict      

• Team members unwilling to go back to the storming stage to revisit unresolved issues

• Teams who have gotten used to the dysfunction

• Distrust in the team leader’s ability to lead

• Team’s dysfunction has become too entrenched

• Team truly needs to have a member terminated but whose organization refuses to pull the trigger

• Team that is still able to meet their productivity goals, in spite of themselves

• Team leader denies any problem exists

• Organisation refuses to intervene

 

Take a moment to consider:

• What stage of development is your current team (or work group) in?
  

• Does your team have the potential to be a high performing team? If so, what might be getting in the way?

• Do you have a team stuck in bad norming?

 

Need more? We can get you started by facilitating a Behavioural Standards Workshop for you and your team. This workshop is about creating behavioural standards that give guidance for both the staff members who are responsible for the behaviours, and also for the Team Leaders who are responsible for managing the performance of the staff.  Contact us to find out more.

Reference:  Read the full paper on Tuckman Tweaked 

 

 

Imagine using Employee Development plans that HR, managers and employees connect with….

Do your line managers have the right tools to provide their employees with the developmental support they need?

All well executed and successful employee development follows a distinct path.

Behavioural Standards

The first port of call on a successful employee development journey is to have well written standards. All behaviours emanate from standards. If the action or task is to jump – the standard must describe “how high”, “how many times”, and what kind of jump is required for great jumping to occur?

Skills Audit

The next part of the journey is to understand what skills and knowledge exists and what is missing. A great gap analysis can be done quickly and easily and also engage the employee fully in the process ~ this will increase “buy in” and self-development.

Development Planning

The final part of this journey is the development planning process. Most organisations use Individual Development Plans as a static part of a review process. In these cases, it generally does not result in any development at all. Instead, it simply ticks a box to say that there has been a development plan created. Its time to turn that process on its head and implement a “Living Development Plan”. The name is purposeful and instructional! It is designed to be a living process, not just a document that is never referred to again.

We’ve created three great templates to help you deliver effective and sustainable development:

1. Behavioural Standards Template find out here. It comes complete with instructions, examples and a blank template for you to get started.

2. Skills Audit Template. Again, there are instructions for use and the entire template can be modified and reused to your heart’s content.

3. LDP (Living Development Plan) Template. This template also comes with a set of instructions and recommendations.

We think development is a cyclical process and we’ve put together some notes for you on how to get started with an employee development cycle that will be effective and easy to maintain. When you download the templates you will also receive our free eBook The Development Cycle.

Need more? We can get you started by facilitating a Behavioural Standards Workshop for you and your team. This workshop is about creating behavioural standards that give guidance for both the staff members who are responsible for the behaviours, and also for the Team Leaders who are responsible for managing the performance of the staff.

To find our more about Alive & Kicking Solutions and how we can help you achieve success through better human connection, contact us

It’s common wisdom that most modern workplaces rely on teamwork, but some teams are simply better than others. In 2012, Google became focused on building the perfect team.

The company’s top executives had long believed that building the best teams meant combining the best people in the best possible way. They recruited the best and expected the performance of every team to represent the sum of the individuals, but this did not work out. Some work groups thrived and others faltered despite being made up of the top of the talent pool.  

The tech giant initiated Project Aristotle, which took several years, and included interviews with hundreds of employees and analysis of data about the people on more than 100 active teams at the company. The Googlers looked hard to find a magic formula—the perfect mix of individuals necessary to form a stellar team—but it was not that simple.

Google’s data-driven approach ended up highlighting that the best teams respect one another’s emotions and are mindful that all members should contribute to the conversation equally.

It has less to do with who is in a team, and more with how a team’s members interact with one another.

The findings echo Stephen Covey’s influential 1989 book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Members of productive teams take the effort to understand each other, find a way to relate to each other, and then try to make themselves understood.

The behaviours that create psychological safety — conversational turn-taking and empathy — are part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to, as individuals, when we need to establish a bond. And those human bonds matter as much at work as anywhere else. In fact, they sometimes matter more.

Project Aristotle is a reminder that when companies try to optimize everything, it’s sometimes easy to forget that success is often built on experiences — like emotional interactions and complicated conversations and discussions of who we want to be and how our teammates make us feel — that can’t really be optimised.

Google now describes psychological safety as the most important factor to building a successful team.  Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor, defines psychological safety as a “a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up”.

So how do you build psychological safety in your team?

Leadership and management must initiate the formation of a psychologically safe environment by welcoming opinions (including dissent) on goals and strategies from peers and subordinates. People in management or leadership roles who fear questioning or are more focused on their ideas than on the right ideas need to either learn, adapt, and grow, or move on. They are obstacles, roadblocks, and hindrances to organisational effectiveness, performance, and innovation.

Steps leaders can take to start to create psychological safety:

• Establish and clearly communicate expectations
• Receive Emotional Intelligence training yourself
• Provide Emotional Intelligence training for your employees
• Ensure follow-through with dedicated coaching and regular check-ins

Then, learn about and employ the following behaviours and skills:

• Frame mistakes and errors as learning and opportunities for improvement.
• Encourage lessons learned to be shared instead of hidden, focused toward helping others to learn, grow, and avoid similar mistakes.
• Embrace the value of failure for learning by admitting to mistakes they’ve made themselves look these up.
• Understand the difference between failures and subversion, sabotage, incompetence, and lack of ability.

Find out more about Emotional Intelligence training