9 Powerful Practices Of Really Great Teams: - Softcover

Stephen E. Kohn: Vincent D. O'Connell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1601632649 ISBN 13: 9781601632647

Publisher: Career Press, 2013

Synopsis

Increasingly, organisations count on project teams to develop products and deliver services to their customers. Consequently, effective teamwork and team leadership are integral components of an organisation's success.

In 9 POWERFUL PRACTICES OF REALLY GREAT TEAMS, Stephen E. Kohn and Vincent D. O'Connell define the essence of superior performance by project teams at work and identify nine attributes of team membership and team leadership that set the stage for accomplishment of group objectives. Kohn and O'Connell bring these proven strategies to life with actual examples drawn from decades of experience.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen E. Kohn is president of Work & People Solutions, specialising in executive coaching, management training and organisational development. Vincent D. O'Connell is Asia regional director for international training and performance management consultants, Globecon Institute. He creates and delivers customised curricula for corporate clients, particularly in the areas of emotionally intelligent leadership practices.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

9 Powerful Practices of Really Great Teams

By Stephen E. Kohn, Vincent D. O'Connell

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2013 Stephen E. Kohn and Vincent D. O'Connell
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60163-264-7

Contents

Foreword, 
Preface, 
Chapter 1 Introducing the 9 Powerful Practices of Really Great Bosses, 
Chapter 2 Powerful Practice #1: Expanding Self-Awareness, 
Chapter 3 Powerful Practice #2: Practicing Empathy, 
Chapter 4 Powerful Practice #3: Following "Golden Rule" Principles, 
Chapter 5 Powerful Practice #4: Safeguarding Credibility, 
Chapter 6 Powerful Practice #5: Maintaining Proper Boundaries, 
Chapter 7 Powerful Practice #6: Criticizing Artfully, 
Chapter 8 Powerful Practice #7: Adopting a Coaching Style, 
Chapter 9 Powerful Practice #8: "Flexing" to Different People Styles, 
Chapter 10 Powerful Practice #9: Transforming Conflict Into Opportunity, 
Epilogue, 
Glossary, 
Notes, 
Index, 
About the Authors, 

CHAPTER 1

Introducing the 9 Powerful Practices of Really Great Bosses

These days, it is very popular for organizations to formulate a "people strategy." Typically, it is an employee relations theme promoted within the organization, summarizing an enterprise-wide effort to leverage human capital in pursuit of the corporate mission. Companies actually incorporate these strategies into their logos, with labels such as "putting people first" or "people before strategy."

Putting people first is certainly a worthy goal. A company that focuses on the assets inherent in its human resources will foster an internal business environment that is attentive to the talent that lies within the organization and to ways in which this talent's full potential can be deployed and leveraged. However, organizations have finite resources, and they face the daily pressures of satisfying highly demanding customers. As such, decisions must be made about which people-oriented priorities are most important and how these priorities will be promulgated, implemented, and then supported. What, then, are the key determinants of an optimal corporate "people strategy"?

Some organizations may construct new compensation models, thereby placing great emphasis on rewarding excellent work performance through monetary incentives. Other organizations may augment benefit packages. These strategies are important, but research has shown that these types of extrinsic rewards often fail to motivate excellent job performance as effectively as the more intrinsic rewards of work.

Indeed, work offers many types of intrinsic rewards: learning, developing new skills, socialization opportunities within the process of teamwork, and even the more altruistic rewards stemming from the joy of helping customers grow their businesses and seeing them prosper as a result. Our experience is that when people feel good about the organization that employs them, when they feel excited about coming to work every day, their positive attitude — inspired by the intrinsic rewards of work — typically is most attributable to the quality of the relationship that exists between themselves and the individuals leading them. And the most important such relationship, by far, is that which exists between employees and their direct supervisors.

Indeed, the most crucial element of a corporate "people strategy" should be developing the human relations skills practiced by managers with their direct reports, in day-to-day individual and group interactions. When excellent relationships exist between supervisors and their direct reports, the likelihood is that the intrinsic rewards of work will be high — and highly valued, as well. When employees admire the way in which they are being led, when they see their supervisory relationship as one that involves mutual respect and opportunities for personal and professional growth, work becomes a highly dynamic activity, far transcending that of merely receiving the extrinsic reward (their paycheck). This core principle that we champion, that management is a relationship-building role, and that the relationship that matters most is the one between managers and their direct reports, serves as the central theme behind our model.

In our experience, managers appreciate a learning model that has a beginning, middle, and end, one through which they can gain a sense of progression via incremental steps, moving ever forward toward a project "finish line." Managers' time is limited, and they tend to embrace a step-by-step learning system, where the process is well defined and has a well-proven path toward measurable success.

The figure on page 22 shows our 9 Powerful Practices of Really Great Bosses model graphically. The model is represented by "building blocks" that form a well-grounded pyramid. This representation visually reinforces the notion that, although all the skills that we advocate are "essential," they can be arranged and prioritized in a sensible order.

The bottom layer of our management human relations skills pyramid forms the base of the model. These are the "foundation" competencies: expanding self-awareness, practicing empathy, following "Golden Rule" principles, and safeguarding credibility. These are the blocking and tackling that football coaches emphasize, the grip that golf pros go over in the first lesson, and the breathing techniques advocated by yoga instructors. They are practices that are intrinsic to the way in which managers manifest human relations talents. They help managers develop an emotionally intelligent approach to leading others, an approach conducive to engendering the admiration and active following behaviors of staff.

In a middle layer, three specific supervisory people skills — maintaining proper boundaries, criticizing artfully and adopting a coaching style — build upon the four core skills at the foundation level and are applied to common management challenges. To be most useful, our model needs to be more than an exploration of widely admired, foundation-layer skills. We hope to emphasize approaches to management human relations challenges that actually test one's empathy, emotional self-awareness, an ability to apply Golden Rule principles, and credibility.

Why did we choose these three particular challenges to include and emphasize within our model? The fact is that in a significant percentage of the cases for which we have provided management development services, three categories of problems recur again and again:

1. Managers compromise their authority through bad judgments, inappropriate behavior, or ineffective limit-setting with respect to their interpersonal relationships at work.

2. Managers alienate people through their frustrated reactions to sub-par performance. Their criticism is intolerant and hurtful. They deliver bad news or critical opinions in a way that undermines rather than reinforces subordinates' morale and team spirit.

3. Managers create dispiriting reactions among staff by watching over their every move, micromanaging tasks that staff feels completely capable of performing with little oversight. The result is low morale and higher staff turnover.

Because these problems are brought to our attention most frequently, they must:

A. Pose difficulties for individuals — or at least a disproportionate amount of them of them who find themselves in need of outside intervention from training resources.

B. Have widespread ramifications within the organization when these skills are lacking.

At the top of the pyramid, we present two "capstone" aptitudes presented less in the context of preventing common problems and more in the spirit of growth-oriented skill and team development. These are relationship management competencies that address common interpersonal issues at work: adapting to different types of personalities and managing potentially divisive disputes that disrupt workflow and performance. We refer to these practices as flexing to different people styles and transforming conflict into opportunity.

Our pyramid building block–based image is purposeful and intrinsic to the presentation and comprehension of our model. In a pyramid, the base is the broadest layer. It supports all the layers above it. Pyramids are rather simple structures, but highly solid. Sturdiness is an attractive feature of models developed for the business world, because it is important to build things that last and to which additions can be made when more blocks and/or layers are needed. Indeed, the Egyptian pyramids are marvels of endurance and durability. We like to say that our "9 Powerful Practices" pyramid symbol represents a skill-based model constructed to last through the potentially eroding impact of people management sandstorms that test not just one's skills but also one's character.

CHAPTER 2

Powerful Practice #1: Expanding Self-Awareness

"Exceptional leaders look within first to enrich, enlighten, and expand themselves. ... They use self-awareness to control themselves and ultimately to have greater influence on others."

— Warren Blank

Introduction

Most of us have heard the expression "knowledge is power." It is a familiar maxim that conveys the message, applicable to a range of professional efforts, that having access to substantive, useful information clearly facilitates greater control of situations and opportunities. For example, with a firm grasp of government-promulgated regulations, data, and strategies that can be employed to meet customers' specific needs, tax consultants have the power to make better decisions or recommendations in helping clients achieve their near- and long-term financial goals.

But how many of us have considered how this maxim might apply "within" — that is, to an assessment of ourselves? To what extent should we prioritize self-knowledge, as a means of gaining added personal power, and thereby furthering our career success? Leading management coach and author John Whitmore spins the "knowledge is power" maxim from the perspective of self-understanding, advocating that:

"What I am aware of empowers me and what I am unaware of controls me."

Awareness is a priority because it drives what we are in a position to affect and control, versus those issues or realities about which we are unaware, which tend to exert control over us. This is true of conditions within our external environment, but it is particularly relevant to our "inner territory" — our emotions, personality, values, and beliefs.

Bennis's Self-Awareness Formula

How does this process actually work? What positive, productive behaviors are put in motion by underlying self-awareness? According to eminent industrial psychologist and leadership guru Warren Bennis, self-awareness serves as a starting point for the following tautological formula of leadership/professional success:

The formula begins with the premise that efforts to develop self-awareness create opportunities for greater self-knowledge. Through this process of gaining greater self-knowledge, of learning more about ourselves, we develop less uncertainty about ourselves and more self-assurance, self-possession, and self-confidence. Indeed, self-confidence must be tied to an Accurate Self-Assessment; it must be aligned with reality. And reality is a function of correctly perceiving one's skills and abilities.

The next premise is that, once armed with a more accurate self-assessment and consequently more self-confidence, we are less likely to act impulsively or in a way that is destructive to ourselves or to our relationships. When we have more awareness of our emotions, we understand the connection between our feelings and what we think, do, say, and decide. This is a special kind of insight, called emotional self-awareness. With insight into our emotional life, and with an ability to describe the feelings using the most appropriate words (referred to as emotional literacy), we gain more self-control. The process is quite fascinating: It indicates that knowing what you are feeling and why, then labeling these emotions correctly, are skills that can actually increase one's self-command and offer individuals far better control over potentially disruptive impulses and behaviors. Again, knowledge begets power (the power in this case being that of staying in control, in the face of inevitable work and life stressors).

If a connection can be reasonably established from self-awareness through self-knowledge, self-assurance, and self-control, then as these factors build upon each other they help establish superior competence in self-expression. Verbal self-expression involves an aptitude for communicating effectively and building stronger interpersonal bonds. With an ability to express ideas in a way that can be easily understood and accepted, individuals foster trust and enhance their rapport–building skills, placing them in a powerful position to influence others.

Beyond describing a process for developing skills in verbal self-expression, Bennis's sequence also implies a resulting aptitude for literally expressing your "self" — that is, your identity, your personal philosophies, and values. With growing self-confidence, you are more likely to begin manifesting a personal trait often referred to as "presence." This description of a person — that he or she has "presence" — is very flattering, with highly positive implications for the person's ability to form healthy interpersonal bonds. Having "presence" involves the perception by others that the person manifesting this trait is well grounded, thoughtful, and in control. When owning "presence," an individual exudes confidence, stability, dependability, and trustworthiness — all integral personal qualities admired by others. Whether one is managing a company, a department, a team meeting, or even just taking part in a friendly conversation, expressing the "self" creates admiration for the individual's credibility and genuineness.

Developing Your Inner Voice

Bennis's formula advocates a process of looking within first, to enrich, enlighten, and expand our self-image. The formula makes the connection from self-awareness to greater control of ourselves and ultimately of our ability to have greater influence on others. Taking the time to listen to our "inner voice" may seem self-indulgent — a spiritual exercise better conducted in a religious context or, at least, in our private time outside work. But, in reality, developing an "inner voice" that connects you to your emotions and values is a highly important professional development activity. It has been linked to the process of enhanced business intuition, to making correct and more ethical "gut" decisions, and to becoming a more credible leader. Inner voice exploration can make you a better listener, more aware of what is going on inside other people, including the internal teams or external customers that are such a large part of your life at work.

"The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside."

— Former UN secretary general Dag Hammersjold

Connecting with your inner values requires self-exploration and an interest in examining the priorities that drive your professional and personal life. Here are some methods for clarifying your value set and "inner voice":

- Take time for contemplation. Whether it is through meditation or simply through time spent alone in thought, it is useful to disconnect from the environment and from immediate stress-ors occasionally, and to get connected to how and what you are feeling. Breathing exercises or other relaxation techniques may assist you in optimizing this process of self-reflection.

- Write a tribute to yourself. This is a common values clarification exercise that helps you identify what you believe are your strengths and transcendent qualities. Performing this task builds confidence and centers you on personal attributes you believe are worth reinforcing, day in and day out. Imagine that you are the recipient of a special award, at an annual banquet of some kind. Choose the imaginary sponsor of this banquet (it could be a real organization, such as an actual professional association, or it could be imaginary, such as "The Software Consultants People Management Society"). Write the speech given to introduce you, then develop your acceptance speech as well. Have fun with it!

- Record lessons from leaders you admire or have admired. Consider leaders who have inspired you, be they political, religious, spiritual, or employment/professional-related. Make a brief list of the underlying lessons that attract you to their leadership messages and interpersonal styles. This activity forces you to consider what really matters most to you and how important leadership values are personified.

- Write your personal "credo," your "I believe ..." statements. This exercise is an effort to focus on your personal "guidance system," comprised of your core beliefs and values. This "guidance system" provides a foundation for developing a personal Mission Statement, a self-directing compass that is grounded in your personal goals and objectives.

- Engage in a credo dialogue. Once developed, your credo should inform your behavior and personal decision-making, in a dynamic, active way. When confronting choices or decisions that need to be made, you can engage in an inner dialogue about how the choices and decisions align with your fundamental beliefs and values. For example, in instances when you face an ethical dilemma, it is helpful to take the time to ask yourself, "Is the behavior I am demonstrating, or the decision I am choosing, consistent with my personal credo?" or "What would the leader I admire do in this spot?"

Note: At the end of this chapter, sample templates are provided for you to use in completing some of these "inner voice" awareness exercises.

Developing an Accurate Self-Assessment

Beyond "inner voice" exercises and other methods to build a solid sense of your values, your beliefs, and what you are feeling and why, what other purposeful steps or actions can you take to develop a realistic evaluation of yourself? One method is to pursue an accurate self-assessment, on an ongoing basis. As mentioned earlier, self-confidence needs to be reality-based. It is essential to gain as true an evaluation of your personal strengths and weaknesses as possible.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from 9 Powerful Practices of Really Great Teams by Stephen E. Kohn, Vincent D. O'Connell. Copyright © 2013 Stephen E. Kohn and Vincent D. O'Connell. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Career Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1601632649
• ISBN 13: 9781601632647
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224