Teams

How to Make Rabbit Stew

February 25, 2021 by Dustin

I’m kidding. Right? Yes! Of course, I’m kidding!

However, that adorable little child in the bizarre little cap is me circa 1973. And that blurry brown creature behind the chicken wire in the cage on the left is a rabbit. It dawns on me as I write this that I’ve never asked what that old fat bastard’s name was. Let’s call him Fat Old Bastard. Actually, let’s call him Blind Fat Old Bastard because he couldn’t see worth a hoot and that’s about to become super important to this story. “BFOB” for short.

If it sounds to you like BFOB and I didn’t have the best of relationships, well, you’d be right. Look again at this picture and you’ll notice that I’m feeding BFOB some tasty, delectable, delicious greenery, aka grass.

One day in a scene that looked much like this, as I pushed the delicious greenery through the chicken wire to BFOB, apparently my tasty beige looked a lot like greenery. You guessed it — BFOB bit off my finger. Off. As in off my hand.

Well, ok, technically it wasn’t the whole finger. BFOB bit off my index finger to the first knuckle. And thankfully it wasn’t completely bitten off and BFOB didn’t swallow — the tip of my finger was still hanging on, dangling by a little bit of skin.

It turns out when you’re one year old and still consist almost entirely of a puddle of stem cells, you can recover from a lot. The doctors did little more than stitch the digit back together, slap the sort of bandage on it that can survive even a one year old, and wish my parents the best, telling them, “Maybe the finger will grow, maybe it will fall off.” It grew. It’s a little funky. Somewhere, there’s a picture of me smashing ants with that epic bandaged finger.

Now then, what the heck does this have to do with teams that think and act like owners, rallying people around a focused offering, mapping a path, and executing like a machine?

As of this weekend, it’s 48 years later and that rabbit is long gone. *I’m* the fat old bastard now, but thankfully not blind. But when I’ve told this story to people that worked for me, people that I’ve worked with, clients, etc. they “know me” on a different level. And they have a damn good time poking fun of me and my “bunny finger,” too. And that’s sorta the point.

How much do you know about the people that you work with? That work for you? That you work for? You see all the visible, diverse bits about them that give you impressions about them. But how much do you truly know? What do you know about what you can’t see? Where they come from? What story they have about a value they learned from a family member, coach, or embarrassing story from school?

And what do they know about you?

Making that human connection — OFFERING that human connection — doesn’t “get in the way” of being a leader. It is what makes it *possible.*

Is Your Team Even Available to Give High Performance?

February 18, 2021 by Dustin

When Ed came into my office and started talking, I was surprised at what he said. His father had a medical emergency the evening before and Ed was obviously distraught. Since his dad lived 5 states away, his mind was with his dad even if he couldn’t be. He had come to give me a heads-up that he probably wouldn’t be giving his best self to his job today.

But it wasn’t his father’s medical emergency that I found most startling. I was shocked by Ed’s own potential medical emergency. Ed’s face and eyes were yellow and I could see what he hadn’t yet been to a mirror to see: He was in the throws of full-on jaundice. When I asked how his stomach felt, he said he didn’t feel well, but he thought that was worry for his father. Off to the hospital we went, where Ed had urgent surgery to remove his gallbladder as well as stones from his bile ducts.

All Sorts of Things Prevent Us From Being Available

“Availability” is a key concept in employee engagement. It’s the idea that if something is standing in the way of an employee investing their best self in their work, then their best work won’t happen. Clearly, that’s not the best thing for the business or the customer. But here’s the thing – it’s not the best thing for the employee, either. Low engagement, regardless of the cause, can lead to low job satisfaction and eventually leaving the job.

And there are such an incredible number of things that can prevent a person from being “available” to invest their best self. Ed’s example is at the extreme end of the spectrum.

Much simpler on-the-job things that prevent availability include things like:

Not having the right tools
Not having the right training, skills, or abilities
Lacking safety to share opinions, or to try in the face of risk of failure
A feeling of isolation or not being “part of the team”
etc.

Personal things that prevent availability include:

Concerns about child care
Personal or family health concerns
Schedule conflicts

These types of issues are the reasons why it’s effective for businesses to invest in health care, employee assistance programs, and the like.

Lack of availability, whatever the cause, robs a person’s energy and attention and keeps them from focusing on the job. In many jobs, this means a hit to the bottom line and the potential for a sour employee that rubs off negatively on others. But in some businesses, like the construction trades, the lack of focus that comes with lack of availability can mean an increased risk to life and limb.

How Do You Check for Availability?

Is “Availability” something you think about and check for with your staff? If so, do you check for physical availability, mental availability, or both? Do you mostly think of it as your job to provide the physical resources and training your employees need? Or do you see it as critical to provide health care and employee assistance in order to support employees with personal issues that might impact availability?

The Power of Story to Inspire Employees

February 10, 2021 by Dustin

I never met my grandfather on my father’s side. At least not that I remember. He and grandma were killed by a drunk driver when I was one year old. I have no memories of them other than those created by pictures I see and stories I hear.

Last week, when mom had a fuzzy recollection that grandad had earned a patent, a couple of us dug in to find it. Sure enough there it was. In 1940, he filed and then sold a patent for a unique new fast opening and closing door and compartment on the sides of delivery trucks. Grandpa worked a milk route back in the days before milk tanker trucks when the job called for loading heavy containers of milk into the truck. Here he was trying to make his job easier and trying to solve a practical problem.

For me, the story spoke to where my dad got his own sense that he, too, could solve any practical problem as well as his own ability to work with his hands. Those were skills my father had somehow passed on to his own five children and I had never quite understood how. I had never quite understood where our universal assumption that we can solve anything had come from, or where our naïve matter-of-fact expectation that we can fix anything our hands can touch came from.

Now at just three years old, my firstborn already knows, “Daddy can fix it!” Even my one year old brings me broken toys exclaiming, “This! This!” The question on my mind isn’t how to fix the broken thing, but how to keep passing through example the tradition that they, too, can achieve whatever they set their mind to because it will never occur to them they can’t.

We All Want to Leave a Legacy

It’s not just me with my kids. Your employees care about their impact and the legacy they leave behind. (Even as I write that, I can hear somebody choke on their coffee… “My employees??” Yep, even them.)

Your employees want to know that they’re part of something bigger. They want to see that they are fulfilling a bigger purpose. Yes, they want to collect a paycheck. But they also want the opportunity to grow and use their skills, and they want to know that the role they play has an impact on their company and on the world around them.

If you doubt this, write up a little one or two question “pulse survey” and ask them things like:

It is important to me that I understand how my work impacts our end customers.
My co-workers and my company make me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself.

Ask for a rating on a scale of 1 to 5 from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree” and see what happens.

As social creatures, we want to know that what we do matters and we get a little twitchy when we doubt that it does.

Find and Tell Your Stories

Chances are you formed at least one or two incredibly strong, vivid images in your mind from the story I told in the opener above. If you’ve read this far, you know I care about family and helping people succeed, and you have an incredibly strong story to know I’m telling the truth.

Now it’s your turn. I used a personal story. Your challenge is to find business stories.

You have your mission. (Right? You do, right?) What stories do you have about fulfilling your mission? I’m not even talking about big stories. I’m talking about any stories, preferably from your customers, about fulfilling your mission.

Find and tell stories about fulfilling your mission, and do it often. Tell it to your employees. Tell it to your customers and people who you want to be your customers.

Unlike the empty-sounding promises of most marketing, stories are real. Stories are powerful because they help us see, feel, and virtually experience a positive outcome without going through it ourselves.

Another time, we’ll talk about how to find those stories.

The One Thing You’re Doing That Alienates Your Team

February 8, 2021 by Dustin

I was Dan and Laura’s new manager and I knew perfectly well what they didn’t. I knew that their first assignment with me was really risky. It was a project for which there was no guaranteed outcome. There was, in fact, a nearly 100% chance I would have to order considerable re-work, and a better than 50% chance their project would be canceled and they would be transferred to another project. None of this would be due to any fault of theirs. This was simply how this type of project ran: It was a proactive project to position the business for an opportunity that might never materialize, and so it might be changed or ended suddenly.

Here was my challenge…

Dan and Laura were very vocal that they were fed up and frustrated with Bill, their previous manager. They made no bones about the fact that they considered Bill to be “random” bordering on “thoughtless.” I believe the word “capricious” even came up, along with a complaint that “management always fails to plan.” Dan and Laura were fed up because Bill had canceled what they were working on and it seemed to them like the cancellation was random and seemingly without reason.

So here I was, with a team clearly alienated by their previous manager who had “randomly” canceled their work. And there was easily a better than 50% chance that I would have to either radically change or cancel their first project with me, too, risking alienating them even further.

The fact of the matter is managers and workers often have opposing interests at risk of alienating each other. It’s a matter of how you handle it.

Managers and Workers Work Toward Opposite Interests

Here’s the challenge with this situation and many like it. Very, very often – and often without realizing it – managers and employees are working toward opposite or at least very different interests. This can cause very interesting perceptions of each by the other.

For example, the higher you go in management (or as an owner) the less your day is about your own tasks and the more it is about decision making with imperfect information, managing risk, and reducing uncertainty. This often means making decisions “for now,” and changing your mind later when more information presents itself.

That sort of “mind changing” is the type of thing that can show up to workers as “random” and as a symptom of “lack of planning.” You know that’s not true, and you know there’s often no such thing as “certainty.” But quite generally, a worker working to deliver against goals perceives those goals and plans as both real and stable. And who can blame them: We generally talk about plans and goals not only as though they are real, but as things for which our workers are accountable.

As a result, the natural conflict is some managers think workers are inflexible or unreasonable, and some workers think managers are flakey, random, or lack planning skills. It’s the classic “in-group / out-group” conflict that has existed between managers and workers since….forever.

How to Manage Uncertainty and Not Alienate Your Team

With Dan and Laura, we managed this situation by sitting together and doing basic planning together. The truth was the exact work to be done wasn’t yet planned and there were lots of things to decide about the work. By talking openly and honestly about the situation and determining what work to invest in together, we achieved a couple of super important things.

It let us share the uncertainty and ambiguity.
Most folks can actually handle a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty, but only if they know about it, and preferably if they know about it in advance. By talking about how uncertain the project was upfront, Laura, Dan, and I were all on the same page going in as to what might happen with the project and it helped us choose our work better. Simply seeing and sharing in the uncertainty can really help.
It let Dan and Laura buy-in and take ownership.
By having a hand in planning, Dan and Laura felt bought in. There was actually a pretty narrow band of outcomes to choose from in this case. But still, when you have a chance to participate, you naturally feel more bought in.

The simple act of planning work together, sharing in the ambiguity, and sharing buy-in goes amazingly far in uniting the teams together.

So What Happened?

Sure enough, the project did get canceled. But because we had planned together and scoped out a suitable initial phase and knew it was an initial phase, any disappointment was just that – just a little disappointment. It wasn’t a judgment about management in general, or any person (ahem… me!), or anyone or anything else.

People just want some form of certainty, even if it’s certainty manufactured from solid, respectful communication.

Teams That Take Charge, Part 2: An Irresistible Offering

February 2, 2021 by Dustin

When last we left Charlotte, she had just shared her lament, “I wish they would grow up. I wish they would care as much as I do. Ok, maybe not as much as I do, but I wish they would care, or act like it. I don’t want to play referee. I want to get back to building something. And I want their help.”

The thing is, I had already spoken to “them” (key members of her team) and my assessment was that they really were passionate and really did want to drive the business to succeed.

The real problem was that, to a person, each had a slightly different idea of where the goal posts were planted. And those differences were big enough to cause confusion and friction that showed up at various times as gamesmanship, lack of commitment, empire building – you name it.

Sometimes People Don’t Know What They’re Working Toward

Even when placeholders, goals help productivity by anchoring focus.

The natural mental and operating state for an owner or senior manager and the natural mental and operating state for an employee is constantly at odds with one another. Most employees are working toward particular goals that seem structured and real, at least to them. That is, employees buy into goals as being “real” and fixed in time and space.

Conversely, the higher you go in management, eventually to ownership, things look far less stable and predictable. There are so many moving parts, it can get challenging to set goals at all. So to do so, often we “set a goal for now, and we’ll change it if we have to.” That’s just a fact of management. A wise woman I greatly respect once told me, “In business, go with what you know, and when you know more, change it.” What the manager sees as sound planning and decision-making strategy, the employee sees as capricious, and generations of in-group/out-group psychology march forward unchanged.

This Calls For A Little Theater

I’m the first to admit that business planning, and strategic planning, can often amount to little more than business theater.

But it is exceptionally important theater. It is powerful, necessary, and done well, can have great impact.

You as owner or senior manager need to for a time suspend disbelief and plan as best you can. You already know you’ll make small pivots as you need. The other and perhaps most important part is that the people who look to you are looking for certainty that only an irresistible offering and a solid plan can provide.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Do This

Thing #1 Not To Do: Don’t skip this. “This” is the process of crafting your irresistible offering and rallying everyone around. Just don’t. More on this in a minute.

Thing #2 Not To Do: There will come a time in this process when you will be asked to contemplate “why” you are in your business. Your “why” does not have to be revolutionary, earth-shattering, or selfless. But it also cannot be “to make money.” “To make money” is an assumed function of literally every business entity, including non-profits. Your “why” should focus on the value you provide to your audience. This is a hard rule with me.

Build an Irresistible Offering and Rally Everyone Around

A critical step is to communicate direction and goals to all, frequently.

Having said my two “Don’t Do’s,” there is absolutely no secret sauce here. So I’ll tell you the exact things I do with my clients. Ready? Here’s what we do.

Values – personal and business. Vision for the business. Mission. And a variation of the Business Model Canvass – the exact variation depends on if you’re going for VC or M&A activity or not.

These are things taught in every MBA course. These are absolutely things you can do yourself.

These are things nobody does themselves.

Secret sauce #1 is showing up and making you do them. Perhaps “helping” you do them sounds more friendly.

Secret sauce #2 is helping draw out and craft why this effort, this entity, this dream is an irresistible dream for your employees to be a part of and your customers to partake in. And to help craft the way to communicate that, again and again and again.

Infographic: Knowing, Liking, And Trusting for Teams

February 1, 2021 by Dustin

This infographic supports this article, Teams That Take Charge, Part 1: Know, Like, and Trust.

[Infographic] Here are four tips for how to encourage better teamwork.

Teams That Take Charge, Part 1: Know, Like, and Trust

February 1, 2021 by Dustin

Charlotte and I were almost at the end of our conversation and I could see there was something she hadn’t yet told me. Either that or she had the worst case of “permanently furrowed brow” I had ever seen. Charlotte was the CEO of the new client I was just starting to work with, and this was our chance to get everything out on the table. And it only took the gentlest of prompting.

“Go ahead and say it, whatever it is, before it pops out of your forehead and smacks me on mine,” I said.

“I wish they would grow up. I wish they would care as much as I do. Ok, maybe not as much as I do, but I wish they would care, or act like it. I don’t want to play referee. I want to get back to building something. And I want their help,” said Charlotte.

And there it was. “They” were her team, and this was the impassioned complaint I have heard over, and over, and over again. I’ve heard it so often that when my former clients read this, most likely more than one will ping me to say, “I’m Charlotte, aren’t I?”

The truth is it is easy to find yourself in this particular “Charlotte’s web,” and there are many reasons. Today we look at the most basic.

Sometimes, People Just Don’t Like Each Other

We’ve all had that one “special” non-work relationship with someone who fit one of these categories – someone who we:

Really didn’t know very well, or…
REALLY didn’t like very well, or…
REEEEAAAALLLLLYYY didn’t trust.

That person might be someone from church or another community group. Heaven forbid they might be a relative. Or my favorite: they might be a neighbor or a member of the HOA.

The great part about all of these people, even including most family members, is you can walk away from them. You don’t have to spend all day, every day with them. And your livelihood doesn’t depend on them.

The Price of Discord at Work

The problem with discord at work is it channels energy away from the work at hand. It changes our focus from positive intent toward our work, to negative things around us.

Let’s be careful to draw lines between what we are and are not talking about. Passionate environments where people can discuss topics openly and with great energy – and respect – are awesome. So are very calm, reserved discussions. And everything in between. The key here is respect. Another way to say it is that there is a sense that people have an understanding of each other, or the phrase that I’ll key in on is that they “know, appreciate, and respect” each other.

We’re talking about environments where there is obvious, on-going, unresolved discord.

It would be super fantastic if the way discord worked is that it were isolated and that it didn’t impact the rest of work, but that’s just not how it works. Think about the last time somebody made you upset (read: you allowed yourself to react to someone else with the reaction of “upset”). How long did you think about, “If only I had been quick enough to say this other thing instead.” Or how long did you dread your next meeting with that person? Unless you do something to intercept and change your reaction, this negative focus tends to build on itself, further robbing energy and focus.

Unfortunately, as Charlotte and those like her know, this negative focus doesn’t just impact the people involved. It has a ripple effect and drags down the energy and efficiency of those around them.

Don’t Make These Two Mistakes

Mistake #1: Ignoring the issues. This one is really tempting, especially when team or interpersonal issues pop up only to seemingly resolve themselves. However, if the issues are recurring, ignoring is a big mistake. Even certain “one-time” issues can be a tell-tale symptom of bigger issues in team and interpersonal dynamics.

Mistake #2: “Going deep” into every issue or “naval gazing” into the issues. Ironically, unless done carefully and with particular intent, focusing on issues in an attempt to solve them can have the exact same impact as the issues themselves: It focuses all energy on something negative. The most important aspect is the approach you take in solving the issue, or the “how.”

Fostering Knowing, Liking, and Trusting

In my Tired-to-Titan G.A.M.E. Plan program, we focus on growing stronger working relationships in the very first module. I have seen again and again the magic that happens when you first focus on building growth mindset and community between co-workers. While I refer to it as fostering “knowing, liking, and trusting,” honestly “liking” is a bit strong. We’re aiming for people to respect each other. Liking is a nice bonus.

Here are some of my best tips and some of the techniques we apply in Module 1: Grow, which is all about creating teams who think and act like owners:

Redirect & Focus on The Goal(s)
Make no mistake – if people are engaging in especially damaging or potentially illegal behavior (e.g. harassment) you have to step in and stop it. Much of the time, though, it’s more productive to focus on and coach the behavior and interactions you want to see rather than trying to “coach away” the behavior you don’t. It sounds like a subtle shift but it can be revolutionary.
Foster Interconnectedness
Making a comparison to war-time is a bit extreme, but here goes. Ever seen Band of Brothers? Watch it – great mini-series. What stands out is that the men weren’t just fighting the enemy, they were fighting for each other more than anything else. If you really pay attention – and if you ask them – you’ll discover that even more than their paychecks, your team is “in it” for each other. There are lots of ways to foster and grow interconnectedness.

One that I’ve found incredibly effective is to use a professional “Work Styles” assessment that helps colleagues better understand how to communicate with each other, how not to “press each others’ buttons,” and how to make the most of time in meetings. This one experience can easily take weeks off the process of “warming up” to one another. Regardless of what you do, it’s critical to rapidly foster a sense of “knowing” amongst your team.
Help Build Roles & “Rules of the Road”
One consistent source of friction in teams is a clash between roles – the sense that “you’re trying to do my job,” or worse, “Hey, why aren’t you doing your job?” Unmet role expectations quickly torpedo any comradery you may have built on your team, so it’s important to sense this friction and help it resolve.

Don’t stand by on this one. Step in and help your team members navigate the process of clearing up role conflicts they identify. And when an uncovered area pops up, get it assigned quickly. We cover techniques for handling this, but the important part is to step in and help bring the process to closure.
Build Rituals that Uniquely Glue the Team Together
The one certainty is change, so you can bet your team is going to change. It’s totally legitimate to let change happen organically.

Or, you can help it happen. I like to develop “rituals” that mark changes in the team. Changes can include changes to team membership, changes in the lives of members, or big accomplishments. Every time you mark a moment with a ritual, you claim another opportunity to strengthen the connections across your team.

Bringing it All Together

What “team” were we talking about, anyway? Doesn’t matter – whatever team(s) you’ve got. Your management team. Project or departmental teams. Your whole company. The goal is to help your team(s) know, like, and trust one another and watch the performance that results.

Check out the Infographic

Click below for the infographic that goes with this article.