teamwork – SOLUM SERVICES

The Speed of Trust and the 3Cs

Good leaders surround themselves with good leaders. Good teams submerge themselves in good practices. Good people doing good action with good processes produce great results. It works. Great results flow. They don’t take onerous work. The people, the action, and the process make it happen.

So what does a great flow look like? Trust builds on competency, chemistry, and character. Trust greases the skids of great and right results. Look for trust. When it exists, the 3Cs are most likely in place.

There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world – one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love. Stephen M.R. Covey on Trust

What does trust look like?

Loyalty: When trust exists the backdoor bickering is silent. Ever have a cohort who constantly bickers? Character prevails. Loyalty extends in every direction. A disloyal worker will bring strife into every decision. Loyal people listen and learn and run with direction.

Rapid Results: When trust exists people are busy doing the next thing. The constant questioning goes away. Vision is caught and integrated into daily action. Chemistry is activated.

Right Action: When trust exists the team knows they can run and make mistakes. They are responsible to keep each other informed and know what to do. Competency is not a question.

Do The Hard Thing:

Team Building: A manager asked me recently, “Phil, what do I do when these three seem out of sync constantly? I have solid processes. The people are trained. Communication is constant. Yet, we just can’t get the flow moving?” Answer: Look for the weakened link. Somewhere, someone has lost vision or never had it. They are not with the team. Check out my series of TEAM articles on Shepherdok.net . There are some tips on structure, action, accountability, adherence, and alliance. Find the person out of sync.

If they are in a slump and have been faithful in the past, see if you can discover their angst and help them solve it. You can’t solve the issues of the soul. You can provide the right environment to heal if it has been damaged.
Do not attack them. Many managers make this mistake and lose quality team members. Not only will you lose a friend and supporter, this is an act of treason on your part. The rest of the team will sense your disloyalty to one member and you have become the joint out of sync.
If they have never shown faithfulness, release them to follow their heart. They are not with you and will destroy the rest of the team. Let me be strong here. If you have done your best and a team player resists, release them. They will not become happy because you are a great person. They will tear at the rest of the team’s joy and trust and productivity. Release them and your team can go forward. Their passion is elsewhere. Help them get to it. Be graceful and firm.

Stand strong. Build a great team. Build a better organization forward.

Prepare Your Will

excerpted from Time To Lead: Steps To Transformation For Those and Those You Lead

Leaders are able to reroute their path to meet core vision and objective.

Hezekiah was a God-Follower. It Changed His Life To Obedience

II Kings 18: 5: He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

Rest in this – it is His business to lead, command, impel, send, call or whatever you want to call it. It is your business to obey, follow, move, respond, or what have you. Jim Elliot

Rule Well

Hopefully, we rule well. Our challenge is to address the issues of today that have been left unaddressed, too long. Our challenge is to set a powerful course that will reverse the manners in which we have become accustomed and find a course that will guide for decades. Our nation has lost moral compass and needs a strong thrust to establish a critical course for the future. It will be disastrous if we do not engage and adjust.

Principles Work

Leadership is leadership. Anyone can see results if they adhere to the principles. The more principles invoked, the greater the leadership. Yet, sometimes, it only takes one principle to fit with the timing of events and a great leader emerges. A leader empowered with the love and wisdom of God through Christ has a distinctive “accelerator” in results. God works with us doing miracles. (Mark 16)

Real Success

There are leaders entrenched in manipulation and avarice and greed. That is not where we need to look for example. Study them. Understand them. Avoid the fault lines. Men like Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin need to be studied. Understanding why people followed such leaders is important, but not wisdom to emulate. People will follow base leadership that touches their prurient side. That does not make a successful leader or leave a better world.

Worthy Goals

Earl Nightingale identified success as the progressive realization of a worthy goal. I like that definition. So my first test of greatness in leadership is a worthy goal. Is the goal one that builds other people? Is the goal one that adds to productivity? One U.S. company has the goal of producing the best “sin product”. Cigarettes, beer, snuff; anything that is damaging and addictive but legal for consumption is on their agenda. The greatest influence leader in that organization would not be considered successful in my estimation. There is no worthy goal in contributing to the destruction of human bodies and relationships.

Check The Core

If the core philosophy or goal or vision or mission is off center, scrap that example. Study those leaders and goals to understand the ways and wiles of mankind. Look for your own leadership example elsewhere. If you find your goals and methods following a leader with an unworthy goal, find a good closet for repentance, change your mindset, and get corrected. Some of the greatest leaders in history started with an unworthy focus, shifted, and become powerful in building communities. The ability to correct direction when it has gone awry is a quality of a great leader.

Pray with Faith: In the intensity of change, Lord, I look to You for guidance. Mold my mind, will, and emotion to be Yours.

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Risk It!

Winners take risks. They are unafraid of loss. The balance of gains over losses motivates.

Psalm 20:6: Now I know that the LORD saves (brings out of trouble, restores, and strengthens) His anointed; He will hear him (and respond to his rallying call for help) from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand (the hand of power and ability, the hand at which Jesus represents His). 7: Some trust in chariots, and some in horses (some trust in their riches and alliances and abilities and mental acuity): but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. 8: They (our enemies and all those who trust in their own strength) are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.

Winners are not afraid of losing.

They are willing to take risks necessary to succeed in life.

Life means risk. Life means taking chances that cause loss. Loss of friends, loss of co-workers, loss of status, loss of power, loss of control, loss of understanding of those important to you, loss of money.. all these are losses a winner decides at times must be risked. “No pain, no gain. Know gain, know pain.”, some would say. Life means risk. Risk means loss. Risk also means winning.

Edison risked until he found the right element for light bulbs. Once on a comment that it took fifty thousand tries before he got results, he explained, “Results? Why I have gotten a lot of results. I know fifty thousand things that won’t work.”

Ray Kroc became an outstanding business leader. Yet, for years he failed at every business attempt. It was so bad his wife was ready to leave him on his last venture. Seems he sold out everything to buy a few hamburger joints owned by some brothers named McDonald. You guessed it. That was the start of the McDonald’s chain of restaurants that made the Krocs multi-millionaires. Winners keep trying. (By the way, his wife stuck it out.)

Those secure in Jesus are unafraid of risk because they know He will back them up. They know they can make a mistake and be put back on track.

Psalm 37:23: The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delights in his way. 24: Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholds him with his hand. 25: I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. 26: He is ever merciful, and lends; and his seed is blessed.

Take Inventory

Pensive?

Trying to make a decision?

What is it?

Write it down. Write down the good and bad about it. Pray about it. Listen to God. Commit it to Him. Decide. Don’t let fear hold you down.

Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

Pray To Be Bold

Father, encourage me. Strengthen me to take that step of faith in Your leading. I am weak, Father. I fail. I am made of grass and wither in the noon sun, but You cause a shadow to cover me. Let the cool breathe of Your Spirit blow over me and freshen my day. Though I fall, I will get up and go again. You will cause me to succeed.

Risk It! Stand Ground. Give Ground.

Pick your battles. There is a time to stand and a time to give ground. Use wisdom. Move purposefully.

Phil:1:27: But whatever happens, make sure that your everyday life is worthy of the gospel of Christ. So that whether I do come and see you, or merely hear about you from a distance, I may know that you are standing fast in a united spirit, battling with a single mind for the faith of the gospel and not caring two straws for your enemies. (J.B. Phillips translation).

A winner….. knows when to fight and when to compromise.

A loser ….. fights over the wrong things and compromises at the wrong time.

Hebrews 12:14 Let it be your ambition to live at peace with all men and to achieve holiness “without which no man shall see the Lord” (J.B. Phillips translation)

Winners know when to fight to win and when to give. In the song, “The Gambler”, the advice was given, “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” There is a fight worth fighting, and there are items in life not worth the effort.

Winston Churchill in the darkest hours of England’s battles with Germany had this sense. When others wanted to lay down and give up he stood ground and challenged, “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.” The war was won over courage and tenacity and knowing the fight needed to be fought.

You have to know when to fight. After living in their new home for a year, the Newbies had a major problem. Sewage came running over into the downstairs bath, living room, and entry foyer. What a mess! Massive cleanup, roto-rooter, and a few days of showering at the neighbors did not fix it. The city claimed the problem was theirs, the plumber claimed the city needed to fix it. Two great neighbors and a day of digging exposed a major city problem. Out they came, and yes, they fixed it. They dug 14 feet deep, repaired the sewer main, and replaced fences they had to tear down. But, they didn’t take care of the carpet and house. Forms, forms, and more forms, telephone calls, working with city attorneys, and a lot of prayer resulted in a surprise. One night the local city councilman called to alert the Newbies that their reimbursement request was scheduled to get the hatchet the next day at the city council meeting. P. Newbie showed up at the council meeting of this large metropolitan community. Deep in the docket was a line item scratching the claim along with over 30 other homeowners. What could he do? Fight. Fight for his wife to get carpet. Fight for restoration. Fight he did. First in prayer, then in rhetoric. “Mayor, my friends and I dug a 7 foot deep hole to show the city that the problem was theirs, I am willing to dig a 7 foot deep rhetorical hole to help the council see it needs to pay these costs.” The council halted him right there and offered to pay a reasonable settlement. No one else was awarded that day. The clerk could not believe it when she issued the check.

You have to know when to give and compromise The budget battle was intense. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in expansion monies were battled over by several departments. Systems executives along with P. Newbie decided to withdraw and let the money go to retail remodels. Eight months later accounting in an executive meeting moved $50,000.00 to systems and challenged them, “See what you can do with that.” After 30 days of scramble and results, they gave them another $400,000.00 to spend moved from retail remodels.

Take Inventory

Where do you need to fight? Does someone need defending?

Where do you need to lay down your arms? Is it better to give now and win a friend?

Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

Pray To Have Wisdom

Father, teach me. Show me wisdom to count the costs of every battle and decide. Help me to see when I need to simply serve by not fighting for my preferences. Help me see when I need to rise and defend my family, pastor, employer, friends. Enliven my heart to be a wise warrior with what is entrusted to me.

Risk It! Change

Every great innovation began with a resistence to status quo. The greatest status quo that hinders is personal character.

Phil:4:8: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 9: Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

A winner …shows he is sorry by acting differently.

A loser…. says, “I’m sorry”, but continues to do it again.

Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

You would like to get victory over weaknesses, wouldn’t you? That is what Jesus is all about. In the book of the Revelation there are many promises to the one who overcomes, stays until the end, “takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin”, keeps moving on. Our weaknesses, insecurities, nuances of personality haunt us in the path of the winner. Over and over we will make mistakes, glitch in performance, slip climbing the ladder, fall on our face, get egg on our face, boondoggle……sin.

Yes, one key word used for sin in the Bible is simply to miss the mark. Shoot at a goal and miss it. Decide we want to be loving and react with anger. Decide to keep our minds pure then fill it with trashy books, magazines, and the boob tube. Promise to a wife or son or daughter or friend or neighbor or coworker or employee or employer and then not follow through. Sin.

The question is, “What do we do then?” Do we take a winner’s stance or a loser’s escape. Do we face up, fess up, and clean the mess up? Or do we put on a face, say, “I’m sorry”, and fade away only to do it again and again?

Winners change. Winners find a way to do life differently the next time.

Some years back a famous jewel thief was being interviewed over his life. He had spent many years in prison. His modus operandi was to only steal from the rich and famous. The interviewer asked him what his biggest theft was. His reply was, “Me.” The explanation was simple. He had stolen his own life. What could have been a great creative mind used productively was used to steal and hurt. When you refuse to change and use the talents and strengths God gives you, you are stealing from yourself. Your time, energy, and talent go into actions that only produce hurt and pain for you and others. Why not change to a better way? Why not get a new thought process and quit doing what doesn’t work, what only hurts?

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12: 1-2 NIV.

Take Inventory

What needs changing in your thought life?

What can you fill your mind with that will cause the old thoughts to go out and new ones come in?

Make a date with destiny. When are you going to start?

Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

Pray To Be Changeable

Father, quicken my mind and heart. I make mistakes everyday. Help me not repeat them. Help me overcome the items in life that are so easy to do wrong. Focus my thoughts on good things, pure, lovely, true, honest, excellent things that cause me to follow through with real change not just being sorry.

Risk It! The Better Way Mentality

Every progressive effort starts with a step toward change and a holy dissatisfaction with status quo.

Phil:3:13: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

A winner …says, “There is a better way.”.

A loser…. says, “That is the way it has always been done around here.”

Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

Life is full of opportunities to continue to do the same things. One man defined insanity this way: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Expectations, persistence of others, voices from the past, and other forces impugn on our ability to think new, creative thoughts about what we do.

How do you get into the “better way” mentality? A favorite saying of mine is, “If it ain’t broke, break it.” What? Don’t you mean, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” No, I meant what I wrote. “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Many times we build traditional barriers around an activity structured on preference and our limited understanding at the time. A man displayed curiousity about the way his wife cooked a roast beef. She would always cut the ends off. Thinking there must be a great culinary secret to this method he asked her why. “I don’t know,” she replied, “my mother taught me that way.” Pressed for information on the private process he went to her mother. “I don’t know,” she replied, “my mother taught me that way.” Perplexed he drove to the matron of the family’s home and asked again. “Oh,” she quickly responded, “my roasting pan was too short to hold the full roast.”

Most processes need to be repaired regularly. Now, you don’t want to tear up a good thing, so there are many other rules of change and improvement like: Always give a change time to go through the curve of lagging productivity until people learn the new way and become adept before implementing the next change. AND Any change will be resisted in strength in direct proportion to its’ potential for improvement.

Life is full of processes and a “better way” mentality will protect you from foolish failure. A computer tech went out to resolve a problem one day in an executive secretary’s office. Seemed that every time she printed a letter she first had to print all the letters she had ever printed. It took an half a box of paper to print a letter! The cost and time of doing her job that way finally overcame her embarrassment and she asked for help. The fix was simple. She was simply doing what she had been shown. Open a file, go to the end, type the letter, print it. Problem was she had only be given one file name and all the letters since she began her job were in one file that she printed each time according to explicit instructions. Absurd? Real. Fortune 500 company. Executive secretary doing something that needed to be broken.

What about the way we converse with others? What about how we walk into a meeting? What about how we greet our friends? Are those processes that could use some “better way” mentality?

Jesus broke the mold for some in the way they treated their parents in a story related in Matthew 15. God gave a principle. Honor your fathers and mothers. They made a rule that discluded them conveniently. Tradition overruled wisdom and principle, and Jesus saw through the smoke. Matt 15:6: Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12: 1-2 NIV.

Principle is principle is principle. Relationships, work issues, projects, and hobbies all present problems. When you allow others to help in the process, you prosper quicker. Sometimes they have the solution you need. Always, Jesus has the solution you need.

Take Inventory

Where do you have a process, a way of doing things that really could use some improvement by being broken?

Are you ready to give up personal preferences and do what it takes to “break it and make it better” ?

Can you think of a scripture to apply that can help you into “better way” mentality?

Make Application

Write what you are going to specifically do in the next 30 days about this.

Pray To Be Changeable

Father, quicken my mind and heart. Life is full of processes. You know the one that needs breaking and bettering at this moment. God, I can get so confused with all of the items in life. What item can I work on today? What am I doing that really does more damage than good? Where can I get a lift seeing you touch a new area of my life and give me a creative fresh approach? Cleanse my thinking, Lord. Jesus, be my wisdom, be my source, be my life giver. Holy Spirit release the fresh wind of Your brooding. Brood over my thoughts and bring order to their chaos that I might see clearly what You want to create.

Common Grounds: Training Tenacity

Exerting your vision through your people and customers requires training. You need to train team. You need to train prospects and customers. You need to train yourself. You need to train your board. You must perform with consistency, congruency, and tenacity. They may resist. Do it anyway.

Train Your Team

Customer Service: A relaxed customer service is failure in the making. Many inside service team unravel at this point. Every team member must understand the vision of the service group. They must breathe it and live it. It should affect every point of decision. Plus Training

The press tech, the manager, the finishing tech, the shipping clerk, and the prepress tech must breathe customer service. This means constant training on phone skills, face-face consistency, issue handling, and prioritization to customer need. How often do decisions get made based on equipment and supplies versus customer demand? Change it. Attend to it always.

Customer Knowledge: Team need to know who they serve. Communicate personal information about the key customers. Did someone recently have a baby? Take a once in a life time trip? Accomplish a certification? Why do you restrict this knowledge to the sales and customer service teams? When your team members know the customers they serve in simple ways, they take what they do more personal and increase excellence.

Team Technical: All falls apart if the machines are not running. Machines run with good files, good process, and good people. Good people are trained. They are retrained. They are over trained.

Train Your Customer

“Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

Mission Criticals: Customers must be trained. Men and women around the world follow leadership into life ending battles. They grasp a purpose, attach to leadership, and thrust themselves into the oncoming firestorm. Your customers have a mission purpose. When you show them how their mission purpose connects with your service, you gain customers for life. They want to have loyal and mission attached service and will fight through budgets, purchasing departments, discretionary funds, and idiosyncrasies of their organization to work with you. Connect them. Educate them.

Linked Process: Customer process must be engaged. Discover their process and adapt yours to work with theirs. Educate them on your journey and your excellence. Take time to make them more knowledgeable on your ordering and delivering process than you are. They don’t care how you print it. They care how you interact with them at beginning and end of process. The better they understand, the easier their life becomes and the more they turn to you for service with a smile.

Train Yourself

Be the expert in your industry. Know substrates and capabilities and twenty uses for every machine.

Be the expert in your people. Learn something new every day about a team member. Surprise yourself.

Be the expert in your customers. Study their needs and demands. Know what they need before they know what they need.

Be the expert in your customers industry. Read industry articles and journals your customers read. Get outside your pocket of knowledge.

Be the expert in the mundane. Maybe the numbers don’t excite you. Maybe organization process is boring. Master the mundane. Take a college course. Go interview an executive or manager in another area of the organization and learn what they know.

Train The Board

There are executive stakeholders surrounding every decision you make. Official or unofficial, you have a stakeholder board. They may meet in a room or in the hallway. Get them trained. Keep them updated with quick, pithy mission points of accomplishment and plans. Let them be involved in your decision thinking. You may not have an official board of advisors, but you better have a list for your own reference.

Summary: This is quick and high level. Every organization must train these four and train them well. Skip one and risk failure. Tend to all and move forward. Overcome your inertia. Move on it.

COMMON GROUNDS: These tidbits come out of daily consternations, comments, and concerns of real managers doing what needs done. Executives gain insight.

This article focuses on the Be Responsible side of the triad and Communications level of the operational pyramid.

Let’s talk: Phil Larson or Shepherd Consulting OK

Common Grounds: 4 As of Team: Action and Alliance

Find productivity improvements, lower risk and reduce expenses with 4A teams. A good team gives bottom line results consistently and with increasing customer satisfaction. Give managers support from the top to make this happen. In the first article (Identify Structure) positive and negative approaches are identified. In the second (Accountability and Adherence) the priority pair of As are outlined. Now let’s deliver the goods. Action and Alliance build team synergy.

Action: Teams need action. Teams need people of action. Issues erupt. Machines fail. There is no greater pain than walking into a shop that is inactive for hours due to fear of action. Costly hours have been spent with no product to show. Somebody said he would do what she wouldn’t and nobody moved. Inaction is death to excellence. Dysfunctional team structure will exacerbate inaction. Courage and consequence stirs action mode team.

Free action requires empowerment. Right process and policy and procedure give each team member clear expectations and parameters for decisions to achieve organization objectives. If staff needs to consult a manager more than once a week, empowerment is weak.

Alliance: Build key alliances with vendors, suppliers, departments, team members, and customers. Alliances require maintenance. Build trust and tenacity. Never assume loyalty. Strengthen understanding and alliance with allowance for mistakes. High accountability affords grace for mistakes. Do not allow ignorance of the needs of partners and stakeholders.

Check Up on Action and Alliance:

Plus Checks: When team members are proactive are they given immediate and specific feedback? Is proactive approach on every personnel review? Do leadership team meetings include kudos for proactive solutions attributed to team members? Is there an active and up-to-date list of alliance vendors, suppliers, and customers published to the leadership group with assigned action quarterly for communication? Do you have fun events with partners and stakeholders? Do alliances know your strategic objectives for the next 18 months?

Minus Checks: Are team members ignorant of business impact of product and services on the end customer of your customer? Is a clear customer communication process of risk of missing due times integrated into every team member’s expectations? Do team members hesitate to make decisions when management is out of office?

Transition Approaches for Each Dysfunction to Courage and Consequence:

Command and Control: Establish “do then report” into a few key activities. Review your process flow for steering points where decisions can branch to failure and embed a manager call out into the routine. Over time reduce these points with coaching.

Laissez Faire: Explain the business impact of the end customer of the customer to all team members. Make this a part of your management communiqués and public interaction. Establish “down line impact” mentality. Help each person see the impact of their action on the next person in the process stream.

Helicopter Micro Management: Back off. Get out of the way. Identify where you need proactive small steps and find ways to compliment. Focus on progress toward the end goal instead of the end goal. Read a book on positive reinforcement theory and adjust your attitude.

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” ― Stephen R. Covey

Staff Rules: Establish clear vision, mission, and 18 month objectives. Communicate, communicate, and communicate. Establish buy-in. Don’t do this quickly. Lock yourself out and get a vision, plan, and timeline in your heart and mind. Discuss with the key influencers of the team. Establish lost leadership. Bring firm vision for their discussion.

When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves. Viktor E. Frankl

Summary: Action and alliance build a synergistic environment. Big progress is made. Team finds solutions to long term issues on their own. Plaguing process glitches go away. Responsible behavior now is the norm. Joy takes over. Move into 4 As Team. Do it.

COMMON GROUNDS: These tidbits come out of daily consternations, comments, and concerns of real managers doing what needs done. Executives gain insight.

This article focuses on the Be Responsible triad of the operational pyramid.

Let’s talk: Phil Larson or Shepherd Consulting OK

Common Grounds: 4 As of Team: Accountability and Adherence

Identification of the most common team structure (See Prior Article) allows you to define the beginning steps toward the productive and pleasant work environment you desire. It won’t be easy. Shop mentalities build over time. They don’t change overnight. They don’t change without strong resistance. Resistance is not a bad item. It just is. Change is painful. Who wants pain? You do. You must change to reach the place of pleasant productivity you crave. There is a freedom in a productive team that makes life enjoyable.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Courage and Consequence

Courage and Consequence: This is the team you want. Empowered staff makes good decisions, takes good action, thinks good thoughts, embraces excellence in operations, and follows right process and procedure and policy. Wow? Who is in charge of this utopia? You are. Vision, mission, and plans guide accomplishment of key organizational objectives. It is achievable, enjoyable, and realistic.

Accountability: Absent in many teams is fair accountability. Sure, you might have erratic accountability or skewed accountability, but do you have fair accountability? Fair accountability includes up-to-date job descriptions with room for growth. Fair accountability includes up-to-date shop policy and procedure and processes with identified measurements of success at low, medium and high levels. Fair accountability includes allowances for exceptions with appropriate discretionary latitude at the lowest point of decision making. Fair accountability includes identifiable career path.

Adherence: Alongside accountability is adherence to policy and procedure. When the accountability lies outside the individual team member for her actions you find shop standards slipping, waste unacceptable, and constant angst with little improvement. Why adhere to procedure if no one cares or checks equitably? You need firm adherence to clear and communicated process, policy, and procedure to run alongside accountability.

Check Up on Accountability:

Plus Checks: Are all key shop processes identified and process owners acknowledged and empowered? Are all procedures up-to-date with present software, equipment, and expected people skills? Is there a skills inventory and signoff by responsible staff for each process for which they are responsible? Do you have a training plan for each member of the team for cross training and extra support?

Minus Checks: Are staff members allowed to continually bypass procedures during “hot” jobs? Do you have known team members who are incompetent in some assigned duties required for their role? Are some team members constantly covering for others?

Transition Approaches for Each Dysfunction to Courage and Consequence:

Command and Control: Begin with a process inventory. Identify team members who will be owners of each process. Require delegation with increasing levels of responsibility for procedures and policies. This will start the communication to the entire team that you are serious.

Laissez Faire: Begin with procedures. Identify consequences to customers of not following the flow. Managers communicate to the team the impact on customers in a matter of fact manner. Begin to win their hearts to service.

Helicopter Micro Management: Begin with results reports for feedback. Pull back the micro manger one key result at a time. Implement 10-2-4 checks against reasonable expectations that are results oriented not operation oriented. Make sure your customers get good work while decreasing over site of mundane tasks.

Staff Rules: When coming from Staff Rules begin with procedures created by the staff. Don’t rob them of power. Focus their energy. Identify process owners who are final signoff on procedures in their areas. Delegate clearly and communicate changes to the entire team in person where possible and by email only in emergencies.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi

Fear Factors: Moving into accountability and adherence in a shop increases fear. The prior system is predictable. People fear losing predictability. They greatly fear being held accountable until they experience living with it and receiving results. Fear can result in many types of resistance. “No one ever told me.” “Who made that decision?” “That’s not what I read.” “______ is responsible.” “That’s not the job I was hired to do.” As an executive, director, or manager, you have to provide clear, communicated, and consistent response to these reactions to slowly eliminate fear. It will rise. You need to manage the fear without retreat.

COMMON GROUNDS: These tidbits come out of daily consternations, comments, and concerns of real managers doing what needs done. Executives gain insight.

This article focuses on the Be Responsible triad of the operational pyramid.

Let’s talk: Phil Larson or Shepherd Consulting OK

Common Grounds: 4 As of Team: Identify Structure

Teamwork is not simple and not common. A well functioning team is powerful and poised for growth. Why do you allow areas of your company to operate with dysfunction? Do you realize the power of synergy you lose? Great teams have accountability, adherence, action, and alliance knit into performance and decisions. To adopt the Four As of Team identify where you are. Executives must lead.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today

were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Steve Jobs

Command and Control: This can be good practice in crisis and creation. But, it does not resemble team. A command and control structure with hierarchical dictates allows for quick obedience. It also promotes mindless action. You had better be ready to lose thoughtful workers. This is great in a battlefield of well defined parameters. It is death when you need mental acuity and engaged creativity.

Laissez Faire: Apathetic management will render apathetic results. How often have you found a manager so afraid of making mistakes that decisions linger? Indecision runs rampant and results wander further off target over time. Many times this is symptomatic of Command and Control structure in the higher hierarchy. Managers freeze because they know every decision is really made in an upper level and they have no authority, just responsibility. And that is a disease, not a management practice. Team? Not on your life. Everyone lives for himself. Finger pointing and blame shifting become survival necessities.

Helicopter Micro Management: Wow. This one is painful for every worker. Authority to make decisions may be released, but any small mistake is noted and put into the brown stamp book for later redemption. This environment breeds anger. Rewards are rare except to the micro manager, who redeems all the good points for her own benefit. There might be a team of workers gelled to mutinous intent. This is common in highly political organizations.

Staff Rules: This dysfunctional team approach is gaining ground in many organizations. Executives, directors, and managers are afraid of the employees. What if they don’t like me and my vision? What if they go somewhere else? What if they file a complaint with HR? What if, what if, and what if cause managers to check in with employees on every decision. This is entitlement mentality and will lower and lower productivity to the level of the most charismatic laggard in the shop. The danger is that managers believe this will improve morale. The exact opposite is true. People thrive on leadership that is decisive, non-political, visionary, supportive, and fair. It is not fair to allow the least productive the same reward as the most productive in a free market economy. The dichotomy of this approach is that executives begin making hidden decisions because it is impossible to please everyone. So really, you are living in Command and Control with a ruse of inclusion.

Courage and Consequence: The best team structure rewards both courage and consequence. There is a reward system for the over achievers. There is a consequence system for the under achievers. It may not be money. It may be getting more training or being included on key work teams or allowance for a flexible schedule or whatever works for the producer. Isn’t that going to be interpreted as “teacher’s pet” activity? Sure. Deal with it. That is the courage part. Courage starts with the executive and director.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. C. S. Lewis

Summary: Identify your team. Where are you? How did you get there? Is it where you want it? In next week’s article I address the As of accountability and adherence that make powerful and productive team. You cannot afford to lag in the first four structures. Neither can you change overnight. I’ll give you solid tips on making transitions built over time and tension and triumph.

COMMON GROUNDS: These tidbits come out of daily consternations, comments, and

concerns of real managers doing what needs done. Executives gain insight.

This article focuses on the Be Responsible triad of the operational pyramid.

Let’s talk: Phil Larson or Shepherd Consulting OK