Change the focus

Everyone is so distracted by whether the future of work is a return to the office, everyone remote or a mix of both, they are missing the bigger picture.

Whilst employees are demanding flexibility and autonomy about where they work and are voting with their feet if they don’t get it, it must not be the only aspect of work you focus on if you want a healthy and high-performing team.

It cannot be the only thing you focus on if you want to retain and attract talent.

It is time to stop procrastinating about where your employees are going to work and make a decision that meets the needs of your employees and the business. Then move on and focus on what really matters.

A recent study by Atlassian called The State of Teams declared that it is not where you work but how you work that makes teams thrive.

The research found that there are eight factors that influence team health.

1.     Trust in leadership

2.     Respect for diverse viewpoints

3.     Transparent decision-making

4.     Skill and personality fit

5.     Well -defined roles

6.     Clear goals and strategies

7.     Coordination in and outside the team

8.     Psychological safety

The study defined healthy teams as “connected, collaborative, and crushing it.” They have a sense of belonging and support for new ideas. There is an environment of high engagement which, in turn, serves as a buffer against burnout and fuels even-higher performance.

The common threads among the healthiest teams were:

·       A shared understanding of the team’s goals and each person’s role in pursuing them

·       Adaptive planning practices that allow for adjusting the plan when the situation calls for it

·       A culture that celebrates achievement (but doesn’t punish failure)

·       Regular opportunities to reflect in a blame-free environment

·       Timely, constructive feedback that flows both ways between managers and their direct reports

None of these things should come as a surprise. I have been writing and talking about all of the above for many years. But clearly, they are not being delivered. If they were, all the teams surveyed would be healthy.  

Only 17% of the teams surveyed were healthy, 54% partially healthy, and 29% unhealthy. 

If you are in the 17%, take a bow and keep up the good work. You have found the right mix of people, process and purpose that puts you in the high-performing elite.

It is the remaining 83% that cause me worry. What are they not hearing? Why are they not taking the action needed for organisational survival?

Rather than write, as I often do, about how to do these things and the benefits to be gained, I thought I would explore why they are being ignored. Perhaps it will be a wake-up call for the day-dreamers who think they are exempt from The Great Resignation.

The common threads

The five common threads in 83% of those surveyed have frayed, unraveled, or never existed in the first place.

Shared understanding

Every team must have a shared understanding of the team’s goals and each person’s role in pursuing them. That seems relatively straightforward. I should know what my team’s purpose is and how I fit into the fulfilment of that purpose.

The first issue is that the team cannot have a goal with purpose if there is not an organisational goal. If your organisation does not have clear business objectives to support its strategy, there are no goals and objectives to be cascaded down to teams. The goals of the team cannot be aligned with busines goals.

When teams and employees have a shared understanding of how their performance impacts the performance of the organisation, there is a sense of belonging and connection. Having a clear direction forward, provides motivation and stimulates creativity.

When there is a clear sense of purpose at both an individual and team level, there is passion, motivation, and commitment.

I wrote about this in a September blog called “Workplace Happiness.”

Organisations can create a shared sense of purpose when they start with ‘Why.’ In Simon Sinek’s 2009 book ‘Start With Why’ he explains the Golden Circle theory. The theory shows how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust, and change in a business when they think, act, and communicate starting with ‘Why.’

'Start With Why' is how you explain your purpose and the reason you exist and behave as you do. Sinek's theory is that successfully communicating the passion behind the 'Why' is a way to communicate with the listener's limbic brain. This is the part of our anatomy that processes feelings such as trust and loyalty - as well as decision-making.

Successfully articulating your 'Why' is a very impactful way to communicate with employees, define your particular value proposition and inspire them to act. Sinek's theory is that communicating 'Why' taps into the part of the brain that influences behavior.

Adaptive practices

Anyone who thinks they can make a 6-month, 6-week, or even 6-day plan, and not be prepared to change it, is highly disillusioned.

The business environment is constantly changing, and changes can often not be predicted. There are prevailing winds in many directions that can take our plans off course, and therefore we need to be prepared. We need to be adaptive.

Adaptive leaders and adaptive teams see change not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to focus on being ready.

Introduced by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, adaptive leadership can be defined as an act of mobilizing a team of individuals within an organization or a community to adopt new strategies and techniques to cope with changes and survive and thrive in challenging situations. 

The issue is that there are many so-called ‘leaders’ who still believe that leadership is a one-person show where authority and control can be forced onto others. The prevailing leadership styles in many organisations are authoritarian or hands-off as explained by Brett Gleeson writing for Inc.

They are rigid in their thinking and behaviour and fail to grapple with changes in the industry, markets, and emerging technology.

Leaders and teams that are not adaptive are unable to sense new challenges and opportunities and to change their ways of working that allow the organisation to thrive and prosper. They are like the captain and crew on a ship that sets sail in fine weather and on calm seas. If the weather deteriorates, then the captain and crew will make changes to ensure the ship will stay afloat. They adapt to the changing conditions. If they are not adaptive, the ship is sunk.

Celebration

This thread of healthy teams is where there is a culture that not only celebrates failures but also sees setbacks as learning opportunities and therefore also worthy of celebration in a different manner.

Note that I did not use the word failure. I prefer to use the term ‘setback’ as it is less finite than failure. Failure infers all is lost and we should just pack up and go home. Setback is temporary and can be recovered from. If we never had setbacks, we would not be making progress. I like to alter the famous Jillian Michaels quote and say, “If you’re not having setbacks, you’re not trying hard enough.”

The unhealthy culture is a ‘blame culture’ rather than a ‘fail culture’. In the ‘blame’ culture, failure is punished, there is risk aversion and lack of innovation. In the ‘fail’ culture, failing is seen as learning. New ideas, initiatives and innovation is rewarded and to fail is OK.

Many leaders and teams operate in a blame culture and there is a fear of repercussion. There is no place for celebration of learning.

There is also a lack of celebration of achievements in many organisations. Leaders are so busy doing whatever they are doing, that they fail to pause and recognise the concerted efforts and resolve of those who have achieved great outcomes.

Reflection

There must be regular opportunities to reflect in a blame-free environment. What this means is there must be a culture of psychological safety. An environment in which everyone feels safe to share mistakes, errors of judgement, setbacks, and adversities, without any fear of repercussion or reprisal.

Everyone feels safe to challenge, ask questions, share ideas, and take interpersonal risks.

Whilst most leaders would not say that are actively working to create an ‘unsafe’ environment, there are also many that are not actively working to create a ‘safe’ one. They have not prioritized it or given it the focus it requires.

There are still workplaces that consider toughness, aggressive challenges, and the ability to ‘man-up’ and roll with the punches as valued attributes. If an employee does not feel safe, then that is their problem, and they are not an organisational fit. These are not workplaces that place value on blame-free reflection. They are environments of mistrust and fear.

If there is a hierarchical structure where the leader has a perceived higher status and does not show a genuine interest in what their team members contribute it will be a significant barrier to candour and psychological safety.

There also has to be acceptance that building psychological safety might mean work takes a little longer to complete, as teams pause periodically to evaluate the situation or invite other perspectives in.

The main reason that many organisations and teams do not operate in an environment of psychological safety is that it is hard. You cannot buy it. It is not a tool or system.

It starts with creating an environment of trust and treating each other with respect. Respect is hard to build and easy to destroy. We are also dealing with humans who are emotional and irrational beings. Mindsets need to fundamentally change.

Feedback

The last thread is timely, constructive feedback that flows both ways between leaders and their team members. 

I believe the key word here is ‘timely’. Too many managers only provide feedback at the annual or biannual performance review. This is an absolute waste of time. Feedback should be constantly given – both acknowledging good work and advising on areas for improvement. It should be timely so that the recipient can immediately build on the good work and take action to make improvements. If they only get this feedback once or twice a year, they have no opportunity to do that. The good work has been forgotten and the poor performance allowed to deteriorate.

Leaders should also solicit feedback from their team about how they are performing. Many leaders do not feel safe doing this as they perceive vulnerability to be a sign of weakness. They think that as a leader, they should be doing everything right and no ‘subordinate’ has the right to tell them otherwise.

These are leaders that do not have a growth mindset and an acknowledgement that they should never stop learning and growing. This can only be achieved by listening to the observations and experiences of others. 

Feedback cannot be a one-way street.

Wrap

Creating a team that has a shared purpose, is adaptive to change, celebrates both achievements and setbacks, reflects on performance, and has free-flowing feedback loops between leader and team members, is healthy. There is a return on investment. Increased productivity means increased profitability. Healthy organisations are wealthy organisations.