BCA

From: Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership, (CCL)

Have you ever been assigned to a team and thought it was a waste of your time? Or been named “team leader,” but unsure where to start? Or found yourself on a team that’s floundering or falling apart, unable to work together?

If so, it’s time to go back to basics.

It may seem impractical (even silly) in some work settings, but the best thing you can do is take time to create a team charter.

“For teams to be successful, they need to have a basic understanding of why they exist, where they fit, and how they’ll accomplish their objectives,” says CCL’s Laura Quinn. “The process of talking through the team’s purpose, context, roles and how people will work together will boost your efficiency in the long run.”

A team retreat may feel like a relic from the past in some companies, but it’s important to set aside several large blocks of time for the team to work on the charter. During your planning sessions you, or another team leader, will want to walk members through key questions, capturing responses on flip chart paper or other visible way. Consider rotating the facilitation and note-taking roles as team members discuss:

• Team Purpose: What kind of team is this (work team, project team, management team, coordination team)? Why does the team exist? What “work” does the team do? What topics belong “in” this team and what’s “out?” What is the team responsible for accomplishing?
• Context: Who are we accountable to? With what other groups/teams do we connect? What do they want/need from us?
• Goals: What specific results do we expect from our efforts? What outcomes? (cost, quality, speed, service, quantity, coordination of X, innovation of X) How can we measure that?
• Roles: Who is on the team? What perspective does each member bring? Are there special roles (e.g., leader, facilitator, etc?) or sub-groups within this team? What do subgroups require of us?
• Work Processes: What processes will we use to do the team’s work? (step by step) How often will we meet? Who determines and manages our agenda? How will we connect with our stakeholders and other sponsors of our work?
• Decision-Making: What decisions are made within this team? What is out of bounds? What level of decision-making responsibility do we have? What decision process will we use?
• Communication: How will we communicate and connect to others within the organization?
• Norms: What do we expect of each other? How do we agree to handle conflict? What are our team norms and/or operating principles?

Once you’ve tackled the topics above, have a person or subgroup combine the team’s agreements into a single document. A written team charter can be creatively displayed in your team’s work area, posted electronically and referred to in meetings and discussions.

Team Evaluation should follow

Periodically, the team will want to go back to the charter and consider these questions:

• How well did our work actually reflect our stated purpose? Did we get distracted or did we stay true to our purpose?
• How well did we meet the needs of this team? Did we meet stakeholders’ expectations? Did we coordinate well with others who rely on our work?
• Did we reach our intended goals? Do the measured results of our work demonstrate that? What got in the way of us being as successful as we might have been?
• How clear were roles on this team? Did we make good use of a variety of perspectives? Were roles executed well?
• Were our work processes effective? Did we stick to what we had agreed to in our charter? Why not? What new processes might help us be more effective?
• Were decisions made efficiently and effectively? Did we include the right amount of input? What surprises or frustrations did we encounter, if any? How might we do it differently?
• How well did our communication plan work? Did we stick to it? What methods worked particularly well? Where did we not do so well?
• How well did we live within the norms we created? Did they help us achieve our objectives? What norms do we want to add? Delete? How can we be better in the future?

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By David Tighe

As managers become more senior, they start to run out of peers and superiors  on which to rely for effective coaching. Mentors still abound, but mentors do  not truly “coach” you, as Harvard Business School Professor Robert Kaplan notes  in a recent leadership article published by McKinsey and Co. Mentors usually  serve as sounding boards for advice, and rely on input from you, the manager,  about the situation that is challenging you.

That information naturally comes  through your mindset filters, which limits the mentor’s ability to spot and  correct your flaws or errors. Coaches truly observe you in action, and critique  you from their own perspective, offering more “tough love” than a mentor  can.

When third party coaching feedback gets scarce

So, as middle managers rise up into the senior hierarchy, true third-party  coaching feedback on their performance gets scarce. The issues:

• Fewer superiors above them actively observe how they go about their  business.
• Fewer peers around them are willing to act collegially and provide useful  criticism that could help make them better.
• This is both because there are: too many like-minded people among their peers, with similar habits and  mindsets, which drains the senior management pool of perspective.
• Too many competitors for a narrowing funnel of promotional opportunities.  Helping a colleague can hinder a manager’s own chances, naturally reducing the  incentive to help unless top management sets a strong collegial example (a rare  occurrence.)

 As you rise in the organization, people become less connected to you

Plus, by the time you become a senior executive, you have a set of  experiences from your own successful career that form your leadership mindset.  Earlier in your career, you probably set up coaching and mentoring relationships  using people senior to you which helped you climb those career rungs. As you  rise, those people become less connected to you. Perhaps they are now  subordinate to you. Perhaps they lost out to you for a new position, and moved  to another company.

As Kaplan notes, “many executives find that as they become  more senior, they receive less coaching and become more confused about their  performance and developmental needs. They may also become increasingly isolated  from constructive criticism-subordinates do not want to offend the boss and may  believe that constructive suggestions are unwelcome and unwise.”

Here is the paradox: To rise up the ranks, you naturally focus sideways and  upwards, adopting and adapting the vision coming from the top, running friendly  competitions with peers, and managing staff to meet your career goals. Now that  you have made it up the ladder, you need to change that heretofore successful  mindset of looking up for counsel and direction. With fewer “up” options, you  need to start focusing down for advice and ideas.

This concept sounds a bit nuts  to newly senior managers, but it is the key to their long-term success.

Don’t overlook developing mutually trusting subordinate relationships

Kaplan states: “At this stage of their careers, they may not have focused  sufficiently on developing mutually trusting subordinate relationships that  would make getting feedback and advice a lot easier.”

Too frequently, when these executives ultimately do receive feedback in their  year-end reviews (as part of a 360-degree-feedback program, say) they are  surprised to receive a lot of criticism about leadership, communication and  interpersonal skills. “These leaders may even learn, often too late, that the  various criticisms and concerns have been widely discussed among their  subordinates for an extended period of time without them being aware,” notes  Kaplan, a comment I strongly agree with based on my own coaching  experiences.

Frankly, when working with senior executives I spend a lot of time getting  this upward-looking mindset uninstalled and replacing it with a more productive  approach that embeds the spirit of the 360 Review into their daily leadership  routines.

360 Reviews are very successful

Here is what I mean by the 360-Review Spirit:

When you run a 360-degree review, everyone above, at your level and below you  get to offer frank assessments of how you have been performing. These reviews  are predicated on the idea that the formally structured environment encourages  people to be frank, while remaining constructive in their input. The underlying  assumption is that people (subordinates especially) will not share feedback that  is ‘negative’ without clear institutional protection against retribution and  need this special artificial construct to let their guard down.

So, once a year a lot of managers find out that while they may be managing  tasks and projects well, they are failing as leaders. This creates all kinds of  angst and hurt feelings. People react negatively to the whole process, and hurry  back to the culture they feel more comfortable in, whether or not it is  productive.

If 360-degree reviews are so effective, it strikes me as a great idea for  senior management to move heaven and earth to embed such an open, sharing  environment directly into the corporate culture. It’s hard work to establish  full employee engagement into the mindsets of employees and their managers, but  the 360-Review Spirit would have huge organizational advantages in  fostering a proper leadership culture.

Goals to shoot for include:

• Signal strongly that true feedback is valued and desired, as long as it is  forward-thinking and action-oriented. No snipping. sniping and  blame-laying.
• Eliminate the mindset that seeking help from subordinates signals weakness  as a leader. Replace it with one that admits a leader doesn’t know everything,  and relies on trusted lieutenants to inform him or her of the true nature of  events, and the full range of options for moving forward.
• Assume that everyone wants the best for the organization, and will  contribute at a high level if the organization finds a way to publicly value  that contribution consistently.
• Break the mindset that senior managers know more than subordinates. They  don’t. Perhaps they did at one time, but that time is gone.

A great leader knows that his or her subordinates know far more about the  current state of customer mindsets and potential than senior managers (and  perhaps even all of them put together!) They should not wait for formal review  processes to gather input on job performance and goal-setting.

The ongoing goal for every senior manager must be to create subordinate  relationships based on the three core tenets that we focus on in embedding a  full-engagement mindset:

Unshakable Trust:

• Encourage full and open truth in meetings.
• Expect the best of everyone. Everyone you hire is talented. Challenge them  to make full use of their skill sets.
• “Tuesday is Tuesday” (Stick to your commitments.)
• Take true accountability for your own results, good and bad.

The Pursuit of Truth:

• Take genuine interest in the truth at all levels.
• Center conversations on how to be “the best we can be,” not just meeting our  targets and beating our competition.
• Look way beyond the metrics and never settle for “good enough.” Pre-set  goals are pretty arbitrary, and may blind you to potential lying beyond those  limits.
• Encourage authentic, transparent and complete two-way communication from  bottom to top, by celebrating the truth whether good news or bad.

Communication that Counts:

• Keep communication “next action” focused. No dwelling or looking  backwards!
• End all communications with mutual commitment to action.
• Check up on commitments, see that delegations are fulfilled, and run  meetings with a forward focus on decisions that help to complete the  commitments. No updates that could be sent by e-mail!
• Instill a belief in everyone that every communication improves the  relationship.

Focusing on embedding these three habits as a day-to-day mindset will  generate better feedback, particularly from subordinates, that will help you to  materially improve your personal performance, often in 90 days or less. This, in  turn, should support your future career ambitions, because you will be basing  future decisions more on the truth than on the hunches that may come from your  own past experiences. And your team will be 100% behind you, pushing you up the  ladder.

Here is a link to Robert Kaplan’s article. Registration is  required, but it’s free.

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By Bernard Donkerbrook in Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership

Leaders and bosses are used to being listened to. They expect it. Some find it quite satisfying to be the person others listen to and look up to. They enjoy the attention and influence in this role. But being in the spotlight also means taking responsibility for your impact on others.

As boss or executive, you need to remember that you are being observed all the time. Big decisions and actions are front and center, but even small things can have unintended consequences.

Everything you do is observed

Everything you do (or do not do) is observed, analyzed and discussed by your people. What you talk about, include on an agenda and get personally involved with – as well as what you choose to avoid or delegate — sends powerful messages. Your employees then draw conclusions and implications about “what it meant” — whether you meant it that way or not!

Many managers are unaware that their behavior genuinely matters, or are oblivious as to how their behavior may be interpreted by others. For example, maybe you don’t make eye contact with an employee as you walk to the cafeteria; unbeknownst to you, this can be perceived as a sign of disapproval or unimportance, thereby increasing employee anxiety or mistrust. And you thought you were so self-aware!

To better understand the impact you are having on those around you, take a careful look at three things:

What You Say: Of course pay attention to the words, but your impact goes further. What you emphasize, what you repeat and the tone you use all have impact. Are you supportive or critical? Are you sending positive and encouraging messages or demanding, pressuring messages? Is your body language consistent with the words spoken? Remember, your people “listen” beyond the words to what you appear to convey.

What You Do: Your actions send a message of what and who are really important to you regardless of what you espouse. What relationships do you choose to develop and which people do you avoid? Which ones will you listen to and which do you overlook, dismiss or interrupt? Are you warm and open to some people and not to others? How do you listen? Do you have good eye contact when others are talking? Or are you focused on what you will say next? Are you distracted, keeping one eye on your smart phone?

What You Pay Attention To: You send signals by what you recognize, what you reward and whom you reward. The meetings you attend versus those you don’t tell people how you feel about the topic, the person and/or the priority. What you put on the agenda, follow up on or focus on will be given more weight than other projects or issues. Ask yourself: What do I personally get involved with? And what do I rarely pay attention to?

Consider Susan, the CEO of a small marketing company, who believed in the importance of diversity within the company, particularly to reach the range of clients she was targeting for growth. She conducted an appropriate off-site meeting, presented her strong views and expectations at the quarterly management gathering and assigned an implementation team. After that meeting, however, it was business as usual. Susan proceeded to focus on the next client crisis, ignoring the necessary continuing attention that building diversity requires.

Avoid creating a gap between words and actions

Bad manager? Poor leader? Not really. Susan forgot, with the best of intentions, that what she does and what she does not do have a huge impact. She inadvertently sent the message that “other” things were more important than diversity. By creating a gap between her words and actions, Susan undermined her efforts at supporting diversity — and undermined herself as a leader.

Are you getting the idea? Your ordinary actions and behaviors have an impact on the people around you. If you want to be influential as a leader, you have to accept the scrutiny, be highly self-aware and think carefully about the messages you want to send. Psychologist and author Nathaniel Branden says it well when he paraphrases a favorite Spanish proverb: “Take what you want in life — and pay for it.”

Bernard Donkerbrook is a coach and management development consultant based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

From: Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership

It’s easy to be impressed by the natural leader, the brainy student, the gifted musician or the star athlete. “What talent!” we think. But talent alone doesn’t lead to success, says Carol Dweck, noted psychologist and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. “Success comes with a growth mindset.”

People with a “growth mindset” believe that ability or talent can be developed, says Dweck. In contrast, people with a “fixed mindset” see ability as built-in: “You either have it or you don’t.”

Dweck’s research has shown that our beliefs about innate talent can either support or stifle success. If you have a growth mindset, you are willing to take risks, accept mistakes and seek out chances to learn. You become resilient and view setbacks and challenges as learning opportunities.

The belief that you can’t improve your ability actually stunts achievement. If you have a fixed mindset, you feel the pressure to repeatedly prove yourself in areas of “strength” and you avoid activities and experiences that may reveal weaknesses. As a result, you don’t gain the experiences, perspectives or skills that are needed to succeed at work or adapt to change. A fixed mindset also makes it hard to admit to or correct mistakes.

Growth minded individuals gain self confidence by taking on challenges

Dweck has also challenged the view that innate ability fuels self-confidence. In the short-term, people feel good and confident because of their natural abilities — until setbacks or challenges cause them to question themselves. People with a growth mindset derive self-confidence from the very act of taking on challenges and pursuing them with vigor.

What are the implications of Dweck’s work for leaders? “To succeed in a world where our work is always changing, where challenges are unpredictable and competition abounds, we need to be agile learners,” says CCL’s President and CEO, John Ryan. “We need to apply our new knowledge. Perhaps most of all, we need to believe we can rise to the challenge.”

It takes hard work and real focus

“By taking on a growth mindset, we can learn new behaviors and modify deep-set behaviors at any age,” Ryan continues. “It takes hard work and real focus, but all of us really can learn new and effective behaviors — and help take our organizations to new levels of performance.”

Dweck agrees. “If an organization believes in natural talent, they are not developing the potential talent,” she says. “Not only are these organizations missing out on a big pool of possible leaders, but their belief in natural talent might actually squash the very people they think are the naturals, making them into defensive nonlearners. The lesson is: Create an organization that prizes the development of ability — and watch the leaders emerge.”

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Wally_Hauck

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6543370

From: e-Marketer

From: World Advertising Research Center (WARC)

Brand owners such as Kraft and Adidas are considering making use of facial recognition technology in a bid to provide shoppers with more targeted information in stores.

Intel, the technology company, is one of a number of firms that has created software capable of scanning the faces of consumers, and then determining the approximate age and gender of the person concerned.
Christopher O’Malley, director, retail marketing, of Intel’s embedded and communications unit, told the LA Times:  ”You can put this technology into kiosks, vending machines, digital signs. It’s going to become a much more common thing in the next few years. 

Adidas, the sportswear manufacturer, is working with Intel to test digital “walls” in several UK and US stores, displaying certain products on screens depending on a shopper’s specific profile. For example, a female consumer in her fifties would be shown a range of Adidas goods, roughly split between 60% footwear and 40% of other items from its portfolio.

“If a retailer can offer the right products quickly, people are more likely to buy something,” Chris Aubrey, Adidas’s vice president, global retail marketing said.

Kraft, the food group, is also in negotiations with a supermarket chain, which it did not name, about the possibility of trialling kiosks that achieve similar objectives. “If it recognises that there is a female between 25 to 29 standing there, it may surmise that you are more likely to have minor children at home and give suggestions on how to spice up Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for the kids,” Donald King, Kraft’s vice president, retail experience, said.

Japan has enthusiastically adopted the technology

Facial recognition tools have been more enthusiastically adopted by companies in Japan, where Universal Studios has employed a system provided by NEC to identify annual pass holders, and thus speed up their entry to its theme park.

“It’s not just [for] clothing stores or restaurant chains,” Joseph Jasper, of NEC’s corporate communications division, said.

Google and Facebook has developed tools for online photos

Facebook, the social network, has developed equivalent tools for online photos, as has Google, which produced software that took the face of someone in a picture and searched the web for images of the individual, but then opted against rolling it out.

“As far as I know, it’s the only technology Google has built and, after looking at it, we decided to stop,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, said earlier this year. “People could use this stuff in a very, very bad way as well as in a good way.”

Data sourced from Los Angeles Times; additional content by Warc staff, 25 August

From: Leading Effectively, Center for Creative Leadership

Several years ago, an EVP of a Fortune 100 company pulled together a team of HR directors from across several divisions. Their assignment was to develop and implement a new HR process across the organization. The problem? Vague goals and unclear direction.

A product team for a large multinational company was in the process of launching two new products in North America and Europe. In the wake of a recent restructuring, the 18-member team struggled with divided loyalties and new pressures. Communication was poor, meetings were unproductive and progress stalled.

Competition was fierce among the functional and business unit leaders that made up a senior team in the global firm. Team members wanted to be on the team because of high exposure, but none of them wanted the other team members to interfere in their own divisions or functional areas. With low trust and high competition, conflict and dysfunction ruled the day.

Each of these teams faltered — but each was able to recover.

“Teams may be challenged by their assignment, but the work context and interpersonal factors are powerful realities, too,” says CCL’s Laura Quinn. “Effective leadership — on the part of the team manager or sponsor and on the part of team members — allows teams to meet those challenges and have a positive impact on the organization.”

Participants in CCL’s Leading Teams for Impact program (and in customized team programs or team coaching initiatives) learn to zero in on specific team needs. “Teams have different needs when they are in planning mode than they have during action phases,” Quinn explains. “They have interpersonal needs as well.”

Planning-Phase Needs. This phase takes place both when the team is planning actions it is about to take or evaluating the impact of actions it has just taken. New teams, re-configured teams and floundering teams benefit from giving time and attention to six planning needs:

• Team charter. Are overall objectives, resources and constraints defined and clear to all team members?
• Goals. What are the measurable team outputs and related milestones?
• Team norms. What standards of behavior do team members agree to? How will they handle routine issues, such as how work is divided or how disagreements are to be resolved? Team norms also help members address unexpected or complex situations.
• Task performance strategy. What is the overall approach the team will take and what key actions are needed to achieve goals?
• Shared understanding. Do team members have a common perspective? What key assumptions may affect performance? Teams can be easily tripped up by different beliefs about the challenges the team faces, the tools or resources available or the desired working relationships among team members, for example.
• Team memory. What relevant knowledge, information and skills do team members have or can access? What gaps exist?

Action-Phase Needs. When teams are in action — engaged in activities that directly lead to goal accomplishment — they also have six needs:

• Monitoring output. How does the team track and communicate progress?
• Monitoring systems. What methods or resources are available for tracking people, budgets and information – and for keeping up with stakeholders, markets or other external factors?
• Coordination. How does the team prioritize and sequence key activities and events?
• Communication. Do team members communicate openly with each other? Does the team experience a high-quality exchange of ideas and information?
• Monitoring team behavior. How is feedback given to team members?
• Maintaining boundaries. How and when does information flow with other groups or units?

Interpersonal Needs. In addition to needs that arise in the planning and action phases, teams have four interpersonal needs:

• Motivation-building. Do team members have a sense of personal accountability for performance? Is the team cohesive and motivated?
• Psychological safety. Is there a sense of trust on the team? Are team members able to speak their minds, knowing they will be respected and listened to?
• Emotion management. How does the team handle emotions? Setbacks, frustration – even overconfidence – can cause an emotional strain among team members.
• Conflict management. Do differences of opinion prevent the team from meeting its goals? Does the team allow healthy debate while avoiding personal attacks or acrimony?

“When team members know about these needs, they have a way to identify and discuss what is working well and what isn’t,” says Quinn. “Teams can then be more focused and proactive in making changes that will lead to better team performance.”

This article is based on “Developing Team Leadership Capability,” by Frederick P. Morgeson, Dennis Lindoerfer and David J. Loring in The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development, 3rd Edition, and CCL’s Leading Teams for Impact program. Look for more “Leading Teams” tips and activities in upcoming issues of Leading Effectively.