I was recently asked about how to improve accountability across a business.

Let’s look at this through a series of questions about the BUSINESS environment, you as the LEADER, and the INDIVIDUAL charged with delivering a task.

Notice in what follows how much rests on there being an enabling environment and effective leadership. If you are a chief executive or senior leader, much of this falls on you!

It is rarely a simple case of blaming a single individual for stuff that doesn’t get done!

THE BUSINESS

First, consider whether the accountability challenge you are experiencing is an isolated individual case or something more systemic and widespread.

Do the conditions exist to enable safe communications up and down and across the team and wider business? Is the business a psychological safe place to work, where everyone feels included, safe to learn, and safe to contribute and challenge?

How do you know this?

Consider some form of confidential team survey, ideally by a trusted third party, to explore this.  This can usefully be widened to look at team effectiveness as a whole. Read our thoughts on this here.

Next, run one or more workshops to identify the development actions needed, and then nail these in priority order. Keep these under review. Create a development roadmap. We can help here too. Check out our case studies.

THE LEADER

What is the nature of the relationships between leaders and team members? Is it one of surveillance or coaching? The former can switch people off; the latter can promote  discretionary effort and capability growth.

How often do leaders engage and review priorities and resourcing with colleagues? This is a key leadership function.

Or do leaders just pile on more and more tasks? And when less and less is achieved, do leaders get more and more frustrated and blame others?

A surveillance culture will lose you goodwill, people, and money. A coaching culture will generate goodwill, growth, and added value.

How has the task been set up?  Has it been clearly scoped in terms of outputs, inputs, resources, and processes? Are reporting requirements clear and understood?

Is it a routine, transactional task where best practice can be deployed with a high degree of confidence in satisfactory completion? Or is it more of a discovery exercise in a complex setting requiring cycles of develop, test, fail, repeat?

Are delivery expectations appropriate to these different types of task?

Have constraints and freedoms of action been clearly identified?

What are the linkages and dependencies with other work being done by others? Are they playing their part in delivering collective success?

Has there been a stakeholder review of risks, ownership, and active management?

THE INDIVIDUAL

Has the task owner reached out to stakeholders to establish effective working relationships?

Has the task owner identified risks and taken steps to mitigate them in accordance with the business’ risk management process? Is it clear what should be escalated, and do stakeholder relationships enable or hinder this?

Does the task owner have the capability and capacity to do what has been asked of them?

If not, what will you as the leader do? (Yes, here we are back at the role of the Leader!). Provide coaching and training? Reprioritise other tasks? Task  someone else who has the capability and capacity?

Finally, are there clearly understood consequences that comply with employment law and best practice for repeated underperformance?

Featured image courtesy of GranzCreative via Canva

What are they?

A questionnaire-based assessment that provides team members and stakeholders with a confidential means of sharing their lived experience of the team and improvement suggestions..

It turns conjecture into evidence-based confidence around the foundations on which to invest in relevant development activities.

Who are they for?

Great for team leaders who want to lift collective team effectiveness, and who know that others’ views are vital if the team is to develop and deliver the success the business deserves.

Why do them?

Leaders can often overestimate the effectiveness of their teams (overconfidence bias) and don’t appreciate the need for collective development. Yet teamwork is often cited as a top organisational value.

A team effectiveness assessment gives the team’s stakeholders (team members, delivery partners, customers, governance bodies etc.) a safe and confidential voice, and creates an evidence-base for investing in developmental activities that is better than the biased judgement of the team leader.

What sort of things should be included?

🔹 They should be confidential, practical, situated in your organisation’s context, reflect the purpose of the exercise, and be based on the attributes associated with high functioning teams. There are plenty of models of high PERFORMING teams out there so be choosy, especially as this may be an unnecessary and costly ambition! In 2008, there were more than 130 different models of team effectiveness available (Salas et al, 2008)!

🔸 Depending on team size, context, and requirement, the questionnaire could be a set of bespoke questions in Word that seek narrative-based responses (an often underrated and powerful inquiry-based approach) or an automated, online, scored tool that allows benchmarking and comparison of teams across a large organisation.

🔹 Interviews as required.

🔸 Collation, review, and sharing of responses on a non-attributed basis.

🔹 Discussion of themes and development options with the team leader.

What next?

 A team effectiveness assessment offers a snap shot of a very messy, unfolding space!

Don’t sit on it.

Get moving with the development activities it suggests! See our case studies for examples.

Guide price

A Team Effectiveness Assessment starts from £ 1,250 + VAT for a team of 8.

Want to know more?

Get in touch with Dave Stewart, dave@freshairleadership.com, +44 7776 153428.

Ever find yourself wading into or being sucked into a drama? 

Tension can be helpful in terms of creativity and pushing for results, but some dramas can become dysfunctional and unhealthy.

Maybe you feel you have no choice around being drawn in?

You do! Read on…

Are you one of these “stars” in the Drama Triangle, a model proposed by psychologist Stephen Karpman in 1968?

• PERSECUTORS blame Victims and criticise Rescuers. They find fault but don’t offer solutions. They control with order and rigidity. And maybe bully. “It’s your fault!”
• VICTIMS feel picked on and trapped. They are unwilling to take responsibility for their situation. They blame Persecutors and want Rescuers to solve their problems. Learned helplessness. “Woe is me!”
• RESCUERS feel guilty standing by. They can misread situations and launch well-meaning “rescues” that are not needed nor welcomed. And some may be projecting their own needs to be valued, rather than actually help!

So what?

Reflect on which role you are playing. How is it serving you?

Moving out of role may not be easy.

Why? It might just be your comfort zone! 

3 moves you can try…

#1.   SUPPORT.  Seek support from a colleague outside the drama, or a coach, or contact your employee assistance scheme.

#2.   NON VIOLENT COMMS.  If you feel able to, employ Non Violent Comms to engage the other players in the drama e.g.

• Observation:  “This is what I observed took place…”
• Feelings:        “This is how the situation made me feel…”
• Needs:            “I need…” (a general need e.g. feedback, respect etc..)
• Requests:       “Specifically my request is…”

#3.   A BIG REFRAME. Consider exploring how the players could move to the positions in the Womeldorff Empowerment Triangle (2016).

• Victims move to CREATORS and focus on possibilities and outcomes rather than problems.
• Rescuers move to COACHES and support Creators in action planning, and support Challengers in testing the feasibility of options.
• Persecutors move to CHALLENGERS and test assumptions and hold Creators to account for making progress.

A note of caution…

Models and frameworks are not real. Some people find some of them useful some of the time in some contexts. And in situations where there is some level of inter-personal drama you will naturally be cautious. That said, the three moves offered above are certainly worth exploring with colleagues and using when needed.

Of course, the best option – where possible – is simply to pause, think, and step away from the drama altogether!

Photo credit: Annie Spratt via Unsplash

Let’s be honest, we all behave badly on occasions.

Go on, fess up!

This post isn’t about the events in your life which have shaped the way you are. The inside as it were.

Rather this is about how the external environment can present stressors which trigger how you feel (e.g. fear, anger, hurt, distrust etc..) and how you act. Sometimes unthinkingly so.

YOUR TEAM…

Think now about your team as a working environment.

It is easy to think of this as being “simply” made up of a physical or virtual space and a set of relationships.

And this is why so many team development interventions don’t deliver on their promise.

They try to “fix” behaviours by simply writing down nirvana and hoping people will play nicely.

THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO PUT IN PLACE…

And to continuously nurture.

Here are 11 questions against which you and colleagues can self-assess your team. Either red, amber, green. Or a scale of 1 – 4 (with no easy middle number!).

Team Self-Assessment Here

OFFER…

Valid until Friday 16th August 2024.

If you are interested, we will be delighted to offer you a more in-depth questionnaire-based team health-check at no charge (assuming team size less than 10).

We will review responses and present you with a high level summary and offer some suggestions around the areas of greatest risk of dysfunction.

SO…

If you have been wondering why your best efforts to create a highly effective team aren’t hitting the mark, why there are some stubborn behaviours still in play, why all the decisions end up on your desk increasing your frustration and stress, then maybe a team health-check could be a good place to start.

Read here for some case studies covering the work we have done for various sizes of teams across multiple sectors and industries.

Offer valid until Friday 16th August 2024.

We help leaders build highly effective teams. Part of our work involves conducting TEAM HEALTH CHECKS and helping teams create TEAM CHARTERS, TEAM OPERATING MODELS, and TEAM DEVELOPMENT ROADMAPS.

We also help teams develop a suite of collective TEAM SKILLS.  In this blog we cover Red Teaming.

WHAT IS IT?

Originating in the military and now used more widely, notably in cyber-security contexts, red teaming is a way of testing systems, strategies, plans, policies, decisions etc. – and the underlying assumptions, biases, and world views including groupthink – by applying independent critical thought and alternative perspectives.

A red team can be contracted in (this maximises independent critical thought), or use the organisation’s employees, or a mix.

WHY DO IT?

It invites you to walk in the shoes and understand the world through the eyes of those you seek to serve as well as those who would seek to disrupt your operations; and to identify possible responses to and consequences of your intended action.

It challenges you to test the reliability of evidence you are using. It helps identify faulty logic and flawed analysis. It helps you and colleagues develop shared situational awareness.

It can help you identify critical gaps in knowledge, and the questions you need to find answers to.

In so doing, it helps you and colleagues recognise and step beyond the emotions, bias, and assumptions that are in play. Ultimately, it provides an opportunity for richer conversations, better decisions, more effective action, and improved resilience.

It also develops your critical thinking capabilities, useful across business and life!

HOW TO DO IT?

Create a team of critical and creative thinkers, subject matter experts, non-experts who can ask naïve questions, and role players (e.g. devil’s advocates). 9 maximum.

They do not all need to come from the leadership team. Involving other staff, including externals, will freshen things up and mitigate group think.

Conduct the red team event in three stages.

#1   Diagnostic Stage (Testing Beliefs). Is the information being used accurate, well-evidenced, logical and underpinned by valid assumptions?

#2   Creative Stage (Wider Possibilities). Is the definition of the problem that the system, strategy, policy, or plan etc. seeks to mitigate artificially constrained? Have all possible options been considered? What further builds and development are possible? Have the consequences been thought through?

#3   Challenge Stage (Robust Choices). Are the options offered robust? Are they resilient to disruption or external challenge? Which of the options is the strongest (and what criteria determines this)? What are the chances of a successful outcome? what more could/should be done?

HOW LONG?

Very simply, depending on the subject (and the level of risk involved), this can be run as a mini-workshop over a couple of hours or a more involved event over a couple of days.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

In addition to our own experience we drew on the following UK Government publication.

CAN WE HELP YOU? YOU BET WE CAN!

To re-iterate the initial points around independence of critical thought and alternative perspectives, we can offer you the following support:

• Red team training.
• Facilitation of the red team process.
• Provision of external red team members, in-person and online.

INTERESTED?

Get in touch by emailing info@freshairleadership.com or calling +44 7776 153428.

You are wasting time, effort, and money! 

And you could be losing good people!

Dig deeper. Do the work. Be ready for what may be multiple causes. 

HERE IS ONE WAY…

A Multiple Cause Diagram will:

• Help you untangle your thinking.
• Identify causal relationships.
• Suggest effective points of intervention.
• Shine a light on unintended consequences that might arise if you take inappropriate actions.

And there is even more value:

• Do this as a team.
• Do this with stakeholders.
• It can help explain your thinking to others.
• They in turn can build on your thinking by spotting links you may have overlooked.
• A super-effective tool for collective pictorial dialogue!
• A tool that builds connection and common understanding.
• A tool that help minimise risk and spot opportunities!

SOME SIMPLE RULES…

• Write down the topic in the middle of a large piece of paper (or use software tools).
• Identify what the immediate causes are.
• Write these down, preferably on post-it notes so you can move these around as the picture emerges.
• Use arrows to indicate the direction of causality.
• Go “back” or”down” another level and consider what the causes are of these immediate causes, and so on.
• Consider whether there are any “lateral” connections between the causes.
• Are there any “feedback loops” emerging as a result of these connections? These might suggest effective points for intervention.
• Are there any groups of causes that taken together could be nailed with a single intervention? See example below.
• Also, consider what the topic itself might be the cause of.
• Use the other half of the paper to do this.
• Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

AN EXAMPLE…

Meetings are a necessary part of any business. And we have all experienced ineffective meetings. What if we could make things better? Check out this first pass at creating a multiple cause diagram. What would you add or amend?

A NOTE OF CAUTION…

Multiple cause diagrams are not reality. They are a simple high level representation of the world, or system, you and colleagues are experiencing.

But they are a whole load more valuable and helpful than fire-fighting a bunch of symptoms. 

You owe it to yourself and your business to give it a go. 

Let me know how you get on.

CAN WE HELP YOU? YOU BET WE CAN!

Get in touch now.

Dave Stewart

Founder & Chief Executive
dave@freshairleadership.com
07776 153428

You make decisions all the time, right?

But are you any good at making them? Who says? You? Colleagues? Others?

Are you noticing how you make them? Do you go on gut feel? Data? Others’ suggestions? Loudest voices? Favoured voices?

What is a good decision in your world? What criteria? What about readiness? Your mood? Your general wellness? And who do you include? How does it work across departments, functions, geographies?

For example, the Joint Decision Model is used by the Emergency Services to manage complex situations involving multiple different agencies with their different cultures and ways of working.

You will note the statement of common purpose in the centre. This acts as a reference point throughout the decision-making process i.e. each step MUST support “Working together. Saving lives. Reducing harm.” So, if waiting to get solid information risks lives, the Emergency Services leaders will press on round “the wheel” and take early action if necessary.

The “wheel” also makes it clear that leaders can/must continuously “go round the wheel” i.e. decision making in an evolving situation is not a single cycle as every decision and action affects the situation which then requires consideration and further decisions and actions until the situation has been resolved

A RUSH TO ACTION

We work with the leaders and teams of scaling, merging, and resetting companies.

You would be surprised, maybe not, that decision making is often poorly considered, if at all. There is often a rush to action.  Quality thought and collective engagement are absent.

Sometimes it works. Sometime it doesn’t. What are the avoidable costs of not making this a top issue?

MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!

Sometimes decisions are COMMUNICATED AT colleagues. Fait accompli!

Sometimes colleagues are CONSULTED WITH about prospective decisions that are pretty much pre-determined.  Fait accompli too!

Sometimes they are a DEBATE between well defended positions. Winners and losers.

Sometimes they are made by an inner circle. Insiders and outsiders.

ANOTHER WAY

In high functioning teams, decisions are the outcome of genuine DIALOGUE where participants actively listen, and contribute without emotional attachment.

They create new understanding and novel insights in service of the business. Sometime this is not pretty but is embraced and valued as a creative process. Egos are parked elsewhere.

CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS

What about the conditions for effective decision-making? How much thought goes into this? Location? Framing? Participation? Psychological safety? Process? Commitment? Communication?

CAN WE HELP? YOU BET WE CAN!

Let us look at the way decisions are made in your business. Let us help you develop a decision-making framework, one that helps you make consistently well considered decisions. A framework that recognises there are different types of decisions and different contexts. A framework that is flexible yet reliable. A philosophy as well as a process and practice.

If you are not making good decisions on a consistent basis, you aren’t really leading are you?

Be our client. Get in touch now.

Dave Stewart

Founder & Chief Executive
dave@freshairleadership.com
07776 153428

What?

Score orienteering, in the form that we use it, is an outdoor exercise in working together as a team to develop and execute a strategy.

We use small areas with good paths. No compasses or advanced navigation skills are required.

Teams earn points by navigating to check points on a course marked out on a map and/or satellite photograph, or described using what3words .  Each check point has a different value reflecting its distance from the start/finish and how easy or difficult it is to find. They have unique letters which are recorded onto a team card. Teams can split into sub-teams of 2 people minimum (one aspect of a wider Risk Management Plan) to cover as much of the course as possible.

Here is the rub…

Teams are given a fixed time to achieve as much as possible after which penalty points escalate rapidly.

The test therefore is really about developing a strategy and executing a plan taking into account the skills of the team to maximise the return (points) on a fixed investment of time!

Want to know more about how we can support you and your team? Call/message 07776 153428 or email dave@freshairleadership.com 

Why?

We use score orienteering in our team leadership and teamship programmes for a number of reasons:

• It is fun!
• It is a great way of switching up the energy during the day.
• The learning insights that emerge are strongly anchored to what is always a highly memorable experience.
• It engages everyone, whether fleet of foot or less so (as there are check points near and far), with a premium placed on the thinking and strategising that happens (or doesn’t!).

With good facilitation, it provides a memorable way into discussing team function. This, and other experiential activities we employ, are not vehicles for judging anyone’s performance. They are simply ways into carefully facilitated discussions.

• Psychological safety. Did team members feel included, safe to learn, safe to contribute, safe to challenge?
• How collaborative was the strategising, decision-making, and planning experience? How did people feel about what they experienced of their colleagues?
• What did colleagues notice about their team roles preferences (after Belbin). Who were the strategists, planners, resource managers etc? Did anyone feel left out?
• How well did participants appreciate the difference between the plan (the map) and reality (the ground). How might this apply back in the business?
• How were choices and trade-offs made in seeking an optimum route in an environment that presented opportunity and risk?
• How were team members employed on this task? How were skills and experience canvassed and used to best effect?

Where?

Here is an example of a control sheet we give to teams (showing map and satellite photo variants). In this case the area is around the House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow.

How?

On a safety note, events such as these need a thorough risk assessment and risk management plan. When we organise these, we use staff who are experienced and qualified outdoor leaders (through Mountain Training UK) and first aiders, and a risk management process which has been externally audited.

Can we help you?

Our core business is helping business leaders develop highly effective teams. This post about score orienteering is just one example of our experiential approach.

Want to know more about how we can support you and your team? Call/message 07776 153428 or email dave@freshairleadership.com 

Have you noticed how easy it is to jump to a wrong conclusion!? You are convinced you are “right”. Yet others are convinced they are “right” too!

The Ladder of Inference (after Argyris, C., ‘Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning’) provides a way of visualising how you go from experiencing an event to making a decision.

It reinforces the value of self-awareness around how we experience the world and the assumptions and biases in play. A note of caution, however. Models don’t claim to be “right” but they do offer a way into understanding a topic.

• Starting at the bottom of the ladder, an event happens which we take notice of as an experience. We sometimes refer to these as “facts”.
• Because of our many different biases, not least around how we experience the world through our different senses, we can’t experience the “wholeness” of an event. Rather we end up with a personal sample.
• We interpret what our sample of the event means by applying our assumptions, often without considering or even being aware of them.
• And from this meaning, we draw conclusions.
• Over time, and the multiple similar events which we interpret in a similar way to reach similar conclusions, we develop beliefs.
• Armed with these beliefs, we take actions that seem “right”.

The speed of this process is such that it can appear that we  “jump to conclusions”. Without pausing to reflect, check the data, consult with others, and engage in critical thinking, it can be easy to jump to the wrong conclusions and make poor decisions.

How to use this?

Use the concept of a ladder to challenge or validate your own and other people’s views on a subject. What exactly are the “facts”? What biases and assumptions are in play? Could different conclusions be reached and different decisions made by inquiring into the event more fully and re-framing our assumptions?

Whatever, it is good to talk things through. Always.

Have you noticed leaders who are anxious and confused around when to listen and when to act?

I wonder if some leaders are being overly influenced by the never-ending stream of books on leadership. Added to which is a lot of energetic chatter on platforms such as LinkedIn.

These talk of psychological safety and models such as servant leadership, compassionate leadership, distributed leadership, and more.

Written as if they are cosy, accountability-shielding concepts, set in a single, unchanging, operating context.

They talk to the need for creating environments and setting examples which enable everyone to feel included, able to learn, encouraged to contribute, and ultimately to constructively challenge the status quo. And that is good.

Very few talk about context, confidence, accountability, and action.

Context, Confidence, Collaboration

I have watched leaders nervously ask questions hoping to promote a discussion with their team or a wider staff group.

Their body language and eye contact, and their verbal hesitancy, fluency, and volume convey a lack of confidence in what they are saying and doing. They defer in a way that signals a hope the discussion won’t be difficult. They aren’t really clear about the purpose of their engagement, other than a vague notion of it being a good thing to do.

They are acting out someone else’s leadership model. Not very convincingly.

Confident and competent leaders sense the context and consciously choose to “communicate at” (i.e. my point of view), “consult with” (i.e. still my point of view but I will give you a shout), or “collaborate with” (i.e. how do we create fresh insight together?). These leaders have at least 3 modes of context-relevant engagement.

Less confident, less competent leaders will feel uneasy about any engagement. At best, they will cling to the comfort of control that “communicating at” or “consulting with” offers. Fearful and adrift.

Highly confident, less competent leaders won’t just cling to these two modes, they will stick rigidly to them with relish as it is all about them, their control, and sense of power. Fearful and attached.

Confident and competent leaders artfully create powerful questions, model active listening, and facilitate a dialogue. They are passionate about achieving a higher collective outcome, and detached from any sense of a personal starting position. They let go to let come. Passionate and detached.

Action, Accountability, After-Action

Confident leaders and their teams will have worked out why (context), how (modes of engagement) and when (time is so important) they must converge on a decision and take action.

No confusion or dithering.

There will be levels of trust that enable constructive challenge, commitment, and mutual accountability.

No “my way or the highway”.

And they will continuously review and adjust their decisions and courses of action.

No “fire and forget”.

All in the service of the higher collective outcome.

Passionately detached.

—

If you are interested in learning more about dialogue or how we can help you and your team become even effective in your world get in touch. Email us at info@freshairleadership.com or call +44 7776 153428.