I was with a group of 8 managers. They hired me to coach and develop along with them what they called “techniques and systems to motivate their teams”. What I called The productivity of our people is dropping and we have punished them, yelled at them, offered $$ incentives, and created a Thunderdome process. Holy shit more of the same is not working…we need help! And help is what I do.
Understanding for yourself and your manager and subordinates just how much information about the work and the proper fit of how the work fits into a larger Goal has to be “just right”. This “just right” is like Goldilocks and the Three Bear – neither “too narrow” nor “too broad”, for either will lead to frustration of the team, manager and you.
The reliance on external assessments removes the accountability and authority for the judgment of a persons capability to complete and do their best work from where it ought to belong, the direct Manager. Subjugating this task creates unclear expectations and evaluative judgment of the work that people should be doing. This confusion creates strife and a false belief that psychology is what managers should evaluate.
People on work teams don’t have to like each other, but they must be expected to help each other with respect to the work being done. What is often seen as ‘personality conflicts’ is really a symptom of poorly defined roles within the work. Define the roles and the personality issues disappear. Allowing the team and you to get your work done, and to stop having to play mediator.
High performance teams have known methods and procedures. They also have effective meetings that are managed by the Team-Leader. Here is a checklist for Team Meetings.
Consulting & Coaching a Management team, we created this 2 x 2 Goal (what-by-when) matrix.
Resistance to the activity, facilitator, theories, application, etc… are all going to arise during your work. How you, as the facilitator handle that is what you are paid for. Generally you can respond in 1 of 3 ways.
“Come, spend a day with us, and do for us what you did for Japan, that we too may be saved.”
It is not so simple. Few people in top management in America understand their responsibilities and know that they must serve a life term on quality and productivity from now on, under competent leadership.
Wisdom has to do with the soundness of a person’s judgment about the ways of the world, and about what people are like, and how they are likely to react.
As people and people who create organizational-systems of work Managerial-Accountability-Hierarchies purpose and the Goal means very much to us. So much that if the goal is not explained to us and we make choices, we will create the goal to match the choices we made. Creating purpose out of the work we did, because nothing is more demotivating than thinking all of our hard work was for naught.