Wrap up!

Hi Folks

I've had several conversations with people recently about the economic situation.

I've been comparing the current situation with the metaphor used by Jim Rohn. Rohn says "Life and business are like the changing seasons." If that's right, we are clearly heading into an economic winter right now.

And this leads me to question the assertions of government and journalists that the solution to our problems is for everyone to keep spending - for the government to build bridges and hospitals, and for people to spend their 2.5% VAT savings on the kind of consumer junk we've been wasting our money on for the past 15 years since the last recession.

It's like the government telling us: Turn up your heating and open all your doors and windows, and we can stop winter happening!

1. It won't work. We'd all end up as cold as Canute was wet.
2. It'd cost us a flipping fortune.

The appropriate behaviour for winter is to huddle down, conserve what we have and watch out to stop our neighbours starving or freezing to death. It certainly isn't to don your cricket whites and go out on the green in the hope that acting summery will make summer happen!

In team terms, I wonder if the metaphor of the seasons tells us anything useful? There's a lot of hype (usually by people selling books and trainign courses) about High Performance Teams. The science shows that all high-performing teams, companies, individuals, regress to the mean in the end; high performance is cyclical, not permanent.

If your team is in summer now, you need to think like the ants think (thanks again, Jim Rohn) and remember that winter is coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Thankfully not for the rest of your life - if it's winter for your team (you're struggling, nothing seems to be going right, you feel under seige) you need to remember that every winter that's ever happened has ended sometime, and hang on in there. Recognise that things are tough right now, and look out for each other to make sure no-one is lost or damaged in these tough times.

And cook yourself up a mid-winter festival to keep everyone's spirits up. After all, that's what we do in real winters!

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd - http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com
Campaign for Real Teambuilding - http://realteambuilding.co.uk

The truth about team development

A great article on Behance reminds us that recruitment and selection is not the end of the story when it comes to setting up your team. What actually goes on inside the team, and the relationships between members, have far mroe impact on team success than simply choosing excellent talented team members.

When I started working in training, I was running a programme in which participants developed their confidence, communication skills, interpersonal skills, presentation skills and enthusiasm over several weeks. When each group came to its final session, they had without question turned into an effective team - and then all went back to their respective organisations.

What was happening? Well, I think that the activities we undertook to develop these skills in the group also ahd the effect of creating the "chemistry" that Scott talks about in his article. that's why, when I started working for myself, I took those same techniques and applied them to real working teams, and got the same great results.

What can you do this week to improve the Chemistry in your team?

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

5 symptoms of dysfunctional teams

A great article on REX. It's a book summary, which neatly ties up the main points of team effectiveness.

1: Trust
2: Challenge
3: Buy-in
4: Accountability
5: Results

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

Herding Cats?

I am priviledged to be running a workshop today for MIND, the leading mental health charity here in the UK.

I was just chatting with the regional Change Director and getting her views on how an organisation like her manages its operations, given that they rely heavily on volunteers to deliver much of their service.

She told me that while the approach had to be different, there were many things in common. While there is no employment contract, the stick that many commercial and public organisations use to control employee behaviour, all volunteers have to sign up to the charity's statement of values and agree to conform to organisational norms.

I read recently that commercial companies should start to treat their employees as if they were volunteers, especially those who are in Handy's "Strategy Core" of employees. The days of treating them as servants (the approach Handy takes to the Peripheral Staff in his "Shamrock Organisation" model) are, or should be over. This will become more important now, as companies compete in ever harsher conditions to retain their most talented employees.

The danger is that companies will use voluntary redundancy and cost-cutting on benefits to respond to the current market trend. The results of voluntary redundancy are almost always that you lose the most experienced and the most talented and are left with the mediocre - not exactly a sustainable competitive advantage. Cost-cutting on benefits, including transferable skills training (declaration of interest here, Dave) drive away the most talented in the same way.

Be very careful that you do not act like an industrial baron towards your most valuable employees in this recession - you must act like the Lord of the Manor and show them your loyalty now to secure theirs through and beyond the current crisis.

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

It's All Rather Complex!

I enjoyed David Snowden's recent summary of complexity in his blog, though Dave seems to enjoy spending at least half of his blog posts railing against something, so I thought I'd see if I can convincingly reduce it even further without destroying the essence.

Ordered Systems

These systems are mechanistic. When you take an action on the system, you can predict what result you will get. The problem for teams is that people assume that they are ordered systems and try to govern them with rules and procedures. A plethora of meaningless rules which just prevent work being done is the result. And misery for the team. And frustration for the manager.

Chaotic Systems

These systems are made of of non-connected members. Action on one has neglible impact on another. You control them by looking at averages and distributions. A chaotic system is likely to be a population, but not a team. Trying to control, measure or reward a team by statistical averaging techniques is just plain wrong - see Deming's demonstration on the futility and unfairness of individual rewards. Video at YouTube - skip to 4:30 to see the game in action!

Complex Systems

In these systems, all the members communicate with each other and with the system itself. You cannot control them with rules, you cannot apply statistical averages to them to say what will happen. Remind you of anything? Your team?

Teams (in the sense we tend to use in this blog) are definitely complex. Any act you perform on one member (praise, punishment, pay review, allocate task, anything) changes the behaviour of other members of the team.

How to "manage" a complex system

This is the tricky bit...

Strictly, you can't manage a complex system. It'd be like trying to manage the weather. Literally, as weather is a complex system.

Don't give up hope; there are some things you can do. I'll be mentioning htem in future blogs, so make sure you sign up for the RSS feed so you get notified when they come out!

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

They Stole My Idea!!!

Not mine - that's a quotation. But we've all had that experience, right? You thought up something new and amazing and six months later you saw one in a shop.

A good friend of mine told me about an idea she and her husband had come up with which explained those inexplicable congested spots on the motorway which seem to appear and vanish without any apparent reason.

"It's Compound Braking, Dave" she told me, "Someone brakes a little bit more sharply than they needed to, the car behind them over-reacts a little bit more again, and so on back down the motorway until suddenly you've got gridlock with no visible cause. Compound Braking."

Just a couple of weeks later I was driving to a session when lo and behold, radio 4 news announced that scientists had, at great expense no doubt, discovered why congestion appears on the motorway for no apparent reason. They then described how a chain reaction of ever-more-panicky braking responses cause this. Hm, I'm thinking - isn't this just Michelle's Compound Braking by another name?

Besides the obvious lesson about rushing down to the Patent Office every time you have an idea...

...next time you're listening to the idle chatter of members of your team who's coming up with these hare-brained ideas? Odds are these are the people who could be putting that IQ to use on solving the problems your team faces. Are you letting them, or are you stopping them?


All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

The Pagan View

I went to Cardiff University Innovation Network for the first time in many months. Missed it; it's a good event, well run, excellent speakers.

This month's guest was Mike Pagan. Mike is a consultant and speaker. it gets difficult to tell whether people are consultants who speak to get business or speakers who consult to sustain business legitimacy. All I can tell you about Mike is that he's a good speaker - natural, funny, down-to-earth and only very slightly dodgy in his sense of humour.

Mike's topic was effective business networking. Useful for a networking event. I offered to do this topic for them a few years back - not being famous enough naturally gets in the way there! Mike told us about:

• Networking Jack Russells - the people you can't shake off once they've latched on to you. Mike's advice? "I'm sorry, my head's about to explode. Nice to meet you, bye!"
• Moodhoovers - (It's all posh in Mike's house, they call them "Dysons") people whose own attitude drains the energy out of everyone around them
• Business Card Croupiers - the people who start to sell to you before you've even finished the introductory handshake! Mike's advice - one pocket for the cards of people you want to keep in touch with, another for the cards that are going in the bin as soon as you get back to the office.

Lots of other advice - select your networking events well; give without expectation of return; do not try to sell at events; measure your networking activities to see which ones pay off.

And this:

"The biggest error I made when I set up my business was when I believed I could do it on my own."

===

The event itself was combined with the summer barbecue of The Cardiff Club, so half the audience spent the evening somewhat bemused that their social evening included a speaker telling them how to network for their businesses. the other half spent the evening bemused that their networking function included a hundred people who were not involved or interested in business! Having said that, I made at least one networking contact with someone who was only there for the social stuff.

It's true what they say - opportunities can crop up anywhere as long as you're looking for them.


All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

Antagonism

One of the worst things you can face when working to build up a team or deliver group training is to have antagonists in the room.

You know the sort - we all have issues with other people and their styles and methods, but these people have got used to making it personal with each other, and that dominates all their interactions from then on.

What do you do? As a manager? As a trainer or consultant?

There are various answers that have been suggested in the past: ignoring the problem so as not to give it reinforcement; mediating between the parties to achieve a compromise; knocking their heads together; locking them in a room until they agree to agree on something; separating the parties.

The time comes when some or all of these are not available to you. How many managers get to choose who can be on their team (few) How many trainers can pick and choose their attendees (fewer?) What do you do then?

Picture the scene...

Gary keeps pointing out that he and his colleagues wouldn't need to be on the course at all if Helen and her team did their job "properly". Helen retorts that Gary causes the real problems by failing to "stick to the rules".

Now, suppose you're a course participant, from Gary's team, and you can see both sides of the argument. Do you wade in, point out that both Gary and Helen have valid points, ask each to acknowledge the other's point of view, suggest they learn to be more tolerant of each other and use less emotive language?

Even if that was crossing your mind for a moment, as soon as Gary turns around at you and your fellow team members for moral support, you know you'll have to side with him. You have to work with him tomorrow once this course is over. Sorry Helen.

And of course the same on Helen's team.

Now put yourself in the Facilitator's shoes. You've effectively got the House of Commons in your training room! Two sub-groups form in the room, mentally lined up behind the two antagonists. You might as well draw those tramlines across the floor, sword-and-arm-length apart.

If you're a trainer and the manager, or your client, has not warned you about this, be prepared anyway as it's quite common when meeting or training with two sub-teams that have to work alongside each other.

The key to breaking the pattern is transparency. Conflict is when it gets personal, and as I've said many times before: conflict never arises from what the person actually did. It arises from the reason we assume they had for doing it, which almost always is to personally insult us!

How, then do we increase transparency and so reduce this projection? Here are some brief keys, but I think I'd better expand on them in later posts:

1. Kill it before it starts - open the workshop with an open discussion on acceptable group behaviours then draw it to the group's attention if antagonism surfaces. You can do this with your opwn team int eh workplace - facilitate an agreed list of acceptable behaviour then get in on the wall so eveyrone can wave at it whenever necessary.
2. Make a topic out of it - cover intra and inter group conflict within the session, symptoms and the long-term effects, ask the group for examples (Well, Gary and Helen often...) and how as a whole group it can be prevented
3. Arrange for it to come out "naturally" by getting the group to brainstorm the 3 Ws for their workplace. This one is especially good if you've not been tipped off as it will only come up if it's a problem. You don't want to be doing (2) above to astonished looks from a really friendly team!
4. Face-off with Feedback. 360 tools, particularly ones that use non-emotive metaphors to provide a baggage free vocabulary for delivering feedback.

That's a start. Try one and let me know what happens.

All the best,

Dave Bull MBA CTA ATT MInstLM (!!New!!)
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

Critique of "VISTAR method of communication"

VISTAR is claimed to be a revolutionary way of "accessing the Collective Consciousness" in group meetings. You can pay them heaps of money to learn this amazing new technique. The below is from a summary they published on Master Facilitator Journal. VISTAR Foundation is at http://www.vistarfoundation.org/

Here's what they say, with my thoughts appended:

1. Bring some elegance and beauty into the meeting environment. Surroundings have a way of affecting people’s attitudes.

Well, we never knew that! For goodness' sake, if facilitators need to be told that pleasant surroundings lead to pleasant meetings...

2. Is there alignment in the purpose and significance of the meeting? This cannot be taken for granted and left in the “Grey Zone.” Review the purpose of the meeting with everyone at the beginning.

Another obvious point. A basic rule of normal communication re-stated in hippy language.

3. Review the basic VMC rules, their meaning and vision, and get agreement that they will be followed. For example, the rule that states “No questions while the meeting is in progress” is challenging to the ego and needs to be understood in light of the importance of the momentum of upward spiraling group energy.

Agree the meeting process rules; one of VMCs rules is "Contributions though the chair" but once again re-worded in their own vocabulary.

4. The Leader should choose an individual or individuals to act as support for the direction and purpose of the meeting. Every meeting has a natural centrifugal force away from its original direction. The support person should have communicated with the leader in advance and be fully aware of the contents of the meeting and its intended direction. Support in this sense is not a question of personal agreement or disagreement; it is a commitment to the rule of order in the meeting and to supporting the leader in staying on the topic and goal of the meeting. Just as in a physical structure, the number of supports depends on the size of the meeting.

One facilitator may need assistants to help govern the meeting. Duh!

5. Stress the importance of contributions by each participant. Contributions are an essential energetic input to a meeting. These may be verbal in the physical realm, or be evidenced by the quality of presence of each participant. Attention and intention are energy fields which determine the atmosphere and frequency of a meeting and are crucial ingredients in accessing the Field of Collective Consciousness.

If someone wasn't going to contribute why would they be at the meeting? Something basic like the Think-Write-Share process is highly effective at getting everyone's contribution.

6. Plan your meeting according to the three sections of the VMC, called the enunciation, development, and recapitulation.
Enunciation is the statement of the purpose of the meeting and exploring its larger significance. In the VMC, the theme of the meeting is called “the thread.” This takes up about one quarter of the time. The Development section takes up about one half of the time and explores the ramifications and consequences of applying the thread in everyday experience. The Recapitulation section brings back the thread, which is now matured through the considerations of the development section. New understanding and new directions for follow-up have hopefully emerged and can be compared to the original intention of the meeting.

Call it Exposition (Enunciation obviously designed to sound a bit mystical!) and you have Sonata Form - not new, but about 250 years old. Also echoes the "Tell them what you're going to tell them..." formula older guys love to trot out.

7. At the start of a meeting and at the very end, the VMC practice is to have a moment of silence. This space is for centering in the present moment and internally and quietly posing such questions as “why am I here,” ”what do I want,” “what do I have to contribute,” ”what have I experienced?”

Again not unique - but few seem to practise this consistently.

8. Using aspects of the VMC outlined above, bring into the light of consciousness the individual and group experience. What are the factors that facilitate or obstruct access to higher levels of group energy and communication? Have elements of Collective Consciousness been present?

They talk about Collective Consciousness like it's God or The Universe or something. They seem to be playing on the term Collective Unconscious, which was coined by Jung and it's the hard-wired stuff that's in our brains due to evolution. Human beings work well when they connect openly and communicate freely and the above techniques are all well-established ways of doing that. Trying to wrap it up in pseudo-mystical hippy terminology to make yourself sound amazing (and worth spending money on!) is just a bit cynical in my book.

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About the Author

Steve Davis, M.A., M.S., is an Facilitator's Coach, Infoprenuer, and free-lance human, helping facilitators, organizational leaders, educators, trainers, coaches and consultants present themselves confidently, access their creativity, empower their under-performing groups, enhance their facilitation skills, and build their business online and offline. Does leading or participating in groups frustrate you? Subscribe to his free weekly ezine at www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com and contact him here to schedule a free exploratory coaching session.

©2005. Steve Davis, www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com. All rights reserved.