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5 dysfunctions of a team

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

by IPowerIdeas March 3, 2019

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.

Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech’s CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni’s utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight.

Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.

Overview and purchase from Amazon

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team:

Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.

Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

There are my thoughts. They are nuggets or seeds to get you started.

This was one of the books that sparked the flame to really explore my leadership style as well as look at things from a deeper and different set of lenses.

Results should be primary goal. This goes without saying as you ready the book – as you go up the model, that is the primary goal.

We need to work as a team
• Less egos – all have them but win as a team in most important.

Here is an example:
Basketball team can be full of people with large egos, but if only one of them is a good player, they may want the spotlight and show off their 55 points, but if the team loses, what is the goal? What was achieved?

Consider a football team. On a football field, a scoreboard focuses on everyone’s efforts on one thing: winning.

It doesn’t display defensive statistics or offensive statistics or even individual player statistics. It provides unambiguous information about how the team is doing, and how much time the members have left if they want to improve the final outcome. That leaves little room for individual interpretation.

Imagine the quarterback of a team that is losing by 14 points with 3 minutes to go in the game saying to the coach, “Well, I feel pretty good about thins. I mean, my performance was not bad, and my stats look good.”

The coach would be furious. He wants that quarterback and everyone else on the team to be focused on one thing: winning (or results).

Meetings – compare to movies. What is the single ingredient that makes movies interesting and keeps us motivated to watch them – conflict. This is what keeps us engaged and interested.

Conflict
“Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”
Patrick Lencioni

These are other key words and/or thoughts:
• Positive Debate
• Positive Confrontation
• Communication
• Lack of debate
• Discomfort in challenging each other
• Willingness to participate
• Trust
• All need to be engaged
• High standards of behavior and performance
• You have brought up great points and put on Park List (create page)
• Look for opportunities for people to get out of their chairs.

This is by far one of the best books I have read and highly recommend it. It provided me a great foundation to enhance my journey as well as created many new directions to take my thinking and learning. Read the book!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro0NBgHo_a8

Great Summary Video

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Patrick Lencioni – 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

by IPowerIdeas February 17, 2019

Patrick Lencioni has provided us some amazing books. When I read the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team I was hooked. He has a writing style that is easy to understand and more importantly one where we can easily relate to.

The book is written for a management team so I had to tweak it to use it for my department of non-managers. It took some trial and error, but over a course of a couple months I saw some real progress.

Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.

Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

Please check out my book summary for more details and insights. Book Summary

I highly encourage everyone to read the book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro0NBgHo_a8

Great Summary Video

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Leadership

Why Attitude Is More Important Than IQ

by IPowerIdeas May 14, 2018

This is a two-part post. The first part is linked at the bottom of this post.

Click Here for Attitude vs IQ Presentation

This is the second part of the post. As I noted in the first post, I presented my staff with the Blob Tree. This laid the foundation on how to better identify our feelings and with that knowledge, we can learn how to communicate and collaborate more effectively and efficiently.

The second thing I presented to my staff was I shared a recent study by Stanford that shows that attitude is a better predictor of success than your IQ. Think about that for a moment (Pause and Reflect) – having a better attitude could be a greater driver for success than your IQ. Very powerful thought. Think about all the influential or successful people who have had relatively low IQ’s but amazing attitudes. (I will let you research some examples, there are lots of websites that show successful people who have low IQs but had amazing attitudes).

I explained the difference between a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset. I included the PowerPoint with some of my notes in this post to give you a framework of how I presented it.

Coupled with the Blob Tree and its respective exercise and the study and article below, it helped give my staff a deeper understanding and meaning about recognizing their current feelings, what to do once they are identified, and how to utilize that knowledge for change and growth.

Lastly, I used an example of systems thinking where kindergartners were shown the story of Little Red Riding Hood – a story they have heard many times before. But with systems thinking, they looked at an emotions/time graph to look at the emotions by all parties in the story over time. Then they discussed those feelings and what they meant. These small children were able to better recognize numerous feelings and then have the knowledge and tools to find better ways to utilize that knowledge and focus on how to communicate and collaborate better.

I encourage you to stop and reflect on this as it is very powerful and the impact on these young children over the course of their lives will set the foundation on continual learning and growth. It is not too late for us to learn from this as well.

I hope this was helpful to you and please leave comments and feedback. We can all learn from each other.

forbes.com
Why Attitude Is More Important Than IQ
by Travis Bradberry

When it comes to success, it’s easy to think that people blessed with brains are inevitably going to leave the rest of us in the dust. But new research from Stanford University will change your mind (and your attitude).

Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ.

Dweck found that people’s core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you’re challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower IQ, because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn something new.

Common sense would suggest that having ability, like being smart, inspires confidence. It does, but only while the going is easy. The deciding factor in life is how you handle setbacks and challenges. People with a growth mindset welcome setbacks with open arms.

According to Dweck, success in life is all about how you deal with failure. She describes the approach to failure of people with the growth mindset this way,

“Failure is information—we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, and I’m a problem solver, so I’ll try something else.’”

Regardless of which side of the chart you fall on, you can make changes and develop a growth mindset. What follows are some strategies that will fine-tune your mindset and help you make certain it’s as growth oriented as possible.

Don’t stay helpless. We all hit moments when we feel helpless. The test is how we react to that feeling. We can either learn from it and move forward or let it drag us down. There are countless successful people who would have never made it if they had succumbed to feelings of helplessness: Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas,” Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a TV anchor in Baltimore for being “too emotionally invested in her stories,” Henry Ford had two failed car companies prior to succeeding with Ford, and Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC’s Cinematic Arts School multiple times. Imagine what would have happened if any of these people had a fixed mindset. They would have succumbed to the rejection and given up hope. People with a growth mindset don’t feel helpless because they know that in order to be successful, you need to be willing to fail hard and then bounce right back.

Be passionate. Empowered people pursue their passions relentlessly. There’s always going to be someone who’s more naturally talented than you are, but what you lack in talent, you can make up for in passion. Empowered people’s passion is what drives their unrelenting pursuit of excellence. Warren Buffett recommends finding your truest passions using, what he calls, the 5/25 technique: Write down the 25 things that you care about the most. Then, cross out the bottom 20. The remaining 5 are your true passions. Everything else is merely a distraction.

Take action. It’s not that people with a growth mindset are able to overcome their fears because they are braver than the rest of us; it’s just that they know fear and anxiety are paralyzing emotions and that the best way to overcome this paralysis is to take action. People with a growth mindset are empowered, and empowered people know that there’s no such thing as a truly perfect moment to move forward. So why wait for one? Taking action turns all your worry and concern about failure into positive, focused energy.

Then go the extra mile (or two). Empowered people give it their all, even on their worst days. They’re always pushing themselves to go the extra mile. One of Bruce Lee’s pupils ran three miles every day with him. One day, they were about to hit the three-mile mark when Bruce said, “Let’s do two more.” His pupil was tired and said, “I’ll die if I run two more.” Bruce’s response? “Then do it.” His pupil became so angry that he finished the full five miles. Exhausted and furious, he confronted Bruce about his comment, and Bruce explained it this way: “Quit and you might as well be dead. If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there; you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

If you aren’t getting a little bit better each day, then you’re most likely getting a little worse—and what kind of life is that?

Expect results. People with a growth mindset know that they’re going to fail from time to time, but they never let that keep them from expecting results. Expecting results keeps you motivated and feeds the cycle of empowerment. After all, if you don’t think you’re going to succeed, then why bother?

Be flexible. Everyone encounters unanticipated adversity. People with an empowered, growth-oriented mindset embrace adversity as a means for improvement, as opposed to something that holds them back. When an unexpected situation challenges an empowered person, they flex until they get results.

Don’t complain when things don’t go your way. Complaining is an obvious sign of a fixed mindset. A growth mindset looks for opportunity in everything, so there’s no room for complaints.

Bringing It All Together

By keeping track of how you respond to the little things, you can work every day to keep yourself on the right side of the chart above.

Do you have a growth mindset?

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. We can learn from each other.

Click for Part I – Blob Tree and the “What and Why”

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Leadership

Blob Tree and the “What and Why”

by IPowerIdeas May 14, 2018

This is a two-part post. The second part is linked at the bottom of this post.

The Blob Tree – really? Is this kindergarten time? This is what I thought when my wife showed me the Blob Tree and briefly explained to me what it was. Initially I did not pay much attention to it and thought there was no way I could use this in a staff development meeting of mature and experienced professionals. I thought I would be laughed out of the room. Don’t you agree?

However, presenting the Blob Tree was an inspiring tool and it surprisingly was incredibly useful too.

Let me share a little with you on how I successfully used the Blob Tree and give you some ideas (I Power Seeds) and maybe it will echo with your team.

My presentation started with setting up the room. I put out cheap pairs of glasses (like from the dollar store) on every table. I did this as having a visual aide and a tangible stimulus to remind them to reflect on what they learned and continue to foster the growth around the meanings of the Blob Tree.

The first part of my strategy I have been coaching my staff on the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (by Patrick Lencioni), focusing on the team itself and how we function and interact as a team. Then the second part of my strategy was to focus and work on the individuals. I took notes and insights from many sources such as The Leadership Challenge, The Truth About Employee Engagement, and The Ideal Team Player, numerous articles, and my own experiences. I then incorporated some of the main points gleamed from these sources and offered a high-level presentation of these ideas and frameworks to my staff as well as accompanied it with a couple of exercises that helped solidify the ideas and meanings.

I will be honest, it was not easy (to say the least). But once the barriers were lowered a little and everyone went around the room and shared where they were on the Blob Tree at that moment, it turned out everyone had fun and felt they could share (key concept – to be vulnerable). Of course a couple said things like, “You know which one is me!” or “I don’t talk about my feelings!” But that was ok as others laughed and recognized others’ vulnerability state and they in turn openly expressed how they felt and how the Blob they chose represented them at that moment, which was the goal of the exercise. Progress and results were achieved.

Here is a PowerPoint with the general ideas of what I did. Feel free to review it and I hope it sparks ideas for your own presentation with your team.

Click Here To Open: Attitude vs IQ

Here some of the notable meanings around the Blob Tree. And of course you will discover your own.

Each picture is a means to a conversation, rather than a problem to be solved or a message to be agreed upon.
We each see the world through our own eyes. Allowing others to share their feelings enables group members to understand and appreciate one another.
When we are children our feelings say one thing, sometimes more purely than when we are adults. Schools encourage children to understand their feelings and to master them.
The tree is a place, a group, or an organization – such as your family, a club, a group of friends, a church, or even yourself.
There is a platform and a rope to swing on. What do they symbolize? They might represent safety, leadership, separation, for or wastefulness? It depends upon how you feel as you look at them, and how you feel that day.
It is important that we name them Blobs – they are not any color, race, gender, etc. This ensures it includes everyone.
The grass – a place where you might go after climbing out of the tree. A place of respite. It can also be a place of opposition to what is going on in the tree. Such as saying, “I want to be on the grass and out of the tree.” This gives us clues as to how people are feeling at that moment in time.

The Blob Tree is a useful and fun tool to assist your staff in becoming trusting (being vulnerable) in a fun and light-hearted manner. Sometimes we need tools like this that make us laugh and which brings out the best in us in our quest to strive for higher achievement and better results.

Good luck and please leave comments and feedback.

Click for Part II – Why Attitude Is More Important Than IQ

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Leadership

Employees Don’t Quit Their Job; They Quit Their Boss!

by IPowerIdeas May 1, 2018

Do you develop your employees or are you more focused on developing yourself? Do you consider yourself a humble and empathetic leader? Are you energetic or have integrity? Some great questions right?

The post below will provide some nuggets or seeds (I Power Seeds) to encourage you to stop and reflect and hopefully provide some knowledge to help you become a better leader.

A key element of an effective and successful manager is developing your employees so they grow, thrive, and stay engaged.

I really enjoyed this article and why I am posting it. The insights in the article can enhance the what managers and leaders do for their employees. The first part is about developing employees and the second part is directed towards traits and habits exhibited by effective and caring leaders.

I am a firm believer in developing employees and the ROI is very clear and apparent and the time and effort put into their overall development as they are happier and their quality and productivity is quite evident. For example, in my current role I spend an average of $1,000 per year per employee on development such as seminars, workshops, conferences, and training and professional development.

The other component are the traits and habits the author highlights below, and when you pause and reflect on them and compare them to what you experiences as an employee or as a manager, it will be clear they are accurate and true.

I have utilized these traits and habits in staff development meetings where I provide insight and fun exercises to help employees recognize them as well as help increase their skills and knowledge as they grow and develop their management and/or leadership skills. It takes a lot of effort and time from you to develop the topics and then present them to your team. I will be posting some PowerPoint slides as seeds (I Power Seeds) to give you some ideas.

Here are a couple other related posts that will provide additional insight into employees development and engagement.

The Ideal Team Player (Humble, Hungry, Smart)

Leadership Development – Humility as Leadership

“Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.”

Simon Sinek

Employees Don’t Quit Their Job; They Quit Their Boss!
Brigette Hyacinth

Employees might join companies, but they leave managers. Too many managers view their position as one of entitlement rather than one of responsibility. In days past, managers would focus on developing their employees. Today they are more focused on self-promotion and securing their position. A managers’ job is to facilitate a good working environment for his/her employees. The focus should be to help everyone around you succeed. Managers define culture, and culture under-girds the lasting health, success and sustainability of an organization.

The biggest danger of leadership: Arrogance

According to research from the University of Washington Foster School of Business, humble people are more likely to be make the most effective leaders. It turns out, humility offers a competitive advantage.

So why has arrogant or narcissistic leaders become the norm:

It has been historically perceived that humility is a sign of weakness and an antithesis to leadership. There is still an expectation that successful leaders are more arrogant than humble. Narcissism is mistaken for self-confidence and toxic leaders seem to be in control of everything. They are able to provide short-term results but the truth is they leave a trail of destruction in their path. Organizations pay heavily for such managers with low engagement, high turnover and reduced productivity. Arrogant leaders have a shelf-life within their organizations. They may “rule the day” but eventually people tire of them and their tactics, which lessens overall commitment from the team. Intimidation and threats of punishment can only work for so long.

“The x- factor of great leadership is not personality, it’s humility” – Jim Collins

The Power of Humility in the Workplace

Leading with humility means focusing on others and practicing servant leadership. Humble leaders:

1. They put people first.
Their focus is on serving others. They do not get consumed by seeking out more power. Instead, they seek more ways to help others.

2. They admit their mistakes.
All leaders make mistakes. Humble leaders own up to them. They don’t play the blame game when things go wrong. Instead they hold themselves accountable. Vulnerability builds trust.

3. They share information and delegate.
Humble leaders are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They realize that they cannot do everything. They delegate because the work is more important than their ego.

4. They listen.
They are approachable to employees and this allows them to create an environment of open communication and effective feedback.

5. They do not hesitate to give credit where credit is due.
They appreciate the contributions of others. They are quick to recognize and reward the efforts of team members.

6. They are empathetic to those in their charge.
They genuinely care about employees and employees can feel this sincerity. Empathy allows them to build healthy relationships and bond with team members.

7. They are authentic.
They are the same person in every situation. This makes them trustworthy. Authenticity goes hand in hand with integrity. They are individuals of integrity.

“No matter how educated, talented, rich or cool you believe you are, how you treat people tells all. Integrity is everything.”

Humility doesn’t mean that leaders can’t make tough decisions. A humble leader should not be mistaken for a weak one. It takes strength, courage, and wisdom to practice humility. I have learned that the best leaders are selfless and more concerned with the well-being of their team than with personal titles or status symbols. Easily offended leaders with inflated egos don’t build strong teams. You cannot be an effective leader if you feel that you are better than your subordinates. No one likes dealing with egomaniacs. Arrogance is a deterrent, it destroys relationships and lowers employee morale whereas genuine humility has a way of winning others over.

Good leaders empower. Bad ones micromanage. It is dreadful to work under a manager who is more worried about pushing their weight around than building relationships. The role of any leader within a corporate framework is to build up the team and to encourage growth. If we want employees to feel commitment to the organization, we need to show we respect and value them. This takes humility. For loyalty, there has to be a relationship that develops between employee and employer and this develops over time through trust that gets built and sustained. Once people trust you, they will follow your lead. You won’t need to flaunt your title to get them to do the best possible job.

People might tolerate a boring job or long commute, but they are more prone to leave if their boss treats them poorly. Humble leaders get the best from people. They have more influence, they retain top talent, and they earn more respect and loyalty than those who rely upon ego and power. Want to be a good boss? Start by taking a slice or two of humble pie!

Please leave comments or feedback.

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Management

DISC Profiles Overview

by IPowerIdeas April 4, 2018

Here is a great tool to have in your toolbox when assessing your department or team and how it can help you find the best way to communicate to your team as well as a way for your team to better understand their peers and how they can communicate more efficiently.

I used it in a staff meeting to introduce it to some and helped remind others who have heard it before to bring it to the foreground. It went hand-in-hand while I was introducing The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team to my department.

Here is a portion of a PowerPoint slide deck I used. I include it to give you as a reference or see (I Power Seeds).

Staff Meeting Overview of DISC

The information below comes from DiscProfile.
For further details – Click Here

This is an excellent video summarizing DiSC profiles:

What is DiSC?

DiSC is a personal assessment tool used to improve work productivity, teamwork, and communication.

The DiSC profile is a non-judgemental tool used for discussion of people’s behavioral differences. If you take the test, you’ll be asked to complete a series of questions that produce a report about your personality and behavior.

The DiSC model provides a common language that people can use to better understand themselves and adapt their behaviors with others.

How will DiSC help?

Increase your self‐knowledge: how you respond to conflict, what motivates you, what
causes you stress and how you solve problems
Improve working relationships by recognizing the communication needs of team members
Facilitate better teamwork and minimize team conflictManage more effectively by understanding the dispositions and priorities of team members

DiSC profiles help you and your team:
• Increase your self-knowledge: how you respond to conflict, what motivates you, what causes you stress and how you solve problems
• Improve working relationships by recognizing the communication needs of team members
• Facilitate better teamwork and minimize team conflict
• Develop stronger sales skills by identifying and responding to customer styles
• Manage more effectively by understanding the dispositions and priorities of employees and team members
• Become more self-knowledgeable, well-rounded and effective leaders

What does DiSC stand for? What do the letters mean?

Dominance

Person places emphasis on accomplishing results, the bottom line, confidence
Behaviors
– Sees the big picture
– Can be blunt
– Accepts challenges
– Gets straight to the point

People with D place an emphasis on shaping the environment by overcoming opposition to accomplish results.

A person with a D style

is motivated by winning, competition and success
prioritizes accepting challenge, taking action and achieving immediate results
is described as direct, demanding, forceful, strong willed, driven, and determined, fast-paced, and self-confident
may be limited by lack of concern for others, impatience and open skepticism
may fear being seen as vulnerable or being taken advantage of
values competency, action, concrete results, personal freedom, challenges

Goals:

unique accomplishments
new opportunities
control of audience
independence

Will need to expend more energy to:

show patience
display sensitivity
get into the details
allow deliberation

When communicating with the D style individuals, give them the bottom line, be brief, focus your discussion narrowly, avoid making generalizations, refrain from repeating yourself, and focus on solutions rather than problems.

Influence
Person places emphasis on influencing or persuading others, openness, relationships
Behaviors
– Shows enthusiasm
– Is optimistic
– Likes to collaborate
– Dislikes being ignored

People with the i style place an emphasis on shaping the environment by influencing or persuading others.

A person with an i style:

may be limited by being impulsive and disorganized and having lack of follow-through
is described as convincing, magnetic, enthusiastic, warm, trusting and optimistic
prioritizes taking action, collaboration, and expressing enthusiasm
is motivated by social recognition, group activities, and relationships
may fear loss of influence, disapproval and being ignored
values coaching and counseling, freedom of expression and democratic relationships

Goals

victory with flair
friendship and happiness
authority and prestige status symbols
popularity

Will need to expend more energy to:

follow-through completely
research all the facts
speak directly and candidly
stay focused for long periods

When communicating with the i style individual, share your experiences, allow the i style person time to ask questions and talk themselves, focus on the positives, avoid overloading them with details, and don’t interrupt them.

Steadiness
Person places emphasis on cooperation, sincerity, dependability
Behaviors
– Doesn’t like to be rushed
– Calm manner
– Calm approach
– Supportive actions

People with the S style place an emphasis on cooperating with others within existing circumstances to carry out the task..

A person with an S style:

is motivated by cooperation, opportunities to help and sincere appreciation
prioritizes giving support, collaboration and maintaining stability
is described as calm, patient, predictable, deliberate, stable and consistent
may be limited by being indecisive, overly accommodating and tendency to avoid change
may fear change, loss of stability and offending others
values loyalty, helping others and security

Goals:

personal accomplishments
group acceptance
power through formal roles and positions of authority
maintenance of status quo and controlled environment

Will need to expend more energy to:

quickly adapt to change or unclear expectations
multitask
promote themselves
confront others

When communicating with the S style individuals, be personal and amiable, express your interest in them and what you expect from them, take time to provide clarification, be polite, and avoid being confrontational, overly aggressive or rude.

Conscientiousness
Person places emphasis on quality and accuracy, expertise, competency
Behaviors
– Enjoys independence
– Objective reasoning
– Wants the details
– Fears being wrong

People with the C style place an emphasis on working conscientiously within existing circumstances to ensure quality and accuracy.

A person with a C style:

is motivated by opportunities to gain knowledge, showing their expertise, and quality work
prioritizes ensuring accuracy, maintaining stability, and challenging assumptions
is described as careful, cautious, systematic, diplomatic, accurate and tactful
may be limited by being overcritical, overanalyzing and isolating themselves
may fear criticism and being wrong
values quality and accuracy

Goals:

unique accomplishments
correctness
stability
predictable accomplishments
personal growth

Will need to expend more energy to:

let go of and delegate tasks
compromise for the good of the team
join in social events and celebrations
make quick decisions

When communicating with the C style individual, focus on facts and details; minimize “pep talk” or emotional language; be patient, persistent and diplomatic.

Other Resources:

Free Test:
https://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/

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Books Featured

The Ideal Team Player

by IPowerIdeas April 2, 2018

This is another fantastic book by Patrick Lencioni. If you have not guessed it yet, I truly enjoy his books and after reading each book I realize I have learned a lot as well as been inspired to continue my research and journey to be a better manager and leader.

In this book, The Ideal Team Player, he focusses on the individual. Whereas his book, 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, focusses on teamwork. Here is a link to my post on The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.

To summarize:

5 behavioral manifestations of Teamwork:
• Trust
• Conflict (healthy)
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Results

If you want increase your knowledge and your set of tools, you need to read this book.

Think of a single sports player who thinks s/he is better than the rest of the team and this player thinks they are what makes the team win and how that thinking and attitude affects the rest of the team. Would you want to be part of that team? How hard would it be to manage that player? Or how harder would it be to lead the team? And the list of questions goes on.

Here is an older, but a good example of a well-known and popular player, Scottie Pippen, that highlights this issue:

The backdrop to the story:
• It is the 1994 Championship game between Kicks and the Bulls.
• Both teams had a team with a lot of big-named players.
• Score was 102-102.
• There was only 1.8 seconds left!
• Coach pulls team aside to the bench and calls a play designed for someone else than the “most popular player” – in this case that would be Scottie Pippen
• Everyone on the team, but one person, was excited and all in for the newly designed and chosen play.
• One player uttered negative words under his breath so only his teammates could hear
• They encouraged him to get on board with the new play, he refused
• The rest of the players were united as a TEAM
• They had faith in their coach and his decision as the coach (trusting he knew more than the players at that moment)
• This decision could have lost the championship game for them – a single play.

What do you think happened?!

5 Dysfunctions of a Team focuses on how a group of people must interact in order to become a cohesive team. This book focusses on an individual team member and the virtues that make him or her more likely to overcome the dysfunctions that derails teams.

The Ideal Team Player is all about the makeup of individual team members while The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team are about the dynamics of teams getting things done.

When team members improve their abilities to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart, they’ll be able to make more progress in overcoming the 5 dysfunctions on a regular basis.

Book Summary:

Bob is in construction management and has to figure out how to keep a company running when the owner/CEO goes out on medical leave and they have two significant projects coming up and they need to hire a lot more people and they want to hire the best employees (at all levels) to ensure the outcomes or results of both projects are successful.

The three executives in the fable ultimately come up with three traits they feel their team members need in order to be successful within their company and company culture: “Humble”, “Hungry”, and “Smart”.

These three traits they felt were critical and were to build off the “team work” concept they had learned about a year prior but let the commitment to those changes and practices lapse over time and they needed to go back and build on the foundation of teamwork they had learned and now focus more on the traits of the individuals that were going to make up their team.

Here are just some of the highlights – what I call “I Power Seeds” – to get you interested and thinking.

When you keep toxic managers or leaders around, non-toxic and great employees leave. Many times we as managers keep toxic employees on our team as it can be hard to remove them, but we also lose great employees because they do not want to be part of a team or work for someone who is toxic.

The executives in the book’s fable use a term “_ack_sses” and they realize that not only do they lose good employees, but these toxic managers hire more of the same kind which continues to proliferate the traits and practices they did not want within their company (nor should you). This exacerbates the poor behaviors which makes it continually harder for changes to be made as the number of toxic employees will increase.

I give you one example of my own. When I put together a hiring panel, I always make sure those members of the panel are thinking and looking for the same things I am in the candidates, which is that they are Hungry, Humble and Smart. I also ensure and ask if these panel members can envision themselves working with this person every day. This practice has significantly changed who we hire and how my team has been changing/improving over time.

The most unhappy people are the ones who don’t fit the culture, the ones who don’t belong – they are miserable as they know they don’t belong.

Bob put on a white board those employees with bad behaviors and wrote down adjectives about each one to find common denominators between them.

I would add to this exercise and look at the employees over time and ask questions such as, “Were they always like that? Did the continued and negative culture change their attitude?” I think looking at it over time provides a 3D look and recognizing this could potentially keep good team members. They will only stay if the culture was changed to a positive and cohesive one, which included – Trust, (healthy) Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, Results.

The management team came up with the denominators:
• Ego (Humble) – being unpretentious
• Hard work (Hungry)
• People (Smart) – how to act, what to say, what not to say

They used a Venn Diagram and put the names of their current staff closest to the traits they felt they had or did not have (Humble, Hungry, Smart). Here is an example of a Venn Diagram, where the very center is the “ideal team player”.

What Humble, Hungry, and Smart brings is results – which is the top of The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team pyramid (inattention to results).

Great team players are Humble, Hungry, and Smart.

The executive team help an interview with each person about humble, hungry, and smart and asked them to self-assess themselves. I think this was a great idea – gave each person a little insight into themselves. How many times do we not see something until we look at it from another direction or a different perspective and you end up having an “ah-ha” moment? Great stuff!

Humble, Hungry, Smart – it is not theoretical or touchy-feely.

Patrick Lencioni calls Humble, Hungry, Smart as “3 Virtues” and humility being the most important. Humility also meaning deflated sense of self-worth – when you don’t speak up even though you have great ideas.

Take quote from P157, first paragraph:
“In the context of teamwork, humility is largely what it seems to be. Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status. They are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow to seek attention for their own. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collectively rather than individually. It is no great surprise, them, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.”

Be careful not to pigeonhole people, but better understand what constitutes an ideal team player so we can recognize and develop them on our teams.

I share a personal story that when I was interviewing for a VP position at a large company I had gone through the barrage of interview panels and one-on-ones with key stakeholders like the CEO and CFO. But they also recognized the Humble, Hungry, Smart model and wanted to ensure I had these virtues. So one of the key members of the IT department “casually” asked me if I wanted to meet for lunch. Of course I accepted and we had a really good conversation, but was clear he was trying to get me to let my guard down and show my true self and did I truly possess the virtues of Humble, Hungry, Smart and would I fit into their company culture. Which I did, and out of 600 applicants, 300 having IT experience, I got the job.

Here are some interview questions I took from the book. There are many others really good ones.

One note he brought to light, which I have done, is within the interview questions, ask the same question in a different manner later on. This will help you validate what they have said for important or key areas that are important to you and your department or company culture. Such as:
• How would your colleagues describe your worth ethic?
• How would your manager describe your relationship with your colleagues?

What are your most important accomplishments of your career?

What was the biggest embarrassment or biggest failure and how did you handle it?

What is your greatest weakness or what would you change about yourself or better yet what would your friends say you need to work on?

Tell me about someone who is better than you in an area that really matters to you?

What is the hardest project you worked on?

What do you like to do outside of work?

How would you describe your personality?

What kind of people annoy you the most and how do you work with them?

Would your former colleagues describe you as empathetic? Give an example where you demonstrated empathy to a teammate (how others feel)

Interviewers need to ask themselves, “could I work with this person every day?”

Let your reference checks reveal to you if the person would thrive in your culture.

Key is: the process is aimed at improved vs. punishment.

Have a 360 feedback program.

Many people do not seem to realize how their words and actions impact others.

Book recommended within “The Ideal Team Player” – “Good to Great” by Jim Collins

Resources
https://www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player

Book Summary from Amazon
In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.

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Leadership

Inspire a Shared Vision

by IPowerIdeas March 23, 2018

I wanted to continue my thoughts on creating and sharing a business or company vision.

A vision, as noted in my other post, and sharing your vision and making it clear and transparent is a key ingredient to its success.

To share it and make it clear and transparent, here are some of the things I have done to inspire my shared vision.

• Every year I assess and analyze what we accomplished the previous year and create an executive summary and share with staff and company stakeholders.

• Then I look at the outcomes and look for what gaps remain as well as what I feel we need to create as goals and create a new vision.

• This year, based on our current vision, our team motto is “Higher Achievement”. Last year was “One Extra Degree”. One extra degree was about going one small step further than they did before. The responses from our customers have been phenomenal. This year “Higher Achievement” is to build off the small extra steps or measures from last year and take them to the next level. It is a little more challenging, but the results and responses have been overwhelmingly positive.

• I then provide details of the vision and how we can get there – the goals and objectives, both strategic and tactical.

• Part of my vision is to not only have a year over year vision, but also include a five-year rolling vision and plan that gets updated and slightly modified each year. This provides the team a long-term plan they can hold on to and work towards as they plan and strategize in their own work areas. One of the keys is to parallel my vision with the goals and objectives of the business. We must all be working towards the same company goal.

During the process of creating a shared vision, I open it to my staff for feedback and suggestions as I want their buy-in and ownership.

I also bring in other key stakeholders, such as other directors or leaders, so they can offer their support and reinforcement of the outcomes or results of the shared vision.

To help reinforce and stay on track with the vision, each month during staff meetings we update the team on the status of our goals and where we are and how we are doing on the vision and all of its components.

Remember:
Vision is what you want IT to look like.

Goals are tasks to GET you there

Please comment or offer feedback, they are always encouraged and welcomed.

I hope you enjoy the experience of creating a shared vision and realize how it helps your team, business or organization.

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