Lesson Category: team

Even the most skilled teams get stuck. That’s because the most worthy work is often the hardest to undertake. The reasons why you can get stuck can be:

1. Hopeless.

Your team gets stuck because the team lacks a central purpose. A kind of general defeatism has set in. The team spins out of control. All the hard work seems like exactly that – just hard work. There is no feeling of reward, no sense of achievement.

2. Overwhelmed

The team is stuck because they can’t make a decision. Perhaps your original intent-your North Star, if you will-was clear. But as you’ve tried to follow it, the path has gotten murky. What at one point seemed like a clear intent and plan has rolled along and collected a bunch of barnacles—politics, inconclusive data, opinions arising from fear. And now, the team cannot move forward. Faced with many different outcomes, no decision is taken. No decision, no progress. 

3. Mediocre

You’re stuck because your team can never get to great. Some teams set the bar of performance so low that all its members can jump over it (but that also means performance is only as impressive as the least skilled member). Yet, in other teams, politics swirl around so violently that the team sabotages its own success. And some teams are so consensus- driven that they achieve only the lowest common denominator. 

4. Battle-Torn

You’re stuck because your team just can’t get along. This syndrome describes a team that never even gets to fight the outside enemy because it’s so torn by its own foibles and bad deeds it can’t get over itself. This is friendly fire at its most disturbing. 

5. Helpless

You’re stuck because your team is running scared. Sometimes a team gets stuck because it fears it will fail. Other times, a team gets stuck because it fears it will succeed. But each time (or at least most times), a team fails to perform because it fears something—or someone. 

6. Vague

You’re stuck because your team doesn’t know the next move. Haze. Murkiness. Fog. The team is willing to make any move, because they have no idea what the next move should be. (Or worse, each member is making his or her own move, not knowing what the right next move should be.) 

7. Exhausted

You’re stuck because your team has been through change-effort after change-effort, and they’re just plain tired. Corporate Business suffers from change as the norm. In an attempt to correct for that challenge, organizations have been afflicted with the ceaseless array of change-effort after change-effort. Marked by the arrival of binder-carrying consultants with powerpoint and new processes, these efforts, perhaps sensible, often fail to recognize the importance of the human psyche—and just how hard it is to constantly adapt. 

How to get unstuck?

Good teams know how to get unstuck. How to move forward when everyone and everything seems to be moving in reverse. One of the things that separates team leaders from managers is the ability to recognize when they are stuck. Great team leaders can admit when they just don’t know how to go forward in the process, they liberate themselves -and their teams- and in doing so begin actively exploring how to get unstuck.

There is often a pattern to being stuck. Let us first start by saying that “stuck” is not always a bad state of being. Sometimes getting stuck is merely a sign that you’re attempting something ambitious, or trying something that hasn’t been done before (and you’ve hit a dead end), or that you’re pushing your team hard. In fact, there are some leaders who actually need to get stuck to achieve some sense of brilliance-for them being stuck is merely a stop along the way to a bigger achievement.

Which brings us back to the topic of getting unstuck. Great leaders often develop methods and processes and, yes, sometimes seemingly voodoo-driven rituals to get their teams mobilized again. And while it’s difficult to assess the true cause-and-effect nature of these methods and processes (does pulling this lever truly cause that result on the other end?), there seems to be a pattern to how great teamleaders work.

 A few observations about great team leaders:

One. In this complex day and age, great team leaders tend to be system thinkers—that is, they use a deeply comprehensive and systemic means to mobilize change and instigate progress. They know that activating an entire system—making a number of moves across it-helps to induce the right result.

Two. Team leaders often carry with them a mental model of that system—a frame-that helps depict how all its moving parts are related. The very best leaders draw that frame for their teams, so all can visualize how the system works. The challenge of of leadership becomes maximizing the work in each part of the frame with respect to the performance of the whole. How, for instance, the purpose and strategy of an organization its structure and processes; metrics and rewards; and company culture interact to create the best possible results. Like revenue. Profit. Social good. Human achievement.

Three. These team leaders know that in executing any given project, program, initiative, or move within any part of the frame, teams get stuck. They understand that the process of getting stuck…and then unstuck is like the process of navigating a maze: dead ends are overcome by backing up and charting a new path. 

Four. In the process of backing up to move forward, these leaders are very good at figuring out what about their team is causing them to get stuck-is it merely the situation? Or is there a larger team dynamic at play? Does the team suffer from groupthink? Does it have diversity – of people, of background, of points of view – to get to a truly intelligent answer? Does it suffer from the paradox that is a team in which ideas and decisions are compromised to take the whims of each member into account, with the net result being an outcome that no one would have supported. 

Five. Once these leaders assess the real dynamic that’s causing them to get stuck, they take serious action to make adjustments to the team, and then move forward.

Which brings us to the subject of moving forward. We find that great team leaders induce a new momentum in their teams by taking inventive approaches, many of which are captured in the academy pages that follow.

Communication can be described in different ways. Here we look at verbal and non-verbal communication.

Imagine how you react (un)consciously to two ways of communication:

• Verbal communication.
• Non-verbal communication

Non-verbal behavior includes:

• Your facial expression. For example, of amazement, of understanding.
• The degree of eye contact. For example: turning away as a result of going to your own thought process, looking at each other as much as possible, or whether or not blinking your eyes.
• Gestures; for example ‘the little finger’.
• Your posture. For example; legs clasped behind chair legs, hands under the table.
• Your voice (volume, tempo, intonation, height).

How the message is conveyed determines more than the content (‘the WHAT’), how the other person experiences your communication. It is the tone that makes the music.

What you want to say must correspond to ‘HOW’ you say it, if the message is to be congruent. The way the other person reacts depends for 2/3 on the way you bring your message.

As a coach you can effectively facilitate the coaching conversation and your team by making conscious use of (non) verbal communication, such as:

Short interventions:

• Humming
• “Really?”
• “Indeed, yes.”
• “Oh my …”

Exploratory questions:

• “How come?”
• “Why?”
• “Questioningly repeating the other person’s last word.”
• “Really?”

Confronting possible peculiarities in story:

• “That also happens to be that…”
• “It strikes me that there’s a similarity with…”

Dropping silences: that gives the other the opportunity to order thoughts. Do not be afraid to be silent for 10 – 20 seconds; observe the other person: if you look closely, you will see when they have been thought out. There is a good chance that the other person will speak again.

Summarise concisely.

Essentially represent what you think the other person means.

The last two interventions provide an interim check whether what is said is also understood. Even in the situation where the other person indicates that you are not giving a correct summary, this way of communicating works.

Asking questions creates commitment and energy.

Asking questions is an effective way of collecting alternatives.

More effective than spouting solutions from one’s own knowledge or experience. By asking questions you immerse yourself in the team and its situation. Furthermore, you value the opinion of the other members of the team. The members are actively involved. If, on the other hand, you ‘read from your own work’ or give direct judgements and instruct solutions, the other members remain passive in thinking and acting. He/she might even turn away from you.

Certainly in situations in which you have to raise a difficult topic for the other person: asking the opinion of the others is less threatening in that case.

The resulting atmosphere gives the others room to learn: tap into that energy.

Find out what the team you are coaching knows: appreciate that knowledge and experience.

Find out what support the others expect from you. Ask for that as well!

Alone you’ll go faster, together you’ll achieve more.

Active listening motivates others and shows that you take the members of your team seriously.

The members of the team should experience that they are listened to and that they have your attention.

By giving and asking attention, you stimulate the team to continue and achieve the desired results.

Through coaching you offer the members of a team the opportunity to learn, learn to perform better, learn to develop themselves and learn to change. You do this by:

• Listening in a focused way
• Asking questions
• Provide substantive advice where necessary.

Coaching takes place between manager and employees, between employees themselves and an employee can also coach a manager in specific areas.

What you learn now can just as easily be applied to your immediate colleagues of ‘the same level’, as level(s) higher up in an organisation. However, it makes a big difference whether you yourself work from a (well hidden) power thinking, or whether you work from strength: personal power.

The form of guidance that we will use in the team case sessions, is always focused on two main points of attention:

• Does the team achieve its goals and where is help needed?
• Does the team’s behaviour comply with the Core Values? And if not, how do you make it grow?

The coaching of employees towards a greater personal strength is based on the assumption:

• That each individual in the team is ultimately responsible for increasing his personal strength, as well as unfolding his (hidden) potential.
• That if someone wants to, but is not (yet) able to, we as managers, or as colleagues, see it as our responsibility to support that person in the team.

There are a number of things that a coach should keep an eye on while supervising the GROW team cases:

• Taking responsibility
• Ask questions and listen
• Observe
• Focus
• The growth process
• Verbal and nonverbal communication
• Provide feedback

Taking responsibility

As a coach, you are responsible for the learning process. This consists of:

• Using the GROW model.
• Working (together) on the basis of the Core Values.

The other is responsible for the learning result. This consists of:

• That the other achieves the agreed objectives on time and at target level.
• That the other behaves in terms of behaviour along the Core Values.

The focus is largely on the team. Coaching can only be effective if you as a coach are not distracted by your own needs, judgements and opinions. It is about serving the team. It is therefore important to keep a part of your attention with yourself in order to quickly recognise any (disruptive) reactions and to use them constructively in the conversation.

Examples of disturbances

• You’re running out of time yourself.
• You’ve just had some unpleasant news yourself.
• You talk to someone and what you hear evokes a negative reaction, a reaction of anger, disappointment or boredom.
  • “What a nag.”
  • “How stupid.”
• Or the image evokes too positive a reaction on your part:
• Without being aware of yourself, your attitude may shift from a supportive / coaching attitude to a more critical one: “That’s brilliant, you’re indeed brilliant!”

It is possible that you are going to prove yourself right; that you are going to isolate yourself in your mind.

Sometimes this is also visible in:

• Just staring at the other.
• Tapping with a pen.
• Checking your e-mail.
• Being distracted by your ‘to do’ list in your mind;

So be aware of what’s going on in you and what’s going on in the team. What are your feelings about the team or the situation and how can these feelings influence your conversation? Not only determine what the team expects of you as a coach, but also determine what you yourself expect of it.

Sometimes you burst with energy. You’re open, you listen, you talk, you go out.

You read, you’re active. In short, you try to get the most out of the day and out of life. But there are also times when these new experiences have to be processed. That takes energy. Then you look no further and try to find your own balance. You process what you have experienced.

Both phases (expansion and contraction) are part of a natural growth process.

Coaching is about stimulating growth and getting the best out of everyone. But how do you do that? And what in particular should you not do or say?

Growth is something people have to do themselves. Over time we learn from our own experiences, with trial and error. Growth requires: going outside your own comfort zone. It takes time, energy and trust. To move forward, we must be able to get the best out of ourselves. So we also need to dare to ‘let go’ of things we know for sure.

One develops at full speed, the other jolts and bumps, or in silence. As a coach you take these differences into account. You offer support without imposing yourself. And without demanding that the other person will act in your way, or to deal with experiences in your own way.

Growth is possible if we give ourselves and the other person the space to do so. At the same time it is important to give the other person honest feedback and confront them when listening and asking questions no longer prove effective.

Resistance to growth

When you feel resistance in the guidance of a case, it is wise to check whether a defense mechanism has been activated in someone (in the other person or in yourself!).

A defense is an automatic reaction to protect ourselves from feeling emotional pain. Our defence is automatically activated when we feel personally attacked or threatened. You can think of situations in which we are criticized or when we feel like being embarrassed. We then have four basic reactions:

1. We attack the other
2. We’re pulling out
3. We do what someone else wants without supporting it ourselves.
4. We’re freezing

These defences are often subtle and can be triggered by anything (so-called ‘triggers’). Often people experience a difference in strength, a difference in knowledge, a difference in experience, or just a difference…

The person who then feels like the ‘inferior’ can hardly or simply not take the space for himself to develop at such a moment. He is no longer able to think along, to participate, to involve himself through questions or the sharing of information.

What can then happen is that one starts to rebel against the growth process by questioning the authority, for example. Or by distracting from the alleged difference, by being too critical about side aspects, or by responding to the other in a derogatory way. Or by making oneself smaller than necessary: too friendly, too hesitant, ‘I guess it’s me again’, ‘I have that again’.

What we want to achieve is that we react to the situations above from a certain objectivity. That we can feel what we are feeling and face the truth, without feeling threatened.

Pride, fear and self-will cause us to act out of negative intention instead of taking responsibility for our behaviour.

Pride says: I am better than others, only then do we have the right to be ‘special’. The resistance then manifests itself in an attack.

Fear says: we have to protect ourselves, so everything we have to do to protect ourselves is justified. The resistance often expresses itself as retreating or freezing.

Self-will says: We have to get what we want and when we want it and we have the right to do it. The resistance then expresses itself in ‘Say yes and do no’.

If you go into defense as a coach, we recognize the following situations:

The one who feels the superior, tries to keep the other ‘small’:

• “Since when do you know about this work?!”
• “So, do we read newspapers these days?”
• “Stupid idea. Who can say anything meaningful about this?”
• “Don’t you get it?”

The other is slowed down and is not given the opportunity to develop.

Such behaviour has a demotivating effect on the team members and is counterproductive to the process.

Self-analysis: When do I evoke resistance?

Try to finish the following sentences:

• I tend to respond in a derogatory way (make the other ‘smaller’) when…
• I tend to obstruct my own development opportunities when…
• I feel obstructed by others, small or ‘stupid’, when…

Sometimes a defense is a blind spot. Can we avoid obstructing the other or ourselves? Often we can’t. It’s a ‘natural’ behaviour, but you can train yourself to be alert to it.

Coaching leaders focus on the development of their employees so that they can sustainably improve their team. The basis for this lies in the extent to which each team member achieves or exceeds his or her objectives in line with the team values.

In Coaching Leadership the focus is entirely on the question:

“How can I best help the other (the employee) to find a solution that works for him or her?”

The manager does not do this by communicating his opinion with arguments, power or coercion, but is involved with the employee by actively listening and by proactively asking questions that invite reflection and self-reflection. The manager’s attitude shows an interest in the other person’s story. He thinks along with the solutions generated by the employee, thereby indicating that the other is central to this coaching process and not the leader himself.

The responsibility to invest deeper in the team gives the organization a more self-directed character. Employees are more involved in obtaining results and are allowed to steer this themselves. Gaining responsibility, including the trust that goes with it, immediately results in higher intrinsic motivation and satisfaction among employees. This reduces the outflow. This innovative method of working gives the organisation an image boost in the labour market, which results in an inflow of higher quality and motivation levels.

A coaching style of leadership gives immediate results:

• responsibility for the Kpi’s lies with the employees who have the most influence on them. As a result, employees receive immediate feedback on their performance and improve themselves on all Kpi’s (Turnover, Gross Margin, KGA, etc.)
• The new style generates more independence on the floor, so less team management and staff is needed.
• Employees are more motivated and continue to work longer, resulting in savings in recruitment and training.
• The investment in external guidance is quickly recouped

The realization of the strategy by the team and the continuous realization or exceeding of the business plans requires result-oriented behaviour based on the team values. When all team members, in the interest of the team, really hold each other accountable for their behaviour and their responsibility, working is fun and the team will be successful.

People Change Team Scan is a unique method to analyse, understand, improve and change teams. The Team Scan allows you to quickly and easily see how a team can change and what priorities the team members have. Watch the video below for an extensive overview:

The following insights are analyzed:

• The People Change Team Score gives an indication of the score between the individuals and the team.
• The Priorities indicate which issues employees find most important for the team in the long term.
• The Team Structure and Culture indicates what the team members now perceive and would like to have.
• The Team Values System indicates the distribution of value systems that are most present within the team.
• The Team Values Systems under pressure indicates the distribution of value systems that are most present within the team under pressure.
• Mental flexibility indicates whether the team thinks more rationally or more emotionally.
• The insight Change Skills indicates which style of change the team prefers to use.
• Change Preferences reflect the team’s preference for personal or professional change.
• The Change Barometer indicates how the team feels about the change process.

Click on the links below to download the files.

Workbook

• People Change Coach Workbook