Every time I look at an organization, project or team of people, I feel compelled to influence their so-called corporate culture.
Being a leader of some organizations I decided to introduce new habits and working methods which, assuming that they were repeated and developed, could consolidate the competitive edge of the company and improve the quality of work at each reporting level. This was supposed to be the DNA of a group of people who, with some support, would act together with courage and smile.
In the first step, we focused on SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE
We started with the review of each individual contribution and the clarification of each and every position in the company. The starting point was to define the position, together with its role and responsibilities, in order to eliminate any “grey areas”. We wanted to understand the goals of our actions and trigger the learning process. With this, we were able to define what should be done, and what an employee can expect from others and vice versa. This process was far from evident; we needed to build a sense of openness and security. One of the key outcomes was the confirmation that it was OK not to know something. It was also OK to have doubts, and we encouraged people to look for answers. It took a lot of discussions, often quite uneasy when we had some unexpected discoveries, e.g. duplicated jobs, inefficiencies etc.
Considering the above, we used a simple tool called the roles and responsibilities (R&R) matrix, supported by the concept of Situational Leadership (SLII).
The R&R model is a straightforward tool to show who does what in a specific area of the corporate business. It highlights correlations between work and responsibilities and “cleans up” ambiguities. For me this is “a health check” of the work to be done.
SLII®, or Situational Leadership https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przyw%C3%B3dztwo_sytuacyjne , is a theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. It assumes that there is no such thing as one best style of leadership. Effective leadership is task-relevant and the most successful leaders are those who adapt their leadership style to the maturity (‘‘the capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility for the task and the relevant education and/or experience of an individual or a group for the task”) of the individual or the group they are trying to lead or influence. Effective leadership will vary depending on the individual or the group you influence, and on the task, job or function to be executed.
Myself, I realized that SLII® is a great tool to nip in the bud the tendency to feel ashamed when asking questions and the “I know better” approach. By implementing it, the company gives its teams and individuals the right to openly ask for advice, look for help and share knowledge at different levels of the organization.
By doing these two exercises in a coordinated way, we challenged the organization. We strived to achieve better clarity, openness and trust. This in turn fostered new habits within the organization which next had to be kept alive. All in all, this was the starting point: defining the skills and knowledge that you should have in your organization with an open attitude to the known and the unknown.
As a follow-up, to induce better COOPERATION, both internally and externally, I proposed the review of the cooperation process both within teams and in contacts with customers and partners.
In my experiment – again based on a very simple tool – the team would take an effort to understand how they cooperate, considering their intuition, thinking, perception and feelings. The exercise builds self-awareness, creates better teams, and improves the quality of communication.
The tool is called Extended DISC® (https://www.extendeddisc.org/) . This is an assessment method which eventually helps you maximize the performance of your people. It helps eliminate costly mistakes, waste of time and resources. By implementing DISC®, the organization discovers different behavioral styles, while acknowledging and accepting the diversity within teams, and triggers reflections on different communication patterns. All those processes can be covered with the same single DISC® tool.
Once you know how to align the model with yourself, based on the same narrative you can move on to analyze other people, in your team and in the company. It becomes easier to ask questions, cooperate, listen and observe. Everything will go even more smoothly if you add openness underlying this model. SLII® will be a perfect solution to do the internal analysis of the company. This is just the next step towards so much wanted trust.
Let’s just focus now on the external world and our clients. These dimensions are made of people and teams, their own beliefs, behaviors or values. The better your self-awareness, the easier the work with clients. With a good dose of openness you will be able to understand what they need, and to see if you can provide them with solutions that meet or exceed their expectations. For me, this activity is all about discovering DISC behavioral patterns among clients and other people as well. It helps build sustainable business relationships, based on solid foundations and active listening.
Then, (this was another step in my experiment), as we’ve made the effort to get the clarity and build skills, knowledge, openness and cooperation, both internally and externally, our teams, whether in whole or through every individual member, would act more knowingly.
The time came for CHECKS and improvements. This was the moment for INNOVATION, REFLECTION and LESSONS LEARNED from the past.
We started internally, again in our own team. We organized lessons learned sessions for specific projects or ways of working, and even tried to co-devise projects and services together with our clients.
Once we made the whole journey, we were ready for new situations, on-going improvement and review of tools, all of that in a more and more evolving environment. I realized that all these phases happen in parallel. The whole trick is to do them better each time, reflecting on the past and re-integrating improvements into the company.
This is the picture I got at the end of the adventure from the team who would never rest on their laurels.
