Leadership Today - Practical Tips For Leaders

Welcome to day one of the radical reflection challenge. I am looking forward to working with you across the next five days. Each day starts with a brief introduction just like this one, followed by an activity in your workbook which you can complete at any point during the day. If you haven't downloaded the workbook as yet, you will find it at leadership.today/radical or follow the link in the show notes.

We are starting our challenge by examining our values. Perhaps you already know what you value and hold to be most important in life. Maybe you haven't given your values much thought, or perhaps it has been a while since you reflected on your values.

Values are central to who we are. They influence what we do, how we do it and, most importantly, why we do it. However it's easy to lose sight of our values. Often times we find ourselves balancing competing priorities. For example, you might really value time with your family and friends, while also valuing financial security. Your quest for financial security may lead you to work longer and longer hours, reducing the time you have available to spend with family and friends.

In this way, I don't believe values are something we set and forget. It's important to assess and re-assess what we value. Our values may change over time. It may be that things that used to be really important to us are now less important. I'm sure you know someone who has had a health diagnosis that caused them to question their values in fundamental ways. Maybe you have had a similar experience that caused you to reassess.

I know for me the loss of a parent when I was in my 20s caused a radical shift in my values. Things that I had placed my hope and confidence in were revealed to be less secure than I thought. It made me reconsider what really mattered to me.

I believe reflecting on our values regularly, whether that's once or twice per year, provides a foundation for deeper reflections on our life. It's very easy for our life to drift off course away from the things that matter to us most. Reflecting on our values is a great check of how we are directing our focus, our time and our energies.

In your workbook you will find a simple values questionnaire. Read through the list of values, then choose the ten that appeal to you most. You can then reduce that list down to a top three. I then want you to reflect on your life at present, and the extent to which it aligns with those values. In what ways are you currently aligned? In what areas might your values be challenged currently?

As well as completing the reflection in the workbook, I encourage you to grab a friend to complete this week's challenge with. It's always better to learn with others.

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Hi everyone. The Leadership Today podcast is going to be a little different over the next week. We are going to be undertaking what I have called the Radical Reflection Five Day Challenge. I believe most leaders are suffering from what I call reflection deficit, so this challenge aims to tackle that head on.

The challenge is running live from 22nd to 26th February 2021 at Leadership Today On-Demand, which is our video-based subscription service. You can always sign up for a 30 day trial to get involved that way. The other option is to go to leadership.today/radical to learn more and download the workbook.

So what are you signing up for here? Each morning starts with a brief introduction to the challenge for that day. The workbook then includes a range of reflection activities to support your reflections. I've included all of the links in the show notes. I'm confident this challenge can make a huge difference for you personally and in your leadership. I'm looking forward to working with you across the week.

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WATCH THE CHALLENGE VIA LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND

Stretch goals are incredibly popular for individuals and organisations. But are they effective? It depends. This week we explore how to know when to set a stretch goal.

Hello and welcome to episode 107 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to know when to set a stretch goal.

Stretch goals are incredibly popular for individuals and organisations. But are they effective? Well, that depends.

The modern application of stretch goals can most likely be attributed Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. They coined the term Big Hairy Audacious Goal in their book Built to Last. The book encourages people to set extraordinary stretch goals. But, importantly, these goals are typically set across a long-term time frame of 10 to 25 years. By way of example, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen first started Microsoft they talked to each other about having a computer on every desk and in every home decades before that became reality. That all sounds great - I set myself or my organisation a Big Hairy Audacious Goal for 20 years into the future and chase after it. The problem is that people are applying this approach to one year goals, which was never the intent. Microsoft did not have a one or two year goal to have a computer on every desk - that would have been ridiculous. Instead they used that ambitious goal to draw them forward through years of steady progress.

Shorter-term stretch goals are not always right. The work of Sitkin, Miller and See is really helpful for us to understand when a stretch goal might make sense.

In their 2017 HBR article the authors outline two conditions that are important to consider before setting a stretch goal:

1. Recent performance. Are you coming from a recent history of success and performance, or of failure and underperformance? Recent success provides the mindset and motivation required to apply to the challenge. This is particularly important.

2. Excess resources. Do we have additional resources available that aren't already committed? Is there some slack in the system? Stretch goals require committed resources, not just business as usual.

The perfect time to set a stretch goal is when you have recently been successful and you have available uncommitted resources. People will have the motivation, mindset and capacity to chase that stretch goal. Even if you have been successful, if you don't have the required additional resources you are setting people up for failure.

But hang on - so if I don't have recent success, are the authors saying I shouldn't set a stretch goal even if I have available resources? Where there are available resources but not a recent history of success, the authors suggest running more modest experiments that you can afford to fail. Rather than setting stretch goals, it is better in these situations to work on quick fail experiments. Here you try new things that aren't huge bets, and celebrate giving things a go. As these experiments begin to work, you will build that track record of success needed to then set stretch goals.

If you haven't recently been successful and lack spare resources, then stretch goals are not your friend. Instead the authors suggest you should chase small wins - taking those small steps forward until you do have a track record of success. Then your people will feel more confident to reach out towards a stretch goal.

A stretch goal needs a recent track record of success and dedicated resources. Too often people set a stretch goal as a last gasp opportunity for redemption - that's exactly the wrong time. So, yes, absolutely dream big for the 10 to 25 year future. But then consider the kind of goals you set based on your performance to date and the resources you are willing to commit.

I hope you found that helpful. As always, a link to the reference used is in the show notes.

If you want to become an even better leader, then I'm sure Leadership Today On-Demand can help. It's where we have all of our online courses, recorded webinars, and quick hits on a broad range of topics, all available with one subscription. Go to leadership.today and follow the on-demand link to sign up for a completely free 30 day trial.

Have a great week.

The Stretch Goal Paradox by Sim B. Sitkin, C. Chet Miller, and Kelly E. See. Harvard Business Review (January-February 2017).

https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-stretch-goal-paradox

What we think about people has an impact not just on how we personally perceive them, but also on their actual behaviour. There's power when we believe in someone's potential.

Hello and welcome to episode 106 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the power of belief in potential.

What we think about people has an impact not just on how we personally perceive them, but also on their actual behaviour. It's an example of selective attention bias with some expectancy bias thrown in for good measure. If you think that someone is lazy, you will notice everything that they do that appears lazy. You will also ignore anything they do that is energetic and active. So, over time, we just end up thinking that they're more and more lazy. But, on top of that, we will also modify the way we work with that person. This in turn will lead to them acting in ways that appear even more lazy. We might give them less work to complete, so they end up having more spare time. They might become less engaged, and so seem more lazy. In short, the actions we take can make the other person end up being more lazy.

A recent study demonstrated this impact in a college environment. Through some laboratory and field studies, the researchers discovered that a professor's mindset about student learning had remarkable positive and negative impacts on those students. For example, when a professor had lower expectations that people could develop and grow, their students demonstrated lower class attendance, reduced engagement in class, less end of semester interest in the subject, they felt more like an impostor in the class, and they even delivered lower grades. So if a professor (who is effectively the leader of learning) thinks you're not likely to learn, then you, in turn, will actually be less likely to learn. In contrast, if the leader thinks you have potential to learn and grow, you're much more likely to learn and grow.

In a work context, we often inherit a perspective about a person we lead. "This person is a trouble maker" or "this person doesn't deliver". The risk is that we perpetuate and multiply this perspective through our behaviour towards that person.

Here are five ways to challenge our thinking and demonstrate belief in others' potential:

1. Reset your expectations. Think about how you see others and give them another chance. Let's expect that people can improve, grow and develop.

2. State your positive expectations. It's what you say that matters. If you think someone is fantastic but never say it, they may completely miss it.

3. Challenge negative appraisals you might make. Is it more about you than them? What evidence might you have to the contrary?

4. Challenge negative appraisals others make about people. If you hear others perpetuating negative beliefs about people, appropriately challenge them.

5. Challenge negative appraisals others make about themselves. Sometimes people perpetuate their own limiting beliefs. Why wouldn't others believe the person? Use the opportunity to challenge people who consistently run themselves down.

As leaders, what we think about others matters. It shapes not only our perceptions, but also their behaviour. Think about ways you can demonstrate a greater belief in others' potential.

Well that's the end of this week's episode. As always, the reference used is in the show notes.

A quick reminder that our brand new Leading Through Change and Uncertainty online course is now available at Leadership Today On-Demand. It's video based so you can go at your own pace and work through the content in any order. Just go to Leadership.Today website and follow the On-Demand link to find out more and to sign up for a free 30 day trial. We also offer a 25% discount for groups, so it's a great option for your team and organisation. Take a look at Leadership Today On-Demand - it's just like online fitness training for your leadership.

Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Muenks, K., Canning, E. A., LaCosse, J., Green, D. J., Zirkel, S., Garcia, J. A., & Murphy, M. C. (2020). Does my professor think my ability can change? Students' perceptions of their STEM professors' mindset beliefs predict their psychological vulnerability, engagement, and performance in class. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(11), 2119–2144. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000763

How do you plan when the future is uncertain? Strategic foresight is a great approach to figuring out how to think about the future.

Hello and welcome to episode 105 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore strategic foresight and how to think about the future when things are uncertain.

It's a classic challenge - how do we lead others through times of uncertainty when we're not clear ourselves? Perhaps our industry is going through significant change. Or perhaps you report into a leadership team that haven't provided a clear strategy and direction. We can't just make things up - that's not fair on our team - so what do we do?

What we need is strategic foresight, which is outlined in a great Harvard Business Review article with the intriguing title - Learning from the Future.

The author of the article, J Peter Scoblic, says of strategic foresight that the "aim is not to predict the future but rather to make it possible to imagine multiple futures in creative ways that heighten our ability to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens in the years ahead. Strategic foresight doesn't help us figure out what to think about the future. It helps us figure out how to think about it."

He outlined the following six stage process for Strategic Foresight - invite, identify, imagine, inhabit, isolate and implement:

• The first stage is INVITE - we need to invite the right people to participate. Senior leaders don't have exclusive rights to think about the future. Rather than just involving those with the greatest responsibility, it is often better to involve those with the greatest vision. That might include some people closest to your customers, or people who have joined from other industries. We really want to bring together a group of people that are diverse in their thinking and experience, and open to new possibilities.

• The second stage is IDENTIFY - here we think about assumptions that we might be making as an organisation. We also explore the key drivers for our organisation and any uncertainties in the market.

• The third stage is called IMAGINE. This involves imagining what Scoblic describes as plausible, but dramatically different, futures. So let's take my business as an example. We're focus on helping people to become even better leaders. I could imagine a few different futures - where leadership development was only face-to-face, only online, some mix of the two, only live, only on-demand. From that diverse range of potential futures, I could then take the three that were most plausible.

• The fourth stage is to INHABIT each of those futures. Here we want to really experience what each future could be like, and what that might mean for us. You could encourage your team to describe what each future looks like, how people might respond, and what might or might not be possible.

• The fifth stage is to ISOLATE strategies that will be useful across multiple possible futures. Again, with my business, running through a range of options back at the end 2018 showed me that online delivery and content development was something I should focus on. It was a strategy that would work across a range of likely futures.

• The final stage is IMPLEMENT. This is where we take those strategies and put them in place.

Why not undertake a strategic foresight activity with your team. Here are some questions to help:

• What trends do you see in your market? What are the emerging opportunities and threats?

• What are some likely futures for your organisation and team? What are the three most likely futures?

• What does each future look like? What are the implications for you and your team?

• What might be common in those different futures for you and your team? How might you prepare for each of those futures?

• Is there one future that you want to actively pursue? Why? What might you do now to prepare for that?

It is great to be back for 2021 with a brand new episode, and I hope you found it helpful. I must say that 2021 feels a little bit like 2020 part 2, so I do hope you're keeping safe and well.

I have two exciting new things to tell you about. Our Leading Through Change and Uncertainty online course is now available. If you enjoyed today's episode then you will love this course. It's video based so you can go at your own pace and work through the content in any order. It's all part of Leadership Today On-Demand, so current subscribers will see it there. If you haven't subscribed as yet, why not take our completely free 30 day trial. Just go to Leadership Today and follow the On-Demand link to find out more - or you can follow the link in the show notes. We also offer a 25% discount for groups, so it's a great option for your team and organisation.

I see Leadership Today On-Demand as just like online fitness training for your leadership. So I'm really excited to let you know about our very first multi-day challenge. It runs from 22nd to 26th of February and the focus is on Reflection. I believe most leaders are suffering from what I call reflection deficit, so this challenge aims to tackle that head on. Each morning starts with a brief video introducing the challenge for that day. These are backed up by a workbook that includes a range of reflection activities. It's just like bootcamp, but with far less active wear. Check out the Radical Reflection Challenge at Leadership Today On-Demand for more details.

Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

In the last of our replays, we look back to our 15th February 2020 episode titled A Leader's Role in Removing Frustrations.

We're back next week with a brand new episode. I look forward to speaking with you then.

ummary

Aaarrgghhh! This week we look at the leader's role in removing frustrations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 66 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at a leader's role in removing frustrations.

When you think about the role of a leader, it's easy to focus primarily on their ability to manage upside potential. That upside potential might include providing meaning and purpose, clarifying roles and expectations, and providing development opportunities. We tend to first focus on the leader's ability to tap into the motivation of their people. Each of these areas are really important, however an equally important and often overlooked part of leadership is reducing the things that get in the way of performance. That includes removing frustrations and other barriers to success for individuals and teams.

Let's take IT as an example. As I work with a broad range of organisations it always amazes me the variety of IT setups people end up using ranging from cutting edge through to museum-grade antiques. Even when things look brilliant to me as an outsider, few people rave about their IT systems. However I've heard plenty of complaints about long boot up times, tricky remote login processes, slow response times, clunky data entry, and systems that don't speak to one another. As the technology we use at home continues to leap forward, people have increasingly high expectations of the technology they interact with at work. And if the technology gets in the way of delivering work, it quickly impacts job satisfaction. In fact a study released just this month shows that workplace IT satisfaction accounts for 38 percent of the variance in job satisfaction. If IT is getting in the way for your people, there's a high chance that it's impacting the way they experience their job and the organisation.

Broader research on frustrations at work beyond just IT demonstrates a clear link to the risk of burnout. This is particularly the case when people see their frustrations impacting clients and customers. Recently I made a simple purchase of one item and watched as a great employee who had been really helpful wrestled with the point of sale system. While they remained professional, the frustration for them was real. What should have taken less than a minute stretched on for several minutes as more customers joined the queue. It's easy to see how working with that system day after day would impact an otherwise motivated and engaged employee, particularly when that person cared about providing a great experience for customers.

And it's not just about that employee - research also shows a link between frustrations and negative work behaviours such as aggression towards coworkers. What frustrates the individual ripples through the organisation. If people aren't being civil to each other in your organisation, I can almost guarantee there are unresolved frustrations.

Research suggests there are three conditions that magnify the impact of frustrations:

1. When they don't feel heard about the frustrations and their impacts
2. When they don't feel a sense of control over the frustrations
3. When they feel isolated - like they're the only ones having a problem

Leaders are the ones best positioned to help with these three conditions.

Here are a few tips when seeking to reduce and remove frustrations for your people:

• Accept that frustrations are normal - there's no such thing as a completely frustration-free work environment.
• Recognise that frustrations can get in the way of both personal and organisational goals - while the frustration may be primarily impacting the person, it's likely to be flowing through to team and organisational performance.
• All frustrations can be reduced - you may not be able to completely remove a frustration, but there are always creative ways of reducing the impact.
• Provide an opportunity for people to discuss frustrations and be heard - start with your own people and simply ask them "What frustrations are getting in the way of you doing your job well?"
• Allow people to connect with others - as you seek to remove frustrations it's helpful to see how others are dealing with and working around the frustrations.
• Equip people to continuously improve - give people the authority to make changes and improvements that will reduce frustrations for themselves and customers.

Hopefully you found this episode helpful - if you did, remember to share it with others. I've listed the three references used in the show notes. Remember to head to the Leadership.Today website for other episodes, to connect via our monthly newsletter, and there's even a link to follow me on the social media equivalent of a sensible family car - LinkedIn. Have a great week.

References

Lewandowski C. (2003) Organizational Factors Contributing to Worker Frustration: The Precursor to Burnout. 30 J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 175

Suzy Fox Paul E. Spector (1999) A model of work frustration–aggression. Journal of Organizational Behaviour Volume 20, Issue 6

Wei Wang, Yi Wang, Yi Zhang, Jing Ma (2020) Spillover of workplace IT satisfaction onto job satisfaction: The roles of job fit and professional fit. International Journal of Information Management

Volume 50, February 2020, Pages 341-352 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026840121831257X

During December and January we are replaying some of our more popular episodes from over the years. This week's replay is from 2nd November 2019 and is titled Curiosity: Bad for Cats, Good for Business.

Summary

Curiosity is rarely encouraged at work. In fact, leaders and organisations often actively discourage being inquisitive. This week we explore the benefits of curiosity, and four ways to encourage it in your team.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 58 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we're looking at the benefits of curiosity, and how to encourage it in your team.

The word "curiosity" often conjures up negative connotations. If I asked you to tell me a popular saying about curiosity, it would most likely be "curiosity killed the cat". This fear of being inquisitive translates into our organisations. Surely if people become curious at work they're going to neglect their day jobs and start venturing into distraction. And won't this lead to conflict, reduced productivity and a lack of clarity?

However, research on curiosity demonstrates that these concerns are unfounded, and that curiosity provides a range of benefits for individuals and organisations.

Here's just a sample of what the research tells us about the benefits of curiosity:

• Curiosity helps us to become more accurate in our decision making. When we are curious, we seek out more alternatives. This helps us to avoid stereotyping people and selectively choosing information that supports our viewpoint.
• When people are encouraged to be curious, they share information with others more readily and listen more attentively to their perspectives. This helps us to build empathy and insight.
• Curiosity actually reduces conflict. It encourages people to consider alternative perspectives and what it would be like to be in the other person's shoes.

For a great summary of the research, check out the Why Curiosity Matters spotlight series in Harvard Business Review. I've provided a link in the show notes - https://hbr.org/2018/09/curiosity

It appears we're hardwired as humans to be curious, but our education systems and organisations often don't reward this natural and helpful drive to explore and discover. However, as leaders, there are simple steps we can take to encourage curiosity amongst our people. Here are four ideas to start with:

1. Encourage questions. I've worked with organisations where asking a question is equated with being negative and stepping beyond your role. It was debilitating for the organisation and for the people, taking away initiative and discretionary effort. Make it safe to ask questions. Role model the inquisitive use of questions with your team.
2. Build alternatives. Always go beyond the first and most obvious option to explore other alternatives. So often we stop at option one, when the best idea might be a combination of option two and option three.
3. Provide time for exploration. Curiosity takes time, and that time needs to be pressure-free and self-directed. This podcast is driven by the questions I ask myself, combined with the time to explore the answers. When I was working in management consulting there was very little time to be curious which, ironically, was often what clients valued the most.
4. Pursue learning. Ongoing learning builds the capability of the individual and the capacity of the organisation. Encourage and fund your people to undertake additional learning they're interested in, even if it isn't obviously linked to the work. Sometimes the connections people can draw between what they've learned and the organisation's needs will surprise you.

So this week I encourage you to invest time in being curious, and allow the same for your people as well. You might be surprised at the benefits that result.

During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This week's replay is from 9th November 2019 and is titled Approach or Avoidance - It Comes Down to Your Personality.

Summary

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. This week we're looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Transcript

Hey there. Welcome to episode 59 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we're looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Motivation can be divided into two main categories - avoidance and approach. This isn't a new idea. In fact, Greek philosophers spoke about these two forms of motivation as far back as 400 BC. But research has demonstrated that our preference for one type of motivation over another may come down to our personality.

Avoidance motivation, as the name suggests, is about trying to avoid a negative outcome. Avoidance goals relating to health might include not eating unhealthy food or giving up smoking. These avoidance actions may indeed make me less unhealthy, but they probably won't make me healthy. As numerous people have expressed it, the absence of disease is not health.

In contrast, approach motivation is about pursuing something positive - working towards a positive outcome or possibility. Approach goals relating to health could include adding healthy foods to our diet or undertaking regular exercise. These goals don't just move us away from being unhealthy, but actively increase our health.

The primary function of our brain is to keep us alive - to survive. That makes avoidance motivation pretty attractive as a default position for most people. It aligns with the base level need to avoid things that have potentially negative consequences for our survival. But our brains are also about reward. We seek out opportunities to experience pleasure and positive outcomes.

Researchers have found that the balance between avoidance and approach motivation can be linked to our personality - that some people have an approach temperament while others have an avoidance temperament - that we either lean towards self-protection or towards self-enhancement. Those with an approach temperament tend to be more extraverted, have positive emotionality, and a bias towards action. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to be less emotionally stable, experience negative emotionality, and have a bias towards restraint (or not acting).

This bias flows through to the types of goals we set. Those with an approach temperament tend to set mastery goals. For example, "I want to master the material in this class". A mastery goal is about me - I'm the benchmark of success and progress. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to set goals related to others. For example, "I just want to avoid doing badly in this class" or "I just want to do as well as most people".

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. Like almost every aspect of leadership, it starts with the way we think, feel and act. And we can always change the way we think, feel and act, even if it takes some effort.

Here are four ideas to move you towards an approach temperament:

1. Connect with people. Meeting our basic human need for connection to others helps to build a more positive mindset.
2. Note down experiences that provide you with positive emotions and build these experiences into your routine. Going for a run each morning makes me feel positive, so I've built that into my daily routine.
3. Anthropomorphise negative emotions. What the heck is this one about. You might be familiar with the Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. In the movie the various emotions the young girl experienced were represented by characters inside her head. Researchers have found there may be some benefits to thinking about negative emotions in this way. For example, they found conceptualising sadness as a person, for example as a girl walking slowly with her head down, helped people to feel more detached from their sadness and actually made them feel less sad. It sounds bizarre, but give it a go. I now have Barry, who is my go to character when I'm feeling discouraged. Importantly, you want to only use this approach with negative emotions. The researchers found that thinking of happiness as a person also made people feel less happy.
4. Run your own race and stop comparing. Aim to become better at things that matter to you and track your progress against yourself, instead of comparing your capability to others.

This week I encourage you to focus on approach goals and building a positive bias for action in your team. As always, if you're interested in the research check out the show notes at the leadership.today website. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

References

Andrew J. Elliot and Todd M. Thrash. Approach–Avoidance Motivation in Personality: Approach and Avoidance Temperaments and Goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82, No. 5, 804–818

http://qglw.personality-project.org/revelle/syllabi/classreadings/psp825804.pdf

Fangyuan Chen, Rocky Peng Chen, Li Yang. When Sadness Comes Alive, Will It Be Less Painful? The Effects of Anthropomorphic Thinking on Sadness Regulation and Consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2019;

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003103515.htm

During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This episode is from 30th November 2019 and is titled Can't We All Just Get Along?

Summary

Our workplaces can easily move towards what researchers call incivility. So what are the benefits of being nice to one another, and what can we do as leaders to get there?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 62 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore why being nice to one another is so important for business performance.

I was working with a client recently and discussing their culture. He said "as a psychologist you have the opportunity to work with lots of different organisations - I bet you walk in and get a pretty quick sense of the mood and culture". It's true - I find it easy to gain a quick read on the mood and culture of an organisation. Compare these two workplaces I recently visited. In one organisation I noticed people frowning, staring at screens, no conversation or laughter, and lots of sighs. In another the atmosphere was bordering on joyful - people warmly greeting one other, big smiles, people saying "hello" to me as I walked past even though they had no idea who I was. It was hard in the first organisation not to be dragged down, and it was equally hard in the second organisation not to be lifted up.

But it's not like being able to read the mood and culture of a workplace is some special power granted only to psychologists and consultants. It's a special power we all have that comes with being human. We all read a room quickly at a subconscious level. However we become familiar and used to the rooms where we spend the most time. The cultural quirks that hit us on day one at a new organisation fade by month three. We rapidly soak up the standards we see around us. We quickly understand what's tolerated and what isn't. If the culture is great, then that's fantastic - we absorb it and maybe even become a better person. But if the culture is toxic, even the best of us will either lower our standards to fit in, or exit stage right to another organisation.

In some workplaces people aren't very nice to each other. It might be that most people are 5 to 10 minutes late to meetings, setup their laptops and just continue their work. They interrupt others, they talk to the person next to them while someone else is presenting. They make demands of their colleagues in other departments. They gossip and spread rumours. Before you know it, the place quickly becomes toxic. This is so common that some researchers specialise in looking at what they call incivility. Perhaps the best known researcher in the field is Christine Porath. Her TED talk "Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business" has racked up over 2.5 million views. As people rightly note in the comments below her video, do we really need a TED talk to convince people to be nice to each other? Apparently we do.

Her research demonstrates that incivility lead to 66% of people cutting back their efforts, 80% of people being distracted from their work, and 12% of people leaving their job. In a laboratory study where people witnessed a fellow participant, who was actually setup, being berated for being late, there was a 25% reduction in performance, and 45% fewer ideas generated by the group. Christine argues that incivility is like a virus that we can catch and transmit. As a result people operate out of fear and try to remain invisible. Innovation plummets - after all, why would you risk sharing a new idea when people aren't being nice to each other?

So why do people end up being mean, unthoughtful, rude, aggressive or passive aggressive towards each other? Here are some reasons that I've observed:

1. It works - taking on an aggressive, belittling style may, in the short term, help people to get things done, particularly where there is a lack of clarity and standards.
2. Feedback free environment - people may not actually recognise what they're doing, or at least the impact that it is having on others.
3. Excessive stress - people are unlikely to be on their best behaviour where they are experiencing high levels of stress.
4. Role models - in some organisations, taking on an aggressive style is modelled and rewarded by more senior leaders.

We can change this. An example Christine shares is a health organisation where they introduced what they called the 10-5 way. The guidance they gave to staff was to make eye contact and smile when they were within 10 feet of another person, and to say 'hello' when they were within 5 feet of another person. That sounds incredibly prescriptive and it's hard to believe it worked, but they saw both patient satisfaction and referrals increase. As we raise our kindness towards others, we're more likely to be seen as leaders, and we're more likely to produce better results. This aligns with a wealth of research that shows people are much more effective when they're in a positive mood, versus being neutral or negative in their mood.

As a leader I suggest the following:

1. Role model being nice towards others. Civility is contagious. You see it when a positive team member enters the room - they lift the mood, people start smiling and laughing, there's a sense of energy. It really doesn't take many people to change the culture, and leaders are the ones people look towards to set the emotional tone.
2. Connect with others. Take the time to understand the day to day work and experiences of those within your organisation. You might be surprised at some of the frustrations and obstacles they face, and how easy it may be for you in a position of leadership to remove these.
3. Help others to connect. It's really difficult to bully people that you know, like and respect. It's also really hard to bully someone that has strong connections with their colleagues - the weight of numbers makes the bully the odd one out.
4. Look after yourself, and help others to do the same. Think about activities you can encourage that focus on the classic wellbeing areas of exercise, diet and sleep.

So let's think this week about ways we can encourage others and lift them up. The relatively small acts that we take as leaders on a daily basis can have a huge impact on those we lead and the cultures we create.

I have included links to Christine Porath's TED talk and book in the show notes - make sure you check them out. And for those listening in the United States, a big Thanksgiving holiday greeting for the week that has just passed. I trust it has been a great time to connect with family and friends to reflect on all the great things we have in our lives that we so easily take for granted. Have a great week.

References

Christine Porath's TED Talk - Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY1ERM-NIBY

Christine Porath (2016) Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Civility-Manifesto-Christine-Porath/dp/1455568988/

During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years.

This week's episode is from 16th November 2019 on how Great Teams Manage Task, Process and Relationships.

Summary

Great teams manage task, process and relationships. They ask key questions to ensure clarity is build and conflict is addressed in all three areas. This week we look at some key questions you can use to audit your teams and build their effectiveness.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 60 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. Episode 60 is quite the milestone, so a big thanks to everyone who has shared the podcast with others. I love reading your reviews and hearing stories about how the content has been helpful. This week we're exploring how great teams manage task, process and relationships.

Research demonstrates that there are three main things teams need to manage - the task (what outcome needs to be achieved), the process (how we're going to achieve the outcome), and the people (how we're going to work together as human beings). Failing to manage each of these three elements almost inevitably leads to conflict and reduced performance.

There are three common traps that teams fall into:

1. The most common trap is a tendency to focus immediately on the task, neglecting the process and relationships. This results in a flurry of activity but it may well be the wrong activity. We fail to think about the relationships between the people in the room which can result in interpersonal issues and complaints. I often see this trap during leadership programs. You can teach all the theory and techniques in the world, but it all goes out the window once there's a time sensitive task to complete. People move straight to the task and ignore process and relationships.
2. The second most common trap is to become caught up with interpersonal issues, and lose sight of the task and process. People end up avoiding the team, progress stalls, and the team often falls apart as people question what the purpose is of meeting in the first place.
3. The third common trap is to focus so much on the process that we neglect the task and relationships. I see this regularly in projects where there's a huge amount of up front consultation with little consideration of how to make decisions or deal with differing perspectives. We gather lots of data but don't know what to do with it.

The impact of conflict in task, process and relationships in teams has varied between different theories, with some frameworks encouraging conflict in these areas. However research into over 6000 teams suggests that task conflict, process conflict and relationship conflict all negatively impact on team performance. The only exception is for decision-making teams, where task conflict can sometimes have a small positive impact. Contrary to earlier theories, none of the three types of conflict reliably lead to innovation.

I've previously shared research about the team stages model by Tuckman. In the model he outlined teams get together and are polite during the Forming stage. We descend into disagreements and conflict during the Storming stage as people seek clarity that isn't there yet. By agreeing standards and ways of working we reach Norming. And that as we combine the strengths of individuals with the strengths of process and relationships we reach Performing. Teams do indeed seem to follow these stages of development, except that storming can occur more frequently and at any point as the team is impacted by outside forces. Conflict about task, process and relationships doesn't get solved in one neat stage, but rather needs to be continuously monitored and managed.

So the research suggests we need to actively recognise, manage and reduce task, process and relationship conflict. We can't afford to ignore it or to leave it unmanaged. Conflict is effectively a symptom that somethings needs to be addressed in one of these three.

Here are some questions that might help for both new and established teams:

• Task - What is our purpose as a team? What is the task we've been asked to achieve? What's the problem we're needing to solve? What can we uniquely contribute to the organisation?
• Process - How are we going to get there? What's the plan and order of activity? What's the division of workload and responsibilities? How are we going to make decisions? How are we going to measure our performance? How will we hold each other accountable? How are we going to monitor and respond to changing needs and circumstances?
• Relationships - What does each person bring to the team? What are the individual strengths and weaknesses? What experiences have we had that might be helpful? What commitments are we making to each other? How will we provide feedback to each other? How will we manage disagreements?

Actively managing task, process and relationships is a key part of any team's success. Why not undertake a quick audit of all three with the teams you lead?

Reference

Thomas A. O'Neill , Natalie J. Allen & Stephanie E. Hastings (2013) Examining the "Pros" and "Cons" of Team Conflict: A Team-Level Meta-Analysis of Task, Relationship, and Process Conflict, Human Performance, 26:3, 236-260, DOI: 10.1080/08959285.2013.795573