In July of 2006, Enlightened Leadership Solutions referenced a Cornell University study, as reported in FSB (Fortune Small Business) Magazine, suggesting that a key deterrent to organizational performance is “Letting Conflicts Fester.” This topic is still very relevant today and is an important part of business leadership development.

The article states, “Bringing tensions out into the open and then resolving them is one of a team leader’s most important jobs.” (We agree.) “The more creative a leader can be the more likely that conflict can be discussed and resolved,” they went on to say. We see that last sentence as the challenge. What does “being creative” look like in a particular situation? Almost by definition, being creative doesn’t have any particular structure. That makes it potentially complex and difficult. Success is way to dependent upon “being creative,” which has a lot of variability among people.

Our book, Making Managers into Leaders, provides a simple approach to dealing with this difficult challenge of conflict resolution. Here is an example from the book of the process being used. It begins on page 137 in chapter 11 of the book:
Conflict Resolution

Susan Dixon, an assistant principal attending a workshop, reported that she needed to deal with a sensitive situation that afternoon involving two co-teachers. Although the two had been good friends, the relationship had deteriorated and was beginning to impact the quality of their teaching with even parents showing concern.
She had scheduled a meeting with the quarreling teachers for that afternoon. Having been introduced to the Framework in the morning, she thought it might have a chance of working – at least better than any other ideas she had!

Susan set the context for the meeting by sharing that she had some reasons to be concerned about the teacher’s relationship and how it was affecting the students. She suggested that she wanted to facilitate a specific discussion. After reminding the teachers that they had been good friends, she jumped into the process by asking, “What are some of the things each of you appreciates about the other?”

There was a long silence before one teacher acknowledged the other for something she appreciated. The other teacher was then motivated to share something good about her co-teacher. A series of “what else?‚” questions was key here. As they loosened up, the comments and responses got stronger and deeper as they gradually shifted their mindset back to what they really appreciated about each other. Occasionally, Susan would say, “Say more about that” or something similar to encourage depth and sincerity.

By this time, the statements were quite positive and elevated. The co-workers were remembering what they had appreciated about each other all along. Because of a recent conflict, which did not need to be discussed at all, they had been distracted and had lost focus of the more important aspects of their relationship.

Now that they were back on track, Susan asked, “What is your common goal here?‚” (Step 3) It only took a split second for both of them to jump in and confirm that it was, indeed, to provide the best possible education for their students.

“It’s certainly clear to me that you have the right goal” Susan said. “What are some things each of you can do to make sure you are accomplishing that goal?” As they responded to this question, there was a whole different level of energy, enthusiasm and focus. They were back in a friendly relationship and moving forward together again.
Back in Doug’s session the next day, Susan reported that the last she saw of them, they were walking arm in arm down the hallway energetically discussing plans to promote a great learning environment in their classroom. ”

We would suggest that, while creativity is great, having a simple process to fall back on makes management challenges a lot easier to deal with.

Warm regards,
Ed

Today, I want to talk about an important aspect of team-based learning that will make a big difference in your level of success. I want to talk about how to FOCUS your team-based learning to make sure it is practical and addressing your most important team issues and needs…

…not just short-term actions that might not contribute significantly to the long-term performance of the team and the real leadership skill development of the team members.
We know from experience that if a team works together on developing their team and it’s team members, with proper guidance, they can find effective solutions to whatever challenges they face. But what really are YOUR team’s 80-20 issues?

The Pareto principle says 80% of the impact will come from 20% of the effort, or said another way, 20% of your issues are causing 80% of your problems. But which ones are they?
By knowing those factors, including leadership factors, that are keeping your team from being a truly high-performing team, can you see how that knowledge would provide the perfect focus for learning and development, as well as building your team’s effectiveness.

Imagine the value to everyone if they were part of a team that TRANSFORMED from a mediocre team to a recognized high-performance team. Imagine the personal learning and development that would occur DURING the experience.

To develop your team and people, you need clear direction for your efforts, and just maybe, the best possible direction would be toward becoming a high-performance team.
Well, what would that look like, you might be asking yourself?

To really know OBJECTIVELY what that direction would look like, you need to be able to effectively and honestly assess your team for it’s strengths and limitations.
And wouldn’t it be enlightening and valuable to compare your team to recognized high performing teams, as well as to norms or averages or standards for hundreds of other teams?
This a very important aspect of team-based learning and development, so let me introduce an exciting new tool –
– our highly validated Team Excellence assessment that rates your team in 8 dimensions of excellence.

We are very excited about introducing this assessment into our team-based leadership and team development processes. Let me share some of its background.

My friend, Dr Carl Larson of the Univ of Denver, and Dr Frank LaFasto, identified 40 exceptional teams from all over the world and extensively interviewed all the team members.
Included on the list were a successful Mt Everest summit team, a famous Cardiac transplant team, a highly innovative product team, several championship women & men’s sports teams, extraordinary business teams, exceptional government teams, etc. – quite a variety – but ALL recognized as exceptionally performing teams.

In their extensive research, they determined 8 consistent dimensions of excellence that DISTINGUISHED those exceptional teams from other teams. These eight dimensions are:
Clear, Elevating Goal
Results-driven structure
Competent Team Members
Unified Commitment
Collaborative Climate
Standards of Excellence
External Support & Recognition
Effective Leadership
Bottom-line, if your team rates well above the mean in all these dimensions, you ARE a high-performing team!

The assessment itself has 46 questions and takes each team member about 15 minutes to take. Our contribution to this was first obtaining rights to use it, but then putting the assessment ONLINE, so the individual inputs are completely confidential.

When it was done on paper, some people were a bit concerned about turning in their worksheet to someone in their own organization. We’ve solved that problem!
The research and validation work that Carl and Frank and their research team did was so extensive that they published two excellent books about it: first – TeamWork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong and 2nd – When Teams Work Best: 6,000 Team Members and Leaders Tell What It Takes to Succeed.

Those two books, expensive because they’re published by a textbook company, continue to be my all-time favorites for research-based, validated guidelines for building high-performing teams.

Do you see the value of knowing if your team rated itself average to high on most factors, but well below the mean on say Results-Driven Structure and Collaborative Climate.
You’d know exactly where to put your attention, wouldn’t you – in fact where to put the TEAM’s attention. That would be your team’s 20% that would make the 80% difference.
Significant improvement in those two dimensions would make a major difference in your team’s overall performance. Along the way, your people, AND YOU, naturally grow and develop your leadership and team abilities through the experience of creating a high-performance team.
Here’s what happened with one of our clients:

A mid-sized manufacturing division of a huge company in the Pacific Northwest was losing money and facing an expiring union contract six months away. They were in a bit of trouble.
They were especially nervous about the union contract because negotiations had been so difficult for the last one.
By doing the Team Excellence assessment – back when it was a paper version, they were able to see their areas of strength, and the gaps that were most limiting their performance.
By focusing on the greatest opportunities for improvement through team-based learning, they became profitable again that same year and had the smoothest union contract negotiation in their 28-year history.

A key factor was their clarity of their strengths and their limiting factors in the eight dimensions of team excellence. It gave them clear focus goals for the learning and development work, which was totally team-based. It also gave them confidence that they already had a lot going for them.
So, as the team worked together to improve, using new leadership concepts, tools and perspectives to do so, they all experienced the value of the changes they were making as they were making them. Buy-in was high each step of the way, but never perfect – it never is.

Each one of those team members gained great clarity on how to solve performance issues, how to create a collaborative climate, how to create a results-driven structure, etc. In short, how to create and lead high-performing teams.

They not only learned it in our workshops, but experienced it in their work as a team. A lot of mastery was achieved in the process.
So, let’s summarize where we are so far.

In the first video about problems with leadership development approaches, we recognized the importance of developing your leadership skills – critical to your long-term success and security. Leaders are ALWAYS in demand- pretty much regardless of the economy.

We further realized that developing your leadership skills on your own is tough. Frankly, most people aren’t effective in doing it. You might learn a lot intellectually, book knowledge if you will, but making it real through implementation is quite challenging when we’re trying to do it solo.

However, developing your leadership skills and team effectiveness is much easier and even FUN if you work on it together as a whole team.

This approach completely changes the game, because you’re learning together, and have some common, unifying goals. In the process you’re taking advantage of a key truth: The Answers Are in the Room! – which happens to be the title of the second chapter in our latest book, Making Managers into Leaders: A Five-Step Framework for Breakthrough Results.
Your team does have the answers if you just know the right questions to ask. Ask the wrong questions, and you’ll make the situation worse.

Then we introduced the idea of assessing your team at the beginning of the learning process to provide valuable focus on your greatest areas of need. Focus on improving the greatest gaps and watch the team jump in it’s performance.

And it just occurs to me that you might want to have your team retake the Team Excellence assessment 12 months later to identify your specific successes and next steps in transforming your team and your people.

Let’s take a specific example of the Team Excellence assessment. Let’s pick Clear, Elevating Goal. That’s really important for a high-performing team, and you might have some questions like,…

“Yeah, but what if our goal is not really that elevating?”

Well, I want to address that, but first let’s look at the assessment questions around the Clear, Elevating Goal dimension.
Each of these questions is rated by team members as:
True
More true than false
More false than true
or False

The report then provides the average score for the team for each question on a scale of 1 to 4, as well as the mean score for hundreds of other teams who’ve taken the assessment.
Here are the questions for Clear, Elevating Goal:
1. There is a clearly defined need – a goal to be achieved or a purpose to be served – which justifies the existence of our team.
2. Our purpose is noble and worthwhile.
3. Our goal represents an opportunity for an exceptional level of achievement.
4. Our goal challenges individual limits and abilities.
5. There are clear consequences connected with our team’s success or failure in achieving our goal.
6. Our goal is compelling enough that I can derive a worthwhile sense of identity from it.

Now, aren’t those thought-provoking questions!
What do you think your team would say about them?

Just for kicks… let’s say you’re not so sure your team would say their purpose is particularly noble, or even worthwhile.
Then, I would say to you that you need to have your team change the goal or purpose so it IS noble and worthwhile.
For example, suppose your team is doing some relatively mundane work in an organization that keeps downsizing (excuse me – RIGHT-sizing) every few months.
Can you imagine that they might not be feeling that their work is all that important? I sure can.
So, what would be a clear, elevating goal for a team in that situation – that would be noble and worthwhile?
Well, how about a goal of being so measurably off-the-scale productive that you’re recognized as a high-performing team and the company would never imagine outsourcing or downsizing you!

Do you think that might be powerful in certain situations?

Here is the point I’m trying to make:
If you’re going to be a high-performing team, you must have a Clear, Elevating Goal. That’s one of the distinguishing factors of high-performing teams.
So, if that’s an issue for your team, it’s one of the 20-80 areas to address.

And can you even imagine the power of the process of your team coming up with what their REAL… Clear, Elevating Goal is? I mean one that they fully OWN? (and YES, we’ll teach you how to do that – it’s a key leadership skill).

What an opportunity — if and only if that happens to be a dimension where your team has a significant gap. It might not be that one. Your greatest gaps might be in some of the other 7 dimensions. But you need to have the information to make the greatest difference in your performance and your learning – both individually and team.
Now, I have a feeling that this is making pretty good sense to most of you watching this video (or reading the transcription). But I have to admit, I cheated a bit to figure that out. 🙂

See, we recently asked our subscribers to complete a survey about “What they would see as being the most important components of an outstanding team-based learning and development system?”

Well, 84.8% of the people said that it would be Important or Very Important to have QUOTE an online validated team assessment to identify your team’s strengths and gaps in 8 dimensions of team excellence. CLOSE QUOTE

Yeah, I did kinda cheat, but that was very validating for my own sense of the importance of the Team Excellence assessment.
So, you’ve probably figured out by now that if this Team Excellence assessment is so important to your team and leadership development, that it’s going to have to be part of any learning system with Enlightened Leadership’s name on it …

In summary, with the Team Excellence assessment, you’ll learn your team’s strengths and gaps based on the confidential input of all team members, including the team leader. The gaps are the opportunities to improve – to move closer and closer to a true high performance team. It provides the focus for the team, as well as individual learning and development.
So, we are moving closer and closer to a learning and development solution for enhancing the effectiveness of your whole team while developing the leadership skills of all team members in small chunks of time and for the investment of only one person’s training.

I think I’m starting to get nervous. That was a big statement. We better sharpen our pencils for the math.
Ok, that’s enough for now. In a few days we’ll release another video that adds one more important dimension to this whole discussion of what’s really important in effectively developing leadership skills and effective teams — and what’s missing in so many leadership development efforts.

So, how are you relating to all this? We appreciate your comments, and we WILL respond. Just find the comments section below.

We’ll talk soon. Make it a great day!
Ed