Improving team performance vs improving leadership performance: what should be your focus? We might ask ourselves, "is it best to approach organisational change from the top-down or from the bottom-up?
The answer to this question is traditionally top-down, but only because that's the way hierarchies are structured, that's where change is initially agreed and subsequently ordered.
But how do we look at it from an improvement perspective? The appropriate question might be...'where in the chain is change most important for change?' Is it the leader or the team? Suddenly the waters become a lot murkier.
You see...answers become a lot different when there is even the hint that the question implies that a group or area failed. Who is responsible for the failure or the perceived lack of improvement? Management might say the team and the team might say management but who is right if we indeed looked at it from the perspective of each camp?
Traditional Thinking:
Traditional thinking had us believe the responsibility for creating, implementing and changing processes was from the top-down.
However, whenever blame was assigned it started at the bottom and worked its way up.
That's because the traditional business mentality left the blame at the feet of workers even though the decisions were made by the managers. When there were 'improvements' to be made, they usually came in the form of downsizing or the threat of downsizing (known as corporate fear mongering) designed to make the employees work harder.
This type of governance may have worked in places where workers' rights were few and far between, but one cannot rule by fear in today's corporate climate knowing what we do now. Employees who live under this type of corporate tyranny will do just enough to keep their jobs - which is not a recipe for success.
Modern Thinking:
The modern approach to business governance seems to be one of organisational improvement (the whole, not just the sum of the parts). This involves a mix between top-down and bottom-up thinking - that the only way to improve an organisation is for managers and employees to work together for the good of the business, for the creation of culture and for delivering results.
In a successful corporate climate, employees are given greater say, more responsibility and thus greater buy-in is achieved when process improvement is implemented.
Our corporate culture seems to understand this well enough, but we are still extremely bad at implementing 'one team' concepts in our work place and more inclined to unconsciously fall back into traditional hierarchichal structures - it's easier.
Creating culture takes work (and more importantly communication). Rather than just sitting in your silo, handling your workload, then clocking out at 5pm - the modern workplace is today, a multi-dimensional sphere that includes software, communication between different locations (even continents) and of course robots (automation).
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Identifying the Problems in Today's Corporate Culture:
A company with employees numbering in the thousands, with multiple offices in multiple countries, trying to create an effective workflow can be a difficult proposition. Communication between offices becomes difficult and integrated management systems falter because different companies have different mentalities, processes and people.
Another problem is based in pure human nature or more pointedly, giving up control by trusting improvement projects to all levels of the corporate hierarchy. Some managers have a difficult time letting go and accepting improvement propositions from multiple levels of the company. It's easy to forget that 'teamwork' largely means 'crossover' in modern work environments and greater fluidity with regards to job responsibility.
For example, during a process mapping workshop, the facilitator may be in a team working directly under a manager, but during that particular job, the manager needs to listen, allow their team to identify improvement needs, then make changes accordingly. When the manager allows the team to make improvements, the manager also is able to demonstrate a golden rule of organisational change - leading by following.
After all, there are some areas of the business that employees must be allowed to run autonomously and when required, take the lead.
Identifying What Works and Building on It:
As we have read, watched and listened to in various TED talks, improvement seminars and blogs countless times, culture is hugely important. So I agree with a mix between:
- A top down and bottom up approach.
- Leadership who set an example through genuine consideration for their customers and employees (understanding and empathising with the needs of people is just as important as understanding processes). In layman's terms this means leading by following.
It's not a new concept. The Bible even has 'the first will be last and the last will be first' principle.
This speaks volumes to the value of fluidity to leadership across multiple channels. Allowing greater employee buy-in and occasionally taking a backseat approach to the teams you are running is likely to empower teams, make them understand the difficulties of leadership (heavy is the head that wears the crown) and create a culture of mutual empathy.
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A Personal Viewpoint of Process/Leadership Improvement:
My life has taken many twists and turns. I have played rugby and studied the seriously upbeat subject of Genocide. Both have something to teach us about conduct in the workplace.
Conflict Prevention Model - A Template for Change:
A model for genocide prevention (and also conflict prevention) teaches us that de-stabilisation in a region only becomes stabilised by including government and community in the conversation of creating a better society.
This inclusivity works under the assumption that if multiple levels of society find that their concerns are being valued and listened to, they are more likely to work to achieve the vision of the country. These parties will be more inclined to buy in to improvement initiatives, problem solve and take responsibility within their circumstance - this way it is less likely to suffer weak links in the chain.
Like large companies, countries also have a difficult time implementing stable change that benefits the community/customer. It is easy for leadership to become corrupt, to fail at listening to the people/customers/employees and subsequently, for the people/customers/employees to experience disenfranchisement - inevitably leading to instability and process failure.
Thankfully, there are no civil wars within organisations (at least not of the blood and guts variety).
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Lessons learned playing rugby - Leading By Following:
During my amateur rugby playing career, I was lucky enough to be made captain of my team. I quickly understood that there are many different ways to be an effective leader.
I took it upon myself to work harder than other players on my team. I would back up a tackle by getting up and making the very next tackle, I wouldn't look to receive the ball (the glory) on many occasions and at every team talk I would be talking to myself as often as I would be to the other players.
In rugby, your position is one of many. Even though you are the captain, you have to listen to other positions in the team. On the field, the scrum half decides who gets the ball first from the scrum and ruck. He barks orders at you because every time play breaks down, it's his job to get it going again and to decide if it's a forwards or backs ball - in this one instance, he is the team leader.
You also have to allow other senior team members to make observations during team talks (because they have a different perspective and different roles within the team). You must even allow those who are effected by those observations a right of reply. By doing this you are able to gain an accurate picture of breakdowns and gather a senior, middle and specific lower hierarchical viewpoint of what's going wrong - the lower viewpoint must be specific because too many voices can be counterproductive.
For example, I might have said that our team had not been tackling well. Another senior member may have noticed that we were not spreading out fast enough and the wing (player who is right on the edge in defence) may have stated this is because no one was reacting to him calling for help. By this form of communication, I was able to go through multiple levels of problems in the process chain and identify the problem at a macro, meso and micro level.
I was a forward. As a forward I didn't always know what the backs did. However, sometimes I found myself involved in back play. When this happened, I recognised that I needed to listen, learn and acknowledge those who knew better in that specific area of the process and acknowledge that they needed to take the lead in that scenario.
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Improving Team Performance VS Improving Leadership Performance: Who Wins?
In my view it's a no brainer. Improving leadership performance is always where real change starts and finishes.
The simple truth is that good leaders know when to lead and when to listen.
Leadership can cause cultural change when recognising that in certain scenarios, leadership is shared. This creates a team of leaders who understand their positions and how to work autonomously and take the lead when the ball is going through their hands.
Leadership must:
- Listen to those who have more understanding of their areas
- Find out what problems your customers and staff are currently facing, empathise with the situation and establish a plan for continual improvement
- Regularly reassess your process breakdowns - Just like every rugby team talk is a chance to see if words have become action, never assume A: the plan has worked or B: the plan has been successfully implemented
- Present a path for positive change and although you will not be able to make a change that suits everybody all the time, if you communicate well enough, you will be able to make them understand
- Lead by example (if you want others to follow, you must also demonstrate your willingness to follow, understand and empathise)
- Play in the backs every once in a while - Learn about different processes and take advice from those in the team who know about them.
- Open multiple channels of communication: employees will work harder when the change that was implemented has come from their own mouth - if they implemented that specific process, they won't want it to fail it
Related Articles:
Continuous Improvement: How do I create a culture of Continuous Improvement?
Getting New Business Processes to Survive Past Your Change Initiative: The Approach for Success
5 Business Process Mapping Tips for Getting Your Entire Team Involved