I can’t wait to wake up in the morning, leap out of bed and head into work.**
For a manager, it is not about motivating your team, it’s about team engagement, in the work that we do each day.
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**Inspired by Dr. Bill Kent, HornerXpress, National Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award Winner
“In evaluating the health of any team, I need to look for states of connection and disconnection?” I asked.
Pablo nodded. “When you see a team in disarray, you will find disconnection. The team doesn’t go there intentionally, it goes there without thinking. Facing any dilemma, the team wants to remove the discomfort. The four typical responses of any team under stress is to fight, flight, freeze or appease. When they do, the group panics and fractures.”
“And the leader?” I asked.
“The inexperienced leader follows. In a meeting, you have seen it. A project is behind schedule because someone dropped the ball. Everyone knows who dropped the ball, but no one wants to call it out. People get defensive, engage in blaming behavior or avoid the subject altogether. There is silence, eyes look down. Then someone looks at the leader, who becomes the target for all eyes around the table. The body language clearly communicates that it is the leader who must save the team.”
“You said inexperienced, how so?” I prompted.
“The leader is being seduced,” Pablo replied. “The seduction is subtle, for the team is looking to be saved by the leader, but needs the leader to be complicit in the saving. And, the leader cannot resist the opportunity to be the savior. It is the hero incarnate. I know it sounds religious, but the mythology is there to illustrate the principle.”
“So, how does the leader prevent the seduction?” I looked sideways at Pablo.
“The team is attempting to put the issue squarely on the shoulders of the leader. The leader must resist and put the issue back on the team.”
“But you already described that the team is in panic, a state of fracture and disconnection?” I said.
“The leader must simply outlast the panic. The issue that has the potential to blow the group apart, has the same potential to weld the group together. It’s all about connection and disconnection.”
“If people do their best work in a place where they feel safe, what is it that managers can do to create that space?” I asked.
“We always want to do,” Pablo started. “If managers would only do this, do that, things would be better. It is not so much a matter of what managers do, it is a matter of the relationship between the manager and the team member. Do we have relationships built on dominance, pressure and compliance, or relationships built on cooperation, support and commitment? Organizational structure is the way we define the working relationships between people.”
“This sounds like culture,” I replied.
“Organizational structure defines the working relationships between people. Organizational structure is culture.”
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With inspiration from Lee Thayer, Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing
“It’s all about connection,” Pablo said. “If a team member is connected closely with their manager, most likely they will remain engaged. If the team member becomes disconnected from their manager, or connected to a toxic manager, the job search has already begun.”
“Only the manager?” I asked.
“The manager relationship is the key, with a supporting cast of the team,” Pablo explained. “Conceptually, a manager’s accountability is simple (not easy). Create connection, prevent disconnection.”
“That’s the popularity of team exercises,” I said.
“The problem with exercises is just that. Exercises are exercises. They startup muscle memory, but if you really want to build a team, give them a real problem to solve. Stand back. Allow the team to struggle. In that struggle, you will see some things occur. Leadership will emerge, automatically. Leadership takes the form of restating the problem, clarifying the obstacles and laying down the challenge. If the problem is complex, it will require expertise in specific areas, team members will consult, rely on each other to help carry the burden. In essence, problem solving builds connection.”
“Please don’t focus on making team members happy,” Pablo continued. “Being happy may be a byproduct, but what we want is engagement. What does it take to keep team members engaged, in the work that we do?”
“As managers, we do things instinctively to get the work done, without thinking about the longer term impact of engagement,” I replied. “Getting the work done is short term, to meet the weekly metrics. We need to think about getting the work done, getting the work done well, for the next five years. We do that best with a team we can keep together, working in sync with each other.”
“And, even if the team meets their metrics, but isn’t working in sync, where are you, as a manager?” Pablo asked.
“So, it is not enough for one team member to be engaged, but to have a team working in sync?” I answered with another question.
“That is why, in building an organization,” Pablo continued my thought, “it is not enough to have the right people in the right seats, we have to think about how the seats have to work together.”
“That sounds nice for an orchestra, but what about here, where we have to get some work done?”
Pablo smiled. “In every working relationship that we design, we have to think critically. In this working relationship, what are the accountabilities we expect? And, in this working relationship, who has the authority? Authority to make decisions and solve problems the way we would have them solved? It is the design of the structure that creates team member engagement. It doesn’t happen by itself. We have to design the structure with intention.”
“And, what happens when that social network of people is interrupted, where the person becomes separated?” Pablo asked. “And that separation could be physical separation, or mental separation.”
“Do you mean, like sending a technician out in the field, alone, as a team of one?” I floated.
“Perhaps,” Pablo replied. “Or excluding someone from a meeting in which they had a vested interest. Remember, the lions, tigers and bears are not so physical anymore. There are a hundred things leaders can do to disconnect team members from the group. Sometimes, as leaders, we create that disconnection without thinking. And when we create disconnection, it shifts the mental state of the individual into distress. That mental state of disengagement, can be incredibly corrosive. I bet you already have someone in mind, who is in a state of disconnection, and whose behavior you see as counterproductive (at best).”
I nodded. “Stands out like a sore thumb.”
“But, let’s bring this down to work, because that’s what we are really talking about. It is not my purpose to teach you to be warm and fuzzy with your team. We are here to get work done. Let’s create a list of characteristics where the mental state is in work mode vs non-work mode.”
“And what is more contagious that a positive attitude?” Pablo smiled.
I nodded again. “A negative attitude.”
“So, I am not crazy to want people to come back into the office?” I asked the rhetorical question.
“Look,” Pablo replied. “There are circumstances where Zoom works just fine, especially when travel isn’t practical, or the need for communication rests in the data to be shared. But, the connections we seek out are those that provide safety, in which we can do our best work. In the plains of Africa, that was our tribe. The modern tribe is our workplace. Where else do we spend more waking hours with other adults in the pursuit of goal directed behavior? In addition to our families, our places of worship, some of our most meaningful connections are at work.”
“But, there are no real lions, tigers and bears, at least not in the workplace,” I smiled. “So the issue of safety, physical safety, shouldn’t be an issue. My team members are safe, whether they work in the office, or they work from home.”
Pablo grinned. “The physical threats of days gone by are the psychological threats of today. We need to be together physically and we need to be together emotionally. The perceived threat of isolation is as powerful as the real threat. That is why the body language of communication is so important. A high percentage of what we communicate is non-verbal. What we can see in another person visually completes the content. What we communicate through words is mostly data. But, have you ever sent an email where the emotional content was completely overlooked, misconstrued or ignored? What we communicate non-verbally is trust, rejection, appreciation, agreement, disagreement, encouragement.”
“But in any teleconference, we can see the other person’s face, we can hear their tone of voice,” I observed. “It is truly almost like being there.”
“Almost, we assume,” Pablo replied. “Why is it, that even remote workers, when it comes to performance feedback, formal or informal, want the context of the feedback in person? What is it about the physical presence of two people, in proximity? We have meetings over teleconference, but have you ever asked someone to have lunch over teleconference. It works well for data, not so much for breaking bread. The emotional connection we all seek, in which we work the best, where we are most productive is often lost in a digital platform.”
“So, it’s not a control thing?” I asked.
“Wanting people back in the office sounds like a control directive,” Pablo replied. “I am sure some team members see it that way. But, your call to reassemble, physically in the workplace, is more of an invitation. It is an invitation to collaborate, to break bread, to share the workload and ideas.”
“You’re not going soft on me are you, Pablo?” I was curious.
“Not at all,” he replied. “When we are together, when we are safe, we can do our best work.”
“Why do you want them to come back to work, in the building, I mean?” Pablo asked.
“They have been away so long. Since I’ve seen them, they may be two inches taller and I would never detect that on Zoom,” I smiled. “Seriously, they are detached. I miss seeing them in person, that warm smile in the morning, finding out how their child is doing. On camera, there they are, but it’s all business. Hi, how are you? Fine. How are you? Fine. What are the numbers on the spreadsheet?”
“What do you care? As long as the numbers on the spreadsheet are correct?” Pablo wanted to know.
“If I just wanted numbers on a spreadsheet, I wouldn’t build a company. I need a team. I don’t know why it’s important to be face to face, I just know it is.”
Pablo’s turn to smile. “You are correct, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. Kurt Lewin declared that human beings are herd animals. For the purpose of our survival, on the Serengeti plain, we had to stick together, for safety. An individual, isolated, became quick prey for a lion, a tiger, in Dorothy’s case, a bear. When we are isolated, we are alone. When we are alone, our survival instincts go full alert. We are hard wired to not get eaten. We may be fishing, we may be planting wheat, but we are looking for the lion, not paying attention to the fish or the wheat. Our attention to the work suffers. We only do our best work when we are together and safe. We feel safe as a member of a group, in proximity. Hugs create endorphins and communicate, with me, you are safe. Spreadsheets are easy on Zoom. Human connection is more difficult.”