How to Confront Reality with Your Team

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Julia invited me to sit in the back of the room. I love to be a fly on the wall.

“I have had a couple of team meetings, already,” she explained, “but, for the most part, they were steeped in pretense. They weren’t very productive, but we did get all the nicey, nice stuff out of the way. Today, there will be friction.”

At 9:00am, Julia locked the door. Ralph and two others had yet to arrive, but Julia started anyway. Thirty seconds later, there was a soft tap, tap at the door. Julia motioned for Michael to attend to the late arrivals. As Ralph and one other entered the room, she directed them to chairs up front, next to her. As they were sitting, the last remaining person burst into the room, the team was now complete.

At each place, was the 3×5 card that Julia told me about. She had prepared these in her 1-1 conversations with each team member. They had each seen these cards before and now they would be the basis for a brand new conversation.

“Today, the subject is purpose. In front of you is a 3×5 card that we prepared together during this past week. These are your words describing an accomplishment on an important project.”

Julia paired them up to trade their stories of purpose past. Two minutes later, each pair was recording their work on a flip chart, one writing, one telling the story to the group.

Twenty-five minutes later, they had a written record of significant accomplishments during the past two years.

“Where do we go from here?” Julia asked.

“We just do more of the same,” Ralph chimed in.

Julia’s eyes met with each team member around the table. Without looking down, she pulled out a large chart with two lines on it. One line was moving up, colored green. One line was moving down, colored red.

Julia explained that the green line was the incoming work. It was a good thing. The red line going down was the department’s profit. That was a bad thing.

“How do we get the red line to turn up?” Julia asked the group.

All eyes turned to Ralph. “Just do more of the same?” he repeated, but this time it was a question.

“I know you can do it,” said Julia. “Since the meeting started, we have talked very seriously about how well we work. But something has changed. Something in our process is slipping, or missing, or we may be doing something wrong. Together, we need to find out what it is.” She stopped. The room was silent. For what seemed like ten minutes, she let silence do the heavy lifting. In reality, it was only twenty seconds.

“The question is still on the table,” she said. “How do we get the red line to turn up?”

How to Establish Purpose Across a Team

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Julia was working quickly, but there were times when it seemed she was going oh, so, slow.

“Sometimes, you have to go slow so you can go fast,” she explained. As a new manager, working with a veteran crew, she had some significant hurdles to overcome. And the team had some significant changes to make. Though the volume in their department was growing, their profitability was sinking to barely break-even. This whole service line was in trouble.

“We have to make some changes and we have to make them fast. But first, I have to build a platform to make those changes.” Julia was firm in her belief about the steps she was taking.

“So, tell me about the slow part?” I asked.

“Instead of arguing about the way we do things, I have to establish discussions of purpose. I started with Ralph, then two other guys who have been around a while, then the rest of the team. All the conversations were different, but they all ended up in the same place. I got every team member to talk about a significant project and why it was important. In each conversation, I wrote the essence of the story on a 3×5 index card. Tomorrow, I am going to use that as leverage.”

How to Build Team Momentum Quickly

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“Why was it so important that you moved Ralph to a conversation about purpose?” I asked. As a new manager getting pushback from a veteran crew, Julia was working quickly.

“As their manager, I have goals and objectives that I have to reach. I have purpose in my role just like they do. The sooner I can engage the team leaders in a discussion about purpose, the sooner we can find an intersection and get started to someplace new.”

Julia stopped. She knew she had made her point, but there was something else even more important.

“You know, I told you that Ralph seemed proud that the team ran off their last manager in three months? Here’s the thing. I don’t have three months to fail. I have three days to get this turned around and three weeks to show positive results.

“I can’t afford to wait and see. That is why these conversations are so important. And conversations about purpose are the quickest way I know to get there.”

How to Get Employee Engagement

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“So, they ran the last manager off in three months?”

“Yes,” replied Julia.

“How do you think you broke through?”

“Well, the story about the previous manager was all pretense. Ralph was posturing to see how I would react.”

“And?”

“I could have responded the same way, but I didn’t. Instead, I asked him questions about the way things were being done. Fact-based questions allow the ice to be broken. Then I moved from facts to purpose.” Julia’s plan was emerging.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“First, I asked him about their most significant achievement, as a team. Everybody likes to brag so he told me about a particularly difficult project that had gone very well.” Julia stopped. “And then, I asked him why that was important. The level of the conversation had moved from pretense to purpose. And I had moved it in only four questions.”

“And?”

“And I still have a long way to go, but it’s a start.”

What do People Care About, in Their Manager?

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Julia had a breakthrough, at least she hoped that’s what it was.

“Ralph thought I was going to tell how to do his job,” she said. “I could tell he was baiting me. He had some story about the last manager, how he tried to change things. Ralph seemed proud that, three months later, the team was successful in running him off.”

“How long has Ralph worked here?” I asked.

“Seven years.”

“And you?”

“Seven months, but I have an engineering degree and five years with another company.” Julia was trying not to be defensive.

“Do you think Ralph cares about that?”

Julia slowed her response. “No, not really.”

“So, what was the breakthrough today?”

“Well, he didn’t say he was going to try and run me off, too.”

“Okay, we will call that a start.”
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The Purist Management Tool

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“You seem confident in your ability to draw the team member into the conversation?” I asked.

“I feel like it is an important management skill,” said Julia. We had been talking about bringing value to the other members of her team. As a new manager, we anticipated resistance to her leadership.

“Some people call it the art of conversation, but it’s a skill, an essential management skill,” continued Julia. “I think about all the things I can do to make a difference, to influence my team to higher performance, to boost morale. I can’t do it with email, though I have tried. I can’t do it with pep talks, they don’t last very long. I can’t do it by putting teamwork posters on the wall. The strongest tool I have, as a manager, is the skill of conversation.

“It’s the purest of management tools, one person simply talking to another person. If you can’t do that, you can’t be a manager. If you can do that, you can be a great manager.”

“Julia, you talk about it as a skill, as something that can be learned?”

“Yes. Oh, yes,” Julia responded. “I was terrible at it. I mean, I’m not a wallflower, but having purposeful management conversations is something I had to learn. I have discovered some basic elements and patterns. These patterns help me consistently to have conversations about purpose, actions and accountabilities.” I could see through the glass window in the door that two people were standing outside. Team members with questions.

“Let’s pick this up tomorrow. I would like to talk to you more about this conversational structure.”

How to Deal with Pushback

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“So, Julia, you are in this conversation, looking for common ground. What if the team member isn’t giving you anything to work with?”

“Impossible,” Julia responded. “Unless, they are stiff arming me.”

Julia was a new manager on a team with nine men and two women. I was anticipating some pushback from some of the vets. This was not going to be easy.

“What do you mean, stiff arming?” I asked

“Sometimes, egos come in to play. They think they have to act tough in front of their co-workers, be uncooperative with the new boss. Maybe if they stiff arm me long enough, I will get fired. But it’s only a pretense. It’s just a game. I have to draw them out of the game and into the conversation.”

“What does that sound like?” I pushed.

“I usually start with fact-based questions. I stay away from opinions and judgments in the beginning. In these fact-based questions, I am looking to build up the tiniest bit of trust. It’s pretty simple, really. I ask a question. They respond. Nothing bad happens. I ask another question. They respond. Nothing bad happens. And the questions are easy

Tell me about your job? What do you do? Where do you get the materials? What machines do you use? On a good day, how many units do you produce?

“After a few minutes, the pretense goes away,” Julia continued. “I have drawn them into the conversation by asking them fact-based questions. It may not be a deep conversation, but at least they are out of the ego game.”

How to Find Common Ground

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“Like I said, I will ask them about the way they see themselves in their role on the team,” responded Julia. We had been talking about her new management position.

“And what if you don’t like what you hear?” I asked.

That was a hard question. Julia started her sentence twice before completing it. “I just have to keep digging. Somewhere in there is a small starting point. Somewhere in there is a small place where we can agree.”

“Is that the point of intersection we were talking about?”

“Yes.” Julia was on a roll. “And I have to find it before we can go on. Sometimes you have to go slow before you can go fast. Until I make that connection, until I find that point of intersection, we are not going anywhere in the conversation.”

“And what do you think happens between the two of you when you find that point of intersection?”

“It’s like a little piece of magic. We get something we can build on and move forward with. Until we find that common ground, all we have are differences. You cannot build on differences.”

How to Start, as a New Manager, in the Company

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Julia was accurate in describing her situation. She was a woman in a male dominated work environment, and now, she was the manager. Her team wasn’t downright hostile, but she would have to earn their respect quickly. There were changes that needed to be made and her boss was expecting results in short order.

“How will you bring value as the new manager on the block?” I asked.

“I think it is important for each team member to understand what I expect from their role on the team.”

“And, how will you do that?”

Julia thought briefly, struggling between what she really thought and what she figured I wanted to hear. “I am going to schedule an individual meeting with each person.” She stopped to check my reaction before going on.

“Okay. What is that meeting going to sound like?” I prodded.

“Questions, I am going to ask questions and listen. I am going to ask questions about what they think their job is, what they think their role is.”

“And why is that an important question?”

Julia knew it was important, but she had never thought about why. Suddenly, she knew. “Before I tell them my expectations, I need to find out where they stand. I need to know how far apart we are. It’s a guarantee we will start from different places. I need to gauge the distance of the journey to find that point where we have common ground.”

I smiled. “The point of intersection, that’s a good place to start. How do you get there?”

How to Deal with Procrastination

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“I am trying to promote this team member, Rachel, into a new role,” Janice explained. “But she seems to be dragging her feet.”

“Tell me more,” I asked.

“I think she wants the position, appears interested and excited. But you told me that I could not promote someone without clear evidence of potential. So I have been giving her longer time span projects than she has in her current role. In the delegation meeting, she is very responsive, but she never gets started.”

“What do you mean, never gets started?” I wanted clarification.

“Part of the delegation meeting, I describe the project, the vision of what it looks like when finished, including very specific performance standards of quality and deadline. I asked her to write out a step-by-step plan so we can discuss her approach to the project. That was last week. Nothing. She is dragging her feet.”

“How long is the project?”

“Six weeks. Six weeks is a reasonable amount of time to complete the project. I set a very specific deadline, but, now, that’s five weeks from now. She might still be able to get the project completed, but likely now, it will cost some overtime.”

“What do you think is going on?” I pressed.

“She is good at three week assignments. Now that you mention it, every long project she works on, takes about three weeks. Even four week projects. She procrastinates, says she works well under pressure. She’s right, she will stay late, come in early. I like her dedication, but sometimes coming in early doesn’t solve the problem of a long term project.”

“How so?”

“If you burn a week on a four week project, you can come in early, make up some time, but if there is a four week lead time on material, the project will be a week late. There will be blaming behavior, but it’s still a four week lead time for material.”

“What do you think the procrastination means?”

“I think it is an indication of capability,” Janice thought out loud. “I know you tell me to focus on the work, that capability is all about the work. If the target completion time of the project is further out than three weeks, Rachel underperforms to the deadline. It’s always a last minute scramble and something falls through the cracks.”

“So, what are you going to do, as her manager?”

“It’s a good thing we have three week projects. And for longer projects, I will have to break down some interim milestones. It means I will have to manage the longer time span elements. In the short run, that is workable. In the long run, I may have to make a different move.”
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