Think you're cut out for developing teamwork skills? Take this quiz

Wednesday May 21, 2014 The most important thing I know about teams is that there are no fixed rules, and too many variables involved (especially context, team goals and membership) to rely on a set of simple laws. All we can do is to predict higher team success on a statistical basis if some conditions are in place... So most people learn about those conditions and, in general, about how to develop teamwork from either personal experiences or from some good readings on the subject. There's nothing wrong with that. But what if some of those ideas were no longer true? After all, the infamous "forming, storming, norming, performing" model of team development" dates back to the 1960s...So what's new in the, say, last 50 years of study and research on how to develop teamwork? Again, most of the literature is unanimous on the difficulty of creating a silver bullet or holy grail for teams, focusing instead on conditions that make or break developing teamwork. What are those conditions? Are they the same from 50 years ago or have they changed? Here I want to challenge my readers and invite them to take this 15-question test. It is a great way to get current on the latest research findings on high-performing teams...Just answer all the questions - either True or False - before checking the answers. And don't worry if you miss a few! Are the following Statements True or False? The ideal number of people in a team is 12 The presence of an expert in a team increases its effectiveness The Team kick-off meeting loses its value if it is repeated in mid-stream Teams negotiation of deliverables/resources with stakeholders diverts team energy If team members are familiar with each other and have worked together, it is not necessary to define team's working agreements In successful teams' conversations there are 2.9 positive comments for each negative comments High-performing teams have less conflicts than low-performing ones For a team to succeed clear roles and responsibility are more important than an emotional connection among team members It's good for an efficient and effective team to have "silent ones" or members that decide not to share their opinions If the team has effective formal meetings, then frequent interpersonal communications among team members is not required to reach excellence Empathetic decision making in teams is counterproductive if the decision has a strong rational component High performing team members have more answers than questions Agreeableness is a valuable trait for team members during decision making High performing teams focus on team's internal resources and information rather than reaching out of the regular team membership The timing of team coaching interventions is different for high performing teams versus lower performing teams So what are your answers? How many are true, how many are false? Click here  for the correct answers to these questions based on the latest research development on teamwork skills.

Leadership as the courage to be vulnerable

Wednesday April 9, 2014 For the first time in more than two centuries, the "Dying Gaul" has travelled from Rome's Musei Capitolini outside of Italy—to the National Gallery in Washington, DC. It is a  magnificent statue of a warrior facing his death, a man facing his ultimate destiny. This news made me reflect that word "vulnerability" comes from the Latin "vulnus," which means wound. And standing in front of the Gaul's wound carved from ancient Roman marble I am reminded of some great words on the subject by David Whyte. "We are not Kings and Queens of the World..." "...Any real conversation involves vulnerability. There is no real conversation, without vulnerability. If you think especially in intimate relationships, there's no way we can advance a marriage, a partnership by having one person have the answer and the other just receive the information and change accordingly. And we change in relationships by admitting a few things about ourselves and inspired by that vulnerability the other person admits a few things too. And then because you've got into the spirit of things, I then admit a few more things and we get there together. And we get there through this mutually arrange opening, where we understand we are not kings or queens of the world and that we have untoward effects on other people and we have untoward effects on ourselves. Sometimes the perspective that a partner gives us has to do with the way we sabotage ourselves actually and all of the real work, the real advancing of maturity and of character happen through understanding where we limp, where we are not quite there, not quite present, where we missed a beat .....the vulnerability in leadership is associated with not knowing. And therefore being able to invite others in to help us; to invite other intellects, other eyes and ears, other perspectives. In other words to help carry a whole project along or to help carry us along in our lonely life of responsibility." David Whyte

Can the Way we Talk Change the Way we Work?

Wednesday March 12, 2014 I want to argue this point because it is about a book I am reading that I find fascinating. The book is based on this powerful question: Why is the gap so great between our hopes, our intentions, even our decisions and what we are actually able to bring about? Even when we are able to make important changes in our own lives or the groups we lead at work, why are the changes so frequently short-lived and soon we are back to business as usual? What can we do to transform this troubling reality? In this intensely practical book, "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work" Harvard psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey take us on a carefully guided journey designed to help us answer these very questions. And not just generally, or in the abstract. They help each of us arrive at our own particular answers that can solve the puzzling gap between what we intend and what we are able to accomplish. This is a book to read with pen in hand. The authors invite you in—not as an observer but as an active participant—to help you make powerful, lasting change in your life and the lives of those you seek to help or lead. The authors argue that, for every unrealized commitment to change we genuinely hold and act out of, we also have a conflicting and harder-to-recognize commitment that prevents the very change we desire. They share a new "learning technology" comprising seven transformational languages, each permitting new kinds of thinking, feeling, and experiencing. Kegan and Lahey show us how we can use these languages ―in our conversations with colleagues, friends, and as importantly, in the way we talk to ourselves― to transform: • Complaints into commitments • Blaming and avoidance into responsibility • Our view of our own ineffectiveness into an understanding of its hidden genius • The assumptions we take as truths into changeable ways of understanding ourselves and the world • Our tendency to praise and prize into ongoing regard • Social regulation by rules and personnel policies into the power of public agreements • Destructive and even constructive criticism into the bigger possibility of "deconstructive criticism" Pick up the book and tell me if you like it. I did. Good luck!

We don't Need Another Hero!

Wednesday February 12, 2014 It is time for all the heroes to go home if they have any, time for all of us common ones to locate ourselves by the real things we live by. -William Stafford I hear this over and over again in my classes and it's time to say it out loud: when we talk about leadership, we don't need another hero! I wonder: ·         Why is it that leadership is synonymous with heroism? ·         Why is it that when we hear the word "leader" many of us think about the heroic white male on a horse leading us into battle? ·         Why is it that we continue to rely on someone else to figure things out for us? This idea is so pervasive in the leadership discourse: the "pornography of leadership"—the seduction of someone taking charge, the charm, the women (or the men), the beautiful car, the great office, the big house… We keep believing and acting like this fairy tale is true. We need leadership, we say, and that means someone who will make it all better. Someone with vision, know-how. Someone who is trustworthy. And even though the models of command-and-control are well behind us, we continue to willingly surrender our individual freedom in exchange for security. Sometime I think that this is the most important job of the leadership development work: convincing people that in the times we live it is impossible to rely on one person to deal with the complex challenges we face. And when that job is done, what is left of the idea of leadership itself? Maybe we should embrace or look for a new word, like Mintzberg attempted a few years ago when he proclaimed that we need more "communityship" and less leadership to mobilize and move us into real, meaningful, collective change. What if ...? The interesting part of this dilemma— besides the creation of a disempowering dependency that is contrary to the principle of a mature democracy— is its inconsistency with today's world. If leaders have the answers, why don't people just do what they say? Why do we talk about the "end of leadership" on one hand while we continue to feed the myth of the omnipotent leader on the other? The work in leadership development starts by questioning our desire for heroes. Are heroes born leaders, responsible for us? Are they authorities, rather than leaders, to whom we need to submit in exchange for security? This hero-myth is so persistent that I often ask the classical question in class: are leaders born or made? "Born where?" answered a student of mine from Mali once, dismissing with a simple question an entire branch of leadership studies and powerfully restating the simple idea that no man is an island. Indeed, no leader is an island; most are products of their communities. ·         What if leadership is an output rather than an input in a situation? ·         What if we start seeing leadership as an emergent phenomenon that manifests itself in the power of people working towards a collective purpose with passionate responsibility? ·         How does this idea change the conversation on leadership in our organizations and in our teaching? Good luck and check our new website www.leadersh1p.com