Leading at Light Speed©

Ten Quantum Leaps to Build High-Performing Organizations

Categories » Team Building

August 2nd, 2010

The Case of the Restless Board

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I’m working with a Board of Directors that is proving most challenging! This particular Board is a chamber of commerce composed of business owners. Every meeting is a marvel of micro-management. Should our web site have a blue banner or green? Which vendor should we use to host our annual meeting? Tactical decisions like these, which should be left to staff to decide, become all-consuming conversations for this Board.

The root problem is a lack of trust between the Board and executive director. I’ve tried to create systems to build trust. I facilitated the development of a clear and comprehensive business plan. We have developed a performance scorecard. I have talked to the Board about the importance of letting things play out, to see whether the executive director and his staff are up to the task. But no sooner do I make this speech, when I turn around and witness a Board member who wants to talk about the choice of vendors at a cocktail reception!

Boards that truly want to make a difference, that want to generate lasting, sustained success in their organizations, need to stay focused on the things that Boards should do: clarifying and communicating the strategic focus of the organization. This will build trust and enable the executive director and staff to act nimbly and effectively in the face of constant change.

But members of this Board seem only interested in what’s in it for them, today. Part of it stems from the unique way that the organization is funded and structured. Each Board member represents a specific constituency that pays into a central fund that supports the organization. Board members are intrinsically motivated to make sure they get their “fair” share of the kitty.

What I’ve come to realize is that I haven’t done enough to build a collective sense of stewardship on this Board. They still see their job as steering the ship, rather than setting the course. We need to spend more time on long-range vision and specific measures of success tied to that vision.

People often ask me which of the quantum leaps described in my new book “Leading at Light Speed” is the most important. All ten are important. But I would say that aligning people around a clear strategic focus is the most important. It is the framework and the vehicle that enables a Board like this one to build trust and start moving at light speed.

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April 30th, 2009

The Pygmalion Effect | How High Expectation Creates High Performance


pygmalion effect

The waitress who came to our table didn’t make eye contact. She took our order without smiling. As we got our food, I noticed she was treating other customers testily, too.

“I wonder why she waits on tables,” my lunch companion said to me. “She clearly isn’t enjoying it.”

“I wonder about her manager,” I said.

We started talking about techniques for converting lackluster employees into first-rate ones. He told me a story about a fast-food business he had managed when he was younger. The cashier in the drive-through window was a woman who never smiled. He sent her to customer service training, but he couldn’t get her to change her attitude.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I told every employee they had to collect data on how well they were doing their jobs. For each employee, I set up a measure that would improve their performance.”

“What did you tell her?”

“In her case, I told her to count how many smiles she received from customers each day.”

“That’s brilliant!” I said. “Did it work?”

“I saw the improvement right away. Because she was measuring smiles, it made her more conscious of what I expected her to do. When she smiled, she found that people smiled back. In a week she was a completely different employee.”

That’s a great example, I said, of the Pygmalion effect. People perform better when they are expected to perform better.

My friend asked me if I had written about it.

It’s a basic part of managing well, I said. Your attitude toward other people affects how they perform. By communicating to her the way you did, you raised her awareness and helped her perform better. Nice going.

That woman could charm the buns off a hot dog, he said with a smile.

Related Blog Post: “Building Trust in Workplace“

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November 8th, 2008

Accelerate Building Trust in the Workplace


building trust in workplace

Studies over the past few years have shown that trust can grow quickly among people from different backgrounds, given the right circumstances. As I’ve written before, high levels of trust is one of the cornerstones of great organizations. These new studies provide insights into exactly what kind of communication accelerates the growth of trust.

A New York Times article details this research. When two strangers are brought together for four, hour-long sessions and engaged in trust-building exercises, the results can be surprisingly long-lasting. In the first hour-long exercise, people share their responses to a list of questions, ranging from “would you like to be famous? In what way?” to “If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”

In the second hour-long meeting, one pair competes against another in a series of games. In the third hour-long session, they talk about whether they are proud of their heritage and family background. Finally, in the fourth session, members of each pair take turns leading the other through a maze while blindfolded.

This research has fascinating implications for trust-building exercises in an organization. Our firm will often facilitate exercises with team members in which we ask them to talk about their proudest moment, or their scariest moment, and what they like most about the team, and what they like least. A second exercise consists of games in which teams compete against each other to fill a trash can with ping-pong balls and other silly tasks. A third session focuses on creating a shared vision of team success. And a fourth session often consists of trust-building exercises, such as leading a blindfolded partner through an obstacle course set up in the office.

These may seem trivial. But the research has shown the results to be long-lasting. These kinds of exercises create relationships “as close as any relationship the person has,” said Art Aron, a social psychologist at Stony Brook University who developed the program described in The Times article (”Tolerance Over Race Can Spread, Studies Find”). http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/07race.html?scp=3&sq=racial%20tolerance&st=cse

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September 20th, 2008

New Team Building with Trust and Credibility


For the past month, I’ve been working with the CEO of a financial services company in Southern California. He’s four weeks into the job; three other CEOs preceded him in the last five years. As a result, the company has suffered a loss of trust, teamwork, and strategic direction. John, the CEO, hired me to help get things back on track. One of his first goals was to rebuild the leadership group into a team.

The group of 12 met for two days at a resort near San Diego. I facilitated. We talked about what it takes to be a real team. We talked about the “Five Habits of High Performing Teams.”  (A tool available in our store describes these habits in detail.). We discussed the difference between groups and teams. We developed a clear understanding of the rules of team play. We agreed the team’s purpose would be to develop and monitor strategy, identify key organizational issues, improve efficiency, and build trust and communication throughout the company.

“This is hard to do,” one of the leaders said. “It takes time, it takes energy and a huge commitment from all of us. Are we really ready to commit to this?”

Another said: “We’ve got to sell this to our board of directors. We’ve been highly profitable. How is this going to pay off?”

John, the CEO, was firm and insistent. “We need to be a team. We are dependent on each other to achieve our goals. We need to meet regularly and we need to build the trust and communication here. Yes, we’ve been successful. But we can be assured of sustained success only if we do this.”

After we had discussed exactly how the team would operate, I asked each of the 12 to proclaim whether they were ready to commit to this new team. Most said yes. A few were ambivalent. One of them, Mike, said: “I’d like to sleep on it; this is a big change for us.”

The next morning, we went around the room again. Mike said: “My issue is this: I want to believe we can be a team. But we have yet to demonstrate the necessary commitment and focus to be a team. I want to hear John say exactly how committed he is.”

John spoke at length. He described the core values he wanted to instill in the company. He described his vision and strategy. He asked people for feedback – and the resulting discussion lasted several hours. I was delighted because I wanted them to experience what it felt like to be a team.

At the end of the day, I turned to Mike again. “What’s your sense now?” I asked. “Are you ready to commit?”

“I’m on board,” he said with a smile.

Related blog: “Building Trust in Workplace“

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September 3rd, 2008

CEO Coaching Lesson: The Conference Room


conference room

The CEO of a large financial services company used to hold meetings of his leadership team twice a week. He held them in a small conference room on the third floor of their San Francisco headquarters. The room was too small for the 14 participants to fit in comfortably. Ironically, there was a much larger conference room on the same floor near the CEO’s office.

One day, a member of the team asked the CEO, “Bruce, why do you continue to cram us into this conference room twice a week. Why don’t we move the meeting to the bigger conference room down the hall?”

Bruce replied, “This is a high profile conference room. A lot of people walk by. I want them to see who’s in charge and that we’re working together.

If nothing else comes out of these meetings, that will be enough.”

Brilliant, the team member thought to himself. “Thanks,” he said to the CEO. “I get it now.”

Related blog: “Executive Leadership Coaching“

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June 17th, 2008

Ground Rules for Business Meetings | Rules of the River


ground rules for business

I had a reunion with an old college friend of mine named Shaw. We’d been on many adventures together – exploring in Peru, hiking in Corsica, sailing in Maine. Unfortunately, we had only two days, and we had to settle for an adventure relatively close to Boston. We picked a canoe trip down the Saco River in New Hampshire.

We were shuttled to our put-in point by Dave, the garrulous owner of the canoe rental company. It was a hot June morning. Our wet bags contained rain gear, sleeping bags, tent, and enough food for our entire reunion class.

We pulled into the quick-moving silver waters of the Saco, with stately Mt. Washington sheathed in clouds above us. I jumped into the bow, Shaw into the stern. The bowman leads the boat. The stern’s job is to follow the bowman’s lead. This is important to know for what happened later.

We barreled along the river, navigating the Class II riffles with relative ease. There were many boulders to avoid, but the river’s currents were not too treacherous. The greatest danger was from trees, uprooted and tossed into the river by winter storms, sucking the currents underneath them.

We rounded a curve in the river. I looked ahead. The river’s pace quickened as the channel narrowed. Suddenly, I saw a major problem. A birch tree lay horizontally across the river between two rocks. “Tree,” I shouted. There was two feet of clearance beneath the tree. “We can make it.”

“No,” called Shaw. “Head for the beach. Beach!”

“We can make it!” I shouted. “Dig, dig!”

With my determination to go for it, and Shaw’s desire to exercise caution, the canoe responded accordingly. The stern swung around into the current, heading straight toward the tree. Scared of hitting the tree backwards, I executed a deep draw stroke and swung the bow in the right direction. But not enough. We came onto the tree sideways.

“Duck,” I shouted. We both flattened ourselves into the bottom of the canoe. I held my breath. The tree cleared my nose by inches. I listened for a scrape or a thump from the stern. Hearing none, I exhaled. We’d made it!

I stuck up my head and looked at Shaw, who burst out laughing. “That was classic!” he shouted. “A textbook example of what not to do!”

We high-fived and paddled to a sandy beach where we stretched our legs and replayed what had happened. “Our mistake is we didn’t work out our ground rules in advance,” I said. “We need a rule that if one of us wants to stop, we have to stop – no questions asked.”

“I agree,” said Shaw. “And when in doubt, revert to rule number one.”

 We proceeded to navigate several more treacherous spots with no mishaps. Later, while cooking steaks over our campfire, I recounted for Shaw the hundreds of times I’d worked with teams and helped them develop their ground rules.

“It’s a key thing for effective teams to do,” I said. “And it’s interesting and ironic that we overlooked that crucial step.”

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Next blog article, “The Pygmalion Effect: How High Expectation Creates High Performance”

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