Facilitating Teams No Matter Where

What I find interesting about cultural differences is how they shine a light on our own progress. My wife found that when she worked with developers in developing nations, especially those where women's rights and liberation are not as far along as they are in the U.S. she saw a distinct difference between the way that the teams respond to her when she's leading meetings compared to when her male counterparts, even those that are lower on the org chart, lead meetings. 

That being said, it's all quite subjective and she hasn't taken on a study to determine the extent or even the actual existence of the slight, real or perceived, but as I said, it's telling if only because it helps us appreciate our own progress to see how other countries are doing. 

What's doubly interesting to me is that when she was leading a team of developers in South America, most of whom were women, her ability to inspire and lead the team was amplified instead of undermined. I find these cultural bridges interesting and illustrative and would love to see more studies about them. 

One of the tools that I utilize Dr. Z is communication outside of standard team meetings . . . calls, messages, emails, chats, Slack, etc. By including team members in one-to-one, relationship-building communications bonds are formed outside of the team that can then be brought into the team. For example; one illustrator/designer we use lived in Honduras. 

There were difficulties in communication via language barriers, there were challenges in terms of understanding roles and capabilities, and there were problems with work hours and investment of time. Many of these can't be dealt with during team calls, and they are still challenges to building trust and creating a cohesive team. 

By sending notes, messages, memes, links, and other information about illustration and graphic design we were able to form a friendship that we took over to the team and our team calls. The same can be done with any team player. Find ways to connect with them outside the team so that you build a rapport that can be ported over to the team arena. 

Measurements of Team Effectiveness

The question we were asked to address was how would you measure the success or effectiveness of a team, both over the short-term and long-term? And the context was in terms of our reading regarding team training.

I believe that there are several measurement factors that go into determining the effectiveness of a team. As the question states, there are short-term and long-term aspects, but there are factors that are more relevant and prescient that should be addressed, many of which are subjective in nature. 

I was recently a part of a workgroup/team that came together for major product development and launch and there were several success factors that we measured. Among these were the objective ones such as: (a) the time to produce the product, (b) the quality of the product (which is a bit of subjective measurement), (c) whether or not the team can continue to produce in the future. 

However there are several that are not measured by these three aspects, several that are far more subjective in nature, such as: (a) whether or not the team functioned efficiently, (b) did the team react to the work effectively, harmoniously, and easily, and (c) did the team evolve from an immature state to a more mature state and are they continuing to evolve. 

I think it's these last three questions that are far more relevant to measuring the health of a workgroup and the future capabilities of a workgroup, and measuring these would be far more difficult to measure, and therefore more difficult to influence positive change in. 

One of the best measurement tools to help achieve this would be debriefing and after-action reviews. Although debriefings may not seem like a typical measurement tool, it does work as a collector of valid information if performed well, and if they are executed in a series over time then a measure of improvement (or decline) can be taken. 

Gregory et al. (2013) state in describing sustaining conditions to foster teamwork that "by implementing systematic debriefing meetings, employees will be reminded of teamwork competencies and desired knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were once learned during the team training program" (p. 475). Later in our reading, Tannenbaum et al. (2013) state when discussing debriefings and how to determine if they produce desired improvements and changes, "some of the improvements are cognitive in nature, while other are behavioral" (p. 499). It's these two types of subjective aspects of teamwork can be measured via debriefings then it's possible to track and make improvements over time. 

References

Tannenbaum, S., Beard, R., & Cerasoli, C. (2013). Conducting team debriefings that work: Lessons from research and practice. In Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.), Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations: Evidence-Based BestPractices and Guidelines (1st ed., pp. 268-297). Jossey-Bass.

Gregory, M., Feitosa, J. Driskell, T., & Salas, S., (2013). Designing, delivering, and evaluating team training in organizations: Principles that work. In Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.), Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations: Evidence-Based BestPractices and Guidelines (1st ed., pp. 268-297). Jossey-Bass.

Leading Virtual vs Real-World Teams

Comparing Chapters 8, and 13, how do virtual teams differ from temporally separated teams and how are they similar?

I really enjoyed parts of the essay by Cohen and Alonso (2013) and how they discussed leading virtual teams. With the ubiquotousness of virtual meeting capabilities within our business world and the need for a greater understanding of how to fully utilize the tools and capabilities to work as well away from the office as we do in the office, I thought the messages were timely and provided some good guidance. 

I found myself relating to a lot of what they advise, if only because there are times when I find myself leading virtual teams as well as on-site teams, and both need to be as effective as possible in completing projects and being productive. I especially liked the table presented that provided tips for overcoming process challenge to virtual teamwork (Cohen and Alonso, 2013, p. 260). I do not have as much experience leading temporally separated teams. The closest I've come is a few hours time differences, usually, Texas compared to California. Still, there are aspects of that team leadership that I had to be cognizant of and take into consideration, much like Espinosa (2013) discusses in his chapter. However, I thought one oversight that was not discussed as much as was needed to be was the aspect of cultural difference in temporally separated teams.

Espinosa (2013) discusses not just temporatlly separated teams but also teams separated by distannce but within the same time zones. Espinosa (2013) writes "spatial distance does not necessarily change the pattern of team interaction," (p. 420) which is true but does not necessarily cover what I feel is a predominant issue of cultural differences. My wife, working as a software project manager has had to lead offsite teams in Honduras and in India. The Honduran team was in the same time zone as she and the team and India was a twelve-hour difference. In both cases, she has had more challenges with cultural differences, those regarding the speed of work product, expectations, and role of females in business and society, than mere time differences caused. Then I look at my time in the military, when we were spread out as a battalion over different continents, the fact that we were all from the same unit, that we understood the expectations, the mission, and had a similar language and standards, all benefitted us despite a time difference. 

At no point does Espinosa (2013) nor Cohen and Alonso focus enough time and effort on the problems that cultural differences cause but focus instead on just the aspects of physical difference. The physical difference is a challenge to be sure, but the cultural differences can serve to make virtual team-leading several degrees harder if they aren't understood and addressed from the very beginning. 

References

Cohen, D. J., and Alonso, A. (2013). Virtual teams; The how to's of making "being virtually there" successful. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 239–267). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Espinosa, J.A. (2013). High performance in temporally separated team work. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 406 - 438). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Health Care Leadership Lessons

Chapters 10 and 11 focus on health care, but in many ways the lessons in these two chapters can be transferred to any industry. What are the key lessons in these two chapters and how might you use them in your career?

While reading Chapters 10 and 11, I thought exactly what the prompt addresses, many of the aspects, techniques, and tools that are addressed would be just as valuable in my organization as they would be in healthcare. I found the same thing to be a part of my thoughts when I read about leading virtual teams in the previous chapters. I thought that the leadership techniques in Chapters 8 and 9 could be used to address challenges in any workteam, not limited to just virtual work groups. 

Almeida et al. (2013) write, citing several studies, that "medical databases consistently identified ineffective communication among medical teams as a leading cause of preventable medical errors and patient harm throughout the health care system" (p. 300). I know from having worked for years in our industry of construction and safety in the energy industry that our own databases find the same challenge of communication leading to accidents, injury, and harmful or environmental releases. 

Communication, I often tell my managers and supervisors, is the key to overcoming almost every challenge in our project development and delivery. Poor communication leads to problems and difficulties. Good communication leads to smoother operations. Lencioni (2002) discusses trust and the opportunity to speak openly and have conflict within executive teams. Without trust, without there is no conflict, without the conflict, there is no opportunity to speak openly and communicate. As Covey (2008) writes "low trust slows everything—every decision, every communication, and every relationship” (p. 1).

Additionally, Almeida et al. (2013) write that "establishing a history of failed initiatives gives rise to the dynamic "if we like low long enough, this too shall pass," and typically, pass they do. Enough of these failed initiatives can lead an organization to its destruction" (p. 309). This too is general enough to be applied to any industry. We've seen that in many instances where initiatives are left to crumble into dust and are not picked up again. 

Finally, Lyubovnikova and West (2013) bring up a framework of their own that can be applied to any team, regardless of industry. They discuss that the three aspects that should be followed are "skill differentiation, temporaral stability, and authority differentiation" (p. 334). All of these are techniques and tools that can be used, in my opinion, to help any organization regardless of industry. Having them generated via a study on healthcare shows that the healthcare industry has a leading effort to improve their processes, and proves out how it can best be used. But any leader should take these and apply them to their own industry as well. 

References

Almeida, S. A., King, H., Salisbury, M. L. (2013) Teamwork improvement in health care: A decade of lessons learned every organization should know. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 331 - 372). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Covey, S. (2008). Speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. Simon & Schuster.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Lyubovnikova, J., West, M. A. (2013) Why teamwork matter: Enabling health care team effectiveness for the delivery of high-quality patient care. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 298 - 330). essay, Jossey-Bass.

HOT Fun Running

July is a tough month for fun runs. I had to wake up at 5 this morning, a Saturday, to get to a fun run and continue my “fun run a month” challenge (see more HERE). Last month, in June pickings were slim because I had traveled to the UK for two weeks, and I was in Kansas another week. That leaves very few weekends for fun runs. 

This month, there were just two beside the July 4th fun runs. Many of the July 4th fun runs were booked up and I couldn’t get in. So, I signed up for really the only other one I could find. The Lunar 5K in Friendswood. 

Friendswood is a bit of a hike for me. It took about an hour for me to get there. But then again, that’s what I drive every day for work. In fact, my office was right there, a few blocks away. Silly ole world. 

I was surprised by several things about this run. 

• First, I was surprised they started the raceafter the kids 1K. Note to race directors out there. Having your start time for the main race depending on kids running a 1K . . . Not smart. But maybe I’m becoming crotchety. 
• Second, wow was it hot. I was melting in the heat. I weighed myself before I left and when I got back. I lost 4 lbs while running. That’s some heat!
• Speaking of weight, I have lost 30 lbs since last year at this time. I would have expected that at some point I would feel lighter. I don’t. It was killing me on this run.My splits aren’t bad, but man oh man, I think global climate change is effecting gravity cause WOW I was slow and it hurt!
• I was looking around as I ran and was pacing and trying to beat several people. I looked at them and thought, I bet I can beat them. Then naturally I thought about the standings and it hit me, most of the people I key in on are in their 30’s! I think I still see myself as a 30 year old when I go race these races. I’m not! It hit me today that by next year about this time, I’ll find myself in the 50 year old standings! (Maybe then I can win every now and then . . . Probably not)
• I need to start taking and prepping more gear. I had a towel, my flip flops and an extra shirt, but it was so hot that I should have brought several towels and probably some cooling towels as well! Thank goodness I had my emergency picnic blanket in trunk (never know when you’ll need to quickly have a picnic, right!) otherwise it would have been a fiasco. 
• I got blown away in the final sprint today. Some young twenty year old blew by me. I tried to pick it up to keep up with her, but I couldn’t. I felt like Bill Cosby as Dr. Huxtable, being destroyed on the track. What’s he say? “today I saw 23 on the track, and it flew right by me without even breathing heavy?” Well I saw that today. 
• Finally, I’m starting to see many of the same people at these races. I tried to inspire this years ago with SEAL PT, but now I’m seeing the same people at these runs and we chat to one another. Little things like “Saw you at that last one, how’d ya do?” And “Feeling good today?” It’s probably because I wear pretty much the same stuff every race. But it’s fun to have some race day buddies. Everyone needs race buddies right?

Three Process Improvement Schemes

In our text on Adult Leadership, Beer (2013) describes the Strategic Fitness Process, designed to help overcome what he calls the Six Silent Barriers to Team Performance. Curtis (2013) also describes a framework called the Process Maturity Framework in his essay How Organizational Process Maturity Improved Performance. 

While Beer (2013) describes a specific set of barriers; (a) unclear strategy and values, (b) ineffective senior team, (c) laissez-faire leadership, (d) poor coordination and communication, (e) poor leadership development, and (f) inadequate vertical communication both up and down. He calls these the silent killers of team performance that he claims "represent an unhealthy organizational and management context for teams" (Beer, 2013, p. 29).  

Beer's (2013) prescription for dealing with these barriers is the SFP, which "enables the organization and its leaders to gain the benefits of open feedback while eliminating the negative consequences of speaking up for the lower-level people" (Beer, 2013, p. 40). Curtis (2013) also identifies that software teams have suffered from barriers. Curtis (2013) also sees communication as a potential challenge. Curtis (2013) states, "breakdowns in communication and coordination frequently represent team process issues that were often caused by managers or customers external to the team" (p. 50). Curtis (2013) also writes that leaders for software teams were commonly not well trained and developed, but rather that the teams were placed under the direction of a "team lead, who usually had no training in management or team leadership" (p. 56). This lack of proper leadership and leadership development are the same challenges that Beer identifies as his third and fifth barriers. 

There are aspects of both Beer's barriers and SFP and Curtis' Process Maturity Framework in other business and leadership writing. For example, Beer mentions that laissez-faire leadership has a negative influence on teams and is something that should be avoided. Similarly, writing in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni (2002) writes that one of the parts of the dysfunction pyramid is an avoidance of accountability that leads to low standards. Lencioni (2002) elaborates on accountability that leaders "hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer's behavior because they want to avoid interpersonal discomfort" (p. 98). Earlier in the fable, Lencioni (2002) lists the absence of trust as the base of the dysfunction pyramid. Beer writes about aspects of trust that barrier 6: poor vertical communication was brought on by a leadership team that was ". . . either not motivated to and/or did not know how to create a safe, honest, and collective conversation . . . " (p. 35). Therefore, it would lead to better communication and coordination. Lencioni (2002) also writes about factors that are a part of Curtis' Process Maturity Framework when he writes about status and ego leading to inattention to results. Lencioni (2002) writes "the key is to make the collective ego greater than the individual ones" (p. 72). Similarly, Curtis (2013) discusses the benefits of "egoless teams" (p. 56). 

Whether in the Process Maturity Framework, the SFP, and even the pyramid outlining the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, each author sees the benefits of applying a process and framework to the problem of team disunity and confusion. This tends to fall in line with other essays in Salas et al. (2013) discussing the fact that leaders are not as important as we might tend to think. Haskin’s, writing in Salas et al. (2013) even states that other than in the case of morale, performance will for the most part not change for the team regardless of the leader. This connotes that leadership alone cannot change how people work and relate to one another in work groups, but rather frameworks like the SFP, the Process Maturity Framework, and the pyramid of dysfunction; these are the measures that can influence change, create positive relationships among the team members, and develop a product that is more effectively produced. 

References

Beer, M. (2013). Silent killers of team performance: How honest, collective, and public conversation can overcome them. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines (pp. 27–47). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Curtis, B. (2013). How organizational process maturity improved software team performance. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 48–84). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S.J., Cohen, D., & Latham, G.(Eds.).  (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based practices and recommendations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Trust is Key

In the text for my class on Adult Leadership, Meisinger (2013) describes different strategies to lead executive teams and includes many tips, strategies, and thoughts that would be beneficial for any president, COO, or CEO who must bear the responsibility of leading executives within an organization. Executive leadership is different and more complex than the team or departmental leadership and Meisinger (2013) points this out by writing that “for executive teams, the stakes are often more significant for the individual members and to the organization as a whole. This creates some additional dynamics” (p. 183).  

These dynamics, Meisinger (2013) points out can include downstream effects on morale and function of the organization in other departments; “if employees see that members of the executive team are not working collaboratively, it’s likely to have a ripple impact throughout the organization” (p. 183). There is a great deal of importance in ensuring that leading executive teams is done well, and there is one key that can help ensure that it is done well, with a minimum of negative impact on the organization. That key is trust. 

All of the conflicts that Meisinger (2013) discusses and the advice that she provides throughout the chapter is similar to the advice and the conflicts discussed by Lencioni (2002). Meisinger (2013) discusses the risk of distrust when writing “dysfunctional teams will lead to failures of communication on a key business issue. There will be distrust and disagreement over critical resource allocations (p. 184). Meisinger (2013) also writes about how to overcome this by writing, “leaders must lead a team of executives in such a way that open sharing and debate on competing viewpoints are encouraged, but without behaviors or actions that disturb the trust among the team’s members” (p. 185). This is almost an exact duplication of the advice provided Lencioni (2002) when he writes, “teamwork begins by building trust” (p. 63). 

Lencioni (2002) spends much of his fable about a Silicon Valley software organization building, establishing, and maintaining trust within the executive team. There are multiple examples of the leader, making the team comfortable with each other and specifically with conflict within the team, such as when the leader notices a lack of debate; “I’d have to say that more than anything I’ve been told by others, I see a trust problem here in the lack of debate that exists” (Lencioni, 2002, p. 45). Conflict, Lencioni (2002) writes, is okay and healthy for executive teams as long as there is a foundation of trust between them. 

Leaders must also trust the members of the executive team to do the work for them. Lencioni (2002) demonstrates times when her main character, Katheryn, waits while other members of her team express the goals, she hopes they will understand on her behalf. Meisinger (2013) also writes that “leaders of executive teams have to know when to remain silent. Frequently, top executives are where they are because they have a clear vision of what needs to be done and have the drive and intellect to know how best to get there” (p. 186). Covey (2008) emphasizes this as well when he writes, “in a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you” (p. 6). 

Trust is a key to any functioning team. Covey (2008) writes, “the first job of a leader . . . is to inspire trust. It’s to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility” (p. 319). As Meisinger (2013) writes, having that level of trust and potential for creativity is more important for executive teams because of the opportunity to inspire those who look to the team for direction and to influence harmony within the organization. 

Despite all the advice that Miesinger (2013) and Lencioni (2002) bring up in their writing, the most important is that of establishing trust for the executive teams. Without that trust between members, the work of the executive team can undermine not just the work of that team, but also the work within the organization. 

References

Covey, S. (2008). Speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. Simon & Schuster.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Meisinger, S. R. (2013). Leading executive teams: The good, the bad, and the ugly. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 182 - 207). essay, Jossey-Bass.

 

 

 

More On Ill-Structured People

My classmate brought up a problem he had with a soldier in his unit who was determined to undermine the group and the team. It was an interesting dilemma for sure.

I think we’ve all had to deal with similar situations as leaders but the one you describe sounds especially tough to deal with. In terms of “derailers” I’m in the midst of dealing with a few in our senior leadership team, but what I find interesting about all of these leaders is that if you pointed out to them that their actions were having negative effects, they would never come around to see it from your lens. So often we get stuck in our own perspective.

In previous classes, we spent a lot of time talking about self-authorship, and the ability to see problems from several different perspectives, understand that no problem has one solution and can be seen from several different lenses, or even that there are “ill-structured” problems, problems with no binary or right and wrong answer. According to Jonassen (1997), "these problem types do not represent well-defined classifications, but rather represent a continuum from decontextualized problems with convergent solutions to very contextualized problems with multiple solutions" (p. 67).

I've come to believe that there are also “ill-structured people.” People, we want to understand and want to help come around, but it’s just not ever going to happen, particularly in the way that we hope. These derailers I’m dealing with will probably never come around, but by finding some small area of alignment I hope to limit the divisions they cause. When I read about the person you were dealing with I thought of this idea of “ill-structured people” and how they interact in teams. 

Reference

Jonassen, D. H. (1997). Instructional Design Models for Well-Structured and Ill-Structured Problem-Solving Learning Outcomes. Educational Technology Research and Development, 45(1), 65–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30220169

Ranger Leadership

I liked the passage in Haskin's essay where he states, "leaders matter less than we think. Most leaders - the evidence is quite clear on this - are pretty average. 

Replace one and an organization will soon resume its previous course" (Salas et al., 2013, p. 7).   In my organization, we build and develop custom CBT's for our members. For years we had a terrible narrator. We found great CBT content could be brought down by poor narration, and great narration could make poor CBT content better.  

For me, the untold part of this is that leaders, even great leaders, can't affect or overcome poor processes, nor influence too much beyond good, streamlined, and efficient processes. This tells me that a good process can overcome bad leadership and bad processes can undermine poor leadership.

A link I see in Buzachero's essay is the fact that there are layers of teams and team leaders that can help overcome poor processes or poor leadership. In my unit, we had three squads, with one weapons squad in a platoon, three platoons, and one weapons platoon per company. 

When planning platoon-level missions we always ensured a 3:1 ratio in terms of attacking manpower to a defending enemy force, but also we planned to have one team or platoon in reserve to bolster and take up the slack for unforeseen problems. The need for this reinforcement might be due to poor planning, poor execution, or even poor leadership. We knew which team leaders, squad leaders, and platoon leaders were weaker than others, even if we never would admit it.

Haskins brings up that leadership doesn't matter as much as process and procedure. Buzachero shows that successful healthcare organizations have teams that are mutually supporting and are tied together with a hierarchy or framework to help lead the organization. Neither of the authors tend to believe that leadership, even greatly charismatic leaders, are a necessity nor are poor leaders debilitating if you have good, solid processes and other teams and frameworks that can help when needed.

Reference

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (Eds.). (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines (Vol. 33). John Wiley & Sons.

Do Leaders Matter?

 Part 1 consists of six essays structured as case studies. What two essays are most relevant to you and why? And what essay did you find to have the least relevance and why?

I had high expectations for the six essays that began the Salas et al. (2013) book on developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations but found myself disappointed by the first, third, fifth, and sixth essays. The second essay, written by Haskins, Do Teams' Leaders really Matter, and the fourth essay on Making a Difference with Health Care Teams by Buzachero both resonated with me.

Having a background in the military, I saw myself in the experimental design that Haskins discusses having within the military; teams with similar types of soldiers, similar training, similar age, etc. I was a part of that cohort and saw first-hand what Haskins describes, how leaders would come and go within our team and little changed about our effectiveness but our morale was affected, especially by poor leadership. I also could identify the different leaders I had in the military and placed them on a bell curve and thought about the outliers specifically. There were a couple on the far end close to positive and it made me thankful for the opportunity to work with them. 

The essay by Buzachero on Making a Difference with Health Care Teams described a situation of leadership that is similar to what I experienced at my non-profit training organization. The Team of Equals he discusses is similar to our organization's board, then the command and control, our executive leadership, the small expert-dominated teams, and the teams with multi-faceted leaders and groups. All of these, including the co-management teams, are and can be found at our organization. So this seemed to have the most relevance to my work and understanding of the dynamics and groups we have in place.

The essay that had the least relevance was the fifth essay on Developing Leaders on Any Team written by George O'Leary. There are aspects of truth to his statement that "you can generally categorize everyone on your team into three groups: winners, losers and followers," (Salas et al., 2013, p. 18). What O'Leary doesn’t focus on is that leaders can emerge from any of these categories based on circumstances. In my own organization, we have developed leaders from the ranks of followers and changed losers into winners.

Reference

Salas, Eduardo, Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. P. (Eds.). (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines. John Wiley & Sons.

Failure is an Option

My classmate Nicole works at a college that supports and trains musicians and she brought up a difficulty they have in recruiting folks.

My son is currently in the orchestra at his school and it is my first experience in any way with orchestra and bands in general. You have described quite precisely what I see when I go to their concerts, and what he tells me. 

In the Army we had a "fall out two" drill where in the middle of an exercise the two leaders in an team were eliminated and the next team member would have to immediately step up and lead the team through the drill or exercise. It was a great opportunity to test up and coming leaders, keep them sharp and attuned, and keep everyone beneath that leader ready to take charge in case they were needed. It certainly proves that with good processes and procedures, teams can overcome whatever leadership challenge (good leader vs bad leader) they may encounter. 

Regarding Nicole, again I'll refer to my military background. Our regimental motto was "Sua Sponte" meaning "of their own accord." To our unit this meant that there was no need to wait for orders, but we should do what we thought was right in the absence of orders. We many times took this beyond that to "do what we think is right and explain it later." Any time we went off script and were challenged about it later, whether we were successful or even when we failed, the standard response to a question like "Why the heck did you do that?" was "Sua Sponte Sir." It acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card. 

It makes me think of a program I read about years ago (I wish I could find it) that discussed the promotion of project failure in silicon valley teams. Executives at software firms were concerned that their teams weren't thinking outside the box enough. They were insulating themselves from any failure to the point where they were afraid to try new things. These leaders instituted a program where teams had to have a certain number of failed projects a quarter in order to receive their full bonuses. 

Back to your challenge . . . I think we need more Sua Sponte attitude in our society. I know I've been reprimanded for going off script in my organization, but then I've also been lauded at different times. Being a great leader takes failure and learning from failure. 

One of the best features (I find) of those military exercises were always the AAR or after action review. Every exercise, good or bad, had an AAR where the focus was on what happened, what went right and what went wrong, and what could be done better next time. Looking at the oil refining industry I see something similar with our loss investigations, but I don't see it with enough projects to really allow and help change occur. I just completed a very large project and suggested that we do an AAR to discuss what could be done better next time and was told we needed to move forward on the next project. I think too often we don't do these AAR steps and it comes back to bite us in the future. 

I found this article (here (Links to an external site.)) which isn't the one I was remembering, but is close.

Silent Killers

In Part 2, Chapter 1, what are the similarities and differences between Michael Beer’s thesis and the thesis in one of the essays (your choice) in Part 1?

I enjoyed the essay by Haskins for this week's readings. Both led me to think more about my own leadership and where I might land on the bell curve he describes. Would I be an outlier? Hopefully, an outlier on the positive/good leader side and not on the negative/poor leader side of the curve. 

What I found interesting about the essay by Haskins and the chapter on Silent Killers of Team Performance by Beer Is that they have aspects where they describe the futility of team leaders in general of actually making substantial and significant differences for the team.

In Salas et al. (2013) Beer writes in Silent Killers of Team Performance when discussing Hackman, "the solution to team effectiveness problems is not coaching, the replacement of poor leaders with great leaders, or better communications as singular interventions" (p. 39). This is in line with what Haskins writes in his essay about a leader's abilities to positively affect a team. Haskins, writing in Salas et al. (2013) states, "leaders matter less than we think. Most leaders - the evidence is quite clear on this - are pretty average. Replace one and an organization will soon resume its previous course" (p. 7). He even goes on to state that other than in the case of morale, performance will for the most part not change for the team regardless of the leader.

In terms of differences, Beer states in Salas et al. (2013) that "process interventions, such as coaching and team development, training, and even changes in team leadership, will not succeed unless they are accompanied by changes in these six silent barriers" (p. 29). While Beer has a reliance on process improvements via his Strategic Fitness Process (SFP), Haskins seems to see leaders as replaceable parts that can tweak rather than lead through processes.

References

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S.J., Cohen, D., & Latham, G. (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based practices and recommendations. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9781118145890.

Learning Theory and Leadership Style

Of behaviorism, cognitivism, social learning theory, and constructivism, which theory or two best fits your leadership style?

When reading Allen's Adult Learning Theory and Leadership Development article the adult learning theory that most corresponded to my leadership style, I was surprised to find that both behaviorism and social learning theory fell most in line with the type of leader I tend to be. I have a tendency to believe in reinforcement as a key learning tool for influencing the transfer of knowledge with the learners that my organization supports, as well as in communication with my teams, which is something that Allen emphasizes as an aspect of behaviorism. Regarding social learning theory, Allen (2007) writes that "leadership is contextual; what works in one situation may not work in another" (p. 32).

Our leadership training and style in our organization are heavily influenced by Blanchard's Situational Leadership model. In the case of Situational Leadership, Blanchard promotes changing the leadership style to meet the needs of the employee. In their white paper Why a Situational Approach to Leadership Matters (n.d.), the Ken Blanchard company writes, "this leadership framework advocates that leaders change their leadership style depending on the situation and the person whom they are leading, and, as a result, this model puts leadership style flexibility at the top of the list for leadership effectiveness" (p. 3). We like using this as a framework for our leadership courses because it promotes flexibility, and adaptability and gives a framework for the growth of each team member regardless of experience or motivation, and thus for the growth of the team.  

There is also a degree of transformative learning within social learning theory according to Allen (2007) writes when referencing Hull, that "learners should be placed in situations that elicit anxiety so they have an incentive to learn and master a given topic or skill" (p. 29) and then later Allen (2007) again states that "when applied to leadership development, designers may incorporate activities that stretch the learners and remove them from their comfort zones (p. 29). Both of these are reminiscent of the disorienting dilemma that is the first step listed by Apte (2009) as a part of Mezirow's transformative learning framework (p. 171).

Much of the way my organization trains new leaders follows this framework, beginning with the disorienting dilemma, providing moments for self-reflection and self-examination, acting out and trying out new skills and roles. These are all aspects that we build into and developed as a part of our leadership training for the community we serve. I have found also that these are features of my leadership style as well. This same growth that we help instill in our learners, we naturally apply to our leadership style within the organization; pushing our managers and supervisors to adopt new roles, get out of their comfort zones, and reflect on who they are and how they're working leads to new growth for them and for the departments they serve. 

References

Allen, S. J. (2007). Adult learning theory and leadership development. Leadership Review, 7, 26-37. 

Apte, J. (2009). Facilitating Transformative Learning: A Framework for Practice. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 49(1). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ864437.pdf

Why a situational approach to leadership matters. (n.d.). Kenblanchard.Com. Retrieved May 10, 2022, from https://resources.kenblanchard.com/leadership-skills/why-a-situational-approach-to-leadership-matters

Transformative and Transformational Leadership

 My colleague and classmate Margie wrote about leadership the other day and we had a chance to chat about it. There were two things that came to mind when I read her post. The first is that transformative learning and how it "fosters a critical change in an individual's meaning structures."

We have been hosting leadership training for many years and across the board the students wrote reviews that expressed how fundamentally eye-opening and life-changing the training course was to them.

It was only after learning more about Mezirow's theories on transformative learning that I realized we had without trying to create the framework and structure needed to support a transformative learning moment for the learners. How many other courses are like this or how many other leaders do this without really knowing that they are?

Additionally, the second thing I think about is what you wrote about reflective journaling. In a recent class I took on Adult Learning and Adult Development with Dr. Fishback we were introduced to an Army Tradoc class by one of the developers. 

A class called Red Teaming. In this instance, it is a class that is in some ways designed as a series of exercises designed to help military leaders move closer toward self-authorship in their adult development journey. One of the first exercises is to start a "Red Team Journal" dedicated to self-authorship. I've been keeping this journal for months now and as a reflective learning practice can't be beaten. 

As with the above, where I plan to update our leadership training to include more on social capital, I am also going to be promoting more journaling. 

More on Leadership and Social Capital

 I wrote the other day about Social Capital and leadership (see HERE). I will follow it up with this entry. 

I find it interesting that social capital isn't linked to leadership more ubiquitously. When I read the article and considered it as a part of my own organization, I had an epiphany. Social capital is used as a part of leadership often in my world and in my organization. 

We are a non-profit, but the good graces, and social capital of our members. If we lose that we take a pretty bad turn in the negative direction. And I'm constantly seeing leaders with greater social capital try to bring others into fold and instill in them the same degree of power and moxie that they enjoy. Some sink, some swim, and some, as the article mentions, don't exercise their efforts enough and lose their social capital. We teach leadership to supervisors, crew leaders, managers, and more. 

We discuss the importance of communication, situational leadership, urgent vs important tasks, etc. But nowhere do we discuss, even in passing, the importance of social capital and how and why to use it. That needs to change.

Backyard is my Fave

I was talking to one of my managers the other day and found out that she and I both enjoy gardening. No, nothing too serious, but we were comparing weeds we deal with, design ideas etc. I'm a bit of a gardening enthusiast. 

Mostly, I'm the gardener in our family because my wife isn't. If it was left up to her, it would be grass to the fence line without a single bush, tree, or flower to change things ups. Maybe we can say she likes zero-scaping. We can say that to be nice. But really I think she just doesn't want to be bothered. 

Me, I don't mind the bother. I rather enjoy it. I like that we have place with a fire pit and pergola and pool. A place for shade and coffee or working outside. A place to cool off and hang. Or even to kick the soccer ball (I took down the ninja course last year). 

I like that we have so much variety and craziness in the backyard. I once ran along the levy and was able to look into the backyards of hundreds of our neighbors, and the best ones, . . . the ones with variety and ornamental yard art. So, that's what I've done in our backyard.

 There's a turtle, a butterfly house, several bird feeders of all types, wind chimes, clay pots of all sorts and sizes, and more. There's also a ton of variety in terms of the plants. Everywhere you look you see an explosion of different types of plants, plumbago, mint everywhere, rosemary, succulents all over the place, traveling jew, English ivy, agapanthus, elephant ears and variegated ginger, a huge butterfly bush, butterfly weed, eggplants and tomatoes and peppers, a huge fig tree and a half dozen crepe myrtles. But then, when you look closely, you see themes as well. I like that a lot. 

What I like the most is that there might be a burst of color or overwhelming growth, then next to it perfectly cut and shaped grass. It's one of my favorite places the backyard. I wrote a while back about how much I love my pool, this year, I think it's the backyard in general. 

Social Leadership and Capital

I'm reading a book on leadership and team leadership. I was asked to write about the strengths and weaknesses of a related article on Social Capital (SC) and leadership and how does it relate to adult learning theories and leader development?

Van De Valk's article on SC and Leadership and leadership development programs (LDP) is an interesting and unique take on the relationship between LDPs and SC. The relationship between SC and LDPs is not one that I have considered before, yet is one that I deal with daily. The instance on page 54 where Van De Valk (2008) writes that Human Capital is to Leader (Individual) as Social Capital is to Leadership (Group) made the pieces of what the author was trying to establish come together. 

However, when looking for weaknesses, there seemed to be a weak definition of leadership that was designed to fit the needs of the paper. Van De Valk writes, referencing Yukl, that "leadership is defined simply as an influence process" and then modifies that definition a sentence later to add a social aspect to the definition. This seems like a jump too far to make a definition fit the needs of the paper. 

The area of the paper that held the greatest interest for me was near the end when Van De Valk (2008) discusses how the "imbalance in the SC network tends to limit the development of new leadership pools" (p. 58). I work for a non-profit in an industrial contracting community. There is a wide variety of very powerful leaders represented within that community who are active participants within the organization. As Van De Valk states, those leaders that continue to work within and network with other leaders form cliques that are hard to break into. 

While those who are new leaders "come into an SC network, they are often the first to drop out" (Van De Valk, 2008, p. 58). What the author describes in this section is plain to see within our organization and is constantly forcing new leaders into the scrum, or forcing them out based on their ability to network and work within the social system. 

The second aspect of LDPs and SC that I found intriguing is the idea that the author brings up regarding the fact that if the LDP alumni are not actively working on and honing their skills then they risk losing the SC that they might have built up over time. 

This again makes me think of my own organization. One aspect our organization fosters is information exchange through gatherings, lunch and learns, breakfast meetings, lectures by subject matter experts (SME), and committee meetings to help advance safety and skills training initiatives and best practices. Those leaders who attend these meetings, banquets, cocktail parties, dinners, lunches, and golf outings are constantly building up their SC and improving their network connections. Those who do not risk being forgotten about. 

References

Van De Valk, L. J. (2008). Leadership development and social capital: Is there a relationship? Journalofleadershiped.Org. Retrieved June 22, 2022, from https://journalofleadershiped.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/7_1_Van_De_Valk.pdf

Holy Shit!

There are times when I say things at work where I know . . . I know! . . . that Julie and Tommy, and I'm pretty sure Russell and Paul think to themselves  . . . "uh, dude,  . . . you're full of shit. You're just using a bunch of big words to try and pretend to know what you're talking about."

Am I? Could be, but not really. 

I ran into my own "uh, dude, . . . you're full of shit" moment. 

We had a PhD student come in and talk to us about their own dissertation defense and her own Vee Diagram (see mine in the image above). She used her Vee diagram as the basis of her defense. There was more to it, but the first page of the presentation was just that Vee diagram. 

When I saw it (and I asked her to send it to me so I can see it) I tried to get process it, and I could tell immediately I was in for a doozey. Basically, her dissertation was a qualitative review of K-2 Kansas Education Dept policies to determine if there was perceived culturally responsive language to support social justice education for teachers. 

So, a couple of questions:

• How does this have anything to do with Adult Learning?
• Why do I want my K-2 teachers to teach culturally responsive social justice education?
• How can you judge these values and if they are in the policies?

Ugh . . . I know how Tommy and Julie feel!

Problems with Ducks

 Anyone who reads this blog knows I have a problem with ducks. 

I have a long history with ducks, none of it good. And it keeps getting worse. I don’t know which I dislike more, ducks or squirrels. Kinda a toss up really. 

Concept Mapping

Concept mapping is fun, . . . especially if you have Bubbl.us!

We were asked to try some concept mapping. Even the professor admitted that I was at the run stage of concept mapping. Mine, for my proposed dissertation on VR and Emotion, is above. The one that I used for our "entrance assignment" for our Kansas Residency Class is below. 

I'm a tad stunned by this. I find them easy and fun and they help form relationships. But for others in the class it was tough. Not here. 

Keep it between us, but I'm a tad unimpressed with some of my classmates. My study buddies, Will, Anne, and Andrew are bad asses, but there are a few who I think are stuggling, and I'm a tad stunned by that. Why? Cause we've been workiong on this stuff for years now. Some of these folks should be further along. 

Ethics and Digital Innovations

Scenario: A Hard Ethical Decision to Make

A&K Milling Co. is a family-owned grain milling company located in West Kansas. Though not a large company, A&K has been offering job opportunities with decent pay to people living in the surrounding areas for over 80 years. The owner attributes the success of the company to having loyal employees because most employees have worked for the company for many years and have developed strong bond with the company. Due to increased national competition, A&K leadership team has recently decided to launch a digital transformation (Dx) plan in the next 12 months by investing in modern technologies to help increase flour production. If this Dx plan is executed, it is estimated that about 500 skilled workers will lose their jobs and it’s not easy for them to find another job quickly that matches their skills and pay. Taking care of their employees is deeply embedded in the company’s culture but the company has to go digital if to survive. Tonny, as the company’s HR director responsible for training new employees and providing continued education to existing employees, is charged to look into different ways to minimize the Dx’s impact on these 500 skilled workers.

Examine the scenario below and list one or two ethical issues that you see may arise after A&K launches their Dx plan. Apply one of the ethical analysis frameworks/approaches discussed this week to rationalize your concern and offer an ethically sound solution.

A&K faces a challenge of modernization. On the one hand, what has made them the company that they are is their processes, procedures, their workforce and their culture. They are faced with a challenged of adopting a potentially more proficient process or procedure at the risk of undermining their culture and losing their workforce. This does not however mean that they should sacrifice the digital transformation for the sake of maintaining their culture and staff. 

Culture isn’t just about the staff and the employees, but rather is a way of being and working. The culture of the company, regardless of the processes and procedures or even the workforce is a part of the leadership, the social connections with the surrounding environment, the benefits, the talents of the company, not just the number of personnel who might be a part of the company. Additionally, there is the sacrifice that A&K might be making if they do NOT move forward with a digital transformation. There is the risk that their competitors will gain market share and overtake their place in the market, or that by not transforming they could be left behind. 

Blockbuster video store is a perfect example for what might happen to a company if they do not follow a path toward greater digital transformation or keeping up with technological changes. With a huge member list, an extremely young well known name, and a dominant place in their market, they were perfectly suited to offer their members a streaming platform that could have rivaled Netflix, or they could have found a way to merge with Netflix (Sloan, 2020). Instead Netflix found ways to move from movies through the mail to streaming and Blockbuster is gone. A&K could face the same challenge. 

Technology has been a bogeyman regarding employees for many years, but technology innovation and digital transformation should instead be seen as a way to allow employees to find and do more, rather than a potential employee killer. Elevator operators no longer stand in elevators because of the innovation of push-button operation. The pony express is no longer riding mail across the west. Employees, just like organizations, have been forced to be more adaptable. Instead of slogging through a first-time, minimum wage job, employees can now begin with jobs where technology is king and work from a starting point that is more advantageous than employees before (Heater, 2017). Now, although we’ve lost switchboard operators and elevator operators we’ve gained IT administrators and social media influencers.

Tonny who is in charge of the HR aspect of this digital transformation might want to think about re-skilling some of the potentially affected employees into roles that will help the organization continue to grow and sell their products. Generally, I have found, that dedicated employees, especially those who come from organizations with a stable and deep, positive culture become wonderful brand ambassadors and can be involved in many more aspects of the company. We’ve all heard the adage: hire for attitude, not skill, and here Tonny has a pool of employees with a history with the organization, positive attitude and the opportunity to be retrained with skills that could help the organization in the future. If the new digital transformation yield more work, then these workers will be needed. 

References

  

Heater, B. (2017, March 26). Technology is killing jobs, and only technology can save them. TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/26/technology-is-killing-jobs-and-only-technology-can-save-them/

 

Sloan, M. (2020, June 1). Netflix vs blockbuster - the official case study. Drift. https://www.drift.com/blog/netflix-vs-blockbuster/

Yet ANOTHER on our Homeschooling Project

My colleague discussed my homeschooling project. He wrote about much of our project is designed around SC-F-COP (social media fueled community of practice). 

He hit on an exact aspect of our plan that I think would be very worthwhile for homeschool parents. Right now, I have a neighbor who homeschools their children and they have to be a part of a church, a part of other community groups, in order to have their children play sports and socialize with other kiddos. These same aspects are "baked in" to the traditional school dynamic. 

What we want to inspire is a place with other homeschoolers to go and find that some aspect of a community. I think our KSU community, Canvas, is a great example. I have had several classes with you and many many interactions here via Canvas. We have never met but I betcha if I reached out with a specific question you'd be quick to answer. 

We have created a community in Canvas of our learning cohort going through these classes. Why not inspire and create the same thing on purpose for Homeschoolers. This may already exist, but the (rather informal) poll we took to begin our work showed that none of the homeschool parents we talked to had this capability specifically for homeschooling. Some used Facebook groups, or other groups, but there was no group specifically for, moderated for, or geared toward homeschooler specifically. 

Furthering the Homeschool Project Idea

I heard from the professor about our homeschool project (see HERE). It's a great idea. I wonder if I should develop this sucker further and try and find some funding to help move it forward into reality. 

Dr. K brought up Social Media Fueled Communities of Practice (SM-F-COP). I really liked what he wrote about SM-F-COPs, and he knows about my challenges I have faced in creating those in the past. Another student brought up a great point in her post about having synchronous and asynchronous aspects of our community that help spur interest and to move subjects in a positive direction. 

I think that saying "here you go, have at it" is not a worthwhile plan of attack. There may be some people out there who will take up the baton and run with it, but many more, based on my experience with SM-F-COPs it will take moderation and content. One thing that we should include is worthwhile content that the users can view, use, discuss and build off of. 

Much like you have done by providing books, content, moderation, and a building ground for our work here in Canvas. Some of the thoughts that Catherine inspired in her post was the idea of having homeschooling experts on to help parents, or have kids who have been homeschooled in the past help homeschool kids through the community. This might be enough to help move the COP into something that is self-propelled in the long run. 

Just as we want to provide a community page for interaction for parents and for students, much like our discussion sites in my classes. I can imagine a series of pre-recorded videos that parents can access, as well as live sessions that parents can log into as well. Just as we as students like to come to canvas to discuss and interact with others, we also hear from Dr. K, and in some classes have set aside time for live meetings. 

We should offer the same . . . I can see "talk with experts" from different states, or "hear from someone who's done it" and also guest speakers who are teachers who can help home school parents become better teachers. 

We can also do the same for kiddos and students. We could host pre-recorded sessions with kids who have been through homeschool and gotten the most out of it, we could have guest speakers and live events to help bring home school kiddos together. I really like that you've challenged us in this regard and if we have a version 2 of this innovation it would definitely include a component like this.