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Collaboration is the Key!

Posted on August 2, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

Research evidence supports collaborative environments and points to improvements in organizational climate, better understanding of organizational goals and expectations, greater individual and leader accountability, lower turnover, and higher retention of leader candidates.

There is a caveat, however, in that while the collaborative functioning of an integrated team is most optimal during an organizational crisis, it is usually at this time that conflict is brought on by various factors, including, and most significantly, behavioural dysfunction among team members demonstrated by low trust, communication lapses, lack of accountability, and competing personal agendas.

Anyone can put together a working group and call it a team, but it takes an influential leader to be able to create and sustain a highly functional integrated team. Sustaining such a team requires the leader to provide guidance and needed resources and then, get out of the way and stay out of the way.

‘Influential’ leaders know that micromanagement won’t work.   They lead by influence and they know they need to focus on forming teams whose members have behavioural competencies, including interpersonal skills, that enhance the team members’ financial, operational, clinical, and human resources, knowledge and abilities – the behaviour competencies of collaboration.  Technical competence is necessary to performance but without behaviour competence, performance will stagnate.

The good news is, behaviour change is essential to performance and, behaviour change is something you have absolute control over to develop the competencies of collaborative behaviour.  Behaviour change can be difficult, however, learning the skill of Positive Presence is an excellent way to acquire the self-awareness, techniques, and exercises that will create the necessary thought habits for behaviour change.

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The 3-C’s of Connection

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

Collaboration, Communication and Cooperation – these are the 3-C’s of Connection.

Mastering connection within today’s integrated teams does not just happen – but it is necessary for high performance and success. Collaboration plays a key role in connection and is also a necessary element in integrated teams. Collaboration means bringing the skills of improved communication and cooperative attitudes together in integrated teams to improve safety and quality outcomes, and ultimately performance, of your organization.

So, what is an integrated team? An integrated team is a group composed of people with different areas of expertise and knowledge. Members of this team must function in harmony, contributing their respective technical and behaviour skills toward the completion of a task or the accomplishment of a goal. This team follows what the professional literature calls an integrated systems approach whereby the work is interconnected and the members are interdependent, …so low performance in one segment of the system does not have disastrous effects on the performance of the entire system.

We’ve all heard throughout our lives the importance and value of teamwork. Even as children, on sports teams and in school, we have consistently been influenced by the concept of teamwork. So how do we take these long held beliefs that teamwork is more effective in driving performance and apply it to the workplace? Is it really possible to bring teamwork to an environment of integrated teams where our role and the role of others are viewed as being independent of the goals, objectives, and mission of the organization? Especially, when we are living in an era where relationships are still evolving from a culture of competition to one of collaboration?

The answer is, we create high-performing integrated teams wherein relationships are fluidly connected through collaboration, by implementing the skill sets of improved communication and a cooperative attitude. Remember that we rarely get the relationships we wish for, but we do get the relationships we work for.

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Is Technical Competence Enough?

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

“Is it not enough that I am good at my job?” The simple and short answer to this question is, “no!” In 1627, English poet, John Donne, wrote that “no man is an island unto himself.” No matter where we are in our given profession, we are not islands unto ourselves.

We must learn that to become successful and influential leaders and create peak performing organizations, we must first adhere to the belief that simply just being good at our jobs isn’t enough today to make us successful let alone sustainable.

“Tyranny of the technical” is an expression that describes this mistaken belief in expert performance versus cooperative team performance. Evidence shows that when we become overly competent at “the doing” of our job, we often become incompetent at the ability to interact with others around us, which ultimately can stifle growth and development and lead to the creation of hostile work environments. When our behaviour lapses into “technical tyranny”, we repel those we need to work with in a productive way, and we create dysfunctional teams that inhibit organizational performance. Collaboration and connection are the “new competition” and the competitive edge to performance. It is imperative that we learn to avoid relying and depending upon the ability of any one person to simply “do my job.” We must begin to trust in and place value on the ability to connect, cooperate, and work positively and harmoniously with other people.

Some surveys show that as many as half of American workers feel low levels of work engagement stemming in part from poor leadership. If any one person, regardless of technical ability, cannot connect and cooperate with others, their technical expertise will not advance the goals and objectives of the team.

In virtually every organization one person is universally regarded as detrimental to the mission, vision, values, and strategies of the enterprise. This is the person whom others would like to fire had they the authority to do so. No organization needs a team member like this. And, it is up to leaders to ensure that these people either learn to be team players, or got off the team.

Remember, no organization can become what its people are not; if employees are mediocre, the organization will be mediocre. If an employee exhibits toxic behaviour, the organization will exhibit toxic behaviour. No aspect of this scenario can be good for the overall performance of any organization.

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What is Meaningful Connection?

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

Connection increases a leader’s influence among followers, and this influence in turn spurs followers to do more: improve their behaviour, develop their skills and talents, work better and harder, seek and participate in collaborations or teams, and achieve greater results.

In our economic climate, where every aspect of our professional life seems vulnerable and in a state of flux, a strong connection between leaders and employees is especially necessary. This bond enables the organization to rise above its challenges.

The most important concept to understand is that you cannot lead without connecting. If your leadership is all about targets, efficiencies, and execution, you will not attain successful outcomes. Your employees must first feel inspired, engaged, and connected before they give you their best work. Without a connection with you, your staff will still work, but not as well as needed or desired.

Connection reality is a distinguishing factor in your leadership strategy. The good news, like all effective leadership behaviours, is that making and sustaining connections can be learned, because connection is a behaviour-based skill.

All that is necessary is for you to change your thinking about why you want to be a leader! What is it you need to do to make a powerful, positive emotional connection with your team members? How are you going to change? Individual leader behaviour is the single most important predictor of organizational performance. You have control over your own mind and your own thoughts. You have the power to choose meaningful connection with your followers. You have the power to change and take yourself, your team, and your organization to higher levels of performance excellence.

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How Important is Connection?

Posted on July 5, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

As John Maxwell wrote “Everyone communicates. Few connect. It’s difficult to connect with people while pursuing your own selfish agenda. By nature, connecting is a giving experience.” Connection is the strategy of successful leaders. Connection is the linkage among people who share a similarity, such as the same friends and associates, interests and concerns, careers, status in life, employers and so on.

Living in and through the pandemic wherein communication via social media and technological devices was the only way to communicate and connect has made us appreciate the value of direct contact more than ever in the past. Direct contact cannot be replaced or underestimated; it is what builds and strengthens connections. People still want and need to establish relationships, particularly in the workplace, to define or confirm their personal and professional identity and worth. Other people serve as our teachers and students, and having a face-to-face connection helps us grow as human beings. This is validated by what is known as the Hawthorne Effect.

The Hawthorne Effect is a behavioural phenomenon discovered by Harvard Business School professors who were conducting environmental factors research from 1927 to 1932 at the Hawthorne Works plant of Western Electric. The professors found that the workers’ performance and productivity improved, regardless of the workplace manipulations the researchers introduced. This finding suggests that the presence of the researchers and their close scrutiny, motivated the workers to work faster and better. Although the scientific basis of this research has been challenged, the evidence at first glance suggests that people do their best when they are aware of leaders’ attention to their work and the positive emotional connection they make to their leadership. More recent research has confirmed that a positive and strength-giving connection to one’s leader does in fact improve overall employee performance.

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The Brain/Behaviour Connection

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius, Joint 16th Emperor of the Roman Empire.

In his book, Get Out of Your Own Way: The Five Keys to Surpassing Everyone’s Expectations, Dr. Robert Cooper argues that a number of interests compete for our brain’s attention. This competition and the tension it creates are the reason we have a hard time recognizing our own mental patterns and changing our behaviour. Interestingly, these competing interests are inextricably tied to the level of performance we will have in our careers.

Some research has indicated that the human brain can be too busy processing information to carefully categorize incoming thoughts and behaviours into functional versus dysfunctional, and productive versus unproductive, categories. There is also evidence that a mis-alignment in thinking, goals, and motivation also creates an opportunity for under performance as well.   Our thought habits do in fact drive our behaviour, so when you are seeing dysfunctional and unproductive behaviours, it is nine times out of ten, a case of inappropriate thought habits and lack of individual self-awareness that is in play.

This connection between our brain and our behaviour explains the process of being on autopilot: The brain makes a one-time choice of behaviour and then continues the choice for a long time, allowing the brain to avoid having to reflect on, or consider, any other alternatives (almost always due to a lack of self-awareness).   Being on autopilot is a common approach to a time-limited life. When we operate on autopilot, we abdicate personal accountability for our choices, our actions, and their consequences. Worse, it gives us a false sense of reality: that we have no control over our performance, processes, or outcomes.

Simply stated, being on autopilot takes away our own personal wilful choice. This perception of reality then becomes part of our mental model, discouraging us from taking risks, exploring possibilities, or being innovative. In this sense, we are stuck, unable to break away from the rigid, false structure our brain has created.

If your desire is to achieve performance excellence you must take your brain off autopilot.  You must choose to be intentional and purposeful about aligning your goals and actions with the desired outcome you expect to achieve.  Learning the skill of Positive Presence is an excellent way to acquire the self-awareness, techniques, and exercises that will create the necessary thought habits for performance excellence.  One simple way is to set your goals, visualize your goals, and then create the necessary thought habits that are needed to achieve your goals – anything is possible!

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Adaptability – Resiliency to Respond to Changing Events

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

Developing a strategy for ‘Connection’ can have enormous influence on the way your people think and connect and plays an important role in fundamental transformation of any businesses culture and work environment. There are three behaviour-based concepts that must be adopted and learned in order to successfully transform connection: attentiveness (focus on others), alertness (emotional sensitivity of others), and adaptability (resiliency to respond to changing events). There is no one of these more important than the other, but the most difficult for most is adaptability – resiliency to respond to changing events.

Adaptability is the capacity to effectively adjust to situations. Adaptable leaders are flexible, quick thinkers and learners, and are highly versatile. They do not get stuck on a method or an approach that does not work, preferring instead to be proactive and resourceful in finding alternatives. Adaptability is an indispensable prerequisite to building connections.

In everyday situations, being adaptable means relating to others according to their behavioural style. Specifically, leaders must learn to adjust their communication according to the preference of the other person – for example, 1) a person likes to converse by email rather than face to face, or 2) a person appreciates receiving background information rather than just main points.

Your success as a leader is inextricably linked to your ability to connect with people. You can connect with followers in a number of ways, but all of the approaches must be characterized by trust and compassion. Experiences or interactions that are more focused on tasks than on people will be perceived negatively. These negative experiences accumulate and ultimately erode your connection. Positive experiences, on the other hand, increase your influence and enable you to sustain connection.

In sum, creating and sustaining positive connections with people, much like developing self-awareness, is a deliberate and willful act. It requires a change in behaviour and self-examination of what you want to accomplish with the connections you forge. Whether you desire less interpersonal conflict, better performance, fewer miscommunications, greater productivity, fewer turf battles, or higher employee engagement, you must learn and apply the behaviour skill of making highly positive emotional connections with other people. You can achieve tangible outcomes in performance through the power of creating and sustaining intangible connections.

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Alertness – Emotional Sensitivity to Others

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

There are three behaviour-based concepts that must be adopted and learned in order to successfully transform a culture to one of connection: attentiveness (focus on others), alertness (emotional sensitivity to others), and adaptability (resiliency to respond to changing events). There is no one of these more important than the other, but the one least talked about is probably alertness – emotional sensitivity to others.

Trust, compassion, stability, and hope are found by research to be the four legitimate needs of employees. Sensitivity is an interwoven thread connecting all of these factors. Sensitivity is the common decency shared by human beings. It is what enables us, regardless of our differing spiritual views and political affiliations, to sympathize and empathize with those who suffer misfortunes, and/or to become appropriately angry and indignant about cruelty and injustice. It is a critical skill required of leaders to connect with their team members.

Sensitivity is a tricky behaviour to master, because it is necessary in all of our interactions with other people. It presents itself in major moral concerns and in minor decisions. Insensitivity is so much easier to commit – sometimes you are being insensitive and do not even realize it. Consider the following story as an example.

A friend of mine always conducted exit interviews on Friday afternoons, because the office would be almost empty then and he wanted to show respect for these employees and provide them with a dignified way of collecting their things without the stares and whispers of other employees. Termination of an employee is a difficult experience for everyone involved. One Friday morning he sent word to one of the staff nurses to come to his office in the afternoon. Later that afternoon, as soon as his staff nurse reached his office door she began to sob. In the midst of her tears, she sputtered questions about why she was being fired. She was scared, and my friend was horrified for having made her feel that way. When my friend realized that it was Friday afternoon, in his office, and people associated that scenario with being fired, he immediately explained to his nurse the reason for “summoning” her to his office.

He showed the nurse a wonderful letter he had received from a patient who was very pleased with her kindness and professionalism. My friend complimented her and encouraged her to continue her exceptional work so that others could emulate her. She was relieved, and he was apologetic for causing her so much fear and anxiety throughout the day. He realized he had already created a negative experience with this nurse before she sat down in his office. He could not imagine how much of her fear she shared with her other colleagues and how distracted they all were. My friend did his best to ensure that their actual interaction turned her perception around.

The lesson in this true story is – your team members experience you in your behaviour. Be aware of your daily habits and decisions, as they could inadvertently create conditions that are insensitive to others and damaging to connection.

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Attentiveness – Focus on Others

Posted on June 7, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

Developing a strategy for ‘Connection’ can have enormous influence on the way your people think and connect, and plays an important role in fundamental transformation of any businesses culture and work environment. There are three behaviour-based concepts that must be adopted and learned in order to successfully transform connection: attentiveness (focus on others), alertness (emotional sensitivity to others), and adaptability (resiliency to respond to changing events).

There is no one of these more important than the other, but the easiest to achieve is probably ‘Attentiveness – focus on others. Many leaders are so task focused that they forget to be people focused. They forget that they rely on others to get the work done, and if those “others” are unhappy, unmotivated, and disengaged from their leaders, the quality of their work declines.

Some leaders even go so far as to acknowledge the need and value of attentiveness, but say tasks must come first in order to meet team or corporate level goals and objectives. This is a major cop-out of their true purpose. It is no wonder that a task-focused leader has employees who show up to work, only to earn a paycheck.

Employees who have a strong work ethic and like their job will put as much of their heart and soul into their activities as they can, for as long as they can. We would consider these people “ideal employees.” Eventually though, their lack of connection with the leader will negatively affect their morale and motivation. When this happens, it is very likely these high performers will leave your organization.

Employees who are below average performers fare even worse in this scenario. Under a task-focused leader, these employees never have a chance to learn new skills or develop their talents. Their poor attitude will worsen and poison the attitude of their co-workers. Worst-case scenario you keep these low performers in your organization. Most of them will compel you to fire them. However, by the time you do eventually fire them, you have given them ample time to poison the work environment and take others down with them.

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People First – The Strategy

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Catherine Osborne

You may be familiar with what is referred to as ‘Lean philosophy’. The lean philosophy seeks to eliminate wasteful practices and increase value-producing practices and, began in the manufacturing industry. It was Toyota that really took the philosophy to heart and in doing so gained an outstanding reputation with the “Toyota Way”. The “Toyota Way” has two key components – the people and the process. In the “Toyota Way” the emphasis is on people first. So, being focused on others means paying attention to their needs, finding out what they want, minimizing or fully avoiding negative interactions, viewing them as equals, not looking down on them, and sharing meaningful experiences with them.

We have to remember that our people accomplish the goals within our organizations, not the strategy. We must also remember that people are not robots that can be programmed with processes and strategy to perform. To achieve the level of performance so many organizations desire, leaders have to be engaged with their people. This engagement process begins when the leader chooses to willingly establish powerful and positive emotional connections with the people of the organization.

There are four key principles of ‘People Frist’:
1. People are not disposable and replaceable resources. If you think of your employees as merely a means to an end, you will not make an effort to connect with them.
2. People need leaders and managers. “Leadership” connotes guidance and forward movement. “Management,” on the other hand, implies control. Which word motivates you more?
3. Success is achieved by people, not by best practices and tools. The quality of your connections with people dictates the quality of the results they will achieve.
4. People – regardless of job title, salary, education, and skills – have the same needs, wants, and expectations from the workplace and from other people. A superiority mind-set is divisive and presents a barrier to performance excellence.

These core ‘people first’ principles can have enormous influence on the way your people think and connect and play an important role in fundamental transformation of any businesses culture and work environment.

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