Inside JLC: Purpose, Roles & Responsibilities

Foreign.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. This is a podcast that Colleen will set the stage for in just a moment. And it comes from a series of conversations we've had with our clients. And as you know, we have clients in multiple sectors. All of the clients that we've been working with lately have asked for help in a couple of specific areas, and she'll lay those out for us. And I think you're going to really enjoy this. And remember, you can always find us on, you know, www.gojoc.com. this podcast that you're watching right now will appear there very shortly and others that are related to this particular kind of topic or seed. And with that said, I will turn this over to Colleen. Colleen, what are we doing here today?

You know, really good question. So we're here with Kathy and Ray and myself, and today, really, as Ray mentioned, this is a pattern of recent conversations that has surfaced with some of the clients that we're working with. And many times people are. Are querying, why is it. I feel like we're busy doing, working and we're not accomplishing anything. And so today, what we'd like to go ahead and chat a little bit about is how can we be more effective and efficient in really collaborating more effectively by developing a common understanding and clarifying our purpose? So that's one of the pieces that we're going to do today. And the second piece is how do roles and responsibilities fit in as we're really thinking about being as efficient and effective in our collaborative efforts as possible. So our hope is at the end of this that you'll walk away with one or two things that you will be able to implement with the teams you lead that will really help you be more aligned and efficient in achieving the desired results. So I'm going to pause and I guess I'll turn it over and say, Kathy, kind of, what are you hearing and what are you thinking as far as our conversation this afternoon?

I'm hearing the purpose of our podcast today is how to be more effective and efficient in meetings and how to make the most of them by just having common understanding and defining roles and responsibilities. And hopefully the takeaway at the end of this is having tools for implementation.

Yeah, nicely stated. And I think each one of you probably listening to this are thinking about all the meetings that you sit in. I mean, we sit in meetings all the time. And I believe. What are the statistics, Ray? I believe it's like 90% of the people walk out of a meeting and they're like, okay, well, what am I supposed to do? And what was the purpose of that? So how can we really use meetings as a way to continue to clarify and be consistent around the purpose of what it is we're trying to achieve collectively, as well as continuing to refine our roles and responsibilities? So I have an understanding who's doing what and what do I need to do to be most effective. So thank you, Kathy. I appreciate that. Ray, did. Didn't you hear anything different or anything more?

No, not really. Just a bunch of phrases popped in my mind. Another 60 minutes gone. And how am I going to get my work done? Because I'm in this meeting, which I don't want to be in, and it's not going the way I thought it would. So how do I actually create an opportunity for this meeting to be useful and successful? So with that said, I think it's fairly clear to me that we have something that. Colleen, I know you have taught many times that if we don't know any better, we lead with structure rather than purpose. And it's not surprising that we do because we hire people for certain roles. I need a special ed teacher. I need a nurse. I need an rn, I need a pa, I need a sales leader. I need a financial person. So when we go through the process of hiring, we actually are leading with structure. And one of the most impactful onboarding efforts I've ever seen is when a new set of people were in the room. The leader said, here is our fundamental purpose. Our purpose is to enable this group of people to feel completely admired, appreciated, and given the resources necessary to get their jobs done. That's our purpose. Each of you has something special to do to add to that purpose. And each of you will have your own personal vision of success to match the larger purpose. It is probably one of the most important things to do is to connect that human being that just came into a role with the larger purpose of what it is that this particular system or subsystem is attempting to accomplish. If we don't do that, they just quickly go to work and say, well, I am this, so therefore, I should be doing that. And yes, you should. I'm not saying you shouldn't. The question is, as I do this work, how does it relate to the larger objective or purpose of my particular system that I'm having the enjoyment and privilege of serving? So, Colleen, what are you hearing about that?

What I'm hearing is the importance of developing a complete operational picture. Right. I've got to see the bigger picture. And then also the other piece of that really is ensuring that each person sees how their day to day fits in and supports that complete operational picture and that vision of success of what it is we're trying to accomplish. Otherwise, if I don't understand that I'm a good worker, I want to do my very best. So I'm going to do what I think is what you want me to do. I don't know because I'm missing the bigger picture, but I'm going to get busy doing working and hope that it's what is going to be what you want me to do because I'm unsure. So how can we make sure people are locked in?

Well, you just added another really important component to this. The most successful teams function as co owners of the project. And the only time that happens is when it's an adult to adult conversation. If we're really worried about what you want me to do, that's a problem. I would never tell anybody what to do. I will explain to them what is the purpose of the system and what are the goals that we're trying to accomplish in the system and then ask in the, in the most sincerest way, what can you do on a day to day basis to enable the accomplishment of these goals? That's a very different conversation than saying what does Ray want me to do or what does the boss want me to do? Because we have in that conversation you shift into a very old transactional analysis method. The parent is telling the child what to do rather than the adult is in conversation about how to co create what the future could look like with both of their efforts, not just one of their efforts. And as a leader, we all know this, leaders are supposed to broker the necessary resources to enable the team deemed to be successful and certainly the individual. Kathy, are you hearing something more and or different or is this resonating okay with you?

Yes, it is. And that was a really good point about the co ownership of the project because if you don't have that, you're missing the mutual understanding and just having it on a level of, you know, professional to professional versus, you know, higher up to subordinate it. Things are lost in translation there. So the co ownership piece was. It really hit me there. Good one.

It resonates with me too. And Colleen talked a little bit about the opportunity to create this picture of success in every meeting. So for example, Colleen and I coach people all the time, have a Monday morning meeting and a Friday lunchtime meeting to talk about the week's work and in those meetings, they should always begin with the complete operational picture as Colleen has described, and the purposes that are trying to be accomplished for that week. That way, anything that I'm doing is connected to that particular purpose in my life as a formal leader. I was very confused by that early on. I had my legal pad and I was pre technology at that time, so I had to write everything down on a big old legal pad of everything I was going to do today. And I would go through my to do list and when it was done, good, if it wasn't done, I'd go home, have a beer and come back and try again tomorrow. So it was all about getting through a to do list. Later in my career, I had a wonderful mentor say to me, anything and everything you do all day long is related to some larger objective or project that you're trying to accomplish. That was really very powerful for me because otherwise I would go to work and just start doing stuff. Even today, I invite people. Don't start doing stuff when you get to work, walk around, go visit with people, see how their week is going. Are they accomplishing the things they agreed upon? See in that Monday meeting, that's when you set the stage for the week. What are you working on this week? How can I help you? Do you need resources? And what do you think it's going to look like if you successfully accomplish the week's work? That gives you an obvious opportunity to have what Colleen coined this phrase for us everyday leadership conversations where anytime you're talking to anybody, it is and holds the potential of a leadership conversation. So I think those are really important. That Monday, Friday game, knowing what people are up to and in constant conversation about how are you doing? You need anything? Is everything going well? You know, oh, I got a sick kid at home. I don't know if I'm going to make it into work tomorrow. Understand that. Is there anything I can do in the meantime to enable you to accomplish what you promised on Monday? These little things are really powerful in the context of developing and sustaining high quality relationships, which is the end all and be all of this work. The greater the quality of the relationship, the greater the results. We know what the literature tells us. That's just, that's the case. We sometimes forget and get lost in the sauce as we're trying to get our week through. So. More. More. Colleen, how am I doing on. On explaining this particular piece that you set up?

Yeah, I really like that. I really think that that sense of being very intentional to create this consistency of purpose in the meetings. And the other piece that I think you're modeling beautifully is you're asking these generative types of questions where people can get their voices in the meeting. If I don't create an opportunity as the meeting leader for me to really understand everybody's thinking, I'm not going to be able to hear how they see themselves and how they fit in into the bigger picture. I'm going to miss out on opportunities to summarize and help clarify if things need to be clarified. Because if I'm just running the meeting and I'm disseminating and pushing out information without using every meeting as an opportunity to learn, to learn about where people see themselves, where they might be having challenges, where I, as the meeting leader or the project leader, need to help refine their understanding of their day to day or even their roles and responsibilities. Because when that gets murky and cloudy, I wish, you know, then people, they're doing what they think they ought to be doing, but they're not sure. And I was talking to Kathy about this because she's a swimmer as well. And it just reminds me this, of this picture that comes, that comes up for me is, you know, you're thinking about you want to train for the Olympics and swimming, maybe you want to do a, you know, a 400 free. Well, if everybody was just in the pool all at once, swimming wherever they wanted, it would be really, really difficult for you to dive in and for you to be able to train for the 400 free. Because I need my lane and I need everyone else in the pool to understand my intention and purpose so then they can leave me in my lane so I can then practice and work towards that Olympic goal that I'm trying to achieve. So many times I think about when there's lack of clarity in some of these roles and responsibilities, people are just swimming all over and it's really ineffective because people don't have an understanding. I might have a complete operational picture, but I need those conversations so I can understand how I fit in and how I might enhance the, the quality of the effort of the team.

So, swimmer Kathy, what are you hearing and thinking?

I'm hearing a lot of, of really important words that come back to building those quality relationships that invite, invite the people in, the people in the meeting, in my case the people in the classroom, invite them in, have the quality relationship. And how do we do that? By keeping that conversation going and creating that common understanding so that progress can be made so that everyone's on board.

That's What I'm hearing, I'm liking that a lot. And this, the sensibility that everyone is, you know, we're all in the pool together. I get it. The distinction that you just made, Kathy and Colleen also produced, which I think is important, is that you might be training for a 400 meter. Somebody else might be wanting to achieve their personal vision of success in the backstroke or breaststroke or combination, whatever that medley is that people love to do. So if we don't understand the other folks, pictures of personal professional success will get in their way and not even know it. And to Colleen's point, this comes through conversation. And you know how much I love the learning, organization work and the people, the people that taught me there. We really need to understand what each person personal professional vision of success is or I will inadvertently get in their way. And it wasn't bad and mal intentioned at all. I just got in their way because I didn't know. And the only way I know is through the discipline of conversational leadership in a meeting I can know what each person on this team, we have four people in the meeting. By the time that Monday morning meeting ends, I'll know where each person is going for that week and I actually would be able to support them in accomplishing what they want. I might even see something because they told me what they were trying to accomplish that could assist them. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't know it if we didn't have that Monday morning conversation. So this is really a critical component in the development of effective teams. And as you know, we've all become really interested in leading teams of teams. We love that idea because there's teams everywhere. How do we enable those teams to be successful so well, well done, Colleen. You did a great job with this. Are we missing anything in this right now?

So one thing that surfaced, Ray, when you were mentioning you're leading the the team and you're understanding their personal vision of success and how best to support the other piece that I think you implied as well that I just wanted to make sure that we pull forward for our listeners is and guess what, everybody on the team hears it too. So now I can support everyone else. So that is talking about being in a team of teams. I'm operating as an individual. If I'm not sharing what I'm working on, where my challenges are, some of my successes, if I don't verbalize those, if the meeting leader doesn't give me the space, everyone else is still working in an individual way. You want to step into a team environment that's truly collaborative. You've got to create that space not only for the leader to hear those pieces, but for the team mates to hear those as well. So then we can work collaboratively together supporting each other. I think that's a huge piece in this team of teams work.

So the way we close these out, Kathy, is and Colleen, I love that sense of team to team. So where we close out our podcast is for you to say make believe your friends listening. What's one thing you'd want your friend to get out of this podcast? Based on everything we've chatted about so.

Far.

I would say friend. If you are wondering how to get the most out of your time and your effort in a meeting is set a purpose, create space for conversation, have a common understanding and try to, you know, I like the swimming analogy. Stay in your lane, have a lane and, and keep, keep going. Invite other people into your lane.

I love it. And if I know that I'm working on my freestyle and my friend is next to me working on backstroke, I can help that person make sure their lane stays clear so they can do it. So the analogy I think is very powerful. And our effort here is to make sure that those of you that are listening can use your Monday Friday meeting as a way to build that picture of success for each individual and then for the entire team. And if I don't know what you're up to, I won't even know I'm in your way. I won't even know how to help you get to that next point. Final thoughts. Colleen?

Yeah, I think the other big thing that resonated with me is if I truly want a collaborative, co owned, co owned project or right relationship. If I want something to be collaborative and truly co owned, I need to have an adult to adult relationship. It can't be this, you know, adult to child. Well, I think I know what Ray wants me to do and I'm going to go and do it because I want to make sure that I'm doing what he wants. Verse is this co ownership in and how that looks and feels different and I'm out.

That's great. Those of you that are listening, I think there was an awful lot in here. Notice the disciplines. One is a conversation discipline and the other is the discipline of shared vision. Shared vision generally gets this kind of broad brush picture. Here's our vision. I'm going to share it with everybody as opposed to is my individual vision of success. I'm going to share that with my team and my leader so the team and my leader can enable me to be successful. It's a very different definition, and it's def is all about how do we talk together effectively so I know what you're up to each week. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to us here at jlc. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback, and if you'd like a discovery conversation, give us a ring. You can find all that information on the website. Thanks for being with us. Sincere thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.