Inside JLC: Reinventing Your Leadership Team, Part 4

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. This is our fourth installment of an article that we we grabbed from HBR put together by some folks from Price, Waterhouse and Cooper. We are extremely impressed with the article and it gave us a space to talk about the means by which you do the things that they say are necessary. As we are reimagining leadership, reimagining what the leadership team should be focused on and the ways in which the leadership team can transform itself to become more and more effective. Notice I said more and more because all of this leadership development work is a process. It is not an end state. We don't create an end state for the leadership team. It's a process of getting better and better and becoming more and more capable to reimagine their future and move towards that future. With that said, so far we've worked on if you're going to transform the organization, the leadership team needs to transform the necessary roles and responsibilities. That was the very first podcast we did about this. The second, and we did a little bit of Jim Collins stuff. Who's on the bus, who needs to be on the bus, who needs to maybe exit the bus, or who needs to be developed differently so they can meet the expectation expectations of the needed roles and responsibilities. The last one we did, which I don't know, I loved it, I actually liked it best, it was how do we focus the team on the words they use? With driving transformation, I get a little bit sideways with driving things, although I know there are drivers and there are things that slow us down. But I think about them more as feedback loops. These are limiting factors, these are growing factors. And we did allude to that in our last podcast. So here. And that's a really nice segue into the fact that in order to really transform the leadership team, the leader leader needs to take ownership of the leadership team's behavior. And as a to get ourselves ready for this, I asked both my colleagues a little bit about that idea of ownership. What's that mean? But before I go to that, we're going to begin there, I would ask, I'm going to ask both of my colleagues to weigh in on that idea of ownership. As you finish listening to this podcast, it is our intent that each of you will know and be able to apply some of the ideas that we're going to give you today to making sure that you are taking ownership of of the leadership team's behavior. Now, I hesitated a little bit as I said that, because sometimes the responsibility is one of the leadership team members, they are responsible for their own behavior. They need to sometimes be thinking, how do I deal with that? But there is the leader's need to make sure that the leader does take ownership of that leadership team's behavior as we are reimagining and moving toward a transformed entity. So with that said, Colleen, what did you hear me say? What's resonating or surfacing for you right.

Now, or what I heard you say is today we're going to be talking about a leader taking ownership of a team's behavior, and that we hope our listeners walk away with a few. A few ways and ideas of how they can do that. And I think part of what's really resonating with me is this sense of we talk a lot about culture and a collaborative environment. Many of the executives I've worked with, they look around and throw their hands up. I'm not getting what I want out of my team. Almost like they're not quite sure what to do. I think the one thing for people to think about is really, what does that look like to them when they talk about ownership and how do they show up in their conversations, in their meetings, and how are they modeling the way of the expectations as far as creating an environment of collaboration and really a culture where people feel like they can bring their best self to work?

Thank you. So, Joe, I'd like you to add on, acknowledge what your partner said, and these two are truly great partners. They partner in the work all the time. So acknowledge what our partner said and then add on to your perspective. Did she miss anything that I was blathering about as I set the stage for this conversation?

Yeah, so I think many times. I mean, I think Colleen's comments are exactly on point. I might use a little different words. I mean, I think many times leaders are tolerant of exchanges or behaviors in meetings that are, frankly, not productive, but they're not sure how to handle that in a meeting in a way that is constructive, and so they back away. Well, that's just the way he is. That's just the way she is. And instead, we provide room around that. And again, as we've talked in other forums, when you allow behavior to occur by one member of a group that is substandard in some way or below expectations, you've then immediately lowered the performance of the group to that lowest level. So I think if you sat in a meeting and the power went off, the lights went out, you would go, oh, wait, we have to discover what's wrong here and fix it. But we sit at the table with the lights on full blast. But allow sarcasm, allow over talking, allow overuse of acronyms that the group doesn't fully understand, allow other behaviors of whatever type that are essentially turning the power off in the meeting.

Colleen, what are you hearing Jeff say? And how has that landed on you?

Yeah, that's a great analogy. And I'll bet you a lot of our listeners are thinking, oh, I've done that before. I've been in a meeting where you can feel right. Because when you're really focusing on developing safe space and then there's so much over talking going or somebody makes somebody's thinking wrong, think to Joe's point. It's almost like the lights go out and everyone else can feel it. It's not like it's just, you know, one or two people most of the time. A lot of times people can feel it. And so what is the meeting leader doing to ensure that they are aligning expectations so people know that that behavior is not acceptable?

It's almost like creating a culture where we want safely, dangerous space so that people can bring their best self forward in their thinking. And I remember being guilty of using sarcasms and humorous put downs in meetings with people I was really close to, people I worked with more intimately than I did that large group that I was addressing. Right. The unintended consequences of my behavior was I made that space unsafe because there were men and women out there that said to themselves, I don't want to be spoken to that way. And not that they even might have thought I believed that was something about them. They knew it was teasing. At the same time, it created an extremely unsafe space. And the intention was kind of like the good old boy conversation of teasing one another and putting one another down and. Yeah, well, I have an idea. Oh, God, Thank God you have an idea. It's been a long time. You know, any kind of. There's a cautionary tale here about me talking to you, Colleen, might impact Joe negatively because he could be sitting there saying, that's disrespectful and I don't want to be treated in that manner. So I'm going to go right to the space we were at before we started the recording. Ownership. What does it mean to take ownership of the behavior of this leadership team? Because that leadership team is the entity that will create the transformation that's necessary, that will deal with the big change that is unfolding. So what does that mean from your vantage point when I say take ownership, ownership of the behavior of the leadership team. Colleen, we'll start with you.

Yeah. I think what resonated with me was see something, say something. Right. Taking ownership is ensuring that when, to Joe's point, there's over talking, when there are people that are using disparaging words. Right. And when people are making people's thinking wrong in the meeting is are you sitting back and not saying anything when you've recognized that there's an issue here or are you setting the expectation that you know what, that's not okay, Are you addressing it or are you just continuing to let it happen and not thinking about to your point, what you said, Ray, are the unintended consequences because that's going to limit the space and the team's ability to collaborate effectively.

What are you hearing, Joe? And please extend. You had some very direct comments about ownership. I love them.

Yeah. So I think the leader for any meeting has to accept ownership of the conversation and again, accept the fact that people are human beings. And although you may set expectations and ground rules for the meeting that people do slide into sarcasm or do slide into over talking, it's just a human thing to do. And so again, it's the leader, the leader has to preserve, has to create and preserve the space where people feel like they can add in. So it's not that you have to jump down somebody's throat when they make a sarcastic comment. I think it's entirely possible to say, okay, well thanks for that Bill or Mary, there was a little sarcasm in there. But to your point, say more, tell me more. Are you concerned that we don't have enough new ideas in this group or again, and then it gives somebody the opportunity to say no, I was just teasing Bill. I think we have lots of new or no, I think we have a legitimate idea dragging new ideas into this group and talking about them. Okay, so that's a real topic for discussion. But the same way with again, arrogance or over talking, again, I think you can pivot easily by saying, okay, thank you Ray for all of those comments, but I want to see what everyone else is thinking which invites them back into the space because the group has a large awareness of what is occurring. And if it is becoming a two way conversation only and they are merely witnessing it, they will retreat. And if you don't open the door and invite them back in, then you're going to live with only one viewpoint from the meeting.

Yeah. And Joe, also just to add in into that, especially in a virtual environment, people are still doing lots of zoom calls. And to Joe's Point. I've been in a lot of meetings and observed a lot of zoom meetings where it's just two people having a conversation. So I like the point where you can pause. I'm the meeting leader. Pause. I'd like to invite other perspectives. So those of you who haven't had an opportunity to voice your perspective, please feel free. Whatever language you can use that will invite other perspectives or engage others on the call, I think is really important. Otherwise, you're becoming more of an observer, not necessarily a participant.

So those of you that are listening, Colleen and Joe just gave you magnificent real time recommendations. These are. We make invitations and recommendations. You make decisions on how you're going to present yourself as a leader and to hone your leadership presence. They both gave you great examples of acknowledging what someone says, recognizing what it was, make sure you understood it, and then respond respectfully in ways like, thank you. I recognize that's really a big emotional place for you. I get it and it makes sense to me. But I want to make sure we hear other perspectives. Does somebody have a different point of view than this person or whoever we're talking with? You just heard real time recommendations on how you can pivot during a meeting. Remember, your presence is your focus, your talk, and your stance. So if your stance is one of the. We want everybody in the game here. That's our intention. We want to hear from the room. If that's truly what we want to do, then the language that we use must be language that keeps us focused on the intention of the agenda item or the intention of the meeting. That is real time stuff that you just heard from both of my colleagues. And obviously the reason they know it, because they have behaved that way in the past and they are coaching people to behave that way. We get this a lot. I don't hear anything. I make a statement and I take a position and I say, well, anybody got any ideas? And nothing comes out. What you're getting from my two colleagues is direct recommendations. It's like very expensive coaching. You don't have to. You don't have to either lean back and be quiet or. Or move on to somebody else or do the typical. Are there any questions? This is the real work of leading and supporting a team, taking ownership for a team to do well moving forward. That's magnificent. YouTube. You guys are great at this. What else is rising for you about taking ownership of this leadership team's behavior? What else is coming to the forefront? Or did I say something that made you go, oh, wow, that was interesting?

Well, I think what. When I was listening to. When you were talking about engaging and taking ownership, I think, and being intentional about the conversations in your meeting. The other piece I wanted to lay on the table about that. I think when you do, it's aligning expectations. It's setting the expectations that when you are in the meeting, my expectations are that you are offering. Your thinking is that each one of you are participating. So I think sometimes a way to take ownership of the behavior of your team is to be explicit about expectations, what you're expecting them to do.

Yeah. Like right up front. Okay. This is not a chance for you to sit and get. This is an opportunity for you to collaborate together so that we make the best possible decision moving forward. That was really good. Thank you, Colleen. Joe, what's landing on you right now?

Yes. So I think it's an opportunity, as Colleen said, to set kind of the expectations for how the meeting is going to unfold. But the other piece of that we talk about a lot is the outcome of the meeting. Again, I think it's important for the leader to set both the context, the purpose and the outcome to say that, okay, after we talk about this today, we're going to leave here with a common vision, a common understanding. Understanding of what we're trying to do. And so I think setting that as a bar brings the group back to the fact that, okay, this is your opportunity to express your concerns or your ideas or provide, provide to the group your thoughts about how you would do this. And, and that's very important because when the group leaves the meeting, again, what you don't want to have is half the group going off, going. Well, wish them the best of luck with that because I got no stake in it. And again, I think many times that's how the meetings conclude is that half of the room is quiet and they regard it as crazy talk and they don't intend to participate. So again, the centering of the meeting and the providing expectations, that says we're working together here. And if the safe becomes unsafe, then addressing that head on. And at the end, uniting the group back into. So what we've heard today, what we've discussed today, and these are our outcomes from this meeting. Does anybody see this any differently? It kind of set the stage for action.

So Joe has just. I mean, those that are listening, this is a really good one. Takeaways. Here's a big takeaway. When you set up, take an agenda item. So we're going to work on something very specific to enable change to happen in One of our sectors, for example. That might be it. It's the last piece of the cpo context, purpose, outcome. It's the last one that has a direct cognitive pull. If you say, Joe, at the end of this meeting, there's an expectation for you and for Colleen to do something. And I'm going to make sure that you commonly understand what it is we are expecting you to do. And then I want each of you to take the time to say, okay, thanks, Ray, for that. And this is what I am going to do personally moving forward. This is my so called professional promise. But when you say it up front, at the end of this meeting, I expect each of you to take action on this particular item that is a cognitive pull. I cannot sit back any longer because the leader has created an expectation for me. Notice the language. Each of us will know and be able to do blank. That is a powerful method in a meeting. An agenda item. Each agenda item should have an outcome. At the end of this agenda item, each of us will know and be able to do whatever the focus of that intent that agenda item was. This is incredibly important, those of you that are listening to make sure that when you set the stage for an agenda item, you very clearly say, why are we talking about it? This is what I hope you will understand, right, commonly understand about this agenda item. And this is what I expect each of you to do. If you don't use that each word, it becomes, I expect all of you to do this. No, there's no cognitive pull. There is no creative tension until you use that phraseology. The expectation is that each of you will whatever that expectation is. Colleen, how is that landing on you?

Yeah, I think it's, it's simple, right? And it's something that people can start doing today. And I think the impact is really just phenomenal because many times, right. How many times you heard leaders go, we missed another deadline or even another team member go, you know, well, Joe's not pulling his weight, right? And now here we go into the drama triangle. That's going to shift really our space of collaboration. And so these simple things that you can do really help help align expectations, keep everyone focused, and help with that accountability piece.

So, Colleen, today, thank you for that accountability piece. Is everything in this, Colleen, you were having a conversation with one of our colleagues, actually our president. And at the end of it, you did make the statement, okay, what do you want each of us to do? So this is so internalized in us right now. I don't even think we realize we do it so that each of you, you and Ruby said, okay, I'm going to do this. And Ruby said I'm going to do this. If we didn't stop and do that at the end of that conversation, those would have been just some ideas that may have floated nicely into the air. We had a nice conversation, we had agreement about what was happening, what we might could do moving forward, but we would have lost the impact. And I think when Joe laid the outcome piece on earlier today in this conversation, that's where the impact is. The impact is in the outcome. We can understand everything. We can understand why we're talking about it. If there's no transference to behavior, which is why we keep selling to all of our client base. This is a means by which you get aligned action. Each of us will know and be able to do blank. It unfolds in a way that is just stunning when you start to do it in this particular fashion. Thank you. Thank you. Joe, what's landed on you and what are you thinking right now?

So I'm actually thinking about how common this is again, how common the non functional meeting is. Again. Harvard through their studies have said two thirds of meetings are dysfunctional. And I think about the meetings that I've been to at omb, at treasury, in the civilian agencies, in the defense agencies, in the Defense Department where you would have perhaps a longer discussion about a very complicated issue. And there would have been many facets of the issue that had been discussed but it wasn't clear again because we didn't really say at the front where we were going. And you get to the end of the meeting and then go, okay, well thank you all for coming today. And then everybody stands up to leave and then you spend the rest of the week, you spend the rest of the week on the phone going, well, in that meeting we talked about somebody telling the Congress. Who's going to tell the Congress? Well, I'm not telling him. I thought you were going to tell them. Well, I thought we were going to move off in this direction. Well no, that's not my job. It's so and so's job. And they weren't at the meeting. So. And again, this is incredibly common. And so, you know, part of my actual experience many times in those higher level meetings was to be the guy at the end of the meeting who would say so they get more money or not, we're gonna tell the Congress, who's gonna tell the Congress and who in the Congress needs to. And so sometimes many times, again, you can't fix the world. But many times I would ask those questions frankly, in a sense of self defense, because I would see the things that I needed to do. But I wanted to make sure that the leadership of the meeting understood that, okay, if you're asking me to do something, then I receive the message and I will move forward. So I think there's, I'm kind of talking about two levels of responsibility. I think it's terrific if the leadership owns the meeting and says what the outcomes are going to be and then enforces the accountability. I think for many people they are in the frustrating position where the leadership does not do that. And so I think when the leadership does not do that, that should not excuse you from still working through, okay, what are my takeaways from this? How do I honestly meet my obligations and demands in order to move forward toward our goal?

I've actually seen you do it in a meeting, Joe, when you were actively working, where at the end of a conversation you stop and say, okay, I think I understand this, this and this. And I think that as a result of that understanding, I'm going to do this. Is that what you want, boss? It was like so gentle, but so powerful, that, yep, that is what I want. And then other people, as you did that, I watched other people weigh in and say, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, what Joe's gonna do that? What am I supposed to do? And if you, if you're sitting around waiting for somebody to tell you what to do, that's the parent child dynamic. That's all about drama. You're putting somebody in a victim role waiting for someone to rescue you, oh, you didn't do it, so I should do it. Not that I don't believe that leaders need to take responsibility for their meetings. At the same time, the participants have a big responsibility to make sure they understand they have takeaways and there's stuff to do. And I'm going to make a promise I will do this based on my understanding. Final thoughts for this conversation today about taking ownership of your leadership team's behavior. So talk to our listeners. Colleen, what are you hoping that they took from this?

Yeah, I guess one of the things that I'm hoping that they took from this was a simple way that they can begin to take ownership of the behavior. And that was specifically in a team meeting by using that focusing statement as they mentioned at the beginning. Because not only does that say what they are expecting each person to do, it sets that expectation and it also helps with accountability because the next time you have that Meeting again, you can say there were some promises made and were they kept.

I love it. I love it. Colin, you can actually list all the promises from the previous meeting on a piece of paper or on a chart paper. Say, here are all the promises from the last meeting. Let's go talk about those. Joe, what's your. What's your invitation to those that are listening?

So my invitation would be this, Ray. I think many times executives feel that they are in very stressful jobs. I think as an executive, my personal experience was that many times the stress was caused not by doing too much, but by doing too little.

How interesting.

And so you have to step up. And so when you step up and go, okay, I don't like this subject. Again, you deal with this stuff internally. I don't like this subject. I find this uncomfortable. But okay, we've talked about it. So here's what I think. I can do A, B and C. And then it provides, as you indicated, Ray, it also helps to clarify around the table for other people to go, oh, well, if you're doing A, B and C, and I should be a part of that, so I'll work with you or I need to see that, or please include me or I'll do D, E and F. So again, it helps to relieve the stress and makes your life better. So step up would be my invitation.

Are you out, brother?

And I'm out.

So you just heard some great stuff, right? So here is a simple thing that if you're a leader of a small team or big team, doesn't matter, team's team, three people, two people, it's a team. If your interest, if your intention is to have collaborative conversation, so to be sure that everybody's voice is heard and the space is psychologically safe enough, you can say your heart, you can speak from the heart and say what you're really feeling and thinking. If that's what you want, if that's your intention, you could, at the end of the meeting, okay, the meeting's done, everybody's checked out. We've done our. We've made our promises for the future. Good. As I told you guys right in the beginning, my intention was to make sure we had a collaborative space. That was my intention. This is what I did to make sure that we had that kind of collaborative intention and it was unfolding. What did you do to help me have that and how did that work out? What did you learn? What can we do differently next time? If you just do make it part of the deal, that can last 60 seconds or less. It doesn't have to go. Here was my intention. Here's what I did. What did you do? What did you learn today about keeping that collaborative space available, that safe space available? What can we do differently next time? It gives you such a powerful opportunity to improve the quality of the collaboration from meeting to meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, we're so glad you're with us today. The power in Colleen and Joe about their experience and their background is stunning. There's so much to offer. I think you already know this if you listen to our podcasts. Call us anytime. Free Discovery Conversation we can help you in any one of these pieces about really transforming your team. Or if you want to work on something else. I have to have difficult conversations with one of my team members. Give us a ring, get on our website, send us a note. We'll be happy to help you with any of those particular pieces on us. 30 minute free discovery. Call the website's gojlc.com My name is Ray. So happy to be with you today. Take care. Sincerest 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 at gojlc.

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