The Process
BUILD EFFECTIVE TEAMS
to maximize performance and build a better workplace.
The goal is to help teams at all levels collaborate to make better decisions together, reduce conflict, and create buy-in for change; all which impact business goals and your bottom line.
If you don’t make decisions effectively, you end up with conflict. And how can you resolve conflict if you don’t know how to problem-solve and make decisions with other people? It is a vicious cycle.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Nan helps people put different perspectives on the table successfully so that they can get back to the business of problem solving and creating results.
APPLICATIONS
Conflict Management, Decision Making in Groups (where decision is made by everyone rather than just the loudest voice in the room), Managing Thru Change, and Why Women Don’t Ask.
SERVICE PACKAGES
- Training and Skill Building
- Speaking
- One-On-One Coaching
- Project Teams
- Organizational Consulting
CONFLICT IS COSTLY
Surveys by The Center for Creative Leadership and Eckard College in St. Petersburg, Florida, indicate that managers spend between 20–40% of their time dealing with conflict. A CPP study stated that 25% of employees said that avoiding conflict led to sickness or absence from work. Equally alarming, nearly 10% reported that workplace conflict led to project failure and more than one third said that conflict resulted in someone leaving the company, either through firing or quitting.
Changing how your organization approaches decision-making and conflict may be one way to improve work process, productivity and of course, profits. Other benefits include:
- Better decisions gained from multiple perspectives and diverse information.
- Stronger commitment and buy-in to the decision.
- Enhanced understanding of why and how the decision was made, as well as what happens next.
- Reduced resistance during implementation of the decision.
HOW MANAGEMENT SUCCEEDS
Adapting to needs, making changes, simple in theory. Management makes a decision about what needs to change, management communicates the decision to the workforce, the front lines carry out the change. Seems simple enough, right?
In practice, things can go wrong at several steps in the process:
- Poor problem-solving and decision making in the first place. Leaders need the skills and knowledge to encourage teamwork and to support open, honest conversations to gather and exchange all the relevant information.
- Poor roll-out. Effective leaders prepare the ground for change, for taking risks, for “trial and learn” tweaking and implementation of planned changes. Leaders need to learn the rules for engagement that help others embrace change. Staff need to have the teamwork skills to get the best results.
- Resistance. Sometimes a couple of individuals in key positions can stop change in its tracks. Managers need to learn how to have challenging conversations with resistant staff to remove obstacles.
If change isn’t happening at the pace you’d like in your organization, it’s not a matter of effort. Just repeating the management message more forcefully won’t make a difference … except to morale!
Gain the skills and knowledge to turn great plans into great results.
GREAT PLANS, SO-SO RESULTS?
The companies and organizations that thrive are the ones that know how to adapt quickly to challenges and opportunities.
GROWING LEADERS
Effective leadership demands:
- Problem-solving and decision-making skills.
- Working with others to make those decisions with the best possible inputs.
- Effective roll out as decisions are communicated to the staff who will implement them.
Leader training and coaching are needed when:
- Decision making is paralyzed, or takes place through unofficial channels.
- The leadership team avoids the challenging conversations that ensure the full range of inputs to decisions.
- Good decisions never seem to be embraced by the front lines that execute them.
- The next generation of leaders is coming up (talent development).
When decisions are difficult, vague, or unrealistic, teaching leaders to play well together, developing their personal capabilities, and managing constructive confrontation can break the logjam. In some situations, use of assessment tools can help pinpoint difficulties.
When employees are not engaged in the desired change, leader training can help management prepare for change. Broadcasting management messages won’t have much impact if employee “receivers” are not “tuned” to the right frequency. Training helps leaders prepare staff to understand and embrace change, to provide a safe environment for taking risks so that “trial and learn” implementation leads to a better outcome.
Learn to make better decisions in a better environment that supports quicker adaptation to changing conditions and opportunities.
BETTER LEADERSHIP?
Learning to make better decisions in an environment that supports adaptation to changing conditions and opportunities creates better results.
PLAYING WELL TOGETHER
In successful organizations, staff play well together … but not too well!
They play well together when they:
- Share common vision, mission.
- Place organizational and team goals above personal goals or department silos.
- Have the communication skills to share ideas and respond appropriately to others’ ideas.
- Understand the rules of engagement that make it possible to take the risk out of asking questions or posing alternatives.
- Are willing to call out poor execution or even resistance to ideas and change.
“Playing well together” does not mean avoiding conflict and disagreement at any cost. It means being engaged, being invested in outcomes enough to raise issues, and to have the difficult conversations that follow.
That balance between working together with shared respect for all parties and questioning ideas and practices, confronting problems, does not come naturally. Learning proven techniques for working together saves time, produces better results, and boosts morale.
Effective, efficient collaboration plays an ever greater role in operating at the speed of business today. Let Nan teach your team members the skills they need.
PLAYING WELL TOGETHER?
Being engaged, being invested in outcomes and being willing to have the difficult conversations that follow will save time, produce better results, and boost morale.
CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS
The sweet spot of confrontation!
When important change or decisions are discussed in meetings, at any level, what happens?
- Does the meeting leader simply lay things out without any disagreement? Do questions, requests for alternatives, go largely unanswered?
- Is tension high, disagreement constant, a battle atmosphere of constant confrontation throughout the meeting?
Neither advances the organization toward its goals. When no one disagrees, staff are not engaged in the decision or change. They are either afraid to take the risk of offering a different opinion, or they don’t care.
But a battle atmosphere is no better.
You find the sweet spot when everyone knows how to engage in “challenging conversations”, challenging because:
- There are difficult interactions that need to be managed through appropriate rules of engagement; and
- They are conversations that challenge an idea that has been offered by one of the participants.
Few decisions/plans are perfect from conception. When ideas are challenged, as they are formed or as they are implemented, better options emerge for better results.
The best process in the world isn’t effective if people don’t feel safe engaging each other and having open, honest conversations. Learning to manage challenging conversations is essential to better decision-making, effective problem-solving, and productive teamwork. Creating a safe environment for disagreement ultimately provides a competitive advantage.
Too little challenging of ideas? Argume rather than? Learn a better way.
AVOIDING CONFLICT?
When ideas are challenged, as they are formed or as they are implemented, better options emerge for better results.