Category: Complexity

#Teams365 #1610: Teamwork Skills in Complexity - prioritization

5/29/2018

Prioritization is a skill set we draw upon regularly in times of complexity. Prioritization allows all team members to regularly scan and manage their workload.

Key to prioritization is:

Having the tools to prioritize
Feeling empowered to make decisions and take responsibility for managing workload
Understanding what is most important – to the different players of the team, as well as the different time frames you are working on (short term, medium term)

In past Teams365 posts I’ve explored a range of prioritization skills including the Urgent/Important Matrix (we often attribute to Covey), as well as a Decision Matrix where we weight what’s important in making our decisions

For more on the topic of prioritization, check out these additional resources:
This excellent article from MindTools.com - which has an incredible amount of other resources team members and leaders will also want to check out.

LiquidPlanner.com's article on How to Prioritize Work When Everything Is #1 - Read it here.

For those that are looking at prioritization through the lens of product design, you'll want to take a look at this excellent article 20 Product Prioritization Techniques.

Enjoy!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

You can grab a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon. You can also purchase a copy direct from our site, signed by me!

Looking to schedule some team development this fall? Contact me to discuss whether the Everything DiSC or the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team may be a great starting point.

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#TEams365 #1604: Team Skills in Complexity - Problem Solving

5/23/2018

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Part of the workplace today is the ongoing change and complexity. This not only impacts leaders but many of the team members we work with as well. Given this, it's important to take time to equip our team members with skills in a variety of areas including today's focus, problem solving. Given that team members may be working remote, or may be working more autonomously, equipping team members with skills in this area is key.

Earlier this month we've looked at other kills such as curiosity and open-mindedness as well as experimentation. What other skills do you think your team could benefit from?

Problems can take a number of forms - from not having enough resources, to not having the information we need. Equipping team members in this area could involve using problem solving skills like:

Lewin's Force Field Analysis - this process helps us explore the forces that will both enable us in change, as well as hold us back.

The Fishbone - Originating out of Toyota, the fishbone helps us explore the varying factors around an issue. For example, if poor customer service is occurring, what are the issues feeding into this from a people, process, environmental standpoint. Identifying each of these factors helps us explore what is at play.

Is/Is Not - As I wrote a short while ago, the is/is not tool, allows us to get clearer on parameters. Part of problem solving also involves this. Think about the problem or challenge you are facing, and make a list of what "it is" and what "it is not".

Five Whys - The Five Whys tool gets us to unlayer an issue by asking WHY around each of the layers. If customer service is poor ask WHY? If that points to lack of training - ask again WHY? With that response - explore the next layer with WHY. Many coaching models also encourage this unpacking or unlayering of issues to root cause.

What tools will help your team thrive?

With best wishes,
Jennifer

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#Teams365 #1603: Interesting Articles Around Leadership and Complexity

5/22/2018

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As an avid reader, I am always scanning for what we can learn from different disciplines. So much great writing, and thinking has come out of the Agile space in the last decade plus around teamwork. If you are not familiar with some of these writings, now may be the time to check them out.
Today’s post includes links to three different articles you may want to explore as you expand your thinking about teams. As you read through them, think about these questions
1.       What is new or different which can influence your thinking about teams?
2.       What is one practical idea you can take forward into your work with teams from this article?
3.       What else might you want to explore as a result of this article?
Article #1 - The Stages of Teamwork ComplexityOctober 25, 2017 by Lorenzo Pasqualis
https://www.coderhood.com/stages-teamwork-complexity/

Article #2 – Leading in Complexity : What makes complexity different and how can leaders respond effectively? By Keith Johnston, Carolyn Coughlin, and Jennifer Garvey Berger May 2014
Find it at: https://www.cultivatingleadership.co.nz/site/uploads/Leading-in-Complexity-CC-JGB-KJ-2014-4.pdf
I mentioned this article last week and it has a number of different layers that you will likely find interesting in your work. Again, consider the questions listed above as you read through the article.

Article #3 - Leading in a VUCA World - Sattar Bawany. A great primer article from EDC on leading in today's VUCA context- Volatile, Complex, Uncertain and Ambiguous . View it here.

What other books or articles have you found useful in referring to as you consider your leadership and teamwork in today's ever changing context?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

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#TEams365 #1597: Teamwork Skills in Complex TImes: Experimentation

5/16/2018

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This month we are exploring the skills required in teamwork, including listening and curiosity. Today I wanted to take a dive into a third skill area, that being the area of experimentation.

Experimentation is key for business leaders and teams today. Many times, the context is changing so quickly that we don’t have time to complete an entire roll-out before having to make a final decision. That can lead to a mindset of experimentation, where it is encouraged to try things out, see what works and what doesn’t.

In supporting experimentation in our team we want to:

Encourage and reward trial and error
Create safety around not getting “things right”
Provide team members with time and resources to experiment, beyond their every day team responsibilities
Facilitate an evaluation of projects or “Experiments” that are completed or are even at the midpoint

Questions we may ask at project reviews include:

What’s working?
What’s not?
What are the things that need to be abandoned or tweaked?
What additional resources do we need?
What unknown obstacles have become visible?
What is the big learning we are taking?
What is the one thing/ or the many things we are going to do differently going forward?
Who else can we learn from (including our own past projects?

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Coaching Skills Training | Leadership Development | Teamwork
Growing Team Leaders, One Conversation at a Time(TM)
Contact us to discuss leadership, coaching or performance needs for your and your team
Phone: (416)996-8326

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#TEams365 #1596: Teamwork Skills in Complexity - Curiosity

5/15/2018

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Teamwork Skills in Complexity – Curiosity
This month we are exploring what’s required to thrive in today’s ongoing world of complexity. Last week we explored listening, and today we are exploring the skill of curiosity and open-mindedness. Tomorrow, we will be turning our attention to the skill of experimentation.

Curiosity is a critical skill set for today’s ongoing change and complexity, given that many times “We do not know” or have all of the information needed to make decisions or see what is next. This could be because things are changing so fast or it could be because things are unclear on the road ahead. Being able to lead from a place of curiosity or “not knowing” can be liberating when the shift has been made.

One thing that can help us on our voyage of curiosity as a leader is questions. We can use questions to check assumptions, learn from others, and harness the wisdom that exists. Some questions that enable all team members to step into a place of curiosity are:

What’s possible?
What’s one thing we haven’t tried?
What else?
What else can you leverage?
What’s the worst thing that can happen?
What’s another option?
What could you do differently?

In order to cultivate curiosity within our team we can:

Encourage risk taking and mistakes
Support team members in pilots and experimentation
Enable learning across the silos which exist within the business
Expose the team to new areas regularly
Support a growth mindset

What can you do as a team to cultivate curiosity?

Enjoy your Tuesday,
Jennifer

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#Teams365 #1590: Team Skills in Complex Times: Listening

5/9/2018

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Some of our related blog posts this month will take a deeper dive into each of these, starting with Listening.

Communication is a two-way street, and many professionals forget that communication often gets lost, or misunderstood as it is received. Whether it’s due to distractions (for example, a noisy environment or something else on your mind) or whether it’s due to

A couple of key notes when you are cultivating listening with your team:
What are people listening for? Are they listening for what the person really is saying or are they thinking about how they are going to respond?
Are they just noticing the words or are they also noticing body language? We know from research that body language and how things are being said contribute to a significant part of the message. Getting team members to notice what body language says, and does not say, in the context of communication can be extremely powerful.

While this may be common-sense for some on the team, many team members may not have thought through the impact of:

Tapping your foot while listening to someone else
Crossing your arms
Looking up or away from a speaker who is talking to you
Looking over your glasses as someone speaks to you.

How clear is the request being made in communication. Brevity and consistency is important in today’s world. So is “the call to action”. What are you asking people to do. Take action? Read something? Make a decision? Do something differently? Reply back to you. These are all different requests and if a request is not being made explicitly, it may be difficult to interpret what is being asked for.

In my next couple of Tuesday and Wednesday posts I’ll be exploring some of these other skills – Experimentation, Open-mindedness, Problem Solving, prioritization.

What’s the key learning/insight you want to take from today’s blog post?

Enjoy your Wednesday,
Jennifer

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#TEams365 #1589: Managing Complexity - Embracing the Chaos

5/8/2018

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In the former world of work where change was not an every day occurrence it was easier to plan and move through tasks. When complexity exists, it may be that the list you start off with, may not get completed.

As a graduate student in the early 1990s, as I prepared for one of my first global work assignments I we fortunate to be mentored by a wonderful professor who had spent a lot of time the decade prior doing a lot of work. At the time, I was curious about how she managed to navigate the ever changing waters of her work - where politics and changes abounded.

She shared with me the term “Embrace the chaos”. As I set into my next six-month assignment, which ultimately had me working globally for the better part of the next decade with different organizations, and in different locations, I realized how important the mindset of embracing the chaos would be for me as a leader.

According to Wikipedia, chaos theory in layperson’s terms is:
Chaos theory is a part of mathematics. It looks at certain systems that are very sensitive. A very small change may make the system behave completely differently. Very small changes in the starting position of a chaotic system make a big difference after a while.

So what does chaos theory have as implications for leadership:

We may not be able to contain or constrain something, thereby looking to influence is a better approach;
Given that different patterns may emerge, and are usually unpredictable, leading from a place of not knowing, and harnessing all wisdom or expertise in your team can be important;
Rather than fight against the chaos – embrace it – Don’t’ spend energy on something that will be unpredictable. Change thinking and mindset to meet this rather than fight it.

Embracing the chaos also required that I learned to work, lead and make decisions in a contingency approach. Rather than assuming things would move from A to B to C, it meant that we would sometimes go from A to Z to C then X. Scaling back expectations, negotiation, influence and prioritization all were critical skills. How are your fostering these in your team right now?

For more on this topic, you may want to check out this great download Leading in Complexity What makes complexity different and how can leaders respond effectively? By Keith Johnston, Carolyn Coughlin, and Jennifer Garvey Berger May 2014 found at: https://www.cultivatingleadership.co.nz/site/uploads/Leading-in-complexity.pdf

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Teams365 Blog

#Teams365 #1610: Teamwork Skills in Complexity - prioritization

#TEams365 #1604: Team Skills in Complexity - Problem Solving

#Teams365 #1603: Interesting Articles Around Leadership and Complexity

#TEams365 #1597: Teamwork Skills in Complex TImes: Experimentation

#TEams365 #1596: Teamwork Skills in Complexity - Curiosity

#Teams365 #1590: Team Skills in Complex Times: Listening

#TEams365 #1589: Managing Complexity - Embracing the Chaos

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