Which team we align ourselves to is important. Often, I see people join a new team and struggle to redefine their alliance to that new team. They continue to identify with their old team, as their “we.” That’s bad and can cause animosity.
It’s unfortunate. The ideas they try to promote in this frame face an uphill fight with the new team.
It’s worse when the individual, particularly a leader, defines their team as “I.” I want it done this way. I want to have it that way.” The underlying message of someone being in charge, not leaging, is clear.
Strong preferential leadership like this can be helpful in limited situations. Often, these situations are imminently dangerous, like in active battle situations. Someone has to quickly decide, and quickly act.
Fortunately, the business world rarely experiences situations like this. Expediency is on the order of days, weeks, months or years.
The directive “I want” messaging runs a large risk of cutting off team input, involvement, and ultimately commitment and support. If you look closely, you can see it in slow motion on the faces of the team.
There may be a good supporting story behind the “I want.” That story is the place to start. Providing the story of why an idea or method makes sense can be educational for the team. Also, leaving it open ended for feedback can invite feedback for refinement, understanding or wholesale idea change.
In the “I want” world:
- Boss: “I want the TPS reports on my desk first thing Friday morning.”
- Team (just relegated to group status): “Okay, fine.”
And the TPS reports show up with low quality and many typos.
Meanwhile, in an alternate reality.
- Leader: “The TPS reports are a pain in the neck for all of us. Usually, I end up fixing a bunch of typos and cleaning up some of the math over the weekend. Would y’all be able to get them to me on Friday morning, so that I can clean them up during the day on Friday?”
- Team member 1: “We have a lot of other typical activities that culminate on Thursday evening and Friday morning. So, we aren’t focusing on the TPS reports except on the side. The other priorities seem more important.”
- Team member 2: “Besides, Beth doesn’t get to the TPS summaries until Tuesday of the following week. If we did a better job wrapping up the TPS reports, neat and correct, by Monday morning, you could give them a quick look and send them on to Beth with less effort on your part. Would that work?”
- Leader: “Wow, sounds like that could really work great. I’ll double check with Beth to make sure it works with her, then we can give it a try.”
Look at that, an engaging discussion on TPS reports leads to less stress for the team, more support for the leader because the leader opened the door to discussion.
