This is a written Transcription for the Leadership Hustle episode about What You Need To Know About Leadership Team Development, from Season 1 Episode 38.

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Transcript:

Andrea Fredrickson: Do you have a high performing team, or do you have a group of people who simply come together called the leadership team? In this episode of The Leadership Hustle, we'll give you techniques on how to make sure that that team is high performing. Hello and welcome to the Leadership Hustle for executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. Hi there, and welcome back to this episode of The Leadership Hustle. I'm Andrea Frederickson, one of your hosts, and I'm here with Michelle, my co-host. Hello. It's been a minute since we have recorded a few of these episodes, so we're happy to be back. And today we are going to address the topic of developing leadership teams, not teams. How to be a leader. But like this team of leaders, how do we develop them as a team? And for decades, we've been coaching leadership teams for one reason or another. Correct. Anything from strategy work. And we've got to work together to make this the future of the business happen to. It's time to take our leadership team to the next, next level. And can you help us get there? Right. Yeah. The issue that we often run into. Tell me if I'm wrong, if you disagree, Michel, is that we often will get into with get to work with this group of people and I'm going to call them group of people intentionally, because regardless of whether you call them the SLT, the executive team, the leadership team, the cabinet, whatever it is, most of those groups of people are not truly a team. They're a group of people who are working together for a entity, for an entity, for an entity, yes. So same company, same leader. Right. And yet they aren't really a team. What are you noticing that you know, what's your reaction to that?

 

Michelle Hill: Well, I again not extremes but kind of there in the middle more often than not. Yes. It's not as often that we bump into where it's a real tight team that's helping and looking out for each other and even aware of other's goals. Um, it tends more often. They speak up when it's about their department, their division, whatever size organization we're working in. Uh, they speak up when it's, you know, their time to, you know, present information, their needs and so forth. Um, they'll speak up when they disagree because it might impact their area in a way they don't appreciate or they don't. It's going to be more work for them. Um, it's often times it feels as if, though people have forgotten the overall arching. We're all here for one organization and we're technically one team. The better we work together, the better our people work together. Right. And there's not a real strong. Oftentimes there's not a real strong focus on really getting to know each other and understanding, you know, what's going on in your area. What are your challenges? What are the goals you're working on? Right. And how do we help each other to.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: And so one of the concepts we've talked about. Shoot, I can't remember when we started talking about this a long time ago, but the senior leadership team, the group that is leading the organization, we talked to them and we asked them this question. When we talk, when we ask you to think about your team, what team do you think of? And they kind of look at me like, you know, they look at us.

 

Michelle Hill: Like we have eight.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Heads. I got that Scooby Doo look right, and most of them respond to the team that they lead that that's their team. Correct. When in actuality, the team that they should be thinking of is this leadership team. This is team one. This is the organization. This is the group of people that are leading the company. They are setting direction, and they have to have each other's backs. And that doesn't mean they're not supporting their teams, right? Oh, no. At all. But they misunderstand that if their team is team one and the team that they lead is team two. Right. That's the group that they're working for. So to me, it's.

 

Michelle Hill: To me it's kind of like that united front. You have that number one team and we have each other's back. We're supporting each other, which then has a ripple effect of how we communicate about what's going on in the organization and what our priorities are. And, hey, let's help so-and-so or something's going to be happening that we need to, you know, back off on this and, and adjust this because this is what's going to be gone over here. Right. Um, because what they say impacts also how their team views the other departments, the other areas as well.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: And when we look at, I think most teams like each other. Right. This group of people, most that they pretty much I mean they can get along. They can go have beers together. They can they can joke around, they can talk to each other. They kind of know what's going on in each other's lives. They know that stuff, but that doesn't mean they function as a team. I was just listening to another podcast this week, and one of they were talking about the team that's in the company. They talk about the customers, they talk about the shareholders, they talk about the communities and things like that. And this owner's belief is that his words were we as employees have to take care of each other. It's like, what are we doing to take care of each other, not just do you need a Band-Aid? Take care of each other. Right. But it's not about competing with each other. It's truly about what do we need to do together to accomplish the goal. And that's okay if we debate. And it's okay if we have conversations that are challenging. And that doesn't mean we don't like each other, that we aren't trying to find the right answer. Right?

 

Michelle Hill: Correct. Well, if anything, I believe when you've got a group of people that will challenge each other, that will have maybe those difficult conversations or give perspective that's different than maybe someone else's. I believe that's when they start feeling safer together, right? It's the team that's really quiet and doesn't doesn't respond, doesn't give feedback is just like, oh, okay. They went, oh, okay. They spoke. And unless it impacts them in a negative way, they don't speak up and versus challenging them on other other thoughts or other, you know, to think differently, to do something differently.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: So that's one of the symptoms. So we walk in most presidents, owners, CEOs, they think, oh my my team is good. They work really well together. Okay. We go in there and we start working and it's like, oh, there's some symptoms that are telling us there's a there's a few. Doesn't mean all of them. There's a few that are all in it. For it's all about me, all about my team, all about this. So in addition to not speaking up right, what are some of the other symptoms that maybe you've noticed, maybe just one that you can think of.

 

Michelle Hill: Well, what do you think of symptoms? Well, I mean, I think in general. And this still might lend back to a symptom. It doesn't feel like they trust each other. Um, it feels like they go along with whoever that leader is. Is it the president? Whoever? You know, that person in the room that's got the highest title? Sure, sure. Um, there's more of them talking and people disagreeing. Unless it has something to do with their area, then they might speak up. Um.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Well, when people don't trust each other, there will be looks. Yes. Eyerolls. Yes. Right. Yes. There will be facial.

 

Michelle Hill: Expressions.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: The conversations at break outside the conversation. That's like, why didn't you speak up? Yes. Right. So those little kinds of things where people don't feel, you know, they don't feel safe, that they're not going to get ridiculed or screamed at or not included in something, whatever that lack of safety is, or people just don't trust them, right? It's like whatever this person says is a bold faced lie, or they never follow through or they.

 

Michelle Hill: Never follow through.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Right? So those are some symptoms that show that they don't, that they don't trust.

 

Michelle Hill: And also email. That's a biggie too. Oh, when people say things in an email that they would not say in person. Right. And they battle emails and versus just let's go have a conversation and figure out the misunderstanding, right. And get on the same page.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Another symptom that I've seen is I'm sorry. Oh that's okay. Blame. Blame is another one. Well I didn't. Blaming.

 

Michelle Hill: Blaming and complaining.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Blaming and complaining. So whether it's blaming the world shut down so that didn't something didn't work right. Or blaming a supplier or blaming and like excusing, having having excuses for everything. Um, so I guess that, you know, that's part of that. People not taking responsibility for what's happening and throwing responsibility over the fence to someone else.

 

Michelle Hill: Yeah. No ownership. And there's a problem. More often than not, the problem is going to sometimes like show its head in one area. Right, right. But it got there through other areas, other departments, other areas too. And people don't speak up of their ownership of it. Getting to, you know, as big as it got to.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: I remember this one team I was working with that we would we would meet monthly, but they met, um, every week, every every week. And so in between they would have meetings on how what progress they've made on goals and metrics and things like that. And I remember being there after a couple of months doing my check in, doing some challenging, and I said, you know, we're talking about the same exact problem we talked about three months ago. And when someone gives us a reason or excuse We're just saying. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Or the only thing that we're hearing is. So when do you think it'll get done? But there's we're not holding each other accountable. And the person's not feeling like they need to be accountable or take responsibility for something. And so that's not a team. That's a group of people coming together reporting off on what's going on. By the way, reporting meetings are that's a whole nother episode. I don't want to get into that. That's an email, right? It's like I can see the metric chart. Yeah. So what are we going to do to keep things moving forward, or what do we need to do to adjust. And so so excusing not taking responsibility, excusing or blaming for things not happening, not holding people. It's like not holding each other accountable. Um, I also see scenarios where people don't ask the tough questions. Correct.

 

Michelle Hill: That's the challenging questions. Right? And and when they are asked. When they are asked, sometimes I'll notice people get defensive, either they get defensive and it becomes more of an unhealthy discussion, or they shut down, which goes along with the fight or flight. Right. Right. That fear, you know, you know, danger. But that's because there's a trigger that's caused them not to feel safe. If they felt safe with each other, that trigger wouldn't necessarily occur. They would be able to discuss it. Right.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: And so one of two things will happen. Either the the debate or the question is, um, once it starts to happen, somebody steps in, said, oh, we're not going to talk about that now. They say they they stopped the conversation, which probably would have been okay. Like there still needs to be the debate. There needs to be the challenge. We don't have to fight about it. We don't have to go away saying, I won. You lost. Ha, ha. You know, it's not about that's not a team. It's not a team. If we're trying to not figuring out how to solve this Because asking the questions and asking the debatable kinds of things is our objective is to get to the best answer, to get to the truth, to get to the root cause if necessary.

 

Michelle Hill: And to get to a solution.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: And get to a solution that.

 

Michelle Hill: People are going to follow, not say they're going to follow, and then walk off and not do anything. Right. And that goes back to the whole we've been talking about this for three months and nothing's different. Well, nothing's different because no one's followed through on maybe they didn't even go down to the details of a solution. What do you need if they did.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Or what do you what are you going to do? Or bring a solution of what you do or say, I need help. What can we do? Let's do some brainstorming together. Those are teams like how can I take care of you? Like how can I care for you? And I don't have to do your job, but I can help you with some aspect of it, even if it's bringing a an idea that isn't caught in the, um, the space. What do I want to say here? If it's not my expertise, I can still have ideas, because sometimes the ideas come from the fringe or from the outside rather than caught up in. The things that we see.

 

Michelle Hill: Well, yeah, sometimes we are too in it. We have these blinders on that prevents us from, you know, a very various biases, but we have blinders on that cause us from really seeing or thinking differently. And so having someone who's in another department or different area ask some questions that are just to get you challenged, well, why can't you do it that way?

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Okay.

 

Michelle Hill: So yeah.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: So what are so the things go ahead.

 

Michelle Hill: No, I was gonna say so what are some things like if you start noticing these in your team. Right. Unless you want, do you want to go further.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Well, I just wanted to make sure that it's like when we're looking for teams, we're looking for people who trust and collaborate with each other. Yes. Right. We're looking for people who are exceptional at communicating so that that means in our minds that they will speak up, that they will ask the question, they're not going to do it in an unhealthy way. They have enough emotional intelligence to recognize what triggers them that says, wait a second, this isn't about me, right? This is about the the information or the behavior or the idea. So that so that people are collaborating and working together. You know, that's also a the team is looking to improve because we'll also see people say, well that's not how we do it here. True today that's not how we do it here. But what do we need to do to improve it? Create less friction, create more efficiencies, take away the frustration points for our customers or our employees internal customers. Yeah, right. And so this development or continuous improvement, that's what the leadership team is supposed to be doing. And we'll see teams that don't hit any of those. Correct. We'll see people who do that. But the team has to do that. So back to your question. What are some things that we can do? Um, if we start noticing, if.

 

Michelle Hill: We start noticing some.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Noticing some of those symptoms. So one of the there are several things, and that is the leader has to be a little bit of a conductor right in that. And I like a musical conductor where it's like when people are debating and as long as the debate is healthy, let it happen, let it happen, let it happen. Yes. And then reward it. So if Michelle and Andrea are having this conversation and we're kind of into it, we're not hurting each other. We're not being mean or or unhealthy in this conversation screaming.

 

Michelle Hill: At each other.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Um, we're not necessarily blaming. It's just simply I'm asking the question because I don't understand that kind of thing. You know, it's like, um, let it happen. And then at the end of that saying, I love how that conversation worked. That was a great conversation because we got to where we needed to go that, that that higher position leadership person in that role needs to allow it to happen and acknowledge that it happened and reward it. Yes.

 

Michelle Hill: Yes, definitely.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: And the other thing, can think of?

 

Michelle Hill: Well, I think if you go back to psychological needs, which we often well, we pretty much always assume whatever my needs are would be the same as yours.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: We know better.

 

Michelle Hill: And that is so not true. You know, so you have some people that have needs that they need to think that it's more of an inward thinker. They don't want a lot of noise or distractions before they can give input. So they just need a process. So when things are happening in conversation or things are thrown out, they might be the quiet one at the table and they might even be, you know, doodling or taking some notes or whatever, but they need time to process. And that's an inward thinker, right? And then you've got your outward thinker who they're going to be the one that's talking out loud. And they need to process differently. Right. And you've got the needs where some people want. Just let's just get to the facts where you've got other people that have needs of that emotional support. And let's make sure we're thinking about people. There needs to be a balance on those. We need it. We need to get into a balance of what are the possibilities, those types of ideas of a discussion versus these are the realities, which is this is how we've always done it a little bit. But these are things we know that work that we probably need to protect a little bit too. But what are our ideas on how to improve it? Um, but it's it's understanding some people are really good at the possibilities and some people are really good at the buts. Right.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Yeah, but yeah.

 

Michelle Hill: Buts obviously we're not a yeah but person. So we called it. Yeah. Uh, anyway, so but understanding those needs and recognizing that yours is different than mine and where it goes back to emotional intelligence. So really knowing your people and helping your people understand that too, right?

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Going back to the senior leader role in that room, we might have to call on people. So maybe there's somebody who's being quiet. Yes. And we don't know if they're thinking, not thinking, doodling, thinking about the milk they had to bring home, whatever they're thinking of. Right. Yeah. But if we call on them, it's like, what do you think about this now? There's a lot of times that person will have an opinion. They just don't can't get a word in edgewise. Okay. Very possible. The other is they may say something like, well, that's not really my department. And so I don't like that senior leader. Like, no, I really we really value your opinion. And you know, if you were in this role, what question do you have or if.

 

Michelle Hill: This was going on in your area, if this was happening in your area or what suggestions.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Do you have?

 

Michelle Hill: What suggestions? What would you think of looking into or.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: So there's two things that happen with that. One, they recognize that everybody should be engaged in this, and if we aren't calling on someone to participate in the conversation, we'll make this meeting horrible because there's only two people having a conversation, right? Yes, but we really need the team to help solve the problem. And everybody's thinking and everybody's perspective can be valuable. Now we're putting people on notice like, no, we're all in this together. We all win together. We all lose together. So how do we how do we do that? Right.

 

Michelle Hill: Well, and I also think just to kind of add it because you talked about this, that senior leader asking questions, I also. I also believe that because of who they are, often times it's best for them to go last. Where? Absolutely. You know, let's you may bring up the elephant in the room or the whatever we have to talk about. And you may ask questions to challenge it, but that whole time you're watching your body language as people are talking, so you're not telling people things based on facial expressions and so forth, and that you're not solving it yourself, that you are getting everyone else's input.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: And so many people in that role like to do that because they just want to participate. Yeah.

 

Michelle Hill: And they like solving problems a lot of times. I mean, oftentimes if they've been promoted and moved into that role, it was because they were really good at solving problem solving problems.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: So and then there's a million kinds of team building activities. I'm not talking about falling exercises and and rope jumps and things like that. I won't do them. I'm not making anybody else do them right. But there's anything from a series of exercises that we can do with the disc. Um there's a question that I love to ask people, and, you know, that would be what is something that people misunderstand you about you, that you're really something else. So, you know, it's like people think I'm, um, I'm really unengaged when really I'm thinking and I'm just not participating. It's like there's a misunderstanding. Well, people tell us when people tell us those things as a team. Now it's a team building exercise, like, oh, you are really quiet. But I always thought you just were not engaged. It's like, nope, that's not the truth.

 

Michelle Hill: It helps get more facts out and reduce assumptions, right?

 

Andrea Fredrickson: So you can do exercises like that. And so I really think that as the senior person who's leading any team, so whether it's the senior executive team, whether it is team two, your your management team, you know that you're working with, that you have to realize that just because you're bringing a group of people and you've given them a title of X, the team part of this.

 

Michelle Hill: Team.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: This team, that they truly have each other's back versus that what they're doing is we're trying to all win together. We're trying to do the best and the most to accomplish those those organizational objectives. Yes. Right. Yes. And it's that senior leader's responsibility to make sure that is happening.

 

Michelle Hill: And it's building that social capital. It really.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Is opening up that social capital, building it.

 

Michelle Hill: Within the team. So it's when we're just having meetings going over what we're working on and so forth. That's not building the social capital. You have to do little things, little things. Again, it's not the whole falling or jumps or whatever. You you know, it's about just getting to know that person, getting.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: To know each other.

 

Michelle Hill: I like to challenge people with those groups. Well, with all groups in the organization, but where they have one on ones, what are we doing? You know, what am I doing that you really value? What are the things I do that, you know, maybe get in your way or you find frustrating, right. What do you expect of our team or what do you expect of me from this area? You know, a person in this role just where they have some, because that goes back to meeting people's needs. When you're in a big group, some people are going to speak up more, some people are going to speak up less. And if you can set up some one on ones where people are intentional, whether they go for drinks or they go for lunch, or they just meet in the break room or whatever, drive.

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Together, wherever they're going to.

 

Michelle Hill: Drive together and be intentional about understanding, getting to know each other and what's going on in their world. But also what are those things that we can do to work better together?

 

Andrea Fredrickson: Okay, Michelle, so let's just recap this episode. We talked a little bit about the symptoms you're going to notice. We talked about some of the things that we're looking for. So we have a high performing team. And we also talked about a few quick activities that you can do in order to help build that team into a high performing team. Thanks for joining us on this episode today. And in the show notes, we're going to give you a few little tips on team building activities that might help you with the team that you lead, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss another episode.