July, 2017 | Lorne Rubis

New Science Behind Smarter Teams

Key Point: “A new science of effective teamwork is vital not only because teams do so many important things in society, but also because so many teams operate over long periods of time, confronting an ever-widening array of tasks and problems that may be much different from the ones they were initially convened to solve. General intelligence, whether in individuals or teams, is especially crucial for explaining who will do best in novel situations or ones that require learning and adaptation to changing circumstances.” That’s the summary of important work underway by scientists trying to understand why and how some teams work smarter than others.

As most of my readers know, I’ve been stressing the renewed importance of advanced teamwork impacting innovation/adaptability, and have been gathering this thinking under the umbrella of a reenergized movement I refer to as “Peer-To-Peer Power.” That’s why the insights outlined by these researchers are important for leaders to consider when making teams smarter. Contemplate two studies with practical applications on why some teams have a collective higher IQ and get better results.

One study highlights the following as differentiators:

“First, their members contributed more equally to the team’s discussions, rather than letting one or two people dominate the group.

Second, their members scored higher on a test called ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes,’ which measures how well people can read complex emotional states from images of faces with only the eyes visible.

Finally, teams with more women outperformed teams with more men. Indeed, it appeared that it was not ‘diversity’ (having equal numbers of men and women) that mattered for a team’s intelligence, but simply having more women. This last effect, however, was partly explained by the fact that women, on average, were better at ‘mindreading’ than men.”

Another study looked at teams working online and off, and again some teams consistently worked smarter than others. The researchers’ conclusions:

“More surprisingly, the most important ingredients for a smart team remained constant regardless of its mode of interaction: Members who communicated a lot, participated equally and possessed good emotion-reading skills.

This last finding was another surprise. Emotion-reading mattered just as much for the online teams whose members could not see one another as for the teams that worked face to face. What makes teams smart must be not just the ability to read facial expressions, but a more general ability, known as ‘Theory of Mind’ to consider and keep track of what other people feel, know and believe.”

Character Moves:

We need to challenge ourselves to discover why some teams work smarter than others. Think of the number of teams in your organization. How much conscious time is given to investing in their true effectiveness? A good agenda and process is no longer sufficient for effective teamwork. We need to put intentionality behind full participation, having more women in the discussion and perhaps most importantly, what the researchers refer to as “Theory of Mind:” The ability to track what other people feel, know and believe.
Let’s explore the latest work/advancement in emotion reading skills. By the way, one cannot effectively read emotions without full attention and presence in team environments. This is just as, or perhaps even more important in on-line team peer-work versus face-to-face.

In the end, smarter teams need to get smarter results.

Smarter teams in The Triangle,

Lorne

One Millennial View: I think being able to “read a room” is as important of an IQ/EQ skill as many book-learned qualifications. I hope many Millennials might have an edge up on this. It’s a puzzle we should always be working on. Figuring out what our teammates feel, know and believe is crucial and the way piece together the true character by your side. Ironically, “reading a room” is unfortunately tougher than learning some things you can just read in a book.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Do Not Use the ‘C-Word’

Accountability Personal leadership Transformation

Key Point: Ok, maybe we should end the abusive use of the “C-word,” and that word is “change.” Honestly, I’m worn out with phrases like “change management,” “change resistance,” “change failure,” etc. Let’s all agree that change can be hard. When we have to do things differently, it makes sense that it’s challenging. Most things worth doing involve overcoming hurdles. Ever run a marathon? Few people before running their first one believe it’s going to be a cakewalk. Yet, if you are dedicated and train, I believe anyone can run the 26.2 miles. It’s only a matter of time. I’ve ran two marathons and always wanted to beat my three hour target. I came close. Were my marathons “successful,” even if I didn’t complete one in less than three hours? Heck ya, as far as I’m concerned. This way of thinking may also apply to organization and personal transformation.

I really liked Nick Tasler’s HBR blog entitled “Stop Using the Excuse ‘Organizational Change is Hard.’” Here is how he concludes, and I whole-heartedly agree: “We have been learning new skills and adapting to new environments literally since the day we squirmed out of the womb. Every time we feel the impulse to say ‘change is hard,’ we could make a different claim that is every bit as accurate: Adaptation is the rule of human existence, not the exception.”

I have been leading big system adaptation and transformation throughout my career. With the risk of sounding over confident, I genuinely believe I can lead (developing a great team around me at the same time), a giant positive transformation in any environment. Depending on the size of the system it will start immediately and three to five years later it will be measurably better. There are common ingredients and my readers may be familiar with the eight-ingredient system for cultural transformation I’ve written about previously. Here are some minimum conditions that are necessary if you want to join me for the rocket ride:

Be prepared to think and be big.
The purpose or “why” has to really matter and be clear.
Love and breathe adaptation like oxygen.
Have the ability to change perspective.
Challenge assumptions and be curious as hell.
Get s#!& done. I detest procrastination.
Love a relentless pace and get energized by it. Be smart enough to know when to rest.
No excuses. You’re fiercely accountable.
Set targets people think are too high.
When people tell you you’re working on too many things at one time, ask them to get the hell out of the way.
Be compassionate, and accept not everyone wants to go for the ride.
Accept critics, skeptics and quickly remove cynics.
Celebrate milestones and understand that your full work and contribution may not be fully appreciated (that’s part of successful adaption).
Do not accept binary success criteria. Transformation is always on a continuum.
Embrace the uniqueness and personality of the adaptation process; each is deliciously unique.
Enjoy the highs and embrace the lows; grit your teeth, stay calm, relentlessly move forward.
Breathe, pause, and never stop!
Avoid leaders like me if this list is exhausting.

Character Moves:

Kill the “C-word.”
Adapt, transform, move; make it who you are and recognize it’s a practice, NOT an event!

Adapting as humans in The Triangle,

Lorne

One Millennial View: I really like this. Sure, “change” is tough, but us Millennials deal with it on such a regular basis that it should be second nature to us in a lot of ways. For example, every social media outlet has changed dramatically since we’ve started using them, and if you pulled up Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or Twitter’s interface from a few years ago, they would seem outdated. If you’re not adapting as often as an Apple OS update, then you could probably use a reboot.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Dogfooding: The Company & You

Accountability Management Organizational leadership

Key Point: “Dogfooding” is a matter of integrity. You likely guessed that this refers to the adage many of us have heard: “Eat your own dog food.” The following outlines Facebook’s approach on the subject:

“Dogfooding” is a common practice of most IT companies for fixing the bugs in the application they create, but Facebook goes a step beyond by using the technique to retain employees, according to a report from The Economic Times. Facebook is using this technique to engage its young employees, with most of them being in their twenties and edgy and/or impatient… James Mitchell, head of the Hyderabad office (India) says, “Dogfooding is one of the best outlets that we can provide for young, enterprising intelligent minds. It binds them to the product and the company very strongly.” He says that Dogfooding is the standard through which voice of the employees can be heard. Facebook employees hack, test, and beat up all their products before (and after) they hit the market.

As per Facebook, Google and other leading companies, it’s strategically important for employees to “dogfood” its own products. And I believe this concept applies to us personally, too. One example is that I strongly believe we personally cannot stay in the high performance zone indefinitely. In full, high-performance, we eventually become fatigued and stressed so we need to intentionally REST. Leading firms like The Energy Group, who study this process deeply, understand and teach groups how to flow from high-performance to rest, and back again. They advise everything possible to avoid prolonged time in the fatigue/stress zone. If one stays too long in this stress zone, well, unintended bad things typically happen to us.

I’ve written about the importance of personal energy management a few times over the years. Most of my readers know my team and I have been leading an intense enterprise initiative since January. It’s been relentless; The thinking, planning and execution. It’s involved many 14-hour days, weekends, travel, and the excitement/anxiety associated with high risk/return movements. So… Dogfooding… Both my team and I need to internationally REST. Take some white space, and reenergize before we step on the gas again.

Character Moves:

Dogfood your company products.
Dogfood your beliefs and values. Both 1 and 2 are about integrity.

Dogfooding in The Triangle,

Lorne

One Millennial View: Millennials all want to move a million miles an hour towards our goals, and certainly don’t live with much patience. But, even NASCAR crews have to take a pit stop and “check their tires.” If you need kibbles and bits of advice, this is a good one to chow down on.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Collaboration: An Imperative in Modern Organizations

Collaboration Personal leadership Respect

Key Point: Collaboration is no longer a nicety to have. It is vital. Why? Content is exploding and moving so quickly that we simply need each other for the best innovative and sustainable results. It has always been more effective and gratifying to learn as a group (although sometimes frustrating). But today, it is an imperative.

Effective collaboration needs more than great tools (like Google’s G Suite) and can’t be applied as the latest buzzword in management. It needs practice and a learning framework. This insight comes from “The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them.”

The authors recommend the following ingredients to drive effective collaboration:

1. Joint Attention.

“To collaborate, people need to pay attention to the same thing. Visual attention provides an index of what people are thinking about. If you are looking longingly at an ice-cold beer, it is a good bet that you are thinking about an ice-cold beer.” PS that’s why people working on the same doc together, seeing common info on a screen, and/or seeing each other by video, helps promote collaboration.

2. Listening.

“Thoughts can be much more complex than an eye gaze. It also helps to hear what people are thinking. A common situation is that people refuse to listen to one another because they are too busy talking or they just discount other’s ideas.” In our organization we teach everyone the simple listening model: Connect, Understand, then… Act.

3. Sharing.

“Sharing operates on two levels: Sharing common goals and sharing ideas. First, if people do not share some level of common goal, they will collaborate to cross-purposes. Second, if nobody shares ideas, collaboration will not go very far.”

4. Coordinating.

“Have you ever had the experience of a group discussion, in which you just cannot seem to get your timing right? Either you always interrupt before the speaker is done, or someone else grabs the floor exactly when the other person finishes, before you jump in. Collaboration requires a great deal of turn-taking coordination.”

5. Perspective Taking.

“A primary reason for collaborating is that people bring different ideas to the table. The first four ingredients—joint attention, listening, sharing, and coordinating—support the exchange of information. The fifth ingredient is to understand why people are offering the information they do.” Some great thinkers believe the ability to change perspective involves a higher IQ.

The point of the five collaboration ingredients above, is that organizations need to be mindful about how each of the skills exist in their populations. Tools like the G Suite help because they naturally reinforce many of the points above. However, it is important to be intentional about the individual behaviors as well. All five are ideally present and alive. The more advanced we are in each, the higher the collaboration impact.

Character Moves:

How effective of a collaborator are you? Are you self aware of these five ingredients? What score out of 10 would you give yourself?
Are you proactive on the five ingredients? That’s a personal brand differentiator.

Big five collaboration in The Triangle,

Lorne,

One Millennial View: Fellow Millennials: If you truly think that collaboration will negatively impact your individual goals, then you may seriously be in a rare, toxic atmosphere. You’re better off risking being a company player than a non-participant that has seen too many movies where a main character gets burned.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Ban All “Just A” Jobs!

Abundance Contribution Management

Key Point: Every role and job in every organization is vital. There is no room for what I call “just a” type jobs. Of course, some jobs pay better than others for a variety of reasons. However, from a company’s “brand” perspective, every job counts big time.

Many of my readers know I work in the financial services sector. In our retail business, we have a frontline customer-facing position called a CSR (Customer Service Rep). When we first held Culture Days (our on-boarding event for new hires), as people introduced themselves, some might say, “I’m JUST a CSR.” As the exec sponsor and facilitator, I would politely intervene; asking the CSR to take out “just a.” Why? This position creates the brand impression for our company due to the number of customers they touch each day and every minute. It is an essential and vital role! You and I see this at other workplaces daily. For example: The coffee barista, bus driver, receptionist, call center person, flight attendant, waiter, etc. Regardless of what companies advertise as their brand, the real brand “smell test” starts when we interact with the frontline customer-facing folks. How could we afford to have anyone of these people see himself or herself in “just a” job?

I remember when I first became the Chief People Officer of the company in 2012, and attended one our prescheduled on-boarding sessions. I sat down at a random table for lunch, and asked people why they joined the company. The very first response came from a CSR and it was, “my mom wanted me out of the house.” “Holy cow” is the politest response that immediately came to mind. I had to squeeze hard to keep my inner voice under control. If this is how we recruit for our customer facing positions, we had huge work to do. And we did. As a result, we are at a much better and different spot today. Every role is vital, and direct customer-facing ones, even more so.

Character Moves:

As a leader, it is your job to make sure every role is a vital one based on the impact to customers and other teammates. Ban “just a” jobs. Help every person in every role connect to the organization’s purpose.
As a team member, you also have a responsibility to connect to your company’s purpose and to act as if you matter… Because you do. Think big. Be big. Do not “mail it in,” as the saying goes.
Have the highest standards of recruiting for every position including “dishwasher.” Do not let anyone in just to fill for “just a” job. Unless, of course, you do not care about your brand.

No “just a’s” in The Triangle,

Lorne

One Millennial View: I’m sure some Millennials might be told by peers or even society that their position is “just a” job. You can see how that’d be an easy mindset to trap yourself in, especially if you’re still searching for a position that fully utilizes your earned skillsets, or find yourself between jobs and needing to pay bills with work you’re overqualified for. But, I suppose that’s when you have to lend a nice middle-finger to anyone who tries to knock you down a peg, and believe that anything you do that (legally) keeps the lights on is something to find pride in.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

Invest in the Permanent You

Growth mindset Personal leadership Respect

Key Point: Invest mightily in your permanent skills and strengths. Today, my team has lead 5,000+, engaged and committed team members to the beginning of something we call “Work Reimagined.” In some ways it feels like we all walked into an Olympic stadium, after months of training, and collectively crowded up to the starting line of the marathon, waiting for the gun. We are all working with a completely new tool set – Google’s G-Suite. We promised team members that they would become richer for the experience, and I believe that. Of course, these G Suite tools will continually evolve and learning how to best use them will require constant learning. However, my last comment notwithstanding, I believe we will deliver on our promise. Why? Because the G Suite advances what I believe are the really “hard skills,” and the ones most irreplaceable, regardless of changes in the technology, economy or industry.

In a recent New York Times article, LinkedIn identified a number of currently in-demand skills. (And yes, if you have content knowledge in these areas, you are in a very hot hiring market). Employers want and really need the following skills now:

New “HARD [temporary] SKILLS:

Cloud Computing Expertise.

Data Mining and Statistical Analysis.

Smartphone App Development.

Data Storage Engineering and Management.

User Interface Design.

Network Security Expertise.

Machine Learning/Development.

Robotics.”

However, companies are realizing that they can train (as well as recruit) for these new “hard” (temporary) skills, so they are also focusing on hiring for so-called “soft” (permanent, meta skills). I believe these are the ACTUAL “hard” skills. The following IBM model is a micro-example: A company searches for people with great soft/permanent skills, and trains them to learn the so called “hard skills:”

“In the last two years, nearly a third of IBM’s new hires in Rocket Center (makes fighter plane composites applying cloud computing, cyber security, application development) and in a few other locations, have not had four-year college degrees. IBM has jointly developed curriculums with the local community college, as well as one-year and two-year courses aligned with the company’s hiring needs…”

The really “hard” soft skills are difficult to train for. Why? Learning each one is very individual and time consuming. As well, these skills or attributes are on a continuum. One can continuously invest and get better at applying them over time. If one has a well-developed capability on these individually and as a connected system, it becomes a great permanent investment.

The really “hard” “SOFT [permanent] SKILLS:

Communication [connect/understand/act].

Curiosity.

Adaptability.

Teamwork/Collaboration.

Empathy/Compassion.

Energy Management.

Open-Mindedness/Perspective.

Inventiveness.

Self-Accountability/Respect/Abundance.”

So, back to the G Suite… Learning how to embrace the G Tools as a system involves investing in each of the really hard, soft and permanent skills noted above. While we fully connect and apply the entire tool set, we all will sharpen each of our soft skills and hence make each of us more valuable. Can I guarantee that? No. But I genuinely believe the new “soft skills” are truly the ones to continuously invest in. If you can adapt and change to keen, new, (albeit temporary) content/technical skills AND build on top of growing your soft permanent skills, well, you’re golden.

Character Moves:

1. Continuously invest in the “hard/soft” skills above, and you will adapt and always be valuable regardless of the exponential change coming our way.

“Hard” Soft skills in The Triangle,

– Lorne

One Millennial View: When I think about it, if I’ve ever heard my friends complain about co-workers or colleagues, it’s not the “hard” skills that anyone is lacking… It’s the inability to mesh on a “soft” skill level that makes work become a miserable destination versus somewhere they love showing up and excelling at. It seems you can be hired for your “hard” skills, but you’ll become very hard to replace thanks to excellent “soft” skills.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis