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Category: Self-Awareness

Building a High Performing Team

Building a High Performing Team

Many of my Vice President’s and Practice Area Leads tell me, “Your team is a high performing team.” Then they ask, “What do you do to make it happen?” They comment, “Your team members are smiling all the time with happy faces,” or “Your Key Performance Metrics are all green with an excellent CPI (Customer Performance Index). 9 on the scale of 1 to 10 with continuous extension of the customer contracts.” “How do you make this happen?”

Having a busy schedule never gave me the chance to articulate my strategies in words, however now that I’ve been given an opportunity to write this blog post, I’ve thought of a few things which I was doing subconsciously.

One of the challenges in managing people is that some team members are not adaptable and acceptable to change and there are others who don’t want to accept any changes. I found that understanding personality styles helps me to better manage my team.

Understanding my team members’ personality styles along with brainer technique is key to understand how the person thinks and executes. Are they a left brainer or right brainer or a well-balanced person using their whole brain for thinking and execution? (See below for more details on brain types.) Having a sense of how the person uses their brain helps me to manage more effectively. Knowing a person’s personality style, I can identify the right fit for teams for different projects. For example, people who are right brain type of people are the perfect fit for innovative projects. Whole brain type of people are often the right fit for team lead positions and so on.

Another example about working with a right brainer. One of my team members came up to me with loads of enthusiasm around an idea for building a new framework for automation even though we had an existing framework to support. His idea was creative and made sense for what we wanted to achieve in the long term – and had a bigger ROI (Return On Investment) than our existing solution. I gave him the opportunity to work on his idea which turned out to be a very successful project.

Left brainers are great for systematic approaches to projects. Based on the nature of responses to questions and the kind of artifacts delivered by one of my team members, I was able to identify her as a left brainer. I found her to be an analytical person with a logical approach to solving issues. I assigned her to our knowledge share SharePoint updates project which she was able to complete with very minimal support. This became a very useful knowledge harvesting platform at an organisational level.

What do I mean by right and whole brain types of people? Personality assessments (see related article) help to identify people who are left, right or whole brains types of thinkers. Knowing the strengths of my team members helps me to motivate, encourage and provide opportunities for them.

What I’ve learned about Left, Right, and Whole Brain Types

It would be amazing to be surrounded with whole brainers all the time. A whole-brained approach connects the right and left brain. Interestingly, these days, some educational systems try to foster a more whole-brained scholastic approach with teaching techniques that connect with both sides of brain.

Left brain and right brain dominated people can be classified with regard to their thinking style.

Left brainers have a more systematic approach and tend to follow the rules. Analysis and logical thinking are their strengths. These folks are often good on projects involving algorithms. For example, software design using data structures and algorithms however complicated it is.

Right brainers are more creative and think intuitively. They are a very good fit for innovative projects. These types of people are new ideas generators. Often, they come up with the right answer but are not sure how they got it. These types of people often do lots of reverse engineering.

The four quadrant model of behavioural types that is often used to understand how people think has these four types: Driver, Analytical, Amiable and Expressive. Here is a map of left and right brainers to this model:

  • Drivers are right brainers who know what they want and how to get there with high energy.
  • Analyticals are left brainers who are highly detailed people with a methodical approach.
  • Amiables are left brainers who try to get along with all personality types blending to all types of situations.
  • Expressives combine right brainers excellent communication skills and great speaking ability but are not very concerned about facts.

 

Picture: http://www.runrunlive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Personality-types.jpg

Knowing what kinds of thinkers my team members are allows me to provide them with opportunities that challenge and motivate them. It is my secret weapon in building high performance teams.

About Rashi Gaur

Rashi’s leadership and mentorship experience along with people management and high customer satisfaction has resulted in successful project deliveries globally for organizations including Honeywell, IBM, Boeing, General Motors, Shell and ABB Inc.

Rashi has 15 plus years of experience in IT projects and hardcore test management in various domains including automobiles, aerospace, oil & gas in industrial sectors at various management levels.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashi-gaur-pmp-b6b3b844/

Company Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Company Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If you’ve ever worked at a small startup or have been part of a management team, you’ve probably worked on defining the company values and goals. Many employees are often cynical about the company values. They think it’s a futile exercise because it often seems that once the values are identified and listed on a company webpage, they are promptly forgotten.

Some values frequently selected include:

  • Integrity
  • Respect
  • Diversity

These are all good words. But how are those words implemented in the organization? Or are there implicit values that are actually implemented?

For example, many companies say they value diversity and integrity. However, actions always speak louder than words. If diversity is valued but the management team is composed entirely of white males, that makes me go “hmmmm.” Do they really value diversity? Or, say the company gets called out for not treating employees fairly. Is integrity really a value?

Why do disconnects occur between the values written down and the values demonstrated by the leaders and employees in a company? It’s simple: it’s the leadership team. The leaders allow certain behaviors to exist and flourish in an organization even if these behaviors directly contradict the stated values.

Employees take cues from the leadership team. If at an all-hands meeting, a leader jokes about “bro” culture, she or he is sending a signal that the “bro” culture is ok. Sure, it’s a joke. But why make such a joke? If a leader only considers hiring white males, how much does that leader value diversity? The managers in the company will take notice and follow that lead.

At one company for which I worked, one of my employees was having issues with someone in another group. The person’s behavior toward my employee was threatening. When I went to my peer to discuss the situation with him, he brushed off my concern by saying that was just the way this person was. Regardless, the behavior was inappropriate. I asked my employee to keep a record of what this person said to him. He did.

I took this evidence to our Human Resources department and they followed up on it. Found out this inappropriate behavior was happening with other employees as well and that it had been going on for awhile. People were afraid of the guy and avoided him. Hostile working environment anyone? The person was fired.

The reason this had gone on as long as it had was because the leader of the organization, by ignoring the inappropriate behavior, was supporting it. It didn’t matter one of the company values was respect. He was encouraging disrespectful behavior. His reasons for not addressing the issues were: “That’s just the way he is” and “but he’s a valuable member of the team.” These are never justifications for not reprimanding or even firing someone for inappropriate behavior.

Defining values for a company or organization is important. But what’s even more important is having the leaders of a company understand they are the ones defining values every day through their words and actions. Living the values is more important than just listing the values on a company webpage.

Communicating Clearly and Concisely

Communicating Clearly and Concisely

Leaning forward across the table, I explained how I was writing a blog about management and leadership. The man sitting across from me had an impatient look on his face as he shook his head and said, “So you’re writing blogging software?” I said no, I wasn’t writing software to create blogs, I was writing a blog about management and leadership. He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss this notion and said, “That is not a business. You need to have a clear idea.” I attempted to share that I realized it wasn’t a business, however I wanted to write a blog about management and leadership. But he wasn’t listening. Looking into his eyes, I could see he was already thinking about what he wanted to say next. He only wanted to talk about his ideas.

There are two things that stood out in this conversation for me. One was that I don’t clearly explain what I’m doing which is something I can work on. Second, this person wasn’t listening to me.

The more I thought about this experience, the more I realized if I am going to communicate an idea or project or anything to another person, I need to have an absolutely clear, concise, and compelling way of doing so. Because no matter what I am doing or where I am working, I need to communicate about what I am working on whether it’s a product or a service. If I can’t do that in 1 to 2 sentences and it doesn’t sound very interesting, I’ll lose a large chunk of the listening population. Why? Because they will only listen long enough to determine if they are interested in what I am saying. Once they determine they are not interested, they aren’t going to listen to anything else I say after that.

In the last year, I joined a small business networking group to see how this type of networking works. Every week, each person has 30 seconds to introduce themselves and their companies. This was a tremendous learning experience. I learned to narrow down my focus and hit at the heart of what I am doing. I needed the practice. Listening to others pitch their companies gave me lots of examples and helped me to understand how to be more clear and concise.

In reflecting on previous attempts to explain an idea or a proposal through the years, I realized I failed to be clear and concise. I needed a 1 to 2 minute pitch even when I was working at an established company. If I had a 1 to 2 minute pitch then presented the details, I would have been more successful in selling my proposals. Looking back, I’ve created many Powerpoint presentations to explain projects but I bet I just bored the heck out of my audience because I didn’t have my pitch refined and in place.

That conversation about my blog was a good kick in the butt experience for me and joining the small business networking group was just the place to learn what I needed to learn.

So why I am I blogging about managing people? I blog because I want to share what I’ve learned about managing people and the most important skill a manager cultivates, at least in my opinion, is self-awareness.

Communicating more clearly and concisely about my work is something to always be aware of and a skill I need to constantly cultivate. Communication begins with me.

Communicating Clearly with Culturally Diverse Teams

Communicating Clearly with Culturally Diverse Teams

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Clearly communicating is challenging. It’s challenging with everyone in the same room. Adding people who grew up in different geographical areas – each bringing a different cultural worldview, different ways of communicating that they take for granted, and you have a much higher potential for confusion and misunderstandings. Then add in geographically remote team members who may only be included via audio and not video and consequently seem even more distant. Opportunities for miscommunication double and triple.

How can such a team effectively communicate to avoid misunderstandings?

Never assume that they will correctly interpret colloquialisms. Once, after talking with someone from Russia, I said, “Great talking with you. Talk to you later.” He looked confused and said, “Are we talking later too?” I was lucky he asked for clarification. How many other colloquialisms have I used and no one asked for clarification? Avoid colloquialisms.

Talk slowly. If the person is not a native English speaker, they might be translating from English to their native language as you are talking to them. If you speak rapidly, they might miss something. And they might feel uncomfortable with asking you to repeat what you said. So speak slowly. Pause where appropriate. Ask if they need clarification.

Remember YOU have an accent. You may notice others have an accent and how it can make it harder for you to understand them at times. The reality is that you have one too. When we get excited, our accents are magnified. Talking slowly and clearly enunciating your words helps. If someone looks confused about the words you are using, try explaining with different words instead of simply repeating yourself.

Write it down. After a meeting, write up the important points. Especially what you expect from that person. This gives them a chance to review things at their own pace instead of while you are talking. Ask for feedback on your write up. Ask if you missed anything or if they have anything to add.

When possible, have remote team members on video as well as audio. Nothing can replace face-to-face conversations but video can help people connect better. Instead of just a disembodied voice on the other end, you see a living person with facial expressions. It’s more personal and making it personal allows communication to work better.

Have a quarterly or yearly face-to-face meeting with everyone. I had a team of managers from four countries. We had a yearly offsite meeting to review our mission, goals, and progress. Instead of having the meeting in the US where I am located, I had it in India. There were several benefits. One was that for once, the US based managers had to travel for the offsite. They were the ones that didn’t go home at night. This might seem trivial, but it’s not. Another benefit was the local team had a chance to meet the managers that they’d heard about but never seen. It also demonstrated that I didn’t think the US was the only important site.

What tips do you have for ensuring clear communication among people from different countries?

When You Don’t Agree with Upper Management

When You Don’t Agree with Upper Management

Recently I was watching an episode of the show “Silicon Valley” in which, the CEO of Pied Piper made a decision to create an appliance instead of a platform. The engineering lead and his team thought the decision a bad one, but the sales people liked it. So the CEO and the board decided it was worth producing. But later, the board changed direction to go with the platform concept when Hooli decided to buy Pied Piper’s main competitor who was creating a similar platform. By buying their competitor, Hooli gave a dollar value to the platform. So the board fired the CEO and went with the platform instead of the appliance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlHMJaovr3g


If you are in management, you’ve probably had the experience of not agreeing with your manager or your manager’s manager with regard to big decisions like this. Some people are really good at finessing the situation. I’ve been learning from them. I’m very direct, very blunt. Sometimes, being direct is appropriate and sometimes it really isn’t. What I work on is understanding when the direct approach isn’t going to work. Yes, I’ve blown this in a major way at times. Calling out the CEO in front of all his management staff? Not a good idea.

When I determine a less direct approach is needed, I begin by asking for more information. How was this decision made? Is it ok if I talk to the people that helped you make this decision? My goal is to turn the questions into a conversation. This is a struggle at times, especially when what I really want to do is just explain why it’s a bad decision.

Sometimes, a decision can be changed. Other times, I have to get behind the decision even if I disagree with it. The bottom line is, either you decide to get behind the decision or you leave the company. Why leave the company if you can’t get behind the decision?  Remember, you are part of a management team. If you can’t support that team, you need to get out. Otherwise,you might end up being a negative influence and that can reflect badly on you and the company.

What do you do when you don’t agree with a decision made by management?