The One Thing Killing Your Team's Performance
A Disconnected Message Undermines Our Good Work
I went to the bank the other day. I had an appointment, yet I had to wait 20 minutes for someone to tell me there was no one around to see me. As I took a few deep breathes to deal with the anger rising inside, I noticed a message on the wall in large font:
Our Values
Integrity Collaboration Accountability Respect Excellence
"The future depends on what we do in the present.” - Mahatma Gandhi
You can imagine the thoughts streaming through my mind at this point. It wasn't pretty. Outwardly I curtly (but respectfully) asked how I could do what I needed to do another time and walked away.
It was a frustrating exchange. But lets face it, the only commodity of others you can waste is their time. This is the paramount sin in any exchange, and certainly in any business or customer interaction. However, the permanent black mark was left in my mind by the disconnect between their messaging on the walls and their actions.
This misalignment cuts deep, and it is happening in our team's all the time.
We are doing 'X' but now we need 'Y'
I was an active part of this sort of behaviour in my corporate roles. Now, I see it in my client's lives almost every day. The vision of growing the business and long term sustainable performance is talked about at conferences and in All Staff Sessions, but then the scrap for End-of-Month or End-of-Quarter results ends up in all sorts of pressurised decisions, derailments, and dodgy dealings.
Corners are cut, team members are asked to do things they don't want to do, or worse, are immoral, and the vision everyone was smiling and gushing over only months or weeks earlier is trampled into dust.
Leader's credence is hurt, team morale is shunted, and future motivation is eroded. The world throws up thousands of challenges and forces us into a seemingly impossible scenario, but this is a huge part of what leadership is all about. This is what separates Real Performance Cultures and pretenders.
Avoiding a Reactionary Culture
When we have to set a vision, or goals, projections, and forecasts we do it with insights, experience, and hopefully a well considered approach. But, no one can predict the future. So, the need for adaptation is is inevitable. The question to face is, how do you remain consistent while remaining flexible without contradicting yourself?
There are a few ways to navigate this in a sensible way to uphold motivation and team alignment:
Don't Have All The Answers - the biggest mistake leaders make: bunkering down in isolation to create a plan. Then they take to the stage and give 'the big speech' at the conference in a moment of glory. I've done it, and you probably have too. But, it is not helping! We can be a little more audacious to go against the grain and ensure the vision and goals are a true collaboration. It is owned by everyone. It is created by the team. All successes and failures are all-of-our-fault (not just the leaders). The leaders job is to facilitate the process and collate the results - not to create everything in isolation and die on a self-created hill. Thats just not clever, and we've been dying on these hills for generations. Its not helping!
Make Smart Promises - we use the term SMART Goals as a technique for setting useful goals (how to guide, University of California). It is tried and tested and in most circumstances does the job well. This may seem like basics, yet so many either do not use this simple frame, or use it inconsistently (or half-heartedly).
Specific - are your team's goals broad in nature? A common mistake and will cause all sorts of performance barriers.
Measured - What is the numeric marker of success for the action/task/initiative/activity at hand? For some things this feels near on impossible, but with deep thought and discussion it is always findable. Find it and articulate it.
Achievable - Is it possible? Otherwise, risk demotivating them before you've started. This is the simplest one to tick, however the mythical unicorn of 10% growth per year continues to be used.
Relevant - to our circumstance? Our position in the market? Our customer needs? Our people? (...and so on). Relevance is underestimated. Steve Jobs once said it elegantly, "create relevance, not awareness".
Timed - When are we going to complete this? Everything needs a deadline. It gives us lines to play our game within. Without it, it is impossible for a team to focus.
Transparency is Your Weapon - we form all sorts of weird narratives to save face, remain powerful-looking, or to uphold some sort of warped sense of perfection. May I be blunt? No one is buying it. Instead, let them in on timeline of hardships and difficulties. Explain the details of the cascade of excrement you have been navigating. Usually we avoid this as it takes time and energy. But, with a little more attention it saves vast sums of time and energy - especially when it is done as an ongoing practice. Give people credit - they will understand more than we give them credit for.
Alignment is your Stem
Keeping everyone aligned and keeping your message aligned is the goal. When messages start conflicting we are in trouble. When people start going rogue and contradicting each other things get messy. Having an aligned team becomes the stem everything else hangs from. It is the one sense of security everyone can fall back on and know for certain in an uncertain world.
Always remember it can be adapted and updated (it is more a plant than a concrete statue). It can be a living breathing moving tool. But, it needs to maintain its integrity. If not, we are inviting friction, fractions, and possible mutinies. Invest in team alignment and the solid performance you want to see in your team has a chance to develop.
From Big Four Banks to the Solopreneurs, these ideas are relevant and can become a competitive advantage. If you are not seeing this in your organisation, there is nothing stopping you as a leader from leading this within your own department or business unit team.
