Teams and truth

I have written a series of blog posts around the importance of defining the truth, about how it enables freedom for your team, forces leaders to make the right decisions, and keeps people focused, but what do you do once you have defined your truth?  

It should be alive within your teams and to your employees, a constant focus, a vehicle through which people can teach and correct others.  The truth is not for one person to own but the blood that flows through the entire organization.

If someone breaks a truth, any person within the organization should be able to correct the truth breaker.  There should be regular discussions about how things should be done in light of the truth.   Through these steps the truth goes from being words on paper to being actions with meaning.

When do you resolve your employees' challenges?

As a leader do you ask your employees to give you their struggles, their challenges, and obstacles? Do you take the time to remove those challenges for them? I know as a leader the times I found the greatest progress and greatest satisfaction in my job were the times that I was focused on improving the jobs of my employees.  They should be able to bring to you the challenges that they cannot control so you can help alleviate them. This enables your employees to focus on doing their jobs and doing the work you ask them to do. Through this there's so much more that can be accomplished rather than trying to resolve situations that are largely out of their control. Now this is not to say you handle all their challenges for them, because I believe challenges make people stronger but in situations beyond their influence it is good to ease their burden.
Question: Do you ask your employees about their challenges and then recognize the ones beyond their control and help alleviate them?

How do you execute on your vision? Your Brand.

Where Brand and Vision Meet

I have written about the importance of defining your vision around your customer's success and about how Brand is how you execute on that vision.  The critical point is where Brand and Vision meet and that is with your employees and in the truths that you have defined for your business.  You should be able to say to your employees, "Your actions should be worthy of our vision and our truths."  Doing so means everyone is working together towards the same goal and in the same manner and in faith that ultimately you will be successful.  This unity and focus is a powerful driver to move your efforts forward.  

Can star performers hurt overall performance?

You know that guy who's the star performer? Who thinks he's a star performer that's so good he can't be on a team with anyone else? No one else can contribute to what he does. That's the guy you need to part ways with. No one should be allowed to go it alone . Yes, the "star" sole contributor might accept some feedback grudgingly from his boss or some other superior, but never from a colleague, never from someone who's not an expert like he is. I understand, he's an artist, he's got it all figured out, but that is no way to build a team. That is no way to be successful.  In your mind you think, "Maybe I don't need to address it, his work is good and though people know he is playing by his own rules maybe it isn't hurting the team too much."

The fact is if you don't address it other people will think that is the way they can operate. That is not how you obtain long-term success. Do not let people go alone.  I am not proposing doing work by committee, but there isn't a person in the world today who is perfect. There isn't a person who isn't tempted to take shortcuts, who gets tired, and who couldn't use a little help. You do not want a team that is made up of just individual contributors, you want teammates, people who can work together, who know about how they work and know how they produce. A team that will sink into rhythm and flow.

Having people act as individual contributors without anyone else is a bad situation. You're definitely prone to much greater risk. People who act as individual contributors will be focused on their individual accomplishments, so their success can come even at the cost of team failure.

I would strongly encourage anyone in that situation to make sure there is at least one other person that every team member can partner with.  It is not good for someone to go heads down on their work and then show it at the end of the cycle. This is not a good policy.  They don't get a chance to understand whether the progress they are making is good or bad.  It is better for them to be completely open and expose their work entirely to someone else. In that way, you can find the mistakes much earlier and you can get an understanding of what they're doing fits into the larger picture.

Can the team environment increase people's potential?

Have you ever read a great book, a book that really speaks to you, and even though you have gained a certain meaning from it, someone else comes along and adds thoughts that make your understanding even deeper? Maybe you are part of a book club and you get many thoughts that enrich your understanding allowing you to enjoy the book on many different levels.  It is the same for people.

Because each of us is complex and multi-faceted, working as part of a team brings out depth and aspects of our abilities that are not fully realized when working alone.  As part of a team is where the full potential of your abilities and the abilities of others are shown. Your teammates bring things out in you that you have not developed to their fullest potential, abilities you may not have even known you possessed.  You do the same for them.

The beauty of the team is magnified even further when you see the great aspects of others that other people bring out in them.  For instance, a team member you think of as fairly quiet, could open up in interactions with someone else on the team and contribute great ideas.  The interaction with that other person shows a side of that person that you would never know.    How much greater could your efforts be through the understanding of others?

I am convinced that given the chance, each person can improve projects and strategy by offering their thinking and skills beyond what it says on their job title.  The team environment gives individuals a chance to explore what they can offer beyond their job title. They can give more of themselves. By giving more, people do not just improve their work, but also improve their chances for career success.

What do you do when the truth gets in the way?

I believe that truth brings focus. I also believe it keeps you from making mistakes when the desire to be liked takes over. The problem is that sometimes the truth gets in the way of what you think will lead to success. What do you do when the truth gets in the way?

The fact that it does get in the way is exactly why you must define the truth.  It will get in the way when you want to make a bad decision that may have short term gains over long-term benefit, it will get in the way when you want to abandon process, it will get in the way when you want to push an issue under the rug, and it will get in the way when dealing with employees, when dealing with customers, when dealing with your boss . But you need it to get in the way, you need it to define what is right and wrong, that is the rule of truth

If you are not going to allow the things that you hold true to get in the way then don't even bother going through and defining your truth. By the very definition of true, "being in accordance with the actual state of affairs", these items cannot be negotiated, the truth is part of the actual state of affairs.  It is a lot like the law of gravity or light. Your truth is the law to you. Do you negotiate with gravity?  Do you negotiate with the speed of light? No, you do not negotiate, it is what it is and it's the same in this case.

These are your laws that you and your organization live by. So when you go through and define truth, get ready to use it as a bulwark in those situations that you may struggle against.  It's making the right decisions in those situations that will pay the longest term benefit. No one needs truth for easy situations, you need to have it for those challenging situations.

How do you give your employees more freedom to do their jobs?

I am writing a series of blog posts on how important it is to define the truth for yourself and your organization.  Earlier I wrote the first reason: Define your truths, the items that are fundamental to you, so that you do not place being liked over the right thing to do. The second reason to define your truth: Defining what is true helps you focus on working on the right things.  Now the third reason, operating under a structure of truths brings freedom to you and your employees.

It is critical that you clearly define the truth up front.  If truth is not defined clearly, published, circulated, and socialized people may be operating with the best intentions but against your truth. But if you have clearly established the truth and you know people are working towards it then you can give them freedom to work. They don't need to be micromanaged, they don't need to have every action reviewed, because you know they're operating within the truth  framework. The truth does set you free.

While your employees may not work exactly like you would work the fact that they're working towards the same goals and the same truths should enable you to free them to work without you looking over their shoulder. For instance, say a truth of your organization is that the customer comes first, the customer experience is primary, and you have documented this truth, published, and trained people on this truth. Unless they are choosing to be ignore you, your employees will not be making decisions that go against the truth. You don't need to worry about the freedom people have because they are operating within that context. They aren't going to take action against it and if they do there will be appropriate ramifications.

But that is freedom, the fact that their work is informed by the knowledge that they put customer experience first means they can operate without as many explicit instructions. People value freedom because that is how they can do meaningful work that utilizes their potential.  The best work gets done in that freedom.  Instead of having an additional person, namely you, working to accomplish what you asked, you're able to enable people to accomplish the work on their own. Oversight is adding nothing if it's solely there to establish guard rails which could be established by just clearly defining your truth up front.
This idea scales to you to your team to your larger organization into your company. Have you gone through to find the truth in your organization? Not the best practices the actual fundamental truths, the themes that you cannot deviate from. If you have have you got through and documented them then go make it clear to everyone exactly what they are.