Teamwork – Dan Greer

Five Essential Traits Of Post-Pandemic Leadership

Dan Greer — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 14:08:12 +0000

Even the most bottom line leaders should know by now that healthy relationships within their team is what delivers the most productive results. So now we are in a leadership culture where Character is far more important than Competency. Words like Trust are no longer considered soft skills but are very hard in impacting the bottom line.

This Forbes post is excellent: “The long-term impact of the pandemic on the work environment remains to be seen, but the pandemic’s immediate impact has been to underline the flaws in the entrenched industrial mindset approach to work. And while those flaws, and the attendant command and control approach to how work should be performed, have been acknowledged by organizations for more than two decades, without adequate pressure to change that mindset, the pace of change has been glacial.”

Two Common Mistakes Leaders Make About Developing A Healthy Feedback Culture

Dan Greer — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 14:56:03 +0000

My leadership development taught leaders that they should be giving ongoing feedback to team members based on performance. This almost one way conversation almost always felt like an audit rather than a conversation. The missing piece in setting the right culture is to let the team member have the primary responsibility for asking for help.

This Forbes post is an excellent read for all leaders: “All healthy companies strive to create a culture where well-intended feedback is continuously provided and received at all levels of the organization. Few things accelerate individual and organizational performance as much as receiving constructive feedback about how actions and behaviors can be more effective toward accomplishing desired goals. Today’s working environment is complex, fast-moving, and matrixed, making it necessary to quickly understand when behaviors and actions are causing unintended issues.”

Where We Go Wrong With Collaboration

Dan Greer — Thu, 12 May 2022 20:29:21 +0000

Although collaboration can be a very good thing for your leadership, if you get it wrong it can destroy your productivity and damage your team culture. The old ideas that everyone needed to know everything and that everyone needs to give input are both worst practice for teams. For your information updates and too loose meeting agendas will also discourage your best leaders who need that time to actually get some work done.

This HBR post is an excellent read for any team leader who wants to be effective:

“Practically everything we do at work is a collaboration. Pre-pandemic, many people spent 85% or more of their time each week in collaborative work — answering emails, instant messaging, in meetings, and using other team collaboration tools and spaces. This number has only grown throughout the pandemic, with no end in sight as we move into various forms of hybrid work.”

5 Key Trends Leaders Need To Understand To Get Hybrid Right

Dan Greer — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:08:27 +0000

By its very nature a major disruption demands transformation not realignment. This does not mean that everything in the past about leading teams needs to be replaced but it does mean that it will probably never be the same again either.

A massive shift is taking place in corporate workplaces and every leader needs to be able to navigate the changes that must be made to hire and retain the best leaders moving forward. This HBR post will definitely help:

“After many false starts, organizations are finally making the shift into a true hybrid work model. Like every other turning point over the past two years, there’s no shortage of perspectives on what this next phase will look like. While some companies are going all in on flexible work, others are pushing for a return to the office of 2019.

Despite this range of approaches, nearly every leader today has the same question: Is the new emphasis on flexibility and well-being a temporary pendulum swing, or the beginning of our new normal?”

5 Things High-Performing Teams Do Differently

Dan Greer — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 15:11:46 +0000

The Covid pandemic has changed everything from our personal lives to how we work. The how we work part is incredibly different from one organization to the next. Many are seeing people come back to the office, while others still have everyone doing remote work.

Clearly this is a once in a lifetime moment to evaluate how you want your team to work moving forward. Some of the core values of the past must be maintained, while new innovation will eventually take us to a better place of even more effectiveness. This HBR post was an excellent read:

“When it comes to building extraordinary workplaces and high-performing teams, researchers have long appreciated that three psychological needs are essential: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Decades of research demonstrate that when people feel psychologically fulfilled, they tend to be healthier, happier, and more productive.”

How To Say “No” After Saying “Yes”

Dan Greer — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 14:13:04 +0000

All leaders have an extremely hard time saying No to something that is urgent but in reality not that important. Unless you have clearly defined what your “Yes’s” are it is almost impossible to say no to the things that should never be done.

This gets a hundred times harder when we know we need to say No but we have already committed to do something. It takes real courage and conviction to pay the price to risk damaging the relationship and your reputation. This post by Melody Wilding is very helpful:

“Picture it — a colleague asks if you can chair a new committee they’re starting. Without even pausing to think, the first words out of your mouth are, “Sure. I’d love to!” Flash forward, and you’re looking at emails piling up in your inbox and a flurry of appointments on your calendar. It suddenly hits you that you’re spread too thin. You know you need to say no after saying yes, but you’re hesitant to back out of the obligation after you’ve already given your word.”

Collaboration Overload Is Sinking Productivity

Dan Greer — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 16:59:38 +0000

I can remember in my leadership journey the bad old days of highly directive leadership. Priorities were set at the very top and everyone else was delegated the responsibility for execution but not development.

Then the Information Age of leadership started to value the collective wisdom of others and collaboration went to the top of the list of preferred leadership styles. There was also the added benefit of everyone knowing everything and surely that was good for moral and a healthy organizational culture.

Now we have finally realized that everyone does not need to know everything and we are drowning in too much “For Your Information” updates that require everyone to read and respond. This HBR post starts to bring some sanity back to this critically important leadership subject:

“Collaborative work — time spent on email, IM, phone, and video calls — has risen 50% or more over the past decade to consume 85% or more of most people’s work weeks. The Covid-19 pandemic caused this figure to take another sharp upward tick, with people spending more time each week in shorter and more fragmented meetings, with voice and video call times doubling and IM traffic increasing by 65%. And to make matters worse, collaboration demands are moving further into the evening and are beginning earlier in the morning.”

When Do We Actually Need To Meet In Person

Dan Greer — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 14:35:28 +0000

In my last post I talked about the importance of alignment with your communication platforms and the activities you are trying to resolve. The days of all the team members meeting to share information updates and to take the time to hear from everyone are over.

Meetings will need to be smaller with hybrid temporary working groups and the use of project management software is essential for keeping everyone up to date. This post by Rae Ringle is excellent and should be a must read and share for all team leaders:

“Three days in the office, two working from home? Or two weeks in the office, then two at home (or some other, more alluring remote locale)? Everyone in all the time, like in 2019?

These are some of the options leaders are considering as they grapple with what going back to work should look like. Some of these new arrangements are landing uneasily. At Apple, for example, employees are pushing back against a policy requiring them to be in the office three days a week, describing a “disconnect between how the executive team thinks about remote/location-flexible work and the lived experiences of many of Apple’s employees.”

7 Strategies To Break Down Silos In Big Meetings

Dan Greer — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 14:54:57 +0000

For far too long, teamwork was dominated by the idea of collaboration. Initially, that meant everyone needed to know everything and be involved to give input. This led to too many meetings wasting time with F.Y.I type information and it takes time to make sure everyone has contributed.

Today that thinking has been reduced significantly and the new challenge is how to get critical path work done without needing everyone in the room. The leadership strategy of building hybrid teams across multiple divisions and reporting lines is critical. This HBR post is excellent:

“When members of multidisciplinary teams are asked to describe their colleagues, many will say their peers are collegial, professional, and accomplished. While we would all love to be on a team that’s not dysfunctional, behind this insipid description lurks a peril that is far from bland: the lack of collaboration between siloes.”

The Six Traits Of Inspirational Leaders

Dan Greer — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 13:36:42 +0000

Transactional leaders who are very directive work very well in the middle of a crisis like Covid 19. They are focused on getting the right things done and the reality of a disruption forces quick decision making to sustain success. Now that we are transitioning back into at least a Hybrid model of work and collaboration, effective leaders must shift back to more of a relational style and inspire their people.

This Forbes Coached Council post offers some excellent reminders of what is important now:

“Are you an inspirational leader? We all want to work for someone who inspires us, someone who brings out the best in us and who is there for us when obstacles arise. Many job descriptions and postings I’ve seen lately often mention inspirational leadership, but what is that exactly?

Think about the leaders you have worked for: Did they inspire you? Were you willing to go that extra mile to get work done for them? If they moved on to another role, did you want to follow them? Were you given opportunities to grow due to their trust in you? As you think of the answers to these questions, think about your own leadership style. Do you inspire your direct reports, or even your peers, to do their best work?”